[MacAnu]

"Weak" is a weird way of putting it.  They're strong because Sprites (assuming their mental attributes scale by Force) are strong (and I've said my piece about Summoning in another thread ).  They're "weak" (with quotes) because they are to the matrix what mages are to the meat world, and they are weaker in the Matrix than mages are in the meat world.

First, let's look at what the quality costs.  If you look down the priority table, Technomancers get much fewer complex forms than a Magician gets spells (everything else is the same).  Complex forms actually cost less than spells.  This means the technomancer quality is valued at 20+ karma more than the magician quality.

Next take a look at complex forms vs. spells.  The Fading of complex forms is much higher than the fading of spells.  Not only that, complex forms tend to be worse than spells.

• Diffusion of Attribute vs. Decrease Attribute.  Diffusion of Attribute has Fading L+1.  Decrease Attribute has Drain F-2.  It's not a direct comparison since Diffusion of Attribute generally only affects limits and Decrease Attribute affects dice pools and the other derived stats.  I think it's safe to say Decrease Attribute is better, especially since it can reduce an attribute to 0.
• Infusion of attribute vs. Increase attribute.  Infusion of attribute has Fading L+1.  Most matrix attributes only affect limits.  Increase attribute has Drain F-3 and increases dice pools.
• Pulse Storm vs. Chaos.  Pulse Storm has Fading L+0.  Chaos has Drain F-2.
• Puppeteer vs. Control Thoughts.  Puppeteer has Fading L+4.  Control Thoughts has Drain F-1.  Puppeteer is faster, but Control Thoughts lasts longer.
• Resonance Spike vs. Manabolt.  Resonance Spike has Fading L+0 and is resisted by 2 attributes.  Manabolt has Drain F-3 and is resisted by 1 attribute.  I think the technomancer takes more damage than he deals with Resonance Spike...
• Resonance Veil vs. Trid Phantasm.  Resonance Veil has Fading L-1.  Trid Phantasm has Drain F.  Hey, one where the complex form is better!
• Static Bomb vs. Improved Invisibility.  Static Bomb has Fading L+2 and is one-time.  Improved Invisibility has Drain F-1, and is sustained (they have to beat your spell before they can try to spot you again).
• Stitches vs. Heal.  Stitches has Fading L-2.  Heal has Drain F-4.

In general, complex forms have more drain than spells and tend to be worse.  Granted, complex forms get around OS and there isn't a similar restriction in the meat world.  More complex forms will be released in the splatbook but that doesn't change the fact that existing complex forms seem weak.

Then we get into spirits vs. sprites.  They're about equally powerful, except sprites accumulate OS and leads GOD to your physical location.  That means sprites last much shorter and you risk getting Convergence.

Is there something I'm missing here?  Or is the technomancer quality both more expensive and not as good (in their respective domains) as the magician quality?

[Ryo]

You're missing the fact that technomancers aren't magicians and the matrix isn't the real world, so your direct comparisons are ignoring all the variables that differ between the two. The two biggest issues are Range (there is no concept of it in the matrix) and Noticeability. Unlike magic, there is no 'noticing resonance' mechanic. Resonance isn't even visible to non-technomancers, so they can basically get away with anything they pull.

Diffusion/Infusion of Firewall. That's a dice pool, and a pretty damn important one. There's also no concept of range in the Matrix, so while the mage has to run up and touch the angry troll to lower his Reaction, the Technomancer can whittle away at a Firewall from the safety of AR if they really felt like it.

Pulse Storm and Chaos aren't even comparable, as they do completely different things. Not only that, but Pulse Storm is Instant, Chaos is Sustained.

Puppeteer is easily the most powerful ability a Technomancer has, and does not at all mimic the effects of Control Thoughts. You don't need it to last very long, because you only need it to do one thing at a time. The most obvious use of it is to Invite Mark for 3 marks, which is a simple action and thus has a threshold of 2. You do in one complex action something that requires a -10 penalty to do with normal hacking, with no risk of being found or acquiring any overwatch. You can also use it to make people reformat their decks, jack themselves out of the matrix, or even more insidiously, use it to make someone jack IN to the matrix. They suddenly ragdoll in the middle of a firefight because you told their DNI it was VR time.

Manabolt is resisted by an attribute + counterspelling, which is very likely to be involved unless your GM wants your mage to just steamroll everything. And this is another situation where the person getting blasted by the technomancer can't even tell its happening until they get bricked.

Yes, Resonance Veil is inherently superior.

Static Bomb and Improved Invisibility do not even remotely function the same way, and due to differences between reality and matrix, I don't even understand how you think they are directly comparable.

Stitches A: has no range, B: can be used more than once on the same damage.

A better comparison is not between Magician and Technomancer, but Technomancer and Decker. Do these complex forms allow the Technomancer to do things the Decker either can't do at all, or do them significantly better than the Decker? Yes. Absolutely. The fading was balanced accordingly.

[rumanchu]

Stitches A: has no range, B: can be used more than once on the same damage.

It also only works on Sprites, as opposed to Heal which actually works on things that you plan on keeping around.

EDIT: I edited my post after seeing your edit, but not your reply, and debated keeping the second bit around.

[Ryo]

Diffusion/Infusion of Firewall. That's a dice pool, and a pretty damn important one. There's also no concept of range in the Matrix, so while the mage has to run up and touch the angry troll to lower his Reaction, the Technomancer can whittle away at a Firewall from the safety of AR if they really felt like it. Also, Decrease/Increase has to be cast at a force at least equal to the attribute being modified, a restriction Diffusion/Infusion does not suffer from, which dramatically affects the Fading/Drain involved.

A correction: Decrease Attribute most certainly does not have a minimum Force (to be fair, neither does Defuse Attribute).  Additionally, Infuse Attribute requires that you thread it at a minimum level equal to the rating of the attribute in question (just like Increase Attribute). 

Infuse can increase the attribute up to double the current value (unlike Increase, which caps at the augmented maximum), while Defuse cannot reduce an attribute below 1 (unlike Decrease, which can reduce the attribute to 0).

I noticed your correction and edited accordingly. But your second point is also valid.

[rumanchu]

I think that the big factor in whether or not a Technomancer feels weak (especially when comparing drain and fading) is what your GM lets you do with your complex forms.  All of the things that a TM can *theoretically* do via Resonance are absolutely very powerful if your GM lets you sit at home and do them.  On the other hand, the only thing that's keeping a decker from just rebooting every 20 minutes or so to reset his OS is the GM drawing things out so that the decker would be at risk of losing their hard-earned marks that they've placed.  I haven't played enough yet to see if OS/GOD even matters that much.

Using Puppeteer to switch someone into VR is pretty sweet, until your GM decides that it'd be stupid for a non-decker or rigger to ever *have* the option to go into VR.  Getting free hits with Resonance Spike on someone's guns is cool until your GM decides that they just have their wireless off altogether because they are low-level enough that they wouldn't be able to actually take advantage of the wireless benefits.  On the other hand, throwing manabolts and controlling thoughts pretty much always works.  (Yes, background counts are a thing, but so is noise).

I'm not disagreeing that there's something of an apples/oranges situation when it comes to comparing mages and TMs, mind you, just that it seems quite easy to conclude that TMs got the shaft compared to mages when it comes to drain/fading.

[Ryo]

Using Puppeteer to switch someone into VR is pretty sweet, until your GM decides that it'd be stupid for a non-decker or rigger to ever *have* the option to go into VR.

If they have a DNI at all, they have the option to go VR. I would say you are fully in your right to call bullshit if your GM starts having everyone you meet actually use their hands to push buttons on their commlinks and guns after you make one guy go VR against his will.

Puppeteer deserves the +4 just for Invite Mark alone, since as I said, you can use that to get 3 marks in a single action, which a normal decker has to take a -10 penalty to accomplish. On top of that, since you're making the target invite the mark, nothing you have done starts overwatch, so if you managed this on a host for example, you can proceed through the rest of the run doing whatever you want in the Matrix and none of it counts as an illegal action that triggers overwatch, because you have full admin rights to the entire building.

[MacAnu]

You're missing the fact that technomancers aren't magicians and the matrix isn't the real world, so your direct comparisons are ignoring all the variables that differ between the two. The two biggest issues are Range (there is no concept of it in the matrix) and Noticeability. Unlike magic, there is no 'noticing resonance' mechanic. Resonance isn't even visible to non-technomancers, so they can basically get away with anything they pull.

You can spot the Technomancer with a Matrix Perception test.  If the Technomancer can see you, I assume you can see the Technomancer if you can beat his running silent.  If weird stuff starts happening to you, you'd probably try a Matrix Perception test to see what's happening.

Diffusion/Infusion of Firewall. That's a dice pool, and a pretty damn important one. There's also no concept of range in the Matrix, so while the mage has to run up and touch the angry troll to lower his Reaction, the Technomancer can whittle away at a Firewall from the safety of AR if they really felt like it.

I totally forgot about the Touch range of Decrease Attribute.  It's actually pretty fair for Firewall.  The others are either really amazing or really bad.

Pulse Storm and Chaos aren't even comparable, as they do completely different things. Not only that, but Pulse Storm is Instant, Chaos is Sustained.

They're both dice penalties.  Instant is better than Sustained, but Chaos reduces defense tests while noise doesn't.

Puppeteer is easily the most powerful ability a Technomancer has, and does not at all mimic the effects of Control Thoughts. You don't need it to last very long, because you only need it to do one thing at a time. The most obvious use of it is to Invite Mark for 3 marks, which is a simple action and thus has a threshold of 2. You do in one complex action something that requires a -10 penalty to do with normal hacking, with no risk of being found or acquiring any overwatch. You can also use it to make people reformat their decks, jack themselves out of the matrix, or even more insidiously, use it to make someone jack IN to the matrix. They suddenly ragdoll in the middle of a firefight because you told their DNI it was VR time.

Obviously range is an issue, but Control Thoughts can in fact do anything Puppeteer can do.  It's obviously not as good for Matrix actions since you'd have to see the spider.  You can have the target of Control Thoughts use Invite Mark, reformat their decks, jack themselves out of the matrix, go into VR.

Manabolt is resisted by an attribute + counterspelling, which is very likely to be involved unless your GM wants your mage to just steamroll everything. And this is another situation where the person getting blasted by the technomancer can't even tell its happening until they get bricked.

Right, Manabolt sucks in the face of counterspelling, and even then the drain is F-3.  Counterspelling won't always be available for the opponent (especially since it's limited per combat turn), and if nothing else forces your opponent to take -5 Initiative.  Resonance Spike automatically has to overcome 2 attributes and has drain L+0.  The technomancer could very likely be taking damage faster than he deals with Resonance Spike against reasonably challenging targets.

Static Bomb and Improved Invisibility do not even remotely function the same way, and due to differences between reality and matrix, I don't even understand how you think they are directly comparable.

They're both "you no longer see me" abilities.

A better comparison is not between Magician and Technomancer, but Technomancer and Decker. Do these complex forms allow the Technomancer to do things the Decker either can't do at all, or do them significantly better than the Decker? Yes. Absolutely. The fading was balanced accordingly.

How did you determine fading being balanced?  If the book was printed with fading reduced by 3 across the board, would you honestly have noticed?  If the book was printed with fading increased by 2 across the board, would you still say fading is balanced?  Spells let mages do things that other people can't do, with much lower drain values.  Is that balanced?

[Ryo]

You can spot the Technomancer with a Matrix Perception test.  If the Technomancer can see you, I assume you can see the Technomancer if you can beat his running silent.  If weird stuff starts happening to you, you'd probably try a Matrix Perception test to see what's happening.

Which would just waste a complex action, because only technomancers can see Resonance, and there's nothing on the Matrix Perception table that suggests it lets you notice Resonance actions.

I totally forgot about the Touch range of Decrease Attribute.  It's actually pretty fair for Firewall.  The others are either really amazing or really bad.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

They're both dice penalties.  Instant is better than Sustained, but Chaos reduces defense tests while noise doesn't.

So?

Obviously range is an issue, but Control Thoughts can in fact do anything Puppeteer can do.  It's obviously not as good for Matrix actions since you'd have to see the spider.  You can have the target of Control Thoughts use Invite Mark, reformat their decks, jack themselves out of the matrix, go into VR.

If you could see the spider, why the hell would you bother with any of that? The only one that even remotely applies to is forcing them to switch to VR, and while A: there are far better uses for Control Thoughts, B: You're still contending with the issue of noticeability. Anybody you mind rape, and anybody witnessing it, gets to roll to notice you did that. Puppeteer is completely invisible and untraceable unless you're a technomancer.

Puppeteer is also faster. Complex to use it, they do on their next turn. Control Thoughts is Complex to use it, they resist it on their next turn. Then you use a Simple to make them do it, and then they resist it again on their next turn, before finally performing the action.

Right, Manabolt sucks in the face of counterspelling, and even then the drain is F-3.  Counterspelling won't always be available for the opponent (especially since it's limited per combat turn), and if nothing else forces your opponent to take -5 Initiative.  Resonance Spike automatically has to overcome 2 attributes and has drain L+0.  The technomancer could very likely be taking damage faster than he deals with Resonance Spike against reasonably challenging targets.

The better comparison is to Data Spike, not Manabolt. Rolling against Intuition + Firewall, and then resisted by Device rating + Firewall. Resonance Spike only deals net hits in damage, but they don't get to soak the damage.

They're both "you no longer see me" abilities.

That function completely differently, because seeing in the matrix works differently. Using Static Bomb means everybody that had seen you needs to waste a pass doing Matrix Perception to be able to do anything at you again. That's not a requirement for Invisibility, which not only doesn't work if you manage to resist the illusion, but autofails against ultrasound and the like and clever security can still smoke you with blind fire or AOEs.

How did you determine fading being balanced?  If the book was printed with fading reduced by 3 across the board, would you honestly have noticed?  If the book was printed with fading increased by 2 across the board, would you still say fading is balanced?  Spells let mages do things that other people can't do, with much lower drain values.  Is that balanced?

I determined fading was balanced by considering if I would risk that fading for that effect, and deciding 'yeah, that's worth it, but only if there's no better options.' If Fading was decreased by 3 across the board I would have thought that was unbalanced, because I would have compared those actions to compariable Matrix Actions and gone with the Complex Form every time. Increasing by 2 also would be unbalanced because then I'd never use any complex forms.

Same applies to Mages. I think all the values are plenty balanced.

[firebug]

I can't help but see Resonance Spike as simply not worth it.  Yes, it isn't resisted, but it's unlikely you'll do more than 3 or 4 damage while taking at least as much drain.  Data Spike on the other hand, deals net hits, plus Attack, plus 2DV per mark on the target (or 3 if you're a Decker and spent 250¥).  Unless your target is rolling 4 or more successes on their Damage Resistance test, Data Spike will do the same damage without you needing to deal with drain.  And assuming you have marks on something, it will do significantly more damage.  OS may go up, but I don't see that as being a serious issue unless you're doing something very specific like fighting several enemies in a row over the course of a few hours with no opportunity to reboot.

[Ryo]

Resonance Spike isn't an Attack action, since its not a matrix action. That means if you succeed, they aren't automatically notified that they've been attacked, and overwatch isn't counted for the action. If you fail, you don't get the rejected code reflected back at you. All you deal with is Fading, and you can very easily leave it at whatever Level you think you can reliably soak, soak all the Fading damage, and poke their Matrix Condition to death with them none the wiser until they brick.

[rumanchu]

Using Puppeteer to switch someone into VR is pretty sweet, until your GM decides that it'd be stupid for a non-decker or rigger to ever *have* the option to go into VR.

If they have a DNI at all, they have the option to go VR. I would say you are fully in your right to call bullshit if your GM starts having everyone you meet actually use their hands to push buttons on their commlinks and guns after you make one guy go VR against his will.

Puppeteer deserves the +4 just for Invite Mark alone, since as I said, you can use that to get 3 marks in a single action, which a normal decker has to take a -10 penalty to accomplish. On top of that, since you're making the target invite the mark, nothing you have done starts overwatch, so if you managed this on a host for example, you can proceed through the rest of the run doing whatever you want in the Matrix and none of it counts as an illegal action that triggers overwatch, because you have full admin rights to the entire building.

Going into VR requires a sim module, which is not a stock option on anything other than decks and control rigs. 

The invite mark trick is probably the best use of Puppeteer, but it's not something that a TM is going to want to do all the time.  For example: if I want to force the commlink for the stock Street Samurai to Invite Mark with Puppeteer, I need to thread it at at least Level 4 (since the Samurai is going to roll at least 2 hits on the opposed test and my limit is the Level I thread it at).  That means that I have 8S to resist.  On average, the archetypical TM is going to take 5S.  That's...pretty awful.

[Ryo]

Using Puppeteer to switch someone into VR is pretty sweet, until your GM decides that it'd be stupid for a non-decker or rigger to ever *have* the option to go into VR.

If they have a DNI at all, they have the option to go VR. I would say you are fully in your right to call bullshit if your GM starts having everyone you meet actually use their hands to push buttons on their commlinks and guns after you make one guy go VR against his will.

Puppeteer deserves the +4 just for Invite Mark alone, since as I said, you can use that to get 3 marks in a single action, which a normal decker has to take a -10 penalty to accomplish. On top of that, since you're making the target invite the mark, nothing you have done starts overwatch, so if you managed this on a host for example, you can proceed through the rest of the run doing whatever you want in the Matrix and none of it counts as an illegal action that triggers overwatch, because you have full admin rights to the entire building.

Going into VR requires a sim module, which is not a stock option on anything other than decks and control rigs. 

The invite mark trick is probably the best use of Puppeteer, but it's not something that a TM is going to want to do all the time.  For example: if I want to force the commlink for the stock Street Samurai to Invite Mark with Puppeteer, I need to thread it at at least Level 4 (since the Samurai is going to roll at least 2 hits on the opposed test and my limit is the Level I thread it at).  That means that I have 8S to resist.  On average, the archetypical TM is going to take 5S.  That's...pretty awful.

It's also a stock option on all implanted commlinks, and is only 100 nuyen extra for normal comms. It might not be stock, but its certainly common for the average person in 2075. Suddenly having NOBODY but deckers and riggers with a sim module is a bullshit call.

[MacAnu]

Ryo, are you saying you can't see technomancers doing stuff in the Matrix?  If that's the case, how do you stop them?

[Ryo]

Ryo, are you saying you can't see technomancers doing stuff in the Matrix?  If that's the case, how do you stop them?

With other technomancers.

[RHat]

Ryo, are you saying you can't see technomancers doing stuff in the Matrix?  If that's the case, how do you stop them?

By waiting a few minutes for them to knock themselves out.