So, my GM shot down a good few of my concepts (I guess he did not want a vampire, and I am going to have to pass on any other infected.) But again I come to you guys for some ideas, since I need someone to bounce ideas off but I do not want to talk with my fellow players, ruins the surprises.

Books I can use:
20th Core Book
Arsenal
Augmentation
Running Wild
Runner's Companion
Street Magic
Unwired

400 BP is the start, and for races I am going between human or Gnome.

I am restricted to level 12 stuff.

I also do not have access to the restricted gear Positive Quality. (The one that lets you get gear above availability 12.)

After basic creation I then have 107 Karma, and 114,840 Nuyen after the 400 in character creation.

Story: The character was former Corp Mage(I need to choose one, I am expecting something like Lonestar), who would go out into the field essentially asa combat mage. The character did something to piss the boss off, and the boss put them on a lot of shitty jobs as punishment and was in general making my Characters job suck. So eventually PC gets fed up with it, and in anger identically does something that gets there Corporate SIN burned/turned into a Criminal Sin, and my PC, due to this now has to Run the Shadows to live in the lifestyle they wanted, and they always enjoyed the thrill of field work, just another reason to keep them going.

This was a general idea I was going with as I try to find a concept for why my Mage would be running. I welcome discussion about Mages (I will be using Spirits), Traditions, potential builds and the lot. I am will to use up to 1 Essence in Cyber/Bioware.

Special Rules:
Do not worry about Contact Costs
Essence Loss only reduces maximum Magic
Armor Encumbrance threshold Bod+Str

Most of our other special rules should not have a great effect.

I will be back later to add more as needed and discuss then but I wanted to get this up tonight.

Fun with Free/Ally Spirits!
Vehicles, Drones, and Agents
Mandatory matrix tools for infiltrators, street samurai, and gunslingers, or...
Commlink security for non-hackers
Drone Sweet Drone

... To get started.

More information would help if we had your character build to look at.

like neraph said, not a WHOLE lot of info. if your looking for broad build advice I would suggest heavy on the magic and grabbing some automatics and an assault rifle /smartgun link and glasses. power focus R4. you got enough karma for about 3 initiations it seems if you want that many. but more info on your build would be helpful

like neraph said, not a WHOLE lot of info. if your looking for broad build advice I would suggest heavy on the magic and grabbing some automatics and an assault rifle /smartgun link and glasses. power focus R4. you got enough karma for about 3 initiations it seems if you want that many. but more info on your build would be helpful

like neraph said, not a WHOLE lot of info. if your looking for broad build advice I would suggest heavy on the magic and grabbing some automatics and an assault rifle /smartgun link and glasses. power focus R4. you got enough karma for about 3 initiations it seems if you want that many. but more info on your build would be helpful

o wow, howd that triple post happen O.o

I'm afb right now, but I'm pretty sure you can only get a rating 2 power focus without restricted gear.
A little cyber is nice, but you can get a lot more magical bang spending the money on foci, without screwing up your max magic. As in a rating 3 health sustaining focus sustaining 3 hits worth of a improved initiative spell is equal to wired reflexes 2, without being illegal. A rating 2 power focus gives you +2 to most magic related rolls. You can get a rating 3 or 4 casting focus for a spell category. +2 + +4 = +6. With magic of 6, spell casting of 6 and specialization or totem bonuses, that's 20 dice.

For overall concept, I usually like to pick a totem and build from there. Specialize in what the totem gives you a boost in. If you're a good spellcaster, rolling 12 - 14 dice or so in general, but roll 20 for manipulation spells, your character would be a sought after commodity. Same with conjuring. And I like to build the personality around the totem as well. I'm not a great role-player, but I get bonus points for scratching behind my ear, or giving a low warning growl if I'm playing a Dog shaman. Little stuff like that. There's good write-ups in one of the earlier books about the personalities of the totems and their followers.

As others have already said, for anything specific more info would be needed.

With the substantial amount of karma available, getting 20+ dice for drain resist is also an option: centering, R2 centering focus, quickening (two stats to 9) gets you 22, for a reasonably low cost (29 for initiations, 18 for quickenings, and a bit for the focus). With the max essence houserule, you could get some 'ware on top of that for good effect.

If you use the RAW initiation rules, where you have to initiate to raise your max, then improve your magic attribute as a stat, it's crazy not to start out with a magic of 6.

Not really... do it all the time.

Foci don't stack.


Just because you make it work doesn't mean it isn't the statistically weaker position.

Right. I guess I knew that. But my point holds up. For a mage, foci are, mostly, better than cyber.

Well I had not really done abuild yet since that was some of the advice I was looking for. I had started one last night and I will finish it right now and post up what I am looking at Pre Karma

If I can make it work, surely more experienced guru's like yourself should have absolutely no issues with doing so either, right?

Correct, but being able to do something and willing to suffer through something are two different things. It's similar to creating a gunman with only one arm - his offhand one. Sure you can do it, but it is sub-optimal in an extreme. I've even recently made a mundane summoner using the Calling rules, a Formula Pact, and having the spirit as a Contact. It's a very interesting character, but not one I see myself playing often.

See, there you go again, making assumptions without a basis in fact. Who is suffering, exactly? Certainly not the characters I play, nor myself as a Player, so I am a bit confused here. Care to enlighten the rest of us dumb hicks?

You are doing that on purpose, right?

You may want to take a look at the Burnout Combat Mage in the first link of my sig for a starting point. Change Dwarf to Gnome, you get Magic 4 and pay 10 less points than listed, lose Restricted Gear and maybe consider dropping that power focus (IMO, f2 is not worth starting with - bond a better one in game). You'd then have some leftover points to spend.

Given that you're getting karma/nuyen after the base generation, I would actually start with no foci during chargen and bond a f4 sustaining focus (for Increase Reflexes) immediately, then save up for a good high-force Power Focus.

You'll have a decent amount of loose BP; Reaction, Edge, Binding, Arcana (so you can join a magical group - you'd really want to start out doing so with the banked karma, so I'd check with your GM about that) and better skills in general are all good places to put it.

Thanks Umaro, I will look it over.

I see gnomes mentioned fairly frequently what is it that makes them so attractive?

First question: Do you want to use a materialization or possession based tradition?
Materialization: Allows you to spontaneously summon spirits to your aid, while keeping your character out of the fray. Nothing says Alpha strike like 6 spirits laying the smackdown on some unsuspecting chum.
Possession: Grants access to a very versatile skillset with the option of making your character very tough, at the cost of needing vessels for spirits to contribute. Generally, this means that you need to take the Enchanting skill if you wish to have more than one spirit participate in an activity at the same time.

My personal preference for combat mages is possession, but both can work well.

Second question: Which traditions do you prefer? Specifically, which drain attribute (other than Willpower) do you want?
Charisma: Not easily boostable (other than drugs, optional rules or the Increase Charisma spell), but Elves get a nice +2 bonus to it, making it the highest drain related attribute bonus in the game among the standard metatypes. Charisma has synergy with social skills, allowing you to pick up the role of face if you want to. It also determines the maximum number of bound spirits you can have. Strong traditions include Voodoo (Possession), Norse (Materialization) and Shinto (Materialization), although the standard Shamanistic is also viable.
Intuition: Very hard to boost, and no standard metatype has a bonus to this attribute. The plus side is that only trolls get a penalty, allowing you to have a viable Orc combat mage, which can be very tough. Also, Intuition is linked to both Perception and Initiave, two of the most important values for combat oriented characters. Strong traditions include Hedge Witchcraft (possession) and Druidic (materialization).
Logic: Easily boostable thanks to Cerebral boosters. The downside is that skill synergies tend to be somewhat non-traditional, making Hardware, First Aid and Demolitions good choices. The strongest mechanical choice for a Logic mage is Dwarf/Gnome, since they get a Willpower bonus. Strong traditions include Qabbalistic (Possession) and Zoroastrian (Materilaization).

Those choices will have a large impact on the overall style and feel of the character, while always being a viable choice for a combat mage. That said, here are some pointers that always apply:
-Get loaded on foci during chargen. You pay through the nose when binding those with Karma, so go wild during chargen. I recommend a F2 Power Focus (applies to almost everything) and a F3 Sustaining Focus (Healing spells; for Iniative passes) as the bare minimum.
-Hardmax magic at chargen. As others have mentioned, your houserules heavily favor this approach. Specifically, start with Magic 6, use some of the Karma to Initiate, and then buy your 'ware with the money you have. This way, you'll lose nothing.
-Spells that are always useful: Stunbolt, Increase Reflexes and Heal. Everything else boils down to flavor. Most of the spells I've listed in your Vampire thread apply here too.





Arcane Arrester. And you get to look like a child.

Doing What? Making a point? Yes, I was making a point, on purpose.

Arcane Arrestor. Resist spells at half force? Yes please.

Would you kindly pick up that duck?

The vampire thread did teach me a lot, I was disappointed when it got shot down.

Probably should not have been surprised, however.

Pssh, the real power of gnomes is being four times as dense and eight times as strong as humans, even after accounting for proportional strength.

He said be fine if we were playing 2070s, but since it is an earlier time period I did see it coming. And two PCs have things against Vampires, haha.

They don't have to know.

@Neraph
Well, there is no TN given for finding out he is a vampire and the descriptions are not very extensive.
If you go after the pictures given in RC (unfortuantly the only RAW source we have), it seems quite obvious...

The character does not need to appear to be his true self.

He is a mage, yes? Illusion spells, no? Disguise, maybe? Dude of 1K Faces, perhaps if Mystic Adept?

It is not all that difficult to appear other than what he is.

A hint for the future: discuss character concepts openly with everyone around. That way, you can make sure no builds characters that hate your character. Years of that other game and Paladins have taught me such

That said, have you made up your mind yet about the character's tradition?

Most important thing to remember around any table: You're playing with your friends, not against them, applies double if you're a GM.
One of the thing I realised growing from an ugly munchkin bud and blossoming into someone people actually want to be around ^^

What do you have against Paladins? And is it Paladins or people who play them Lawful Stupid?

From my experience its more often then not the GM forcing people down the path of lawful stupid rather then the players grasping the idiot ball.
Everytime someone mention code of conduct I tend to shove the book of exalted deeds down their throats, tend to resolve the argument... Tis hard to talk with a book in your mouth.

I'm sorry your experiences were so bad - my Exalted Deeds Paladin was awesome and did not affect the group too terribly much, although the fact we were fighting evil superdragons who were trying to destroy the Material Plane may have helped...

The problem usually stem from the GM not having read the first chapter of BoED, Personally... I have a bad track record of paladin characters.
Let see here...
My Psychic warrior/Holy liberator accidentally killed the other paladin in the group (He was wrestling a Yeti), His constant bickering about me using blood magic to lessen his depatterning made me convinced that he wasn't really concerned with the greater good and I decided to end him, permanently.
Long story short, I made a pact with a horror took over a village of orcs by killing their warchief and gained access to two blood magic artifacts in the process (including an intelligent glove with some rather corrupting influence) and became an in the shadows villain for a great period of time. Holy shit the rest of the group was surprised when they ran into her, DM had me control her for the final battle, knocked half of the party before they took me down and set the paladin on the path towards his fall as he was elected to safeguard the glove while they tried to figure out how to destroy it.
Was a weird campaign had elements of Earthdawn and Zelda in it...

And there was the old republic campaign...
Over the course of six years of in-game time as jedi apprentices he cunningly manipulated my Wookiee jedi knight until there came a time where I invoked my wookiee force fuelled blood rage inadvertently killing the villagers I had been trying to protect... Realising that the old hermit that had aided us was a sith I struck him down... Only to be greeted by his ghost telling me I had performed admirably and my fall was complete... He went on to become the BBEG of the campaign, during the whole process I never realised until it was to late... Can't help but admire just how subtly the GM had coaxed me...

First story: the real reason you didn't get along with the paladin was that you were evil.

Second story: nothing to do with paladins.

Actually, it's nothing against Paladins per se. It's about everyone showing up to a game without discussing characters first, and voila, you've got the Paladin and the Assassin in the same group, and it becomes a dance of metagaming to ensure both get along. I've used the Paladin as an example since it has the most impact on party composition (to date, it and its variant classes are the only base classes with harsh restrictions on who they work with).

@Neraph
Well, the second story explains, why the first story happened...
A lot of GM let you get away with a lot of shit. Licking plutonium does give you terminal cancer but some super power. And stuff like that...
Most are just ignoring the effects of "evil magic". I mean, it is evil for a fucking reason. Like plutonium is dangerous for a fucking reason.
The idea you can use evil for good is realistically looking at it, just hilarious.
It was tried quite often, but it always blew up in the face.
(Afghanistan beeing the latest example of that... And how many people thought they could use Hitler...And here on earth we are talking only about humans... Not some deamons thinking in terms of thousands of years...)
But still, the idea is around... So if you want to believe in the devil, thats a reason. After thousands of years in human history, all telling you the same story, some people still think it works.

And I think a lot of the problem with paladins is, that a lot of GMs treat them as ordenary warriors.
Yeah, a paladin does not break into a house to get evidence. Why should he? He can simply kick in the door. If a paladin really claims what is rightfully his in most worlds, he is the number one character for social interaction.

@Elfenlied
Sorry, but I have a quite different take on that. Most games which have paladins are heroes RPGs. The are pretty much the ideal character for that kind of game.
I hate this democratic approch on player basis. Which is in total defiance to most gaming worlds.
So to take up Neraph example. If you would have played for example a thief in his group, well I probably had to follow the orders of his character. Beeing a player does not mean I can just shit all over the social order of the world. Yeah, I could try to steal some things if he is not watching but I am suggesting A and he is saying B. Well, B it is.

I was going with the simple but functional Hermetic.

D&D 3.X is not inherently heroic, nor does it (unlike its successor) presume that you play good-aligned characters. I do not know what kind of gaming world you're playing in, but the ones I play in assume that a group of 3-5 adventures journey together around the world and have adventures together, primarily motivated by finding treasure. Under this premise, a Paladin is not an ideal character, since they are primarily motivated by their desire to fight evil and spread good, which may correlate with the goal of the group. More often than not, I've seen the kind of self-righteous behaviour you describe: the Paladin player believes they are entitled to dictate the actions of the rest of the group, which they may not necessarily be comfortable with. Or, to put in your words: the Paladin shits all over the social order of the world, and expects others to take his crap. Such a scenario is detrimental for all involved.

Hence my recommendation for the players to meet together in advance and discuss what they want to play, to ensure compatibility.



In that case, I recommend the gnome. Hardmax Magic and softmax Willpower and Logic at chargen. Get a R3 Cerebral booster as soon as you can.

@Elfenlied
Yeah, the core book has a paladin but no profession which is non-good or even evil.

And I am sorry, but looting some tressure dungeon has just no moral dilemma at all.

Actually, this isn't true. The Player's Handbook has several options which require your character to be evil or non-good, including the Evil Domain (which requires an Evil aligned cleric), various spells with the evil descriptor (which, in turn, cannot be cast by someone good aligned), and various evil gods (remember, deities can only be selected by someone within one step of their alignment, so the character would be non-good/evil).

Note that none of these options are labeled as optional rules, so they are clearly intended to be used by player characters. Trying to take those options away from your fellow players without their prior consent, is quite frankly, a jerk move.



I agree that it has no moral dilemma in it. And why should it? D&D isn't a game about moral dilemmas, it's a game about a group of adventurers adventuring together. Moral dilemmas are optional, and some might consider them fun, but they are not integral to the D&D experience. Again, I advise talking to the group prior to making characters, and talking about the respective expectations from the game.

@Elfenlied
Shadowrun has also the option to play a pornstar, a TV-preacher or a carsalesman...
That does not mean it is the focus of the game.

If I want to have evil in my world, I need evil in my world.
Of course their will be evil options included for players.
Thats not the point. The point is to which side the written adventueres and the corematerial leans.

In Shadowrun it leans towards runners who have a grey morality. Mages in Shadowrun are more likely to have a neutural or good morality. Most of the "evil" things beeing NPC only.
(DnD it leans towards a neutral-good adventuring party.)
There is a huge difference between what a game allows and what it encourages.

Paladins do not exist in my world as the stereotypical Class. What is considered a Paladin in my world is a Zealous Warrior of a Diety of some sort. Thus you have "Paladins" of all religions, not just good ones. As a note: I also do not use the Standard Alignments, I use Motivations as presented in the Black Company rules overlay.

Indeed... I have been running my campaign for over 20 years now, with multiple groups, and have only run about 4 dungeons in that time. Dungeons are pretty boring, in my opinion.

I like your view on the Paladin TJ, I agree with it wholeheartedly.

It is a fun distinction, to be sure. My game really took of, thematically, when I incorporated the rules from the Black Company Campaign Setting. It really was what I had been looking for, as it was pretty much how I ran my games previous to its release, though not as elegantly.

And for full disclosure: I use the Harnworld SETTING, with DnD 3.5 Rules, overlaid with Black Company ruleset. What a wonderful mix.

I wasn't though...
I can agree that the decision to "take the shot" in order to save the paladin from the yeti's deadlock was a risky, careless and ultimately stupid decision... But the intent wasn't to kill the paladin and my character was prone to risks, either way the paladin would most likely have died.
My character was regretful over what happened but begged the paladin for his forgiveness, he refused it... Unless I would use life magic (read: blood magic) to lessen the penalties he had received (essentially two points of a score that determined how many more times you can be resurrected) by sacrificing my own life force.
From my point of view, this paladin was more interested in revenge and personal gain then the values that defines a paladin. Like forgiveness!
as time passed I became more and more convinced that the paladin was solely driven by his lust for power...
I couldn't let this great evil waiting to manifest to continue walk in the guise of light.
In her eyes, it was a sacrifice. She sacrificed herself in other to protect the world from a greater evil.


Remove the lightsaber and there's not a huge difference between the two.


"The road to hell is paved in good intentions"
I was completely clueless that I was being led in that direction until the very end, I was led to believe that the blood rage was natural and safe and channelling the force in it drew on the natural energies in the earth, I was also being kept from advancing my training as a jedi at the same rate as everyone else, being denied a lightsaber and such. As such the impressional teenager I was felt unfairly treated and went along with the hermits "training" because I knew I was as capable and ready as the others.
Leading up to a situation where I was the only thing standing between a big beast and a group of villagers, I invoked the rage to be able to defend them, not realising it drew on their lifeforce.

The GM later explained why the council had acted the way they did, they had felt my conflicting emotion and decided I needed more time.

Suffice to say this was a long time ago and it was one of the first times a GM had challenged me to figure out what was going on my own, rather then telling me everything at face value

Makes a lot of sense for a corp mage gone wrong, personally it's one of my favourite traditions but people seem to disregard it for whatever reason... to generic?

That's where I went right: I didn't do this.