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Posted by: Fatum May 15 2011, 03:32 AM

And yes, I am looking at you, you know who you are.


The following questions might seem obvious, but my group has run into trouble handling them, so I'd like some advice from GMs more experienced.
So, there are characters who are into sneaking: stealing things, setting explosives, whatever. That requires some infiltration and some teamwork on their side, and as long as only tech security with some human backup is involved, everything works fine.
Now, as soon as we throw the mages into the equation, everything gets a bit more complicated.

First, is there a way to fool detection spells like Detect Life? With the amount of detail it gives, everything a wagemage has to do is have it sustained at Extended range, and be aware of anyone entering the compound?

Second, how do you deal with spirits stealthily? With Watchers, you could at least try fooling them - say, with the team's mage placing a wall before them (but that still raises questions like "wouldn't it try to go around the wall" and "if I cover it with a dome-shaped barrier, won't the wagemage lose his connection to the watcher and feel that?"). But what about the full-fledged spirits?

Also in what comes to mages, rules state that a mage can cast as far as he can see - but a metahuman can see as far as several dozen kilometers, especially with cybereyes!

Third, sure SR4 makes hacking more streamlined, but is there a way to deal with tech security without a hacker on call and without telling everyone that you've been there? Do you just let your infiltrators roll Infiltration against the cams/guards monitoring the cams, whatever the circumstances, even with a shadowrunning traversing a typical empty office corridor under the electronic eyes?
Also, each hack means a chance to warn the security you're there - how do you handle failures when hacking on the fly?

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2011, 04:12 AM

Barriers don't stop the summoner connection… it's not radio. But, casting a barrier'd be something noticeable.

Yes, mages can cast far.

Infiltration works against cameras and sensors, when reasonably possible.

Hacking failures typically raise Alarms; alarm responses are in the book, including a little random table.

Posted by: Fatum May 15 2011, 06:09 AM

Neat answer that contains zero information, actually meaning "up to GM".
What is "reasonably possible"? Tech security descriptions don't have much on Infiltration usage - which sensors do you consider to be beatable?

Core book responses are ultra-retarded. "Come on boys, some script kiddie just scanned our host, let's reboot it and drop the thousands of our users! 99.99%! Here go our bonuses!"

Posted by: Udoshi May 15 2011, 07:22 AM

Considering that Vehicles roll Infiltration(+reaction+handling, infil capped by pilot skill) to sneak past sensors, and that metahumans may oppose sensor tests in the same way with agi+infiltration, and that specific sensors are example specializations of the Infiltration skill...

Yes, infiltration works against sensors.

And don't forget to account for the metahuman signature of -3.

Regarding the Spirit/Summoner link detailed in street magic: I don't believe a mana barrier will cut it off. watcher spirits are also absolutely terrible at noticing detail. two dice is begging to glitch each time they role. and they can't even buy a hit.

Posted by: SpellBinder May 15 2011, 07:51 AM

Never had it come up in a game yet, but based on the numbers I always wondered why players were so keen on avoiding the patrol area of a watcher spirit. Limited to a Force of 1 means a DP of 2 for Perception (as Udoshi mentioned). Even a player experienced in playing a magician was leery about trying to sneak past a watcher when spotting one on a patrol. However, there are more creative ways to use watchers to guard places and/or things (taken from SM, the watcher sits inside the vault waiting for a safe cracker to open it).

As for hacking, the security response should be reflected on the type of node. Some nodes will reboot as an absolute last resort, having a patrolling IC or two instead to attack hackers on sight. Also, a node may not reboot at all, letting a spider or agent trace the hacker's physical location while said hacker thinks he/she is still in the clear. Super high security nodes may not even be connected to the matrix at all if there's no need for it (like a factory's security system node, while a separate marketing node is easily accessible online).

As for the Detect Life spell, it looks like an opposed Magic + Spellcasting vs. Willpower + Counterspelling as soon as one enters the area. Having the party magician protect the others with Counterspelling and score enough hits to at least tie the detecting magician's Spellcasting hits and the detecting magician gets nothing even though the spell is still up and running. Probably one of the few cases where a Detection Counterspelling focus is useful.

Posted by: kzt May 15 2011, 08:25 AM

Security systems skills should be helpful to any sort of infiltration. It's very difficult to evade a sensor you don't understand or expect. It's much easier if you recognize the model and therefore know it's limitations. Or at least know that you don't want to go that route.

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 15 2011, 08:38 AM

Don't forget, cover and infiltration works against Assensing as ll. The Infiltrators won't get the bonuses from all the neat gimmicks (like Ruzthenium Polymers or Camouflage suits) but they can still remain out of sight. You may want to apply a negative modifier since they can't know where the observer will be.

Posted by: TheOOB May 15 2011, 09:42 AM

In most facilities, a magicians detect life spell would return far too much information to be useful, the human mind is not a computer.

Patrolling spirits and the like are usually more on the look out for astral intruders. They have an easier time seeing astral forms that auras, and honestly spirits don't usually understand much about the human activity going on in the physical plane, and are not likely to care about a couple of auras unless they are doing something really suspicious.

So basically, unless a spirit is set to watch a specific area for a specific action, they are likely to get a penalty on their assessing check to notice intruders if they bother to make a check at all. There are guards, drones, cameras, and dogs to see the mundane intruders. The real danger spirits pose to mundane intruders is if an alarm gets triggered, and they come to fight them as part of their service. Of course, if there is a patrolling astral magician all bets are off, but most facilities can't afford to keep one of those around all the time.

Also note, that the skill isn't stealth, it's infiltration. It's not just silent movement and hiding behind cover, it's a wide range of techniques to avoid being detected, including bypassing sensors, and acting in a way as to not draw astral attention.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere May 15 2011, 11:27 AM

As others have said magic is not any more fool proof when it comes to detecting intruders then cameras and drones. Assensing/Astral perception of the material world is not an exact science and it might be hard to spot a metahumans aura.

Now on your technical question the runners are going to have more difficulty. Certainly just avoiding the monitoring guards (and agents don't forget agents, their cheaper then real guards) is a matter of iniltration or disguise vs perception. The real issue your going to face however is if the run doesn't go completely unnoticed eventually the security logs are going to be scrtinized, and then it's almost guaranteed your noticed. What they can do with that information depends on other precations your players take, masks, disguises and other things to obscure who they are will help a lot. They do have options most obvious way if you don't care if the run goes unnoticed or not is just getting access to the backups and destroying them. Similarly cameras can be shot out, but there goes your stealth option.

The final option the runners have if they don't want to sub contract for hacking services is agents, their not as good as having a real hacker at their disposable, but they are better then nothing and might be able to neutralize individual wireless enabled cameras or wireless ones you can get access to their wiring.

Posted by: Makki May 15 2011, 12:44 PM

extensive Legwork to find out guard routes, security systems etc, should give them some bonus. If they invest time and money to bribe the guard on duty, this should be rewarded heavily.

A lot was said about spirits, who are still limited by walls and ceilings. And their limited understanding of how to identify intruders from personal. So are Mages. LOS is everything in SR.

There are a lot of sensors described in the core rule book. And cameras usually have blind spots and/or game watching sec guards on the other end. Agents have really weak dice pools for perception through sensor test. Not every facility has Rating 6 equipment, while runners usually do.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2011, 01:49 PM

*shrug* I thought 'when reasonable' was pretty obvious. You can't hide from sensors with 100% coverage (empty room with overlapping cameras, or when walking through a cyberware scanner), but that's basically never the situation.

As for alarms, you don't *have* to use the random response. They're examples. Use your brain, GM.

Posted by: Fatum May 15 2011, 05:23 PM

I always thought that you have to be aware of being watched to roll Infiltration against Perception. For mundane infiltrators and watchers on Astral watching for auras, this is not the case.

So, for offline hosts, you have to tag a hacker along; for Detect spells which don't work beyond the fence, you have to bring your mage, too? That's some infiltration for you.

Yeah, we've discussed it before, I believe. However, see above - how can you try to avoid detection by something you're not aware about?

Well, the rules put it like this:
The thing is, for infiltrators and not faces, most infiltration attempts happen during the off hours, when the facilities aren't all that crowded.

You can order a spirit to inform you about any auras in its patrol area not in a predetermined set. What in the rules is stopping it from executing that command successfully, without any kind of penalties?

Well, those that are worth penetrating can. The only way to deal with one I see is spotting him before he spots you (say, with your own projecting mage), and then using Infiltration to avoid detection; am I missing something?

Okay, I should have said earlier - we're talking facilities with competent personnel here, like zero zones, triple A black R&D centers, what have you.
In what comes to blind zones - have you ever been to places with actual cam-based security? Not shops, where cams monitor the shelves and can be fooled, but actual enterprises where cams are used for intrusion detection? Just hang a cam right over the door from the inside - and I can hardly imagine a way to enter without being spotted; same goes for corridors and most rooms.

"Use your own judgment" and "think for yourself" are hardly constructive answers; if I wanted to go with my current rulings I wouldn't be asking for your opinions.

Posted by: Halflife May 15 2011, 05:42 PM

There is no reason I can think of that you need to be aware of being watched when you are attempting to be sneaky. Similar logic applied in reverse would indicate that you don't get a perception roll unless you know that someone is sneaking in and are going to look for them.

If you can be vigilante about looking around you can be vigilante about hiding from as many possible sensors/watchers as you can imagine, which includes pretty much everything for a reasonably intelligent infiltrator. If you have problems with astral people not being able to spot mundane infiltrators well enough then go ahead and slap some modifiers on astral perception or sneaking or what have you.

Posted by: tagz May 15 2011, 05:52 PM

I mostly agree, but I'd recommend a positive bonus to the astral observer rather then a dice pool penalty to the infiltrator. His sneaking ability isn't reduced from an unknown observer, he isn't more likely to glitch, etc. But the observer is more likely to observe if it has excellent positioning.

If the observer has regular positioning then it should only get bonuses from aura contrast and low background count, etc, and the infiltrator doesn't get a perception test to spot the guy that might see him. Which might mean as he walks closer and closer the observer gets more chances to spot with better positioning circumstance bonuses, assuming the infiltrator moves towards the observer.

Just my take.

Posted by: CanadianWolverine May 15 2011, 05:55 PM

I would just like to say as someone who helps build rooms and security, sensors never have 100% coverage, at least IRL anyways. There are always crawl spaces and if there isn't one, you can make one - interior walls are mostly for looks and even exterior walls unless specifically designed are ridiculously easy to find or make an opening in for anyone familiar with the tools and the layouts of walls. We don't build many log cabins these days and even insulated concrete forms rarely go all the way to the roof and only a bit harder to make an opening in then metal, wood, plastic, and glass. And don't think there is a crawl space? How do they maintain the security sensor system anyways?

Here come the con-artistry, disguises and sheet/box made of material of whatever the sensors are blind to...

Oh, and for the astral, if its really a big worry, I suggest vermin or flash crowds for false positives and omni-directional cover like a box or ... holy crap, why hasn't anyone tried some sort of ball before, like meta-human gerbil ball or something?

Its like you've never watched The Hunted, Burn Notice, The Saint, Bourne (series) etc before, for a GM willing to see the possibilities, everything should have a chance to be Infiltrated, IMHO. Remember, Shadow is part of Shadowrunner, too many focus only on the Running part.

Posted by: Fatum May 15 2011, 06:11 PM

Uh, imagine that you're in a room with some good cover in it - say, a cubicle wall running its length, along the way you need to go. Somewhere in this room is a cam, but you can't see it. Which side of the wall should you sneak along not to be spotted by the cam? You don't know.
Infiltration is mostly built around avoiding the sensors' fields of vision - if you don't know where those are, what good are your techniques?

I believe Dakka Dakka noted that the runner is not getting the bonuses from his tech toys against astral observers - and it's obviously true, since your ruthenium suit is not hiding your aura at all.

Uh, why would you need 100% coverage, when you just have to reliably cover the choke points?
And yeah, you can blast through walls, but that's hardly "leave-no-trace" infiltration then, is it?

I got the impression that when the system is being serviced, noone cares about the alarms, since they're forewarned, and a guard watches over the temporarily blind spot. That's how they did it where I worked, at least.

Reading Detect Life spell description, I don't see anything about walls or much less boxes blocking it. Or anything less than a crowd making it useless, so that'll have to be a lot of vermin.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 15 2011, 06:14 PM

Thank you. This is one place where an RL example helps since the books don't specify whether you can get 100% coverage on security.

Posted by: Halflife May 15 2011, 06:21 PM

That's not actually true because if you were avoiding the field of vision then you aren't making a test now are you, you just don't get observed. Unless you are using very abstract sorts of rolls where someone is breaking through an entire facility with one roll.

Infiltration is things like, making yourself a small target, moving in a way that doesn't attract attention, blending in with your surroundings via camo/ruthenium, making little noise etc. Those things assume that you are being observed but don't require it. There is a large degree of psychological engineering to it as well. If you know what sensors in general look for to say HEY PERSON, whether it is movement, heat signature, or outline, you can confuse it.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 15 2011, 06:22 PM

I think it's pretty simple how the basic detect life spell works. It's like you can see the location of every living thing within a certain radius, but you can't tag or color code or other wise attain additional information. It would be odd to "see" life forms coming through the front gate at midnight, but if they keep up a normal pace, it might seem more plausible. Once the runners are inside the building, There shouldn't be much danger from detect life as long as they act like patrolling guards (regardless of what they look like).

Posted by: longbowrocks May 15 2011, 06:38 PM

Kinda house ruling there. It's vague, since our GM does that, but there's a grey area covering this whole concept. If you describe your actions carefully enough, then you can use this play style to skip out on a large number of rolls. That's no fun for the guys who are being marginalized because they invested in relevant skills, but can't keep up with your meta-knowledge on the subject.
I think a better way to do it is like this:
If I play a street sammy/infiltrator who wants admin access to a facility that runs on Windows, I'll aid my hacker buddy by infiltrating the facility for him and maybe take a small drone with me so he can work his magic on the computers "in person". I won't just burn OphCrack to a CD and do the whole thing myself (I'd reconsider if the hacker does it). It's all about separation of duties to make sure everyone gets to play.

Posted by: Halflife May 15 2011, 07:13 PM

I agree it can be annoying to let meta-knowledge sideline certain character archetypes and I try to avoid it wherever possible. However, if you have to decide between laying out a camera network with 100% coverage and telling an infiltrator that they can't get through it and laying down a single camera with a blind spot and having them walk through the blindspot with no check, I find the second option much less painful. I find the best way to deal with carefully described actions is to award modifiers, so in the case of the camera blind spot you can say "well here is a +1-4 bonus for being so smart, now roll infiltration".

Posted by: longbowrocks May 15 2011, 07:34 PM

I can agree with that.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2011, 07:39 PM

Fatum, the fact that you can criticize the random alarm table as 'ultra-retarded' shows you must know what good is. Therefore, you have the tools necessary to use the table's suggestions effectively. I wasn't blowing you off, I was pointing you to a resource that you apparently know how to use already. If you didn't, you couldn't judge it, right?

As for the other, again, I answered a direct question you asked: "Do you just let your infiltrators roll Infiltration against the cams/guards monitoring the cams" … Answer: yes. I'm sorry if that wasn't helpful enough, but *I* certainly wasn't being unhelpful. It's important to keep things simple.

Posted by: Fatum May 15 2011, 08:02 PM

Well, I just take Infiltration a little broader - not just sneaking through the cam's field of vision, but sneaking through its blind spot, knowing where it is. And yet still, if you're not aware what kind of sensors are present, how are you countering them?

Please read the table on page 206, "Detection spell results". On a good roll, it's showing "Completely detailed information", up to personalities, health states, activities and what have you.

There's a difference between "Yes" and "Yes, when reasonably possible; so sometimes no, use your own judgment".

Indeed it is.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2011, 08:05 PM

I'm sorry my 'reasonable' caveat was unclear. *I* knew I meant 'basically always', but of course you didn't know I meant that. I didn't want to say '100% yes' and be misleading in the other direction.

Posted by: Fatum May 15 2011, 08:26 PM

Oh. Thank you for your opinion, then; sorry for my grumpiness :3

Posted by: Ascalaphus May 15 2011, 09:58 PM

I think you can certainly attempt Infiltration against an observer you can't see, because otherwise you might get an impossible situation:

A and B are both sneaking around and trying to avoid being seen by the other. They haven't yet spotted each other.

Now if the GM wants to resolve A's stealth first, it turns out A can't hide from B because he hasn't found B yet, so A fails to hide from B. Now B knows where A is, and he can attempt Infiltration against A's Perception.

Or if the GM wants to resolve B first, then B can't hide from A, but A can hide from B.

Or if the GM says he'll administer them simultaneously, then A and B both fail to hide because they haven't yet found the other, so it turns out it's impossible to miss someone if you're both trying to get missed.

---

In the game, it's a contest between the security team and the infiltrator; if the team is good, they have a lot of dice to prevent infiltration. If the infiltrator is good, he has a lot of dice to infiltrate. All those dice represent lots and lots of tricks of the trade that we as armchair generals on Dumpshock may not even know about.

If cameras are set at really clever places, then bypassing them is hard (high threshold). But it's hubris to think that we on Dumpshock know quite as much about stealth as someone with an Infiltration score of 6, so things we think are impossible may not actually be impossible.

Actually, I think most of us know more about organizing security than we know about how to get around it, but that's just a guess.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere May 15 2011, 10:12 PM

For what it's worth in a lot of situations, especially wilderness stealth, your not trying to remain unobserved against a specific target but one that might potentially be there, that person being an astrally percieving spirit or a deer or a sentry doesn't really change that basic abstract equation. Some of your techniques might change and refine but that's what the stealth group skills represent a working knowledge of how to apply those techniques.

I do feel it would be very hard to pull off a sixth world infiltration specialisti without a working knowledge of both tech and magic. If your players don't want to break their skills out of their comfort zone i think it's perfectly reasonable to punish that, but I think auto failures or it's impossible should be rather sparing.

Posted by: Makki May 15 2011, 10:16 PM

at the moment the player says "I wanna roll Infiltration", he's stating, that his char will assume any detection sensors he can think of and the skill includes any counteraction necessary. If he's just running into it blindly ignoring the possible threat of detection equipment, he's not really a shadowrunner, is he?

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 15 2011, 10:25 PM

Agreed: Infiltration means 'taking any relevant precautions'. It's based on a broad understanding of potential threats.

Posted by: kzt May 15 2011, 11:07 PM

For example, if you are not aware that they are using FLIR you are not likely planning on how to not leave warm trails as you slowly crawl through the motion sensors.

Posted by: Falconer May 15 2011, 11:57 PM

Astral lighting and such is almost 100% opposite from real world.

Someone hiding in a dark corner is going to shine like a lantern on the astral against a mundane drab backrop. Remember life shines out on the astral... while you can try to hide your aura. Even worse... if you 'hide' in a dark corner where normal cameras and such are unlikely to see you, you stand out more.

Sneaking in astral is more a matter of hiding your own aura among others or completely out of sight.

Logic + Infiltration would be used by a mage infiltrating while astrally projecting. Which in a way makes sense as astral infiltration is less about moving quickly and quietly and more about outthinking any potential observers who could be almost anywhere at anytime.



How to put this... if you're dressed like a janitor walking around the building like you belong there. You won't stand out to an astral observer just another mundane about his business about the joint. On the other hand if you're very obviously acting like a ninja.... that should stand out to an astral observer. Then again.. in a small facility the spirit might be trained to recognize a list of 'approved' auras... in which case you'd need masking to imitate one of them. Or the spirit might be detailed to guard a specific area of a larger facility where only a few people are cleared for entry.

Astral security makes infiltration MUCH harder... but it doesn't make it impossible.

Posted by: TheOOB May 16 2011, 12:01 AM

Honestly, sneaking about suspiciously is usually bad inside a corp facility anyways. It's remarkably hard to sneak past a guard or camera in a hallway, but no one notices an extra wage slave or janitor. What you didn't take the disguise skill?

Posted by: Fatum May 16 2011, 12:01 AM

You see, the problem here is that different sensors require different kinds of actions, and you can't possibly be doing everything at the same time. Say, ultrasound motion sensors require you to move very slowly to traverse them, while it'd make sense to move very quickly past a low-FPS cam. You can't do both at the same time. A bunch of sensors, like trip beams or proximity wires, just work as soon as you get close/past them - if you don't know they are there, how's high Infiltration roll helping?

I agree with Ascalaphus that this ruling makes for some rather strange situations, but at least it's not against the common sense (and you can always make an exception for a case like the one described).

Posted by: Fatum May 16 2011, 12:06 AM

So, you necessarily need to be Awakened to be a successful infiltrator? Is that what you're saying?

Even in relatively large facilities, with about a hundred employees, there are guards who know every employee by sight; when you see them each day, it's not that difficult.
Sure you could disguise as some actual employee, but that's far into the face territory.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 16 2011, 12:37 AM

Don't forget about technology. Facial recognition, biometrics, radio trackers, etc.

Posted by: Falconer May 16 2011, 01:27 AM

Yeah, I still don't see how any half-decent security setup doesn't put biomonitors on everyone on the facility and use them to track people... When you see guards getting knocked/out killed you know you have a problem...

That was one of the things I didn't like about one of a recent series of very high magic games... drones and cyber-security were pretty much non-existent even in major corp facilities.

Posted by: Makki May 16 2011, 01:30 AM

The topic is called "... stealth". Disguise is in the Stealth group, isn't it?

Posted by: CanadianWolverine May 16 2011, 01:47 AM

Look, if you are trying to find a reason as GM for your GM fiat ruling, just do it ok? You really are coming across as trying to find anyway to just go "Infiltration is impossible, that karma you spent on that skill was a waste."

Take careful note here, I said nothing about blasting through walls, yet in my experience and interest in construction (carpentry, electrical, plumbing, iron work, HVAC, etc) has informed me that it is dreadfully easy to enter most homes and buildings these days by a number of means than the front door for one simple reason: utilities and air must enter and exit a building on a constant basis or that building is tomb. Even safes need their enviroments controlled to protect the things we seal in them, so things like electricity, air, water, and so forth must flow or people have to wear suits that allow them to continue living for any significant amount of time as they work or pass through a air tight sealed enviroment.

Your choke points aren't really choke points, they are check points, the camera doesn't actually stop anyone, it just informs who ever is watching the sensor at that time or watching the recording later. Think of infiltration not just as the sniper in a ghilli suit moving through a forest, covering their tracks, picking the least noticeable route, and setting up their hide for the hunt by the water source but as the person who moves through a crowd unnoticed, or looks indistinguishable from a wage slave, corp sec, or corp big wig with their body language and gait. Did you know that when you are walking through a crowd, you can effectively disappear by bending your knees, slouching, and thus lowering your head below the sea of heads, for instance? And infiltration is not just being unseen, but being seen and being beneath regard, blending in with the regular ebb and flow.

And if it has to be unseen, then Infiltration is also the use of Knowledge skills to Actively and skillfully place oneself where there is least likely to be observation, choke points should be easily spotted by a infiltrator and bypassed by any number of means that are required by maintenance and the preservation of the lives of those who work there, including meta-human corp sec. And even if there is a sensor, what type of sensor is it? All sensors have different blind spots, infiltrators make it a point to be aware of these (see: specializations of Infiltration ... which a GM has the freedom to add more to). What wavelength your sensors are on makes a big difference in what kinds of shadows/blind spots they end up having and a skilled infiltrator can account for that. Check out this lil'tid bit from a Burn Notice episode for instance: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1082942/goofs
That goof is actually used in another episode where the lead character uses a sheet to be invisible to a sensor as he infiltrates a server room ... twice, just before someone not as skilled as him at infiltration screws it up and is detected.

There sure is a lot of synergy between Disguise, Infiltration, and Shadowing IMHO. There is a reason there is a Stealth group, surely. I think there is some definite value in looking to other entertainment that features the Stealth Skill Group highly, seeing as this is fantasy/fictional entertainment we are engaged in as well and just might expand your GM imagination a bit so you aren't ruling Infiltration as being useless so much unless they don't roll enough successes.

Posted by: Falconer May 16 2011, 01:59 AM

I know what you mean... I couldn't ever see not buying the stealth group as a whole.
Disguise, shadowing, infiltration, and palming are all usefull skills.


While some people go nuts on infiltration... almost every skill in the group is critical. An it's one of the few groups w/ 4 skills instead of 3 making it an unmitigated bargain.

Posted by: Fatum May 16 2011, 03:20 AM

In no way I am saying that infiltration is impossible by design; but I've run into several problems when GMing said infiltration episodes, and I'm asking for advice, because I feel that my rulings kinda ruin the whole suspension of disbelief thing. If you read the topic carefully, you'll notice at least two (arguably, three) ways for any mundane infiltration attempt to fail regardless of the infiltrator's skill. I see it as a problem, because players like to infiltrate (and mine make for some surprisingly bad faces, as far as actual roleplaying and not dicepools is concerned).

I must have misinterpreted that "ridiculously easy to [...] make an opening in for anyone familiar with the tools" bit in your original post in this topic.
However, while I can't claim to be a real specialist, I've been doing some cabling work for my workplace - Ethernet mostly, of course. I've seen enough of both the air ducts and cable channels running through walls. None of those require human-sized openings. Okay, maybe building-wide cabling channels, but you can't get much further than the floor-wide service room through those, anyway.
Besides, any decent security force have those monitored, as well, and often better than the obvious approaches - since the chance that any given signature there is an intruder and not an employee is that much higher.

Turrets can make it into a chokepoint; but are we really arguing terminology here?

See above for my problems with that - basically, while this take on infiltration surely is possible (although magical security can ruin it, too), it's for faces, not infiltrators - and it's just not what infiltrator players want to do.

Fine, what are the blind spots for proximity wires or pressure pads? As far as I am aware, the core book lists none. So in the best case, the infiltration burns down to "wait for the hacker to hack the security host and turn all those toys off, then do your job". And even that requires a good deal of GM fiat, since what kind of secure compound has its host accessible from the outside?


What's the use for Palming? Or Shadowing on the same level as Infiltration or Disguise, for that matter, too - how often do you really need it?

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 16 2011, 03:24 AM

You have to suspend disbelief. Infiltration works against *all* sensors because the book says it does. It's an abstract skill that includes all kinds of Mission Impossible stuff. It's on par with dodging a grenade.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 16 2011, 03:26 AM

How does this sound? make 1 infiltration check for the entire operation, and compare your hits to the rating of each device you come across. Or make one check per device you come across, or something of that nature. You fill in the blanks.

Posted by: Halflife May 16 2011, 03:49 AM

If you are really worried about them being able to sneak past defenses that they don't know about why not just substitute the Infiltration result for the Perception result or make them roll that in addition and limit the Infiltration hits to the perception hits or something along those lines. That way they notice measures and defeat them through the mad skill they have. Individual traps like pressure plates and proximity wires can be noticed before they go off if you feel like they have no reasonable way to pass them. However, there are rules in the Corebook for avoiding setting them off after you have stepped on them so it is conceivable that you can move in such a way that you can just walk through them if you are fast/agile enough, so even that stuff isn't unbeatable.

The more abstract your Infiltration roll the more actions it covers at once, but if you break it down into specifics sensors and arenas you still roll effectively the same dice for the action, you just have the possibility of more dice pool modifiers on both sides. If you are interested in making a hard spot to get through you can Infiltrate through the generic parts of the facility and make it a challenge to get over a particularly dense sensor net, or over a set of pressure plates, or something like that and make it a particular puzzle/obstacle.

No system is impenetrable, maybe there are some that you cannot infiltrate entirely by stealth, maybe you do need social engineering/disguise/hacking to get through, probably a combination of all three. There is a place for sensors and traps that the PCs do not know about as a way to catch them off guard. HOWEVER, the end result is that it has to be beatable, detectable, or avoidable in some fashion or you are just dicking them over/the Johnson is dicking them over. It's not really fun at that point, but if you are going to rule a particular system unbeatable just do it so your characters can invest their time/energy elsewhere.

Posted by: Falconer May 16 2011, 03:52 AM

Palming is used when you're trying to hide things like pistols. It's the skill which directly opposes perception. As well as the skill which allows you to do things like pickpocketing and the like. (you really didn't need that keycard did you?)

If you're trying to sneak a gun past a guard... So with palming can be the difference between a holdout and a real weapon (or someone sounding an alarm).


Shadowing is useful for doing legwork such as figuring out whose identity you need to borrow (or blackmail into aiding you). It's also important for knowing when people are doing legwork on you.

Shadowing + Intuition is used to notice when YOU"RE being tailed, not perception (when the hunter becomes the hunted).



Rather than worrying too much... give them the oppurtunity to actually do some legwork before their run and figure out what kind of security they're going to have to worry about. One thing a hacker can do is break in beforehand and download the buildings security plan. Similarly... they might try kidnapping a guard... interogating him then erasing his memory w/ something like laes.

Posted by: toturi May 16 2011, 04:27 AM

I remember that Shadowing + Intuition can be used to notice being tailed in place of Perception, not that Perception is not the skill that should be used but Shadowing allows for someone with better Shadowing than Perception to have a better chance of spotting his tail.

Posted by: Falconer May 16 2011, 05:02 AM

You're right, I just double checked that... any stealth skill can be used in place of perception at the GM's option on an appropriate check.

So from that aspect... palming is the skill used to hide a gun on your body... but that same skill can also be used to frisk someone.

Posted by: CanadianWolverine May 16 2011, 05:10 AM

This, so much this. Yerameyahu, longbowrocks, and Falconer plainly get it as well.

Divide your dice rolls up about the On-site Legwork and/or Stealth as you, as GM, see fit in accordance with how much dice rolling aka time you want to spend on this particular activity.

Personally, I like the idea of Legwork and Knowledge Skills acting as a Teamwork Test (pg 65 SR4A) that can be used only for that particular mission to abstractly show its tangible benefit where just playing the role of a character isn't enough, due either to Player inability as an actor/writer or time constraints on over all play time. Yes, I am aware that is a house rule and YMMV.

This is some Mission: Impossible stuff, we need the abstraction of the dice because we the players aren't Shadowrunners, if we were we would have a lot more money and probably doing something like cliff diving with super models after a party with our favourite money launderer after a big score for entertainment if we weren't content with being a international criminal for the thrills and home life was the mask.

If the pretend security system that the characters are facing off against are really impossible aka GM fiat rather than just a threshold they could possibly have enough successes to get around unnoticed or unseen, then you really should be pretending that your Fixer sucks at his task of setting the Shadowrunners up with jobs from Mr J's that are more in line with there skill set, since apparently that Mr J is really looking for a group that doesn't give a shit if they are seen because they are ready for that with some masks, big guns, big mojo, bigger explosions, and fast get away vehicle(s) - which is fun too, it just may not be what your group of player characters is suited for if they plunked karma in the stealth group skills and expected it to be useful.

And I appreciate you did some wiring, then you are familiar with crawl spaces and maintenance access, even if that means a screw driver, a drill, and some method of making minor repairs ... just because they didn't realize they wanted a secret, hidden access panel there doesn't mean they can't have one now and bingo, bypassed that impossible chokepoint which now apparently includes a turret, which oddly enough works in the infiltrator's favour: just how do they get power and ammo to the turret? How big is the recess its hidden in? If not hidden, what is it anchored to? It can't shoot at what it doesn't detect with sensors, it would be rather odd if the thing was programmed to randomly shoot at the air ... and what is down range from that turret? I guess it is dystopia, a few "accidents" of a turret shooting corp sec and wage slaves is no biggie, right?

Hmm, how to imaginitively defeat sensor pads and proximity sensors ... well, they have a pretty hefty blind spot IMHO, anything not touching or near them is blind to it, so... Surely you see where this is going considering my thoughts on crawl spaces. Did they pressure pad the walls and ceiling too? Did they pressure pad the other side of the pressure pad? Proximity sensor, which kind? Those come in all different kinds of methods of finding range.

"But the character didn't see it!" Did you let them roll do legwork, knowledge skills, perception, disguise, and inflitration if detection is that vital? Did you give the character a chance to use their skills or just the player?

Really, all that should be a consideration here game mechanically is how high a threshold you want and the rest is just the use of your imagination to explain it however you want that is the most fun for the session with people who are presumably friendly and civil with you. If their characters come up with a out of this world, hair brained, once in a life time, lucky bastard scheme abstractly because their character rolled more dice than your extreme threshold (but not impossible because there is a threshold), what's the big deal?

And I am absolutely sure astral does not equal instant fail for infiltration, magic is even more abstract than pretending masters of stealth are possible.

Did that cover the 2 or 3 ways stealth insta fails apparently? I get it, you are wondering what your limits are within the setting and remaining true to Shadowrun, but lets be clear, the setting is all in the GM's head irregardless of what they write in the books, every game session is on some unique due to the vagaries of differences in how we all imagine things. The limits are only what you set them to be, if in your mind it is impossible, it will be - I am only trying to help open your mind up a bit to entertainment possibilities for your players sake, since they apparently have images in their minds of stealth being fun since they made their characters with those skills: meaningful, powerful, and entertaining.

Posted by: Makki May 16 2011, 11:39 AM

you wouldn't believe what my stealth based dwarf can pickpocket from suits.

Posted by: Falanin May 16 2011, 04:15 PM

Fatum, I agree with part of your point. Solo infiltration is one of the most demanding and painfully difficult activities a shadowrunner can attempt. Cameras and other sensors can be placed so that your infiltrator MUST appear on them at some point. Hell, for the sufficiently paranoid, they can bug the bloody crawlspaces, HVAC, and wiring accesses, either with microdrones or with tiny fixed sensors. Then you have astral security, which has entirely different requirements for evading it. Honestly, with enough preparation from the security system's designers, a solo infiltration a la ninja can be pretty much impossible.

This is why you have a TEAM of shadowrunners.

Yeremayahu et al have already covered the fact that you CAN infiltrate past sensors (or really, past the agent/sprite/drone/sec guard/spirit/wagemage doing the monitoring). Some of these rolls are harder than others. Some of these rolls you as the GM may determine are pretty much impossible without edge. So you have your team help out.

A competent hacker can loop the cameras, cause random glitches in the sensors, make sure the HVAC ducts are unlocked, and cause the most aggravating distractions imaginable (short of a running gunfight). Many of these actions can negate the need for your infiltrator to make some of those impossible rolls. Yes, the hacker runs the risk of being detected as well. Yes this is a second chance to blow the mission. However, a facility will generally not have the same care put toward all aspects of its security. A place with top-notch matrix security may have sensor blind-spots you can exploit. A place with impenetrable physical security may be far more vulnerable when softened up by a preliminary hack or two.

Next, there is the problem of Astral security. It's generally invisible, and it can walk through walls. Unless the area you're infiltrating is warded. Then Astral security has to play by the same rules they set for the intruders... unless the mage who set up the wards is also the same guy who happens to be on shift at the time, so he can let himself and his spirits through the wards. How many hours a day does he work?

To deal with most any astral security setup, I recommend the Astrally-projecting Magician, with a few spirits that know the "Conceal" power. Conceal can be your very best friend, since the power explicitly works against astral detection. Anything that conceal won't help with (the aforementioned warded area, for example), the projecting mage can deal with, in one fashion or another. Have a watcher on hand to run messages back and forth between the overwatch hacker and the Astral mage.

So, yeah. I can see how you have a valid point about security systems being hard to beat as just a guy making an infiltration roll. The solo sneak-thief or ninja isn't an amazingly viable archetype unless you want to spend a LOT of points on being amazing at stealth/hacking/con...AND being at least an adept with Astral Perception. Honestly, even a full team will have a lot of trouble staying completely undetected with a top-tier zero zone security system... which is why you only give that kind of run to a top-notch team.

Posted by: Fatum May 16 2011, 06:07 PM

Yeah, but no reason to ruin that suspension by playing dumb when planning the security systems supposedly created by some of the best tech specialists in the Sixth World, is there?

Uh, I beg your pardon, where exactly does it say that? And if it does, why are there specific bypass methods listed for most sensor types?

Bah, dodging a grenade is not all that unimaginable, no worse than dodging a bullet. You just get out of the blast range just before it goes boom.


That's a fine abstract method, to be sure; but I feel that more detailed approach is what my players want (and what seems to be interesting to me myself).


Uh, if you read carefully through the beginning of the discussion, you'll notice that the whole "you can't hide from what you can't see" thing started with discussing whether a mundane character can use Infiltration against Astral observers. For mundane sensors, we already roll Perception to spot them, naturally; but astral entities you can't possibly perceive if you're mundane.

Right, for most stuff, at least some method to get past it is given (and none of those include rolling straight Infiltration, btw). For proximity wire, however, I can see none listed.

Basically, my problem is that it's ridiculously easy to make a hard (actually, almost unbeatable) spot. And if we presume the opposition is competent, they should be aware of the security designs in Core and more.
More than just that, frankly, it kinda troubles me that a single failed roll (okay, two failed rolls) may mean a whole infiltration attempt, which has taken us several RL hours already, fail instantly.

That's pretty much my problem right there. On one hand, the players want to penetrate ultra-secure corp compounds unseen. On the other hand, those are very hard to make both beatable and believable at the same time, as for me.


Again, we're talking secure compounds here. The Fourth Edition made a big point of the hackers not being coach potatoes any more since the secure hosts are only accessible on location.
Anyway, of course, there's quite a number of ways to do legwork, no arguing that, and yeah, the infiltrator can be going into some more or less familiar ground. But still, what good is that when a single wagemage could ruin your day before you even start the show?

Posted by: Fatum May 16 2011, 06:08 PM

If you handle it in such an abstract way, is it really any fun for any player interested in infiltration?
Besides, when designing my encounters, I try to be realistic, as weird as that may sound for Shadowrun. So yeah, if the runners are breaking into the Stuffer Shack, no prob. If it's a zero zone they're up against, there's someone no less competent than them who designed the security system - what, should I just handwave inadequacies like the crawl spaces not being monitored? The first question I'm getting from my group then would be "what kind of zero zone is this?"

You know, around these parts, wiring does not include secret crawl spaces or access panels. The wire channels between rooms are about head-sized, and mostly filled with cables at that. Air ducts running from the floor hub are about that large, as well. Most room-wide equipment is right above the hung ceiling in the room serviced, so you just remove a couple of tiles of the ceiling for repairs. Floor-wide equipment is in a separated service area, and building-wide either is as well, or is situated on a separate technical floor. Frankly, using those systems for infiltration is just a Hollywood trope, and requires pure GM fiat to work in Shadowrun (well, except for some weird adept builds).

God. You can't infiltrate through a toothing! Nor really hide in a niche several times less than you, which is already occupied by a turret.

Yes. All useless against Astral patrols or mages hundreds of meters away being able to tell who you are, precisely.

Blah-blah-blah believability blah-blah-blah in-depth exploration of the setting. Basically, just rolling dice pools against thresholds is pretty boring.

Yet I still can't see any viable solutions to the most obvious cases of magic-based security in this thread yet.

Well, yeah, apparently. It's just that fulfilling their ideas becomes my work, and so far they haven't been able to throw any really bright ideas my way on how to make the high-grade infiltrations both engaging and minimally believable at the same time.


Right. So, as said before, basically any infiltrator should come with a hacker and a mage on call. Preferably be all three, but it's really out there.

Uh, far as I remember, you can let others pass through your wards. Otherwise contract warding wouldn't work.

You know, it seems to be the problem with either our gaming style or the system itself. Lots of interesting archetypes, ones players love, tend to be either too weak or not really needed in a shadowrunner team.
Prime examples I've seen done numerous times being pilots and snipers, of course; but the more we talk about it, the more it seems the stealth-based infiltrators are in the list, as well.

Posted by: Yerameyahu May 16 2011, 06:12 PM

I dunno what you're asking for, here. Magic is magic. It's unfair. Astral sentries can be (sometimes) beaten by Infiltration (Astral Visibility mods, cover, etc.), but it's true that the Detect spells are pretty badass. There are many cases in SR where you need combined arms, or at least having it makes the plans easier. Magic against magic, matrix against matrix, etc. Infiltration has plenty of excellent uses, but if the question you're asking is 'how does one mundane beat expert-class magic-and-technical security?'… why would you ask that question? You need a little of everything, or you need to take easier runs.

Posted by: Fatum May 16 2011, 06:15 PM

Haha, ok, thinking of it like that...

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 16 2011, 06:22 PM

+1 to Yerameyahu's post.
Asymmetric warfare could also work. Use the Face/Street Samurai to get the expert mage to not show up at work or forget reporting the intruder aftzer the hacker found out who he is.

Also the Spirit Power Concealment works wonders against Astral Observers as of SR4A.

And otherwise just let the mundanes roll infiltration against Astral observers as well. With the skill they should at least also know where an observer should/could be and try to avoid his potential LOS.

Cover works even better against astral observers than physical ones. There are no transparent objects on the astral plane.

Posted by: sabs May 16 2011, 06:23 PM

This is how I see it.

Hacker and Face get some kind of job working in secure facility (in some low grade job). This gets them both inside the building. Face does his face thing, schmoozing, sleazing, and getting access to id cards, finding out which secretary has her boss's secureID tokens in her commlink.

Hacker does slow probing from inside, gets a lay out of the matrix topology. Finds said secretary's commlink and pwns it. Hacker also uses his time to figure out where cameras are, and how to access them. Maybe he's got 10 or so tapper-bugs and 3 dronekiller drones that he brought in with him in his lunchbox. They're set to tap into the fibre, and the dronekillers are there to protect them from the site's drone killers.

Face finds out daily work procedures, security procedures, etc, etc. They get their streetsam hired in the security department, or the facilities department. The mage does some astral recon, and figured out where the watchers and the wards are.

This is coordinated with the maps they aquire and build.

This is all legwork. They don't try to get the final piece. This allows them to form a plan FOR that final piece. On the night of the infiltration:
1) they know the guard routines, and possibly the guards, heck their streetsam might be one of the guards on duty.
2) they control the cameras, and biomonitor feeds
3) they have done matrix simulations of the entire run.
4) The hacker erases their employee records, or activates a virus that starts corrupting their employee records (or all employee records).

This works if your shadowrun team is.. normal. If your shadowrun team is an astral hazing minotaur, a banshee, and a naga with medusa hair.. you have issues.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 16 2011, 07:41 PM

Used this very technique (above) on Mitsuhama in our Hong Kong game. Worked wonders. Of course, it will nto always work. but the time I did go that route, whoo boy.

Posted by: Fatum May 16 2011, 08:24 PM

Actually, that plan has half a dozen of holes. It might work; but again I reiterate - it's not really what my players want from the game, far as I can tell.

Posted by: Blog May 16 2011, 08:27 PM

Lets not forget they are also often the lowest bidder!



Something to note for setup of a security system is to keep in mind the cost to run that security system. Grunt guards are fairly cheap compared to a mage, let alone a mage expected to have spirits up or sustain a spell for their entire shift. For smaller facilities they likely have a "call center" setup where there is a pool of resources spread among the assets which may include a mage to cover each shift. If the mundane guards suspect something magical the call goes in and the astral mage arrives very quickly. Its more cost effective then having a mage present at all times. Larger corps have more funds to throw around so they may.

Security by its nature is "just enough" to make it difficult (or the illusion of difficult) to deter the desire to break in. For everything else there is insurance!

Now that is not saying there are facilities that dont have the security on red alert 24/7, but most places are in idle mode unless something raises suspicious for then to "look into it"

Posted by: DireRadiant May 16 2011, 09:08 PM

End of the day you are rolling dice. It's a simple test or an opposed test. You then decide if they succeed or fail and describe the results accordingly. There's a whole world of rich imagination you can use to describe the results for your game. I usually give players bonus to the roll for cool ideas regardless of the actual security, and negative modifiers for not so good ideas.

Or you can spend hours and days arguing about all the real and imagined scenarios you can think of and then decide whether they succeed or fail based on your personal understanding of the combined experience and skilled arguments you and your players bring to the table. Loudest or most articulate wins. Your choice.

Posted by: Ascalaphus May 16 2011, 10:19 PM

As a GM, of course you can come up with a facility that is basically impenetrable. Whenever the players come up with some strategy you say "the security director is a genius, and he thought of that, and he did something against it" using his unlimited budget for protecting every asset of the entire company.

But isn't that overdoing it just a bit?

NPCs aren't infallible, and PCs know a lot more about their job than the player playing the PC, most of the time. That doesn't mean you can just waltz in there, flashing your dice pool and expecting things to work out Because You Have The Stat, but why is the GM declaring that the group's mission is impossible?

Rather a lot is being made of the magician's supposed ability to spot intruders. Spirits are said to basically not understand the physical world. Sure, you can show the Watcher spirit of the day all the employees it's not supposed to raise an alarm about, but the poor thing has only Logic 1, so it's going to make a LOT of mistakes. The Detect Life spell only detects the location of people, but nothing about who those people are.

So a magician could be guarding the entry to the Inner Sanctum, and know that he should be called before people with clearance try to enter. This is an important security procedure, and with legwork, the PCs could find out about it. So they spoof a message to the mage about a surprise visit from Upper Management.

So there's a camera aimed at the door. And someone is monitoring that camera 24/7. The PCs could find out through legwork, and perhaps hack that camera, use Edit to show the absent-minded researcher coming in at night to finish a project.

Simply put, all these things can be defeated. With forewarning and legwork, it's likely that it'll be done well. But if the PCs go in without knowing how the security system is set up, then of course it'll be hard.

Opening a door marked Off Limits without knowing what's behind it should be scary. Better send a drone in first. Or use a Clairvoyance spell. Or peek in astrally. Or sneak a glassfiber cable under the door. Or... etc etc.

Basically, a few simple Infiltration checks cover going from Challenge Point to Challenge Point, and those Challenge Points require either a clever strategy, good preparation, or amazingly good dice rolls. (Amazingly good dice rolls basically indicate that the character found a solution the player didn't think of.)

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 16 2011, 10:25 PM

The BBB tells us otherwise:

Posted by: Ascalaphus May 16 2011, 10:34 PM

Ah, right. I just looked at the spell description, which only states "number and location".

Note, however, that Detect Life is an Active sense, so the mage has to concentrate on it to use it. Keeping up that kid of active watch - all lifeforms in an area - is pretty heavy duty. Also, it's a resisted test, so you'll get some false positives and some false negatives, it's not all that reliable.

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 16 2011, 10:46 PM

And now we can argue ad nauseam which passage is wrong. Well done, game designers.

all true. I'm just thinking, instead of using useless watchers, using Spirits of Man with the Detect Life spell would be a good idea. The spirit can then even verify the positives himself.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 16 2011, 10:51 PM

Assuming, of course, you can both Summon a Spirit of Man, and that you have the spell yourself.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere May 17 2011, 12:45 AM

I think the stupidity of detect life has been well established.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 02:40 AM

Heh...

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 03:25 AM

The problem here is that if we use the rules, when we roll the dice, the chance that the players fail is kinda too high for my liking, if they're going against competent opposition.


You don't even have to use feedback here. Sit down for an evening, open the core book - blam you have a setup which is incredibly hard to penetrate for an infiltrator, almost to the point of impossibility.

As you see, as a GM I'm doing my best not to. There's this pesky thing called "rules" though...

Watchers are said to be about as smart as dogs. And it's trivial to teach those who's friend and who's foe.
Besides, do your PCs with Logic 1 have trouble recognizing friendlies, too? :3
After all, you can always use actual spirits for patrols.

The problem is - for a decent secure facility, it's almost impossible to do quality legwork, as well, at least not without leaving a trace. A hacker needs to get in to hack into the offline system (so he's useless at least until the outer perimeter is breached). A mage could go on an astral recon trip, but that just means that he's asking to be spotted by patrolling spirits and/or resident wagemages (although, ok, this one is more likely to succeed, even if he'd have trouble discerning the details of the physical setup).

Right, you'll have to be sustaining it, and even get a negative dice penalty to anything else you do. Crippling, isn't it.
False positives? How comes?
False negatives - sure, if your infiltrator is brining a mage, or has his Willpower incredibly high. Or just happens to roll well. So basically, I wouldn't count on that.


Actually, the whole thread so far burns down to almost-impossibility of penetrating a secure facility for a mundane infiltrator, and high complexity of doing so even for a prepared group of specialists (which involves babysitting the support cast, which, as far as I can tell, is not what the ninja players want). It's not like it's universally bad, just means that the players won't be doing precisely what they want to be doing because of the limitations of the setting.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 17 2011, 03:30 AM

Not like that's ever been a valid result before.

Posted by: Fyndhal May 17 2011, 04:17 AM

I'm playing an Infiltration based character -- a cat burglar.

She has:
18d for Infiltration
11d for Knowledge of Security Procedures
12d for Knowledge of Security Design
13d for Knowledge of Architecture
11d for Knowledge of Physics

I figure she knows more about how to bypass security than everyone in this forum, combined, by a good margin. Combined with good legwork, she should be capable of breaking into anything short of an A level security by herself, and is qualified to take on even AA's with a team.

The BEST I can do, as the player, is to come up with a general idea of how to bypass the security. The character is much more aware of the limitations and capabilities of the various tools she possesses than I am, and has a much more vested interest in doing things correctly -- if she screws up, the best she can hope for is jail.

Just like shooting a gun, throwing a punch or summoning a spirit involves levels of abstraction, so does infiltration. As the GM, your job is to make things fun and challenging; saying ANYTHING is impossible is not fun or challenging. Sure, the player may have a threshold of 30, but it's not impossible.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 17 2011, 05:07 AM

The mages will never learn until you sprint through their compound at 300 meters per turn with your astral hazing taking out watchers and other lesser spirits, then send one of the security mages home with three kinds of awakened diseases, and temporarily install wired reflexes 3 on all the other awakened folks in the area.

Or just use redundant manufacturing on one of your drones and do some nasty things. Maybe he'll try his favorite direct combat spells.

Posted by: longbowrocks May 17 2011, 05:08 AM

Rock on!

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 17 2011, 05:44 AM

Yet dogs have INT3 not 1. Telling friend from Foe IMHO is more a thing of INT than LOG.

Posted by: kzt May 17 2011, 05:49 AM

Though she is completely incapable of noticing the spirit that is doing his astral mime act of "I'm so very sneaky" behind her while he waits for an opportune moment for an Accident to happen to her. So I'd guess magical security is uncommon?

Posted by: Fyndhal May 17 2011, 05:58 AM

See "Legwork" -- there are ways to prepare for mages, even if it's just getting the guy drunk as hell the night before so he fails to summon a spirit the night of a run. There are drugs you can buy that can let even mundanes see in the astral. Binding spirits also gets to be pretty expensive; hiring one of the gangs that has a few mages to do the equivalent of a magical DDOS attack by sending spirits to mess with the targets spirits can work.

So, no while there isn't a lot she can do directly to astral entities, she isn't helpless.

EDIT: Oh, yes...per the fluff, magical security should be pretty uncommon, considering the ratio of magically active to mundane population. In practice, though, I've never played in an SR game where that was the case -- anything the players were likely to go against had magical security woven into the defense.

Posted by: Muspellsheimr May 17 2011, 10:25 AM

If the spirit managed to beat her 18 dice on it's Astral Perception.

Astral Perception is a perception check, and is opposed by an infiltrators Infiltration. It uses different modifiers than visual perception, or audio perception, etc. It is still opposed. There where a number of good posts earlier in this thread about how the infiltration test is abstracted to cover how well the character avoids methods of detection - including those she is not aware of. At best, unseen observers would get a bonus to their perception, not automatic success.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere May 17 2011, 10:46 AM

That seems like a pretty reasonable explanation to me.

Posted by: Ascalaphus May 17 2011, 11:52 AM

@Fatum: so basically, your point is that you find it hard to imagine infiltrating a properly designed secure facility is even possible at all? Not so much because of the game system but simply because it's easier to secure places than to penetrate that security?

---

Regarding Detect Life: that spell has issues. You could get false positives: the spell description only says it does X, and then some example expands it to X, Y and Z. That's a real can of worms: do other spells also do more than their descriptions state? Why does Detect Life detect if lifeforms are carrying non-living weapons?

What I meant with False Positives: according to that example, if the magician/spirit doesn't win with at least 4 successes, he doesn't identify even familiar people. So if the Boss has good Willpower (likely, for an ambitious person), then there'll be a lot of false alarms. So if the ninja pretends to be the boss, then the mage might think "ah, just another false alarm", because false alarms happen a lot. A Cry Wolf situation - not good from a security design standpoint.

Also, since it's an active sense, it only works if you actively make the roll. So you'd be rolling a LOT, and that'll eventually start incurring glitches.

Posted by: Makki May 17 2011, 01:23 PM

I am at 19 dice before spec and attribute boost. It looks like enough, although there are ways to get higher. There shouldn't be any security you can't circumvent with this, right? Everything else is either blindly stupid to sneak in, or railroading. I am currently investing my karma in pushing Exotic melee (Garrote), good idea for someone who can steak up everybody?

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 17 2011, 01:43 PM

Use a real weapon. It is useful in other situations as well. If you are not very strong get the monofilament whip (if you need something exotic) or a stun baton. The garrote can only be used in an assassination and does STR/2P AP 0 damage. The monowhip does 8P AP-4 a stun baton 7S(e) AP -half. Both can be used in normal combat as well. All other weapons will be better as well since they all do STR/2+X P AP -Y With X, Y equal or greater than 0. You do the math.

What's especially weird about the garrote is that by RAW no one untrained can put a wire around an unsuspecting person and pull.

Posted by: Makki May 17 2011, 01:48 PM

i am of course planing on getting a monofilament garrote. The problem is, I guess, that my mentor spirit won't allow me to engage in any fight anyways...

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 17 2011, 01:50 PM

Which mentor spirit does that? The Care Bear?

Well he does not allow you to fight but murder is fine?

Posted by: Makki May 17 2011, 01:50 PM

Rat. And I am pretty good at Pistols already. Enough to defend myself.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 01:54 PM

Rat can fight, as long as you make your Willpower + Charisma (3) Test. Or when you are cornered and have no other option.

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 17 2011, 01:55 PM

Not to tell you how to play but:

I neither see the need to go out of your hiding place to murder unsuspecting people necessary to survival nor do I see how fighting is strictly forbidden.
@Willpower + Charisma (3) Test: At least for a Shaman or practitioner of a CHA tradition this should not be that much of a problem. Still going around murdering people does not fit well with rat since you are always initiating the fight.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 01:59 PM

Definitely... Rat prefers not to fight (The assassination thing is a bit odd for a follower of Rat, but *shrug*), but when he has no other choice, he can be quite lethal, and often tends to try for the immediate kill, so as to end the fight quicker and get back to the shadows where he is most comfortable.

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 17 2011, 02:04 PM

Hence the Stun baton or Monofilament Whip, good weapons for weak mages if they feel the need to get into melee. A Stun or Powerbolt should do the same trick. Better invest skills into getting out of melee range.

Posted by: DireRadiant May 17 2011, 02:29 PM

You as GM are setting the target numbers, setting the modifiers, and choosing to gimp your players characters because you have made that choice. They are not failing because of the skill level they made for their character. They are failing because you are not adjusting the target numbers to match the level of success you require. That's your choice, not theirs.

You need to think of that PC sheet and skill, that one word Infiltration (4) as that players character ability to circumvent all that other stuff.

Infiltration skill and the die roll, and it's relative success = PC ability to overcome security, no matter how many words are written in the rule books about all the cool security there is.

The weight of the words you as a GM are struggling with is not countered by a comparable weight of words by the players and the PCs. It's resolved with a die roll.

Here's a few scenarios for you to think about.

Player A knows absolutely nothing about Shadowrun, hasn't read the books, has no real world knowledge of security practices, yet has a character(Super Ninja Cat Burglar!) who has Infiltration(6). They say they want Super Ninja Cat Burglar to sneak into Stuffer Shack and steal that bag of Nuke It Burritos. Are you going to make them fail because they can't describe exactly what uber security avoiding techniques Super Ninja Cat Burglar is going to use? Are you going to make them fail because they can't describe a counter to every cool uber security technique described in each and every Shadowrun rule book? Or are you going to have them roll a simple success test versus a threshold of 1 or 2, and then describe the results to them in a cool dramatic fashion embellished by the thousands and thousands of words you know from all the books you've read and enjoyed?

Player B is a Super Ninja Cat Burglar in Real Life, they've read all the books, they know all the real world and shadowrun uber elite security techniques and ways to evade them(Don't worry, they will kill you after you GM the game to keep their true identity secret). They make a character(Fluffy Bunny) who has Infiltration (1). Fluffy Bunny wants to steal that bag of Nuke It Burritos from Stuffer Shack as well. (Fluffy got addicted to the ones Super Ninja Cat Burglar shared earlier!). Does Fluffy Bunny succeed because Fluffy Bunny Player can describe every security technique and how to over come it? Or are you going to roll a couple of dice and describe the utter failure of Fluffy Bunny to shoplift a bag of nuke It Burritos from the corner Stuff Shack in some amusing fashion?

The weight of the body of knowledge about Infiltration is completely irrelevant to the chances of relative success or failure of using that skill.

Let's flip it around. Imagine as a GM you know nothing about security protocols, there are certainly many shadowrun skills I know nothing about personally (I got Assensing down though....). You have Player A and Player B again, does your resolution of the success of Fluffy Bunny and Super Ninja Cat Burglar change? No, it shouldn't. But what does change is the richness of the experience. If both the GM and Player A don't know much about it it becomes a simple die roll lacking in any cool exposition.

The body of knowledge, all those nifty gadgets, equipment, techniques, the thousands and thousands of words you've read, they are all there to provide a rich background to support the outcome of the skill roll. Succeed or fail.

Your GM knowledge of the rules, and content is there for both sides of the resolution. Not just the GMs.

It's all in your hands as a GM, you have been deciding your knowledge of the game content is weighted in favor of PC failure, rather then supporting the outcome no matter which way it goes.

It's your game, you are choosing how you run it.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 03:01 PM

WOW... That is the best explanation that I have seen yet, DireRadiant. Well Done Indeed...

Posted by: Halflife May 17 2011, 03:13 PM

Agreed, guess we can close the discussion now right ...

Posted by: Dakka Dakka May 17 2011, 03:16 PM

But we should sticky DireRadiant's explanation for the next time someone asks about social skills.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 03:17 PM

heh... There is that...

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 03:56 PM

You're making a lot of powerful enemies with that kind of approach. And making powerful enemies without making powerful friends most often means becoming very dead, very soon.


Sure enough you're not helpless, but without a mage close at hand you're not sneaking anywhere (for the reasons listed above), and you're not sneaking anywhere without leaving a trace even with magical support - at least with the plans listed.


My point is that I can't design a compound that'd have security design which would make sense, and that'd not frag my players over.

*shrug* The whole magic system has issues, if you ask me. But the spell is explicitly said to work like that.
Even without going into the argument of whether you can willingly fail the test to resist a friendly's spell, detecting your boss crawling through an air duct at night is hardly inconspicuous.

It's active since it "actively analyzes or seeks out certain information" when you're sustaining it. And glitching on a roll of even 10 dice has a negligible probability.

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 04:46 PM

I see my job as a GM as making everyone's time and effort invested in the game worthwhile, and the whole gaming experience enjoyable. For that, I try to limit my player's possibilities as little as possible, basically making my campaign as sandbox-like as possible. Now, obviously, any sandbox needs the whys and the hows of its internal workings covered, for it to be usable. The hows - just how do the players' actions affect the world around them, - are covered by the rule system (and that's why it's so important for the rule system to be consistent and working the same way for everyone). The whys, however, - just why the things are the way they are, and why they move in the directions they do, - is covered by pure logic. The only logic I can provide for that that'd not twist everyone's brains in a knot is simple RL logic, which forms the connections between the elements described in the fluff.

It works like this.
Player: "What happens when I let go of a gun I'm holding over my head?" GM: "It's not explicitly said in the rules, but it falls on your head, and when you touch the place it hit, there's a bump there".
Player: "Can I use that stolen copter to fly to the meeting with that drug cartel boss?" "GM: "Sure you can, but it's said in the fluff that the flights over Seattle are all monitored by Seattle Air Authority. Now, it's not in the books, but common logic tells me that you can either try to hack SAA's host to get a fake clearing, or try not to be spotted by its radars by flying really low, and of course your pilot PC knows all that". Etc.

Since simple day-to-day logic is generally the same for different people, it allows the players to make more or less the same predictions based on the same sets of facts as the GM does.
That is precisely why I can't just handwave incompetent security system designs for the secure facilities the players want to penetrate. It ruins verisimilitude, it removes the sense of accomplishment, after all, it just goes against aforementioned common sense.

tldr; I am not "gimping" the PCs any more than the laws of physics "gimp" them.

This, now, is a question of effort gratification.
When a player arrives with no in-game knowledge whatsoever, or without at least reading anything inspiring for his character archetype, in no way am I arguing that resolving in-game conflicts, even complex ones, with a single die roll may be appropriate, and make for a fun light-hearted game (let's leave the question of why exactly am I playing with that player, spending hours upon hours reading up on fluff, designing the adventure frameworks, drawing maps and player handouts etc out of the discussion for a moment).
However, most players seriously interested in the game are no less willing to munch on crunch and read the fluff than I am. Thorough depiction of the in-game universe makes a big difference for those players' immersion. This is exactly the kind of players who spend hours on their side making infiltration plans, calculating optimal loadouts or what have you. Rewarding them with a simple "roll Infiltration against the facility's Security Rating, good going, you've completed the run!" is hardly adequate, and I do not believe it makes for satisfying gaming experience.
And of course, it is their knowledge that makes their plans work, not the number near the word Infiltration on their character sheet. When we obviously don't share the same logic, or when they seem to operate on false premises, or when their knowledge is not enough - sure, that's where the character's skills and knowledge come to light. That is, their characters of course know more about the in-game universe, the way it works and its precise details, but the only way to transfer that knowledge to the players themselves is the GM (after a successful roll, of course).

Yes, that does mean that if your players A and B are both part of the same group, and player A tries to rob a Stuffer Shack at high noon, guns blazing, shouting "I'm a runner everyone down" - no amount of good rolls is saving him if he doesn't listen to the forewarnings (if the whole group is made up of As, okay, we might just roll with that).

I feel it to be my job as a GM to read on the fluff in the books thoroughly enough to provide satisfactory in-game descriptions for any of the players' actions. They are not playing to see the dice roll fives or sixes, are they? They're here to be cyberpunk heroes, to act out their ideas of cool, to breathe a full chest of the poisonous air of the 2070ies, after all. Saying that all those are just secondary additions to rolling dice is turning a roleplaying game into a boardgame, at best, a set of calculus problems, at worst.

Roleplaying is a shared storytelling experience by definition.
See the first part of my answer - I am not some kind of magical omnipowerful being behind the scenes to toss anything I want at the player characters without any reasoning visible behind that. I have to abide by the same logic the real world does for any hint of players' independent initiative to be possible.

Posted by: Manunancy May 17 2011, 04:52 PM

One thing to keep in mind with the mono-garrote is that the thing is often really messy - even if you hide the corpse, there will probably be a rather large pool of blood from the severed carotids.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 04:56 PM

Fatum...

In the end, a real design (your goal) will work out fine. Design it as you would if you were the security consultant. However, there are several things that you have to remember. The first is that people have to actually work there. Security is only going to be as invasive as workload allows. If the employees are going to be moving through security for half their day, it is too tight. There have to be tradeoffs for work vs. security. Most, if not all, companies err on the side of workload. Even in the Military, the Security is not so invasive as to impair work at the facility. Secondly, most places do not have unlimited budgets. Each and every department has to show profit. If the Corporation is showing a loss due to the security division, the corporation will move to correct that.

Keeping those things in mind, you will find that a natural security scheme develops. One that makes complete sense, and is cost effective and workable for the employees on site.

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 05:06 PM

Tymeaus Jalynsfein, as you can see in the thread above, the whole problem is that even a non-obstructive security system like a single mage with a single sustained spell makes infiltration a hell. Adding wireless-inhibiting paint and some decent sensor suites makes it almost impossible, to the point of complete failure after a single failed roll in a couple dozens of those, even after careful planning.
And realistically, sure it's all rather expensive, but as an AAA, wouldn't you prefer spending a couple hundred thousand nuyen on tech, paying three wagemages extra and buying them binding materials to losing your latest multimillion nuyen R&D toy?

Posted by: Fyndhal May 17 2011, 05:23 PM

@Fatum: At this point, I'm thinking you are being obtuse, or trolling.

You've seen several descriptions of how to run stealth in a fun and effective manner, yet are unable to accept the arguments. If you are really looking for a better way to run this, step back from the keyboard, stop thinking about this topic for a couple days, then come back and re-read the entire thread with a fresh perspective. It might help.

One last comment on rules elements: Astral Patrolling is an Assensing + Intuition vs. Infiltration test. A force 6 spirit in a small facility will have 14 dice for detection, opposed by the runners infiltration skill, at maybe -2 to -4 dice...without magical backup. With magical backup (say...concealment) the Infiltrator gets substantially better. Hardly impossible.

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 05:54 PM

Minding that the arguments so far are either basically "use GM fiat to make things easy, even if that ruins internal consistency", "use GM fiat to give the opposition the penalties you don't give to runners" or "replace Stealth with Influence for infiltrations", eh, I admit it's hard for me to accept them. Oh, right, let's not forget the all-powerful "use more abstract conflict resolution, with the bare minimum of dice rolled", that one's sure to make stealth fun and effective. Especially fun.

Okay, even if we go and allow Infiltration against observers a character can't detect, don't forget that his infiltration equipment is useless against Assensing, and his skill spec is most likely not "Astral", too. So that leaves a runner with his Attribute+Skill vs a spirit with his Attribute+Skill, and the spirit has both his Attribute and Skill well in the top margin of character-attainable values.
Sure, success is not impossible per se (just as a runner might just win that Willpower(+Counterspelling) vs Magic+Spellcasting for Detect spells), but failure is highly likely.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 06:28 PM

Agility 9, Skill 4 (Doable at Character Creation) is more dice than a Rating 6 Spirit, which is likely rare at most facilities. Remember, the average Magic Rating in Shadowrun is a 3. I think that you are putting the cart before the horse. It seems like you are trying to set ultra high levels of security, using ultra highly qualified participants, that may not actually be as skilled as you think they are. If you remember that Proferssionals probably have somewhere between 8-12 Dice, you should do okay. Use Common Sense. What do you think of for Security Measures? Remember that each piece of security must serve a function, and not impede the normal functioning of the facility to any heavy degree. If it seems unreasonable, then it probably is. You can go absolutely crazy designing a security procedure, but it has to be workable. There are many things that make such procedures unworkable. I think that you are giving the Security Procedures you are looking at too much credit.

There are always ways around every obstacle... And any Intrusion expert knows them. They should have an equal opportunity to recognize any potential security issues, just as the security expert who designed the system used those same potential issues in his security plan.

I do not think that a single failed roll spells immediate failure for the Intrusion. All it does is alert security to a possible "something". They will likely investigate to verify. Rarely will a facility go to immediate lockdown with a possible alert. Most places investigate first, because there is a high probability for false positives. Systems are not infallible. If you lock down a facility each time you get a ping, you get absolutely no work done, and the facility gets a new security director in short order.

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 06:50 PM

Well, most facilities won't have their staff all too professional, either. Or their tech security actually all that secure.

Right, that whole balance issue is why infiltrations are possible at all. But astral security is something most employees won't even be aware of beside the usual "some weirdo is out there working his mojo to protect us".

Of course (although that means the infiltrator will have to be Awakened or do drugs). However, abstracting things past specifics seems dull to me. Basically, I just wanted the answers for the questions in my initial post akin to the ones found for tech security in Core: you can do this, that or that other thing to get past it, and you'll need to roll this and that (but for a competent infiltrator, those rolls are all pretty much autosucceeding).

For secure facilities any alarm means rapid response in force. And it gets progressively harder to dodge those in addition to what you had your hands full with before that. But yeah, you're making a valid point here, saying that a single failed roll is a failure for the whole enterprise is a bit of an exaggeration.

Posted by: Brazilian_Shinobi May 17 2011, 07:08 PM

My first 4th ed runner was in fact a mundane Elf "ninja" with Astral specialization for infiltration.
In the end, if you can get yourself a cardboard box with ruthenium on it and a transparent part so you can see around, you are good to go in any facility.
Solid Snake WAS RIGHT, after all!

Posted by: Ascalaphus May 17 2011, 07:35 PM

Regarding Detect Life:

I still think some writer screwed up - making a spell do something in an example outside of the spell description that the spell description makes no mention of at all. I mean, how does "detects all living beings (but not spirits) within range of their sense and knows their number and relative location" suddenly tell you that they're armed? Can add extra functionality to other spells too if we feel like it?

Anyway, the spell description tells you that it's useless on crowds, so the way to foil the spell would be to sneak in during office hours, perhaps disguised.



I think you missed part of the text there:


The way I read that, it takes an Observe In Detail action to use an Active detection spell. You don't get an automatic roll whenever someone walks into the AoE; you have to constantly look for it.

Suppose your spirit checks every half minute, that's 2880 checks per day; even with a 0.1% glitch chance that's still about 3 glitches per day.

Also, the chance of successfully identifying someone isn't all that high: it takes 4 net hits to identify. People in a security facility would have an average Willpower of say, 4 (ambitious, training in defense against mages perhaps), so that means you need 16 dice to succeed on average. So only an F8+ spirit can do it reliably.

If the spirit sounds the alarm every time it can't identify someone, that's a LOT of false alarms.

Of course, there's also the problem that spirits don't understand the physical world. Sure, they can be really smart, but they're also fundamentally alien. Not necessarily qualified to really assess security in a real-world environment.

However, I also wouldn't trust a mage with this. For one, because a mage with 16 dice on Spellcasting+Magic should be simply above guard duty like this, but also because humans just don't really have the kind of attention span for this sort of thing.

All in all, I think you've overestimated the effectiveness of Detect Life for the protection of facilities which actually have staff in them.

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 07:51 PM

Well, maybe it allows you to detect them with such precision that you can tell what they're holding by the position of their hands?
Still doesn't explain why it lets you recognize specific people, though.

As has been said in this thread several times already, using fast talk and disguise for infiltration is a whole other can of worms, which is only slightly related to stealth-based infiltration.

I don't feel that "Using the sense may require the subject to take a Simple Action to Observe in Detail" means that the magician with an active sense on must do that; besides, there's nothing on each Observe in Detail being a separate test, as opposed to the sustained spell affecting anyone entering its range as normal.
Even if we go with your calculations, and assume each glitch (which, btw, happens about once in 50000 rolls for 10 dice, if I recall) is a false positive - just testing immediately again removes the problem, as does sending out a rapid response team - exercise is useful for grunts, after all.

Yeah, I agree that Detect Life is of limited usefulness when there are crowds of genuine workers around, just like motion sensors, trip beams and other security measures are. During the off hours, however, it allows a single mage to control kilometers of territory, and quite reliably even with your rules interpretation.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 07:55 PM

No it doesn't. It means someone is tasked to check it out first. Rapid Response scares employees, and is often reserved only for verifiable threats. I have worked in such facilities, and we did not activate a reactionary force for something that was not verified. We tasked a single unit to investigate. In most cases this is one or two guards. We heightened our awareness, but did not start blowing the crisis sirens, because, again, that tends to scare the workers. Once we had verification, then we called in a response that was appropriate to the situation. Calling in an HTR Team because a squirrel triggered an alarm gets costly real quick.

An infiltration should result in a series of infiltration rolls, among other rolls. Single Roll resolution is way to simplistic, for something that is so complex.

Posted by: Dez384 May 17 2011, 07:59 PM

"Active: The sense actively analyzes or seeks out certain information when the subject concentrates on it."
That's a line from page 205 of SR4A. I'd say that you'd need to observe in detail to use an active detect life spell.



Kilometers? Force 6 spell of a Magic 6 mage using the extended version is 360 meters (6*6*10). Now 360 meters is still a sizable chunk of terrain, but not as large as you may have assumed.

Posted by: sabs May 17 2011, 08:02 PM

Active Detection spells are treated as an Opposed Test, pitting the caster’s Spellcasting + Magic
vs. the target’s Willpower (+ Counterspelling, if available);
Note that Counterspelling may be used to defend against active Detection spells, even if the magician is not aware of them.

So I'm sneaking into a system. I'm rolling willpower+counterspelling vs spellcasting+magic. This starts to look better for the sneaking in guy.

Range: The standard sensory range for a Detection spell is the spell’s Force x Magic in meters. For extended range Detection spells, the effective range of the new sense is Force x Magic x 10 meters. Note
that any of the standard range spells listed below may be learned with an extended range instead (adding +2 DV)

Force 6 x Magic 6 x 10 meters: 360 meter diameter around the mage. That's nice, but it's not easy, and the drain on that is high: 5. Not to mention that a Magic 6 Wagemage is.. expensive to keep around for guard duty.

Posted by: Badmoodguy88 May 17 2011, 08:05 PM

Would the critter power concealment help at all to avoid detection? I don't suppose it would. It does help hide astral forms. Anyway just a thought.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 08:05 PM

Well, it is a 360 Meter Radius, to be fair, so that is a pretty good chunk of change as far as area goes. But yes, I too was going to comment on the Kilometers statement. It is not that good.

Posted by: Fatum May 17 2011, 08:06 PM

Well, I've worked my share in one, as well. Any alarm triggered meant a patrol of three dispatched in full dress: body armor, SMGs, the works. Since those patrol groups milled around constantly, it's not like it grated on anyone's nerves - yeah, the grunts are off somewhere again, yeah, maybe they're in a bit more hurry than usually, what's it to you?
Our security was mostly human-based, though - most approaches were just constantly monitored in person in addition to the cams.

And even a couple of guards, if those are pros, is a lot of trouble for an infiltrator. And it's not like it's too expensive to add a couple of high-Sensor drones to them. But again I'll reiterate - yeah, you're right, for any facility where acting on security alarm means moving out somewhere and not just looking out of the guard room, a single failure during the infiltration does not spell a catastrophe.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 08:06 PM

Radius, Sabs, not Diameter...

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 08:10 PM

Agreed... the Infiltrator is going to have to contend with whomever/whatever is sent to investigate. But those investigators also have to locate the infiltrator, which may be a bit of a task. And if they cannot, it is likely chalked up to a false positive, glitch, or whatever.

As for the rest, it seems like we have come to an understanding of sorts. Works for me...

Posted by: sabs May 17 2011, 08:36 PM

And no single infiltrator should be trying to get into that facility by himself.

Where is his hacker/rigger/technomancer backup that's doing his best to deal with the cameras and the drones. Where is his mage backup dealing with the patrolling spirits, and that wanker mage sustaining detect life.

Detect Life: Unless that wanker mage is also part of every single ward in the building, he needs to drop detect life every so often. He also needs 4 net hits, over the opposed test to get good details. Which he can't even GET if I can guarantee myself 3 good hits. 5 Willpower+4 counterspelling gets me 9, that's really close to 3 hits. Maybe this is the time to be spending edge. Maybe it's not. I don't know.

I'm an infiltrator, my tag stat is agility. Do I have a stun baton, or a stun gun with a silencer. 8(S)e -half impact armor. That's very nice. That's going to drop a lot of guys. Especially if I get to surprise strike them. Flashbang grenades for groups, or smoke grenade. Directional Jammer*, so I jam their commlink before I decide to drop on them.

Note: Willpower is a good stat for an infiltrator.
* The Jammer rules have some issues

Posted by: DireRadiant May 17 2011, 08:54 PM

Two main points.

If security was impenetrable you could not play Shadowrun. If this is the outcome you want, then you can't play. If you want to play, then security can be overcome. There's is no universal security measure that beats all. Work on the presumption there is a way around all measures. Otherwise you cannot play.

There are N number of security measures. There are variations in response. You as GM set the model for response and escalation. What I suggest is to make it simple for yourself. If you determine it's a threshold 4 target to overcome security, then pick 4 standard security measures that you describe and that the players need to overcome. Pick a different set of standard measure for each facility. If it's threshold 4, and the players gets 3 successes, I will leave one describing one security measure, that is the one that trips them up. If I multi layers the security defense, I might let extra successes on the first layer give them extra success that carry over on the next layer. You can also model it as an accumulation of successes. For example, 30 minutes per success, roll once over thirty minutes, this is especially fun if they have a deadline to infiltrate.

Any single security measure may look uber, but just because you don;'t know what would beat it, doesn't mean there isn't a way to beat it. It just means you don't know it. If you struggle with one, then ask for suggestions. If you choose to consider a security measure unbeatable, then that's your choice.

GM Tip: Security Measure A looks tough. You can't think of a way to explain it being beat. Set a target and let the players roll the dice, if they succeed, then ask them how they did it, and just let that happen! Isn't that collaborative storytelling? Why does Fatum need to know everything?

Posted by: kzt May 17 2011, 10:14 PM

Keep in mind that the more rolls you make a player make, the higher the chance of failure. If you have a 97% chance of success your chance of succeeding 10 times in a row is under 74%

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 17 2011, 10:40 PM

Yes, I Know that... But Facilities that require large numbers of rolls are inherently more difficult, thus the reducing chance of success makes a bit of sense. And I think that your Percentages are a bit skewed, as well... If you require 2-3 successes per test for static obstacles, your Infiltration specialist will have to work extremely hard to fail those rolls. And opposed tests are their own challenge. No Single roll should blow the infiltration, either, so it leaves a bit of leeway for dramatic license.

Posted by: Ascalaphus May 17 2011, 11:51 PM

I'm really enjoying this topic. It is a good question to ask: how do you run attempts to sneak into a base, and why are runners capable of being successful?

There are trade-offs involved in base design: on one hand, security. On the other hand, the smooth functioning of the facility. On the gripping hand, budget.
A dedicated HTR team is expensive; several thousand nuyen a day when they don't have to do anything. Roaming spirits cost a lot in binding materials. Mage wages are high; the mages good enough for security work are also in demand for research and enchanting work, which probably pays pretty good.
Going to heightened security when some alarm triggers, reduces the smooth functioning. Extra people may have to be activated, which costs money. Drones and vehicles readied for takeoff. Logistics curtailed to prevent easy sneaking around, slows down normal work.
Lockdowns may cost millions; they probably spoil experiments as prototypes are shuffled off into vaults to prevent anyone getting at them.
All in all, the budget for security will always be less than the value of the facility's product; otherwise the facility runs at a loss, and that's bad.

Because the security cheaper than the target, the runners stand a chance!
If the security budget is 20% of the facility's value, then it's still vulnerable to Johnson willing to spend 60% on an attack, and that still leaves Johnson with profit.
Take a look at Neuromancer and Count Zero: those are really expensive shadowruns, none of this penny-pinching 5K per PC nonsense.

So the security director didn't get everything he wanted; he still has all manner of obstacles (guards, walls, locked doors, sensors, traps) and HTR for counterattacks available to make sneaking in difficult. This will definitely deter common schmucks from making attempts, but it isn't always sufficient against shadowrunners.

What the runners need to do first is legwork. Without legwork they will fail.
They do all manner of things to get an idea of what kind of Obstacles they'll face in the building. How they do legwork is a different subject. You can sneak into StufferShack without legwork, just by being good, but it doesn't scale to megacorporations; you always need to know the Obstacles.

Every Obstacle can be circumvented somehow. (As a GM, try to come up with 2-3 different ways to do so; if you can't come up with a way, you might have made the adventure Impossible.) Knowing what and where the Obstacle is will help the PCs do something about it. For example:
Guards: Infiltration, violence, sleep gas, bribery, blackmail, mind-control magic, seduction, false credentials
Barriers: break through with Demolitions or a monofilament chainsaw, go around
Locked door: hacking, maglock passkey, lockpicking, stolen key, employee at gunpoint, trojan Face or Drone
Sensors: Infiltration, hacking, influencing whoever watches the surveillance, disguise
Magical detection: Masking metamagic, getting at the mage, make the mage think you're someone else, mana static
Traps: detect-and-bypass, detect-and-disable, hacking, have an authorized person disable them

As you can see, the Infiltration skill comes into play in only some of these cases. I don't think it was intended as a one-stop sneaking in skill, although it does more than just moving really quietly. It also includes knowledge that would let you recognize when you just can't go through somewhere unseen: "there's just no way to pass through that wide open room with the camera aimed at the door; there just isn't any cover." In this case, the skill helps you recognize a potential mistake before you make it.

The camera aimed at the door, and the watcher spirit in the featureless room, are what I'd consider traps. They aren't really sneaking challenges; it has to be solved in a different way. Perhaps the spirit can be lured away by a fascinatingly life-forcey rodent scampering away (followed by Infiltration!) Maybe you can hide behind an employee, using him as cover (using Shadowing). A Disguise as someone with a right to be there could work. A camera neutralizer would prevent it from seeing you (but not that something happened), or maybe the ninja uses his relay transmitter so that the hacker can hack the camera.

Traps and things that sound the alarm are tricky to use as a GM. Ideally, the PCs have a chance to learn about most of them through legwork (the better the legwork, the more triggers they know of, and the more precisely they know how they're triggered and how they can be fooled). It can be entertaining to keep some secret until the run is underway, however, but:

Every trap should be detectable before it's triggered
It doesn't have to be easy; a dice roll, certainly. And knowing about it from legwork is much better for your nerves.

There is a way past every trap without triggering it.
Well, unless you want to railroad of course.

If a trap is triggered, there's some way to salve the situation
Security shows up to investigate if this is a real alarm or a false alarm. It isn't easy to hide evidence of your intrusion, but possible; if you succeed, the alarm stands down, although they'll be twitchier. If you fail, however, Threat Response begins.


Threat Response doesn't mean the end of the mission rightaway
HTR teams need to mobilize and move to the PCs. Sometimes the HTR guys don't know exactly where the Team is. The point is, it takes a while before they show up; the PCs need to get as much as possible done before the HTR corners them.

With a well-armed PC team, it takes pretty extreme HTR teams to have chance of winning. Assembling those and acquiring a tactically favorable position may take even longer. God help the HTR if the PCs take the lead scientist hostage.

So while security tries to find the PCs, use lockdown procedures to keep them penned in until HTR can deal with them, the PCs now move as fast as possible, blow shit up to get through obstacles and try to get out again before they're outmatched.

Success on the mission is still possible, but now it becomes a matter of speed and firepower, not stealth.


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Concluding:

A Perfect Run™ involves successful legwork that reveals all Obstacles. The PCs then come up with a way to get past each of those obstacles. They go in, discover an Obstacle they didn't know about, and find a way past it. Then they accidentally trigger a trap, but manage to hide when the guards show up to investigate. They get out without pursuit. This is the Ocean's Eleven kind of run.

The Other Kind of Perfect Run is a lot like this, except the alarm does trigger, Threat Response commences and the team escapes in a glorious running battle with security, followed by a street chase until they make it to some random other extraterritorial terrain, they shake off pursuit, lay low and then go to Johnson.

Infiltration isn't a one-stop skill to do everything with; it's for sneaking when sneaking is possible. Sometimes you have to make the sneaking possible.

Sneaking into a real base isn't just one skill check; it's an entire adventure. Sneaking into the StufferShack however, takes just one Maglock Passkey and one Infiltration check

Well, I hope this gives you some ideas on how to set up believable beatable security

Posted by: kzt May 18 2011, 04:38 AM

All non-computer security system and measures are designed to slow down an attacker or buy time for the response team. Locked doors require that you break the door, or attack the lock. Fences take time to cross and make it hard to carry out the 800 pound safe. motion detectors make you move very slowly, etc. Alarms get the security response team rolling. The longer you spend in on the site the greater the chance of detection. The longer it takes after detection to get in and out the greater the chance of apprehension.

All security systems make the normal day to day operation of the actual productive occupants harder. For example, many years ago I was talking to the Defense Mapping Agency about a job, and one of the great things about their training facility was that you could go outside for lunch. Because at the sites where real work was done it took so long to make it though security that you wouldn't actually make it to the exit doors before you would have to turn around and head back to work. That's because the DMA, now the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, is NOT a normal corporation and has totally different idea of risks than a commercial outfit. So security is almost limited by things other then what is theoretically possible.


Ideally the security system will detect you at the perimeter and start a response team rolling at you then, so by the time you cross the fence, slowly sneak past 200 yards of grounds covered by intelligent cameras, bypass the door sensors and open an emergency door and start heading for the lab there is a reception party waiting for them.

Consider instead if the first warning that same security force has is when a linear shaped charge blows a hole in the lab secure storage area and a hole gets blown in the fence, followed by a stolen 8x8 truck with a liftgate driving up to the building while the intruders roll out the goodies. By the time a security response team arrives all that is left are tire tracks in the grass and some new entrances and exits.

Posted by: CanadianWolverine May 18 2011, 05:00 AM

Ascalaphus, that is a beautiful post.

I would like to add one: If the Heavy/Rapid Response Team is already at the target site, it is highly likely the Shadowrunners were setup, then they can Get Out Of Dodge and/or Get Payback on whoever set them up. That would be where the run is The Trap. Commonly, it seems this means it was the Mr. J is really a Butler and did it, but really it could be any number of different kinds of Contacts.

Stealth then enters that fray in disappearing into the shadows to live to fight another day and pop back out briefly to put two in the back of the head(s) of the Betrayer.

Just throwing that out there since this thread seems to be just as much about rail roading as stealth.

Posted by: Falconer May 18 2011, 01:22 PM

^^^^^^^^^^^ Excellent post Ascalaphus... in the end it all comes down to economics. Very easy to forget. Then again massive security guarding a paste diamond does make for great angst :).

Posted by: Dreadlord May 19 2011, 08:20 PM

I see security as a multi-tiered response structure. Tier 1 is going to be cheap electronic trip wires, automated sensors, etc. Tier 2 is going to be a dude (or a pair, if affordable) checking out triggers from Tier 1. Tier 3 will be "calling all cars" to get all personnel on site to respond to a target identified by Tier 2. Further tiers can be off-site HTR teams, the fuzz (mostly if the site is not extraterritorial), or possibly magical assets.
For strictly magical threats, such as wandering astral entities, there will be a similar tiered structure. Tier 1 could be patrolling watchers, but these would be limited to internal areas with lower headcounts around, since watchers are VERY stupid. Also, Tier 1 could be mana barriers, but these will be very limited because they are VERY expensive, and troublesome to work with on a day-to-day basis. Tier 1 could also be patrolling higher force bound spirits (again VERY pricey, and limited to a year's service usually) which will rarely be told to attack on sight of intruders. They may be fairly intelligent, but they are very alien as well, so almost always his response should be to alert Tier 2 (mage on-call, call center, etc.). Tier 2 will be an Awakened metahuman for magical threats, and/or HTR teams depending. Tier 3 will be combat spirits summoned/called by a Tier 2 mage to deal with the magical threat, or as for mundane Tier 3 responses.

The thing is, unless the corp in question has a damn good reason to justify the expense and inefficiency overhead, most magical assets are NOT on-site. Magic IS rare, and rare = [nuyen]+++. So, they will share that cost over multiple sites and/or use third-party vendors with a call-center. This means magical security will be based on escalation to meet the threat, the same as mundane security. It makes economical sense to do it that way, and Ghost knows corps are all about money.

Astral patrols are looking for astral intruders almost excusively. Noticing and more importantly IDENTIFYING from astral space a mundane target is difficult in a corp setting with thousands of legitimate employees who have access to the site. Mundane security is more effective at those types of intrusions. Astral security versus astral intrusions is much more effective. Keep in mind, astral intrusions by entities would be fairly common as well, as most spirits regard the astral plane as their turf, and wandering through an installation will only be halted if something prevents them, like a bigger fish telling them to go away, or barriers to block their path, such as mana barriers or earth. There will be plenty of false positives, which some bored mage will have to check out and deal with enough to make it become routine - the bane of alertness! Often, by the time he gets there, the triggering entity will have buggered off, so finding nothing will be a very common result for an alert.