Tear apart my technomancer Options

[Ravor]

Besides, with the "Trying Again" section on page 59 (I believe that is the right page, use the reference I posted above.) you would be taking an additional -2 Modifier for each time you rerolled without taking a breather inbetween rolls so quite frankly, that little trick isn't nearly as impressive as it's made out to be.

[Jaid]

[Wasabi]

Because of sportsmanship.... most players find that a rules mechanic albeit a RAW-permitted one that allows you to get a Critical Success automatically is a waste of their time and against the spirit of the rules.

I run and play by RAW fairly strictly, but its a lousy method due to inconvenience to the rest of the table.

My 2 nuyen...

[Jaid]

inconvenience the rest of the table how? if time is not of importance, the technomancer can just declare "i keep trying until i get 6 hits" and the GM can just arbitrarily rule that whatever amount of time he feels like has passed... 1 minute (ie 60 tests, assuming a complex action; 120 if simple) should be sufficient in most cases, doesn't slow the gameplay down or anything.

in comparison, if time *is* important, then the TM should probably not try more than maybe once or twice, and then get on with it.

as far as "unsportsmanlike" i don't see how that's reasonable. do you expect your sammy to take down targets in a single shot, and if he misses or doesn't do enough damage he's not allowed to shoot them a second time? does your B&E expert get more than one chance to pick a lock if it's not alarmed? it even makes sense in game... the TM, when not rushed, can just sit down for a little while, clear his mind, make sure he's getting the maximum bang for his buck. when he's rushed, however, it's a little more haphazard, and the results aren't as guaranteed... maybe he'll still hit his maximum possible, but maybe he'll only hit a small portion of it. sounds reasonable to me.

[Wasabi]

Its a matter of degrees. If its not a contested situation (like a TM breaking into a lightly secured node) then it SHOULD be done with hand waving. If its of regular difficulty then pace of the game is important.

[Tarantula]

Arguably, trying 1 or 10,000 times would take the same amount of time, none. Because threading doesn't have an associated action to it. I wouldn't be so absurd to try to swing this past ANY GM, however, I would argue against it being any more time consuming than a free action.

[Wasabi]

My assertion is that it takes time at the table away from the GM telling his Story and away from players roleplaying. If you are playing a war game style SR4 game then my assertion may not apply to your situation.

To me it seems like either your GM hand waves it or you roll a few times max to not be absurd.

Again, its a matter of degrees as to what is reasonable and not.

[Jaid]

it doesn't *need* to take time at the table unless your GM is determined to waste time at the table. it's like taking 20 on a test in d20; it only takes up time if the GM forces you to roll over and over until you roll well enough, when the simple fact is that with no penalty for failure, you can retry as often as you want anyways.

[James McMurray]

The difference is that you can't botch while taking 20. Unless the GM wants to give the TM a freebie, he has to require rolls.

[Jaid]

i would tend to not worry about it, personally. we're talking about preparations before the run even begins, basically. any glitch or even critical glitch should, at worst, end up being useful only for injecting a little bit of comedy into your shadowrun.

[James McMurray]

That's certainly one way to handle glitches and critical glitches, but it deviates from the RAW, significantly in the case of a critical glitch.

[Jaid]

glitches are still successes. they are successes with a flaw in them, but still a success. the glitch shouldn't be causing something that is more than of immediate concern... and since the TM can just do his threading in his personal node, there's no major problems that can't be dealt with easily. basically, it's just embarrassing, because that's about the worst thing that can happen.

critical glitches should be basically the same. maybe it takes a bit longer to deal with, but overall, what are you going to do? make the TM's brain attack itself? give him a little bit of fading that he can just fix with first aid or rest since he's not in any sort of a rush?

seriously, there's not much that can go horribly wrong in the TM's home node that's gonna take any significant amount of time to correct, unless the time it takes is made significant by putting a time limit on (which usually means glitches can also cause problems) (for example, when you're already in the facility, and you're trying to break into their ultra-secure lab node with no external connections, and you've got to get in before you're found by physical security) in which case i indicated you should roll as usual...

[James McMurray]

Glitch: you're right. But one of the options given is "falls on a nail." That's a bit beyond "comic relief."

Critical Glitches: This one says "serious injury" is an option.

If the GM opts to make glitches and critical glitches trivial that's his perogative, but basing a tactic around them being meaningless seems silly to me. And "we'll just say I succeeded" is approaching munchkinland.

[Jaid]

[James McMurray]

Like I said, if your GM trivializes it, that's his choice.

[Wasabi]

[Jaid]

alright, so i guess we'll add a stability sprite power into the mix. now we've really trivialised glitches and critical glitches.

[James McMurray]

Congrats! ;)

[Tarantula]

Jaid, I like the way you think! Yes, so he does that with a quick compiled low force sprite, whos task is to stabalize his icon in his home node for as long as it can (8 hours or until he leaves the node). That lets him quickly roll to compile the sprite, and then its up to the GM to decide if any critical glitches (reduced to glitches) he may have gotten did anything worthwhile that some rest wouldn't fix.

So, we've now covered that IC can't surprise him if he successfully analyzes them, and that he can fairly easily thread his stealth up to 12 for preparing to go on a run (dealing with the stun damage on the other hand, is something that could be hit or miss). Any other critiques on him?

[Wasabi]

The path of least resistance is 2 points of threaded stealth and having a rating 6 Registered Sprite do "Assist Operation" so he gets +6 more dice for a total of 14. Then have the Registered Sprite use a second service to maintain the threading for you.

[Wasabi]

Million dollar question: Would a spirit using Guard on an *AR* hacker (since magic doesnt work in VR) make it so Stabilize sprite powers would downgrade the downgraded critical glitch to no glitch at all?