In my group I have a Technomancer and a hacker / rigger type.
here is the situation: the hacker is checking stuff on the matrix and the technomancer is curious, since he is "online" all the time, is he able to see, read, know what the hacker is accessing?

I'm hoping the question makes sense.

Only if he intercepts the traffic.
See rules on how to do that.

you will be online at the time you are reading this response, and you will be at your computer, i would expect.

so since you're online, does that mean you know what i'm doing online right now?

(in other words, i agree with serbitar on this one)

Being a Technomancer still follows very similar rules to being a hacker. Indeed one is not nessicarly "better" than another. Arguably the Technomancer *COULD* find this information out, but it would come down to some skill/defense contests between the Hacker and The Technomancer, and I'd imagine that unless the Technomancer was VERY lucky the Hacker would find out pretty quickly even if The Technomancer succeeded and wouldn't be happy about it. As these two characters are in the same "party" I assume their abillities are fairly parallel so any such contest is going to be a craps shoot and probably not worth it from anyone's perspective.

But then again I'm one of those "The Sanctity of the party is sacred" type players as I find inter-party conflicts annoying time wasters.

To be honest, in earlier editions of the game Technomancers seemed to be more powerful, which might be why your player is asking this (I don't remember the exact specs for them, it's been a while). However "The Otaku" paid for their power in The Matrix by more or less being autistic in reality and more or less dysfunctional which made them rather difficult to play. The 4th edition version of a Technomancer seems kind of redundant, as it's traded more real-world practicality for it's former level of 'in matrix' power.

>>>----Therumancer--->

I'm not entirely sure about that simply because a Hacker has something equivilent to just about anything a Technomancer can do. For practical purposes it all comes down to the die rolls/successes and the relative skills/stats on both sides of the equasion.

As I see it, the biggest advantage of The Technomancer is that they can spend Karma directly to increase their "Forms" and such. Meaning that every adventure or two he can improve. Hackers on the other hand are limited by time, even though they don't really use Karma. A hacker is going to spend a month at a time writing each program at each new level, and thus advances more slowly.

Sprites are easier to use, but Agents seem to be just as good as they are for most purposes, although again, it takes time to "create" one.

In the end however a good Hacker is likely to be far more versatile than a Technomancer is within The Matrix. He's also likely to be far more powerful assuming he's been leveling his skills and programs just as much as the Technomancer. 12 Dice "attack" is 12 dice "attack", whether it's coming from
a Form or a Program.

Then there is the issue that The Technomancer really can't use Cyberware without gimping themselves. While SR 4 is short on such things (so far) I imagine it's only a matter of time before we see an array of brain enhancements and such that Hackers can install in themselves to weight things even more in their favor.

Not to mention the fact that the Hacker, with enough money, can also "chrome" himself up as much as your typical Samurai for the most part. While his skills aren't quite as good as a dedicated fighter (for obvious reasons) he's going to be less of a dead weight during those situations where the GM is forcing the party to infiltrate before the matrix-experts can hack. Since it's pretty much all based on Karma, your Technomancer only has one way to progress just to stay capable in their area. The Hacker on the other hand just has to worry about keeping a couple of skills up (he doesn't have the "compiling" pool, just Electronics and Cracking). He doesn't have to spend Karma on his programs as I understand it, just time and Nuyen which are usually less scarce and Finite than Karma.


>>>-----Therumancer--->

Technomancers are the consummate support characters. Have a rating 6 machine sprite use the Diagnostics power on a snipers smartgun link and watch the bullets shred their target with all the extra dice. Heck smartgun links can be used for perception so bonuses there too. And thats all just 1 service from a registered sprite.

Use it on a car and a vehicle riger will love you. Use it on a drone and the vehicle rigger will love you even more. Use it on a hacker's commlink and watch their face uncontrollably smile.

TM's have a very certain way they have ot be played and its always relating to double fistfuls of dice and sprites. Once you're past learning that they clearly rock within their niche.

hackers can never match a well built technomancer in terms of sheer power actually therumancer. versatility, yes, power, no.

case in point: let's suppose a chargen TM with a rating 6 exploit CF (which he paid through the nose to get) and a chargen hacker with rating 5 exploit (limited by system/response) both want to hack a given rating 6 node, and want an admin account.

the TM can thread his exploit up to 8 or 9, call on a registered sprite to add another 3-4, and ultimately can be throwing 11-13 dice from program alone, plus skill... against the hackers 5 + skill. you just can't do that with a regular hacker.

Jaid's right. Threading a program from scratch isn't that big of a hardship when you consider that rating 3 is pretty easy to hit and is really quite adequate for emulating common use programs, and Sprites are so good they can easily make up for any holes in your CF list, if it comes to that. Having to limit yourself to fairly low powered browse programs kinda sucks, but it's a pretty small price to pay when you can jack up the real vital staples like Exploit, Spoof, Stealth and Attack to obscene levels. Honestly, imo, a TM's only -real- weakness in the 'trix is their vulnerability to attrition. TMs are really quite powerful, but the chip damage they take from the meat world, threading and matrix skirmishes (even when they win handily) can certainly add up, which can be pretty dangerous when you consider the TM doesn't use a seperate damage track for their persona.