So, I was toying around with the concept of a character who is an infil sammie, AND a technomancer. Sort of the TM version of a combat hacker.

Conceptually, he's not going to be theoretically brilliant on all the wireless stuff. He just knows that he kind of reaches his consciousness out there, and boom, it all sort of happens. Cameras loop, smartguns lock up, locks open, data is ripe for the picking. Oh sure, there's a process, but to him knowing what progams or codes are doing what would be like most people knowing what muscles are contracting and expanding every second of throwing a punch.

Then I realized I know jack all about TMs from a build perspective. So, tada, dumpshock.

I'm looking for advice on building a char using stock metas , who is

a) A competent technomancer capable of providing consistent on the fly wireless support for professional level running.

b) Capable of infiltrating things.

c) Not pure sammie, but still more personally adroit than your average mage/hacker.

d) Not crippled

First limitign factor: Essence loss (e.g., from augmentations) affects Resonance the same was it affects Magic.

Some thoughts, and I'm sure there'll be those to lay some smack on me for some of 'em.

First point of karma, spend it on a Smartlink form & have only Smartgun equipped handguns. You can also get a cybersafety implanted in your hands at no cost of Essence. You can also specialize in Melee combat as part of your Dodge skill. While you could most certainly just thread the complex form instead, you will suffer a -2 DP penalty to everything not involved in shooting a Smartgun.

It'll be expensive karma wise, but Biowire & up to three Acceleration echos can cover and perceived speed issues in the meat world. Depending on how many IPs your opposition typically has, you might be able to get by with fewer.

Multitasking & Mesh Reality will let you hack at VR speeds and not leave your meat body helpless (and maybe a higher Initiative for the meat world, too). There is a -4 DP penalty if you're in combat in both realities at the same time, however. Overclocking & Advanced Overclocking can get you some extra IPs for matrix activity to make up for those used in meat space.

Sprites are your friends. Crack & Fault sprites sound like the ones that'll serve you very well.

You can also invest in superficial cybernetics (Spy Games, page 174) to at least look like you're cybered, and maybe even have the benefits of some implants (whatever can fit over your limb, like spurs and blades).

Ork - you shall not be squishy.

Info-Savant - fits your description, and is Int-based. You want Intuition for Perception (to notice guards and stuff) and initiative (in case you are discovered)

Karma-gen - since you are not using "all CFs at max rating" due to having implants, and need a broad skillset

Implants - Muscle Toner, Trauma Damper (Fading + Combat), likely some senseware to help with perception (Eyes, Ears)

Qualities - Perceptive (my favourite)

Skills - tons of low-level groups

This would be a hard build right out of chargen imo, but with the biowire, acceleration, overclocking and mesh reality echoes, you get a higher number of initiative passes (up to 3 meat, 5 virt i think) and would allow you to slot whatever skills you wanted/needed. swap x2 would allow you to use the emulated autosofts with no penalty and no karma cost (or any other CF for that matter).

A milspec suit would be worth the restricted gear/nuyen costs as you can key the armour to your needs (visual upgrades, audio upgrades, spurs, chameleon cloak, mobility and strength upgrades) and it provides lots of armour in comparison to most early armour.

depending on how much you want to specialize in matrix doings, buying one point in the cracking group, and one point in the electronic group, as you cant default on those skills, but after that, put points only into hacking, electronic warfare, or whatever other skills you find yourself using. Tasking skill group would probably also help.

High intuition (intuit= response) to get the jump on the enemy, and high willpower (firewall + matrix stun damage) will get you through a lot, low logic can be used as his hacking is more inutitive, and he doesnt need to subscribe lots of things. also resonance not system (logic) limits the max rating of your C/F.

Agility being high would be a boon to your infiltration ablilities, as well as combat.

I dont know if you could get a sprite to assist an emulation, adding their rating to its dice pool, but if you could, it would make compiling and registering worth their weight in gold.

Here's another way to do this:

Latent Technomancer. Just build a street samurai with at least 1 essence left and Latent Technomancer. Once you emerge, start by focusing on Compiling, Registering, and submersion/resonance and then eventually pick up some basic hacking skills yourself. Even if you, on your own, suck at the matrix, sprites are very useful and versatile.

This method obviously delays the technomancy, but it means you'll actually be a good street samurai instead of an iffy one. It also probably leaves you functional way faster than the "yeah you'll be almost as good as a street samurai after you submerge 10 times" option.

If you don't want to go this route, the way to go is going to be Logic stream because it's the only way to have synergy with 'ware. http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=4720.0;nowap has a good discussion of this.

If I were to make a hybrid Technomancer/Sammie, the first thing I would get him is Synaptic Booster level 1, Cerebral Booster level 2, and an alpha datajack & Math SPU. The reason you want a datajack... storage space for data.

This whole shebang only sets you back 44 Karma... which you come out ahead because you don't have to spend up your logic to 5. You only have to spend 25 Karma rather than 70 Karma. You get a second IP and a boost in Reaction (which will save you extra Karma) and get 2 extra dice on EW on encoding/decoding (even more Karma saved).

So yeah it's expensive, but the savings are pretty damn nice. Also, in the future, when you have the Karma for the Biowire and Acceleration Echos, you can replace the Booster with some other nice little pieces of Bioware (bone density augmentation, Sleep Regulator, Trauma Dampener... the possibilities are endless)

I'd probably lightly cyber the character bringing them up to maybe 1 point of essence loss in chargen... maybe 2. (balanced between cyber & bio). An alternate route is to go full street sammie... then take the latent awakening quality instead if your GM is obliging and likes the concept. Latent techno is a karma sink... but you'll come out the gate without your essence loss counting against you if you wanted to start with something like MbW2.

But for your route...

You're going to be very karma heavy... so I'd suggest biowires heavily. It's a great way to get an instant skill on the cheap added. With the super-high cost of skillwire programs now.. simply having the contacts to buy a cracked warez one on the cheap... learning it then allowing the real one to degrade is an option. Then look at the "Skillwire Expert System" in augmentation.. at 0.1 essence and 3k it's a steal. (allows you to reroll failures by spending edge unlike you normally could).

I'd probably look at synaptic 2... plus a full-on customized cyberarm that'll be most of your starting cash. With the cyberarm your agility & strength aren't as important so long as you restrict yourself to one handed weaponry. Between the two you'll lose two points of essence... If you start with a solid pistols skill you should be good. While there are echo's which replace synaptic... there are a ton of other echoes you probably want more long term like multitasking/mesh reality/overclocking which still benefit from the synaptic. (or even synaptic 3 if you focus on AR hacking).

I'd be eyeing fitting a pain editor long term to him as well. If you're reliant on armor and high body... you tend to take a lot of stun.. and most matrix damage is stun as well. Being able to ignore stun damage/unconscious penalties is a good thing! And if your stun track is full and you're somewhere safe... switch it off.. to go unconscious and shut down your bionode to gtfo at the risk of a little dumpshock.


With resonance 3... you starting CF's are going to be problematic... you could go down an alternate route... instead of going full hacker. Go full on sprite wrangler. You don't do this so much as you have sprites registered who do (sleep reg is great way to get a few extra hours a day for sprite wrangling too). Then pick non-hacking CF's... like smartgun, tac soft, etc. If you're running tacsoft... encryption and stealth help too. But the nice thing here is the bionode rules in unwired mean only another technomancer or sprite can hack into your bionode to screw with the tacnet.


Hope those out of the box ideas might give you some others. But honestly.. I have a hard time seeing enough karma/bp to do a traditional hacker on top of the essence hit to resonance. So that leaves sprite wrangling as the one thing left unique to technos.

Remember technos get tons and tons of great stuff by submerging... so I'd probably focus on that as your primary method of advancing the character... though again with low essence that gets costly... 3 resonance means only 3 submersions... unless your GM allows you to learn them at the flat rate of 15 karma... in which case you can manage up to 6 echoes... before needing to raise resonance again.

These are all good ideas. Thank you much, and feel free to keepem coming.