TM´s can still afford to get implants. Trauma Damper, Cerebral Booster 3, Muscle Toner 1. The Trauma Damper alone would almost be worth it. Build for resonance 5, increase resonance, get under the knife. The option would have been worth 30 old karma IMO. Logic +3, Fading -1. Now guess what your stream would be tied to.

As for increasing resonance to 6 for the sake of keeping it, I personally wouldn´t. Develop a threading habit and you should be fine with base CFs of 5.

^^^ Was gonna post this. Too bad sourcerors have a pretty uninteresting set of sprites and singularitarians are weird as hell, but LOG-tied fading is pretty sweet (I'd probably get a cyberfoot with a nanite hive in it and some gene therapy like optimization (LOG) and/or PuSHeD over the muscle toner though). You can get a lot of stuff for 1 essence, even without resorting to more than alphaware.

For the sake of flavor, I really don't like getting implants on magicians/technomancers/etc. It's too... eh... min/max-y.

Anyway, I'm happy with the amount and quality of replies so far. Thanks all.

Sourcerors have Code sprites and Machine Sprites. I would not call that uninteresting. They are lacking in Paladin sprites, but those are only an echo away. (@Bobfly: I was of your opinion at first, but found a solution. The basic set does indeed lack combat sprites.)

So... I was reading up on Echoes and scuffing at Flexible Touch, since you can take a # of complex actions equal to the rating of a signature to scrub it off the face of the matrix. Prety slow going, but worth it as a compromise when you gotta be sneaky, I thought. Use that karma for something better. But then it hit me. I don't know what constitutes a use of a Resonance ability. Maybe TMs are bleeding resonance all over the place, maybe every damn node they go to is drenched in the stuff! Maybe you're gonna be plastering the walls with it automatically faster than you can clean up (in which case, what's the damn point of allowing you to try in the first place )
So help me Dumpshock, you're my Only Hope.
I expect threading and tasking both definitely count.
Does every use of a CF count?
Even passive uses? Do you leave a fine film of sticky resonance on a node when it checks against your Stealth CF to see if you're being detected? Hell, do you leave a snail track everywhere you 'go' with the CF active, even if nothing is looking at you?
Welp. Well, I suppose it depends on how much of a dick your GM is being.
Maybe I need to look at that Echo again.

Resonance, ware, and karma:

IT WORKS LIKE MAGIC PEOPLE

If you have Res 6 and get 'ware and it drops to 5 you have to (submerge and) raise it to 7(6) paying 7*(3 or 5) karma (21 under SR4, 35 under SR4A).

It's technically up to the GM, but according to the story flavor and even some other abilities and echos, you leave traces of yourself everywhere. Using Blur as an example:

@Draco18s: Yes? Has that rule changed with SR4A?

No, but people in this thread were talking about 6 -> 5 raise back to 6 as being 30 karma (6*5), which was wrong.

Right, yeah, I get that every use of Resonance leaves skidmarks. But what constitutes a use of resonance? Do you drip on nodes just by passing through them, since you're accessing the matrix using your brain? That leaves TMs open for tremendous dickery by belligerent GMs, the way I see it. Of course, only other TMs can see the trail, but I bet the corps employ quite a few at this point.

Actually I wonder how many that would be. Are there any figures on TM rarity?

NOTE: I realize of course that this discussion is pretty much purely academic.

Uses of resonance would typically be denoted by any action that requires you to actually roll your resonance attribute. But for just gallivanting around in a VR playground, I doubt any sensible GM would seriously up your resonance trail if you aren't really doing anything.

That... Makes a lot of sense, yeah. Doomsday scenario averted, heh. Thanks for bearing with me.

Could you give a page reference where it explicitly states that you use your pre-cyber value for Magic/Resonance?
I mean, if one of the Devs(Tiger Eyes) even uses the post cyber value, I think the post cyber value is what is supposed to be used.

I wouldn´t agree with you in that case. Costs for increasing an attribute work from the new attribute rating, and implants reduce resonance, rather than causing a virtual reduction.

As written, TMs are less than 1 in 100,000 (see SR4A). Note that we didn't say how much less... and consider corporations are still hunting them down and trying to actively peel their brains apart. All those TMs that were killed or stripped of their powers during Emergence? That cut down the population significantly. Look at the big technomancer groups, like KivaNet: 10 TMs (covering all the NAN), or the Co-op: 7 TMs.

Anyway. This is just in reply to the idea that corps employ quite a few at this point -- every TM they peel apart, is one less TM to employ. And how many TMs will work for a corp when they might end up on the disecting table themselves? I don't know that outside of a few of the megas (like Horizon and Evo), any megacorp has a significant population of TMs working for them...

This is kind of how I saw it as well...

GAWD people, don't you read my posts?

I was initially replying to this:





Which is wrong. So I posted the right math, then got told I was an idiot for even posting it, so I posted WHY I posted it and now both of you are calling me an idiot for posting the WRONG math!

Hey Draco... Don't know how it is supposed to work (it seems kind of fuzzy)... We always count reductions in stat as a LOSS of the stat, regardless of the source (augmentation, loss due to a crisis of faith, etc.)... as such, you may use the rules to purchase as they are stated... New Rating x 5 so in the example that everyone is citing... it would cost 30 Karma to return to a 6 (after initiation of course, to raise the maximum back to a 6)

May not be exact, but it works...

Keep the faith man...

Head + Desk
*Smash*
And people wondered why this forum was my low point in ShadowRun.

Page 62, BBB:



Magic and Resonance work exactly the same. Raising Resonance to 6 when one has a point of cyberware costs 30 karma. But the result is a Resonance of 5. Raising it again to have an actual 6 requires a submersion AND 35 KARMA.

Well there you go...

No need for the Desk + Head... Walls work so much better, at least there you can get a pretty nice head shaped hole...

I'll admit that I'm not the best person to ask about this. But for what it's worth, here's the actual text:



and



So, to me, it sounds like it actually reduces your attribute, and you need to spend the karma to raise it back to that level. It doesn't drop your "functional" attribute (note we don't say magic 4 (3) -- there is only ever one stat for magic, unlike attributes that are modified by something). So, you start out in character generation with a Resonance 5. You pay your BP to get resonance 5 (40 BP). You get 1 essence worth of 'ware, and your Resonance drops to 4. You've already paid to have it be 5 (you buy resonance prior to the 'ware; so you've just blown 10 BP for the privilage of having that ware). Once game play starts, you have a Resonance 4, and a Max of 5. You want to increase it, and you pay 5*5 (25) karma to get it to 5. If you want to raise it to 6, you must submerge once & pay 6*5 (30) karma.

The penalty comes during chargen. If in game play, a TM with Resonance 5 gets some ware, then their resonance drops to 4 (totally screwing up their living persona, I bet), and they'd have to paid again to bring it back to 5.

Either way, you pay twice for that point you lose.

Tyger Eyes, then the amount of Karma that a (near) cyberzombie pays to increase their magic isn't exorbitantly huge:

Magic 1, Max 1, 0 initiations

to

Magic 9, Max 9, 8 initiations.

Is the same cost for a normal mage to awaken and raise his magic to 9 and get 8 initiations.

And he doesn't have the cyberware penalties!

Yes to requiring submersion, no to 35 karma. Your quote goes on to speak of the penalty being a full point of lost resonance. So you start at 6, lower to 5 due to implants, submerge, and increase back to 6 (6*5, as no special rule applies).


That is the penalty. The loss of a point of magic/resonance and a reduced limit for all purposes.

Edit: Too damn slow.

For what it's worth, after reading SR4A again, I'm going to have to go with Tiger Eyes on this one.

Won't the guy with 5 lost Essence have to pay his way up from 1-6 twice? He can't have Magic 1, get 5 points of cyberware, and then go up to 9 - his magic'd drop to 0 which, as I understand it, irrevocably burns him out. It's not much, admittedly, but it's something.

It's done in stages, obviously.

Yes, you have to pay for points 2 to 6 twice, but I thought the whole point was that you had to buy to magic 12 then get 6 points of cyber/bio to have magic 6 afterwards, regardless of the order in which you buy things (buying magic 12, then cyber costs MORE karma "Tyger Eye's Way" that buying magic 6, 5 points of cyber, magic 6 again, and 1 point of cyber*).

Either way, some clarification needs to be put into the book.

*If you have 1 Essence and 1 Magic and 0 Initiations you can initiate and go up 1 point max magic, which allows for a 2ns point of magic. Do this as much as you want, finishing up with an initiation, then spend that last point of essence. Provided that you never go below 0 Essence your Magic, Max Magic, Initiations, and Max Initiations will all be the same value (you would be unable to raise any of them).

See, This is the way we have always don it... "Lose" being the operative word in all the quotes of the Text...

This is also very true, IF a cyber zombie could raise their magic attribute, WHICH THEY CANNOT DO... Page 157 (Augmentation) under Dual Nature heading...

Sorry, Misread what you intended... Saw Cyberzombie and assumed

However, you could do exactly what you show... it would be cheap, and if that is something that you don't want to do as a GM, there are ways around it... like the 'ware that was obtained was unknowingly used 'ware... the implantation then reduces the attrubute below 1 and you now have a burnout... easy peasy...

I have not seen anyone abuse that to the extreme that you posit in play, but I guess it could happen...

2 Cents

Oh sure, the GM can do things like that. But by RAW it's a perfectly acceptable thing to do. It's like Pun-Pun in D&D, no GM would ever allow the Divine Minion cheese.

Or Rodrigo, who, I think, is tangentially related to the Pornomancer. I never did ask Jim for the build on him.

Your right... perfectly acceptable by RAW

To get back to the original topic a little, look at question #1 (the Switching Initiative one).

Is there any huge exploit potential if your IPs for a combat turn changed immediately, rather than only at the start of a new turn?

Example: My technomancer has 1 meat IP. For his action, his switches to VR (free) and starts exploiting a node (complex). His initiative score is shifted upwards (per the rules), but let's say his IPs also raise from 1 to 3. That leaves him with 2 more IPs this turn.

I don't see that as all that bad. Nobody gets mad at street sams for leaving their wired reflexes on 24/7, even though turning that on is supposed to be a free action. Am I missing something?

We didn´t know of that rule and gave them out immediately the whole time. You might run into attempts to sell you on 3 physical IPs / change to VR in the last pass / spend 3 matrix IPs, which is pretty wrong. (No, we didn´t have that issue.)

Never tried that option... how does it work for you, Any problems

Arise my minion!

Apologies for the threadomancy, but I have more technomancer questions.

The echo Swap. Does it reduce the sustaining penalty for all the complex forms that you're sustaining?

Defragmentation. What exactly does it heal?

Threading. Can I thread a complex form higher that my System/Logic? Do unsustained threads last only for the purposes of a single check, or is it longer than that?

Swap: Counts once against the complete sustaining penalty.

Defragmentation: All damage that would normally end up on the matrix condition monitor.

Threading: If what you write is correct, SR4A introduced some changes there. [Old answer: 2*resonance / threading has to be sustained (dropping it after the test is fine).]

I have no idea whether it's right or not. My thinking was that threading increases the rating of a complex form, rather than providing a bonus. Complex forms are directly equivalent to programs. Programs are limited to the system rating of the device they're running on.

=> Even after threading, a the max rating your complex form can 'run' at is limited by your Logic. The benefit of the 2*Res rule is only worthwhile when your Logic>Resonance.

Correct? Or have I missed something?

And thanks for the other answers. I though swap looked a bit too good

Complex forms are not programs, even if they are based on them. You can happily bring your stealth to 10+ while your logic is 3. Have fun.

Okaaay. So then why do I care about my logic score? The odds of meeting another technomancer and having them try and crash my living persona seem vanishingly small, and what else am I using System for?

You don't.
Even Technomancers are script kiddies.

damage resist tests use system. depending on your stream (and especially if you don't have unwired) you resist fading with logic also, iirc. also, there are a few (albeit not many) tests that use system, iirc. they don't come up quite as often though...

Logic is important because it's your System attribute. Technomancers only get System x 2 for a subscription limit, and they can't go past that like mundane hackers/riggers can (at the cost of Response performance.) Slaved devices count towards this (yes, this is your vehicles, drones, smartlinked guns, any nodes you are currently active in or hacking into, etc.)

It's good to have Logic at 4, 5 if you can help it, so you have a good subscription limit, especially if you are a dronomancer and liable to be involved with a drone swarm or vehicle fleet all at the same time.

Ok, that makes a bit more sense. I've been trying to build a TM and assuming that I needed 6 logic minimum just to run CFs worth a damn, but it seems 4-5 will do just fine. Thanks everyone.

Next question Is there a limit other than Res*2 for taking CFs with BPs? If I start with res 5 is there anything stopping me starting with say Blackhammer 10?

Yeah, remind me to make complete arguments.

Resonance limits your "natural" CF rating.
Resonance*2 limits your threaded CF rating.

Logic*2 limits your chargen number of CFs.


Your way to Blackhammer 10 is Blackhammer 5 + a "registered sprite rating 5" service ("Support Blackhammer please." or "Allocate processing cycles to blackhammer!").

Hmmm. Man, this is complicated. Thanks again.

I have to say a propos of not much, I really do like the fact that technomancers can follow the same basic rules mechanics as deckers and yet feel completely different.

It's a steak dinner: best digested one bite at a time. Now that I think about it, most RPGs are.


I've come to the same conclusion. It's also the reason, I think, why the Matrix rules are so different from the rules for magic and for physical actions. While I've never said so to the guy who wrote them in Unwired (and I could), I think it would do a disservice to the feel of the game if the optional rules that make the Matrix work more like either magic or the physical world are used.

Hey, guess what, I have more questions

Firstly, can technomancers write software for, say, drones, using the technomancer version of the software skill?

Machine Sprites. Can I send a machine sprite into a drone to effectively 'override' the original pilot in a drone, and use the sprites pilot rating and autosofts instead? If I can, can the sprite use any existing autosofts in the drone?

Can I use tutor sprites to teach me activesofts? The phrase "In storage he can access" in the emulating rules gives me issues with this?

Should skillwire expert system be available as an unrated complex form, and would the actual cyberware function with Biowire?

Thanks in advance.

Again.

I´ll leave the first questions to someone who already has SR4A.

I would not permit you to learn/copy skillsoft CFs from a tutor sprite, with the ingame justification you give. Biowire with (effectivly) free skillsofts is a bit too good, more so relativly to skillwires given the increased price of skillsofts. One could easily rule this differently though.

The skillwire expert system should not be available for Biowire IMO. You can emulate skillsofts with the DIMAP option if you want.

Veggiesama’s questions have sparked a question of my own. My Technomancer has 2 real world IPs (due to Acceleration) so if I go into VR on my first IP I should still get my second IP in the matrix (is this correct?) . would my initiative score then shift from the meet world (base 10 + hits scored) to my matrix (base 11 + ?? hits scored on the base 10 roll???)

So I guess I have 2 question
1) when I switch from meet world to matrix do I keep my remaining IP
2) what would my initiative score be once I’m in the matrix

Initiative score: Pre-SR4A (German pg. 134), you adjust your result by the difference in basic initiative, in your example 10(+hits scored) + (11-10) = 11(+old number of hits).

The number of IPs is set to the lower value, in your case min(2;3) = 2.