The Gaming Den

So one of my regular groups has settled on SR 2E for our next several months of gaming. I played 3E for a time and ran 4E once or twice, but could use some help in building a character that fits in well with the group. As it stands I built a human gang member, but after looking over the rest of the group and the personalities of the players, I think I am doing myself and everyone else a disservice by not putting more effort into it. Here's what I know.

Players

GM: Played since 1E, really knows the rules well, is passionate about the topic. Supplied us all with 2E core rule books. He owns a few splats but is keeping them out of the game, at least at first. Is aware that Deckers and Riggers can play the game remotely from the rest of the group and is on the fence about what to do about that - he would prefer to find ways for everyone to participate physically in runs but nothing is settled on this.

Players: Experienced roleplayers, many new to SR. Tight group of friends that is not interested in optimization (at least in d20). The new players have been reading Gibson on the side, so that is how they are coming into the game. They will likely build characters with more personality than mechanical punch.

Me: Min/Maxer wherever and whatever I play but have toned way (way) down to keep from pissing everyone at the table off. This is more important to me that having MAOR POWAH then everyone else and really important that I don't overshadow everyone while still being able to carry the day if needed. I could do this easily with SW and 3.x because I knew the systems so well and other builds' true power levels, but I lack this info for 2E.

Characters

Dwarf Detective - like the 2E archetype I guess
Human Decker - like the archetype AFAIK
Troll "Something" - some kind of mystic adept build but not optimized. Like at all.
Human "Combat Medic" x 2 - yeah 2 people are doing this. I am guessing mages focused on healing with guns or a few combat spells? Not sure. Not shamans tho for sure.
Elf Combat Mage - important - this player won't be able to attend every session but I don't want to make him feel small in the pants when he attends. He will build blasty spells for sure.
Human Ganger - me for now, but after seeing the above, I think something else is needed. Middle of the road wired reflexes gun build.


Anyway, I am free to do whatever but I want to be careful that I do not completely dominate combat while still being able to pull this group's bacon out of the fire if needed. A couple of builds I have considered too powerful unless I get feedback to the contrary: abusing spell locks (sustaining focus), abusing spell grounding to nuke things from astral space. We are missing a real street sam/physAdept and the mage's spotty attendance implies something magic is needed. I was considering a non-optimized Gator shaman, but wanted to get input from the more experienced SR2 group here first. If a shaman is a thing, we are going to be Urban-based and it would help to get a handle on good spells in this edition (like Frank's list for 4e).

First, the basics of sr2 is that defaulting on anything means that you will fail and fail super hard. The vagaries of variable tns make tn penalties unacceptable. And in SR2, that means you need a rating in the named skill of whatever the fuck you intend to do. This in turn means that you're basically not even a character if you don't have points in the basic "do stuff" skills, which are Athletics, Stealth, and Etiquette.

The dicepool system being what it is, having 4 dice makes you almost twice as likely to succeed as having 2 dice, while having 6 dice is not quite half again more likely to succeed as having 4. So anything you have that isn't a core character ability should be a 4 if you can afford it, and your core skills need to be 6. Core skills are generally ones where you will be opposed, so Sorcery, Conjuring, and Firearms are all easy sixers. Etiquette,Athletics, and Stealth are like 4s. Note that that is 24 skill points, and when you look at the amount you get to spend, there is not a lot left.

The variable target numbers make there be some pretty intense break points. A force 6 combat spell is twice as hard to resist as a force 5 spell, for example. As far as spells go, there are resisted spells that need to be Force 6 or GTFO, and unresisted spells that generally can be force 3 or less and no one cares. The universal reason to give a single shit about spell force for all spells os an SR4 innovation, in SR2 there are a lot of spells you might as well cast at force 1.

The ultimate sand bag character is the Hermetic Mage. It costs thousands of nuyen to put together conjuring materials, so the use of your spirits is very expensive. No one will think it's weird that your spirits don't make an appearance in normal encounters. When your spirits DO come down, they are probably the equal of other characters individually and you can bring in one per Charisma point.

I don't remember which book different concepts are in and don't know which books you are using, but the killer app for Hermetic Mages is bolstering their Elementals. Conjuring tests have a target number equal to Force. So if you summon a spirit at Force 1, you can easily get a lot of services. Then you can rebind it over and over again to get dozens of services for cheap. Then do a couple bolstering rituals to jack its Force up until it's at least six. The end result is an absolute beast that you can use as much as you need to. But you still have theoretically limited services so no one will think it weird that you defer to the Shaman to conceal the mystery machine or let the other players have shootouts.

Thanks for the advice, Frank. A couple of quick points:

• The Skills you provided sum to 30, not 24. Even so, given that defaulting sucks, I went with the 30 you suggested, deciding Skills > Attributes.
• Mages cannot bolster their elementals in core 2E, which makes getting the "elemental loop" you suggested unobtainable. I am working on Spirit Foci (if I can afford them) to see how high I can push the elemental without a power loop.
• Summoning elementals is fvcking expensive (Force * 1000, non-refundable) and requires a suitable library and hermetic circle plus time of hours * Force. Given my build priority (A-Mage, B-Attributes C-Skills, D-Resources, E-Race), I am far too broke to even consider elemental summoning until I make some cash.
• Force dice are rolled all the time to determine effect against a variable TN, so any spell that might be resisted needs all the force + foci + magic pool one can muster. That wasn't clear to me earlier, so thanks for the heads up.

Given the expense of the mage and the lack of easy summoning powerful elementals, would a shaman of some type be a viable alternative? Their spirits aren't as strong and you can have only 1 up at a time, but shaman get a fvck-tonne of dice for spells if you specialize and hit their totem's favored spells type and they gain several summoning advantages: spirits of man (city flavor) need only "urban" settings, require no special trappings to summon and doing so is only a complex action.

Thoughts?

Shamans get to and have to summon a new spirit every 12 hours. That means that they are the go-to guys for concealment and movement powers. Also, Totem min/maxing is totally a thing, and most spell categories are pretty much interchangeable. So getting a bonus to even one category of spells is a huge advantage.

Shamans are basically better than Mages in 2e unless and until you start increasing force on your elementals and bringing down the hammer with large numbers of elementals. They are better at casting spells and better at casual spirit use. And unless you have a killer app you're reaching for, that's basically all of what a mage is going to be asked to do.

-Username17