QUOTE (Saint Sithney @ Apr 26 2011, 05:33 AM)
When is Fading ever not physical? If you don't already have your CFs equal or near your Res, you're starting messed up. And, unless you're compiling during a run (and why would you do that, when you can register, without cost, non-stop, in your home's nifty Resonance well, long before the run starts?) then you gotta risk that hard fizz.
Sorry, should have clarified that. My comment about overcasting was misleading.
Fading is ALWAYS stun unless otherwise noted. (4a 243). The only instance in which it becomes Physical is if you're doing sprite things at a rating over your resonance.
What this means is....
Whipping up a complex form you don't have? Stun. (and lets face it, a starting TM will be missing a lot of forms).
Making a program option up on the fly? Stun.
Increasing your forms beyond your resonance? Also stun.
Summoning a medium-force sprite to complement your already-registered ones? Stun.
Making widgets of any rating? Stun.
And a Trauma Damper drops one stun damage off of every one of those tests, after the soak. This makes casual threading hella good, and even reliable - no matter your dice pool penalties, you can permasoak one fading damage. As long as you can land one hit on a Software test, its once free dice
at least.So yeah. Platelets are fairly useless since they only help with Physical. Even regular attack programs have to go through a TM's stun track, so the trauma wins again there.
If you're planning on Rigging as a TM, trauma pretty much makes you immune to hotsim biofeedback damage. Pretty much immune? Yes.
Biofeedback occurs when the drone takes damage. This means your drone has got a chance to Dodge(reducing net hits, thus damage) and soak(reducing damage). The leftover damage is applied to the drone. Then you take half that(round up), and a technomancer gets to soak THAT with their biofeedback filter. Its stun damage, by the way, not physical. So if there's one point left after all those stacked reductions and dice rolls, the trauma damper makes it go away.
Platelets are still nice. They help with dumpshock(which is always going to be hotsim, so physical) and black hammer attacks. Just less generally useful as a trauma.
