Okay, I'm somewhat familiar with Shadowrun game mechanics (I've only played a couple of characters for about a year) but this is my first attempt at a truly stealth character. I went the magic route for him. He is at heart a street urchin (which is good because he's thankful for ration bars and doesn't have any particular crutches that can be used against him; i.e. luxury lifestyle with a view kind of thing). He's a Snake Shaman. Anyway, I've given him the following spells:

Detect Enemies 3
Detect Indiv. 3
Detect Magic 3
Alleviate Allergy 3 (He's an albino, it only made sense)
Treat 5
Mass Blindness 3 (A last resort, my character's a pacifist)
Improved Invis. 5
Physical Camouflage 3
Physical Mask 6
Stealth 3
Physical Double Image 3

I'm just now learning that some of my illusion spells (like invisibility) can be contested with a spell resistance test. I knew Mass Blindness and Physical Mask could but I wasn't sure about the others. I'm willing to drop Alleviate Allergy (since I can get around that with enough clothing) in order to free up some more spell points and maybe Physical Double Image (though I love the misdirection). Anyway, are these force levels good? I mean, generally pretty effective for what I'm doing? Also, how do I get around thermographic vision or ultrasound without technology? The easiest thing I could think of was Physical Mask so they thought I was someone else. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Have the fire elemental attack the other side of the building.

Lol, that is a great idea! Unfortunately, I'm not much of a conjurer.

B 4
Q 6
S 3
C 2
I 6
W 8

Conjuring of 6 though. Maybe I could summon a small fire elemental.
(He's a dwarf albino with the human looking edge)

"Hey Phil, did you see the Mole Man just walk by?"
"John, I've told you before to lay off the amphetimines if you're gonna work the night shift."

Fortunately, my character doesn't have those stupid glasses and haircut or a cane come to think or it, or he would look like the mole man. Lol.

Well, you won't be summoning fire elementals as a snake shaman. And he's a pacifist? Good luck surviving. Hope your GM is not as hardcore as mine.

as i recall, mild allergies in SR impose a +1 TN on all actions you take. sustaining a spell imposes a +2 TN on all actions you take.

yeah, drop Alleviate Allergy.

I'd go with a physmage.
Adept Powers:
Magic 2
Improved Stealth 6
Wallrunning

Spells:
Invisibility 4 (exclusive only for drain)
Treat 4 (exclusive only for drain)
Detect Enemies 3 (exlusive only for drain)
Improved Reflexes III 1(fetish-limited for learning the spell)
Healthy Glow 2 (exclusive for learning)
Makeover 2 (exclusive for learning)

Combine improved invis. with your stealth of 12 and some weak spirits, and you've got a pretty stealthy character. Wallrunning allows you entrance to windows without carrying any of that pesky climbing gear. Also, you can make yourself combat-capable by getting a cheap force-1 sustaining focus, and using it to sustain improved reflexes.

You can always snag a Sustaining Focus for the Alleviate Allergy spell, though I find an albino to be a very poor choice for a "stealth type" to begin with.

As for Pacifist making it hard to survive? Wha...? It's a great edge for any character who has even a smidgeon of morality about them. Total Pacificist? Sure, that one's likely to get you killed in the shadows since you can't even really defend yourself properly, but Pacifist is just fine.

Between improved invisibility and stealth your as difficult to detect buy mundains as you can get (invisibility works on thermographic and stealth acts as invisibility against ultrasound), unfortunately sustaining spells just makes you easier to see on the astral unless you get masking and then you still visible on the astral, just not a glowy mage with spells active. Take the stealth skill

I would take a combat spell or 2, I know you’re a pacifist but stun bolt and or stun ball will be much more effective than mass blindness and wont kill1, the problem with mass blindness is that you have to sustain it as you make good your escape, the +2TN will be a real problem for you especially if there are guards that ether resisted the spell or where not present when you cast it.

Power bolt is also very useful, even if you are not going to be casting it at any people. Nothing in your listed spells will help you much against a drone or vehicle; you could even limit the spell so that it will only affect inanimate objects reducing the power of the drain buy one point, uses of this spell include attacking vehicles and drones, taking down doors and sections of walls to make an exit when you have to run, you can even target it at an opponents weapon although the DL necessary to disable a weapon would be left to your GM.

Improved invisibility should render physical camouflage obsolete, in most situations at least also I am not a fan of the double image spell but that is personal preference.

With a char of 2 spirits will be very difficult to summon at a useful force, force 5 is my basic level for spirits I use, if I recall correctly the most powerful spirit you can try is force 4 and that risks deadly drain, I would ether increase your charisma so you can summon more useful spirits or not spend a full 6 points on conjuring.

Edward

Albino PCs make great infiltrators, provided you are sneaking around in a lot of snow. Fog, too.

I'd try being able to conjure better, too. Many nature spirits have concealment power, and it adds to your stealth roll. Many nature spirits also have the confusion power, which may be the most broken power there is. Being a pacifist and using the confusion power will make the target wander about aimlessly at its worst or at least add the spirits force to all the victim's TNs.

If you like Physical Camouflage, I suggest dropping the Force to 1, as the Force makes no difference for that spell (outside of dispelling).

I also suggest taking both the 'Caster Only' and 'Extended' options for most, if not all, of your Detection spells. In most circumstances the Drain Code will remain the same as that in the books.

I derived the fact that my character was a pacifist (which became a part of my character concept) from this description in the book:
"Snake is wise and knows many secrets. She is a good councillor, but always exacts a price for their advice. Snake shamans are pacifists; they only fight to protect themselves and others. Snake shamans are obsessed with learning secrets and take great risks to do so. They trade their knowledge to others for whatever they can get in exchange."

Would I be able to take total pacifist (which I planned on RPing my character as) for the full points? Also, is Stealth treated as Silence for purposes of Ultrasound sight. The spell specifically stated Silence, not stealth. Just wanted to make sure because then I have some spell points to put into stunbolt or stunball. Also, I dropped his body one to give him Charisma 3. I built this character using the priority system and went: 1)Full Magician 2)400,000 (for spell points) 3) Attributes (24) 4) Race (Dwarf) 5) Skills

Snakes are cold-blooded predators, literally...

How did Snake get to be a pacifist?

Mythology dude. Mythology

I believe the silence spell kills ultrasound.

Yeah, Man and Machine reads. "Indirect illusion spells that affect sound will affect ultrasound vision, however. The silence spell affects ultrasound sight in the same way that invisibility affects normal vision. Characters cloaked using a silence spell do not show up as ultrasound images, and may not be located by an empty space in the ultrasound map."

According to this silence specifically cancels ultrasound, would stealth work on a smaller area the same way? I think it would but am not sure. Thanks.

Yes, it would, since it is an indirect illusion spell that affects sound.

All right, let me take a look at your spell list:
Detect Enemies 3
Detect Indiv. 3
Detect Magic 3
Alleviate Allergy 3 (He's an albino, it only made sense)
Treat 5
Mass Blindness 3 (A last resort, my character's a pacifist)
Improved Invis. 5
Physical Camouflage 3
Physical Mask 6
Stealth 3
Physical Double Image 3

Here's my advice. First, some bad news. Not only are all of those illusion spells resisted, but so are those detection spells. So they need to be higher Force to have a decent chance of working - personally, I try to take Force: 5 or 6 for any resisted spells that I take. Detect Magic is decent if you don't want to risk astral perception, but I would still drop it and just assense things instead. Alleviate Allergy will be useful, when you get a sustaining focus. It only needs to be Force: 2 to alleviate a mild allergy, though, so drop it to that. Treat is a good spell. Mass Blindness at Force: 3, though, is relatively easy to resist. Even worse, it doesn't even make them blind - it just gives them, at best, a +3 perception modifier. Stunball is a much better choice, at Force: 5 or 6. Non-lethal, Drain that isn't too bad, and very effective. Improved Invisibility is a great spell, and so is Physical Mask. They give you one spell to hide, and one to disguise yourself. But Physical Camouflage and Physical Double Image are both redundant - you already have Improved Invisibility, so I would drop both of the other spells. Stealth is a keeper, though, both for sneaking past ultrasound and the general silence benefits.

Here's my suggested revisions:
Stun Ball: 6
Detect Enemies: 5
Detect Individual: 5
Alleviate Allergy: 2
Treat: 5
Improved Invisibility: 5
Physical Mask: 6
Stealth: 5
That leaves 1 point left, so I would suggest Levitate: 1. It lets you float over obstacles and snag small, loose items from a distance, both useful things for a stealth character.

There's always ruthenium and thermal dampening. Couldn't hurt.

I would drop a spell or 2, not buy the spell points, lower the resource priority and raise the attribute priority and invest the surplu in maxxing out Charisma. Snake gets a -1 spellcasting modifier during combat, but conjuring gets no penalty. Take City spirits (as your spirit of man) and use their concealment power. It is a +(Force) for perception and targeting tests.

These are my present spells now that I've reworked them:

Detect Enemies 3
Detect Individual 3
Treat 5
Improved Invis. 6
Physical Camoflage 1
Physical Mask 6
Silence 5
Stealth 6
Stunball 5

I can go ahead and cut up Silence for reworking purposes now that I know Stealth will work against Ultrasound sight if 3 still isn't high enough for the detection spells. Is there any way to magically get around thermographic vision though (I'm going to have to wait until my character gets some nuyen before I can get thermal dampening or anything else). Anyway, thanks again guys.

Improved invisibility works fine against thermographic vision.

Please see thread on buying spell points at chargen.

Okay, so if I have improved invis. and stealth on, then the only way of detection (other than the magical aura I generate) would be scent, right? And, if I sustained Physical Mask as well, I would be virtually undetectable (assuming observers had less successes than I did, right?) And I took focused concentration as an edge so the TN is only +1 per sustained instead of +2.

Personally, I would be very careful attempting to sustain more than two spells at once, even with the Focused Concentration Edge. A Drain Target Number going up from 3 to 4 can really make a difference in whether or not you soak the Drain, and if it goes up from 3 to 5, then you're very likely not going to soak it all.

Yeah, I realize that sucks but I'm talking about extremes where I'm being followed or hunted, not just wandering around invis. or anything. I do see your point though. Do the spells work as they stand or should I change any force levels?

I would still drop the Physical Camouflage spell, since it is resisted, and is not quite as good as invisibility (+4 penalty to see or hit you, vs. can't see you at all and suffer blind fire penalties against you).

Stunball should probably be 6 - it has the same Drain as a Stunball: 5, and it is twice as hard to resist (rolling a 6 vs. rolling a 5 or a 6). For a desperation area-affect spell, you don't want to mess around.

The detection spells are too low. Personally, I think it is strange the way they are in the rules - some of them, like Clairvoyance or Night Vision, should NOT be resisted spells. Unfortunately, as per the rules they are resisted. So you're rolling against a TN of 6 (assuming that both spells will be "target out of sight of the caster" in most cases), while they will be rolling against a TN of 3. Not good! I would either take one of them at 5 or 6, or use low-force spirits for scouting and tracking.

Now, since you are dropping the Silence spell, you could take one at force: 5 and one at force: 6. I would think about getting levitate instead of one of them, though. At a high Force, levitate is a great spell for running away, because it gives you such a fast movement rate. Plus, at higher force, it also starts to come into its own as a spell with potential offensive uses (drop that pesky drone into the swimming pool, or lift that biker, bike and all, twenty feet into the air until his attitude improves).

Ok, this is the second thread that was active today where people seem to ignore the rules for a given spell while declaring that some potentially related text provides the TN.

I was talking about two different spells. The two spells that I was talking about were his two spells, Detect Enemies and Detect Individual, which do use the table.

I only refered to Clairvoyance and Night Vision as examples of spells where it seems silly to make them resisted spells (especially Night Vision). But I went right from that little tangent to talking about the Target Numbers for his spells, without clarifying that, so I can see how I might have been confusing. Sorry about that.

I really do appreciate all the good advice you guys have given. I'm feeling much more confident about my character now. He has the following spells:

Detect Enemies 5
Treat 5
Improved Invisibility 6
Physical Mask 6
Stealth 6
Stunball 6
Levitate 6

I had no idea Levitate was such a good spell!!! Especially for getting away (add that to the fact my character doesn't own or know how to use a vehicle).

His new stats are: B 3 Q 6 S 3 C 3 I 6 W 8 (combat pool 10, spell pool 6).

Anything else worth changing? I think you guys have really helped to make this a workable character that could honestly survive life on the street without getting into too many confrontations. Thanks again.

I never really thought about it like that (I haven't dealt much with conjuring). My present stats are:

B 3 Q 4 S 3 C 5 I 6 W 8

And I've altered my skills to reflect this:

Aura Reading 6
Sorcery 6
Conjuring 6
Stealth 4
Etiquette (Street) 4/6

Anyway, I think this is a much more workable character as a full shaman. BTW, the concealment power of city spirits is stupid strong, I don't think I ever even bothered to read it. Thanks again.

Aura Reading is a 'complimentary' skill when using Assensing, and in my opinion it isn't really worth the cost when other skills are more important.

I'd drop one point from Strength and put it in Charisma. It's relatively cheap to raise the Strength later.

I would drop the strength but I can't (Dwarves get +2). I could drop the body but I hate having a low body (even though I hope to avoid most combat). I think I might drop aura reading for athletics and maybe some more stealth.

I don't know what your current Edges and Flaws are, but if you have room for one more Edge, the Bonus Attribute Point Edge could give you that one point of Charisma that you need. Charisma is so important to shamans - nearly every shaman should have a maxed-out Charisma. For conjuring, Charisma is not only used to soak Drain, but determines the Drain code. For example, your character with a 5 Charisma would have to soak 3M Drain summoning a Force: 3 spirit; with a 6 Charisma, you only would have to soak 3L Drain.

I kind of agree on Aura Reading. It's great for certain characters that use assensing heavily, but it is too cost-heavy otherwise.