[X] My Assistant

[Tarantula]

Its should go like this: Sure you have your face, but lets say the Sammy gets the call from the contact. He can't just hand the phone off, its too desperate a situation, the Face is busy doing something, and the contact is skittish as it is. That Sammy better have at least a few points of social monkey in him or the contact 'walks' and they lose access to that asset.

Most gun bunnies (sammies or adepts who specialize at killing shit) generally have 1-4 points in ettiquette, and 2-4 charisma. Even the over super specialized fantastical ones.

On the op, the hacker is busy dealing with the rigged LMG equipped light drone pinning the party down while the hammer drops. Then the Adept notices that his commlink is being hacked. What? He doesn't have any computer skills? He doesn't notice that he's being hacked? Well, I guess the entire party's network is compromised utterly.

Sadly, agents fix this one up nice and easy. Hacker buys and cracks an agent. Distributes it to the team. Along with analyze. The agent is better than any generalist would be for detecting intrusions, and for a quick fix, it can either notify the hacker (if the hacker wants to fight, he can jump over and pwn the intruder) or it could just reboot the commlink, booting out anyone.

Hyperspecialist only teams are horribly riddled with glaring fault lines, which is why, again, real world types don't use them. Not touching those faultlines in a game, particularly like Shadowrun, is ignoring the elephant in the room.

Thus it is horrifically bad advice brought on by lazy GMing. Its ubiquity is what makes me twitch.

I disagree. Its very easy to make a hyperspecialist, with 2-4 skill in the key other areas (infiltration, ettiquette, and buying an agent).

[Glyph]

Plus, some roles aren't fair to call "hyperspecialists", since being a hacker, mage, or face takes an entire set of skills. And general combat types can usually be specialized at their main combat schtick, good at a few others, and either have an entire extra specialty (such as field medic), or be pretty well-rounded. Even a hyper-specialist, such as Cain's Mr. Lucky, can still have the bare minimum of skills for basic functionality outside of the specialty. You only get the one-trick ponies from people who hyper-specialize and botch their min-maxing.

[Spike]

Then this moves to 'what is an adequete dice pool'?

Give the sheer volume of Sammies I've seen with 1 charisma, even a 2-4 dicepool for ettiquet might not make an adequet pool for a given situation.

A nervous reluctant contact who would rather walk than wait a few minutes for the Face to pick up the line (or in fact, would walk the moment the situation gets more complex that 'you and me talk... right fucking now'... is probably NOT going to respond to '3 to 5 dice' very well, and ettiquette might not even be the skill needed. Maybe he thinks the guy on the commlink is the dude they just whacked, and the Sammy's stuck trying to Con him?

Until you dicepool starts hitting 8 its not going be be adequete for referencing 'cross trained'. Not every player needs every skill crosstrained to that level, but certainly a 'well rounded' character should have more than one secondary area they are competent in (and, as I just pointed out, that typically involves several skills...)...

As for Agents, first of all, I've addressed that numerous times, and I'm sure you've seen some of my responses here: again, game mastering skills become important. Point the first: Controlling an agent properly requires taking time to issue it commands, and if the hacker has a standard issue set of commands he's written down for 'everyones pet agent' then he's probably missed a trick. You bet that is going to come up, agents are not AI's...

More imporantly, as a GM I get to make calls on things not covered by the rules. As a GM Its my DUTY to make that Hacker crack that program in game, and preferrably while juggling other duties.

But lets get to that GM calls: Since everyone on the team is using identical software (all cracked copies...) I can provide a bonus to enemy Ewar checks once they've sussed that out. If I want I can even rule that cracked software (lacking copy protection) is easier to crash.

But I know what you'll say: that's houseruling.

Sure it is, then again, so is declaring that enemy security teams include at least two e-war specialists.

But lets move away from 'houserules' for the moment: Do you really want to trust your teams security to a blind piece of software? I mean, the GM can roll the software's pool behind a screen without telling the players anything, and a skilled hacker (complete with edge) should be able to roll right over it.


But tell you what, since I know this isn't going to go anywhere as is, how about you tell me the typical dice pools for your average team of hyperspecialists and I'll point out the specific weaknesses.

Or better yet, you can tell me exactly what advantage having a dude who can do one thing to superhuman levels four times over (in four different fields) is significantly better than having four dudes who can do several things to elite professional levels with lots of crossover, and several other secondary jobs to moderately professional levels.

I mean, a pornomancer can totally wring every possible drop out of one contact/johnson, but a team of four can still have a guy who can wring pretty much ever drop out of that same contact/johnson, if a bit slower and with more work, while having three other contacts being worked at the same time to more than adequet levels. And that's just one level.

[Tarantula]

First, I don't count attribute 1 characters. if they have an attribute at 1, I consider the player to be min-maxing to the point of stupidity (in general) and wouldn't accept one. Now, if someones character background and such could justify a rating 1 attribute, I might let it slide.

I'm a big fan of at least 2, if not 3 in every single attribute. Why? Because, you just should have it.

As far as you being willing to point out holes, post any of your "well-rounded" characters, and I'll point out the holes just as easily.

[toturi]

Then this moves to 'what is an adequete dice pool'?

Give the sheer volume of Sammies I've seen with 1 charisma, even a 2-4 dicepool for ettiquet might not make an adequet pool for a given situation.

Until you dicepool starts hitting 8 its not going be be adequete for referencing 'cross trained'. Not every player needs every skill crosstrained to that level, but certainly a 'well rounded' character should have more than one secondary area they are competent in (and, as I just pointed out, that typically involves several skills...)...

But tell you what, since I know this isn't going to go anywhere as is, how about you tell me the typical dice pools for your average team of hyperspecialists and I'll point out the specific weaknesses.

Or better yet, you can tell me exactly what advantage having a dude who can do one thing to superhuman levels four times over (in four different fields) is significantly better than having four dudes who can do several things to elite professional levels with lots of crossover, and several other secondary jobs to moderately professional levels.

I mean, a pornomancer can totally wring every possible drop out of one contact/johnson, but a team of four can still have a guy who can wring pretty much ever drop out of that same contact/johnson, if a bit slower and with more work, while having three other contacts being worked at the same time to more than adequet levels. And that's just one level.

To me, properly min-maxed characters have to be able to get at least 3 hits by trading in dice before situational dice modifiers come in, that means 12 dice base(which also translates into an average of 4 hits if rolled). They should have at least 4 to 6 dice as their basic dice pool for everything else with a backup Edge of at least 3 to 4. These characters have a triangular/pyramid shaped dice pool structure.

Min-maxed hyperspecialists should have 1 dice pool that they can trade dice for 4 hits - 16 dice with at least 4 dice for their other dice pools, but with Edge of at least 4 to 5 now. They have roughly the same skill structure as normal min-maxed PCs but the sides of the triangle are curved in a concave manner - they have the same minimum dice as the others but trade in more of those non-essential dice for higher dice pools in their primary specialty but if the merde really hit the ventilateur, they can perform as well as their other min-maxed counterparts.

[WeaverMount]

>Give the sheer volume of Sammies I've seen with 1 charisma, even a 2-4 dicepool for ettiquet might not make an adequet pool for a given situation.

Honest question, what is the volume of Sammies you've seen with 1 charisma? If it's dump shock most of the "Critique my <blank>" style threads posted by newbies with builds like you are talking about get blasted for it. The rest are pure though experiments. If it's RL experience why did you stay at a table with a GM who let that fly, or keep GMing for players who don't learn or leave when you tooled them for pulling that a stunt like that.

[DocTaotsu]

*thinks*

I don't think I've sat a table with a 1 anything anybody since I was under the age of consent. The rare exception being someone playing a physically disabled character.

Typically we all just point and laugh if you try to claim that you are a properly functioning runner with a 1 in any attribute.

[Glyph]

An Attribute of 1 means that you are either too new to the game to know that it is a poor choice, or you are interested in playing a character who is genuinely dysfunctional in some way - an antisocial loner, a dumb as a brick troll, a basement geek hacker, etc.

But the viability of certain character concepts depends on both the GM and the game world. Just as some characters would get chewed up in a high-powered game, some characters are too flawed to work in a "realistic" or "professional" game. I don't understand the knee-jerk hostility towards Attribute - 1 characters though. If I were the GM, I would explain to the player why it would be a bad idea to have that Attribute at 1. For Charisma, for instance, you will not be able to default on social skills. An Attribute of 1 does merit some explanation. An Attribute of 2 is just below average, but an Attribute of 1 is clumsy, stupid, antisocial, etc. and needs an explanation in the character's background.

[masterofm]

I agree with quite a lot of what you say except for the fact when dealing with the fact that software is not awesome and you shouldn't entrust the party with it. An agent 6 functions at a logic 6 character essentially, which means it's pretty smart. I mean if people summon a force 6 spirit does it has to be given very, very specific instructions and can't infer about anything you say? If a spirit can inflect on an order given can't an agent. Plus we entrust a lot of our technology by means of a firewall. We have encryption today that takes forever to crack.

Now SR is different granted, but come on.... a r6 agent with r6 programs should be pretty damn good.... I mean in a game I played in our adept hacker had a tough time taking on a single r6 agent (partially due to the fact he only rolled 3 more dice.) He ended up losing the first two encounters with it.

Anyways I just feel that there are select things that a shadowrun team can do that will easily put you into the spotlight. There is just so much to be said about how under wraps a team has to keep themselves from .

I was also thinking that I had an electronics character that rolled 18 dice and every once in a while would roll something like 10-14 hits to remove vital pieces of electronics on the spot. I mean 10-14 hits... so the GM made had the character remove an entire computer core in about four seconds. This happened I think like three times on three different runs. Part of me was kicking myself, because doing something like that would obviously raise a huuuuuuge flag for what kind of crazy specialist is doing that run. I mean if someone was looking at the vid feed someone had to do a double take. Or lets say I got about 12 hits using edge to jam an area (go r3 cerebral enhancers and log 5) is there anyway to tone it down because 12 hits on jamming an area will just shut everything down no matter what. Maybe I didn't actually want to do that good, but I just think sometimes doing that good will not work in your favor is all I'm saying.

I mean if a gun monkey shot people like that wouldn't that put a ton of people on edge? With 12-14 hits you could bean someone with a cupcake and they would be out for the count.

[Spike]

Actually: I don't really read critique my character that much, and I tend, sadly, to game with people who are ten years younger than me. I also see GM's who don't WANT to punish people for doing stuff, or pile on restrictions like 'no 1's' or what-have-you that you wind up with somewhat bizzare characters anyway just trying to work in the maze.

Then you have the inevitable troll sammy, who's heavy penalties (especially in previous editions) made it perfectly normal to have a fairly common character type at the table who almost NEVER had a 2 charisma, and was treated like a faaking social butterfly if they did. Obviously less applicable now, but the mindset still carries over sometimes.

Then there is the debate about if 2 is actually average, how bad could 1 actually be. Not wanting to go there, because frankly, we're already on a tangent as is.

Toturi: I don't consider a 12 DP remotely hyperspecialized. Hell, i don't really consider a 16 all that hyper either. I can build 'mook guards' that start with 12DP once smartlinks or other AR bonuses are applied.

Masterofm: I can point to a few serious flaws in your argument about agents. First of all, contrasting them to spirits is utterly missing the point. Spirits are understood to be actually intelligent, while software is explicitely NOT intelligent, merely mimicking it. Thus there are rules for agents rolling to understand unclear orders or taking action in the absence of orders and no such rules for spirits.

Now here is the thing: with an 18DP there is no way a 10-14 hit range is 'normal' for you. Everyone has a moment of extreme luck or brilliance from time to time (rolls statistically above average), once in a while events do not a pattern of excellence make.

That said: consider the opening of Die Hard, when the guy shoots the security Guard in the face, killing him instantly.

We have no evidence that the bad guy is a particularly good or bad shot. All we know is he can point a gun at a guard and kill him in one shot at point blank range. Lets extrapolate out that this guy happens to be a gun adept with a dice pool for 'pistol to the face' of 22. Just because. Does it make the guard any more dead that he rolled seven or eight successes stataistically? Maybe he tossed in his Edge of 5 and rolled 27 exploding dice... what is that? 12 hits? Guard is still dead and we, watching him do it, can't tell.

Extrapolate back. Maybe he has a merely athletic agility of 4 and, as a hardened criminal is competent with a gun for a skill of 2. Guard dies just the same. Maybe he did the called shot for damage, rolled his two dice, added his pathetic two edge (human minimum) and capped the dude with an unmodified 10P shot to the face.

Again, we, watching it unfold, can not tell. What makes you think some guy working from a limited view camera (no fancy steadycam, multi angle perfect edits for us) or just from forensic evidence alone, can tell? All we know is some dude got shot in the face from close up and died on the spot.

Same goes for pulling your computer core. No amount of witnessing can tell any more than 'he pulled it by the book perfect'. Maybe you knew what type of computer core you were pulling and practiced on a model until you could do it in your sleep. Maybe you were taught hardware on that particular model and know it like few others. Nobody, not even the players, can say with authority why you got that many successes that one time. All they can say is you pulled it like a pro.

Now: If you'd pulled it like a pro while you intenstines dragged on the floor, your eyes had been plucked from your head and you had no tools... then they'd go "Damn, that motherfucker knows his shit!" Overkill doesn't really leave evidence that can be read in most cases.

[masterofm]

I look at things on a 1 to 1 basis. Maybe thats wrong, but if a r6 agent doing it's thing with an r6 program and a logic 6 hacker is doing the same thing you get the same results. If a high logic hacker throws 12 dice and the agent also throws 12 dice why is the agent retarded? It feels more like a personal call on weather or not you think agents are bright or not. It just seems to me like you are making a judgement call on the whole situation, and thats fine. My thoughts are if it operates like a logic 6 being it should be bright enough to interpret orders and not just sit there and ask for more. I mean think about drones. When they operate independently are they insanely stupid, or can a r6 agent or pilot act independently sometimes? Maybe or maybe not, but that is totally a call that is up the individual GM.

[Critias]

That said: consider the opening of Die Hard, when the guy shoots the security Guard in the face, killing him instantly.

There are times forensics/security could tell someone was a remarkable shot -- but simply from looking at the corpse of a single (or even two or three) kills? Not so much.

The end result of a successfull combat-oriented trigger pull is "bullet in other guy." There is no immediate discernable difference (in real life) between someone who sprays and prays with a second-hand AK 47 in some sandy shithole in the middle of the third world, and someone who methodically double-taps someone with a top of the line VEPR or other not-second hand AK. The end result is "7.62 projectile causing damage." A headshot might be someone carefully lining up the sights and putting one right where it's meant to go, or it might be a combatant tripping, squeezing his trigger as he falls, and the round flying into someone's brainpain.

Now, sure, certain things might make a character get a sort of "unaffiliated reputation" amongst forensic scientists. Using an unusual caliber (particularly a light one, and still killing people really dead) might narrow things down to you (IE, not just being another chump with a Predator or Manhunter). Repeatedly using the exact same called shot manuever ("Hey, Frank, we've got another guy with a .32 in each eye, through the sec-visor") probably would get noticed if you killed enough of the same corporation's folks with it.

Anything caught on tape may stand out -- look at the gun handling in any assortment of action flicks and you can immediately tell the difference between, for instance, the John Woo and Michael Mann schools of gun handling -- but that would depend no just how outlandish your character was being about it. A killer with a pistol in each hand could dive around in slow motion like Chow Yun Fat, or he could just matter-of-factly kill folks like Gabriel Byrne assaulting the ship in The Usual Suspects.

It's not so much a matter of die pool as of what you do with it. Two guys both firing a Predator at someone's head point blank (as in the Die Hard example Spike brought up)? There's just plain no way to tell. If a security camera were to catch someone doing an Equilibrium series of flips and rolls and dives, with both guns blazing, in order to get to a security guard and blast him in the head? Sure. That might stand out.

But there's no rule that says "with great power comes great flashiness." Not everyone with a high die pool in with a handgun is going to cartwheel around and shoot people while they're upside down (in fact, most won't) in mid air. They might just be very precise, quick, and smooth, all while using proper stance, sight alignment, and all the rest that goes with being a well practiced shooter.

There's nothing innately visible about a high die pool.

[WeaverMount]

@MasterofM, All I have to say is that IRL you yourself seem to be able to spend edge OOC when you need a good roll. When you made that roll your hardware DP was what, 13-15ish? I can't expect 75% hits before edge, but you seem to be able too consistently you really need it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) So for us non Mr. Luckys out there we need a DP of 30-36 to expect 10-12 hits

About the Agent, it doesn't have a logic stat at all. The fluff describes it as a "dog brain", so I take that to mean the scale of agent intelligence ranges from over-bred mop dogs (1) to working shepard types (6). Spirits have an actually logic stat meaning that it is equivalent to meta-human logic. They have a wholly alien context so they may need actually rolled that logic to figure stuff out that adults native to the plane just don't.

That said, agents are scary good at what they do. Routing your wireless a choke point with crazy IC. Throw 10k comlink with 60k software to buy an agent analyzing anything that connects to the node. An agent constantly scanning the airwaves, and another agent on standby to pound things what need a pounding. Next actually buy a different firewall for the comlink that runs your PAN. This way they have to spend a least a few rounds breaking to the juicy node while they get hammered from the other side. Even if this doesn't make you matrix-proof, it shuts down anything but a highly skilled well funded decker or a TM. More importantly it means you are not an IT liability to the real decker on the team.

[toturi]

Toturi: I don't consider a 12 DP remotely hyperspecialized. Hell, i don't really consider a 16 all that hyper either. I can build 'mook guards' that start with 12DP once smartlinks or other AR bonuses are applied.

You note that I said, at least that certain amount of dice pool. At least. Magic 5 + Spellcasting 6 + Focus 3 + Mentor bonus 2 = 16 Dice or 18 if you add in Specialisation. It is my experience that the Spellcasting pool is usually the hardest to inflate, hence my minimum pool of 16. And I never claimed that 12 was hyperspecialised either, I merely said that the character was probably min-maxed.

But there's no rule that says "with great power comes great flashiness."

Ohhh, I like that - With Great Power comes Great Flashiness. There's a certain panache to it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[ElFenrir]

I admit, the discussions with ''How much is Too Much'' and ''What Constitutes a good amount of other dice'' and ''what exactly is minmaxing'' can get really, really blurry.

Believe it or not, talking about how 'people should be able to do multiple things', i know some folks who don't cross skill too much because they actually think it's cheap. They don't WANT to step on the toes of other party members. I mean, they don't build one-sided characters, but ive know some folks(and have been there myself), that would look over a character's attributes and skills afterward and say ''wow, my gunslinger adept owns with guns, but he also rolls 12 dice for a couple of social and stealth skills, too! Not to mention he's really good with a sword and actually has computer skills.'' And this character IS very, very possible to make at chargen, even without using our houserule of no availability limit at chargen. You can build it by the book in every way, and make one. Sometimes a low attribute or lack of a particular skill can really add something.

I mean, I don't think a 1 is bad in and of itself. It's the reason BEHIND the one that i look at. Someone making the supertwink troll sam with 1's in Charisma and Logic just to get higher scores in everything else, i will tell them to do something about. A buddy of mine, though, has an awesome character concept for a young street fellow(who is also an adept discovering his different powers), has a 1 Logic. And he plays it up beautifully. He's got a reason for it; he's extremely intuitive and street smart, and even has a decent Charisma(3 i think) but all but uneducated formally and really new in some ways of the world; and it fits really well. So i won't discount a 1 until i see all the other things attached to it.

Going back to the 'skill crossovers', typically our groups have characters who have good skills in maybe 2-3 areas. Enough to do some crossover but not enough that they overshadow the people who ARE specialized in such. My current character throws around 5-7 dice for Etiquette(Street). (3 charisma, 2(+2) skill). IMO, that's not bad. He rolls a rather impressive 11 for Infiltration. (Custom Cyberlimbs are really, really, REALLY nasty we are learning). i don't want him to overshadow our covert ops/face or covert ops/demolitionist(both of them are very stealthy); but he definately can sneak around and get the job done. My character handles the melee heavy lifting; he is by far the most proficient and dangerous there, and also decent with firearms; but his firearms don't overshadow our gunslinger or former military man, however. But he can hold down his own in a firefight and not be a liability, as can everyone(the whole party has some skill in a firefight.) Not much in the way of computers, though. But we have two other characters who can handle computer things, one really well and one pretty well. And we have one vehicle specialist; but we all can at least drive and one other person has some small Gunnery skill as well. (I think my husband might be the only heavy weapons guy, however. That might be an instance of 'you only need one'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

So we don't have ''full team crossovers'', but we have at least two folks, sometimes three, that can handle different aspects, and it works wonderfully. And yeah, some of our die pools get pretty high in some areas, mainly our specialties.

And remember, when it comes to skills, there are DP modifiers that can come in, especially with Social Skills. The Social Skill Modifier table is big, and it's got alot of bonus or minuses. That 5-7 DP can easily become higher under the right situations; and on the the other hand, the character with the 14 social DP can end up getting alot lower if it's the wrong ones. Perception's another one; it's easy to get some extra dice there if needed, so not everyone needs a 5 in the skill.

That is one nice thing about group chargen, everyone can kind of figure out where they want to be in their speciality and where they want to cross over. I know this was a bit of a tangent, but IMO, the whole thing with ''how many dice should runners have in X'' is rather subjective.

[Tarantula]

About the Agent, it doesn't have a logic stat at all. The fluff describes it as a "dog brain"

Actually, you're wrong. SR4, 214, "In game terms, the Pilot attribute stands in for Computer, Cybercombat, Data Search, and Hacking skills, as called for. It may also represent an agent, IC, or drone’s “Mental attributes� when called for (usually Intuition and Logic, and sometimes Willpower)."

Pilot substitutes for mental attributes. Dog brains were SR3. SR4 has fully equivalent brains.

[masterofm]

Actually, you're wrong. SR4, 214, "In game terms, the Pilot attribute stands in for Computer, Cybercombat, Data Search, and Hacking skills, as called for. It may also represent an agent, IC, or drone’s “Mental attributes� when called for (usually Intuition and Logic, and sometimes Willpower)."

Pilot substitutes for mental attributes. Dog brains were SR3. SR4 has fully equivalent brains.

Which means if you ask your agent to guard your comlink it will lick your face and do a trick? Makes agents a little more crazy though, but on the other hand they are only crazy on the matrix, and probably only have their stats linked to the matrix. Kind of like how spirits just work better on the astral (well at least in terms of understanding and interpreting orders) then?

[stevebugge]

Our group uses the optional rule that limits the total number of hits on a test to 2 x the skill. This really helps to balance things out. To hit the what is an adequate dice pool, my number is a bit lower probably 10. If you can get 7 of that out of stat + attribute you can usually pull the last 3 out of proper equipment. I'm with Spike on not handwaving away glaring faults in a group. This doesn't mean I pound the characters for not having those skills by making them face challenges that specifically exploit those faults, but rather I make them spend time and money to hire specialists when they can't do something or they get lower paying jobs more appropriate to what they can handle.

[NativeRigger]

Real life 'operators', that is Special Forces, terrorists and more tend to work under similar principles. Anything worth knowing how to do 'in the field' is worth EVERYONE knowing how to do 'in the field'. Sure, you may only need one guy that actually knows how to build a bomb, but you don't take that guy with you to hijack a plane.

I have to disagree with that. As Mossad has demonstrated numerous times with their assinations against key terrorist figures, terrorist organizations tend to rely on a handful of specialist for all but the most basic needs. On hte 'operator' side are groups like the US Navy SEALs. SEAL's are trained to be highly specialized in a single role, and are only required to have a passable level of competency in a single secondary role.

That's the way op teams work. The entire team/cell is going to have a basic combat-related skill set(shooting and the basics of placing explosives for example) beyond that they rely on specialists.



As for the thread's general topic, I don't think a massive die pool should stand out. When beginning characters can throw 20+ dice but are so low on the totem pole as to not be rated in the meta-rankings of the runners' world; it's not going to be an issue. To paraphrase Jason Lee, when everyone is special, no one is.

-NR

[Spike]

Agents are semi-autonomous programs capable of using other
programs

From pg 227.

Pilot programs represent a special type of OS—a system with specialized functions featuring [b]semi-autonomous decision-making algorithms.[/b]

Pg 213

Keep in mind that Pilots are computer programs,and so take their commands literally—sometimes too literally.

Sidebar of Pg 214.

If the gamemaster feels that a command falls within a gray area or is simply too convoluted, he can roll a secret Pilot + Response Test for the Pilot to see how well it comprehends the order, basing the threshold on an appropriate difficulty level

Also from the sidebar, but this one includes 'A rule'.

Note that no other 'NPC Intelligence' in the game requires a rule to roll for 'what to do' in case of unclear orders. Note the example that I didn't quote was an order for a drone to 'bump a vehicle', hardly hugely complex, but something lacking from software. I'm reasonably certain that pilots (and Agents, who function as pilots) can't even default on a 'skill', if they don't have the autosoft/program they are screwed. But I'm not willing to gamble on it.


Now, most of what I just quoted was lacking in any sort of rules, but it does establish, fairly certainly, that programs are not AI programs, and are not intelligent. In fact the bit you quoted, to my reading, says 'use the rating for these stats for tests' not 'agents/pilots have the same mental capacity of people since they have the same stats.'

Hell, if programs were that smart, we don't even need people anymore, just a bunch of rating 6 agents running around and some rating 6 pilots doing the physical labor. Collectively they are vastly smarter than the whole of humanity, since they are all deeply intuitive geniuses, driven and charming. I'd rather hang out with my Rating 6 agent (charisma 6? Seems likely) than just about anybody but that elf porn star...

Or... not.


Of course, my really serious question is 'how the hell are your characters getting all this wizbang software with ratings of 6 all the time? I mean, starting commlinks and software is, as a general rule, limited to 4's across the board unless your GM just lets you violate availability willy-nilly or spend six months to a year of downtime between runs coding all that shit yourself. Even if you get a single rating six agent, you then have to take the time to crack that sucker (but I got lazy and decided to stop looking for the cracking rules. I do know we're talking an extended test with some 30 hits required, but I can't remember the interval)...

IF this is that big a problem in your games the GM needs to stop handwaving away the rules designed to make it difficult to do. Hell, in game I'm planning right now the only rating 6 software the NPC's have is the stuff guarding the corporate HQ black accounts or other extremely 'hard targets'.... you know, the stuff you might END a campaign with, not start it. I swear every time a discussion about matrix security comes up everyone treats rating six like I treat snicker's bars... something any granny can get just by headed down to the local stuffer shack.

[Tarantula]

I didn't claim that agents were an AI. Just that, they are fully capable of making their own decisions. Yes, a gray area (such as ordering your agent to do something that isn't covered in its skills), or something very convoluted (probably in there to break fancy orders that break rules), deserve to have it roll to see how well it does. Then again, Pilot (6 in this case) + Response (6 most likely, to allow full use of the Pilot) = 12DP. And the agent can fairly reliably get 3-4 hits on its comprehension tests. Which is a fairly reliable program. As far as your "they don't have the same mental capacity" arguement. Yes, they do. Whether a character is rolling his 6 logic for understanding something, or the agent is rolling its 6 pilot to understand the same something, they are functionally equivalent. Yes, fluff says they are different, and they are... but we don't live in the gameworld, and for us the players, the difference between 6 logic dice and 6 pilot dice is functionally none.

Now, ordering your rating 6 agent to analyze a node, and alert you when it detects intruders is hardly a gray area, or convoluted orders. Also, agents don't default on skills, the Pilot rating counts for computer, cybercombat, data search, and hacking, as I quoted.

[ArkonC]

Of course, my really serious question is 'how the hell are your characters getting all this wizbang software with ratings of 6 all the time? I mean, starting commlinks and software is, as a general rule, limited to 4's across the board unless your GM just lets you violate availability willy-nilly or spend six months to a year of downtime between runs coding all that shit yourself. Even if you get a single rating six agent, you then have to take the time to crack that sucker (but I got lazy and decided to stop looking for the cracking rules. I do know we're talking an extended test with some 30 hits required, but I can't remember the interval)...

IF this is that big a problem in your games the GM needs to stop handwaving away the rules designed to make it difficult to do. Hell, in game I'm planning right now the only rating 6 software the NPC's have is the stuff guarding the corporate HQ black accounts or other extremely 'hard targets'.... you know, the stuff you might END a campaign with, not start it. I swear every time a discussion about matrix security comes up everyone treats rating six like I treat snicker's bars... something any granny can get just by headed down to the local stuffer shack.

Apart from Agents/IC/pilots, availability for rating 6 Matrix Software is 12 or -...
Rating 4 Agents/IC/Pilots are 12 availability...
Response and Signal can be upgraded to 5, which is 12 availability, during CharGen...

[IQ Zero]

18 dice? 20 dice? Wow, that makes me feel like my players are severely ... handicapped. Most roll only 10-12 dice for their PRIMARY skills.

[masterofm]

Yes spike I totally agree with you that it seems like everyone and their grandma can get a r6 program... if that granny is a shadowrunner. In the shadowrun world shadowrunners are not the norm. They get the high end gear that the rest of humanity just doesn't have the knowhow or money to get. All r6 is, is top of the line military grade hardware. The fact that there are some people sporting crazy insane items, but by far the SR world most people just don't have what a shadowrunner is packing. This generally gives them a significant edge over John Q. Everyman. It's not insane. AI's are insane. They are out there and they will take a r6 agent, eat it as a light cal snack and move on. Also when someone has a dice pool of 20+ they need something to explain why they are shadowrunners instead of top gunmen. Also my thoughts were that people who roll so so many dice, and are obviously shadowrunners narrows down a teams profile. Maybe it's me but I think that a shadowrun character is almost one in a million, not one in five. Professionals sport 6 dice at their skill, and specialists sport maybe 8 or 9.

Has anyone seen myth busters on the man who was just awesome at the quick draw? Imagine that guy busting out his chops during a run and then try and put 2 and 2 together.

I will now post the links of awesome *edit* well at least in dealing with people using quick draw, or firing very very fast *edit*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3fgduPdH_Y

http://youtube.com/watch?v=woILVt30QV8&feature=related

Now tell me if someone pulled that sh*t that people would be sitting around scratching their head and wondering "who done it" in the Shadowrunning community.

[stevebugge]

18 dice? 20 dice? Wow, that makes me feel like my players are severely ... handicapped. Most roll only 10-12 dice for their PRIMARY skills.

It's up to your game style. 8-12 is what I consider a more normal level too.