I’m trying to come up with a new Technomancer for the SRM 03 missions and I wanted peoples feed back on what they thought of it, I have about 140 karma that will fallow me from SRM 02 that will be used to expand on the character before it sees any play. ( I say about because I still have a few games left in SRM 02 before I move to 03)

Please note that I don’t have Unwired yet so I haven’t taken into account anything that may be in there but I’m open to suggestions from it.

First the starting stats

Race: Dwarf (25 BP)
Nuyen 15000 (3BP)
Contact: Fixer 2, 2 (4BP)

Agility 3
Body 2
Reaction 4
Strength 3
Charisma 3
Intuition 5
Logic 5
Willpower 3

(Total BP for Attributes 160)

Edge 1
Resonance 5 (40 BP)

Skills
Cracking SG 3
Electronics SG 3
Tasking SG 4
Dodge 2
Etiquette 2 (specialty Matrix)
Perception 3
Pistols 3 (specialty Light)

(Total BP for Skills 144)

Qualities
Natural Hardening (10 BP)
Sensitive System (-15 BP)
Combat Paralysis (-20 BP)
Technomancer (5 BP)

I have 44 BP left to put into Complex forms

The start of spending my Karma would be

Up cracking & electronic SG to lvl 4 (40 Karma)
Up tasking SQ to lvl 5 (25 Karma)
Up Body to lvl 3 (9 Karma) Note: now I can get a lined coat with out negative dice
Up Willpower to lvl 4 (12 Karma)
Up Charisma to lvl 4 (12 Karma)
Up edge to lvl 2 (6 Karma)

This leaves me with about 39 karma left to spend on what Complex forms and what not.

Finished stats so far

Agility 3
Body 3
Reaction 4
Strength 3
Charisma 4
Intuition 5
Logic 5
Willpower 4

Edge 2
Resonance 5

Skills
Cracking SG 4
Electronics SG 4
Tasking SG 5
Dodge 2
Etiquette 2 (specialty Matrix)
Perception 3
Pistols 3 (specialty Light)


So what do you think? Will it work what should I change? By all means tear this Technomancer apart now before I field him and he gets killed by corp hacker.

As a side note the group I play with is 2 mages, 1 rigger, 1street sam, and me the Technomancer.

Wait for unwired. You will love the echoes.

1) you don't need decompiling. dump the tasking group, pick up compiling and registering at a better rating. maybe even specialise in your sprite of choice. decompiling is only useful if you expect to have to decompile a free sprite, every other instance you'd be better off using a a frighteningly high attack CF.

2) it really is worth it to start with resonance 6 and a high logic, and blow as many BP as are humanly possible on complex forms. the added BP cost for resonance 6 is more than compensated for by being able to pick up complex forms at rating 6 using BP instead of karma.

3) natural hardening is probably not as awesome as you think it is. to whit: it is effective against biofeedback damage, not matrix damage which is applied to your normal condition monitor. boost your charisma by one instead if you want bonus dice vs biofeedback... it's 1 point vs 2, but you also get a bonus to all your social skills, and you can register 1 more sprite. alternately, put those BP into more complex forms. it really is worth it.

4) you have combat paralysis and you've bothered getting yourself pistols 3? and you have 1 IP? seriously, pick up pistols 1(semiauto +2) or something if you're gonna take combat paralysis. spend the BP you save elsewhere, like complex forms or boosting your cracking/electronics skills a little. if you're gonna suck in combat, there's no point spending more than the minimum BPs in sucking at combat, and even the 8 dice you'll be throwing (3 agility, 3 for semiauto pistol, 2 for smartlink) are enough against a mook, and the 10 dice you'd have with pistols 3 isn't going tohit a proper sammy anyways. also, combat paralysis probably gives you a penalty in matrix combat also, btw, unless your GM is feeling really generous. either way, spend the absolute minimum in being good at meatworld combat.

5) invest in a PMV with lots of armor, and a good drone pilot with good maneuver and defense autosofts. i recommend the horsemen with advanced cargo module and smart tires. if you want to get fancy, you could even get some guns in there, but that's a bit iffy.

6)for gear, buy lots of activesofts, (try to use the options in unwired for best results) it may be worth it to spend more BP here. see unwired (biowires) for the reason why. for contacts, you want a submersion group in your background, because you definitely want to be submerged a few times, and you definitely *don't* want to pay full price. you may also want to have a free sprite contact; ready access to a free sprite = ready access to one of the trials that won't screw you over horribly, and the free sprite will most likely be more than happy to provide you with that trial (basically, you sacrifice a registered sprite to the free sprite, the free sprite gets stronger, and you get a chance to learn enough from it to count as a trial)

on to karma:

1) you still don't need decompiling, mostly. dump the group, beef up compiling and registering if you want.

2) cracking and electronics groups to 4 is not a bad idea. a bit pricey, but may still be worth it.

3) you want to submerge. trust me on this one. there is all kinds of awesome available to you if you submerge. once you've submerged, pick up the biowires echo. try to submerge at least 3 times. (groups and trials can help with this a lot) there's lots of other awesomeness you can pick up with submerging. whatever you do, wait for unwired; you don't want to build a technomancer without that book and then get it later, trust me on that one

OK, I’ve redone things to look like this

Build Points After Karma Spent
Agility 2 3
Body 2 3
Reaction 4 N/A
Strength 3 N/A
Charisma 4 N/A
Intuition 5 N/A
Logic 5 N/A
Willpower 2 4

Edge 1 2
Resonance 6 N/A

Skills
Cracking SG 3 4
Electronic SG 3 4
Compiling 5 N/A
Registering 5 N/A
Etiquette (matrix) 2(4) N/A
Perception 3 N/A

Note on Skills: I will learn Pistols if I need to latter along with Dodge

Qualities
Technomancer
Sensitive System
Combat Paralysis

Note on Qualities: I kept Combat Paralysis because it only effects you on the first round of combat test and on surprise tests. So I don’t think my combat will be all that bad in the matrix. I do have a Matrix Initiative of 11 at this point.

Contacts
Fixer 1/1
Free Sprite 2/2
Submersion Group 2/2

Starting money 10000


With this I have 10 Complex forms I can get at level 6 at chargen (I don’t know which 10 yet but Attack, Blackout, Exploit, and Stealth have made the cut and I want to see Unwired before I pick any more)

It also leaves me with 55 karma left to spend on submersions and what not. Any thoughts?

from unwired, the CFs worth considering:

shield. each point of rating adds 1 to your matrix defense tests. given those matrix tests will do real damage to you... worth it, imo.
nuke. used to reduce opponent's ratings. kinda decent, but not all that great imo.
as far as submersion, i still recommend biowires as an echo. buy all your activesofts cracked if you can i guess, since you'll be threading them into complex forms and there's no reason to care if you still have them after that. i'm not sure you can really have a fixer at connection 1... or, to put it another way, you, the player, not the character, are a connection 1 contact pretty much. if that guy is really a fixer, then he is extremely small-time... as in, someone who has a SIN and buys perfectly legal stuff to sell to the SINless at an inflated price kind of small-time...