Engraved datajacks, 0 essence? Options

[limejello10512]

Hey do engraved cost no essence? I was using that awesome shadowrun spreadsheet and I found that an engraved datajack was entered as 0 essence......is that right? I thought an engraved data jack was an extra 200 nuyen for something cosmetic.

[Traul]

Maybe a bug in your spreadsheet: the engraving is a datajack option. It has no Essence cost by itself, but you cannot get it without a datajack.

[limejello10512]

no I mean a datajack costs .1 but if you get it engraved it costs 0, did the writer make a mistake?

[Marwynn]

Most definitely. That's what Traul said too.

It's probably a typo. Or it's meant to be taken as an upgrade to a Datajack, hence costing no Essence in the spreadsheet.

[KCKitsune]

It is most certainly an upgrade to a datajack.

If you want a 0 Essence datajack, add it to an existing cyberlimb.

[the_real_elwood]

Engraving a datajack is a cosmetic option, not a separate item. Just like the cosmetic sculpting you can get on dermal armor or the casemods you can get for cyberlimbs. The cosmetics don't cost essence, but the base item to be customized does.

[Dakka Dakka]

If you want a 0 Essence datajack, add it to an existing cyberlimb.

You could also just plug stuff into your commlink instead of your head. Use skinlink on the 'link and the trodes and you do not need to sacrifice any essence.

BTW who wants a datajack anyway. That's so 2050.

[Ravor]

For the same exact reasons that people want to use a remote to interact with their electronic equipment as opposed to getting up and doing it manually. And that is even ignoring the fact that 'jacks give you access to whatever mental skill or language you could possibly want, all for the low, low price of 0.1 Essence.

Oh, and lets not forget that Betagrade 'jacks make for some really wiz deathtraps when it comes to protecting your cyber from being hacked by some random Decker.

[Dakka Dakka]

Could you please tell me what the datajack does that the skinlink setup can't for zero essence loss?

[LurkerOutThere]

By logic, better bandwidth better fidelity.

By rules in this "Oh all magic users should be able to also be hackers and theres no point to cyberware anymore" rules-set? Not much.

[Joe Chummer]

By logic, better bandwidth better fidelity.

By rules in this "Oh all magic users should be able to also be hackers and theres no point to cyberware anymore" rules-set? Not much.

Bitter much?

If you're a GM, then don't allow an Awakened character to have the kind of hacking skills that would make him supersede a dyed-in-the-wool hacker. If you feel learning and maintaining magic is a demanding hobby (and it IS), then don't allow your players to create magician characters with large amounts of hacking skills or programs that are above and beyond the average hacker-wannabe type and don't allow them to spend too much karma to buy or improve said skills. Minor hacking is fine (I mean, you can't always have your hacker buddy pirating Speed Coma tracks for you), but magicians should be spending the bulk of their karma on upgrading their Magic attribute, initiating, conjuring/improving their ally spirit, bonding new foci, quickening spells, etc. And if you think your Awakened character is neglecting their Talent by depending too much on technology, penalize them a point of Magic or two (and inflict a stern talking to by their mentor spirit) until they've had time to get back to their studies/meditation/etc.

Also, how has SR4 made cyberware pointless? Last time I checked, a retractable spur to the gut STILL hurts like a motherfragger.

[Dakka Dakka]

I agree with you. If the mage has enough karma to improve his hacking skills he must be getting too much, as weird as that sounds for such a karma sink, and the hacker must be doing something else with his karma. If either wants to play a generalist and not a specialist in one field, the GM should plan accordingly.

True a retractable spur hurts, but so do forearm snap blades, or axes.

[TonkaTuff]

Could you please tell me what the datajack does that the skinlink setup can't for zero essence loss?

The main thing the datajack does in contrast to the no-essence kludge is to always be available for use and to be very difficult to take away from you. With the latter, you have to have the extra equipment with you: the commlink+skinlink at the minimum and some sort of headwear containing the trode net or a fairly recently applied painted set - the first two bits can be taken/broken, and the latter can be simply wiped off. About the only counter to a datajack is a stopper. But given you can just switch it to wireless, even that isn't guaranteed effective - if the opposition even happens to have any jackstoppers, given how relatively uncommon the implants are supposed to be in 2070.

[Medicineman]

The engraved Datajack won`t cost any additional Essence !

...
BTW who wants a datajack anyway. That's so 2050.

In the Twenty-Seventies ,nobody ,but everybody until 2063 (Under SR3 Rules a Datajack was better than a trodenet and was very usefull for any Kind of Driver).It was a Common Item so everybody who was Born until 2050-2055 could/should quit possibly have one

with a common Dance
Medicineman

[Glyph]

If you're a GM, then don't allow an Awakened character to have the kind of hacking skills that would make him supersede a dyed-in-the-wool hacker. If you feel learning and maintaining magic is a demanding hobby (and it IS), then don't allow your players to create magician characters with large amounts of hacking skills or programs that are above and beyond the average hacker-wannabe type and don't allow them to spend too much karma to buy or improve said skills. Minor hacking is fine (I mean, you can't always have your hacker buddy pirating Speed Coma tracks for you), but magicians should be spending the bulk of their karma on upgrading their Magic attribute, initiating, conjuring/improving their ally spirit, bonding new foci, quickening spells, etc. And if you think your Awakened character is neglecting their Talent by depending too much on technology, penalize them a point of Magic or two (and inflict a stern talking to by their mentor spirit) until they've had time to get back to their studies/meditation/etc.

Shadowrun is not a class-based system. You can have a street samurai drone rigger, a sniper who is also the group's face, a mage who hacks, or any other combo you want. Some are more expensive or impractical than others, and can spread a character too thin. A mage hacker will already be behind a "pure" mage or hacker. If I was playing a mage, and a GM arbitrarily took away Magic points for not spending enough on my "class" skills, I would leave that campaign in a heartbeat. Would you drop the sammie's pistols skill by a few points, because he's spending "too much" on social skills? Seriously, it's a bad idea.

[Kumo]

Shadowrun is not a class-based system.

Right. If one PC is all-in-one person, that means he is weaker than any specialist - player's choice. Besides, even in SR4 sample characters we have Occult Investigator (mage/detective) or Smuggler (rigger/hacker/some more things).

[Ravor]

Aye, what TonkaTuff said, plus it gives you an excellent chokepoint for any outside access you might want for your cyber. No so useful if you also have an implanted 'link PLUS an implanted sim -module, but I see those as being more uncommon due to the increased costs.

Remember that people are lazy and will snap at any time and effort saver they can, so I don't buy the idea that real people as opposed to mere collections of numbers would rather rely on trodes/glasses/ect over cyber when their implants are simply there and don't need to be recharged, turned on, synced to talk with each other, and placed on one's person everytime you want to use them.

[KCKitsune]

Aye, what TonkaTuff said, plus it gives you an excellent chokepoint for any outside access you might want for your cyber. No so useful if you also have an implanted 'link PLUS an implanted sim -module, but I see those as being more uncommon due to the increased costs.

Why would having an implanted commlink & SIM module make a datajack "not so useful"?

The way I figure it, cluster all your cyber except the commlink and the datajack. Slave the resulting cluster to your commlink and then have your datajack subscribe to the commlink. The datajack acts like the gatekeeper, but you have your commlink with IC backing it up.

[Joe Chummer]

Right. If one PC is all-in-one person, that means he is weaker than any specialist - player's choice. Besides, even in SR4 sample characters we have Occult Investigator (mage/detective) or Smuggler (rigger/hacker/some more things).

Class-based system or not, I believe in game balance.

In my opinion, if a PC has the Magic-related skills groups and the Hacking-related skill groups all at max-character-creation rating, with a Magic attribute of 6 (which is pretty easily doable in character creation), then this character is unbalanced because it smacks of min-maxing to me: a character realizing he can do two powerful things at once with minimal effort.

There's nothing wrong with a magician learning some computer skills. In fact, the average wagemage back in the day had a datajack and a Computer skill of 2 or 3, at the very least. However, if your magicker is doing better at hacking than your hacker is, you have a problem, and if a character (magician or otherwise) seems to be taking over too many important duties, then the other PCs will get annoyed and claim that character is too powerful. On the other end of the spectrum, if the team relies TOO MUCH on this character, if he gets geeked on a run, the rest of the team is completely fragged without his help.

I've been reading SR magic-based fluff since 2nd edition, and every time it harps on magic being a very time-consuming profession. SR has done a pretty good job of making magickers (especially mages) come across as incredible nerds when it comes to their profession, almost to the point of obsession. And magic, like any muscle or skill, will atrophy if ignored. Sure you can create a magic character, but if they're spending too much time trying to flex their hacking skills, this is less time they can devote to practicing their magic. Before too long they might not remember their spell correctly in the heat of battle or the spell might fizzle or be less effective simply because it's been MONTHS since they reviewed the spell formula.

I'm not against players branching off into territory in which their "archetype" doesn't normally go, so long as it's within reason. After all, PCs are people and not stereotypes. But there has to be a level of realism involved as well. For example, I know a guy who is a genius when it comes to computers; he can build complicated servers and program them from the ground up. BUT THAT'S ALL HE DOES. He has a few other hobbies, but tinkering with computers is where he spends the vast majority of his time, and that's why he's so good at it. If he were to step away from a computer for a few months, odds are he'll have forgotten a thing or two.

[Medicineman]

However, if your magicker is doing better at hacking than your hacker is, you have a problem,
Yes ,the problem is with the Hacker that sux !
Because if the Mage is better at hacking than the Hacker,he (the Hacker) is doing something wrong !

Hough !
Medicineman

[Dakka Dakka]

Seconded.

The other possibility would be that the characters are build with way too many BPs, so the hacker probably has a couple of other fields of expertise. Consequently he should not be named hacker but jack of all/many trades, master of none.

If someone manages to max everything that has to do with magic and everything in the hacking trade, that character surely has deficits in other areas (probably attributes). Let the world react accordingly to him and he will be in trouble.

If this is more of a problem between the players, if one tries to hog all the spotlight time, talk to the players don't penalize the characters.

Min/maxing is just what any shadowrunner would do, because that increases his chances to be hired. No Johnson would hire a team of inept people, just because they have such a sobstory for background. AFAIK there is no affirmative action program in the shadows.

[Karoline]

However, if your magicker is doing better at hacking than your hacker is, you have a problem,
Yes ,the problem is with the Hacker that sux !
Because if the Mage is better at hacking than the Hacker,he (the Hacker) is doing something wrong !

Hough !
Medicineman

Agreed. The mage can't go full VR because he lacks simsense, the mage can't get an enchephalon because he can't spare any essence. The mage can't afford a stack of rating 6 hacking programs because he has to buy his lucky charms.

A mage certainly can be a good hacker, but if he is out preforming your dedicated hacker, it is because the dedicated hacker is messing up, not because the mage has 1337 H4x0R 5KI11z. Also keep in mind that if he wants to remain a good hacker, he'll have to burn karma into hacking skills, resources into bigger and badder programs, which he won't be spending on more lucky charms, initiation, new spells, etc.

All archetypes are self enforced as being time consuming because you have to put karma and resources into them. Do this, take your hacker/mage and compare him to a dedicated hacker and a dedicated mage. I bet you he won't be able to beat either in their dedicated field, but in exchange for that level of power, he has a higher level of flexibility. There is really no reason to set up arbitrary rules that stop characters from having more than one focus. The RAW already do a fine job of balancing out flexibility for raw power.

[Karoline]

AFAIK there is no affirmative action program in the shadows.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) That's going in my sig

[Critias]

In my opinion, if a PC has the Magic-related skills groups and the Hacking-related skill groups all at max-character-creation rating, with a Magic attribute of 6 (which is pretty easily doable in character creation), then this character is unbalanced because it smacks of min-maxing to me: a character realizing he can do two powerful things at once with minimal effort.

Except that it takes a lot more than a couple skill points to be an effective Hacker and Mage at the same time (and that for you to smack people down for taking skill groups is kind of funny, since they're pretty points-inefficient). How are their other attributes? How much money do they have for Foci and Hacking gear at the same time? How good a Hacker are they, really, without any headware for that extra oomph? How effective will they stay later in the campaign while they try to spread themselves that thin, and decide where to spend their karma and incoming nuyen?

However, if your magicker is doing better at hacking than your hacker is, you have a problem...

Yeah, it means you need to talk to the group's primary Hacker and try to figure out how he's such a screw up.

Do you do this same sort of thing if more than one character has combat skills (force the Rigger to drop his Gunnery because he's stepping on the Street Sam's toes, and guns are supposed to be someone else's job)? Or is it just the magic and technology overlapping that gives you the willies?

I've been reading SR magic-based fluff since 2nd edition, and every time it harps on magic being a very time-consuming profession.

Wow, all the way since 2nd edition? (*snicker*)

Yeah, it's almost like it requires your attention by demanding you shell out massive amounts of karma points for Initiation and skills you only use for casting spells and stuff. Funny how that works out, huh?

SR has done a pretty good job of making magickers (especially mages) come across as incredible nerds when it comes to their profession, almost to the point of obsession.

You mean like those Tir combat mages, Hart and some from Laverty's crew, right there in the first few Shadowrun novels, who were top-notch Mages and very skilled personal combatants with stealth, athletics, unarmed combat, and firearms? Or maybe Sam Verner himself, for that matter, from the same books -- the original Decker/Shaman?

And magic, like any muscle or skill, will atrophy if ignored. Sure you can create a magic character, but if they're spending too much time trying to flex their hacking skills, this is less time they can devote to practicing their magic. Before too long they might not remember their spell correctly in the heat of battle or the spell might fizzle or be less effective simply because it's been MONTHS since they reviewed the spell formula.

If you pulled junk like that at a game I was playing, I'd just pack up and leave. There are no rules for muscles and skills atrophying. How often do you make a Street Sammy's athletics or unarmed combat lose half a die pool because they've only been spending karma on shooting stuff? When was the last time you had a Rigger's drone casually ignore him because he's been spending so much time working on cars? If you've got known and established (and fair) house rules in place and mentioned in advance to your players about every skill set being penalized like this, fine...but if it's just a curveball you're going to wing at the mages because it's the only way you can manage to run a balanced game, that's bullshit.

I'm not against players branching off into territory in which their "archetype" doesn't normally go, so long as it's within reason.

No, I think you've shown pretty clearly that you are against players branching off into territory outside of the tiny little box you pigeonhole them into. When magic is taught at college universities, it's only your stereotypes that are keeping players at your table limited to the D&D class you've assigned them.

[Karoline]

Lotsa stuff

Very well put.