I didn't see this covered anywhere, so I'm gonna ask:

Has anyone done a port of the good ol' Cyberdeck to SR4? I know SR4 is all wireless and blah-de-blah, but really, the guy with a Fuchi-7 and a lead plugged in to his skull, or the psycho jacking his brain straight in to the Matrix with only a program carrier to provide back up is part of what makes SR for me.

It's been a while since I looked at the old rules, but it seems like you could fairly easily move something over - has anyone done so?

As far as justification, I'd simply add a fluff section like:

Commlinks and the Matrix: Commlinks can, and do, allow people access to the Matrix. And that access is passable, and suffices for the majority of the population. However, for those that wish to push the boundaries, or break the rules, there is nothing that compares to having a deck full of custom software. Cyberdecks allow faster interfaces, better response, and are required for the truly wiz. Additionally, they provide features like hardening and black ice protection that are unable simply via commlinks.

I'd then limit commlinks to effective system and response of 2 when accessing the Matrix, but let decks surpass those limits.

So, really, all you want is a vocabulary change. All 'commlinks' with ratings over 2 become 'cyberdecks'.

Which is of course very similar to SR3, where the only differance between a 'terminal' and a 'cyberdeck' was the removal of the chip that broadcasted the deck's serial number.

If you connect a commlink to the matrix with a wire, isn't it essentially a cyberdeck?

EDIT: Eh, Backgammon beat me to it.

I guess that's pretty much true. System, Firewall, Response, all stay the same, they just get moved over to decks, and the rules stay as they are.

Program carriers can be easily done too, and jacking straight, I'd just have to come up with the new versions of stats. Hmmm.

Is there anything else a deck could do in sr3 that isn't around now? I'm about to GM my first game, and I haven't played a hacker yet, so I've ignored that section for the most part. I plan to read it now, though.

You can seriously hit someone with a cyberdeck. Also, you can hide a lot of stuff in a cyberdeck hard case .

depends on what you mean. because of the mechanical changes, it's quite a bit more difficult to do hackery. in SR3, there were loopholes in the ruleset that could be exploited to hell and back--basically, you don't need much more than good Deception, Cloak, and Validate programs. logon, then just perform Validate User Account operations until you luck out and get an administrative account. if any IC drops on you, just pull Evade Detection maneuvers; because it's made against the host's Security Value (generally less than 9, and almost never more than 12, which means that even a rating 5 Cloak will reduce the TN to 7 or less), you should easily be able to keep your icon hidden long enough to do anything except extended overwatch.

so, from that point of view, there's quite a bit you can't do in SR4 that you could do in SR3, mainly in the area of "shit that shouldn't be remotely feasible". i haven't spotted any similar loopholes in SR4, though to be honest, i haven't looked for them all that hard.

Heh.

Yeah, I was referring more to broad concepts that didn't have an SR4 equivalent, like decking naked. Loopholes I'll leave safely closed. I don't plan to mod the matrix rules, except possibly using the skill+attribute suggestions on the forums.

You could always deck without programs, as lnog as you had an ASIST converter. Problem was you'd just get fragged because your target numbers would just be horrendous.

I recall from one of the published missions for 4th edition on the
http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/missions/downloads/
There was a guy who modified his old deck to hack into the modern matrix.