[Beansidhe]

Since I haven't played in a long time, and am looking at a character that isn't combat oriented, I'm trying to figure out if this character is designed in a way that she will be useful.  

Metatype: Elf (30 KP)
Category Total: 30 KP

Attributes
BOD 2 (10 KP)
AGI 3 (15 KP)
REA 3 (25 KP)
STR 1 (0 KP)
CHA 6 (75 KP)
INT 4 (45 KP)
LOG 4 (45 KP)
WIL 4 (45 KP)

Essence 6
Edge 2 (10 KP)
Magic 3 (25 KP)
Category Total: 295 KP

Skill Groups
Athletics 1 (10 KP)
Conjuring 1 (10 KP)
Influence 4 (55 KP)
Sorcery 3 (35 KP)
Stealth 2 (20 KP)
Category Total: 130 KP

Skills
Artisan 1 (4 KP)
Assensing / Aura Reading 3 (16 KP)
Computer 1 (4 KP)
Data Search / Corporate 1 (6 KP)
Dodge / Ranged Combat 2 (10 KP)
Escape Artist 1 (4 KP)
First Aid 2 (8 KP)
Forgery 1 (4 KP)
Intimidation 3 (14 KP)
Perception / Visual 3 (16 KP)
Pilot Groundcraft / Wheeled 3 (16 KP)
Pistols / Semi Automatic 1 (6 KP)
Category Total: 108 KP

Knowledge Skills
Art 1 (2 KP)
Art History 1 (2 KP)
BioEngineering 2 (4 KP)
Biology 1 (2 KP)
Japanese Culture 3 (7 KP)
Megacorp: Evo 3 (7 KP)
Psychology 1 (2 KP)
Seattle High Society 3 (7 KP)
Wine 2 (4 KP)
Category Total: 37 KP

Languages
English Native
Japanese 4 (11 KP)
Russian 4 (11 KP)
Category Total: 22 KP

Contacts
Bartender Connection 3, Loyalty 3 (12 KP)
Blogger Connection 3, Loyalty 2 (10 KP)
Company Man (Works for Evo, knew her before she dissappeared) Connection 3, Loyalty 4 (14 KP)
Fixer Connection 4, Loyalty 2 (12 KP)
Forensics Expert Connection 3, Loyalty 2 (10 KP)
Mr. Johnson Connection 4, Loyalty 1 (10 KP)
Talislegger Connection 3, Loyalty 2 (10 KP)
Talismonger Connection 4, Loyalty 3 (14 KP)
Troll Street Dealer Connection 2, Loyalty 2 (8 KP)
Category Total: 100 KP

Spells
Compel Truth (5 KP)
Heal (5 KP)
Influence (5 KP)
Category Total: 15 KP

Equipment
Ares Predator IV (350)
Concealable Holster (75)
Spare Clips x10 (50)
Regular Ammo x15 (300)
Lined Coat (700)
Clothing (1,000)
Clothing (500)
Clothing (250)
Clothing (125)
Clothing (50)
Clothing x5 (20)
Renraku Sensei (1,000)
Iris Orb (1,000)
Subvocal Mic (50)
Fake Sin Rate 3 (3,000)
Fake Sin Rate 2 (2,000)
Glasses Rate 4 (100)
SmartLink (500)
ImageLink (25)
Tag Eraser (150)
Category Total: 11,325 nuyen or 5 KP

Positive Qualities
Magician (30 KP)
Linguist (10 KP)
Category Total: 40 KP

Totals
30 KP: Metatype
295 KP: Attributes
130 KP: Skill Groups
108: Skills
37: Knowledge Skills
22 KP: Languages
100 KP: Contacts
15 KP: Spells
5 KP: Equipment
40 KP: Positive Qualities
782 KP Total

I have some Negative Qualities to go with this that will bring me the extra 70 KP, but haven't settled on picking which ones are the completely best set for the history I'm working on.  

I know the character is not powerful at magic ATM, she isn't meant to be.  It is something that has been discovered recently.  I'm thinking of picking up another spell or two, but wanted to get some feedback from this venue on how the character is in general.  I have a Technomancer (I believe instead of Decker) and an Orcish Street Sam so far that will be paired with the character.  

Edit: Corrected the Attributes and changed the Languages sections.

[Frankie the Fomori]

quick note: Reaction would cost 25: Rank; 1=0 rank; 2=10; rank 3=15 Saving you 10 karma to put to strength and keeping that from being so low.

Lined coat armor (6/4) with your Body being so low you would be encumbered, darn wrong attribute...was just working on a sammi for a friend of mine so i had strength instead of body....

[Beansidhe]

Thanks.  I had AGI and REA 10 cost too high.  Adjusted the points.

[Glyph]

Your magical ability is too low to be that useful against all but the most basic opposition at this point.  It's kind of like making a street samurai with Agility: 3 and pistols: 3 because he just "recently discovered" guns.  I understand being a newbie at this is part of your concept.  I just want you to be aware that you will be sharply limited until you improve those areas.

Fortunately, you can function as a decent enough face while you are improving your magical skills.  10 dice may not seem like much, with how high social skills can get pumped up, but you will be about on par with the average professional Johnson.  And your main asset will be your network of contacts.

The only thing I would really change is all of those low-ranked language skills.  Language skills limit your social skills, and having a language skill at less than 4 means you are not getting the benefit of the Linguist quality that you bought.  You are better off with one or two languages at 4 (which the Linguist quality will raise to 6), and the rest as linguisofts (which are still relatively cheap).

Overall, I think the character is functional, if it is the only mage in the group - another mage would start out too far on the power curve for you to really catch up.  If you are the only mage, though, you can improve at your own pace, and be the group's face in the meantime.

Be careful with the mind affecting spells, though.  They can really blow up in your face if you botch them, and you don't want to use them on someone you deal with regularly, because generally targets will eventually realize what has happened to them.

[Frankie the Fomori]

sorry should have added my update to a new post, that aside I like her. She has allot of depth for playing, and is different then most face style PC's I have seen.

[Beansidhe]

@Frankie: How is she different than a lot of faces?  I saw the nice assortment of abilities that an Adept could bring to the table (and made me think of making her one).  

Armor and Encumbrance: Thank you very much for the reminder.  I'm the only one that knows the rules in the group, but I only know them based on memory from many years ago and the one read through of the SR420th book that I did over the past few weeks.  I'm going to give another skim, but didn't think about the Encumbrance issue, or even remember what stat it was linked to.  

@ Glyph: Very fair statement on being behind.  Sadly, since I have little practical experience to put to it, I can't quantify how far behind she is in magic.  I knew that she would not be very good at it, but didn't know how bad it would be.  

The contacts I didn't know if I was investing in too heavily or too lightly.  As a Face I'm supposed to have people to talk to.  I kept loyalty low on many of them, since she has been distanced with her contacts from before she faded into the shadows (except one).  So she is building the relationships with the new folks.  

I will work on changing the languages up a bit.  It is a good piece of advice.  Right now the points are cheap (only buy to 4) when later it will be buying to 3 with 1 point, then paying the higher price to increase.  

Influence I didn't take to use on folks that she is using as contacts, but more to deal with having some magical back up on other things that are going on.  She has worked as a mundane face for a long time and relies on those abilities to deal with folks.  

Will keep in mind the advice about being the only mage.  

Further Questions
Are there spells that will help me with interacting with folks.  I know that Aura Reading is going to be nice to get a clue, and some of the detection spells are handy, but not much seemed like it magically boosted interaction without being an Adept (looked at being a Mystic Adept).  

I am going to have some points left, where would you think that I should invest them?  Bring my Magic Trait up?  Bring Sorcery up?  I felt bad about buying sorcery as high as the Influence Skill Group.  

Thanks for the thoughts so far.  Was toying around with the character for a while today trying to figure out if I can accomplish both things that I am doing.  I see how she is behind a mundane Face, they wouldn't bother with the Influence group but buy them individually and higher as well as popping CHA up a bit.  

Does it seem like I would be better off dropping the magic idea from the concept?  I'm worried for the group that I am going with that having the magic aspects will be more useful than the social aspects since we have no mage ATM.  

Have now changed the language section to take Russian and Japanese at 4.  Did Russian because I'm working off the Evo theory, which works out of Russia.  Might change the corp that features in my history, and then change the language.  Japanese seems to speak for itself most of the time. 

[Frankie the Fomori]

Good morning, got a couple of questions
1 what is your Chargen final build value?
2 what is the make up of your party.

One thing I was thinking of when I looked her over was it looked Luke you were building a pc without trying to min/ max, which I thought was cool. Most face pc's I have seen really go for that approach, coming up with dice pools of 15+ for there social skills.
I will boot up my computer and post a couple example of NPC face's social skill list for examples and other mire experienced players will probably have better thoughts
Cheers and please excuse any spelling mistakes I am posting from the old Iphone

[Frankie the Fomori]

Name: PRIS
Street Name: Seraphim/ Angel
Sex: Female
Race: Elf------------------------------------------30 BP

Attributes
Body: 5------------------------------------------40
Agility: 5----------------------------------------30
Reaction: 4------------------------------------30
Strength: 3------------------------------------20
Charisma: 6----------------------------------30
Intuition: 3------------------------------------20
Logic: 3---------------------------------------20
Willpower: 3--------------------------------20
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above:240
Edge: 3------------------------------------20
Magic: 6 -----------------------------------65
Initiative: 7
Essence: 6
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above:325
Knowledge Skills (18 for Language and knowledge skill)
English : N
Spetheriel (Speak) : 4 (6)
Japanese : 4
Fine Cuisine : 2
Fine Restaurants : 2
Elven Society : 2
Billiards (American) : 2

Active Skills ---------------------------------144 BP for skills
Con (seduction): 4 (6) --------------------18
Etiquette: 4----------------------------------16
Negotiation (bargaining): 5 (7) --------22   
Leadership: 4-------------------------------16
Pistols (Semi-Automatics):4(6) --------8
Infiltration (Urban): 1(3) -----------------6
Dodge (Ranged Combat): 3(5) -------14
Disguise: 3---------------------------------12
Perception: 5------------------------------20
Unarmed Combat: 1---------------------4
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above: 469
Positive Qualities
First Impression--------------------------5
Trustworthy (2) --------------------------10 (Negotiation/con)
Adept---------------------------------------5

Negative Qualities
Sensitive System----------------------15
Allergy/Mild to glutton-----------------10
Nano intolerance-----------------------5
Scorched---------------------------------5
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above: 451
Weapons (6 BP=30,000$)
Flechette Ammo (20 shots)
Tranq Patch, Rating 10 (5)
Shock Gloves
Ares predator
Silencer
Combat Fine Knife Short Blade

Armors (12/7)
Form-Fitting Body Armor Full-Body Suit (1,600$) (6/2) [3/1 count towards encumbrance]
Greatcoat Line (3,000$) (6/5)

Vehicles
Honda Spirit (10,000$)

Commlinks
Commlink : Novatech Airware (1,250$)
OS: Iris orb (1,000$)
Net wizard bundle (480$)

Equipments
Contact Lenses (+ Smartlink) (+Flare Compensation)
Fake Sin (Rating 4) (4000$)
Flashlight



Adept Powers
Kinesics (3)       cost: 1.5
Voice Control      cost: .5
Commanding Voice      cost: .25
Cool Resolve (6)      cost: 1.5
Facial Sculpt (6)      cost: 1.5
Melanin Control      cost: .5
Sustenance      cost: .25
---------------------------------------------Total BP from above: 460
Contacts: 40 BP for contacts (maybe low, but I like to have my PC’s role play for allot of their contacts..usually solo before I start my primary first run…allows me to get to know my players, let them get a feel for their PC and they will all start with a little Karma, [2-7])


This is a NPC, in case I have no Face in the party….but she will get about the same treatment as my normal PC’s. Just I will run her a little while they are going through there solo games. Giving her contacts and some karma.

She offers several abilities, one is a strong up front negotiator (Die pool: 17 without first impression), second she can blend into any situation, changing her appearance as she needs. Lastly she had a good die pool for combat (13 15 with smartgun)

[Beansidhe]

Thanks for popping that up.  I saw the utility of using the Adept, and sadly the Magician seems to add little to being a Face. 

The other people that I have so far are a Technomancer and an Orkish bodyguard (not mine, just what I have heard about the character). 

We are using Karma at 750 with the option to take 70 worth of Negative Qualities.  I have Negative Qualities that fit the character, so would end up at 820 on KarmaGen. 

The DM that we are going to have has made 2 Shadowrun characters (one this past weekend, one years ago) and played Food Fight 4.0 this past weekend.  He doesn't have a huge amount of experience obviously.  He is used to a number of other games, and I figure that knowing the system is secondary to being able to put out a good story. 

I'm not really trying to min/max the character but put together what I think she would be.  Not sure if I should throw that away and bring in some improvement to the way that she is. 

[Glyph]

That's the tough balancing act.  You want a character that has an organic feel to them, but you also want a character who won't flounder and fail when the game starts.

My own approach is to start with a concept first.  More than just "face" or "mage" - more like "smooth-talking bounty hunter with a light touch" or "hacker with spy drones and a lot of contacts in the pirate trid news biz".  I will rough the character out, then work on the background, changing the stats as the background dictates (maybe I decide that the knife fighting adept also uses his knives for woodcarving, so I take the artisan/woodcarving skill).  Overall, I find that working on stats and background in tandem makes for an internally consistent character that can still play a functional role in a team.

While not every character has to be fully optimized (I have made a "pure" adept, knowing that adding a bit of bioware would have been more cost-effective), some  deference should be shown to the rules and setting.  For example, mundane characters are supposed to be fearful and envious of the awakened, and constantly tempted by the quick, easy boost of 'ware.  The rules back this up by giving lots of cheap dice pool boosts from technology and magic.  So if I make a mundane character, that character will need to be sneaky and resourceful, and will definitely struggle.  If I envision a mundane character who can slug it out toe to toe with cybered foes, I will have to realize that the setting is not compatible with that concept.

[Beansidhe]

As I posted up the original concept came from the old Face picture that was in the SR3E book.  It has changed a lot since then, but that was a picture that I liked.  As I was reading through Neg Qualities I got some ideas from Lost Loved One and Big Regret (I think that is what it was called).  I saw a person who was a spokesperson for a major company and ended up finding out things that had happened there that she was very much against.  The Lost Loved One I envisioned as her husband. 

These two flaws fought for a while and I ended up getting this:
The character is the wife of a brilliant scientist who is on the cutting edge of development despite not being corporate funded.  They met in college and have been together for a few years.  His research in BioTech reaches a breakthrough, and so the two of them open up a small company with her as the business and PR manager.  Over time they are approached by other investors who want to buy them out, and eventually they give in to it, since her husband hasn't been able to close the deal on what he has been working on and their money is drying up.  The two of them go to the corp and work for them, she acts as PR for the corp, and her husband is doing what he wants to do and what they want to do: BioTech theory. 

Then comes her loss of memory.  A few details that I'm going to talk to the DM as how I see it but she won't remember are as follows; eventually she finds out some dirty secrets on one of the corps projects that she has had to do PR clean up for at one point (or many points).  She brings her complaints to someone further up the ladder that she believes doesn't know what is going on. 

She wakes up years later on the street in a different city.  She has no memory of things that have occurred since a short time after the company being absorbed.  She finds out that she is 'Dead' and believes that getting back to the corp will help her clear up this mess.  She talks her way through a few things that end her up back in the city that the corp office they worked at was.  She goes in to try and clear up her life and finds that after speaking to the receptionist some company men come down to escort her.  She has seen this run down before, and knows she has to get out of there before the company men get to her.  Uncertain what is going on she flees and gets away from the company men. 

One of the company men tracks her down, but it is an old friend of her and her husband.  He tells her that he doesn't know what is going on, as far as he knew they both had died years ago.  The orders from the top are pretty clear that she is to be brought in for questioning, but he doesn't like the way that this is headed.  He passes her a credstick with nuyen on it and sends her to a local fixer to help get her out of town. 

Having dealt in PR for a long time, she has cleaned up messes that Shadowrunners have created, and now finds that she is turning to the shadows since the light will not provide her answers on what happened during those missing years and where her husband has disappeared to. 

That is the short version of it anyway. 

[Mäx]

One thing I was thinking of when I looked her over was it looked Luke you were building a pc without trying to min/ max, which I thought was cool. Most face pc's I have seen really go for that approach, coming up with dice pools of 15+ for there social skills.

I wouldn't really call a face with 15+ dice min/maxed (as that pool doesn't requier any maxing, nor really mining, is even that a word) someone with 25+ dice starts to be min/maxed for a face.
You can after all get 50+ dice for social skill tests.

[Beansidhe]

Elven Face
Elf (30)

Attributes
BOD 3 (25)
AGI 3 (15)
REA 3 (25)
STR 2 (10)
CHA 6 (75)
INT 3 (25)
LOG 3 (25)
WIL 4 (45)

Edge 2 (10)
Magic 6 (5) (100)
Essence 5.12

Skill Groups
Influence 4 (55)
Athletics 1 (10)
Stealth 2 (20)

Skills
Escape Artist 1 (4)
Pistols (Semi Automatics) 1 (6)
Dodge (Ranged) 1 (6)
Pilot Ground Craft (Wheeled) 1 (6)
Intimidation 3 (14)
Perception (Visual) 3 (16)
Computer 1 (4)
Data Search 1 (4)
First Aid 2 (8)

Knowledges
BioTech 2 (4)
Japanese Culture 3 (7)
Business 4 (11)
Wine 1 (2)
Corporate Politics 3 (7)
Psychology 3 (7)
Corporate Background 3 (7)
Biology 2 (4)
Seattle High Society 1 (2)

Languages
English (Native)
Japanese 4 (11)
Mandarin 4 (11)
Russian 4 (11)

Contacts
Bartender (Conn 3, Loy 3) (12)
Fixer (Conn 4, Loy 3) (14)
Company Man (Conn 3, Loy 4) (14)
Mr Johnson (Conn 4, Loy 1) (10)
Troll Street Dealer (Conn 2, Loy 2) (8)

Lifestyle
Regular House (Low Comfort, Entertainment, Neighborhood; Middle Necessities and Security; Free Access, Easy Landlord) 14 LP (4,400/month)
Safe House (Squatter Comfort; Street Entertainment; Middle Necessities, Neighborhood; High Security; Security Conscious; Defective CHN) 12 LP (3,200/month)

Cyberware [AlphaWare]
Commlink Fairlight Caliban with Novatech Navi, Datalink, CyberEyes Rating 4 (Flare Compensation, Low light, Vision Enhancement Rate 3, Vision Magnification), Sim Module

BioWare [AlphaWare]
Clean Metabolism, Vocal Range Enhancer

Gear
Ares Predator IV, 10 Spare Clips, Concealable Holster, Silencer, Stick n Shock ammo x30, Regular ammo x120, Nonconductive (Rate 1) Lined Coat 900, Clothing (Sets at 5,000; 2,500; 1,250; 600; 300; 150; 150; 150; 75; 75; 75; 50; 50; 50), Sony Emperor with Iris Orb, Tag Eraser, DataChip x5, Mapsoft Seattle Rate 6, Mapsoft North America Rate 6, Datasoft Psychology Rate 6, Certified Credstick x3, 2 Fake License (Drivers) Rate 4, 2 Fake License (Firearm) Rate 4, 2 Fake License (Concealed Firearm) Rate 4, 2 Fake SIN Rate 4, Reflective Glasses, Subvocal Mic, AR Gloves, Earbuds Rate 3 (Spatial Recognizer, Audio Enhancer Rate 2), AutoPicker Rate 6, Cellular Glove Molder Rate 3, KeyCard Copier Rate 6, MagLok Passkey Rate 4, DocWagon Basic, MedKit Rate 6, 10 MedKit Refills, Biomonitor, Climbing Gear, Flashlight, 4 NanoPaste Disguise (Small Tube), Hyundai Shin-Hyung, 2 Browse Rate 6

Qualities
Erased (10)
Guts (10)
Linguist (10)
First Impression (10)
Adept (10) or Mystic Adept (20)
[Have 70 worth of Negatives]

Adept Powers
Melanin Control (.5)
Facial Sculpt Rank 3 (.75)
Voice Control (.5)
Kinesics Rank 3 (1.5)
Linguistics (.25)
Sustenance (.25)
Commanding Voice (.25)

Costs
Attributes 355
Skill Groups 85
Skills 68
Knowledges 51
Languages 33
Metatype 30
Contacts 58
Qualities 50 out; 70 in
Nuyen 53

Total 783 (Remaining 37)

Wondering how this one looks.  I'm contemplating what I should do with the last 37 points.  If I take the Mystic Adept it is down to 27 which would be spent on Spellcasting Skill and a spell or two.  Only have 4 points of Adept powers selected, and am thinking I could trim that down to 3 by cutting Linguistics, Voice Control and Sustenance or one level of Facial Sculpt.  That would give me a Magic of 2 for Spellcasting and give me a decent complement of Adept Powers.  I'm wondering if I should look at Astral Perception for Assensing.  

Well, I'm very tired.  Stayed up late working on this version of the character.  Thoughts from the smart folks out there?  

[Glyph]

The vocal range enhancer and the voice control adept power are redundant with each other.  You don't need both.

My personal preference would be a pure adept - magery at a weak level really isn't worth it.  Astral perception might be something to consider, though, because assensing can reveal a lot of information - the enhanced perception power, which works for both perception and  assensing, goes with that well.  Multi-tasking and eidetic sense memory are also good powers for a face.

If you have some karma left over, you might consider raising your data search skill to improve your abilities at legwork.  You already have decent contacts.

[Frankie the Fomori]

Another suggestion, With the redundant range enhancer, and why spend essence on something you can have on the surface...instead think about using the last .12 +.1 from the range enhancer, +.2 from the commlink, +.2 from the simmod and go with 3 levels of Tailored Pheromones (Bio +.6 essence cost)..That is a +3 to all social die pools for somthing that costs nothing except getting read of the enhancer and playing with a external commlink. Overall .7 essence cost for Bio, .2 for cyberware.

Also do you mean data jack, or data lock instead of data link...I searched both Aug. and 4Ea and could not find that piece of ware?