After running about a dozen games or so, i'm still having problems reconciling TM's in our group.

I've seen a lot of people houseruling the extreme costs of building a technomancer, but I'm having a hard time doing so myself. But as they are, they seem so fragile and one sided, it becomes difficult to integrate them into the game.

Not even considering the background of TM's (which has its own wierd and sometimes difficult to include in the flavor), and ignoring all the unanswered questions that arise when they play. Is it possible to build an effective TM?

Now though similar to mages, they differ in how they purchase the complex forms from how a mage purchases spells. Though it would seem easy to say, it costs 3BP per CF just like mage spells (and ratings are at your resonance), this isn't exactly apples to apples.

Mages learn few spells and pay a price to sustain them. Technomancers learn few forms and sustain them all without penalty, but pay a price to sustain threading of CF's they don't know. So technically TM's "know" every CF, but at the cost of efficiency. Allowing them to spend less BP's to permanently sustain more CF's is like allowing the mage to "Thread" new spells he/she doesn't know.

Hackers with just a little bit of money can learn every program there is at max rating but are required to switch out the currently uploaded or suffer initiative penalties. Rarely do you need to use more than 4-6 programs at once however. And whats more, hackers can benefit from cyber things like control rig which are very useful but heavily penalize TM's (TM riggers in this case) and skillwires (which really make a hacker/cyber character sooooooo much more capable than a non wired individual).

No matter how you make a TM, you tend to run low on BP's and really put bare minimums on a lot of areas to make them at least somewhat effective at what can only be called over-specialization in the matrix. Even then, with the insane karma costs to learn new CF's and submersion and such, your growth potential (though uncapped) is so costly that it takes dozens of runs to catch up with the more versatile and better skilled hacker.

Then coupled with the hackers ability to write his own programs and break copyright, it almost seems too cheap to build and play an effective hacker and too costly to build a very limited TM. Even after numerous game sessions.

The gap between hackers/TM's grows with every new piece of available cyberware or any new programs/agents that they might come out with. And the ratio of nuyen to karma dictates that the hacker will always reach his max potential long long before a TM will even match what the hacker had at creation.

As a GM with both character types in the game, how do I adjust for these large gaps in playability? Do I tell the downtrodden and disheartened techno that he made a bad choice. After looking at his points, there really wasn't much more he could've squeezed out of them and still been considered a hacker at all.

Its beginning to appear that he's more like a mystic adept of the matrix world than a full blown mage. As he can do some things, and some things he can do faster, but mostly he's stuck on the sidelines watching the hacker do everything better, upgrade faster, and ultimately have a lot more fun than he is.

The techno character really likes the flavor of waving his hand at drones and the almost magical feel of how he does things, but is starting to get quieter each game session.

Any advice from other GM's on how to give him his own moments to shine, to show how/where he outstrips the hacker? I know his sprites are powerful, but he feels like his sprites are the ONLY reason to be a TM and he's little more than a summoning shaman with bytes on the brain.

Sprites. They are the only powergaming reason to play a TM until you've earned lots and lots of karma. That and because hacking tests that don't rely upon attributes are the devil and should be avoided by all right thinking players.

I gotta agree with you on that one Slithery D. I'll admit I haven't looked too hard at the matrix section (I gave up once I relized that hacking cyberware was not clearly described. I want more GitS in my Shadowrun, damn it!) but frankly, it seems like the whole computer use system was put togeather a) for hacking first with little to no consideration for everyday use (Is it just me or is shelling out 50 for the most basic of Edit programs kind of dumb? If my comlink doesn't come with the equivolent of Notepad, somethings gone seriously screwy) and b) just plain kind of weird. Hell, I don't know what you're supose to default to if you have no computer skill, or even if you can.

Honestly, all I can comment on is what I do in my own games...and that is not allow TMs as characters. I want them to be really rare, tucked away in the shadow's shadow and I refer to them in-game from time to time, which scares some of my players, but ultimately, the only TM that will make it into my game will be an NPC.

TMs sound like a cool concept, but from everything I have read, I just don't think they are a viable character type...at least in current form.

Having made a TM and massaged the spread of points I can make a few pointers for creation, but not for playing as the game in which I'll be playing the TM hasn't started yet. The best I could come up with was to not make a great hacker, but to minimize the expenditure of karma after the game has started.

The first is that CF's might be expensive in character creation, but they're MUCH more expensive in play. Every TM should max their available CFs in both number (Logic X 2) and in rating (max = resonance). The cost of a CF raised to 5 in play is 16, which is nearly the same cost to raise a skill group from 2 to 3, or raise resonance from 4 to 5. The latter costs add dice to many more areas than just that one CF would do.

Skills groups are more expensive than resonance to raise after creation, and equal during creation. So you want to start with your 3 skill groups Hacking, Electronics and Tasking, as high as you can, 3 or 4. Even if you have to drop your resonance a bit to start out, the 25 points to go from 5 to 6 resonance is worth two and a half ratings in skill groups, but after creation to raise 3 skill groups from 3 to 4 would be 60 karma, but raising Resonance from 5 to 6 would be 18 karma. So by building smart you've saved yourself 42 karma!

While you may not be able to start out great, you can start out in a way which will minimize your karma costs in the long term allowing for faster advancement.

But really, if the best build advice you can get is "Here's a way to not suck up quite as much karma later on down the road" then there might be an issue....

Luckily, Unwired is coming out soon (for SR values of soon).

as has been said, pretty much the only way to be a powerhouse with a technomancer is to use sprites like crazy.

personally, i would say certain cyber/bioware is probably worthwhile to the techno (mainly those that boost mental stats, but a control rig can be worthwhile if you plan on doing a lot of rigging). it's a tough choice though, because resonance actually even adds to your ability to resist fading...

generally speaking though, your best bet (in terms of effectiveness) is probably to make sure you can cover the areas your sprites can't, and cover them as best you can (ie max rating CFs), and try to expand from there as it becomes possible with karma.

and with your money, buy yourself some drone swarms... you can always use more drones

The min/maxing BP's to plan for karma later is definitely an option, but one our TM doesn't have at this point.

If I'd had told him that if he didn't carefully min/max his build, he'd be sorry, he probably wouldn't have bothered making a TM.

The rules are what they are, and since i'm not really wanting to house rule, it might seem like this is a post going nowhere.

But the reality is i'm looking for some clever options to breathe the RP life back into him (without making it the all Technomancer show), that makes him feel more unique and special despite his less effectiveness compared to the hacker.

In hindsight, maybe it wasn't best to have both a hacker and a TM in the game. Even though the hacker is more hacker/rigger and the TM is more the system buster, the hacker seems to be just as efficient at both with less risk and more options. Yet, we have an adept ninja guy and a street sam and they both seem to think their way is secretly better (as they should feel).

Perhaps only allowing TM NPC's would have been best to perserve the flavor and mystery without sticking someone with the one-legged mule character. But I find it difficult as the TM is/was sold as being just as capable as the hacker in filling the matrix action role, when in reality he isn't even a close second without massive amounts of karma.

Even worse than the initial imbalance is when giving out the rewards, the hacker only mainly cares about the payoff, while the TM hopes for every point of karma there is. Of the two, money is easily the more available (even with careful limits to ensure they don't all have Beta implants and high lifestyles) than karma, and players can even "pool" there nuyen to buy something the group may want the hacker to have, but no one can help the TM.

The hacker is who they ask to protect their commlinks, after all his agents are customizable, don't give any lip, and aren't limited by tasks or bound limits like sprites are. The hacker can copy and install "IC" agents on all the players commlinks no sweat. I guess the TM can too, but what fun is it playing a TM who uses agents and programs to fill in the gaps.

I don't know what the solution is, but the player of the TM isn't really the type to complain, its just written on his face every time the Hacker takes a turn and does something the TM considers astounding or something that would take the TM a lot of karma to work for.

If the gap wasn't so large, I doubt this particular player would even notice, but its palapable enough that after a good ten runs or so that the hacker has all his persona attributes and most programs at rating 6 while the techno is still working on what he considers basic essential CF's to crack a system and one submersion grade.

Do I increase karma (which really just pushes everyone faster), decrease money (which limits everyone more), or just tell the guy to build something else and i'll spot him back the karma to date (since its not really his fault)?

Should I get more into the submersed parts of the matrix to really make him feel like he's in some secret fraternity or create a bad guy TM that he has to track by matrix resonance signatures?

All in all I want to help him enjoy the game he works hard to be a part of, whatever solution is best. I just don't have any idea what the solution is at this point. I've got 5 players, 4 happy, 1 confused.

The only reason I figure the devs didnt make buying CFs like spells is...
What happens if your TM buys an assload of CFs and then burns all his Karma to up his submersion and res to 6 and 12 respectively? Yeah thats alot of Karma to spend, but you now have a TM with rank 12 CFs, no matter what they are. That right there is TWICE the max for Hackers and in the realm of OMFG!
But I do agree that the cost is a little high, I am playing a TM in one of the games going on right now on DS.

I think you're really selling sprites short. They can do things that hackers can never do, no matter how good or numerous his programs. Make up some interesting game challenges that go beyond cybercombat or breaching security can be best performed by sprite using their powers. The badassedness of sprites is the reason CFs cost so much - the hacker needs some reason to play.

Find reasons to use Courier and Data sprites. Encourage Machine sprites for wacky rigging experiences. Pump that Resonance up to 6 first thing so you can get them at Rating 6 without physical fading. Roleplay them as having personalities.

Of course, if he wanted "magical" direct hacking, rather than embracing the real advantage of TMs because he didn't understand them at first, he's kind of screwed.

I think that the sprite angle may help a lot. And like pooling cash, you could also allow them to pool or borrow karma so that the TM could get something he needs.

Alternately, you could do Cash for Karma trades, maybe the TM supports an orphanage or something and gets karma for his good deeds.

One option is bring back (from previous versions) money -> karma rules.

The easiest (RP wise) is allow the TM to 'study/learn/contemplate' the nature of computers/electronics/etc.

Make them buy expensive(ish) and rarer hardware (and debatably software) and 'meditate' over it. This process irrevocably damages/destroys the hardware/software (microfractures/code degradation, etc) but impoves the TMs understnading.

Adjust ¥ / Ratio / time to fit your gaming needs


The money to karma / karma to money if done right (even if right is on the fly adjusting by gm) is one of the only ways (IMO) to balance karma intensive (TM, Phys Ads, mages) to Money extensive (sammies/hackers)

After all if the 'mage' spens ¥1,000,000 to buy a copy of Harelquin notebook from when he was an apprentice and then spends time studying it he should get 'karma' (well various 'magic' skills should improve).

I'm playing a TM right now in my game...'course we have no hacker, so I'm not feeling inadequate atm.

In addition to sprites, which I'm still working out, threading is also a nice thing. Being able to do ANYTHING at any point is some nice flexibility. Not sure you can make that roll with your current CF? Thread it higher.

I did have a question, as I've never played even a hacker before (we always npc's the hacking & rigging out), what does a control rig do exactly, & why would it be better for a tm to use one?

I've not played with it in game, but my interpretation of the TM rules is that they can only be traced by another TM. As has been said; the rules are not complete and you can do as you wish to fill in the blanks—but there is a special trace that only TM's leave and only TM's can detect. Why should they leave two kinds? I imagine that they leave some kind of unreadable code that looks spooky and wrong to any regular hacker. So they can be painstakingly traced by following the spooky code from node to node, but they can't be identified or easily traced by conventional means. It's things like this—playing up the difference and making tecno- and regular hacking two different realms like with magic and mundane—that I plan to use to make them viable.

From what I have seen of our TM and another friend playing one:

TM with Stealth of 6 + Rating 6 Sprite using Assist Operation = 12 Stealth (assuming this isn't hit by the cap on Complex Forms of the TM's Resonance- this may be how our GM's have ruled it, and not RAW, but the cap seems to be in the paragraph on p233 about buying the Complex Forms, so it seems reasonable.)
Stealth 12 means that on tests to break in, the system must get 12 successes to detect you- really tough while the Assist lasts. Before they do so, you hopefully have Admin Access and everything is much easier. For the Probing method, you have the Sprite Assist just before you actually go in, and the system gets one shot at 12 successes- not bloody likely. For more madness, you can also Thread and have a Sprite sustain it, bringing Stealth to even higher levels (sustained by a Sprite, of course).

In addition, check out the Diagnostics power on p237. Have a Sprite use that on drones, gun cameras, sensors, coms or what have you, and it's several additional dice for the user.

Oh, Wiseman, One thing i thought of today that could help out your TM to make it interesting to roleplay more. Have free sprites that only TM's can see, they can offer advice or make their presence known by flickering lights or other ghostly things.

I tried the TM thing, then politely requested his death from the GM so I could play a normal Hacker. The biggest problem I was running up against was that I was comparing Resonance and Threading to Magic and Sustaining. A mage can pop some Psyche to get a -1 on drain, has Mentor Spirits to improve spells, and foci to add more dice to whatever. And not to mention that even a non-Combat Mage can pick up a few spells to protect his ass in the Valley of Darkness. TMs have to spend even more of their precious Karma/ BP to shoot a gun or something. But that's not a fair comparison, as proved over and over on the boards, here.

We tried coming up with houserules for Mentor Sprites and added in that Psyche also gives TMs a -1 to sustain a threaded CF, but the TM still couldn't do the legwork. Not like my new Orkish Gun Bunny Hacker can, anyway.

In retrospect I could've done a better job at exploiting the few advantages that TMs do have:
-Can't be tracked conventionally
-The couple of sprite powers that aren't easily duplicated by high-rating software (Hash, cookie, Diagnostics, and arguably a few more)
-Unhackable PAN (?) This is an odd one- if your smartlink is subscribed to your Living Persona, can an enemy get a successful Matrix Perception test and spoof? We thought not, but the jury is still out.
-Really high threaded CFs for tests that have program ratings as their threshold. If Stealth is threaded out the wazoo, then it's fairly impossible to be detected on the way into a node. There's another rule or two that goes by the same token, I can't remember which Matrix Actions they are.

Hopefully Unwired will have full "alternative rules" for TM character creation and they can get some playability. In the meantime, a good Houserule is that CFs are 5 karma and are always have a rating equal to Resonance, and that Psyche drops the dice penalty for threading to -1.

Heres another bad point that I am gaining from reading the technomancer write up.. It looks like they are always broadcasting they have a broadcast range just like commlink but you can turn a commlink off... The only way a technomancer could be turned off is by geeking him. I dont know I could be wrong in my assumption but it seems like if your trying to run stealth in the meat world having a constant broadcasting technomancer on your team might just give you away in alot of situations.

Let me know if I am wrong on this. Also if a person is hacking a technomancers brain, just like a commlink can be hacked and does a search for data will he be able to read the technomancers thoughts? Just a few things I was curious about. If I can hack a commlink and search it for info stored there shouldnt I also be able to search the technomancers brain there for info as well if I succsessfully hack him?

What makes you think the TM can't limit his signal range, or turn it down.

And I believe a TM is not able to be tracked except by other TM and sprites, so it isn't as bad as it could be.

IIRC, TMs can choose to turn off thier boradcasting and also have the options of Active, Passive, and Hidden like commlinks do. One thing though, is a TM will probably behave differently if deprived of the Matrix, like a mage would in a magic dead zone or with mageblinders on.

Also, I dont think a TM could be hacked due to the fact that he has no storage space in his brain for any data. Therefor if a hacker got in, he wouldnt be able to do anything due to no space to load his programs to.
A TM has to transfer data from a node to some other storage device like cloths, guns, or whatever.

I'm pretty sure that TMs have a subscription list, like other nodes. They can choose to ignore the Matrix if they want to, when they "reboot", they physically sever all ties to the Matrix for few hours. I don't get what the hell that's supposed to do, though.
TMs can jack out (pg. 220), they mentally sever the VR stream which causes dumpshock. And I guess the Living Persona evaporates? That's cool, I guess. When a normal Persona's controller jacks out, the Persona remains, unmoving and vulnerable to tracking, hacking and crashing.

Edit: But I bet TM dumpshock is automatically physical.

There really has been some good tips here in regards to coloring the game a little more to the TM's uniqueness.

But there are more and more things that thankfully haven't come up yet in gameplay, which I think will end the TM's career by player suicide.

Ok, a hacker busts in a system, switching between cold and hot sim as needed, he takes a little damage and medics up and keeps on going. Worst case it crashes his OS and he has to reboot (a few minutes). Or maybe he just wants to start his MCM over and reboots anyway.

The TM gets a little overzealous and takes some damage fighting off an agent with an attack program. He piles on the stun damage and risks taking physical, He jacks out to a lot of pain. He can't reboot for hours, and even if he did, he'd still be wounded unless he rested up/healed/saw a street doc..etc.

This means that a run gone wrong for the hacker and a few precious seconds he's right back in the game. The TM however his having a tougher time getting back up and running. Even with Stim Patches and drugs, the TM is sorely lacking the edge a the purchase of a quality would imply.

Add the risks above to fading from just using your powers or compiling that sprite and your talking about a very limited amount of flexibility even with all those open ended threaded CF's and sprites.

Its simply not a balanced class for a typical run involving sams, faces, adepts, mages and riggers.

He's sub-par, more a liability with a few nifty effects that at best achieve what a hacker can do with more versatility, safety, and team support.

Are TM's worthless, I don't think so. But they sure as hell aren't on par with almost any other archtype/build available.

I think I'll work my player's TM death into a nice plot line, use it to shake up the other players, and let the TM player rebuild something more playable with a GM apology.

I don't see another choice. I can still RP up the coolness of sprites and TM's as flavor without expecting a player sit there and act like the two sentences he gets for it in description of matrix combat is worth it.

TM's = fragile and overly specialized characters that are expected to survive/succeed for quite awhile before they come anywhere close to as cool as they sound.

Maybe they are more viable in higher powered campaigns. But even at a 500BP, they're still not any prettier on paper.

Quick advice: Ask the player if he wants to kill off his char first before you just up and kill him. He might like his char for RP perposes, you never know.
And if you truly think that the TM class is too weak, use some houserules to bring it up some.

Thinking about one thing you just said about the hacker just rebooting to fix his personna. If you jsut had a virus (IC) rewrite your OS (Personna) it would take more than a reboot to fix the damage. Take that into the game and make the hacker do a couple of programming tests over 1h periods to make his commlink work after a full personna crash.
This will make your hacker think about what he is doing and the danger his commlink is in during Matrix battles. Makes for a more gritty game too.

One thought I had, and it does really tend towards powergaming, but it's a legal method that might be the way to build the better technomancer. Writes the book: "Technomancers don’t use programs the way hackers do (though nothing prevents them from picking up a commlink and going to town if they want that “retro” experience—but few do)."

So what you do is make a technomancer who excels with sprites, but you don't really bother too much with complex forms. Basically what I'd do in this case is buy Resonance way up, get Tasking skills (or at least Compiling and Registering), and when you need to do something with a Sprite, you can, and you've got good stats for the occasional bit of Threading, too. If you're doing non-Sprite things, use a commlink and the vastly more BP-economical programs you buy. In game terms I think you'd maybe have to play it where if they're doing a commlink connection they can't do any of their technomancer stuff, including control sprites, but the rules on that are completely nonexistent.

The IC justification would be that they were a programmer or a hacker or something and they got changed in the Crash. Essentially what you'd be making is an aspected TM, specific to sprites, and with a commlink and such for regular hacking.

Thoughts?

That would be great, except that they'd need to either double-purchase their Cracking and Electronics group (since techno's use the technomancer version of these skills, which is different from the regular ones) in addition to Tasking, or they'd have to buy regular hacker Cracking and Electronics and have no ability to hack as a techno, except for using sprites.
Kind of suck.
Perhaps a good fix would be to remove the rule that makes the technomancer version of those skills incompatible with the regular versions.

Yea I'll definitely discuss with him first, thats just plain good GM'ing.

I don't mind minor houserules, but when you have to practically re-write the book on TM's just to make them viable, I'd rather not.

I mean, thats why I bought the book rather than sit and make my own game. I don't expect everything to be perfect, but TM's have some huge problems for it being an "advantage".

The concept is extremely cool, it really just is. But beyond that there isn't much to play with from a GM/Player persepective.

I too am holding my breath for Unwired, but I feel even afterwards the gap between hacker and TM will only grow (unless they do some serious tweaking).

And i'm more than a little bothered that because of TM's, some "what should-be programs" were given as exclusive sprite powers as a bad attempt to balance them. (balancing a player by giving him pets cooler than him is always a bad idea).
Take cookie for instance, why the hell is that a power. We all deal with cookies all the time, this isn't some mystical resonance exclusive stuff. The reality is that only a few TM sprite powers really make sense as sprite powers (electron storm, hash, gremlins, stability, watermark), while others could very easily be programs (cookie, diagnostics, sternography, and I think suppression[?]).

Fact is I could remove TM's all together and lose nothing really. Theres already plenty of mysticism without em.

Though as much as i've come to think it was a mistake to let him play one, I got to be honest and say I'd really love them to work. Its just such a neat concept for the background and game type.

i dunno, i think it would be cool to be able to thread whatever kind of mind-altering program/software you feel like =P

I know it doesn't state any rules for it, those of you saying hackers are so much better than TMs, but I'd imagine just like with decks of yore Comms can get fried from matrix combat. Just a thought for those looking to balance the field a little.

I know doing this would be being kind of mean to one of the players buuuut....

There's a one huge advantage the hacker can't ever hope to match the TM with. His stuff can be taken away.

If a hacker gets counter-hacked and his programs are erased, his commlink fried, he's pretty much screwed for a good while. If his commlink is smashed, he's done. If he's captured and his equipment is damaged/taken away/jammed/erased he's basically another sammie. Also helps with the money problem, the hacker will have to use up some of his funds(if he's got any) to replace stuff.

TM's on the other hand, this can't happen to.

It's the same way with adepts, I'm playing one ina game with a bunch inveszted in mystic armour, I can match a trolls soak easily. The difference is that if we're stripped of our gear, I can still take a hit, he cannot.

Another idea I have is to simply make some tasks easier for the TM. If the threshold for the hacker is 3, make it 2 for the TM, representing the way a technomancer is more "in tune' with the matrix is inherntly better at accessing and manipulating it, therefore things are easier for him. A hacker has to think like a computer and create methods to do stuff, a TM just does it 'cause he IS a computer essentially.

Not bad ideas, Valrus.
If I was GMing this group, I might just break the hacker's commlink if he glitched a dodge or soak roll. Not completely destroy it but damage it to where he will have to make a hardware check to repair it later.
This will make your TM shine while adding a little realism for the hacker. Remember, shit happens when you are being attacked.

The TN lowering also makes a little sense and you can legitamatly do it without houseruling anything. Just dont tell the players the TN to do an aciton and reduce it in your mind.

Wasabi, you sir are a master at this. I bow to your greatness.