Hi all

I'm looking at building a technomancer with 400BP that specialises in hacking. I was thinking Technomancer with the Black Hat paragon for flavor. My original concept was a troll technomancer that specialises in cybercombat (Shooter paragon). In looking at the point costs it seems that its bloody hard coming up with a solid TN at chargen, even though they will probably outstrip a mundane hacker over a long enough time frame (with enough karma).

Is there a way you can come up with a solid peforming technomancer at chargen that can stand the pace with a mundane hacker? Overall some of the adept/hacker builds I see would be pretty hard to beat over the long run (I honestly not even sure they can be beat - they just simply get more dice to throw around).

I'm still getting acquainted with 4E rules so this is just based on my initial impressions.

- J.

Well the main areas of competition seem to be that the Technomancer's complex forms don't require the kind of upkeep that high end and military grade hacking software needs to avoid falling behind the curve/degrading. Normal hacking software degrades by 1 point of rating every two months unless you acquired it legally and you registered the full version as it were to the corporate support services (part of the purchase price). Don't forget that at the same time Threading requires a software+resonance test so you should put at least four points into the software active skill and have a decent if not maxed out resonance so that you can easily upgrade your complex forms as needed on the fly.

Secondly, the variety of useful Echos available (especially in Unwired) when you eventually pay Karma for submersion make a lot of expensive gear unnecessary. Widgets in particular have been extremely useful (also in Unwired). This means you can save BP or Karma (if your GM allows Karma generation) allowing you to spend more to raise mental attributes as well as skills and Edge rather than blowing it on stuff that you can lose and is limited by availability at character creation.

Technomancers also have direct and immediate access to AR without the need of AR-goggles, mirrorshades, or cybereyes and thanks to the abilities of Machine sprites they can benefit from extremely powerful "smartlinked" weaponry from the get go. Since you're leaning toward a Troll build I assume that you want the character to be combat capable in the flesh as well as in VR.

So far this has been my experience. Our groups Technomancer has 16 dice to throw around when exploiting systems, 8-10 in most other hacking abilities, 12 complex forms, and can out shoot anyone if she uses a Machine sprite to boost her SMG.

Widgets I thought were disgustingly powerful to be honest.

I noticed with the Echoes that TNs are definitely more versatile, but I wasn't sure if they were more powerful.

On a side note, magicians have a cap on initiating (no higher than grade 6). Is this the same with TNs? I don't recall reading there was a cap...

- J.

First, there is no cap on initiating, for either mage or otaku. You can submerge as often as you have the karma for it.

A starting okatu is going to get eaten alive by a starting decker, no question about it. You have a limit on the number of programs you can have; they don't. Sure, you can run all yours at once, but that does you no good when you really, really need that Edit program.

The way out of this is to specialize, and focus on the things that only you can do: summon Sprites. Raise your summoning and binding skills as far as you can, build up your pools to resist Drain, and carefully choose a Stream that allows you access to the sprites you want. Machine Sprites can greatly increase your ability with firearms, so if you want to go combat, that's a good way to go. (They also work on Emotitoys, to make you into an instant Face.)

When you finally get to submerge, start going after those Echoes! It will make you dramatically more powerful. Unfortunately, skilled deckers will be getting better as well; but focusing on Resonance and Echoes will make up most of that difference. Remember, stay focused on the things that you can do, and deckers can't.

Magicians do not have a cap on initiation and neither do TMs...

Hi Cain

Thanks. I keep hearing that but I'm wondering if that means "focus on remote controlling machines and drones" as well as "leave the hacking to the hackers".

Then again I could just be negative and misinterpreting that.

- J.

Technomancers, as written, are crap at character generation, and take so fucking long to advance to a usable point they are not worth playing.

Of course there will be those that disagree and spout various arguments, but using a Machine Sprite's Diagnosis power on a smartlink does not give you additional dice with your firearm. What it does is give you additional dice for using the smartlink; however, there is no test to use the smartlink, & thus the bonus dice do nothing (the smartlink provides a passive bonus to a different test).

A while back, someone tried to pass off using Analyze Device on a Spellcasting Focus for obscene spellcasting dice pools - it was shot down by litterally everyone else, for the same reasons I just said Diagnosis will not help with firearms, & the guy was basing his argument on exactly the same thing people use to justify the Diagnosis bullshit. I honestly do not understand why everyone keeps thinking this is possible, as they have denied it for the exact same thing (just using Spellcasting instead of Pistols).

Mmm, going to have to agree with Muspellsheimr here. I looked over the idea of an enhanced smartlink since the last time it was brought up and noticed what he said.

Technomancers can be made to be incredibly powerful, over time... the problem is, getting them that far. They have a couple of enormous advantages over hackers, but they pay for those advantages.

Get the complex forms that really matter for your chosen role, thread the rest as needed. Abuse Sprites as much as possible. Play an Info Savant and ignore Cybercombat, you've got Paladin Sprites for that. You mostly need Exploit and Stealth as a Hacker, Spoof to slow down Traces. Ignore Armour, Disarm and Attack, you've got Paladins (Castling is handy for giving you ablative monitor boxes).

Abuse your access to Code sprites to improve your rolls for anything you care about. Can't do any wrong by grabbing Browse, Analyse and Edit. You might want Decrypt. Although you said you want to play a Black Hat paragon Flow works best for someone who tears out the Cybercombat section of the rules.

Um, are there any other programs a hacker needs? I've never played them because the Matrix harms children in its spare time.

The key thing to remember is that you're not a mundane Hacker, so you can't get every CF in existance and load them as you need. Get the bare minimum (and I mean minimum) to get where you want to be.

It does and it doesn't.

You can be as good at *one* aspect of hacking as a decker. If you focus on Exploit, and use Threading heavily, you can come out with a comparable dice pool, if not slightly better. The problem is, that's just *one* area; the matrix demands proficiency in a lot of areas.

Otaku need to be tightly focused on what they can do well. That means Sprites, but not necessarily controlling machines and drones. A sixpack of Sprites are a holy terror in cybercombat, for example. If you focus on compiling and registering sprites, you'll do just fine so long as you use your sprites carefully.

Dont let the naysayer put you down, Technomancers are great if you take time to think ahead and build your character right.

First you need resonance 5 no way around it, its were it all begin, it will limit several stats and complex form so max it up (but dont go for 6, the 25 pts cost is a killer)

second - choose your stream carefully - There is no way you can be good at everything you must specialise. Take a stream that use your best stats, gives you the best choice of sprite and take the right skill and the right complex form.

for a troll go for cyberadept (fading Willpower + resonance) that way you dont get penalized by lower stats for your metarace choice. Also you get a good sprite selection.

take a good look at qualities. Some of them (core book and shadowrun compagnion) will give you some serious boost.

Overall for a cracker, get a good resoning and intuition (3-4)

max the cracking group, put some 1 in electronic.

Max tasking if you can.

you cant have all the skills, you must choose your area of expertise.

dont forget that with a 4 in tasking, you can call nice spritre that can do what you cant or do some thing better than you.

I made a Networker elf and I gave her many complex form along with good skill to back it up. Along with a edge 4, some good quality choice I can roll 12 to 14 dice and any ordinary hacker has a -6 dice penality to detect me.

of course initiation is a must after the play begin.

I made a great hack to build a FBI ID for one of the player by going directly into their mainframe witch is simply impossible for a regular hacker. By submersion into the resonance realm you can find information that has been completely erased from the face of earth as long it was on a computer once. You can gain access to Ivory towers (computer mainframe with no external link).

Its not easy. Like any astral quest its always dangerous.

But if your afraid of danger your in the wrong buisness.

Overall, most technomancer will have a hard time in the begining because there is way too much choice. Dont spread the butter too thin remember you got teammates to do the rest. Technomancer can do stuff simply impossible for hackers. They can interact with machines in a way hacker can only dream about. Invest on that and dont play the hacker game of trying to pile up the biggest dice pool. That super nasty Firewall is useless if you use resonance to go around. Most machine and hacker (or operator in the legit buisness) are incapable of detecting resonance properly and have a hard time detecting it in the first place. Rely on stealth, be a bite in the middle of the infos stream, blend in the flux and unless you hit another technomancer (and you should feal it before you do) you will be just fine.

Play the dice pool game, brute force entry and you can kiss your sorry shadowbutt goodbye.

You can pull some easy tricks as a TM, and therein lies the secret of making them work.

Resonance 5 is almost a given - you need high Stealth. You will usually thread stealth for attempts at hacking a node.

The next trick would be having a few low-rated registered sprites. You can get loads of services out of a low-rated sprite, and the registering is faster, too. Try rating 4. Support Operation (Stealth) on top of threaded stealth will grant you a stealth rating of 11+ for short times, and that means you can hack any node on the fly - if you have a somewhat solid exploit pool.

High Stealth results in low demands on your matrix attributes, so you can dump your mental stats (all except the fading stat). You want a working character, so it´s either Intuition for combat purposes or Charisma for social purposes.

I would ask if your GM is allowing karma gen.

If so, then a Fomori Flow Cyberadept might be right up your alley. Forget about your Bod and Str stats, they are high enough and max out your Resonance to 6 and get 5 for Willpower.

I find it amusing that you call me a naysayer, then turn around and give him the same sort of advice I did.

Bottom line: You cannot hope to build an otaku like a decker, and expect him to come out the same. You have to build them differently.

thats because youre not the one I was refering to.



Actually I respect that opinion but I disagree. Like you Cain I think you can build a great technomancer with 400bp. just dont expect to be good at everything at start.

just to add my little bit, it has been suggested that you do not max out your resonance at chargen, but that you do softmax it. due to the prohibitive cost of improving complex forms using karma, this is not necessarily always the best choice; if you are willing to buy up your complex forms to 6, and you're picking up more than a handful, it will in the long run be cheaper to boost your complex forms to 6 at chargen, even if you include the added cost of buying resonance to 6. add this to the fact that resonance is actually even more important for technomancers than magic is for awakened characters, and it can actually start to look foolish to invest in anything less than 6 resonance, depending on your build.

that is, however, highly subject to just how many complex forms you plan on picking up... if it's only a few, then you definitely don't want to do resonance 6.

as an added note, in the long term perhaps one of the best resources you can spend would be towards knowing a friendly rating 1 free sprite, whom you can donate registered sprites to, allowing you to get an extremely easy trial for a cheaper submersion (it may even be a decent choice to have a contact with a submersion group, but iirc those are a bit easier to find so you may not need to invest in such a contact at chargen)

i will also add my voice to those suggesting that high mental attributes are not your best choice right off the bat... invest in those later, if you want... most of the attributes on your living persona don't need to be softmaxed, or even a 4 really...

I want to know what is than Paladin Sprites is it from Unwired as I donot see it in Shadowrun book. And what is than Code Sprites. Can you turn than fault Sprite into than Paladin Sprite.

Paladin Sprites are in Unwired, as are Code Sprites and Streams. Unfortunately, once you've chosen your Stream, your selection of sprites is fixed, so you can't transform a Fault Sprite into a Paladin. There is a metamagic that allows you to summon more than 5 sprite types, but you're going to have a fun time trying to make up your mind between that and the many other choices you have.

What is it you are asking? I am afraid that your post is quite incomprehensible to me.

It isnot found in the core 4th edition shawowrun book.

Paladin Sprites and Code Sprites are new Sprites introduced in Unwired.

Paladin sprites have 2 powers: Castling and Hardening. Hardening turns their Armour CF into "Hardened" Armour temporarily (assume it means until the Sprite next acts), meaning that it bounces any Matrix damage less than its Rating. Castling allows it to redirect any Damage aimed at the Technomancer to itself, with no Action expenditure.

I assume that means it gets to make its own soak roll. This is why a Resonance 6 Info Savant is a pretty good investment. Start with some services on a Registered Paladin Sprite (Rating 6 thanks to your Resonance) and regularly Compile a second Paladin. You get your soak Sprite to apply Hardening every pass and send the other after anybody who looks at you funny.


The fact that Info Savants also get access to the Code Sprite is what puts them a grade above Cybershamans. Code Sprites get Probability Distortion. Probability Distortion allows you to attempt to increase or decrease the dice pool of a single action by half the Sprites Rating. This is a Complex Action and is Expected to succeed where System <= Rating.

You can begin with some services on a Registered Code Sprite at Rating 6, making this Expected in all practical cases. That gives you a 3 dice nerf or bonus to whatever you want, once a pass.

Thanks. I also makeing change to the chargen like 600 BP and all attributes maxium are increase by 50% as basic attributes which have no BP cost increase by 50% round up to the nearest whole number.. Can technomancers acress Better than Life chip like they do the matrix without than hot rig.

Pardon me but wouldn't using Diagnosis on the gun provide more dice to use the gun, providing you the benefit of a smartlink (i.e. +2 dice) without one? This was my interpretation of the RAW. If anyone is aware of errata that invalidates this, please let me know. Or a thread to that effect. Thanks.

"The Diagnosis power allows the sprite to evaluate the inner workings of an electronic device. The sprite must be accessing the device in question. The sprite can then convey this information and assist someone using or repairing the device. Make a sprite rating x 2 test; each hit adds 1 die to the character’s test to use or repair the item."

Using diagnosis on the gun itself would give the dice pool bonus (while using it on the smartlink would not, I'm with Muspellsheimr on this one), but I'd say guns aren't "electronic devices" although they have electronic parts. They're still mechanical devices.

Electronic Firing mod from Arsenal?

According to Synner, it's coming soon.

German Corebook explicitly excludes weapons and vehicles.
I had a fight with my GM about it, since i am okay with the idea that the sprite can enhance the use of a gun or a car, simply by analyzing it and recalibrate certain settings.
He disagrees.
We don't talk about Diagnostics anymore

i could see removing the bonus from using a handheld gun, but if you're going to say that you get a bonus to using the item, and it doesn't apply to vehicles, turret-mounted weapons, etc, then what exactly *does* it apply to using? may as well just say that tests to modify, build, repair, etc, are improved, and not have anything about using the item at all. (which would be fine, but if that's what they meant, they should have never said anything about a bonus to the dice pool when using the item to begin with).

That's the reason why i want to get rid of them.
Sure, the things are quite overpowered if used en masse, but hey, if you literally put a "Spirit of the Machine" in a gun or a drone, shouldn't it perform a little bit better? And glitch less?
Then again, it would'be been handwaved with "ITS MAGIC!" and Technomancers aren't magicians. Simply saying "by the power of resonance..." wouldn't work, but there has to be something that Diagnostics could improve.

While the German corebook specifically excludes guns and vehicles, the English BBB does not. At this time, it is up to a player and GM to agree on the use of diagnostics in their game. It is a valid interpretation to use it on a gun with a Smartgun system (p. 311 SR4) or a modern vehicle. Frankly, a rating 6 machine sprite is going to add an average of 3 - 4 dice to the dicepool with this power. That's an average of one extra hit for the character. Not a particularly broken power when viewed that way.

its totally ok to get more dice with a smartlink, ok with reflex recorder, ok with some combat buff spells, ok again with improve skill adept power...

there is at least a dozen way to improve a dice pool, a phys ad can get a 40 dice pool to drive a car (the actual number we came up with is 41 I think)

and its wrong to get a couple of dice with a tecno gimmick?

Cry me a river.

As if they weren't bad enough, the best use I've seen for the Diagnostics power is to load one into an emotitoy. Instant Face.