I'm just about to start a run, and I was wondering if anyone could give me a evoking(hermetic?) mage in a nutshell. Primary stats, a little gear, how spells work, I know hacking well and everything in this game seems to cross over pretty well so I should comprehend. Much thanks to anyone who helps out.

*bump*

I'm about to log off for the night and spend time with my newborn son (7 days old now), so I'm bumping this up for the rest of the community to rally behind. Sorry for the late look (something like seven hours after your post), but sometimes it takes us a bit of time to get to things.

Hmm.. I'm prolly not the most qualified, but I do know that mages use Logic + Willpower vs shamans who use Charisma + Willpower. Everything about the two are the same skill-wise as far as I know (Spellcasting group [spellcasting, ritual spellcasting, counterspelling] & Conjuring group [summoning, binding, banishing). Beyond that, its all about what you want your mage to do. If you want to make your own fetishes, foci and alike, you would need enchanting. I'll have to go back and read the core rulebook and Street Magic to recall any more.

(DOUBLE POST)

Congratulations Neraph...

Just out of curiousity, what do you mean by an evoking mage? Are we using D&D terms here where evoker = full on blaster spells? Mechanically, everything for magicans, whether blasters or utility mages or combat healer types, works the same, only the spells change.

I should have gotten to this sooner. Your typical wagemage NPC will have the following attributes:

Body 2-4
Agility 2-3
Reaction 2-3
Strength 2-3
Intuition 3-4
Charisma 2-3
Logic 3-4
Willpower 3-4
Edge 1-2
Magic 3-5 (mages are rare enough, mages with a high Magic score are even rarer)

They'll typically have an implanted commlink, maybe a Cerebral Booster 1 (which adds to drain dice), cybereyes for vision enhancements that let them cast on targets they can see through low-light/thermographic vision.

Your typical /PC/ hermetic mage will look something like this:

Body 5
Agility 3
Reaction 3
Strength 2
Charisma 2
Intuition 3
Logic 5
Willpower 5
Magic 6 (reduced to 5)

Qualities:
Magician
Restricted Gear 2

Cyber/Bio:
Cybereyes with low-light vision, thermographic vision, vision enhancement 3, smartlink
Cerebral Booster 3 (bought via Restricted Gear)
Power Focus Force 4 (bought via Restricted Gear)

Spellcasting 6
Counterspelling 4
Summoning 1 or 4
Binding 1 or 4
Pistols 1 or 4
Perception 1 or 4
Assensing 1 or 4

A Connection 3/Loyalty 3 Fixer
A Connection 6/Loyalty 3 Talismonger

Ends up with 15 dice to cast any spell and resists drain with 13 dice.

As with any character, the benefits of getting at least 1 Essence worth of cyber/bioware far outweigh the loss of not being able to cast Force 6/12 spells by giving you the ability to cast in more situations at Force 5/10.

As for how spells work, it's pretty much point-and-click: As a Complex Action, choose a spell, choose a Force to cast it at, choose a target or area, roll your Spellcasting pool (Spellcasting+Magic+Appropriate Foci bonuses), note your hits. Target rolls Body or Willpower depending on the spell (Physical spells resisted by Body, Mana spells resisted by Willpower) plus Counterspelling if any (if a friendly mage is defending them with Counterspelling, or if the mage himself is a target since they can ALWAYS defend themselves with counterspelling). Net hits determine effect.

For instance:
PC Mage casts Stunball Force 5 on a group containing a Troll Street Sam, a Dwarf Rigger, and an Elven Magician and gets 4 hits.
The Magician probably is protecting his teammates with Counterspelling, so the Street Sam and Rigger add the magician's Counterspelling dice (Counterspelling skill only) to their Willpower tests dice pool. The Street Sam gets 2 hits and takes 6 Stun damage (Force 5 + 2 net hits, first net hit counts only for effect). The Rigger gets 4 hits and takes no damage (fully resisted the spell, no net hits). The Magician gets 5 hits, takes no damage.
The PC Mage now has to resist (5/2)+1 or 3 drain. He rolls Logic + Willpower and gets 2 hits, so takes 1 Stun damage from the drain on his own spell.

I don't think your *typical* PC will have double Restricted Gear (inc. Power Focus 4, natch), cyber-dip off max Magic, etc. That's certainly a possible build, and aspects of it are common-ish.

Agreed... I would think that not many mages would WILLINGLY get augmentations once they have awakened.

YEAH!!! I remember those days with the newborns... not a lot of sleep then. And I did it twice!

What were you thinking, you Poor Soul...
I only have one... Still not a lot of sleep, and he is much older than a newborn.

This one is my second, and my wife has more sleepless nights than I do (but that's because I can't breastfeed him...).

In any event: have you looked at the sample characters from the book? There's also someone's signature floating around here with additional archetypes linked in it. And don't forget your Cheat Sheets; they make everything easier.

[hijack] yes, but they are 20 and 23 now so that was a long time ago... and sometimes I still don't get a lot of sleep [/hijack]

I tend to disagree with this, mainly because I focus more on the transhumanist aspect of Shadowrun than I guess most people do. From a mechanical standpoint, there is very little you can do with Magic 6 that you can't do with Magic 5 /and/ there's more you can do with a few bits and pieces of cyber/bioware. From a story standpoint, augmentations are very commonplace, to the point where nobody even looks twice at someone with an obvious cyberarm unless it's painted neon blue and has anti-establishment slogans on it. Even Awakened characters suffer the same accidents non-Awakened people do, including limb loss, which is easy and cheap to replace with cybernetics. A cyberlimb or cybereyes might hit an Awakened character magically, but they've got to live in the same world with non-Awakened people too, and a lot of the time that requires having all limbs working - and cloned replacements are /expensive as hell/.

I agree. Every character I make usually ends up with cybereyes and ears. And for a mage the ability to target people off in a distance using vision magnification is great, or targeting with thermo or low-light. And lord knows you have to have flare comp for the flashbangs!

*coughs*

Certainly your choice, but I have played many a Mage with no Enhancements and they have worked out just fine.
Enhancements are nice, but definitely not necessary.

Limb loss doesn't seem all that common, and you're not suggesting any cyberlimbs anyway. Magic 6 mages are crazy valuable, so I'm sure they/their sponsors can afford the tiny extra fee (cyberlimb is 15k/20k; cloned limb is 21k).

I was only saying that I wouldn't tell the OP that such a build is 'typical'.

If you are optimizing, the most critical question becomes "what are you doing with the character?" There are lots of ways to add value to the mage through secondary or tertiary characteristics, some of which is through cyberware and bioware.

The problem is in that you have to drop dice from your hits pool for many of these, whether it be because you spread BP around in char gen, or because you took cyberware and lost essence. So is 1 dice you lost really worth it?

First thing I would consider is that the loss of Magic just dropped your max Force and Overcast Force. The last can be truly painful that one time your drain roll comes up short, and it's physical damage rather than stun.

The second is the total number of hits you can generate on a spellcasting check. Foci help mitigate this, and while you may be flirting with Overcasting, NOT having one means you'll be in the sub-par spell-hits range. Certain spells rely on having plenty of net hits to help them function adequately, and some that you may not even truly need extra hits on.



In my opinion, RelentlessImp presents a very good typical build for a more diverse mage.

He will be dealing with Force 5 spells, instead of 6, unless he wants to overcast. He has more dice to resist drain than a non-cybered mage of a typical build, and the ability to target using cybereye upgrades, since they were a body replacement he payed essence for.

You may also see mages with lower casting pools who focus heavily on Drain resistance and Initiative Passes rather than straight casting: less effective spells (potentially), but the ability to cast more often. However, if he risks overcasting because he has a lower Force otherwise, and flubs a drain resist roll, the results could be very bad.