[Danny Montanny]

The thing about using a deck as a Technomancer is that it means you aren't using your Living Persona. I could pull up the various quotes, but suffice it to say, you can only have one Persona at a time - using a deck creates a mundane Persona. Whether you can access your sprites while not using your Living Persona is dubious; I personally would say no, but some GMs might allow it.

Edit: I might even allow the use of sprites. However, the amount of tasks that you are going to use up is enormous, and I certainly wouldn't allow you to compile more Sprites without using your Living Persona. That definitely requires Resonance abilities, which you wouldn't have access to while using a mundane Persona.

You can loan your registered sprites out to any persona.
Now the thing is if you really need to. "Run Diagnostics on this device until I tell you to stop." They'll continue the task even if you're logged off. The real kicker would be if they can continue do so while the persona is in a Host. If yes, then no biggie. If not, getting them marks might be a little tricky, due to them not having Hacking dice. You'll need to loan them out with at least 3 tasks and do a teamwork test to help them get their mark. Then task them to run Diagnostics and in you go. The last task is to put them on Standby after you're done. It'd also work if Diagnostics from outside the Host would just be a Remote Task, you'd still only need 3 tasks for each Machine Sprite. Not all that much in the grand scheme of things.

[Triskavanski]

Thats something I've wondered.


Why can you only have one persona?


Its kinda like saying you can't use your phone at the same time as your computer because you can only have one IP. What thing are you using to make a persona?

[Marcus]

Thats something I've wondered.


Why can you only have one persona?


Its kinda like saying you can't use your phone at the same time as your computer because you can only have one IP. What thing are you using to make a persona?

Story wise the limit would be Your brain mostly. It's not so much a question of one IP, as only one direct neural link.

System wise it's balance issue, letting a character run two persona breaks the system in a long list of ways.

That said with a build like this you could probably eventually managed to setup something to make it look very much like your running multiple persona's as long as the other side doesn't get to close a look.

A very nice piece of work on this build. I still question the viability of Techo particularly at creation, but this looks workable to me.

[Triskavanski]

I think that assumes though that turning on a comlink uses a DNL.

Its weird that a Decker could constantly use a commlink and deck. Or a rigger could constantly use a commlink and RCC. Or someone who went with both, could use a commlink, deck, and RCC. No one bats an eye.

A technomancer tries to send something from his commlink while using his living persona, and they lose their flipping minds

[Marcus]

Can you give me a more precise definition of what you mean by use?
If a hacker wants to use their commlink to mess with their pan, I don't think that's a big deal (Techno or decker). If a techno wants to use a deck to avoid running up his bio comps score, I don't really see that as an issue ether.

If a decker tried to DNL on two decks at once I would call foul right away, the same if a techno tried to using the living comp and a deck at the same time.

The question of interaction between sprites and decks is one I can see folks being uncomfortable with. It's certainly an interactions that can be understandable, but the purest will get rubbed the wrong way. Agents and Sprites living together is a clear sign of the digital apocalypse. It messes with views on how these things interact.

[Hobbes]

I suppose having some Crack sprites assist you in your tests will get you there too, but they're limited in actions. This way you won't be limited and have big pools for every Matrix action with only a 60k investment. Not to mention not taking damage if you happened to get whacked while you're hacking. You could even have all of your registered sprites come along and command them, as you'd just transfer them over to your deck persona. So a Crack Sprite running Suppression and a big bad Fault Sprite mopping up the IC.

Pretty sure the "right" way to do this is Logic 7, Resonance 6, Will, Int, 3 or 4, physical stats of whatever.  Relevant skills 6.  Charisma as high as you can get.  (5?).   14 karma for Exceptional attribute, 5 Karma to bond 5 force 6 Machine Sprites.  (Max of Cha at char gen?  Seems odd) .  Blow off the meet with the Johnson, spend the first 8 hours of the campaign registering 2 more Level 4 Machine Sprites, total of 7 now.  Take a nap, call up one more and veil it.  So, 5 at level 6, 12 Dice times 5 is 60 dice of Diagnostics, so thats +20 on average from the Level 6s. 3 at 4 so 24 dice of Diagnostics, another +8 Dice.  13 dice naturally on most Matrix tests so you're looking at what a 41ish dice pool for most hacking tests.  Limits of Deck +7 for whatever test you're doing that turn. 

Max rating is what 12?  So around 30 Dice for most resistance tests?  So yeah, a starting out of the box Technomancer can hack Zurich Orbital on the first run.

/em drop mic.

/thread

[Whiskeyjack]

So yeah, a starting out of the box Technomancer can hack Zurich Orbital on the first run.

Enjoy that Thor Shot. 

[8-bit]

So yeah, a starting out of the box Technomancer can hack Zurich Orbital on the first run.

Enjoy that Thor Shot. 

Theoretically, with a high enough Force spirit, you could outrun the radius of it before it hits. Hmm ... contingency plans, methinks. We'll launch multiple Thor Shots!

[Danny Montanny]

5 Karma to bond 5 force 6 Machine Sprites.  (Max of Cha at char gen?  Seems odd) .

Where is this at in the CRB? I looked but couldn't find anything about registering Sprites with Karma.

[Novocrane]

Max rating is what 12?  So around 30 Dice for most resistance tests?  So yeah, a starting out of the box Technomancer can hack Zurich Orbital on the first run.

I think you're underestimating the plethora of decoy stations set up to mimic Z-O, encryption level of "the best hackers to try breaking this have gone insane" .... that's before you can even face the constantly upgraded matrix and physical defences.

 

But you're welcome to try. You might only get the thor shot.

Incidentally;

The sprite can assist someone using or repairing the device with a Teamwork Test.

The most dice that can be added to the test is equal to the leader’s rating in the applicable skill, or the highest attribute rating if the test involves two attributes.

[Danny Montanny]

The most dice that can be added to the test is equal to the leader’s rating in the applicable skill, or the highest attribute rating if the test involves two attributes.

[/quote]
Great find! This is the single most limiting factor. Still +6 dice isn't anything to sneeze about. If I was going to make this, I'd go with what I did or my Mystic Adept Decker and see if I can get the numbers to match up. He'd only have 4 Resonance, but that should be enough to register some level 3-4 Machine Sprites to help with shooting and decking. Also, you just making one check when they activate Diagnostics to determine the boost, that way you don't have to roll a million times for each check, right? Also also, what's the consensus on them being able to run the Diagnostics while your persona is inside of a Host? The device still exists in meatspace, which is what they're effecting, so it should be legit, right? This way you wouldn't even have to loan them out, they just do their thing while your living persona is logged out.

I still am curious where the 5 Karma for 5 registered Sprites at character generation is coming from.

[Zweiblumen]

I still am curious where the 5 Karma for 5 registered Sprites at character generation is coming from.

Item	Karma Cost (At Character Creation)	Restriction
[...]
Registering Sprites	1 karma per task (Level of sprite equal to Character's Resonance Rating)	Can only have a number of Registeredsrites equal to the character's Charisma

[Danny Montanny]

Item	Karma Cost (At Character Creation)	Restriction
[...]
Registering Sprites	1 karma per task (Level of sprite equal to Character's Resonance Rating)	Can only have a number of Registeredsrites equal to the character's Charisma

Thanks much. The book is so jumbled that sometimes it's hard to find the things that people talk about.

[Hobbes]

The most dice that can be added to the test is equal to the leader’s rating in the applicable skill, or the highest attribute rating if the test involves two attributes.

That's a relief.  I had visions of ever escalating circles of Decker assisted Spiders being countered by Machine spirit boosted Snipers shooting through a building off 14 ricochets with a 200 dice pool while Conjuring circles settled the age old "Who would win Cthulhu or Godzilla?".  While certainly fun, really a very different game.   

[Marcus]

Back in 4th when my group did the math on Techno vs Deckers, we had determined that the best thing to do as a Techno right out of the box was to sprite up and let them do the work (though not in the same way this build does it), but back then we had some options that helped techno considerably more, see the smartlink form etc. But in the current state of hacking those options don't exist outside house rules. I'm hoping this will be fixed with the release of the 5th Hacking book but I have no idea when that will happen, and if its anything like SG it ma

So the question for me remains is this truly viable?
The aid action stuff is cute, and it does give a decent die and even non-standard limit bonus, but honestly the limit bonus is fairly meaningless, as technos are super Multi-Attribute Dependent, and can't really afford to take cyberware. Threading + super skill wires was the broken answer back in 4th. But the power that made that work in the meat world doesn't exist in 5th.