[X] My Assistant

[Blade]

If they had nothing to do, they were not trying hard enough. My Cyberlogician was always inundated with tasks in SR4, and nary an attack on cyberware was there to be seen on that list...

Indeed, the problems I had, especially as a GM, was that hackers had too many things to do in combat, and more to the point that it took them far too many dice rolls (and quite often too many IPs) to do any of them.

[hermit]

Point taken. Let me precise it: somewhere in the chain between playtesters, authors and dev something went really wrong.

I can get behind that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[SpellBinder]

Indeed, the problems I had, especially as a GM, was that hackers had too many things to do in combat, and more to the point that it took them far too many dice rolls (and quite often too many IPs) to do any of them.

In the first Denver mission module the team encounters mafia hacker Dean Costello, who tries to initiate cyber combat with the team when things go sour. Last time I ran it for a party the face/technomancer pulled a gun and shot at him (piss poor skill and still actually scored an impressive hit); I had to pull some [legal] handwavium to make sure he didn't get killed in running away. Needless to say, when Dean showed up again in another mission he was not well liked.

[Smash]

Indeed, the problems I had, especially as a GM, was that hackers had too many things to do in combat, and more to the point that it took them far too many dice rolls (and quite often too many IPs) to do any of them.

The problem with hackers has never really been about how much you can do, it's how much fun it is. While in 4th you could on occassion hack a forklift and use it to ram something or use environmental conrols to starve a room of oxygen, the majority of the things you're doing is turning lights on/off or openning/closing doors. While providing tactical advantage there's something to be said about direct actions over indirect actions. It's why almost every campaign (no need to state that yours is not, trust me it's the exception) is always heavy on for magicians, adepts and samurais, but generally light on for deckers, riggers, faces, etc. Generally each group has one sap who resigns to doing those jobs because they'd rather play than not,

There's something that's always been more appealing to Shadowrun players about shooting a gun or swinging a sword at bad guys. While a Decker can still do these things, they're not going to be very good at it (unless they're not particularly good at Decking). Giving them something that mimicks attacks that uses their skillset helps solve that.

[KCKitsune]

The problem with hackers has never really been about how much you can do, it's how much fun it is. While in 4th you could on occassion hack a forklift and use it to ram something or use environmental conrols to starve a room of oxygen, the majority of the things you're doing is turning lights on/off or openning/closing doors. While providing tactical advantage there's something to be said about direct actions over indirect actions. It's why almost every campaign (no need to state that yours is not, trust me it's the exception) is always heavy on for magicians, adepts and samurais, but generally light on for deckers, riggers, faces, etc. Generally each group has one sap who resigns to doing those jobs because they'd rather play than not,

There's something that's always been more appealing to Shadowrun players about shooting a gun or swinging a sword at bad guys. While a Decker can still do these things, they're not going to be very good at it (unless they're not particularly good at Decking). Giving them something that mimicks attacks that uses their skillset helps solve that.

Sorry Smash, if that's all you think hackers can do then I don't think you're playing them right.

You can always take control of any drones that security might send against you. Also you can hack into the opposition's comm network and have them run around like they were extras in a Monty Python skit. You can also make the enemy ambush their own security forces by changing the IFF on one group.

If you want to be extra sneaky, you can hack an account into the system and make it seem that your group (appropriately dressed of course) is SUPPOSE to be there. That would allow you to get through most of the security mooks without a single shot being fired.


One thing that IS needed for hackers in Shadowrun is that they need to be able to hack things faster. Taking 10 rounds to hack simple things is too damn long.

[Sendaz]

One thing that IS needed for hackers in Shadowrun is that they need to be able to hack things faster. Taking 10 rounds to hack simple things is too damn long.

This right here is the main issue.

But it is a hard balance to make as if they make it too fast/easy to hack, a good decker or TM will OWN everything in a heavy tech environment.

[Glyph]

There's something that's always been more appealing to Shadowrun players about shooting a gun or swinging a sword at bad guys. While a Decker can still do these things, they're not going to be very good at it (unless they're not particularly good at Decking). Giving them something that mimicks attacks that uses their skillset helps solve that.

I preferred SR4's approach, where roles didn't demand quite as much in the way of skills and resources, and you saw more hybrid builds that could hack or face and fight. I'll be honest, though - even in SR5, I would still rather invest in a decent gun skill and a heavy pistol than use bricking (or leadership, for a face) in a fight.

[apple]

the majority of the things you're doing is turning lights on/off or openning/closing doors.

So your game master does not use (for his NPCs):
- Tacnets (manipulated by edit)?
- Radio/Wifi Communication (manipulated by edit)?
- Support drones (hackable, corruptable)?
- SimSense/DNI controlled commlinks (hackable and spammable)?
- Wifi enabled equipment for incompentent NPCs?

Well ... perhaps you are looking at the problem from the wrong side?

but generally light on for deckers, riggers, faces, etc.

Partially depending on the quality of rules for riggers and deckers in SR123 (especially 3). If you have a background in "awesome archetype but your rule subsystem sucks" you will not be appreciated immediately in a new edition. But when it comes to the integration of ab abstract matrix rule set combined with real world interaction during combat, there is only one rule system I can only recommend to check out: Cyberpunk 2020, second edition.

(to quickly sum up: real world mass hacking was 1 or 2 actions and you would hack every item in a radius of several hundred meters and could use it again the enemy, net hacking were indeed moving in "computer rooms" with a pseudo physical layout: http://www.abload.de/img/militech_netzwf1u.jpg , where firewalls were real walls and both netrunner and ICE moved around with a predetermined speed per round - like an infiltrator sneaking in, evading guard)

Everything SR5 tried and failed to achieve is found there: an abstract rule system for net runs and a clear and FAST combat/interaction system for real world combats. Netrunners in CP2020 were awesome. Because the designers thought about integration of members in the very basic design of the rules and the game. They even include text sessions for exactly this problem: how to integrate netrunners into combat with tips for GMs and players. Hell, even the computer games Shadowrun Returns: Dead Man Triggers & Dragonfall recognized that and implemented a real cyberspace and not simply a number array. SR4 only hat 2 (major) issues: the extended test system (but in the end it doe snot make much of a difference if you have to roll 4 times for an extended test or 4 times to get the marks up to the necessary stack= and the incomplete scalability of computer systems until WAR! (perhaps the only thing WAR did right).

And I wonder why the same argumentation does not count for faces? I still miss the rules for "I call you a homobophic faggot" and you have to roll damage resistance for the slurs I throw at you. I mean if you want a rule system completely disconnected from reality and believability and make every archetype being able to kill things in combat with their subrule system: why exactly don´t we have racial slurs with an assault cannon damage code? After all the authors accept any kind of nonsense as a rule system without any claim for quality, playability or making sense in any way (because abstract rule design seems to be the perfect excuse for online silencers these days).

And yes, don´t we all want faces killing enemies just by yelling at them? What makes them so special that deckers have the right to kill people with decking rules but faces cannot kill by calling them ISIS terrorists?

Giving them something that mimicks attacks that uses their skillset helps solve that.

But it doesnt work out very well if you want to dive in into a believable world. The sad thing is: SR5 had all the things already prepared and integrated on how the hacker could have interacted during combat with awesome things without falling back to things like online silencers, online fingers, online batons or online air tanks.

Perhaps you want to take a look here: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...c=40095&hl=

I firmly believe that this would fit into Shadowrun. I would even dare say that the idea of a short term psychotrope ICE attack via TacNet manipulation (hey, mind control for mundanes ...) is far more promising than hacking your online air tank, burning it up without doing any damage.

SYL

[apple]

This right here is the main issue.
But it is a hard balance to make as if they make it too fast/easy to hack, a good decker or TM will OWN everything in a heavy tech environment.

True - but there is an easy solution. Right now the system is 1 or 0. You have either total control (depending on your permissions) or you have no control. What about short term access ("you now have admin rights for ... 3 complex actions. Make it count!")?

SYL

[Redjack]

It's why almost every campaign (no need to state that yours is not, trust me it's the exception) is always heavy on for magicians, adepts and samurais, but generally light on for deckers, riggers, faces, etc.

I have GM'd a lot of Missions games at several different conventions (pretty much every year)and this statement is simply wrong, at least as far as selection of characters for Missions play is concerned.

And given that I've been in multiple campaigns that have not suffered from this and that you feel the need to try to state we're all exceptions to this... I'm not quite sure the word "exception" means what you think it means. (obviously snarky, but you get my point)

[apple]

There are of course other games who picked up the idea of tacnets and what hackers can bring to the game (we all now that they don´t bring anything to the table besides being able to fake electronic data and cover up proof, subvert security system, gather all-importants information, hack drones, open doors, find and follow people across the globe, jump and get into action worldwide in a matter of seconds depending on the availability of networks and rent-a-drones, control the infrastructure, live a good life without paying for it and being a champ in matrix communities and media ...). Of course some of the game rules and world backgrounds are different, but the basic idea can be transported.

TACNET, COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE, AND PSYOPS
Tactical network is the single most powerful software in transhuman military tactics. Its ability to boost the situational awareness and cooperation of a squad has unparalleled benefits. Fighting without tacnet is fighting blind. This means the primary goal of a hacker in combat should be to protect the sentinels’ network and destroy the opposition’s. Tacnet’s primary drawback is that it livestreams an enormous amount of information across a VPN to users. Time-delay defeats the purpose of the exercise, so there are any number of signals to piggy-back on directly into an enemy’s mesh inserts. It is assumed there isn’t much danger of this happening on account of the bullets flying all over the place, but a skilled hacker can overcome such obstacles. Mental speed is the superior implant for attacking enemies with malware in combat. The time-dilation reduces the Task Action of brute-force hacking down to a matter of turns rather than minutes. Essential software includes exploit, of course, but sniffer is equally important. It is unlikely the enemy will be sending out friend requests in the middle of combat, but all sorts of equipment is wirelessly active and feeding info into a enemy mesh inserts: smartlinks, medichines, locater spimes, armor diagnostic programs, etc. Use sniffer to find a signal, hack it, then subvert the tacnet.

Even if an intrusion on a tacnet is detected, a major tactical advantage is scored when the enemy has to shut down. If a hacker can maintain Hidden or Covert status, the fight is all but over. Attempts to hack cyberbrains can be made, leaving a hacker to download a debilitating scorcher or assume control via a puppet sock. AR illusions can make targeting next to impossible for the opposition, whereas spoof can be used to lead enemies into ambushes or friendly fire incidents. Muses can be attacked and deleted, inflicting heavy stress penalties. By the time opponents realize what has gone wrong, their ability to fight will be all but destroyed.

That said, sophisticated enemies might attempt the same tactics against Firewall agents. Hackers should make sure that they monitor their own team’s tacnet carefully and resist any intrusion attempts, spending Moxie on rolls if necessary. Purchasing redundant firewall software for such a sensitive system is also a good idea. If intrusion seems inevitable, radio jammers are cheap to buy and can level the playing field by rendering all tacnets useless.

SHELL JAMMING AND COMBAT DRONES
Harassment is the name of the game for a hacker smart enough to bring along some robotic backup. A number of highly effective bot types, such as the saucer, gnat, and guardian angel, can be found in most habitats or purchased cheaply. Better yet, sentinels with blueprints can begin building their army as soon as they arrive at a fabber. With enough fabber time or credits, anything is possible; the dwarf bot has a 16/12 armor rating, Durability of 150, and Wound Threshold of 30. Strap a gun to one and you’ve got a make-shift tank.

Hackers with multi-tasking can remote control or jam three shells at once, two if they want to take physical actions on the same turn. Load up the muse into another bot, and that makes four additional combatants fighting for Firewall, all operating simultaneously off a single Initiative. If the hacker has neurachem or some other speed boosting enhancement, that means a Speed 2 character can take 6 Complex Actions in a single Action Turn, or 12
Quick Actions if just giving orders via radio, plus a muse piloting another bot with a skill of 60 (30 for Perception, +30 for the enhanced vision equipped on many bots). This can provide a hacker and his allies total awareness of the combat space. With tacnet, the entire team can use indirect fire on painted targets while keeping egos out of the enemy’s crosshairs.

Some hackers, however, may want to contribute more directly to the victory. The key is modifying the bots to be combat effective. Guardian angels have eelware, and while shock attacks can be very effective against biomorphs, sometimes more is needed. Use Hardware: Robotics or Hardware: Industrial to equip bots with seeker micromissile launchers or other lightweight weapons, such as nanotoxin-coated wasp knives. If the gamemaster rules that weapons add too much weight for the bot to operate, strap on a single grenade and create a suicide bomber. Suicide rigging a saucer bot can be done for a minimum amount of credits or an hour at a desktop cornucopia; that’s a
small price to pay for impaling an exsurgent with a spinning metal disc at 200 kph, then setting off a HEAP grenade inside its body cavity.

ou would like for a strafing run or suicide mission, you can remote control or jam the shell using multi-tasking and roll the hacker’s appropriate skill. Remember that “dying” while jamming a shell inflicts 1d10 SV on the user, but a shell striking a biomass only takes half-damage. You can also jam the seeker missiles of any member in your party. Load up a missile with a cheap taggant swarm and go searching the battlefield for a target. A hit will paint the arget with a million spimes capable of enabling indirect fire to anyone on the tacnet. For that matter, any swarm could be loaded and virtually assured a first-round hit this way: an injector swarm could debilitate an enemy
sniper in the first round, or a disassembler swarm could so horrify an enemy’s allies that they flee. The stress taken from launching a kamikaze attack might be a small price to pay for ending a fight quickly

TLDR
1) Protect your own communication network.
2) Subvert and manipulate the enemy communication network.
3) Shut it down or give penalties to enemy actions (yeayh, 4-8 dices differences in SR4).
4) Hack drones, change them into kamikaze devices.
5) Use combat drones.
6) Use psychotrope ICE for mind control and blackhammer to kill the enemy hackerstyle
7) Spray the area with tags / nanites for indirect fire / bonuses for trog with the minigun. Subvert skinlinks with spray-tags and hack them via this improvised connection.

SYL

[hermit]

The problem with hackers has never really been about how much you can do, it's how much fun it is.

And we all know 'fun' is an absolute metric that solely relies on the avialability of combat hacking without having to be creative, in ways such as apple outlined.

no need to state that yours is not, trust me it's the exception

I trust you have data or a research paper to back this up?

[Sendaz]

True - but there is an easy solution. Right now the system is 1 or 0. You have either total control (depending on your permissions) or you have no control. What about short term access ("you now have admin rights for ... 3 complex actions. Make it count!")?

SYL

I like that.

But isn't part of this already incorporated into the Overwatch score? So maybe fleshing that side of it a bit better could serve to be the balance to whatever upgrade/housefules we add ito making actions faster/easier.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

One thing that IS needed for hackers in Shadowrun is that they need to be able to hack things faster. Taking 10 rounds to hack simple things is too damn long.

Can't remember a time where I spent more than a couple of rounds Hacking targets at any given time, really. Some things take longer than others, to be sure, but overall, I think that Hacking is often WAY TOO FAST for suspension of disbelief. I tend to get over it though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I preferred SR4's approach, where roles didn't demand quite as much in the way of skills and resources, and you saw more hybrid builds that could hack or face and fight. I'll be honest, though - even in SR5, I would [i]still rather invest in a decent gun skill and a heavy pistol than use bricking (or leadership, for a face) in a fight.[/i]

Indeed... This cannot be said enough. A Shadowrunner who is incapable of holding his own in a physical fight is often a very dead Shadowrunner. Every Shadowrunner should be able to shoot a gun passably (Skill 2-3 in SR4, and Skill 4-5 in SR5) as well as being able to be somewhat stealthy. IF they are not, they are a detriment to the team.

[Beta]

Indeed... This cannot be said enough. A Shadowrunner who is incapable of holding his own in a physical fight is often a very dead Shadowrunner. Every Shadowrunner should be able to shoot a gun passably (Skill 2-3 in SR4, and Skill 4-5 in SR5) as well as being able to be somewhat stealthy. IF they are not, they are a detriment to the team.

I'd jumped from 2nd edition to 5th edition, and one thing that jumped out at me was the lowering of attribute scores. Putting top priority into attributes in 2nd gave you an average of 5. In 5th, the top priority gives you an average of 4. That is somewhat mitigated by the 25-50 karma to be spent at character generation, as that can squeeze out a couple more points if you have a couple of low stats. One thing that I keep thinking is that slightly higher stat totals, while keeping the ‘no more than one attribute at racial max’ rule, could tend to make more balanced characters? Because mostly characters will raise up their most key attributes, so at a certain point having more attributes means that your less key stats go up noticeably.

However I don't know how that compares to 4th, so not sure how relevant that is the original topic.

==================================================

With regards to ‘what is fun’ I agree that there is tremendous variety of players. If you look at the mentor spirits Cat and Shark, I can assure you that for each there are players who think that it is unplayable, and players who think it doesn’t have a drawback worth mentioning, more of an incentive to do what they want to do anyway.

The problem is that different groups will have different mixes of players, so if the world is built to ‘require’ a certain mix of characters types, that is rough on a group that doesn’t have players interested in those roles (This is obviously not a new issue, there were plenty of D&D groups back in the day where nobody wanted to play a Cleric, or at least not a Cleric who put all their spell choices into healing). If the world tends to imply that you need a decker to function, but nobody in the group finds that role to be fun, that is a fault of a rigid game world/system, not the players for ‘not finding fun in the right roles.’

[Smirnov]

One thing that IS needed for hackers in Shadowrun is that they need to be able to hack things faster. Taking 10 rounds to hack simple things is too damn long.

That's only part of the problem. You not only need to do things faster, you need to be able to do them at the same time as other players. Because from your example hacker who makes party fake passes does it before the run? while during the run he just chills. That's why not one of the groups that I played with explored astral exploration - that's a one-character experience. But while a mage can be useful together with the group, hacker - not so much

[Glyph]

And yes, don´t we all want faces killing enemies just by yelling at them? What makes them so special that deckers have the right to kill people with decking rules but faces cannot kill by calling them ISIS terrorists?

Oh, SR5 did give faces "something to do" during combat. They can use the leadership skill to give bonuses to their teammates. Yep, faces are now the bards of Shadowrun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

[apple]

Which is perfectly fine (a clear command and leadership can indeed work wonders when it comes to combat, especially when used with a tacnet). But that was the case for hackers/deckers before, at least if your GM was not playing 1980 gangwar with cybernetics but indeed 2070 with drones, tacnet and radio communication and you were a little bit creative.

So if now is the reasoning that the hacker can attack, damage and kill with the matrix rules, why is the bard not allowed to attack, damage and kill with racial slurs? I mean we are talking about a rule system which is explicitly designed to have nothing to do with reality.

SYL

[Serbitar]

There are of course other games who picked up the idea of tacnets and what hackers can bring to the game (we all now that they don´t bring anything to the table besides being able to fake electronic data and cover up proof, subvert security system, gather all-importants information, hack drones, open doors, find and follow people across the globe, jump and get into action worldwide in a matter of seconds depending on the availability of networks and rent-a-drones, control the infrastructure, live a good life without paying for it and being a champ in matrix communities and media ...). Of course some of the game rules and world backgrounds are different, but the basic idea can be transported.





TLDR
1) Protect your own communication network.
2) Subvert and manipulate the enemy communication network.
3) Shut it down or give penalties to enemy actions (yeayh, 4-8 dices differences in SR4).
4) Hack drones, change them into kamikaze devices.
5) Use combat drones.
6) Use psychotrope ICE for mind control and blackhammer to kill the enemy hackerstyle
7) Spray the area with tags / nanites for indirect fire / bonuses for trog with the minigun. Subvert skinlinks with spray-tags and hack them via this improvised connection.

SYL

Where are those quotes from?

[apple]

Ecplice Phase - Transhuman Sourcebook. In that specific case EP can be seen as SR in space as this chapter give details how a Firewall SpecOps Team in enemy territory can gain the upper hand.

SYL

[Smash]

Can't remember a time where I spent more than a couple of rounds Hacking targets at any given time, really. Some things take longer than others, to be sure, but overall, I think that Hacking is often WAY TOO FAST for suspension of disbelief. I tend to get over it though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Agreed. In fact if you're good enough you could accomplish most things (Note 'most' is a qualifier, I'm not saying all) in 2 actions, that can both be taken in one combat pass.

[Smash]

Sorry Smash, if that's all you think hackers can do then I don't think you're playing them right.

I didn't provide a comprehensive list of all the things you could possibly do as a hacker and therefore the 2 throw away things I listed are therefore the entirety of the things I think hackers could do.