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Techno-Decker

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Desiani

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  • Chummer
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« on: <04-12-17/1419:38> »
I've been thinking of creating an individual who once was an otaku in the 50-60's who survived the purges who only just emerged in late 75 or early 76. During this time with the loss of his link to Deep Resonance, he took the job as a mid-level security spider for a small corp who went into hiding when he Emerged.

I'm debating using the Life modules if only for the customization, but I've got a notion that Priority may work better (unsure). I'm looking for advice on how to play such a character. I know that he will have a Resonance score of 1 or 2 as he JUST emerged and is getting used to the old feeling of -feeling the matrix.-

I am thinking of using the Priority table to spec for a decker, then use karma to buy res 1 or 2. The GM has allowed this possibility because of the concept and my 'karma tax' in Otaku to Techno quality. He will be allowed a datajack with a permanent noise of 2 at no essence cost because Otaku were fitted with one and because its old tech. He refuses to upgrade to new Jacks because of the connection the one he has was what he used during his time as otaku.

Would playing him as essentially a decker with Compiling for machine sprites for buffs to his decking capabilities be a smart avenue?  Going to be running this in chummer later tonight after work.

Thank you!

Glonthein

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« Reply #1 on: <04-12-17/1726:46> »
While there is an idea with that, i'm not really sure you are going to do much with 1-2 Res. First, you can't compile a sprite with a level higher than twice your Resonance, and a lvl 4 sprite is the lowest you will ever want if you want it to be of some use - even if you are allowed to use the oh-so-broken diagnostic. And it will be even worse for threading.
If you are going to be using a cyberdeck instead of your living persona - which I assume is the case here, else you wouldn't be able to use diagnostic on your deck - you will want to have the Resonance Riding Echo (Data Trails p.59) when you first submerge, as this will allow you to call/order already compiled/registered sprite while using your deck. Compiling, registering and threading will still need you to use your living persona however.

deathwishjoe

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« Reply #2 on: <04-12-17/1828:04> »
I want to butt in here and point out that this is actually a very capable archetype.  yes you give up threading as you cant unless you use your techno stats instead of your deck stats.  You could I suppose boost your decks sleaze rating and maintain it possibly while hacking with the deck.  Id have to look into it quite a bit to be certain.  threading sucks anyways since most of them can't be used on hosts and they hurt you pretty badly for relatively little gain.   

You can however summon a bunch of lower level sprites to diagnostics your dice pools for hacking or rigging to out of this world.  I recommend a res of 3 giving you a bunch of level 6 sprites and if its allowable to maintain a complex form while hacking in your deck focused concentration would be a recommendation as well.  If you buy yourself a decent anthro drone to act as your meat body in the real world you can be pretty decent at combat as well.  sprites and machine sprites in particular have long been seen as the primary saving grace of a technoamncer.  the petnomancer build floating around used machine sprites to buff itself and the team quite a bit in the real world and used higher level sprites to do the actual hacking when needed as well. 

The build for this however is very tight.  lots of skills needed, lots of money is needed (don't go over board on the deck as the sprites increase your limits with the deck anyways) and you need a reasonable amount of resonance as well.  I stopped working on the build as it was heavily focused on rigging which has very poor rules attached and it was difficult to know what I would be rolling when. I think it would require sum to ten as opposed to standard priority.  I've never used the life modules before so I am uncertain how easy it would be to build using that.