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Enchanter Build Help

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Blazrath

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« on: <08-21-17/0738:46> »
Last one from me for a while, I promise. Hahahaha. So, when I first picked up Shadowrun, I kinda looked at Alchemy and such and honestly ignored it. I preferred to go with the flashier(and honestly, still easier) firing from the hip spells. I mean, for me getting into the game, it was an easy concept to understand. Get a bunch of spells to have options, have a good drain to keep you up and runnin, and you'll go far mate. Buuuuttt... if my recent char posts have shown anything, I'm kinda a lil bored with my status quo and I want to branch out to stuff. Now, with the rules for alchemy and such, it seems being spread about what, the core, street grimoire, hard target, forbidden arcana and whatever I'm missing?

Anyways, I honestly don't have a prepared build like the others I have put up, partly cause I don't know what the essential gear is, partly cause posts I look up dealing with this are from 2014 and stuff has changed(whether for the worse or better can be up for debate here too) and last part being the ideas I have thought about, I've felt something was off.

From parts I have been able to decipher, it looks to be that Alchemical Contact Arrows are a viable and confirmed, with also Alter Ballistics and Alchemical Armorer being stuff that could happen in the future for characters(though to be honest, I don't know how I feel about this. Like, I like a lot of Forbidden Arcana, but this makes me kinda iffy.) So that gives Alchemy not necessarily a boost, but a break I feel like it needed.

It all boils down to this. If you had an Enchanter join your table, what would you wish for them to work well with a group. Do you try and have an archer with combat spells to try and have an arrow pierce the enemy then have a torrent of fire erupt from within them? Do you tell them to build up their skills towards making magical bullets for later use and have the team shooting lightning bullets(if thats how it works)? Or more support with the other spell types? I know you're not necessarily forced into keeping to these molds and that there are other ideas you might concoct, I just put the first ones to pop in my mind.

As for method of building, I don't know if it would benefit from a Karma build or a Priority build more to be honest.

Also with Vault of Ages being a thing now, I feel like it definitely needs to be around in builds to be able to build a stock of items.
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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #1 on: <08-21-17/0837:48> »
I have a limited knowledge of alchemy.

Buffs, man, buffs. There are so many great buffs in this game that see less play than they should because of sustaining penalties. But 3 points of armor from armor and 3 dice of defense from deflect and 3 dice to anything from analyze device, for everyone on the team and you have turned everyone from Joe Average Shadowrunner into legitimate bad asses.
« Last Edit: <08-21-17/0846:00> by ShadowcatX »

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #2 on: <08-21-17/0909:26> »
Yeah, don't play an Enchanter like a Spellslinger. To kill stuff at range you can just use guns and grenades.
Being able to add a massive amount of spells that would normally have to be sustained on yourself or your teammates just by touching them in your bio-pocket is a tremendous boon (thanks to the Vault of Ages you now can actually prepare enough in advance).

I'd recommend priority/sum2ten:
Human E, Money D, Magic C (Enchanter), Skills B, Attributes A works well. If you want to be a skill monkey you can even go Money E and Skills A.
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FST_Gemstar

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« Reply #3 on: <08-21-17/0911:19> »
I also agree that buffs make the most sense for what alchemists do particularly well. 

I also like alchemists to either also be effective spellcasters and/or summoners-take on the magical specialist role, or be alchemist secondary for buffs and take on another role on team (like decker or face). 

Alchemy foci are a great value for enchanters, in that they are relatively cheap, and they work on all alchemical spells (not just based on category). You can get very high alchemy dicepools with them. Firebringer tends to be the goto alchemy mentor for that additional +2. 

Marcus

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« Reply #4 on: <08-21-17/1208:42> »
The Magic system has a lot of moving parts in 5th. Alchemy has/had some issues, it was confusing from the word go, you can this type of trigger, but you can't use that type of trigger. You can't make magic bullets, but you can magic grenades. No one could touch your preparation etc. Over the course of 4 books (the Core, Street Grim, Hard targets, and FA), Alchemy has become a very different animal then it was at the beginning. At the opening it was strictly a contact thing imo. But now I do think the tools are there to make it a playable archetype. I think to us it to the full potential your group needs to cooperate, and put the money into the pieces of gear needed to use it.
Packing buff works fine, and I'm not try to dismiss it. But having a archer with instant special spell arrows does open many options. The new spell also does give guns bunny parties some new options.
If nothing else it opens yet more places for magic character to spend all that Karma.
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firebug

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« Reply #5 on: <08-21-17/1258:22> »
For an Alchemist, as others have said, support spells are where it's at.  The greatest benefit Alchemy has is allowing you to have several sustain spells without needing to devote foci or take a penalty.

With arrows/bolts or Alter Ballistics, it's possible to have some solid damage, but there's a few issues with that.  The first that comes to mind is your limited number of preparations.  An alchemist can only have so many preparations ready to go before a run.  And every one that's a bullet is one that isn't a buff or healing spell.  Weapons should be the backup; reliable because you can use them as many times as you have ammo.  You want firing your gun to be a backup action, that you can do when a prep just isn't the answer.  If you focus on using bullet/bolt/arrow preps, that makes that less of an option.  Having to switch between your magic ammo and your normal ammo eats up time, and even worse, you will miss at some point, and that preparation will go to waste.

So.  Take the new quality Practiced Alchemist; Durable Preparations is completely superfluous, so ignore it.  The extra Potency duration is nice, but that bonus to activation dice pools is actually kind of huge.  It's the only way to get that kind of bonus.  Get an Alchemy Focus.  If your starting dice pool for Contact Preparations isn't higher than 16 you're not trying hard enough.  The Potion Maker quality can go a long way as well, allowing you to make stronger preps without having to waste time sleeping off the stun before the mission.  Unfortunately, if you also get a Mentor Spirit, that's 25 Karma of PQs right there.

Stat-wise, Drain Resist is very very important.  You need to avoid taking Stun so you can have as many preps as possible.  And preps are comparably weaker than normal spells (lower dice pools) so you can't really afford to low-ball them all if you want them to have any real effect.

You'll also want a biofiber pocket and Enchanting Gloves (both from Hard Targets).  These let you carry and conceal preparations easily, even non-potion contact preparations.  If you make contact-prep ammo, you'll definitely need these so you can handle the ammo without setting it off.

Go heavy on the Health and Manipulation spells.  Deflection is great to hand out, because it's not visually obvious and will help keep everyone alive.  If you have a well-rounded party, I would eventually try to pick up Increase Attribute for BOD, CHA, INT, and WIL.  These attributes are very difficult to boost without this spell, and can be a lot of help.  Boosting INT is seriously a big deal.  A few Illusion spells like Mask and/or Invisibility can be good too.

Recon on the missions you'll be doing as invaluable, so work with your decker and/or rigger to know what preparations will be needed.  No point in going for Invisibility if the only real option is a quick smash-and-grab, after all.

If you have enough buffs that you're comfortable you'll have enough for the whole run, then you start making magic bullets.  Indirect touch-spells are perfect for this, because you can ramp their Force pretty damn high.  Alter Ballistic to get Punch on a gel round can probably easily knock almost anyone out.  Or you can go the route of Quickening mages and just buff yourself until you're nuclear on the Astral, roll in with increased everything and just unload.  This takes a lot more resources though.

...That's all I can think of for now.
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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #6 on: <08-21-17/1334:02> »
How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go, it seems to me that alchemy has seriously diminishing returns?

If you are a mage, with magic 6, a force 3 power foci, you can take a single point of alchemy and firebringer as your mentor spirit. That's 7 karma, and gives you 12 dice to your basic alchemy preps and 14 dice to manipulation alchemy preps. You can pretty easily do a force 4 / 5 prep and get a potency of 2 to 3. That's 6 - 8 dice, probably 2 hits, on whatever spells you want. If you spend 2 spells for armor and analyze device, you can pass out potions to give your fellow pcs +2 dice to pretty much anything they want to do on demand. Not bad for 17 karma and 20k nuyen on a Vault of Ages. (Admittedly, you are using your mentor spirit slot, so that is kind of an uncounted opportunity cost, but +2 to manipulation spells is about what you would normally get out of a mentor spirit anyways, so that kind of breaks even, especially given that we are including the karma cost of said mentor spirit.)

One thing to keep in mind though, is that astral barriers don't like alchemical preparations, and people who are wanting to play mundanes may not want to have to deal with astral barriers and magical potions and other difficulties like background counts.

If you want that to be your primary focus instead of being an all around good mage, you get a force 4 alchemy foci instead of a power foci it saves you both nuyen and karma, 6 points into the skill (and a specialization of contact triggers) and practiced alchemist and you're looking at dice pools of 20 and 22, strong enough to throw around force 6 and get a potency of 4. That will get you 10 dice (+1+ initiate grade) on your preps so you can pass around 3-4 dice, and they last twice as long. You could try for force 7 and hope for 5 potency, but then drain becomes a more serious concern as it has the potential to go physical.

Marcus

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« Reply #7 on: <08-21-17/1448:40> »
Taking stun actually isn't a big deal in alchemy and really that's its advantage. Stun really doesn't take long to heal, in fact with help of certain qualities you can recover a fairly good amount of stun in short order.
Yes short order is a long long time in combat rounds, but that's really different equation.

Keep in mind Alchemy spells are not the same as your spellslinging spells, so heal (alchemy) and heal Spellcasting are two different things and yes of course just adds to the cost.

But as has been pointed out Alchemy advantage is have 6 buff spells running at once, and still be able to make substantive additions to the run. That value is not small, it just takes planning and good timing. But those thing are inherently part of any good shadowrun.
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Blazrath

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« Reply #8 on: <08-21-17/1805:23> »
So question on the Mentor Spirit deal, while you have the mentor Firebringer that says +2 Manipulation Spells, does that include alchemical preparations? Cause you have the Monkey mentor spirit that specifically says +2 to spells, preparations and rituals of the manipulation spells. Just asking to make sure and looking at different mentors.
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« Reply #9 on: <08-21-17/1958:39> »
It's generally understood that the +2 to a spell category applies to all variations such as Alchemy. There just happens to be inconsistencies in formatting (who'd a thunk)

firebug

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« Reply #10 on: <08-21-17/2025:07> »
Taking stun actually isn't a big deal in alchemy and really that's its advantage. Stun really doesn't take long to heal, in fact with help of certain qualities you can recover a fairly good amount of stun in short order.

The catch about Stun damage is the minimum rest time and wound penalties  You have to rest an hour minimum before you can roll to recover Stun, and you'll need to do that unless you're fine with eating wound penalties to your alchemical preparations.  If you have an obscene dice pool (like the quite achievable 20+) then you could be hitting the Limit so easily that being barely conscious won't actually be a problem, though.

But if you're not, or you are takig 1-2 drain every preparation you make, then you can end up taking hours out of your prep-time.  ...I mean like, the time used to prepare.  Which is also the time for preparations.  ...Where you prepare preparations.

preparation
prep a ration
pre pration

Dang it.  Now it's not a word.
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Blazrath

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« Reply #11 on: <08-21-17/2214:46> »
Alright, thanks you guys for the added info and stuff, it is helpful. My original idea I had for spells was get an area effect high level combat spell to use as an 'oh shit' panic button type deal, with my thought maybe being comet. It does seem that the general consensus is Health and Manipulation spells are the ones to focus in on as a way of helping the entire group in multiple ways.

So bearing that in mind, Mentor Spirit seems like it needs to bought, so looked at different spirits past Firebringer since it is top tier for the build.

Bear could be cool, but feels like a situation you gotta build even further around your mentor cause of the possibility of berserking. +2 Health
Dolphin has a lot of stipulations with its disadvantage, for the bonus I'd look elsewhere. +2 Health
Gambler I feel like with this build you'd go for the Palming bonus to hide stuff on you. +2 Manipulation
Monkey I feel like you can't really do a stealth or leave traps without incurring penalties that could hurt the group. +2 Manipulation
Raccoon can be cool in a similar idea to Gambler, just have to deal with more of a klepto mind than an easily recognizable face. +2 Manipulation
Rat is cool for grabbing and using any type of reagent from different traditions so if you kill and pilfer a mage, can use it immediately. Harvesting
The Alt Rat is honestly worse in comparison. +1 Health
Raven is helpful if you plan on taking a higher Charisma, which kinda goes against alchemy cause of how many attributes needed. +2 Manipulation
The Alt Spider is pretty cool with stealth options and the idea of planning be a huge deal for the follower. +2 Manipulation

Honestly, Firebringer is a good catch all, I agree with you guys, I'm just looking at fluff instead of min-maxing here. Not to say that min-maxing in other aspects of the character isn't needed, I mean hell this is specialized heavily. BUT! I feel like you can swap it.

Bear and Monkey I feel like need to be more physically aspected mage. Why? Bear is good for possible damage reduction, but always have the possibility of zerking out and getting into a bad situation, where as with Monkey you are a trickster and if you get caught, its gonna be rough and you feel the need to have fights be fair, with you staring the person in the eyes while putting the knife in them(just a phrase, not necessarily needed).

Gambler and Raccoon are almost the same, just Gambler makes it easier to be remembered and recognized while Raccoon you have a tik about seeing if there is stuff to steal behind locked doors and such, which could become a problem if you open a door and an enemy is there to pull the alarm.

Raven is only good if you are looking to add face skills to your enchanter, otherwise you have better options I feel at least cause no points in con would make the +2 kinda useless. But then you have to have a higher Cha while you are trying to have a High Log, Will, Int, and Agi most likely.

Dolphin is way to restrictive I feel honestly.

The rest is mostly based on being sneaky, but if you go into this route, you have to talk with your group. Rat you may run away to keep your own skin safe and you have a bonus dealing with reagants, but you sacrifice 4 dice and I don't think thats really worth it with how reagents work within alchemy. Artificing would be interesting though with a Chaos Tradition with all of the different reagents you can mix and match. If i had to choose between this or the Forbidden Arcana Rat, I'd go with the original hands down though. Forbidden Arcana's Spider though is honestly great, with the dice you get helps with the disadvantage I feel, but you have to talk to the group. If you are playing in more Pink Mohawk games, that -2 to all dice is really going to hurtful since in these games I feel like you improvise a whole lot more and tend to not have a plan, but that might just be my experience.

Did I miss anything or get anything wrong in this analysis?
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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #12 on: <08-21-17/2309:16> »
I feel health spells are overrated, the penalty for low essence really hits small dice pools, and increase attributes need a fairly high force, which can be problematic with attempting to raise potency unless you are all in. Detection and manipulation, that's where it is at.

A single combat spell could be useful, but smaller dicepools again crop up as a possible problem.

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« Reply #13 on: <08-21-17/2315:08> »
Hmm, true.  If you stick to boosting attributes that don't have many ways to boost, like Intuition, then the Force isn't a problem.  But the Essence penalty does really hurt if you're trying to give it to your Street Sam, I didn't think about that.

In that case, I have to agree with you.  Detection (Combat Sense!  Everyone wants that!  And Analyze Device...) and Manipulation are probably the best for part buffs.
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Blazrath

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« Reply #14 on: <08-21-17/2336:24> »
I feel health spells are overrated, the penalty for low essence really hits small dice pools, and increase attributes need a fairly high force, which can be problematic with attempting to raise potency unless you are all in. Detection and manipulation, that's where it is at.

A single combat spell could be useful, but smaller dicepools again crop up as a possible problem.

Well, at character creation I mean and then down the road pick some others up to get some options.  Manipulation I'm getting it, thinking about going Rosebush and another at the beginning with Heal from Health. I do hate how rules as they are I don't have any free spells, makes it kinda hard, but I figure having Arcana high, could try and go the research route.
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