4th Ed. Loot Takes Food from My Children's Mouth, In the game only. Options

[Daddy's Litt...]

We are gonig forward in Dec with out annual holiday campaign and we are going to upgrade the decking to 4th Ed. Hacking and Conjuring to 4th ed, making the spirits more uniform but we are otherwise going to keep to the 3rd Ed. rules that work for us.

My complaint, and I wonder if anyone else has found this, it that the 4th Ed hacking cuts down on loot. In 3rd ed. you off a decker on a run and his deck was worth something. Even if you have to change the personal stuff so not one will recognize it, the parts were serious plunder. NOW it's some real cheap stuff not even worth chopping it out of his skull!

Sure we can still grab a car and stuff but I liked grabbing decks, especially from corpers who had more generic/fencable decks.

What is a border line psycho street sammie supposed to do?

[Prime Mover]

Guess I've always looked at it in terms of real life. Alot of time has passed and tech has gotten exponentially smaller,faster and cheaper. Best to always be open to adaption, don't want to get complacent in the shadows. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Wesley Street]

There's always the programs stored on the hacker's commlink. Hardware is simply bits of plastic and metal. It's the software that's worth the serious money.

Real life example: I just purchased a new PC laptop as my 8 year old Mac finally decided to croak. It's a really nice laptop. I bought Adobe Creative Suite. It literally cost the same as the laptop. And that's just one (technically two) program(s).

[Matsci]

There's always the programs stored on the hacker's commlink. Hardware is simply bits of plastic and metal. It's the software that's worth the serious money.

Real life example: I just purchased a new PC laptop as my 8 year old Mac finally decided to croak. It's a really nice laptop. I bought Adobe Creative Suite. It literally cost the same as the laptop. And that's just one (technically two) program(s).

Registered programs, that patch themselves and leave a data trail that points at someone else?

Hells yeah!

[Little Johnson]

Actually a hacker would use hacked software not registered. He wouldnt want tracked any more than you would

[Matsci]

Actually a hacker would use hacked software not registered. He wouldnt want tracked any more than you would

If you use software registered in someone else's name, the data trail points to them, not you. So even if you get caught, you can simply spoof the trace to that person's home. No getting caught.

[Ravor]

Sure, IF the Decker you geeked was stupid enough to use registered software in the first place, which is not fragging likely.

[Jaid]

Sure, IF the Decker you geeked was stupid enough to use registered software in the first place, which is not fragging likely.

if they were a corporate decker, it's not all that unlikely actually. of course, if they were a corporate decker, those programs are likely to stop pointing to that decker once the corp figures out the decker is dead or the commlink/programs are missing.

in any case, if it helps any... technically, if you have the decker's commlink, you can command just about anything subscribed to it. corporate-owned drones, if we're talking about a spider for example, or his/her car, house, bank account, etc if it's the decker's personal commlink and programs.

[kzt]

And the corp can locate you, to a precision of about a meter or so. Not that they would do anything with that data....

[Fuchs]

There's still hacker loot. Portable high-grade commlinks cost some nuyen, as do the options for the commlinks. Not to mention possible paydata from the commlink.

[hermit]

@Daddy's Little Ninja: If you want to integrsate 4th Ed hacking into a 3rd Ed campaign, it's propably a good idea to calculate program prices according to 3rd and multiply all commlink, commlink component and commlink accessoire prices by 10, to vaguely keep it in line with 3r Ed's far more pricey stuff. Otherwise, you'll propably encounter massive balancing issues.

If you use software registered in someone else's name, the data trail points to them, not you. So even if you get caught, you can simply spoof the trace to that person's home. No getting caught.

True, but your Linguasoft or whatever constantly checking for updates (which, according to Unwired, it does) will still be a dead giveawayfor any corp hacker. Stay the hell away from licensed/legal software, get a hacker ring connection, and just add the software patching costs to your monthly lifestyle costs.

[Wounded Ronin]

The SR rules never really had fleshed out details about looting cyberware anyway, though. I mean, a lot of it was heavily at GM discretion. I remember reading some guy going on how he made things ripped out of skulls make very little profit on the grounds that all the super delicate connections to the nervous system etc. would have been damaged.

[Ravor]

Thats why you take the entire body with you, OR in Fourth Edition if you houserule "Turn to Goo" back into line with Sixth World Magical Theory carry a bucket or two. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[Snow_Fox]

. NOW it's some real cheap stuff not even worth chopping it out of his skull!

Sure we can still grab a car and stuff but I liked grabbing decks, especially from corpers who had more generic/fencable decks.

What is a border line psycho street sammie supposed to do?

The really funny thing here is that in RL DLN is the most caring, happy, damn perkiest person you could imagine. Think Rachel Rey on an up Up UP day. but in gamer she's pretty much bloodthirsty deal delaing psycho bitch from a vat tank.

[hyzmarca]

Take by a drone vehicle that can carry several bodies, and take the corpses of the dead with you. Hire a doctor and a chef and turn an empty squat in the barrens into a blackmarket clinic/restaurant.

[kanislatrans]

Take by a drone vehicle that can carry several bodies, and take the corpses of the dead with you. Hire a doctor and a chef and turn an empty squat in the barrens into a blackmarket clinic/restaurant.

LOL!
"Excuse me,sir, while your waiting for the Lidocane to wear off, would you be interested in a plate of elf-ka-bobs in curry sauce? Or maybe the Ork-on-wick is more to your liking?" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Wounded Ronin]

The really funny thing here is that in RL DLN is the most caring, happy, damn perkiest person you could imagine. Think Rachel Rey on an up Up UP day. but in gamer she's pretty much bloodthirsty deal delaing psycho bitch from a vat tank.

Ninjas > Rachel Rey

[Cthulhudreams]

I've always thought greyhawking in SR4 is a high risk modest profit activity. Wouldn't everything they owned be covered in RFID tags? And all capable of phoning home. Including their smartgun.

Dangerous stuff.

[kzt]

It does kind of suck when everyone you sold stuff to gets arrested and the cops all point to the junk you sold them with tags in it. Might even be kind of unhealthy.

[Fuchs]

I always thought looting stuff on a run is rather unprofessional. Especially commlinks - I remember a murder case who was solved because the killer took the portable phone of the victim, and sold it. It was traced back to him through 4 owners.

[Heath Robinson]

I've always thought greyhawking in SR4 is a high risk modest profit activity. Wouldn't everything they owned be covered in RFID tags? And all capable of phoning home. Including their smartgun.

Dangerous stuff.

It depends heavily on where you are. Looting in Caracas? That deal is far sweeter than looting in Seattle. One of my SR4 games was set in Caracas and you can bet we were up for looting when the oppurtunity knocked. A couple of wared up corpses on a boat with nothing to do for the next few hours? My doc gutted them and took the ware home to sell to some poor schlock.

And he'd have done the same again if the rest of the runs didn't have time limits.