They're really cheap at character creation. If they're the main focus of all the technomancer's power, then technomancers seem pretty broken to me.

It's not that they are particularly cheap to purchase with BP, it's that they are OMFGWTFLOL expensive to buy with Karma. A complex form at rating 6 costs 6 BP, or about 30,000 - that's an extra zero over what you'd be paying to get any program at the same rating for running on your commlinks. A rating 6 Complex Form costs twice what you'd pay for a new spell in BP, and despite this fact you're still going to buy it as a Technomancer because it costs over four times as much to buy that Complex Form as a spell later on.

As to how vital they are? Extremely vital. If you don't have a good Analyze, Scan, Browse, Command, and Edit, there's pretty much jack you can do in the Matrix (an unfortunate situation to be in for a technomancer). And if you ever want to get any hacking done, you'll want Sniffer, Spoof, Exploit, Decrypt, and Stealth before we've even gotten to combat forms, which you actually don't have room for unless you have a Logic above 5.

-Frank

compare them to the BP cost needed for resources that a hacker would spend.

they're expensive enough, in terms of BP.

also, don't forget, a regular hacker (assuming no house rules) can have stats of all 1s and be an effective hacker (although completely useless for anything except hacking, and likely couldn't show his face around real hackers who would trick him into doing countless stupid things).

but yeah, technomancer complex forms are very BP intensive.

So are they that much better than hackers just because they don't need as much equipment?

no, not because they dont need equipment, but because of their permament bio-feedback filters always running, and the ability to be submersed and become uber-hackers of a sort over time.

They have more potential?

Submersion=initation for technomancers. Their Resonance attribute can go above six. They can become quite the VR pimps over time.

Also keep in mind they can 'thread' forms. Or basically create complex forms they don't have at the time. This causes 'fading' (drain), but if you NEED that Sniffer program and don't have it, a hacker is SOL unless he buys it...a technomancer can just create it.

And then there are sprites...yeah, technomancers have some serious potential.

Meh. Initially, they start out a lot weaker than hackers/deckers, since all a decker needs is one or two high skills and a lot of high programs. One of my experimental deckers had very low attributes, medium skills, a ton of cash and an Edge of 8. He was pretty much invincible.

Technomancers are kinda like the old physmages. Eventually, they can become ungodly, given enough karma. But in the short term, they frequently get overrun by both specialists and generalists. About the only edge they have is Sprites, and even that is overrated.

I've only just started playing my techno, but I gotta say, I really like the ability to thread any of the complex forms I might need. Yeah, it costs me some fading, but the possibilities are great!

technomancers, in some ways, get kinda shafted. they're not quite as good as the top-end starting-level deckers. they're hurt by cyberware like mages, but unlike mages, their skills can't help them in the meat.

Don't you suffer -2 to everything though while doing a complex form, so your analyze, scan, armor, etc are all lower while threading exploit? And you'd need 3 hits to just be at +1 while threating the ONE form and -2 to everything else.

I haven't seen one in game, but it looks like threading hurts.

As far as I can tell, the only thing worth Threading is a program you otherwise wouldn't have at all (such as Defuse) and which is only used by itself (such as Track).

Compared to the total BP cost of just having all programs at rating 6 for a Hacker (19 BP), the whole Technomancer hacking experience is just pretty underwhelming. Where Technos really shine, I think, is in Rigging.

Rigging only requires a couple of forms: Command, Encrypt, ECCM, and Scan. And a Technomancer can jump into a Drone in VR and overclock it up to 4 IPs. The technomancer can even have Machine Sprites jump into other drones and pilot them around as well.

For 28 Karma, you can have 4 IPs in drones, and have a Resonance of 5 despite your Control Rig and Smartlink. You can substantially outshine Street Samurai in terms of whup-ass per turn. I don't think you can meaningfully compete with the Hacker in terms of hacking into enemy nodes and stealing paydata within the life of an average game, but I don't think anyone can compete with a Technomancer Rigger in terms of raw ass-kicking.

-Frank

How many programs even exist for a technomancer? What would it take to start with all in 6? A hundred BP? It's not like you need many other skills really.

There are 22 Programs in the basic book (expect more in Unwired). Of those, Technomancers have no real use for Medic and can't use Biofeedback Filter at all. Blackout and Blackhammer are redundant. So really there's 19 listed Complex Forms you might want.

And you can't have more than 14 to start with no matter what you do. So there's always at least 5 programs that you can't duplicate. Even if you do raise your starting Logic to 7 and spend all 84 BPs allowed on Complex Forms.

-Frank

So... um... why should anyone play a technomancer? And is fading basically drain, or is it the more permanent fading that Otaku face?

Sure, but if you have exploit 6 and resonance 6 and want to thread it up to a 12 you'll have effectively a 10 in exploit, but everything else is at -2 dice.

Technomancers have access to a number of powers that other characters cannot have.

Overclocking: You can get a fourth Initiative Pass. This is largely pointless for Hacking operations other than Cybercombat, because Firewalls get to try to notice you hacking them every time you make the attempt (so if you have more IPs, they have more IPs), and a lot of Hacking Actions have intervals of combat turns rather than actions. But in Rigging, this is super sweet. Your drones behave as if they have Wired 3, and you can get this long before a Street Sam could reasonably expect to save up for a level 3 initiative booster.

Suppression: Remember how Overclocking didn't matter for Hackng on the Fly because the Firewall tested for alert status every time you got an action? Well, the Suppression Power (available only to Crack Sprites) delays alerts for several combat rounds. This means that even though Fastjack himself can't reasonably expect to hack himself Admin access in a Rating 5 Firewall runing Rating 5 Analyze without triggering an Alert, a frickin Rating 4 Crack Sprite can. After which, of course, the pending alert can simply be removed from the queue.

Infinite Signal Rating: Well, for Drones at least. A Machine Sprite can go inside a Drone and control it from there, meaning that it can run an unlimited distance deep in areas of jamming and still operate normally.

-Frank

k00l........... How long do sprites last? And how intelligent are they? And can you put one in a car that has a powerful computer in it?

sprites are more or less exactly like spirits in terms of summoning/binding (or whatever they call it), and can inhabit any electronic device more or less (provided they can get to it).

thus, pretty much any car, regardless of computer power, can hold a sprite.

How long do they last? And how smart are they?

8 hours for an unregistered sprite

Generally with a pilot rating equal to rating.

And of course, registration costs no money, just time.

No karma? And does registration last forever? And what do they mean by registration, what is it exactly? Is it a bureaucratic, centralized process or what?

Registration is basically the same sort of thing as binding a spirit. Registered sprites stick around until all of their tasks are used. Unregistered sprites leave after 8 hours, regardless of how many tasks they've completed.

Basically take the rules for spirits and swap the following words:
summon - compile
banish - decompile
drain - fading
binding - registering

.... and "sunrise/sunset" with "8 hours".

Question on the technomancer: Do they still need the Cracking skill group and the Computer Skill group WITH the Tasking group? If so that is a ton of skill points that really cut down on the number of Complex forms a TM has. Plus if you play anything other than a Human the BP cost and Attributes can kill any survivability skill needed in play.

You definitely need the cracking skill group. You don't necessarily need the Hardware or Software portions of the Computer group, but Data Search would probably come in handy.

Actually, a technomancer doesn't need any complex forms at all to be a decent hacker.

Heck, he doesn't even need any skills other than Software.

Why? All he needs to do is buy a good commlink, load it up with programs, and compile a Rating 5-6 Machine Sprite to sit on it and use its Diagnosis power. 3-4 net hits on its test means that the technomancer is just as good hacking with that commlink as a Hacker with a skill of 3-4.

Yes, but the one thing you guys missed is how the Hacker can absolutely go crazy in cybercombat, even compared to a Technomancer. How?

Independent Attack Agents. Buy a Rating 6 Agent and a Rating 6 attack program. Cluster a secondary commlink to run it on, and jack it in alongside you. Oh...and copy it a few times on a few more commlinks and see how ANYTHING deals with having 4 or 5 Rating 6 attackers kicking their butts. Sprites are cool, but Hackers can rip it up just as much or more, because after you buy or write the Agent program there's nothing stopping you from copying it (especially if you wrote it, you don't even have to test for copy protection).

Abusive? Not sure, haven't actually tried it ingame yet. Debating doing it in a couple weeks during our 5-day SR4 marathon.

Anyone try running multiple combat agents yet?

That could be SO easily abused.

Just a bit huh? I'm in game design myself and definitely know a hole in the rules when I see one. My ruling as a GM would be:
1) yes, you can do this
2) You need to run separate Encrypts on each agent and on your own commlink, unless you want somebody to be able to multicast-spoof them
3) If you ARE running that many encrypts, the security hacker's going to kick your ass
4) If you're not, then your agents are getting spoofed and shooting each other and you. either way...*dumpshock*

i think the best way to handle that would be to simply make every non-PAN device linked to your commlink lower the difficulty of trace attempts against you. after all, if you're making more noise, it should be easier to hear you. the net result is that you'd dominate cybercombat--but your physical location will be easy for anybody to find.

The Other problem with it is that it is easily abusable by both parties. The counter to a dozen agents attacking is another dozen agents defending.

Plus, you could easily overload the system.

True that. It isn't without disadvantages, but the trick is with that many agents, you can get your ass in and out before the system can even react to you (you can usually blitz the entire run in one combat turn).

AND you could probably be tracked pretty easily. The worst thing after getting your brain fried.

I have had a multiple agent combat and it kicked the stuffing out of the PI/Technomancer who was on his Resonance Quest. Basically he hit the nasty firewall of the place he was trying to find and 6 rating 6 combat agents ambushed him. If he had been a proper hacking shadowrunner he would have fared much better but he was designed to be a PI first and foremost.

Running lots of Agents really slows you down. Each program that is loaded into an agent is run BY THAT AGENT. So if the Agent is rating 6 it can run 5 programs before it starts to slow down. If your commlink is system 6 and you aren't running any other programs you can run 5 Agents without experiencing a slowdown. However, you can load those agents onto a node and then it is a burden on that node's limit of subscribed icons. So you could theoretically have dozens of agents running on Matrix hosts. It can be very nasty but all those agents have your commcode in them and can be traced back to you even if you are using a legitimate passcode.

A Resonance 6 Technomancer is neigh unstoppable. All you need to do is get a rating 6 crack sprite and ask it to go and get you Admin status on that rating 6 host and it comes back within a few initiative passes with the code sans alert.

All Security setups in my games now have at least 1 mage and at least 1 technomancer in them in addition to mundane guards and spiders. There is no way to really stop a technomancer (or even detect one) without having your own technomancer on staff. But then again since it only costs 5 or 10 points to be one I assume that there are a lot in my game world.

Five.

"Intelligent" is a loose term, however, and their general awarenesss of a situation would depend on their rating... but nothing substutes for true sentience. After all, they are more like low power KnowBots than true AIs.

This is something Spirits have over spirits sometimes. So don't make that machine sprite into an overused crutch instead of a true resource.

Note that while magicians theoretically can become unlimitedly powerful, a Technomancer can't.

It takes 1 hour to register a sprite for every rating point it has. If it hasn't been registered in 8 hours it vanishes. So you can't register a Rating 9 Sprite. No such sprite can exist.

-Frank

Interesting. I'm glad for that. Just wish something similar was in place for magic users. Ah well.

I'm wondering if an erratta will come out about that later. It's not like an SR product to use such a backhanded method of defining a maximum rating on something (much more a Games Workshop kinda stunt).

One important factor that you have all forgotten to mention when it comes to Technomancers are the fact that they ignore the penalties for Response when using too many programs, they can have ALL programs active all the time.