Here is a new Technomancer that I am working on for a new campaign that I am going to be playing in and I wanted some insight into whether it seemed like a good character or not. First of the character is a Chinese Elf named Lei Fei Yong. He was recently smuggled into Seattle by the Triads and currently owes them a decent sum of money for it. I am toying with making the character 58 years old so that he would have been born 1 year after the first UGE event. I am also maybe toying with the idea of making him a surviving member of the echo mirage project and tie his story into that. The only real worry that I have is that I cannot seem to explain why if he's 58 he has no cyberware at all. Any suggestions on how to handle that would also be appreciated. Okay here is my sheet.

B: 4
A: 2
R: 1
S: 1
C: 7
I: 5
L: 4
W: 5

Edge: 1
Resonance: 5
Initiative: 7
Matrix Init: 11
Passes: 1
Matrix Pass: 3
Lifestyle: High

Qualities
Technomancer
Paragon (Shooter)

Negative Qualities
In Debt (30,000) Triads
Sensitive System

Skills:
Cracking (group) 4
Electronics (group) 4
Compiling (Paladin) 5 (8)
Registering (Paladin) 5 (8)
Influence 1

Knowledge Skills
Matrix Rumors 5
Shadow Nodes 5
System Engineering 5

Languages
Mandarin N
English 3
Cantonese 3
Sperethiel 3
Japanese 3
German 3

Complex Forms:
Biofilter 5 (7?)
Attack 5
Armour 5
Shield 5
Analyze 5
Exploit 5
Spoof 5
Stealth 5

Stream: Technoshaman
Sprites: Crack, Data, Machine, Paladin, Sleuth

Contacts
Free Sprite Fixer (3/3)

Gear (20,000)
Armoured Longcoat (8/6)
Tag Eraser
Disposable Commlink
Fake SIN 4
Contacts
- Vision Enhance 3
- Vision Mag
- Smartlink
Earbuds
- Audio Enhance 2
- Select Sound 1

Initial Karma will be for at least 1-2 points in reaction since it will be fairly cheap
Firing Pistols becomes the process of summoning a Machine Sprite and having him use the Diagnostics Power to add dice to using the specific gun as well as the two dice from smartlink

I don't have the time for anything but a quick glance, but Edge 1 = Bad idea. Any stat at 1 is a bad idea, although Strength is slightly less heinous than other choices. An Edge of 1, however, is just asking for it. You make one bad roll, or botch, or critical botch a few minutes into the game; you're essentially out of luck from then on.

The main problem is where do you move the points from to increase edge?

Bah, don't listen. Edge 1 is fine. People rely on cheat mechanics entirely too much, and that's pretty much all Edge is. Botches and failures are what makes things interesting and insanely large dice pools make games boring and trivial in my experience. Especially if you throw Edge (large or small) into the mix.

That said, while Technomancers and hacking in general aren't a strong point of mine, he looks pretty decent to me if you're going for a pure specialist. I tend to prefer more generalist and well-rounded characters myself, and would sacrifice some "awesomeness" in hacking to pick up a few basics elsewhere. Especially as far as Knowledge Skills go.

But if a one-trick pony is what you're aiming for and it will work well in your group, he's not too bad in my eyes.

that and where are the points going to come from for dodge and perception? i mean, this guy is gonna get killed just for even *thinking* about stepping out of a rigger's cocoon. which leads me to the next point... is there supposed to be no resources whatsoever?

i mean, i'm all over the matrix focused min/maxed technomancer, but this guy probably caught a cold and died from it on the way over with the triads.

i would dump codeslinger and erased, personally, and spend some BPs on edge, dodge, and perception. i have a hard time believing he has been anywhere near the shadows let alone spent any time running in them....

Charisma...

In case your wondering why, your limited to resonance for your living personal stats, so your biofilter can't be higher then 5, so it's 5, not 7, sense your resonance is 5. Now, I admit, it does allow you to compile and register 7 sprites, but you can always raise Charisma later, and your going to have to submerge, and then raise your resonance to 6, and then 7, before you can take advantage of that Charisma for a biofilter of 7. And you don't really have any skills built on charisma, like negotiation or the entire influence group.

After that, Erased, sense you can actually do this yourself, as you can, with some work and roleplaying, actually do that yourself with a technomancer character.

which reminds me... also do yourself a favor, and buy some points somewhere in the influence group. i recommend at least 1 point each in con and etiqette (etiquette will help with keeping people from deciding to kill you, which you can't afford with your meatworld survivability, and con will let you lie. at the very least, you do need con... the party face can negotiate for you, and even cover for you if you say something to the mafia don in the wrong place. but if you can't lie to the 'star, you are screwed, and nobody else can lie on your behalf if a cop or a security guard asks you a question.

Resources are 20,000 as per the in debt flaw I spent them on a Fake SIN, some armour, Tag Eraser and the like

Of course, he doesn't *have* insanely large dice pools. A higher Edge would definitely help on that score.

Someone else pointed out that your physical survivability is very low. You can't wear much armor without slowing yourself down even further, so you do need the Dodge skill. You may need a higher Edge as well, since you're likely to die from a moderately-lucky hit; you can burn Edge to Escape Certain Death. which might end up being your best bet for survival under some circumstances.

With your very low physical stats, and no physical skills at all, you're also going to find yourself in a lot of situations where you have a small to nonexistent dice pool. Edge can help there as well.

Also, Perception and Analyze. You most definitely need these. You can afford to lowball Perception, specialize in Visual, and then get Vision Enhancement contact lenses to give you a respectable dice pool. There aren't any shortcuts for Analyze, though; you will need to raise that up a bit. Since you get +2 to all Matrix Perception tests, you won't need to push this quite as high, but you will need it.

One more thing. All characters need a combat skill. Even if they don't plan on using it, it's very helpful to have the skill in case of emergencies. I recommend picking up Pistols 1, specializing in semi-auto, and then adding a smartlink to your contact lenses. At the very least, you can hold the gun without looking foolish.

I guess the bigest problem I am having is that in order to make a good technomancer he pretty much has to be a one trick pony. I love the idea of the technomancer but creating one with anything other than a I am a Matrix GOD but please don't sneeze on me becomes a big problem.

Also according to SR4 and this may just be a little confusing, it states that all technomancers have an inherent biofeedback filter complex form equal to their charisma. I was under the impression that this form was a special version of Biofeedback filter and thus not subject to the limited by resonance.

If not how about I move 2 points from charisma into Body, remove erased and add 1 point in Influence this would give me 6 dice on social rolls.

Okay I am modding the original post to include the gear I purchased as there is some confusion there. I will move some charisma to body, add some Influence and explain how I am using firearms.

Yeah, you've pretty much hit the problem with otaku smack dab on the head. They're pretty much one-trick ponies, and not even especially good ones at that.

But if you're going to go this way, then focus on what you can do that a decker can't: summon Sprites. You're pretty much good to go on that score, but if you see a chance to raise your skills in that area, consider it. You should also pick up the Software skill, so you can use Threading effectively. If possible, specialize in it.

Playing an elven TM under the BP system hurts. You can´t really make use of extreme charisma or agility, and TMs can hardly afford to waste BP for even more potential.

Then you have choosen to take codeslinger for attack. That is not likely to come up often.

Keep the low edge. You can compile a sprite to provide a Support Operation service at any time, rating 5 should be doable. Thread some more (you can buy two hits on the fading test), and you are looking at Stealth 12 or Attack 12.

If you can live with a finesse char, consider lowering both Willpower and Logic to 3 *dons fire-proof armor*. Only other TMs can attack your biological node, so System (NOT limiting CFs) and Firewall are less important than it might seem. For overpowering combat, see Attack 12.

That would free up 40 BP for a gem the size of Influence group 4.

Its a pretty decent build. Speaking from the viewpoint of submerging later Biowire as currently written (and validated in the July dev chat) can allow a skillsoft to be threaded at up to Resx2 before program options like Personalization and Overdrive. This means with your strong Willpower and Logic you can reasonably use skillsofts up to [submerging grade]*1.5 for the program options.

For skills like Perception and Dodge spend karma equal to the CF rating and and the sustaining penalty isnt an issue.

For combat ability the Multiprocessing and Mesh Reality combo which makes your build have a meat initiative of 11 which would also add to rounding him out.

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Codeslinger adds to an ACTION, not a program. I'd change the wording to "Cybercombat"

For tweaking I'd take a point or two out of Willpower and put into Registering. The ability to swarm with Registered Sprites is an awesome thing and their ability to add to CF's is huuuuge. The Paragon choice "Shooter" can certainly necessitate keeping the Willpower at 5, but thats a judgment based on how confident you are you can win every fight.

If your GM allows the advanced CF "Shields" they are worth their weight in gold. Its like Combat Sense for TM's and adds to the not-get-hit portion of Cybercombat.

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Lastly, a stylistic difference: I'd prefer to lower Reaction by 1 (a teensy pool as is) and add 1 to Body for an extra TWO points of armor. Reaction is much stronger than Body point for point only when you have a chance at not being hit. With at-best a chipped Dodge skill and little reason to establish LOS the armor in my mind seems a better investment.

Okay another quick edit, removed two points from system and firewall to up charisma registering and influence. Charisma is used for fading with my stream (higher sprites and threading), registering for better ability to add to CF's, and the influence to compliment the high charisma. Also moved one point from reaction into body. This will make it easy to buy the first couple of points of reaction with low Karma. As its stands I can buy 3 points of drain resistance with threading, so I can thread attack to 8, add a registered sprite for 13 then add 2 dice from codeslinger and 2 dice from paragon and 2 dice from VR hot sim for a total of 19 before adding cybercombat.

Optimization tweak: You might want to check out First Impression. Its +2 social to all tests against people you just met and thats most of the REALLY important rolls. Sack the second point in the Influence group and you could use the 5 points saved to get Blackhammer 5.

Why Blackhammer? Because the scariest thing you'll ever have to fight is another TM and they are almost always in Hot Sim. Plus, you can thread a Targeting program option and later purchase a Psychotropic program option for (rating *2 Karma). Psychotropic (Phobia, Moderate: Cybercombat) is a real GAME OVER for the other guy. In addition to wound penalties they are at -4 dice from the phobia in all Cybercombat even if they aren't fighting back.

Instead of AI and Fixer you could potentially get an AI that is a Fixer at 3/3 or 4/2. Paydata 4tw!

Oh, and I haven't totalled the build you spent but remember Biofeedback is a freebie that cannot be raised further.

you are limited to logic * 2 CFs at chargen. if you can't afford to raise your logic, i would say spoof is probably the first CF i would consider losing (though ideally, you wouldn't lose any of them), but i would probably say set body to 4 so you can boost logic by 1.

strictly speaking, you can only have 2 skills at 5 (or one at 6). so your knowledge skills technicaly can't be all at 5 (though check withy your GM, it is entirely possible your GM simply won't care)

i would say pick up a free sprite as your contact rather than an AI. you will want to know a free sprite for the purposes of submersion ordeals; most of the rest of the submersion ordeals are quite frankly terrible, and you can't afford to be spending more karma on submersions than you have to.

and i still think codeslinger is not really needed. that's 10 BP that could be far more profitably spent elsewhere imo... your attack program at high rating will give you an attack pool that should be more than enough to hit anything that isn't an equally twinked cybercombat TM, or an extremely powerful cybercombat focused free sprite. if you absolutely must take codeslinger,

logic is also your system rating, which effects matrix damage resistance, btw.

How about 'Incompetent: Cybercombat?'

I sort of agree but think it could be kept and used somewhere better. Registering for example.

Gm dosen't include knowledge or language skills in the 2 5's or 1 6 rule

Made some more quick edits to equal out my CF's since I forgot that I could only have 6 with a 3 Log

Still discussing this character may come together yet!

You still need Software in order to use Threading.

Software is a subset of the electronics skills group and therefore is a 4

it's a technomancer... why not thread both? (so that he gets the penalty to all actions, such as trying to jack out, while he is unable to defend himself )

Bwahahahahaha!

I like it.

Actually most of my threading was going to be focused initially on programming options since I can resist a level 3 drain just by buying successes. And my DM dosen't want technos buying options off the bat it seems.

Because if they already have the skill they can't very well forget it... at least thats MY way of looking at it. My own primary TM threads Psychotropic (Simsense Vertigo) to go with his phobia-inducing one.