So, after a particularly monty haulish set of games, my character has pretty much gotten all the stuff I thought I'd ever get... and the question is whether there's anything I'm forgetting to get. The character is a cat shaman, and he's actually in a group with three other shaman (we all made a magical group together)... two other cat shaman and a leopard shapeshifter vodoo shaman. He's got a Trauma Dampener, Cerebral Augmentation II, Synaptic Accelerator, and Mnumonic Enhancer 1. I should also mention that we've all initiated and are steadily putting quickened buffs on each other... improving all our attributes and throwing on Improved Reflexes 3 and Improved Reaction. So what now? What's left to get at this point? Right now I can't think of anything besides monofillament whip weapon foci. What else might be handy, both for me and for the rest of the magical group?

JaronK

At this stage, the best thing you can get is a bunch of different spells. They might not be as overpowered as whatever you usually use, but there are lots of spells that are really handy in particular circumstances rare enough that you usually don't pick them up at character creation.

Also, do you have someone capable of biotech, and of using launch weapons (missile launchers in particular)?

A team that has that many shamans is going to be somewhat vulnerable to the more interesting security designed to counter magic. Aspected background count with decent magical security benefiting from it as much as it hurts you and your spirits, manawarps created by FAB III, high force wards - all these can really mess up a team that heavily relies on magic. There are magical counters, but often some combination of technology (drones, missile launchers, whatever) is a better idea.

Does your team have a good vehicle and someone who knows how to drive it? With decent force spirits and vehicle mask, a team can get away with some pretty ridiculous things in the right vehicle.

Fashion and Make-Over.
If you get dirty as a SR3 Cat-Shaman, you get a +1 to ALL of your target numbers.
One or two spells with little to no drain later, that is gone.
In a group with one or more Cat-Shamans, those Spells will be incredibly usefull.

My current spell load out is the following:

F6 Stunball
F5 Analyze Truth
F3 Combat Sense
F1 Increase Reflexes +3
F5 Treat
F2 Healthy Glow
F3 Improved Invisibility
F5 Mask
F2 Entertainment
F1 Levitate
F6 Fashion
F2 Makeover
F2 Catfall

So I absolutely have the cleanup spells ready and waiting. Currently quickened on me are F1 Levitate, F3 Increased Willpower, and F1 Increase Reflexes +3. My team includes, in addition to the magical cats, two skill chippers... one is a rigger and one is a gunbunny/medic. So we've got vehicles covered, and both of the chippers have Biotec 6 and Medical 6 (which we've taken advantage of with the surgery rules, to get reduced bio index costs on everything). I'm pretty sure they have a Launch 6 chip in there.

JaronK

Some more Mind-Rapery-Spells.

how long do you continue to use the same characters? after youve been all that you can be its generally close to retirement.

if its not that time yet then start tinkering with custom spells and equipment. enchanting can be very rewarding, especially with unique enchantments.

if you can really think of nothing else to do with a character, it just might be time to let them retire after one last score and start over.

right personal exploration? start a charity? take on an apprentice? develop as a person

The thing is, it's just been a few monty haul missions... we've done two runs at this point, making 260kY and 57 karma. There's certainly no need to quit now, not while we're making this much money... it makes no sense for the character to do so. Sure, I can save up for retirement (and I plan to) but the question here is whether there's any other gear left that I should pick up or any more spells to work on.

JaronK

Your spells look pretty weak. If you're looking for spells, I suggest taking spells that have a force higher than 6... assuming that you have any magic rating left after all of that 'ware.

For instance... A spell that can do damage could be good. say... Powerbolt or something. (Yes, I see you have stun ball). Take it at say... force 12. That should keep you going for a week or two. Other good spells are Control emotions/Mob mood and Control Thoughts. Ram is good if you need to get through a door and don't want to get sawdust in your claws. You could learn to be a sniper and anchor spells to bullets for added effect on impact (Think "Hellblast" and "Burst Fire", it'll be great). You could recruit members for your magical group to make it more powerful (see 'brothel', below). You could always get Sense Link cyberware installed and become a Sim Sense star. (Kitty Porn?)

Seriously, monowhip weapon foci still don't work. a Sword would be cool though. Or you could use your karma to raise your skills. You could start enchanting things yourself, which will take up alot of your time, since you need to go out and gather materials. Heck, you might even need some dragon piss for one of your creations (always a requirement for monofil weapon foci). If this still isn't enough, i recommend getting turned into vampires, setting up a brothel where you can start infecting the city, and trying to buyout Lofwry from his position in SK.

But those are just things that I would do, it really depends on the mindset of your character where heorshe should go from here. Vampire brothels just aren't for everyone.

With that spell list, it is definitely time to pick up a lot more spells.

Control manipulations, vehicle mask, an additional telekinetic manipulation or two, manabolt, detect enemies, detect guns, mind probe, sterilize, fix, whatever crazy spell a recent mission suggests might be useful, whatever crazy spell might be useful for non mission purposes. For the relatively low difficulty in picking up some or all of that list, you get an awful lot of utility and flexibility, as there are things some of those spells can accomplish that can't easily be done by more straightforward means. For that matter, there are lots of other spells that can just plain be fun to use, and which can still be quite effective in the right niche. Ice sheet. Shape earth. Bind. Whatever you think would be fun if an opportunity to use it comes up.

2 runs with 57 karma points?????????

57 Karma and 260kY. Yeah, it was SERIOUS monty haul, and with shockingly little effort too. It was a DM who's mostly used to D&D and didn't adjust very well. He kept trying to make things hard, but then he'd do stuff without realizing what's actually hard in Shadowrun... for example, we got attacked by 18 Renraku samurai, but they were charging towards us at high speed through city streets in bulldog stepvans (6 in each) without a rigger. Our survelance drones picked them up en route, and a quick use of accident powers from high force spirits killed 12 of them right off the bat and put the remaining 6 seriously injured, so the rest was shooting fish in a barrel. And then some creative use of the Fashion spell left us with all the Security armor we could ever want. Handy.

So yeah, as far as my character is concerned shadowrunning is clearly the life.

JaronK