I think you nailed it. +1 Internets.

And said advertising has mascots that want you to rip out your eyes and pour on the brain bleach by the tanker truck full.

As a rather newbie GM, I am curious, what does a decker do in combat if there is no cyberware hacking? Is it more of hacking the environment (Like that security camera on the side of the street)? If you could give an example that would really help.

Hacking Drones.
Hacking Tac-Nets.
Providing ECM and ECCM for the Team, such as Tac-Nets.

Traditionally they would duck and cover, or fire back. You can do things like hack vehicles, doors, fire systems, or whatever the objective happens to be can give them something extra to do.

I had a player with a technomancer dronomancer with a not seemingly so impressive dice pool was actually a rather good shot with an Ares Predator IV. Same went for the face character his father played. Fights rarely lasted more than two or three rounds.

Don't forget signals intelligence, which was a huge thing that my character concentrated on as a Cyberlogician. Controlling the flow of communications and intercepting the opposition's communications is a HUGE thing. The character was pretty decent at it. And as others have stated, Tacnets, along with remote sensors, doors, vehicles, drones, etc. My character never lacked for anything to do. And he was also a pretty good shot, for when he needed to actually, you know, shoot something. Hacking cyberware is just stupid.

Nothing against most opponents, but against more technologically sophisticated opponents they have options (though many of those only come up with the addition of advanced rules). Which is, incidentally, a serious problem from a design perspective.

Putting something behind a router means you have to hack the router. Not the stuff behind it because it is not available to hack till you do so. And generally you put strong firewall software on your router. Rather than having put a strong firewall on every piece of cyberware and hardware. Which would be stupid and wasteful and inefficient. By saving money not putting firewall software on every piece of gear you get to put a stronger firewall on the one piece of gear that is vulnerable. Also by putting stuff behind a router means one does not know what is inside the network till they do hack the router.

Why is it the assumption that the decker can't participate in combat? is there some rule about deckers not being able to pick up a gun? You know in seal teams the Medic shoots...so does the com guy and the leader, and the translator. I would think the same would apply to Deckers...

The mage casts, the Rigger rigs, the gunbunny shoots, the melee specialist slashes, the face uses Leadership... There is no possible design reason for the decker to be the only one who doesn't get to use his specialty in combat.

Straw Man argument.

Nobody's saying the Decker shouldn't or doesn't have things to do in combat.

What's being said: the options openly provided for deckers are limited and stupid, and too easily countered by simple actions on the part of players. Punishing players for countering a large vector of attacks (hacking) through simple, easily available means (turning off/removing wireless), while also providing themselves the benefit of being far less traceable (a professional necessity), is not only poor design, but illogical and possibly immature. It's "I don't like how you're playing, so I'm making a new rule to punish you."

We've been trying to point out ways this very concept could work better and more logically. We've pointed out situations where the concept just falls flat, contradicting the basic fundamental concepts of the game itself. Some 'ware (the reserve airtank implant) cannot take advantage of its own wireless bonus (specifically the monitor) in some of its core-use situations. And the only reason I can see them saying THAT requires a wireless connection to activate as a free action is because OTHER, more potent ware, couldn't then be justified to require a wireless connection for IT'S free-action activation.

Firmware? Not a problem, BAM, jailbroken is the new standard, since it works better (reflecting modern-day). Even corp elite would be doing that, because it works better and makes business more productive. Corps make it illegal? How many would refuse to overlook such a rule when it benefits them, and selectively choose WHEN to prosecute to cull certain "overpayed" employees when they desire?

And the decker always has. He took control of and manipulated the environment, locking and unlocking doors, retasking cameras and drone turrets, turning on fire suppression systems, and controlling elevators and escalators. He ensured that his team maintained situational awareness and deprived the opposition of that same awareness.

mages casting got heavily nerfed, faces using leadership is not even remotely close to being as useful as just picking up a gun and firing, gunbunny and melee specialist are both roles that are only useful in combat and have to invest points elsewhere if they want to be useful outside of it, and the rigger's area of specialty is arguably combat as well, and certainly isn't useful in many other situations.

in order for the argument that other archetypes get to use their specialty in combat to be valid, i'm going to need to see people using swords to decrypt secure data files and gunbunnys being able to negotiate with the fixer using only their pistol skill without the system breaking, too.

otherwise, well... those who build for a combat specialty should bloody well be able to use it in combat, and those who don't build along similar lines as those specializing for combat tend not to be able to apply their other specialties to combat very effectively. sure, a face *can* use leadership. if they don't mind being less useful than hiring a ganger with a machine pistol to spray suppressing fire randomly, that is.

frankly, the decker's ability to influence a battle has always been much better than a face's (unless of course the face pulls out a gun and starts shooting).

the only one who gets a free pass for combat even when using a very utility-based area of specialty is the magician, and even that has been toned down (though certainly not eliminated) in SR5. every other non-combat specialty isn't exactly awesome at using their specialty in combat. just like the combat specialties are generally not very useful outside of combat.

Also, this is Shadowrun, there is no fixed "class" for you character. You're a mage, but you want to be able to help with getting stuff for the party, invest the points in Charisma based skills (Shaman do it better than Hermetics), You want to do hacking as well as sling spells, get some hacking skills (Hermetics do this better than Shaman). Sure your mage skills suffer, but you can do more than just sling spells.

If you're a street sam, you SHOULD have some skills in either hacking or Face skills. Just being a combat monster is so one dimensional!

That being said, the way advancement mechanics are setup, unless you made a choice during chargen to set yourself up well for 'multi-classing', its generally not feasible to pick up after the fact.

There is no class, but there is Rôle and in your small specialised team you have to fullfill your rôle the best you can. You sure can learn some tricks as a replacement in case of trouble but no one would recruit a mage to do the hacking, except If he is as good as a full Decker...

That is not at all true. The following is, or at least reads to me as, an argument suggesting that deckers shouldn't be permitted to deck in combat.



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So... There are no fights outside of a corp facility? For something to qualify, it needs to be general case - something that can always work barring exceptional circumstances.



You get to make this argument the day that having someone roll Negotiate against you or not being able to decrypt a file can kill you. Until then, it's completely meaningless - combat is a special case compared to other areas of the game. But, for reference, a gunbunny and melee specialist have things from their specialty that directly lend themselves to other rules - high Agility, high Reaction and Intuition, and in the case of the Melee specialist a high Strength and really high Physical limit - and riggers can do a LOT outside of combat.

Aside from that: Saying that a specialty's usefulness isn't as strong as a combat specialty's is so far from the point you might as well be in orbit. Also, you really underestimate the usefulness of Leadership.



Which does not remove the fact that there is no reason for the decker to be the only one who doesn't get to use his specialty in combat. Seriously, I can't believe we're back to this argument...

Which we've already pointed out is a fallacious argument; deckers have plenty they can do in combat. The problems will lie in what the GM allows them to do. In this regard, it's inverse to the Background Count rules. Does the GM allow them to hack the lights? Turrets/drones? Enemy tacnet/communications? The enemy Street Sam's "Mr. Studd" implant that he forgot to slave to his system and left wireless after his night on the town (the enemy face/sam seems distracted, losing his initiative pass and kicking the barrier down in front of him as his pants leg jerks upward)?

The bigger problem in previous editions relating to hacking were the difference in initiative passes between meat and matrix, as well as the need for a jack point to actually hack in. Modern wifi cyberdecks seem to have fixed that, to some degree, though there's no way to FORCE somebody to turn on the wireless for their devices. Any logical system that is required to be hack resistant can simply do so via "disable wireless." This defense will not work for a tacnet (when we get them again), nor for communications.

There has not been a general case example provided.

but its not only the Decker
its the Face too and the Stunt Driver, The Outdoor/Survivalist Guy, its the Safeknacker, the Catburglar,
All of these Rôles aren't predestined for fights and contribute even less than a Decker .
Its not really smart to presume that every Rôle has the same usefulness in a Fight
and its even....un-smarter to force a Rôle on a Char thats not suitable for it

HokaHey
Medicineman

Nope. Face gets combat use of his specialization through Leadership. For Stunt Driver, see Rigger - that being, after all, a concept under the umbrella of the Rigger. Survivalist, Safecracker, and Catburglar are all similarly concepts rather than specializations - the Catburglar, for example, would be a sort of infiltrator/BnE specialist who could contribute to a fight by angling for sneak attacks to get around someone's defense.

And who said anything about the SAME usefulness?

Had a face player do better in combat than he expected to in several runs. He always seemed to do more damage with his light pistol and regular ammo (and sometimes SnS) than he expected, and with (going from memory) a DP of 8 to shoot.

As for the decker now in a fight, favored Matrix action will probably be Data Spike. That is, assuming the decker can get enough spikes off before combat ends. Don't know about you guys but the fights never seemed to last long in my games. Even one group I know that's doing SR5, the decker has done more shooting than decking in a fight; something that's 100% possible in any previous edition of Shadowrun.

The best option will still most likely be shooting rather than data spiking. Situationally, shutting down someone's commlink to isolate them or issuing false orders to draw off potential opposition before a fight might be a strong competitor. Thwacking one person's smartlink in the middle of a firefight probably isn't an efficient use of time.

Having to knock out someone's Wired Reflexes/Reaction Enhancers or Cybereyes will probably mean things have gone pretty sideways and your primary combatants are either incapacitated or unable to cope, and your only option is to level the playing field for your secondary combatants.

The best situations I can think of where combat data spiking will really be helpful are like these:

Pinned down by suppressing fire or a smartgun platform, need to shut off the gun.
Sniper in an inaccessible superior location.
Nearby drone rigger handling multiple drones, need to crash his RCC.

And so on.

I wholly agree. Those who made deckers the favored child for SR5 apparently think otherwise...