Hi guys. I've only done 4th edition for a long, long time - but I'm going to be playing a mage in Shadowrun 3rd after a long break, and I could use some memory jogging about how to best do a bit of minmaxing. What tricks should I definitely not forget?

Sorcerers are actually a viable choice, rather than a mostly-crippled mage. Especially since you can get Priority A resources - foci can really add a lot of power to a mage, more than SR4. A rating: 6 specific spell focus is a lot of dice.

Charisma is a very important stat for conjuring, not only being rolled to resist Drain, but determining the Drain code in the first place. The elven Charisma bonus is actually significant... for shamans. Hermetics, it doesn't matter as much, since their summoning is typically not done on the fly.

Hermetic versus shamanic is much more significant. Hermetics eat up more resources in things like libraries and elemental conjuration materials, and they don't have totems (Magic in the Shadows introduces elemental mages, which lets hermetics have bonuses of their own). Hermetic mages summon elementals (effectively, they can bind spirits but not summon them on the fly in a useful manner - with the exception of watcher spirits), while shamans summon nature spirits. Nature spirits have a wider array of useful powers, but elementals are better for brute force things like attacking in packs or giving the mage extra dice for spellcasting.

The spell pool makes spellcasting a more tactical thing - you need to allocate the right amount of dice to offense, defense (spell defense costs you dice in SR3), and resisting Drain.

Spell Force is extremely important. You can cast a spell at a lower rating than what you bought it for, but not a higher rating - and the only way to learn it at a higher rating is to learn it all over again, at the new rating. So while you will need to make tradeoffs in Force to start out with a good selection of spells, you still want them as high in Force as you can get them. This is especially true with offensive, resisted spells. Spell Force determines the target number for resisting that spell. In other words, a Force: 6 spell is twice as hard to resist as a Force: 5 spell!

The Magic rating itself, ironically, is not as important as it is in SR4. It is one of the components used to figure out the spell pool, and casting spells with a higher Force than your Magic rating does physical Drain, and that's about it. And there are many ways around the latter - geasa, fetish or exclusive limitations to spells for lower Drain, and power foci, which actually add to the Magic Attribute in SR3.

Overall, there are several ways to min-max in SR3. The dwarven sorcerer built in Priority is awesome. A resources for lots of spells and foci, B magic, C Attributes - 24 points, which works out to 28 points after dwarven bonuses, plenty to get a high Intelligence and Willpower, and still have decent stats otherwise. D race, and E skills - the last may not seem like much, but is still plenty. Sorcerers only need one, single skill - Sorcery, at 6. So even at E, you will be well-rounded skill-wise. Another approach is the elven shaman, with maxed-out mental Attributes. Not the raw power of the dwarven sorcerer, but very good at summoning nature spirits and astral combat. For a hermetic mage, you will want higher resources, and to take advantage of the fact that you can have what is essentially an attack pack of elementals on standby.

Short-game? Go a shaman which has a flavour you enjoy - note that combat-spell bonus types tend to go berserk and that's not good on a softly-softly run.
Probabily Elvish for that Charisma bonus (Elvish shaman face - very viable) as you're going to want to summon every 6 seconds and let those spirits do all the legwork/accident/search for you.

Longer game - Mages (although, yes, they're Karma sinks of doom) because nothing beats a pack of elementals ripping apart the opposition other than a pack of great-form elementals doing the same.

Initiation is pretty important (if you last that long) as although the magic attribute isn't as awesmackingly vital as in 4th ed, once you've done all that metaplane crap and are starting to really burn as a magic user, quite a few of the more sexy Metamagics (Evoking great forms, alchemy to make orichalium) bestow little things like TN = (force of summoned ass-munch -less the initiate's grade). The "make a bunker and churn out Orichalium is a reasonably-valid lifestyle:)

Foci are big huge good times as well.

Looooong game? Mage-adept. (Karma hole of holedom) The legendary warrior-wizards beloved by every schlocky Hongkong action flick have nothing on these guys - and it's nice to be able to get all the eye-mods without losing essence for the LOS/perception modifiers bullshit.


-Tir.

I will throw this in... There are a lot of spells you want at only Force 1.

Such as Improved invisibility. It really does not matter a whole lot if the Target resists at a 2 (1). Even If their Resistance Attribute (Intelligence?) is at their maximum. If you are capable of gaining hits greater than their attribute, they really cannot resist the spell at all.

Our 3rd Edition Mage used this to GREAT effect.

I'm not sure about that. The spell's force is also the TN for dispelling. And IIRC all spells are visible on the astral plane.

Drain is usually Force divided by 2 rounded down
So Force 5 in most cases is perfect since it usually means a drain of 2.

Except that Dispelling also goes on Hits... So, if you have high Hits (Which you will get at Force 1) it requires high hits to dispell as well. Granted, a super-optimized character can achieve that... But how many characters are as good at dispelling as they are at casting? Not many in my experience.

Well, under SR3, there was Sorcery and 2 of the specialisations were Spell-Casting and Dispelling.
You could be reasonably good at both of those . .

Ahhh... But, Your Speicalizations are independant of the Skill, and the Base Skill goes down. I also remember that you cannot start with more than a single specialization in SR3. So, your Sorcery 6 becomes Sorcery 5 (Spellcasting 7) does it not? Or am I confusing Editions again? I would check, but all my SR3 stuff was stolen from my car about 6 years back.

Nono, that with the 5/7 is correct.
Not sure wether or not one can actually start with more than one specialisation though . .
And they are not completely independent of the Base-Skill either.
Specialisation can not be more than base skill x1.5 and you can't have more specialisations than Base Skill either if i remember correctly.

Ahhh... Good to know. Been a long time since I played 3rd Edition.

Good Memory on your part then.

Well, thanks. Played it pretty extensively untill SR4 came out.
My books were all stolen about 2 months prior to the rollout of SR4. *shrug*

That's a key thing right there. If Force: 5 has the same Drain as Force: 1, then there isn't much point in taking Force: 1, other than lacking the points/karma. Things like Exclusive or Fetish modifiers can also bring down Drain (or lower the cost of spells). Ratings of 3 or 5 are generally effective for utility spells, although I still like Rating: 6 for any resisted spells (again - twice as hard to resist as Force: 5). Ty's tactic of overwhelming targets with dice is fine for mooks, and sometimes even better opponents, but it is good to have your spells still work against tougher opponents, or situations where you are using less dice for spellcasting. I tend to be conservative when it comes to starting spell Force, because when I get Karma, I want to use it for initiations, or new spells, not to re-buy a spell that I had at a lower Force. On the other hand - some spells, you don't really need at high Force. For example, if I took Healthy Glow, I would probably get it at Force: 3, with the exclusive modifier to lower the cost to 1.

This also depends on how you calculate drain modifiers. F/2+2 for a Force 1 would be 2, but for Force 5 would be 4. (I buy a lot of spells at rating 1.)

On the topic of Cyber ... Make sure you get the Smartlink 2 and the Enhanced Articulation. For speed, Synaptic Accelerator and Boosted Reflexes are (IRC) the best bang for your buck. Also avoid cyberlimbs, and don't expect you'll get a chance to upgrade gear much once the game starts. Also check if your GM is using the errata. If not, the Chipjack Expert Driver is INCREDIBLE (even with, it's pretty sweet). Skillwire 6 + CED 6 let me character effectively hold a combat pool of 13, or jack any skill, including social and B/R skills, at 12. Also, didn't notice this before, check out the description for cultured tailored pheromones -- TWICE as effective! +4 to all social skills. Wah!

Decking is all about the programs and the gear. If you have the Computer 6 skill and a datajack, you just need to get the deck and proggies (which you may be able to do easier in game) and you're now a decker. Just be wary; SR3 had the 'decking means the rest of the party goes on a pizza break' problem.

Social Skills ... it's about Intelligence. If you're not a mage/shaman and you're buying less than two social skills, Charisma is an ideal dump stat.

Chargen ... unless you're using karma or something, you want to min/max those skills and attributes straight out of the gate, then spend the karma to round out your character once the game starts. BTW, a winning strategy: Take the $1M option, buy a permanent lifestyle, retire, win the game.

i recommend using the NSRCG3 < = about 95% perfect.