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Neurosis
So, the one character type I have no idea how to build well or optimize is a technomancer. I'm not very familiar with the rules for them, and the amount of BP they have to dump into mental attributes, special attribute (Resonance), Complex Forms, and the Tasking Skill Group in addition to the skills that hackers need (Electronics and Hacking) really seems to be making them badly sub-optimal compared to Hackers. I helped my friend build one the other day (for the Emergence campaign, so the character is one of the very first TMs) and I really think I did him a disservice. I was in a hurry, he had a lot of probably-destructive ideas he was very emphatic about (he insisted on being a Technomancer and he wanted Edge 6), I managed to argue it down to Edge 4, and dropped his Resonance down to 5 (4) taking an essence worth of overly good bioware to make up the difference in some of his attributes to save points to get him Tasking 4, Electronics 3, and Cracking 4. Maxed out 35 Pts. from Negative Qualities and everything but anyway, his character is really just not stacking up and I really want to hand him a better version of the same build if the GM will allow it.

So, Dumpshock, please halp. How do you make a good Technomancer with 400 BP?
TheScrivener
TMs really are an easy build to botch - I have one in my current game and it's taken more time than anyone to help her complete the build.

One of the first things you need to look at is what their specialty will be - since CFs are limited to Logx2 they want to place those points wisely. Are they going to rig drones? Disrupt enemies in combat? Just intrude on systems directly? How often will they use sprites? I'd say start out with going down the different "job expectations" of a hacker character and ranking them, then asking yourself how much you want to use sprites with each one. The single most important thing you get Resonance-level CFs for, and make sure your stream has a type of sprite you can use to help with that. If you want to sit back and let sprites do most of the work, pump Charisma, otherwise Logic and Intuition should be higher. I'm a big fan of the Sourceror stream - Machine and Crack sprites to help out in combat, Code and Data sprites for tricky long-form hacking work, and Logic-based Fading resist. With high Logic you get System, more CFs and, if the GM uses optional rules, higher Software test results. That's one way, there's tons of specializations and all that's just off the top of my head. Good luck.
Sengir
Technos really are big karma/BP sinks. On the other hand, unless you go the rigger route there's really no worry about cash. So maybe you want to put some purchases back until after chargen.
Some other random advice:
- Decompiling is totally not worth it, better get compiling and registering individually
- TMs really only use their System rating for damage resistance, so depending on your play style it might not be as important as it is for normal hackers. Of course, a lot of tech skills also use Logic
- Intuition should be above average since that determines your VR initiative, combined with the ability to thread the sensor softwares from Arsenal you can become a good spotter
- My standard for Essence-consious characters, a hollow tooth costs 0 Essence and can be filled with various helpful chemicals.
Udoshi
Fingernail datachip storages are cheap, effective, no-essence loss ways of getting a place to store data for a TM. You can find them in arsenal.
A resonance bond to a free sprite is incredibly awesome. 5bp for Stability means you can never glitch on the matrix again, and being able to rush job everything(particularly decryption). Also lets you trade registered sprites for cheaper submersion.
Technomancer Networks cost no karma to join. Take one as a contact!
If you plan on rigging at all, More Than Metahuman will save you from drone-destruction dumpshock as long as you have a free action available.
Be A Sprite Wrangler - lowbie technomancers are all about whipping up sprites to do your bidding until you're awesome enough to do it on your own.
Suck It Up And Play An Ork. You need every point you can get. Even with human looking its 25-for-70 effective(plus a hit to system and biofeedback filter). Elves are a runner up - a threading specialized Elf/Infosavant/Face with sensorware and simrig complex forms can be very good. Avoid troll. You just won't have the points.
Consider taking Trust Fund and Homeground. A homegrounded warehouse with a Resonance Well and In Tune and/or Fung Shui(hacking skills are technical skills) can make a VERY effective hack at home lifestyle.
Get A Paragon. They're cheap and good. Don't look back.
If you're playing a technorigger, don't worry about your Logic so much. Per Unwired, Subscriptions beyond your subscription limit count as Running Programs against your processor load(yes, this means network spamming someone can lower their response). Technomancers never deal with running programs, only complex forms, but they still have a System, so they still have a processor load to use up for extra Subscriptions.

Decide if you want Ware. Your living avatar stats are capped by your resonance. A cerebral booster can put your Log at 7 or 8 easily, but your system will be at most 5. Pain Editors are hilarious for technomancers.(internet damage is stun damage, pain editors help with stun damage) and well worth 5bp for restricted gear. Cyberhands are good.(secondhand nanohives) On the other hand, raising your resonance to 6 is expensive karmawise, so it might be better to start with it.

Prioritize your complex forms. Decide what you want your technomancer to do. Find the matrix actions he needs to take to do that. Discard ones your sprite can do for you. Buy the remaining complex forms up to their max. (CF's are a bargian buy in BP-gen, compared to karma cost. Its expensive, but its worth it)

However, the most important thing to do, is figure our what you want your TM to do first. Pick a Stream that best lets you do that, and then pick a race with a non-penalized mental stat for that stream.

Advanced tricks: Fill up on negative qualities, but not positive so much - just the TM for 5 if you can help it. Use the 30 net points to start with resonance 6.


Thats the best I got for now, man. I'd love to help, but I need details for your build. I also need to know what books you have access too.
SleepIncarnate
Wow, yeah, where to begin? Ok, first off, I'm going to argue with Udoshi a bit and say don't go ork unless you specifically want a character built around soaking (or rather taking) damage as opposed to avoiding it. Charisma is your biofeedback filter, and since orks and trolls get reduced charisma (not to mention all the other reduced attributes a troll gets), that's a hit to your ability to deal with black IC, but it is compensated for by the increased body to let you soak more physical damage. Really, dwarves and elves are likely your best TM's, dwarves get both increased willpower (which is your firewall and resonance linked attribute for cyberadepts and e-scapists) and body, and elves get the increased charisma that makes for good faces as secondaries in addition to it being biofeedback filter and linked to your amount of registered sprites (they make great technoshamans and networkers). Humans still make good TMs though, especially with increased Edge, which your friend seems determined to get despite it being an area starting TMs tend to be worse off at than mundanes. Face it, a good TM is going to want high logic (for starting CF's as well as damage soak), high willpower (for firewall), high intuition (for Matrix initiative), and high charisma if it's their resonance linked attribute (and decent if it's not, for biofeedback filter and number of registered sprites), plus good resonance (which is the cap for all of the others), so this character is going to be very mentals heavy at creation, plus resonance, so physically, TMs are rarely imposing at creation.

Then, as has been said, determine what type of role he wants his TM to fill, and focus on that area. Pick your CFs for it. But the fact of the matter is, every TM, be they rigger, on the spot hacker, on the fly hacker, AR hacker, purely VR hacker, whatever is going to want a handful of essential CFs: exploit, stealth, shield (or armor), attack. Which leaves you another 2-8 to pick based on which role you want to fill. But most TM's will end up starting with something looking similar to the pre-made TM in the book, not necessarily the numbers but most of the same starting CFs.

As has also been said, decompiling is not that useful, rather than taking the Tasking group, I'd buy the skills seperately, buying one rank of decompiling, and then a few ranks each of both compiling and registering, whichever is deemed more important being higher: is this character going to mostly compile on the fly and not register, or will they mostly use registered sprites? This question also affects above in the determination as to how much charisma to buy at creation. The electronics group is another that doesn't necessarily need to be taken as a whole. Unless the TM is a rigger, they likely don't have much use for the hardware skill, but software is essential for threading (and if the GM allows, threading should be taken as a specialization). Data search is tied to one CF, and only that one, so it can also be left at lower levels (unless you're build an infomancer/investigator style TM built around finding information), as every tradition starts with the data sprite which can do data seaching much more efficiently than a starting TM. Computer is still important for analyze tests, but due to a TM's inherent +2 bonus to all Matrix perception tests, it's not AS important as for a mundane hacker (but still important). Which leaves the cracking group, which are all fairly important for hacking, cybercombat, and scan/sniffer. An example of a standard hacker (either on the fly or probing style) TM might look like this on those three groups: Cracking Group 4, Computer 3, Software 4 (Threading +2), Data Search 1, Decompiling 1, Registering 4, Compiling 3.

As for qualities, the Matrix User chapter in the front of Unwired does a pretty good job of describing those. In fact, it helps answer a lot for this question, though it is more general towards all hackers and riggers, not just TMs.
Udoshi
QUOTE (SleepIncarnate @ Nov 2 2010, 12:53 AM) *
Charisma is your biofeedback filter


Are you forgetting you can thread your biofeedback filter up?
Yes, its a complex form equal to your charisma, that you can't buy up with karma.
But its a complex form. Sprite assist or thread that shit up, yo.
Irion
Well, the use of threading to increase the biofeedback filter is a two edged sword.
It reduces all your other pools by two. (It becomes a alternative if you run with the rule, that the submersion which reduces this penalty counts for every threaded complex form. So taken two times and you do not suffer any drawbacks)
Other than that I would also suggest taking a high charisma build. An other important point is, that you are able to go down the face path as well, for just 40 BP or 55 Karma.
Trolls are not such a good idea in my book, since they have two big Problems:
First: They are big. You wont have the Karma to max out Body so you got 4 points (worth around 70 Karma). Well, it is worth a lot, thats right. But what are you doing with it? Body 3 is enough for the basic armor. And the possibility to take cover more easy can make up more than 3 dices to soak.
You also run into problems with transportation.
Second: They got less Logic. Logic limits the amount of complex forms you may start with (and gives you also a free points in knowledge skills). And since there is no point in game, where you may get complex forms that cheap... (complex form 5: 5 BP or 15 Karma thats a 1 to 3 ratio) (The only thing better is to max out body and strength with trolls, but how often will you be in need of this extra dices)
Sengir
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Nov 2 2010, 02:50 PM) *
But its a complex form.

Nope, it isn't:
QUOTE
For each program there is an equivalent complex form, with the exception of Biofeedback Filter, which is part of the living persona.


So you can't thread it any more than your System rating. Yes, I am fully aware that you will now produce some obscure paragraph where the writer neglected the "except Feedback filter, emulated skillsofts, and everything else we already told you not to thread", but the the idea behind the rules is clear here.


And Orks are suprisingly good TMs when you look at the numbers. Instead of a human with Body and Strength 2, you get Bod 4 and Str 3 for the same 20BP. If the lacking point of Charisma hurts, get Cha 5 and Natural Hardening, does the same job. Also, I love using "wrong" metatypes or otherwise breaking "X will always be used for Y" tropes...just for the heck of it.
Karoline
QUOTE (Sengir @ Nov 2 2010, 10:55 AM) *
And Orks are suprisingly good TMs when you look at the numbers. Instead of a human with Body and Strength 2, you get Bod 4 and Str 3 for the same 20BP. If the lacking point of Charisma hurts, get Cha 5 and Natural Hardening, does the same job. Also, I love using "wrong" metatypes or otherwise breaking "X will always be used for Y" tropes...just for the heck of it.

Yeah, but it cost you BP to get ork, so even though it doesn't infringe on your 200 stat cap, it does infringe on your 400 total cap. And 99.99% of the time, a TM isn't going to be worried about their strength. And about 80+% of the time, not going to be too worried about body either, so those are largely wasted points.

I'd have to say Elf makes good for those charisma points, and a free agility point, the most commonly used physical stat, making decent infiltration and such a bit easier to manage. Dwarves, as mentioned, are also not bad due to the increased willpower, though I personally prefer elf with a charisma based stream, since charisma is used for more other things than willpower.

Humans are also good, since they aren't spending any points on race, which they can then put back into other skills and such.

Lets see, my suggestion to the OP is to either go with a logic or charisma tradition, and then going with either human or elf respectively. If going with logic, either grab some logic boosting ware in chargen, or save for it once game starts because you won't have many other expenses. Either way, strongly consider giving up a point of essence for things like PuSHeD and a nanohive (In a cyberfoot/hand) with neocortical nanites. MathSPU also works, as does Encephalon, though the later might cost too much essence until you can hoard up for delta or beta grade ware.

One important thing to remember is that CFs are painfully expensive outside of chargen, so try and max out as many as you can in CG.

As someone else mentioned, decompiling is fairly useless.
Compiling is more useful than registering. Hacking is more useful than computer, hardware is fairly useless, EW is only somewhat useful.
Cybercombat usefulness depends somewhat on playstyle. If you're good at not getting noticed, it is less important, but it is always good to at least have.
Sengir
QUOTE (Karoline @ Nov 2 2010, 04:41 PM) *
Yeah, but it cost you BP to get ork, so even though it doesn't infringe on your 200 stat cap, it does infringe on your 400 total cap. And 99.99% of the time, a TM isn't going to be worried about their strength. And about 80+% of the time, not going to be too worried about body either, so those are largely wasted points.

Personally, I consider characters with a 1 attribute handicapped and those with more than one as cripples. Whether you are playing an expert for inter-corporate black ops or just a lowly ganger, being frail/obese, clumsy like a drunk whale or suffering from muscle anthropy really sucks. If somebody like this runs the shadows, he should better make it the center of his character concept.
SleepIncarnate
Who said take 1 in an attribute? Here, let me give an example of a TM I've used for some of the games here on the forums that never quite got off the ground. She's an elf, and in the original game we were allowed up to 2 submersion/initiations, which I happily took. If that weren't there, I'd have one less Resonance, and maybe an extra point in edge to counter it, also maybe take a lower charisma if she weren't intended to also be the face.

Attributes (260 BP):
Body 3/6
Agility 2/7
Reaction 2/6
Strength 2/6
Charisma 7/8
Intuition 5/6
Logic 5/6
Willpower 5/6
Edge 2/6
Resonance 6/8

As you can see, she's not handicapped or crippled, but physically she's nothing special, about or just below average in most areas, your standard computer geek. Sure, I could have bought up some extra agility or reaction at the cost of that 6th resonance and/or some charisma, but that all goes back again to how you want to play the character. This character was built to be a face in meatspace, and a VR hacker the rest of the time, with both grades of Overclocking.
Yerameyahu
It's certainly a personal thing, but I have no interest in playing a quadriplegic Full-Immersion hack-from-Advanced-Lifestyle lair character (no, SleepIncarnate, I'm not describing your example smile.gif ). There's nothing wrong with that, I'd just rather (take Ork and) be right there at the action. smile.gif There's nothing wrong with in-between, either: 'skinny hacker'. I'm just saying that I can really understand Sengir's perspective.
SleepIncarnate
As I said, it's all personal and based on what route you want to take with the character. I've had TMs with 5 in all mentals and then take a few points in agility and reaction so they can help in the fighting. This character specifically was more the "throw a machine sprite in a very impressive doberman drone and let it do the fighting" type. And a rating 6 machine sprite with LMG bursts is a very handy damage dealer. Won't compete with a dedicated sammy, especially not in the area of taking damage, but still a great help while the TM is behind cover trying to hack the local systems to help fight the enemies, or is hacking the enemies nodes to take out their tacnet or smartlink or whatever. The point is that TMs, at least starting out, don't have the option of filling every Matrix role AND being badass in combat like a mundane hacker can, TMs pretty much have to hyperspecialize at creation.
Udoshi
QUOTE (Sengir @ Nov 2 2010, 07:55 AM) *
So you can't thread it any more than your System rating.


Not System, Resonance. LA stats are capped at Resonance. The System limit is for tech-deckers. Threaded complex forms are capped at 2x resonance.


QUOTE (4a 92)
Natural Hardening
Something about a character's neural structure makes him resistnat to feedback. This quality gives teh character 1 point of natural biofeedback filtering, which is cumulative wiht a biofeedback filter program or complex form (see p. 233)


QUOTE (4a 233)
Biofeedback filters are software routines that monitor simsense signals and filter harmful feedback. Hackers specifically use biofeedback filters as a defense against black hammer and blackout programs in cyber-combat(p236) and against dumpshock(p237). Technomancers have an inherent biofeedback filter complex form equal to their charisma, and so cannot take this as a complex form.


So yes. TM's do have a Biofeedback filter CF. Its just 'special' and part of their living avatar stats. You can't buy it seperately, nor can you buy it up with karma, but you can increase it with threading or sprite assistance. I always thought it was stupid that a TM has to spend 20-65 BP on charisma 6, where a hacker just spends 1bp and never looks back. For people who live out their entire lives on the matrix, and are supposed to be *better* than regular users, i just find that silly. So... here's why they're better! TM's can increase it as they need to, at the risk of suffering drain.
Sengir
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Nov 2 2010, 10:42 PM) *
Not System, Resonance. LA stats are capped at Resonance. The System limit is for tech-deckers. Threaded complex forms are capped at 2x resonance.

Last time I checked, "not X any more than Y" meant "Y is impossible and X is equally impossible" wink.gif


QUOTE
For people who live out their entire lives on the matrix, and are supposed to be *better* than regular users, i just find that silly. So... here's why they're better! TM's can increase it as they need to, at the risk of suffering drain.

Technos are always connected to the matrix with no piece of technology or even a simple electric fuse in between, this gives them their power but also means they risk their brains...power doesn't come free. Yep, the Charisma requirement is annoying, also because it is at odds with a lot of the typical Otaku builds. But IMO the vulnerability to biofeedback is simply part of being a TM. And you can always thread up your Shield CF


@SI: Karoline said that 20 BP in physical stats just infringing on the 400BP cap and are "largely wasted points", I understood that as advice to leave those stats at 1.

God, I HATE qwerty keyboards...
Marcus
It really comes down to how your player plans to get things done. Given that hacking is usually not the primary focus of many runs, I recommend starting out being really good at making sprites, as being the most cost effective way of making a TM. You can then use the rest of the points to build someone who's generally good at other stuff as well, (Shooting, Talking, Driving, or droning as you like). Yes it limits you to just using sprites for the majority of hacking starting but saves a LOT of points, and means the character won't suck at everything else. A decent rating sprite is generally good enough to get the job done. This methods allows the player to build towards what they like and take best advantage of the cool submersion powers.
Udoshi
QUOTE (Sengir @ Nov 2 2010, 04:43 PM) *
Last time I checked, "not X any more than Y" meant "Y is impossible and X is equally impossible" wink.gif


Then how do you explain threaded complex forms being able to go to twice resonance, when complex forms are limited to just resonance?

Spoilers: Because it says so.

Otherwise your arguement would prevent any technomancer from raising their complex forms with threading at all. Threading specificlaly imposes a higher cap on the rating than would normally be possible. It doesn't remove it completely, because that would be silly, but it does raise the ceiling from what it was before. Normally ALL complex forms, not just living avatar stats, can't go higher than your Resonance.
Yerameyahu
Oy. He meant that 'you can't thread up your Biofeedback Filter, in the same way as you can't thread up your System'. Jesus.

It doesn't matter, because your earlier comments make it clear that you disagree anyway. smile.gif
Udoshi
Thats because System isn't a complex form. Biofeedback filter IS, and it says so in several places. Just because its part of your living avatar doesn't mean it isn't also a complex form. It can be both at once. I don't see a problem with it being the bisexual complex form, in that it goes both ways. Its certainly not overpowered.

Yerameyahu
Right. You already said that. smile.gif I was just trying to get you to stop arguing with things he *didn't* say, because you already argued with what he *did* say.
Karoline
QUOTE (Sengir @ Nov 2 2010, 07:43 PM) *
@SI: Karoline said that 20 BP in physical stats just infringing on the 400BP cap and are "largely wasted points", I understood that as advice to leave those stats at 1.

No, my point was that the points weren't 'free' since you still have to pay for race and that the 400 BP total cap is more important than the 200 BP stat cap. Basically all taking Ork does for you is make you spend your BP on race instead of on stats. And personally, for a character that lives and dies on mental stats, taking a race that lowers your maximum mental stats seems like a shot in the foot. Granted, Ork isn't too bad, as it only lowers two mental stats by 1 and gives you more than you put into it for stats. Looking at Orks a bit closer, they're actually crazy good from a stat standpoint. I'm surprised I don't see more of them in play.

Actually, looking back, part of the problem was that I forgot how big the boosts were. From the original statement I was thinking it was +2 bod and +1 str, not 3 and 2.
Sengir
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Nov 3 2010, 05:12 AM) *
Oy. He meant that 'you can't thread up your Biofeedback Filter, in the same way as you can't thread up your System'. Jesus.

This. smile.gif

And Udoshi, if you want to do rules lawyering, please be consistent: System represents the device's OS, and there is not a single line saying "you can't thread an OS". Going further down that route, agents and autosofts only cannot be learned by TMs, that means I can thread them at will, right?

@Karoline: Sure the lower mental stats hurt sometimes, otherwise it would be too easy...and I'd have to play a troll TM to buck the trend wink.gif
Marcus
Come on guys. Enough get on topic, or at least argue about something interesting.
I mean we haven't even discussed the love.gif awesomeness love.gif of my Sprite only theory of TM for Great Justice! rotfl.gif
PresentPresence
I wish one could be an Aspected Technomancer...
Karoline
QUOTE (Marcus @ Nov 4 2010, 12:32 AM) *
Come on guys. Enough get on topic, or at least argue about something interesting.
I mean we haven't even discussed the love.gif awesomeness love.gif of my Sprite only theory of TM for Great Justice! rotfl.gif

I think a discussion on what races make decent TMs is quite on topic when the topic is what makes a decent TM.

As for sprite theory, it isn't all that great really. Sprites are nice, but I get the feeling that people way overvalue them from all that I've read on the forums.
Marcus
QUOTE (Karoline @ Nov 4 2010, 09:11 AM) *
I think a discussion on what races make decent TMs is quite on topic when the topic is what makes a decent TM.

As for sprite theory, it isn't all that great really. Sprites are nice, but I get the feeling that people way overvalue them from all that I've read on the forums.


To be clear i was referring the useless discussion of biofeedback. As to the race discussion, squabbling over some Attribute points isn't really going to solve the basic issue. We have long discussed the race point, and come to no really valuable conclusions. The heart of the issue with TM, is that there is SO much to spend points into. Focus is the only way to avoid the trap.
Thus Sprites. As to over valuing them, what do you think of spirits? Useful, not useful? If you think Spirits are useless I won't waste time arguing about it. But Sprites are every bit as strong as spirits, all be it within their own bailiwick. Given that any sprite over rating 6 is very likely to stay around, they are potentially far more likely to have long lasting effect.
Jaid
well, sprites are awesome... but not alone. they're pretty good alone, but unless you're talking free sprites or really high rating sprites, they tend to be a bit lacking in the versatility department unless they've teamed up with someone/thing else.

put a team of sprites together with a technomancer though, and you've got a force to be reckoned with!

anyways, my advice to aspiring technomancers is to strongly consider choosing to focus on something where CF rating is more than just dice pool for a single matrix action. exploit is your dice pool for breaking into nodes, but stealth is your threshold for being detected while doing so, therefore stealth is the more powerful CF. command is a CF that you can use for *every* dice pool when controlling a device through the matrix. attack, blackout, and black hammer all add their CF rating to dice pool, but they also deal their rating in damage when they hit, and a data bomb... well, to be honest, you probably don't need anything better than a rating 6 data bomb, which will on average deal 21 points of damage as written (which is absolutely crazy). however, if we presume that your GM doesn't want nuclear data bombs, and does something much more reasonable (like giving them an attack roll of rating x 2 and they deal rating damage + net hits) then a high rating data bomb could be worth something, but you'd definitely have to have a specific plan for it.

the other piece of advice i would give, is don't discount threading, especially advanced threading for program options. threading your attack to be an area attack can be the difference between winning and losing in a mass battle, for example, and threading up whatever psychotropic effect you want on your blackout/black hammer CF is almost as good as having every mind control spell in the books (if it didn't require the target to be accessing simsense, it would probably be better actually; if you use this technique you may wish to carry around a spare commlink, trode net, and sim module with you to use on subdued targets as needed). mind you, using your technomancer to brain hack people isn't exactly going to do anything to squelch the wild rumors about technomancers that are going round, so discretion is advised (conveniently, there's a psychotropic effect that erases memory within a short period of time though)
Udoshi
QUOTE (Marcus @ Nov 3 2010, 09:32 PM) *
Come on guys. Enough get on topic, or at least argue about something interesting.
I mean we haven't even discussed the love.gif awesomeness love.gif of my Sprite only theory of TM for Great Justice! rotfl.gif


I'm waiting for the OP to get off his butt, and tell us about the character he needs help statting.

He asked for help, here
QUOTE (Neurosis @ Nov 1 2010, 10:02 AM) *
So, Dumpshock, please halp. How do you make a good Technomancer with 400 BP?


And I asked for more, here:
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Nov 1 2010, 06:16 PM) *
Thats the best I got for now, man. I'd love to help, but I need details for your build. I also need to know what books you have access too.


So far, he hasn't posted any, but Neurosis really needs to tell us about this character's metatype, character, qualities, skills, favorite complex forms, even the books he can use in his game. When people ask for help with a character build, they tend to post the build for critique. And neurosis hasn't. In fact, he hasn't even replied to the thread at ALL. No, really, go check.

I think thats why we're still arguing about sprites. Because everyone's waiting for something to happen.
Marcus
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Nov 4 2010, 11:36 AM) *
So far, he hasn't posted any, but Neurosis really needs to tell us about this character's metatype, character, qualities, skills, favorite complex forms, even the books he can use in his game. When people ask for help with a character build, they tend to post the build for critique. And neurosis hasn't. In fact, he hasn't even replied to the thread at ALL. No, really, go check.

I think thats why we're still arguing about sprites. Because everyone's waiting for something to happen.



You make a good point Udoshi.
Karoline
QUOTE (Marcus @ Nov 4 2010, 11:12 AM) *
Focus is the only way to avoid the trap.
Thus Sprites. As to over valuing them, what do you think of spirits? Useful, not useful? If you think Spirits are useless I won't waste time arguing about it. But Sprites are every bit as strong as spirits, all be it within their own bailiwick. Given that any sprite over rating 6 is very likely to stay around, they are potentially far more likely to have long lasting effect.

No, I certainly don't think they're useless, but I don't think they're the holy grail of the matrix like so many people seem to think of them. They certainly aren't nearly as strong as spirits.

A sprite at rating 6 has 12 dice for most everything. An agent at rating 6 has 12 dice for most everything. Your 'average' hacker has 18 dice for most everything. Your 'average' TM has 15 dice for most everything (post thread).

Now, same can be said for spirits, but sprites lack the immunity to normal weapons, sprites often lack stealth programs (making them useless if you want to be unnoticed), sprites powers are generally not nearly as useful as spirit powers, and spirits don't have a mundane parallel like an agent (maybe a drone, but drones are not to spirits the same as agents are to sprites).

My thoughts on them are that they are good backup and assistants and small boosts, but they aren't something you should rely on for your hacking, any more than you should rely on an agent for your hacking. You know, unless you can consistently compile R10 sprites without injuring yourself.
Marcus
QUOTE (Karoline @ Nov 4 2010, 01:02 PM) *
No, I certainly don't think they're useless, but I don't think they're the holy grail of the matrix like so many people seem to think of them. They certainly aren't nearly as strong as spirits.

A sprite at rating 6 has 12 dice for most everything. An agent at rating 6 has 12 dice for most everything. Your 'average' hacker has 18 dice for most everything. Your 'average' TM has 15 dice for most everything (post thread).

Now, same can be said for spirits, but sprites lack the immunity to normal weapons, sprites often lack stealth programs (making them useless if you want to be unnoticed), sprites powers are generally not nearly as useful as spirit powers, and spirits don't have a mundane parallel like an agent (maybe a drone, but drones are not to spirits the same as agents are to sprites).

My thoughts on them are that they are good backup and assistants and small boosts, but they aren't something you should rely on for your hacking, any more than you should rely on an agent for your hacking. You know, unless you can consistently compile R10 sprites without injuring yourself.


A Rating 6 sprite will have 12 in its given specialty no problem. It will also have favorable stat setup, and some useful additional powers, which will not be available to hackers. Sprite power are fairly strong, things like hardened armor, ability to screw with nodes possible die pool, Better tracking; just to name a few. You can certainly code a sprite with a stealth if that is what you need, if you don't then let your tank sprite Roll Face.

Hacking vs TM die pool totals is not relevant to this conversation, there are so many variables to discuss there. But if you were right on that topic it would be all the more reason to use Sprites given that it is way easier to push up one roll then to beef up all possible hacking rolls. Further sprites for the cost in resources, a complex action to pull one up, as opposed to buy or coding programs, getting a 'link and running an agent, will certainly be more flexible and be up to the vast majority of hacking tasks.

If you could code up a Rating 10 then you can pretty much stomp face on most any nods your gonna meet. I don't really consider coding a rating 10 as being within the realm of starting character, but given the twinkness of this board i'd bet someone could figure out a way. If you could though whoever it is; would have to be considered a first class BA hacker, and in the end that is really my whole point. smile.gif
Karoline
You missed my point entirely. My point was that a sprite isn't as good as a TM or a hacker, and barely better than an agent, so a TM that relies purely on sprites to do everything for them, isn't going to do very well.

And my stealth comment wasn't in regard to having stealth as a basic thing, it is in regard to most of them not having it as an option period.
Magus
Want to really have some fun with TM and Sprites? Use the Optional Rules in Unwired for the Resonance Difference. It is in a Sidebar in the Technomancer Section. A low end TM runs over a hacker completely. They cannot be touched by normal matrix actions. They can track anyone anywhere. The text says to use this with caution as this make a starting TM extremely powerful in the matrix.
Yerameyahu
If that's fun. smile.gif
Marcus
QUOTE (Karoline @ Nov 4 2010, 05:02 PM) *
You missed my point entirely. My point was that a sprite isn't as good as a TM or a hacker, and barely better than an agent, so a TM that relies purely on sprites to do everything for them, isn't going to do very well.

And my stealth comment wasn't in regard to having stealth as a basic thing, it is in regard to most of them not having it as an option period.


Respectfully I disagree smile.gif I purposed a valid method of building a TM that will accomplish the hacker roll and will do so while not limiting them into a tiny box. If you insist on arguing that sprites don't hack as well as full 400 bp devoted only hacking, well that's seems like a pretty obvious reality to me. How many games have you played that were completely hacking focused? As i said that sprites are plenty strong enough to get the job done. Concerning stealth i'll spell it out for you. Make sure you have a diverse enough set of sprites to fulfill your needs, its really not hard. Do you disagree with the point that big enough sprite will certainly get the job done? smile.gif

Sprites are plenty effective without those crazy optional rules. biggrin.gif
Neurosis
QUOTE (Udoshi @ Nov 4 2010, 11:36 AM) *
I'm waiting for the OP to get off his butt, and tell us about the character he needs help statting.

He asked for help, here


And I asked for more, here:


So far, he hasn't posted any, but Neurosis really needs to tell us about this character's metatype, character, qualities, skills, favorite complex forms, even the books he can use in his game. When people ask for help with a character build, they tend to post the build for critique. And neurosis hasn't. In fact, he hasn't even replied to the thread at ALL. No, really, go check.

I think thats why we're still arguing about sprites. Because everyone's waiting for something to happen.


Jeez, I didn't realize posting on dumpshock was a full-time job! I haven't been getting my paychecks. : P

Anyway, my buddy is playing a human and seemed intent on high Edge. His qualities ATM are AIPS III, Technomancer (Obviously), Addiction (5 Pts.) Long Haul, and Wanted. The concept behind this is that he was one of the first wave of technomancers and is essentially an escapee from

He doesn't really KNOW anything about Technomancers is kind of the point. He has owned SR4 for years and has a good amount of SR3 experience, but all he knows about TMs is what I know which...ain't much. His relevant skills are Tasking 3, Cracking 4, and Electronics 3 which I think I mentioned in the OP. His non-matrix skills are Perception (enough to basically negate the penalty from AIPs), Unarmed 2 (Cyber-Implant +2), Stealth Group 1, Influence 1, Climbing 1, and Pilot: Ground Craft 2. Augs are Cerebral Booster 1, Muscle Toner 1, Synaptic Booster 1, and a Shock Hand.

Attributes are Body 2, Agility 2 (3), Reaction 3 (4), Strength 1, Charisma 3, Intuition 4, Logic 4 (5), and Willpower 4.

As to the more salient question of what he wants to DO as a Technomancer well....everything. Which is the same as saying nothing.

His current stats aren't really important because the point is that I think they're inadequate and should be replaced. And his intentions were totally vague. Literally all he knows he wants to do with this character is "play a technomancer".

So let's go forward with that as the assumption. All I want to do is build him the best possible general purpose technomancer because he's shown zero interest in specializing, and I'm dissatisfied with what I rushed out in a hurry. Can we go forward from that?
Neurosis
QUOTE
Your 'average' hacker has 18 dice for most everything.


Hackers at your table are WAY more optimized than at mine. My best/most optimized hacker has 14-16 dice for the stuff he's best at and 10-12 dice for most other tasks.

QUOTE
Attributes (260 BP):
Body 3/6
Agility 2/7
Reaction 2/6
Strength 2/6
Charisma 7/8
Intuition 5/6
Logic 5/6
Willpower 5/6
Edge 2/6
Resonance 6/8


This character would be much too fragile and slow-moving to survive any of my tables, I'm afraid. I mean this character is a great technomancer and a great face but kind of at the expense of being a terrible shadowrunner. At least it seems that way to me.
Whipstitch
A Hacker doesn't have to be completely hacking focused just to make a Sprites only option pretty darn mediocre by comparison though. Sprites are good hacking aides and can be an excellent brute force option in some cases but as Karoline and Jaid pointed out they're not as flexible in practice as they appear to be in theory. They're sort of like Fighters in 3rd edition D&D. When you look at all the options spread across the various sprite types, they look pretty flexible. In practice, however, no single Sprite can really take enough of those options at once to be good at more than a task or two. Registering can help quite a bit in that regard simply by keeping several specialists on hand, but even then you're often shoehorning a Sprite into filling a role it isn't really that well suited for. And with some Sprite types there's still the stealth hurdle to overcome. Frankly, I'd say the "Sprite only" approach doesn't even compare very well to the Combat Hacker or Hacker/Rigger, much less a pure 'trix jockey that thinks soft caps were made to be broken. The heavy duty Sprites approach has some real interesting possibilities when rigging-- after all, rigging doesn't really quite require the same wealth of program options-- but as far as pure hacking goes they're just a pinch too narrow to really shine more or less unsupervised.

Please note that I'm not saying Sprites are bad. Nobody here really believes that, I think. There's some nifty sprite powers and if you've already got a decent Resonance score for threading than you might as well blow 20 bps on a good Compiling score because they really are extremely useful and at this point the opportunity cost has hit rock bottom prices anyway. Sprites are often times the best option for patching up a glaring weakness in a TM's repertoire and with the right tricks they can contribute to some brutally effective dicepools. I wouldn't leave home without them, really. But I can't imagine building a hacking oriented TM just with sprites. TMs can be a bit of a pain in the ass even when you have a full suite of options available.
Neurosis
I think I agree with that, Whipstitch.
Marcus
Breaking this down, you end up spending something like 280 points on Attributes (depending on how resonant/edge(y) he wants to be). Then on skills, your looking at something like 120 points. (You have the Cracking, Electronics, and Tasking groups; the usual dodge, etiquette, perception, and unarmed (for the shock-hand)). That leaves you with 30 points you can get from taking only negative Qualities, minus the 5 for TM quality of course, to get gear, complex forms and contacts. That is gonna be rough, and if your game is high threat he will not be very survivable. My method wouldn't be that different but it would mean a larger portion of those 120 points of skills could go into things that would assist in surviving/not being a terrible shadow runner.

Think on it.
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