[The Key of E]

I'm trying to fine-tune my hermetic mage for an upcoming game. Specifically, I have questions about my spell choices and a few other things. I played 2nd and 3rd edition back in the day, but this is my first SR4 character.

Full Character

If you don't want to bother with looking at the full character, my relevant casting statistics are:
Spellcasting - 12
Drain resist - 12
Magic - 4

My spell list and the reasons for each choice are:
Heal - Um...duh
Ice Sheet - Anti-vehicle
Increase Attribute (AGI) - Improve guns
Increase Reflexes - Again, duh
Influence - lots of uses
Levitate - So I don't need Running or Climbing
Lightning Bolt (F) - Anti-drone
Orgy - Enemy debuff
Physical Mask - useful in infiltration and social
Powerball (F) - Area attack
Stunbolt - Primary attack spell, anti-spirit
Trid Phantasm (F) - lots of uses

So I've got several questions that I want opinions on. Firstly, I'm not sold on Increase Attribute (AGI). I wanted something to increase my otherwise poor shot with guns, reducing the sustaining penalty with either Psyche or having a Spirit of Man cast it on me and sustain it. However, I'm also considering Increase Attribute (REA) (to improve INIT and defense) or Shapechange instead of AGI.

While I would like to be better at guns, I already have a pretty strong offense with spells and the extra defense from REA might be better. (I don't yet know what the rest of the group is playing, so I can't say how these spells would interact with their characters.) Shapechange seems like it could be useful, but I can't think of any clear situations would it would really come in handy. Also, I don't have Unarmed Combat; if I change into, say, a bear would I get the Unarmed Combat skill of the bear? So of the three, what are your opinions on their usefulness? Should I drop all three and go with something else?

Secondly, I have a few other spell questions. I took Powerball because I wanted an area spell. Would Stunball be better? Do I even need an area attack spell? Would Control Thoughts or Control Actions be more useful than Influence? Would Flamethrower be a better anti-drone spell than Lightning Bolt? Could I skip Ice Sheet and just use Flamethrower/Lightning Bolt for anti-vehicle?

Lastly, I have some questions about gear. I got a Force 4 Sustaining Focus for Improved Reflexes. However, I'm not sure I actually need 4 IPs. Would dropping the Sustaining Focus to Force 3 be advisable? (I could drop the Restricted Gear PQ and save 5 points.) Also, I don't plan on hacking ever, but I want to avoid being hacked. What's the minimum security a mage would need on his commlink?

I appreciate your help, everyone. Let me know if you have any other suggestions/critiques in addition to the questions I've posed.

[UmaroVI]

Trying to split your focus between spellcasting and physical combat is not a good idea. You can make a dude who works by buffing himself and shooting guns, or a dude who shoots mind lasers, but if you try to do both you'll be bad at both.

 Increase Reaction is a good spell. I would, however, advise against relying on sustained spells you can't put into a focus - I'd recommend holding off until you can buy a stronger sustaining focus later.

Shapechange doesn't provide skills, no. It's good for certain types of buff-based mages that you aren't, and for disguises and movement; for example, turning into a bird to fly around and look at people.

An area of effect attack spell is a good idea. Stunball won't work on vehicles, but is otherwise better, same as the way stunbolt/powerbolt work.

Control thoughts/actions vs. Influence is pretty much a judgement call.

Ice Sheet is a terrible spell. Flamethrower is OK, but if you want an anti-vehicle spell, either Frost or Blizzard is a better choice (single-target and AE, respectively) because they force crash tests (they are Ice element spells; see Street Magic).

Restricted Gear for a force 4 sustaining focus is not worth it. Doing it for a force 4 power focus totally is and you should very strongly consider that instead. Starting with a force 2 power focus is not a good move.

Minimal matrix security: slave your commlink to your hacker's commlink.

If you're going to have 1 point in a physical combat skill, think about making it heavy weapons and carrying an ArmTech MGL-6 (Arsenal). It's still effective even if you kind of suck with it, because of chemical splash grenades, flashbangs, and smoke grenades.

I wouldn't be taking 2 Influence group skills and not just take the group.

Owl is a perfectly good mentor for some people, but he's giving you -1 combat spells and you know a good number of those. Dark King is actually a better choice.

Spells:
Heal, Increase Reflexes, Influence, Levitate, Physical Mask, Stunbolt, and Trid Phantasm are all definitely good spells.

Ice Sheet is terrible.

Increase Agility is not terrible, but I would suggest thinking of it as a buff you can cast on other PCs when they go to use Infiltration, not a buff for yourself to be mildly less bad with your gun.

Orgy is worse than Stunball unless you are specialized in Illusions, in which case it's iffy.

Powerball is not actually a bad spell, but you may want to have different attack spells; see below.


Okay, attack spells. You want at minimum Stunbolt, which you have. A "full" loadout would be Stunbolt, Stunball, either Powerbolt or a single-target P-damage elemental spell, either Powerball or an AE elemental P-damage spell, and Soundwave. You may not want all 5.

Stunbolt is the best spell against living targets. Stunball is the best spell against groups of living targets, if you can see all of them. Soundwave is the best spell against groups of living targets if you can't see all of them. Powerbolt vs. a single-target P-damage elemental spell depends on your dice pool; you need to be fairly specialized in combat for Powerbolt to be better because you need to hit a fixed OR of 5 with it, but it ignores armor. You can't reliably get 5 hits on it, so in the short run, elemental is better. In the long run, Powerbolt pulls ahead. Powerball vs. an AE P-damage elemental attack is similar, but the elemental attack can hit things you can't see. Blizzard is a good choice here because it forces crash tests.

[SunRunner]

A better option if your trying to due a physical combat mage is to go with Voodoo as your tradition and make sure your summoning and binding skills are up to snuff.  Since Voodoo is a possession tradition just summon a spirit have it posses you and bamm go blasting away with guns.

Some notes you will need to switch to charisma + willpower for drain and drop any augmentation you have. Summon up a force 6 Guardian spirit and bamm you get +6 to all physical attributes as well as 12 points immunity to normal weapons. If you have modest 3s in all your physical stats this means your rocking augmented maximums of 9 on everything physical and you dont have to bother with any sustained spells or focuses for it. Also note that guardian spirits can take weapon skills instead of powers which means they can come with automatics and such to blast away with Assault rifles or Heavy weapons and such. Just make sure you have mana bolt and mana ball to blast stuff on the astral as your dual natured while your possessed. Guardian spirits also get a very nice selection of powers and all around rock. Get the chanelling and invoking meta magics ASAP as you initiate.

[Captain Karzak]

I'm not a fan of the Influence spell. Some of your spirits (Man in particular) have the influence power which is superior to the influence spell.

If you are looking at control thoughts, make sure you understand how short the duration is going to be. It'll wear off in a manner of seconds. That doesn't make it useless by any means, but it is a real limitation. Um, some GM's will also say that the spell does nothing during the phase you cast it because it takes one complex action to cast the spell and a simple action to give orders to an affected target. If your GM sees it that way then it's a crap spell that will get you killed. Hopefully your GM won't be a douche.

Improve agility is okay, but it's not enough: you are a long way for standing in for a street sam or even acting as his understudy. Even with buffed agi, your 1 rank in automatics and relatively low initiative score and defense pools will lead to unsatisfactory results in physical combat.

You may want to pick up improved attribute spells for your drain stats. You can get bound spirits of man to sustain them (ie give them these spells as optional powers via innate spell and have them cast it on you) for you if the force required isn't too high.

SunRunner is right. If you go for Voodoo and possess yourself with a Guardian Spirit you'll be a complete badass. If do go that route, may I suggest rolling up an Elf instead of a Human?

[The Key of E]

Thanks for the great feedback, guys!

Okay, Shapechange is right out.

With Increase Agility, I wasn't expecting to become a gun god. I just wanted to have a backup option, fully realizing I would only be rolling 8-10 dice compared to the 15+ of a specialist. Plus, guns are cool. I'm still thinking I'll probably keep either Increase Agility or Increase Reaction, even though neither is an optimized choice. From what I can tell the rest of the party is not going to be very well optimized and I don't want to overshadow them.

I understand that a possession mage could be a combat monster, but I'd rather play a spell slinger. There's also the previously stated issue of a low overall optimization for the group. Besides, if I wanted to play a combat monster I would probably make a Street Sam instead of a possession mage.

For mentor spirit, I was originally going to take Dark King but I plan to be overcasting a fair amount and was worried about drain. Does the Dark King disadvantage affect physical drain for overcasted spells?

I never noticed the side-bar in Street Magic about the different elemental spells. Totally going to replace both Lightning Bolt and Ice Sheet with either Frost or Blizzard. I'm just worried about the high drain on Blizzard, even with a fetish (I suppose I do have the Platelet Factory to help mitigate drain damage).

I definitely considered trying to get the Force 4 Power Focus, but even reducing the Sustaining Focus to Force 3, I'm not sure I can find the extra BP to upgrade. What would you suggest dropping? This is the same reason I took Etiquette and Negotiation rather than the Influence group: I didn't think I could squeeze the extra 2 BP for it.

I didn't read Orgy clearly. I thought it (and similar spells, like Chaotic World) gave a penalty equal to total hits, not net hits. I'll definitely trade it for something else.

For the Influence spell vs. the Influence spirit power: I was originally going to take Improved Invisibility until I realized I could just have a spirit use its Concealment power continuously. Influence, however, is not that simple. I want to be able to use it in social situations to manipulate people and I can use the spell for that if I keep the Force low enough to avoid detection. Having a spirit suddenly manifest and use Influence is a little less subtle.

I was originally going to be an Elf with a charisma-drain tradition, but had even more trouble with insufficient BP than I already have. So I switched to Human, and I'm liking the background. I also considered going Ork to save BP on physical attributes, but I think I'll stick with human for now.

Again, thanks for suggestions. What would be the best way to get the BP for a better Power Focus?

[UmaroVI]

Okay, actually, one point about shapechange. It's legal (and even permitted by the FAQ) to shapechange into a human, which opens up a rather large avenue for abusing Shapechange as a cheap stat booster.

-1 Agility (10), -1 Summoning (4), drop the force on the Sustaining Focus (2 cash, 1 bonding) frees up 17 points. That's enough for +2 power focus force (10 cash, 2 bonding), upgrade to the Influence group (2) and 3 left over.

Dark King affects physical damage resistance tests - not drain, which is its own thing. The drawback can suck, but that's why it's a drawback, and it isn't as bad as it looks because you take Stun damage most of the time while armored. It's much less bad than -1 on about a third of your spells.

Blizzard is really not a spell you should cast often; the time to use it is when you're in a high-speed car chase or about to get wtfpwnt by a big pile of drones. It's a niche spell because the drain is so high, but it is good in its niche.

The problem with your agility and guns plan is this: when are you going to want to shoot someone rather than stunbolt them? The answer is "when you are in a background count," which is the exact time it won't be helpful to have Increase Agility. The time when you do want Increase Agility is when someone else is doing something that doesn't involve you and does involve agility, like scouting ahead or lockpicking. Increase Reaction is a perfectly good choice though.

[The Key of E]

I updated some stuff following Umaro's suggestions.

Full Character

I dropped Automatics completely and reduced Agility. However, I felt dirty starting the game with less than the full 200 BP on Attributes, so I raised Intuition. I fiddled with some other stuff to get the BP for a better Power Focus.

I also re-arranged my spell selection to get more Combat spells. I had not intended for this character to be a Combat Mage, I originally wanted to focus more on utility/versatility. But now that I know what everyone else is playing, we don't have a combat specialist, so it's nice that I can have my character step in to help with that role.

I don't have it listed on the character sheet right now, but I was going to get some throw grenades or the MGL-6 launcher. Even with a dice pool of 1, I can still lob grenades and hope for low scatter. I was worried about getting squished in melee, so I picked up a stun baton with custom grip to raise my defense pool a little. I wasn't going to actually attack anyone with it.

[rasmusnicolaj]

My version of SR4A state that Ice Sheet also force a crash test.
It isn't backed up by damage though, but drain is 2 less.

Rasmus

[UmaroVI]

It does force crash tests, but you really do want that damage. F/2+3 is simply too high drain to force crash tests and make street samurai laugh at you.