Just curious, is this possible? I guess there probably isn't a rule one way or the other, but I wouldn't allow that at my table. Maybe small drones and up.

I mean with like hot glue or something.

Yeah, but a microdrone is...micro. How big would a grenade be comparatively? Would the microdrone even be able to move with something that's probably *X it's size hotglued to it?

I think it's a cool idea, I've wanted to do things like this (or even hot-glue jammers to fly-spys and such), but the size-to-weight ratio thing seems like it could be a problem...

you're missing the point of that exercise. the point is not for the drone to carry the grenade around. the point is for the rigger to be rigging the microdone when the grenade it is strapped to explodes, thus suffering biofeedback damage and then suffering dumpshock because the thing he was just rigging exploded.

that's why you need puppeteer... the guy isn't likely to jump into the drone willingly.

Oh yeah, I read his example as the rigger taking the grenade damage. I see now he said the rigger takes the damage as biofeedback. My mistake.

Still, where's the drone when it explodes? I mean, did the player stash it somewhere close by? Toss it like a grenade at the enemy rigger? Satellite uplink so that the drone is always in mutual signal range or whatever? I'm not doubting, just wondering how the scenario is realized rules-wise.

.. and now, after reading through this entire thread up to *HERE*, I am soon to read the Matrix section beginning to end. *IF* as the majority of the gripes seem to indicate, the thrashing of TM's is as bad (or even partially so) as indicated, then I will still remain on my "I warned you folks" about all this.

I have often wondered about stuff like this, and why it is that the OLD VCR implantware was rendered completely useless in the first place? I wholly admit that the primary technomancer character I have (that started as an Otaku brat in 3rd ed) went through all sorts of stuff (as I used to use him as a sandbox for all the playtesting we did), but I always wondered why the Game Authors did what they did to the interface technology concept of moving from 3rd to 4th ed. Especially if you, as a real person/gamer, realized where the motor-capacity reflection of operative interface technologies *has* to come from.

I will openly admit, I have *GREATLY* enjoyed the 4th ed Matrix and the Technomancers/Resonance the way it was seemingly developed. That being said, I also did not like a great deal of the work-arounds that were always in need of being employed (Storage Memory anyone?). I have *always* wondered why deckers didn't load adjacent cyberdecks/comm Units with their Agents and have them slaved to their source jackpoint. The whole idea of an Agent drawing it's Condition Monitor from the hosting system makes sense, but what does not make sense is *WHY* the Game Authors never drew up the ideas that so many players of Shadowrun around the internet wanted to know. Why can't my decker have "slave decks of Agents"?? Why did they never come up these mechanics?

And on Technomancers .. what is the big friggin' deal with whomever it who doesn't like them? You are Game Authors, you are not nor do you represent the entirety of the body of GAME PLAYERS. The idea is to make cool stuff that people enjoy and will spend money on so they/we can use them. If you can't seem to make them work, but other people seem to be able to do so (House Rules at my House are different than House Rules at your House after all), then why can't you reach out proactively to those places where things do work and give it a real whirl. Don't be reactive and wait for people to come to you. Go to them.

I had to recently explain to a guy who has the groups primary matrix operator (a Technomancer of no small caliber) how I could still make a Decker who would actively beat the tar out of him at the majority of things he felt he was good at. That being said however, all the "mysterious stuff" I could calmly admit that the Technomancers are supposed to be better at than Deckers because they *ARE* the Enigma. They get to use the Enigmatic Resonance. That *thing* which no one wants to simply admit is some kind of game-universe new-fangled magic.

All of this is about Ego and Humility. There are several things in the 5th ed that I have read so far which are damn nice. But there are a few things I have read that still lead me to believe that each new edition is really about "whose House Rules are we using this time", and not really about creation and development of an ongoing Gameverse. Yes, the fluff and fill is nice enough, but it's also misleading still. It describes details that "appear" to not be fully flushed out in the mechanics at this time.

After all, if the game system isn't readily used by those representing your product, then is it a functional system or not? Now pardon me while I go read this stuff and figure out if people are just being whiners or what ....

Coming from a friend of mine who's taking the leap from SR3 to SR5, he thinks TMs are great.

From the same person, the game developers will take the nerf bat to whatever they feel is OP. At least he also admitted that it's possible they (the game developers) could have taken it too far. (I did mention the disappearance of Dikone without an explanation, and that it was in SR 2050, but not SR4a)

Added a few hours later: Did think of a house rule for TMs, and involves one of the things TMs lost in SR5 that still bugs me. I propose this for discussion, questioning, & maybe evisceration. If a TMs Intuition, and therefore their Sleaze, is at least equal to the Device Rating of a piece of equipment, they can PAN/WAN/Slave & whatnot that piece of equipment as if as if their biological node were an actual device to do this.

By the way, Puppeteer? Arguably the only cool CF that TMs have? Fading Value of +4. Have fun /ever/ using it, unless you're okay with lying down for a while after every use.

oh, i wouldn't say puppeteer is the only good one. they also have that matrix illusion one. it's pretty cool.

@ spellbinder: they did give an explanation of where dikote went. it was so awesome that people were using it on everything, so now everything is just assumed to have dikote already.

Yes, but what does it actually do? I ignored it almost entirely because I have no idea what a 'matrix' illusion could even be. Everything's a fucking illusion in the Matrix, that's the point. Can I make a host appear where it's not supposed to be? Can I make myself look like a sanctioned G-man?

It's an illusion. So yes. Just if people try to access the Host it'd throw back an error message or if anything does more than a cursoy look at your Persona then they would see that you're Not a G-Man. You could also make it appear that you've disconnected or vanished from a grid entirely, you could conjure up some IC ( that would do much apart from be worrying or distracting).

It's true, I even got my letter opener dikoted, which may seem like overkill, but then I get my mail airdropped in (they won't deliver via ground- to hazardous) so the packaging is a bit thicker that what you usually see...

All these grids sort of remind me of the domains for spirits and how a shaman had to shift his perception to match the domain to be able to call them...

So why don't the stats of the gear between SR 2050 & SR4a reflect this? It's like "Oh, it's too good so we'll just retcon this so it doesn't exist, ever." Seems to be what happened to the Skinlink upgrade when SR5 came out.

yeah, basically it's handy for matrix bluffs. given sprites are probably one of the best things about technomancers, if you even make one in the first place you'll probably have a nice, high charisma to pair with it.

and of course, it's great for trolling people.

if you're content to be an ordinary troll, you can do that with a decker. but if you want to be an epic troll, well... be a technomancer.

plus it has the added benefit of not being the equivalent to the strongest person in your high school punching you in the head, minus the part where medical science can actually help you recover from being punched in the head (no really, you're looking at the equivalent of a 4-5 strength human being punching you with 1-2 net hits... if the rolls were perfectly average, 6S damage dealt twice would be enough to KO most regular people).

Is that written in the book anywhere? I looked, but all I could find was the CF stating 'You can make matrix illusions with this!' with zero explanation of wtf a Matrix illusion is.

Okay, so a Technomancer has two primary disadvantages:

1) They don't get the benefit of programs unless they spend Echoes.
2) Their Living Persona isn't as stout or flexible as a good deck, again unless they spend Echoes.

That is, they'll generally be at a lower dice pool and/or limit compared to a decker. For this pain, they get access to the following:

Sprites. Not bad. They're pretty much like having an agent without the limitations of a deck, or like having a relatively unipurpose sidekick Technomancer. Crack Sprites can gum up a host's IC, Courier Sprites can snoop and carry perfectly protected data packets, and the others all manner of nastiness.

Complex Forms. Also not bad. Fading is a little harsh, but TMs resist Fading with Resonance + Willpower, and Resonance doesn't really have an upper limit.

1) Cleaner + Static Veil: with these two CFs, a Technomancer can remain hidden from GOD indefinitely. What this really means is that if you can quietly break into a host, you can passively monitor things as long as you want without sounding alerts so long as you're not detected otherwise. Also you can do stuff like maintain a Snoop and never have to worry about your passive OS increases.

2) Infusion/Diffusion: buff your team's Firewall, debuff the enemy's. Reduce a target's Firewall to 1, and rain Matrix damage on him like you're GOD.

3) Puppeteer: it's been called an 'epic troll' power, but it's more insidious than that. You can force targets to reboot or format slaved devices (sorry, your Wired Reflexes just went into diagnostic mode for the next six hours). You can force a target running AR to drop into hot sim VR -- not a great trick if used on a decker in a lounge chair, but if the Street Samurai with a DNI sim module gets punted into VR in the middle of a firefight, he's going to faceplant.

4) Static Bomb: drop smoke, get out.

TMs have the long-term potential to be decent, just like any class that can constantly raise a core stat, but for a starting techno with say Wil 6 and Res 6, you're throwing 12 dice to resist fading, netting three hits on average. If you are, for example, trying to hit the hostile hacker with a firewall of say 5 with Diffusion, you'll need four net hits. That means threading at level 5, with a corresponding FV of 6. So, assuming you even get the four hits, you're looking at at least 3 points of fading and a wound penalty for using a single ability. Static Bomb (FV +2) and Puppeteer (FV+4) makes those damn near-unusable unless you want to be carrying around unhealable stun. Cleaner is FV+1, and luckily Static Veil is FV-1, so you maaay be able to avoid getting hit with drain for basically...sitting around. Not hacking. Which is great. If you're a hacker.

Re: Matrix Illusion - I can see that being something which allows you to pop up pictures in AR, too. This may also be where you can do things like 'hack cybereyes', and make people see things not actually there. (GitS2) It took me a little to think about that, but yes - it may be quite handy with AR.

Well, by inference, a Matrix Illusion would be an Illusion in the Matrix. So everything listed and more since it doesn't specify it has to be visual-audio or even touch or smell, so literally anything yo can think of and the GM okays. Much like the illusion spell in that regard. Of course the less believable it is the more likely people will use a Matrix Perception test to try and see through the illusion.

Woah, woah, woah. Is the cost of Submersion really 10 x (Grade x 3), and not 10 + (Grade x 3)?! After checking up Initiation, I'm going to presume that's a typo.

It is a typo, and I believe it's already been addressed in one of the many errata threads.

I think so. Just checked and awakened Initiation costs are the same 10 + (Grade x 3) as before.

A dice pool of 12 averages 4 hits, not 3. With that minor correction out of the way, a TM has access to all the usual matrix actions plus the resonance actions (which don't raise overwatch, I missed that on my first read-through) so in effect their abilities as hackers are just different, not worse.

As far as CF's go, combo'ing Pulse Storm, Fault sprite's Electron Storm, and a (different)sprite-maintained Diffusion of Firewall is going to ruin a spider's day while still being easy on the fading tests. Tattletale has some possibilities as does Resonance Veil. It seems to me that a TM needs a player who is creative to get the most out of it whereas a decker is comparatively straightforward to play.

On a side note: I can't find anything limiting the number of registered sprites you can have, the only thing I can find is the limit of one compiled sprite at a time. Assuming this isn't a mistake the thoughts of having an army of sprites is making me a little giddy.

No way that's not a mistake.

Maybe not (but probably is), considering the extra tasks you have to spend on sprites now. Putting a registered sprite on standby consumes a task, as does re-registering one.

I don't have the book with me right now, but don't sprites accumulate an OS from the moment of existence? So without a way to lower their OS, I guess the number of sprites a TM can have is self-limiting, depending on how quickly OS accumulates.

only place that mentions charisma limit for sprites is chargen, now that i've looked closer. i would suspect it's an oversight. i'll mention it in the errata thread and see what comes of it.

anyways, the advantage of being able to sit around and do nothing for a long time is generally of limited value in the new matrix.

remember, the rules were designed so that you can resolve stuff quickly and easily specifically so that you're not off in the matrix for hours at a time. in general, it looks like you can resolve most hacking scenarios within probably 5 combat turns easy. not accumulating oversight every 15 minutes is relatively minor in that case, although being able to reduce oversight coming from other sources may indeed be valuable, depending on the situation.

as to just hanging around forever, that's not really all that safe whether or not you're generating oversight. it's a single matrix perception test to notice if there is anything hidden. not net hit. just a hit. the odds of you staying hidden for hours on end in anything that is even remotely secure are very low. if you're not in a secure matrix location, you can just reboot any time you want to lower your OS (and, assuming you don't immediately do anything illegal, your timer won't start up again either). if you *are* somewhere secure, you're in far more danger of being spotted because patrol IC is going to be constantly trying to find you, and sooner or later it will. OS is relatively a minor concern.

puppeteer: i can force things to reboot or go into reformat mode without puppeteer too. takes a few extra tests, but can still be done. and on the plus side, it doesn't feel like someone is throwing rocks at me. there's not a lot of cool stuff you can do with puppeteer that can't be done with regular hacking and a mark or three.

infusion: great, you can boost your firewall. note: level must be equal to your firewall if you want to raise it. fading is not going to be low on this. diffusion is pretty danged nice, really helps win tests, and does not require level equal to the firewall of whatever you're diffusing (which is good, because a starting decker can get up to 8 if they want, and having to thread a level 8 diffusion is no fun for anyone).

static bomb: this is the hide action, more or less.

in general, if you have a player creative enough to get something out of a technomancer, you probably have a player who is creative enough to get the same things out of a decker. except usually with slightly better dice pools, and fewer minions.

There are some actions like Snoop that get a whole lot more useful if you never have to reboot to evade GOD.



I'm thinking that forcing a non-decker target into hot-sim VR might be the most blatantly useful part of this power. You could wreak all sorts of havoc on people this way -- from the street sam who's tearing across the battlefield to a guy manually piloting a vehicle. If you could pull off forcing someone into VR and then link-locking them, you'd have free reign to hammer them into oblivion while their meat body just twitches.



Hide can only affect one target. Static bomb affects everyone.

Had a thought cross my mind on technomancers, decker software, and the repeatable echo that technomancers can take per program. What if that echo was limited to being taken only once, granted one program, but then a technomancer could spend 4 karma per additional program? Maybe a limit based on Resonance + Submersion Grade for the number of knowable programs?

that's only particularly better if you can't re-find the target for some reason. otherwise, it's going to be 3 seconds to reboot. i suppose if, for some reason, the only way you could track a target is via the matrix, and you don't have the resources for an agent running on a separate cyberdeck (which i'm guessing most starting characters won't, so this is not a completely implausible scenario), this could be a definite problem (if you do have an agent on a separate deck, you can just take turns marking the target and snooping). (incidentally, i also consider it depressing that the sprite power 'cookie' wouldn't be an adequate replacement since it doesn't give a live feed option. honestly, i'm not sure when the cookie power actually is useful).



if a street samurai is dumb enough to leave their sim module online, odds are good they've left all kinds of other things online as well, which will screw them over *without* requiring you to eat several boxes of fading that won't go away with medical treatment or magical healing. odds are even better that you could just screw them over without using the matrix at all anyways. seriously, you want to know what 6 fading damage *should* be worth? go take a look at magic. i can throw a force 9 AP -9 lightning bolt for that. perhaps more directly comparable, i can drop a force 7 control thoughts on him, meaning he's at -7 dicepool to escape (and his dicepool is logic + willpower, so not exactly great, unless he resists on his first attempt) and make him do something useful, like fight on my side. or the same, but force 5, on an entire area.



just how many things are you planning on hiding from? the more you hide from, the less likely you are to succeed (since they apparently have no limit, and the more of them there are the higher chance some of them will roll quite well), and the more likely they are to immediately spot you again anyways since they'll get a chance to try and find you on their next action. especially if you don't give yourself a decent limit by choosing a high level, meaning high fading... easily 6+ fading. you can afford to use it maybe once or twice, but if you're taking any other matrix damage, you're quickly going to be stacking up penalties or worse, going unconscious.

also, if you aren't hiding from more than two at a time, a regular hacker can do it anyways.

but really, that fading is not a minor thing. when you can't do anything about it, and you're risking it every time you do something useful, it all adds up. stuff that deals damage which cannot be conveniently healed has to do some pretty danged impressive stuff. seriously, look at magic sometime. it's pretty ridiculous.

I like the idea of it, kind of like the Biowire echo from Unwired. I would have to look at the numbers a little more, but that could be nice way to beef up TMs a little more.

honestly, i'd even settle for an echo that merely lets you buy programs for 4 karma period, and doesn't even give you the initial freebie. max 1 per submersion grade seems reasonable.

Every reboot, re-acquire, re-Snoop, etc is going to bring with it the chance of getting caught. Cookie sounds awesome: tag someone and track all their Matrix activities, commcalls, etc. You could tag a security agent for a day and find out all of his bad habits. Sounds great for legwork.



Sim modules are built into commlinks -- you don't turn them off, you just don't go VR if you don't want to. I suppose you could turn the commlink off. It's a spooky Technomancer ability, not exactly something devices are designed for.

Magic's awesome, but there's no countercomplexforming that can help you against Technomancers. Your resistances are your resistances. Also if you diffuse the enemy's firewall, you don't have to thread so high for your other powers.



How many? I dunno. Three? Three things? Maybe a couple IC and a decker?



Not every time you do something useful. Every time you do something potentially very powerful. The rest of the time you can Brute Force and Hack on the Fly all you want.

Some of the programs seem to be pretty core functionality, so I'm really not sure I see the logic of requiring an echo to get that in the first place (and others are actually by far more important to technomancers than deckers, and yet deckers get them instead). In particular: Baby Monitor, Biofeedback Filter, and Sneak are clearly in the "never, EVER hack without" category. Biofeedback, Blackout,and Lockdown are pretty basic functionality that technomancers now lose for no good reason, and Armour, Defuse, Shell, and Guard are far more important to the Technomancer than to the decker. Some sort of Emulation function seems sorely needed - allowing technomancers to pay Karma for a limited number of programs and/or letting them gain programs on the fly (Perhaps an Emulate Cyberprogram Complex Form, each hit can be used to emulate an additional cyberprogram or to increase the time it is emulated for?).

Oh, and another important point: If you're just gonna use the mage rules for technomancers, you've GOT to account for the fact that mages get things like focito help them, while technomancers have no equivalent.

Only with a registered sprite. Otherwise, convergence kicks in long before that.

Another thought that struck me when I looked at the book last night, how would a technomancer with a deck function? It's doubling up on important things, true, but from my skimming (please correct me if I'm wrong), you no longer have to double buy hacking and computer skills. The only downside is that it will not let you slave your deck to your Living Persona. On the other hand, nothing says that you can't set your Living Persona as the Owner, other than some nebulous language about "Persona or Living Persona." That could probably use some disambiguation/examples.

You keep arguing with stuff that can be accessed ten sessions past chargen, maybe first establish why I would want to play the char more than two sessions...

The Biowire echo was kinda the inspiration for my idea. Had also thought of limiting it to a max of your Submersion grade for purchasing programs, but thought that might be too limiting.

And RHat, previously technomancers had the option to craft widgets, sort of. Of course, an equivalent Centering echo for TMs now has also crossed my mind. Doesn't seem quite as important as Resonance is one of their Fading resistance attributes.

Rubic: I've found the same thing, that TMs now don't have to double buy the Electronics/Cracking groups & skills like before (figuring either a karma refund or summing the skill levels for SR4 TMs that have done this when converting to SR5). So a TM with trodes and a cyberdeck will function just like any other decker, as far as I understand. You just can't use your Living Persona stats and Complex Forms while you're using a cyberdeck. Also, as a Living Persona doesn't count as a device, I don't think you can slave it to a cyberdeck; kinda a bidirectional deal I believe.

page 251, "using mundane electronics":

"You can use a commlink or cyberdeck if you like. A lot of
technomancers do in order to hide their abilities. If you
use a persona on a commlink or deck, you can’t use your
Resonance abilities. That only works when you’re using
your living persona, and since you can only use one persona
at a time—well, you get the idea."

so sure you can use them. at which point, what's the point of being a technomancer? since it even says resonance abilities, not just complex forms, that means you can only use registered sprites that you loan the services of to your technological persona. fortunately, i'm not aware of anything requiring said persona to be present when you loan those services... otherwise, even that would be impossible. and i'm not sure what else you were planning on dumping to priority D & E, since the combination of being a technomancer and a decker means you're going to need *everything* to be high; attributes (they're your dicepool), skills (they're also your dicepool, and you have a couple extras to invest in as a technomancer if you want to get anything out of being a technomancer at all), resources (you need a deck now, and those don't come cheap), and resonance (obviously, you can't be a technomancer without that). and don't underestimate the power of a good edge score. it's huge.

plus, you'd be paying more for cyber. now, you may be thinking "i don't need to be cybered up as a hacker", but i would have to disagree. first of all, most of the important tests you'll be making are logic-based. a cerebral booster rating 2 is worth +2 to all of your offensive dice pools. secondly, it lets you boost your physical stats with augmentations so you can spend more chargen attribute points on mental stats (you want at least 3 for a decker). thirdly, most of the time if there are targets in the meat world, ignore all the BS about how deckers can now contribute by hacking. most of those arguments start by pointing out that the enemy has the advantage in the matrix because getting numbers into place is easy, followed by another person arguing that the enemy won't brick all your stuff because you can shut it down before you finish... which works both ways. if you try to brick a security goon's gun, he's going to notice and shut off it's wireless, meaning you just did nothing useful with your action. if you want to be useful against targets in the meat world, you'd better either hope they're *incredibly* stupid, or just rely on shooting them like anyone else.

no, the real worthwhile combination if you're going to try and swing something like this is actually hacker + adept. technically, the magic that's boosting you is not working in the matrix, it's just working on something that happens to be able to use the matrix. you can't use an initiative booster, but you can use improved skills, for example. i don't think it's worth the cost, personally (like i said for the decker/technomancer combo, what are you going to put into priority D & E that isn't going to hurt?) but

My biggest annoyance with TMs has always been that they are the *only* archetype in the game that cannot boost their initiative in meatspace without having to take a hit to their performance overall. Mages can use Increase Reflexes (which they can then use a focus to sustain without penalty), adepts can either take the Increased Reflexes power or use a focus, and hackers/riggers/samurai can obviously buy 'ware...but a TM who wants to improve their meat initiative is forced to reduce their Resonance score in order to do so.

Now, this was the case in 4E (though it could eventually be offset by taking Echoes), too, but the changes to the matrix rules (in an effort to bring matrix users out in the field with the rest of the party) mean that TMs are pretty much going to be forced to put themselves in situations where they are stuck rolling their crummy 1d6 initiative die.

if you make a technomancer with a good edge score, you should be able to afford the occasional blitz.

Physical is Intuition + Reaction, Yes? SO my current TM Project has an Initiative of 10 (Reaction 3 + Intuition 7) + 1D6. Guaranteed 2 actions every physical round at least.

As someone who was iffy about Otaku in SR3, and who kind of hated Technomancers in SR4, I was thinking that Technomancers should actually swing towards making Matrix effects manifest somehow in meatspace.

For example if there were a sprite type that could coalesce out of the data stream to manifest in reality, looking and working more like a spirit except with explicitly data/tech-themed powers (like being able to blanket a physical area in noise or lash out with static shocks, etc).

Or if there were a Complex Form that could 'rewrite' an area and temporarily bridge the boundary between meatspace and VR, making individuals within vulnerable personally to Matrix attacks.

Or if a Technomancer could go into a quasi-VR mode himself where he could open himself up to the datastream and move and act at hot-sim VR speeds and bonuses but physically in meatspace, a la Neo in The Matrix.

Or a Complex Form that could dampen the power in an area, shutting down all powered technological devices within Resonance x Level meters that don't pass a resistance test.

You know, some heavy stuff that would make them really weird and justifiably terrifying to the general tech-using population.

EDIT: Oh, here's a good one -- a Data Bomb Sprite that you can pull out of the Matrix into meatspace and detonate, causing some physical damage to anyone in its radius (Level meters?) plus Matrix damage to any devices.

Only if you allow Mages to explore exotic formula to summon spirits that could enter the Matrix, ala the SR novel Lucifer Deck. Mage is still stuck in meatspace but the matrix attuned elemental gets to play online. (and no I don't know what the wireless bonus for a online elemental is. )

Actually quite a few of your suggestions could be looked at since they are sort of manifesting an electric effect, not magical but rather from the ambient static of all those devices around. I mean if you can recharge your shock stick from the ambient, what else can be done? So The Sprite and Data Bomb might be workable, but the overwriting reality for dragging mundanes into VR and the VR Neo move probably would be out, or at least need some further tweaking.
The Shut down could be done, but since you are sort of drawing on the ambient power of those devices, you would be effectively shooting yourself in the foot so to speak, but it may be warranted in some situations where you may be facing a bigger / badder TM and you want to deny him access to the local power grid as well so shut it down for everyone in the area.

Meanwhile, the traditional hacker with the same base stats and wireless Reaction Enhancers 2 and Wired Reflexes 2 has an Initiative of 14 + 3d6, getting 2-4 actions.

Sure, and if my Technomancer was interested in fast Meat Actions, she would do something about it, but since she is plenty fast in the meat, why bother?
Besides, the Hacker would have had to use The Exceptional Attribute: Intuition Quality to get that same Intuition of 7, sucking down some points that are likely more useful to him in other places. Also, Can your Hacker do all that for the same 12,000 Nuyen that my Technomancer did? Oh wait, that would be a no, because if he restricted himself to that peasly 12,000 Nuyen, he would not even BE a Hacker.

Tradeoffs, don't you know...

Why on earth would my decker have an intuition of 7? Yikes.

For Matrix Actions which use Intuition? Logic alone does not a decker make.

And if you're using a Sony CIY-720 with Data Processing at 7 & running Toolbox, you now have a VR Initiative of 15 + 4d6. Should be able to get the jump on the opposition when the fecal matter hits the air disbursement device.

the part where you're lying on the ground helpless to get that initiative is considered by some people to be a drawback in a firefight.