I wanted to catalog some of the thoughts I had now that my Street Shaman character has experienced a few months of play. Basically things I wish I'd known at chargen.
1. Shell out for the relevant supplements first.
My magician was built purely from core and it sucks to discover after the fact "oh, I could've attuned some of my heavier-drain spells to fetishes" or that there is a quality that increases the damage of direct combat spells by 2 that will now cost me twice as much karma if I want it. I also wasted a ton of money on a power focus that my GM is allowing me to let my Talismonger (and her assistants) craft an upgrade for me, all of which I'm paying for using the hourly labor rates from Run Faster instead of the shelf price.
ESSENTIAL SUPPLEMENTS:
Street Grimoire for fetishes, more spells, more traditions if you care or want to Intuition for drain instead of Logic or Charisma, additional Mentor Spirits, long-term initiation planning (hello Extended Masking), discounts on initiation (probably save these until later when it you get more out of it)
Shadow Spells for more spells (including the awesome Manascape I intend to get ASAP)
Run Faster if you want Witness My Hate, as well as other qualities and equipment that may be interesting
Hard Targets if you want Spellblades
2. Single-point skills are cheap to obtain after chargen.
It takes 12 karma and 6 weeks to take a skill from 5 to 6, but only 2 karma and a day to go from 0 to 1. So it's much more efficient to spend your "free" points on maxing out a small number of skills you care about than taking a bunch of one-points that you can easily get after chargen. Sometimes it makes sense to the character, but (especially with my Levitate spell in play) I've not rolled my Gymnastics skill once.
2. a. Likewise, low attributes are far cheaper to raise than medium or high attributes.
It makes sense to max out the stats you care about as much as you can at chargen. (I'm playing a buffing magician anyway so several of my attributes are frequently boosted by an additional 4 points.)
3. Buy strong armor.
Especially if your Body is low. Mages are squishy, and they will try to geek you. (Corollary: learn the rules for full defense and block/parry/dodge. Make sure one of the latter is a viable option for you. The best way to survive a hit is to avoid it.)
4. Remember you're on a team.
It's easy and tempting to make a Magician who can do everything: depending on tradition they can be a face or a decker, they're fearsome in combat, with the right spells from Grimoire they're even a mechanic. Especially if you're the only dedicated mage on your team then your job should be dealing with magical stuff; don't dilute your formula by trying to be a jack of all trades.
Things I think I did right:
1. Hero Lab is expensive but a great investment. The rules are dense and Hero Lab automates most of them for you. I tried a couple of the free tools but none of them compare and the licensed built-in documentation is great. The time I've saved is incalculable and I do not regret a single dollar spent on that software.
2. Take the time to learn about and understand foci and reagents. A couple good sustaining foci make a world of difference if you're doing anything other than combat, and reagents are surprisingly cheap and cost-effective when used wisely. (In particular, a force-1 focus can sustain a much stronger spell if cast with reagents.)
3. Choose a concept that works for me and invest in that. I wanted to play with a high-force-low-drain combat touch-spell, so I've invested in Unarmed Combat (with a specialization I worked out with my GM for discharging spells), Punch, Increase Agility and Increase Reflexes spells, as well was options to be stealthy (Sneak ability and Conceal power from summoned creatures). It's been fun and working well for me, but taken a hefty chunk of my chargen resources. (If I'd known about Manablade I might have constructed around that instead.)
4. Decide where you want to use spirits for help. Spirits can obviate the need for a lot of skills and spells. I was able to drop Improved Invisibility in favor of Concealment, and I let spirits do my Searching for me. Their Movement ability is also super powerful. Spirts of Man can sustain your spells for you, and have optional psychokineses and influence abilities that do what those spells do. Spirits are of course more effort to wield than simple spells so it makes sense to pick and choose (e.g. I still have the Influence spell for my own use).
5. If you're taking combat spells but aren't specializing in combat, choose the minimum spells that cover your use cases. In addition to my Punch spell for (typically instant) melee knockouts, I have one direct spell for dealing with heavily armored and as an alternative to Astral Combat (which I didn't invest any skill points in), and one indirect AOE spell for laying on the heavy artillery.
6. Plan for a way to combat drain. I'm a buff-heavy shaman so I increase my Charisma for four extra drain dice. Other options include Centering metamagic with a focus once you've initiated. If you're into trading essence for cyberware I imagine there are options there as well.
I'd love to hear other experience, advice or tidbits relating to this!
Dan.
