With my rigger it quickly became "Shadowrun, the RTS" I did not have actions to spare from commanding all my drones to jump in to them, and why would I want to? Why would I dive into ONE drone to shoot someone, and risk taking Biofeedback if the are drones hit, when I can have THREE drones shoot them instead?

Because not every situation with a "drone" is a situation where you can afford to have the drone be disposable. If the Star is on your tail and you're escaping INSIDE your drone-rigged Westwind suddenly the "drone" in question isn't really just a disposable asset, nor is the 9 or 10 dice Pilot programs get to play around with likely to be enough to save your ass. Besides, you can have your cake and eat it too-- You don't have to be jumped in all the time but it's certainly a useful option in critical situations. Whenever I really feel like ganking one of my players, trust me when I say a VCR & Edge fueled hail of lead from a talented Prime Runner level Drone Rigger is one of my preferred options. Ever seen a Social Adept try to soak a 17P -2 Damage code?

Compared with:



Apparently, there's a bug in the German translation (as any of the resident Germans will tell you, Schaden means Damage, not Stun Damage). But allright, half the damage. Apparently, the text was changed in later editions to make rigging less lethal.

Sma, i repeat: there are no autosofts above rating 4. none. zero. they do not exist.

how many times are we going to have to repeat these facts, honestly?

One of the positive things of Fanpro's demise was that we don't have to put up with those crappy german books anymore.
Ok, I admit: Arsenal 2070 had more content than the english version. But that's it.

Rigger 3.01d was retranslated as Rigger 3 Revised, so ... there was something good there. But mostly, the work was done rather sloppy. Though, if I remember correctly, the German Core Rulesbook was written together with the english version and shipped actually before the english book did ... so it's not sloppy translation we're talking about. Just general sloppyness.

I don't have my book in front of me, but when the drone goes down while you're jumped in using hot-sim, isn't the dumpshock physical?

Yep physical damage for a dumpshock from hot-sim.

I knew something killed my character.

5P dumpshock damage killed your character? you should have at least 10 dice to resist that damage, bringing it down to 2 probably... good odds you had a willpower greater than 5 one way or another too, and maybe even biofeedback filter 6.

that's what killed you? no. what killed you is that your GM has apparently been using the wrong rules. a lot. and screwing riggers over.

Well, I had no Biofeedback filter running, so propably. I think I also resisted with body, which the character hat ... 3 or something. The character would definitly take damage, though, damage that cannot just be waved away with a stimpatch. Which IS a draw with Hot Sim.

as was pointed out earlier, if it had been a sam, the character would be dead when you die.

of course, if you are *really* scared of dumpshock, i recommend remote controlling the drone from your home node via the control device matrix action. you can take codeslinger for 10 BPs, still get the hotsim bonus, and can use whatever your command rating (Synner... this is why the technomancer rocks the rigger btw... the ability to boost the TM's command CF *rating* to truly obscene levels makes the rigger cry). it has all kinds of advantages, like not spending money on response upgrades for your drones (since the command program replaces all attributes, all you need is a good response on your actual commlink) and the ability to take "remote operation" as a specialisation in every single vehicle skill among them. it has some drawbacks too though (10 BP for codeslinger vs 1 BP for control rig, no control rig boosters available) but it can work, your dicepools will be just a hair lower. and since you're not in the vehicle's node when it blows up, you don't suffer dumpshock.

with a technomancer in that situation, you can boost your command CF to huge levels (start at 6, thread for another 3-4, use a registered sprite to boost another 4+) and have a command CF of like 14... add in hotsim bonus and codeslinger, and you're throwing 18 dice for your tests *before skills* (though, of course, as has been said... you're a technomancer and are eternally doomed to suck at anything outside of the matrix, and unless you are very carefully optimised you will also suck *in* the matrix apart from rigging, that being the downside to this route).

so actually, i believe synner said somewhere we weren't sure what technomancer 'riggers' are like... well, unless you define rigger specifically as someone who uses control rigs to drive vehicles, the technomancer rigger looks downright terrifying, with an astounding 18 (see previous paragraph) dice on defense, probably 26 (gunnery 4 specialisation in ballistic 2 smartlink 2) on offfense.... and that's without any friendly machine sprites analysing your vehicle/turret =P

and you will notice that the TM rigger soundly squishing the mundane rigger is something i never argued as untrue... and now you know why. the adept rigger will have maybe a couple extra dice... the TM rigger? he squishes them all like bugs. slow, clumsy bugs at that.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

I just found this thread and finished to read it through. Observations:

-I found it quite rude at first, though came to understand (though I still disaprove) why the rudeness came for and it makes for my second point...
-... it´s as unbelievable as it´s unbereable how peolple fervently discuss about subjects they don´t have a clue of!

I feel the need to say this because I´m tired of seeing this happen at this forum (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Many posters not only throw up rabid opinions and engage in absurd crusades without having a thorough knowledge of the very issues they´re infuriated about, they go even further by making things even worse while not even caring to pay attention of what has already been stated on the threads they are taking part of. You can´t be any ruder than that...

About the subject of the post, I think Jaid already made his point (which more or less matches mine, except on the violent way of stating it) though a fitting counterpoint has yet to be seen (if it exists at all).

Most of the time the Rigger is either:
A. Ensconced somewhere relatively safe when jumping in.
Or
B. Is riding in the vehicle he's jumping into and thus likely to come to a bad end regardless of what the Dumpshock does to him in the event the vehicle is destroyed or completely disabled.

Add in the fact that up until the vehicle is destroyed the Rigger will be likely only suffering Stun damage if he's been suffering damage at all, and no, I simply can't be bothered to worry too much about having to resist 5P with a dicepool of 10 or so in the event my mechanical minion is annihilated before I have the good sense to leave its node. It's not terribly likely to come up and when it does come up, it's about as bad as overcasting a Powerball; It's not fun, but you'll probably live, and there's a good chance you might have saved your own hide by taking the risk in the first place.

yeah, i was getting a little annoyed with the fact that he was on several threads bashing riggers and how pathetic they were. dunno why it annoyed me so much, but it did, and the basic point of this thread was to establish that much of what he had said against riggers (and, to a more limited extent, arsenal) was not accurate.

in any case, i probably should have backed off and cooled down for a bit, but it had been annoying me for a few days now =P so yeah, it was probably a little excessive, but just the way he was saying these things without any basis in fact reminded me of recent discussions with other posters (in hindsight, you are quite dissimilar, in that when demonstrated to be incorrect you actually stop trying to argue from a position that has been proven wrong... whereas the other poster in question would have proceeded to demand that we accept his position as correct even with no proof whatsoever)

as you can see, there appears to be a lot of misinformation out there regarding riggers, and hopefully a good chunk of it has been cleared up in this thread... so i'd like to think that while it was indeed not as polite as it should have been (nor as polite as i usually am, for that matter) that it did actually serve some purpose.

though i'm sure these exact things which have been cleared up will come up again some other time =S

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/question.gif) I think you got the wrong guy: I´ve never been wrong, much less proven wrong in my whole life! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Now: on the subject of jerks, there´s no easy (and legal (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ork.gif) ) way of getting rid of them (not even temporaraly)...

So going into battle against them is useless: they will find the way to drag you into their territory (Jerkland) and then beat you by experience and better knowledge of the battleground. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Nevertheless, I do understand that sometimes one needs to fight a lost battle anyway (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif) .

Can't they be one and the same? I mean why can't you have both? Use a drone when you need to and rig one when you need to. Personally I find rigging large things like oh say a city-master or an 18 wheeler to be a good move, while people trying to jump into hot sim using a roto drone are subject to a world of hurt. A good rigger picks and chooses his or her moment. Drones are nice for 10-20k you can get a pretty tripped out drone and give yourself 3-6 extra attacks per combat round. Riggers can be used to fulfill all sorts of tasks, but you really have to rely on a number of different tactics. A rigger who only uses drones independently can run into trouble, as well as a straight up hot sim rigger.

God what a useless topic to discuss, because it's all situational in the end. Point, counterpoint. Point, counterpoint. It's all relative. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

If you are using hot sim on wireless you are also vulnerable to getting black hammered by agents etc. Having your brain squirt out your ears counts as a loss to me. And having your comlink nuked, the one that you are VR controlling the vehicle you are in at 150 kph, tends to be bad too.

Uhm ... yeah. I take that as an agreeance. Thanks for the nice example, though. One Question: Threading isn't permanent but a boost the TM can use at will, for any complex form there is, even those he doesn't have, right? Open ended really, if the TM trusts in his high willpower and has initiated (or whatever those critters call that) to roll the drain down ... Edge's gonna help there, too. Besides, TMs can take all the matrix-relevant qualities too, can't they?

I don't really see why that leaves a TM so much less Karma to get themselves some decent stats (Will seems to be pretty important for them, anyway) and a few basic survival skills. And since the wifi world opens up so many possibilities to fuck with people by using their brainless reliance on wifi against them (see the DNI thread for some ideas), I really don't see how anyone can complain technomancers lack in power. In fact, they make even adept hackers look like idiots.

I guess that there're these wonderful new characters around who make mundane riggers look just really useless doesn't quite add to the fun of playing one, as you know you have zero chance of ever being good in what the character does compared to a startup technomancer (maximum safe complex forms rating: 12, not counting sprites), no matter how much karma you sink into the rigger. And, after all, this is what the Rigger is supposed to be good at. So yes, I stand by my opinion Riggers in sR4 have been made more or less obsolete. Considering the character might eventually generalise and outperform technomancers on the physical doesn't help me much there, really, because playing a sam isn't playing a rigger. That's the obsolete part.

Drones actually were a minor annoyance I added withouth thinking about it as much as I propably should have.

True. Thats why I build riggers on a hacker skillset and consider vehicle skills optional. You are better off not driving yourself than being defenseless. You can load your link for combat (you are only on your own nodes), and any new user logging in IS an attacker, as you are the only legitimate one. Hacking on the fly always alerts the system if your drones run Analyse (hard to reach a threshold of 11 in one go, hard not to reach a threshold of (stealth) with two rolls on an extended test).

Being on hot-sim without biofeedback filters is not a sound strategy.

Which kind of takes the fun out of the rigger unless you want to play a decker anyway.


Not for a starter technomancer character (Resonance 6, WP 5), sadly, if he threads his Stealth CF to 12, has codeslinger and uses sprites for dice. TH 11 in one go is viable with some 20 DP and Edge.


Yeah, I know that now. But thatw as before Augmentation, and 2 IP are just depressingly few actions.

Cool, I take the night to work and a lot of the issues get resolved.

Now with you conceding the point with drones, how about producing those technomancer rigger, specialist driver street sam, and rigger adept builds so that we can compare versatility and effectiveness.

Note - Your complaint seems increasingly geared towards the loss of an exclusive niche for riggers. Sorry, but that's a given with the streamlining of the SR4 Matrix and Rigging rules. However, the same argument could be (and has been) made regarding street samurai vs. hyperspecialist adept combat monkeys. Or hackers and everyone else who can now use a commlink/agent. You see this as a problem, a number of people have made it obvious they see this as a feature. Shadowrun really is a system without classes and the latest iteration blurs the lines even further by allowing different methods of reaching the similar results. Specialized builds are dominant in their chosen fields over generalists. However, "specialist roles" such as the rigger are still recognized by the system, in that a competent rigger will be more versatile, flexible and offer a greater variety of tactical options than a competing technomancer or rigger adept—while still being able to match them in his chosen field of expertise as well.

I can somewhat understand hermit's point though. He's complaining, a rigger has lost his point as a dedicated role in a shadowrunner team and to a player who's fond of riggers that can indeed come as a buzzkill. My own criticism would concern the vehicle section in Arsenal rather than the base rules but I already stated that in the review thread.
Otherwise I'm fine with riggers in general but I can see his point.

That seems a little bit contradictory.

The builds might take a little while though. I'll try the minimum TM, the maxed-out rigger TM, both against a fairly maxed out converted ~900 Karma rigger character with enough ressources to get heavy stuff (like rating 10 military firewalls). Both TMs will be starter level. I am only considering how they compete against the rigger in the field of rigging, not in firearms or knowledge skills (where about half the karma went).

Examples to follow, please stand by.

What about the other specialists you were complaining about? Are you conceding regarding them?

Why the 900 karma rigger? Make a rigger out of the chargen (or since others seem to have a better grasp of the rigger rules, let someone like Jaid or Ryu post theirs). Run them through the same half-dozen situations: a rolling firefight/car chase, a team intrusion, using drones as firesupport in a firefight, defending against a EW/hack attack, subverting a security system (you know stuff any competent rigger should be able to do). Then compare results.


I may have been unclear, but what I meant to point out was that the "field of rigging" is pretty large and that while most of aforementioned specialists will compete with riggers in a very limited way such as driving skill pools (something which obviously doesn't sit well with you), they are generally unable to keep up with the rigger in the vast "field of rigging" and hence do not make them obsolete.

For example: the specialist street sam driver and the rigger adept may have dicepools comparable to the rigger's when it comes to driving (strictly speaking); but I'm willing to bet they won't be half as high as the rigger's dicepools as soon as they're required to shoot a turret-mounted weapon or drone-mounted weapon or if they have to defend their vehicles and drones from offensive hacking/EW. The rigger adept has a better chance of covering these things because the street sam has to invest in being a street sam as well, but his BP expenditure on Magic/Powers (and later Initiation, etc) will mean he'll lack the scope of skills, gear and software the dedicated rigger has/needs.

The exception to this can be, of course, the technomancer rigger—however, technomancers are rare enough and their specialization is so restrictive (both in terms of BP and in game Karma development) that they will never render a competent rigger obsolete and they also have the whole limitation with the Living Persona equating Physical damage going on.