Reading through SR4A. Ihaven't played shadowrun in 16 years. I thought the anniversaryedition would be a good place to jump back in. Anyway, on page 233 the description of the Reality Filter program has it linked to response, which isn't a skill as far as I can tell, but a matrx attribute. Is this correct?

I do believe it is... it is an attribute of Comlinks and computer systems (Nexi and such)

That is correct. When the filter works it effectively affects how quickly you process the information (aka raises your Response Attribute) because all of the data is inline with how you choose to see things.

Imagine how quickly you would surf the web for information if all web pages were laid out in a fashion that you chose and preferred? Since nobody will design your web pages like this, your web browser would have to translate their code into something that matches your preferences and settings. That is effectively what the Reality Filter does even though the technicals might be a bit different.

The problem I see with this is the rules say that a program is linked to a characters skill ( SR4A 232). Since response is not a skill, it shouldn't be linked to any program. Or, am I misunderstanding something?

Response is part of the Hardware. CPUs and Mainboards and Stuff. It's okay to be linked to another Attribute but uses the characters skill for the actual work. That's normal since after that the character doesn't have to do anything.

The bonus is to the Attributes (hardware of the device). It takes the skill of the user to get the program to do its job (skill + program roll to see if it works or not). Since the program works automatically once you run it (roll as you enter the node), I translate this to mean that your preconfigured settings wither worked or didn't work as for interpreting the new node. This is still based on your skill, and is rolled again for each node to see how well you had planned for this type of configuration.

It boils down to your skill and the program allows you to make it work. If it works, your hardware works smoother since things are optimized. If it fails (or even ties) you get lag (-1 Response instead) as it is still trying to correct things but is unable to do so. In case you fail, I suggest you rerun the program (a complex action) if you've got the time.

Don't forget that when you retry something you've got a -2 modifier.

Or you could just turn off your Reality Filter and eliminate the penalty. Re-run the filter once you enter another node.

-paws

So, which skill would you use when you run Reality Filter?

Sorry, it's not like other programs that use skill+program; my mistake. The concept remains though.