My current game is coming to a close after saturday, and I'm having difficulty making my new character. My old toon was a Troll witch from a possesion tradition who would roll 32 dice to soak damage, had an initiative of 15+, and would deal 20 stun damage to any single target in melee range nearly without fail, and without drain (God, I love Knockout).

My problem is that the others in the game dont want to be the face becuase they A) are new to RPG's and dont want to be the center of attention B) have been a face and hated it or C) know nothing of shadowrun, and think "Mr. Johnson" is a euphemism.

That leaves me, which suits me fine. Half the time last game i was doing most of the face work with Edge, The Influence spell, text's to the actual "face" and my ignorance of the "only as much street cred as your CHA rule"... I look forward to it. I've read as many of the books as the GM. I love the setting. I can read the GM better than some. of course, the biggest advantage i have is that i bring food - GM's love that shit.

Mentally, I'm there - I'm up for it Where I'm having issue is on the character building. I had been playing a big female troll - and this new character started out as a former highclass escort from Hong Kong. Ive kinda decided that I'm not up to playing two female characters in a row, especially since the latter would be more than willing to use her feminine wiles - which i do not wish to role play against the GM. I've decided to make a bit more of a street swindler / conman.

I'm still having some issues though. As my primary role is "Face" how much do I have do dedicate to dealing out damage. I can't manage the same absurd damage as i was doing, nor can I soak as much, so even though I know the amount I was doing was excessive, I can't help but feel inept by comparison.

With a Charisma of 7, I could have an army of bound spirits available - Should I put resources to binding now or later? Focus on spellcasting?

Do I need a Pistol skill, or will Manabolt and commanding voice do since my main job isn't killing them?

Drop Will to 4 or Int to 3 to up Str to 2?

Contacts - To much overlap in the magical area? No real source for finding ware for my team, or let them find it themselves? Are 37 BP enough?

Influence group, Leave at 3, or up to four now?

Mentor Spirit: +2 Combat, Manipulation, Spirits of Man, Negotiation? Composure test to give something away for free (ala raven spirit)

Fashion Spell - Can it make the urban explorer jumpsuit look like an Actioneer Business suit?

Physical mask - worth taking dispite the low odds of me getting the hits to disguise myself well, or should I take some disguise and facial sculpt?

I miss anything?

The sheet:

Gear

Edit: NEver mind, I can see how he'd do it. Not completely sans drain, but close.

It will be cheaper in the long run to buy an Agent + Spoof progam to spoof your lifestyle up from medium to high.
Also, it's a good idea to buy a cheap com to keep on, running one SIN while you keep your real com hidden. Keeps business and public faces separate.

Also, you're missing .5 from your Adept powers. Maybe Voice Control would help you infiltrate better?

Seems kind of funny though, a face who is basically a chubby elf in a tracksuit.

I was mostly going with the high lifestyle for the bonus NY.

I'll be buying a better com a few runs in.

The 0.5 admission was more i was unsure between Voice control for infiltration and the volume bonus to Commanding voice, another level of Kinetics, or two levels of facial sculpt.

For some reason, I thought I saw more than one month of lifestyle. Nvm then.

Well, if you decide to drop the Physical Mask and go for the Facial Sculpt/Fashion combo, instead of using the BP for a Bound Spirit, maybe you can add Influence to the repertoire. That way you could keep their minds warped much longer, and turn a potential hazard like a guard into something useful like a personal escort.

Only other thing I can think of is to dump some contacts. It's just, well, it's an MA build. MA's need every single point they can to be well-rounded characters. Maybe you can spread the contact duties around a bit and grab your 6th point of magic or a touch of Stealth group?

I love Influence. I really do, but since this toon can't astrally perceive he can't erase the astral signature. Also a big idea with this guy is that he doesn't have to use much magic to get what he wants.

How needed are contacts when one has 11+ dice to negotiation? I was considering something like:


Original contacts listed here for comparison.


In hind sight I don't see much use in an Armorer contact over a Fixer, plus the fixer will be better able to get other nice things like SIN's. The Triad incense master was a hold over from my initial ideas for this character, and i don't think he added much, and the Higher Paramed shaman I thought would be handy for fixing bullet holes, but a simple street doc, or cyber-dock might be better for the party. Lowered the Talismonger since i should be able to get my own foci with my negotiation without having to pay him a share. Pulled the Hermetic academic completely, figured he'd be good to ask info on paracritters magical theory and such, but i think the talismonger and para-shammie should be able to help out in that regard. Added a Lawer contact - figured it might be useful, but i could probably scrap it - how often do runners get arrested and not just shot? That drops my contacts from 37bp down to 31bps.

I also was considering dropping my Intuition to 3 to bump up my Infuence group to 4; and dropping the sustaining foci completely. I don't have much to sustain right now, so why worry about it now, when sustaining foci are so cheep to bind with Karma?

I still feel like this toon is just one pistol shot from being a greasy smear on the wall. Perhaps I'll up my edge and reaction with my first karma.

So my current thinking is :


That still leave me with three BP I'm unsure off. Perhaps pick up three different bound spirits that are outside my tradition, so I can re-bind them later without having to find them and banish/summon them later?

Thanks for the input,

SC

Well, lawyers are useful for more than bailing you out. They can also aid in legwork; that's half the job of being a lawyer. They have great access to places and information, and they know how the system works, so they can point you in the right direction.

For sure, the Fixer is the central guy you need. He has plenty contacts of his own, so if you need a mechanic or and armorer or any other mundane sort of guy, he can provide introductions for cash.