[X] My Assistant

[Rubic]

Question:

Why would the TM use Transcendent Grid and THEN hack into a grid? Don't both actions serve the same function?

[Jack VII]

I think it was stated the TM did so so that when TG dropped, they would land on the local grid rather than the public. It does help out with the test to hack the local grid since it eliminates the public grid penalty.

[Jaid]

i would rather expect most hackers pony up for a high enough lifestyle to have access to the local grid once they get the chance anyways.

[RHat]

1) It's 3 stun, as it was 6 hits. It only flips to physical if you get more hits than your Resonance.

2) -3 to actions seems okay considering the nigh-impenetrable 20 dice defense (25 on full defense), which beats the decker by at least 5 or 10 dice on all actions. The set-up was a fight-a-thon, not a hack-a-thon. And a cheap sprite can handle the extra -2 from sustaining for a few combat turns.

3) What's balance? Or at least what would you consider balanced? These are two disparate entities, not equivalent ones. It's an RPG, not a board game. There's some expectation of balance between two Technomancers with different priority selections, and there's some balance expectations about the general abilities of starting characters to perform their basic common tasks, but you can't just throw two characters up on the screen and suss out if they're balanced or not as compared directly to each other, especially when you start to get into abilities that one sort of character just can't replicate and even more especially when you start talking about the specialization of roles.

There are a few things that I'd offer the Technomancer that they don't currently get -- for example, the ability to "bond" a "focus" by spending Karma and nuyen on a technological device that covers the same ground as a magician's focus (and is targetable by enemy deckers/technos to fulfill the magic/techno system analogue) for activities such as sustained threading. But as they are, I don't think they're as completely hosed as you're trying to present them.

1) Ah, yes, forgot that change for a moment.

2) It's very, very bad in real situations. If that -3 causes you to fail a Sleaze action, your Sleaze Rating becomes irrelevant - hte target gets a mark on you, and can now see you no matter what.

3) Balance in a tabletop RPG is primarily about the relative level of influence of characters in different roles and the relative level of effectiveness of characters in different roles. Technomancers are behind on both counts - the first due to the lack of versatility, and the second due to the fact that deckers are simply better at being hackers (the only role a technomancer can fulfill at chargen).

[Epicedion]

2) It's very, very bad in real situations. If that -3 causes you to fail a Sleaze action, your Sleaze Rating becomes irrelevant - hte target gets a mark on you, and can now see you no matter what.

3) Balance in a tabletop RPG is primarily about the relative level of influence of characters in different roles and the relative level of effectiveness of characters in different roles. Technomancers are behind on both counts - the first due to the lack of versatility, and the second due to the fact that deckers are simply better at being hackers (the only role a technomancer can fulfill at chargen).

What I'm seeing is that with their Sprites and CFs, Technomancers are actually better at matrix combat and nondetection than deckers (note the -2 for Running Silent is reserved for Matrix actions, not Resonance actions).

[Oregwath]

They also don't get the +2 for running in hot-sim, since that is just for matrix actions. It leaves them being equal in the big picture.

[RHat]

What I'm seeing is that with their Sprites and CFs, Technomancers are actually better at matrix combat and nondetection than deckers (note the -2 for Running Silent is reserved for Matrix actions, not Resonance actions).

That's only because you're looking at a test where one person stayed on full defense and the other foolishly attacked. In point of fact, actually, a decker has far superior combat options - Blackout, for example, lets you shut a technomancer down damn fast, Fork lets you take down a sprite and technomancer simultaneously...

Basically, if this had actually gone as a fight, things would have been different. And again, only the technomancer had anything to gain by starting combat. And, as I pointed out, the "non-detection" benefit doesn't actually exist as you're automatically seen the instant you fail a Sleaze roll, meaning that the penalties involved in your scenario are a massive problem.

And as for sprites, they're not even as good as they should be; sprites are less useful to a technomancer than spirits are to a mage, and yet they carry all the same drawbacks (and in point of fact, a sprite has no Willpower and thus can't go on full defense).

[Jack VII]

And as for sprites, they're not even as good as they should be; sprites are less useful to a technomancer than spirits are to a mage, and yet they carry all the same drawbacks (and in point of fact, a sprite has no Willpower and thus can't go on full defense).

Bsaed on the single example of a Sprite in the book, I believe they are supposed to follow the rule that, in the absence of an attribute, they use their Device Rating (the example sprit rolls 6 Dice for Matrix Perception even though it has no Intuition).

I think y'all should roll up a chargen decker and TM and have at it.