So. In other words. Leave it uncapped.

Because honestly, who gets 8 hits (attribute 4) on 12 dice (6 skill + 6 program)?

I've played around with this before, and the limiting hits mechanic is just bad, and also screws technos.

What I ended up coming up with was something along these lines. Its not complete, but I figure its decent enough guidelines for other people to flesh out.

Hollywood Hacking houserule:
You roll: Logic+Skill. Programs are no longer necessary - all a hacker needs is a keyboard(or other terminal) to do their job. Yes, the 'if you don't have the program you can't make the roll' rule is rescinded.
Having the right tools for the job help you out a bunch, depending on the grade of the tool. This is balanced against the various Toolkit(+2)/Shop(+4)/Facility(+6) bonuses, FYI. Programs give a dice pool bonus equal to half their rating, round up.

It doesn't stop there - the houserule needs to account for agents, sprites, and technos as well to truly be a good alteration.
No really, the reason the usual log+attribute rule sucks is because it doesn't take into account technos very well.
Technomancers, because they literally use their brains as computers, are handled a little differently. Both of the following options are available to techno's, so that a mandatory change to the rules doesn't hurt their capabilities.
Technomancer may use either Logic+Skill, Stream Drain Attribute+Skill, or substitute their Complex Form in place of the Attribute(yes, this means that the CF does double duty, but basically only matters in the case of threading.)

Agents and Sprites use Pilot in place of Attribute, for everything. Potential pitfalls I never got around to fleshing out: Should agents get a small powerboost by getting EW by default now.(they already use Pilot for Hacking)

Additionally, Sprites are no longer dumb, and actually have Hacking/EW/Computer/Analyze skills by default(this is to compensate for 4A devs being dumb, and giving some sprites Decryption without Electronic Warfare, and also giving entities that live on the matrix built in Full Defense capabilities, much like spirits come with Dodge and Perception.). I was thinking about giving them Software as well(used in making accounts, for example, which sprites should be able to do) but specifically prohibiting Threading unless the sprite goes free.(this is normally how it works)

But in general, yeah: Logic+attribute+1/2program round up. Possibly a defaulting penalty if you don't have it. This means odd #'s are good, and even #'s just let you use more Options on that program.

As I said before, the cap for spells is determined by Magic which is, theoretically, limitless. Attribute + Skill is a hard limit that is incredibly difficult to raise past ~12

Magic is different. Hacking is for everyone.

What? What?
No, really, what?
12?
Seriously now.

In terms of hacking alone we have:
Cerebral Boosters (+3)
PuSHeD (+1)
Neocortical Nanites (+1 to +3)
Genetic Optimization (raises augmented max too, and natural max, which matters in some cases)
Specialties (+2, and not hard to cover all critical bases)
Encephalon (+1/+2)
Drugs: Overdrive, Trance, Psyche.
If you're an adept, Improved Skill is cheap, and can get you up to a skill of nine
And these all stack.

So yeah. Magic has a much higher upper limit.
But hacking lets you pile on a huge number of bonuses at start. Enough that it doesn't matter at all which one is better after a few hundred karma is earned. Because lets face it, magic 7 is 45 karma, plus initiation, and it only gets more expensive from there.

35.

7 * 5 is 35.

And *that* is another strong point against attribute-Hacking: even worse DP-creep, and even worse differences between haves and have-nots.

Also with hacking, you're usually fighting the target number of a machine or program who can be scaled to match your competence. With magic, you're attacking living beings with little to no defense.

Though to be honest, all of this just screams "SR4's system sucks." But I'm pretty biased since I do, in fact, think it sucks. Not that previous versions of the game were flawless, but at least it didn't pretend to use a universal set of mechanics to resolve everything. Magic, decking, and combat all had their own unique subset of rules. SR4 was made with a lame core mechanic that they tried to make universal, but they failed miserably at it, leading to all these bizarre situations like this where you end up with exactly the same thing, but artificially and in a way that just demonstrates how weak the overall game system is. Previous editions embraced the differences. This one is (or at least should be) embarrassed by them.

Sorry, starting to rant.

Dice Pool Creep matters not when you are capped at Program Rating. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Which in the end, is all opinion. I actually like that they got rid of all the stupid sub-systems of previous editions. I like the elegance of a single system. I MUCH prefer dice pool adjustments to Target Number Adjustments. Etcetera, Etcetera, Ad Infinitum. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

No worries, though. Everyone is allowed to Rant from time to time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yes, TJ, it does. DP creep always matters. If you have a large DP and a lower cap, then you can ignore penalties; if the cap is high, then it doesn't mitigate the DP creep in the first place.

The point is that they didn't get rid of them.

If I were bound and determined to shoehorn Logic into hacking, I think Udoshi's got the best suggestion I've seen. The only thing I would add is to give nodes +Firewall/2 on any opposed tests (but not other types of tests) they make, so that they're on the same relative level as everything else. Then I'd just give generally harder hacking challenges to account for the bonus dice everyone's getting.

Maybe not entirely, though I do not really agree with you on that.
No worries.

Well, they did streamline things a lot, but it remains that Hacking is NOT in fact using the same rules mechanics as everything else.

Really, the "streamlined rules" trend is something that has been occurring industry-wide. People in general don't seem to actually LIKE having multiple different rule systems in a single game. I mean, seriously, look at most of the current generation game systems, they generally have a central mechanic that all their rules revolve around.




-k