[adzling]

I read the below and felt so sad for you.
The GM seems to be cutting you short shrift and focussing overly much on combat (SWAT armor and assault rifles at a party? What kind of party is that?!!?).

It's also, generally speaking, bad for the GM to have their character as an NPC in the game.

It's a common trap that novice / young GMs fall into.

I GM for our group 90% of the time and I also have a character.

He makes cameo appearances occasionally when the team needs someone with his very specific skillset but otherwise he is firmly off-stage.

I do grant him 50% of the karma that the team gets for runs just so I keep my hand in character generation and have a character to play when I get a chance.

Not sure how to say it, but every run we do it feels a bit like a fight player vs. GM. I'm used to put a lot of trust in the GM. When he says that my character gets hit, then he gets hit, no need to argue. In our group this can take up to 10-20 minutes of discussion, reading in the rules, talking about possibilities, RAW, RAI. I know it is fun to create characters in certain ways and to fit all pieces together like from a big puzzle. But the GM should have the last word, without further discussion. And on the other hand, he should create the world (e.g. runs) around the characters. Like i said in the beginning of this thread, he told me that my character is more or less useless for the group and no big loss. I think it is my type of personality, but at first i felt bad, like i made a mistake, didn't put enough effort into creating a complex character. But the last days and hours i red through a lot of threads in other forums and came to the decision that he is also responsible. If my stealth adept has nothing to do, is it really my fault? If i don't go to a party in swat armor and with my assault rifle on my back - am i playing wrong? No, i don't think so. There could be a lot of things to do for me, especially since we are not more than 4 players in total (one character is played by the GM, he is switching with another guy from time to time). Like pulling multiple levers in a building at the same time, working under time pressure, so we have to split, or giving us a hard challenge which is too hard to master for our mediocre-sneaky decker. I know, a DP of 14 in sneaking, lockpicking, gymnastics and unarmed is not great, but it is decent (without boni from equipment or adept powers). Plus 10 dice (and initiative ~25) in automatics, computer, perception, palming and software should lead me somewhere, i guess... yeah, but what can you do. Not to mention masking metamagic, cloaking, freefall, hang time, nimble fingers, traceless walk, wall running, improved senses, aikido martial arts with counterstrike...

[Beta]

I'd say your character is good, it is just a fit with your group thing. Sometimes you just have to decide if you want to stick with a group, and if so figure out in what way you can have the most fun, even though they don't share your preference in terms of game style.

[gradivus]

As Far as splitting the thread, yeah, I  would.

Start a new  thread for each character so you get opinions just about that character.

Then decide which of the two to finalize.

[Tarislar]

== Attributes ==
EDG: 2                   

== Active Skills ==
Counterspelling                   1   Pool: 7
Disguise                                4   Pool: 10
Impersonation                      4   Pool: 10
Pilot Ground Craft                1   Pool: 4
Sneaking                               4   Pool: 7

== Spells ==
Detect Life, Extended        DV: F-1
Magic Fingers                   DV: F-2
Spatial Sense, Extended  DV: F-1

== Powers ==
Kinesics Rating: 1
Nimble Fingers
Sustenance
Voice Control Rating: 1

- Is clout an option? Seems like together with a fetish (-2 drain value for 2k NY) it is stupidly easy to overcast. F9 means Dmg 9 and AP -9 for a DV of 4 (yeah, lethal damage... but with 15 drain resistance it should be fine). Sure, it's damage rating not as high as some guns, but it could be an interesting alternative, right?
- Loved the idea to fight unarmed with magic hands, but can't really see this work, since the highest possible stat rating would be spell force = 6 most of the time. So you attack unarmed with STR/AGI 6. Or is it possible to boost this otherwise? Seems not very good to me.
- I could be a bit "cheesy" and pick up the jack of all trades quality, picking up a lot of of 6-8 ratings in skill (our GM has allowed us to go up to 8 in chargen - don't know why either... don't like this, but still can use it) and pick up a lot of 1-2 value skills "after chargen" with the 100 extra karma i get to be on the same level with the other players (they still will have more points, but it is close). Don't know if i like this, but it would theoretically be possible, because i'm not risking anything going out of chargen without some of the small skills.

Over all it looks okay.

I question the above items & offer the following suggestions.

Get some more Edge.  With your Karma getting to Edge-3 should be easy.   4 Would be awesome.

Drop the skills listed above,  buy some L1 skills, post Chargen w/ Joat.
For the 3 skills at L4 worth of Chargen karma…… I would suggest Counterspelling,  Summoning,  Binding

I would drop the Powers listed above & pick up Motion Sense + Pain Resistance-1

Clout is a great spell IMHO.  I would actually suggest Blast instead to give you an AE.
Fling lets you use Knives, Shuriken, & Grenades as if you had full proficiency.  Love it.
Fling + Blast is a solid combo that is different than the typical “Ball Lightning” everyone chooses.   Some “poisoned” daggers, or other chemicals, also seems like a cool idea.
Finally Detect Enemies XR is IMHO more often useful than Detect Life XR.
Joat is a very solid choice for you since you can use it to pick up a lot of low level skills since you have post chargen karma to burn.