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Buster
See all the best hackers, hacker-adepts, and technomancers right here! Who's the best at matrix hacking and breaking-and-entering? Can your uberhacker also double as a face, fighter, rigger, medic, or mage?

Rules:
400 BP + 29 Karma + 25000 extra nuyen + 6 months construction time

The builds will start with a standard 400 BP starter characters (35 BP limit to pos&neg qualities, 200 BP cap on physical+mental attributes (not including Edge/Res/Magic), limit rating 6 programs/agents/pilots, limit availability 12 gear, etc).

Just to factor in initiation, submersion, special gear, construction time, and other variables gotten from a handful of starter runs, each character will also get 29 Karma, 25000 extra nuyen, and 6 months construction time to spend. Sleep compensation powers/cyberware such as Sustenance or Sleep Regulator double the amount of construction time (to 12 months). Programs/agents/pilots are still limited to rating 6 but there is no availability limit to the gear bought with the extra 25000 nuyen or built with the construction time. Assume average hits with construction (1/3 dice pool for hits each interval).

Please show itemized BP/Karma/nuyen/construction costs in your builds.

Feel free to post alt-builds that use the "Skill + Logic raw-hits-capped-at-Program-rating" hacking house rule.

Feel free to post more than one build!

Agent Smith Army (houserule)
Until the Agent Smith Army problem is solved, we'll have to go with GM fiat: Thou shalt not be connected to more than one commlink at the same time and agents can not run from any other node but that commlink.

Dr. Smith Army (houserule)
You can not get healed by more than one Medic program at the same time.
knasser

Nice one!

How are you planning to compare the builds? Straight face off combat using average rolls? Pit them against prepared corporate systems? A well built TM tenda to be a super-specialist is the impression that I get, so no hacker will be able to compete in the TM's chosen area of expertise.

How about a couple of systems kept secret until people have posted their favourite builds and then we can see how well they all perform in "real life"

-K.
Buster
QUOTE (knasser @ Aug 30 2007, 12:24 PM)
Nice one!

How are you planning to compare the builds? Straight face off combat using average rolls?  Pit them against prepared corporate systems? A well built TM tenda to be a super-specialist is the impression that I get, so no hacker will be able to compete in the TM's chosen area of expertise.

How about a couple of systems kept secret until people have posted their favourite builds and then we can see how well they all perform in "real life"

-K.

That's a cool idea, I wasn't thinking of a specific target run, just general shoutouts like "my build can throw 18 dice at all hacking tests but also has 12 dice pools for face tasks but is a feeb in melee combat", but it would be great to run the builds against some of your awesome data fortresses to see how well they do in the hacking/physical-infiltration tests. Sort of like my Mr. Magoo Challenge but with that MCP rainbow fortress from Tron? biggrin.gif
knasser

Do you want me to whip up some mini-sites / scenarios? Say three or four realistic systems at various grades of nastiness? Will ensure that everything is nice and neutral for all parties? I could email you the sites so you had them in preparation... Would be fun?
DireRadiant
Don't forget the Cyber Arena Combat scenarios
Buster
QUOTE (knasser)
Do you want me to whip up some mini-sites / scenarios? Say three or four realistic systems at various grades of nastiness? Will ensure that everything is nice and neutral for all parties? I could email you the sites so you had them in preparation... Would be fun?

That would be awesome. I wonder if we should just broadcast the system defenses so everyone can see right away what they're building against. I think my Mr. Magoo Challenge got better once everyone started to see what they were up against and could start tweaking their approaches. If you want to do that, you could post your systems on your site with a link here or post them directly here.
knasser
QUOTE (Buster @ Aug 30 2007, 08:34 PM)
QUOTE (knasser @ Aug 30 2007, 01:56 PM)
Do you want me to whip up some mini-sites / scenarios? Say three or four realistic systems at various grades of nastiness? Will ensure that everything is nice and neutral for all parties? I could email you the sites so you had them in preparation... Would be fun?

That would be awesome. I wonder if we should just broadcast the system defenses so everyone can see right away what they're building against. I think my Mr. Magoo Challenge got better once everyone started to see what they were up against and could start tweaking their approaches. If you want to do that, you could post your systems on your site with a link here or post them directly here.


I don't mind either way. Let me know what you prefer, it's your call. I wont get them done before the weekend though, so people should go ahead and post their builds in the meantime unless they're feeling really competitive. wink.gif

-K.

EDIT: Dire Radiant - Absolutely! There has to be a death match! smile.gif
odinson
QUOTE (Buster)
QUOTE (knasser @ Aug 30 2007, 01:56 PM)
Do you want me to whip up some mini-sites / scenarios? Say three or four realistic systems at various grades of nastiness? Will ensure that everything is nice and neutral for all parties? I could email you the sites so you had them in preparation... Would be fun?

That would be awesome. I wonder if we should just broadcast the system defenses so everyone can see right away what they're building against. I think my Mr. Magoo Challenge got better once everyone started to see what they were up against and could start tweaking their approaches. If you want to do that, you could post your systems on your site with a link here or post them directly here.

Will the infiltration be completely in the matrix or is there going to be a need to get on site? It could be kept pretty simple like a few infiltration rolls and some hardware rolls to get past guards and locks, maybe some athletics rolls to get past walls or something. A stated site could just have a list of physical barriers and the test to bypass them unless the builds have some other sort of sneaky way to get past. Of course the completely online system would work good too.


I'd figure keeping all the stats for the site a secret until the builds are posted and then have the sites posted and then have the hacking start would work better.
Buster
That sounds great to me. Knasser, if you want you could keep the defenses hidden away and then post them after several builds have been posted to see how they make out.

I'm thinking a mix of "pure matrix" and "physical B&E + internal hack" builds would be great, just specify it in your description. Something like "here's a pure matrix specialist, but he'd be stopped cold with some wireless-blocking paint".

I'm interested to see if a mage-hacker is a viable build, so I'll post one of my builds as soon as I have some time to flesh him out. I'm new to matrix rules, so I expect he'll be TPK. frown.gif

Also, we should nip the Agent Smith Army in the bud. Let's call a house rule that agents and their programs degrade a node they are in or are trying to get in. The best an Agent Smith Army can do is cause a Denial Of Service attack and our goals will be to get into a system and accomplish something or steal something.
odinson
QUOTE (Buster)
Also, we should nip the Agent Smith Army in the bud. Let's call a house rule that agents and their programs degrade a node they are in or are trying to get in. The best an Agent Smith Army can do is cause a Denial Of Service attack and our goals will be to get into a system and accomplish something or steal something.

Or we can just limit the hacker to one comm and say that any agents they run have to run from their comm. Or let them have two comms, one for hacking and one for running agents and they can only run agents from one of their commlinks. That would give them a limit for agents without slowing down the target node as that would making hacking in easier.
Sma
How about plain disallowing Agents.

Keeps out unwanted discussion.

EDIT:
And just to save people some time:
Commlink with all stats at six and all programs (6 as well) but agents, clocks in at 109,400 nuyen or just under 22 BP.
Writing your own hacking program takes 3 months if you can throw 12 dice at the problem, after that raising your pool to 18 only saves you another month.
Buster
I updated the first post with a clarification on the Agent Smith Army houserule.
Sma
I'm assuming this is also supposed to affect sprites and complex forms ?
Buster
Good point. I think for game balance, we'll have to. And since technomancer magic isn't magic, complex forms have to affect (and be affected by) bandwidth and system performance problems too.
laughingowl
One point: limiting TM persona and Sprites with system degredation goes directly against the rules, and is a serious handicap for TMs.

This challange is already slanted very hard towards hackers...

Also if that is your ruling then:

1) Do sprites have to be present in node (and thus counted for degredation) to:
a) sustain threading
b) assist operation
Buster
QUOTE (laughingowl @ Aug 30 2007, 07:27 PM)
One point: limiting TM persona and Sprites with system degredation goes directly against the rules, and is a serious handicap for TMs.

This challange is already slanted very hard towards hackers...

Also if that is your ruling then:

1) Do sprites have to be present in node (and thus counted for degredation) to:
  a) sustain threading
    b)  assist operation

Hence the term "house rule". My intention is to keep Shadowrun street level rather than turning it into the Lord of the Rings with armies of thousands clashing on commlink nodes.

To preserve that philosophy, I would say that a sprite would not need to be on the same node as the TM in order to sustain complex forms or assist operations. However, those sustained complex forms active in the TM's node will degrade that node even if the sustaining sprite is elsewhere.

QUOTE (laughingowl)
This challange is already slanted very hard towards hackers...

Broadswiping complaints are not useful to me, I'm not super-familiar with technomancers so if there's a reason why system degradation impairs technomancers significantly more than mundane hackers, I'd like to know about it.
toturi
QUOTE (Buster)
Rules:
400 BP + 29 Karma + 25000 extra nuyen + 6 months construction time

The builds will start with a standard 400 BP starter characters (35 BP limit to pos&neg qualities, 200 BP cap on physical+mental attributes (not including Edge/Res/Magic), limit rating 6 programs/agents/pilots, limit availability 12 gear, etc).

Just to factor in initiation, submersion, special gear, construction time, and other variables gotten from a handful of starter runs, each character will also get 29 Karma, 25000 extra nuyen, and 6 months construction time to spend. Sleep compensation powers/cyberware such as Sustenance or Sleep Regulator double the amount of construction time (to 12 months). Programs/agents/pilots are still limited to rating 6 but there is no availability limit to the gear bought with the extra 25000 nuyen or built with the construction time. Assume average hits with construction (1/3 dice pool for hits each interval).

Why 29 Karma? If you were going to shoot for an arbitiary number, most people would go for a nice round number like 30.
Da9iel
QUOTE (Buster)
Broadswiping complaints are not useful to me, I'm not super-familiar with technomancers so if there's a reason why system degradation impairs technomancers significantly more than mundane hackers, I'd like to know about it.

I believe the thought is that Technomancers are karma hogs and can't get every program at char. gen. (nor with 29 additional karma) like a a Hacker can. Even what they can get is very expensive. Sprites are their equalizer. If sprites degrade just like agents, a large part of that equalization is gone.
Jaid
QUOTE (Buster @ Aug 30 2007, 08:00 PM)
QUOTE (laughingowl)
This challange is already slanted very hard towards hackers...

Broadswiping complaints are not useful to me, I'm not super-familiar with technomancers so if there's a reason why system degradation impairs technomancers significantly more than mundane hackers, I'd like to know about it.

because one of the advantages technomancers have is that they can run as much as they want all the time. literally, all of a technomancer's complex forms are always active.

similarly, one of their major advantages is that their sprites *don't* require system resources from anywhere. not to mention those sprites come with built in complex forms (again, all active all the time).

the technomancer showing up on a node might be enough to crash it, nevermind bringing a sprite or anything like that.

if you want to limit the agent smith problem, i say just limit the hacker to his own personal resources. if he wants 10 agents, he'd better provide his own commlinks to run those 10 agents off of (rating 6 hosts are going to have some fairly hefty security on them, generally speaking... you shouldn't be able to rely on storing your agents on someone else's hosts anyways, imo, unless it's low rating. and lots of low rating agents causes more problems than it solves).

[edit] also, it's a bit disadvantageous to technomancers in general because we're dealing with someone operating solo. i firmly believe that technomancers, well played, can be as effective *in a group* as a hacker, though of course certain situations will favor one or the other. but without a team, the technomancer is at a major disadvantage, because the technomancer is at it's heart a matrix specialist. just as a street sammy will do better solo compared to an adept, the hacker solo will generally do better than the TM solo. [/edit]
laughingowl
Buster:

The catch is TMs (and more imoprtantly sprites) are not limited by the system of a node.

A rating 10 spirte could function fine with full abilities in a system/response 1 node.

Likewise a 'TMs' rating are all based on their resonance and not limited by a node.

This is their 'advantage' and to offset the huge disadvantage of insane karma costs to get all the programs needed instead of relatively little nuyen.

A TM (and a sprite) do not 'run in the node' like a computer program. They are more like some outside influence that can manilpulate the parameters.


A node system and/or resposne has NO effect on a TM (or sprite) save for determining the level of opposition they might face.

The downside to this:

'Attack' (for example but any program) costs the TM: to rating 6 cost 6 karma.

That same 6 karma would get: 30,000 nuyen or:
5 programs at rating 6 (rating * 1,000 nuten).

So for the TM to have attack: The hacker gets:
Attack, Stealth, Armor, Medic, Analyze

Now factor in the TM needs most of these (well medic doesnt help a TM at all)..

You can see that a 'hacker' is insanely cheaper then a TM, one of the core advantages though is the TM (and his sprites) are not limited by system/response.

An insane Resonance 10 TM (4+ levels of submerision) could be running full rating 20 (with threading can go to twice resonance) programs to walk over almost any standard system. (although the karma cost to be able to get here would be insane (rating 10 complex form alone would be: (presuming maxed 6 at creation) 7+8+9+10= 24 karma (not counting the cost of sumberising and raising resonance to 10 so they could have a complex form at 10).

System response / degredation has nothing to do with TMs save helping them if their opponent gets weaker (do to degredation) ... if you start applying those penalties to them, you serious weaken the TM.

Cthulhudreams
You're agent fix doesn't also fix the 'I buy half a dozen commlinks running agents with medic and heal myself to become the invincible NINJA OF CYBERCOMBAT!"
Buster
I thought everyone was familiar with the Agent Smith Army loophole. There are already several threads about it, but I'll create another thread explaining it.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Buster)
I thought everyone was familiar with the Agent Smith Army loophole. There are already several threads about it, but I'll create another thread explaining it.

Everyone knows it.. I was just point out that your fix doesn't stop this

I buy 10 crappy commlinks with agents. Each agent has medic and nothing else

I log on to *each commlink* with my persona at the same time.

I instruct all agents to to heal me.

I go do something else while being healed by 10 agents constantly because my persona is shared across all nodes it is present in.

Which is an 'agent smith' problem that doesn't require multiple agents in the same node.

So your fix doesn't address it.
Buster
How can a persona be "shared" across several nodes and be present in all of them at the same time? I thought a persona could only be in one node at a time. Do you have a page number that explains this?
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Buster @ Aug 30 2007, 10:45 PM)
How can a persona be "shared" across several nodes and be present in all of them at the same time?  I thought a persona could only be in one node at a time.  Do you have a page number that explains this?

I'll post at the same time, but the rules specifically state that you can be logged in two places at once, but only act in one.

But you can be attacked/otherwise acted on in both.

I'm currently cyberslacking in my lunchbreak instead of writing this report so you'll have to wait until I get home for a page number.

Edit: someone else can probably look it up for you though.

My suggested fix is just say 'agents' are abstracted 'services' you can buy as a hacker - and you can only have one.
Buster
QUOTE (Jaid @ Aug 30 2007, 08:39 PM)
if you want to limit the agent smith problem, i say just limit the hacker to his own personal resources. if he wants 10 agents, he'd better provide his own commlinks to run those 10 agents off of (rating 6 hosts are going to have some fairly hefty security on them, generally speaking... you shouldn't be able to rely on storing your agents on someone else's hosts anyways, imo, unless it's low rating. and lots of low rating agents causes more problems than it solves).

What you are describing actually causes the Agent Smith Army problem. To save space on this thread, I created this thread that describes the Agent Smith Army problem.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=18888
knasser
Wow! It's probably too late to head off another diversion into the Agent Smith Army problem. For reasons stated by others, banning sprites or counting them toward a system degredation hurts technomancers a lot.

I think I can deal with agent smith armies without recourse to house rules. I'm pretty experienced with matrix systems by now. What I'd say in advance is that faced with an overwhelming force of agents, most exterior nodes would simply cry for help and disconnect. So if a hacker wants to take agents with him, he's going to have to think carefully about how they're deployed and when.

I think the simplest way to handle this is to say that hackers are limited to one commlink. I don't think that unfairly penalises them as most of us are agreed that the Agent Smith Army is a harmful exploit of the rules rather than a core feature of the hacker's strategy. If a hacker desires more agents than can be run on his commlink then he will have to compromise nodes in order to load them on to it. This is a legitimate tactic.

On the corp side, I will simply be avoiding Agent Smith Armies by virtue of sensible fluff reasons (economics, vulnerability to node disconnections, etc).

One rules clarification - I think if multiple agents assist each other in hacking a node, decrypting, etc. then teamwork rules apply with the Agent rating counting as the skill level for capping, as per RAW. Also, the results of a team hack on a node result in only the primary member of the team gaining access, not all en masse. This is a GM call, but it's how I would run it in my game if it arose.

I think we also have to say that this match is an Out Of Context game. That is to say, it's abstract and there is no tracking down an employee of Corp X and torturing them for their passwords, etc. The contestants show up at the start node with their persona, programs and the allowed prep-time as specified by Buster.

How does all this sound to everyone? I've started on the systems and I should say that they have a little variety in them so not all of them may be what you expect.

Buster - this is an absolutely great idea and it's going to be fascinating to see what people come up with and what approaches turn out to be most effective.
Jaid
heh, i'll have to see what i can come up with... based on the poll thread the other day, not too many people think a technomancer can be an effective hacker, so you're probably gonna need as many volunteers as you can get for technomancers =P
Crusher Bob
No tries yet?

Ork Hacker adept and face:

400 BP:

qualities (-10 net)
adept 5
codeslinger 10
natural hardening 10

sensitive system -15
uncommon/moderate allergy (munchkinite) -10
moderate addition/hotsim -10

Ork (20 pts)

BOD 4
AGL 1 (increased to 2 with karma)
REA 1 (increased to 3 with karma)
STR 3
CHA 4
INT 4
LOG 3
WIL 3
(100 Points)

edge 5 (40 points)
magic 5 (40 points)

Skills (188 points)
Electronics Group 4
Influence Group 4
Cyber combat 4 (plus specialization of choice with karma)
Dodge 4 (plus specialization ranged with karma)
Electronic Warfare 4
Hacking 6 (plus specialization of choice with karma)
Infiltration 4 (specialization urban with karma)
Intimidation 4
Perception 1

Gear: 22 BP

Stuff:
agent 4 10000

armor 6000
attack 6000
biofeedback 6000
databomb 6000
decrypt 6000
defuse 6000
eccm 6000
exploit 6000
medic 6000
sniffer 6000
spoof 6000
stealth 6000
track 6000

analyze 600
browse 600
command 600
edit 600
encrypt 600
scan 600

all 5 commlink 10000

total: 101600

Adept Powers:
kinestics 5
improved hacking 3
improved cyber combat 2
improved data search 2
improved hardware 2
improved social skill 1

Karma usage:
Agility to 2 (6 points)
Reaction to 3 (15 points)
specialization in hacking action of choice
specialization in cyber combat action of choice
specialization in urban infiltration
specialization in ranged dodge

So, you get:
19 dice (program 6 + hacking 9 + specialization 2 + codeslinger 2) in whatever hacking action you want to specialize in
15 dice (program 6 + hacking 9) in the other hacking actions
14 dice in cybercombat (program 6 + cyber combat 6 + specialty 2) vs your specialty
12 dice cybercombat against others
14 dice in your social skill of choice
13 dice in all the other social skills (including intimidation)
alas, only 9 dice in data search
alas, only 9 dice in hardware
plus 7 dice in software and computer, whatever it is that they do...
9 dice vs ranged combat on full defense
8 dice for infiltration in urban environments
5 dice for perception (plus the tech add ons, if you can afford them)
enough body to wear an armored jacket
1 free point of biofeedback filter
edge 5

With the 25K, you buy a commlink that is six across the board (17K) and keep your 5/5/5/5 as a spare.

Since I dunno what the construction rules are, you can spend that construction time schmoozing some contacts.

Buster
QUOTE (Crusher Bob @ Aug 31 2007, 05:15 AM)
uncommon/moderate allergy (munchkinite) -10

LOL, that's awesome! Great build, thanks for posting it.
Irian
No, just really uncommon smile.gif
Warmaster Lah
Very interesting little contest.

Vanilla vs. Magic vs. Teletechnesis!
Big D
Don't invite any ally or bound Task AR hackers. smile.gif
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