For the record, I have no quarrel with freeform rp but when you use rules then those better be fair.
There's also nothing wrong with high powered campaigns, simply raise the BP/karma allowance.
But being not human is in all shape and form a quality so why should it be free?
I find it odd that you seem to think being a Fomori Dzoo-Noo-Qua, a Nartaki Nosferatu, a Wendigo or a Spirit are such minor advantages that they shouldn't cost points as opposed to such powerful things as being a magician (30 karma) which happens to be part of the the latter 2 packages.

Why should it cost anything?

Congratulations on your 1137th non constructive and totally moronic post.
Take yesterday off.

EPIC FAIL
All of those, except free spirit, cost a lot more points then being a mage, their qualities.

Pff would be if all mentioned were qualities.
Some doesn't change my point one bit, apart from the whole what's species and what's not part appearing to be even more random.

Considering karmagen is the only way free spirits are remotely playable, I don't see the problem. 250/400 BP is an utter travesty for the very limited advantages being a Free Spirit gives you. They're even worse than AIs in that respect, and AIs are hard to pull off in a 400 BP build with less than half the 'racial' cost.

Still 200 more to go, then! [well, actually 198, but heck, who's counting]

What exactly is your point, anyway? Such a character will never ever bother you in your games, so, what are you crusading against? Those windmills were innocent!

Keep the discussion civil. Everyone is entitled to have the personal opinions and preferences for play.

I only see 10 counterspell dice (which is still good) and would really urge you to go for a possession spirit.
Not only does it give you a very powerful mind control ability but also lets you add the possessed person's physical attributes to yours.
Thus a base spirit possessing Joe Average has 5 in all physicals. Throw in 1 point of weapons skill and you roll 6 dice for shooting which, if you fire bursts, is already enough to be useful in combat.
Also consider the concealment power. Those -6 detection dice render your team completely invisible and inaudible in many situations.
I would guess you need to pay karma for spells nonetheless btw, would be a bit too easy if assensing alone would do it.

Possession Plant Built #2 (Now with 108 Karma due to 25 leftover BP)

Body: 2
Agility: 2
Reaction: 2
Strength: 2
Charisma: 3 (9 Karma)
Intuition: 4 (21 Karma)
Logic: 3 (9 Karma)
Willpower: 4 (20 BP)
Edge: 7 (65 BP)
Magic: 6 (55 BP)

Lucky (20 BP)
Bad Qualities (-35)

Initiation lvl 1 metamagic Shielding (13 Karma)

Counterspelling(Combat) 4+2 (24 Karma)
Etiquette 2 (8 Karma)
Con 1 (4 Karma)
Assensing 1 (4 Karma)
Spellcasting 2 (8 Karma)
Automatics 2 (8 Karma)

Noxious Breath 1.5
Aura Masking 3
Realistic Form 0.5
Accident 0.5
Fear 1.5

Almost impossible to detect, main weapon would indeed be the possession itself.
7 counterspelling dice.
Kinda min/maxed with karma conversion.

Possession Spirit #3 (84 Karma, 13 BP left)

Body: 3 (9 Karma)
Agility: 5 (40 BP)
Reaction: 4 (21 Karma)
Strength: 3 (9 Karma)
Charisma: 3 (9 Karma)
Intuition: 3 (9 Karma)
Logic: 3 (9 Karma)
Willpower: 3 (9 Karma)
Edge: 5 (30 BP)
Magic: 6 (55 BP)

Bad Qualities (-35)

Counterspelling(Combat) 5+2 (20 BP + 2 Karma)
Archery(Bows) 5+2 (20BP +2 Karma)
Spellcasting 1 (4 Karma)

Stun Bolt (4 BP)

Statue of Artemis (Plasteel)
STR 11 Bow with laserpointer
(3 BP)

Regeneration 5

1 Karma left.
7 counterspelling dice.
52 soak dice with cheesy armor on top of your vessel.
Regenerates.
13 P base damage, 12 dice for ranged attacks.
Still a bit cheesy conversion BP-Karma.

At which point I would explain that to the player in question... but again, we do not have this problem in our campaign... we don't create characters to "break" the campaign... In this regard, I would expect the free spirit to have constraints placed upon him by the GM, which is exactly what would happen...

Problem Solved...

Pleas explain to me how a "Flavor" or concept character is inherently Munchkin... I have seen a very large number of character, several built by myself, that are Concept, and are definitely NOT Munchkin...

Again, you are making it sound as if ALL "concept", or as you put it "Flavor", characters are a bad thing... when in fact they are not... Now, I am sure that you can go extremely overboard in Shadowrun making the crazy powerful characters (26+ Dice Pools with 40 Dice Soaks) as have been desribed in other topics... BUT NOT EVERYONE DOES SO, or even cares to do so!!!

Please stop lumping everyone into the same category...

Windmills Indeed...

My points are:
1)KarmaGen for high cost critters is cheesy at best.
2)BP cost is the only inhibiting factor for spirit builds. That they are great when built without that cost is obvious.
3)OP asked for help with building a spirit for a running group that used the BP system so KarmaGen would make him way too powerful.
4)There's no need to constantly say how bad they are because they might be lacking a bit in the straight in your face sorcery department.
5)I crusade against developer brainfarts that in the case of karmagen ruined the basically best way to create a shadowrunner.

I have no problem with concept characters. Just pay the BP cost (and if you really consider what spirits are capable of, i repeat myself, those 250 BP aren't that far off)and create your character.
Unhappy that you can't start with sorcery group 6 and the attributes you are used to from your mage?
Maybe would be a tad powerful for something as intangible as a spirit in a 400 BP campaign.
In a high power campaign you'll get more BP so that isn't a problem.

If you need karmagen to create a concept character odds are that the concept is "I fart bullets".

/edit
and i find it rather ridiculous that people complain about how underpowered spirits built under BP are in a thread where a lot of viable builds are posted.

You know what they say about Assumptions... Your assumption on Karmagen concepts is WAY off (at least in my case)... and exactly what mage are you referring to above?

I have only ever made one (1, and only 1) character with the Karmagen method... All others have been made with BP Method... Our GM Prefers BP.

That being said... there is no need for a Magic 6, Sorcery Group 6 (which you cannot do at character creation anyway, in either system) Build... My Last Mage had 2 Magic and 3 in Spellcasting (so much for your vaunted theories on how I create magic characters) and he is very effective for his concept...

Anyway, a useable spirit can be built with BP (no doubt about that)... the only thing is that it will tend to be highly specialized as compared to a more generous build using Karmagen... just because it has more to spend does not necessarily make it automatically overpowered...

Anyway, Just my two cents...

There is no 'my case'.
A system is either broken or it isn't.
A 250 BP/500 Karma freebie is for obvious reasons.
Whether or not you (ab)use this is irrelevant.

That was a rhetoric question not adressing anyone explicitly.

Not to be an ass but...

There is NO PERFECT system... ANY System can be broken if you try hard enough (or not so hard in some cases), so lets just put that argument to rest...

As for broken character builds, they are only broken if you disagree with them and STILL allow them into your game... as a GM, you have total control of what is allowed into play, if you think something stretches the boundries of the world as you see it, don't let it into the game... or work with your player to collaboratively make it acceptable...

That is what it truly boilds down to in the end... not every one pushes the system to its outer limits, some people enjoy that kind of game, some don't... the only limit, then, is what you allow as a GM... if something is broken in your game, well, you have no one to blame but yourself, you allowed it into the game after all...

What more truly need be said?

My Two Cents

And there lies your misconception.

I don't even need to try, I just need to want to play a high cost species and if my group happens to use KarmaGen i get such huge freebies.

There's a huge difference between being able to min/max the shit out of a build system and not being able not to do so.
The latter is what I (and many others) have problems with.
The alternate creation rules appear so half assed that they probably have been written during lunch break.

Nothing makes Metavariant,shifters,AI:s and free spirits automatically more powerful the vanilla humans.
It's all about how you use the karma given.

Sure, I can always take the extra effort and dump those 500 Karma into completely useless Knowledge skills and gear i throw away right after chargen.

To repeat myself once more because it apparently is very hard to understand:
The only reason to have character creation rules is to have fixed boundaries as to what individual characters are capable of.
If you say "uh I don't care, the players will surely create something that is fun for all" then you don't need any rules.
Rules that cater to that mentality are redundant.

There are an enormous number of dimensions along which the boundaries of character creation can be established in any character creation method. It's up to the group playing how they wish to work it out to have fun together. Your choice and perception aren't going to be the same as others. Even if it becomes a very restrictive set of choices in the character creation method, there always exists the option of not using it at all. Keep in mind I'm also not only including the written explicit rules of character creation, but the social contract of the gaming group itself. It's up to each group to decide.

While it's informative to give your opinion and analysis, I'm going to make up my own mind.

Would you guys also welcome a rule that states:
"Male characters receive +1 on all attributes" ?

There are enough karma-vs-BP threads, can we continue with free spirits? Another interesting angle is how you spend the knowledge points. On one hand you can go really esoteric, on the other your spirit could be interested in metahuman life, and spy on almost everyone, and know everything. What is it?

For Mushu I´m tempted to add a "Celestial Bureaucracy" skill, and try to use it for some legwork amongst spirits.

I don't know if too esoteric is good for a shadowrunning spirit.
After all it should have some interest in the mundane world or it would've picked a circle of mages or something like that instead of a team of hobos to begin with.

That is a stroke of genius. Just don't forget Ettiquette (Celestial Bureaucracy).

Inspired, I Like It a lot...

Thanks guys you have been a great help (although a bit off topic in places, )

The 14 disspell dice come from the 4 counterspell + 2 for combat spec + 6 magic + 2 for metamagic shielding (with initiation twice).

I will have to fix up the BP cost from the force 6 (thanks for spotting that one) -

as for the possesion one I think you cant have free spirit's that possess, that and inhabitation or some such (dont have the book on me as I am over seas at the moment so I cant check)

They can be from Materialization or Possession Traditions, but NOT from Inhabitation Traditions...

And there you go again making some assumptions that may or may not be true...

I would say that the 250 points (not 500) that you do not pay in Karmagen, to play a free spirit, would allow you to diversify your spirit character (make him more well rounded), and you are saying that the points will be immediately used to Min-Max the spirit character (Make him as powerful as he can be made)... Different approach altogether...

I guess I can see how your games would tend to go then...

Double the BP cost for Karmagen. So a 250 BP Free Spirit is 500 Karma.


You don't add your magic to counterspelling. It's just Counterspelling + Resistance roll (IE: Counterspelling + willpower against Manabolt).