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SincereAgape
post Mar 11 2014, 02:28 PM
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Hi everyone, it has been awhile. I just recently flipped through the 5th edition core book and ordered it online for a potential game in the next month or two. I have a few questions regarding hackers.

1.) There is a sample battle in the 5th edition rulebook where a decker disables a gun of his attacker. This seems really powerful to me. For the intiative of this particular action (disabling cyberware, weapons, or another device), would the hacker act on their matrix initiative or on their regular initiative?

2.) Hackers in 4th edition seemed much more powerful then Technomancers in 4th and 4thA, at least at character creation with the Technomancer having the potential to catch up as they earned more karma. The matrix secton of the book is something I might not be able to look into the end of the month, so does this hold true in 5th edition? How are Technomancers able to hold up compared to a Decker.

Your help is appreciated.

Cheers!
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Kyrinthic
post Mar 11 2014, 02:57 PM
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QUOTE (SincereAgape @ Mar 11 2014, 10:28 AM) *
Hi everyone, it has been awhile. I just recently flipped through the 5th edition core book and ordered it online for a potential game in the next month or two. I have a few questions regarding hackers.

1.) There is a sample battle in the 5th edition rulebook where a decker disables a gun of his attacker. This seems really powerful to me. For the intiative of this particular action (disabling cyberware, weapons, or another device), would the hacker act on their matrix initiative or on their regular initiative?

2.) Hackers in 4th edition seemed much more powerful then Technomancers in 4th and 4thA, at least at character creation with the Technomancer having the potential to catch up as they earned more karma. The matrix secton of the book is something I might not be able to look into the end of the month, so does this hold true in 5th edition? How are Technomancers able to hold up compared to a Decker.

Your help is appreciated.

Cheers!


From what I've seen, I think the decker comes out a bit ahead on raw numbers, and programs can give some handy edges.
But the technomancer has significant advantages, especially when it comes to overwatch and stealth in general. Sprites can be an interesting boost as well, they seem better than agents, but I'm not entirely sure on that point.

Sadly, the cost of decks means that the expected advantage of a decker (ie, not having to blow his A-B pick on resonance) is less valid (since an A-B pick in resources is pretty much a requirement for a deck). The +logic bioware and programs are the only real edge they have over a technomancer. (given similar skill levels that is).

They both can definitely be competitive and viable, with noticeably different flavor.

I expect a sourcebook for the matrix that includes more programs and custom ware/decks, as well as more complex forms and sprites, will help to define these flavors, as the current selections for the above feel somewhat limited so far.
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Lobo0705
post Mar 11 2014, 03:12 PM
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QUOTE (SincereAgape @ Mar 11 2014, 10:28 AM) *
Hi everyone, it has been awhile. I just recently flipped through the 5th edition core book and ordered it online for a potential game in the next month or two. I have a few questions regarding hackers.

1.) There is a sample battle in the 5th edition rulebook where a decker disables a gun of his attacker. This seems really powerful to me. For the intiative of this particular action (disabling cyberware, weapons, or another device), would the hacker act on their matrix initiative or on their regular initiative?

2.) Hackers in 4th edition seemed much more powerful then Technomancers in 4th and 4thA, at least at character creation with the Technomancer having the potential to catch up as they earned more karma. The matrix secton of the book is something I might not be able to look into the end of the month, so does this hold true in 5th edition? How are Technomancers able to hold up compared to a Decker.

Your help is appreciated.

Cheers!


1) If the decker is not completely VR (i.e. his body is not lapsed in a comatose state), he uses his meat initiative. If he is in VR, he would use his matrix initiative. The example in the book of the decker standing there looking at the guy with the gun would have the decker use his meat initiative.

2) It is the general consensus that in 5e Technomancers suck, and that if you want to use the Matrix, be a decker. I am only reporting the general consensus, as I dislike Technomancers, and so have not yet read the 5e rules for them.
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SincereAgape
post Mar 11 2014, 06:34 PM
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QUOTE (Lobo0705 @ Mar 11 2014, 10:12 AM) *
1) If the decker is not completely VR (i.e. his body is not lapsed in a comatose state), he uses his meat initiative. If he is in VR, he would use his matrix initiative. The example in the book of the decker standing there looking at the guy with the gun would have the decker use his meat initiative.

2) It is the general consensus that in 5e Technomancers suck, and that if you want to use the Matrix, be a decker. I am only reporting the general consensus, as I dislike Technomancers, and so have not yet read the 5e rules for them.



1.) Thanks. That is what I was thinking. In a stand up firefight, the decker would have to use his meat iniative his first round to get into AR then starting in the next combat round, if trying to disable devices would use their matrix iniative/

2.) technomancers were def gimped compared to hackers/deckers in 4th edition. i was hoping that 5th edition leveled the playing field. someone in other forum put it this way, technomancers are like adapts and deckers are like the street samurai. different way of doing things, but the end result is the same goal.
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Lobo0705
post Mar 11 2014, 06:40 PM
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QUOTE (SincereAgape @ Mar 11 2014, 01:34 PM) *
1.) In a stand up firefight, the decker would have to use his meat iniative his first round to get into AR then starting in the next combat round, if trying to disable devices would use their matrix iniative/


Not really. It makes a lot of sense for deckers (and indeed many other characters) to walk around in AR at all times. Thematically, I think the idea is that most people DO walk around accessing AR all the time.

You use your meat initiative in AR - so assuming the decker's physical initiative is higher than the samurai's, he could brick the samurai's gun (or at least attempt to) right away. He would not gain the +2 dice for being in VR.

Now, this also supposes the samurai doesn't have his gun's icon running silent (which there is no reason for him NOT to do). If it is running silent, then the first thing the decker would need to do is a Matrix Perception to find the icon. Then attack it.
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SincereAgape
post Mar 11 2014, 06:46 PM
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QUOTE (Lobo0705 @ Mar 11 2014, 01:40 PM) *
Not really. It makes a lot of sense for deckers (and indeed many other characters) to walk around in AR at all times. Thematically, I think the idea is that most people DO walk around accessing AR all the time.

You use your meat initiative in AR - so assuming the decker's physical initiative is higher than the samurai's, he could brick the samurai's gun (or at least attempt to) right away. He would not gain the +2 dice for being in VR.

Now, this also supposes the samurai doesn't have his gun's icon running silent (which there is no reason for him NOT to do). If it is running silent, then the first thing the decker would need to do is a Matrix Perception to find the icon. Then attack it.


Makes a bit more sense.

But when does matrix iniative come into a situation like this, if at all? If jacked into VR, would they act on their matrix initiative in order to conduct a matrix perception test? And then act on their matrix iniative to disable the gun? There would be a huge shift of balance if this would be true.
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Lobo0705
post Mar 11 2014, 07:07 PM
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QUOTE (SincereAgape @ Mar 11 2014, 01:46 PM) *
Makes a bit more sense.

But when does matrix iniative come into a situation like this, if at all? If jacked into VR, would they act on their matrix initiative in order to conduct a matrix perception test? And then act on their matrix iniative to disable the gun? There would be a huge shift of balance if this would be true.



If they went into VR, then their body would collapse like a puppet with their strings cut. They can't be moving around in the physical world while they are in VR.
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SincereAgape
post Mar 11 2014, 07:15 PM
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QUOTE (Lobo0705 @ Mar 11 2014, 03:07 PM) *
If they went into VR, then their body would collapse like a puppet with their strings cut. They can't be moving around in the physical world while they are in VR.


Ah, gotcha. There is the rub. That makes sense. Upon reading the example in the book where the decker disabled the gangers weapon, I thought "Dang that is powerful ability." Then understanding that AR = Meat Iniative and then VR = matrix iniative but high vulnerbility in the meat world.
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FuelDrop
post Mar 11 2014, 09:46 PM
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Did the math on technomancers in 5th and AT BEST you're going to end up on par with a mediocre Decker. You're initially limited by your mental attributes, normally forcing you to take A and B priorities in Resonance and Attributes and even then likely dumping most physical stats to get your vital mental stats soft/hard maxed across the board. You have more skills to cover than an average decker and less resources to do it with, you can't get logic-boosting 'ware without hindering your resonance and won't have the cash for it anyway, getting programs is karma-intensive and comes at the exclusion of boosting your matrix attributes and may not be possible during chargen (see your GM), your complex forms are far too expensive to use regularly and tend to be fairly meh in many cases...

yeah, there are one or two flaws with them.
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Moirdryd
post Mar 11 2014, 10:11 PM
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Ran up my first proper SR5 game tonight, instead of the Houserule test tweaks. Technomancer was surprisingly good (granted we are using my Houserules with TMs making fading 2pts less) with his CFs bypassing the need to be on the same grid and even the public grid penalty. Okay all he did was throw up a Resonance Veil to broadcast a Fake SIN for being downtown (this char is a barrens "otaku family" ganger, so didn't even afford a fake SIN) to get into Penumbra (and for a few other things, running a Focussed Concerntration). Then he Editored the Weapon detector so it'd miss his illegal and hidden handgun. No Overwatch score, no Matrix activity. Not bad.
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RHat
post Mar 11 2014, 10:47 PM
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The simplest rundown of the balance:

As a decker, you need 3 attributes and 4-6 skills to fulfill your role. As a technomancer, that's 5 and 6-9. In exchange for these higher dependencies, you're less flexible in and out of the Matrix, less powerful in the Matrix, you spiral down rapidly over the course of the run as the completely ridiculous Fading codes and Matrix-Damage-to-Stun meaning you have rapidly stacking wound penalties and can quite easily run out of gas way too early, any spider in the world can on-shot you by loading a Blackout program...

Moirdryd: So just how much Fading did he incur for what should be a very normal-course-of-events, pre-run task?
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SpellBinder
post Mar 11 2014, 11:23 PM
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Reminded me of the time I tried making a decker and technomancer on par with each other during character generation. I pretty much never finished that when the decker still had money to burn and the technomancer was like an extra 17 karma in the hole for cash alone. Attributes wise they were potentially equal in the matrix (considering the extra flexibility the cyberdeck has over the living persona), but that's also before considering the accessory software that a decker can call upon.

Then another thought came to mind, a friend's SR5 game that he ran. Out of the characters that cycled through there was among them a troll adept and more than one magician. Even two deckers made the rounds in that game (the first one's idea of combat decking being using an automatic shotgun with APDS instead of a data spike). When I asked him about technomancers, not one character was one.
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RHat
post Mar 11 2014, 11:37 PM
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QUOTE (SincereAgape @ Mar 11 2014, 08:28 AM) *
2.) Hackers in 4th edition seemed much more powerful then Technomancers in 4th and 4thA, at least at character creation with the Technomancer having the potential to catch up as they earned more karma. The matrix secton of the book is something I might not be able to look into the end of the month, so does this hold true in 5th edition? How are Technomancers able to hold up compared to a Decker.


You know, I do have to go back to this point, because there is an issue with it - technomancers, at least if you really know what you were doing, were very, very powerful in the Matrix, and very flexible in that domain, due to what you could do with threading. The balance on this was the absence of meatspace flexibility, which the mundane hacker had in spades.
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Moirdryd
post Mar 11 2014, 11:40 PM
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None at all RHat, I think he would have taken one or two without the Houserules (which is why I wrote them).
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RHat
post Mar 11 2014, 11:44 PM
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QUOTE (Moirdryd @ Mar 11 2014, 05:40 PM) *
None at all RHat, I think he would have taken one or two without the Houserules (which is why I wrote them).


The reduction's a good start, yeah - though to my way of thinking there's a number of them that are at least 4 points higher than they have any right to be, Puppeteer especially. Now I'm kind of curious about what the Fading values he was soaking were, precisely, but I don't imagine you recall that.
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Jack VII
post Mar 11 2014, 11:50 PM
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@Moirdryd: That sounds pretty cool. Although, what device was the target of the Resonance Veil? It seems like you would have to re-thread it every time you encountered a new device that might check for a SIN. I really like the Editor usage, that's pretty sexy.
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Moirdryd
post Mar 11 2014, 11:55 PM
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Well, running at the fading values being 2pts lower his Resonance Veil was running at Level 3 (Focus Concentration) Which was beating the average of 6-8 dice for most of the systems looking at it. So with a modified FV he was only having to soak 2S there. The Editor he soaked at FV5 (would have been 7 in RAW) with a good roll on his 10dice.
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Moirdryd
post Mar 11 2014, 11:57 PM
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It's a sustained CF Jack, so I test each device seperately against his Net suxx on the threading (3 in this instance which is as high as he can Focus Con sustain for free).
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Jack VII
post Mar 12 2014, 12:04 AM
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QUOTE (Moirdryd @ Mar 11 2014, 06:57 PM) *
It's a sustained CF Jack, so I test each device seperately against his Net suxx on the threading (3 in this instance which is as high as he can Focus Con sustain for free).

Hmmm... OK, I don't read the CF that way, but if it works for y'all go for it. I do like your version better, but I tend to think that TMs are underpowered.
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Moirdryd
post Mar 12 2014, 12:22 AM
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True. But Threading is systemically identical to Spellcasting so I've just used the same rules as a sustained spell for a sustained CF for when it encounters a new 'target'.
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Jack VII
post Mar 12 2014, 12:30 AM
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QUOTE (Moirdryd @ Mar 11 2014, 06:22 PM) *
True. But Threading is systemically identical to Spellcasting so I've just used the same rules as a sustained spell for a sustained CF for when it encounters a new 'target'.

Do you allow your TMs to thread Diffusion of X and have it affect every device the TM encounters? What's the range? That would certainly bring TMs into alignment with deckers. I just don't think it works that way. If CFs had "area affect" descriptions, I think it could work (like Phantasm). Alternately, if Resonance Veil was a Self targeted CF, I think it could work that way if the CF was rewritten a bit.
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Sendaz
post Mar 12 2014, 12:49 AM
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While it is sustained, it seems like this is a single target effect not unlike Control Actions, nothing in the description indicates that it affects an area or more than one device.
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Moirdryd
post Mar 12 2014, 12:55 AM
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Nope, I don't. I was working more with the Concept of sustained Illusions (like phantasm) as Resonance Veil creates a matrix illusion. Granted it doesn't read quite the way I've chosen to interpret it, but it just kind of made sense.
However I do like the idea of a CF that targets Multiple devices for diffusion.
I'd have Range as Host or Detected Icons with a maximum number effected = Resonance. That makes TM's nasty vs things like IC and enemy Deckers with Agents.

Be very curious to see what happens in Data Trails.
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RHat
post Mar 12 2014, 01:05 AM
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Actually, it would be interesting if Resonance Veil effected devices up to Level, but it was the devices the illusion was upon, rather than the observing devices - there's too many devices out there for the latter.
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Jaid
post Mar 12 2014, 05:18 PM
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it is worth noting that in the case where the technomancer hacked a weapon detector, there are a few things to consider:

1) it is likely that a decker could have done the same thing with higher dice pools, and depending on willingness to be an adept, significantly higher dice pools.
2) overwatch on a task like this is not a concern. you just reboot, and bye-bye overwatch. overwatch is only really a concern for deckers if you have a compelling reason to not reboot. in this case, there doesn't appear to have been any need to continue hacking or to hold onto marks on that weapon detector.

with that said, cutting down on fading costs would certainly make the technomancer at least somewhat competitive. i'm not sure an across-the-board decrease would be needed, some need it far more than others.
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