Ok, so hacky people have a program/cf called armor. Then they introduce Shield in UnWired. I can't seem to find any difference in the two. What am I missing? Surely they don't stack, so that I could have 24 dice to resist with before threading them both.....

Shield adds dice at the the defense step, armor adds on the damage resistance.

Attack = Skill + Program
Defense = Response + Firewall + Shield
Damage Resistance = System + Armor

Ah hah! Figured I was missing something. Thanks!!

I don't have my books handy, but I believe that shield is only available as a CF, and isn't an actual program.

What's that? A program only for Technos that makes them "not suck (as hard as hackers already do)" in cybercombat? Awesome!

Because what Technomancers needed was another reason why they're just better than hackers in everyway.

Vastly better. Oy.

Additionally, Shield adds to all matrix defense tests - armor only works against Attack. Shield works equally against Black IC too.

stop making me bitter

Technomancers should be better, anybody can be a pretty badass hacker with minimal investment. what you have to ask yourself is, what else can Technomancers do compared to the abilities or wares or magic that a hacker can pick up? not so much.

This is kind of the problem. A starting hacking technomancer, over all, sucks compared to a starting Hacker.
However, in the long term, that Technomancer is ultimately going to be better then the hacker. Just like, ultimately,
a physical adept is going to surpass a Street Sam, or a Mage is going to surpass a troll with a rocket launcher.

However, a Hacker, Street Sam, or even the troll, is, ultimately, going to make up for the lack of power in one
specific area in another way: While teh Mage and Adept are paying for Initiations and upping their magic attribute,
and the Technomancer is paying for submersions and upping his/her resonance, the Hacker, Street Sam, and Troll
are hitting their skill caps, and then diversifying. the Awakened and Emerged, however, are digging themselves into
their specialty.

Hm.. i somehow never saw a technomancer weaker than a hacker at start. They start out much more powerful... but not as versatile. I for example have problems just FINDING them. When they run around with stealth 8 and more... they cannot be detected until they are gone and left your data in smoking ruins. But yeah... they have just few starting complex forms... good they can just summon sprites up which are specialized but much more powerful than agents AND hackers for everything they themselves cannot do that easily, or create programs on the fly for actions where they don't have to be THAT GODLY good.

and with the registered/pirated things. You end up with hackers who have a 13K+ a month software habit in just their primary software. That's not including agents, SiNs, and commlinks that you're burning like there's no tomorrow if you're safety conscious.

Yes, a hacker can get some awesome cyberware. But that costs serious money. A technomancer basically has no need for money.

That's the whole point of it, reduce the other guy's net hits before you need to soak them with your craptastic Charisma value


@sabs: At least a mundane hacker CAN burn through that stuff (quite literally, a thermite bar is the hacker's best friend), a techno who left his signature all over a host doesn't get away that easily...

Someone needs a bigger rokkit launcha

No, just More Dakka.

meh. beyond a certain point, you don't really need to worry if the mage is doing more damage.

i mean, really, if the magician feels the need to drop 20P damage just because you can drop 10P or 12P or 16P or whatever, it's not going to make things any deader, in general.

and there's still the added bonus that the mage is basically getting kicked in the head (by an angry troll) to launch that crazy powerful spell.

anyways, i'll agree that i don't see technomancers starting off weaker than hackers and then becoming stronger over time. they start off better at hacking if you do it right, and they're just going to get even more better at it. sure, the technomancer might have a blind spot or two, where the hacker is a bit stronger to begin with. but the technomancer can still deal with pretty much anything that comes up, even early in their career (registering a few decently high rating sprites makes a big difference, of course)

I can't help myself.
I see uninformed people.
Sorry, with Haiku.