Shadowrun Fifth Edition, Character Experiment 2: Prime Level

Alrighty, and next, we’re going to do the Prime runner, a la the regular prime runner rules(not the one in the back of the book where you can take two Priority A’s or anything.)

For this, I’ll be taking advantage of the high Resources and taking them A. The idea I have is a human male ‘street sam’ type whose resemblance to Adam Jensen is strictly coincidental. Kinda.

The major differences between Prime and Normal are:

-More starting resources
-More Contacts
-More Bonus Karma
-A bit higher Availability allowed
-Able to convert more Karma to Nuyen, up to 50,000(essentially allowing up to 550,000 resources.)

Welp, knowing that, let’s get started!

Resources: A(500,000)
Attributes: B(20)
Skills: C(28/2)
Race: D(3 Special Attribute points)
E: –

Being a Mundane Human, he essentially gets to start with a 4 Edge. This is great, IMO, since mundanes should have a bit of that extra edge. I’m here all week, guys.

So, attributes. He’s going to be a sam, so I’ll be weighing in Physical attributes higher than Mental Attributes, but I don’t want to leave him completely deficient; in fact, I think I’m going to go with a balanced spread. I can see that on this guy, anyway; improved in the Physical sense, perhaps average in the Mental sense, but thanks to the cyberware, he’s going to be boosted considerably higher.

Body: 4
Agility: 5
Reaction: 4
Strength: 4
Charisma: 2
Intuition: 3
Logic: 3
Willpower: 3
Edge: 4
Essence: 6
Initiative: 7+1d6

There, nice and easy. He’ll be well-primed to take the giant pile of bio and cyberware I’m going to stuff into him for big bonuses. Thinking things over, I had decided to swap a point out of Charisma for Agility; he can be a bit abrasive at times, though he’s not socially inept.

With no Magic or Resonance to worry about, we can skip pretty quickly right to the Qualities part of the character creation. Looking over the Qualities, this still un-named fellow’s personality and background are starting to come out a bit(perhaps he never asked for that.)

Positive Qualities: Toughness(9 Karma), High Pain Tolerance Lv. 2(14 Karma). Total: 23 Karma
Negative Qualities: Mild Addiction(Alcohol, +4 Karma), Insomnia(+10 Karma), SINner(+5 Karma). Total: +19 Karma

Okay, so SINner gets used again. It’s fitting for this guy though-I see him having been a member of society(and possibly coerced through the use of cyberware, which could explain some of his high-grade heavy implants.) The stress of his job led him to take to the drink a bit(though he’s not bad with it), and the heavy implants took a toll on his biorhythms, causing mild insomnia; sometimes he has those bad nights where he stays in his dark pad, up late with the trid on.

As for his positive qualities, I like the idea of him being really tough; both Toughness and Pain Resistance are great for this.

This combination leaves him with 31 Bonus Karma to spend at the end.

And that brings us to Active Skills, since there is no magic or Matrix like things to deal with. He gets 28 points and 2 Skill Group points to spend. Thinking over his skillset, he’ll have plenty of combat skills and a few other skills appropriate to his role.

Athletics Skill Group: 2
Pistols: 4
Automatics: 5
Longarms(Shotguns): 2(+2)
Unarmed Combat: 5
Pilot Ground Craft: 2
Etiquette(Corporate): 2(+2)
Negotiation: 3
Intimidation: 3

Skilled in guns and close combat, he’s got enough other skills that he picked up to help out. He’s learned to deal mainly with corporate entities, hence his specialization in Corporate Etiquette, and he’s learned to both strongarm folks and deal with them in a more civilized manner. If he feels like it. I didn’t specialize him in a ton of stuff, since I generally see him as fairly well schooled in many aspects. His close combat style is ‘”&%¤ you up style” utilizing fists, knees, elbows, feet, heads, walls, desks, pavements, and the like, though perhaps he may decide to focus on a style(he’s studied a few styles that he mashed together into that one.) As for Longarms, he’s used shotguns more than rifles, though he’s had some rifle training(he just doesn’t own one at the moment.
More Bonus Karma will definitely be spent here, though; he lacks a few skills I really wanted for him along with these, but 31 is a pretty hefty amount of Bonus Karma to play with(and he won’t need Resources or any Attribute increases.) I’ll do that when it’s time to spend the Bonus Karma(I’ll be doing these in the book order.)

Let’s do some Knowledge and Language skills. His Intuition+Logicx2=12 points to spend.

Shadowrunner Haunts: 2
Safehouse Locations: 3
Security Procedures(Corporate):2(+2)
Cyberclinics Locations: 1

English: N
Japanese: 3

Next, we move onto Resources. With 500,000 to spend, before gear, we’re going to head RIGHT on into the ol’ Cyberware and Bioware section, and starting loading our friend up with stuff to let him hurt people better(and, well, do that quiet thing too maybe.) To make this simpler, I’m going to go down the line with the ware I would like for him, and then explain things about some of it.

Cybereyes(Rating 4)-14,000, .5 Essence
Low-Light, Thermographic, Flare Compensation, Smartlink, Vision Enhancement 3: 20,000 nuyen
Internal Air Tank(Rating 3)-.25 Essence, 13,500
Datajack-.1 essence, 1,000
Muscle Augmentation Lv. 3: 63,000, .6 Essence
Muscle Toner Lv. 3: 66,000, .6 Essence
Tailored Pheremones Lv. 1: 31,000, .2 Essence
Aluminum Bone Lacing: 1 essence, 18,000
Synaptic Boosters Lv. 2: 190,000, 1 essence
Orthoskin Lv. 3: 18,000, .9 Essence

=434,500, 5.15 Essence

Whew! Well he almost blew his entire wad of nuyen, but he’s got plenty left over for a decent Lifestyle, a vehicle, and plenty of gear. Those Synaptic Boosters really set him back. But this setup gives him a rather impressive set of Attributes now. Perhaps later on he’ll get stuff increased to Alphaware to plug even more into himself. He’s still got SOME level of Essence left at least, though he’s pretty well loaded.

This loadout will give him +3 to his Agility, Body, and Strength, +1 to his Influence/Acting skill groups(or the skills within), enhanced vision, +2 to his Reaction and +2d6 Initiative Dice to get him faster. Eventually, some Skillwires wouldn’t go un-noticed, though right now, they’re even a bit out of a prime runner’s price range. I’m considering trying to fiddle out a bit more for Orthoskin to help out there.

His ware is all suitable to the work he’s in; which is heavy firepower and close quarters combat, along with a bit of the ‘tank’ between his bone lacing and positive qualities.

Now, for gear. This is stuff that he had from his past, as well as some of the newer stuff he picked up. (i’m actually just going to list this on his character sheet at the end so you don’t have to sit through two of this guy’s lists; his gear list is considerably more extensive than the other two characters.)

180 left.
Starting: 2100 rolled=2,180

We’ve managed to blow it all down to 1780, and with rolled money, he starts with 2,180 on his credsticks. As you’ll see on the finished sheet, he had enough for a Low Lifestyle(safehouse) along with his normal Middle Lifestyle, a Docwagon Basic Contract, and a motorcycle, along with a lot of other useful odds and ends.

Now, we’re going to go and figure out two things: Contacts, and Bonus Karma. The Prime rules grant him Chax6 Contact Points. He gets 12, as he’s not the most charismatic guy around. For him, I decide on:

Fixer: C4 L3(7 points)
Street Doc: C3 L2(5 points)

Two decently connected contacts. His fixer is Spanky, the Irish Troll, for the reason that in my Shadowrun games, he is the primary fixer around the area. The Street Doc is a man who goes by the name of Douglas, an aging fellow who might resemble Morgan Freeman a bit(in his early fifties) who was likewise part of the same corp whom ended up leaving after an ‘incident.’ The two have known each other long enough to build up the trust a bit, though they’re still a little more on the business standpoint. Douglas likes to lecture this fellow over his slowly overloading himself.

Bonus Karma is 31, and that is going to go to some skills I really wanted him to have:

Sneaking 3-12 Karma
Perception 3-12 Karma
Throwing Weapons 2-6 Karma
With the last Karma, he’ll get a point in Video Games of the 21st Century, one of his interests that he’s getting more and more into.

For some final calculations, he has a Mental limit of 4, a Social Limit of 4(thanks to Tailored Pheremones), and a Physical limit of 9. He’ll probably want to use some Karma to increase those other Limits a little bit eventually. Hes got 10’s in his two Condition Monitors and an overflow of 4. His total armor is a rather impressive 17(12 for his coat, 2 for his Bone Lacing and 3 for his Orthoskin.)

As with the Street Shaman, now we’re going to do a little fleshing out here.

Name: Stephen Harker
Alias: Jensen

Race: Human

Gender: Male
Height: 6’4”
Weight: 300lbs(Cybered)
Age: 32
Hair: Dark brown, medium length
Eyes: Light Green(Cyber)

General Appearance/Personality: Jensen, who took his nickname from an old game that he played before, is a pretty physically imposing guy, standing over six feet and fairly well built. He keeps his dark brown hair medium length, sometimes nicely combed back, other times not really caring if it gets windblown. Given his lower key personality, he tends to stick to basic clothing-army trousers, boots, and shirts depending on the weather-sometimes sleeveless, sometimes long sleeved, with a leather jacket worn as normal armor. He can swap to a business suit if the situation calls for it. Jensen generally keeps to himself, though he’s able to work with others, albeit his occasional snark or abrasiveness can cause just a little headbutting now and then, he’s loyal enough and mostly wants to get his job done. He has a fondness, however, for retro video games and gets genuinely happy and interested when speaking to folks about them.

Attributes:

Body: 4(7 for Damage Reduction)
Agility: 5(8)
Reaction: 4(6)
Strength: 4(7)
Charisma: 2(+1 to all Influence and Acting Skill Group die pools)
Intuition: 3
Logic: 3
Willpower: 3
Edge: 4
Essence: .85
Initiative: 7(9)+1d6(3d6)

Physical Monitor: 10
Stun Monitor: 10
Overflow: 4

Armor: 17(Armor Jacket+Orthoskin+Aluminum Bone Lacing)

Positive Qualities: Pain Tolerance(2), Toughness
Negative Qualities: SINner(5), Insomnia(10), Mild Addiction(Alcohol)

Limits:

Physical: 8
Mental: 4
Social:  4

Active Skills:

Athletics Skill Group: 2
Pistols: 4
Automatics: 5
Longarms(Shotguns): 2(+2)
Unarmed Combat: 5
Pilot Ground Craft: 2
Etiquette(Corporate): 2(+2)
Negotiation: 3
Intimidation: 3
Sneaking: 3
Perception: 3
Throwing Weapons: 2

Knowledge/Language Skills:

Shadowrunner Haunts: 2
Safehouse Locations: 3
Security Procedures(Corporate):2(+2)
Cyberclinic Locations: 1
Video Games of the 21st Century: 1

English: N
Japanese: 3

Cyber and Bioware:

Cybereyes(Rating 4)
w/Low-Light, Thermographic, Flare Compensation, Smartlink, Vision Enhancement 3
Internal Air Tank(Rating 3)
Datajack
Muscle Augmentation Lv. 3
Muscle Toner Lv. 3
Tailored Pheremones Lv. 1
Aluminum Bone Lacing
Synaptic Boosters Lv. 2
Orthoskin Lv. 3

Lifestyle:

Middle(1 Month)
Low(1 Month, Safehouse)

Weapons and Armor:

Knucks(10P damage)

Colt America L36(Smartlinked)(Acc 7(9), 7P, SA, 11c)
w/4 spare clips, 50 rounds regular ammo, and Concealable Holster

Ares Predator V(Acc 5(7), 8P, SA, 15c, AP-1)
w/12 spare clips, 60 rounds regular, 60 rounds gel, 60 rounds APDS(-4 AP) and Concealable Holster

SCK Model 100 SMG(Acc 5(7), 8P, SA/BF, 30c)
w/6 spare clips, 60 rounds regular, 60 rounds gel, 60 APDS rounds(-4 AP), and Gas Vent 3(4 points total recoil comp on gun)

AK-97(Smartlinked)(Acc 5(7), 10P, -2 AP, SA/BF/FA, 38c)
w/6 spare clips, 80 rounds regular, 80 rounds gel, 80 rounds APDS(-4 AP), Gas Vent 3 and Shock Pad(4 points total recoil comp on gun)

PJSS Model 55(Smartlinked)(Acc 6(8), 11P, -1 AP, SS, 2(b), 1 point RC on gun)
w/30 APDS rounds(-4 AP), 20 Fletchette Rounds

5 Flash-Bang Grenades
5 Frag Grenades
5 HE Grenades
5 Thermal Smoke grenades
6 Throwing Knives

Armor Jacket(12 armor) w/Rating 2 Chem Protection, Fire Resistance, Insulation, and NonConductivity
Actioneer Business Clothes(8 Armor)

Gear:

Renraku Sensei Commlink(Hot Sim Mod)
Subvocal Mic
Micro-Transceiver
White Noise Generator(Rating 6)
Fake SIN Rating 4
Certified Credsticks(2 Gold, 1 Silver)
Fake Licences(All Rating 5): Pistols, Bioware, Automatics
Earbuds(Capacity 3)-150 w/ Audio Enhancement 3
Autopicker(Rating 4)
Sequencer(Rating 5)
Climbing Gear
Survival Kit
Chemsuit 4
Gas Mask
Respirator 6
Medkit 4
2 Supplies
Assortment of retro video games and systems
Docwagon Basic Contract
Leather Jacket
Harley-Davidson Scorpion

Contacts:
Spanky(Fixer): C4 L3
Douglas(Street Doc): C3 L2

Background:  Born of a middle-class wageslave family, Stephen Harker actually got to witness some of the more scary things that happened in the early 2050s at an age that was actually fairly impressionable, though he’s not particularly old or anything. His life was actually one of ‘nothing particularly exciting’-he mostly kept to himself, occasionally enjoying some sort of sport or club in his teenage years.

Around his late teens, his parents apparently ‘got involved with something’, and Stephen’s life changed. His parents explained that he’d have to meet with one of their ‘co-workers’ about something; something to do with work. While Stephen wasn’t exactly fond of the idea of corporate life, he could sense that something was dreadfully wrong, and that the ‘meet’ wasn’t exactly optional. His parents, unbeknownst to him, ended up sort of promising him to the corp in exchange for their lives; they’d rather have themselves-and him-alive(and as far as he knows, they are still around, though have different names and probably live somewhere in Europe), than the…other choice.

In any case, upon finishing whatever growth spurts he had, he was not magically active and thus funneled more toward the ‘company man’ style of work. Being fitted with cyberware changed Stephen a bit; he actually liked the power it gave him, and he became quite good at what he did. However, upon finding out what actually happened all those years ago, it soured him quite a lot; he managed, after a time, to cut himself loose(it did take some gentle coercion with a gun, his fists, and a xerox machine upside someone’s head) and take to the shadows. Using the resources he managed to scrounge up, he managed to set himself up with work; he was a skilled and well-oiled man with inside knowledge, and he made it a point to hit his particular old corp any chance he got. He’s not a picky man about his work otherwise. He’ll do it quiet, he’ll do it loud, or he’ll do it in the middle, but he’ll make sure it gets done.

Final Verdict:  The Prime rules work very well, though I feel they aren’t quite as strong as the Street ruleset or the ‘Normal Mode’ ruleset. I stand by my assertion that Prime could use a better Availability cap(16 at least, I’d say 18 wouldn’t go un-noticed, though keeping Device Ratings at 6 is fine), and Beta grade ware available(though, to be fair, I didn’t get this guy any Alphaware as it was…mostly because I was trying to save essence through Bioware since I couldn’t do it through Betaware.) Had I been able to run Betaware, I could have ran this more as a body-conversion job.

This experiment did actually show me more of how resources and the like really does change the playing field for cybered characters, but not *as* much Magical characters. Looking at Jensen’s sheet, and then Downfall’s sheet(whom is in the 3rd part, I saved ‘normal mode’ for last), Downfall would have ended up with one bonded Qi Focus difference. A difference, yes, but not all that much of one. Kat, now, going from Street to Prime would have had a lot more magical toys.

Overall I think this one is 7 out of 10 Mohawks. It’s good(on my scale, 7 is ‘good’, with 6 being ‘above average’), but I feel it can actually be a LITTLE more powerful without turning it into the ‘High Life’ game listed in the back(which I’d see as more of a short, fun, big, loud game). Now, again-at my OWN table, we ignore Availability rules at chargen regardless of game style and leave it at an honor system, so this wouldn’t matter, but for tables that follow it, I’d have probably just ended up going body conversion anyway with Normal Mode Jensen and taking the mega Essence Loss to the face. I basically feel that with the prime game they were a little bit TOO conservative. Now, don’t get me wrong-I’m glad that the ‘basic Prime’ game doesn’t give you so much that you don’t feel like you need more, indeed; I’m glad I can still see this guy growing; I feel like you can play a Prime game as a regular, ongoing campaign. That’s not as much my issue as it is thinking it could have used a little bit of opening up.

You know, I’m looking at him, and I actually started to think I’d have been better off with Resources B. I’d have sacked Synaptic 2 for Wired 1, dropped the Air Tank, and shuffled a little nuyen around to throw an extra point into his Body, Strength, Charisma, and Intuition. He’d have less Initative, but he’d have better Limits, even more survivability, and an extra point of damage on his unarmed hits to boot. (He’d also have gotten a couple more Knowledge Skill points(NERDRAGE) and even a little more on the Contacts side.) Both are viable builds, and his skillset wouldn’t have been changed at all.

Shadowrun Fifth Edition, Character Experiment 1: Street Level

Okay, so we’re going to make a Street Level character with this, to see how it all works out. This will be one of three-I’ll be posting a Prime character next, and finally, a ‘Normal Mode’ character.

Availability will be limited to 10, and Device Ratings of 4.

We’re going to make a Human Street Shaman, after some thought. First off, we’ll look at the priorities and pick:

Magic: A
Attributes: B
Resources: C(Street gives 25,000 here)
Skills: D
Race: E

It’s going to be a female human Raven shaman, because that jumped into my head and her personality and everything started to form. (Raccoon, sadly, isn’t in this book, or I’d have rather used that.) We’ll get to the Mentor Spirit stuff later.

Attributes B  gives 20 points. We’ll spread these out as so:

Body: 2
Agility: 3
Reaction: 3
Strength: 2
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 5
Logic: 4
Willpower: 5

Not the most impressive set of stats, but Raven can get by on her cleverness and skills. Well, Skills are D here, but we’ll make do. The rundown here is that I see this character being definitely more of a con-artist type; getting by on wits and high Magical skill rather than raw, brute force(Raven doesn’t much favor brute force). 2’s in some Physical stats isn’t infirm or invalid or anything of that nature; she simply did not choose to focus her time on them(except for her manual dexterity), where she did for her mental stats.  For her Special stats, being human starts her with an Edge of 2, and she gets one more point, to give it a 3, making her lucky enough. I particularly wanted her with at least 5’s in her Willpower and Intuition. I’d have liked to have gotten a 5 Charisma as well, but I saw her with at least average manual dexterity and Reaction, and she’s had an education which she took seriously, so I saw her with good-level book smarts; that’ll be something I work toward.

Magic: 6
Edge: 3
Essence: 6
Initiative: 7+1d6

With Magic Priority A, she not only nails her Magic 6, but she gets 10 spells and two Magical Skills at rating 5 each, which will be handy given her lower skill points. I see her as less of a summoner(she will have some skill there though), and more of an ‘enchanter’ type and spellcaster. She gets 22 skill points to divide around. She does not get any Skill Group points, so those will have to come out of Karma if she wants any.

First, the 10 spells:

Power Bolt
Stunbolt
Clairaudience
Clairvoyance
Analyze Magic
Heal
Chaotic World
Improved Invisibility
Shadow
Physical Barrier

Balancing out spells a bit, she has Power Bolt for when drek is just REAL bad, but Stun Bolt as more of a basic combat spell(better to leave ’em alive and knocked before you steal their pants). When considering Stunball, I thought Chaotic World would fit a Raven shaman much better. Other odds and ends help out-like spying with Clairaudience and Clairvoyance, patching up wounds with Heal, or using Shadow and Improved Invisibility to help out stealth some more. Analyze Magic fits the ‘magic artificer’ idea for her. Physical Barrier is a useful defensive spell.

We’ll come back to the skills after Qualities are taken care of.

Street Level games get 13 Bonus Karma, and can only go up to +/- 26, so that is another hit they take over the Normal games. Looking over the Positive Qualities, we know we want Mentor Spirit: Raven as one of them. Others include:

Mentor Spirit: Raven(5)
Analytical Mind(5)
Weak Immune System(10)

Raven grants her the following benefits: +2 Dice for all Con tests, +2 dice for spells, preparations and spell rituals that are Manipulation based. However, she has to make a Charisma+Willpower test to avoid exploit someone’s misfortune for her own gain or to play a prank at a really bad time. Such are the ways of Raven. Analytical Mind fits her clever, problem solving personality well.

As for the negatives, she’s just kinda unlucky that she has a bit more trouble fighting off stuff that other people do. Otherwise, she isn’t terribly saddled with disadvantages. Since they cancel out, she remains with 13 Bonus Karma(to spend later on.)

Now, we’re onto Skills. She gets the free ones, and then we’ll choose the following:

Spellcasting: 5(Free)
Counterspelling: 5(Free)
Artificing: 5
Summoning: 2
Banishing: 3
Sneaking(Urban) 3(+2)
Pistols: 2
Con: 3
Etiquette: 3

I definitely want to spend some Bonus Karma here when that time comes. But it manages to at least cover a wide array of magical skills(between her casting, counterspelling, artificing, summoning, and banishing), as well as some ‘physical world skills’, like her Etiquette knowledge, being rather perceptive, and learning a bit on how to shoot things, just in case(she’s been practicing with that). Her skills aren’t bad for being Priority D though; she’s more of a specialized character, but does have basics like Etiquette  at decent scores to help out. I thought she would have a decently high Sneaking skill as well, and Con was a definite.

With her Intuition of 5 and Logic of 4, she gets 18 Knowledge Skill points. These get divided up like so:

Magical Threats: 3
Magical Groups: 3
Local Diners: 2
Magical Engineering: 3
Safehouse Locations: 3
Sinthcore: 1

English: N
Spanish: 3

She has a great interest in magic, so she has corresponding skills to run with that. Being Raven, she enjoys food and so has some knowledge of diner locations. Safehouses are always very good to know about, and Sinthcore is usually found on her Commlink playlist. She picked up Spanish in her old school; believe it or not, she actually graduated high school. She practices sometimes with one of her contacts.

As for gear, she gets 25,000 nuyen worth of stuff. Being Street Level, this is going to limit her, as said, to Availabilities of 10 and Ratings of 4. So, with that in mind, we’ll grab stuff that fits!

*to be continued at bottom of page with character sheet*

Spent: 23400
Left: 1,600
Starting: 3d6x60-780(added to 1600)-2380

Gear list isn’t too bad for her more limited resources; it’s going to be listed at the end of it all so I don’t have to list gear twice in this, since they can run long. She has magical gear, some other odds and ends that help her out, and so on, like some armor(not enough bonus armor to give her encumbrance or anything like that.)

Her Charisma of 4 gives her 12 free points to spend on Contacts. She’ll get:

Fixer(Spanky): C4 L3-She’s known Spanky for awhile and he’s a well-connected guy who magically gets more connected the higher loyalty someone is…somehow. Spanky is the big Irish Fomori that owns a sports bar called Goal, and he’s almost obsessed with football(soccer to the UCAS ‘heathens.’)
Talismonger(Mama): C3 L2-Another decently connected contact, this middle-aged heavyset Hispanic Santeria practicing woman’s shop looks like several bombs hit it, but she has a knack for being able to come across some rather rare magical stuff. She’s a skilled Artificer in her own right.

And finally, we’ll spend up her 13 Bonus Karma. With that, we’ll pick up:

Lockpicking: 2-6 Karma
Perception: 2-6 Karma
Gang Turf(Knowledge): 1-1 Karma

She figured out some Lockpicking due to her occasional thievery, and I didn’t get Perception before; an important skill, and I’d definitely want to raise that a bit later on. Living a little more on the lower end of town, she sorta picked up somewhat of what gangs hang out where; both to stay away(if they’re particularly nasty), or where some of the more helpful ones might be. (Sort of helpful, anyway.)

Now, let’s get some basic stats down:

Name: Jessie Olmar
Alias: Kat

Race: Human

Gender: Female
Height: 5’5”
Weight: 120lbs
Age: 25
Hair: Medium length, dark blonde
Eyes: Gray

General Appearance/Personality: Fairly average height and weight, Kat is a pretty young woman, whom always looks curious about how magical things work. She dresses fairly low key; choosing jeans, sneakers, and tank tops, though puts on an armor jacket if things are going down. She wears her shoulder-length hair rather simply; she prefers a bit more of a comfortable look and style. She’s actually pretty even-tempered-even a bit aloof in the sense that she’ll let a lot of things roll right off of her, but due to her mentor spirit, she’s prone to occasionally playing tricks on people, and she’s also been known to take some nuyen off of a team-mate who is sort of ‘indisposed'(hey, they aren’t using it and it could better the team who didn’t get themselves fragged.) Still, she enjoys keeping her friends and isn’t totally untrustworthy. She leaves the heavy lifting to others, but always looks for creative uses of her magic. She’s happiest in her basement, sinthcore music blaring, while she tinkers with a new foci.

Attributes:

Body: 2
Agility: 3
Reaction: 3
Strength: 2
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 5
Logic: 4
Willpower: 5
Magic: 6
Edge: 3
Essence: 6
Initiative: 7+1d6
Astral Initiative: 10+3d6

Physical Monitor: 9
Stun Monitor: 11
Overflow: 2

Armor: 12

Positive Qualities: Mentor Spirit(Raven), Analytical Mind
Negative Qualities: Weak Immune System

Limits:

Physical: 3
Mental: 6
Social: 7
Astral: 7

Active Skills:

Spellcasting: 5
Counterspelling: 5
Artificing: 4
Summoning: 3
Banishing: 3
Sneaking(Urban) 3(+2)
Pistols: 2
Etiquette: 3
Con: 3
Perception: 2
Lockpicking: 2

Knowledge/Language Skills:

Magical Threats: 3
Magical Groups: 3
Local Diners: 2
Magical Engineering: 3
Safehouse Locations: 3
Sinthcore: 1
Gang Turf: 1

English: N
Spanish: 3

Spells(Note: Raven grants +2 to all Manipulation spells)

Power Bolt(C)
Stunbolt(C)
Clairaudience(D)
Clairvoyance(D)
Analyze Magic(D)
Heal(H)
Chaotic World(I)
Improved Invisibility(M)
Shadow(M)
Physical Barrier(M)

Weapons, Armor, and Gear:

1 Fake Sin(Rating 2)
2 Silver Certified Credsticks
Fake Magic License(Rating 4)
Browning Ultra-Power(8P, Acc. 5(6), 10c, SA, AP-1)
w/Gas Vent 1
50 Regular rounds
50 Gel Rounds
10 Clips
Concealable Holster
Armor Jacket
Flash-Pak
Renraku Sensei Commlink
Subvocal Mic
Glasses(Capacity 4)
w/Low-Light Vision,  Vision Magnification
Earbuds(Capacity 3)
w/Audio Enhancement Rating 3
Autopicker 4
Sequencer Rating 3
Lockpick Set
Survival Kit
Chemsuit 4
Gas Mask
Medkit Rating 4
2 Supplies
3 Antidote Patches(Rating 4 each)
Trauma Patch:
Magical Lodge Materials(Rating 4)
Reagants: Assorted, 1,000 nuyen worth

Lifestyle:

Low(1 month)

Nuyen: 2,380

Background:  Kat was actually born to a more upper middle-class corporate family; however, after being found for magical aptitude while she was entering high school, she was quickly funneled to the ‘AP Classes’ as they were nicknamed. Learning all sorts of magical theory and the like, she was attacking every lesson with zeal; she loved Magic, and particularly liked any lessons in Artificing as well. However, she was a bright girl-and after awhile, she came to realize that the destination at the end of this fun, scholastic magical journey would be corporate slavery.

After being visited one night in a dream by a bit of a comically sarcastic Raven spirit, she began to embrace those teachings, and started to look for a way out. Through some of her knowledge and the resources she had available to her, upon graduating high school, she managed to adjust some things here and there before walking out of her life, getting settled with a Talismonger she had met during one of her magical gear explorations one weekend. The Talismonger, nicknamed ‘Mama’, set her up with some work with enchanting on the side as Kat tried to build her new life in the shadows. She does not have a lot of her old resources or contacts available to her, but she was introduced to an Irish Fomori by the name of Spanky, a friendly fixer who owned a sports bar and loved watching football(soccer to the UCAS folks.)

She hopes to be able to eventually enjoy her previous almost luxury life, and perhaps a bit more than that; but she pretty much had to pick up from nothing. She thinks, perhaps, if she were able to get a Fake SIN good enough, that she could actually enroll in a university for even more  magical training one day.

Final Verdict: You can make extremely serviceable, and versatile, Street level characters with this system. Some might think that this character could even fit into a primary game, and you know, she may well be able to; however, she does lack the Resources of your ‘Regular’ character. Thing is-IMO, this is good. Resources and the like are what should separate the runner types, rather than raw Skills and Attributes(however, the others get more Bonus Karma; so they usually will have at least a little more in those areas as well, which is fine; it just shouldn’t be as limited.) You still feel like your Street level character has lots of room to grow(as well it should), but I didn’t feel like I was completely squeezing and squishing points(which, IMO, in a ‘basic’ street level game, you should not. In a total gutter-rat bottom of the barrel game? Sure, but not ordinary street level. I think you should feel less powerful than an average runner, but not like you’re a bare-bones nobody. I think of ‘Street Level’ along the lines of Snatch-badass at what they do but pretty specialized.)

I admit, making a magically active human for the Street level game may have been ‘cheating’ a little bit. I’ll say that, judging by costs of Cyberware and the like and the hits to Availability, Street Level cyber characters are going to take a bigger hit. Oh, they can be viable, but they’ll most likely end up taking Resources A and some used cyber(ew.) Hell, if you’re really not squicky, used cyber can make a pretty scary street level samurai. Just don’t try to think about it too hard.

Street level Deckers, now…given the cost of cyberdecks and the like, they would definitely need Resources A to work with. Technomancers actually would probably work out a little better with this.

But really, this is very playable, and a very solid set of Street level rules. I’ll say I rate it eight Mohawks out of 10. It loses couple of Mohawks due to the fact that magically(or Resonance…ly) active people will be considerably ahead of their non magically active folks. Now from a certain standpoint, this makes perfect sense-less Resources means less ware/gear/less top of the line ware/both, but this is one of those instances where ‘it makes sense’ may end up frustrating those who wish to play more ‘gear-oriented types’. Of course, as long as they know what they’re getting into, I think it’s fine, but the GM will need to take special care.

How would she had differed from a normal character? Well, she’d have had more Bonus karma for extra skills, and she’d have had a lot more resources for her magical stuff; namely things like Foci, which are very good to have. Or, quite possibly, she would have taken Resources D and have had a lot more base skills to work with(as well as more money for Foci), but there would have been a clear difference.

As Prime, she’d probably have a better lifestyle for sure, along with some pretty piles of foci and a workshop to do her Artificing stuff with. She’d have had a lot more Bonus Karma to spend on skills-I’d have been able to get her several more skills at 2 or even a couple more at 3(or some combination thereof), if I wanted to.