I imagine there's about as much misinformation on the subject of technomancers as there is on mages.

in SR4, that wasn't very far off the truth.

(granted, the main difference between a hacker and a technomancer in that regard was ease of access, rather than feasibility).

Yeah...of course...nothing but stories...

Resonance Trodes and Psychotropic options...nope...never heard of them... NOTHING TO SEE HERE! Move along.

While it's nice that you guys go to such ends to justify why corps would want TMs to be like they are, you are kinda missing the point: TMs are supposed to be a playable option, and their fluff is that they are supposed to be on good terms with the matrix.

If bioware suffered complete apoptosis 2D6 weeks after installation you sure cold explain that with corporate moneymaking and control, but that wouldn't make it any better from a game design perspective, or solve the fluff discrepancy between "it's a natural fit to the body" and "it gets aggressively rejected after short time".

I had been excited for SR5, but after seeing the Nerf Bat reaming that technomancers got, I don't know that I am anymore. I don't know if it was just that somebody at Catalyst had a raging hard-on for deckers, or somebody absolutely loathed technomancers and wanted to see them marginalized and made useless... but the death of a thousand cuts that the technomancer has suffered has just eviscerated them as a playable and useful character archetype.

There's almost no way to get them to work without a pile of crazy house rules. I wouldn't even know where to begin to fix it. The karma costs are still insane if you want any useful echoes. They have nowhere near the versatility of the decker (which was their defining characteristic in SR4!) They LOST the ability to form their own PAN with a bionode. Sprites are a liability now. Anytime they fail an illegal test their Stun track starts filling in. Wait, scratch that. Anytime they do damn near ANYTHING their track starts filling in. "Threading a complex form" is just "casting a spell" with another name. And on and on.

Seriously, fuck this. I'd like to know who wrote these godawful rules so I can start burning effigies of them.

I am not familliar with anything about TMs from SR4, but I like the way they work in SR5 as a logical evolution of the process that spawned the original Otaku (and let's face it Technomancers are the Otaku of sr4-5. Well done Deus). I also like the fact that while the Matrix is their Natural element they are treated with hostility by GOD. I seriously don't see the lack of flexibility that people are talking about here, Technomancers really have the option to be a Ghost in the Machine if played cleverly. Sure Sprites can be a liability but only as much as say an Agent in many respects. A Technomancer really has to be careful, but they can also me the matrix do some crazy stuff. I really think there is room to grow this archetype in the future sourcebooks.

Considering how badly everyone else got nerfed too(especially the poor sammies) it's definedly the "hard-on for deckers" option.

Apparently people don't remember the Otaku of SR3 so well. At least your resonance isn't decreasing as you get older.

Why should they, Otaku are ancient history.

My point being that while TMs aren't the impossible to detect as they hack every system ever (SR4) (or have threaded command for crazy DP using drones) they also aren't nearly as limited in capacity or time as the Otaku of old.

I'd wager so. My first thoughts about doing a TM involve the character being a decker/rigger first and a TM as a fallback option.

And that's assuming I feel the motivation to actually flush out such a character.

"you can suck at your job for a lot longer than people 20 years ago could be good at their job" is not a very persuasive argument...

(note: i still haven't gotten around to reading the technomancer section, or the matrix rules in general. i am not saying that technomancers do suck, although the reports of those who presumably *have* read it are discouraging, i'm just providing my opinion on the argument made above).

just noticed another (subtle, but huge) nerf to technomancers unless this is just supposed to be fluff text:

"Fading can only be healed by the body’s natural
healing process, which means taking some time to rest."

considering that the only advantage technomancers have in exchange for not being able to simulate regular programs the way they used to are things that cause fading, this is a pretty serious nerf. particularly if they take physical damage, which means that they could be recovering for *days* at a time.

screw analytical mind. if you want to be a technomancer, take quick healer. you're going to need it. and don't dump body.

granted, this mirrors drain, but it's still a definite nerf.

Can dumpshock/Black DV on hot-simmed deckers be healed magically or with medkits?

I would expect so...

The decrease of flexibility is quite plain to see: TMs used to be able to make up every existing program on the fly. Now they have a separate list of CFs, and stuff for other purposes than hacking seems dearly underrepresented. I'm not sure if it's a lack or just a decrease, but certainly less.

As for Sprites vs. agents, how much OS do agents generate by merely existing, again?

no restriction on dumpshock/biofeedback, so yes.

anyways, so i've gotten around to looking at the complex forms. perhaps someday, they will publish complex forms that aren't crap. that day was not July 11. i now know not to bother investing heavily in resonance priority. resonance is kind of a crappy stat, and complex forms would be awesome if they weren't restricted to targets that make them functionally useless.

for example, there are complex forms that raise or lower matrix stats... these would be fairly useful, except they can only be used on devices.

oh goody. i can lower a matrix attribute of a completely inconsequential target, or raise the matrix attribute of the device that i'm not using to hack with because i'm a technomancer. (edit: forgot. you can also lower the matrix attribute of other deckers, which is only useful if you've been spotted and are getting murdered by infinitely spawning IC at the same time. oh goody).

i can force something to take a single matrix action... but with outrageous fading (7 points of fading for the vast majority of matrix actions), and most devices don't have useful matrix attributes anyways. i suppose this could be vaguely useful if i owned a really awesome cyberdeck and a bunch of programs, but at that point... why the hell am i not just playing a decker?

in general, the best complex forms are about equal to programs. or at least, they would be, if they didn't come with fading damage, your matrix damage track being your personal stun damage track, and requiring you to concentrate on them. and also adding an extra level of punishment for getting augmented... let's not forget that.

unless, of course, you're just there to support an actual decker. if that's the case, you can actually do some pretty awesome stuff. you can reduce an icon's overwatch score, you can make someone stop gaining overwatch score over time, boost their matrix attributes... yup... you can do a great job of making a decker pretty awesome. if you can find a way to tag along in the matrix, there's also a small chance you'll be able to reduce the attributes of a device that anyone actually cares about for them, too.

the one shining ray in a sea of darkness is that apparently, via the resonance, you can edit things *super fast* compared to a decker. for anything else... yeah, screw it, you're there to support a decker who actually gets useful effects from his programs.

i sure hope sprites are bloody amazing, because right now, if i was going to make a technomancer, i'd be looking square at priority C. if priority D was an option where i could start off with resonance 1, i'd probably pick that, actually.

i sincerely hope i'm missing something ludicrously awesome, because right now, it looks like playing a technomancer is something you would only ever consider because you're willing to take a hit in effectiveness to be one.

Reduce your own OS, Hide from GOD, Reduce Firewall ratings, Ignore Grid Penalties. I think youre seriously overlooking what a TM can do because they've changed how they work.

Also Tattletale is hilarious. Point at another dude and watch GOD converge on him.

Just dipped back into my PDF. Un resisted Matrix damage and don't forget you can use anything that has a target of Device on a persona too. Plus Decrease Matrix Attribute and target the Host! Dump noise on SecSpiders and Ice and hack from across the globe if so desired.

reduce your own OS: oh good, that's wonderful news, because you've generally got less to invest in actually succeeding in actions than a hacker (who also generally suffers less for not succeeding). so, all the extra time you're taking because you had to invest in skills and being a technomancer may cause you to accrue more OS, but hey, at least you'll be able to afford that extra time. if, that is, you don't just get murdered by infinitely spawning IC, which is to my mind a much larger concern due to the fact that IC spawns the instant you're discovered, not after ~10-15 illegal actions (or more).

reduce firewall ratings: on devices only. not hosts. not IC. only on devices. if you could reduce the matrix attributes of the local patrol IC, or knock the host down a few pegs in it's attempts to locate you, it would be pretty awesome. because it only works on devices, the only time you care about it particularly is when there is a decker actively looking for you. in which case, it is quite likely that the INFINITELY RESPAWNING IC is a bigger threat.

hide from GOD: again, better used on someone else. unlike reducing OS, this is actually in many cases completely inconsequential; 15 minutes is an absolutely ridiculously long time in the matrix. you'll probably generate 40 OS loooooong before the time limit comes into play, unless you're not doing anything. if you're not doing anything, you can just log out; oh hey, look, no more OS until i start doing illegal things again.

ignore grid penalties: no effect in a host, easily fixed by getting into the other grid if you're in public (sadly, there doesn't seem to be much information on buying access to different grids, although lifestyles indicate it should be an option. i expect once *those* rules come out, we'll discover that this is an incredibly trivial benefit worth maybe a few thousand nuyen a month... unless you actually believe that buying internet access is super-expensive).

Jaid, IC counts as Persona so you can target them with any Device target CF

Also, I'd totally let CFs target Hosts if they target Devices.

hmmm... ok, didn't notice the special rule that "device" apparently means devices *and* personas. so you can get crazy limits, which mostly won't matter. reducing another persona's limits is pretty good, though. would be a heck of a lot better if it didn't mean you had to sustain it, but this can actually do far more for reducing your (or another person's) OS than anything else, since if they are limited to 0 hits, you can do whatever you want to them without generating OS. ok, so that's one worthwhile complex form. you can't target a host with it, though. hosts are not devices, and they are not personas.

the matrix damage is crap: yes, it's unresisted. no, it's not particularly superior to using an attack action, especially with the programs that beef up attack whereas this is just net hits. the only advantage is that it doesn't cause OS increase. you will generally speaking get rid of something much much quicker by actually using an attack action, which deals your attack rating (afaict) plus net hits, as a general rule.

and especially since attacking things will lead in fairly short order to the infinitely spawning IC problem, it's something you pretty much either don't want to do, or used only if you don't care about attracting attention because you basically just announced your presence in no uncertain terms.

noise... ummm... ok... if you don't mind announcing your presence. you'd be better off using your actions to get the job done and run away, or to simply destroy the target. unless they have an absolutely terrible dice pool, this isn't doing much to help you out, and it's way too noticeable.

I haven't greatly gotten into TMs yet, but it would appear that sprites are fantastic inside hosts, simply by the fact that they have their own damage tracks and thus are sort of like spirits. Highly useful when you've got armies of IC spawning. The downside of Agents sharing a damage track with the Decker is a big one, in addition to it costing a Program slot.

Also, it appears that they focused heavily on giving us the tools to run shadowruns in this book, which means they focused heavily on what goes down inside hosts and were light on what goes down on the grids. There'll likely be more effective options for TMs on grids in the future. In the meantime, everyone is immune to GOD inside hosts, and so creating a mini army of sprites seems an effective option to me, unless I'm missing something.

From what little fluff that there is, it doesn't actually seem like they built GOD just to fuck with the TMs. It's more like they built it how they wished and simply didn't care to go out of their way to make things easy on sprites. Their big priority was making sure that their business transactions go faster and high priority traffic for people paying big fees for premium grid services. There was no benefit to them to make things easy on sprites, if they even thought about them in the design at all.

I see TMs as being able to diffuse the Attack attribute down to 1 on any wayward IC and then go about their business hacking, without a huge fear of retribution.

Or generate Noise on a decker and push them out of a fight.

They can still do regular matrix actions, of course, but it will be expensive to take resonance versions of programs -- most of which they won't need due to having better limits in general than a comparable decker, and being able to buff themselves with complex forms.

Overall it looks like they're good in a different way -- a decker may in fact be better at basic hacking but TMs appear to have a huge amount of utility in CFs and sprites, while deckers will be a little more predictable in their loadouts and actions.

well, i will say that it looks like sprites are pretty good. i'm a bit disappointed with the echoes available; most of them just boost your matrix attributes, which boosts your limits.

but hey, apparently technomancers *can* get access to programs... all they have to do is initiate. it's actually one of the better ones (the control rig one is almost essential if you want to be a rigger, and there are a few tests, mostly defensive, where attributes actually contribute directly.

some of the sprite powers are awesome. like the one that delays IC, which means that it can delay the inevitable endless of wave of ICey doom. did i mention technomancers are great to bring along so you can buff your decker buddy? well, diagnostics still has the same wording as 4th edition, so a decent sprite can really boost your dice pools, and make you actually need the limit increases you could give him. too bad you don't use any devices, though. and gremlins is pretty amazing too. cookie initially sounds good, but unfortunately only provides one update at the end (and is time-limited by the fact that you need a sprite to use it, and the sprite has to stick around, and it's an illegal action to place a cookie... which, being a technomancer, you can at least mitigate).

over all, my advice: at least until the matrix book comes out and there's better support for technomancers, i wouldn't make a technomancer unless you also have a regular decker in the group. the programs in the core book are just too good to miss out on, and the complex forms in the core book are mostly kinda "meh". good quality decks are not hard to get, fading is absolutely brutal, and sprites and submersion are pretty good, but overall not good enough to be worth the added investment required to be a technomancer.

obviously, if your reason for being a technomancer is "i want to be a technomancer", then be a technomancer. but if it's that you want to be able to be really effective in the matrix, i'd go with a decker for now.

oh, and a couple other things:

1) apparently asking your sprite to do nothing in the resonance realms is now a task. it really feels like they tried to limit being able to have a useful stable of sprites available, which is understandable, but still a bit of a nerf.

2) if you were wondering, decompiling is still generally as useless as ever. there are better things to do.

1) True
2) For now... (wondering what'll be happening with AIs because I see that being handy if they rock out)

Decompiling will do nothing to AIs, since AIs are not Resonance beings.

In SR4 Decompiling was the worst skill in the game. In SR5 Decompiling is EVEN WORSE, since your Limit on the test is the Sprite's Level.

(In general, I see the lack of Banishing and Decompiling fixes as a huge missed opportunity.)

That depends on lots of fluff and some of the Threats information and many other as yet unrevealed things. Especially as the Resonance seems to still be The Resonance, even though it's now a completely different Matrix and The Resonance was Deus's thing (perhaps even IS Deus).

TMs seem to be focused on decker buffing. They seem a bit shit solo.

In other words, they get to Jazz Hands for the decker while the decker claims to be too awesome for words? Can we geek the decker first and just pay off the mage?

That's always my plan.

So, Puppet Master combined with Tattletale is interesting. It hurts like a bitch, but you can basically have GOD act as your personal attack dog against anyone who isn't Sanctioned. You use Puppet Master against your unsuspecting target and force their device to perform a Check Overwatch Score action. That's a Simple Action, so you are aiming at a threshold of 2, and it is an Illegal Action so the target will begin to build up their OS.

Because they now have an OS you can use Tattletale to rapidly push their OS up above 40. If you have a stable of registered sprites available you can have them sustain each Tattletale up to its P duration. If you have multiple technomancers you can have each throw their own Tattletale at the target.

Against a normal, legitimate individual they will have no idea their gear is at risk until it is already fried. GOD are going to have a few questions for them. Though a decker who runs Baby Monitor will quickly notice what's up, if you run a Puppet Master shutting it down before you start the primary hack you can still get away with it.

Useless against Sanctioned people though.

Also the Fading will put yu out of buisiness.

The Fading of CFS is a joke compared to Magic:

A Mage can Mind Controll a bunch of people for F+1 Drain (which is iirc the hightest Drain in the book) while a Technomancer has Fading of L+4 for making a Target do 1 Matrix Action as soon as he has an Action availble

Nope. AI's are already a known factor, and they have absolutely nothing to do with Resonance as of SR4. Nothing at all. AI's are also nothing LIKE those seen prior to Crash 2.0. There'd need to be a truly massive change to alter that.

I think that Otaku were probably my least favorite part about SR3, though they don't quite rub me as bad in SR 5.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

yeah, i was briefly considering something like that. then i realized it's pretty much nothing more than a more involved way of trolling someone. you know what else could generate almost the exact same effect? gutting them with a couple of attack actions, then rebooting. 3 seconds later, your oversight is gone, you didn't get a bunch of fading along the way, and you didn't have to burn a high priority pick on being a technomancer. as an added bonus, it also works on people who ignore OS, which includes the majority of the targets you would really want to use this sort of tactic on anyways...

i'm not sure that i would say that technomancers are really focused on buffing a decker... it's more that a technomancer has buffs, the decker has better buffs that cost a lot less and don't cause fading, but most of the technomancer's buffs can also work on the decker while the decker's buffs only work on himself.

i think you could build a technomancer and make it work decently well. but i think you could also make a decker that would work noticeably better.

Reduce OS and hide from GOD: Those are not advantages but small compensations for major disadvantages. For an extra L-1 Fading and -2 for sustaining the CF you can prevent your Data Sprite from accumulating OS due to its existence, how great is that? /sarcasm
Reduce Attributes: Has potential, personally I'd use it to reduce the Processing (limit for perception) of folks who might spot me
Ignore Grids: What are grids? Oh right, the two pages of rules to decide whether you get a -2 or not. If you really plan on using the rule, this might be useful I guess. It's also one of the few CFs which won't murder you with Fading, hooray!

Using Puppet Master to force an Invite Mark action sounds fun, but as others pointed out, the Fading makes that a rather suicidal fun. Unless you have a Pain Editor (which now also blocks out penalties from physical damage, btw).


If they took a giant dump at fluff and made AIs = Resonance, we'd just have more targets against which Decompiling is a worse choice than whacking them.

Pretty much the only time Decompiling is ever useful is to save a corrupted sprite or to deal with a hostile free sprite (since taking them down in cybercombat just means that you're rid of them for a week or two).

Unless of course you take something like Focussed Concerntration. Hide from God, no penalty.

sure, you can pay extra for that quality. but as i said, accumulating score is only a problem if you plan on doing nothing for a very long time.

if you do nothing for a very long time, you can probably reset your score with no meaningful drawbacks by simply rebooting. 3 seconds later, no score. you go right back to 0, and you aren't building any up until you do your next illegal thing.

considering that doing just about anything in the matrix is unlikely to take more than about 6 seconds, i really think people are getting a bit excited over the ability to ignore time-based OS increases.

except for sprites, of course, which generate OS just for having been compiled.

but then again, that means you can't use any of the other complex forms that are supposed to compensate for not having programs unless you take the -2 sustaining penalty for that. since afaict, you can only have one focused concentration quality.

which is kinda a bad thing, because last i checked, complex forms are supposed to be the things that compensate for you not getting programs (although of course, if you submerge, you can get 1 program each time. depressingly, blowing 13 karma for a program that costs between 50-250 nuyen is better than most of the other echoes. the only ones that are flat-out better are overclock, which is the only current way to boost matrix initiative beyond 4d6, mind over machine, which can let you rig (obviously only better if you want to be a rigger, but still, a very strong option), and after that, just emulate programs).

That still leaves the need to take a quality and the fading between you and useful Sprites

Of note, Technomancers don't have a program limit. Having 6 or 8 active programs could be a huge advantage. Costly, but huge.

having a bunch of skills at higher values instead of having to invest large amounts of karma into buying 50/250 nuyen programs is definitely a huge advantage.

plus, for an extra 50 nuyen, you can store (but not run at the same time) multiple copies of the program that lets you reconfigure your entire cyberdeck including programs and attributes (note: technomancers can never swap attributes either). that would mean that, with the cost of a free action, you can swap out your entire program selection (and make the attributes match, too). for the most part, you don't need all the programs at the same time. being able to freely swap between two sets of programs (and make the attributes match up with what you're doing at that time) is ridiculously good. being able to have the *right* 4-5 programs at a time is way better than being able to have a pre-set 6 or 8 active programs at a time, imo. getting that in addition to having more karma to spend on skills, which is now the main way to boost your actual dicepool? well that's just gravy.

i mean, right now, eventually, the technomancer will get 500 karma or something like that and will totally make the decker look like a chump. but until then, i'm really not convinced that being a technomancer is worth it. besides, by the time you can afford all those submersions (123-188 karma for 6-8 submersions, not including possible cost to raise resonance) on your technomancer, the decker could be rocking a fairlight excalibur for all we know and using his starter deck for his pet attack agent (which will have a separate matrix damage track, incidentally). or could have some pretty danged impressive combat augmentations that make him crazy tough. meanwhile the technomancer takes matrix damage as stun damage, and takes penalties due to matrix damage (the decker doesn't until he's bricked), plus has to deal with fading damage that doesn't go away until rest, plus can't take augmentations to keep him alive in combat without screwing himself over in the matrix.

the technomancer really needed to be crazy powerful in the matrix to compensate for the fact that deckers now have to travel around with everyone else, because the technomancer is severely lacking in the area of keeping themselves alive in the meat. instead, they're weak at meat combat, and they're sorta decent in the matrix for the most part. they're in a very rough spot right now.

I've been working on a list of nasty things Technomancers can do:

Technomancer takes the Mind over Machine Echo and Puppeteer. Technomancer attaches hand grenade to bug microdrone. Puppeteer forces Jump Into Rigged Device matrix action on enemy rigger to force him into your microdrone, triggers grenade. Enemy rigger takes half the grenade damage (drone has no dice to resist it) as biofeedback and then takes dumpshock.

Hey look, TMs now have to have at least one submersion to not suck! That's totally OP, mages and deckers obviously can't do anything until an initiation or an upgrade. They're totally not usable out of the box.

Well they can still cloud targets with noise until they fall offline, force an enemy decker to data spike his own team's slaves devices (with full marks), force enemies to reboot causing dumpshock, etc.

All while taking fading and direct stun damage. Joy.

OR:

decker configures deck for making people a sad panda: sets attack to 7 (assuming the best chargen deck that doesn't involve attempting to cheese the used cyberware rules), loads programs biofeedback, hammer, decryption, lockdown.

each time you attack, you deal 10 + net hits matrix damage. most likely, damage will be in the same neighbourhood as the grenade damage, you can do it again if you want the next round (if there's any need), you can overflow it as well, and it didn't cost you an absurd amount of fading, giving up a high priority pick in chargen, making all augmentations a bad idea, etc. and you don't have to sacrifice a drone or draw attention in the meat world with a grenade. and the only way for them to escape is to jack out and take dumpshock damage, so you're not missing out on that either.

puppeteer is great for hilarious trolls, if you don't mind needing to go lie down for several hours afterwords, i'll grant you that.