I am Creating a religious Houngan right now, who servers his Loa. Not sure which Loa it should be, perhaps you can help me out with that too.
But for the moment i try to create him and have some BP-Troubles.
What can i leave away, what should i add? The BP costs are way to high.

Metatype : Elf
Magician

Attributes
Body: 4
Agility: 3
Reaction: 3
Strength: 2
Charisma: 7
Intuition: 3
Logic: 3
Willpower: 5

Edge: 2
Magic: 5
Initiative: 6
Essence: 6

Active Skills
Counterspelling : 4
Ritual Spellcasting : 4
Spellcasting : 4
Disguise : 2
Inflitration : 2
Palming : 2
Shadowing : 2
Con : 2
Etiquette : 2
Leadership : 2
Negotiation : 2
Climbing : 2
Gymnastics : 2
Running : 2
Swimming : 2
Pistols : 2
Dodge : 2
Leadership : 2
Pilot Ground Craft (Bike) : 1
Dodge : 2
Summoning (Other spirits) : 4
Binding : 3

Knowledge Skills
: N
Literature : 2
Gangs : 1
Art : 2
Club Music : 2
Black Markets (Magical Items) : 2
Spell Design : 2
World Religions : 4
Magic Background (Path of Voodoo) : 2

Positive Qualities
Mentor Spirit
Restricted Gear

Negative Qualities
Addiction, moderate (psyche)
Sensitive System
Signature

Equipments
Power Focus (Rating 4)
Magical Lodge Materials (Rating 6)

Spells
Stunbolt
Increase [Charisma]
Increase [Willpower]
Increase Reflexes
Heal
Mind Probe
Improved Invisibility
Control Actions
Mob Mood
Control Thoughts
Influence
Levitate
Fashion
Dream
Alter Memory
Foreboding

Contacts
Talisman (L:3 C:2)

Contacts
Schieber (L:2 C:3)

First of all, there's no such thing as a "voodoo shaman". The correct term is houngan. If you follow Voudoun, that is- the tradition from Street Magic is intended to be used for other syncretistic religions from Latin America as well, such as Santeria or Candomblé.
So if you'd prefer a Cuban, Atztlaner or Amazonian character over a francophone one, it wouldn't be a problem.

My favorite loa has always been Legba (who is usually represented as Owl in SR4), followed closely by Ghede, but that's just personal preference and there's obviously other options as well. If you can still find a copy of Awakenings (SR2) somewhere, it had some very nice fluff texts for Voudoun.
If you don't, a quick google search will lead you to a bunch of texts on Voudoun, Santeria and Candomblé, most likely including descriptions of the loa/santos, which will be useful to add some flavor to the character. That's the advantage of basing magical traditions on actually existing religions- you aren't restricted to RPG supplements in your research.

Mechanically, the loas that would work best for your character would likely be Shango, Lord of Thunder (Sky Father), Erzulie the Passionate (Seductress), Legba, the Old Man at the Crossroads (Owl), or Ogoun, the Iron Warrior (Wise Warrior).

Question...

1. I notice that you have Groups listed as their Individual Skills. Did you pay for them as Group Costs or Individual Costs?
- Sorcery Group
- Athletics Group
- Stealth Group
- Influence Group
If you used Individual Costs, you can recoup a few points by re-figuring on Group Costs.

2. You have too many Spells, you are only allowed to have 2x your Highest Spellcasting Skill in Spells, in your case, you get 8, not 14...

3. I would reduce your Power focus to Force 2, and recover the money and BP expended for that and use it elsewhere. This would also recover the BP for the Restricted Gear Quality.

4. What is the "Other Spirits" Specialty for Summoning? What does it cover? Is it for attempting to re-summon someone else's banished Spiris? If so, you forgot the skill for such attempts. You cannot attempt it unless you have been the one to Banish the spirit. You need the Banishing Skill for that. I would change the Specialty to a preferred Spirit of your Tradition. Particularly towards the affinity that your Mentor Represents.

Those were the things I immediately noticed.
Not a bad looking character otherwise.

As for your Mentor. I have always liked either Legba or Erzuli myself. Of course, the Baron Samedi is also a bit interesting as well.

I bought them as Groups.
The ammount of spells.. yeah, did not think about that, which would you erease?

The Other spirits is just for that the programm did not know the new Spirits. Thought about Guardian or Guidance..

- For the Skills. I was pretty sure, but just wanted to make sure.
- For Spells, I would focus on the Mentor Ideal, so what would ultimately go would depend upon which Loa you were serving.
- I am a big fan of the Guidance Spirits myself (it is Voodo after all).

When I was playing my Voudon Necromancer, I did a lot of research. It was quite illuminating.

I wouldn't. You can never bind a Power Focus cheaper than at CharGen. Also you are probably unlikely to encounter one of a higher Force than 4 in game. So you won't need another one (unless it is lost or destroyed)

I've had fun playing a houngan with Damballa (Snake) as a Mentor Spirit.

the skills at the group one you can definedly leave away.
Group 2 you could also leave away, if you don't have enought buildpoints to go around.

Different Choices I guess. You can always Enchant your own in game, so "Encountering Them" is never a real problem.

This however requires another investment in the Enchanting Skill. It does not mitigate the problem that a Force 4 Power Focus costs 32 Karma but only 4 BP.

True... I just see it as a waste, personally.

Well, the powerfocus.
Chargen: 5BP(quality)+20BP(Money)+4BP(Binding)=29BP
Later: 8*4=32 Karma...

@ Irion : true, but you'd need the same amount of money ingame, so it's kinda misleading to simply include it in the equation like that.

You could obviously just look for a Force 6+ focus ingame (it's not as if a good connection couldn't get you Availability 30 items with some time), the bigger problem would be having 48 karma to spare to bind it once the game starts.
Personally, i find it more tempting to go for something slightly less powerful and only invest 9 BP for binding it and getting Restricted Gear.
48 points are a huge chunk of karma, particularly for a karma sink like a mage.
Could be enough for an ally spirit (which beats a Force 6 power focus in my opinion, it's like an unlimited number of sustaining foci that aren't restricted by your Logic attribute and the rules for focus addiction).

You may save a tiny bit by not investing in ALL of:
spellcasting skills
infiltration and disguise skills
social skills
gun skills
defense skills
athletic skills
vehicle skills
and crafting skills

Are you trying to create a powerful character, or a balanced character? If you need all those skills to consider yourself balanced, then it's impossible to have it both ways.

To be completely honest, if I were running with you, I would pay you half my reward to keep you from taking most of those checks. You'd probably kill me accidentally while trying to plant a flower.

Perhaps some of them, but ritual spelcasting is a RP thing.. I just need it.


Some of them are just what a everyday people need.. Even a Mage needs some infiltration and a way to drive himself to the Job.

I'd say keep the skill list. It's not as if you'd be actually scarce on points (particularly when you have to dump 6 of your spells anyway, giving you 18 more BP to spend).

With a good spell selection that's supported strongly by your loa and with some clever spirit use, your character would be a valuable addition to every team, while not being caught pants-down in situations where he doesn't have magical support due to BGC and the like.

I'd drop Dodge, though, unless your GM is really keen on not allowing Gymnastic Dodge in a lot of situations.

Of course, task and guardian spirits could indeed replace many of your skills. The infiltration stuff could be helped greatly by Concealment, but 3 extra dice in this regard won't hurt if you have particularly perceptive opponents (read : the kind you absolutely don't want to fail an opposed test against).

In any case, i'd stick with all of the social skills. With your high Charisma, there's good synergies in this regard and they'd help you in situations where resorting to magic would be really inappropriate.
If you drop any skills, select some of those where you're stuck with just 4 or 5 dice anyway and invest the points you get from that in a little bit more Edge.

1.Okey if it's part of the character then thats fine, that succestion was only based on what isn't really needed to have a functioning mage.

2. I agree with infiltration, but as a mage you don't really need the rest of that skill group.
As for driving to the work, that shouldn't really need any skill tests, so driving skill isn't absolutely needed, but nice to have if you have the points for it.


For a mage character like this i would personally rather keep the dodge and drop the whole athletic skill group.

Palming might be useful if you want to hide something, though. Your power focus, a gun for when you're possessed by a Guardian Spirit, the McGuffin you just picked up seconds before the corp scientist enters the room etc.
Obviously, there's magical ways around that, too, but there's plenty of situations where it's better to hide the gun the normal way than casting Influence on a bouncer/secguard.



I used to think the same. In fact, everyone in my group thought the same.
Then we where stuck in a giant, foreign sprawl with horrible traffic conditions without any character having a single vehicle skill and my mage noted that he could still drive as he had only drunken 3 beers that day. At least as long as "that day" only referred to the time zone they where in right now.
Next run, we had a rigger on the team.



Levitation only gets you that far. Of course, you could just summon a task spirit if you have to run from something, but that's exactly one of the situations where spending two turns to summon and command a spirit may not be an option. This may be less of an issue when it comes to Swimming, but still.

Now, i also tend to houserule that no one needs to bother with Dodge anyway and should rather focus on his character not being a couch potato (read : buying at least one point in the Athletics group). Shadowrunning is a physically demanding task, some basic athletic skills are entirely in order in this line of work.

In the end, arguing for and against the skills that aren't absolutely vital gets pretty metagamy, as their usefulness depends entirely on how the GM handles these things and what kinds of tests he calls for. There are, without a doubt, groups where the GM won't let you go Jacky Chan if you get shot at. There's also groups where an Athletics test is never called for. Just as there's groups that handle things in an exactly opposite way.

1.I'll give you that, but still not really worth it for a mage to pick up the whole skill group
2.Actually pretty much all my characters have at least Pilot Ground Craft (spec) 1, my point was just that you don't really need it, especially if all you want to do is normal driving around the city.

My current group has a single wheelman. She drives everyone to the job.

What you could leave out:
Infiltration, Athletics, driving etc.
If you are face and magic guy you have to stick to it if you go with BP chargen.
As I look ar your character and your expection you should probably take a look at Karma Gen.