SR5, TMs are now matrix supporter role. Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Oh, TJ, don't forget these...

Complex Forms:
Infusion Of [Matrix Attribute] - Level +1
Diffusion Of [Matrix Attribute] - Level +1

Spell:
Increase [Attribute] - Force -3

Those two complex forms are much more limited in scope than the spell, and as technomancers aren't devices they can't even target themselves (or each other) with those two complex forms to try and buff themselves.

Indeed... Forgot about those.
Yes, not being able to buff themselves with the CF's is stupid in my opinion, but what can you do?

EDIT: Thanks, Jaid , for that information... At least the CF is now functional for a Technomancer, it is just that its Fading is still way too high to be really useful. *shrug*

[SpellBinder]

Okay, so like I thought when I first went through the Matrix section (and yes, stupid; why not say "Target: Device or Persona"?). But still, using a complex form to now improve a limit while taking a -2 DP to all actions is worse than before when threading could actually improve your abilities in the matrix. Only advantage I can possibly see is Infusion Of Attack the turn before you perform a Data Spike.

The Improve [Mental Attribute] spell cast by a friendly (and trustworthy?) magician is still a lot better than the technomancer's reciprocal complex form.

[Jack VII]

Okay, so like I thought when I first went through the Matrix section (and yes, stupid; why not say "Target: Device or Persona"?). But still, using a complex form to now improve a limit while taking a -2 DP to all actions is worse than before when threading could actually improve your abilities in the matrix. Only advantage I can possibly see is Infusion Of Attack the turn before you perform a Data Spike.

I guess you could get a sprite to sustain it, but this is objectively worse than the spirit version (Registered Sprites sustain for the same length of time as Summoned Spirits. Compiled sprites can't even do it). Then there's the rather karma expensive Focused Concentration.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I guess you could get a sprite to sustain it, but this is objectively worse than the spirit version (Registered Sprites sustain for the same length of time as Summoned Spirits. Compiled sprites can't even do it). Then there's the rather karma expensive Focused Concentration.

Focused concentration would work as well. I'll point out while I still think it is a bit too high the spell versions improve/decrease actual attributes not limits directly. Not that great for the increase side but decreasing a targets attack by 2-3 will cripple them in a fight.

I sill think that overall they are very playable. 90% of what the decker does will be handled by skill+attribute rolls with maybe a +2 for a program. The technomanver has all that except probably the program(and maybe another die) though chances are his limits will be a point or 2 worse and getting even worse as the decker beefs up his deck. Yeah they wont protect the teams devices and they can't rig until later(though with how much decks cost I don't think there will be that many starting decker/riggers in the game. And sure they lost some stuff from 4e, but big deal the comparison should stay in 5e vs deckers. Now complex forms need to drop in drain I agree because there extra tricks need to be useful to make up for the loss of a few dice. But they can erase overwatch with is pretty damn awesome and while sprites may not be as awesome as 4e they still look to be damn useful.

I mean were they supposed to be as good as deckers with some extras thrown on, or better than deckers with extras thrown on? They do have extras and to be balanced they have to be a bit worse than deckers in some areas. This isn't 4e where decking is easily done as aside job, it pretty much takes all of your resources to be ether a decker or technomancer so the technomancer can't be just flat out better at decking anymore. It might not be perfectly balanced, but deckers seem a bit better at the majority of tests they will encounter but the technomaner picks up a bag of tricks to try and balance it out.

Admittedly I;m looking at just the decking section as I have not built one yet and we don't have one in our game but while they seem to be a bit under powered compared to deckers I don't think they suck as hard as people seem to be making out.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Technomancers are interesting to be sure, Shinobi, and are pretty useful, depending upon build. But Yes, their Fading needs to come dow to allow them to actually use their abilities.

[SpellBinder]

In SR4 I think they were supposed to be equal to hackers. While technomancers spent karma to improve their matrix abilities and could expand a little into other areas, hackers could write better programs for hacking and more easily expand into other avenues.

SR5... Well, again, my signature's 4th line.

And maybe if the Infusion had the added effect of bolstering a technomancer's actual attribute for the purposes of Matrix tests alone, maybe, just maybe, the drain might be worth it.

[DMK]

The amount of Karma sink the Living Persona can be is somewhat astonishing. Looking at my Dwarven Technomancer, I'm starting out with a pretty decent Living Persona "Deck": Firewall 7, Sleaze 5, Data Processing 5, Attack 5. It's roughly equivalent to a Sony CIY-720 although the Deck gets bonus points for Attribute reassigns & programs.

If I were to devote all my karma to nothing but Living Persona improvements right from the get go, it would cost me a grand total of 353 Karma:

90 Karma to raise Logic, Intuition & Charisma to 6 each.
75 Karma to raise Resonance to 8.
188 Karma to Initiate 8 times, taking the four LP improvement Submersions twice each.

At the end of it all, he'd have Firewall 9, Sleaze 8, Data Processing 8, Attack 8. And the Decker who started at the same time could use 285 of that Karma to raise the Hacking skill group from 6 to 12... and might have bought or built a Fairlight Excalibur that comes darn close to matching the LP.

(Naturally, driving all your Karma into one area like this is an extremely unlikely proposition. I myself will probably devote my first Submersion (if I ever get to play) to Overclocking. I think many (maybe most) TMs would do the same. It's a fun intellectual exercise though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

[Jaid]

as has been demonstrated in other threads on these forums, a well-built decking adept makes a technomancer look like a joke; it's more than a few dice ahead (just a regular decker isn't quite as far ahead at chargen, but is still probably noticeably better). and it's not just the dice pool increases for programs that are important... a decker can very easily boost their attack high enough to smash devices in a single shot (especially if the decker has a mark or two), or to just utterly wreck a person using either form of simsense... a technomancer cannot pull that off until they've submerged a time or two.

a decker can hit two things at once. a technomancer? not a chance, until they submerge.

and then there's the versatility. a decker can easily change a deck around with a single free action to suit whatever is needed (cost of 50 nuyen per configuration desired... until you just break the copy protection and then it's 50 nuyen once for as many as you want). a technomancer can't switch anything, and likely has lower deck attributes as well (7/5/5/5 isn't bad, but it's not really equivalent to the sony CIY-720, because you can easily swap the low matrix attributes to be whatever isn't important at the time).

not to mention the decker has a much easier time of it when it comes to spending attribute points. a decker needs high logic, and intuition and willpower are nice but not required to be huge. a technomancer needs all of those high because a 3 vs a 5 is not just a 2 die difference in dice pool, it's a 2 hit difference in limit, and it's likely going to cause some really major problems if they have it that low.

then, on top of that, augmentations. a decker can get them without giving up much. if you manage to get your hands on a used set of wired reflexes or a nice cyberlimb, go ahead and have them installed. for a technomancer, that's cutting into their already limited ability to function in the matrix.

technomancers needed to be toned down as compared to where they were in 4th edition, it is true. but it wasn't even remotely a good idea to scale them down to below deckers in almost every area, and then leave them with all the drawbacks as well.

what it really feels like is that technomancers were not so much deliberately targeted, as that they got caught in the crossfire and nobody was checking in on them constantly to see how they were doing as compared to other archetypes... more like someone nerfed them, and was thinking "we'll playtest and then come back and check later" and then they just never got around to the "come back and check later" portion of the plan, and then when the book was released deckers had gotten buffed to be useful, but technomancers are... well, they can be made to work, but nowhere near as well as a decker, basically.

[Dantic]

We should rename this thread as the Technomancer Support Group.

[Dolanar]

TMA (Technomancer Anonymous)- Hi, I'm Bob, & I'm a technomancer, & I feel like my role has been usurped by these damnable Decker's "They took er jerbs"

[SpellBinder]

"Hi, I went by the name 'Twitch' in the shadows, and I'm a technomancer. Now my job's been outsourced to a decker in New Delhi at a tenth the nuyen I used to be paid."

[Rubic]

Hi, my name is PANic. Well... just Nic, now. I was a street urchin with a bit of extra oomph, that let me survive off of vending machines. I started to think I had a chance to work my way up to something better than scaving, but... well... I guess there's still the vending machines...

[Jaid]

heh. let's not get quite so overdramatic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

there's a world of difference between "not as good as the best" and "not good enough to function".

honestly, with a few key changes, they get to be not bad at all. no oversight on complex forms may not be worth a huge amount, but if the fading on them wasn't so bloody ridiculous, it would still be a pretty nice benefit. and sprites may not do as much as they once did, but they're also free (once you have the skills, i suppose), which can't be said for much else in this edition.

but yeah, they really should have taken more time to look at technomancers. fix the fading values, and imo introduce a new complex form that lets you emulate programs, 1 per level of the CF, with a fading value high enough to realistically keep starting technomancers at about 3-4 complex forms (i'd say +1 or maybe +2 would do the job), and while i would certainly hesitate to say that technomancers would be strong, that *would* go a long ways towards making them pretty close.

[Sendaz]

honestly, with a few key changes, they get to be not bad at all. no oversight on complex forms may not be worth a huge amount, but if the fading on them wasn't so bloody ridiculous, it would still be a pretty nice benefit. and sprites may not do as much as they once did, but they're also free (once you have the skills, i suppose), which can't be said for much else in this edition.

but yeah, they really should have taken more time to look at technomancers. fix the fading values, and imo introduce a new complex form that lets you emulate programs, 1 per level of the CF, with a fading value high enough to realistically keep starting technomancers at about 3-4 complex forms (i'd say +1 or maybe +2 would do the job), and while i would certainly hesitate to say that technomancers would be strong, that *would* go a long ways towards making them pretty close.

Well here is a question, is the amount of Fading hike roughly the same across the board for the various abilities?

I mean would dropping the Fading by 2-3 bring them pretty close to their magical equivalents to serve as a baseline adjustment?

[Jack VII]

Well here is a question, is the amount of Fading hike roughly the same across the board for the various abilities?

I mean would dropping the Fading by 2-3 bring them pretty close to their magical equivalents to serve as a baseline adjustment?

Well, they range from (F-3) for Transcendent Grid to (F+4) for Puppeteer.

Transcendent Grid's FV seems more like bookkeeping than anything else. It's pretty much urging you to thread it at a minimum level of 5 since you're facing the same FV from 1 to 5 (all assuming you have a Resonance of 6). Net hits results in a longer duration and there isn't really any reason not to just thread it again when the time is up.

Then there's Static Veil. It's (F-1), but there is very little reason to thread it highter than Level 1 or 2 as the CF is based on hitting a threshold of 1 or 2. Really, the only reason to thread it at a higher Level is to get net hits to resist someone trying to Kill your CF. Does that happen often in games? It seems like it would be on the same frequency as decompiling sprites. I guess if you're playing a heavy TM or Resonance based game you might see it.

Resonance Veil seems far more powerful than Resonance Spike, but has a lower FV.

In the end, I think you have to look at them individually and adjust.

[Dantic]

Back on topic,
Hi, my name is Maximillion, but you can call me Max. I was once referred to as "The" preeminent Dronomancer from the CAS, in a Shadowfacts™ Blogisode . Now I get a headache if I even think about touching the Resonance and my Doberman is a rusted heap, leaking oil in the corner of my squat.