One of my PCs wishes to play as a A.I. So shall I say no or just homebrew somthing?

If you can wait a couple of months, rules for just that very thing will be included in the forthcoming Unwired sourcebook.

Cool. But is there any thing from past versons of SR I could use as a guide or will I just have to wait till unwired to play any good hacker/rigger ideas. It seems that any and all matrix realted questions always have an answer to wait till unwired in some form. But thanks for the info I'll start saving for the book and get ready to post a per order.

There no rules for A.I.s as PC is previous editions.

hell, there was no rules for AI's at all. at the time, AI's where the gods of the matrix.

the closest one would come was a semi-autonomous knowbot...

and even it was more like a monster in the dark then anything playable...

What Backgammon said. It wasn't until the events in Emergence that AIs weren't something huge and godlike. Emergence changed Shadowrun AIs from Neuromancer to "Ghost in the Shell."

Darn. Of well A.I would have no phisical skills and would be matrix masters with computer like brains. One thing that could be fun would be hacking some ones skillwires and having your self a body. But I can see A.Is being quite hard to homebrew as they would need a lot of play testing to blance out. High Bp cost bit high max for logic and willpower and maybe reaction perma hot simed. A maybe crossed with some of the technomancer rules due it bring a part of the matrix. It dose look like an easy feat to pull off an AI would lack the ability to use a lot of costly items in SR so the Bp price for playing one be in the hundreds 50 -150 I see it as. I'm looking forward to finding out more about A.I. I can also see an easy reson why one might run, hacking more and more complex systems for the fun and maybe even aiming to make its self a body much like a jar head.

I can also see AI's being Shadowrunner to get revenge.

Let's face it, the Corps found out about the AI's and the first thing they did was capture them and then either kill them or rip them apart, saw what made them tick (or tried to), and put them back together. I know if I that was done to me, then I would be slightly... PISSED OFF!

So <insert a megacorp> wants to frak with me... well let's hit their database and rob them blind!

yeah I can see that too but really I should get down to stating an A.I for this PC of mine.
Another thought the said A.I would have too be carried in a coustom comlink for some missions meaning that the hardwear running them would act as a limited to there power. The problem of killing an A.I could make the (race) intresting as buy copying them selves and on death sending a data packet with there knowlage in it to the copy would mean that killing a cleaver A.I could be nigh on impossable.

in a way, AI's would be not much different from jarheads...

I know but they would be jar head technomancers. But as A.I is a starting option they would have high limates on the mental stats manly logic as they area a program. I have just had an idea for an odd campine an A.I resistance group maybe helped or hireing a few runners to help with their terrorism. I do hope unwired is the answer.

I know but they would be jar head technomancers. But as A.I is a starting option they would have high limates on the mental stats manly logic as they area a program. I have just had an idea for an odd campine an A.I resistance group maybe helped or hireing a few runners to help with their terrorism. I do hope unwired is the answer.

Important things to think about: as a non-organic inteligence, the AI obviously has no essence. since it has no essence, would it have an edge attribute? would it gain karma?

The simplest rules patch would probably be to make the 'seed' of the AI require a specific piece of hardware (magic quantum computing box), and then treat the AI rather like a jarhead.

Another option would be to paste the free spirit rules onto a sprite, so that the character would be a free sprite.

Making rules for an AI that exists on the net at large via parasitic computing would probably be the most difficult to come up with rules for.

I like the "free sprite" approach, it caters for less powerful AI as presented in Emergence.

Cheers

Max

just give the AI's the Resonance/Dissonance attribute and be done with it . .

What have we definitely heard about what's in Unwired?

(Did you know that you don't actually have to double-click the Post button? Yeah, I thought I did, too. I blame the caffeine.)

PC AIs will be in there

Is that certain? I mean, it was a while ago, but there were no rules for PC free spirits in Street Magic. Why would Unwired be any different?

Edit: Sorry I got really off track and missed that you wanted to AIs not just on stage, but a full PC. My advice to you is actually to ask the other players at your table how they feel about having a PC that "special". If they are cool yeah go with a brain in a jar or a "free Spite".
The question about what's up with AI and essence/edge/karma is a good one. IMO I think this is the dividing line between A.I. and agents. If I was being a RAW Nazi I would say that a free spirit had to get karma via packs just like a spirit, but If it's a PC I would hand wave that as pack with the part at large, and award karma per usual.

Random idea for you I got from cross pollinating some spirit and sprite rules. What if you handled AI shards the way they handled insect spirits: a set of basic forms (ie worker spirit / Machine spirit), and a bonus to make them thematically constant and a little scary (beetle have crazy armor / Daedalus shards have .. uhh .... help me out old timers I don't know enough about Daedalus and Morgana to cook up a template, but I could see this working.

But for the OP, I no there is no RAW to help you out here. What that mean is that you should come up with a very clear vision of what you want from AI in your story. If you want technomancer mentor spirits or matrix great dragons wing 100% and don't look back. If you want something more "playable" than that image how you want it to kick ass and give it dice in that enable that story. Then think about how it's vulnerable and give it dice that reflect that make such an attack viable/optimal, so that you can enable that story too. Cook up what you think will be fun and make it happen. I hope you get enough ideas here to come up with something cool ... and post them when you do. Cuz I think I'll need them in a few months

Would it be possible to use a hardwired expert system like Dixie Flatline in Neuromancer? The tech in SR is more developed, so he'd be able to "appear" as a Virtual Person (to anyone with AR who wasn't blocking him), but would probably be most "at home" in VR. The lack of physical attributes (and possibly Unfit) shouldn't be used to give a huge point break either (as in "you still have up to 200 BP to spend but only on four attributes"), as it would be kind of unfair.

Good point on the not spending BP on physicals. I'd Simply double the cost of mentals and keep everything else the same. Also IIRC VR and AR never fool people into thinking that they are real. That's what makes ultra violate nodes scary. I would think an pull off a Gaius Baltar / Six number is the domain of a full A.I. or shard at a rock bottom minimum.
On that node why wasn't Ultra Violate coding an Echo?

Oh, I wasn't thinking about fooling people into thinking he's real (for that you'd need something more sophisticated than Virtual Person), just a way of interacting that wasn't just a voice coming out of a little plastic box or whatever.

invest in a holoprojector. with one of those, you *can* make people think it's real =P

on a side note, i am really not a fan of making someone pay for their race and then charging them double for mental attributes because they have no physical ones. (i am likewise not a fan of charging jarheads for their CCU, then their drone body, and then charging them double for mental attributes).

i would suggest simply factoring in the whole 'no physical attributes' part into their 'race' and then just limit them to 1/4 their total BP in attributes instead.

Yeah a holo projector would work on people with lame Perception, but really an AI could probably also run a human-looking drone body like a jarhead does. Depends on how GitS you want to be.

The problem arises if you're running a regular character who gets a bunch of extra points because he doesn't have a natural body, but he has few disadvantages to justify the points.

like i said, factor that into race. you don't charge a troll twice for having high strength bonus and body bonus, you charge them once, and you don't take it out of the attribute limit.

and actually, most people will be fooled by a holoprojection. iirc, it's a threshold 3 test, which means to get it reasonably reliably you need 9 dice. that's not unreachable (especially if you have appropriate vision mods in your goggles/glasses/contacts/cybereyes) but it is still a fairly decent dicepool. most people won't have perception as a skill and will probably be defaulting from intuition 2 or 3.

I thought it was Intuition + Perception (2). Realistically it should also be an extended test, or let you get multiple chances to spot it, because sooner or later something's going to give it away ("Hey, an owl just flew right through that guy").

nope, just 1 check. in the event that an owl flies through the hologram, you either notice it or you don't, and it would in no way be cumulative with your ability to spot something else going right through it at a later time. you might get multiple checks if you interract with it for a sufficiently long time, mind you, but i don't see them as being cumulative.

you are correct about the threshold though, but still 6 dice is more than the average person gets, so it's still not that bad. you won't likely be fooling any shadowrunners (who often have perception DPs in the 10+ range, ime) but you can certainly fool joe average fairly consistently, especially if he's not specifically taking an action to observe in detail.

Your totally right about the holograms mechanics. Funny though that Holograms are more realistic than VR and Sim-Sense.

Also I wasn't even thinking of charging a "race cost" for AI. And I stick by my double cost for mentals for simplicity. That way you aren't having to adjust BP totals or attribute point totals. You don't have to rebalance the Attribute/Skill/Resources break down. Clean quick balanced fix.

Dumori, I would thell the Player to wait until the rules for Unwired come out and to ask you again then, as you have yet to see the AI rules

yeah I would but I'm all for doing it. I think that A.I would come in diffrent types. But for pcs high mental max for stats and the using of response on a device when they have to go in with the group. Would. Be good 2 times the cost or morefor phisical skills as I can see AI useing peoples skill wires.

Well, we already know that there are protosapient, metasapient, and xenosapient AIs.

I'd recommend just having them build a Technomancer with no physical stats. Possibly give them a couple point boost on all mental attributes. Allow the purchasing of Sprite abilities as Positive Qualities (10-15 per probably). Limited to only skills with mental attributes, and pilot/gunnery skills (these will use response, not reaction/agility). No limit for Number of Complex forms (Resonance still limits rating). If we want to take a page out of the Dragon, Resonance is 6/12...

Things to note, they only exist in Hot-Sim VR. Medic Program would have to work for them (otherwise they would never heal), They would only have a stun track for damage (no body, no physical damage). Since they are always in Hot-Sim, they will always have 3 IP's (with +2 for running hot-sim, not normally given to agents/sprites, but for a pc I think it'll be necessary). They have no home node, but could still be tracked and linked to the party (if they are communicating with them).

BP cost as a "PC", 200 tops I'm thinking, just due to the Matrix Being limitations (and vulnerabilities).

hmm, if a AI is crashed by a attack program, what then?

Burn Edge, or die... I can't see another track for them to fall back on, they just die.

The question is if someone finds them can they Medic program them back? Are they just unconcious indefinately till revived?

But better yet this is the only runner that can be captured just by getting them into a non-wireless device and severing their connection.

Is there an example of an AI crashing in Emergence?

dont recall. there was mostly one that acted as a "spokesperson" for the "race" as a whole.
i dont think there was any reported combat between hackers and AI...

I didn't read through any of the missions (just in case someone would ever run them), but I think I recall something about a corporation beating on an AI. I think it was more tortuous experimentation, and never actually crashed it.

Another way to do it is to assume and pay for physical stats of 3 (80 BP), but maybe simplicity isn't the way to go.

yeah that is simpler, and as workable as anything. It just rubs me the wrong way to pay for a rules object that isn't on the sheet. Honestly unless unwired is simply amazing, I'd let the rest of the party build there characters first, and then stat it w/o BP just like an NPC to be inline with the team. I mean if you are so fare out in house rule land as it is, a formula sounds kinda silly honestly

Ok here's my plan:
one max logic 15
max other menatl stats 12
A technomancer/hacker lay out
e.g complexed forms and programes.
Matrix enterty.
ability to run up to logic/2 round down ratings of programs as part of them selves chosen a char gen can be cancer with Kama. The ideas from post #34 and a acsess to a few adept power useing resinonce/3? Manly the memory and mental boosts I'm going to say costs around 150bp

Ps could some one play test or review my plan as I'm not exprenced enougth a SR GM to see flaws and I just dont have enought time to play test well

I think someone with Logic 15 would be impossible to roleplay.

LOL that may be true but off I just think about it logicaly you could get close. But Im Mott 100% Shute what the numbers stand for like what a 1 3 5 7 10 mean compaired no living examples.

Basically, Logic 3 is the average person (being generous) -- they can, if they want to, figure out how to set up basic computer stuff, or they're smart enough to call tech support. They are able to get information from multiple sources, decide that some of it is wrong, and integrate the rest.

By the book, Logic 6 is someone who's really, really brilliant, like one of the smartest living people. Logic 7 is someone who is known for being brilliant even centuries after their death, like Leonardo da Vinci or Isaac Newton (both of whom had plenty of batshit crazy ideas, mind you).

Logic 1 is the guy saying "De-fense! Woof-woof! De-fense! Woof-woof!" and "Extended warranty? How can I lose?"

Think of it this way: defaulting (using a Knowledge skill he doesn't have), someone with a Logic of 7 has a dice pool of 6. That's the same dice pool as an average person (Log 3) who is a professional in that skill (skill 3), just figuring things out from first principles. Someone with Logic 1 defaulting rolls ZERO dice.

Now, a character who's naturally extremely brilliant (Log 7) who then gets level 3 Cerebral Enhancement (Log 10) would be just ridiculously smart.

ok all stats max at 12 after all AI can't get cyberwear XD so I'll give them a bit of andvantage there. Now any thing I need to add or change I think leave at that. And to clarify the adept power u see as legal are 3d memmiry and the perfect memory ones and adribute and skill increases. May be Kama only ways of improving the ai I dont see an so having many contacts or social skills. And I see as the mystic adepts of the matrix. Hackers being them SAMs and TM being adepts

Btw I know about vinci and Newton but I have to me my self am a bit like Vinci. I say a bit as well because its so much harder to make a name in intelectul felds these days.

There's the spokeman AI of Emergence, he's an AI with great social skills. And then there's the basically cybersex AI I'm sure she's got lots of contacts...

The only skills they are blocked from are physical skills.