Question on Empathy software, it can't be that broken Options

[Garvel]

Well, Perception is one skill that is a bit easy to get to high dice pool levels due to all the stacking bonuses.

Esp. since it is used in opposed tests vs. Infiltration / Disguise, which are much harder to raise.

Bye
Thanee

For infiltration there are chameleon suits, visibility modifiers, the concealment power, and the fact that agility is much easier to raise than intuition.
For disguise there are implants and adeptpower that give bonusdice as well.

In the end, Perception vs. Infiltration / Disguise hasn't been a problem at our table.

So, Rating 1, 3, and 5 are ... pretty much useless, no? Why not just double the price, and then halve the max rating, instead? Same effect, less presence of uselessness.

Because:

Empathy soft ware can be used to make a Judge Intentions Test (see p. 130, SR4) for emotional status using its rating as the dice pool.

You don't want to make judge intention tests with 3 dice. Not if the average humen has 6 dice. That would make the software appear retarded. Also making it a rating 3 program would eraze the need for a rating 6 commlink and thus make the +3 modifier cheaper to get. I wanted to avoid that.

Right. So I buy an R4 Emotitoy, install R4 Covert Ops autosoft, upgrade the onboard pilot to R4, and mod it for Chameleon Skin. Now it's rolling 8 dice to hide from you, and you're at -4 dice on your perception check to see it. And I'm still getting +4 (RAW) or +2 (your houserule) social dice.

You could just put it in your pocket and feed it the view from your cybereyes over your PAN. The "Suspicious (–1)" should rather be common sense than a nerf. It is a better NPC reaction than "Johnson pulls out his gun to shoot at the Emotitoy, to be instantly riddled with bullets in return from the guns of the runnerteam" which we already had in this thread.

These houserules are supposed to be a compromise that changes the existing rules as little as possible, but still make the software ok instead of broken.
If I would make complete new rules for the Empathy Software, I would surely make the Emotitoys the same price as the software, and keep the maximum modifier at +2.
I like the houserule for teamwork tests from the software, exept for the fact that an additional diceroll slows tha game down. (I especially hate having to roll 8 times to disable one single maglock. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) ) If you would allow the Empathy Software to trade 3 to 1 in this test, it would be fine for me.

[Falconer]

To me it's just what I'm talking about though.

+perception enhancements are easy to come by and cheap.
+stealth is easy to come by and again cheaper. (once you factor in hardware costs to run the software)
Knowsofts & linguasofts instantly toss in a lot of extra dice.

Keycard copiers
As do autopickers...
Sequencers

And that's just a quick scan of the main book...

[bannockburn]

Small nitpick: Maglock passkeys use their rating in an opposed test with the lock. Not your hardware rating. As such, they are a lot less 'harmless' (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Falconer]

Yeah I realized that when I reread my post... you ninja'd me before I had editted it out though.

I meant to use the keycard copiers.

[bannockburn]

Sorry 'bout that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
My reasoning on those items is found under your previous post, though. Personal opinion, of course, nothing more.

[Falconer]

Nothing to apologize for it's a valid point. It's simply a matter of opinion. I simply see them as illustrative of the problems in the bigger system.

My least favorite system of all time though has to be SR4 TacNets... the bonuses can apply to practically everything and anything people do! That is FAR more abusive than social assistance sensor softs. (sorry I object to the silliness of a piece of software giving someone as much benefit as MbW2 on reaction-dodge test. Or giving twice as much of an AR aiming bonus as smartlinks already do, plus all the other bonuses to stealth, perception, etc. they give).


My own take is on a by the numbers approach... If you add say +4 empathy to two different dice pools... the guy rolling 6 dice nearly doubles up to 10... while the guy rolling 12 -> 16 isn't anywhere near as big an increase. (granted furby stacking is way over the top... and the idea of the toys is also rather silly).

In an opposed test... the gear is actually a bigger benefit to the non-pornomancer.
12 vs 6 dice as opposed to 16 vs 10.


I actually find concealment/stealth gear the bigger problem in the game than empathy, because it subtracts dice from others rather than adding them to the users own skill. It's a far more clumsy mechanic to work with. (as opposed to simply raising the threshold of the test by 1 for say a sneak suit).

[Garvel]

My least favorite system of all time though has to be SR4 TacNets... the bonuses can apply to practically everything and anything people do! That is FAR more abusive than social assistance sensor softs. (sorry I object to the silliness of a piece of software giving someone as much benefit as MbW2 on reaction-dodge test. Or giving twice as much of an AR aiming bonus as smartlinks already do, plus all the other bonuses to stealth, perception, etc. they give).

I agree. I usually only allow the fluff benefits from tacnet, like seeing instantly what a teammate sees, preventing friendly fire and easier shooting through walls. No dice pool boni at all.
Thats actually reason enough to buy it. Everyone that can affort it still buys it.

[Cain]

Tacnets are fairly expensive and tricky to set up, though, so they cost more for the benefit. Emotoys cost virtually nothing, don't require any setup, and their benefit never goes away. Medkits can run out of supplies, but Emotoys never even need new batteries.

[_Pax._]

Yeah, tacnets are very expensive to get beyond a piddly +1 bonus. They also tend, by their very nature, to benefit the ENTIRE party at once, so there's less intraparty balance concerns to be worried about.

I still wouldn't apply the benefits to every roll, though. I think I would grant it for Initiative and non-matrix Perception tests, no problems. Probably also to Dodge and covering-fire related tests. Finally, I'd give each player a "pool" of dice equal to the TacNet bonus, to apply however they like, during each IP.

I'd pay attention to how that was working, though, and adjust as balance needs seemed to indicate.

[FuelDrop]

The good thing about tacnets is that it's perfectly justifiable to give a low-end one to corp-sec, which improves their chances against runners who haven't got one yet.

Granted, the only runner team in the world without a tacnet is the one I'm running with, but still...

[All4BigGuns]

The good thing about tacnets is that it's perfectly justifiable to give a low-end one to corp-sec, which improves their chances against runners who haven't got one yet.

Granted, the only runner team in the world without a tacnet is the one I'm running with, but still...

The only time I bought TacSoft with a character in our group, I was the only character who had it, so it ended up being wasted.

[Garvel]

The only time I bought TacSoft with a character in our group, I was the only character who had it, so it ended up being wasted.

I hope that taught you the valuable lesson to never buy non-pirated programs. If you have a program without copyright protection, everyone in your group who needs it has the program.

(This post may or may not be completely serious (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

[FuelDrop]

I hope that taught you the valuable lesson to never buy non-pirated programs. If you have a program without copyright protection, everyone in your group who needs it has the program.

(This post may or may not be completely serious (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

Isn't that what the hacker is for? Stripping out copy protection on programs and BTLs? (Admit it, that's the real reason your team puts up with the hacker: he can get you all those free simsense movies.)

[_Pax._]

The only time I bought TacSoft with a character in our group, I was the only character who had it, so it ended up being wasted.

If everyone were willing to slave their commlinks to yours (evn just disposable 'links), you could still run a TacNet with a single copy of the program.

[All4BigGuns]

If everyone were willing to slave their commlinks to yours (evn just disposable 'links), you could still run a TacNet with a single copy of the program.

I think I was the only one that had enough sensor channels for the rating 2 Tacsoft that I had or else I'd have suggested something of the sort when I was playing the character.

[_Pax._]

Downgrudging it to R1, is still better than nothing at all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[All4BigGuns]

Downgrudging it to R1, is still better than nothing at all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

We did all right without the bonus in that game. I think I went a bit overboard with that character's ability to shoot things. I still feel dirty about its 18 dice pool with a gun...

[FuelDrop]

We did all right without the bonus in that game. I think I went a bit overboard with that character's ability to shoot things. I still feel dirty about its 18 dice pool with a gun...

You have less than 22 dice out of chargen?!? N00B! U is not L33T enough to hang out with runners.

Ok, now that that's over with, 18 dice does seem pretty decent. Automatics?

[Falconer]

No, you can very quickly and cheaply field a rating 3 tacnet for a pittance.

Especially once the costs are amortized over the whole team. One 'tacnet' helmet for each player... with some extra sensors... and you're pretty much set. (trodes, simrig, cheap commlink, camera, biomonitor... very easy to get 6-8 senses).

If you don't have enough people just upgrade one of the drones to sensor rating 6 (easily done for under a grand).

All you need is one central cheap commlink able to handle the subscriptions to slave and one copy of the software.


So while empathy software rating 6 is going to cost you 3grand IIRC (500x rating? away from book), plus the cost of a response/system 6 commlink. Tacnet level 3 is going to cost the same with some minor costs spread out across the team. There is next to no fiddly bits. And the bonuses are far more egregious than empathy ever was. Not that you probably won't want the upgraded commlink anyhow with a centrally administered for the security stuff.



And software should never add to defense and attack tests... sorry. Smartlink and smartlink enhancements like improved rangefinder/airburst should be as good as it gets. Especially when it adds more to everyone than expensive cyber/bio can!

[All4BigGuns]

You have less than 22 dice out of chargen?!? N00B! U is not L33T enough to hang out with runners.

Ok, now that that's over with, 18 dice does seem pretty decent. Automatics?

I believe it was Automatics, but the character was former military, so I figured that he'd have had more training with assault rifles than handguns.

[DeathStrobe]

This gives me an idea for a technomancer face, who can over thread the empathy soft complex form and get +12 dice to social tests. And a stream where fading is resisted by charisma. That should be able to be done, right?

[Falconer]

You'd be taking a sustaining penalty for the CF since a lot of those tests are measured in timeframes far longer than a sprite is going to be able to help you out.

Just me but I always thought that a sprite should actually need to have the CF to sustain to or boost it... not just do it for anything like it says in the main rulebook.


But in any case... a 15 minute meeting would burn through 60 services from a rating 5 sprites
...

[DeathStrobe]

So I guess you'd only get a +10 bonus instead of +12. And You might take some physical damage from fading, which also might be enough to take a dice pool hit.

[crazyconscript]

Thing is, you wouldn't actually suffer the sustaining penalty for keeping up the empathy software yourself, as the penalty only applies to tests that DO NOT use the threaded form. So you would potentially get the full +12 when socialising, but would take the -2 to everything else

[phlapjack77]

But in any case... a 15 minute meeting would burn through 60 services from a rating 5 sprites

way the registering rules are written, it's not that hard or inconceivable for a techno to have sprites like this...

can't the sprite aid in the threading, adding it's rating for a potential grand total of +18 empsoft bonus?