My gaming blog: https://scionhouserules.wordpress.com

List of all my house rules that are finished or nearly so. I am working on finishing another five or six more in the next few weeks depending on how playtesting goes.

http://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/compendium/

My latest recently updated work on mana. Let me know what you think of the balloon analogy.

http://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/2014/...primer-on-mana/

technomancers cost 25 BP and full magicians cost 15?

so ummm... I take it you don't like having technomancers in your game, then?

Well, technomancers in the priority system are more expensive than mystic adepts or magicians once you take into account the freebies of spells, skills, and complex forms. So, it isn't my take on it it is a core rules take.

It ends up being a 30 karma difference or 6 BP so you do have a point since I have a 10 BP differential.

I have now changed it to 20 BP. Thanks for the feedback.

Well... Technomancers are not as powerful or versatile as a Full Mage, so they are STILL more expensive than they should be.
The disconnect in 5th Edition is that the developers obviously are working at eliminating Technomancers as a viable Archetype (The pendulum has swung too far back from where it was in 4th Edition).

I am no expert on technomancers. The last time there was a technomancer pc in my games they were called otaku and there was something fishy going down in the seattle renraku arcology.

I have on occasion used npc technomancers as threats as well as emergent critters but that is rare.

They are essentially Otaku with a few perks. SOme would argue they were too powerful in 4th, but now they are too weak in 5th. There is no middle ground, apparently.
Probably should not be costed any more than a full mage (at 15 BP) though (and probably equal to a Mysad, in my opinion). In 4th they were costed at 5 BP.

Have you run a 5e game? If so how do technomancers match deckers? In 4e I remember one of my players saying that in the previous game he was in with a different gm the technomancers wiped the floor with deckers and eventually that gm banned them.

Currently playing a Technomancer in a 5th Edition Game.
In 4th Edition, the TM could outshine against a Decker pretty easily (though my Cyberlogician was pretty much on par with the TM in our games - after a certain point, Program Rating and Technomancer CF's become pointless to exceed... And my Worms and IC were often better than his Sprites, in the long run).

In 5th Edition, I would be better served to get a Deck and Hack sans TM abilities (Limits would be better for the Decker than the TM, and are easily configured on the fly), for the most part. TM's were depowered to the point of almost uselessness. I have my niche, and I make do pretty well, but I have been playing for many, many years, and I know my GM well enough to know what flies and what does not. I also did not just make the most optimized character that I could have either, but even then, the character would likely be better served as a Dekcer than a TM. TM Fading is stupid High, and the opportunity cost to be simply as effective as a Decker is absurd. Of course, a TM needs no equipment, which is awesome all on its own.

a 4th edition TM also had access to IC (or agents) and worms and such. yes, you had to actually invest in something to run them, but seeing as how you probably didn't have anything better to spend your money on anyways, it's not a big deal.

4th edition TMs were crazy powerful. that said, they were also crazy expensive to build in either BP or karma gen, and had various drawbacks (like taking matrix damage on their stun track, which can't just be medic'd away, and suffering resonance loss if they took any 'ware). tuning them down a little bit makes sense., because they really were the undisputed kings of the matrix, but should have come with a reduction in cost so that they could also stop being so pathetic in any scenario other than hacking stuff (and/or rigging).

tuning them down, then tuning deckers up, then making them "unique" by making sure they can't do a number of useful things the deckers can do (like running programs or having swappable matrix attributes), then making their complex forms have ridiculous fading codes because they were too powerful, then taking away their ability to rig stuff in chargen (to be fair, that was done to the deckers as well, but at least they can subscribe drones to their cyberdeck to command, or run an RCC at the same time as their cyberdeck without needing to submerge) all combined with leaving the cost to play one every bit as high, plus leaving them with all their old drawbacks? not so reasonable.

they should have been made reasonable. instead, they got nerfed hard. it looks basically like 2-3 different people all decided technomancers needed to be taken down a peg, each used a different way to nerf them, and nobody bothered to notice that it had happened.

http://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/2014/...ral-protrusion/

http://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/2014/...-impersonation/

Certain writers of 5e matrix rules were diehard fans of Deckers and went out of their way to give them nice things and eliminate their competition. You could also say that it was a load of bull

Any plans on working with Adepts more? Taking away their bonus skills seemed a tad nerdy at first, but you also seem to have reduced te cost of skills and skill groups a large amount

Yet, I feel like Adepts are the same kind of magic as Aspected Mages.

Indeed... You know how those trogs are though.

What do you mean by taking away their bonus skills? They get 1 skill equal to their Magic Rating so it is actually better than the priority table gift of an active skill at -2 to their Magic Rating.

My latest post with new metamagics for fifth edition.

http://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/2014/...-fifth-edition/

http://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/2014/...ical-qualities/

Shielding Qualities.

http://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/2014/...tral-total-war/

A little background fluff which I thought was a really fun idea.

Now that is an interesting variant to allow healing of Blood Damage, which could also by extension be used to allow magic healing general Drain Damage.

At 1 Karma per box healed it is pretty steep but does fit with the 'everything has a price' scheme and is spendy enough that it wouldn't be done too lightly while still leaving the option available when one is in a bind and really needs to.

An adjustment to the ratio may be needed, but will have to see.
May have to steal this idea and test it to see how it shakes out.

The disconnect comes from the fact that a lot of games ignore the universe and make wireless hacking impossible, dispite the fact that the cannon states that everything is wireless.

So a Technomancer can either be incredible adept at taking out cybered opponents and manipulating the environment from automated defence systems, to vehicles, to shower curtains running Linix. Or:

The can be an expensive paperweight because people choose to not make wireless a thing.

Personally I think the problem lies with the players, not the technomancer archetype.

no, not really. just because many things are wireless, doesn't mean that everything is wireless. a technomancer is amazing, until they have to actually go somewhere in person. and while it is reasonable to expect that you won't always be going everywhere in person, it is not reasonable to expect that you will never have to go anywhere in person.

they have a huge weakness which can only be minimized to some extent. they once actually were pretty much the poster child for power, with a cost. now they're the poster child for not having power, but still having a huge cost.

https://scionhouserules.wordpress.com/2014/...-to-initiation/

Honestly, they didn't go far enough. Technomancers as written are conceptually dumb, and rely on literally everyone else in the world making dumb choices to be a functional archetype.

So technomancers weigh the same as a duck?

Based on the layout, I suspect you're right. Things look like they were poorly put together, and I'm not sure the writers were communicating well with each other.

In SR4.5, I didn't have trouble with technomances on their own. Add sprites to the mix, and things got out of control very quickly. I recall a TM combining a force 10 Sprite, a force 10 Task spirit from the mage, Threading, and Edge, to roll over 40 dice for something. SR5 has even nerfed that, though; you burn through services was too fast.


Adepts are decidely superior to cyber characters now. They didn't get that many upgrades in relation to sams, but SR5 cyber is way overpriced in both Essence and nuyen. There's very few areas where an Adept can't outshine a comparable mundane, and even then, I'm not sure how much the mundane will exceed the adept by. Adepts are also easier to build, easier to learn, and easier to play-- they have fewer fiddly bits, and fewer rules to learn. Honestly, I have yet to meet someone playing a home-build street sam in SR5. The only ones I've seen were newbies, running the pregen sam.

i feel like the augmented adept is still alive and kicking. there are still areas where 'ware is better in efficiency; permanent stat increases and damage soaking for example.

heck, even the straight up street sam has a niche in terms of soaking damage. adepts are much better at outright avoiding damage (and considering their opponents will now have a limit to their hits, that got a pretty nice boost in 5th), but when it comes to eating frag grenades for breakfast (or other basicaly undodgeable damage), a street sam is much better.

The augmented adept is a great option, but it further underscores how far behind mundanes are. Adepts not only have access to their own abilities, which are usually better or cheaper, but they can augment as well. Mundanes only have 'ware, which is usually worse than powers in terms of cost.

As far as soaking damage goes, it's never been a good option in Shadowrun; in every edition, dodging has been the better choice. Even with the SR5 grenade rules, adepts have an advantage-- the only option for avoiding it is throwing it back, and adepts can do that better than sams.

Yup.

Honestly, of all the things in 5e I'd love to completely rewrite, Technomancers are top of the list. There's a lot of cool stuff that they could have done to set them apart mechanically.