Ok. In another thread, I said that I worked hard at keeping my munchkinism in check... I LIED!!! I don't really intend on taking that power anytime soon as it just doesn't really fit with my character concept, I think - other than for the specific use discussed below -, but I was wondering what people think about Multi-Tasking.

Even though the BBB rules about firing two weapons at the same time are pretty clear on the issue - "Two-gun attacks also negate any dice pool bonuses from smartlinks or laser sights." -, it seems to me that the Multi-Tasking power is intended precisely for that kind of stuff - i.e. tracking two smartlink crosses (or laser sight dots) at the same time -, so I'm asking for your opinion...

An adept with the Multi-Tasking power is firing two smartlinked weapons at the same time. Would you:

a) Give the adept the full smartlink for each weapon provided that both crosses are in the same field of vision?

b) Give half of the bonus to each weapon to make it slightly less munchkinized?

c) Not give the adept any bonus whatsoever because of the BBB rule quoted above?

d) Use some other option?

Also, what *else* would you use that power for?

[I edited the punctuation to make it clearer... Yes, I am that anal.]

I would go with the middle version (+1/2 the smartlink bonus) personally. That puts it on par with Improved Combat Ability, but in a more specialized category. It allows you to stack another die, but only applies during dual wielding.

Option E - Give the adept a salty fish, and a pint of warm beer.

I give 'em the full +2 each, because they're already splitting the pool in half, might as well dice them one more dice/bone

I always assumed the smartlinks not working was a technical issue. The way they work is they overlay your sight with the guncam in SR4 (in SR3 they merely put a crosshair in your vision) 2 guns overlaying your sight is a great way to get sick, regardless of multi-tasking, even 2 crosshairs could be difficult to keep track of, especially since they both have to go thru the same system.

I'd give them nothing... and I've even played a dual wielding adept.

As for other options it could be for things like picking a lock and shooting at the same time. Interfacing with AR while doing any numerous things without a penalty.

I'd give them full smart link for both.

I'd give 'em something. I think about +1 or +2 per weapon if it comes up sometimes .

I'd give them nothing. I don't think Adepts need even more advantages that Sammies can't hope to equal.

I'd probably give them the full bonus, however, to balance it out I would give mundanes the full smartlink bonus if they had 2 induction pads, paid for with essence. Why? Cause it seems like Shadowrun is biased in the favor of magic already so why not give the mundanes a chance. It's kinda silly that you have to have a power for it though, why not just make it a quality to go along with ambidextrous. 5 pnts for the ability to use full smartlink bonus for split pool attacks when dual-wielding sounds fair enough.

Now, what about if you're firing both weapons at the same target, pulling the triggers at the same time? Do you still split pool even though you're "technically" only making 1 attack on 1 target, just with 2 weapons at the same time? In that case would you still keep the full smartlink bonus or would you half it, instead of completely throwing it out the window?

Fortune may recall 'The John Woo Chip'... Perhaps not.

None the less, it was a SR3 piece of houseruled cyberware that managed to propagate itself around the online shadowrun MUSH community that was essentially an additional sub-processor unit that interfaced with a Smartlink, and secondary induction pad, allowing a partial bonus' from smartlinks to be applied to dual wielded firearms.

I think it was 0.25 Essence, =Y= 11,000? I could be way off.

In either case: No, you don't need to give Adepts anything else that Mundanes can't touch. They've already duplicated every ability, and have an entire slew of their own, unique specialties.

Give them old fish, warm beer, and tell them they already have access to plenty of Improved Ability dice.

Being a wireless world, induction pads would still work. Just last week, I saw a car from around 1930...

This doesn't explain why smartlinks with induction pads would give the bonus, and wireless wouldn't, or why it would only work for mundanes.

I've never really understood an in-game reason that this wouldn't work. OOG, you could simply say rules balance, but that doesn't make any sense in game. You could say there trouble differentiating, but you could just make them different colors. I could understand there being modifiers for using two pistols, but having the ability to see where each one is going to hit should be a huge help. There should be some sort of positive modifier. I know it's an old rant, but it still bothers me.

Wasn't there a example run from like second edition where the characters were supposed to field test this?

Sine I would allow this to work for an adept, I would also allow it in a quality with ambidexterity as a prerequisite. As well, I would allow it for an extra "induction pad", hmm, actually would probably insist that it be an induction pad in each hand, paid with essence (a la SR3 broken down essence cost of smartlinks or something like that)

it should be noted that technically, if you only use the smartlink on one gun, you get the full bonus to that gun... as such, the very least you should do is continue to give them that full bonus to one gun. giving them 1/2 the bonus to each gun can be a useful option i suppose, if you assume that you can't split your dice pool unevenly in the first place. certainly, it's not overbalancing any more than the full bonus to one gun.

All this talk about Induction Pads.

A simple Skinlink on the Smartlinked gun takes the place of an Induction Pad, with no loss in utility. There is no need for it anymore. I understand that old ones would still be around, but very few people would install one (or two) in 2070, when the cheaper, Essense-free Skinlink option gives the same security.

So, if people are willing to grant that an Induction Pad in each hand would be a suitable requirement, then why is that even a need for this restriction at all?

Smartlinks in 2070 are Wireless by default, granting all the benefits of all components of the SR3 Smartlink, including Induction Pads. Even the only benefit a Skinlink adds is added security against outside hacking.

I'm not sure I follow the logic involved that would require an outdated piece of tech to perform a function perfectly that is within the range of modern, more available, and less Essence-invasive tech.

I think I'm having problems with the terminology. If you were to say that a kind of cybernetic Smartlink Co-processor™ (costing .05 or .1 Essence as an add-on to an implanted Smartlink) instead of an Induction Pad in each hand, then I have no problems with that.

This has probably already been answered elsewhere to death (But even after a search I can't find one), but what about if one gun has a smartlink, and the other has a laser? Would the adept get the bonus from each of those when shooting in seperate hands??

Thanks

To be clear:

Two-gun attacks also negate any dice pool bonuses from smartlinks or laser sights.

So no matter what, you don't get the bonuses if you fire both on the same action.

So sad.

At Fortune: Precisely. [Edited for clarity: lorechaser had not posted yet when I started writing my post.] If you use two weapons at the same time, the raw states that you lose all bonuses granted by laser sights and smartlinks. It does not matter whether you have a laser sight on one gun and a smartlink on the other, two laser sights, or two smartlinks. However, the Multi-Tasking power was not in the BBB - it came later, in Street Magic -, so it might be an exception to that older, BBB rule. Not that I really care all that much one way or another, but when I read the power's description, I couldn't help thinking that dual-wielding seemed to be a perfect application.

The description goes like this: "Multi-tasking grants the ability to simultaneously process information from multiple senses. For example, an adept with this power could read data off multiple vid-screens and simultaneously hold a conference call over his commlink or hold a conversation while watching the trid, providing full attention to each. In game terms, Observe in Detail counts as a Free Action for the character. [...]"

X-Kalibur, as far as I can tell, smartlinks still work the same way as before, except that the camera now explicitly comes standard on all smartlinked weapons. (I think it was an add-on previously, but I've read conflicting info on that one, so don't quote me on it.) The camera allows you to shoot at a target behind you with precision without the need to turn around, i.e. only your arm is moving. You can probably have the camera's view as a transparent or translucent layer on top on your regular vision - no idea how well that would work -, but the way I see it, it'd be more like a TV's picture-in-picture kind of thing (although I imagine this can be customized in a million way to suit your particular needs and tastes).

If you go back to the power's description above: "an adept with this power could read data off multiple vid-screens and simultaneously hold a conference call over his commlink or hold a conversation while watching the trid, providing full attention to each." (Emphasis mine.) If you can "[provide] full attention to each" of your smartlinks, wouldn't you get the "full" bonus for each as well? Oh! And don't forget that conference call over your commlink too! (To be fair, I don't think that particular example was meant to apply to any kind of combat situation, but still...)

Anyways, as I've already said, I don't like that power much and might well end up ignoring it altogether, but I think my interpretation of it is pretty much in line with the power's description, i.e. it is a correct interpretation of a broken power rather than a flawed interpretation of an interesting and well-built power. Which brings me to the second question in my original post: What else could you use that power for that would not be either completely useless or game-breaking?

My character considers it important to be at the top of the food chain and works hard to climb up the ladder of "thugs with guns", but as a player, the trade-off between the number of rounds fired and the accuracy of those rounds is something to which I am extremely attached. If my character ends up as precise a shooter when shooting twice as many rounds, there will be little incentive to ever use only one gun. If there is nothing to lose, the gamble is not fun anymore.

At lorechaser: the problem is that Multi-tasking came in a later book. Although the power's description does not say anything about dual-wielding, I don't think my interpretation of the power's description is all that off tracks, which makes me feel like the power should just be zapped out of existence altogether.

If an Adept would like bonus dice while using a smartlinked gun in each hand, they are certainly more than welcome to continue to use Improved Ability: Pistol, at the appropriate cost of .5 per die.

It's Magic, afterall. Plenty of room to describe how it works.

And if you'd like to just limit it to while using two smartlinked weapons, there is, of course, also the option of adding in a Geas.

Unless you have an answer to my second question: what *else* can you use that power for?

I guess I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that power due to my sad lack of multi-tasking talents (as a real life individual, I mean). I am Dog, the single-minded. When I do something, I do something. After that, I'll move to something else, but I rarely do many things at once. It's just not me, and it's not my (SR) character either - apart from using both hands to do whatever he's doing, like shooting guns or waving blades around.

Really, if you want the Power (or another similar one) to work that way in you games, then go for it (like you need anyone's permission! ), but I think the concensus is that, to be fair, there should be some type of technological (maybe cyber-only) equivalent available as well.

Well, the cyber equivalent would be equally game-breaking, so I'll just not use it for dual-wielding bonuses - which was, for me, the only really obvious use. I will not introduce a balancing piece of cyber: it would just make the problem worse. I just find the whole thing extremely counter-intuitive, so I won't use it in my game. (Wow! I'm not coherent anymore... Well, even less than usual, I mean. Time to go to bed.) Thanks to everyone for the great feedback!

While I wish the opposite were true, I don't think multi-tasking should be used in such a way. Not to mention that you don't get that extra free action in combat situations... XD

The description of the multitasking power defuses every argument why Smartlink wouldn't work while dual wielding (except balance issues ). That said, and after thinking about it, as a GM I would grant a +1 bonus per weapon while dual wielding smartlinked weapons.

Damn, I hoped nobody would bring them up .

To be consistent, I'd give only one weapon a +1 bonus. I probably could invent a reason for this, but hopefully nobody asks .