At what Karma level would it be reasonable to have ANYTHING delta?

Like I said, Beta grade cyber you can get a lot of different places... heck, if you're good enough, you might even be able to spoof your way in and get the ware.

When it becomes reasonable...

We are hitting the 200 Karma Level in our current game, and it is now becoming something that several characters have put an interest into. The Spy is looking to get better grades of Bioware, as well as upgrading her single piece of Cyber (the Datajack) to Delta Grade. The Wared Up Adrenalin Junkie/Sam is looking to replace and upgrade parts because he has a need to replace and upgrade parts (as well as make room for MORE parts). Since Delta Clinics have been a thing for the last 25`ish Years or so, they are no longer considered street legend or non-existent. They are available, though fairly difficult to gain entry to (depending upon how you interpret the rules given for such things). If you have the right contacts, and the right amount of Nuyen, one can gain access to a Delta Clinic. Can you trust them? Maybe, Maybe Not. All depends upon the needs of the story.

In our Last Campaign, we did not see a Delta Clinic until almost 400 Karma. Different Campaigns, Different Availabilities. Of course, the current Campaign we are all playing characters (well, some of them anyways) that had serious connections to the Corporate world in one way or another from the get go. The last campaign we played, only two characters were intimately tied to the Corporate World (the Undercover Infiltrator and the Ex-Company Man).

Access to a Delta Clinic happens when it happens. Rarely as early as we would like it to, of course, but there you go. Especially since NOW Delta Grade is no longer the holy grail of augmentations.

Well, there're a couple more. Ares inherited Cross' Delta Clinic in Quebec City; Aztlan has one in Tenochtitlan and one in Panama City; and there's supposed to be an independent Delta Clinic in Vancouver (UO's actually is supposed to be in Africa). Sources can be provided if you want to.

And there are conflicting accounts on Horizon's Delta Clinic. In Corporate Enclaves, it was hinted that they have one on Santa Catalina Island (p. 28, Butch's Shadowtalk), then suddenly they do not have one but would really like to.

Also, what was the point of making Cyberware reliant on suppressant drugs all of a sudden, which it has never been before? Too much playing Deus Ex? Because neither past editions of Shadowrun nor real, actual implants such as replacement joints, retinal implants or hearing aids/cochlea replacements require such medication (in Deus Ex, it's a MacGuffin to make Adam Jensen super special).


Delta is Shadowrun's Master Crafted. It would really depend on the character's connections and completed missions more than Karma levels. For instance, if you successfully and with a high enough Horizon Bonus rating complete Anarchy Syndicated, you have a very good case for Delta access. The same with the Battle of Manhattan.

Unlike D&D, Gear advancement in Shadowrun doesn't really correlate with Karma; it correlates with the connections, debts, favors and giri your character accumulates. When Damien Knight owes you one (or Johnny Spinrad), it doesn't matter if you have 10 Karma total; and when everybody you know lives in Redmond Touristville, you can have 5000 Karma and still will have a hard time even getting your mitts on Betaware.


No, now we have Gammaware. To hell with the Greek alphabet! Though admittedly it does sound better than Epsilonware.

Never played any of that series. I've seen a couple of comic strips (Pheremone Roofies!), and I've seen the guy's pic, but that's it. Immuno-Suppressants are cmentioned here and there (In the SR5 negative qualities, in fact) ... more background detail than anything, and a reason that Type O bioware's so important. I didn't mention Tenochitlan as I was thinking North America, but I *did* forget Quebec City. Possibly it's there and unmentioned or possible that Knight looted it to bring up his supplies a bit better. (And rub a lil' salt in the Cross wounds, natch.)

Yeah, but that's only necessary for living compounds made of human(esque) cells. The immune system goes crazy if someone else's cells pop up. It could care less about most ceramic compounds and titanium. Seriously, my mom basically has titanium bones (both hips, a shoulder, soon both knees are replacement joints) and doesn't take anything for them. My grandfather has two cochlea replacements, neither. And there is no reason why this should suddenly become necessary in the future, especially in 5E all of a sudden.


While possible, I'm unsure whether such a facility could even easily be moved, and reverse-engineering another one would help Ares actually understand the stuff there and make their ownership of it all the more complete. Just a thought though, they could well have moved it to Detroit so Knight can go visit it and shout "Mine!" any time he wants to.

Uhm...


Zero (Cybertram, Doctor Bob’s Allergy Elixir)
Zero is the street name for a number of different immuno-suppressant drugs used to help the body adjust to new cyberware or reduce the effects of allergic reactions. Street docs commonly use small quantities of the drug to suppress the body’s immune system for a period of time, reducing the chances that the body will reject implanted ’ware. Habitual drug users use zero to lower their tolerance to other drugs.
For the duration of effect, zero users are no longer subject to penalties from allergies, though they still suffer damage for Severe allergies (see p. 81, SR4). Furthermore, users can treat their tolerance rating as though their addiction is one level lower than it actually is for the duration of the Effect. At the gamemaster’s discretion, characters that undergo surgery for implants may be dosed with zero
(Arsenal)

Read dude. The stuff is taken during the implantation procedure. It is in your quote. You do not have to take it permanently, like in Deus Ex. This is not the same as taking suppressants because you had an organ transplant, which is how things work with cyberware according to ChromeFlesh (which would mean Cyberware should significantly lower resistance against pathogens and disease, btw).

First you're all "that's not how the immune system works", now your argument is that certainly the reaction to a foreign body will suddenly seize after a month or so?

No, I am pointing out that text says so, unlike ChromeFlesh which supposed cyberware needs permanent suppressants because that's Deus Ex' main plot (presumably). Personally, I think suppressants are not necessary for cyberware at all.

Again. I have no idea what Deus Ex's plot is or anything about the game.

So ... why then the sudden, permanent need to take suppressants?

That is a very good question.

For an organ transplant you start out with the normal round of anti-rejection/immunosuppressant medications because it's a foreign organic object in the body.
Over time as the risk of rejection is reduced, the doses and number of anti-rejection drugs can be reduced, but you will need some immunosuppressant medications indefinitely.

However in the case of a prosthetic, many of these devices can go right in without a lot of the worries of rejection/reaction.
Even today a person with an artificial heart usually does not need to be on permanent immunosuppressants except in special circumstances, and that is more down to the patient than the device.

So I would say if you are doing bioware, yeah you probably would need continual immunosuppressants, unless it was specifically cultured to be an exact match, but should cyber really be held to this?

Maybe regular off the rack 'cheap' cyberware is made with materials the body might react to, but anything Alpha and better one would assume was made to be as hypoallergenic as possible for use in the body.

From personal experience with a variety of medical implants in relatives, I know suppressants are just not an issue with them. And you have to actively try (real hard) to get the immune system to react to any inorganic object. Other things may happen - the body has defense mechanisms against foreign inorganic objects - but an immune system response is not among them. And it's not like the immune system can actually do ,much about them anyway. It's role is to attack pathogens and organic invaders, and mutant cells if it manages to detect them. A slab of titanium, ceramics or whatever. it has no answer to.

And really, Wakshaani, why the Ares Picus smartlink if you don't know DXHR? Why the Purists, which is nearly the same name the anti-cyber policlub in DXHR has? That's hard to accept as coincidence. Did someone else write all this, maybe?

Also, nice one on the Dream Inducer. The Winter Market isn't exactly Gibson's most famous story, but I always wanted this piece of cyber. Thanks for that.

Damn, I should get going on the review.

Parallel thinking does not necessarily preclude coincidence though, especially in writing. There have been a number of books down the ages that often cropped up around the same time having similar themes.

Also Picus was believed to be a son of Mars (the Roman counterpart to the Greek Ares) so the name is not so much a stretch.

Plus the term Purist is hardly limited to DXHR.


YEAH!!!

We are looking forward to it as they are often are as, if not more, entertaining than the source material itself.

Well, for all I know, in RL anything other than bones and hips implanted requires suppressants, and even then it can be rejected. Take for instance the fad with implanting magnets under your fingertips. Hell, even the more serious piercings are rejected often enough.

Well there is always a chance of rejection with any implant, suppressants used or not.

My wife has a medical condition where she has abnormal scarring from any kind of surgery and a much higher rejection rate for anything inserted. Hell, when she was on a feeding tube running into her side to bypass a stricture in her bowels, her body literally dissolved the feeding tube which is not a normal reaction to say the least.

As for the implanted magnets, most cases of rejection have been shown to be cases where silicon coating over the magnets was ruptured, exposing the neodymium iron boron alloy which will corrode when exposed to the body.

So yes some materials can not go directly into a body without some kind of bio-inert coating like silicone or similar, but I don't think a immunosuppressant would have helped anyway as it was more about the body trying to break down and harvest the mineral content.

I think you are going to see a lot more use of magnets, and not just for the fun little tricks like fingertips.
Medical techs are using it for magnetic retained dental prosthetic and similar devices.
Again these have to be properly encapsulated or risk corrosion of the rare earth magnets themselves.


Edit: smoothed out the sentences, think this flows better.

Nope. I'd wanted to use the name of Ares' spear for the Smartgun system (I'm a big believer of giving *everything* brand names, as you'll see in the Augmentation Bundle section), but the darn thing didn't have one that I could find. BUT, Picus was listed in some sections as Ares' spear-carrier (or as a woodpecker in others. I *badly* need to update my mythological books!) and that was close enough. The Smartgun makes you better, but you're the one who pulls the trigger. Let Picus 'carry your spear' so that you can be the one who thumps it home.

I don't know how it's used in Deus Ex, but they might have had a similar mindset/research moment?

"Purists" (or "purist") doesn't come up in my Word file for chapter 4, so I'm not sure where that one is. Doesn't pop up in chapter 5 either. Can you give me a page number, or was it just a general reference to the people who don't trust bodymods after the Nanopocalypse? I need to grab the dang PDF so I can check out the final form properly.



Sadly, I've never actually read Gibson. I know, I know! I'd meant to for, like, ever, but when they had him write an X-Files eisode, I was, like, "Well, I've heard of the show, and I've heard of him, so I should give it a watch" ... and it was *awful*, and that kind of soured me on him. Which is insane! I mean, jeeze, I actually *like* Johnny Mnemonic (And the half-second Lori Petty cameo), and it's his short story blown into a full movie, but, the one X-Files thing? It was just *bad*.

When I do horror stuff, supposedly I write in a style akin to Lovecraft, despite having never *read* any Lovecraft. Other writers have aped his style, and I've read some of THEM, which carries over without getting the original's racism and whatnot I suppose.

Not sure.

Regardless, all the brand names come from digging around to match names with ideas. The Aztechnology bundle, for example, has 'Hummingbird' wired reflexes and "sharp claws" for brand names, the Mapsoft networks were named after explorers, and so on.

(Oh, and the Dream one's nice (and lordy would I like one to keep my thoughts held for later!), but the Visualizer is the one I'd personally kill for. To take images out of my HEAD and put them on paper in a way my crappy hands can't? Dude. DUDE.

Alright. Purists is in ClusterF*cked. Not my chapter, so I dunno what's going on there. Once I have a physical book in hand, I can sit down and read what everyone else did. (I'm old. I just don't like the PDF format for *reading*. Referencing, sure, but reading? No, I need a *book* for that.)

And this, kids, is called "being aware of the cultural context".

That's not "old", that's "ancient". "Antique", even.

I know, I know, but books ... I have a love affair with books that just won't quit, and PDFs don't do it for me. Hell, I go to the family Encyclopedias that I inherited before hitting a search engine (And said search engine is never Google. Long story.)

For Shadowrun, I tend to source the sources and draw from Noir, or draw from modern times and extrapolate. Today's culture isn't that computers are mysterious boxes and that teh Japanese are gonna conquer America, nor do we have real aechoes of the American Indian movement or teh oil crisis that were still fresh in the 1st edition writers' heads. Today we have social media, militarization of police (despite crime having fallen to record lows), and Big Data. This resluts in a different approach to the material than there's been, while giving Respec Knuckles to the past.

One thing *I* want to do, but can't manage yet, is to change the main view of Shadowrunners from being elite teams of professionals that work for corps against other corps and bring back more of the 'punk' feel, where you're smaller people eyeballing giants and looking for a way to get some crumbs without drawing enough attention to be crushed. There needs to be a big push to having 'runners hired by other people, or even falling into jobs by accident and having to make due as best they can. That means winding back a LOT of work from SR 3 and 4, and that's a waterfall I don't know if I can swim up or not.

But it's a *personal* philosophy, and one I can set aside when needed.

Oh, I believe in that too, vigorously, which is why I'm happy about those names in the bundles (just ... the German ... just ... use English names? It's not like German producers habitually give their products German names anyway; little nitpick). Also, the names of the cyberbits for the Evo Atlantean seem to be missing, or are they unbranded on purpose?


Less so, but they do play with the Icarus legend a bit.


Starting with season 3, X-Files jumped several sharks and became crap to me. You should give his stories a try. Best, consider them situational and environmental descriptions, because that's what Gibson is seriously good at.


If you know your horror movies, half his stories will seem familiar to you because they have eventually been used as a premise for a movie. Very few of the mythos stories, though.


Well, that's just the instant death of the concept artist. But yeah, I'd love one of these too.

My runners mostly operate at that level, and in all fairness, I think this feel has more to do with your efforts as a GM than with the ruleset provided.
Although, of course, the focus of the books could be shifted a tad bit.


Do you think naming stuff in Russian or Japanese would produce better results?

I dunno. Japanese maybe. Russian probably not. IT's got even more grammar to confuse foreigners with.


Well, this would require Shadowrun to break with Gibson's corporate mercenaries as a premise and go more towards gangs or syndicates as a basic campaign - yes, Wakshaani, you really should read Gibson; it's like writing for CoCand never having touched a Lovecraft book. Not so much because he's the awesomest author ever, but because so many concepts of his are basic assumptions in Shadowrun, and would help understand the game you write for better.

Gibson had more than a few characters who worked for no one but themselves.
And gangs and syndicates have always been mentioned as movers and shakers in Shadowrun; it's just that the narrative focus shifted more and more towards the power play in the higher corporate echelons, rather than the nitty-gritty details of street living. This is why I loved Safehouses so dearly, and this is why I singled out the trauma damper description - instead of locking you in the sterile ivory tower of the corp living, it plunges you face-first into the realities the common men face.
This is also the feel I'm trying to capture when writing fan supplements like Jobs-Jobs-Jobs! or locale descriptions in Yakut Shuffle.

Shoot. Where did I blow the German, Hermit? If you'd be so kind.

Okay, well. Here or via PM (it might get long)?

Except Gentry and his crew? Everyone else (including the art student) worked for Virek, some incarnation of Tessier-Ashpool, or NeuroMute/Wintermancer/it's splinters in some way (including Angie and Mona). Well, the Oyabun's daughter technically was in it for herself.


Ah, now I get you ... yeah, I am missing that narrative too. I personally feel we need a sourcebook on Shadowrun pop culture (especially the decades between 2010 and 2050), and on what life in this world can be like. Kinda like what Attitude never fully realized, despite some very promising parts. And more street level adventures would be cool too.

Either's fine! German's not a language that I speak, but the translations *looked* correct, based on what trasnlation guides I could use. (German stopped being taught in teh region during World War II, and there's just *nobody* around here who speaks it or sells modern texts. Spanish, easy, French, more or less, Japanese and Cantonese even aren't that hard, but German? *Nothing*.

Most uncool.

I don't know how much it would interfere with NDAs, but just a thought:

There are many native German speakers on this very board. I'd bet most of them would be willing to help if asked, including me.
It's just a question of whether it's possible to throw some phrases around during the writing phase.

I don't disagree with the broad meaning of what you said, but I do want to point out that neither Gibson's original cyberpunk short story (Johnny Mneumonic), nor many of his later still rather cyber-punky books were of the corporate mercenary type--heck one was based around bike couriers! It was just those first few that had such an impact on people that were of that style.

And there is so much other source material that is neither corporate nor entirely gang based... although usually it is about people caught in the middle between such forces. Hard Wired, Little Heroes, the Budayeen trilogy, and the list goes on....

But of course, so much is what stories the GM and players enjoy telling. Some people want to be the very best, with super slick gear, taking on impossible missions. Others enjoy grinding their way up from the street, worried about making rent and whether they can afford a new cover identity. Some want to play pure mercenaries, willing to do whatever it takes to earn more nuyen, others want to play would be heroes stuck in a cynical, unheroic, world. Some people love questions of what it means to be human as technology makes more and more inroads, while others are fascinated by the very nonhuman magical entities.....

I think the key is that the rules and setting don't try and tell us how we should have fun, and leave things open enough to let people find their own fun.

SR4:
Zero is the street name for a number of different immuno-suppressant drugs used to help the body adjust to new cyberware or reduce the effects of allergic reactions. Street docs commonly use small quantities of the drug to suppress the body’s immune system for a period of time, reducing the chances that the body will reject implanted ’ware. Habitual drug users use zero to lower their tolerance to other drugs.
For the duration of effect, zero users are no longer subject to penalties from allergies, though they still suffer damage for Severe allergies (see p. 81, SR4). Furthermore, users can treat their tolerance rating as though their addiction is one level lower than it actually is for the duration of the Effect. At the gamemaster’s discretion, characters that undergo surgery for implants may be dosed with zero

SR5:
Cyber-users are often loaded with any number of anti-rejection drugs and immune-suppressants, trying to keep the body from realizing what you’ve done to it. New parts always itch, skin stays red and chafed until callus builds up, and there’s this general, primal feeling that Something Is Not Right that some people simply can’t shake.

Both are extremely inconsequential pieces of fluff (the crunchiest bit is that if the GM feels like it, players may get a shot of Zero), and neither really says what happens in the months or years after the installation (except your soul getting eaten in Chrome Flesh, but that's another angle).

Sorry Sengir, With SR4, you get the chrome, take a little Zero to help your body adjust, and after a little bit you do NOT need to take it anymore.

With SR5, if you don't take Zero, then your body starts rejecting the cyber. BIG difference!

Where does it say that?

As far as I can tell, it doesn't, but I surely could have missed something.

Read Sengir's post and tell me that doesn't sound like the cyber being rejected.

It reads like Fluff and not Rules. And while I am a big fan of Fluff, if there are no rules to back it up, it is just background.

The issue at hand is that the fluff should generally be backed up by rules.
If fluff and crunch have such jarring discrepancies, the suspension of disbelief gets damaged.

According to the fluff, at the moment, cyberware should come with a free weak immune system quality. It doesn't, because that would be pretty damn stupid. And yet it is presented as fact on how cyberware tends to work.

Nope, according to the fluff to have cyber surgery done you're going to want a decent clinic to help prevent things like rejection etc. Nothing in the SR5 example suggests that the effects in question are anything other than a temporary effect, you know, like represented mechanically in the surgery and healing times and so forth. The only suggestion is that some people, some, dont get over the primal feeling of something not right, like those who take the appropriate negative qualities.

One in 20. That is a lot more than who "take the appropriate quality". And what's more, it's just been retconned in for no reason.

Now, let's look at the preceding paragraph, which Sengir declined to quote:

On a side note, medically, this is preposterous; unless you purposely try, rejection isn't among the problems with medical implants. But let's leave real world logic out of this, as Shadowrun 5 purely runs on video game logic anyway. Then follows:


Those two quotes, as well as the persistent biorejection, and the failure to mention that a cyberware rejection effect is temporary, as described in Cybertram's effects, seems intentional. Now, this may be a way to spin fluff for Essence loss, but color me unimpressed. This makes cyberware users gain at least one free negative quality and makes cyberware even more undesirable. Not exactly a desirable outcome to me, and I hope not what CGL is gunning for, though I'm increasingly suspecting they really do want to make unawakened characters as useless as possible.

It's a fluff spin about Essence, and the one in twenty refers to the "Sensitive System" negative quality as well as take into account some people with mental problems who freak out. Note also that "Are often" doesn't equal "All are" ... feel free to not take the Weak Immune System flaw! You're one of the people for whom the process was smooth and trouble-free, which is teh goal of teh entire process!

I'm not comfortable writing about 'The soul' in this kind of context, nor does a codified measurement of Essence seem to exist inside the game universe, so, I wrote around those terms whenever possible and instead used terms like "holistic" or "less-impactful" and so on.

And by no means do we want to make unAwakened characters weaker. They're the majority, after all, or at least *should* be. (Personally, I think that magic is way too cheap, leading to far more magically active characters than we should really have, BUT, that's not my call to make.)

But that is the consequence of your rules.

Augmented characters are literally gimped on all fronts. Not only have essence costs been vastly hiked from 4th by dropping the 1+1/2 rule, nuyen prices have hiked by a magnitude of 10, universal hackability (enforced by WiFi "boni" without which many augmentations have zero actual functionality) and a very heterogenous description of the effects of bricking (we all know the quotes, but I can copypaste if people insist) that would make bricked headware instant death makes cyberware a very dangerous liability; all this has tremendously hurt augmented characters. And every slight counterbalance - the internal router thast does what DNI should do by fluff but doesn't by rules, any means to add firewall or stealth to commlinks - are either incredibly high priced or "very controversial". Skillsofts and knowsofts have been gimped well beyond usability both by rules and their price, and the core book's karma/nuyen reward rules ensure nobody will, ever, be able to afford a betaware wired reflexes or VCR or literally any more expensive piece of cyberware, because at some 20K a run if all goes extremely well this is just not gonna happen.

On the other hand, karma cost for Adepts are way down, mages have even more abilities now, and with the upcoming technomancer book, technomancers will in all likelihood again be the way superior hackers, not least because 7 karma per run isn't at all unrealistic. Advancement between Augmented and Awakened characters is as skewed as the "price" their abilities come with. I mean, what price do the awakened pay at all? Mechanically?

The rules are massively skewed towards the awakened. Maybe this is intentional, maybe it is not, maybe it's just that every author adds flaws to cyberware because "everything has a price" and they just keep stacking up and nobody ever takes a step back and says "hey wait, this is not what we wanted to do".

But it happened.

i'll be very surprised if technomancers get awesome with the new book. heck, i'll be surprised if they're even considered viable other than the "petnomancer" build that some people seem to like (which is only viable for a given definition of viable, imo, but whatever).

they're so far down in the core rules, and the new books have only added toys for their direct competition while the limited stuff that has been added for technomancers have either been direct nerfs or basically getting slapped in the face (oh goody, now i can just add one more echo to the list of 50 i was going to need to catch up to a chargen decker... i'm sure the huge chunk of karma i'm going to be forced to spend on this direct connection is a reasonable price when hackers just get to have it free of charge".

Oh, by the way, remember how we were promised detailed rules on implants bricking and repair, back when the Core came out? Lol.

To be fair, while Technomancers do have issues, they are not unviable.

in normal games, when you want to use them as a primary hacker, they pretty much are. your character isn't typical; if someone asked if your character was a technomancer, the answer would be yes (OOC of course), but if you were to describe your character's role it would not be "technomancer", it would be something like "spy", and your spy just so happens to also be a technomancer.

when people hear "technomancer", the default image in their head is not a character with a bunch of social and infiltration skills that happens to also be a technomancer, it is a person who focuses primarily on the matrix.

also, I suspect that your character could generally have larger dice pools both in and out of the matrix by replacing the technomancer portion with a decent cyberdeck.

...because anyone who finds that paragraph noteworthy must have missed the previous four editions. The metahuman body does not like cyberware, that's why there's a limit to how much it can take.

Yes, that is not how real life works. Because humans in real life don't have auras (well, except epileptics).

And where, exactly, has the Aura's dislike of cyberware required the use of suppressants? Because that is the issue here.


It's a fairly common (and disturbing) phenomenon with migraines, too.

Same here. That's what I tried to do (minus the street level adventures) with Style Over Substance. I was going to add that there's the link in my signature, but I've just realized that my server is currently down. If you're interested I can probably send you the pdf, though.

I disagree... My Role is Primary Matrix Specialist specializing in Matrix Infiltration (with other characters thinking I am a Decker with a Cranial Deck and Datajack - in Character of course - OOC they know otherwise). Yes, the Character is a Spy. That really does not mean much in the grand scheme of things, other than as a tag of sorts, kind of like Street Sam, or Demon Hunter, or Adrenalin Junkie. Point is that the character has the skills to perform her jobs. Can't quite take on Rating 10+ Hosts yet (at least not reliably), but I am getting there. Of course, as a Decker with a Fairlight Paladin, I STILL would not be quite capable of taking on Rating 10+ Hosts just yet (at least not reliably). That comes with time. Biggest issue in that regard is that Defense tests are not capped by Limits, while Matrix Actions ARE. Really Sucks, let me tell ya.

My Dice pools for hacking are pretty good, though I could use a few extra dice in the meat world, but I hit my target of 10+ dice fairly often in the majority of my skills (and I have a LOT of them). Living Persona is A 6, DP 8, S 9, Fw 6 (Cerebral and Cerebellum Boosters are awesome - Best 2 Essence I ever spent, even at the Cost of Resonance). That is 29 points of Matrix Attributes. Take a hell of a Deck to match that (and be far more costly than the 'ware I installed). And yes, Decks get to switch Matrix Attributes and run programs, which would make some difference, to be sure, but it is not so glaring. Yes, it would be nice to be able to run programs, and yes, it sucks that it takes a full Submersion to gain access to a Single Program (or Matrix Attribute upgrade), but that still does not make the Technomancer unviable, in my opinion. As a Technomancer, you have to have an idea what you want to be able to do (you are generally not going to be a Jack-of-All-Trades Matrix Specialist), and when you have that, build towards it. You will likely have issues being good at all matrix actions, due to the Limits of the Living Persona, but that does not mean you are not a viable Hacker. For instance. I built towards Stealthy Infiltration of Hosts and Devices. All my planning went into that direction. While I am capable of Using Brute Force stuff, and decent at Attack Actions of various flavors, I excel at infiltrating and not being seen in a system, as witnessed by my Living Persona. Of course, I could be better with the assistance of Sprites, and the character does use them, just not in the role that many think they should be used in (not sure what a Petnomancer really is, honestly).

Money is the largest issue here. To be an effective Decker, you need the money to go big or go home (as well as having the stats and skills to back it up) and get the best Deck you can get, and if that deck is destroyed in some manner, you are likely to never be as effective again (to be fair, I spent a fair bit getting some augments that would work for both Decker and Technomancer, but the Decker was not likely to have the money for such things, while I have very little need of Money for things such as Decks and Programs). Our Decker was passable at best due to money constraints, and did not have the skills to back up his deck. In fact, he had a Low-Mid deck and still did not have the skills to back it up (rarely came close to his Limits). You have to make a ton of compromises to make an effective Decker, and while that is also true for a Technomancer, none of those sacrifices require much in the way of money at their core. At game start, I had more than enough skill to hit my limits consistently (so much so that Limits really pissed me off) in the Matrix. The addition of Social and Infiltration skills is icing on the cake, as far as I am concerned. Give me a more skilled character any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Of course, those skills are not rank 6, but they are good enough to let the character shine in pretty much any solo encounter, because I actually HAVE THOSE SKILLS. Really that goes back to my character design philosophy, though. I far prefer someone who feels real in the world (actually has the skills to pass the "have you lived in the world" test) to someone that feels artificial and flat (with their 7 skills at 6). I can min-max with the best of them (I like to think my current Technomancer has been optimized for her role), and I can twink out a character to be a one trick pony. Problem is that the one trick pony just falls flat as a character for me. I don't mind so much if I am not the best in the world at my Role, as long as My Character is functional enough to fulfill my Role. And My Tehcnomancer does just that.

Now, all that comes with a Disclaimer... The character is almost 200 Karma in Experience. Now, a Decker with that much experience might be better or worse (for my purposes as a character), hard to say, because I am pretty sure that Decker would not have all the skills the character has currently, nor would he likely have the 'ware that the character currently has. Yes, he may be a bit better in the Matrix (as a whole - because that is the path laid out by CGL for the moment) but my point stands... Even though the Decker may be slightly better in the Matrix, the Technomancer is still Viable. I am not arguing that the Technomancer beats out the Decker by any means, I am saying the Technomancer is far more useable than is being made out.

The Auras's dislike has always been tied to immune reaction, that is why cyberware which is easier on the aura can't be had as second hand. Seems obvious that if making something less foreign on the body works, damping the body's reaction does the same.