like i said, i don't like having discussions with people if i feel it's a waste of time, and this is going nowhere. so don't worry about it, like i said, not worth the bother of responding.

unless you get your math up to middle school level every discussion about balancing will be a waste of time for you.
kthxbye.

This is an Administrative Posting.

This thread has generated multiple user reports for personal attacks. You're all welcome to continue to assault and criticize one another's ideas. Users are not, however, allowed to insult other users. If this trend continues, this thread will be closed.

Partially true. Shadowrun is not D&D. WotC uses lawyer-like manipulation of deliberate word choice and "key words" to (usually) give clear-cut idea of what WotC intended and how it interacts with other rules.

FanPro didn't do that. They used (usually) grammatically correct English to convey the idea of the rules. There is a lot more wiggle room in the rules in Shadowrun than in D&D.

I just looked at the FAQ again and I remembered incorrectly. It was Inhabitation that the FAQ address. The Rules on page 102 state that a Technomancer cannot access Resonance because the spirit's special attributes are used. If the Technomancer cannot hack because his mind is subdued, not having Resonance, as far as I can tell is a moot point.

The context of the rules is that of the spirit assuming physical control of the host's body. Therefore, subduing the mind should be assessed in that sense. Just talk to your GM about it before you assume you can hack or astrally project while being possessed by someone else's spirit and everything should be fine. It's (usually) when you surprise your GM with what you think you can do that things get ugly.

I think the fact that they give only two exceptions (commanding the spirit, and channeling) makes it clear. They say your mind is subdued, except in two specific situations. That would seem to exclude all other situations. If your mind was free to do whatever it wanted, it wouldn't require an exception to let you command the spirit. I think the whole technomancers not having access to Resonance while possessed thing is just a case of redundancy. The rules, unfortunately, repeat themselves in many places in order to make something clearer. The problem is, by making it clearer, they usually confuse everyone, as in "why would they have said this if it didn't mean something other than what they said before?"

But yeah, it comes down to how the GM wants to play it. IMHO, the big disadvantage of possession is that you can't do anything yourself while possessed. I think saying that possessed people can hack is taking a possible ambiguity in the rules, and driving a wedge into it and opening it up into a HUGE loophole. If you say that possessed people can hack and operate DNI, they can suddenly do a whole shitload of really significant things, like command an army of drones for instance, while possessed. It washes out the primary disadvantage of being possessed, which is that the spirit controls you, and you can't do anything yourself. I think being able to command 12 combat drones with machineguns while a spirit possesses you is contrary to the spirit of the words "impotent witness," don't you? Can you do it? Of course, you can do anything. But I don't think it makes sense, either from a rules perspective or a balance perspective.

I don't know about the balance impact. What's the balance impact of possessing a rigger's drone instead of the rigger. That's clearly allowed.

What about possessing a rigger while he commands, or jumps into other drones as opposed to possessing a rigger after he gives his horde some standing instructions?

Also, remember, this a two sided coin. If you can possess the team's rigger while he maintains control of his horde, that means you have one less tool to stop any opposing hackers or riggers.

Finally, look at it from the other end. The GM has a spirit possess the party's VR hacker (or Technomancer), does the gestalt get hit by the dumpshock?

So ... what's the process for getting requesting that FAQ address this?

Not much. You're basically giving the Spirit a boost to body. Woo.

I don't think there's a problem possessing a rigger, because it requires vessel preparation, which takes a fuckall long time. But there IS a problem letting the caster summon a spirit into himself and still control drones, because the caster doesn't need vessel preparation. And if you allow the former, you allow the latter.

Besides, I think the rules are very clear. They give two exceptions to the possessed person being an impotent witness with a subdued mind: commanding the spirit, and using Channeling. Using DNI cyberware is not part of those exceptions, so you can't do it.

To get a quasi-official ruling at least, you can email Catalyst. Not sure who, but I'm sure they have contact info on their page. But this is yet another example of people on Dumphock taking some pretty clear rules, finding a teensy tiny amount of wiggle room in the language, and then blasting it with a shotgun and claiming it's a loophole. Enough already

Vessel preparation just gives a -6 to resist possession.

... without channelling.

Hmm. As I understand it, Agents and captain chaired drones controlled by chanelling possessed mage in VR is pretty sweet if he can trust the spirit to be left to its own devices. Yes, we're talking about a grade 1 initiate with money to spare, not chargen, but still ... from what I hear, he doesn't need to sink anything into the relevant skills.