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Technomancer feedback for a new book!

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anchoress

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« Reply #15 on: <05-28-15/1011:10> »
I'm not so much complaining that they're not like a Decker.. I get, and encourage them being something different. What my issue is they're simply a bad hacker. Just as there's a difference between a Street Samurai and a Physical Adept, but both are good at physical combat, there should be differences between Deckers and Technomancers, but both being good at hacking. An the Technomancer just... isn't.

Also your analogy kinda falls apart... both Street Sams and Physical Adepts are known for their lightning fast speed, one does it via 'ware the other does it via power points... the effect is still the same, it's just arrived at by different means. So yes, they are different, but they have different means of achieving the same end goals, the goal for a Decker and a Technomancer is to be a hacker, something Deckers massively excel at... and something Technomancer a completely piss-poor at unless you now EXACTLY what you're doing.

Please listen to this guy. Actually, TMs are a nice, different thing. But deckers can achieve so many more goals with simple improvements... If you really want to add something to TMs, then make them unique! Not a decker-plus. There are so many different build options for magicians (summoners, spellslinger [with their own category specializations], ritual spellcaster, alchemists, etc.), please try to think in the same direction with deckers and TMs. Try to offer different options to build them, to create decisions for us players. This is what makes building a character worth the time you put into it.

Golyo

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« Reply #16 on: <05-28-15/1548:51> »
I would love to decrease the number of infuse/diffuse CFs. Either 4 (depending on matrix attribute) or 2 (infusion or diffusion) would be enough to make them some sense.

The pain editor echo looks great, you could try adding a cerebral booster one as well or just an echo that helps you increase your registered spire stable. Alternately you could try to think of some more bioware that would be tempting for a TM, like pain editor and cerebral booster now.

Marcus

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« Reply #17 on: <05-28-15/1624:49> »
Different rules for Living Persona stats? Change Resonance priority selection to BCD (similar to what adepts and aspected magicians have)? Maybe make Resonance attribute unaffected by essence loss to cyberware? Or maybe you could make technomancers less skill dependant by letting them use their resonance skills instead of their matrix skills for some occasions?
TL;DR technomancers should need less resources to build so they could afford to interact with the meat world more.

I just want to emphasizes ZB's questions, as they do get directly at the heart of the issue.

Making an add-on to cyberware that would make it not effect resonance or go the other direction of make a mechanic in resonance that lets you negate the effect of essence loss on resonance, under certain conditions. (Like Gaes's back in previous editions) It could work, it opens up a bunch off doors, but it still isn't that helpful starting out.

In the current Cannon, Techno's are seen as huge boogie men, but compared to your average wizard Techno's have way less ability to harm folks. Which leads to a strange but very direct disconnect between the story and the system reality.

I'm not saying techno's should be decker plus, I agree that Adept is to streetsam and techno is to decker. But from the system view this is somewhat harder to pin down, as it by nature can be a solo assignment, which is table disruptive. But the Idea of a techno being the hacker that comes with you on the run and does what the decker does only doing from AR, strikes me as sort of the sweet spot, to aim for. I really think techno's and wireless bonuses are two great tastes that can taste great together. I just am not sure how to make that happen yet, possibly enhance everyone's wireless bonus through something like a teamwork roll?

I don't think everything needs to be thrown out of kilter to make this happen, I think most of the tools to achieve this are already around, if not in 5th then in 4th. My thoughts on where to go with techno's fall mostly into video gamer "archetypes". First Person Shooter (FPS), this would be a techno who's crossed a little into the gunny bunny zone, using init enhancer echos, sprite powers to enhance Gun skill, while still doing some decent hacking. Analogous to the combat decker. Real time Strategy (RTS), more of a mastermind type, like traditional decker; they come along for the ride, but will probably stay in the van, waiting for the team to execute their master plan. Next Social Gamer (SG), This would be the face crossover, socially gifted, highly networked, always tweeting/skyping/fbing  uses the fact that Techno's are so MAD to get some mileage out of that Cha and Int. Lastly the MOBA techno this would be the idea of a drone techno, selecting and jumping in and enhancing her/his drone as she/he rolled around and did the mission.

Now all these things are possible under RAW right now they just aren't effective at it. Like adepts in previous editions they need some support, and expanded options.
 
« Last Edit: <05-28-15/1636:17> by Marcus »
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Triskavanski

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« Reply #18 on: <05-28-15/2104:48> »
I want to further post in on this, as Technomancers and Changeligns are like.. my two peeps.

I feel the two biggest issues that a Technomancer faces is Ambiguity and Karma Bottleneck. A lot of its abilities are so easily able to be denied by GMs. Or perhaps other GMs buff them. It depends on which line of the fence your in.

Cleaner - This one is unclear if when you hit 0 OW, what happens? Some GMs stop all the overwatch rolls, as you clearly haven't done anything wrong now on the matrix. Other GMs will continue to roll until you reboot.

Editor - Does this only mimic the editing portion of the edit file action? And do you still trigger bombs, gotta get it unlock?

Pulse Storm - How long does this last?

Resonance Veil - What counts as being "in the matrix"? It seems simple until you realize how often devices can interact with something in the physical world. Can it make something think your its owner or you've got marks on it?

Machine sprite - I've seen lots of Gms who deny almost every use of diagnositscs, because of things like "There is no team work test in shooting." or "the devices ability to pass information is too limited for that." etc.


Having nine skills to train wouldn't be that bad.. Okay Eight, Decompile is basically useless.. but it wouldn't be bad if Technomancers didn't bottle neck in karma costs. Having some of the echos of like the datajacks and wires and stuff could greatly assist with that, as well as having things that cost nuyen that can work out of that.
Concepts are great, but implementation sucks. Why not improve it?

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Miri

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« Reply #19 on: <05-29-15/0123:11> »
If you are going to push a lot of abilities over to complex forms I would like to see a generic quality that can be taken to reduce the -2 dice penalty for sustaining a spell/complex form.  I'm not sure why they did away with the "While sustaining you are at -2 dice for everything except for any roll that might involve the thingie being enhanced by the spell/complex form"

Edited to add: A Technomancer version of Quickening would be nice also..
« Last Edit: <05-29-15/0125:40> by Miri »

Beta-Max

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« Reply #20 on: <05-29-15/0717:52> »
They have one Miri, focused concentration.

Miri

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« Reply #21 on: <05-29-15/1457:33> »
They have one Miri, focused concentration.

No.. that is Focused Concentration.. I mean a way to make a Sustained Complex Form like Infusion of X permanent, no longer needing to be sustained.

Marcus

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« Reply #22 on: <05-29-15/1837:34> »
Infusions are not permanent. So I don't understand what your asking for, can you give more examples?
 
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Pixie

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« Reply #23 on: <05-29-15/1842:41> »
They have one Miri, focused concentration.

No.. that is Focused Concentration.. I mean a way to make a Sustained Complex Form like Infusion of X permanent, no longer needing to be sustained.

I think allowing any Complex Form to become permanent is a terribad idea.  Once the TM logs off, or the target logs off, the form would have to dissipate anyway.  This is just an awful idea.

Miri

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« Reply #24 on: <05-29-15/1851:49> »
So why isn't it a bad idea to allow mage's to bump up their stats with Increase Attribute and then make it permanent with Quickening?   Allowing for permanency for some of the complex forms would alleviate the serious MAD that Technomancers have.

Marcus

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« Reply #25 on: <05-29-15/1903:50> »
So why isn't it a bad idea to allow mage's to bump up their stats with Increase Attribute and then make it permanent with Quickening?   Allowing for permanency for some of the complex forms would alleviate the serious MAD that Technomancers have.

I'm not in anyway saying Techno Quickening is a terrible idea, it could be a perfectly reasonable idea; Under the same cost constraints
It's just not on my list for making techno's viable at creation. It could indeed go a long way towards solving the MAD issues. But it's a much longer term solution.

Quickening is a metamagic that tends to be a polarizing issue though, and I don't think polarizing is useful to the thread.

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Herr Brackhaus

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« Reply #26 on: <05-29-15/2039:58> »
Here's an idea; leave Fade values where they are (as has been mentioned, this is unlikely to change), but introduce a piece of gear like reagents for technomancers.

Right now, technomancers are going to take a whole headfull of hurt trying to thread complex forms at high level, just like magicians casting spells at high force. Magicians can use reagents and Edge to counteract this, however, while technomancers are forced to rely on Edge alone. Digital reagents (call them whatever you like; bitcoins, widgets, code snippets, resonance capacitors, etc, etc) would go a long way to offset some of the harsher drain values. Being able to thread Puppeteer at Level 1 but with a limit of 8 and still having to resist 5 Fade DV is a lot more attractive than threading it at Level 8 and having to resist 12 Fade DV. Yes, Technomancers get better at resisting Fade as their connection to the Resonance increases (since one of their Fade attributes is Resonance, unlike magicians which do not resist Drain with Magic), but that does absolutely nothing for the beginning technomancer who is stuck resisting ludicrous Fade values with a maximum dice pool of around 12.

And I'd like to reiterate the desire for streams and paragons to return.

Triskavanski

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« Reply #27 on: <05-29-15/2052:17> »
Mages have a different trick up their sleeves however in the form of the Centering Metamagic. Once they've got this they can at their initiation grade to Fade tests by spending a free action. They can also get a foci to further augment that.
Concepts are great, but implementation sucks. Why not improve it?

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Pixie

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« Reply #28 on: <05-30-15/0147:28> »
So why isn't it a bad idea to allow mage's to bump up their stats with Increase Attribute and then make it permanent with Quickening?   Allowing for permanency for some of the complex forms would alleviate the serious MAD that Technomancers have.

Because:

A) quickened spells exist in the physical world and affect things that don't disappear from the physical world
B) quickened spells exist in the astral plane and affect things that don't disappear from the astral plane
C) quickened spells carry other penalties, such as making a mage really easy to spot from the astral plane - this would be a doubly bad penalty for a technomancer, given that discretion and hiding are the hallmarks of a good hack
D) they don't have to reboot.  When you reboot your device or persona, it's gone.  As in, does not exist.

A better alternative would be the inclusion of reagents that can lower Fading values and Widgets to sustain spells for you while you're logged in.  A technomancer would have to create the widget each time they connect, but that would be at least something...  feasible.  What you're (not) describing is something permanent, akin to Quickened spells.  The problem there is that a Quickened spell will exist in the physical or astral world long after the mage has left.  When a technomancer leaves the Matrix, everything comes with him.  Can you imagine, as a technomancer, using Infuse Firewall and having it be permanent?  When you've logged off the Matrix, there's no Firewall to infuse anymore.  If you use it on a different person, and you leave the Matrix, GOD could come crashing down on you just because they found the other person.

Permanency is not something that should happen.  Some other method of sustaining a complex form while you're logged in, however, I'd support.

callmedinosaur

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« Reply #29 on: <05-30-15/0301:41> »
If there's a really really simple way to help technomancers out and regain some of the niche the used to occupy, along with a lot of the feel they used to have, give them  complex forms they can use to boost things outside of just their matrix attributes, let them play around with technical skills and mental attributes in ways that specifically boost them when dealing with the matrix or device related tests.

like a smartgun interface complex form that can be sustained and let the technomancer have regular smartlink bonuses (and maybe even optimized ones, it'd be right in the wheelhouse of a techno having a better relationship with machines, and honestly they need all the help they can with combat right now),  or a complex form that let's them boost and sustain knowledge or language skills to for them to use resonance and software to build themselves a "script" that finds and feeds them possibly relevant information from the matrix right into their brain while they're doing stuff in meat space of the matrix.

in particular though, give them a complex form that allows them to choose a particular matrix action and add dice to their pool for that action

(if that's too expansive then make a complex form that  allows them to do that but limits the chosen matrix action to ones linked with a particular matrix stat.)

almost like a much more measured version of their ability to use complex forms to sustain programs in fourth edition.

make the drain as high as is balanced. even with a high drain, it's a lot less powerful in comparison to equivalent spells a magician has, and with the programs and cyber a decker has access to, it seems like it would balance out pretty well, and also let players make technomancers that FEEL like older technomancer characters did without going too nuts. in fact it'd make new technomancers with their much wider variety of complex forms in addition to the one (or four) representing a more balanced version of the complex forms they used to use.

« Last Edit: <05-30-15/0309:51> by callmedinosaur »
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