[Shrazkil]

So i have been hooked on how powerful mystic adepts are capable of becoming, they have some of the largest growth as they attain karma, but rarely have much need for money, besides basic stuff. I Wanted to make a build that got  significantly more powerful with both karma and monetary income. Obviously this build is gonna need a decent face for purchasing, as it needs a couple high availability piece of cyberware, so this build wouldn't be advised in a setting where faces cannot broker gear, or outright buy for the group.

Here goes:
Name: TBD
Alias: Raijin or "Rai"
Troll
mysadept
chaos tradition

Priorities: Troll A, Stats B, Magic C, Skills D, Resources E

B: 9
A: 4( 8 )
R: 3
S: 10
W:3
L:2
I:3
C:2

Edge: 3
Magic: 6
Essence: 6

Qualities:
Focus'd concentration : 3
Mentor spirit : Shark
Power points: 6
 
Neg:
Astral Beacon
Mod. Allergy uncommon
National SIN

Adept Powers:
Improved Agility 4
Improved Unarmed 3
Critical strike unarmed
Killing hands (free)

Contacts: (saddest part)
1/3 Fixer

Spells:
I. Invis
I. Intuition
Heal
I. Reflexes
Electric Aura

Skills:

Automatics:4(smg)
Unarmed:6(11)(Bareknuckle boxing)
Spellcasting:4(healing)
Con: 1(fast talk)
Sneak: 1
Perception: 1
Summoning: 1
Counterspelling: 1(purchased with Karma)

Gear:
Ingram Smartgun
Ballistics Shield
Helmet
400 ammo
Armor jacket
Lined Coat

Fake license:4 (firearms,shield,mysad)
Gold credstick
Clothes

So good tanking and unarmed right out of the gate, able to use full auto with only a -3, at peak only -1. Throwing 21 unarmed dice , and a baseline of 11DV, with capability to strike from invisibility. Burned the last fake SIN so need a new one pronto, but nat SIN use for day to day life.

Goals:
The build will incorporate 1 point of essence loss, getting Alpha Muscle augmentation 3, and Delta bone density augmentation 3 (both 20r or less). Early karma purchases, 1 more rank of Focused concentration,force 1 manipulation sustaining foci, to keep electric aura up , and a force 4 healing sustaining focus, to keep either I.Intuition or I.Reflexes up. Eventual karma purchases, 5 levels of initiation, one to repurchase powers from essence loss, one for improved strength 1, and improved body 3 for rest of PP, and Agility increased to 5(9). With all this, should have baseline 22 dice for unarmed, at 18dv(assuming 1 electric aura, could sustain a 4dv if need be) -1ap, can keep I.Reflex 4, and I.Intuition 4, and E.Aura 1 up at all times with no negatives for sustaining.

Obviously this is a largely 1 trick pony for combat. Providing healing,tanking and potential decker buffing, and invis scouting (or more importantly invis waiting in the car during important social encounters). I Like the idea of being able to decapitate someone on a single blow, and practically knocking any target prone if they survive 1 attack(plus the negative 1 to rolls, and -5ap for lightning hit). Eventual 25 armor and 15 body rolls for damage absorption, so pretty solid survivability.

Thoughts or oversights?

Would be even more powerful if made into a toxic adept. 1 perma level of radiation aura would ensure that no armor could be rolled against unarmed strikes.

[Shrazkil]

I'm thinking i might just lower strength to 9 to start and cap out agility. Would save me 25 karma later, and i still get to 13 strength which gets me the 5 recoil adjustment i wanted. Still will hit 17dv base, and 20dv if i max out elemental aura at 4force and sustain it.

[8-bit]

I'll give you something later tonight, can'the exactly review very well on a phone.

[8-bit]

It is really hard to tell exactly where all your karma went; if you want reviewers to have an easier time helping you, just add something like this.

-- Karma Expenditure --
50 Total
-18 in Qualities
-10 for 20,000 nuyen
-2 for Pilot Groundcraft 1
-5 for Athletics 1
-15 for Contacts

0 Left

That would make it so much easier to see what is/isn't optimized and see where karma is going.

---------------------

I'm just going to preface this with you need a lot of changes. You went way too far with min/maxing in some places, and in other places were way too lax with it.

Priorities

I don't see any problems here; that's pretty much the way to go. I might try to fit in Skills C though. Seriously, chaos tradition? I'll get to that with Attributes.

Attributes

I'm sorry, you have priority B in Attributes but you cannot fit in higher than 3 Reaction and Intuition? Like, I don't know what to say about that, because currently your initiative is god awful. Sure, you have Increase Reflexes, but to get anything out of it (which, by the way is absolute minimum) you need to have Force 3. When you're rocking 6 dice to resist drain, you are going to take 1S damage on average. Same with Force 2 Electricity Aura; even more if you cast at a higher Force, and I'm assuming you are going to most of the time. Maybe it isn't much, but it is something to worry about starting up wound modifiers.

Physical and Mental Attributes

Do you want to be a tank? Because that's what I'm seeing here. Go a full cyber route and you will have something that is much more powerful for a tank. You've dumped everything into Strength and Body. Yes, these are good, but you've severely neglected other attributes, especially considering you are a mystic adept. The whole point of going mystic adept is the unique ability to have both adept powers and cast spells. You've (sort of) taken advantage of it, but your attribute array is god awful if you want that. You went with Willpower + Intuition tradition, and you didn't get 9 dice to resist? I understand the point of this build is a one-trick pony, but the literal most important part of spellcasting is the ability to resist drain. If you take no damage resisting drain, you can cast as much and as often as you want. Plus, both of those attributes help you in combat.

If you really want to min/max/munchkin, then lowball Logic or Charisma (your choice), drop the Body to 5, up Willpower to 5, Intution to 4 (or keep at 3 if you want Increased Intuition with Focused Concentration), Reaction to 4 (or 5), and up Logic or Charisma to 3 (whichever one you didn't pick). You could also leave Logic and Charisma at 2 if you want. You could also up Body to 7 if you want to keep Logic or Charisma at 2 and drop Agility to 3 (It's plenty high enough even if not completely min/maxed). At least this way, you'll be rolling 8 or 9 dice to resist drain, and have 9 base initiative. That way you actually have a decent chance at getting 2 passes without having Increased Reflexes up.

Skills

Oh boy... um, this section needs a lot of work.

Unarmed Combat: All good, but I don't understand the specialization. If you mean that you have a martial art, then you need to spend 7 karma to get boxing (it's considered a martial art). I'm assuming you used Chummer which would allow this. I have the feeling you don't have the karma for a martial art, but I could be wrong.

Automatics: Uh, sure it's the most versatile, but you clearly specialized to only use submachine guns. There are better places to spend these points, I'll bring that up later.

Spellcasting: This is ... interesting? You're rolling 12 dice for health spells, which isn't bad, but I find it hard to believe that you'll fool too many people with Improved Invisibility, especially considering how bad at Sneaking you are.

On 1 rank in skills

So, generally you take one rank in skills because you either have a high attribute for it, or you really need it because you would absolutely fail if you defaulted. Let's take a look at what you have.

Con: The only reason I cannot 100% condemn this is because you took the Fast Talk specialty. Even so, you will 99% of the time need to Edge this roll to convince anyone of anything. That's not a great position to be in, especially when you only have 3 Edge. If you aren't going to convince someone anyways, the real question is why take this?

Sneaking: Although you have an impressive 9 dice to roll because of your Agility, I feel like you would probably have to Edge this roll as well to succeed on a regular basis. 3 hits on average is not bad, but someone who is naturally suspicious and has a decent sneaking and/or Intuition will probably be rolling more dice. It's not something you absolutely have to give up, but there are better places for this point.

Perception: You have absolutely 0 reason to take this skill with your current build. 4 dice might spot you the most obvious details in the world, but I would be astonished if you could find something suspicious or hidden. You could get 4 hits, but the chances are 1 in 1,234,074. That's not good odds to be looking at vs. someone who rolls 10-15 dice.

Summoning/Counterspelling: I'm sorry, but what point is there in getting these? You are likely to get 1 service out of Force 3- spirits. Get to a Force 6 spirit (which, I admit, is fairly up there) and you will get 0 services every time on average. You might as well ignore summoning if you're going this little into it. Counterspelling ... you get to add one die on a spell defense test? That is not useful at all. Just a waste of Karma in my opinion.

Suggestions

As someone with a ridiculous amount of strength, throwing weapons are vastly superior to close range guns. Throwing knives or shuriken have pretty good ranges. 0-10 meters is fairly close (I mean, think about it, if you are trying to get into melee anyways then being 30-50 meters away is not something you are aiming for as is; incidentally SMGs also have this as their standard range). Even short range goes to 20 meters. They have a base damage of 11P with -1 AP for your build, which is pretty damn good. Throwing Weapons 6 (+2 Blades) is the way I would go.

Upgrade sneaking or perception. Take Urban or Visual specialization respectively. That would make a lot more sense. Alternatively, ignore those two and take at least 4 ranks in Summoning. Add a specialization if you want.

Contacts

You seem to have 2 free karma from Charisma unspent on contacts. If you want to only have 1 contact, I highly recommend Connection 2/Loyalty 4. If you have some karma to sink into contacts, get a Street Doc perhaps.

Powers and Spells

Everything here looks fine. You're really focused on a few things, but as you've mentioned, it's a one-trick pony build.

Gear

I have the feeling you misunderstand what you need as a runner. Also, where is your lifestyle?

Well, we can toss away the gun, ammo and shield. Add in some Silver Credsticks as backup. Where's the commlink? Gotta add at least a burner one. Fake Licenses attached to a real SIN? Holy ... All right, explanation time.

Fake SINs and Fake Licenses: What it means to be discovered with them

These things are HIGHLY illegal. If you have a Fake SIN and it gets burned, you can throw away the commlink that it's on and just move on with your life. Sure, you're out on the nuyen you spent, but it's not attached to you. National SINs are real SINs. You cannot get rid of them unless you literally have not used them for years. Everything about your firearms will be traced, since you conveniently linked it to your real SIN. What happens if they burn your Fake License? You get brought in for questioning, fined a lot of money (and I mean like way more than you would probably spend on a SIN), locked in jail for a few years (probably anywhere from 5-10), and issued a Criminal SIN. Good luck keeping any semblance of a life, real or runner, after that.

Character Creation and SINs

A fake SIN is not optional. If you do not have one, you cannot have any deniability about your life in the shadows; you cannot disconnect any of your illegal actions from yourself; and most importantly, if you get caught, you're absolutely 100% screwed. It is extremely preferable to have a rating 4 Fake SIN. That is fairly unlikely to get burned for a while, and it lets you have a false identity. This next part is important. If you must, get a Rating 1 Fake SIN. That will give you something to put all your illegal activities on that is not connected to you in any way, shape, or form (at least, for governmental purposes). It is pretty likely to get burned, yes. You really don't want to get caught with illegal activity while broadcasting your National SIN.

Checklist to have for Character Creation

I'll list the essentials, then the very useful optionals.

Essentials

Armor
Weapons
Commlink (Expensive + burner if you need a PAN, just burner if you don't)
Credsticks
Fake SIN
Fake Licenses (If something isn't that obvious like a smartlink, then don't bother)
1 month of Lifestyle

Optional Stuff
Extra Burner Links
Medkit (For healing after a run, recommend rating 6, keep in vehicle or home of choice)
Vehicle
Glasses/Vision device that has Image Link (AROs are super important to interact with your team and the world in general)
Any specialized protection for your area (Respirators, Chemical Protection, etc.)

On Goals

Well, I'll preface this by saying that I have 0 idea of how this guy would think or make sense from a roleplaying perspective, but let's stick to mechanics.

I don't know what to say to the augmentations. Go for it? It will take you a while to get there anyways.

Early Karma

18 karma is a pretty reasonable amount for early purchases. The thing is, I don't understand what it gets you. Focused concentration 4 gives you what exactly? 3 seems fine to me. Manipulation sustaining focus? Force 1? You want a low level electric field around you all the time? Then what's the bloody point of getting Electricity Aura! I thought it was to add damage, not make things slightly stronger while making you have to go through nonconductivity enhancements. I guess the health sustaining focus makes sense, but why not just put it into your focused concentration?

Eventual Karma

Well, you started off reasonable. Let's just say that 5 levels of Initiation is going to take forever. 95 Karma + (if you make all the rolls for initating right) 15 months for them all to take effect. The fact you need 5 freaking initiations only for power points is a bit ridiculous. You are going to be dumping all your karma into this for a long time; and you get to miss all the other metamagics that are far more useful for a mystic adept (quickening being one of them). Also not fun to realize when you spent 13 karma + 1 month of in game time just to gain back the same powers you had before your augmentations. Seems counterproductive to me.

On the Toxic Adept bit

You know what, I could describe it to you, but I'm assuming you have Street Grimoire. I'll just give you the page numbers and let you reread the problems of being a Toxic Magic user. There is a reason why it's pretty much NPC only. Pages 84 - 88 of Street Grimoire.

---------------------

I pretty much gave my thoughts. Yeah, it's a, dare I say, interesting concept, but not very effective in its current form. I'm going to post my version below, whether you want to use it or modify it is up to you. I tried to keep the same flavor that the original build had.

Edit: I guess I should modify what I'm saying. In terms of being effective at close combat and stuff; it is very good. In terms of being able to function in society and as a runner overall, it needs a few tweaks. He doesn't need to be a genius or the most charismatic person, but stuff like sneaking is important, and ineffective skills (for this build) like Con, Summoning, Counterspelling, and Perception just aren't helpful at this point. Unless you had a pretty lenient GM, the whole not having a fake SIN thing is also a problem. I try to correct this in the build below.

-- Priorities --
Metatype A (Troll)
Attributes B
Magic C (Mystic Adept - Magic 3, 5 Spells)
Skills D
Resources E

-- Karma Expenditure --
50 Total
-5 in Qualities
-10 for 20,000 nuyen
-30 for 6 Power Points
-5 for Contacts

0 Left

-- Attributes --
Body 5
Agility 4 (8)
Reaction 5
Strength 10
Willpower 5
Logic 1
Intuition 5
Charisma 2
Edge 3
Essence 6
Magic 6

Initiative - 9 + 1d6
Physical Condition Monitor - 11
Stun Condition Monitor - 11
Physical Limit - 10
Mental Limit - 4
Social Limit - 5

-- Qualities --
Mentor Spirit - Shark (-5 Karma)
Uncommon, Moderate Allergy (+10 Karma)
Astral Beacon (+10 Karma)
National SIN - UCAS (+5 Karma)

-- Skills --
Sneaking 3 (+2 Urban) - dice pool of 11 (13)
Spellcasting 4 (+2 Health) - dice pool of 10 (12)
Throwing Weapons 6 (+2 Blades) - dice pool of 14 (16)
Unarmed Combat 6 [+2 Mentor Spirit] - dice pool of 19

-- Spells --
Improved Invisibility
Increase Intuition
Increase Reflexes
Heal
Electricity Aura

-- Adept Powers --
Improved Physical Attribute 4 - Agility - 4 PP
Improved Ability 3 - Unarmed Combat - 1.5 PP
Critical Strike - Unarmed Combat - 0.5 PP
Killing Hands - Free from Mentor Spirit

-- Gear --
Armor Jacket w/ Nonconductivity 6 - 2,500 nuyen
Lined Coat w/ Nonconductivity 6 - 2,400 nuyen
30 Shuriken - 750 nuyen
3 Meta Link Commlinks - 300 nuyen
10 Psyche - 2,000 nuyen
30 drams of reagents - 600 nuyen
1 Gold credstick, 3 silver - 160 nuyen
Rating 4 Fake SIN w/ Rating 4 Fake License (Shuriken), Rating 4 Fake License (Registered Mystic Adept) - 11,600 nuyen
1 Rating 6 medkit - 1,500 nuyen
1 month of Low Lifestyle - 4,000 nuyen

Remaining Money - 190 + (3d6 x 60) nuyen

-- Contacts --
Fixer - Connection 2/Loyalty 3
Talismonger - Connection 3/Loyalty 3

List of stuff that changed: Attributes, dropped focused concentration for more money (use Psyche to replace), sunk karma into contacts, changed skills around, drastically changed gear to include a fake SIN and all the essentials/stuff I thought necessary. 19 dice is still ridiculous (really 20 for +1 reach for being a troll) for unarmed attacks and your basic concept is still there.

[Shrazkil]

It is really hard to tell exactly where all your karma went; if you want reviewers to have an easier time helping you, just add something like this.

-- Karma Expenditure --
50 Total
-18 in Qualities
-10 for 20,000 nuyen
-2 for Pilot Groundcraft 1
-5 for Athletics 1
-15 for Contacts

0 Left

That would make it so much easier to see what is/isn't optimized and see where karma is going.

---------------------

I'm just going to preface this with you need a lot of changes. You went way too far with min/maxing in some places, and in other places were way too lax with it.

Priorities

I don't see any problems here; that's pretty much the way to go. I might try to fit in Skills C though. Seriously, chaos tradition? I'll get to that with Attributes.

Attributes

I'm sorry, you have priority B in Attributes but you cannot fit in higher than 3 Reaction and Intuition? Like, I don't know what to say about that, because currently your initiative is god awful. Sure, you have Increase Reflexes, but to get anything out of it (which, by the way is absolute minimum) you need to have Force 3. When you're rocking 6 dice to resist drain, you are going to take 1S damage on average. Same with Force 2 Electricity Aura; even more if you cast at a higher Force, and I'm assuming you are going to most of the time. Maybe it isn't much, but it is something to worry about starting up wound modifiers.

Physical and Mental Attributes

Do you want to be a tank? Because that's what I'm seeing here. Go a full cyber route and you will have something that is much more powerful for a tank. You've dumped everything into Strength and Body. Yes, these are good, but you've severely neglected other attributes, especially considering you are a mystic adept. The whole point of going mystic adept is the unique ability to have both adept powers and cast spells. You've (sort of) taken advantage of it, but your attribute array is god awful if you want that. You went with Willpower + Intuition tradition, and you didn't get 9 dice to resist? I understand the point of this build is a one-trick pony, but the literal most important part of spellcasting is the ability to resist drain. If you take no damage resisting drain, you can cast as much and as often as you want. Plus, both of those attributes help you in combat.

If you really want to min/max/munchkin, then lowball Logic or Charisma (your choice), drop the Body to 5, up Willpower to 5, Intution to 4 (or keep at 3 if you want Increased Intuition with Focused Concentration), Reaction to 4 (or 5), and up Logic or Charisma to 3 (whichever one you didn't pick). You could also leave Logic and Charisma at 2 if you want. You could also up Body to 7 if you want to keep Logic or Charisma at 2 and drop Agility to 3 (It's plenty high enough even if not completely min/maxed). At least this way, you'll be rolling 8 or 9 dice to resist drain, and have 9 base initiative. That way you actually have a decent chance at getting 2 passes without having Increased Reflexes up.

Skills

Oh boy... um, this section needs a lot of work.

Unarmed Combat: All good, but I don't understand the specialization. If you mean that you have a martial art, then you need to spend 7 karma to get boxing (it's considered a martial art). I'm assuming you used Chummer which would allow this. I have the feeling you don't have the karma for a martial art, but I could be wrong.

Automatics: Uh, sure it's the most versatile, but you clearly specialized to only use submachine guns. There are better places to spend these points, I'll bring that up later.

Spellcasting: This is ... interesting? You're rolling 12 dice for health spells, which isn't bad, but I find it hard to believe that you'll fool too many people with Improved Invisibility, especially considering how bad at Sneaking you are.

On 1 rank in skills

So, generally you take one rank in skills because you either have a high attribute for it, or you really need it because you would absolutely fail if you defaulted. Let's take a look at what you have.

Con: The only reason I cannot 100% condemn this is because you took the Fast Talk specialty. Even so, you will 99% of the time need to Edge this roll to convince anyone of anything. That's not a great position to be in, especially when you only have 3 Edge. If you aren't going to convince someone anyways, the real question is why take this?

Sneaking: Although you have an impressive 9 dice to roll because of your Agility, I feel like you would probably have to Edge this roll as well to succeed on a regular basis. 3 hits on average is not bad, but someone who is naturally suspicious and has a decent sneaking and/or Intuition will probably be rolling more dice. It's not something you absolutely have to give up, but there are better places for this point.

Perception: You have absolutely 0 reason to take this skill with your current build. 4 dice might spot you the most obvious details in the world, but I would be astonished if you could find something suspicious or hidden. You could get 4 hits, but the chances are 1 in 1,234,074. That's not good odds to be looking at vs. someone who rolls 10-15 dice.

Summoning/Counterspelling: I'm sorry, but what point is there in getting these? You are likely to get 1 service out of Force 3- spirits. Get to a Force 6 spirit (which, I admit, is fairly up there) and you will get 0 services every time on average. You might as well ignore summoning if you're going this little into it. Counterspelling ... you get to add one die on a spell defense test? That is not useful at all. Just a waste of Karma in my opinion.

Suggestions

As someone with a ridiculous amount of strength, throwing weapons are vastly superior to close range guns. Throwing knives or shuriken have pretty good ranges. 0-10 meters is fairly close (I mean, think about it, if you are trying to get into melee anyways then being 30-50 meters away is not something you are aiming for as is; incidentally SMGs also have this as their standard range). Even short range goes to 20 meters. They have a base damage of 11P with -1 AP for your build, which is pretty damn good. Throwing Weapons 6 (+2 Blades) is the way I would go.

Upgrade sneaking or perception. Take Urban or Visual specialization respectively. That would make a lot more sense. Alternatively, ignore those two and take at least 4 ranks in Summoning. Add a specialization if you want.

Contacts

You seem to have 2 free karma from Charisma unspent on contacts. If you want to only have 1 contact, I highly recommend Connection 2/Loyalty 4. If you have some karma to sink into contacts, get a Street Doc perhaps.

Powers and Spells

Everything here looks fine. You're really focused on a few things, but as you've mentioned, it's a one-trick pony build.

Gear

I have the feeling you misunderstand what you need as a runner. Also, where is your lifestyle?

Well, we can toss away the gun, ammo and shield. Add in some Silver Credsticks as backup. Where's the commlink? Gotta add at least a burner one. Fake Licenses attached to a real SIN? Holy ... All right, explanation time.

Fake SINs and Fake Licenses: What it means to be discovered with them

These things are HIGHLY illegal. If you have a Fake SIN and it gets burned, you can throw away the commlink that it's on and just move on with your life. Sure, you're out on the nuyen you spent, but it's not attached to you. National SINs are real SINs. You cannot get rid of them unless you literally have not used them for years. Everything about your firearms will be traced, since you conveniently linked it to your real SIN. What happens if they burn your Fake License? You get brought in for questioning, fined a lot of money (and I mean like way more than you would probably spend on a SIN), locked in jail for a few years (probably anywhere from 5-10), and issued a Criminal SIN. Good luck keeping any semblance of a life, real or runner, after that.

Character Creation and SINs

A fake SIN is not optional. If you do not have one, you cannot have any deniability about your life in the shadows; you cannot disconnect any of your illegal actions from yourself; and most importantly, if you get caught, you're absolutely 100% screwed. It is extremely preferable to have a rating 4 Fake SIN. That is fairly unlikely to get burned for a while, and it lets you have a false identity. This next part is important. If you must, get a Rating 1 Fake SIN. That will give you something to put all your illegal activities on that is not connected to you in any way, shape, or form (at least, for governmental purposes). It is pretty likely to get burned, yes. You really don't want to get caught with illegal activity while broadcasting your National SIN.

Checklist to have for Character Creation

I'll list the essentials, then the very useful optionals.

Essentials

Armor
Weapons
Commlink (Expensive + burner if you need a PAN, just burner if you don't)
Credsticks
Fake SIN
Fake Licenses (If something isn't that obvious like a smartlink, then don't bother)
1 month of Lifestyle

Optional Stuff
Extra Burner Links
Medkit (For healing after a run, recommend rating 6, keep in vehicle or home of choice)
Vehicle
Glasses/Vision device that has Image Link (AROs are super important to interact with your team and the world in general)
Any specialized protection for your area (Respirators, Chemical Protection, etc.)

On Goals

Well, I'll preface this by saying that I have 0 idea of how this guy would think or make sense from a roleplaying perspective, but let's stick to mechanics.

I don't know what to say to the augmentations. Go for it? It will take you a while to get there anyways.

Early Karma

18 karma is a pretty reasonable amount for early purchases. The thing is, I don't understand what it gets you. Focused concentration 4 gives you what exactly? 3 seems fine to me. Manipulation sustaining focus? Force 1? You want a low level electric field around you all the time? Then what's the bloody point of getting Electricity Aura! I thought it was to add damage, not make things slightly stronger while making you have to go through nonconductivity enhancements. I guess the health sustaining focus makes sense, but why not just put it into your focused concentration?

Eventual Karma

Well, you started off reasonable. Let's just say that 5 levels of Initiation is going to take forever. 95 Karma + (if you make all the rolls for initating right) 15 months for them all to take effect. The fact you need 5 freaking initiations only for power points is a bit ridiculous. You are going to be dumping all your karma into this for a long time; and you get to miss all the other metamagics that are far more useful for a mystic adept (quickening being one of them). Also not fun to realize when you spent 13 karma + 1 month of in game time just to gain back the same powers you had before your augmentations. Seems counterproductive to me.

On the Toxic Adept bit

You know what, I could describe it to you, but I'm assuming you have Street Grimoire. I'll just give you the page numbers and let you reread the problems of being a Toxic Magic user. There is a reason why it's pretty much NPC only. Pages 84 - 88 of Street Grimoire.

---------------------

I pretty much gave my thoughts. Yeah, it's a, dare I say, interesting concept, but not very effective in its current form. I'm going to post my version below, whether you want to use it or modify it is up to you. I tried to keep the same flavor that the original build had.

Edit: I guess I should modify what I'm saying. In terms of being effective at close combat and stuff; it is very good. In terms of being able to function in society and as a runner overall, it needs a few tweaks. He doesn't need to be a genius or the most charismatic person, but stuff like sneaking is important, and ineffective skills (for this build) like Con, Summoning, Counterspelling, and Perception just aren't helpful at this point. Unless you had a pretty lenient GM, the whole not having a fake SIN thing is also a problem. I try to correct this in the build below.

-- Priorities --
Metatype A (Troll)
Attributes B
Magic C (Mystic Adept - Magic 3, 5 Spells)
Skills D
Resources E

-- Karma Expenditure --
50 Total
-5 in Qualities
-10 for 20,000 nuyen
-30 for 6 Power Points
-5 for Contacts

0 Left

-- Attributes --
Body 5
Agility 4 (
Reaction 5
Strength 10
Willpower 5
Logic 1
Intuition 5
Charisma 2
Edge 3
Essence 6
Magic 6

Initiative - 9 + 1d6
Physical Condition Monitor - 11
Stun Condition Monitor - 11
Physical Limit - 10
Mental Limit - 4
Social Limit - 5

-- Qualities --
Mentor Spirit - Shark (-5 Karma)
Uncommon, Moderate Allergy (+10 Karma)
Astral Beacon (+10 Karma)
National SIN - UCAS (+5 Karma)

-- Skills --
Sneaking 3 (+2 Urban) - dice pool of 11 (13)
Spellcasting 4 (+2 Health) - dice pool of 10 (12)
Throwing Weapons 6 (+2 Blades) - dice pool of 14 (16)
Unarmed Combat 6 [+2 Mentor Spirit] - dice pool of 19

-- Spells --
Improved Invisibility
Increase Intuition
Increase Reflexes
Heal
Electricity Aura

-- Adept Powers --
Improved Physical Attribute 4 - Agility - 4 PP
Improved Ability 3 - Unarmed Combat - 1.5 PP
Critical Strike - Unarmed Combat - 0.5 PP
Killing Hands - Free from Mentor Spirit

-- Gear --
Armor Jacket w/ Nonconductivity 6 - 2,500 nuyen
Lined Coat w/ Nonconductivity 6 - 2,400 nuyen
30 Shuriken - 750 nuyen
3 Meta Link Commlinks - 300 nuyen
10 Psyche - 2,000 nuyen
30 drams of reagents - 600 nuyen
1 Gold credstick, 3 silver - 160 nuyen
Rating 4 Fake SIN w/ Rating 4 Fake License (Shuriken), Rating 4 Fake License (Registered Mystic Adept) - 11,600 nuyen
1 Rating 6 medkit - 1,500 nuyen
1 month of Low Lifestyle - 4,000 nuyen

Remaining Money - 190 + (3d6 x 60) nuyen

-- Contacts --
Fixer - Connection 2/Loyalty 3
Talismonger - Connection 3/Loyalty 3

List of stuff that changed: Attributes, dropped focused concentration for more money (use Psyche to replace), sunk karma into contacts, changed skills around, drastically changed gear to include a fake SIN and all the essentials/stuff I thought necessary. 19 dice is still ridiculous (really 20 for +1 reach for being a troll) for unarmed attacks and your basic concept is still there.

I will have to change around the way i post characters a bit, i do not have a program, but use an excel sheet that tracks expendatures.

I donot have any books with martial arts, so the unarmed specialization is just a way to get +2 when bare fist fighting for 1 karma.

Resist dice wise(drain), i would have 9-10 resist dice, because of improved intuition spell. It wouldput me at 6-7 intuition, which also helps with initiative, and defense. I should have 13-14 +3d6 once i have early karma expendatures, and would probably take the -2 sustaining to make sure i have it at very start. That should get me 3 passes every round 90% of the time.

I do not see the point of any of the metamagics besides power points. I like quikened, but it seems too easily dispelled, and trackable.

Skillwise, a lot of my choices were to help cancel out common pitfalls with having uncharismatic trolls around. I wanted at least 5 dice for Con, so i can at least not automatically blow a simple lie when im not skulking around invis. Perception would be augmented by my improved intuition, so 7-8 dice, just enough to maybe catch something i need to see, or team perception tests. Stealth is largely to not glitch it while im invis, to spot me while improved invis, they need to
first catch me off of Stealth, unless astrally perceiving. I am not real familiar with throwing, but automatics gave me some benefit of being able to lay down cover fire if we need to escape, and generally do HEAVY damage at range, while lowering their defense dice by -9 almost assuring more net hits, and that i will hit on full auto. (Full auto would be me throwing 11 dice at creation (14 at peak), and opponent throwing 9 less defense dice against me, so about 11-12DV average with about a 95% success rate of hitting), Throwing can not come close to that for a good dodging character, plus can be completely negated by a missle parry adept, thats why i shy away from arrows or throwing. Summoning was largely just so i could use force 3 spirits for special abilities, and counterspell would give me my magic rating as dice for the pool as well does it not? If i misunderstood that part, that would free up 2 more karma for cash as well, i thought for 1 skill point i would have 7 dice to aid in spell defense per turn.

I didnt think about my liscenses being attached to a fake sin i burned, once it goes the rest would go, so that would have been wasted money. I will try to fix it to get a lvl 2 fake sin, until i can afford better. I had 3 meta comm links on my character, just neglected to post them. I was just planning on using the Nat SIN for legal purchases.

Karma wise i was all tapped out. Spent 1 karma on extra nuyen, so had 8k to work with. Will drop shield at creation, and make a few tweaks to afford the Fake Sin. I had squatter lifestyle bought for 1 month, i just leave some of the more minute details off since i do not have  a program that i can just export my build.

I think in evaluating the build, overlooking my usage of Improved intuition threw off a major component. Your sample build certainly gave me some extra ideas though.

[Shrazkil]

So I think I could get away from 9 body and go with just 7, I'm ok dropping strength down to 9 since I will still hit 13 base, and logic I can deal with dumpstatting to 1, if I raise intuition, I have to raise focused concentration, it's paramount to build. So I could then do :

Body 7
Agility 5(9)
Strength 9
Reaction 3
Will 5
Logic 1
Int 4 ( will be at 7 or 8 with spell)
Cha 2

[8-bit]

I will have to change around the way i post characters a bit, i do not have a program, but use an excel sheet that tracks expendatures.

I donot have any books with martial arts, so the unarmed specialization is just a way to get +2 when bare fist fighting for 1 karma.

Resist dice wise(drain), i would have 9-10 resist dice, because of improved intuition spell. It wouldput me at 6-7 intuition, which also helps with initiative, and defense. I should have 13-14 +3d6 once i have early karma expendatures, and would probably take the -2 sustaining to make sure i have it at very start. That should get me 3 passes every round 90% of the time.

I do not see the point of any of the metamagics besides power points. I like quikened, but it seems too easily dispelled, and trackable.

Skillwise, a lot of my choices were to help cancel out common pitfalls with having uncharismatic trolls around. I wanted at least 5 dice for Con, so i can at least not automatically blow a simple lie when im not skulking around invis. Perception would be augmented by my improved intuition, so 7-8 dice, just enough to maybe catch something i need to see, or team perception tests. Stealth is largely to not glitch it while im invis, to spot me while improved invis, they need to
first catch me off of Stealth, unless astrally perceiving. I am not real familiar with throwing, but automatics gave me some benefit of being able to lay down cover fire if we need to escape, and generally do HEAVY damage at range, while lowering their defense dice by -9 almost assuring more net hits, and that i will hit on full auto. (Full auto would be me throwing 11 dice at creation (14 at peak), and opponent throwing 9 less defense dice against me, so about 11-12DV average with about a 95% success rate of hitting), Throwing can not come close to that for a good dodging character, plus can be completely negated by a missle parry adept, thats why i shy away from arrows or throwing. Summoning was largely just so i could use force 3 spirits for special abilities, and counterspell would give me my magic rating as dice for the pool as well does it not? If i misunderstood that part, that would free up 2 more karma for cash as well, i thought for 1 skill point i would have 7 dice to aid in spell defense per turn.

I didnt think about my liscenses being attached to a fake sin i burned, once it goes the rest would go, so that would have been wasted money. I will try to fix it to get a lvl 2 fake sin, until i can afford better. I had 3 meta comm links on my character, just neglected to post them. I was just planning on using the Nat SIN for legal purchases.

Karma wise i was all tapped out. Spent 1 karma on extra nuyen, so had 8k to work with. Will drop shield at creation, and make a few tweaks to afford the Fake Sin. I had squatter lifestyle bought for 1 month, i just leave some of the more minute details off since i do not have  a program that i can just export my build.

I think in evaluating the build, overlooking my usage of Improved intuition threw off a major component. Your sample build certainly gave me some extra ideas though.

I use Chummer for quick building then manually copy everything to a spreadsheet. It's a pain to do, but it makes it really easy to modify and keep track of during a game.

I'm not sure about the unarmed specialization then, because technically there is no specialization for just unarmed fighting. Might get GM permission for it though.

I see what you mean about Increase Intuition, but it still means that (at least early on) you're going to start taking some heavy sustained penalties. 0 for Increase Intuition, -2 for Increase Reflexes, -2 for Electric Aura, and optional -2 for Improved Invisibility. Adding in Psyche does help, but that's another thing to worry about, especially since you can get addicted to it. I still say Willpower of 5 is much preferred.

Metamagics can give you quite a few things. Quickened is incredibly helpful, not exactly that easy to dispel if you do it right, and when you're sustaining a bunch of spells through foci anyways, the trackability is not that much of an issue. Masking helps with your whole invisibility concept. Those are about the only two I can think of. Power points are nice, sure, but metamagics give you unique uses, whereas your power choices are mostly just static boosts. It doesn't really matter, either way is fine.

When you're working with D skills and a spellcaster (in this case, even worse, since you're a mystic adept), you have to drop some stuff.

5 dice for Con is still very unlikely of getting you what you want. Maybe if you had 6 Edge, I could see edging that roll for the one time it might come up per run, but I just feel like it's something that's just going to make you lose Edge and still be unlikely to get what you want.

That's a little better for Perception, I had not counted on Increase Intuition there. So, yeah, that could help.

From what I understood of the character concept, you went in invisible to catch someone off guard. Therefore, I would want to get as much sneaking as possible, as an observant listener or lucky camera can still see you if you fail your roll. I would rather roll 13 dice to sneak than 9; after all, if I get caught there goes half of my plan.

Automatics vs. Throwing Weapons - To each their own. I see your points and they make sense; I still like throwing weapons myself. It's mostly a personal preference.

Counterspelling, it's just your skill rating. Here's the quote:

Each Combat Turn, you have a pool of dice for spell defense equal to your Counterspelling skill

Summoning - Eh, I guess. I still don't really think it's worth getting 1 service out of a force 3 spirit in the first place.

Just a Fake SIN of some sort so that you have deniability and the ability to not have illegal activity tied to your true identity.

Sounds good on the gear stuff.

Yeah, I didn't factor in Increase Intuiton, but I think I pointed out a couple of the drawbacks for it. Does make it a little more reasonable though.

So I think I could get away from 9 body and go with just 7, I'm ok dropping strength down to 9 since I will still hit 13 base, and logic I can deal with dumpstatting to 1, if I raise intuition, I have to raise focused concentration, it's paramount to build. So I could then do :

Body 7
Agility 5(9)
Strength 9
Reaction 3
Will 5
Logic 1
Int 4 ( will be at 7 or 8 with spell)
Cha 2

I would put 2 into Reaction, or 1 into Reaction and 1 into Agility (since that seems to be your idea). As long as you keep Increase Intuition sustained, I think that will serve you just fine, since you have Willpower 5. That way you don't have to increase Focused Concentration and everything.

[Shrazkil]

Why so much importance in reaction? Am I missing something? Aside from defense tests, which intuition gives me, as well as boosts to perception and drain. I wasn't too worried about defense dice , with as much armor as I will be running with, but more certainly doesn't hurt.

Conceptually I am not really relying on invis for combat purposes necessarily, more so for out of combat , to avoid social interactions and suspicion. I should not be rolling around with too much neg sustained dice, my pre combat ( or pre leaving the house) routine should be first improved int 3-4 , sustain it with focused concentration, then force 4 improved reflexes, sustain for -2, (later sustain with foci) , invis before leaving house, drop intuition after invis cast to sustain invis. Electric aura wouldn't really be used unless an emergency , and them would be force 3-4 and sustained with focused, until I get the force 1 focus for 3 k and 2 karma. Once I have my foci after a few missions then invis combat is more of a viable combat tactic.

I'm glad about the counterspelling drop then, that frees me up 2 karma for contacts or cash. I will likely just drop summoning and raise automatics to 5 or 6.

Unarmed listed fighting styles under acceptable specializations, I just chose something with alittle flare.

Thanks greatly for the input, I always appreciate your take on things 8- bit , and look for your concepts to gleam rules and strategies from.

[8-bit]

Why so much importance in reaction? Am I missing something? Aside from defense tests, which intuition gives me, as well as boosts to perception and drain. I wasn't too worried about defense dice , with as much armor as I will be running with, but more certainly doesn't hurt.

It's a boost to initiative, and defense tests. Reaction + Intuition determines all of that stuff, and if you want to keep Focused Concentration at rating 3, you cannot really raise Intuition any higher. Hence, the increase to Reaction. It also affect Physical limit slightly, and if you decide to pick up a vehicle later, it affects driving. My point is that I would rather be rocking slightly more initiative, surprise dice, and defense dice, than one more in Agility for attacks (especially since 8 is already really good).

Conceptually I am not really relying on invis for combat purposes necessarily, more so for out of combat , to avoid social interactions and suspicion. I should not be rolling around with too much neg sustained dice, my pre combat ( or pre leaving the house) routine should be first improved int 3-4 , sustain it with focused concentration, then force 4 improved reflexes, sustain for -2, (later sustain with foci) , invis before leaving house, drop intuition after invis cast to sustain invis. Electric aura wouldn't really be used unless an emergency , and them would be force 3-4 and sustained with focused, until I get the force 1 focus for 3 k and 2 karma. Once I have my foci after a few missions then invis combat is more of a viable combat tactic.

Even more of a reason to drop Con IMO. I'm guessing run invisibility to avoid social interactions and if, during a run, a cop comes up to you, just drop him with your 19+ unarmed dice and try to make it as silent as possible (I would recommend turning killing hands off so that it's stun damage). See, that's really my problem here. If you want to run all your spells, you're looking at a lot of dice removed from your pool. Otherwise, you have to juggle spells as you are describing. When you drop Increase Intuition, most of my earlier points where that spell wasn't involved still stand. If you drop reflexes, you're initiative sucks. If you drop invisibility, you're big surprise factor is lost. Finally, if you aren't going to be using Electric aura except in an emergency, then I'm not quite sure why you would take it. At that point I would go with something like Silence or Sound barrier to cut off sound.

I guess my largest problem is that this build is very difficult to compare to other builds. It would definitely work better with a karma build (not out for SR5 yet), but also you're banking on the fact that mystic adepts scale really well. Right out of the gate, you aren't quite as powerful as I'm trying to imagine your goals would be. I can definitely see it working really well after you get some runs in.

I'm glad about the counterspelling drop then, that frees me up 2 karma for contacts or cash. I will likely just drop summoning and raise automatics to 5 or 6.

If you're going to be running penalties due to sustained spells and such, I would recommend drop summoning, raise automatics to 6. Although contacts are nice, cash is more important at this point IMO. Maybe upgrade SIN or License as far as you can go, or get a medkit. Or, if you can, get a Low Lifestyle. Definitely preferable in quite a few ways to squatter.

Unarmed listed fighting styles under acceptable specializations, I just chose something with alittle flare.

Yeah, I'm just not too clear what it means for that. Your specialization is probably fine.

Thanks greatly for the input, I always appreciate your take on things 8- bit , and look for your concepts to gleam rules and strategies from.

I hope I was able to help. I wrote that first thing at like 1 in the morning, so it may have come off as a little harsh (and some of my reasoning my have been a little off). I definitely like the uniqueness of your build; I congratulate you on being able to fit both Troll and Mystic Adept into the same build. I've tried for a while to get that to work, but I can never get it exactly right at character creation.

[Shrazkil]

So I think I will be dropping mentor spirit at creation, going focused concentration 4, and using the remaining 4 karma to cash in 8k Nuyen , this will let me get my lvl 4 sin and licenses as well as the starting gear - the shield and extra coat.

By 2 runs in, I should have the money and karma for the force 1 manipulation sustaining foci , and probably the money for the force 4 health sustaining as well( if face is decent). From that point I will need the mentor spirit, and I'm at my optimum combat/buffing performance. With cyber and initiation stuff just expounding the pounding.

[Shrazkil]

So I think I will be dropping mentor spirit at creation, going focused concentration 4, and using the remaining 4 karma to cash in 8k Nuyen , this will let me get my lvl 4 sin and licenses as well as the starting gear - the shield and extra coat.

I still would rather have the extra intuition then reaction, this way I can do either:
Reaction 3
Will 5
Int 4
And raise reaction to 4 where I would later have increased agility to 5 ( 9 )

Or

Rea 4
Wil 4
Int 4

By 2 runs in, I should have the money and karma for the force 1 manipulation sustaining foci , and probably the money for the force 4 health sustaining as well( if face is decent). From that point I will need the mentor spirit, and I'm at my optimum combat/buffing performance. With cyber and initiation stuff just expounding the pounding.

[8-bit]

So I think I will be dropping mentor spirit at creation, going focused concentration 4, and using the remaining 4 karma to cash in 8k Nuyen , this will let me get my lvl 4 sin and licenses as well as the starting gear - the shield and extra coat.

By 2 runs in, I should have the money and karma for the force 1 manipulation sustaining foci , and probably the money for the force 4 health sustaining as well( if face is decent). From that point I will need the mentor spirit, and I'm at my optimum combat/buffing performance. With cyber and initiation stuff just expounding the pounding.

Just note that dropping the mentor spirit will give you 2 less dice for Unarmed Combat. Also, you lose killing hands. Perhaps replace the Critical Strike power with Killing Hands, it's good to have the ability to deal Physical damage in melee combat.

I like option 1 for attributes, now that you're taking focused concentration 4, Intuition 4 is not bad.

Other than that, sounds good.

[Shrazkil]

Is it worth picking up killing hands, if I plan on still getting shark mentor early in my career, plus by 1 mission in I can get the manipulation foci which will turn my damage to physical as well. I can always double tap a stunned opponent to do physical damage (with smh)during first mission if needbe.

I would not get the .5 pp back once I got shark mentor right?

[8-bit]

If you're fine with running electric aura for physical damage, then leaving killing hands out is fine. Just remember that for the first few runs you aren't going to be dealing physical damage with your fists unless you activate your spell.

On the Shark mentor thing; I believe you do get the 0.5 PP back. It's the same with buying a Way. Any discounted points, or freed up points, get refunded and reallocated. Not 100% sure, but I'm sure most GMs would say that is reasonable.

[JackVII]

I think you could pick up a set of knucks to deal physical, you'd just lose your specialization. So it's a decent trade-off for the beginning of your career.