I'm a relatively new GM for SR4 and I'm in need of some help.

My wife wants to play a session but she's asking for some pretty specific powers. She wants to an attractive magician that seduces her target just to blow their heads up (with magic). I am extremely unsure about her magic tradition, but I know she's going to use Charisma.

I've been considering just having her as an NPC character who regularly makes an appearance (or a coyote helping us fend off ghouls at the border crossing). For balance sake, I'd probably only let her have 1 or 2 low level spells and 1 really powerful spell (to make heads blow up). And a power foci on top of that.

What are you ideas for this type of character?

Elf Voudoun Magician with Seductress as his primary loa. For more munchkin cheese, use SURGEd to get Metagenic attribute (Charisma). They automatically get Distinctive Style flaw, which could easily mean that she is far too attractive NOT to pay attention to. Be sure to buy up the Influence skill group or Con skill as high as you can. Being a voudoun mambo means she's able to use Possession instead of Manifestation, so that she won't get wasted as easily in combat.

- J.

Black Magic would be a fitting tradition with Seductress as Mentor Spirit.


Spells are just as powerful as the magician casting them wants them to be.

And take the "glamour" surge-power. Then she really has what she wants. Black Magic is anyway my first choice because you have all the hermetical ghosts (they are still better than the shamanistic hokuspokus...because shamans are embarrassing^^) and you can refer to charisma. That is why nobody likes elves. Good mages, even better dark mages.^^

Edit: don´t let her play with you. It will change everything. Did it, done that....still shaking and having nightmares....do you really want your wife kill you in your own personal hobby? Could happen...never forget...fear her.^^

My understanding is that there are different "level" of spells. For example, Ram and Demolish are different level of spells doing different levels of damage. In my view, Ram being "low level" and Demolish being "high level". (Street Magic p165)




Thanks for the heads up. I try and spur her nerdiness as much as I can, and I think it would be extremely funny for her to kill me during a run. It's just a game, and the more she has fun, the happier I'll be!

Not really, although one can look at it that way. Those are spells with a similar purpose but different limitations, those are not "levels" but variations.

It hard to call Ram (building) a low level spell after you turned a 4 story apartment into a dust-heap.

Yeah, on another tack, I once ran a game in which my ex-wife's character seduced a fellow PC. It was in character, extremely well role-played -- and disturbing to watch. It could have been much worse, if the player had been as good an actor as she, and not freaked out by the situation too.

There are no spell 'levels'. Manaball is not a higher level Manabolt - it is simply an Area of Effect version, with a higher Drain; you hit more targets, you take more damage in the casting. No level involved.

The Force of the spell is the closest you can come to spell level in Shadowrun, and that is set at the time of casting, limited by the magicians Magic. What Force a spell is is not in any way whatsoever determined by what spell is being cast.

I'll second that.

-paws

Never mind SR, you might want to consider sleeping in another room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymh1o09vRWE

Ishtar, Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of Love, Sex, Fertility, and War.

She isn't the goddess of War so much because she kicks ass (though she can when she's angry) but because she tends to start them.

She has wide-ranging sexual tastes and an insatiable appetite that leads her to many lovers of all sorts, gods and mortals, two-legged and four. She tires of them quickly and tosses them away like so much garbage, often in a manner that leaves them irreparably destroyed, because she's sort of a sadist, and a very creative one.

She is extremely manipulative. When she wants something, she resorts to bribery, trickery, and outright threats to get her way. Often, what she wants is to screw over someone who jilted her, or whom she merely tired of. More than once, she went so far as to threaten to tear open the gates of the underworld with her bare hands and raise an army of the dead to eat the living in order to get her way. Though she never followed through with this threat, it is apparent that some rather powerful deities assumed her to be capable of the feat, because they caved rather than risking it.

Ishtar's cult was known for sacred prostitution, which not particularly uncommon when dealing with love goddesses. In fact, she has an entire holy city, Erech, dedicated to the practice. It was sort of like the Vatican, only with a lot more sex.

Voodoo, Black Magic. Come on now, go with a Babylonian or Assyrian tradition. Have her use Ishtar as a Mentor.

I'm also going to say that a Possession tradition is a bad idea for a beginner, and an especially worse idea for a beginner and a new GM. There are technical issues that can make Possession either absurdly underpowered or absurdly overpowered depending on how it is played, and if the GM implements all the rules correctly.

Excuse me for using an obvious easy to understand concept instead of going for obscure dead religions. Soooo sorry.

Seriously, there are a gazillion Gods or whatnot that would work as a Mentor for such a character. I personally would prefer my magic to support such behavior per default, but YMMV.

I prefer voudoun for access to Great Form Plant spirits. That and flavor.

That's a personal choice though.

- J.

I prefer voudoun for access to Great Form Plant spirits. That and flavor.

That's a personal choice though.

- J.