Few ways are better than no ways. Spell defense is literally described as jamming the mana. The rules are unclear on whether the free action is simply needed to declare counterspelling or whether it's an ongoing effort. Personally I've been using the ongoing effort view and made all the mages lose the one Free Action get each pass, I don't see why EW couldn't be handled similarly.

Unless they disable wireless and connect it with a cable. And it's becoming progressively clearer to me that you are a total moron if *anything* you have that could have an adverse impact on your health is anything other than wired to your commlink - which is a single hardened line of defense.

Unfortunately the concept of a PAN is really cool, but devices are just too easily hackable.

Not quite enough - you must also instruct the user to go into Hot-Sim before blackhammer can take effect.

According to the RAW and if all conditions apply sure you can do it.

How often will people have trodes on their head while walking around? Not at all or very, very seldom.

You only wear trodes for VR or hotsim and most people in their daily life will use AR.

But i can really see a scenario where a hacker bounce around on nodes to get close to a victim using VR and going through the motions for making a Hot-Sim assassination.

But it's not gonna happen on the streets, nine out of ten victims will at home or at work.

It does open up fun wetwork missions for hackers though in attacking people in VR.

An interesting point. If the target is already using VR with their own Sim module would they be disconnected when one tries to move them from Sim-Module to Hot-Sim-Module?

Technically you move them from Connection A to Connection B and shouldn’t that screw things up a bit? (Not that the attacker might care as he is about to Black Hammer the poor sod).

I imagine that the attacker could copy the simsense feed and simple switch lane so to speak without noticeable change (except that suddenly the simsense experience got a lot more impressive). Still, I’d require some kind of opposed check between attacker and user (stealth check or spoof perhaps)?

...sorry, fell into my Alex (A Clockwork Orange) mode there for a moment.

Basically I set up an example of a wage slave (named Janie) in a previous post to ask just how it is possible to Black Hammer someone who is not actively on the Matirx nor has any other wireless interfaces active.

DNI is infinitely useful in AR. It is infinitely useful even with less connectivity than AR.

Goddamn it I'm getting sick of this coming up. Sorry The Jopp, I don't mean to direct any ire at you personally, and maybe I'm just a bit cranky this morning, but I've seen this exact argument come up too many times lately.

emphasis mine

Yes, by and large, the people walking around going about their lives are actively capable of using simsense at any given moment.

Yes, i realized that soon after but as i was at work i didn't have time to change it.

Still, it would be nice to see how many actually use Sim modules for simsense input as compared to gloves - I would guess it comes down to cash and or style. There is also the part of being assaulted by sensory information like feelings from commercials.

I think the virtual landscape is probably littered with emotion sense commercials and things that quickly would get annoying.

simsense is cheaper. ridiculously cheaper.

allow me to demonstrate:

sim module: 100
trodes: 50

150 nuyen to access AR and have all available senses. and you can control it by just thinking. you can also, if you choose, access full VR.

AR gloves: 250 (ok, we're already over)
image link glasses: 50 (yup, still over)
earbuds: 10 (yup, still over...
olfactory booster (rating 1): 1,000 and either .2 essence or 2 capacity in a cyberlimb (also +1 to smell-based perception tests, i admit... oh goody )
taste booster (rating 1) 1,500 and .2 essence (also +1 to taste-based perception tests... how incredibly useful )
feedback clothing (for touchlink): 520

so then... ummm... 3230 if i'm not mistaken, and some cyber. you can't access VR, you can't access the emotive track, and it cost you over 20 times as much. simsense is cheap, easy, can do more, and is more convenient. normal people are going to use simsense.

as far as the emotive track, it is 100% canon that you can adjust how much you let through your filter. if it's bugging you, turn it off for a bit.

Unless you don't see the problem of running your life through an iPod-style click wheel, you really need to add in an input device, such as the AR gloves.

...KK has dumped the Smartlink & gone to laser sights on her Warhawks as well - only one less d6 & revolvers really don't benefit from the other features of a Smartlink.

...gee I shot 6 bullets, I think I need to reload. [Even she can count that high]

The Smartlink has also kind of lost some of its attraction in a way since the 2 additional dice it now adds to the DP is no where near as powerful as lowering the base TN to 2 was in previous editions.

The short one is also looking for a lining made out of WiFi blocking material for her Stetson.

Now there's a market waiting to be tapped! WiFi blocking hats, caps, & helmets.

Have you read the rules for SR4 encryption/decryption?
All reality aside, in SR this task is trivial and takes a few seconds, tops.

Well, then those rules are what need to be reviewed, because encryption/decryption is anything but trivial. I'll reread them because I suspect that they leave room for more complex/challenging encryption.

Otherwise the entire wireless world notion is a bust, because the secret to protecting wireless communications is all in encrypting signals so the devices will only respond to packets received from trusted sources.

In fact, the book talks about using an extended test to break the encryption on a passkey, as being Hardware + logic ( 10, 1 day ). Breaking the encryption on wireless communication could easily be just as difficult, especially if the devices are using a shared secret method.

Here is whaty i found on page 225:

" To perform an Intercept Wireless Signal action, make an
Electronic Warfare + Sniffer (3) Test. Once the signal is intercepted,
you can monitor the traffi c and even copy/record/forward it
without making any more Intercept Wireless Signal actions. If you
want to block out some parts of the traffi c or add in your own, you
must make an Edit action."

Now that gets you the packets, now you need to decrpt them.
on the same page"

"Decrypt + Response (Encryption rating x 2, 1 Combat Turn)"

So the limiter become the encrption rating. default encrption for personal data is 5. That is way too easy.

With a decrypt and response of say 4 each, that is 8 dice to get 10 hits, rolling once every combat turn ( 3 seconds ).

I think I am going to house rule this in my game, adjust the 1 combat turn to something like 1 hour.

The FAQ talks about how cryptanalysis is stronger than encryption in 2070. It also mentions that Unwired will have more stuff on crypto, whenever it comes out. In the meantime, in my own game, I just use the suggestions that the FAQ offers, or I determine the time taken for a cryptanalysis attack based on the plot. =i)

EDIT: I have no idea how Moon-Hawk got tagged with that quote, but it's fixed now.

Misquote: SonofaSailor said that, not me.

Not to be too semantic, but the fact that there is a "most common way" of doing something doesn't mean that "people commonly do this".

I'm not trying to prove or disprove anyone's argument here, but they aren't the same thing.


To me, the fact that you have to buy something extra to use simsense means that there are people that do, and people that don't. Random passerby? I'd roll a die or something. Important plot-person? If I'm making things up on the fly, I'd probably either have an idea of whether they would have a simsense module, or I'd roll a die. Pregenerated stuff is just that, so I'd check my notes.

and thats if you buy the idea of being able to route traffic from your hot sim enabled module onto the targets trodes++

if not, they also need to be operating a hot sim enabled module.

That is the point of contention here.

The arguement is that I ( Mr. Homocidal Hacker, or HH for short ) can send signals from my Hot simed ready simsense module directly to to Wage Slave Janes wireless trodes and watch her brains come out her ears.

Personally, I think that a hard and simple rule is that devices like that are slaved to the commlink, meaning you have to hack the commlink first. However it can be argued that you should be able to bypass the commlink even in a slaved enviroment by spoofing the commlink. My reply would be good luck being able to pinpoint the specific device amoung all the other devices around. Of course HH may not be particuliarly selctive and just start spraying BlackHammer at any trode within range....

Me of course.

In my case it's threefold.

1) The execution as presented bypasses any defense the target has, thus giving people absolutely no reason to put firewalls or anything like that on their commlink. Because if you have a firewall, it's actually much easier just to Black Hammer your DNI rather than crash your commlink.
2) The ease of hosing people off with either death, unconsciousness, or personality re-writes is counter to the difficulties presented by all other methods of doing so. Since every other type of 'attack' has a defense, and the defense against Black Hammer is Firewall + Response, that means that if you get hit in the 'trodes with Black Hammer as has been suggested, you get NO roll to defend yourself. That's total crap.
3) Given that there are rules that say you CAN directly do this to PAN-slaved items like 'trodes, and there is an entirely different passage that says you CAN'T... I choose to go with the can't. That's because if this attack was intended to be possible from the get-go, why is there absolutely no mention of it anywhere in the books? This method of screwing people over would have become the only way to do business, so to speak, and probably would've contributed to the direct demise of the WMI.

So it's basically a mechanics thing for me. Go through the commlink, hack the node, engage in cybercombat. You don't get to circumvent all of the stuff designed to keep you from doing it just by going in the back door, IMO.

It would go ahead and boost their signal, but I think it would be meaningless.

Just because you boost the signal of the DNIs, that doesn't mean you boost the signal of the brain.

I disagree with your contention that you don't need two-way communication in order to induce IC-badness. Black Hammer's description (according to the earlier post) specifically says that you do.

Now, I have no RAW support for this and could very easily be wrong, but I imagine that in order to get the sim going, the trodes/whatever have to calibrate to the specific target's brain waves. And I imagine you have to hit very specific locations with very specific timing, etc. Doing that from a distance would be very difficult.

Really, if you want this effect, just hit em with a focused microwave beam in the head and boil their brains out.

I try to avoid straight out "no"s personally. Except when you or Doc pitches a character that is. But for rules things, I tend to try to make sure I have at least something to back up my POV.

So are you saying you agree with this garbage?

Mages have drain. This has no downside to the hacker doing so.

Hold on, lemme go get a ten foot pole before getting in to this.

What's with this way of thinking? The devs aren't all knowing.

I know damn well that there's nothing in the books or theme about a Blood Spirit enveloping the world. But can it by rules? We seem to think so. Harlquinn doesn't have 1000 Spirits for Aid Spell, but by rules it's certainly possible.