How vital are complex forms for technomancers?, I haven't bought SR4 yet. Options

[emo samurai]

No karma? And does registration last forever? And what do they mean by registration, what is it exactly? Is it a bureaucratic, centralized process or what?

[Valentinew]

Registration is basically the same sort of thing as binding a spirit. Registered sprites stick around until all of their tasks are used. Unregistered sprites leave after 8 hours, regardless of how many tasks they've completed.

[Ranneko]

Basically take the rules for spirits and swap the following words:
summon - compile
banish - decompile
drain - fading
binding - registering

[blakkie]

.... and "sunrise/sunset" with "8 hours".

[blakkie]

[Magus]

Question on the technomancer: Do they still need the Cracking skill group and the Computer Skill group WITH the Tasking group? If so that is a ton of skill points that really cut down on the number of Complex forms a TM has. Plus if you play anything other than a Human the BP cost and Attributes can kill any survivability skill needed in play.

[Valentinew]

You definitely need the cracking skill group. You don't necessarily need the Hardware or Software portions of the Computer group, but Data Search would probably come in handy.

[nick012000]

Actually, a technomancer doesn't need any complex forms at all to be a decent hacker.

Heck, he doesn't even need any skills other than Software.

Why? All he needs to do is buy a good commlink, load it up with programs, and compile a Rating 5-6 Machine Sprite to sit on it and use its Diagnosis power. 3-4 net hits on its test means that the technomancer is just as good hacking with that commlink as a Hacker with a skill of 3-4.

[Jestercat]

Yes, but the one thing you guys missed is how the Hacker can absolutely go crazy in cybercombat, even compared to a Technomancer. How?

Independent Attack Agents. Buy a Rating 6 Agent and a Rating 6 attack program. Cluster a secondary commlink to run it on, and jack it in alongside you. Oh...and copy it a few times on a few more commlinks and see how ANYTHING deals with having 4 or 5 Rating 6 attackers kicking their butts. Sprites are cool, but Hackers can rip it up just as much or more, because after you buy or write the Agent program there's nothing stopping you from copying it (especially if you wrote it, you don't even have to test for copy protection).

Abusive? Not sure, haven't actually tried it ingame yet. Debating doing it in a couple weeks during our 5-day SR4 marathon.

Anyone try running multiple combat agents yet?

[emo samurai]

That could be SO easily abused.

[Jestercat]

Just a bit huh? I'm in game design myself and definitely know a hole in the rules when I see one. My ruling as a GM would be:
1) yes, you can do this
2) You need to run separate Encrypts on each agent and on your own commlink, unless you want somebody to be able to multicast-spoof them
3) If you ARE running that many encrypts, the security hacker's going to kick your ass
4) If you're not, then your agents are getting spoofed and shooting each other and you. either way...*dumpshock*

[blakkie]

[mfb]

i think the best way to handle that would be to simply make every non-PAN device linked to your commlink lower the difficulty of trace attempts against you. after all, if you're making more noise, it should be easier to hear you. the net result is that you'd dominate cybercombat--but your physical location will be easy for anybody to find.

[PlatonicPimp]

The Other problem with it is that it is easily abusable by both parties. The counter to a dozen agents attacking is another dozen agents defending.

[emo samurai]

Plus, you could easily overload the system.

[Jestercat]

True that. It isn't without disadvantages, but the trick is with that many agents, you can get your ass in and out before the system can even react to you (you can usually blitz the entire run in one combat turn).

[emo samurai]

AND you could probably be tracked pretty easily. The worst thing after getting your brain fried.

[Cheops]

I have had a multiple agent combat and it kicked the stuffing out of the PI/Technomancer who was on his Resonance Quest. Basically he hit the nasty firewall of the place he was trying to find and 6 rating 6 combat agents ambushed him. If he had been a proper hacking shadowrunner he would have fared much better but he was designed to be a PI first and foremost.

Running lots of Agents really slows you down. Each program that is loaded into an agent is run BY THAT AGENT. So if the Agent is rating 6 it can run 5 programs before it starts to slow down. If your commlink is system 6 and you aren't running any other programs you can run 5 Agents without experiencing a slowdown. However, you can load those agents onto a node and then it is a burden on that node's limit of subscribed icons. So you could theoretically have dozens of agents running on Matrix hosts. It can be very nasty but all those agents have your commcode in them and can be traced back to you even if you are using a legitimate passcode.

A Resonance 6 Technomancer is neigh unstoppable. All you need to do is get a rating 6 crack sprite and ask it to go and get you Admin status on that rating 6 host and it comes back within a few initiative passes with the code sans alert.

All Security setups in my games now have at least 1 mage and at least 1 technomancer in them in addition to mundane guards and spiders. There is no way to really stop a technomancer (or even detect one) without having your own technomancer on staff. But then again since it only costs 5 or 10 points to be one I assume that there are a lot in my game world.

[Azralon]

Five.

[neko128]

[Xenith]

"Intelligent" is a loose term, however, and their general awarenesss of a situation would depend on their rating... but nothing substutes for true sentience. After all, they are more like low power KnowBots than true AIs.

This is something Spirits have over spirits sometimes. So don't make that machine sprite into an overused crutch instead of a true resource.

[FrankTrollman]

Note that while magicians theoretically can become unlimitedly powerful, a Technomancer can't.

It takes 1 hour to register a sprite for every rating point it has. If it hasn't been registered in 8 hours it vanishes. So you can't register a Rating 9 Sprite. No such sprite can exist.

-Frank

[Xenith]

Interesting. I'm glad for that. Just wish something similar was in place for magic users. Ah well. :grinbig:

[Shrike30]

I'm wondering if an erratta will come out about that later. It's not like an SR product to use such a backhanded method of defining a maximum rating on something (much more a Games Workshop kinda stunt).

[The Jopp]

One important factor that you have all forgotten to mention when it comes to Technomancers are the fact that they ignore the penalties for Response when using too many programs, they can have ALL programs active all the time.