SR5: Slaving from comlinks, Questions generated from a run Options

[Redjack]

So I've started running an game in SR5 (will post summary in another thread) and some clarifying questions have arisen:

Smartgun slaved to comlink. Comlink slaved to deck. Deck has a limit of 12 (DR(=4) x 3) devices. Is the smartgun protected? If so, does this count against deck's limit of slaved devices? Or can you simply cascade into eternity with slaved devices?

[Jaid]

if you can cascade into eternity, there's no point in having a maximum number of slaves per device.

but when you consider what slaving is, it should be self-evident that you can't have a slave device also be a master at all. slaving a device basically means that all the decision-making happens at the master device. so if you have device A that passes everything along to device B which passes everything along to device C, the net result is that device A is in fact simply passing everything along to device C through a slightly more indirect route.

if you want the smartgun to benefit from the deck's attributes, the only way it can do that is to slave the smartgun.

[Mugzy]

I see where you are going with this and it's a good question.

From what I can tell, the device that gains the bonus, only gains the bonus to its defense based on the device it is directly slaved to.

Thus, in your example, your smartgun slaved to the commlink would use the commlink's stats to defend itself with, as that is what the smartgun is interacting with. The commlink, if directly attacked, would use the deck's rating because the commlink is slaved to the deck. That's how I see the rules anyway.

I think of it like input/output ports. The smartgun is on one port of the commlink. This commlink can output its protection to the smartgun. The commlink is on another port of the deck, so the deck can output its protection on the commlink directly. Another way to look at it, is that the deck can only incorporate so many devices, regardless of network structure.

It's really not clear, but I'd rule that only the direct device you are slaved to is providing its normal defense dice regardless of the other devices slaved. It kind of makes the number of devices you can slave to a deck kind of pointless if you can daisy chain everything.

[Epicedion]

If you want to get gritty, you can slave the smartlink to the commlink and the commlink to the deck, but the deck's protection only extends to the commlink. The smartlink only gets the commlink's protection.

[Redjack]

if you can cascade into eternity, there's no point in having a maximum number of slaves per device.

Agreed. but I have to address some of the silliness that is SR5 matrix rules, the first being that to be protected you really must have a decker. After two game nights now, we are seeing some glaring holes here.

but when you consider what slaving is, it should be self-evident that you can't have a slave device also be a master at all.

I would ask that you not use terms like self-evident as I would say the rules are not self-evident. For example, it has been stated in multiple places that to protect your comlink, you need it slaved to the decker's deck. Are you suggesting that a slaved comlink cannot in turn have any slaves?

slaving a device basically means that all the decision-making happens at the master device. so if you have device A that passes everything along to device B which passes everything along to device C, the net result is that device A is in fact simply passing everything along to device C through a slightly more indirect route.

I would suggest that this is what you hypothesize that this is what occurs. You may be correct, you may not.

if you want the smartgun to benefit from the deck's attributes, the only way it can do that is to slave the smartgun.

So what about a case of 8 runners with one decker. The deck has a limit of 12 (DR(=4) x 3) devices. Drop on 8 firearms and only four of the comlinks are protected. What about the other 3? Vehicles? Extra weapons? Drones? Other gear?

[Epicedion]

So what about a case of 8 runners with one decker. The deck has a limit of 12 (DR(=4) x 3) devices. Drop on 8 firearms and only four of the comlinks are protected. What about the other 3? Vehicles? Extra weapons? Drones? Other gear?

That's a huge-ass group of runners, and they should probably hire another decker if they want to run that many folks.

[Sendaz]

Decking is a lot like making love.

Always better with a partner. Preferably one that fits well with your equipment.

Can still be interesting as a threesome or even a foursome if they all get along and work together.

Beyond that just gets messy.

[Jaid]

or, you could just not leave a ton of things online. i mean, what do you *need* your commlink online for? is your character completely incapable of hitting without the +2 from smartlink, or is it just a nice little extra that helps?

it also helps if you get rid of the really stupid wireless bonuses and make them make sense. for example, the idea that sending a signal out through the matrix then back to your hazmat suit being faster than just sending the signal to your hazmat suit... that's just stupid. and there are many others just like it.

but really, i'm far from convinced that having a decker protect your gear is the best option. in all likelihood, your decker will wind up spending most of his/her time erasing marks and using full defense, when you're more likely to get interesting results from having your decker go on the offense.

just as one example of why this isn't a good idea, consider that as soon as an enemy decker gets a single mark on any piece of gear protected by the decker, the mark propagates to the master, and then to all the slaves. all of a sudden, a single device getting a mark means that your decker is going to have to spend hide actions to conceal them again.

[HugeC]

P. 233 is clear that if you get a mark on a slaved device, you also get a mark on the master, but it doesn't say that having a mark on the master gives you a mark on every slave. In the example on p. 271, Spike gets a mark on Driver's drone, which gives him a mark on Driver's RCC too, but it doesn't say he gets one on all the other drones.

[SpellBinder]

So what about a case of 8 runners with one decker. The deck has a limit of 12 (DR(=4) x 3) devices. Drop on 8 firearms and only four of the comlinks are protected. What about the other 3? Vehicles? Extra weapons? Drones? Other gear?

Save money and slave everything to Transys Avalons. DR 6 & ¥5,000 a pop. If it's an extended game, substitute for Fairlight Calibans for DR 7 & ¥8,000 each; short of running a program you've now got a Firewall equal to what a Sony CIY-720 is capable of for a fraction of the cost.

[Redjack]

That's a huge-ass group of runners, and they should probably hire another decker if they want to run that many folks.

That is not a realistic solution. The issue occurs even with the decker as one of a team of six.

or, you could just not leave a ton of things online. i mean, what do you *need* your commlink online for?

That also is simply not realistic.

it also helps if you get rid of the really stupid wireless bonuses and make them make sense.

Now you are going against the grain of SR5. I would prefer to understand how the developers *intended* this solution to be resolved.

you're more likely to get interesting results from having your decker go on the offense.

Granted, but our decker posed the question to me as I (as the GM) am trying to help him learn to play the decker, both as the offensive and defensive roles.

Save money and slave everything to Transys Avalons. DR 6 & ¥5,000 a pop. If it's an extended game, substitute for Fairlight Calibans for DR 7 & ¥8,000 each; short of running a program you've now got a Firewall equal to what a Sony CIY-720 is capable of for a fraction of the cost.

Hmm... Ok. This actually doesn't seem like a bad solution. What are me missing by having the master be a comlink instead of a slave? Does the decker miss anything by slaving his deck to a comlink?

[Skynet]

(...)
Hmm... Ok. This actually doesn't seem like a bad solution. What are me missing by having the master be a comlink instead of a slave? Does the decker miss anything by slaving his deck to a comlink?

The commlink has no sleaze-attribute. So running silent will only work as long as noone looks for hidden icons.
As for slaving a deck to a commlink: That seems like a valid, yet cheap way of pushing Data Processing and Firewall without sacrificing Attack and Sleaze. With the only downside of not being able to hide your commlink through your deck.
I don't think this was intended though (why the hell do decks have such low device ratings in comparison anyway?).

[Redjack]

The commlink has no sleaze-attribute. So running silent will only work as long as noone looks for hidden icons.

Defaulting to logic for running silent is not working for the goons very well against the team's hacker and technomancer.

As for slaving a deck to a commlink: That seems like a valid, yet cheap way of pushing Data Processing and Firewall without sacrificing Attack and Sleaze. With the only downside of not being able to hide your commlink through your deck.

Sleaze was the only thing I could think of.

I don't think this was intended though (why the hell do decks have such low device ratings in comparison anyway?).

Agreed. Necessity is the mother of invention though... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Epicedion]

Your goons should be slaving their gear to a host and using its Sleaze to cover them. Unless they're really underfunded street gang goons, in which case sucks to be them.

Local police, for example, should be working off a Rating 4-5 host, which should probably provide 4-6 points of Sleaze depending on how they configure it. I would actually expect Sleaze to be pretty low on the police priority list, though, really. They should be taking advantage of Firewall 7-8, as well.

[Skynet]

Your goons should be slaving their gear to a host and using its Sleaze to cover them. Unless they're really underfunded street gang goons, in which case sucks to be them.

Local police, for example, should be working off a Rating 4-5 host, which should probably provide 4-6 points of Sleaze depending on how they configure it. I would actually expect Sleaze to be pretty low on the police priority list, though, really. They should be taking advantage of Firewall 7-8, as well.

Slaving mobile devices to a host is a quick way to compromise it: One stolen commlink (or whatever is slaved to the host, preferrably with low firewall), one direct connection via universal connector and a few moments later you have 3 marks on the host.

[Epicedion]

Slaving mobile devices to a host is a quick way to compromise it: One stolen commlink (or whatever is slaved to the host, preferrably with low firewall), one direct connection via universal connector and a few moments later you have 3 marks on the host.

If the host literally exists to make gear more secure, what's the problem? Is there any reason to put secure data on the same host as your security guards' gear?

[Skynet]

I can't answer that, since there is currently no mention of how costly it is to maintain a host.
But allowing every security goon to slave his devices to a high rating host, while there isn't even a way for runners to aquire a host is something i would consider somewhat one-sided (and defeats the whole purpose of the wireless-enabled world to make deckers more involved in combat (imo)).

[Epicedion]

I can't answer that, since there is currently no mention of how costly it is to maintain a host.
But allowing every security goon to slave his devices to a high rating host, while there isn't even a way for runners to aquire a host is something i would consider somewhat one-sided (and defeats the whole purpose of the wireless-enabled world to make deckers more involved in combat (imo)).

I'm guessing that a host is quite expensive to build and maintain.

It's not one-sided, it's just simple security. The Downtown Seattle cops should have a Downtown Seattle Cop Security Host to help protect their stuff. This is probably still way cheaper than assigning competent deckers to individual squads. Runner teams can get similar benefits from slaving their gear to a deck, in a somewhat more limited capacity, so it's not all that one-sided.

This base level of security might stifle the neophyte decker, with Logic 3 and Cybercombat 4 and running a relatively cheap deck, but it's not going to crimp the starting player dedicated decker too much -- high level corp security might be running their gear on a rating 8 host with 11 Firewall and be hard targets (which they should be), but walkabout security won't get much benefit over a decently rated commlink.

[kerbarian]

The commlink has no sleaze-attribute. So running silent will only work as long as noone looks for hidden icons.
As for slaving a deck to a commlink: That seems like a valid, yet cheap way of pushing Data Processing and Firewall without sacrificing Attack and Sleaze. With the only downside of not being able to hide your commlink through your deck.
I don't think this was intended though (why the hell do decks have such low device ratings in comparison anyway?).

Slaving your deck to a Transys Avalon commlink does seem like the way to go most of the time. You can cheaply get Firewall 6 that way for defense tests, though not for damage resistance or other purposes. I don't see how you can take advantage of the commlink's Data Processing, though, since it's not used in defense tests -- switching to your commlink to take (for example) a Matrix Perception action would require rebooting both devices.

Having the commlink as the master does leave it without Sleaze to help with avoiding detection, but you can use Wrapper to make your commlink look like a stealth RFID tag -- not especially suspicious if someone spots it running silent.

[KarmaInferno]

Honestly, whether or not you can daisy-chain master-slave links in SR5 is a good question that needs a FAQ answer, because the way the rules are written, it seems that whoever wrote them did not consider that scenario.





-k

[Voran]

In a general sense slaving your stuff to a commlink isn't necessarily bad, as long as you have a decent commlink. At lower 'wage slave' levels, yeah its not much better than not slaving stuff, but ponying up 8k for a 13-14 dice pool commlink (device+firewall+encryption program) would be sufficient for keeping away the posers and lowbies. Heck in some cases its equal to if not superior to dice pool of starting decker runners.

[SpellBinder]

Remembering that programs, regardless of how cheap they are in the nuyen department, are exclusive to cyberdecks. Commlinks have been handwaved to say "you're too weak to handle programs now."

[Voran]

Remembering that programs, regardless of how cheap they are in the nuyen department, are exclusive to cyberdecks. Commlinks have been handwaved to say "you're too weak to handle programs now."

Tho it seems kinda silly that you can't run 'common programs' which tend to just affect Data Processing and Firewall, on your commlink. Given that's the only 2 rating they have anymore. I mean, where the hell is the actual market if all cyberdecks, even the crappiest ones, are restricted ware?

[SpellBinder]

Maybe Restricted gear, but the lower end ones aren't any more difficult to get a hold of than the majority of the handguns listed.

[Epicedion]

Tho it seems kinda silly that you can't run 'common programs' which tend to just affect Data Processing and Firewall, on your commlink. Given that's the only 2 rating they have anymore. I mean, where the hell is the actual market if all cyberdecks, even the crappiest ones, are restricted ware?

Commlinks are assumed to run whatever basic software they need to do whatever they do. Common programs aren't required to do specific tasks -- actually no program is required for any specific task -- they just provide some boost.

So a commlink can do a matrix search, but a cyberdeck with a Browse program can do a matrix search much faster because it's dedicating some extra juice (its "extra juice" comes in the form of program slots). A commlink can still edit files, but adding in an Edit program (+2 to Data Processing limit for Edit actions) would be too taxing to the commlink's Data Processing to provide a net benefit. Commlinks are already packed with as much noise reduction as they can process, so Signal Scrub wouldn't help (or would actively hinder).

The point is that commlinks don't need programs. Their benefits are already tied up in higher Data Processing and Firewall ratings than most cyberdecks can offer, at fractions of the price. A 5000 nuyen rating 6 commlink (Data Processing 6, Firewall 6) can outperform the 123,000 nuyen Hermes Chariot running Encryption and Toolbox, if all you care about is Data Processing and Firewall.