I run into major problems at creation when doing technomancers, magicians (except adepts), and to a point riggers (mainly too many toys not enough nuyen)


I try to stat them out with reasonable skills/attributtes that fit the concept.. but then wind up lacking when it comes to BP for spells/forms or gear.

I know they are supposed to get better down the road, but still you almost are better off not giving them any spells/forms (maybe a couple spells) and buying them with Karma. Or only rolling them up for high powered games (or house rule games with starting karma after char gen)

Really? Hmmm...

I can see a limit for Riggers, definitely. Too many high-end toys to choose from, but I have still managed to obtain a significant amount of baseline drones for them when I have created them, and picked up the high-end stuff in play. Not sure why you are having issues with the Magician. I always run out of spell "slots" long before I run out of resources for Spells. Technomancers can be done well, you just have to make peace with the fact they will likely start out a bit less functional on the Hacking side than an actual Hacker at start. They will make up for this with Sprites, however.

Well with me it's the balance of wanting a mage that is more the combat mage style, but with enough skills to be well rounded in other areas of magic. (and or in general... )

Could drop sorcery group to just spellcasting/counterspell at 4 or drop the physical attributes

With a TM I usually stat skills, and skip the forms early on and thread like mad the first few runs... relying on sprites (unless I forgo all but matrix skills)


I guess with me it's more a inherent desire to avoid one trick ponys

This is probably why you're having trouble. You do NOT want to buy complex forms with karma, because they are silly expensive. 6 bp for rating 6 whatever... or 21 karma. Generally, what you want to cut is:

Don't start with skills below rating 4. Either be good at it, or buy it with karma. Rating 1 if you absolutely must have it at chargen, but don't have like 10 rating 1 skills.
Don't get a lot of meh stats. Again, either be good at it, or buy it with karma.
Don't buy piles and piles of widgets. Buy a few good drones, not 15 crappy ones. Buy one good suit of armor, not a huge pile of incompatible items. Don't have an enormous pile of very selectively useful geegaws. Don't have dozens of bits of cyber/bioware that are only useful for highly specific niche things.

Of those 3, technomancers are probably the hardest, because they have essentially no wiggle room. You can either start out sucking very hard at anything that doesn't involve the matrix (meaning hacking and rigging) and maybe being OK at social skills if you're a Charisma stream, or sucking medium hard at those things, and also permanently cripple your matrix skills. Technomancers have enough expensive "must get at chargen or be shafted down the road" things that they don't really have points left over for niceties. Also, technomancers are generally best starting with very, very minimal gear because they have little use for money aside from buying vehicles (mages want highly expensive foci, mundane riggers want commlinks, programs, ware, AND vehicles), and thus can buy those vehicles after chargen with their share of cash.

Don't forget about grating some Software (Threading) cheese, and sprinkling the Sprite-plate with it generously.

Definitely... I usually start out with what many Dumpshockers would consider a "Sub-Par" character. So, I do understand. I like me my fluff skills and abilities.

And this is why I have serious difficulty with Technomancers. They're just so useless at chargen even if they heavy matrix specialize. They're still often worse than the hacker, and the hacker knows how to use guns too. You never will pick up secondary skills as a techno because all karma needs to go to making yourself viable at your specialty, and there's no gear you can buy that helps in any way. I have nothing against the idea behind Technos, I just think that in execution they're pretty much one trick ponies.

Well, they are indeed one-trick ponies. The one trick is "winning at the matrix," though, because at chargen a technomancer can easily be flat-out better at hacking than a hacker. They'll just suck really hard at things that aren't hacking, whereas mundane hacking is cheap enough that the hacker can also do something else.