[kainite311]

Total hypothetical munchkinism. Say your a decker with an agent (Rating 6)running on your deck. A 'friendly' Technomancer has a Machine sprite (Level 6) running in your deck. The Machine Sprite rolled 4 hits on it's Diagnostic power. So once in side the Matrix, our fearless decker has his agent assist him with anything it is able to assist with (Cracking, Electronics skill groups). To make it simple just say it rolls average all the time and give it 4 net hits... Hacker had dice pool of 12 in whatever after everything he is doing is factored in (hot sim, programs, whatever....). His limit is 6 for whatever the action was.

So he gets to roll 20 dice with the new limit of 8? Just making sure that's legit (from what I have read and understood). And if it is I realize you could stack a few more sprites.... But trying to keep the example really simple...

Now the follow up question is - "Does the Diagnostic power of the Machine Sprite also affect defense rolls that use the Deck as a limit (for instance Willpower + Firewall defense tests)?


I am pretty sure about the first example, unsure about the defense test...




 

[Xenon]

If Machine Sprite using the Diagnostics Power can or cannot be used as a teamwork test when you hack an icon in the matrix depend on how you read the rules.

...but it is clear that it for example can be used to help a technician trying to repair the deck after the run. In this case the machine sprite using the diagnostics power will add +1 to the limit and a positive dice pool modifier of 1 dice per hit.

Note that the total positive dice pool modifier from teamwork is limited by the leaders skill rating (in this case the technicians Hardware skill rating).

[kainite311]

Yeah I google-fu'ed it a lot before I posted question, and my head still hurts after reading a lot of multi page arguments. But alas, I never found anything resembling errata or semi-official. I am inclined to allow it to add to active skill use, because it doesn't seem to be any more abusive then what mage buffs can do (reagent use on Increase Reflexes, tied to a low level foci - I am looking at you...). I assume that means the device has to be running wireless, so now it shows up on Matrix, the sprite shows up on matrix, and is now hackable at all times while functioning this way (not to mention detectable to most people using AR overlays, when trying to be sneaky). Over all the bonus from a level 6 Sprite would only be on average 4 hits, which translates to 1 (mostly) or 2 (occasionally) net hits in the grand scheme. Still pretty pale to the Mage casting Fireball (we all know how to deal with drain realistically) at a group of enemies. So I am happy with my translation for now and will see how it works in game.

It has a risk, just like magic. It seems fairly comparable to magic stat boosting or Spirit teamwork tests. Nothing screams "pokemon - gota catch em' all!" like a Megacorp thinking your a Techno or know one when they see the sprite