Currently, I'm running 3 separate SR4 campaigns.

Slightly off topic, but the ironic thing here is, I actually use Serbitar's houserule to roll matrix tests as Logic + Skill, using Program Rating + 1 as the max number of successes allowed...I find that a much smoother system in-game and my players like it as well.

But for sake of this debate, I have stuck to RAW, which I don't actually use, in these instances...

I understand what you are saying, but I think you are misunderstanding what I am trying to say...I don't think you would be using Hardware skill if you are using the camera's joystick to pan a camera...but anyways...

On page 218, under Using Computer Skill, if you're saying you would never use a "particular device" without utilizing a "particular program", then yes, it doesn't make sense to have two different tests. Personally, while not often, I can see where I would call for a Computer + Logic test (maybe using a fax machine, as the player may not be using an Edit program).

I guess it just comes down to individual tastes. If you are going to require every action requiring a program, than a Computer + Logic test would really never come into play.

i would say its a case of programs providing the AR and VR user interfaces for whatever actions you want to do.

only that in AR and VR any kind of action can be the right action (pointing at someone and gesturing as if the hand was a gun to launch a attack program).

but in the physical world your limited by how logical the layout of the physical buttons and switches are

Frank: I'm responding to your somewhat dismissive post.

First, I'm not even going to get into the 'ADEPT' hacker right now. Neither am I going to talk about 150 karma in, I'm talking 'straight out the box'...where almost every player approaches character creation.

I can make a TM with 5/5/5/5, representing his mental attributes and resonance with a couple of points left over to boost his physical stats so he's not a total milquetoast. I can spend the same number of skill points as the box hacker (who has slightly more even stats, not needing the straight fives in mental) on the actual hacking skills (for my test bed, I used skill groups to four, but I could easily have broken it up and been a bit pickier about getting select skills to six), for hacking and electronics, and still had some points for the tasking group, which honestly taking decompiling is probably a waste, making it possible get more bang for the buck by leaving it out and just taking the skills (and specializations).

I'll dispute that a TM needs anywhere near 18 Complex forms. Unlike the hacker, the TM can thread a CF he doesn't have for low level applications, like 'command X'. I picked up 8 at level 5 and had 15 points for gear and contacts left over.

True, by the time the hacker, who it should be pointed out at this point is only running a 4/5/3/4 deck (by the book), though I went ahead and bought all his software to 5 (though, again, left off various command programs...) the TM is out of points, and the hacker has 90 BP left (figuring the same base 15 points for gear/conctacts BEFORE buying hacker hardware...) Those 90 points however can't really increase him much, though you could get Codeslinger etc., more likely he'll buy up edge, maybe a metatype, spread some points around for other skills (guns?) making him more of a generalist.


Now, in the final view, the TM is faster and more perceptive, not to mention more versatile with his threading and sprites, but he's a specialist. Of course, you can't take his gear away from him, and only another, rare, TM can attempt to spoof his sprites.

The hacker has the same raw ability but to start out he's weaker in the wireless world due to hardware limits and is more hampered when he doesn't have the right software loaded up.

In the long game, both players can improve roughly the same for a while. Extra dice? yeah, buy up the individual skill and get specializations. To catch up on hardware the hacker has to spend money on better gear, the TM needs to spend Karma... sort of like how a Sam needs better cyber while an adept/mage needs to spend karma. New CF's are dirt cheap (bought like knowledge skills) comparatively.

Neither character is uber specialized, though the TM is more specialized to hacking activities than the 'hacker', which makes sense, neh?

Now, your out of the box hacker adept? So, he's spending some of his 90 points on buying up magic, unless you mean a magic one adept, and sure, his dice adder boost is potent shit. It's a marginal concept if you ask me, and it opens a whole can of worms outside hacking. He's still dependent upon hardware, like the normal hacker, and when the other side's mages see he's adept (or the paracritters...) he's a target, where the TM isn't.

So, let's review: Hacking adept? Broken concept, and I think a marginal one. Call me crazy, but I've never seen anyone ever try it before. Out of the box the TM has the advantage over mundane hackers, and, as the mundane hacker gets the nuyen rolling in for better, custom gear, the gap closes, until we hit... much less than your 920 karma I suspect, where the TM starts Submerging and ignores the caps that keep the mundane hacker back.

So, the TM is weaker in the mid-range, but not excessively. That weakness in 'raw ability' is partially, if not completly negated by the abilities the TM brings that simply can not be matched by straight dice. No limits on numbers of CF forms running, vs program/system limits. Threading, scripting sprites... To make up your 'three point' bonus from being an adept all the TM needs to do is thread his CF's, and if the concentration penality is an issue, hand it off to a sprite for a few combat rounds.

Or do you need me to post the dice pools for all three 'out of the box' characters?

Again, give one example when they can not do something skillwires can do.

Agents can be attached to your commlink's personna or loaded to a node if you have the correct rights to do so.
No matter which way it is loaded, it uses Agent Rating + Program, with respect to the personna/node stats, to determine it's dicepool.
An Agent's dicepool has a max of 12 dice, with Agent Rating being and program both being Rank 6.
Agents CAN load and unload programs stored in its own programming.
Agents CAN NOT load other Agents.

Am I wrong about any of the last five lines?

This last stuff is some of my take on Agents and how they act in the Matrix.
IMO, Agents can be best described as Drones for the Matrix. They take the last command given to them and try to complete it to the best of their ability dependant on the programs they have loaded on them.

Frank-

Again with the rating 6/6/6/6 thing? Maybe I've had a different gaming life than you do, but the 'upgrade table' that you pointed to? yeah, I've met damn few GM's that would let a starting player go that route. Buy the listed gear and upgrade in game.

You can call it a house rule if you like. Sort of like D&D's 1's are critical failures for everything. It's a house rule, but one that a huge percentage of groups use, enough to be almost standard... almost.

And you still dismiss/ignore threading. You never even adress it. Straight out of the box that TM can potentially have a rating of 10 on his CF's, making his dice pool equal to the 15 of your hacker adept and completely raping the mundane hacker. That's just the Rating + Attribute, not counting any other factors into the pool.

I agree that TM's are pricier and harder to get useful across the board. I just don't think they are completely utterly shit compared to their counterparts, as you do. I still think your '920 karma in the hole' is completely over the top disingenious.

And we STILL haven't got into exactly what they can accomplish with their free sprites!


Of course I suspect you just skimmed part of my post. I gave nothing out at 6. If I did that, then the dice pool jumps to 17, bypassing your hacker. Sure, not every time, I mean, he's got to roll it, after all. And remember, unlike your adept, his dice pool will grow as he gets expirence.

I wont disagree with you on that point, Serb. Even so, using that tactic they 'work' even though it isnt just like a hacker.
This is straight out of RAW too.

Like I've said in the past though, I would like to see TM love to get them on par with most of the other archtypes.

serbitar, page 227, the apart about using agents clearly (to me atleast) state that eithter the agent is loaded as just another program into the persona or have to be uploaded onto a external node to act independently.

its cant use a node as a home base and roam the matrix. it either has to jump from node to noe, or be surgically attached to a persona...

because the rules say so?

sure, there are no "logical" reason why one can not do so...

while its not spelled out anywhere, it seems that a independent agent simulates a persona, but does so by running itself on the node its currently interacting with or something like that.

it has all the stats of a persona. and it appears to have all the capability's of a persona. but unlike a persona it does not have a home node as its just another program jumping running on the node.

hmm, i think i have equaled a agent with a virtual node before. maybe i should have equaled it with a virtual persona

Well, i personally think once more that the matrix rules are screwed up beyond I dont know. The counter intuitiveness is a monstrosity beyond compare.

As a side note: Would you give your examples a little bit earlier next time and not after I asked for them 3-4 times? Would have helped a lot.

never apply logic to SR rules, it will only lead to insanity.
hmm, come to think of it. chould SR rule books contain parts of the necronomicon?

The Agent must run on the node for the same reason your persona needs to "enter" it. Hacking the matrix is a 'server-side' not 'client-side' process, essentially.

Shadowrun computers do not work like ours. They work like thirty-decade more advanced versions of what we thought computers would look like seventy years in the future fifteen years ago.

So, take 1980's computer technology (and more importantly, poplar cultures knowledge of 1980's computer technology) and "look forward" seventy years to 2050. Now, take the resulting tech, and advance it another 20-years.

The Matrix isn't based on Ars Technica whitepapers, it is based on Tron, Neuromancer, and the like.