ok my idea in a nutshell is an Oni Ninja from Japan that has magic.
I figured he'd be a sneaky badass with ninja weapons and throw mojo to cover long range and help with being sneaky.so far;

-Oni is a 5pt. rip, but I've made peace with that
-since this concept is a real BP sink, I went with an aspected sorcerer to save on skill points(no conjuring)
-I think he needs an intuition tradition, that leads to Buddhism, which is plausable but I was thinking more like Shinto. except, the darkside of Shinto, point is, I don't think this guy is charismatic or particularly logical.
-Looking at taking Ninjutsu at 5bp with +1 to infiltrate and the Iaijutsu
-not gonna specialize until I get karma so unarmed skill group, athletics skill group,

I'm rambling,

1) is the increased reflex spell enough? should I burn out for some wired reflexes?

2) I feel like I depend on too many attributes, body, strength, agility,reaction, willpower, tradition ability for drain

3)I could go mystic adept, but I'd like to be a pretty badass spell slinger.

It seemed so straight foreward when I started

These would be hurtfully expensive, essence-wise. If you don't have the money for synaptic boosters, go for the spell.



You're right about that. You could go adept instead, or cast Increase Attribute for some of of the stuff.
Of course, this further leads to your dependence on spell locks.



Karma sink. Closed combat fighters already are highly dedicated builds, as well as badass spell slingers. Going mystic adept on top of that...will likely not end well, unless you plan it out meticulously, start with most points dedicated to casting and prepare to sink a ton of karma into this.

Mystic Adept : 3 point for Adept and 3 points for spells.
Boost ini II 2.5
Sustenance .25
An other power .25

Hardmaxing Magic seems like too much of a strain for this concept to me.
I'd also always put more points into caster Magic than adept Magic- it won't hurt to just have one or two power points at the beginning, but being limited to Magic 2 or 3 for spellcasting would be a pain in the ass.

and, even though i'm at a -4, I'd still like to astrally project. Ras nailed it though, 2 serious karma burn ideas in one character. i can just take spellcasting and counterspelling for magic, I won't start out super badass in the ninja skills if I want a good amount of spells. its tough

I would totally go Mystic Adept. In 4A, its better than people thing, due to some rules improvements involving splitting adept/casting Magic values.

Since you already have the Runner's Companion, try using 4a/German Karmagen(the most balanced/errata'd version. Attribute = Rx5, metatype karma cost = bp cost) for this - it should take the edge off having to min/max the heck out of a BP build. Try this on for size:

Oni: 25 Karma

Magic 6: 100 karma. (May want to swap things for Killing Hands/Critical Strike/penetrating strike if you're feeling more Unarmed)
1: Heightened Concentration(Digital Grimoire. Useful for sustaining spells on yourself, great reason to play msyadept)
1:(0.25x4): All four Adept Physical Attribute Boosts. (Its quite good. 7 dice and a simple action to boost a stat by the number of hits, for one drain. Should help with the Attribute problem.)
0.5: Adept Counterstrike
0.5: Motion Sense (this can reduce Visibility Modifiers by 2, can a martial arts maneuver. Combine the two, and you can saddle everyone -else- with the blind fire penalty while taking none yourself. Very ninja)
3: Mystic Adept Spellcasting.

Qualities: (70)
10 : Restricted Gear: Power Focus.
10 : Restricted Gear: Weapon Focus
20K: Mystic Adept
20: Martial Arts 2, Ninjutsu(Visibility -1, Infiltration)
10: Martial Arts 1, Tae Kwon Do (+1 Unarmed Combat when attacking multiple targets)

Maneuvers: (24)
4: Blind Fighting.
4: Riposte
4: Focus Will (helps with Drain.)
4: Two Weapon Style (Sword and Fist.)
4: Multistrike (Melee attacks can try to hit multiple people with the same complex action just by splitting the dice pool. With this, you can put a singe dice+modifiers on any secondary target that happens to be standing near the primary one for free, and do it even better with tae kwon do. More importantly, you can do it while Riposting(what? its a complex action), so if someone tries to hit you can not only parry/riposte and hit them back, but hit all their friends too.)
4: Iaijutsu

Tradition: Int-linked traditions are pretty decent, and they also mean you have a high initiative, which has nice synergy. Its also one of the hardest stats to raise. Since you're already taking a metavariant, you may want to consider trying to work Metagenetic Improvement(Intuition) into your qualities somehow - its like Exceptional Attribute, except better because it raises your minimum too, saving you ten points(in BP-gen.)

Spells(at -least-): (30)
5: Increase Reflexes
5: Heal
5: Levitate
5: Death Touch (at Drain of Force/2-2, overcasting this at force 12 will drop anyone with a body of 8 or less for only 4 drain, and you can claim +2 dice for only needing to touch a target instead of landing a solid blow. Shatter is another good option, for one more drain, but you can hit nonliving targets with it.)
5: Improved Invisibility
5: Silence
Other good options may be Interference, Mist(large drain, but makes a Visibility modifier = hits. With Edge use, you can easily surpass smoke -4/-6). Combat Sense is good, Trid Phantasm is always useful. Element Aura increases your damage, and gives your attacks Ap(half)


Foci: 104
Cash: 40Karma for 100,000Y: Power focus 4
Bonding to focus: 32 Karma
Cash: 16Karma for 20,000Y : Weaponfocus 4 (Since Reach factors into bonding cost, i'm going to assume a katana for a ninja. but other weapons are good too)
Bonding to Focus: 16 karma

=353 spent, 397 karma remaining for skills and attributes. That should be enough to get you started. Hope that helps.


Gear: Get yourself some good Contacts, Earbuds, skinlink them both, and get a Tacnet 2. Personalize Grip your melee weapons. Machine pistol with sticknshocks and a hidden arm slide for dealing with spirits. (I suggest an Ares Crusader with an auto-adjusting weight. Melee harden it, and you can parry with it too, but that uses the Clubs skill.)

Other options: Go completely unarmed, ditch the weapon foci and skills entirely. Juggle adept powers around a little, and try to fit in some martial arts that increase your damage value.

Hmm, I wonder if you could do a Mystic Adept focused on Summoning instead...

Spirits of Man could cast your spells for you, and they're good at aiding Stealth (Concealment & Guard powers), creating distractions (Accident, Confusion & Influence powers, plus Fear & Psychokinesis optional powers), and scouting (Enhanced Vision and Search powers, Assensing & Perception skills).

Pick a Mentor Spirit who gives you +2 dice for Spirits of Man (Owl from Street Magic is pretty good, from the core book Dog isn't bad, but Dark King looks a bit dangerous).

You'll just need Spellcasting 1 for a couple of spells which your Spirits can't emulate -- say, Increase Reflexes and Improved Invisibility, or Shapechange and Physical Mask -- and then have your Spirits of Man cast those on you.


So, take Magic 5 (4 adept / 1 wizard), then put a bunch of dice into summoning only one kind of Spirit:
- Magic 1
- Summoning 5
- Mentor Spirit +2
- Summoning Focus +3 (avail 12, 45k¥)
- Specialization +2 (your first 2 points of Karma go here)
= 10 dice to start, 12 dice after your first mission. That's enough to reliably snag a force 3 or 4 Spirit, which is all you need to get good use from the Innate Spell power. Your Drain Resist will be ~10 dice (Intuition 5 + Willpower 5), so Force 3 or 4 spirits are pretty safe to summon in the middle of a run.

Ignore Binding for now, because your Charisma will probably suck if you go for an Intuition tradition. Focus on having one big Spirit of Man around all the time, and spend Edge to make sure you get a lot of services. Getting Binding -- and a decent Charisma -- will be useful eventually, but you won't have the points for it out of the gate. Same deal with Counterpspelling, IMHO: a good place to spend your Karma down the road, but hopefully not something you need for your first run.


I'm not too well versed in the martial arts system, but the Visibility Penalty trick sure looks sweet on paper.

Double post, can't see how to delete. Oh well.

hmmm
Generally I would advice the Karma System not the BP System
an Oni Ninja Adept can become a well roundet package
(you could even burn 1 Essencepoint for Synaptic Booster I and Muscle....Thingy for AGI +2 )
but adding a "Spellcaster-Package" is gonna make it difficult.
As a mystic Adept you should softmax MAG ( 3 for Spells 2 for Ki-Powers and Initiate later)
and for more IPs take Increased Reflexes & .....oO(Shit.... Zauberspeicher auf Englisch ?Spellstore ?)
There are alot of possibilities.
Please tell us wether you want to Play a Ninja Adept or Ninja Mystical Adept

@Nifft
with Magic 1 you can only Summon Force 2 Spirits !

HokaHey
Medicineman

Its called a Sustaining Focus In previous versions it was called a Spell Lock I believe.

*does the moshpit dance of strange knowledge*

I like many of those above me would suggest a combo route of mystic adept for a spell slinging Ninja makes a nice combination of physical skills / abilities (Very Ninja) and adds in the utility of a magic user (why climb the wall when I can silently float up it)

If you were not going Oni I would also suggest some disguise skills and maybe the fashion spell (I think thats the one what changes clothing) to sneak about in plain sight (Mask would do the same but is a active spell and if I'm right the fashion spell is only active when its used so wont stand out from a quick astral sweep like mask will). Oni just stand out to much to disguise well but I wouldnt suggest dropping it as I think the concept is very cool

I'm using the BP system because I don't have a game for this guy yet, so I can't assume I can use Karma gen.

The Mystic Adept seems like a natural salution, but I think it gimps my magic for very little return (what's worth taking my magic for spellcasting down? Improved reflexes? att boost?) plus no astral projection, which comes in handy for scouting and such.

-can a spirit of man be given spells the mage doesn't know?

- can focus will manuver be used for drain resistance? that would be awesome

-can a spirit of man be given spells the mage doesn't know?
No !
Spirit of Man (or other such Spirits) can only use those Spells that your Char allready has.

- can focus will manuver be used for drain resistance? that would be awesome
Yes, but you need 1 Complex Action to Fokus and 1 Complex Action to cast the Spell immediately afterwards.
So its 2 Complex Actions in a Row for a +2 Bonus.....
I wouldn't call that Awesome...interesting maybe,but not Awesome

with an Awesome Dance
Medicineman

No.



Yes.

As far as the Mystic Adept thing is concerned :

If you just allocate 1 point towards adept powers, it won't hurt your casting/summoning that much, and leaves you with a lot of possibilities later in game. There's tons of adept powers that suit ninjas perfectly, you just won't be able to buy many of them at the start. In the beginning, even minor stuff like a few bonus dice to some skills would be a great benefit for this concept.
Not to mention how useful Adept Centering and Attunement can become later in the game.

The astral scouting thing seems interesting, of course- but it also means you'll have to buy two more skills on top of an already inflated skill set.
Spirits would most likely be better at doing this task.

I'd recommend picking the very basics- just Spellcasting, Summoning and probably Counterspelling (if your tradition has a spirit type with Magical Guard, even that could be neglected), this should leave some points for your physical skills.
Of course, making full use of spirits would involve Binding, but that can quickly become a pain in the ass drain-wise and will get hella expensive if you don't also have Enchanting and can craft your own binding materials (and i don't see where the character should get the BP for that on top of everything else under BP gen).

You'll also have to cut down on some areas outside of magic. As combat, stealth, perception and the physical stuff like Climbing and Acrobatics are central to the whole ninja thing, you'll find yourself with little to no points for social and technical skills- but that could fit well for a character who spent all of his live in a secluded ninja...training...fortress thing. Right?

The martial arts system in arsenal is pretty simple: There are a bunch of different styles, each with 4-5 different bonuses to varying things like blocking, parrying, damage, dodging, gyndodging, disarming, or reducing certain penalties. Each level of a Martial Art quality lets you pick a Style, and One Bonus. Now, for each level of the -quality- you have, you may learn up two Maneuvers, which allow you to further customize your options in combat for a few karma/bp. The maneuvers let you have neat things like offhand training, kicking for reach, or street-fighter combo your enemies.

Focus will CAN be used on drain, but it takes a complex action to use - and then you have to cast. Less useful in combat, but its quite useful during preptime, such as when you're casting high-drain spells or binding big spirits.

For visibility: Motion Sense, if it detects a target, may reduce the penalties by 2. Blind Fighting reduces the Target Hidden from -6 to -3, for melee only. Ninjutsu's benfit is a further -1 to the penalty. So with the proper training and preptime, you can cover an area in smoke/thermal smoke/petite brume manatech astral-smoke grenades, walk into it, and take no penalty for ganking everyone inside.

On astral scouting: Its perfectly doable for a mystic adept. You get the sense link spell - i think there are a few, but you want the one that lets you tap into a targets senses. Then, you summon watcher spirits. The drain is negligable, and you can afford to spam them easily. Instead of sending them to a target, and watching as they bang their head repeatedly against a simple Ward for the entire duration of your Service you use your Spell to keep an eye on them - like a magical remote control scout car - and a Service via your summoner/spirit link to guide them, again, like a remote control car, while scouting. In the ward example, you'd spend a service to say 'go here, try to find another way in from there'. And when the services are gone - whip out another! watcher spirits are cheap.

Spirits of Man -can't- be given spells you don't know. You have to know it to pass it along. Also, without binding, i think you only get to have one at a time. Still, they're rather great, due to Concealment. Also, kind of fitting for a mage/ninja to summon up his ancestors for help and advice, if you need an excuse from where they come from.

I'd also like to point out that Sprits with Guard, and monowhips are a glorious combination. Especially since Adepts can use Improved Skill to get a rather high Exotic Weapon skill.

Hell yeah, that stuff gets totally devastating.

D'oh! Thank you. Okay, so Magic 5 (wizard 2 / adept 3).



One point in Adept buys you Traceless Walk: you can't be tracked, and foes get -4 to hear you.

One point of Magic in adept can buy you Enhanced Perception 4.

Two points of Magic in adept can buy you Combat Sense 4.

These are effects that are hard (or impossible) to otherwise get.



Nope. However, he can emulate a lot of spells with his natural powers. These powers can emulate a large suite of spells:
- Accident
- Concealment
- Confusion
- Guard
- Influence
- Search

+ optional powers:
- Fear
- Innate Spell (this is literally any spell YOU know)
- Movement
- Psychokinesis

The neat thing is that if you use Magic 2 to summon a force 4 spirit, you can have him cast one of your spells at force 4 and sustain it all day.

Accident is awesome. It's basically the win button in a chase, since your spirit can force a crash test every time it gets an initiative pass. Guard is similarly winsome: it prevents you from glitching. Fear is among the best ways to harmlessly remove muggles from a fight, and Force 4 is still high enough to do this with respectable efficacy. Confusion and Influence are nice ways to get past guards. Psychokinesis replaces the spell Magic Fingers.

Spirit powers are awesome.

No, you cannot buy adept powers at a level higher than your effective magic attribute.

Darn, I forgot that we'd adjusted the adept magic from 4 to 3. Thanks.

You can buy EP 3 and CS 3, both of which are 3/4 as awesome as advertised in my previous post, which is still rather awesome.

@'Big Money Hustlas'



Tusks make any concept cooler. Pr0-0ni.

Wrong. That's been fixed in 4thAnniversary. It is not your *effective* magic attribute. Its your full one. 4a changed mysadepts to get their full magic for pretty much everything. They even use that specific example in the rules example on page 195.

It also has ramifications for Overcasting. a 2/2 split magic mystic adept can overcast at force eight, not four. Other random things like Foci/foci addiction, what you roll to pass through Wards(magic+charisma, i believe), and other small things here and there

Interesting. So a Magic 6 MystAd could basically put only one point of her Magic into spellslinging, go with skill 5 in Spellcasting and pump out force 6 spells with normal drain and 6 dice+-mods to roll. Not that bad...

what force you can cast/ summon at, and pp are the only thing limited by the split attribute. Everything else is done with the full attribute

As far as I understand the wording of the text and example, the force you can cast it at is not limited by the split attribute. The only thing affected by the split is your dicepool when casting/summoning. Nothing else.

Pretty much. However. A msytic adept with only 1 dice in Spellcasting will have a Dice Puddle, not a Dice Pool to work with. High force is great, but for some/most spells, you need Net Hits too (like Improved Reflexes. Still need 4 hits to get all your passes.)

Sure, it wont keep up as your main weapon array. But that wont be your intention when you give only 1 point of Magic to the Mage aspect. There are lots of supportive spells that can really tip the odds to your favor. And with Magic(Spellsplinging) 1 + Spellcasting 5 + Specialisation (favored sort of spells) + 2 ( + maybe a mentor bonus, or foci), thats gonna rain some serious trouble on your opposition.

Same goes for Conjouring, you wont be pumping out Force 6 spirits like a pro, but Force 3 spirits are pretty realistic to get without much of a headache and those little buggers can cause some serious damage/confusion if used right.

Well, the FAQ says differently... http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/faq.shtml#6

Cue derisive comments about FAQ and anyone who even reads it… Heh.

In blatant contradiction of RAW where it says, "for other purposes, such as the maximum rank of adept powers, a mystic adept uses their full magic rating."

I'm AFB, but I'm 90% sure that the underlined section is the example they use in the book.



This is the problem I'm having in a game I'm in now I have 3/2 magic for spell/powers ranked magic and can only reliably pull off a F2 Improved Reflexes spell (which is ok, I didn't have enough money for a F3 sustaining focus, but it does hamper uses occasionally). I did just drop a bunch of karma getting spellcasting up to 6 though.

this is why I wanted dedicated spellslinging.....but the problem now is, I don't have the points left to get spells.

400bp
-25 for oni
-15 magic
-5 Ninjutsu
-200 for attributes
-10 edge
-40 magic
105bps
+5 aspected
+20 uncouth
+10 vindictive (negative qualities not set in stone, just showing max points)
140bps

now i need:

athletics SG
close combat SG
throwing weapons
spellcasting
counterspelling
infiltration
shadowing
perception

Spells

Gear

Contacts

Lifestyle

*sigh*

I'm embarrassed to say I've seen that movie

Tracy Jordan in...Who Dat Ninja?

Drop a single attribute by 1 point, should give you 10 BP which is good for three spells.

(My drake infiltrator has Imp.Reflexes, Camouflage, and Borrow Sense--haven't had a use for that third one yet, but...)

ok, I can't fight it, I'm going mystic adept, but I'd like to put all of my starting points to spellcasting. I don't have the points for assensing or astral combat, and at -4 I'm giving up the ghost.

Do you need the Close Combat skill group?
I'd stick just to Unarmed and Blades, Clubs aren't that ninjariffic, in spite of what TMNT would make you want to believe.
That would save you 2 points per rank.

Aspected is a really painful flaw. For the same points, you could be addicted to harmless chewing gum -- or to stimulants, which could prove quite useful in your early career.

You could also pick Incompetent for magic skills you don't want to use.
This would completely prohibit you using them instead of dumping points into them to do nothing, but it would not interfere with nearly as much skills as Aspected does.

shoot, I guess the munchy thing to do is, drop aspected, and take 15 bp of incompetence in magic skills I'm not gonna use. why is aspected quality so cheap?

close combat SG, i think I should be able to use a staff/ tonfa/ lead pipe, but if it comes down to it I might drop clubs.

how many spells do you think i need, i think i got 5.

levitate
control thoughts(to replace social skills)
acid stream(for doors and drones)
stunball
improved reflexes

Camouflage? Though I suspect you'll just be wearing a steal suit of some kind.

Those are nice if you're a Magician.

For a Ninja, you might want to go all Illusion or Manipulation.

Illusion:
- Improved Invisibility
- Stealth
- Physical Mask
- Chaotic World (for Drones)

Manipulation:
- Shadow
- Magic Fingers
- Shapechange
- Control Thoughts

If you concentrate on spells from one school, you can make the most of a Mentor Spirit & Specialization to economize on BPs.

If I may be frank, the new FAQ is full of shit and directly contradicts itself, and the 4th Anniversary book in several places. (I'm looking at you, Hardy. Your Errata files and FAQs can -definitely- use some work to clean up this fine mess. Give us Aug errata! why wasn't the second printing of street magic Corrected like arsenal and unwired. Bah. A fine mess that people discuss every week, it seems.)

As I've said before, that -particular- post about the Mystic Adept was written in the 2006 FAQ, for Shadowrun 4th Edition, in which Adepts DID INDEED get fucked on the split, and the FAQ clarified that.

Then along came 4th Anniversary, and its glorious backdoored rule changes (scatter, mysadepts, attribute costs, and more.) And the FAQ now contained rulings for rules that weren't true anymore.

Then along came the new FAQ, in 2009, which slapped a bunch of dumb shit in the exact same FAQ page, with no way to tell what was Old and New. It really should have been in a seperate file for Clarity's sake, or at least datestamped - and, as near as I can tell, didn't even bother to check if some FAQs were out of date.

So, basically, the people who wrote the new faq threw the game back half an edition because they didn't bother to double check their junk against the new edition.

Yeah, The timeline of errata and rules changes is rather important to keep in mind. As far as I'm concerned, the FAQ for -fourth- edition is superceded by -anniversary- edition where appropriate. I did save a copy of the old faq, if anyone wants it to cross-reference old rules off the list.