Complex Forms, The Top Ten Must-Haves Options

[paws2sky]

Just a quick little survey here...
What ten CFs are the must-haves for a newbie TM?

Analyze
Stealth
And choose 8 more.

-paws

[Demosthanes]

Really depends on how you want to play a technomancer, and how good you are at resisting fading. If your fading resistance is good enough, you can rely on threading for most complex forms, and just buy up the ones you want to specialize in. I tend to enjoy highjacking drones and vehicles, so Exploit, Spoof and Command prove invaluable. Shield and Armor are must haves for defense if you plan to or worry about dealing with cybercombat.

[jago668]

Seems like stealth would be a good one to top out, so you can thread it up and be all sneaky sneaky.

[Dragnar]

Stealth can't get mentioned enough. Being able to thread a stealth CF up to more than rating 6 completely break the matrix rules in a way that's close to invincibility most of the time and is essentially one of the few absurdly powerful tricks technomancers have to try to keep up with the generally more powerful hackers.
Most CFs are quite bad and not worth the huge amounts of karma you'd have to sink into them.

[Aaron]

I don't think I'd ever make a technomancer without Analyze, Armor, and Stealth (oh my!).

[Ryu]

Analyse, always.
Stealth, always.
Shield (can replace Armor or be bought on top). Same value as armor IF the attack connects.
Biofeedback Filters.
Exploit.
Spoof.
Edit.
Encryption. Is damn annoying to thread all the time (but Decryption can be threaded).
Disarm.

[ElFenrir]

Even though I'm not quite an expert at the AR world yet, what I do know, yeah, Analyze, Stealth, and Armor/Shield. The other 7 can be mixed and matched as one sees fit, IMO.

[jago668]

Analyse, always.
Stealth, always.
Shield (can replace Armor or be bought on top). Same value as armor IF the attack connects.
Biofeedback Filters.
Exploit.
Spoof.
Edit.
Encryption. Is damn annoying to thread all the time (but Decryption can be threaded).
Disarm.

Emphasis mine. However a technomancer can't actually buy this. They get it built in for free, equal to charisma I think.

[Ryu]

Emphasis mine. However a technomancer can't actually buy this. They get it built in for free, equal to charisma I think.

Thanks for the correction. I would then choose ECCM, eleminating jammers from the list of potential disablers.

[GreyBrother]

For a Newbie TM who wants to do what?

Do you want to be a Puppeteer?
Don't bother with CFs, push Tasking. Maybe Stealth and Command would be quite nice, first only if you aren't the legal guy.

You want to smash around, kill Nodes and take Names?
Go for Shield, Armor, Attack, Blackout/Black Hammer, Nuke. Don't forget the Area Attack Option for the Nuke, just for good measure. Call it "Fog of War" if you must.

Matrix Assassin?
Databomb, Stealth and a good Edit Program. Plan goes like this: Sneak in, Plant Bomb, give it a fancy icon and draw the spotlight of your target to the file. Add Pavlov and Physical Damage Option. Good Riddance and hope your target goes hot.

Ghost in the Machine?
Stealth, Exploit, Spoof, En- and Decrypt. You don't need more. Invest in Knowledge Skills (RL and IC) of how to get those fancy passwords without actual hacking.

Dronewhisperer?
Command, Encrypt, Analyze. You don't want your pets stolen. Negotiate with your GM so you get Resonance Encryption and you don't have a problem with long range rigging (except another Technomancer is around). If they are in your vicinity slave them.

[TheOOB]

I would never make a hacker oriented techno without stealth, analyze, scan, exploit, and spoof. After that shield, attack, decrypt, and encrypt are all high on the list.

[JoelHalpern]

As far as I can tell:
Analyze, so you can see what is happening in the Matrix
Stealth, so the Matrix can not see you

after that, since I tend to like tehnomancers who can get into nodes, and do things:
Exploit
Browse

And since Combat happens, whether you want it to or not
Armor
Shield
Attack

After that, you can consider
Edit
Spoof
Command
I tend to have trouble because these tend to have the property that you know when you need them, and you don't need many hits to accomplish your goal.
That's why, for example, scan does not tend to make my list even with GMs who require Scan.

Yours,
Joel

PS: A TM with a threaded 10 Stealth doing a slow probe on a target is just awesome.

[jago668]

Where is Shield at?

[toturi]

Unwired p136

[Oenone]

ECCM should always be high up on your list. Top five at the least, maybe even in the top three with analyze and stealth.

The simple reason being that with the relatively low signal ratings of a TM you're much more vulnerable to jamming and if you get jammed it not only makes you pretty much useless but (I haven't got my books to hand so I might be misremembering this bit) you'll take a whole bunch of damage when you're forcefully disconnected.

[Abschalten]

I have made a dronomancer character, and after having examined the rules VERY closely, I can honestly say unless you're going to be hacking into nodes where you aren't supposed to be, you can do without Stealth. Stealth is for redirecting Traces (which won't be done on you if you aren't in a node illegally), hiding from icons in those nodes, hiding back doors, etc... If you're just going to mess around with your own drones and not worry about anybody else's, then Stealth is pretty worthless. However, if you are a node raider, and I suspect most technomancers are, then yes, Stealth is of optimal importance.

For the most part I tell everyone building your standard technomancer that Analyze and Stealth should always be maxed out to your Resonance. Under no circumstances should those CFs be skimped out on.

Browse and Edit are good all around CFs to have, as is Spoof. (After 8 days, my group's TM is at 39 hits out of 48 for Spoofing his High Lifestyle for the month.)

Black Hammer and Blackout are optional, but Attack affects everyone, even sprites and IC.

If you are a node-raider, you will probably use no CF more than Exploit.

Also, keep in mind that only other sprites and technomancers can hack your biological node. If any of them do try to hack you, it's always considered to be hacking on the fly for admin privs. If you have drones or devices and keep them slaved to you, this essentially makes them unhackable to "mundane" hackers and riggers. This may or may not make a difference when looking at the Encrypt CF, since you can only encrypt signals to and from your biological node, and not the node itself.

[Abschalten]

Dronewhisperer?
Command, Encrypt, Analyze. You don't want your pets stolen. Negotiate with your GM so you get Resonance Encryption and you don't have a problem with long range rigging (except another Technomancer is around). If they are in your vicinity slave them.

Actually, the best defense against hacking attempts with a drone 'mancer is just to have them slaved, and if they're far out, to make sure their Pilot and Firewall ratings are high, as the test to Spoof commands to them is Hacking + Spoof vs. Pilot vs. Firewall. In order to Spoof, the book says that you need the Access ID of the controlling character or node. The book also says that technomancers don't really have an Access ID and automatically Spoof one. I don't know if that would make it more difficult to spoof commands, but the book doesn't say so either way on that, so I assume no unless I find some more evidence.

You can theoretically spoof a command to a drone saying to drop the controlling node and slave over to the new one, however the book also says that smart riggers program their drones to ignore certain commands that they would never give, so I could say you could program in some sort of countermeasure against the drones getting out of your control due to a spoofed command.

[The Jake]

I can't remember but is Encrypt and Decrypt two separate programs?

I don't have the books infront of me.

- J.

[Jaid]

I can't remember but is Encrypt and Decrypt two separate programs?

I don't have the books infront of me.

- J.

yes, it is.

also, for the record... it is my opinion that stealth is 100% necessary even for non-hacking technomancers. you may not be planning on stealing anyone else's vehicles, but let's face it: you're a shadowrunner, and security is going to want to take over your drones, find your location, and bomb it until it glows a nice bright magma red. being harder to track in such a situation strikes me as a positive thing.