Does this look balanced? This is sort of a field test of some houserules for making free spirit PCs. The idea is that the character is an Asian-style angry ghost of sorts. I'm using this as a backup character in a Minneapolis-St. Paul campaign. Basically, she was a Hmong woman with exceptionally valuable organs for some reason (genetweaking?) and she got kidnapped and vivisected by Tamanous. In Hmong culture, it's bad news to be buried without all your parts, hence them never being organ donors. So she cannot rest until she gets all her organs back, and in the meantimes is tearing Tamanous and everybody else a new one. She's running essentially for revenge.

The build, the idea is that she delivers Death Touches at melee range and is essentially a melee combatant that can port around. Again, Ringu is an inspiration here. I gave up on the idea of using a sword or something; I think this works better. What do you make of it?

The Wraith
Free Spirit point cost 100 BP

Total Attributes 150 BP
Force/Magic 5 (30)
Strength 2 (0)
Body 4 (20)
Agility 4 (20)
Reaction 4 (20)
Charisma 4 (20)
Intuition 2 (0)
Logic 2 (0)
Willpower 4 (20)
Edge 4 (20)

Spirit Powers 4 power points
Accident (.5)
Fear (1.5)
Shadow Cloak (1)
Silence (1)

Qualities 10 BP
Magician (racial, Hmong tradition, Will+Cha)
Spirit Pact (racial)
Focused Concentration 2 (20)
Guts (5)
Nasty Vibe (5)
Critter Spook (-5)
Poor Self Control:Vindictive (-10)
Vendetta (-5)

Spells total 24 BP
Death Touch
Poltergeist
Wreck Vehicle
Shattershield
Mindlink
Agony
Dream
Interference

Active Skills 102 BP
Unarmed 3 (+2 touch attacks) (14)
Assensing 4 (16)
Counterspelling 5 (20)
Spellcasting 5 (20)
Perception 4 (16)
Intimidation 4 (16)

Gear 10000 Y (2 BP)
Sustaining Focus F1 10000Y (to maintain Mindlink)

Contacts 12 BP
Talismonger C3L3
Fixer C4L2

Sorry, what's the sustaining focus for? What happened to 250 BP?

That's the houserules that are being tested here. See sabs post here And the sustaining focus is just so she can have mindlink running all the time and stay in communication with the team without taking spell penalties (she needs to be able to overcast some to kill people quick with Death Touch, so penalties are bad)

That's the houserules that are being tested here. See sabs post here And the sustaining focus is just so she can have mindlink running all the time and stay in communication with the team without taking spell penalties (she needs to be able to overcast some to kill people quick with Death Touch, so penalties are bad)

Er, no. I meant 'how does a spirit have a sustaining focus?'. Even in that thread, I don't see anything changing that rule.

I wasn't aware it even was a house rule to *not* let Force raise all attribs, given how utterly insane that is. Good times.

She has the other guy hold onto it? Does that work? As long as it's bonded to her....oh shit I forgot to calculate that in. :/ Whatever, I'll work it in.

Still no. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to mess with you, but they can't bond foci at all. … And you can't let someone hold your bonded focus anyway.

Honestly, you'd think there'd be a Mindlink critter power.

Dragonspeech?

"Spirits may not bond foci." I'm retarded. Good call. Also, I forgot to pay for lifestyle. What am I doing??

That said, otherwise does this look like it'd be a balanced member of a team?

Well, no. It sounds like a crazed revenge ghost, man! That's not exactly a team player. Love the theme. But, yes, it looks like your basic immortal teleporting spellcaster; should be fun. It's exactly the same as what I understand to be a RAW Free Spirit, with more skills, spells, and attribs.

I agree that this character is definbtively not a team player : by her playbook, any mission not against Tamanus is likely to be viewed as a waste of time and effort, unless it let her secure some definite ressources/informations/whatever that's going to help with her goal.

Also any charcter who says something like 'stuff it, there's no way I'm gonna bump heads with those frigging Tamanous guys. With bad luck I'll end up as ghoul chow, with worse luck, I'm gonna end up a ghoul myself. Screw it' is likely to be attacked thanks to her poor impulse control.

To make things even worse, ebing a free spirit that character will have no qualms at using suicide-based tactics - sure blowing yourself up with an explosive belt means a month out of action, but who cares if you take out a major Tamanus boos or operation ?. That's not going to get along very well with mere mortal characters who catch the spillover.

Basically the hassles this characters brings along aren't worth whatever mojo it can bring to bear.

IT would make a rather nat NPC though.

One last thought : Tamanous being what they are, it means the missing bits (well, those who aren't ghoul crap...) will be grafted into peoples. Depending on who they are and the hows and whys they used Tamanous's services, recovering them is likely to mean straight murder, in a few cases (say a minor who got the graft through his parents) of smeone who basically had no say in the matter. That's going to bring a whole new set of ennemies to bear along with Tamanous. It can also alienate the other player's characters.

Yeah, I may have to tweak the backstory some, at the very least. I figured other runs she might be into just to assemble resources, but that's when I thought she could bind foci, lol. And yeah, definitely the darker end of the morality spectrum. So maybe this won't be workable, but I'm very much still playing with it.

I just realized I took the wrong Poor Self Control. Meant to take Combat Monster. Oops.

Not necessarily unworkable, but this will depends *a lot* of your table's other characters.

There is no doubt about that one. Sounds like a character that will work well in a Small Group, though.

Aren't most Shadorunners group small ?

The trick here, as Manunancy said, is that we have a character with a pretty specific goal pitting her against a powerful antagonist, not much moral restriction about the ways to get things done, and some very uncommon advantages and weaknesses. No matter what the table size, thare are some character concepts that simply will not work together with this one.

Another problem I've briefly mentionned is that for every bit that'd been grafted and gets recovered, there are good odds you'll get a brand new ennemy along with Tamanous. Depending on who got those organs, it can get out ouf hand rather quickly.
A spirit who's mostly living in the astral and can zip away from most troubles in a matter of seconds won't care much about it, but flesh and bones characters with material possessions, families and generally a life might find it harder.

There's also a slight problem : with Tamanous's way of disposing of the unsellable bits, a significant part of her body will now be ghoul crap and irrecoverable. Which means that even if she gets all the grafted bits together, she'll still be a far cry from a whole body. Meaning the whole 'get my parts back' deal and the problems it brings will have been for well, nothing. At which point one can expect the others PCs to get a bit pissed.

Well, I have seen Groups as small as 2, and as large as 10. For the record, 10 is WAY to many. I prefer group size to be about 5 or so.

I think this may just apply to organs, conceptually speaking, but I guess I'll dig a little deeper research wise and find out.

You can always 'cheat'. I doubt too many Hmong will care if your character in 2070 SR is slightly inaccurate.

Hehh.... How Scandalous !!!!

But I kinda figure if I'm doing that I might as well just bastardize some culture I know nothing about (which seems to be how SR usually works...)

Agreed. You should do that. Is there a problem?