I seem to have fallen onto the Technomancer Issues bandwagon. I'm toying with the idea of a restructuring with the following purposes:
1) allow a technomancer to protect the party's devices in a similar way to a decker
2) circumvent the problem of technomancers having to submerge to get abilities that seem completely intuitive for every 'mancer to have.
3) reduce the Technomancer's painful combination of MAD/MSD and matrix limits that prevent them from accomplishing most hacking tasks without spending Edge
4) fix some of the "trap" complex forms and bring fading values a bit more in line with actual effect
5) Do the above without further enhancing the pokemancer playstyle, as it doesn't really need much help.
To that end, I'm considering the following changes
1) Resonance PAN. Your resonance is your living persona's device rating, as established on p.251, I don't think extending PAN functionality to technomancers is particularly harmful; while they might be able to protect a great number of devices, a midcost deck running a common-use program can still have a higher Firewall than any 'mancer can start with, even with the other changes I'm proposing.
2) Smartlink. imagelink and soundlink compatibility. Choice of Browse, Signal Scrub, or MMRI/Mind Over Machine as an innate ability (the ones not chosen can still, of course, be taken as echoes- the intent is to grant a starting 'mancer a choice of speed, range, or the ability to be a ghostdamned rigger out of the gate)
3) When using your Living Persona: Resonance may be substituted for Logic, Intuition, Willpower or Charisma when calculating Matrix attributes(but not die pools for Matrix actions). You can change which one you are substituting as a free action(Intended to alleviate the MAD pressure without removing it entirely). Resonance may also be substituted for the Cracking skill group. This does not actually give you the skill group, nor can you take specialties in these skills, unless you purchase them separately, starting from rank 1 (which, if you plan to grab a deck at some point, isn't necessarily a bad idea- the purpose of this is to give 'mancers a baseline intuitive functionality in the matrix, but one that is far more expensive to improve than raising the actual skills would be. The best Hackermancers are still the ones that are actually hackers)
4) Enact the following changes to CFs that emulate spells
Diffusion/Infusion CFs will inherit the Drain/Fade values of the Decrease/Increase attribute spells: L-2 and L-3, respectively.
Puppeteer: Will behave essentially like the Control Thoughts spell:
Target: Device Duration: S F: L-1
You push Resonance commands into a target, forcing it to perform Matrix actions. Pick a target and make a Software + Resonance[Level] v. Willpower + Firewall test. Keep track of your net hits, as they determine how long you can sustain the complex form. While the complex form is sustained, the owner/user of the device may take a Complex Action on their turn to resist by making a Willpower+Firewall Test with a dice pool penalty equal to the complex form's Level; every hit the target gets reduces the technomancer's net hits by 1. The device's owner/user can take this action even if they wouldn’t get an action because of the complex form. The complex form ends when your net hits are reduced to zero. These subsequent resistance rolls may only be made once the device's owner knows something is amiss- generally, after the first action they didn't tell the device to perform, although an owned-but-unattended device will be significantly more vulnerable.
Resonance Spike: inherits the drain value of the single-target Direct Combat spells it emulates: L-3
Thoughts? Am I going too far?