[Digital_Viking]

Ok - for the 500 pt campaign I've mentioned before we may need magical support (1 undecided player). So just in case I thought I'd work up a combat shaman (Combat in that he can do hand to hand and guns as well as spells). The concept being Ex-Sioux Special Forces member (Not a fully developed concept right now, it's a WIP)

This is what I came up with so far - please be gentle, haven't made a spellflinger since SR1

Name:
Handle:


Race(20 points): Ork
Attributes (230 points)
Body: 6
Agility: 4
Reaction: 4  
Strength: 6
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 5

Special Attributes (73 points)
Edge: 1
Magic: 5

Positive Qualities (30 points)
Mentor Spirit (5 points)
Magician (15 points)
Martial Arts (10 points)

Negative Qualities (35 points)
Flashbacks - Uncommon
Lost Loved One
Vendetta
Wanted
Enemy (2)

Active Skills (166 points)
Athletics Group 2
Conjuring Group 3
Astral Combat 3
Counterspelling 3      
Dodge 2      
Unarmed Combat(Martial Arts) 3(+2)      
Infiltration 2      
Pilot Ground Craft (Bike) 1(+2)      
Spellcasting    5   
Etiquette(Street) 3(+2)      
Automatics(SMG) 3(+2)   
Pistols 3      

Knowledge Skills
Sioux N               
English 4               
Magic Background 2               
Magical Threats 3               
Military(Sioux Wildcats) 3(+2)               
Hangouts (Shadowrunner) 3               
Sports (Urban Brawl) 3(+2)               
Criminal (Lakota Mafia)   2            


Martial Arts - Wildcat : +1 DV Unarmed Combat , +1 Called Shot For Damage

Spells
Physical Barrier          
Powerbolt          
Stunball       
Napalm       
Manabolt
Increase Reflexes         
Heal         
Improved Invisibility (Realistic, Single)         
Combat Sense       
Detect Life, Extended      


Gear:
Sustaining Focus Rtg 3 (Increase Reflexes)
Combat Fetish and Detection Fetish
FFBA 3 w/ Securetech Forearms,Shins and Vitals
Colt Manhunter (Smartgun System, Silencer)
HK 227X (Sling,Electronic Firing)
Ammo (Ex-Ex and Gel for both guns)
Lodge Materials Rtg 6
Pocket Mage Library


Made some adjustments based on the input here - looking forward to input on the changes! Thanks again folks

[Kot]

Make him Focus-heavy, with Focus addition. It would help with the drain and give a few points of story-related Negative Qualities.

[Mäx]

Make him Focus-heavy, with Focus addition. It would help with the drain and give a few points of story-related Negative Qualities.

Whut, foci don't help with drain(unless their sustaining foci with spells increrasing your drain stats) except for centering focus(witch ofcource regueir you to have centering metamagic)

Are you maybe confusing foci with spell fetishes?

[Walks Through Walls]

You might discuss with your GM how the tactics specialization will come into play. Tactics is one of the skills that is hard to relate to roleplaying games in my opinion. I would look at going to the firearms skill group since you only need 6 points for 3 levels in longarms which is useful in my opinion.(You can act as overwatch or use a shot gun in close) or else maybe going the other direction and dropping either pistol or automatics and become more of a specialist in one or the other.

You have a good spread of spells a couple that I have found to be very useful that you might look at are: improved invisibility, physical mask, mindnet, and thought recognition. Do you expect to run into a lot of spirits? If not you might look at trading out the spirit barrier and pick it up later. Spell formulas are very cheap and the karma to learn it is only 5 so if you need it later you can get it.

Are the two adept powers you have worth loosing the power in your spells for what you are looking to do? You could get a killing hands type effect by using a touch spell with an elemental effect.

In SR4A you have to pick a type of spell for you sustaining focus. Is this for your increased reflexes?

Hope all of this helps

[Kot]

Damn, i was thinking of fetishes. Meh.

[Bradd]

You might discuss with your GM how the tactics specialization will come into play. Tactics is one of the skills that is hard to relate to roleplaying games in my opinion.

There are some excellent new rules for Leadership in WAR! (which my group put to great effect yesterday, gave the action girl something useful to do when she was prevented from engaging the foe). The Tactics specialization applies to a concentrated fire buff. For a PC/squad-sized group, specializing in Tactics is actually overkill, as this character would easily have 10–12 dice after accounting for social skill modifiers, to hit thresholds in the 1–3 hits range. It's useful if you plan to lead larger groups, though.

[Digital_Viking]

Bump for changes

[Digital_Viking]

Not sure how much of a role Spirits will play initially - would I be better off going Summoning and Binding 3 rather than the Conjuring group at 3?

[Kot]

You might consider Summoning 3 or better, Banishing and Binding at 1-2. At the beginning you're going to need Karma for developing your character. Spirits usually come later.

[Rascal]

With my shaman I was completely useless in combat (except for keeping people invisible and such) until I realized a good couple of spirits could do more damage than most of the rest of my group. When I started combat-summoning I really made a difference in the harder battles. So maybe you want to up your Summoning, but keep Binding and Banishing lower (even though a bound spirit can do so much more for you).

Concerning the Sustaining Focus... Well, I would wait with the Health-foci (note that focis are bound to spell categories, not individual spells) until I got enough Karma and money to get a rating 4, since you won´t be able to max out the Increased Reflexes with a rating 3 foci.

Make sure your Mentor Spirit is comfortable with combat, preferably giving you nice bonuses to combat spells or summoning beast-spirits or something like that.

[nub5]

If you looking for points, I suggest dropping Dodge 2.  Part of the Athlectics group is Gymanstics which you can use in place of Dodge skill.

[Makki]

I like Napalm at a mage with low drain stats
the rest of the spells are just "i-need-that-to-be-a-common-runner", but for a military background, that's probably what he was taught...
I don't like Edge 1, in a 500pt campaign, you might need more than one
the rest looks very nice

[JohnQ]

I'd recomend dropping the Napalm and Physical Barrier spells. Napalm will knock you out at Force 1, I don't have my books but I think thats the one thats drain = (f/2)+7 due to the dual water and fire nature. Maybe substitute a Fireball or BallLightning for it. Physical Barrier is going to be taxing as its effective at high force only in most situations.

Combat Sense is going to give you -2 dice without a Focus to lock it on.

Grabbing a Power Focus (Force 1 or 2) now is a lot easier than getting one later, and provides dice for all pools involving Magic attribute.

Your drain stats are low (cha + will?).  To resist the drain summoning some decent spirits you might want to get your charisma up a notch if you can, and that'll help with those Force 5 spells too.

[Xzylvador]

If you looking for points, I suggest dropping Dodge 2.  Part of the Athlectics group is Gymanstics which you can use in place of Dodge skill.

Only in full defense though; not for normal dodges.

[Bradd]

You don't get either skill in normal ranged dodges. It's only in melee and vehicle dodges that Dodge vs Gymnastics comes into play.