Full Version: FAQ Has Arrived
| QUOTE (knasser @ Dec 8 2006, 09:36 PM) | ||
Ha! Microsoft products make it very easy to do what they think you want to do. I'm not sure I do take your part in this, actually. You have come up with a very good justification for why the rules are as they are. That is to say, some people are so smart that they will forgo the "Microsoft Wizard" approach and just do it themselves. Which equates to defaulting in this instance. But for aesthetic reasons, I think I would like a hacker to be doing this sort of thing more often whereas unless the hacker is very smart in deed, he is always going to be second fiddle to Clippy. I just feel that the hackers in SR4 should be more than just script kiddies who use other people's programs. If that's all they are, then anyone and everyone is a hacker if they have enough money. The systems as it stands does make a sense and does have a plausability to it based on real world computer cracking. And as I said, I love your fluff justification of the RAW. But in the other thread that's just sprung up, a system has been proposed that combines skill, attribute and program and I think that if you have a system that reflects all of the components of being a good hacker, rather than just two of them, then that is superior. I'm not totally swayed either way right now, but these are my thoughts. |
Everyone from Phillippe Kahn to Norm Abrams say that the best artisans become toolmakers. Following that advice, the best hackers will roll their own hacking suites, rather than default. Norm doesn't cut a piece of wood without first creating a jig. Phillippe created Sidekick because DOS didn't have an ASCII table.
So the argument goes that the most efficient allocation of resources is to have the top 10% of programmers create programming tools, and the other 90% create applications using those tools.
Apply that to the SR world. The SR reality would be that the top 10% (and more) would mostly be employed by the corps, with the occasional disaffected ex-corper running the shadows. The tools a runner can buy should be better than what he could make, except for two factors - price and availability.
I haven't seen this other thread you mentioned. I guess I should take a look before I continue.
| QUOTE (Jaid) |
| i much prefer the attribute + skill, hits limited by program method. |
@: Jaid
I had thoughts along those lines too.
i wonder if any of the Hacking Mechanics would need to be reworked to accomodate a ceiling on Hits. my gut says no, but, I would really want to look in depth if i ever decided to do something like that. In a system like that, would you want to change systems to use Ratingx2 with hits limited by Program, or stay with Rating + Program.
Or, instead of looking at Magic as the model for Hacking, look at Normal Devices. In that instance the pools would be Attribute+Skill+Program like any other device. This would allow for script kiddies, and hacking on the fly; but would probably require some kind of tweaking to the Hacking Tests. or not. Or hell, you could even consider that by 2070 all OSes have a pretty full suite of functions/programs and use Attribute+Skill+Rating(of OS). eh?
In any event, for my money, just at the moment I'm more interested in finding out how the current rules are supposed to work than making new ones.
This is just something that occurred to me and I'll post it in the other thread on this as well, but one positive benefit of incorporating the attribute into hacking rolls is that it gives characters more room to expand. Right now, it's awfully easy to get a hacker reach the peaks of ultimate hackerdom close to out of the box. Maybe not right out of the box, but you can get all of the hacking programs at rating 6 for about 90,000
and top of the range comm and OS wont add much to that. So you've still got a few skill points to make up before you can match Fastjack? Not many and you're only a couple of dice down till then.Stick logic in there as something else to use and personally I think that's more fun for anyone who wants to play a character that is primarily a hacker.
Thoughts?
I think you deserve 2 points for that reason which supports the Attribute+Skill (Limit new hits by Program+1) campain.
While it would, theoreticly allow hackers to reach that cap at chargen anyways, the BP cost would be enormous.
Exceptional attribute - 20BP
Aptitude - 10BP
Logic 7 - 75BP
Hacking 6 - 24BP
Specialisation - 2BP
Cerebral Booster 2 - 4BP (20,000 nuyen)
Thats 133 BP just right there, and thoughyou are only 1 dice away due to the fact ath you are limited by avail on the CB3, thats alot of BP to spend. Its also only on hacking too. you still have the rest of the electronics and hacking groups to buy.
Even though this is an extreem example of maxing out a hacker, you can do almost that already under the current rules, and easier too. Under the revised rules, you wouldnt see this as much.
While it would, theoreticly allow hackers to reach that cap at chargen anyways, the BP cost would be enormous.
Exceptional attribute - 20BP
Aptitude - 10BP
Logic 7 - 75BP
Hacking 6 - 24BP
Specialisation - 2BP
Cerebral Booster 2 - 4BP (20,000 nuyen)
Thats 133 BP just right there, and thoughyou are only 1 dice away due to the fact ath you are limited by avail on the CB3, thats alot of BP to spend. Its also only on hacking too. you still have the rest of the electronics and hacking groups to buy.
Even though this is an extreem example of maxing out a hacker, you can do almost that already under the current rules, and easier too. Under the revised rules, you wouldnt see this as much.
| QUOTE (De Badd Ass) | ||
Because attribute (Logic) isn't present in the skill+program equation, it creates the scenario where Vulcan hackers might default by choice rather than by necessity; ie. any time attribute-1 > skill+program (A Vulcan hacker is an elf with logic 9. Tuvak and Spock would be Vulcan hacker adepts with analytics and multitasking). An example would be Don Lancaster. He claimed he could do more with a text editor than with Adobe Illustrator. He could create effects in Postscripts that weren't available in Illustrator. I have little problem with this. Most of the dumpshock community seems to be divided into two camps: those that feel attribute should always come into play, and those that feel attribute should never come into play. |
I'm totally with you on some of this. I have no problem with an unequiped virtuosos defaulting to be better off than someone using programs; or not. Until program ratings catch up to genius, genius has the edge.
I'm still not convinced that Logic-1 is the way to go. I still think that either: Skill, Skill-1, or Attribute+Skill all have stronger cases from the standpoint of finding *something* in the rules similar enough to extrapolate from. from a balance standpoint,... well, I don't really think balance is the issue one way or the other.
in any event I'm going to bow out to concentrate on Finals for a few days. No disrespect meant by the lack of any replies I fail to make (until Thurs.).
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Dec 8 2006, 07:11 PM) |
| In answer to your question about Essence Holes: No you don't get Essence back. Ever. But your Essence only goes down if the current cost exceeds your lost Essence, so cyberware can be replaced with new cyberware of the same or lower Essence cost and you won't lose any more. That'll be more explicit in Augmentation. |
The following idea has probably already been developped somewhere else, but somehow the search tool doesn't work for me (I suppose that's because of my browser being neither IE nor Firefox, but that's beside the point).
My idea is that you could consider getting back your Essence, but only by upgrading your current 'ware to a better grade. For example, you have a regular rating 2 wired reflexes, costing you 3 Essence; you have it replaced by the same, but in alphaware. You get 0.6 Essence back. If you remove it totally, you only get part of your Essence back (say, you still lose the deltaware cost). So half of the Essence is lost forever (after all, you did get that arm cut off!), but your body can still recover a bit of "sanity"
This sort of allows more flexibility in the way you have your character evolve in the long run, and seems more"logical" than the Essence Holes. You can have a wired sammie at char gen, and not run out of Essence after a few runs.
Btw, after looking through the FAQs, the called shot for Indirect Spells makes up for the drain increase (aside from the secondary effect of course).
Mwaha. I'm going to lightning bolt a hackers commlink... or have acid eat someones gun. Heh. Makes me happy....
Mwaha. I'm going to lightning bolt a hackers commlink... or have acid eat someones gun. Heh. Makes me happy....
If your going to go that route,
why not just get Demolish Commlink, or Demolish Gun
area effect spells that take out those specific items?
why not just get Demolish Commlink, or Demolish Gun
area effect spells that take out those specific items?
Versatility. A Lightning Bolt can be used for so much more than a Demolish Commlink spell.
And because thats just cool.
"Thor says hi." *ZAP*
And because thats just cool.
"Thor says hi." *ZAP*
| QUOTE (Ben) | ||
The following idea has probably already been developped somewhere else, but somehow the search tool doesn't work for me (I suppose that's because of my browser being neither IE nor Firefox, but that's beside the point). My idea is that you could consider getting back your Essence, but only by upgrading your current 'ware to a better grade. For example, you have a regular rating 2 wired reflexes, costing you 3 Essence; you have it replaced by the same, but in alphaware. You get 0.6 Essence back. If you remove it totally, you only get part of your Essence back (say, you still lose the deltaware cost). So half of the Essence is lost forever (after all, you did get that arm cut off!), but your body can still recover a bit of "sanity" This sort of allows more flexibility in the way you have your character evolve in the long run, and seems more"logical" than the Essence Holes. You can have a wired sammie at char gen, and not run out of Essence after a few runs. |
In previous versions, if you did what you propose, then instead of gaining essense back, you gained the ability to add additional cyberware without reducing essense further. In other words, you don't gain the 0.6 essense back; instead you gain the capacity to add 0.6 essense worth of additional cyberware without reducing essense further. You upgraded your reflexes, now you can get cybereyes.
It's a semantics thing that only matters to mages, adepts, and TMs. They can't ever increase their magic by removing cyberware.
I guess, too, a sammy can't ever back out of cybermancy once he reaches that point. And essense can't be improved as far as healing spells, etc. are concerned.
I imagine SR4 Augmentation will work the same.
Certain individuals should hereby consider themselves bitchslapped.
| QUOTE |
| When a spirit uses Possession or Inhabitation on a character, are the dual entity's attributes limited by the character's maximum augmented attribute values? No. Both powers represent a merging (temporary with Possession, permanent with Inhabitation) of the character's physical body with the form of the spirit. For the duration of the possession/inhabitation, the dual entity's maximum augmented attributes are equal to (character's attribute + spirit's Force) x 1.5, rounded down. |
| QUOTE (Slithery D) | ||
Certain individuals should hereby consider themselves bitchslapped.
|
I don't really understand that one. Human Maximum + Integer x 1.5 is pretty much the same as "completely uncapped" - I don't know why you'd bother to have an augmented maximum at all at that point.
Are people seriously possessing themselves with low force spirits to remove their maximums and then overcast Increase Attribute spells with Edge behind it?
-Frank
maybe not, but how about stacking on lots of +attribute cyber/bioware, and then having your mage buddy's spirit possess you so you can take advantage of it all? given the way the system works, i'd say this is probably a really, really bad idea. i'm not a fan of caps, but they're there for a reason in this system.
Yeah I allways found it odd how in SR4 Spirits have absolutely NO cap while everything does. And then combine it with inhabitation. Take a 'prime runner' type. use inhabitation if he fails and say it's like.. even a force 12 spirit, his stats suddenly jump up those 12 poitns to boot. So your uber elf goes from 10 agil to 22 agil right away. And then you still get to add the agility based skills to that.
My personal ruling had been that the human side was capped as normal and the spirit Force simply added to that in an uncapped spiritual manner. I think that works a bit better.
-Frank
-Frank
I've always had a house rule that if you had essense hole (that is, lost essence without a currently installed peice of ware using it), you could buy your essence back up with Karma. I thought of it as your spirit healing. Boviously if this wasn't important to your character, you wouldn't even bother, but it works great for Ideas like the former sammy who's trying to quit, the cybered character who suddenly awakens, or the burnout mage on the path to recovery. You spend the same to increase your essence as you would any other stat, up to your origional 6. Of course, you have to have removed the ware in the first place. This is a healing process, not a gradual induction of the cyberware into your soul.
| QUOTE (knasser) | ||
I'm no hacker in the Hollywood sense. I have been a professional programmer. This isn't going to resolve the defaulting issue, it's a tangent; but I'm not overly impressed with the way hacking in SR4 is independent of attributes. Aside from making mental attributes less important to the hacker from a game balance point of view, the clear message it is sending is that a hacker is not a good hacker because they're smart, but because they have access to the good toys. Essentially the SR4 hacker is a script kiddie. I.e. not one who really understands things and solves things himself, but someone who just picks up tools written by others and runs them. And it makes me sad to think that the electronic espionage elite of 2070 are merely downloading Virus Suite 23.4 from their local e-tailer. I can just see that sodding paper clip popping up and asking "Hi there, it looks like you're trying to hack Renraku. Would you like to try a trojan or scan for open ports?" Hackers today (in the Hollywood sense), do use a variety of tools and scripts to do their work. But I think the heroic SR hacker should be using his or her natural ability somewhat. And I don't really feel that the skill component covers this. I think attributes need to be reintroduced into hacking in SR4. |
Actually Mental attributes ARE important for a hacker
Intuition and Willpower are essential
you seem upset that LOGIC is the useless one
However this fits in with the past of SR Canon, where a bunch of military programmers died miserably fighting the crash virus (Standard army types High Logic and Low Intuition)
Then a bunch of outside the box mavericks (High Intuition, Low Logic) were recruited and proved to be exceptional cyberjockeys.
The DNI matrix from birth, responded to intuition, not logic... deal with it.
well, seeing as how when that was written there was no logic or intuition stat, just intelligence, I'm not going to lend that theory any credence. If anything, the outside the box thinkers succeeded because they had narrative imperative, they were fufilling the role of the "outside the box thinkers who succeed where others fail." That gives you a couple of bonus dice on all tasks.
or they had a higher Karma pool.
Actually, they were probably PCs, or at least prime runners, while the military types were NPCs. they don't even get Karma pool.
Or if we insist on updating this story to the new edition, the mavericks succeeded where the military failed because they have higher Edge stats, while the Military probably shared a single edge of 3 or 4 (their proffessional rating).
or they had a higher Karma pool.
Actually, they were probably PCs, or at least prime runners, while the military types were NPCs. they don't even get Karma pool.
Or if we insist on updating this story to the new edition, the mavericks succeeded where the military failed because they have higher Edge stats, while the Military probably shared a single edge of 3 or 4 (their proffessional rating).
It's ridiculous to define analytical ability and recollective ability (Logic in game terms) as opposed in some way to being able to think quickly and instinctively (Intuition). It says more about the the prejudices of people than it does about reality. The truth is that they go together more than they go apart.
| QUOTE |
| My personal ruling had been that the human side was capped as normal and the spirit Force simply added to that in an uncapped spiritual manner. I think that works a bit better. |
That's what the rule should be, of course. But the "racial attribute caps apply to the spirit bonuses" crowd were so obviously wrong that I have to take some pleasure in this equally absurd ruling the other way.
| QUOTE (knasser) |
| <Snips teh funny from Knasser> |
Must not bust out laughing my ass off in the middle of the library . ..
| QUOTE (ElFenrir) |
Hmm..Nightmare, i think i like some of your house rulings.  Its a shame that you dont live near here. I need more SR players around here(i have a few but not much!) |
Danka
Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat player wise - I've got a couple of good ones, and a handful of crappy ones that kind mill around the fringes. | QUOTE |
| With your cyberlimbs, you simply charge more Nuyen and/or essence for the higher 'base calibrated' ones? Do the enhancements cost the same for them? |
Nope, I stay with the listed Essence and nuyen costs for the base calibrated versions. Enhancements cost the same as normal. I like to follow the KISS principle when possible
| QUOTE (Cheops) |
| Will a normal street sam be able to design and install his own cyberware without having to become an engineer character? |
Hell's no! Talk about blowing the conventions of the game out of the water
Plus, is this modular street sam gonna do the cybersurgery on himself to? I think not.| QUOTE |
| Also, I don't think houseruling is very conducive to a gaming community. If I can't go to another gaming group without having to first read 8 pages of houserules then there's a cost to getting involved. Makes it harder to introduce new gamers. |
You must have the luxery of a large local gaming community then. Not so much of a concern when the local community is a couple dozen people tops, and less for SR.
| QUOTE |
| Also it makes discourse between people on boards like this difficult because we are all playing with different systems. |
Just because one has house rules does not mean one cannot remember and talk about the RAW, or simply not mention said house rules.
| QUOTE |
| The quality of a rules system is based on ease of interpretation and minimizing of house rules necessary to play it. SR4 seems to be losing rules quality very quickly. |
Still a hell of alot better than previous editions. 8 pages of house rules in SR4 compared to 23 previously? The fact that we (ie my group) actually uses hackers as PCs now compared to previous editions where they were an offscreen thing because the rules were too damn complex? To me it's a no brainer that SR4 = better.
| QUOTE |
| he way I understood it was that the whole reason the question was included was to take a swipe at Gibson, which is childish and unprofessional. |
Roleplaying game. For entertainment. Professional? Grow sense of humor please. Thank you.
| QUOTE (blakkie) |
My mind boggles at a SR game in which the players decide that's a good idea. Why weren't you playing Parker Brother's Monopoly instead?  |
Echo that.
| QUOTE (OneTrikPony) |
| My point is that I wanna house rule all the time but I can't because I'm a munchy twink with little discression and too wild an imagination. The reality about house rules is that they ussually happen when the GM doesn't like the implications of RAW on his setting. I like to keep true to the setting. I came to play shadowrun not some house ruled analog. |
Fortunate then that I am something of an anti-munchkin
See, the purpose of my house rules is precisely what you mentioned - to keep the RAW true to the setting, not just the setting in the current BBB but the setting I've been playing in for the past 15 years too. Most of them are just minor tweaks, and the occasional reintroduction of things that would logically not just have disappeared (expendable fetishes, fetish foci, magic loss, gang & tribes as contacts, etc). The biggest departure from cannon is the regaining Essence rule, and that process is so damn hard that fits into the setting perfectly. My goal with my house rules is minimum interferance, while maintaining the integrity of the setting. So it seems we have the same goal in mind, in a way.| QUOTE (knasser) |
| And it makes me sad to think that the electronic espionage elite of 2070 are merely downloading Virus Suite 23.4 from their local e-tailer. I can just see that sodding paper clip popping up and asking "Hi there, it looks like you're trying to hack Renraku. Would you like to try a trojan or scan for open ports?" |
ROFLMAO!!!
That was hilarious! I agree btw - attributes good, script monkeys not so good.
I finally had the time to read the FAQ - and this whole thread (Knassers summary is hilarious).
Recoil doesn't seem to work the way Rob Boyle explained waaaaay back. But I can live with that, it's actually easier to explain it to players with previous shadowrun experience.
Recoil doesn't seem to work the way Rob Boyle explained waaaaay back. But I can live with that, it's actually easier to explain it to players with previous shadowrun experience.
I agree. This version of RC is, at least to my mind, much simpler.
| QUOTE (PlatonicPimp) |
| well, seeing as how when that was written there was no logic or intuition stat, just intelligence, I'm not going to lend that theory any credence. If anything, the outside the box thinkers succeeded because they had narrative imperative, they were fufilling the role of the "outside the box thinkers who succeed where others fail." That gives you a couple of bonus dice on all tasks. or they had a higher Karma pool. Actually, they were probably PCs, or at least prime runners, while the military types were NPCs. they don't even get Karma pool. Or if we insist on updating this story to the new edition, the mavericks succeeded where the military failed because they have higher Edge stats, while the Military probably shared a single edge of 3 or 4 (their proffessional rating). |
OR, the story is the reality, as the story has always said it as their maverick ways is what made them succeed. The virus could easily outplay logicals because it could out logic them. Intuition is what gave them the edge
and this stat setup is merely the Devs doing things RIGHT and making sure the RAW fits the flavor text.
I may not like a lot of the things that have happened in SR4. I feel, for example, that the new edition reinforces and enhances the stereotype that made 'Shadowrun Mage' become a slang term in the RPG gamers dictionary ad being the term for overpowered munchkin magical characters. But that is a topic for a different
But in this case I suspect even mfb would agree the devs did good.
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