I'm building a magician character for an up-and-coming Shadowrun game, and I had the character fully completed using the karma-gen system when my GM suddenly changed to the BP system because he said the Karma system had never been updated to the SR4A rule set. As much as I disagree with this choice, it's what is happening.

Anyways, I ran into some trouble with building my character using BP. My character is a human black mage using the seductress mentor spirit. As part of my background my character need a high edge(6 or 7 is preferred), and still have the magical skills neccesary to be the party magician(I had sorcerery skill group 4, assesning 2, arcana 2, summoning 4, binding 6, and 8 spells(focusing on illusion)). The problem is with even average attributes otherwise, I have no BP left over for skills and gear.

Is it possible to create a high edge magician who doesn't suck? Any help is appreciated. I'll post the build I have thus far as soon as I get around to converting it to text.

In terms of min/max...

Dumping agi/str to 1 or 3 max (levitate, will serve for gymnastic tests and other things). You can also use a cybernetic hand with agility upped to fire with a gun if necessary, or get a commlink/nanohive for some versatility as a mage.

Body to 3 max (this let's you wear a variety of armors)

Indebt max (30k) -25 BP negative quality.

Possibly fame and day job (depending on if charisma tradition) this gives you a bonus to social dice as well as more money (x10) for the day job.

The main thing to do would be to drop the sorcery group, and instead take something like:
Assensing: 1
Counterspelling: 4
Dodge: 4
Etiquette: 1
Perception: 1
Spellcasting 6
Summoning 4

After creation and your first mission, spend from Karma to specialize.

Finally, soft max magic at 5, and use power focus to up it. If you have nuyen/BPs left over, try out restricted gear + power focus 3 or 4 for some fun + binding it (roughly 29 BP vs 25 BP, but it gives you 4 more force vs 1 force from magic 6).

Edit: Quick recap for a human one:
Body 3 (20)
Agi 1 (0)
Str 1 (0)
Intuiton 5 (40)
Cha 2 (10)
Will 5 (40)
Logic 1 (0)
Edge 6 (50)
Magic 5 (40)
-----
200 BP on edge/magic/stats

Skills (84) from above

Spells 8 (24 BP) Levitate, Increased Reflexes, Stunbolt, etc.

Qualities (0) +5 restricted, +15 magician, +5 mentor spirit, -25 Indebt (add 10 more for fun either way)

Gear (20 BP) Power focus 4

BP leftover: 72 BP

Obviously stats can be finagled for more charisma or logic or whatever else you're going for, but that's what I'd for a human one. Orks get it a little better, but 6 edge is pricey for them.

Well, black magic uses Charisma, so he would want that as the high stat. I think the biggest problem is that you can't really be a mage with a lavish generalist skill set and a high Edge. You can be more of a niche mage - combat mage, or support mage - and have a high Edge, but once you start grabbing a skill group of 4 for one set of skills, and a 6 and a 4 for the other set of skills, you start feeling the pain in other areas.

My personal preference is high spellcasting, then high counterspelling and summoning, with assensing at a minimal level, binding saved for later, and astral combat, ritual sorcery, and banishing for much later, if at all. That's me, but you will need to do a similar triage - what skills do you really need to start out with, which can be taken at a minimal level, and which can wait for later.

I took some of your advice and made a build that I think works. I decided to be a conjurer first and a sorcerer second(though my spellcasting isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination). My skills are still very anemic, but they should be workable. Just to note, we houserule in that you get 2xCharisma in free contact points.

Anyways, any thoughts/opinions?

Magician(15 BP)
Mentor Spirit<Seductress>(5 BP)

Big Regret(-5 BP)
Sensitive System(-15 BP)
Spirit Bane<Beast Spirits>(-10 BP)
Distinctive Style(-5 BP)

Active Skills

Athletics Skill Group 1
Influence Skill Group 1

Summoning 4
Binding 6
Arcana 1
Assensing 2
Pistols 2
Spellcasting 4
Counterspelling 4
Infiltration 2
Unarmed Combat 1

Knowledge Skills
(18 Free Knowledge Skill Points)

Latin 3
German 2
Magical Thoery 3
Bartending 1
Japanese 1
Botony 1
Card Tricks 1
Mythology 2
S&K Corporate Practices 2
Seattle Night Clubs 1
Spanish 1

Spells

Improved Invisibility
Physical mask
Trid Phantasm
Orgy
Stunbolt
Levitate
Increased Reflexes
Influence

Contacts
(10 Free Contact Points(Houserule, 2xCharisma)

Tailsmonger 4/4
Fixer 2/3

Resources

4 BP, 20,000 Nuyen

Haven't figured out exactally my gear listing, but I've made chars with less.

EDIT: Just to note, I have a spreadsheet I use to create characters, so I am fairly certain this is 400BP

humans start with edge 2 so cost of edge 6 is 40 BP not 50..

So true! Thanks for the heads up, was doing the math quickly here.

Another thing you might want to consider is dropping improved invisibility for a chameleon suit + thermal damping depending on your need for stealthing. Its nicer in some builds due to not needing as much BP spent on it, and there's no -dice for sustaining it unlike improved invis... Downside of course is, no ability to cast it on others.

But it seems like between Trid and Mask, you'd be able to handle those needs and it'd be less drain heavy.

I also highly recommend a power focus, it effectively increases your magic by 2 to 4 (with restricted) for 50k or 100k.

If you think on it, its like 12 BP for 2 more magic, or 29 BP for 4 more magic. Either way, quite a nice thing for a little nuyen.

Also, may want a little reaction + dodge skill, or least more gymnastics or something. As it currently stands, seems like your mage would get hit easily... 5 react? + 1 dodge dice + possibly 3 improved reflexes -2 dice for sustaining = 7 dice of dodging, or... most things will hit you no matter what. Even with a spirit sustaining it for you, or casting it on you, that's still only 9 dice.

Of course, my point may all be moot if you're doing the whole possession bit, but still, getting enough initiative to act first is a good thing even for these characters.

- From a min-maxers point of view (and really, if you aren't min-maxing, why are you using BP-gen?) either softmax an attribute or keep it at 1. That way, raising it ingame becomes a whole lot cheaper (raising an attribute to 2 is 10 karma, which is your first mission).
- Take skills at 4 or above or not at all, because you pay a hefty premium for low skills.
- Never specialise, because specialisation is more expensive with BPs than with karma for no other reason than to screw over organic character concepts.
- Always take "in debt", because it's the only positive quality in the game that you get points for taking, instead of having to pay.
- You already threw out the borderline useless "ritual sorcery" and the absolutely terrible "banishing", which is good. Those aren't even worth half points.
- You want a power focus as soon as possible, but you may want it in game, because buying a low-force one is wasted points and buying a high-force one is expensive and cuts in your positive qualities budget.

And before someone says "you can build organic characters with a well thought-out concept with BPs!": Why yes. Yes you can. But the system actively punishes you for doing that, so if that's your goal, why are you using BPs in the first place? The only way to use BP-generation is to use BP-advancement as well, and even then only if you want highly specialised characters.

I was using karma gen system, but then my GM decided to only all BP because he says it has never been updated for SR4A.

Your DM is an idiot, all he'd have to do is apply the new costs to the old ruleset.

The karmagen in runner's companion was built with the explicit knowledge of the SR4A changes. They were built to be usable under those changes. Ancient History even said so on the forum quite some time ago.