One thing though Fueldrop, and let me preface this with whatever rocks your boat, but the fact that you can make an Adept/Decker goes as far against the setting as you can get, it's like burnt out mages that still start with 4 magic and 3 essence worth of cyberware. and can still raise their magic for the same karma as long as they initiate, and why would you want to put that off anyway?

These archetypes are basically not meant to exist, or at least, the tradeoff shouldn't make it worth it from a min/max point of view. Hell, a Technomancer IS the archetype for Adept/Decker. There's a reason why you can't build them as well, they're not supposed to be that effective.

I will agree on more flexibility, as I did in my last post.
You are only getting better dicepools if you are heavily optimizing and the TM isnt. There is a pretty finite amount of things that add to a starting dicepool, and none of it is exclusive to a decker.

Fading is an issue, as I thought I said in the first place, and I know many people have agreed its a bit high overall, but is otherwise viable. An average TM will be able to soak about 4 fade, which is crappy, I like the idea of -2 to the fade costs across the board, it looks like about the right place to be.

Device rating is your body score in the matrix, if you think it doesnt matter, I cant help you there, but its harder to dump a TM than a decker. At least as much so as it is to KO a decker compared to a TM in meatspace

there are some cheap cyber/bio things, but the big ones that turn you into a real combatant and not a guy with a rifle hiding behind the sam, arent at a pricetag that works out with a top end deck. You can grow in that direction if you want, and the TM cant, as I mentioned in my post, TMs have real issues out of the matrix with survivablity. Though, for the records, a TM with a low resonance can hack just as well as a decker, resonance only affects his threading and matrix condition monitor, but it would be silly to make a TM if you plan to cyber him out.

Karma for resources sucks, straight up. The two logic boosts run ~30k, so nudging the last 10 with karma is hard but viable. The return rate for buying cash with karma in creation is silly low. You arent going to turn the leftover 20k into synaptic boosters with karma, but a small nudge into something you are close on can work.

6644 is less than 4567, in general the decker will be at +1 on the matrix attrib, but even that, its not like that means one more pool generally, its a point of limit thats above what a starting pool is going to hit outside of a lucky roll. the +2 DR is at least as relevant.

You mention needing to get into a place to hack, much of that is due to noise, which is one of the things that threading is half decent at with a soakable level 4 resonance channel, you can sit in the van a little longer. Focused concentration can be used to help maintain it, since its pretty much the best perk hands down for TMs.

I agree that TMs have some issues, and deckers have a lot more versatility, but they arent going to have bigger pools, and they arent going to be noticeably better than TMs at the primary skills in the matrix. Not unless they fully optimize and the TM doesnt. I have never tried to say that the decker wont be better at surviving in the meatworld, only that if he focuses everything into being good in the matrix, there wont be much left to spend on non-matrix things with starting allocations.

I really think that since TMs are so very similar to mages rules-wise, adding technomancer equivalents to foci would really make a ton of difference, and give a TM a reason to actually gather nuyen, I look forward to the matrix book anyhow.

no idea how I double posted, sorry.

Blackout program, your argument is invalid.

Also, the notion that a technomancer needs to take 'ware to be competitive is completely screwed up; it would be just like if a magician had to.

I was toying with it to see if it could be done, and it actually worked really well. Should add that the character was never fully finished (still had karma and cash to burn, hadn't assigned knowledge skills) and still had full essence.

Sure he was theory crafted, but if finished he was fully playable and survivable with skills to cover a variety of situations both inside and outside the matrix. As to the archtype not being supposed to exist: This Adept Decker was better than pretty much any technomancer I'd theorycrafted due to flexibility and on top of that was far less vulnerable than a technomancer due to having a high initiative in AR and thus not being vulnerable to stun or physical damage due to biofeedback. Technomancers are the opposite. He was good in a fight outside of the matrix in a way that would cost most technomancers far more than it cost him. The fact is that Technomancers by their very nature sacrifice non-matrix capacity for their matrix powers, so if a decker can equal them in the matrix and still be formidable outside of it then the tradeoff isn't worth it. Technomancers have too high a price for their power.

Also forgot that he had codeslinger for an extra 2 dice on brute force attacks.

- defensive dice pools are based on deck attributes. 6644 doesn't just mean lower limits (which isn't a big deal), it also means lower defence pools. as far as offensive dice pools, well, signal scrub is +2 to any action if you have 2+ noise. likewise, a datajack is another +1 in the same situations. the armour program is another +2 dice pool on your defence. defuse is +4 to resist data bomb damage (a pretty big bonus). shell is another bonus to defence. sneak adds to your defence against being traced. there are also a few +attributes and just flat bonuses (+1 to data bomb rating, +2 DV with attacks, +1 DV per mark on the target) and a few miscellaneous effects (being able to disguise your devices, being able to deal biofeedback damage at all). there's also the fact that every time a technomancer takes matrix damage, that is contributing to lower dice pools since matrix damage to your cyberdeck doesn't interfere with your ability to hack until the condition monitor is full. none of these are *exclusive* to the decker, but they *are* a heck of a lot cheaper. note that the TM method of ignoring noise has a sustaining modifier of -2. and has fading. and only works on a single device.

- device rating may determine your condition monitor, but for most situations your ability to avoid damage is based on firewall and intuition, plus sometimes willpower. soaking damage is equal parts firewall and device rating, as well, so the combined higher ratings (not to mention the numerous programs that offer those dice pool bonuses you insist don't exist) on an actual cyberdeck do in fact help the cyberdeck be tougher.

- a cyberlimb that takes you from 1-2 agility up to 6 costs you 30k nuyen, less if used. for an additional 19,500 you can make that agility 9. and while you're at it, you may as well pile in some armour. maybe even consider a cyberarm gyromount for an extra 6k nuyen. going from 1-2 attribute dice while shooting a one-handed weapon up to 9 (plus gaining some otherwise difficult to access RC bonuses) for about 55k nuyen. that's not expensive. wired reflexes 1 on a mundane hacker isn't too expensive (you'll obviously be wanting synaptic on an adept, but i keep hearing about how we shouldn't consider adept hackers). nor is a couple of points of reaction enhancement (and unlike the real street samurai, you'll actually be able to defend it if you want to run it wireless). you won't be a street samurai, it is true, but you can gain a *lot* of combat effectiveness while gaining a full dump stat out of it. bone lacing or bone density can help soak even more damage and aren't too expensive, synthacardium can add a bonus to gymnastic dodge (albeit this one isn't cheap). obviously, you can't get every last one of these in chargen and still have the best deck, but you can get enough of them to make a difference and turn you from someone who's better off hiding for the entire fight, to someone who can at least contribute meaningfully.

- if karma for resources sucks, then it sucks for technomancers too. please stop changing the goalposts in an attempt to make technomancers look better.

- you don't need to physically infiltrate places to remove noise. you need to physically infiltrate places because dealing with a host that is DR 8 or 9 every time you want to hack something is bloody awful, and when you're directly connected to a device you can hack the device's attributes instead of the host (and, while you're at it, get easy marks on the host... at which point you can log in and use your superior defences due to higher defensive dice pools granted from programs and matrix attributes to avoid detection for longer, and get the job done). remember how defensive dice pools are determined by matrix attributes? well, would you rather hack against a dice pool of 20 or a dice pool of 8?

I love how the Technomancer's damaging complex form has good odds of doing more damage to the Technomancer than the target. Just goes to show how badass they are...

I haven't tried either in SR5 yet, but in SR4.5, TM's were always weaker than deckers. What made them powerful were the sprites, that could do things the otaku couldn't touch. However, since sprites got nerfed and deckers got a boost, I can't see how otaku managed to keep up. If I'm reading this right, they can't even provide one of the most important defensive buffs: you need a deck to slave devices, in order to protect them with the wireless on. TM's can't do that.

They were a bit rules-mastery dependent, but in-Matrix they were stronger - part of what you need to factor is the effects of threading, which could even make Hack On The Fly downright safe.

YMMV, of course, but I found TM's by themselves to be, at best, almost equivalent. Threading was fine, but programs didn't cause Fading.

A techno with sprites, on the other hand... definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Two words: Incremental threading.

I won't deny that the most effective ones are using all the tools that are available to them (same with mages), but even the dedicated threader could do some pretty awesome stuff, and the Fading values were pretty controllable.

Ivejust had a bit of an epiphany.
While putting together a TM with a BIG focus on purely CFs along with some specific Matrix actions I had an idea... One inspired by the Secondary Deck thread....

Here it is...

You play your TM with his DR6 Attack 5 Data 5 Sleaze 6 Firewall 6 Living Persona
Your threading pool is 14
Your Fading resist is 12
Hack on the fly pool is 14
Hide pool is 11
Most other pools are 10-12

CFs are Editor, Res Spike, Res Veil, Transcend Grid, Cleaner

Your buddy plays a decker (or you get ahold of a Deck as the build for above cannot afford one, with some swapping of priorities it can be done though, but aim to grab one in game).

Then you get your buddy to invite marks from you, 3 to be precise or (if no buddy) You turn the deck on, slot it's program's, set it to Wireless (of course) and let it stand there as a Device in the matrix. Then you access to Matrix with your Living Persona as usual. You then perform Control Device and go hacking with full access to its Program Suite!

Sure it's a little convoluted and stretching some of the RAW a little, but the concept sounds totally CyberPunk to me. Using your LP to joyride/hack a deck to use its Programs as a discardable device-tool instead of something connected to your Persona.

except that you're going to have to hack hosts twice, risk being detected by IC twice, won't be able to use full matrix defence actions with the cyberdeck if it's your buddy's, and if you want to avoid the first two drawbacks, you have to either hack regularly (thus being unable to use your TM powers) or lose access to the programs.

assuming it's even allowed, that is. it's unclear whether a persona is actually able to go anywhere should you remote control it. or even whether you can remote control a persona at all.

funny thing, you have those first two risks with sprites, too, but all the technomancer fans seem to be glossing over that part.

Sure, Exploit prog for a measly 13 karma sounds totally worth the price...

I am not talking about magic deckers because if I were, we might as well take non-magic deckers and TMs off the table since neither can compete. its an issue, but not one I have any interest in talking about since there really isnt much to debate.

I was wrong, those numbers do help defensively, and a couple programs give actual dice pool to defense tests. It wont help your dicepool to hack better, but it can help you defend better. I am mostly avoiding pointing out things both can do, since that seems redundant. There are ways to increase pools and whatnot with matrix actions, which deckers and TMs can both do.

It is worth noting that a decker has a very limited number of programs they can run, 3 with the top deck, less with any other, and they can only change things out on their turns, so if they are putting programs in for defensive measures, those are programs that arent used for offensive ones, You can sacrifice a slot to run configurator, but otherwise, you are only making one change a round. Threading may have harder limits to be sure, but programs are not a giant pile of always on bonuses.

I mention the limits on cash buying because they are relevant. Top deck with logic bioware puts you below resources D for spending on yourself, somewhere in the 40k range, a fair bit less if you actually buy enough copies of programs to have the level of free configurability you constantly talk about (and that is a good investment, mind). Karma to cash can give you 10k with a little pain, 20k tops. You could afford wired reflexes one, if you got nothing else and spend some karma, but wired reflexes is rough on the essense even for a non-adept, especially if you ever want to upgrade it, bioware is just a lot better for that. You could get the cyberarm by pushing the karma pretty hard, but not both. The cash is going to feel very limited for a decker, and thats with taking an A in resources, they really wont have any more spending room than the TM, sadly. Spending karma for cash is something I try to avoid in character generation because it is so much less efficient than other options, I only pointed it out with the TM because it was a real option to put attribs on B and still get logic boosters, not because I thought it was a great idea. But if you did, you're numbers would be better than the deckers, I personally think you need to sacrifice too much to get there.

But at this point I think its safe to just say we disagree. I feel TM's are valid at their basic job, with a handful of unique tricks in their books compared to the decker, though they could use some work to get the survivability and flexibility outside of the matrix that a decker enjoys. You seem to feel they are utterly incapable of doing anything at all. And I think we at least both agree that a decker adept is too good.

The top end deck runs 6 programs. The best deck available at chargen runs 4.

i don't "feel they are utterly incapable of doing anything at all". i do feel that they are worse than deckers both in and out of the matrix, while taking up more build resources and having more drawbacks to them to accomplish that... such that you are almost always better off being a decker (the main exception being "i want to be a technomancer", for which deckers have no answer).

there are a handful of things a technomancer can do which a decker can't, but for the most part you are paying a lot to get very little benefit (and most of those little benefits have a high cost in drawbacks, like massive fading values and being punished harshly for essence loss). i can make a decker that is as good or even slightly better at hacking (and if you don't think superior defensive pools makes you better at hacking, well, let's just say that if you have massive offensive dice pools but the host you're in has spotted you, you are not going to have a fun day in hackerland). and then because i didn't need as high priority in attributes, i can also be useful outside of the matrix. even just having that cyberarm i mentioned, and making it second hand, is a pretty significant boost in combat effectiveness for a fairly low price. ditch the gyromount to save on cash period, and modify it with armour later on to save some cash at chargen, and you've still got some pretty beastly suppression fire (which doesn't scale with IPs anyways). alternately, wired reflexes alone is pretty solid if you already have a decent agility (or otherwise have a decent dice pool for your damaging skill of choice).

i mean, if a decker gets a very good deck *plus* has room for cerebral boosters *plus* has room for one combat augmentation from priority A, while the technomancer is getting only a deck, and the deck isn't even remotely as good as the one the decker got (can't defend other devices, can't run programs, generally has lower stats and can't swap them around either), and then some skills... which he has to spend on sprites, so the decker still has better skills in other areas due to not needing priority B in attributes just to actually have a decent deck after paying priority A for it.

also, i think you've misunderstood configurator. it doesn't take up a program slot. you swap it in, it has a pre-selected list of programs and deck attributes in it, and the new program list doesn't have to (and in fact shouldn't) include configurator... so you only run it for a brief moment before it swaps itself out.

but really, i don't think technomancers are incompetent at hacking. they're just worse than a decker, and cost more.

for example, (in addition to making fading not so ridiculous), one of my favourite suggestions to fix technomancers is to drop the priority required by 1 for each level - current priority A now only costs priority B, for example. this would allow (for example) priority A to go to skills, priority B to go to attributes, priority C resonance, priority D race (spend any special points on either raising your resonance or on edge), priority E resources - and the technomancer would then become a highly skilled individual with good attributes to help make them a bit effective outside of the matrix. you could even put priority D resonance, priority C race, and go with a high edge build (or, you know, actually make a technomancer that isn't a human or elf without being punished quite so hard).

such a character would be, i feel, a valuable contribution to a team, and could have some value both in and out of the matrix while not being overwhelmingly strong. the main problem is higher cost than a decker combined with lower effectiveness than a decker... if being a technomancer didn't cost so bloody much, i wouldn't have such a problem with it.

Defense pools matter, but offense pools are more important, those are the ones that keep you from getting caught for example, and not needing the defense pools in the first place. That said, I did point out that I was wrong when I mentioned that, and there were some pretty spiffy defense programs I didn't really notice in my first run through programs, since they tend to be specialized on a single for of defense.

And I guess I am a little confused on the configurator, I thought that you basically needed that running to work, mostly due to that last sentence about 'assuming the configurator is running'. I thought it was sort of a 'heres my defensive setup hanging out in the configurator program' thing. You keep it running when you are doing other things, and then use it to swap in a more cybercombat oriented setup in a single swap, quite possibly dropping the configurator at that point. I would think to use it if it was not loaded, you would need to reconfigure once to swap it in, then a second time to do a full configuration swap? you dont run programs per say, they just have passive effects, and the text reads 'while its running you can swap a bunch of crap at once', so if its not loaded, you shouldnt be able to use it to do a full swap, otherwise it seems too good, being the only program that doesnt cost a slot to use.

My thoughts for improvement had been along the lines of a focus type item for TMs, since the system parallels magic in so many ways. It would also give them something more to spend cash on so resources E isnt such an common choice. But lower priority would work too. Bump adept up a priority too while your making changes

Sorry if I sound argumentative, but there were a lot of comments to the effect that TMs werent really viable, and I think they are. They have issues to be sure, and a decker has a lot more options and ability to do things offline, but I wanted to refute the idea that a TM was always inferior, in the matrix, they can do the same job as a decker and play on the same field.

High School Football players and NFL Football players can play on the same field - Does not make them equal.

Indeed, if its the Broncos versus High schoolers, my money is on High School all the way.

The Vikings on the other hand......

No doubt about that... The Donkeys really need some help.
Who are the Vikings, though. Some Norwegian Team?

Well it's not The Chefs

Was referring to the Minnesota Vikings, not the classic shore looters, though there is some shared blood there.....

Minnesota has a Football team? Naah, I really have to contest that one.

offence pools do help you not get caught, especially against devices, but when it comes to hosts, you want to be as hard to find as possible.

see, if you do it right, you will rarely face the attributes of the host. find a device that's slaved to it, hack that device with a direct connection, get a mark. log in to the host (no test involved), and then basically ignore the host to hack other devices connected to it (note: while on the host you count as having a direct connection to slaved devices, most of which are unlikely to have defensive pools above 8-10 or thereabouts, often substantially less). all you need to worry about really is the IC that is almost sure to be in there patrolling and doing regular checks to try and find you, unless you're actually trying to hack the host itself (which can be unpleasant, and does require good offensive dice pools... but then, the decker still has much easier access to cerebral boosters with leftover resources, and doesn't have to worry about losing resonance to gain said bioware, and still has those other potential advantages particularly including that matrix damage doesn't harm their dicepools while it does harm dicepools for a technomancer... so, generally speaking, deckers will also have higher offensive dice pools anyways).

looking more closely at configurator, you have it right, and i had misread it. my bad on that. it does take two reconfigure actions to change everything over if you're not already running configurator. yet another advantage hacker adepts will have if they can get a second free action per turn.

(on a side note, i don't think adepts cost too little, nor do i think that an adept hacker is illogical; the magic is in the hacker, not in the matrix. it's improving the hacker's mind and skills, not bending the matrix. furthermore, the "problem" is not really with adepts, it's with builds that combine adept abilities with high resources to get the best of both worlds... adepts on their own are just fine. really, i feel the problem comes more with the fact that having a high priority in race is pretty insignificant, and that high priority in attributes, while good, is not nearly as good as, say, high priority in skills or resources. in other words, if attributes A was giving enough attributes that resources A couldn't compensate for dumping it, i think we'd see a lot more adepts with attributes, skills, and magic taking up the top 3 priorities, not necessarily in that order. and there's not nearly as much impressiveness in resources D to go crazy with. likewise, if race A was worth more, i think that would help make it a harder choice. alternately, to be fair, you could just *decrease* the value of adept, magician/mystic adept, aspected magician, resources, and skills... personally, i feel like beefing up attributes and race would be a bit more straightforward though).

Sort of, TMs who threaded super high levels of Command could wreck pretty easily with drones, while a TM who threaded up stealth could be nigh undetectable.

When I first played around with the priority system in 5, I really didnt like it, 4th had a lot more logic to costs and whatnot.
But after playing around with it some, I really like the idea behind the priority system, but I think some of the specifics are a little off. Forcing real and significant choices at the priority level gives a different feel to the whole process.

That said, here are things I feel the priority system does wrong.
Metatypes feel off, and I find it hard to want to make a troll. That priority needs better reasons to drop your A/B in it.
Magic/resonance is expensive (which is good), unless you are an Adept. I think that being able to put a 4 magic Adept into rank C allows far to many other Archtypes to just plain be done better by an adept. If you had to pay you're A/B rank for it, that would not feel so common.
Resources have an odd progression, E resources feels too low, its worsened by the high cost to transfer karma to nuyen. You lose 2 out of 14 attribute points or 4 out of 22 skill points dropping from D to E, so why do you lose 44k out of 50k nuyen making the same drop? if you are at 12 attribute points, you can probably buy up 2 of them from 1-2 with 20 starting karma, skill points probably less to recoup your four, but you are capped on 10 karma to get to halfway back to D rank resources.


I dont know that you could make the A attribs match what you can do with ware without making it broken, or changing how ware works. Its not total points that bring power, its points in your primary focus stat, and 'ware plus adept is the best way to be 4 points above people who just put an A in attribs, no matter how many points they get there. When I look down the street at a guy with a gun, I'm a lot more scared of the cyberadept with 11 (7[elf/trait boost]+ware/adept stats) agi and 11 skill (6+spec+adept skill) than I am of the guy with 5-6 across the board on his stats.

But at this point I think we are heading into an entirely different, if interesting conversation than this thread started as. (and I am entirely at fault for this), so I am going to stop typing

the guy with a single high attribute and skill is better with that one skill (whether it be shooting, climbing, or whatever else). and that's an excellent ability to have. often (especially in opposed tests) having a massive dice pool is great.

but don't underestimate the power of being able to beat almost everyone the huge dice pool guy beats, while also being able to beat said character in a dozen other areas.

certainly, the person with crazy good agility and automatics is a powerful force to be reckoned with, but if you also have the ability to climb into an advantageous location, bluff your way past a security checkpoint, outrun a hellhound, and withstand small arms fire, and "only" a 14 for your dice pool... you're still almost as good at shooting people, but much better at getting yourself into situations where you can shoot people, and much better at getting away successfully after shooting people, which generally makes you much more useful to a shadowrunning team, and i'd much sooner have the guy who is really good in a lot of areas on my team than the guy who is really ridiculously good in one area and completely useless or worse in other areas.

not that being an adept and getting an amazing dice pool makes you automatically bad at everything else, mind you, but the main problem is that right now, they can specialize that much and there is little if any opportunity cost to "dumping" other areas of their character.

Okay, I promised an update on the TM in my game with the rules tweaks I've put into effect.
Last night he had to hack a Rating 5 (minor security) LoneStar Host to grab some Security Camera feed footage from the edge of Redmond.
For the record this TM isn't as good in the stats for DPs as I posted for doing the deck dummy hack.
He IDed the SecCameras (they went to the area they wanted the data of) from their Silent state and pulled their Grid, Slaved Host etc. Hooray for Matrix perception tests.
He hopped to the Seattle Local Grid (I still want to say LTG).
Then it was a very smooth Hack on the Fly and Enter Host. OverWatch tally was at 8 by this point.
More Matrix Perception to correctly ID the Timestamped File he's looking for, again does it easy.
Now this is where it went a bit wrong...
His next Hack on the Fly comes up with no hits where as the Host gets 5... Probe IC is immediately launched.
He gets bitten by the shimmering orphidian IC getting another Mark on his Persona and now Trace IC is launched. He Succeeds his Hack this time as he fends off the Trace IC. Edit File doesn't work out too well so he still can't grab the Data, the Serpentile IV is still biting and poisoning his persona (up to 3 Marks now) and the BloodHound with the silver nose and sherrifs badge almost placed his location. Needing some backup before more IC gets activated he compiles a Fault Sprite (R3) into existence while getting attacked by the IC again and sets the wicked Darkling like creature on the Blodhound with the silver nose.
Getting worried that his OW tally is getting higher (guessing to me that it must be well over 20 by now, it was actually 18) and that the Host would be spitting more IC very soon he drops any pretence of Decking the System and goes to using his CFs. It still takes 2 attempts with opening up his CF Level to 5 and spending Edge on the second try (first attempt saw him get like 2 hits on a Level 4 where the Host tallied 8 his on 11 dice) he rips a copy of the File. The Sprite is Electron Storming the hell out of the Trace IC (good sprite rolls poor IC rolls).
On the first pass of turn 3 the Trace IC again fails to trace the TM and then gets crashed by the Fault Sprite. The Prove IC can do very little as the TM dumps the File into the team's Commlinks conference call and then jumps from the Host as the Fault Sprite slips back into the Resonance.
The TM throws his LP into Reboot and the team watch the footage of a Gang hijacking an Ares - Evo - Horizon subsidiary (Cyberspace Systems Inc) cargo Hum-Vee and it's two escort cars.

Result? Hack successful, newbie to SR got to have some fun learning the rules and paying with Hacking, CFs and a Sprite while experiencing IC and Host. Fading taken was 1 box of Stun (at RAW values would have been Five boxes).

and this is why you should brute force everything rather than hack on the fly when hacking a host... unresisted matrix damage is bad, but not as bad as the host getting marks on you and releasing the hounds.

Not sure if I would agree with that. For a TM, unresisted matrix damage = unresisted stun damage. So unlike a decker, it actually can impact their dice pool if they take too much. I think hack on the fly is appropriate in this case.

The TM was very fortunate that Lone Star had the most vanilla of IC loaded. Had it been something like Tar Baby -> Track -> Killer, they would have had a pretty tough time of it.

It's a Host running a few blocks of Security Camera and Panic Button! In north west Redmond. Z rated zone so no security spider (well not at first, probably after a few turns) and running Probe-Trace and then maybe some nasty stuff. Cheap and simple, especially as most of the cameras and alert systems don't work anyway in Redmond.

fading damage cannot be healed with first aid or magic, but matrix damage has no such restrictions for technomancers. step out of the host if you take damage, heal it up, and then log back in. you've got 15 minutes before your oversight goes up due to time restrictions, and it takes a few seconds to get healed.

now, perhaps if you're in the middle of a firefight, that might change. but in general, it's much better to risk a bit of stun damage (particularly since 5 net hits for the defender is pretty unlikely if you're not hacking something way above what you should be going after).

Of course, winning at Hack on the Fly means no one knows you were there. Brute force is likely to see IC very very quickly.

The only thing you're going to be able to rely on is first aid or stim patches since magic can't heal stun damage. If you've got a stud medic that can get past the penalties, it might work. I'd rather just not have the Host know I was there (at least until I hit the first protected file) given that you can get the same pools for Brute Force and Hack on the Fly, so same chance of success or failure.

I guess if your Sleaze is really high, you might be able to Brute Force without the Host being able to spot you. It would be an interesting concept.

IC can't do anything to you until it finds you. and if you don't have crazy stealth dice pools, you shouldn't be attacking a host regardless; the IC is already going to be checking for icons that don't belong anyways, 99.9% of the time (there's even an example in the book where a hacker gets into a host, and there is a patrol IC sitting there checking all icons to make sure they belong).

so really, you log in, the host checks for you whether you used attack or not, and you move on with your life.

also, you should be getting your marks on the host by getting marks using direct connections to slaved devices ideally, anyways.

If you use Brute Force to get your MARKs (either on the Host or a device slaved to the Host or a file or whatever) the owner is alerted immediately each time you succeed, which likely results in an active alert to the Host which will start launching IC. Sure, they can't do anything until the Patrol IC spots you, but once it does, all the IC that have been loaded can then target you. You're really relying on the Patrol IC not being able to get a net hit and you don't have nearly as much GTFO time as you would with Hack on the Fly.

I do still think a Sleaze prioritized Brute Force decker might be an interesting and viable idea, particularly if the decker is more of a mess around with devices in meatspace kind of decker.

ETA: A TM, of course, is not going to be nearly as successful at this.

you can go ahead and use hack on the fly for direct connection to devices slaved to the host to mark the host, that's not a bad idea. with a direct connection, the devices will have an awful defence pool, in many cases as low as 6. so while the drawback of failing is bad with hack on the fly, it's *extremely* unlikely for you to fail. likewise, in these situations, the drawback for succeeding on an attack in this case is pretty bad, since if you succeed (which is very likely) with a sleaze, there is no drawback.

in contrast, a host generally has really *good* defence pool, as it doesn't really have any reason not to (by default) assign the highest values to firewall and data processing. in contrast, it has very low offensive pools (it's a bit vague, patrol IC is not assigned an attribute for matrix perception checks, but i'd presume it uses host rating x 2 [data processing] for it's perception in much the same way that other IC uses the host's attack x 2 [attack] for attack actions. now consider that a host you're hacking is likely rated between 6 and 8 for a chargen character, with some 5s.

so the IC's perception dice pool is 10-16, with probably +3 to that on defence against sleazes (max data processing, as you have to find anything before you can do anything against that thing). against a 13, you've probably got a fair chance of success to score a mark, but it's probably not that far off 50/50 either unless you're really hyper-specialized, and if you fail, you have been spotted, and you need to remove a mark before you can hide. that's pretty nasty. on the high end, i don't think i'd go in assuming i'm going to beat a dicepool of 19 on a regular basis. the consequence of failure should you fail a sleaze action is huge, the consequence of failure should you fail an attack action is relatively small, and you are pretty likely to fail in most cases anyways. not that your chance of staying hidden vs a 16 dice pool is great either, but it's going to take them at least a couple of actions to even try and find you, and if they fail that, your odds of being found go down dramatically (and good luck hacking a tough system for multiple marks).

so really, if you're up against a host's dice pools, i for one don't like my odds of beating the host consistently. a 50/50 chance of a roll that i'm probably going to need to make multiple times going horrifically wrong is not something i'm willing to risk lightly. a 50/50 chance on a roll that i have to make once (after which retries are penalized -2 cumulative per attempt), and where something comparatively minor goes wrong only if i succeed, on the other hand, is not so bad. particularly since at least i can try to hide again if they make that check, since i'm not marked, just spotted.

But since this conversation is based on TMs (at least, I believe that is where this started), you're eating unresisted stun damage each time you fail a roll. I wouldn't consider that "comparatively minor" in that situation, particularly if there is a large disparity in dice pools between what the Host is throwing and what the character is throwing and you expect to fail fairly often.

Which I think gets us back to the point which we both agree on: that TMs are pretty underpowered in many hacking situations.

the technomancer can be healed relatively quickly. particularly if he provides a sprite to improve the use of a first aid kit. even if you're the only one in the group with the skill, you can set it to wireless (assuming your group doesn't ignore wireless bonuses for being stupid) for an easy 12 dice pool plus whatever the sprite gives, plus any sane technomancer will take quick healer, which counteracts the emerged penalty, and if you're hacking a host you're probably in at least average conditions, so 11 dice...

heck, there's nothing preventing you from doing it yourself, strictly speaking. and being a technomancer, you'd likely specialize in treating whatever it is that happens to technomancers when they take matrix damage.

and in either case, you're not really expecting massive amounts of damage. and even if it's a possibility, it's still not as bad as what will happen if the host gets to set up an IC gangbang on you before you can remove the mark and hide.

Going with 11-14 dice, you're going to average 3-5 hits. The threshold is 2, so you can heal 1 to 3 boxes of stun and it takes a number of CTs equal to the amount of damage you're healing, probably 1-3 CTs as well. During that time, you're probably Brute Forcing (and possibly failing) multiple times, which further increases your stun damage. You can't really stop as IC is going to start loading up the first time you succeed and that Patrol keeps rolling perception checks.

I imagine its more likely that the Host is going to set up an IC gangbang when you use Brute Force. Outside of the Host, the MARK from the Host you get for failing a Hack on the Fly does nothing unless they deploy a security decker who exits the Host. So you can just log out and wait, clearing both MARKS and OS, assuming you're hacking a Host and don't really have to worry about time. You try until you succeed, then enter the Host. At this point, it really depends on what you want to do, but it's pretty much going to be the same dice versus same resistance with Brute Force vs. Hack on the Fly. The only difference being that the TM that used Brute Force to get into the Host is immediately on a timeline given that the Host has been alerted to their presence.

At least, that seems to be the way it would work to me.

This topic got me thinking about how to munchkin a Technomancer. I'm pretty much giving this munchkin TM unlimited resources and karma, just to see how high, high is.

Metatype Elf
Attack - 8 ['cause elf]
Sleaze - 7(6) [exceptional attribute, but -1 intell from pain editor]
Data Processing - 6 (9) [+ cerebral booster]
Firewall 6 (8) - [+1 from pain editor, +1 natural hardening]

Now our Munchkin TM is just a bit better than a Fairlight Excalibur at the cost of 142,500 ¥ and .9 essence (and a bunch of karma), might as well toss in a data jack to make it a nice and even 1 essence and to get that -1 noise.

Still not as flexible as a deck, but seeing how stun damage won't stop the TM with the pain editor, he can over thread or just take it to the face in the Matrix and keep going, at least until he fills his physical. This TM will also be better at cyber combat then a decker. Also our TM could also moonlight as a pretty decent face for a team too.

I don't think Natural Hardening is supposed to boost the Firewall attribute. I believe it is supposed to be added to Firewall when rolling to resist Biofeedback. Pretty entertaining though.

you should never be hacking against the host's dicepools unless you're inside the host, or you severely outclass the host and for some reason don't need to be in the host.

for example, suppose there's a security host for the facility you're hacking (if there isn't, then presumably the doors etc aren't hooked up to *any* host, and the host concern is not there).

you walk up to a door at some point. you connect to it directly with a cable. the door now only gets it's own dice pool for defence, and i'm going to propose that it would be classified roughly as a "corporate security device", giving it a device rating (and by default, firewall and data processing) of 3.

the matrix defence pool for that door against your hack is going to be 6. go ahead and sleaze it, because you're incredibly unlikely to get marked anyways.

and now, because of the miracles of slaved devices, you have a mark on the host and can log in, without ever having even once tested the host's defences.

now, suppose you later come across another door, or perhaps a security camera or gun drone. these are likely also slaved to the host, but whether they are or not, they won't benefit from the host's defences, because once on the host you count as having a direct connection to everything that is slaved to the host.

so basically, the only time you should ever be going up against a host's defences at all, is when you need marks on something that is entirely local to the host. like a file, or IC. hopefully you are never crazy enough to waste your time hacking IC itself, so that pretty much leaves files. which you're going to need to break the copy protection of anyways (an attack action).

until you make that *successful* attack action (note: the action to break the protection is vs protection rating x 2, which is unlikely to be more than maybe 8 dice, so there's very little risk there), there isn't really any pressure. you can just go ahead and wait 3-9 seconds, it's not a big deal. once you have succeeded, it's pretty much time to stop worrying about setting off alarms, because you can't help it regardless.

True for deckers, not true for technomancers.

I don't know. All Matrix damage a TM takes is biofeedback. It all does stun or physical, so I do think it might be on all the time for a TM.

I think it's on all the time, I just don't think it helps on tests not directly related to resisting biofeedback damage.

what, you mean you think that technomancers can't get a cable to do this?

....

you *have* heard of 'trode nets, right? because if a hacker can do it with a datajack, then a technomancer can bloody well do it with a 'trode net.

That's not what I mean, I mean all damage a TM takes in the Matrix is biofeedback. And it looks like the example on p102 might agree, but I know a lot of the examples are wrong, so that doesn't entirely help my argument.

Actually, whether or not a trode net works for that is debatable at best, in RAW.

I'm arguing that Natural Hardening shouldn't help with resisting, say, a Hack on the Fly attempt, which uses Firewall as part of the opposed resistance test.