I do miss machine sprites being able to rig a drone effectively. No gunnery or pilot skills means that they pretty much suck at it.

It's not. No one's actually demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the technomancer.



That gets back to the adept vs samurai argument of "the samurai can spend money and karma but the adept can only spend karma." Has that one been solved yet?



They really don't. The decker with the 350,000 nuyen deck is already pretty close to the bleeding edge. Have you considered that the 100,000 nuyen deck is a little more in the ballpark for the common decker?



Attributes B means 2 3 3 1 6 5 5 3 (BARSWLIC) or so, which isn't bad for branching out, and gives you the base persona of the 215,000 nuyen deck.



No, it doesn't. The technomancer has specific tools for this sort of thing. I think you might be confusing this with archive hacking.



If spirits were used to pick locks and steal file folders, you might have a point, but just because they share a system doesn't mean that their general utility should be compared.



Deckers can get shot and take stun and physical damage in meatspace and get Biofeedbacked and take stun and physical damage in Matrix space, as well. Nothing new.

Task spirits would like to have a word with you.

and for a lower cost (fewer skills needed to be effective in their role, since technomancers need the hacking, cybercombat, electronic warfare, and computers, plus compile and register, while magicians pretty much only need sorcery, counterspelling, assensing and and summon/bind - although rituals can add a nice bonus as well, it isn't necessary, and even if it was that's still only equal... except that magicians get more free spells than technomancers get complex forms) a sorcerer can mind control as many people as fit in a 6 meter radius for an indefinite period of time to do whatever he wants until he either doesn't care to keep controlling them or until he goes unconscious/falls asleep (not even then if he also uses a focus, but at that point we're not looking at equal costs any more to be fair).

in short, if the magician can see the decker, he can probably mind control the decker *and* all of his nearby friends into shooting each other in the head with real guns (probably starting with the decker, who will actually have dice to roll to break free against a "mere" force 6 spell most likely). i think that just *slightly* trumps controlling the decker's icon for 1 turn to brick itself (and probably kill the decker), as a general rule.

Magic's a different ballgame played on a different field. If it's all about being able to indescriminately deal damage, everyone's sub-par to the orbital thor shot station manager. Magic's limitations are typically range and line of sight, while technomancers can freewheel around the planet -- better than deckers, I might add, considering Resonance Channel.

In the same vein, if anyone can actually see the decker, gunfire or a nice grenade will solve the issue pretty simply as well, and decks don't stop bullets too well.

they do if they are wireless enabled

right. so technomancy costs as much or more than magic, does a hell of a lot less stuff, and isn't even that great at what it does do, except for a few largely meaningless gimmicks (seriously, we're counting the ability to hack something on the other side of the planet as an important skill now?), and has the same large drawbacks that are supposed to help make magicians not so powerful.

the one thing it does, it isn't even particularly good at, and it pays for that privilege by sucking at everything else. i dunno about you, but that sounds like flawed design to me. it isn't as good at hacking, it's special tricks are generally overpriced and make you bleed from your eyes, and the second you try to compensate for having to spend all your skills, attributes, and everything else on being this overpriced piece of crap by getting augmented (assuming you can even afford to, what with your resources likely being priority E because you need everything else as high as it will go), the special tricks you can do will probably now be doing physical damage (because to puppeteer anything even remotely difficult, you're going to *need* to thread it at rating 4-5, more likely 6, and that doesn't combine well with having less than 6 resonance because 10P damage that can't be healed except by rest is a massive problem, *especially* on a character that likely had to dump body).

yes, they're pretty close to being as good in some areas as deckers. and they pay more for the privilege of being almost as good as the decker pays to be better. this isn't rocket science, here; pay more, get less good stuff, get more drawbacks. that's not how to balance a game.

Again, what does magic have to do with anything? It's starting to sound like you're confusing game balance in an RPG with game balance in a board game. Game balance in an RPG is about providing routes for multiple players to cover necessary roles in proportion to standard challenges, not about making characters uniformly effective.

Magic has an awful damn lot to do with it, as the mechanics of the two systems are almost identical. So for a cost that equates to 30 Karma more expensive at priority A or 29 Karma more expensive at priority B, you can have bonus points to two skills that provide a less flexible option for pets that you can compile/summon as opposed to the options of skills that a mage can choose for their free skill points. You can have access to less of the amalgam to spells (complex forms) that are useful in a narrower array of situations for a higher personal risk of damage for casting/threading.
As many in this thread have stated, the main shortfall against TMs is in the mechanics. Mechanically in SR5 TMs are comparable to Mages not Deckers.

You are right and I had originally written a version of the houserule exactly like you proposed. BUT Resonance is Device Rating and to say TM only get half the programs sounds to me about as arbritrary as saying they don't get any.

TMs still have a lot of inherent disadvantages I did not fix:
they can't shift their Matrix attributes, -> less flexibility / somewhat off-set by more programs
they are stronger affected by Essence loss, -> lower dice pools, less options for branching out
they need more skills OR
they can't run agents,
they are hunted individuals by definition,
the only advantage that comes to mind are the +2 on matrix Perception, I don't count Complex Forms or sprite powers, because most of them suck (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Fortunately, programs don't exactly stack, so I am not too worried about the abuse of having more. Just less micro management.

A friend gave me his write-up on TM house rules. He has Lightning Bolt and various Illusions as Complex Forms, though both have to be channeled through suitable devices, e.g. a trid-projector. That looks like a whole different game, though a potentially fun one.

Back on topic. I did consider something like a flat discount on drain of -1 or -2, but I haven't exactly playtested this yet and have no idea how that effects the game.

For magic, I was worried about the high drain as well, but through various tricks (Orichalcum, Edge, ...) spells are rarely cast on high Force levels anymore, except those that give high benefit for high Force. Instead I get to see a lot of 2 drain spells. This is somewhat abusive on some spells and contrary to my original impression, I now consider to disallow such tricks on some spells e.g. Improved Reflexes to increase drain.

It is weird that something as broken as the limit system feels the most broken, when it does not work properly.

Not quite true, since a victim of most Mental Manipulations gets to roll another resistance roll vs. the Spell every Force Turns. So, 60 Seconds tops... Not indefinite.
Influence/Alter Memories are a special case, but are also far more subtle than most Mental Manipulations tend to be.

nm

60 is more than long enough to get a group of hostiles to eliminate each other. That's 20 combat rounds. And even if they AREN'T shooting EACH OTHER, they sure as hell are going to be too preoccupied to be shooting at the MAGE and his friends.

Keep in mind that that is a maximum of time. It may not last 10% that. Especially if the opposition has their own mages. I don't count on it past the initial Turn, personally. That way I am not disappointed. However, the Magician I play generally only uses emotion control and Influence (and not really a lot of that). No Control Thoughts/Actions or any variant, as he honestly does not care for such spells. They directly remove free agency, which his Mentor Spirit is heavily against. So, I may be a bit biased. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Also, the opposition that we tend to run up against does not give us the convenience of clustering up in groups for the mages to eliminate. Magic has been around for 50 years, and everyone knows that one of the best ways to defend against it is to not cluster up. Same way people do not cluster so that the grenade does not eliminate everyone.

mind control spells reduce your dicepool to break free (but not the initial resist roll) by their force.

so a force 6 mind control spell takes 6 dice away from the target's defense. against an average person, that is going to be zero dice remaining (in fact, until you hit professional rating 4 opponents, only lieutenants have anything left against a force 6 spell looking at the default grunts in the book).

so if you target a group of regular security guards, no there is not a practical limit of ~60 seconds. you own them until you don't feel like owning them any more, or until you fall asleep/go unconscious (or until some other magician frees them, but that assumes said magician isn't shot by them before (s)he can do so).

Are we talking 5th Edition here? Because I wasn't. And even so, Spell Defense will give you resistance Dice. So no, They weill eventually break free (assuming some magical backup). And it WILL be in less than 60 Seconds. *shrug*

why wouldn't we be talking 5th edition? the technomancer in question is 5th edition. if it was a 4th edition technomancer, i would be inclined to agree that the extra costs above what a decker pays are completely justified, because 4th edition technomancers are godlike in the matrix.

My Mind wanders on occasion. I lost track. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

nm

Really? That was a wide open, easy, shot... I am disappointed, Sendaz... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

I just noticed that while SR5 sprites are indeed awful (OS running to give away your location if it hits 40 before you dismiss it, use up a task to register, use up a task to put a registered sprite on standby), there's no limit in the book on how many you can register.

Edit: Actually, there's a limit on page 98 when paying karma for registered sprites (why?!?) at character creation, just not in the main text.

yeah, that's presumed to be an oversight (no pun intended). i would expect that to change.

By all that is holy! I just went and reread the Technomancer rules. They SUCK!
I like the complex forms. There are some genuinely good tricks there, which would make Technomancers quirky but playable... if it wasn't for the insane fading values.
One in particular stood out to me: Resonance Channel. Is this really the only way for Technomancers to reduce noise? Seriously? I might have missed something, but if not then that's just taking the piss. Pretty much everywhere is considered either a spam zone or a static zone, both of which can be crippling without noise reduction.

I will say one nice thing though: Gremlins sprite power. I like the concept of the Technomancer's little helper making every smartgun that points at them spontaneously malfunction. In fact, it makes me sad that it would take one task per gun for this to happen, with the Technomancer actively directing the Sprite each time. For something with comparable Fading to a Spirit's drain, I'd have thought they'd be at least a little bit more useful (Particularly since unlike Spirits, they incur overwatch. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) ).

Damn, just checked the Magic section. The LEAST draining complex forms (L-1) are on par with a flipping FIREBALL (F-1)!

HOLD EVERYTHING!

Priority C Technomancers get resonance 3 and one complex form, while Mages and Mystic adepts of the same priority get 5 SPELLS?!?

What is even the (Editors note: text continued for 15 pages of raving gibberish connecting this discrepancy to the Dunkelzahn assassination, Aztechnology, Deus, the price of miniature marshmallows in the middle east from 2055 to 2063, and the universal brotherhood. Be glad you didn't have to read it. Don't worry, he's had his meds now.)

Oh. Technomancers are vulnerable to hot SIM addiction.

That's like Mages being vulnerable to SPELLCASTING ADDICTION!

I... I need a minute.