TM Complex Form Karma Build Question, They cost that much? Options

[Marwynn]

So I wanted to take a crack at building a Technomancer through the Karma gen... and I got to Complex forms. I approached it like buying a New Complex form, at Rating 1, through Karma, then improving it. So 2 points for a Rating 1, +2 for Rating 2, +3 for Rating 3. Meaning to buy a Complex form at Rating 3 it'd cost 7 Karma.

Then Rating 5 would be 16?

Am I doing this right? Isn't this a tad much? It's a wonder TMs built on Karma don't just rely on Sprites and Threading (even moreso than BP-made TMs).

[AndyZ]

Completely building up any skill from scratch is pretty much the same way, though. Complex Forms actually have a slight advantage because the first rank is half the cost of the second, whereas for skills, the first costs just as much as the second.

[BlueMax]

Its actually just fine considering the power of Complex Forms. Remember that the rating is just the start and the Complex Form can be spun higher by the TM. The cap is 2X Resonance.

BlueMax

[Marwynn]

Completely building up any skill from scratch is pretty much the same way, though. Complex Forms actually have a slight advantage because the first rank is half the cost of the second, whereas for skills, the first costs just as much as the second.

To buy a new Complex Form is 2 Karma. Then to increase its rating by 1 to 2 costs the new rating, so it's:

Rating 1: 2 Karma
Rating 2: 2 Karma, 4 Total
Rating 3: 3 Karma, 7 Total

You're just paying the Total to get to that Rating are you not?

And yeah because Technomancers can thread these things why spend oodles on the CFs? Get Stealth and Analyze and a few of the ones you may need constantly running, ECCM maybe, then Thread the rest or make your Sprites do it.

I know that the CFs the TM does have can be increased as well. But that seems crazy. Perhaps this wasn't really a karmagen question, but rather a TM improvement one. I never knew it cost this much for a TM, and I thought Mages were pretty bad with Karma.

[Ancient History]

In BPgen, it's more cost effective to buy up the rating of Complex Forms at character generation rather than improve them later; in karmagen the cost for later improvement is the same as at character generation so while there's no "savings," there's also no dire need to buy up all your Complex Forms to their maximum rating.

[Marwynn]

Hmm that's a good point, AH. Still of the frame of mind of maxing it out at the start. With Res 5, Logic 5 that's 10 CFs and 160 Karma to get them all at Rating 5.

[BlueMax]

Hmm that's a good point, AH. Still of the frame of mind of maxing it out at the start. With Res 5, Logic 5 that's 10 CFs and 160 Karma to get them all at Rating 5.

10 CFs is pretty badass.

Don't forget that Sprites are very handy...

BlueMax

[Jaid]

Hmm that's a good point, AH. Still of the frame of mind of maxing it out at the start. With Res 5, Logic 5 that's 10 CFs and 160 Karma to get them all at Rating 5.

yes, there's a reason everyone always recommends you spend as much as you can on CFs at the start. the only thing more karma efficient than spending BP on CFs is spending BP to bind a power focus, as i recall. in fact, the cost in BP is so much better that if you have a decent logic attribute, it's actually more efficient to spend the BP for resonance 6 and up your CFs to 6 than it is to increase your resonance to 6 and all your CFs to 6 using karma.