With my rigger it quickly became "Shadowrun, the RTS" I did not have actions to spare from commanding all my drones to jump in to them, and why would I want to? Why would I dive into ONE drone to shoot someone, and risk taking Biofeedback if the are drones hit, when I can have THREE drones shoot them instead?

Because not every situation with a "drone" is a situation where you can afford to have the drone be disposable. If the Star is on your tail and you're escaping INSIDE your drone-rigged Westwind suddenly the "drone" in question isn't really just a disposable asset, nor is the 9 or 10 dice Pilot programs get to play around with likely to be enough to save your ass. Besides, you can have your cake and eat it too-- You don't have to be jumped in all the time but it's certainly a useful option in critical situations. Whenever I really feel like ganking one of my players, trust me when I say a VCR & Edge fueled hail of lead from a talented Prime Runner level Drone Rigger is one of my preferred options. Ever seen a Social Adept try to soak a 17P -2 Damage code?

Compared with:



Apparently, there's a bug in the German translation (as any of the resident Germans will tell you, Schaden means Damage, not Stun Damage). But allright, half the damage. Apparently, the text was changed in later editions to make rigging less lethal.

Sma, i repeat: there are no autosofts above rating 4. none. zero. they do not exist.

how many times are we going to have to repeat these facts, honestly?

One of the positive things of Fanpro's demise was that we don't have to put up with those crappy german books anymore.
Ok, I admit: Arsenal 2070 had more content than the english version. But that's it.

Rigger 3.01d was retranslated as Rigger 3 Revised, so ... there was something good there. But mostly, the work was done rather sloppy. Though, if I remember correctly, the German Core Rulesbook was written together with the english version and shipped actually before the english book did ... so it's not sloppy translation we're talking about. Just general sloppyness.

I don't have my book in front of me, but when the drone goes down while you're jumped in using hot-sim, isn't the dumpshock physical?

Yep physical damage for a dumpshock from hot-sim.

I knew something killed my character.

5P dumpshock damage killed your character? you should have at least 10 dice to resist that damage, bringing it down to 2 probably... good odds you had a willpower greater than 5 one way or another too, and maybe even biofeedback filter 6.

that's what killed you? no. what killed you is that your GM has apparently been using the wrong rules. a lot. and screwing riggers over.

Well, I had no Biofeedback filter running, so propably. I think I also resisted with body, which the character hat ... 3 or something. The character would definitly take damage, though, damage that cannot just be waved away with a stimpatch. Which IS a draw with Hot Sim.

as was pointed out earlier, if it had been a sam, the character would be dead when you die.

of course, if you are *really* scared of dumpshock, i recommend remote controlling the drone from your home node via the control device matrix action. you can take codeslinger for 10 BPs, still get the hotsim bonus, and can use whatever your command rating (Synner... this is why the technomancer rocks the rigger btw... the ability to boost the TM's command CF *rating* to truly obscene levels makes the rigger cry). it has all kinds of advantages, like not spending money on response upgrades for your drones (since the command program replaces all attributes, all you need is a good response on your actual commlink) and the ability to take "remote operation" as a specialisation in every single vehicle skill among them. it has some drawbacks too though (10 BP for codeslinger vs 1 BP for control rig, no control rig boosters available) but it can work, your dicepools will be just a hair lower. and since you're not in the vehicle's node when it blows up, you don't suffer dumpshock.

with a technomancer in that situation, you can boost your command CF to huge levels (start at 6, thread for another 3-4, use a registered sprite to boost another 4+) and have a command CF of like 14... add in hotsim bonus and codeslinger, and you're throwing 18 dice for your tests *before skills* (though, of course, as has been said... you're a technomancer and are eternally doomed to suck at anything outside of the matrix, and unless you are very carefully optimised you will also suck *in* the matrix apart from rigging, that being the downside to this route).

so actually, i believe synner said somewhere we weren't sure what technomancer 'riggers' are like... well, unless you define rigger specifically as someone who uses control rigs to drive vehicles, the technomancer rigger looks downright terrifying, with an astounding 18 (see previous paragraph) dice on defense, probably 26 (gunnery 4 specialisation in ballistic 2 smartlink 2) on offfense.... and that's without any friendly machine sprites analysing your vehicle/turret =P

and you will notice that the TM rigger soundly squishing the mundane rigger is something i never argued as untrue... and now you know why. the adept rigger will have maybe a couple extra dice... the TM rigger? he squishes them all like bugs. slow, clumsy bugs at that.

I just found this thread and finished to read it through. Observations:

-I found it quite rude at first, though came to understand (though I still disaprove) why the rudeness came for and it makes for my second point...
-... it´s as unbelievable as it´s unbereable how peolple fervently discuss about subjects they don´t have a clue of!

I feel the need to say this because I´m tired of seeing this happen at this forum

Many posters not only throw up rabid opinions and engage in absurd crusades without having a thorough knowledge of the very issues they´re infuriated about, they go even further by making things even worse while not even caring to pay attention of what has already been stated on the threads they are taking part of. You can´t be any ruder than that...

About the subject of the post, I think Jaid already made his point (which more or less matches mine, except on the violent way of stating it) though a fitting counterpoint has yet to be seen (if it exists at all).

Most of the time the Rigger is either:
A. Ensconced somewhere relatively safe when jumping in.
Or
B. Is riding in the vehicle he's jumping into and thus likely to come to a bad end regardless of what the Dumpshock does to him in the event the vehicle is destroyed or completely disabled.

Add in the fact that up until the vehicle is destroyed the Rigger will be likely only suffering Stun damage if he's been suffering damage at all, and no, I simply can't be bothered to worry too much about having to resist 5P with a dicepool of 10 or so in the event my mechanical minion is annihilated before I have the good sense to leave its node. It's not terribly likely to come up and when it does come up, it's about as bad as overcasting a Powerball; It's not fun, but you'll probably live, and there's a good chance you might have saved your own hide by taking the risk in the first place.

yeah, i was getting a little annoyed with the fact that he was on several threads bashing riggers and how pathetic they were. dunno why it annoyed me so much, but it did, and the basic point of this thread was to establish that much of what he had said against riggers (and, to a more limited extent, arsenal) was not accurate.

in any case, i probably should have backed off and cooled down for a bit, but it had been annoying me for a few days now =P so yeah, it was probably a little excessive, but just the way he was saying these things without any basis in fact reminded me of recent discussions with other posters (in hindsight, you are quite dissimilar, in that when demonstrated to be incorrect you actually stop trying to argue from a position that has been proven wrong... whereas the other poster in question would have proceeded to demand that we accept his position as correct even with no proof whatsoever)

as you can see, there appears to be a lot of misinformation out there regarding riggers, and hopefully a good chunk of it has been cleared up in this thread... so i'd like to think that while it was indeed not as polite as it should have been (nor as polite as i usually am, for that matter) that it did actually serve some purpose.

though i'm sure these exact things which have been cleared up will come up again some other time =S

I think you got the wrong guy: I´ve never been wrong, much less proven wrong in my whole life!

Now: on the subject of jerks, there´s no easy (and legal ) way of getting rid of them (not even temporaraly)...

So going into battle against them is useless: they will find the way to drag you into their territory (Jerkland) and then beat you by experience and better knowledge of the battleground.

Nevertheless, I do understand that sometimes one needs to fight a lost battle anyway .

Can't they be one and the same? I mean why can't you have both? Use a drone when you need to and rig one when you need to. Personally I find rigging large things like oh say a city-master or an 18 wheeler to be a good move, while people trying to jump into hot sim using a roto drone are subject to a world of hurt. A good rigger picks and chooses his or her moment. Drones are nice for 10-20k you can get a pretty tripped out drone and give yourself 3-6 extra attacks per combat round. Riggers can be used to fulfill all sorts of tasks, but you really have to rely on a number of different tactics. A rigger who only uses drones independently can run into trouble, as well as a straight up hot sim rigger.

God what a useless topic to discuss, because it's all situational in the end. Point, counterpoint. Point, counterpoint. It's all relative.

If you are using hot sim on wireless you are also vulnerable to getting black hammered by agents etc. Having your brain squirt out your ears counts as a loss to me. And having your comlink nuked, the one that you are VR controlling the vehicle you are in at 150 kph, tends to be bad too.

Uhm ... yeah. I take that as an agreeance. Thanks for the nice example, though. One Question: Threading isn't permanent but a boost the TM can use at will, for any complex form there is, even those he doesn't have, right? Open ended really, if the TM trusts in his high willpower and has initiated (or whatever those critters call that) to roll the drain down ... Edge's gonna help there, too. Besides, TMs can take all the matrix-relevant qualities too, can't they?

I don't really see why that leaves a TM so much less Karma to get themselves some decent stats (Will seems to be pretty important for them, anyway) and a few basic survival skills. And since the wifi world opens up so many possibilities to fuck with people by using their brainless reliance on wifi against them (see the DNI thread for some ideas), I really don't see how anyone can complain technomancers lack in power. In fact, they make even adept hackers look like idiots.

I guess that there're these wonderful new characters around who make mundane riggers look just really useless doesn't quite add to the fun of playing one, as you know you have zero chance of ever being good in what the character does compared to a startup technomancer (maximum safe complex forms rating: 12, not counting sprites), no matter how much karma you sink into the rigger. And, after all, this is what the Rigger is supposed to be good at. So yes, I stand by my opinion Riggers in sR4 have been made more or less obsolete. Considering the character might eventually generalise and outperform technomancers on the physical doesn't help me much there, really, because playing a sam isn't playing a rigger. That's the obsolete part.

Drones actually were a minor annoyance I added withouth thinking about it as much as I propably should have.

True. Thats why I build riggers on a hacker skillset and consider vehicle skills optional. You are better off not driving yourself than being defenseless. You can load your link for combat (you are only on your own nodes), and any new user logging in IS an attacker, as you are the only legitimate one. Hacking on the fly always alerts the system if your drones run Analyse (hard to reach a threshold of 11 in one go, hard not to reach a threshold of (stealth) with two rolls on an extended test).

Being on hot-sim without biofeedback filters is not a sound strategy.

Which kind of takes the fun out of the rigger unless you want to play a decker anyway.


Not for a starter technomancer character (Resonance 6, WP 5), sadly, if he threads his Stealth CF to 12, has codeslinger and uses sprites for dice. TH 11 in one go is viable with some 20 DP and Edge.


Yeah, I know that now. But thatw as before Augmentation, and 2 IP are just depressingly few actions.

Cool, I take the night to work and a lot of the issues get resolved.

Now with you conceding the point with drones, how about producing those technomancer rigger, specialist driver street sam, and rigger adept builds so that we can compare versatility and effectiveness.

Note - Your complaint seems increasingly geared towards the loss of an exclusive niche for riggers. Sorry, but that's a given with the streamlining of the SR4 Matrix and Rigging rules. However, the same argument could be (and has been) made regarding street samurai vs. hyperspecialist adept combat monkeys. Or hackers and everyone else who can now use a commlink/agent. You see this as a problem, a number of people have made it obvious they see this as a feature. Shadowrun really is a system without classes and the latest iteration blurs the lines even further by allowing different methods of reaching the similar results. Specialized builds are dominant in their chosen fields over generalists. However, "specialist roles" such as the rigger are still recognized by the system, in that a competent rigger will be more versatile, flexible and offer a greater variety of tactical options than a competing technomancer or rigger adept—while still being able to match them in his chosen field of expertise as well.

I can somewhat understand hermit's point though. He's complaining, a rigger has lost his point as a dedicated role in a shadowrunner team and to a player who's fond of riggers that can indeed come as a buzzkill. My own criticism would concern the vehicle section in Arsenal rather than the base rules but I already stated that in the review thread.
Otherwise I'm fine with riggers in general but I can see his point.

That seems a little bit contradictory.

The builds might take a little while though. I'll try the minimum TM, the maxed-out rigger TM, both against a fairly maxed out converted ~900 Karma rigger character with enough ressources to get heavy stuff (like rating 10 military firewalls). Both TMs will be starter level. I am only considering how they compete against the rigger in the field of rigging, not in firearms or knowledge skills (where about half the karma went).

Examples to follow, please stand by.

What about the other specialists you were complaining about? Are you conceding regarding them?

Why the 900 karma rigger? Make a rigger out of the chargen (or since others seem to have a better grasp of the rigger rules, let someone like Jaid or Ryu post theirs). Run them through the same half-dozen situations: a rolling firefight/car chase, a team intrusion, using drones as firesupport in a firefight, defending against a EW/hack attack, subverting a security system (you know stuff any competent rigger should be able to do). Then compare results.


I may have been unclear, but what I meant to point out was that the "field of rigging" is pretty large and that while most of aforementioned specialists will compete with riggers in a very limited way such as driving skill pools (something which obviously doesn't sit well with you), they are generally unable to keep up with the rigger in the vast "field of rigging" and hence do not make them obsolete.

For example: the specialist street sam driver and the rigger adept may have dicepools comparable to the rigger's when it comes to driving (strictly speaking); but I'm willing to bet they won't be half as high as the rigger's dicepools as soon as they're required to shoot a turret-mounted weapon or drone-mounted weapon or if they have to defend their vehicles and drones from offensive hacking/EW. The rigger adept has a better chance of covering these things because the street sam has to invest in being a street sam as well, but his BP expenditure on Magic/Powers (and later Initiation, etc) will mean he'll lack the scope of skills, gear and software the dedicated rigger has/needs.

The exception to this can be, of course, the technomancer rigger—however, technomancers are rare enough and their specialization is so restrictive (both in terms of BP and in game Karma development) that they will never render a competent rigger obsolete and they also have the whole limitation with the Living Persona equating Physical damage going on.

Because that's a high-end as riggers can possibly get, and STILL the character is outclassed by STARTUP TMs using threading and sprite assistance.


No, I just thought we could do this step by step. Vehicle Streetsam and Adept Rigger are propably going to get some 100 startup Karma to go against the insane-Karma rigger (and outclass the character in driving and equal them in gunnery).


I am thinking of DP comparison in vehicle perception, driving, gunnery and spoofing. That should about cover that vast field. However, I will exclude data search and the likes.


HotSim covers that, too, albeit apparently only in German books.

If you are the (mundane)rigger of the team and anyone else is not playing a tecno rigger, why do you even care if they might get a bigger dicepools, that doesn't affect your character or his effectines at all.

Because a) they exist and b) the GM will eventually use them. Besides, not being able to upgrade your character after some 100 Karma is kind of depressing and kinda spoils playing such a character for me. I usually don't play oneshot characters, you see.

And I would like to note I just read that the numer of IP a technomancer can have while rigging is NOT CAPPED. He can initiate over and over again and get that +1IP echo and will only gather more. Yay for balancing.

Also, hot damn is the GM screen not useful here.

Uh, no? The hardcap on IPs is set at 4. No exceptions.

So even if 4 IPs wasn't the hard cap, it still wouldn't be so...

First edition german core rules books seem to suck enormously. That's the second time they deviate from English canon.

Also, unless specifically mentioned otherwise, each echo can only be taken once. Overclocking thus can only give the TM +1 IP.

[edit: Blast you, Arkon...that's what I get for reading a thread without updating before I post.]

I'll have to work this out with Angier, so it may be a day or two until I have my examples ready. My apologies for the delay.

only the second time?
you should read the book more carefully, there are much more mistakes in the translation.

eg:
-Allergy of Water/Fire spirits
-Edge use to reduce glitchs
...

I only use my german core rules, if I don't have my laptop with the eng. pdf arround.

cya
Tycho

Well, since I haven't yet compared it to english canon, how exactly am I to know the differences?

So who's right now, english or german rules?

You can have it your way but that exercise is comparatively useless. I don't see the point since even with 900 karma the high end skills are capped and will show little if any difference for the rigger. The nuyen would be much more important but that would mean adding/factoring in available gear, software, autosofts, cyberware, etc to your intent to compare dicepools below. Comparing out of chargen is much more important, your technomancer may be great out the box but he might not have any resources left over to buy a souped up drone let alone several.

I still suggest someone post a starting character rigger for comparison too.


Okay, we'll wait for that then.


The problem there is that Threading, particularly at the levels you're talking about, causes Fading — which riggers don't have to deal with — and that impacts dicepools and technomancer effectiveness in subsequent Tests. Hence my suggestion of playing out a scene. At the very least you need to include comparisons where the same characters control different vehicles and drones, simultaneously or not.


Obviously any comparison would need to be based on the mechanics in the English SR4 book (and any relevant errata) which the rest of us are using - the German material was translated (badly or not) from the English original and the FanPro D printing was never errata'd to the best of my knowledge.

For reference: Biofeedback damage is (DV taken by vehicle/2)S Damage and resisted with Willpower + Biofeedback Filter. Dumpshock damage is a fixed 5P for Hotsim again resisted with Willpower + Biofeedback Filter (which btw makes it impossible to die simply from dumpshock).

Why should he need to buy equipment? He can hack/steal himself any drone he'll ever need. He can just go ahead, thread himself up, channel a sprite and steal the startup rigger's drones, something the startup rigger can do nothing about.


Allright, I'l see if I can find soemone with an english core book then for these examples.


Yeah propably.


The lack of a chance for progression would be part of my point, yes.


If you kill off the opfor with one hard strike, or cripple them enough, that's worth it.

Yes, that will surely have no consequences whatsoever. Look, TMs are really expensive, and I do rather dislike how powerful they are once they go "all in" and burn through services at a tremendous clip. But at the same time, being better at that kinda thing is their whole reason for existing. I'd probably prefer a setting in which they didn't exist at all, but if they're going to be here I don't see why they shouldn't be better at rigging than a rigger. Riggers are a lot easier to branch off into other specialties, even if it's just via Wired Reflexes and a Skillwire system. The TM's lack of flexibility is a tremendous flaw.

Where did I state that? I said that the damage done/tasks achieved might be worth it.


Ah, so the Rigger's raison d'etre would be to suck at what he does?


See, I personally would prefer a setting where they're somewhat balanced against other characters, and where non-TM characters would have ANY chance of goingt against one and winning (no, there is none in rigger vs. mancer, at least none I see). And yes, knowing no matter how much I try to develop the character, he'll always suck at what is supposed to be the center of his capabilities compared to other characters, and suck massively (a difference of 8 dice or more), kind of kills the fun of playing that type of character. Well, at least for me. Someone who wants to play a steetsam who can on the side rig drones, or whatever other character you want to add the rigging capabilities on as a side occupation may rejoice and be happy with that concept. Me, I won't.

There is a german errata, but it does only include the most ovious mistakes and the first eng. errata. None of the translation mistake has been included.

cya
Tycho

Well what it seems to me now is you just don't play a mundane rigger. You play an adept rigger. Why is this so wrong? 4th ed changed the arch types around a little bit. If your a SR it stands to reason most people in a team should be magically attuned. An adept with improved ability can throw dice up in the 20's where a mundane gets teens. Is this what you are mainly talking about Hermit? If so it seems that to be a mundane in SR 4 (for the most part) is a pretty bad idea. Although dropping 5 bp for a trait that allows you for growth in the future is not a bad idea, but then again sometimes it pays to have a cyborg, or a jack of all trades.

Seriously? I'm assuming you've never tried it then. If he's on the network, a competent rigger will know about the intrusion the moment it happens and will be bitch slapping the technomancer with his hacking skills if not backtracking him to his location, that's assuming the drone doesn't have IC inside to protect it. But don't take my word for it. Why don't we add that to the "tests" to compare the characters? How good each is at hijacking drones and vehicles (and how long that takes).


The technomancer is not capped by Submersion, but then again he sucks at pretty much every other Att and Skill—if he's specialized as a maxed-out technomancer rigger. And once Unwired comes out his options are going to expand and with them places to spend karma.


Just for the record, and just so we're all on the same track, the maxed-out specialized technomancer rigger should be able to trounce the rigger in several of those tests, just like a specialized technomancer can beat out most hackers in straight hacking. That's what they do, they are masters of all things Matrix and like it or not rigging is now part of the Matrix. However, they are very rare, they are rarer than magicians, their abilities can't be reproduced and are sensitive to implantation. This is represented by their high BP cost. Furthermore, step one degree out of their specialization or have them take damage and they're going to sink like a rock.

The rigger doesn't suck or is rendered obsolete because he can be beaten in his field by a hyperspecialist, any more than samurais suck or is rendered obsolete because a cybered gunslinger adept can beat them at shooting pistols. He's still head and feet above 99.999% of the population in the vast "field of rigging."

If your drones operate without wireless access how are they going to steal the drone anyways? Just coat your drones with anti wifi paint.

Okay, certainly.


Okay, that WAS a great deal of my reasoning. So the reduction of a rigger to nothingness in face of a riggermancer is on purpose, suggesting the rigger become an add-on feature for other character cocnepts, not a concept to stand on it's own feet, yes? I'm kind of curious because I have been told quite often now that a rigger IS suppsoed to be able to stand on his two feet as a concept. I just don't see that when that concept is purposely outclassed by another.

And 'can be beaten at one skill' doesn't quite compare to 'will be beaten at any matrix relevant skill by another character', nor do I see how this compares to a streetsam versus adept (who'll still be ahead of the adept in many relevant attributes and can boost himself significantly with cyber, almost to adept level). This is more of a rigger/rigger adept comparison thing (which kinda would make sense). Against a mancer, however, it's insta-lose for the rigger. And yes,t hat makes the character obsolete.

Whether or not TMs are supposed to be rare or not isn't quite relevant in ingame terms. Fact is, they do reduce riggers to MacGuffin characters or Stormtrooper-level soldiers compared to a Luke Skywalker. Kind of a dive from "guy who is actually good at what he does", isn't it?


And issue commands or jump into them how?

It does stand on its own two feet as a concept. It's a highly skilled technical character and vehicle operater with a wide suite of skills. A TM rigger is a frail pile of meat that really sucks outside of an extremely narrow specialty and is easily confounded by a wired vehicle. Past a certain point, yes, mundanes have to expand their skillset laterally rather than vertically, but at least they're in a much better position to do so. It's an attribute-skill based game, not a class based one.

Uhm ... hunh? how would he? He'd just hack the vehicle and take over?

I meant wired vehicle. My bad. TMs tend to rely on Sprites and autosofts to the point that actually physically driving a wired vehicle is hard for them. If the rigger jumps on something that's manually controlled only he just grabs the wheel and goes. Edited and tagged the post accordingly

Allright. Yeah, that'd propably make the mancer look bad. Though that'S where KyleDr!v3r comes in, where he excels, again outclassing the rigger.

Hermit--Reading through many of your comments/critiques, I think the problem we are running into is a difference between Mundanes and Awakened/Resonant people.

The beginning of the discussion seemed to focus on the problems between pilot programs and riggers, after that talk got put to rest, there was a transition to TMs as better riggers than mundanes. Straight out of the box, the two characters will have similar dice-pools. (Both can max out the relevant skills and program/CF ratings). The difference comes in the application.

While a TM is great at a single area, all the points that are being poured into Resonance, Threading and Compiling, the rigger is spending on other areas to create a more-rounded approach. When the TM tosses in a sprite and threads up a complex form, the rigger can respond with versatility. The rigger provides forward reconnaissance, fire support, and bolsters his teams matrix defenses. Because a TM uses complex forms, they can't copy IC into their drones, commlinks etc.

In the example of a TM stealing a rigger's drone, while it's fully plausible, doing that takes all of the TM's focus and concentration. At the same time that a rigger is fending off the attack on this drone, his other drones are still transmitting information across the network and other members of his team can issue commands to the drones. That flexibility is what allows riggers to stand on their own as a concept for me.

I'm intrigued by the concept of a techno-mancer covert ops type who infiltrates networks and turns the system against itself or a TM who is the world's best driver and specializes in taking down drone defenses at a corporate target. But the question is what does the TM offer the group when they take a job against a magical target which doesn't use matrix based defenses or drones, or when they go on safari in Africa or the Outback.

For my two cents, better or worse is far too situational to say that the TM renders the Rigger obsolete or that the Rigger is relegated to an add-on role for the Street Sam.

Not really. The rigger already should have Hardware skill to hotwire it, plus the raw driving skill required to do extremely well on an unwired vehicle. My team's current rigger actually has a Move-By-Wire system, which is nice, since he's got 7 Reaction and a bonus to dodge plus the integral Skillwire 2. He'll school you on a bike without the Control Rig no problem.