Long time fan and collector of Shadowrun, not so long time GM.

I have an Elf Technomancer with 7 Charisma, positive qualities to boost, max stats, right out of character creation....

Spends almost 3 days compiling and registering sprites...gets six sprites or seven sprites of differing types...rating 6.

Goes to probe and then hack into DocWagon facility and is rolling a dice pool of around 31 or 33.

He has sprites aiding his rolls, threading, etc...

The rest of my players are rolling average dice pools around 12 to 16.

What am I doing wrong? Are they really that broken?

Have I missed a rule that limits how they can use sprites to augment their rolls?

Please help.

Normally, GMs only allow 1 sprite at a time to boost a Complex Form. Just put your foot down. Technos can be gods in the matrix, but that kind of dickery is unnecessary. A good complex form + a decent skill + specialization + threading + sprite assist gets plenty of dice--easily to twentysomething. That's enough.

At that dicepool, you are likely missing that threaded complex forms are limited to 2*Resonance, as per pg. 240 of The Precious.

Then you have Assist Operation Services. Those can be used by multiple sprites on the same CF - no rule against that - yet I would advise to use the 2*Resonance limit for those, too.

In my experience, yea they are that broken. Personally, we tried them out once, ran into exactly what the OP described and I've never allowed them back in again. It was getting silly waiting for the TM to roll all those dice for every damn action, even when hacking a rating 3 system. I haven't seen much since to make me think they are any more fixed with added rules. Even Resonance*2 for a CF rating isn't much of a limit with a TM with Resonance 5-6.
I leave them as NPCs where their techno dickery can be a plot device rather than something to start arguments about.

Precisely what the buying succeses option was created for. 6+ hits per 'roll' should be enough to walk all over an only-moderately secure system, at which point you may as well just focus on the story-telling. The player might think it takes some of the fun out, but then pausing every two sentences to painstakingly count dice isn't much fun in my book.

TMs are potentially terrifically overpowered, but they are meant to be something very special in the virtual world – after all, it's their home where all around them consider it an alien and artificial environment – and it's not like Unwired is without ways to challenge them. For balance, I consider the best approach to be turning it on its head and make life difficult for them outside the virtual world through racism, social ineptitude ("ANOTHER etiquette check??"), the effect of heavy/light Matrix traffic zones and other factors. Slipping through a high-end firewall might be child's play to the TM PC, but stick him in a face-to-face negotiation down a back-alley at gun point and he should be well out of his depth.

The real trick to this is finding the right balance between hindrances that should be represented by a negative quality and those that should be represented by "because you're a technomancer, that's why".

Yeah. Other Technomancers.

Ryu's house rules make sense, though, even though 4 times Resonance still can easily inflate into the higher 20s. Or do as I do and ban them entirely. They were a concept that could have worked, but turned out to be Neo clones rather than anything remotely balanced. Either have Technos or Hackers; both are only possible if you use house rules and the TM player purposely constrains their character.


One word: Emotitoy. Of course, noone in their right mind actually allows these things. Just, be prepared for a ty with them, maybe.

hmmm... i'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the basic problem you have is that you have one PC who very carefully designs his/her characters for maximum effectiveness, whereas everyone else appears to be quite happy with just being reasonably effective. because really, it's completely possible to have a face with social dicepools into the 30s, even easy. especially if you make an adept. even street sams can get their combat dicepools up around 20 if they min/max it, and magicians can get some pretty impressive drain dice pools to soak even heavily overcasted drain if need be.

now, this isn't to say that your technomancer wouldn't pwn the face off of everything in the matrix anyways (though if you are allowing him to stack assist operation services, i wouldn't, by the way, but that's up to you). but if the technomancer was built to the same level as the rest of the party, you would likely not see quite that large of a disparity. sure, the technomancer might be throwing dicepools of around 20-25, but that's burning services, and threading, to do that. and after all, they do pay for their superiority in the matrix by being almost completely useless everywhere else, typically (it's a very expensive archetype, which means it usually doesn't leave much for making them strong elsewhere)

Don't get me started on those! In my game anyone who walks into a high-tension negotiation with armed, no-nonsense professionals on their own turf and tries to use a bloody mood-tamagochi to make proceedings run smoothly is in for some unamused reactions and boosted social-resistance pools. They might (just might) make you look flash and tech-savvy in the boardroom, but the shadows aren't so cheaply impressed (and much more easily offended).

We handle it as 2*Resonance total, no matter how. It is still enough to dominate all non-TM-stuff. (@Hermit: I get why you understood R*4. I could have been clearer.)

First of all, the registering sessions with R6 sprites already take 36 hours. Considering that even with Registering 6, Resonance 6 and the VR bonus the TM just gets 14 dice vs. the sprite's 12 (16 for one type of sprite if he specialises Registering) that sounds like an awfully short time - let's say half of the registering attempts fail, that would be 54 hours, plus some meditation or whatever to make up for the failed attempts. And sleep, Long Haul only works so long.

Secondly there's fading damage, which is twice the hits (not net hits) each sprite scored on the test to compile or register it. R6 sprites will on average get 4 hits, that's 8 stun damage to soak with 13 dice (I guess he took a Charisma-linked stream). Ouch

If that still is not enough, there is the optional rule that each registered sprite causes a -2 modifier, analogous to the optional rule for bound spirits. These options were made precisely for this kind of characters.



And as a final thought, running around with a rating 50+ Stealth CF and a small army of sprites can attract far more attention than a cracked, outdated stealth program running on a juryrigged commlink. If a player is on a constant "unlimited powaaaaa!!!!!" trip, some people will get curious...

I recommend playing up the sprites as sapient beings (with reference to the type of relationship the TM has with his sprites). If he relies on more than one at once it could be fun to play them off against each other. Do they always agree with the best way to help the TM? Do they all approve of the same sort of actions? Do they all get along ok? Perhaps Crack is jealous of Paladin's pride of place, Paladin is condescending towards the barbarianesque Tank and Tank gets easily riled by Crack's cloak-and-dagger attitude.

Mechanically, perhaps multiple sprites assisting should be a teamwork test, but unless you want to multiply your dice rolls by 5 or 6 I'd use the Perception version (highest DP, +1 per extra sprite up to +5).

Fluff-wise, five or six sprites of (presumably) different types all chipping in on the same task should be a diplomatic and logistical nightmare. Imagine having two dogs, a cat, a snake, a budgie and a horse and they can all speak. Now ask them to help you tidy your flat – that's how I picture it.

If this character is right out of chargen with a CHA and 7 and probably a resonance of 5, He's probably a physical weakling with few skills besides matrixy ones.

Who cares what a character can do online when a R3 security guard with an SMG can turn him into hamburger right quick.

We have a technomancer in our game and as the GM I don't find him overpowered at all.

It's amazing to me how much any "Broken" thing in ANY gaming system is "Fixed" by not having a dickwad play them. Seriously I allow almost anything in my games so long as it fits the theme of the game we are going for. There is a Techno in my game right now, and she has not become a problem at all.

Assuming the mancer goes into the target area where the infiltration/hit will happen, which he has no reason to.

Why would an emotitoy be bad? Honestly?

I don't understand, it would be like bringing a voice-stress analyzer and a monitor for various vitals to check for any sign of lying. In a deal like that you'd want to *know* that they're telling the truth. You'd be using everything you had, astral sight to check for anxiety, the emotitoy to see what they're panicked about. Everything.

Would you take someone serious who has Hello Kitty whisper into his ear constantly? Would you be enticed by someone flirting you up because they have a Picachu sitting on their shoulder? Would you believe someone more because colour-changing baby dragons hop around on him? This is just ... stupid. There is no other remotely printable word for it.

Face it, the whole thing is just irreparably broken rules-wise and a shit concept fluffwise.

Not as written. I think they'd work out ok if you use the rating to make a teamwork test instead of adding it to the pool.

I've never tried this out, though.
The cheese stigma attached to these things is so strong that i've never seen them in actual play.

True enough, we had a guy haning around our local gaming shop with a stuffed dragon on his shoulder and everyone thought he was a complete tool.

And what if it looks like an metal cat earring? Or a nice draconic necklet? Maybe a funky-looking old-time watch they keep holding up to their ear? Or something sensible, like a number of readouts on a small block he just puts on the table projected into his AR?

What if it looks completely reasonable and they take it out for a serious negotiation because they're actually trying to find out what the other party is getting at?

Or more importantly: what if they run it on their commlink, fed through their contacts/cybereyes?

In that case it is alot more reasonable. You need a commlink with response and system of 6, and the software is way more expensive (for some reason) when not packaged with the emoti-toy itself. It is still an exceptionally cheap +6, but it is much more reasonable, and can no longer have the 'small toy in negotiations' stigma attached to it.

Emotitoys are fine for fluff. It's The Future™ and it's cyberpunk. The problem is that you get Rating 6 Emotion software for free. Just fix that.

The whole sensor software concept is just poorly integrated into the rules, I think.

Me neither, admittedly.


Then it's not an emotitoy but a far more expensive Sensor. Besides, someone who talks to his watch is making a fool of himself, too.

And as for AR diagrams: I don't see where a flurry of several diagrams will be helpful, realy. Unless you have a positive quality like multitadking, that's only bound to make you even more nervous, I think. Not with the emote, not with the program running on the 'link. I'd limit that software to 3, tops.

Actually you get a toy that has an rating 6 empathy software on it, dont do jack shit for you as your not the one using the software the toy is.
Noone has still not in 5 topics pointed to me where in the book it says that an emotitoy gives you bonus dices to your socialdicepools, becouse i cant find that in the rules or the fluff.
Everyone allways speaks like they do, but i cant for the life of me figure out where they got that idea.

I've always ruled emotitoy software can be run on a commlink if connected to visual/audio sensors. I've toyed with different versions of it teamwork test, flat bonus, own roll, etc. Not seeing a huge difference either way honestly. And I have to agree if the 6 million nuyen sami shows up with strawberry shortcake pinned to his armor jack the Johnson should just excuse himself and slip out the back.

Prime Mover, of course it can be run on a commlink, it's Empathy sensor software. I might rule that the Emotitoy's version of the program is 'built-in', though, and can't be copied away. *shrug*

Maxx, I'm not sure what the problem is. The function of Empathy software is right there in black and white in Arsenal, p60:

Wow, didn't this get wildly off-topic all of a sudden!
Not that I'm about to stop it ...

I've just realised I had slightly the wrong idea about emotitoys. As Mäx pointed out, they carry the software and use it themselves so all they're good for is a judge intentions test to determine emotional state, which makes them largely useless since any 'runner who can't muster more than six dice between their Charisma and Intuition shouldn't be allowed anywhere near other professionals. At least I now know why emotitoys are cheaper than the full software package.

Despite that the description explicitly states that 'runners have happily adopted the emotitoy for negotiations I just don't see it. Many/most shadowy types are close enough to the breadline that they aren't going to shell out hundreds on a gimick that's been heavily marketed to mainstream society as the new cool thing, never mind one that's been expensively customised to look inconspicuous, so I would imagine that 'runners would find emotitoys are heavily sneered at (particularly as the primary customer base must be young teenagers) to the point of mistrust towards anyone basing their negotiation stance on what's little more than an LOS mood ring.

As for the software, the judge intentions aspect is too weak (see above) and the bonus to social skill tests is way too strong. A DP of six is considered a professional average, so doubling that through the use of some clever gadgetry that tells you the other guy is nervous but won't tell you whether he's lying ... I don't think so.

[I did say don't get me started!]

I absolutely agree.
In my current game I've got this situation to the nth degree – the TM's never even played SR before so needs constant handholding. It's mostly an inconvenience, but I never have to worry about his munchkinism!

I've always thought of powergaming as rather pointless in roleplaying games. Someone who gets kicks out of wringing every last possible die out of RAW doesn't need to bother with a plot or anything like that – they just need to find some other people who will go "ooh!" every time they find a way to up their DP by another one. A game with roleplaying involved will only get in the way, especially that one time when the dice go against them and they feel incredibly hard done by that their 30+ DP let them down. The other solution would be to just assume the character succeeds at everything and let the GM spend all night telling the player how awesome they are.

The Empathy software thing really becomes a contest of haves vs. have-nots. There's no reason whomever's going to be doing serious negotiating (Mr. J's, Fixers, etc.) wouldn't have some form of Empathy software, and since most Influence skills are opposed tests, they wash.

It'd still be useful against those types that don't/wouldn't have the software: goons, gangers, guards. There are a few limitations, though: the owner's commlink rating is a big one (Response and System).

You could also just rule that it acts like a teamwork test: the Empathy software makes a test using its rating, and any hits are added dice to the user (reflecting how accurate/useful its suggestions are).

Sorry, but no, it can be used to augment any social skill test pool, too, as has been pointed out. It's another of these mind boggling design flaws that plague SR4.


Arsenal is notorious for such crude attempts at shoving crap down peoples' throats. It also claims a vehicle's parts all communicate wirelessly, so a Jammer is all it takes to render every vehicle dead, including battle tanks (and every plane will drop like a rock in case of a thunderstorm, solar flare, or approaching thunderbird critter). That's the Hand of Lonsing, former German Live Dev at FanPro and ... well, that would be a very nasty violation of TOS, so I'll just stop here (and his mother smells of elderberries!).


Ever played D&D?


You lucky, lucky bastard.

Seriously, never had a player who expects just that?

Yes the Empathy software can be, but where do you all get this idea that the runner could use the one the toy has to boost her own dicepools just like she had it on herself.
Incase of an emotitoy the runner doesnt have an empathy software, she has a toy that has one. I dont see any line in the rules anywhere that says you get to use sofware that your drone has, like you had it yourself.

It's just a sensor. Everything is connected. The software is being run by the runner. You might as well say the runner's *commlink* is the one with the software, not the runner.

nope, the emotitoy is running the empathy software or are you trying the say that the runners comlink is running all the programs on her drones and not the drones own hardware.
Emotitoy is not a sensor its a drone.

No, he is saying that yes, the toy is the one running it, but that is like making the distinction that if you have it on your commlink, then your commlink is the one running it, and so it should only give the commlink bonuses to social situations. Regardless of if it is being run on the toy or the commlink, you still get the information, and it is that information, not the act of running the program, that gives the social bonus. It would for example be possible to have the group hacker using his cybereyes to feed info to his commlink, which would run it through the software, and would spit the results out to the face, meaning the face would get the bonus even though the face doesn't have the software or commlink. This is basically exactly the same as having the emotitoy tell you the results.

I do agree that the sensor stuff is mostly junk in how it is implemented. Top end software gets 6 dice and generally needs to get 3 hits or so to make anything interesting happen. Still, just needs a bit of tweaking to make it properly useful.

Right, it's a sensor feed. The Empathy software does the same thing: given a (visual) sensor feed, it provides a +Rating bonus to social DPs. It doesn't matter where the processing happens, because you're just getting data.

These days it seems like every Johnson has a parrot named Kwisatz Haderach perched on their shoulders. I usually start negotiations by hacking it.

Wow, so a bunch of Guardian spirits using Counterspelling on the same people/person resort to Teamwork according to RAW, but none of the writers saw fit to limit Sprites in the same fashion? I've seen numerous statements about Dumpshock guiding players to broken stuff, but I'm happy to read this stuff so as a GM I can get an answer, be aware of a problem beforehand, and get decent advice on house rules.

I play in the game the OP is running and the player is *not* a power gamer. He had help designng the character, but even there the two just went with the idea of Elf, high CHA=high number of registered sprites, Resonance 6.

So what's really scary is a fairly novice player took a basic concept, THEN educated himself on basic sprite registering mechanics, and went to town. Definitely not the player's fault.

Playtesting? Bueller? Anyone?

It's kind of a pattern with mancers. They're mages of the matrix with all brakes pulled, by RAW.


No, but still annoying. Though less because of the player and more because of the inane pushing of the Technomancer.

My house rules tend to resort the the brakes put on Technomancers. I figure if the rule is good enough for a mage, its good enough for the Techno.

-M&P

The best (Note I say best, not that it's good) justification I've seen for this is that Technomancers can't do such things as throw fireballs and lightning, and are gimped in a Matrix light game. Now, personally I don't agree with this, there's plenty a Technomancer (Or a standard hacker for that matter) can do just with hacking and a little bit of cleverness.

Agreed. He needs certain echos, and he is a reasonable, if not brilliant, street sam. With threaded skill-CF, qand that Matrix->RL IP transfer, he's effectively an adept lite. Sure, he's not the real thing, and he prbably lacks in the body department, but he isn't a total loser either, by far.

Besides, the way RAW has it, mancers kill the hacker character good. If they up equipment levels to 12, then maybe hackers become viable again, but otherwise, forget it.

that depends on the mission/GM no?

our technomancer is nowhere near scary in the hacking department. Admittedly, he's played by a novice player and perhaps we're just not seeing the possibilities. So besides stacking tons of sprites, what else can a technomancer do that's mechanically problematic?

Whenever I've tried to create a technomancer with 400bp I've always wanted more BP and never felt that I could cover the bases like I could creating a 400 bp hacker.

Here is the breakdown of what he was using....

# 6 Exploit
# 6 Sprite
# 2 Hot sim
# 2 Codeslinger
# 9 Hacking (with Exploit specialization and Aptitude quality)
# 6 Thread (sustained by a sprite so it shouldn’t count)
# 3 Probability Distribution to the Matrix action of hacking
Total: 34 dice

How does the resonance * 2 apply to that? <scratches head>

*Blinks*

Your game isn't being played at Tower of Games in Virginia Beach, is it?

"DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF BANJO?"

It's the future and it's cyberpunk. And the social bonus is from detailed feedback about the person, not impressing them with your weird toy.

Can't say that enough...

Even after 300 Karma at our table, the Hacker far outstrips the Technomancer except in one or two circumstances... The Technomancer throws more dice for Spoof, and he has a few more dice for exploit... that is all...

The hacker, on the other had, is faster and more robust both in the matrix and without, has access to program types the Technomancer has a hard time using because he cannot form them into CF's (Malware Worm, Trojan, and Virus programs), can finds Wireless Nodes quicker, encrypts/decrypts better, and programs better... While he gets slagged in MAtrix Combat often, I tend to move through a system elegantly and efficiently (All of my Agents and Worms have Stealth, and most of his Sprites do not, which is a big plus for me), and the Hacker does not have a living node to take matrix damage with... in fact, teh Hacker more often than not is in AR, rather than in VR,a nd still acts with the same speed and efficiency as the Technomancer...

Yes, a Technomancer has a lot of benefits, but they are not the gods of the Matrix... Far from it...
I will admit thoguh, that our Technomancer will probably eclipse the Hacker with another 200-300 Karma Expenditure... he has unlimited potential as opposed to the HArd Limits that the Hacker has... after all, the Technomancer can thread to a Rating 14 (Currently Resonance 7, closing in on ... Kind of hard to beat that with a Hacker...

Keep the Faith

Sometimes you just have to be onsite to have a successful run...Our TM complains about having to come along, but there is no better option than to have him there with us... it really sucks (for him and us) when he attempts to stay remote, and then a jamming field comes up where we are at (whether it is us trying to deny the opposition their toys, or they are trying to deny us our toys)... at that point, our remote Technomancer becomes completely useless... Because he is not onsite...

This is why our Hacker shines over the Technomancer, the Hacker is willing to always be onsite. Not to mention the issue of having a non-wireless system that requires a hands on approach... remote is completely usless in this regard. You do not always know if the system you are going to be attacking is just behind wifi inhibiting technology, or whether there is NO wifi ability at all... sure, you could jump through hoops to provide a wireless connection point for the Technomancer, but that is not always going to be a possibility...

Keep the Faith

When I play my Technomancer, I am always 'on site' as it were, just for such reasons, and really, I'd get bored if my character were just sitting in some room across the city somewhere "safe".