Can an infected metahuman ever emerge? If they can, what becomes of their abilities and infectious state?

That's a good question... I don't know if a person who was born a ghoul or whatever can emerge (be a technomancer). However, a technomancer who is infected later, their living persona would probably be effected by the virus since it messes with their mental stats. Not sure how becoming duel-natured would mess with their powers.

No Infected could ever Emerge as a Technomancer; if you have a Magic Rating, you cannot also have a Resonance rating.

OTOH, a Technomancer who fell prey to a strain of HMHVV, would lose their Resonance rating entirely - it would be replaced by the Magic Rating granted by the infection.

...

So, no. You cannot have an Infected Technomancer. Not by the RAW.

Ah good to know. Now to keep my technomancer far away from anyone infected with the HMHVV. Do you know where it would be mentioned in any books?

No.





Since you have to take one of the Infected qualities to become infected, it does grant the magic value of 1 to avoid the rules lawyers. Even without that, the rules still say the two attributes are mutually exclusive.

Logically, you start out at character creation as having a Magic and Resonance value of Null not 0. If you have a magic score of 0 due to essence loss or other factors, you still have a Magic attribute and cannot emerge since Resonance is still mutually exclusive from Magic.

Right. If you have a Res rating, you can't have a Magic rating either. I'm interested in creating a critter that would be the resonant equivalent of an infectious ghoul, and if there's anything in place for handling magic to resonant conversions, or if I should just inverse the existing formula.

Found it myself, page 83 of Runner's Companion.

So you're trying to create a disease that causes people to be able to interpret wireless signals?

The only "creature" I could imagine is some sort of nano-bot swarm that infects the brain and turns it into a wifi-node to transmit its program or something?

(damn double posts)

I can see some sort of sprite or AI type creature that can infect someone who is using a hot sim.

There are Emergent creatures in Running Wild. I guess one of them could get a super weird variant of the HMHVV(like strain IX or something) which makes a technozombie.
Personally I've always like the idea of the Dissonance being the Maxtrix equivalent of cyberzombies, where you have negative Essence and it creates a hole in the Resonance and becomes Dissonance.
It would be a pain to have to work out mechanically, but I've always dug the notion of it.

Wouldn't the pixie technomancer trick work here?

With Type 2 and 3 HMHVV definitely yes.

Type 1 (vampires) are much more hinky. They dont lose magic unless their essence drops below current magic. And if they lose all their magic, they lose the ability to feed = dead vamp.

Udoshi--is there a trick around the rule on Running Wild, p. 205 that I'm not familiar with? That should have closed the open holes. (Magic and Resonance section)

MAGIC AND RESONANCE
As mentioned in Shadowrun, Fourth Edition, Magic and Resonance are mutually exclusive. A critter cannot have both abilities, and the corollary ability is prohibited once a specific ability has been expressed. This means that a critter which is normally Paranormal cannot become an Emergent critter even if its Magic is reduced to 0. Likewise, an adept who burns out her magic ability cannot become a technomancer.

Eh, that feels like some half-cocked bullshit where 'magic is better!!!11leleventy'.

Magic is Better... Duh.

Or that a gene can only express one way. Taking a super simplified version--you can't express melanin production for a caucasian and an african without some abnormalities. If the gene that codes for Magic ability also codes for Resonance, there's no switching.

Not really. Actually not at all. It is about making stuff mutally exclusive.
Which is kind of a very good idea...
The reason behind is quite simple.
There are three ways to power in shadowrun.
1. Ware/Modification.
2. Magic
3. Ressonance.

Magic is split between Adept and mage and Ware is split between bioware and cyberware.

Now since the cost scale with the powerlevel you allready reached in one sector (magic and Ressonance) and the other secotr(ware) is limited and the cost skyrocket as you approach the maximum(going from normal to deltaware).
Any kombination you allow has to be considered very carefully.
For starters the cyberadept is considered superior to the SAM and the adept by a long run.
The mystic adept can be quite superior to mages and adepts if you interpret the rules in the "right" way.
So what would a magical technomancer look like?
On the first sight, it does not seem to be a problem. True. Because hell it will be a karma sink without end. But then just take a look at what it really means. It means you are able to get for example Initative passes through biowire, you can get yourself a skillwire in addtion. Only spending 4 Technomancer initiations.
Now you still need some skill and without some complex forms you won't be that good in the matrix but you can still summon sprites to do your chores.