The team may or may not have a magician, so getting a boost to Charisma may or may not be possible. I really want to avoid being an Elf, because I really don't like them. My GM approved having a group of Technomancers in a group contact (as per RC rules) at Loyalty 6 for a +11 modifier for Connection. 7 from the chart, and 4 for it being a niche/uncommon group. I'd have Conn 4 or 5 with them, so that's 21-22 points to get the group as a contact. The reason I want to do this is because with at least 3 people helping, I can reduce submersion karma cost by 20%. We are getting free contacts at twice charisma, so that'll help supplement it. Resonance bonds sound like a great deal, because they don't take karma. With so much karma, should I take some bioware and raise Res to 7? I can take Sensitive System, which I will.

Emergence says this isnt the case although I dont recall the page.

Well, understandable.
My shaman is human, too, for exactly the same reasons.

Of course, any fading stat is somehow useful for a TM.
Humans may be a slightly suboptimal choice, but that doesn't make them brokenly bad.
And with such i high BP base, it may matter even less.
Dwarves can, of course, work out really nice, in general, they are a very good choice for TMs.
Orks are a bit tricky, to say the least, even with an Intuition-based stream, as you need good mental stats through the board.
I won't even begin about trolls...

If you take bioware, you could also consider some geneware along with it.




Keep in mind that you don't need a guild for network submersion, the same can be done with a party (a temporary group of TMs).
However, at the time when you start play, these may be hard to find, so it may be a good choice to get yourself a network.



As i said, you'll save a whole lot of echos this way.
It will cost some money and reduce your Resonance, but if you can submerge 6 times, you could theoretically still go up to 11...

Linking.

If you are able to get karma and your GM allows it, lots and lots of linking....

Thanks for the heads up, Rasumichin! The later the release date of the splat book the more credence it gets I 'reckon!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And as Tarantula pointed out in another thread have the linking assist a second avatar of yours in your biological node so the sprites aren't able to as easily get found. If you hack lone star and have the sprites with you they probably end up getting pasted leaving you without them for several days until they respawn. Ideally you'd have multiprocessing so you can observe and defend with half dice pool in that secondary node with the additional avatar.

Linked Sprites are essentially on an extended Remote Service, you do not need to be present in the Node they are accessing.

I'm not really sure you could use them to boost your CF's as each boost only lasts Rating combat rounds.

My particular favourite is Linking a Tutor/Machine Sprite to the Medical Drone you are sat in. It can heal you whenever you get injured, even by Fading, and a high Rating Sprite can regularly heal six boxes of damage.

Hey, thanks for the help. I didn't really think about a stream. I was going to go Base SR4. Go E-Scapist you said? This troll would basically be the team enforcer, I am the GM, so I could make an "Equal Prime Runner" with up to 440 (110%) BP. But I kinda figured that would be cheating.

The troll TM is a personal choice, I just happen to like the big lugs. If they can be as smart (Logic) as any other character (Baring elves) than I'll give the build a try.

The build I had had the Following stats.

BP:440
Metatype:Troll
Qualities: SINner(+5BP), Technomancer(-5BP), Combat Paralysis(+20BP)
Attributes:
B:5 A:3 R:4 S:5 C:3 I:4 L:4 W:4 RES:5 EDG:2
Skills:
Tasking™:3 Cracking™:4 Electronics™:4 Firearms Skill Group:3 Unarmed Combat:2 Blades:2 Perception: 2 Dodge:2 Ettiquite:2

Living Persona:
F:4 R:4 S:3 S:4
Complex Forms:
Analyze 3, Edit 2, Armor 4, Stealth 5, Exploit 4, Attack 5, Sniffer 2, Decrypt 5, Scan 2

Thats all the relavent stats, built in SR4 only, no Unwired or RC.

Combat Paralysis is a death sentence to a TM. Your Willpower is your defense against Black IC and a rating 6 Agent/Sprite is throwing 12 dice to harm you IF it doesnt have any Program Options on its offensive CF's. Your damage affects all your tests like, oh, say... logging out once hit by said Black IC.

I used to get Combat Paralysis all the time but have learned my lesson. Get some others like Nanointolerance and Weak Immune System but man, no way... stay clear of CP.

Hm...i'd raise WIL by one, it's your most important stat besides RES.

It's a troll's only chance to get decent Fading dice.

There's two streams with WIL as Fading stat :
The Cyberadepts (the basic TM from the BBB) and the E-scapists.

Cyberadepts give you Machine sprites (the most valuable asset to a real-world combat TM), e-scapists provide Tank sprites (which kick serious ass in cybercombat).

That's about all the differences as far as mechanics are concerned.

If you want to interact a lot with the physical world, i'd stick with the cyberadept.
E-scapists are...well, they try to spend as much time as possible online and to avoid RL as much as they can and their sprite selection represents that.

The basic Cyberadept Stream is good for you, yes, as a troll, forget that one was willpower based, my error.

I agree with Ras, raise that Willpower to a 5.. it's your key stat here.

I also agree with Wasabi... lose the Combat Paralysis... if you must have 20 extra points, find them elsewhere, like Uncouth... it would cause your ettiquette to drop to 1, howeve,r it's fitting to a troll, and it will give you everyting you need... I do have one other suggestion... concider a Paragon.. 01 will increase your ability to thread all sprites.. World Tree could increase your ability with Analys and Courier.. and Flow could increase your Threading ability and capabilities with Data Sprites.. all with some disadvantages.. but over all, IMO, worth the pain.

Sorry to sound like a n00b, but what is "IMO"?

I was considering Zero-One (Deep Resonance) as my Paragon, I don't need the points, but that is a good point about the combat paralysis.

Would Shield be better than Armor?

In My Opinion.

Shield vs. Armor.. you might think this is more or less the same choice, but it's not, shield increases your matrix defense, armor increases your matrix damaged resistance... think of it this way, do you more armor, or do you want to dodge better?

Why is it a "vs." instead of an "and?"

that being said, if it *is* 'vs' and can't be 'and', then my suggestion is shield. it protects against black IC as well as normal attack programs, and has a chance of negating the attack in addition to reducing net hits, which will reduce the damage they did anyways (at exactly the same ratio that armor would have).

that being said, i'm gonna have to agree... if you want a TM who is going to get into cybercombat, then why on earth would you only take one or the other?

If you can only get Shield OR Armor Shield is better since it works against Black IC.

If you want to go the Technomancer way of the summoner. Compiling, Registering, Fading. Rating 8-9 sprites own just about anything in a system. The widget echo is nice for boosts and work well into prep time (or time waiting for your sprite to long-probe something).