OK, so here's my problem. I'm playing a Technomancer for the first time because the GM made me reroll from my hacker (he got tired of having to throw 14 dice at me and making EVERYTHING military grade to slow me down).
We rebooted the campaign (lost a few players) so I'm starting from scratch. Here's what I've got so far:



SO, how is that? We're using the Attribute + Skill for hacking with successes limited to CF/Program rating optional rule.
Also, the team consists of:
Adept (gunbunny)
Mage (Hermetic)
Mage (Shaman)
Technomancer (me)
and that's it. So TONS of magic, not as much firepower, hence the drones.
What do I need to change?
What do I need to get for Sprites? How should I use them?
What should my tactics be?
I'm used to having A LOT more dice for hacking than this. Techno's really are crazy weak compared to hackers at start. SO any help would be great.

Thanks in advance

my eyes want to jump out of my head and cut off the optic nerves. (translation: please format your character. if there was formatting before you posted it, it has since been beaten with an ugly stick)

I lol'd.

Wait. Your GM is frustrated by his inability to challenge your hacker, so he's forcing you to make a technomancer? Wow. I'm at a loss for words. Wow.

Yes. In a nutshell.

He's weird. On one hand, it's OK to blast a guy with 15DV in firearms, but another thing for me to roll 12+ dice on a hack. Fighting can be handled easily by the team, but my hacking is supposed to be "hard". He thinks I had too many dice to roll for hacking basically. I got Military Grade shit thrown at me every time I tried to hack. It got to the point where he had 6/6/6/6 commlinks being standard in the game for NPCs. I never got paid well for "Paydata" (if he even let me have it in the first place).

I'm probably making it out worse than it was, but he wanted me to be less than I was before, so Techno's are harder to get up there than hackers (250k is enough to get 12 dice pools and be good at hacking with tech, I'm lucky to get 8s with the technomancer). So he wanted it to be harder on me (which sucks, cause no I'm not wired and go ONCE in AR vs my 3x in AR with the tech hacker).

So, is that a good technomancer? I fixed the bleeding eyes formatting a bit, sorry bout that, I just copy pasted from Daisy's output format.

Yes. In a nutshell.

He's weird. On one hand, it's OK to blast a guy with 15DV in firearms, but another thing for me to roll 12+ dice on a hack. Fighting can be handled easily by the team, but my hacking is supposed to be "hard". He thinks I had too many dice to roll for hacking basically. I got Military Grade shit thrown at me every time I tried to hack. It got to the point where he had 6/6/6/6 commlinks being standard in the game for NPCs. I never got paid well for "Paydata" (if he even let me have it in the first place).

I'm probably making it out worse than it was, but he wanted me to be less than I was before, so Techno's are harder to get up there than hackers (250k is enough to get 12 dice pools and be good at hacking with tech, I'm lucky to get 8s with the technomancer). So he wanted it to be harder on me (which sucks, cause no I'm not wired and go ONCE in AR vs my 3x in AR with the tech hacker).

So, is that a good technomancer? I fixed the bleeding eyes formatting a bit, sorry bout that, I just copy pasted from Daisy's output format.

I agree, though maybe for a different reason.

Pollution, have you and your GM read the rules on technomancers closely? Well-built ones can have absurdly huge dice pools for almost anything hacking-related - just not all at once. But you (the generic you, not your specific TM above) can easily use sprites and threading to push your - for example - Stealth and Exploit CF ratings up into double digits and then push your overall dice pool even higher. A standard node's defenses have no hope against this, and it's sorta what TMs do. If your GM is hoping to get by with lower Matrix security requirements by making you play a TM, he's in for a rude awakening.

If your GM thought a Hacker was exploitative in the matrix, wait till he deals with Super TM: Stealth CF at 5, thread it up higher (say to 9), then have a rating 5 registered sprite Assist Operation (unlike spirits, registering sprites is FREE) for 5 more dice. Boom. Everything has to beat your 14 Stealth to even SEE you.

About the only thing balanced is that you will suck in meat. Therefore, use your drones for all their worth: cheese up the Command program the same way with Stealth, and then you don't need more than a 1 in Gunnery to get 19 dice: 5 + 4 + 5 + 2 (hotsim) + 2 (codeslinger) + 1 (gunnery). Oh, and drone mounted weapons don't suffer recoil. Suck on that, Gunbunny!

Edit: Ok, let me be constructive re: your character. You took skillgroups. Don't. You only need Cybercombat, Computer, Hacking, Software, and Electronic Warfare, Registering and Compiling. Skill groups only pay off if there are three skills in that group that are equally important. Out of the Electronics Group, you only need Computer and Software. Out of the Tasking group, only Compiling and Registering. Drop those two groups. Data Search has exactly one roll attached to it, which you can easily get a sprite to do for you. Hardware is not terribly useful. You want Software, Registering, and Compiling v. high. As I showed you with the two above examples, a TM can get pretty far with mediocre skills with the Threading and Assist Operation tricks.

As to your CF's: I again don't think you need Browse that badly. Have a sprite do it for you. You do want Command higher. You probably want some ECCM, because as a TM your Signal is going to be sucky (Resonance/2, round up)- a low level Jammer can completely screw you.

You probably don't need both pistols and automatics. Drop automatics. You may want to consider some qualities, since you generally can't get them in Play. Codeslinger and More than Metahuman are good ones to consider, as is the Perceptive qualities from RC (2nd level gives you +2 to perception, including matrix.)

Edit 2: Oh, saw your GM is using the optional rule of Attribute + Skill. You are screwed, sorry! TM's are all about programs, and your GM just nerfed them to hell.

Yeah, that's going to really hurt your effectiveness a lot. Now you don't really have any way to get extra hacking dice - no 'ware, and threading/help from sprites only raises the cap. And still only one IP in AR (at least until submersion). If your GM really intended to hobble you this badly, it might be better to play something else and get an NPC hacker.

Basically you're screwed. Just make super gunnery drones with sprites or play a face or something.

I'd say that the optional rule doesn't hurt one of the most brutal things about Technomancers. You don't roll your Stealth. It's just a threshold for other people, which means that his change to the rules doesn't really effect your ability to abuse the world with a Stealth threaded up to 9 or 10.