[X] My Assistant

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Sorry TJ, let me be more clear.

Although your group wouldn't be far off, either, TJ. You've got all these gentlemen's agreements to never have more than 15 dice to anything.

It is amazing exactly how wrong you can truly be. And, for the record, there are no Gentlemen's agreements, and there are plenty of characters at our table that end up with more than 15 Dice in a given roll. Those characters actually have reasons to have those dice, though, other than "just because," And they actually fit the world, rather than trying to break it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Traul]

1) Hacker is onsite

Easy: wired security network.

2) Teamwork is required

Hacking is already a part of teamwork during infiltration. If you're thinking of pure matrix runs, then what you want is probably a more violent matrix. I think the split is not so much matrix/real world as it is stealth/brute force. Stealth thresholds, damage adds. When a group is using stealth, they are as good as the worst group member. When using strength, any contribution is welcome, no matter how small.

Maybe you could use something more akin to UV nodes? In a UV node, a hacker is a magician: everyone uses their abilities normally but he can alter the very fabric of the world on top of that.

[CanRay]

Hacking is already a part of teamwork during infiltration.

Hitter, Hacker, Grifter, Thief, Mastermind.

[Yerameyahu]

Super Skrull!

[Seerow]

I'm curious why it's bad for a hacker to be able to relatively easily hack cyber implants and guns, to take over/slow down enemy beatsticks, but it's not bad for a Mage to use Control Actions.

Honestly, I think that hacking cyberlimbs and smartguns and doing stuff like that should be a major part of a hacker's role in combat. Yes, it sucks to be the beat stick getting controlled like that, but it sucks just as much when a mage is doing it.

[CanRay]

I'm curious why it's bad for a hacker to be able to relatively easily hack cyber implants and guns, to take over/slow down enemy beatsticks, but it's not bad for a Mage to use Control Actions.

How many Mages work low-end security?

...

OK, now how many have Spiders?

Yeah, I thought so. Door swings both ways.

[Seerow]

How many Mages work low-end security?

...

OK, now how many have Spiders?

Yeah, I thought so. Door swings both ways.

That actually depends a lot on the GM. My group runs into mages almost constantly, and almost never encounters a hacker/spider unless we go looking for trouble in the matrix.

[Yerameyahu]

Mages are rare. Hackers are… everyone. More than everyone, if you count unlocked agents.

[Seerow]

Mages are rare. Hackers are… everyone. More than everyone, if you count unlocked agents.

Yet runners run into rare frequently. And if the group's hacker is being distracted by stopping enemy spiders from getting into his bud's cyberware rather than being able to go run amok right away, at least the hacker is doing something that is relevant to the rest of the group.

[suoq]

1) Hacker is onsite

Target is not on the matrix. Easy enough. See last weekend's Leverage for an example.

2) Teamwork is required

See any episode of Leverage.

3) Hackers can't trump non-hackers in combat by virtue of hacking their [cyber, comlink, gun] and pushing buttons.

I'm not sure how they're doing it successfully at your table. I'm really not. I wish you would walk me through the dice rolls because I'm not understanding how they do it.

[Yerameyahu]

That's the GM's fault, Seerow. If they're running into mages, they should have their own. They should have 4 (or however many) hackers (of varying ability).

[CanRay]

At the very least, Jerry in IT freaking out over the system crashing and constantly trying to get the IC back up and running. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Seerow]

That's the GM's fault, Seerow. If they're running into mages, they should have their own. They should have 4 (or however many) hackers (of varying ability).

Right, you have mages to deal with mages, and hackers to deal with hackers.

That said, having 4 hackers isn't something supported in SR4A on either side. While some high defense nodes may have that many, typically you have 1-2 spiders at a facility to deal with, if you have more than that it's typically a facility with multiple nodes and each spider dealing with their own thing (ie one monitoring security system, one dealing with drones, and one guarding the nodes with sensitive information), ie you won't be facing them all at once unless you really did something wrong. On the other side of the spectrum, you have one hacker on your typical runner group, and maybe an NPC contact you can call in for help for backup when on site presence isn't needed, or another runner with a minor hacking subrole. That's pretty much what the game expects. In the same way the game expects mages to be rare.

In my games, we haven't had a real hacker in the group for over a year, so the GM has kept matrix challenges as pretty much an aside, if something's needed we have a few contacts, but dealing with a hacker on site is something we rarely have to deal with. On the other hand, our group has a full mage, who tends to just bowl through enemies if there's not someone providing them with counterspelling. As a result, we tend to run into enemy mages pretty frequently, because without them, the mage would literally be winning combats before anyone else got an action. Similarly, if we had a hacker, I'd expect to see enemy spiders and IC a lot more, simply because without them the hacker would breeze through nodes and get what he wants with no opposition. I wasn't trying to assert the lack of hackers is normal, but just pointing out them being pervasive isn't something that's true in every game, despite the fluff.

[suoq]

That's the GM's fault, Seerow. If they're running into mages, they should have their own. They should have 4 (or however many) hackers (of varying ability).

Since we're back to this claim, I'll repeat my question.

Help me through this so that I can understand.

My assumption is that your table, like season 4 of missions, is not using Piracy. If you are using piracy then, yes, everyone at your table probably *is* becoming a hacker or, more likely, has an mook to do their hacking for them. That seems to be a logical consequence of the piracy rules.

I'm looking at a baseline of a skill of 4 in the Cracking and Electronics group. So that's (10+10+15+20)*2=110 karma. Even just a 3 in both groups is 70 karma. Clearly I'm looking at a different baseline than you if everyone is becoming a hacker at your tables. What is the minimum skillset for being a hacker in your opinion?

For software, since rating 3 is a huge price break, I want to go there. That's 1500Y per program but with a 4 in the skill, that's still only 7 dice. That doesn't seem like a hacker to me. It's affordable, but it doesn't seem to do much. I want those three extra dice that running a rating 6 software will bring. Unfortunately, that's 6 grand per software package. Armor, biofeedback, some form of attack, decrypt, defuse, eccm, exploit, sniffer, stealth, track. = 60 grand worth of software and that's not counting mute, optimize, and a dang good commlink.

As I said, I'm missing something. I don't see HOW people are becoming hackers. What do these hackers have for a dice pool and how did they get it?

[Yerameyahu]

Just spend some money on it. Minimal skill is *fine*. Piracy only alters the price. I guess the difference is that 7 dice *does* seem like a hacker to me. If your definition of hacker only allows 'nova hot', then I can see how you were confused.

Seerow, I didn't mean a hacker team, with everyone active at once. I mean that any given person should be non-naked when it comes to jamming, hacking, etc. In exactly the same way everyone has at least a pistol.

[Draco18s]

As to your three points I'll note:
1) Ritual mages do not have to be onsite;
2) Mages do not have to do teamwork;
3) Mages can trump non-mages by virtue of summoning their possession spirits and standing out of the way.

To counter:

1) The ritual magic rules are so poor as to be worse option than using an elemental AoE spell against a single target.
2) Mages, do, do teamwork. What do you think counterspelling is?
3) I have other issues with spirits being the trump card (with stick 'n shock being the gun trump-all card). Possession spirits also aren't that dangerous by themselves. They have to posses something first.

Look, the bottom line for me is that hackers aren't as over powered as you believe them to be. They have weaknesses. They have to deal with the other guy's hackers. They have to avoid the other guy's mages. And a knife in the back can't be hacked.

At what point did I say they were overpowered!? My god man, I said they were underpowered! But with several tricks up their sleeves that have no counter, or at least, very difficult to counter for long.

Or what I mean is.
They're underpowered when it comes right down to it, by not being involved enough, but overpowered in the ways that make them push a button and kill somebody without any defense (and are super protected via hacking from India).

[Ascalaphus]

And if you can make hacking impossible, then there's no reason to be a hacker. If Steve Sammy can make himself immune to hackers, then what stops a corporation (with millions of times the disposable income) from making itself unhackable?

And if a target is unhackable (which is easy) then what does a hacker do?

Hey! Hey! I wasn't defending the Matrix rules. I think they suck for a wide variety of reasons. Don't set me up for a straw man here - I just happen to think the rules swing too wildly from "utterly easy" to "effectively impossible".

I'm curious why it's bad for a hacker to be able to relatively easily hack cyber implants and guns, to take over/slow down enemy beatsticks, but it's not bad for a Mage to use Control Actions.

Control Actions is bad.

Honestly, I think that hacking cyberlimbs and smartguns and doing stuff like that should be a major part of a hacker's role in combat. Yes, it sucks to be the beat stick getting controlled like that, but it sucks just as much when a mage is doing it.

Hacking cyber just makes so little sense. Why would sammies get cyber if it's just one huge liability? Why would they leave on the WiFi if by their very profession they know they'll run into hackers. They don't need their cyberlimbs accessible from the Matrix at all.

It's nice thinking to give hackers something to do in combat, by hacking cyber. But from the sammie's point of view, he's getting screwed over, because some game designer is forcing implausible weaknesses on him just to give the nerd something to do in combat.

[Draco18s]

I just happen to think the rules swing too wildly from "utterly easy" to "effectively impossible".

Control Actions is bad.

Hacking cyber just makes so little sense. Why would sammies get cyber if it's just one huge liability? Why would they leave on the WiFi if by their very profession they know they'll run into hackers. They don't need their cyberlimbs accessible from the Matrix at all.

It's nice thinking to give hackers something to do in combat, by hacking cyber. But from the sammie's point of view, he's getting screwed over, because some game designer is forcing implausible weaknesses on him just to give the nerd something to do in combat.

All of this.

[Yerameyahu]

Hackers simply have plenty to do already, in and out of combat.

[Ascalaphus]

I thought they were doing well with unifying hacker and rigger rules. A hacker who wants to contribute to combat has enough options without abandoning common sense to go hacking cyberware.

* Get a cyberarm with Agility 9 and take a hit of Cram. Instant combat-worthiness.
* Rig observer drones and provide tactical oversight and perhaps some more TacNet contributions.
* Rig fighting drones.
* Interfere with police responses, alarms, traffic lights etc.
* Lay down covering fire.
* Send in the Bust-a-Moves carrying WiFi-controlled grenades. Not terribly cheap, but certainly a terror tactic.
* Jam the enemy's TacNet and communications. Prevent HTR from being alerted.
* Stop enemy biomonitors from sending out distress calls.

[Draco18s]

I thought they were doing well with unifying hacker and rigger rules. A hacker who wants to contribute to combat has enough options without abandoning common sense to go hacking cyberware.

When was this ever the issue? I've always been saying that the non-hackers need to contribute to the hacking more than the other way around.

[Yerameyahu]

Maybe it wasn't the issue for you, but it's certainly been an issue for many people. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) At worst, it's slightly off-topic.

[Ascalaphus]

When was this ever the issue? I've always been saying that the non-hackers need to contribute to the hacking more than the other way around.

Maybe it wasn't the issue for you, but it's certainly been an issue for many people. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) At worst, it's slightly off-topic.

What Yerameyahu said. Abominations like cyberware hacking probably got developed because they wanted to give hackers something to do in combat. (Or from watching GitS and failing to get the point of "autistic mode".)

Giving the team something to do while the hacker hacks is much trickier to implement. A supporting role perhaps? One dude to watch over the VR hacker, ready to pull the plug if he gets locked in by black IC.

Currently, Agents are much more sensible as backup for a hacker than teammates. A teammate with lukewarm hacking/cybercombat skills is a bit of a liability. He's more likely to trigger some alert through less-than-perfect actions, and if cybercombat happens he's a chewtoy for IC. If an Agent gets chewed up, just re-install it from the backups.

[Kirk]

What Yerameyahu said. Abominations like cyberware hacking probably got developed because they wanted to give hackers something to do in combat. (Or from watching GitS and failing to get the point of "autistic mode".)

Giving the team something to do while the hacker hacks is much trickier to implement. A supporting role perhaps? One dude to watch over the VR hacker, ready to pull the plug if he gets locked in by black IC.

Currently, Agents are much more sensible as backup for a hacker than teammates. A teammate with lukewarm hacking/cybercombat skills is a bit of a liability. He's more likely to trigger some alert through less-than-perfect actions, and if cybercombat happens he's a chewtoy for IC. If an Agent gets chewed up, just re-install it from the backups.

Shades of the gang gathering to watch someone play their [insert handheld game player here].

[Ascalaphus]

Shades of the gang gathering to watch someone play their [insert handheld game player here].

Yeah, and that's the problem.