I'm running a game where all players start with a paltry 300BP, and just about everyone needs skill points in everything. I'm hoping to start this game off in a low-key manner, as opposed to the massive standard shadowrun smash-and-grabs.

Anywho, I have a guy who's playing a technomancer, but only has a Resonance of . (Maximum magic/resonance of 3 for starting characters is my rule). He actually has decent hacking skills - thanks to his Logic of 5 - but, being based off the player himself, only has a charisma of 2. (Oddly enough, he also has Unarmed Combat 4, based off of his player. Strictly speaking, in real life he might be up to Unarmed Combat 5 - he's been practicing hard-core Tae-Kwon-Do for most of his life.)

Now, seeing as how techies are generally unsociable, it would make more sense to me that some of the attributes could work off of willpower instead. Strictly speaking, mental fortitude equates well to willpower, while charisma is a better marker of people-person skills. (And I can assure you, there are lots of spineless people out there with impressive people-person skills. I've had to deal with far too many).

I'm struggling to find a question needing addressed by your post. Are you wanting to suggest using willpower more for the technomancer?

Charisma is not looks, though that may play a certain part. Charisma as defined by Dictionary.com is a divinely conferred gift or power, a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influence or authority over large numbers of people. It is synonymous with charm, magnetism, presence.

Charisma is important to a TM only for the purpose of biofeedback filter. It is your armor against IC, and cannot be bought as a Complex Form. Charisma also limits the amount of bound sprites that you can have, and those are the life-blood of a TM. You may even houserule that since all damage to your persona/icon is damage to the TM, Armor stacks with Biofeedback when defending against damage from matrix attacks.

Point is, DON'T SLOUCH ON CHARISMA!

Point is don't try to make a technomancer on 300 bps.

Yes but I have to agree with the OP. Biofeedback based on Charisma didn't make sense to me either. I'm not saying that you should use it as a dump stat but I do believe that your characters should have weaknesses and trying to tie so many attributes to your character type produces even less realistic characters.

Charisma is Biofeedback because it relates to your image of yourself and your ability to handle the stress of dealing with people better than other people. It is the real armor for your living persona because your persona is you, and IC is trying to disrupt your being, or essence if you will. I may just be spouting shit, but that is what it means to me.

I think that Willpower is a better stat for the strength of your self image. I've know people that were very manipulative and could talk people into alot but if you stood your ground much they folded.

I can definitely see Charisma as being armor for the soul. Even in the face of Willpower. Willpower, in this case, represents his body, his ability to take the hits and keep standing. Charisma is the ability to, by dint of personality if you want, deflect the blows, to ignore them as ineffectual.

Consider this: landing a truely cutting insult against a charismatic person can be challenging, their magnatism, their blith acceptance of their place in the social heirarchy see to it that they can ignore most 'attacks' as beneath them. However, if you DO land a telling social blow against them, they are likelier to fold due to it's power and unexpectedness...

Now, translate the metaphor. Insults are web attacks, charisma is the 'aloof resistance' to the attacks, and willpower is their ability to stand to those attacks which actually hit.

Make any sense?

But I would never use Charisma as a resistance attribute in a social situation. I would use it as a way of initiating a manipulation but willpower would be the resistance. That is what we are talking about here.

Be that as it may, my understanding of Biofeedback Filter is that it is based off the strenght of your self image ... your personality itself for lack of better words. Fluff wise it makes sense to me, although I'm not going to even try to address the issue of Game Balance given how utterly broken Technomancers are in their current state.

One simple but perverse way to deal with it is merging the attribues into 4 instead of eight, so you have Body (= Str & Bod), Intelligence (= Int & Log), Quickness (= Agi & Rea), and Will (= Cha & Wil).

It's perverse in the sense that you're changing something much more basic to sidestep the problem, but it works well with more than just the technomancer's biofeedback filter. You don't even have to really change anything, just make sure than you keep the paired stats equal.

okkkkkaaayyyyy

Creating a technomancer when such low BP are available is highly disadvantageous to the player. It just isn't enough and is an even greater strain on karma. You have less BP to use effectively in regards to karma vs. BP efficiency. As long as he is ok with sucking even more than a hacker, everything should be ok. He will probably find himself rather crippled. Realize it will take him much longer than anyone else to be adequately effective in their roles. At least with 400BP you could be conscious of effectively spending BP so all the karma investment doesn't take as big of a tole. With 300BP this will be difficult to do, and a greater karma investment will be needed. If I were the GM I would advise against it, or throw some bones his way.