[ZeldaBravo]

Run Faster has alternative generation methods.

[Chalkarts]

Good to know!  I know what my second 5e purchase is gonna be lol

[Whiskeyjack]

The problem with trying to be a jack of all trades is that shadow running is a team sport and teams generally benefit from specialists.

Trying to be good at everything in this system means being middling at everything and good at nothing.

[ZeldaBravo]

That is true to a degree. If someone is absolutely useless outside of a specialisation that's a bad thing too. It is as bad as having no spec at all IMO.

[Hobbes]

That is true to a degree. If someone is absolutely useless outside of a specialisation that's a bad thing too. It is as bad as having no spec at all IMO.

Pick one skill test that comes up multiple times in a typical run.  Put a 6 in that skill, put that stat to racial max.  Grab enough combat skills and stealth to deal with a single mook (stats 3, skills 3, Armored Jacket and Heavy Pistol).  Gratz!  You've made the team.  Feel free to spend the rest of your chargen resources as you like.  It's not like you need to dig deep into splat books and supplemental material to be useful to a team. 

[Whiskeyjack]

The trick is picking that one skill IMO.

If it's Perception, grats, most everyone will have it at a high rating, or certainly more than you. If it's a combat skill, what are you doing to act more frequently and hit harder? If it's magic skills, are you buying good spells and gear to go with that skill? If it's decking, you need great year and probably ware. Etc.

I think it's a little more involved than you say. Not every run is going to require B&E but a lot are and even the runs that aren't can benefit from a teammate appearing from an unexpected angle for example.

[Poindexter]

The problem with trying to be a jack of all trades is that shadow running is a team sport and teams generally benefit from specialists.

I don't think he's trying to make a jack of all trades. It's just that the cybered mage is SUCH a cool concept, that people are gonna wanna do it.

[Chalkarts]

Actually, jack of all trades is what I was going for.  I said that on page 1.  I was going for the whole , fighter/Mage/thief thing.  He's never going to beat at twinked out specialist but in a pinch he can fill any need you have.  Not the best Mage but if you need to know what's in the astral he can take a peak, won't beat black ice but if you need a lock open he can try to hack it, doesn't have the strength to crush skulls but his smart link pistol and shock hand lets him take out your standard wage slave security guy. 

Cyber Mage is SUCH a cool thing, if you don't try to be too much of any 1 thing.  It's the kind of character that a player has to know their limits with to play well.

[zarzak]

Actually, jack of all trades is what I was going for.  I said that on page 1.  I was going for the whole , fighter/Mage/thief thing.  He's never going to beat at twinked out specialist but in a pinch he can fill any need you have.  Not the best Mage but if you need to know what's in the astral he can take a peak, won't beat black ice but if you need a lock open he can try to hack it, doesn't have the strength to crush skulls but his smart link pistol and shock hand lets him take out your standard wage slave security guy. 

Cyber Mage is SUCH a cool thing, if you don't try to be too much of any 1 thing.  It's the kind of character that a player has to know their limits with to play well.

The problem with that concept is that shadowrun is a team game, and each person on the team is going to be much more useful than your concept - so what would that character concept bring to the table?  Going to the traditional tank/dps/healing/skill type of thing: you wouldn't be able to tank anything that tough, you wouldn't be able to kill things fast enough, you wouldn't be able to heal well enough to make a difference, and your skills would be subpar.

In addition, a lot of these things are opposed tests, meaning you'd be decidedly pretty much worthless at most of them, if your goal is to be a 'jack of all trades, master of none'.

[Whiskeyjack]

Actually, jack of all trades is what I was going for.  I said that on page 1.  I was going for the whole , fighter/Mage/thief thing.  He's never going to beat at twinked out specialist but in a pinch he can fill any need you have.  Not the best Mage but if you need to know what's in the astral he can take a peak, won't beat black ice but if you need a lock open he can try to hack it, doesn't have the strength to crush skulls but his smart link pistol and shock hand lets him take out your standard wage slave security guy. 

Cyber Mage is SUCH a cool thing, if you don't try to be too much of any 1 thing.  It's the kind of character that a player has to know their limits with to play well.

The problem with that concept is that shadowrun is a team game, and each person on the team is going to be much more useful than your concept - so what would that character concept bring to the table?  Going to the traditional tank/dps/healing/skill type of thing: you wouldn't be able to tank anything that tough, you wouldn't be able to kill things fast enough, you wouldn't be able to heal well enough to make a difference, and your skills would be subpar.

In addition, a lot of these things are opposed tests, meaning you'd be decidedly pretty much worthless at most of them, if your goal is to be a 'jack of all trades, master of none'.

This.

If I'm a specialist mage or decker or sam and most of what you do as a jack of all trades is try to assist me on tests which I could have dealt with on my own perfectly well, and you can't shoot, cast, or disable gear particularly well in combat (sufficient to beat opposed tests such that our team survives), I'm going to wonder why exactly you're getting the same pay as me.

Now if you're a face and you lay down suppressive fire without much expectation to hit but you negotiate us a TON of extra cash or haggle down the cost of acquired gear or call in favors,  you're providing a valuable skill that the rest of us don't have and you're carrying your weight. Likewise a dedicated rigger with drone overwatch, sniping rotodrones, etc.

But if you're kind of a guy who can crack a lock kinda and shoot pretty meh and is only ok at casting, but you can do all that, why would we pay for redundancy instead of hiring said specialist rigger or face? What value do we get out of it? Particularly if we're all doing our jobs and redundancy doesn't particularly help us?

[ZeldaBravo]

Let's look at this from another angle; what does your mage do? What do you want him to do? Don't say 'EVERYTHING', make a list from 1) to 5) where 1 is what your mage does best and 5 is where he has the least skills. Start with small steps and it will be easier. Cybered mages are a thing but they tend to have a focus anyway.

[Hobbes]

I was going for the whole , fighter/Mage/thief thing.  He's never going to beat at twinked out specialist but in a pinch he can fill any need you have.

Multi-classed D&D characters* benefited from the synergy of multiple low level abilities that other characters didn't have.  You were a crappy fighter, but you were a hastened, backstabbing, crappy fighter so it all worked out.  You pulled your wight as an individual on the team.

Shadowrun doesn't work at all like that.  Think about what your character does.  Better than anyone else.  Build for that, or ask us how to build for that.  If you want cosmetic RP hooks those are really easy to add on.  You want to be a mage with Cyberware, done.  "I want to be a Mage with 3 Essence" isn't actually an RP hook, or a good mechanical goal.  Let stuff like that go, and focus on What you do, and why you look cool doing it.  Lots easier to build that character.  "Burned out combat and B&E specialist" for example.  "Cyber Face Adept" or "Combat Medic".   

* depending on edition and class combos.  And a Fighter/Mage/Thief was a specialized Thief with spells and a shield and just enough HP to get stuck in.  Think about it, you know it's true.... 

[JmOz01]

Let's look at this from another angle; what does your mage do? What do you want him to do? Don't say 'EVERYTHING', make a list from 1) to 5) where 1 is what your mage does best and 5 is where he has the least skills. Start with small steps and it will be easier. Cybered mages are a thing but they tend to have a focus anyway.

This is great advice

[Glyph]

Run Faster has alternative generation methods.

Sum-to-Ten gives more flexibility, but a cybered mage is still going to have a high opportunity cost, since you will need higher resources to get augmented, then lose points of Magic from those augmentations.

Point Buy (the equivalent of SR4 Karmagen) only gives you 800 points, so being a mage with high Resources will really cost.

Life Modules usually comes out technically ahead of Point Buy, but only because you end up with a lot of extraneous skills that don't quite fit your focus.  It is even worse than Point Buy if you have a concept that costs a lot to execute.


Generalists are doable, if you don't spread them too thin, if you use gear/augmentations/magic to boost your dice pools, and if you have a cohesive concept to tie your skills together.  If you have a lot of dice pools in the 12+ range, you are probably okay, but if you are stuck in the single digits, it might be a good idea to focus more.  Something like B: Magic, B: Attributes, C: Resources (it sounds like you are gravitating towards cheaper augmentations), C: Skills, and E: Metatype/Human (1) - using Sum-to-Ten - might work.

[Overbyte]

As others have said.. making a mage with a bunch of cyberware that is still "effective" and/or "useful is very difficult. Back in 3rd I made such a character for a game in Bug City where the existing team had no mage at all, so a slightly "gimped" mage was MUCH better than none. I had a very specific concept and really enjoyed playing him. Back then I was an Shaman Adept with 1 point of cyberware. Now the "shaman adept" no longer exists and I was rewriting/translating the character and it was VERY difficult to make it work. I wrote him up using Prime Runner money from SR5 so he had 150k instead of 50k.. but it still can work at normal level. In order to afford the cyberware you will have to choose very carefully, and you will probably want to have normal strength and agility so a standard cyberlimb can match your Attributes without having to pay for customization.

A - Stats (I always prefer stats when I can because they are most expensive thing to raise later and add to lots of skills)
B - Magic - Shaman, Magic 4, 2 Magic 4 skills, 7 Spells (very helpful to get some spells for free)
C - Skills - 28 / 2 (this is enough to get a few high skill magic skills on top of the free 4's and a bunch of other extras to round out)
D - Resources 50,000 (enough for some minor cyberware)
E - Race - Human (1) - put the 1 point back into Magic to make up for the loss from cyberware