Is it just me, or does no one really get super excited about hackers, riggers, and technomancers? I see posts about magic or street samurais all the time. Adepts too. But where is the love for the techies?

I have a new game starting soon, with five players (including myself) and of course a GM. I don't know what two of the other players will be playing, or what role they want to cover for the group. I've drafted up one character idea, full with a character sheet and backstory (A Dryad, who is a dedicated summoner. Have a full history, and tons of quirks-- should be fun to play)... But as things stand, no one has chosen to play a hacker, technomancer, or rigger of any sort. I think it would be fun to play a tech-geek or gear-head character, and if the other two undecided players in my group don't want to cover a tech role, I think I might put my current mage on hold, and play a tech guy instead. I'm actually pretty excited about it, and want to prepare a character sheet.

So, assuming a group only has one go-to tech guy-- What would perform their role better? What is the best way to go about it? Should I go with a mundane hacker who dabbles in rigging? A hacker who is chromed up, using cyber-limbs to boost his low Strength, Agility, and Body? A technomancer?

Though I've seen quite a few postings on creative ways for hackers to do things, I haven't seen much of a clear guide on what is needed to create an effective hacking character (Obviously an amazing commlink decked out with high rating programs). What qualities are best to choose?

What about building an effective Technomancer? Any other qualities that are great at creation for them? Would they be as good, or better than a mundane hacker with access to lots of money?

Oh, and... How are AI as player characters? Can they do really well too? Or is it too limiting?

There are no posts about hackers/technomancers and the likes?

Are you using another forum than this, usually?

Though, yeah, awakened characters are quite popular.

As for your actual question... I don't think a dedicated rigger is really needed. A hacker is good, and an appropriately high skill for the B&E stuff (Logic/Hardware mostly) is definitely useful as well. No experience with technomancers myself, but I think a hacker would be easier to fill in a more general role.

So, I would go with a hacker, who has a car and can drive it, and maybe a couple drones for surveillance (not for combat, that requires too many resources, that you need otherwise). It's certainly possible to be decent in combat yourself as well (not a fully chromes out sam, but better than a typical security guard for sure).

Bye
Thanee

Most of the posts I have seen have been on character improvement, or various other questions. Not so much on Chargen. I suppose I can search back a lot further-- but I didn't see any posts specific to this yet.

Between a Hacker and a Technomancer, your best bet if you're worried about your stats at character creation is the Hacker. You'll have better scores across the board, access to better implants that have zero negative impact on your abilities, and lots of resources leftover to buy a swanky commlink and programming suites. Technomancers are better specialists and have unlimited growth capabilities, but it requires quite an investment of Karma to get them there down the road. Especially if you consider that the Hacker is earning the same amount of Karma and using that to improve his abilities, too. Plus the Hacker can use all that cash to tweak his programs and commlink, whereas the Technomancer doesn't have quite as much use for cash.

Since a Rigger is just a specialist, the same holds true for the most part. The Hacker will have more resources available at the start of play to have pimped out drones and vehicles while the Technomancer will have to make sacrifices to match that. In the long run, however, the Technomancer will have more cash available to focus on his drones and vehicles while the Hacker has to worry about his commlink and programs as well.

Summary: Hacker if you just want to focus on the early game, Technomancer if you're a big picture kinda guy. Riggers are viable as both and the same holds true. Keep in mind that both Hackers and Technomancers can do the job just fine without specializing in it, so you don't have to be a dedicated Rigger to fill the role of one.

That said, if you're going to be the only "tech guy" I'd recommend going Hacker for all the reasons mentioned above. You'll have the BPs to not only become a badass hacker in the Matrix, but you'll be able to pick up the various tech skills that will facilitate both you and your team. Skills like Hardware to crack maglocks, Armorer to tweak weapons and armor, the various Mechanics so you can work on drones and vehicles, and Pilot skills so you can rig them first hand. You can also afford most of the nice implants that make you really stand out next to an early Technomancer.

If you're in it for the long haul and think the game will last, a Technomancer definitely has all the potential, though. It just takes a really long time to catch up and then surpass the Hacker. But when you do, the sky's the limit.

Thanks Doc. This was actually exactly the sort of thing I was trying to figure out.

There seems to be more "cool stuff" a technomancer can do-- and I think this game is going to last for a while. From what I can tell of the GM, cash isn't going to be nearly as limiting a factor as karma... But the eventual limit on growth of a hacker kind of bothers me. If I invest all of my karma specifically into being a better technomancer, I guess I can spend all my cash on new toys (read: drones and cars) for me to interact with the meat world directly with.

Plus, I think if I have an optimized hacker who is near max, right at creation in terms of matrix ability-- I think my GM might simply throw really hard stuff at me right away. It might be better to gradually show improvement as a technomancer in this respect, because if I become really good eventually, it won't be as shocking as having it happen all at once (if that makes sense).

Anyone have a good understanding of what makes a good technomancer then? Qualities at creation? Which attributes I need the most? My knowlege of technomancers is the fuzziest of any character type-- but they seem fun.

But the idea of a gear-head hacker/rigger, who tinkers even with the 'ware on his own body.. It seems fun too. Wouldn't have to worry much about essence, and I could get all sorts of skillwires.

My gut says technomancer; sprites and threading make you very flexible. If you have to cover all the bases yourself, that's what I'd pick.

It's a question of taste, too. I wanted to play a very science-oriented hacking character, so in the end I took a regular hacker. I like tools and implants. And the somewhat fuzzy intuitive feel of the technomancer didn't work so well with that.

The big split is this:
* Technomancers have Sprites, which are powerful, and Threading, which is also versatile.
* Hackers can throw money at problems, and get to use implants, which can also be powerful (but expensive).

Riggers are rather different than those two; they're rather on the hardware side. You solve your differences with drone-mounted guns instead of cybercombat. It's doable to dabble in rigging, but dabbling in hacking is a bad idea; you need to be really specialized to have a good success rate.

It may also depend on the details and the flavor of the campaign overall. Technomancers are the "new mages/elves/orks" in terms of discrimination, and they are widely feared and misunderstood in developed nations. They are often conflated with other Matrix issues (Those terrorist AIs, they must be a technomancer thing! The Crash 2.0 was caused by Technomancers. They are barely metahuman, those robot animals.) in public opinion, although it helps that Evo and Horizon are "on their side" for now. Some GMs may play up this aspect, while others will ignore it. My current technomancer barely understands his technomancer abilities, and mostly sees them as a tool for larceny rather than a magic-like gift.

If you want to play a more cerebral character, a true "techie", a regular hacker might be up your alley. If you are the ONLY techie in the group, then it's probably better to be a hacker due to the fact that technomancers are huge Karma black holes, like initiate-grade mages. You can use that Karma to develop yourself and broaden your skills, rather than continually burning Karma on further specialization.

I'm not terribly worried about the character being a true "techie". My main concerns are to make sure that that my group is protected from hackers, to be able to take out drones and security systems we come across, and to get the data we need. Not really too concerned with the theory behind how he does it-- both hackers and technomancers have pretty cool flavor points. I just want to be a good team player, who is really good at his job.

If you only have one spot a hacker will go further. Cyber + skills will mean he/she is very well rounded.

- J.

Yeah, you want a Hacker for sure. They are, without a doubt, the techie generalist. They do everything really well.

It's entirely arbitary and depends on how your GM thinks the rules work. If you go by the rules in the book, the best riggers are

Technomancers > Riggers > Others

and the best hackers are

Others > Technomancers > Hackers > Riggers.

The reason the characters get no love is that the rules are terrible, and what your GM thinks the rules are will have only a limited association with what the rules in the book say. For example, technomancers can summon abusive spirits to get truly dumb gunnery pools out of drones. Is this okay? It might not be. It's not even clear that it works in the first place. What about agents? The fact that any hacker can hack into Zurich orbital and probably won't set of an alert if he spends a week doing it. How does the wifi matrix work in your game?

Given the number of variables that boil down to GM interpretation, it's totally pointless trying to discuss hackers in the abstract because Game A, Game B and Game C all have different matrix houserules because the GMs universally don't apply the rules that are written down in the actual book.

Well, my GM has played Shadowrun a few times in previous versions. But not a lot in depth. Our entire group is new to the game. Some members have played a couple sessions of previous editions in the past-- but I'm totally new. So both the GM and myself are studying the matrix rules in depth on our own, trying to make sense of it, learning as we go.

I haven't had much of a chance to see how he thinks things work yet. So far, everything is pretty RAW. Not a lot of house rules-- yet at least.

I will bet you 10 bucks that while you may think you're running the matrix by the RAW you won't actually be doing that. Mostly because the rules make little sense in many well documented places. So as a result, people guess what they think the rules say and run that, resulting in hundreds of games that 'are pretty close to RAW' that are all completely different in terms of the matrix.

Anyway, my biggest piece of advice is if you are making the terrible mistake of making a hacker, you need to sit down with your GM and ask him how he thinks it works. Then from that, you can make a character.

1- being a dedicated hacker takes like 200BP's, which leaves plenty of room to start something else of use.

2-what makes a rigger different? A VCR, piloting skills, and mechanic skills. he can also biuld/buy drones for all different scenarios. he also seems the mosta techie to me.

3-technomancers are the "magical" equivelant of above. Slower to develope, better in the end.

I'd go with a hacker that has a VCR and grow from there

You have to know how your GM uses Matrix rules. Maybe ask him for a quick solo session for your PC, just to see how the rules work and to test PC's abilities - I mean some easy Matrix run, like supporting a shadowteam of NPCs. That should be also a good idea for other players - combat characters can test their muscles on some cheap gangers or Humanis goons, for example. I mean 1-hour mini-sessions.

I'll ask him to do that. But first I need to design a character.

I don't have much to add on the relative usefulness of the 3, since a) I've never played SR4 and b) we always used NPC deckers and c) I'm not sure I've ever met an Otaku, BUT

When I mentioned what some of the basic character types were, my fiancée went totally and completely squee over the Rigger. She *loves* the idea and can hardly wait until she plays one.

I don't blame her, it's one of my favorite concepts in the game. I just can't ever seem to make one that I like though. It's very odd.

Riggers can be built to do all the hacker actions rather easily and still have enough money (using the born rich quality from the Runners' Companion) to get a great set of drones and a vehicle.

Technomancers can be total matrix monsters, thanks to echoes, limitless program levels, and sprites. But to be such a beast at the matrix through a technomancer, it takes a whoooooole lot of karma, which means that you'll have less to spend on other aspects of your character. The cons to technomancers are that implants reduce your resonance, and that you can't just throw money at your hacking problems. But while most of your karma will be put to either stat or complex form upgrades, you will have a whole lot nuyen to spend on rigging. It's mix-and-match really.

If you're into Sprites as a Technomancer don't overlook the Codeslinger quality. Compile (or Register) Sprite is a Matrix action, so you have a +1 on them all. Worth the 10 BP I think.

Analytical Mind is good and of course Paragon.

I'm still trying to figure out how to play TMs well. But thankfully Unwired has greatly expanded their capabilities (to somewhat very powerful levels). It also lets you choose your own Fading attribute, so your TM doesn't need to have a high Logic. You can very well be some sorta Face/TM but that eats up a whole lot of Karma too.

TMs are fun, I voted for them. But a Hacker-Rigger is pretty powerful, I'd say they're more effective even if I prefer the TM for style purposes.

In my opinion the first thing you ought to do is not distinguish rigger as its own full fledged roll since you are the be all end all of tech for your group. Essentially you are choosing to be a Hacker or a Technomancer, and from there you may decide to delve into rigging to a lesser or greater extent.

i will add one thing:

it isn't entirely true that technomancers start off slower than hackers. you can start off with a technomancer who is an extremely effective hacker, competitive in hacking duties in every way.

what you can't do is start off with a technomancer who is as good or better than a hacker while also being much more than dead weight in any other scenario.

but really, with proper use of threading and sprites right out of the gate, you can do some ridiculous stuff as a technomancer. just don't expect to be able to win a fistfight vs an armless 8-year old child or anything like that.

You need to do it the other way around. There are literally a dozen different pieces of skills, abilities and equipment that will range between 'Critical' and 'A waste of BP that you are not even allowed to use' depending on how the GM thinks the matrix might work.

Don't do a full adventure - just pull the sample character out of the book and ask the GM how hacking a node works, and take note of restrictions on 'AR' 'Agents' 'Matrix Perception' 'Diagnose Device(?)' for starters.

ROFL. I laughed aloud because its true.

I was playing around with a troll TM to see if I could build one that would be decent in unarmed combat once I invest in the right echoes. In short -- no, it doesn't work.

- J.

As did I.

The matrix rules aren't *that* hard; really!

They are incredibly misunderstood and misapplied though. Although some groups remove/alter intentionally; and others just avoid some of the contradictions / degeneracies present in the RAW rather than houseruling around them.

Hackers are very powerful if developed well... Technomancers can be awesome, but you are exactly right, it takes a LOT of Karma to do so...

And the Technomancer for Style Points alone is awesome in my opinion...

Keep the Faith

Please be aware that a number of sprites are unable to take the matrix perception action, that makes them in turn unable to engage with the matrix. You need house ruling to make some sprites capable of perceiving icons if you go down this route.

Or just don't use those particular sprites for things that would require such actions... And remember, you do not need to make a perception (Matrix or otherwise) test for things that are considered obvious... Some Icons are obvious and need no roll to perceive, such as those that are attacking you...

Keep the Faith

While you may hold that interpretation, it is not stated in the book. The book does certainly state under the matrix perception action that you need to roll it to render any icon, and you need to have rendered the icon before you can engage with it - which is a precondition to taking any action on a node.

So you need to be able to pass a matrix perception check to do anything on a node. Which means that a sprite that cannot pass a matrix perception check is, infact, completely useless.

Now, you may elect to house rule around it and thus create a use for crack sprites (which, incidentally still need the required skills with your house rule, because decrypted pay data may not be obvious so your proposed interpretation still leaves them without a use), but you need to make sure this is the case up front.

I can see that interpretation, if it actually worked that way... Do you have a page reference, as I must have missed that...

From what I am reading, if you want SPECIFIC information, you must make a Matrix perception Test... for each net hit you may ask for one piece of information about the object. It is not necessary to do so to interact with the object in any way other than to ferret out any non-obvious specific information; and if you do not want to make such a test, the Analyze Program, in concert with your Computer Skill, can be set to automatically perform this function for you, at which point the GM rolls your test in secret and informs you of the results so you do not have to worry about such things... The only real time that this becomes an issue is if the Icon is using Stealth Programs, at which point the Matrix perception test becomes opposed... and if you do not detect them, then they fade into the matrix background noise... See page 228, SR4A

Now as for the Crack Sprite... it has both the Analyze CF and a Computer Skill, so it is capable of making a Matrix perception Test with no difficulty, and in fact, the only Sprite not capable of performing such tasks are the Tank Sprites, because they do not need it, as they tend to not Analyze Things, just break them, so I am unsure of where you are getting your interpretation from...

Anyways...

Keep the Faith

will do when I get home! Btw: I'm pretty sure you need a test to tell how many icons there are in the node, and the specific infomation example given is 'what is it'

Right I checked. First up, needing the matrix perception test. The list of things that are on the list of specific infomation you can request includes fundamental infomation such as "type"

If you don't know if it is a file, user, agent, IC or program, you don't know anything useful. You cannot meaningfully interact with a node until you've gone through every ARO icon and found out if this is the droid/file/on button you are looking for. Soo...



This is wrong.

However, I will concede the point about sprites. They've added the computer skill to all sprites, but this is not reflected in the changelog from SR4 to SR4A. Which is a great coverup of their dopey mistake the first time I will admit, but yes it is fixed in SR4A. If you're using SR4, you need to make this change yourself as it's not in the SR4A changelog.

Real-world perception tests also include some fundamental things, like noticing that something exists at all. So by your logic a character without perception skill would be in a constant state of sensory deprivation, or at least completely unable to gain any information from the input of his senses

Hacker over Technomancer over Rigger. Hackers can use cyberware or bioware more easily, so they can make themselves half-decent in a few other areas as well.

Hey, I didn't write the rules. There is nothing in the matrix perception section that talks about 'obvious'

With the flexibility of Sprites, particularly Machine and Crack sprites, technomancers win. Find a stream you like that gives you the sprites you need, focus completely on compiling and registering, and win the internet. Hackers can dabble at rigging, riggers can dabble at hacking, but TMs can do both pretty easily.

...and in real world perception tests, something obvious needs one hit. So if you say "anything that's in the perception test table cannot be discerned without a perception test", that also has to be true for obvious, large, and loud information...



As for the topic, see DWC.

Wait so you're saying that the matrix rules are lying to you about what you need to do? It even explictly says it needs a simple action to do so?

Ok this confuses me a bit. I wanted to make a Dronomancer but I couldn't find how sprites would make use of the softs needed to fight in a drone since they use complex forms, not programs. It says machine sprites only get, and Im doing this from memory mind you, something like 1 soft and then another every 3 rating points right? Does that basically mean instead of having one agent with all the needed softs (or at least most of them) I need to divide the work among three or so sprites?

Yes. Plus, sending the sprite off into the node without your persona in it counts as a remote service, so any command given will either take up all of your tasks or you will need to have the sprite registered. This is not much more optimal than simply giving a drone an autosoft and relying on its pilot program.

There is a better way to do control drones as a TM. Get the Command CF at 6, then have your registered machine sprite Assist Operation, adding its rating to your dp. Throw in codeslinger: control device, your + 2 bonus for operating in hot sim VR, and you can throw some pretty nasty amounts of dice without ever leaving the van. This all with only having a skill of 1 in the associated skill and a specialization in remote operations.

Command cf 6 + 6 (Assist Operation)+ 2 Codeslinger + 2 Hot Sim + 1 Skill + 2 specialization = 19 dice, which you will generally use to shoot things with. Note it doesn't even need to be a drone you're commanding- have your allies give you access rights to their guns, and do the same thing.

Sprites, unlike spirits, really need to be registered to be useful.

EDIT: I suppose you could put your persona in the drone as well (your only limit on how many personas you have active in the matrix is your subscription limit), but then you'd be risking feedback. It'd be a way to have a sprite controlling a drone without it being registered, I suppose. In that case, a rating 6 machine sprite would be throwing 12 dice at whatever task you asked it to via the drone. "Control this drone according to my wishes" is probably to be a vague to be a task; "Kill my opponents" would probably apply to a group of guards, however.

I ran a TM right out of the gate, so I may be a tad bit biased. Really, using a 400BP system, I made a strong TM in the hacking area. ~12+ dice to use for hacking on day one. He was also against killing. So he had a paintball gun filled with DMSO'ed paralysis agents. His dice pool for shooting? I think it was 6 to start. I had a small set of skills in rigging and piloting, about three dice each, since in game, his sister[my roomie out of game] was a rigger, drone and vehicle specialist. Recommendations for a TM would be Codeslinger[+2 dice to any matrix action of your choice] Hacking with a specialization in something[mine was exploit]. Grab a combat skill, and a couple ranks in pilot groundcraft. If you also toy with drones, get "more than metahuman", allows you to jump in and out as a free action. Later on, when you submerge, I'd recommend getting the skinlink echo, overclock echo, and the neurofilter echo. Multi processing, swap, immersion, and e-sensing are all things you may want to take a look at.

You're missing an option... I vote for hacking adept.

Also, decker/riggers are almost the same thing now (not a bad thing, just a matter of picks in cyber... a rigger will go for the control rig, while a decker will go for the encephalon). A rigger will have a lot more autosofts, and drone specific softwares.


Granted it's one of those concepts I've been wanting to play forever but never get a chance to. (party needs a mage badly etc...). But a lot of the adept powers like eidetic memory, multi-tasking (no AR spam zone!), technical adept (hard to get skill mod bonus dice, over the basic program + skill grade). But you have to admit it's a far cry from the more normal, bio'ed/cyber'ed ninja/gunfu phys ad.


Technomancers have some interesting tricks available to them as well, but I'd not recommend that to someone new to it as they tend to be a bit harder to pull off.

This cannot be emphasized enough... Obvious things need no roll... that is why they are Obvious...

And again, as a character, you never have to roll Matrix perception, You can relegate it to an automatic occurrence, and just let the GM make those decisions... says so right in the book...

Keep the Faith

Sure, but the table explicitly states that you have to spend a simple action and roll dice to find out what the type of an icon is.

If you don't want to do that, that's fine, but it is a houserule.

My Point is that if the Icon Attacks you, you enter cybercombat, no need to identify it if you don't want to... and I am not using a house rule... The book explicitly states that you can just have your analyze program go to automatic, in which case, the character does not need to actually spend any of his actions to try to perceive, he can go about his hacking business... the analyze program will perform the functions for him and update him on its findings... not a house rule, it is RAW...

If you want to actually garner details about the icons in the system, then yes, you will need to make a Matrix Perception Tesat, but it is not a requirement for the Character to do so... hell, even a high end Agent will probably do better at Matrix perception rolls than the character would do in most circumstances...

Keep the Faith

Sprites aren't so smart they can replace a human.

- J.

actually, with a sufficiently high rating sprite (about rating 9) you'll have a pretty reasonable dicepool even on stuff you have to default on, and you'll have exceptional dicepools for three specific areas with that sprite. if you're looking at about rating 6 or less, you may be better off using regular pilots.

also, machine sprites also have the command CF. as such, they can remote control stuff from your node just like you can... so you need not put a persona in the drone, and you need not send your one non-registered sprite out of the same node as you and lose all it's extra services.

be aware, however, that while command CF drone controlling has it's good points, it does have a few downsides as well... for example, it is always a complex action to use the control device action. technically, this would mean that you only get to make a defense test if you spend a complex action to go on full defense, though your GM may houserule otherwise (although, if you're running around with an effective attribute for controlling the device in the 20s, your GM may not feel inclined to be so generous =P ) oh, and don't forget to specialise your pilot skills in "remote operation" if you do indeed use the command CF method of controlling sprites.