Ok, as my other character compliations aren't getting a huge amount of attention I thought I'd post this guy here first and see if there are any observations...

I know most GMs would probably prefer a 'move with the group' hacker rather than one that 'stays at home' so this is more concept than a normal character might be, I just wanted to explore trying to make an uber hacker with the starting 400BPs

All comments/tips/rants welcome

Profile
Name: Matthew Chambers
Alias: Prospero
Metatype: Human
Sex: Male
Age: 62
Nationality: UCAS
Matrix Icon:
Reality Filter:
Lifestyle: Full Immersion
Karma Spent:
Build: 400 BPs
Game: TBC

Character Sketch: <<Prospero>>

Sheet

Background

If the full immersion is done right it could be viable. The PCs would need plenty of com gear and interfaces to link up to him. I kinda like the idea of a PC that can live in his mother's basement and never come out; especially at age 62. It makes me chuckle.

It depends on your definition of "Viable". Viable as a hacker? Definitely. Viable as a PC? That really depends on how invested you are in affecting meatspace. All it takes to make a remote hacker functionally useless to the party is:

1) Heavy duty jamming.
2) A localized system blocked from WiFi transmission.
3) Activities taking place exclusively in meatspace (where drones would be conspicuous).
4) Being traced, and having dangerous, heavily-armed men come to your basement.

So yes. It is totally viable, so long as you are careful to avoid these, and the GM does not intend to unduly bone you with them. Personally, I'd find the lack of ability to interact in meatspace to be terribly lame, but I'm a "see it now" kind of guy.

While that's a fine hacker, how viable he is depends on the group and game. High rating wi-fi paint will ruin your day. A good question would be "if I'm willing to just sit in my mother's basement all day, should I be a technomancer instead?" Technomancers can get extremely high program ratings and can summon sprites.

If you're badly needed on-site, you can actually replace mother's basement with drone/PMV with a rigger cocoon as well.

I'm still bothered by technomancers and hackers, they're deckers damnit! Plus any decent decker should be able to show up on site, heck there were even combat deckers in SR3. I'm not sure what technomancers get, but if they follow the path of other magic users cyberware should be able to keep up with or surpass them, except where they can simply do things that others can't such as summoning.

What actually happens with technos vs. mundane hackers is that mundane hackers can be a hacker and still have points left to do other stuff, eg, a combat hacker, or a face/hacker, or a face/street sam/hacker, etc. Technos sacrifice that, but are better at hacking in exchange and don't really have much "middle ground."