Shadowrunning has a lot of min maxing abilities when creating characters, but I was just wondering if people could put up characters that they feel like are ok, but with some karma and there is a large amount of growth potential. I'm getting tired of the min maxing so suggestions and ideas? I would love to hear them.

One character that I liked was an ex-mage who went to slap happy with the cyber and bio, but has latent awakening. He is not that great of a character, but I find it interesting to put some BP into some skill groups that will come into play later in the game.

The ex-mage
Metatype : Dwarf
Mundane

Attributes
Body: 4
Agility: 2
Reaction: 3
Strength: 3
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 3
Logic: 5
Willpower: 6

Edge: 4
Initiative: 6
Essence: 3.32

Knowledge Skills
: N

Active Skills
skill group sorcery 4, conjuring 4
Assensing : 2
Dodge : 3
Longarms : 3
Con : 2
Etiquette : 1
Electronic Warfare : 2
Perception : 2
Hardware : 1


Positive Qualities
Latent Awakening

Negative Qualities
Spirit bane
Addiction, moderate
Sensitive Neural Structure

Cyberwares
Skillwires (Rating 3)
Reaction Enhancers (Rating 3)

Biowares
Cerebral Booster 3
Sleep Regulator
Platelet Factories
Muscle Augmentation 3
Muscle Toner 3

Spells
Healing
Stun bolt

Contacts
k (L:1 C:2)

I don't think that character you've posted is kosher.

So your saying as a character concept gimping yourself to fit an interesting background won't work? Not everything has to fit the rule set especially when you are not going to rock out from the get go. Although to get around that I would just need to invest 15 bp to become a mage with no magic.

He was addressing the rules, not the concept. Latent awakening is for character who have not awakened yet, not for formerly awakened characters. Latent awakening gives you a pass on losing Magic from implants, because you don't have a Magic Attribute to lose yet. But in exchange for that little break, you are playing a character without magical skills, and you don't even know what type of awakened character you will become (although I imagine any GM who isn't a complete dick will generally go with the player's preference).

You can't really start the game out as a mage with "no magic", either. A mage whose Magic rating gets reduced to 0 by Essense reductions is a mundane, period. You can certainly create an old school "burned out mage" by taking some implants and having a low starting Magic.

While I do not think that a character concept of gimping yourself to fit the background you want does not necessarily not work, but I do think that everything has to fit the rules set (unless House Ruled otherwise), even if you are not going to rock out from the get go.

If you only had magician and 1 magic after cyber (45BP), you'd be able to astrally project. The typical burned out mage character, has some magic related knowledge, language, & interest skills, maybe a few ranks in arcana (you don't have to be an awakened to use the arcana skill). But otherwise it's character background w/ no real effect on gameplay.

Now for SR setting, the magic attribute, once lost, never comes back. You're not an ex-mage, you're a latent mage who never expressed. Look up something called the burned out cybermage which used to be an old character archetype. Once you're an ex-mage, you're an ex-mage forever in shadowrun. So it's not even an interesting character concept, it's one which sits completely outside the shadowrun mold (on both setting, and on the rules).

Also you're NOT GIMPING YOURSELF. I need to stress that. This is powergaming of the worst sort IMO. You realize that it'd cost you 40 more BP in chargen to keep your magic rating at 1 after cybering up, and buy magician. Once you have 20karma and the GM's go ahead... you're an instant top-shelf mage. In the long run, you're trading 40BP for 20karma... that's a rediculous bargain (since generally BP are worth more than karma). You have your eyes on the long game, while stating how gimped you are in the short run (and not all that gimped w/ all the cyber-bio either). You realize it's much easier and cheaper to buy up the magician quality and then raise a low magic stat w/ karma than it is to raise low ranked skills and magic up w/ karma in play.

You have 94BP (40+40+8+6) tied up in magical skills and spells alone. 5BP for the latent quality. So a full quarter of your charsheet is devoted into turning you into an instant magical powerhouse, while breaking the rules to do so. All so you don't have to spend 40BP more in chargen (3 magic to offset essence loss, and a magician upgrade).

Also, read the latent awakening quality... it is well within the GM's rights to have you awaken as anything he feels is apt. If it was me I'd go with a pure adept, probably social or technical (which has nothing to do w/ any of those skills you bought). Or never have you awaken at all.

- Build awakened characters that start with an (effective) magic of 3.

- Build riggers that don´t have those perfect combat drones from the get-go.

- Buy alphaware implants for your streetsams, leaving parts of the shopping list and loads of essence for later.

Why doi people think that you can only roleplay if you're gimped beyond usefulness to the rest of the team?

it's the stormwind fallacy

Most characters I make are just overpowered, and eventually it takes the edge off of shadowrun (for me at least.)

I would also argue that this character is not a power gaming mage. It takes 19 karma just to raise the characters magic from 1 to 2 and that is after the character finally awakens.

Uhh, yeah. It kind of does. That's why it's called "the rule set."

The character posted does not fit within the Shadowrun world (as said, once you burn out, you forever loose all magical ability).
The character posted does not fit within the Shadowrun rules
The character posted is min/maxed, as shown already.

Further, how the hell did you come up with 19 Karma to increase your Magic from 1 to 2? It costs 6 Karma for that.