Ok. I have finally read most of unwired (yes i got it when it was released but work this past month has sucked). I was hoping that unwired was going to ease up the karma cost for technos. Instead it has increased it (new CF's, more echo's, etc). Anyone have any idea's on how to lighten the karma cost for techno's while not unbalancing it for everyone else. With everything the techno needs to survive and the large negitives for bio and cyberware they advance soo slow to everyone else.

To be honest, after seeing three TMs go through my games, it hasn't been a problem. Sure, there's a lot to buy, but if you're careful with your purchases and use make judicial use of careful threading for the CFs that you don't need a lot, you can get away with it. The bigger problem I've had is stopping TMs at my table; my experience has been that they're somewhat god-like right out of the gate. Granted, that doesn't seem to be the case throughout the rest of the DSF, but it seems like when run appropriately, a TM can do everything the fluff says they should right of the gate.

TMs can combine support operation services with threading to get a fading-free +6 (at least) to any CF. Consider the effects of Stealth, Exploit, Attack, or Spoof 12.

Their key issue is that they have to specialise at chargen, because later improvements will cost several times the BP cost in karma. The whole cost structure makes Resonance at chargen way too important. Attribute min/maxing screams for soft-capped mental stats, as the chance of competing with physical characters is zero due to essence loss killing resonance.

If you want to improve on the playability of TMs, you should IMO start with reducing the role of Resonance, especially at chargen. Remove its function as a cap on matrix attributes, and have CFs bought like spells. Use (Resonance) as rating for those. (The later may seem like improving the importance of resonance. This isn´t so at chargen, because you can make do with the above tactic and resonance 3, while resonance 5/6 does not get you farther then before. MinMaxing can no longer be justified by "necessity".)

ya. the problem that i see with them is that most people want the party to stick together for ease of game play. having a techno stick around with a bunch of street sams usually doesn't work very good once a fight breaks out and someone tires to shoot them. with 1 pyhsically IP it sucks. now with unwired you can get more IP but you have to submerge once and pickup 2 seperate echo's to do it. MMOA that is way to much karma to have to pay. even if you could spend BP at creation you usually have to no extra to spend on stuff like that. mages are capped some but not to the point techno's are. a mage can get a spell and sustain it if needed to increase IP and usually has enough BP for somewhat decent physicall stats. with the reliance on resonance that they have cyber and bio is almost completely out of the question most of the time. from the techno's that i have played i usually have surpluses of cash and wind up outfitting the party with gear but never am able to get the things i really need (echo's, a few more points into CF's, etc) due to the massive karma expense and the slowness of karma in SR4 (we have even increased this from what the book says but then again we also tend to play runs that take 2-3 months to complete). I have been GMing now for 3 months so i haven't remade my character using unwired.

Abolish karma completely, instead hand out build points which people spend as though they were at character generation, then make it so yo have all complex forms you buy at resonance and all complex forms cost 3 BP.

Simple change, helps all aspects of the game, boosts technomancers.

How powerful technomancers are really really depends how well the player read and comprehended that section of the book. TMs should be godlike out of the box. But then I'll hear about how they give the unarmed drone to their TM because they can't fight well using them.

I'm just glad I haven't had one.

Now, my group would disagree with this. We've got a razor girl, a super-speedy adept, and a combat shaman. Between running a tac-net (and getting bonuses) and having a level 5 machine sprite in their smart-gun (yes, it is a rules interpretation some GMs do not allow; we do), the street-sams in my group have pretty much declared I'm never allowed to play a plain hacker again. They don't want to give up their +4 to +6 from the machine sprite & +3 from the tac net. With the TMs ability to hack into commlinks and screw up smart-linked guns, other tac-nets, subvert opponent drones, and even hack cyberware, they can certainly be a great "support services" in combat scenes. Simply doing a sensory-override on commlinks (blasting them with noise and light) gives opponents a modifier. That combined with my street-sams bonuses, and they're loving the combat.

So, when we go into combat, the first one of the street sams has their first action be "I shove the TM to cover." This way they assure they keep their golden goose alive. Good armor and a high level armor spell help too.

That's not to say, the street sams aren't saying she needs to get a few cool echos, like Acceleration and Biowires, and (as they say, "learn the damn dodge CF!!!") E-Sensing has already saved us a few times. It's all about playing to their strengths. A TM can make a combat team much better, in my experience.

[note: we use rules interpretations that allow these actions. YMMV.]

and of course, there is always the 'stick the technomancer in a heavily armored PMV' solution. just go ahead and try to kill the TM when he's sitting inside a rigger coccoon strapped to a segway with a valkyrie module =P