I've been lurking here for the last week or so as I've been twinking out a build for my first shadowrun game this weekend. I'm going to be playing a mage, and while I've gotten a decent feel for the mechanics, it's really not a substitute for experience with the system. I might be making false assumptions and/or missing rules.

So I have some questions. They're all crunchy. I do have a fun character underneath all the figures, but that's not the part I'm worried about.

1) I've tanked my reaction (1) stat, but cranked up my edge (5) and taken a respectable body (4). My plan is to first avoid combat (high charisma and/or manipulation spells), second end combat quickly, and third to limit damage with tactical movement and using edge on damage resistance and/or evasion tests. If I'm expecting a fight, I might shapechange into a big cat, which should beat wearing armor even after my GM nerfs it. (He will.) Is this a survivable strategy? Are there better shapechange forms for me outside the BBB?

2) I've run some simulations, and it looks like binding is hard, especially if it's not a specialty, and it seems like failing to bind burns the binding materials. To get the most of binding spirits of man (Health) on a budget, I think I need get the pool up to about 14, and even so stick to force 3-4 spirits. (Bleh.) I'm thinking I should re-summon until I get lucky with a lot of net hits, then when binding, I should be prepared to use edge to reroll misses if necessary. Sound strategy? Nerf-bait? Standard practice for any young mage on a budget?

3) Combat spell loadout. My offensive spells will be stunbolt, lightning bolt, mind control, mob mind. Are three any threats that I can't deal with with that mix?

4) Combat casting tactics. I'll typically have 15 drain dice, and 13 dice in my casting pool for combat spells and 15 for manipulation spells. How would you manage that pool?

5) Any other general tips that come to mind? W.r.t. build parameters, it's 400 BP, 2xCHA free contact points, and my GM is limiting character creation content to the main book (SR4A), but he let me build my own tradition.

With a reaction that low combat might be ended for you before you have a chance to act. Might want to up that. Also pain tolerance is the shit if you have the points to spend.

And if you GM wants to nerf using your edge for binding spirits remind him your eating up your edge out to summon spirits instead of using it for more practical purposes (i.e. surviving in combat)

What about using edge to go first and mind controlling, buffing up, and/or taking cover?

How much more survivable do I get as I go from 1 REA to 3? If it's dramatic, why? I tanked this stat because I couldn't figure out a good reason why REA3/EDG3 > REA1/EDG5 in a system with short combats. I know that's a false dilemma if I'm taking the points from INT or CHA, but I'm reticent to do either, so I'd rather find a strategy that makes low REA survivable, if one exists.

BTW Stats are: (Elf)
BARS 4/2/1/1, CILW 8/4/2/5, EM 5/5

Re: pain tolerance... I have an augmentation shopping list with a pain editor at the top of it.



I'm actually more worried about my GM capping the total number of times I can summon per day to avoid me cherry-picking spirits with lots of favors for binding. Your response makes me think that cherry-picking is standard, though.

1. The first rule of Shadowrun is "Kill the mage first." With a 1 reaction you will end up going last in combat and will end up using your IP to do a full dodge.

Also, shapeshifting will actually get you killed faster. True you will have more reaction, but you will lose your armor (it falls off). So your damage soak DP will drop from ~12 (4 body + up to 8 armor) to 6.

2. Binding spirits is hard, but looking at your build it doesn't seem like you need any bound spirits. Bound spirits can do Aid Sorcery, but if you are only going for 3-4 extra dice, you would be better off dropping the binding skill and buying a Focus.

Also, the amount of services a bound spirit has is based on how you do on the binding roll, not on the summoning roll (but that is SR4 I don't know SR4A). So you don't really need to keep summoning spirits. Also, there is already a mechanic to punish you for that, the spirits don't like it when you summon them over and over. Your GM could just make it harder or have the spirits turn on you.

3. Your combat spells look good. Though I don't know what you mean by mind control, is that suppose to be Control Thoughts? But as a note on your spell list, I am hoping those aren't your only spells.

4. I don't know what you mean by managing your dice pool, you always roll your full dice pool for skills (unless they changed that in SR4A). And also based on your stats, I don't see how you got 15 dice to cast a Manipulation spell. Your magic is 5, your cap on a skill is 6, so with a specialization that is 13.... then you took a mentor spirit with +2 to manipulation and combat?

5. Bound spirits are based used to sustain spells for you. A good combat based mage can have a couple spirits sustaining spells like Armor and Increased Reflexes, then throw around fireballs and the such. On the other hand if you don't want to be combat based, focus on combat avoidance, like Control Thoughts, Invisibility.

Those are just a couple of my thoughts. But remember, you should make a character you like more than the "perfect" character.

A couple of pointers:

- Rebinding is quite useless, trying for a high amount of initial summoning services and making a single initial binding is, quite sadly I think, the way to go. That said, while binding is nice to have, it's far from necessary, as it burns funds quickly and doesn't allow that many new tricks. Now, while I don't understand why anyone would limit the amount of daily summons (thank god for no vancian magic in SR...), it's your group. If you actually play that way, binding does become kind of a necessity. Rebinding stays useless, though.

- The best spell to survive regular firefights with is invisibility (which is even neater outside of combat, to boot), followed by your regular old armor spell. Shapeshifting really isn't going to keep you alive if the lead starts flying, it's way more useful as a stealth and reconnaisance spell.

- The difference between 1 REA and 3 REA isn't all that big, but keep in mind that having more successes as the attacker while dodging completely negates the attack, your damage resistance test will have to compete with the base damage of the attack as well. So, having a decent REA and a ranged dodge skill (dodging or gymnastics) and going on full defense allows you to avoid that nasty narrow SMG burst the corpsec guard managed a lucky 4 successes at, which would leave an uncybered BOD 4 mage plastered all over the wall otherwise.

- Edge is really, really useful, but it's in extremly limited supply and refreshes slowly, so while having a decent to good edge is a livesaver, relying on edge for specific tasks like going first to survive combat is usually a bad idea.

- While your combat spell selection is good, 4 dedicated combat spells (and mind manipulations are sadly only useable in combat thanks to the short duration) is quite a lot. Combat magic is nice, but support magic is where the really usefull stuff is, so I hope you haven't skimped on that.

- There is no "managing of your dice pool", that's SR3. You always roll all your dice.

- Take a tradition that really fits your concept and especially your own roleplaying wishes perfectly. It's the single most defining feature of every magic character (although some people are still bitter about traditions don't using a bazillion different rulesets anymore...) , so you should really like the way your character sees magic to like your character.

I prefer a sustaining focus to hold my spells, personally. Sustaining foci are fairly cheap, and there are several spells (Armor, Improved Reflexes) that are effective even at the force 3 that a 12 availability focus restricts you to. Summoning is the swiss-army-knife of magery, so I like to save my spirits for whatever use I can think up on the fly, eg;"Cover my escape, minion!"

If your GM wants to hit summoning with the nerf-bat, remind him that you suffer drain every time you grab a spirit.
EDIT: I also like binding... the trick it lets you do is suffer that drain WELL BEFORE combat and other stressful activities.

As far as your combat spells go, I'd put in something multi-target that does damage. Sometimes you can't wait for your mind-controlled people to act, and area spells are a handy way to mop up/cause penalties to whole rooms of enemies.

Thanks for the responses --this is really helpful!

The managing the dice pool comment has drawn some confusion. I was mostly asking about multi-casting, which I thought causes one to split ones dice pool. ie: would people multi-cast by default with 15 drain dice, and the kinds of spells I'd be fighting with? (13 dice with combat, 15 with manipulation.)

My spell list was not complete. I am loading out with the full 12 spells. Here are more complete build details, which I should have included originally: (From memory, I think I'm missing some BP.)
BARS 4/2/1/1, CILW 8/4/2/5, EM 5/5 (Elf)
Qualities: Magician, Mentor Spirit: Firebringer (+2 manipulation, +2 fire, -1 illusion), -35 in firearms incompetencies (not automatics), allergies, and some other stuff.
Active Skills: Spellcasting 6, summoning 4, Influence group 1, assensing 1, counterspelling 1, binding 1 <= x <= 3 (w/spec:man), dodge 1
Gear: Power focus 2, magesight goggles, urban explorer 6/6 and helmet 2/2, fetishes, fake licenses, fake SIN, some nice glasses and earbuds, OK commlink, et cetera.
Tradition: Voodoo-themed with fire combat spirits and man health spirits and CHA as a drain stat. (Couldn't use Street magic as a source, but GM let me pick my own base book spirits.)
Spells: stunbolt, lightning bolt, heal, increase reflexes, increase charisma, improved invisibility, trid phantasm, control thoughts, mob mind, influence, shapechange armor, levitate.


Based on the advice here so far, I think it probably makes sense to see if I can't take most of my binding BP and scrape together an F3 sustaining focus. With one rank in binding, the power focus, and edge, I can still reasonably try to bind force 3 spirits of man to cast improved reflexes on me. That frees up the focus for armor, and I've got 13 dice to summon a fire spirit if I need one.

I'll probably move two points from intuition to reaction, robbing the astral plane init to feed my dodge bonus.

More survivable?

Based on your Tradition are you possesion based or materlization based spirits?

Remember unless you are looking at a short term campaign, using up the services your bound spirit owes you is not wise. Personally I'd rather armor be worn rather than the spell version. If Armor needs to be cast, it is better cast on the troll sam with you somewhere being difficult to detect by your enemies.

On cherry picking so you get a great roll and the spirit gets a terrible roll, every time you summon you also have a chance of getting a terrible roll and the spirit getting a good roll. I've had character take >5 drain from a summoning attempt. So you should consider that it's likely that you will take stun drain if you summon multiple times, and it can be a LOT of drain. (Drain can't be healed by magic, so someone with first aid is kind of useful to have handy (unless the GM bans that - which I think is good idea for game balance.)

It's best to summon up a spirit at dawn or dusk and have it ready, not try to summon it when you realize you need a spirit right now.

Binding can be really useful, as it can allow you to get the hell out of dodge when everything goes to pear shaped, but it's expensive and difficult. We rarely used it, it was typically (along with ritual magic) a good skill to skip at the start. But try it and see how it works in your game.

More pointers:

- As a rule of thumb: If there's an opposing mage, you should (almost) never split your dice pool.
If you cast a spell with heavy drain, you should (almost) never split your dice pool.
If the net successes are really important (invisibility, mind manipulations, etc.), you should (almost) never split your dice pool.
On combat spells, where it's nowadays actually detrimental to roll lots of spare successes (thanks, SR4A), splitting and multicasting is a viable tactic.

- You have about 4 spells you'd want to have constantly active on a run. You need a couple sustaining foci. Badly.

- Dodge 1 is kinda useless. Are you really going to skip a round of casting for a single die?

- Counterspelling is important. It's the only thing between your teammates and a few more kill marks for an opposing mage. I'd never take less than 3.

- If you really drop your intuition to 2, you can drop assensing along with it, a dice pool of 3 won't let you spot anything interesting anyway.

- You have no actual perception skill, so I hope you're loaded with perception enhancing gadgets. Getting ambushed is a sure way of getting dead.

Welcome, stranger! Have a place at the fire.

• I would strongly suggest to not use the summoning "exploit". Summon spirits regulary, for tasks you actually want accomplished, and bind "the good ones".
• I totally don´t agree with taking binding out. Half a dozen bound rating 4 spirits are a respectable force.
• Cha 8 is 25 BP, a solid chunk of points. Look into Astral Chameleon and Heightened Concentration instead (15 BP).
• Increase Charisma is not THAT useful, as you have to cast it at force 8/7.
• Surviveability... Reaction 1 is deadly, because you can expect to get hit every time you are shot at. An average damage resistance roll of 4 boxes lets you safely disregard attacks with DV 3 - an amount that can be caused by unaugmented individuals in close combat. Stay out of combat, and don´t invest a third of your spells into it. Fight by spirit proxy.
• Your physical activities dicepools are exceptionally low. You can neither run nor hide. Hiding can be helped with Concealment, running with "Movement", but your base dp´s will always be very glitch-heavy.
• I would suggest to take the combat investment out, and specialise in one kind of magic. Like manipulation spells. Your single IP per turn will often be better spend on changing battlefield conditions than on killing a single target.

Sooo, like, if you can't see or find what you want to toss your mega nasty combat spells at, does it really matter if you have them?

Thanks all for the further advice!

I found room for that sustaining focus, and added some +logic bioware to my shopping list so I can get headroom for more as my character develops. Dropped CHA to 7, putting 10 points into focused concentration, 5 into first impression, and the rest into skills. Got counterspelling up to 4, took perception, and dropped binding. Took specializations in manipulation and fire spirits. 17 dice to cast manipulations means I can probably cast while sustaining a spell or two if I need to.

I'll probably try to pick up binding later, but for now I'm saving NuY for bioware and a nice sustaining focus, so I can't really afford expensive hobbies.

My defensive strategy in combat is going to revolve around (1) fast-talking, (2) improved invis, (3) armor, (4) edge. That seems to offer the best bang for my defensive buck. And if the 1 REA face/mage doesn't work out, maybe a less facey dwarf or human magician build will at least get the benefit of inheriting his gear.

Hmm... maybe I should tank his body as well... get a nice sports car... j/k

Armor isn't a strategy, it's a hope. To soak a minimal Alpha you need an average of 19 points of armor and body. With someone who gets 5 successes you need 34. So unless you are a tank troll with body 10 it isn't going to work well. And once you are hit the minuses to magic will hose you fast.

If you make them miss with reaction you just have to beat their successes and it does no damage.