Alright, so generally, when building a character, I try to start with a rough concept, develop the background, finalize the concept...and only then apply it to an actual charactersheet/build. I had started out with going full adept, but the utility and extras being a mystic adept seemed to fit better. All of this is fairly lengthy, so if you're reading to help, please be patient

Rough Concept:

So, Michael's a bit crazy. A lot crazy. He thinks he's an angel that's been sent to delve the shadows and bring vengeance to those who deserve it.

Background:



Personality:

He's extremely charismatic, for a nutter. One part Joan of Arc, two parts Mad Hatter, with a dash of Bill Clinton thrown in. He can talk his way through about anything...but sometimes, many times...its time to just lay judgement in heaps.

Cleaned up Concept

The build I'm going for is heavy artillery. I know that Mages, and a lesser extent Mystic Adepts, benefit A LOT from spirits, but I'm not sure about doing that, since we already have a full Mage in the group that uses spirits heavily, and I don't want to step on her toes. The full mage specializes in the manipulation and illusion spells, so I figured going the route of Combat and such. I'm kinda thinking a Free Spirit built with the RC Karmagen would fill this role better...but I'm not sure how to accomplish it with the concept I have. YET. (maybe possession would work.) Anyways, give me your input please.

Now for the actual build....the part I'm stuck on. A few houserules and variations to note...going with Karmagen AS WRITTEN, with the free contacts houserule, as well as allowing qualities beyond cap, as long as it fits with the background and such.




Used the Chargen spreadsheet located in Community Projects to build.
So the build feels a bit off....and incomplete...I just dont' know how. I was going to use the Inhabitation/Free Spirit rules to have a magical sword that would give me someone to talk to that nobody else hears...but I'd have to switch around some Karma somewhere. Which I might do still, because its such a tempting thing With the high CHA and Kinesics, as well as Commanding Voice, it could lead to some intersting options during encounters....

What do you guys think? Tips? Arguments?

Edit: Made some changes to the backstory....timeline should fit a little better now.
Edit 2: Included Karma Costs
Edit 3: To be clear, I am NOT asking for advice on background or concept. I have simply provided them to give you an idea of what I'm looking for and where the character is coming from.
Edit 4: I'm currently working on switching Arcana out with....something....and looking at spells selection and Attribute allocation to better suite the role I've chosen.

To code a spoiler you just put I'll comment on the character once I've had a bit to look over it.

Thanks That really helps with the spoilers.

I should point out, that if he was around during the first goblinizations, and was already working as a priest at that point (Thus 20+ at least) he would be about 70 years old. First goblinizations happened in 2021, and current year is 2072, so yeah, he would be 71 minimum, likely in his 80s.

Okay, time to dig into the CS.

Right, but once the SURGE happened, and he became a Dryad...his lifespan increased to several hundred years. Or am I missing something?

Ah, I missed that as I hadn't read the CS yet. It is important to note that you can't SURGE into a Dryad. Elves are only born, and Dryad is just a type of elf, so you have to be born a Dryad, which would be impossible given your timeline.

Yeah, so I evidentally hadn't realized that elves were only born. I thought they followed the same path as orcs and trolls. Hmm, will have to switch a few things around. Not too difficult really, just was born a dryad, and entered the church, then SURGE'd into his "angelic" state later on (the striking skin pigmentation, and the extravagant eyes) Wouldn't be latent SURGE, since he's starting the game with it, just that it hadn't happened when born. I think that solves that.

Except that he couldn't have been more than about 10 for the first round of goblinization.

Sorry if it seems like I'm just nitpicking you, but want your story to not be self contradictory.

Oh! Because of the amount of time between the UGE, and the first goblinization! Hmm...yeah, 10 years is a bit short. I could see even 16 (many ministers and such start learning that early) So I'll have to change from fledgline priest to like....choic boy. Lol.

Edit: In process of re-writing that first introductory bit.

Could also be a subsequent goblinization. There has been plenty of hate for metatypes always, and there is no reason it couldn't have happened during the YotC (62 I think? Or was it 64?) and some Humanis member that did the killing. Would also explain why you 'only' have 750 karma, as it seems a bit odd that you wouldn't have advanced a bit more if you'd been running for half a century.

I'm going through and figuring out your karma costs for everything as things stand. Handy to know where you have it all tied up.

I'm adding Karma costs to the original build now.

I may have added wrong, but I came up with a total cost of... oh wait, forgot about the free contacts. Is that Cha*2 free contact points, or Cha*2 free karma towards contacts?

Either way my math puts you slightly off. Either at 732 or 748

Could have miscalculated something somewhere though.

Its Contact Points, so with a Charisma of 8, I can have 8 1/1's for free.

Okay, then it looks like you're 18 karma shy unless I goofed something somewhere. I'll wait for you to finish adding up and see what your number comes out to.

Alright, updated the Karma points on the original post. If they're still looking off, I'll hand tally them But as for the build itself, any suggestions?

Hmm, you came up with different numbers for almost everything. Here is what I got:

It looks like our discrepancies are in a couple places. For some reason, I still had Reaction 5, I've got it at 4 on my spreadsheet. Then for knowledge skills, it looks like you're spending the 2 karma to purchase the skill and then another 1 karma to raise it to 1. That would make up the difference I think for the karma costs. I just got the hand tally done....and my spreadsheet seems to all add up to me.

No, I was paying one karma for specialties, as I thought that was what you were doing. Otherwise it wouldn't be Design (Spell) it would just be Spell Design. Of course Design doesn't really sound like a knowledge skill on its own, so I guess I should have caught that.

Still adds up to under 750 karma for me. I notice you have 10 more karma in skills than me, and our quality costs are totally different.

Oh, and as for something you should add to your character, specialties. Those will help out alot.

For Positive qualities, don't forget Mystic Adept is a quality, and costs 20 Karma. Caught the skills problem. I still had spellcasting at 4 on here, its been bumped to the appropriate 5

Woo, finally have all our numbers lined up except perhaps stats. I come out with 417 for stats (Including magic and edge) which puts you 7 points over the 750 limit.

Lol, I've got stats at 402 to include magic and edge. I'll update the build with their Karma costs. Hopefully that takes care of everything.

Oh, I see, you dropped reaction from 5 to 4. That explains the difference. But it also leave you a few points below 750. That's good though, those points can go into specializations like I said.

Also, you may want to consider dropping the two lightning spells. They are hugely expensive to cast as far as drain is concerned, and far less effective than a simple stun/powerbolt.

Gotcha. Any other tips?

Yeah, a health sustaining focus to allow you to sustain an increased reflexes spell without taking the -2 concentration penalty.

I'd also suggest having a smaller number of higher rating contacts. I'm guessing you mostly did that because you hadn't decided anything about them yet, but worth mentioning.

And what exactly are your two prejudices? I also have a feeling that it might be kind of hard to believe this guy working with others. I mean most of the people he works with are going to be plenty guilty of something or another to deserve to be executed (or whatever) and it seems odd that he wouldn't bother to check out the people he works with at all.

His Radical Prejudiced, is "Evil Spirits" i.e. Bug spirits, blood spirits, toxic spirits....whatever doesn't fit into his views essentially. His common prejudice, are the truly corrupt. Think of the movie Boondock Saints.

That might be a bit of a push. Most people are generally going to play their character's fairly prejudice against those sorts of things, even if they don't write it down. Same with blood magic and human sacrifices and aztech. Those things are so baseline "I don't like them." that making special mention of it is like writing down that you like to breath. I say give it a shot, but don't be surprised if you're GM rejects it. It is exceedingly rare and against something that is already universally hated. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it seems to fall into a category that is even slimmer than 'uncommon' seems to cover, and against something that everyone is prejudice against.



Sounds more uncommon to me. I mean I know they are fairly common in an SR setting, but the other examples for common are 'men' or 'women' or 'metahumans'. Each of those represent roughly 50% of the people you'll meet. Once again, your call, but depending on your GM, they may have you drop it to uncommon (I likely would personally, which is really the only reason I'm bringing it up, but you know your GM better than I do).

Oh, and out of curiosity, why so much skill in arcana? You're concept seems like it would be better served with assenssing to pick out the truth in people. The ability to design your own spells seems like it would be handy for the lone angle aspect, but not worth bringing it all the way up to 5.

The Arcana was at 5 because at first I was going to use the ally spirit metamagic to have a spirit inhabit a sword....but it just didn't fit right. As for the prejudice thing, with the campaign we're in, and the setting, they'll be fine. Its all a matter of perspective really.

I really appreciate that at least someone is looking at this post and all that, but I'll be honest....I posted here looking for help with the build, not with my background and character concept. I guess I should've stated that from the beginning.

Attribute Boost based with geas must quote scriptures for when it is time to get Biblical on someone's hoop!

I'd drop Arcana for Conjuration instead. "Summoning your angellic brethren"?

I really like the idea of summoning spirits....I just don't want to step on the other mage's toes. Although, I might anyways

Yeah, I know, sorry, got a bit distracted, and was waiting on trying to merge up numbers on the karma to see is you really had more to spend or needed to rein back some stuff.

Alright, so aside from the background and concept.....to sum up the suggestions that have been given...

Lower if not eliminate Arcana and take Conjuration.
Remove Lightning spells for suitable replacements.

Aside from that, does the build look sound then? I've never made a mystic adept before. Does it work then?