I'm thinking of making a healing/general support shaman character, but can't really think of a good way to go about it (caffeine deprivation). Does anyone have a healer template or build they could toss out there? 400BP or 750 Karma (with race costs=BPx2 and free knowledge points house rules in effect). I'm not looking for the uber twinked out mage (though I certainly won't complain if your suggestion is such), and the character concept I have will NOT be engaging in combat much, if ever.

Just make a standard mage with a mentor like Bear, a few Health spells of choice, and First Aid. Use First Aid at any given opportunity, followed up with a Heal spell. You'll probably want two or three Health Sustaining Foci, too; one for the obligatory Increase Reflexes spell, and one or two more to sustain Heal spells for you until they're made permanent. There you go; a healer. Now you can use the rest of your build points to become a 'general support' character, too. Depending on what you mean by that you can go any number of ways.

Other things to consider picking up:

• Savior Advanced Medkit. You can find it in Augmentation in the nanoware chapter. It boosts your First Aid rolls and gives a few other perks, too.
• Mild addiction to Psyche. Especially if you can't afford multiple Sustaining Foci. You'll be sustaining a lot of spells as a healer (Permanent spells have to be sustained for a token amount of time before they actually become Permanent), and this will help ease that burden. Plus it'll give you a few more points for other things. Pacifist 1 is another good quality for you.
• Look into the various drugs that are available in the game, especially the magical ones, and consider taking a few Knowledge Skills to help you grow/harvest your own at home (Holistic Medicine, Parabotany, Parazoology, etc.). Rock Lizard Blood, for instance, is awesome.
• If you do pick up a weapon, consider either an Ares Squirt or a light pistol with Capsule Rounds. Then take advantage of your potential mastery of drugs that way. DMSO is a hell of a drug.

Also, keep in mind that preventing damage is just another way of healing, too. So you may want to invest heavily in Counterspelling and maybe pick up spells like Barrier, Deflection, and various illusions to help you and your teammates out when push comes to shove. You don't have to be the one attacking to contribute to the fight. You can also pick up Unarmed Combat (Martial Arts) and then look at the various martial arts options in Arsenal, choosing ones that boost your actual self-defense capabilities rather than your offensive ones. Lots of interesting things there.

Perhaps a Wu-jen (Chinese) hermetic mage. They have wood elementals which have the health domain (the only elemental that does).

Spell design is an option to try and create a spell such as instant heal, or heal group (drain is rather big on these so a power focus would definately be neccessary).

Talking SR3 (Dont play SR4 sorry)

As a supporting roll, consider where you will be taking the character. Divination, Reflection, Absorbing & Shielding are all very useful. For personal survivability Channelling your elementals will increase your physical stats considerably.

Spell wise, increase cyber-body, heal and treat (obviously), maybe even increase cybered reaction.
Illusion spells such as Trid Phantasm and Physical Mask can very exceptionally useful.

Armour, Astral and Physical barriers are very useful. Again, if you have spell design and your GM permits, you might be allowed to create a moveable physical & astral barrier.

Still take stunball and/or stunbolt. You may not want to be combat orientated but to not have any offensive measures (particularly when you might get caught on your own) is just asking for a new character. If you still dont like this idea, perhaps go with Control Thoughts. That way you can get your opponents to shoot at each. Combine this with Alter Memory and you can even create your own slaves. Mind Probe could also be useful as a support roll for gathering information for your team.


Regarding other skills, I agree, Biotech with maybe a specialisation in First Aid will come in useful. If not a specialisation it can also be useful for those wounds that you couldnt heal as you can act as the party doctor.

Perhaps invest some resources in a portable medical bay (in the back of a truck).

If you have spare karma, Detox is very useful.

Not sure how my suggestions will translate to SR4, but I hope it is of some assistance.

Don't skimp on Conjuring. Use spirits of Man to cast spells on your team mates. Giving the spirit innate spell Armor is a big boost. Of course you could have the spirit with innate spell heal also.

If I was going to make a support mage I would focus more on Manipulation spells (Glue Strip, Physical Barrier, Levitate) and Illusions rather than healing. Between First aid and a Heal spell from a non-specialized mage, you should be able to get anyone who is still alive back on their feet.

invoke some plant spirits to possess the injured and let them feel regeneration work.

I got this "PACKS" thing somewhere, I can't remember where. Here's a template they have for a mage healer.
MAGICAL HEALER (100 BP)
Requirements: Magician (15 BP) Quality, or Mystic Adept (10 BP) Quality and the Astral Perception adept power.
Active Skills (72): Assensing 4 (Mystical Healing3 +2) [18], Biotech Group 2 [20], Enchanting 4 (Mystical Healing3
+2) [18], Spellcasting 4 [16]
Knowledge Skills (2): Massage 1 [2]
Spells (24): Antidote [3], Awaken1 [3], Cure Disease [3], Diagnose1 [3], Heal [3], Resist Pain [3], Stabilize [3], Stim1
[3]
Gear (2): Assaying kit1 [500¥], medkit (6, 8 refills of medkit supplies) [1,000¥], pouch of herbs (10 refined herbal
reagents1) [1,000¥], bottle of dried frog pills (15 refined animal reagents1) [1,500¥], 2 trauma patches [500¥], Magical
First Aid Handbook (spell formulae for Alleviate Allergy1, Antidote, Awaken1, Cure Disease, Diagnose1, Heal,
Nutrition1, Resist Pain, Stabilize, Stim1) [5,000¥]

Elf Mystic Adept + Mentor Spirit (Great Mother) + Shinto Tradition + Health spells (Heal, Detox, ect) + Empathic Healing = what you want.

Except for the bit about wanting to be a Shaman and all.

Shinto are basically just Japanese shaman. They're still into the spirits and all that.

And yet they're still not Shamans.

well, does he want a Shamanistic or a shamanistic Character?

I was going for a mageling that heals. He doesn't have to be a "shaman" in the strictest sense, just a character that's more focused on healing wounds than other things.


And thanks for all the replies.

The "Quick Healer" positive quality on SR4A p92 gives a +2 to all Healing Tests made on/for/by the character including magical healing.
It wont do anything in a fight and at 10bp isn't cheap but its good for long term care if that comes up a lot. [implanting ware, anyone?]

For short term care on critically wounded patients consider things that mitigate Drain (for one essence point a Trauma Damp and Platelet Factory give the equivalent of 6 drain dice since they mitigate Overcasting drain by 2) and also look at things that add to the casting of the healing spell (EG: Bound Spirit services, Home Ground [My Van's Mobile Clinic], Power Focus, Specialization in Health spells, services to Aid Sorcery by bound spirits.)

Ritual Sorcery is interesting for a non-optimized character. Spend hours in your Home Ground healing someone taken prisoner.

For damage mitigation on others consider the armor spell, the spirit power "Guard" which even by a force 1 spirit negates glitches. Also consider the Electrical Aura spell for casting on spirits and your sammie friend (a stunned melee combatant doesn't hit as accurately) and look at toxins that cause nausea and stun damage. Nausea doubles wound modifiers. Both of the toxin effects 'Disorientation' and 'Paralysis' cause a stacking -2 penalty to all actions. The more an enemy can't land blows the less you'll have to heal later. Chaotic World with massive counterspelling makes everything harder for an affected enemy. The counterspelling is for that dumbass friend that charges into it.

Suppressive fire with narcojet is pretty good against opponents without a spiked dodge or high Edge. It can remove lower powered henchmen while you're group handles the big baddies and if you spend an edge you've just made tons of incoming damage decrease either through wound modifiers or denial of sightlines to your team. Just remember to have your team toss some stun or gas grenades when they see you using suppressive fire so the fight gets *ended* and not just extended.

Lastly, most of the new spirits in Street Magic have counterspelling. Use two of them to aid you, or get a big spirit and aid *it*. That way you mitigate incoming spells.