Dumpshock Forums > Edge heavy Mage

Sombranox

Apr 24 2008, 01:42 AM

This is a really horribly rough build I did mostly to answer a curiosity of mine. Namely, whether it was possible to build a viable mage with high edge.

All my attempts to squeeze the 30 extra points that Edge 8 would have cost failed, but the Edge 7 version still is potentially doable, though it's not the most realistic out there with no contacts, such low perception, his only social skills coming from activesofts, along with generally mediocre attributes.

Anyways, I can't remember many edge-focused mage builds that I'd seen, so thought I'd toss it out to you all and see what you could make of it.

[ Spoiler ]

Anyways, any thoughts you all have, let me have them. I actually kind of like the idea of playing a Mr. Lucky of magic sort, but not sure that it could stand on its own as well as the actual Mr. Lucky could.

Kyoto Kid

Apr 24 2008, 02:26 AM

...never particularly cared much for high Edge "Mr Lucky" type characters, especially awakened ones as I feel they unbalance the game (& I even played one once). Mundanes already have a tough enough time against spells and spirits the way it is. Usually such characters tend to ramp up the opposition for the rest of the team to keep runs from being a cakewalk for the PCs (like a greater incidence of armed drones appearing and other technological countermeasures that are difficult to take out or influence with magic) .

OK, personal opinion aside...

I do like the fact he has skillwires (though I've always been skeptical about the concept of Social Activesofts), and that he uses guns & grenades.

Also, a list of his Spells and determination of his mentor spirit would be helpful (I would expect he will have the Increase Reflexes spell since he only has 1 IP).

One thing I do notice is he has no foci, only fetishes to soak drain with.

last_of_the_great_mikeys

Apr 24 2008, 02:40 AM

Okay, I think you put more 'wear into your guy than you actually had the resources to spend. I'm gonna assume I did my math right.

First, get rid of all that cyber and biowear. Get your skillwires and the expert system, but get used alphawear and rating the wires. This will run all the activesofts you bought all at once. Get a rating 4 radar sensor, also used alphawear. This will cost you .96 essence and leave you build points to spare. Combine the radar sensor and your assensing skill and astral perception (not at the same time though) and with a couple turns scanning you can tell what those security guys on the other side of that door has for 'wear, what weapons and armour they have, if they have magic and what their emotional state is, looking right through the wall! This will help you decide when to spend your edge a whole lot! This will also free up lots of build points.

Next, when you have skillwires you do not need as many spells. Have seven or so and lose the mentor spirit. Use the points gained to make your guy an elf. Drop your logic to 2 and raise your charisma to 3. This will give you a 4 in agility for all those activesofts, and 3 dice instead of 2 on those agility untrained skill rolls. It will also give you a charisma of 5, which you can have a charisma based magic path with. This would leave you with 6 build points. Use them to get a 4 connection/2 loyalty fixer. You are gonna have a lot of needs with this guy and so you need a fixer with decent connections!

Sombranox

Apr 24 2008, 02:48 AM

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Apr 23 2008, 10:26 PM)

...never particularly cared much for high Edge "Mr Lucky" type characters, especially awakened ones as I feel they unbalance the game (& I even played one once). Mundanes already have a tough enough time against spells and spirits the way it is. Usually such characters tend to ramp up the opposition for the rest of the team to keep runs from being a cakewalk for the PCs (like a greater incidence of armed drones appearing and other technological countermeasures that are difficult to take out or influence with magic) .

OK, personal opinion aside...

I do like the fact he has skillwires (though I've always been skeptical about the concept of Social Activesofts), and that he uses guns & grenades.

Also, a list of his Spells and determination of his mentor spirit would be helpful (I would expect he will have the Increase Reflexes spell since he only has 1 IP).

One thing I do notice is he has no foci, only fetishes to soak drain with.

I could see how it would be potentially unbalancing for any "lucky" sort. This was more just a mental exercise/curiosity thana fully fleshed character meant to be played anywhere. In my own table top games, generally I haven't seen the Edge sorts dominate that much realistically. But then, I'm a nazi with how often I refresh Edge, so it's not something they just toss about on every roll. Then again, I've also never really considered magic overpowered like some seem to. Is there something particularly unbalancing with the combination of magic and high edge in your opinion?

As to social activesofts. I've never seen a problem with them really. If people can chip things that override their muscle system and others that override the knowledge/memory centers of their brain, I don't see a problem with being able to chip something that gives them the knowledge to recognize basic social reactions and the muscle memory to interact in those situations with confident bearing. But yeah, I usually try to avoid taking them. If I could figure out a place to squeeze out the 8 points, I'd probably add Negotiation and Etiquette 1 to the actual sheet. That way they could benefit from the +6 or 7 from edge too, instead of just the reroll via expert system.

As to spells/mentor. It's totally up in the air realistically. Increased reflexes is a definite, but aside from that I'm not sure. Given the other skills, most likely is going to be leaned towards either combat or defensive/support sort. Not really suited to any kind of infiltration/illusionist sort of mage, nor very much of a medical sort of mage, but who knows. Any suggestions for something that might fit without massive rework would be appreciated.

Finally, as to foci, there's a Power 2 focus listed in a separate section from gear.

toturi

Apr 24 2008, 02:51 AM

Are you asking for us to help you tweak this build into something more viable?

Min-maxing: Firstly, softcap the Edge. Next drop the Strength to 1 and move that point over to Logic. Now you have 25 more points to spend.

Sombranox

Apr 24 2008, 03:10 AM

QUOTE (last_of_the_great_mikeys @ Apr 23 2008, 10:40 PM)

Okay, I think you put more 'wear into your guy than you actually had the resources to spend. I'm gonna assume I did my math right.

First, get rid of all that cyber and biowear. Get your skillwires and the expert system, but get used alphawear and rating the wires. This will run all the activesofts you bought all at once. Get a rating 4 radar sensor, also used alphawear. This will cost you .96 essence and leave you build points to spare. Combine the radar sensor and your assensing skill and astral perception (not at the same time though) and with a couple turns scanning you can tell what those security guys on the other side of that door has for 'wear, what weapons and armour they have, if they have magic and what their emotional state is, looking right through the wall! This will help you decide when to spend your edge a whole lot! This will also free up lots of build points.

Next, when you have skillwires you do not need as many spells. Have seven or so and lose the mentor spirit. Use the points gained to make your guy an elf. Drop your logic to 2 and raise your charisma to 3. This will give you a 4 in agility for all those activesofts, and 3 dice instead of 2 on those agility untrained skill rolls. It will also give you a charisma of 5, which you can have a charisma based magic path with. This would leave you with 6 build points. Use them to get a 4 connection/2 loyalty fixer. You are gonna have a lot of needs with this guy and so you need a fixer with decent connections!

This one came in as I was replying to KK's comment.

As to the cyber/bioware cost
1,000 Alpha Datajack
8,000 Alpha Skillwire 2
6,000 Alpha Expert system
9,200 Alpha cybereyes with mods
20,000 Alpha Cerebral 1
50,000 Alpha Platlet
40,000 Trauma Damper
---------
134,200 or 27 resource points

As for the Radar sensor. Why waste money and essence on a cyber radar sensor when you can get an Ultrawide band radar for 2000 in a handheld device that does the same thing as of Arsenal? Furthermore, radar sensor lets you get great information on people behind walls, but it doesn't let you ignore lighting penalties for casting like the cybereyes do. The platlet factory and trauma damper are worth it for cutting down on drain as well as on any other damage taken and the cerebral booster is 4BP cost instead of 10 BP for an extra Logic point. Plus, the hole can later be filled in with beta or delta CB 2 or 3 to get even better drain dice.

That said, the idea of doing it as an Elf occurred to me as it would let me drop CB and change platlets to non-alpha to save 9 BP on resources. But that 9BP + 5 from dropping mentor + 9 from dropping 3 spells = 23, so still 7 BP less than the 30BP cost of elf, so I'm not sure where you're getting 6 extra to put into contacts. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what your suggestion is. If you could lay it out for how you got the extra points, that would be cool.

Sombranox

Apr 24 2008, 03:17 AM

QUOTE (toturi @ Apr 23 2008, 10:51 PM)

Are you asking for us to help you tweak this build into something more viable?

Min-maxing: Firstly, softcap the Edge. Next drop the Strength to 1 and move that point over to Logic. Now you have 25 more points to spend.

Yeah, more viable I suppose. Minmaxing yeah, that would definitely free up points and lean it towards the important stats, but any attr of 1 scares me, so I'd probably avoid that. In any case, Edge 7 versus 6 probably isn't worth that 25 points being spent on it. Guess it just depends on how often Edge refreshes and how much of an impact it has. To make the build more viable though as a 6 Edge sort, where would be the best place to dump the 25 points in people's opinions? One or two into logic would help a lot, but so could diversifying some skills or adding contacts.

Pyritefoolsgold

Apr 24 2008, 03:19 AM

QUOTE (toturi @ Apr 23 2008, 10:51 PM)

Are you asking for us to help you tweak this build into something more viable?

Min-maxing: Firstly, softcap the Edge. Next drop the Strength to 1 and move that point over to Logic. Now you have 25 more points to spend.

Don't do this. Being strength 1 sucks, if your GM pays any attention to strength at all.

though dropping edge to 6 is not too terribly bad an idea. 6 edge is still quite fantastic.

that will give you the points you need to raise a few skills to one, and let you keep that point of magic.

Glyph

Apr 24 2008, 04:01 AM

Strength is normally okay as a dump stat for mages, but not for a guy wearing lots of armor and toting around an assault rifle and other gear. Plus, stats of 2 are "safer" - stats of 1 attract undue attention from some GMs.

Edge of 6 is much better - it's easier to increase it later with Karma. Hard-maxing is rarely worth it. For 20 of the 25 points saved, you could - raise automatics and counterspelling to 4 and buy specializations for spellcasting and summoning or raise Logic to 5 (6) - and with the last 5 points, buy a 3 connection/2 loyalty fixer contact.

A bit different than I'd do, since I don't usually go for 'ware, but at least you kept it down to 1 point of Magic loss.

Crusher Bob

Apr 24 2008, 04:07 AM

How's this:

390 points

Ork

Edges:
Magician, Lucky

Flaws:
35 points worth

Body 4
Agility 2
Reaction 3
Strength 3
Charisma 2
Intuition 2
Logic 4 (6)
Willpower 5

Edge 7
Magic 5 (4) [edit]was,just 5[/edit]

Essence: 5.02

Skills:
Spellcasting 6
Counterspelling 4
Summoning 4
Perception 4

Gear 500Y of 190,000 Y left (you'll have to allocate more money to buy gear and other stuff)

Power focus 2, sustaining focus 3

Ware:

Cerebral Booster 2
Skillwire 3 alpha
Skillwire Expert System
Platelet Factories
Vision Enhancment 3

skillsofts:
etiquette 3
negotiation 3
dodge 3
automatics 3
infiltration 3

Spells known: 6

Your main weakness is your really crappy passive defense.

Sombranox

Apr 24 2008, 04:36 AM

QUOTE (Crusher Bob @ Apr 24 2008, 12:07 AM)

[ Spoiler ]

Interesting changes. I like the edge of 7 with an ork and the skillwire 3, but eh...having dodge as an activesoft makes me nervous. Can only reroll the failed dodge roll versus adding 7 to it and turning it into exploding dice if it's an actual skill. Same with the automatics.

I'd also hate to lose the trauma damper and cybereyes, but could always get them down the line.

last_of_the_great_mikeys

Apr 24 2008, 06:13 AM

QUOTE (Sombranox @ Apr 23 2008, 07:10 PM)

As for the Radar sensor. Why waste money and essence on a cyber radar sensor when you can get an Ultrawide band radar for 2000 in a handheld device that does the same thing as of Arsenal? Furthermore, radar sensor lets you get great information on people behind walls, but it doesn't let you ignore lighting penalties for casting like the cybereyes do. The platlet factory and trauma damper are worth it for cutting down on drain as well as on any other damage taken and the cerebral booster is 4BP cost instead of 10 BP for an extra Logic point. Plus, the hole can later be filled in with beta or delta CB 2 or 3 to get even better drain dice.

That said, the idea of doing it as an Elf occurred to me as it would let me drop CB and change platlets to non-alpha to save 9 BP on resources. But that 9BP + 5 from dropping mentor + 9 from dropping 3 spells = 23, so still 7 BP less than the 30BP cost of elf, so I'm not sure where you're getting 6 extra to put into contacts. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what your suggestion is. If you could lay it out for how you got the extra points, that would be cool.

The cyber radar is always there when it is in you. That's why.

More stealth-worthy. Also, as an elf now you have natural low light vision. You can later upgrade to actual new alphawear for all your stuff and add in the eyelight system and still spend less than 1 essence. Until you get the eyelights, carry a flashlight. they are small and common and legal. It's a bit more long term, but in my opinion worth it.

As for the points...Lemme see if I can redo it right. I suck at math.

12,000 for the radar sensor 4. 9,000 for the skillwires 3 and the expert system. That's 21,000 nuyen. A mere 5 BP. That saves you 22 BP. Losing 3 spells gets you 9 BP. Losing the mentor spirit gets you 5, Add it all up and you got36 points back. 30 for elfieness, 6 for contacts.

Crusher Bob

Apr 24 2008, 07:00 AM

QUOTE (Sombranox @ Apr 24 2008, 12:36 PM)

Interesting changes. I like the edge of 7 with an ork and the skillwire 3, but eh...having dodge as an activesoft makes me nervous. Can only reroll the failed dodge roll versus adding 7 to it and turning it into exploding dice if it's an actual skill. Same with the automatics.

I'd also hate to lose the trauma damper and cybereyes, but could always get them down the line.

You could always trade out perception for dodge, and then default on perception until you are able to buy it up to one. With vision enhancement 3, you still get 4 dice to see stuff, even if you only get 1 dice to notice anything not visual. Once you buy your 1st point of the perception skill with karma, you'd go up to 6 dice and 3. But note that you can add edge to your passive defense (just reaction) and get 10 dice that way.

Hmm, I forgot the note that magic was 5(4)...

Kyoto Kid

Apr 24 2008, 05:37 PM

QUOTE (Sombranox @ Apr 23 2008, 07:48 PM)

I could see how it would be potentially unbalancing for any "lucky" sort. This was more just a mental exercise/curiosity thana fully fleshed character meant to be played anywhere. In my own table top games, generally I haven't seen the Edge sorts dominate that much realistically. But then, I'm a nazi with how often I refresh Edge, so it's not something they just toss about on every roll. Then again, I've also never really considered magic overpowered like some seem to. Is there something particularly unbalancing with the combination of magic and high edge in your opinion?

Finally, as to foci, there's a Power 2 focus listed in a separate section from gear.

...missed the Power Focus.

Example 1, My Character Hurricane Hannah, Adept with unarmed combat specialised in Boxing, 4 levels of Critical Strike (since been capped at 3 I believe in the Street Magic Errata) with a 5 Edge. Hannah once applied Edge to an attack roll and ended up with something like a 21 or 22DV after the smoke cleared from all the exploding 6s. The GM basically said she took the guy's head off. She could do this 4 more times if she wanted to on the mission (Edge refreshed each session since we didn't meet every week).

Example 2, OK, now on to spells vs. mundanes: Mage has a 5 MA, 5 Spellcasting skill, Force 2 Power Focus and 7 Edge. He Applies Edge to casting a Manabolt at poor little Violet (who only has a 3 willpower). So here we have a total DP of of 19 (5 from MA, 5 from the spell's force 2 from the Power Focus. and 7 from Edge) OK, Mage rolls slightly above the average getting 8 hits, 3 of which come from the Edge dice. Now we're at a DV of 13 (the 3 hits from the edge dice are not subject to the spell force cap so they add). Out of this roll three of the dice come up 6s (2 from edge) & yield another 2 hits when re rolled (one hit from the edge dice) increasing the overall DV to 15 reduced to 14 by spell force. End result, one very dead character who has no hope of shaking the damage down as she would need 5 hits on 3 dice to reduce the damage to 9 boxes (if the instant kill rule isn't used as the total damage exceeds her condition monitor + overflow). Meanwhile the mage rolls drain as normal since he didn't overcast. True she could throw her (2) edge into her soak roll and maybe survive (on a perfect roll) only until the mage's next IP. Meanwhile Vi's at -3 to all tests, reducing her pistols skill to 6 while the mage is still healthy. The mage can do this six more times during the session/run if he wishes. Now apply this process with an area effect spell like Powerball when a group of guards show up or lightning bolt against that Steel Lynx with a minigun that just came around the corner.

Yes I agree being an Edge Nazi when you have characters like this is a good thing. Our group has adopted the old Karma Pool rule for Edge in that all characters start with 1 (humans 2) and cannot increase the attribute with BPs at Chargen, only through earning Karma. It has really made people think a bit more about using Edge.

last_of_the_great_mikeys: There was a discussion on the use Radar Sense for spellcasting a while back and the consensus I got was since it is not really "sight" (as Cybereyes impart) you cannot use it to cast spells through walls or assense with it. So to read the auras of the guards on the other side of the door he would have to Astrally Project beyond the door, not Perceive.

Sma

Apr 24 2008, 06:19 PM

Counterexample time!

Edge 8 Mage rolls 20 dice and gets 1 hit, Will 3 U²C gets 2 hits and takes no damage!

Averages are your friend.

Edge is a really good 2nd tier attribute, that allows you to pull off crazy shit from time to time.

Kyoto Kid

Apr 24 2008, 06:56 PM

...using averages BTB: Mage with 20 DP gets 6 hits, 4 from spellcasting DP, 2 from Edge = 11 (not taking exploding 6s into account). Violet with 3 WP dice gets 1, that leaves 10 & Vi is still down.

Without Edge, final spell DV is 9, Vi soaks 1 and while hurt, is still standing and either returns fire with her S&S loaded Hammerli or has her Crimson Samurai Done go lead hose on the mage with its MMG.

Ryu

Apr 24 2008, 09:02 PM

QUOTE (Crusher Bob @ Apr 24 2008, 06:07 AM)

[ Spoiler ]

I´d softmax edge to 5 on that build (still high), and buy Mentor Spirit instead of Lucky. Increase Intuition with the points, it helps with the knowledge skills, perception, initiative... and charisma for the number of spirits and astral combat.

Zak

Apr 24 2008, 09:45 PM

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Apr 24 2008, 12:56 PM)

Without Edge, final spell DV is 9, Vi soaks 1 and while hurt, is still standing and either returns fire with her S&S loaded Hammerli or has her Crimson Samurai Done go lead hose on the mage with its MMG.

Without Edge you overcast Stunbolt anyway to make sure you drop the other guy. Especially when you know there is no counterspelling and you know you'll be shot on his turn.

As for the char: Nice to see the change to Orc, but you want more Body. At least in my games, you would.

Kyoto Kid

Apr 24 2008, 10:47 PM

...just using the BTB "averages" without the bells & whistles for illustration purposes. Didn't even include Exploding 6s in my response to show that in adding Edge dice alone to the test, the deck is already stacked even further against the mundane world.

Which is why as a mundane you need a drone or three with at the very least an MMG (if not heavier) to level the playing field a bit.

Aeon Labs
It's Not Magic, Just Superior Technology

Fortune

Apr 24 2008, 11:10 PM

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Apr 25 2008, 03:37 AM)

... of Critical Strike (since been capped at 3 I believe in the Street Magic Errata) ...

Although it is possible that Critical Strike might be so limited, it has not been announced as such, and the question has been hedged a few times when it has come up. The only Power that has been announced as being up for Errata in that fashion is Power Throw.