Tell me Something cool your Hacker/TM did, Cool Hacker Stories Options

[Neraph]

Thanks for all the good input!

One thing I haven't been doing is treading, I really should be doing that more often.
I love the resonance realm and submersion stuff in the books. I really hope they do more with the dissonant Technomancers as some kind of bad guys/group.

Like so much of shadowrun it's just cool as hell.

Also what happen to Puck? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

AFAIK Puck was brain-sliced. Some adventure or another revolves around him, but I don't use modules so I'm not 100% on that.

I've been working on something about a dissonant free Sprite using its abilities to be functionally similar to a virus with the added caveat that he hacks normal people's brains and takes them over similarly to Inhabitation Spirits. I've been putting in ridiculous amounts of OT at my actual work though so no idea when I can get to this.

[Chance359]

During a CMP, my hacker managed to breaking to a KE security host that had all of the personal protection information on it. With it we were able to get our target to ditch his protective detail and come to us. We also used it to get access to his underground parking garage and even make the KE guards around him surrender (gave face the go codes and he used them to trick the guards into thinking this was some internal security matter).

[ggodo]

I had S-K send my players to the moon to fight a dissonant Technomancer and his paragon: Insane Wolf. The techno and sprite took over all the drones on the base, which was actually an Orichalcum mine, killed most of the rest of the staff, and started writing creepy things on the walls with blood. The players found the Techno first, assumed he was a civilian, and defended him from all the attempts by Insane Wolf to rescue his primary follower in meat space. Eventually the party splits up, most of the combat heavy guys go to look for another civilian, leaving the hacker, a gunbunny, a mage, one civilian, and the Techno.

Hacker goes full VR to investigate why the drones went nuts, and Insane Wolf sends Machine Sprites in assorted mining drones while attacking the hacker in cybercombat. The mage and gunbunny get taken out by the mining fire hydrant drone after getting a few kills, the hacker gets beaten within an inch of his life before he smacks the sprite into bits, jacks out to find his defenders unconcious, the techno holding a bloody knife over the corpse of the other civilian. The hacker spends edge, defaults on unarmed combat to shock hand the the Techno, who crit fails his dodge and fails the save to not collapse. The the rest of the team arrives to find the hacker crumpled against the wall. "What the hell happened!?" "I got 'em."

[DMiller]

@ggodo - Wow that sounds like something I could see happening to our group. Our GM is pretty twisted. I love it!

-D

[Hound]

IMO Hacker/TM is one of the hardest roles for most people to get their heads around, especially those who are new to SR. I generally recommend a new group have at least one good Hacker contact, but skip it as a player character. That way, I can still use the contact to show them things that a hacker can do, without having to worry about them feeling left out/useless.

It's important to be very creative as a hacker. The gun bunny basically knows what his primary role is going to be in any given run (shoot things that move, blow up things that are in the way, etc.) but for hackers it is extremely variable. It also depends a lot on the GM, I hate it when GMs are like "well, the place you're breaking into is controlled by a cult of mages, so obviously there would be nothing important in the node." When you get down to it, things like door locks, security cameras and other sensors are always going to be the cheapest form of effective security, so basically everyone is going to use wireless tech in some way.

However, I never allow the hacking of cyberware, unless it is specially modified. It doesn't make any sense to make the actual function of cyberware wirelessly accessible. Anything that is DNI and has no reason to access the Matrix is immune to hacking in my games.

Also, Puck was a Technomancer who helped one of the nastier AIs at some point, or contributed to one of the Matrix Crashes, if I remember correctly.

[Warlordtheft]

IMO Hacker/TM is one of the hardest roles for most people to get their heads around, especially those who are new to SR. I generally recommend a new group have at least one good Hacker contact, but skip it as a player character. That way, I can still use the contact to show them things that a hacker can do, without having to worry about them feeling left out/useless.

Also, Puck was a Technomancer who helped one of the nastier AIs at some point, or contributed to one of the Matrix Crashes, if I remember correctly.

Hound, I understand that sentiment but IMO think it is best if the group start with one. You don't learn except by doing it. The key thing for a GM is to help the player understand their options.


PS: Last noted Puck was an MCT test subject.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif)

PSPS:Where is Renny (who is in his 20's or 30's now) who used to live in a house on the matrix? And is Dr. Halberstein (who'd be pushing 80) still kicking?

[CanRay]

PSPS: And is Dr. Halberstein (who'd be pushing 80) still kicking?

Maybe, maybe not. He's in one of the early products for 4^th Ed.

Let's see if you can find him. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[chase]

I saw that Puck is in the new Street Legends Book (I was flipping through it at my local comic book store). I didn't pick it up but it looks like a really well put together book.

It's on the list! With a lot of other shadowrun books.

I wish they would release some of the older convention modules.

[HunterHerne]

I saw that Puck is in the new Street Legends Book (I was flipping through it at my local comic book store). I didn't pick it up but it looks like a really well put together book.

It's on the list! With a lot of other shadowrun books.

I wish they would release some of the older convention modules.

Street Legends doesn't tell you anything about what happened to Puck, anyway, except to offer a cryptic message that he is no longer a captive of MCT and may be plotting something. There is also a connection to the old AI sotry line, but that is more or less the boogieman of the SR Matrix (at least IC)

[scarius]

one of the game i was running had the teams hacker lock down all signals going out of the target area and a 5 block radius, someone then called up lonestar and try to tell them what was up, the hacker redirected the call and answered it herself while having the call go onto a 3 second delay to the station cheif of loanstar, loanstar tryed to trace the call only to have the trace location tell them that the call was coming from the second in commands office.

[lunavoco]

I play Technomancer almost exclusively and I've found that it plays almost exactly like a mage from the White Wolf Mage: The Awakening games.

Give a TM time to build momentum and he'll steam roller everything. Surprise him though, and he's out of luck.

Example taken from a recent Con Experience: our party rolls into a drop off at an abandoned warehouse. There are two Street Sams outside waiting for us. As soon as we get out things get hostile and our gun bunny starts doing what he does best, spreading lead. We roll initiative. At this point I know what my role is: party buff. Don't forget the rules in SR4A about AR being used to give a bonus. I spend my actions "locking on" to the guards and passing that info to the gun bunny. He gets a +2 to his attack rolls. It's not much, but it's way better than most other things i can do. Shooting a gun with Agility + Pistols + Specialization = 6 - 8 is not a great option, and my body 2 - 4 makes gun fights really scary!

How it should have gone: We roll into the meet and sit outside in the van for 5 minutes. The Gun bunny and everyone else on my team cools their jets for a few seconds. I do some thorough hacking and cracking. I see the potentially hostile street sams and break into their PANs, maybe plant a machine sprite or two. My favorite is to set up restart or lockup scripts on smart guns. When the dreck hits the fan i broadcast the command and all smart guns i've hacked restart. Nothing like shutting down return fire before it starts.

Alternatively, you can also set up false info to feed the smartgun's sensors. Don't forget that you can edit full trideo -on the fly- with decent edit rolls. Bad smartgun data should remove the smartgun bonus AND apply a penalty.

The problem with TM is that most things you -want- to do aren't expressly spelled out in RAW, but any GM who's primary concern is ensuring that the game is fun will be able to work with you.

PS: Threading: learn it backwards and forwards. Memorize it. I use it all the time.

(Edit: removed incorrect Eratta comment. Thanks Udoshi! Too many books, too little sleep.)

[Udoshi]

PS: Threading: learn it backwards and forwards. Memorize it. I use it all the time. Read the eratta on it. It uses Resonance + Compiling (Not Software, as per RAW.)

I don't believe there's errata for the core book. Like, that goes against everything catalyst has shown us. Link please?

Are you sure that's not a house rule?

[lunavoco]

Removed. I got schooled by Udoshi.

[thorya]

Our GM decided that all Lone Star Police had Doc Wagon Contracts and their biomonitors linked to their guns as well so that their weapons could not be used by someone else if they were incapacitated or in distress (mostly I think because our GM was confused and thought we would actually want to take and use L36's rather than our own weapons). The shit hit the fan on a run and we ended up cornered by a Lone Star Squad. Our hacker hacked all their biomonitors and suddenly all their weapons locked down. They decided that a "tactical retreat" might be in order and we got away. As an added bonus/screw you to Lone Star, five minutes after we were out of there, 6 or 7 armed DocWagon HTR trauma teams showed up at the scene and Lone Star got stuck with the bill.

[Yerameyahu]

That's a GM error. The guns can be bio-safety without being hackable in that way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

The Charisma 1, cyberpsychosis-suffering (And who knows what else he suffers from) hacker that I just played with had to be at a fancy restaurant (A steak house that actually served steak!), and had problems after problems relating to his lack of social graces. Luckily, he didn't go insane and try to kill everyone.

Leaving the restaurant, he asks the Maître D' how he liked "Dancing Queen", hacking the sound system to play that song, and only that song, increasing the sound level one notch every time. Starting at 2, and going to 11. Then reset all the security codes (He hacked Admin access) so they couldn't change it.

He'd already been banned for life...

[AStarshipforAnts]

My hacker occasionally doubled as Bait, since she was human and looked pretty vanilla. Long story short, the hacker got kidnapped and the team lost her. Before being drugged into unconsciousness, she put a copy of her agent into the car. After she came to in the middle of a pseudo surgery in an abandoned storage facility, about to have her head cut into, she panicked and called for the car (implanted comlink).

After the kidnapcar ran through the wall and flipped over onto about half the guards, she made a run for it. Also, she only had a flimsy surgery gown on, setting off the security systems and stealing all the nuyen from her kidnappers as she ran off.





Soon after, she had a terrible slap-fight with her hacker rival in an elevator. No one landed a hit for about ten-twelve rounds, and both had unarmed combat incompetence.

[CanRay]

Hacker Slappy Fight, I love it!

[AStarshipforAnts]

Eventually, they rolled out of the elevator and my hacker won by cheating with her taser. Even then, it took four rounds to land a hit. Then they both got scolded by a THIRD hacker (who's secret lair they came across) for fighting near sensitive electroni

[thorya]

That's a GM error. The guns can be bio-safety without being hackable in that way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Not surprised. We're all still fairly new to Shadowrun.