I am having a discussion with a friend about mundane hacker vs adept hacker vs technomancer.

Both of us have seen threads on this forum about killer builds for all of them. My friend remembers a thread with a technomancer capable of gaining a rating 24 stealth.

So I am kind of asking people to make the equivalent of the pornomancer. What is the most killer technomancer you can make with 400 bp, and what is the most killer build for an adept or mundane hacker.

The goal of the build is to be able to walk into Zurich Orbital and steal some money. I suspect Hacking/Exploit, Stealth and Hacking/spoof are the most important die builds, but any build that can do this is welcome.

We think that for the purposes of this you can treat Zurich Orbital as rating 10 world (System 10, Firewall 10) with lots of unpleasant software around designed to upset you.


My first two are:

Adept hacker

This gives me stealth 6
Hacking + Exploit = Skill 6 + spec 2 + adept 3 + program 6 + code slinger 2 + encephalon 2 + PuShEd 1= 22


Technomancer:

Assuming I thread my stealth to + 5 I have stealth 10 (and have to resist and/or heal 5 physical damage)
Assuming I thread my exploit to + 5 I have exploit 10 (and have to resist and/or heal 5 physical damage)
I also need to have a registered sprite to maintain stealth for me while I hack, or I am -2 on all actions

Hacking + Exploit = Skill 6 + spec 2 + complex form 5 + threaded 5 + code slinger 2 + encephalon 1 + PuShEd 1 + paragon 2 = 24 die

the problem is not your Exploit dice pool. you can always just probe the orbital. where the TM wins is at Stealth, when he enters against (Analyze ~7 + Firewall 10).

you also forgot that the technomancer can also just have a sprite directly boost his complex forms, not just by sustaining threading. there are those who prefer to rule that this is capped to the same point as threading, but there's nothing in the rules to indicate that's the case.

Pay attention to what you make your Threading attribute. Since threading is a non-action, you can do it anytime and as a reaction, making your uber pools incredibly flexible, even though you will have to resist a lot of fading.

A technomancer's strength comes from their resonance tricks, and echoes, while a hacker's strength comes from money, and having enough points free to get a high edge.

Its not a fair comparison if they can't use them(you can't submerge in chargen).

I'd like to see this challenge done in Karmagen.

A Technomancer's strength is sprites and threading. Echos are a nice add-on, but far from required. Also, hackers are brutally hardcapped. Technos are not.

Oh, and it'sS hard to have more than one good piece of equipment at chargen.

If you follow Jaid´s advice, spice it up with Resonance 6 / Complex Forms 6, and Register a sprite R9 ingame, you can get Stealth 15. Use Threading to boost Exploit/whatever you need. Since your Support Operation sprite is high-rated, you should have enough time to commit your theft.

The dp on a one-trick pony should look more like
Skill 6 + spec 2 + complex form 6 + threaded 3 + code slinger 2 + paragon 2 = 21 dice, with likely two attempts before detection. If 42 dice are not enough, add another Support Operation task or use Edge.

Don't forget that hacking success is not just about big fuck off dicepools at the time of the hack. There's all sorts of tricks you can pull to prepare, like malware, researching exploits, man-in-the-middle attacks. If you wanna take on Zurich Orbital, you definitely shouldn't do it alone. I love the idea of a team of hackers working together for a monumentous hack.

QFT

Okay, let get our Hacker as good as we can:
Exploit 6 + Hacking 6 + Specialization 2 + Codeslinger 2 + Encephelon 3 +PuSHeD 1 +Optimization on Commlink 1 +Botnet to help Probing the Target 5 + Adept 3 + Hotsim 2 + Edge 7 + Neocortical Nanites 3=41 dice, all exploding, although your GM will almost certainly not allow your neocortical nanites to function, so 38 exploding dice, in the door easy. 'Course this thing is probably layered so that only gets you in the front door, you can't probe the next layer without someone spotting you. Remember, most Zurich stuff has node 1, which must be hacked to get to node 2, etc and most of these have 10 nodes minimum. I don't think you could beat a layered system with just brute hacking.

Of course, it's probably easier to just shut the whole thing down using DDOS attacks. This can be done out of chargen but you need a couple weeks to set it up. You'll need a Worm with Stealth and Exploit, all with the Ergonomic and Optimization feature. Take a typical hacker rolling 12 dice for simplicity (worms will role the same). It takes 3 days (average) to do a mass probe and their stealth is high enough they shouldn't be detected. Say another day to hack into all the nodes and set up the worms. All Worms have a script that they perform mass probes, replicate themselves in the targets, then repeat the mass probe.
After the first 4 days, we have 17 worms (+1 hacker).
After the first 8 days we have 107 worms (+1 hacker)
After the first 12 days we have 647 worms (+1 hacker). At this point we can crash 1 System 10 Node. However, we're aiming a bit higher.
After 16 days we have 3887 worms (+1 hacker)
After 20 days we have 23327 worms spread out in a bunch of different bot nets. We can DDOS anything

At this point, and I'm making two presumptions. The first is that you cannot access a node that is under a DDOS attack (makes sense). Second, that a node under DDOS attack cannot maintain subscriptions to other nodes (makes sense). At this point, you need to find a way to Sniff for hidden nodes (wouldn't be a problem for anything but Zurich, since it's in space). Book a suborbital flight that'll take you near it, scan, even with a directional antenna you make need to boost your Signal. Once you've got those, you're ready.

Go to a couple of worms, say 40, and give them the corrupt program. Set half to delete information on various public or conspiracy figure (Llofwyr, Ehran the scribe, each Corp judge, etc) and the other half to delete nuyen from each crop judges account. You'll want 5 IP for this. Get a mage buddy to sit next to you to heal you. Punch through the first nine layers with DDOS attacks with a set script to have each attack staged 0.1 second after the previous one. Now you've burned the first nine levels but you still need to hack the last one, we need it functional to get our info. Have the worms do a joint hack with you, they won't add any dice because we're hacking on the fly but you'll all get in with accounts. with 33 exploding dice you should be in on your first try. Now run like mad to steal whatever data you can get, presuming somethings aren't hard encypted. Local security should be tied up destroying your worms. With 5 IP you should be able to do whatever you need. Whole thing should be done in under 15 seconds.

Congratulations, you've just hacked the Zurich Orbital. I hope you got something good because you're now the most wanted person ever and there's a non-zero chance you just crashed the world economy. Run!

I don't think Stealth will get you through some of these unless it's insane. You're not only looking at the Firewall+analyze but at least 5 Kitsune Agents in each node actively scanning incoming icons with 14-20 dice (ground banks have 16 dice, with War! should be 20) plus whatever the security hackers are doing. Hang around and they'll inevitably spot you, especially if you have to sleaze your way through 10 of these. And remember that the Zurichs also inevitably have Technos doing security with their own insane sprites.

I would not call Rating 10 Programs (Potentially) BRUTALLY Handicapped... and it will be much easier to get the programs (Only Money after all) over the Complex Forms... Echoes are what make an Interesting Character, in my opinion...

HAckers will start out Vastly superior in most ways at character Generation (At least in BP)... with A Hundred Karma or so, the Technomancer will start to catch up nicely, and after about 300 Karma will usually shine more often than the Hacker... Though the Hacker will likely have MUCH more utility than the Technomancer in their skill categories at that point...

As for Equipment, it really depends upon your focus as to what defines "Good Piece of Equipment."

This assume one blatant security flaw : that the inner nodes are not behind a wifi-inhibited shielding, connected to the outer defenses only through physical cabling ...

sure, now the max pool of a hacker isn't 12, it's 16. Given an investment of well over a million (because you want response 10 too to even get close toa starting technomancer).

And we're not talking interesting to you here, we're talking rules relevant effectiveness.


As there are rules for startup characters and rules for taking better equipment than would otherwise be legal, no, it does not.


And that's OT, but given that the mancer can summon sprites, he has hacking companions he can pull out of his arse, where the hacker has to pay or convince them.

As for malware, what stops a mancer from buying a commlink putting a pirated agent and some malware into it, and using it like a hacker would? Nothing.

I agree here (I think). In exchange for the opportunity to have very powerful and expensive programs, a hacker has to face the fact that every corp and military group now should have those same very expensive and powerful programs. The opposition will automatically be getting the same boost that the hacker has to dump a lot of nuyen into.

Having said that, it does provide a much greater incentive for hackers to code their own programs. A rating 10 Common Use program, if you're using a nexus, should be doable in a month, Good use of downtime and saves a ton of cash. Hackers don't just need money, they also need time.

PS. Why does a Hacker need Response 10 to keep pace with a Techno? There's plenty of customizable options for Commlinks in Unwired to boost both matrix initiative and IP.


Technically, nothing stops a Techno from getting the same malware that a hacker does. In game I've usually found two problems.

#1 It makes Technos both karma and nuyen dependent. Technos need BP and Karma like no other group but they usually have plenty of spare nueyn after a few sessions to help cover up this problem. Buying the same programs that Hackers need decreases this option. Pirating helps, a lot actually, but it still means the Techno are chasing both the Karma and Nuyen dragons and that's really tough, especially since Technos don't have a lot of BP to put into resources early in the game.

#2 More of a meta problem, the hacking rules, especially in Unwired, are the most confusing in the game. Most players stick to one side or the other. I've met very few players who are comfortable with the rules for both threading and viruses. It's just a lot to keep in one players head, not counting the headache of twice the book keeping.


Didn't think of this, mostly because I thought "no one is paranoid enough to put wireless negating in a satellite hundreds of miles above the Earth". But yes, the corp court is exactly that paranoid. Not sure off the top of my head how to get around this, my best bet would be a Vector trojan slipped into a bunch nuyen or private mail being sent to Zurich. Trojan goes exactly where you want to go and opens up an automatic connection for an agent or worm.

But nothing will raise their response over 6, which means their primary "attribute" for most Matrix tests is hardcapped at 6. It's+4 dice. That's why you want it.


What's considering they use money they earn on runs and nothing else. What's exaxctly stopping a mancer to just spoof someone's link, rob them, and use that cash for their buying purposes? It's not like anything below high end military firewalls has a chance to stop them. They essentially can have all the cash they want by constantly leeching off everyone with firewalls below 8.


Yeah, that's because they were written incoherently and break with the red thread of SR4's streamlined system. And yes, a mancer is a character that demands a lot of rules knowledge. If you don'T know your rules as a mancer player, you suck. If you do, though, you're THE ONE.


That too, of course.

Yeah, 4 more dice helps but to my mind the difference between a hacker and a script kiddie is primarily the cyberware, which gives you a +7 pool to all hacking rolls. Besides, you can just optimize any program to get around the R6 limitation.


Sanity and in game agreement. Yeah, there's nothing to stop a techno from stealing someone's link but quite frankly, there's nothing stopping a hacker from stealing cars off the freeway (occupants included) or to stop mages from mind controlling store owners into giving them stuff for free. Most people just agree not to do this because it screws the game up. Sure, you can play without that gentleman's agreement but then it's a totally different game where powerful mages control everything from behind the scenes (there's enough of that already) and technos/hackers take over and control entire facilities. Usually we all acknowledge that the GM, in order to do his job, is the final arbiter of the karma and nuyen awards that players get.


Totally agree, although BP/Karma/Nuyen will hold you back for a bit. It's just a ton of rules.

Yes, but that won't give you the response attribute increase (not to mention make these programs a lot more expensive).


Yeah, and rules that are internally as incoherent as with the rest of the system. But for a mancer player it's well worth dealing with this shit.


Well, yes, except that hackers aren't so good at on the fly combat hacking as mancers are. Also, you have to fence car and passenger. The mancer just hijacks the guy's link and transfers his funds to one of his accounts (or has a sprite do this).

As for mages, conbtrol manipulation spells are rare, drain intensive and have to be sustained. Besides, every place with magical security will call the cops RIGHT NOW if you mindfuck your way to wares/services, so it's really just good to get something for free from the stuffer ... and quite honestly, that's not worth the nosebleed.

I can get the matrix initiative from commlink customization and the software through optimization which is (AFB) relatively cheap and a lot cheaper than getting the response increase to 10. Basically, R10 is nice but there's plenty of ways around it. What am I missing here?


Yes, maybe a specialized techno will be better at it than a hacker (unless the hacker botnets and the techno doesn't) but that's like saying your cleared the hurdle by 11 feet instead of 10. The bar to getting into some random schlub's account and ripping them off is already so low that nothing is stopping either from going mad on every system they can find. Quite frankly, with hacker cyberware, only corps and armies have any chance of standing up against an optimized techno or hacker.

And do you really want to argue that mages can't horrendously abuse MIND CONTROL to get crazy amounts of money without going on runs?

I think this is a very interesting point of view, and I share it. So an interesting question is "do we want our games to be this way?". In the shadowrun fiction, other cyberpunk fiction and in most movies hackers are often portrayed this way. I quite like it, and I like the fact that in most games I play in, the hard part is getting the hacker to the system as its usually isolated from the matrix. Once the hacker is in, usually the system is theirs...although occasionally it all goes horribly wrong.

In some ways the faces and the samurai's are the same. Only a serious armed force can face down an optimised troll samuari, and a good shadowrun face can talk his way anywhere.

Touché. Because universal open wireless makes no sense when you lay your entire life bare on it, and you have such a lack of doable security. There are already concerns about wirelessly-controlled implants such as pacemakers being hacked IRL. This WiFi FTW fad is so ... 2000s.


That s much moreso true for mancers than hackers, since mancers can use sprites to hide, whereas hackers have to pray the system rolls shit on analyse rolls.


AFBand cannot look up drains tats for mind control, but it comes with heavy drain AFAIK and is sustained (and passing through a ward breaks the spell). Yes, you can rip off the average joe that way, and probably live better than with the extremly meager pay for SR4 runs, but so does a carjacker fencing cars jacked by the rules.

Sorry how do they use sprites to help them hide?

Teamork on stealth tests, and one type (am AFB) has some sort of power that works towards that end too.

Getting the hacker to the right place to hack in is great way to go but, having played SR3, I appreciate the fact that it's optional. It slows the game down immensely when everyone fights/sneaks their way into the super-secret control room, all hyped and ready to go, and then everyone has to go eat pizza for thirty minutes while the decker and the GM do their matrix thing. Great in some situations, horrible in others.

As for why we play this way, I think some of it is convenience and some is style. Yes, you can go knab cars but it's a lot easier for the GM if you just take the Johnson's job. And yes, elite covert opperatives should make enough money of one or two runs to retire but dystopia/noir poverty is just more fun to play than wealthy retirement.


Yes and no. Yes, in terms of realistic party play extreme specialization means you basically dominate in your area unless the GM plain starts to make stuff up. No, in terms of the more theoretical optimization we're discussing here, there's basically three-four top classes because nothing else is even in the ball park in terms of absolute power. You're either a pornomancer, a summoner mage, a techno, or possibly a hacker/face.


I can't fault the creators for this. Making a realistic society is tough. Making a society that is realistically stupid is like the holy grail of worldbuilding.


AFB as well but just for start, the mage could mind control a hacker or techno and do everything we've discussed here.

Simple, They don't...

That is what Response Enhancers are for...

Response 10 means they can run more software.

With response 10:
They can have 10 pieces of ergonomic software
they can have 9 additional pieces of software running before they incure response degredation.

That's 19 out of the 21 programs in the game.

2ndly.,. the 10 response, 10 rating program stuff is from War, and it sucks. It's badly thought out and lame.

The only thing it does is make hackers slightly less lame than the Technomancers who have access to r12 sprites, and r12 complex forms (with really a LOT of karma)

The answer really is to fix technomancers back into a reasonable level, and not make them "Gods of the Matrix! harhar you lame Hacker"

Interestingly, though, Technomancers are not the Gods everyone is making them out to be...
We have a Technomancer at our table, with 300 Karma (or thereabouts) and he is "powerful" yes. But no more so than the Hacker with his 310 karma (or thereabouts).

Yes, he has access to the Sprites... Big Deal, the Hacker has access to all the Worms, Trojans and Agents that the Technomancer shuns... An interesting note... Most Sprites do not have the Stealth CF inherently, which makes them very subpar for intrusion into systems... and they are easy targets for the Agents of a system that can run their own Stealth... Cannot tell you how often the Techhnomancer forgets this and outs his intrusion by summoning a Sprite without Stealth... always hilarious.
Yes, He can thread up to Rating 16 CF's if he so desires (He has a Resonance of 8 ), But I have rarely seen him actually get to Double Digits, as the Fading is brutal (Most of his CF's are below a 5)... He chose Echoes over CF Augmentation...
He is fast in the Matrix (3 Passes, about to pick up his 4th)... The Hacker has 5 passes...
His Initiative is good, but still 3 points lower than the Hacker's Initiative...
He has Unlimited CF's he can keep active... Big Deal, the Hacker runs 24 Programs on his link simultaneously and still beats him in initiative...

Hackers CAN compete against powerful Technomancers, if they are willing to devote the time and resources to doing so. Ironically, if our Technomancer wants to actually access a hidden node, the Hacker has to find it for him, as he is sub-par with this aspect of Hacking. He is awesome at Spoof (His specialty), but not so much with anything else...

AS a note... Dice Poools are formed with Logic + Skill (Hits capped by Program Rating)... We liked this optional rule...

As someone said earler in the thread, Both the Technomancer and the Hacker will succeed in their objectives (Assuming a level of competence - That whole cleared the hurdle by 10 feet or 11 feet; does it really matter at that point), but the Hacker will gerneally be able to do so with much less resource expenditure, allowing them to do other things... Our Technomancer is a hell of a Hacker, but the Hacker has 62 other skills at reasonable levels that make him so much more versatile than the Technomancer...

Anyways...

You're using the Logic+skill optional rule. This makes a HUGE difference, and really brings the hacker back in line with the Technomancer.

here's the difference:

Optional Rule:
Hacker DP: Logic+Skill+cyberware max hits 6 (so unless his dp is more than 20 he's not losing much)
Techno DP: Logic+Skill+echo max hits: CFR+Thread 5-16 (most of the top end of that doesn't help him)

Regular Rulse:
Hacker DP: Skill+R6+cyberware (15-20 dp)
Techno DP: Skill+CF+thread+echos=20+ is not unreasonable.

Stealth is a huge difference:
Hacker: 6 stealth max
Techno: 11 stealth is not unrealistic, can probably get to 16 fairly easily.

Now, the Hacker could also be a street sam, or a face without much work.
The Techno, is a techno, they can't really do much else.. except maybe pick up extra meat IP's, and biowires.

To have a r12 registered sprite requires risking 24 physical drain, and very likely taking 18 physical drain
To have a r12 compiled sprite requires risking 48 physical drain, and very likely taking 24 physical drain

The highest credible compiled sprite (which gives all the funky options such as assist operation) is quite low. As an example compiling a rating 8, throws 16 die which can often generate 12 sucesses, which is 24 physical drain. I think rating 6 sprites is pretty close to being a cap (even with these: 12 die could give 10 successes fairly easy which is 20 drain, buts its potentially stun...so you don't quite die).

I think its ok to say technomancers are uber...buts let keep the arguments to where the technomancer doesnt have resist drain levels that are more than their body

I don't think that's the solution, or at least not all of it.

The power of TMs in the Matrix isn't a huge problem because a basic script kiddie can do 80-90% of the hacking any team needs. They'll consistently beat R4 systems and can, with the right tricks, reasonably tackle R5-6 systems. A dedicated hacker can regularly handle R6-7 systems and with the right tricks can hack darn near anything. The difference between a dedicated hacker and a submerged techno is that the techno can consistently beat R7+ systems without too much planning while the hacker struggles and usually needs to pull out the malware/botnets to succeed.

But lets be frank, pre-War! the only systems above R6 with any rules printed were groundside Zurich banks, the kind of places where you just shouldn't be able to hack. Heck, an R10 system is just below UV! How many groups regularly need to hack something like that, the kind of glacial ice systems that most technos and hackers regard with awe and that the corp court and the megas guard zealously? 'Cause if it's a one time thing your hacker, if he knows his stuff, can probably pull it off. And a dedicated hacker can usually get enough IP and cyberzombies that cybercombat is at least bloody as (can't remember the swearing rules) a bad fiery place.

And in exchange for this ability to hack into these systems, Technos sacrifice all their abilities outside of the Matrix. They have MAD, need to buy up Ressonance and TM qualities/stuff, and if they're going to play around with malware and other hacker toys they'll be struggling for money as well. Compare that to mook users who need maybe 15 BP worth of gear, script kiddies who require maybe 80-100 BP and can therefore take on other roles, or dedicated hackers who need about 120 BP and 2 Essence and as a consequence of their Encephelon/PuSHeD have massive bonus dice pools to their logic linked skills.

Your average TM is dropping roughly 200 BP so he can have crappy physical stats, no magic or cyberware, pump every bit of karma he gets into submersion, all for the ability to hack a few systems which will almost never come up. Because while Stealth 10 is nice, it's almost never necesary.

If he manages to soak 10+ physical damage...and the fact that TMs have no matrix condition monitor hurts more than you'd think.

Wow, a lot of people posted while I was typing my first response.


Yes and no. Technos can get these but for a variety of reasons they usually don't (see earlier in the thread). The reluctance/refusal to use them by most technos is one of their biggest weakness.


Preach it brother! Technos will probably always have an edge because there are certain things a Techno can do that a Hacker just can't while the reverse isn't true. 'Course given what the Techno has to spend to gain that hacker edge in addition to their own, they deserve that relatively slight edge.

A note on dice pools:
A quick note on dice pools. They're both being dramatically underestimated and over emphasized. A dedicated hacker with rating 6 programs, max skill, and cyberware will be rolling 21 dice minimum, not counting commlink optimization, hotsim, specialization, etc. Add in Edge or rating 10 programs and dice pools of 30+ are the standard. Nothing stands up to that, it's just silly dice. At that point 30 dice vs 31 dice isn't important, it's the unique abilities given by echoes, trojans, botnets, sprites, and node design that really determine power level (OVER 9000!!!!). That's harder to calculate than dice pools but it's also far more accurate.

Well and Technomancers who don't use worms, etc.. are being completely silly.

A personal Nexus /is/ useful to both Technomancers, AI's and Hackers.

Then, quite simply, your player is purposely nerfing his character. Nevermind that anecdotal stories aren't a feasible argument here. We don't care about that one player. Get that?


And thread himself any skillsoft he desires. Remeber. Threading is not an action. He can do this as an interrupt anytime he wants.


That's unrealistic. 1/3 success is. That would, in this case, be 5 successes. A lot easier drainable.


That is yet another problem of SR4's matrix rules. It makes the hacker even less viable as an archetype standing on it's own.


Only up to a point.


Given that he can dump all but the Resonance skills, and dump all but the most important CFs, in case he maxes out his threading attribute and resonance, he sure has some BP left to bosst his stats a bit. Of course, Karmagen is way better here because it has no rules of how much of what goes where.


Given he can thread as much as he wants, he can do that in baby steps, each time reducing fading to managable levels.

A quick note on the speculated probabilities.

Ignoring Edge and glitches -
- 16 dice will score 12+ hits about 0.08% of the time (1 time in 1250 attempts)
- 12 dice will score 10+ hits about 0.05% of the time (1 time in 2000 attempts)

Annecdotal evidence is better than none...


Only if you allow threading an already threaded CF further up, which probably is the most stupid and broken interpretation possible for the threading rules. In other words, just your kind of thing - interpret rules in the worst possible way and then complain the result is the worst one possible. I also suggest you re-read the rules for Emulation

You could though, get a copy of a skillsoft someone else owned, and CF a copy of it fairly easily.
The cost is pretty trivial (a few karma)

Maths beats both, though. And since threading CFs up in baby steps is as viable as threading as often as you want, the sky's the limit (or the other players' patience).


It may be broken and stupid but it also is viable, and since it wasn't fixed with SR4A, it is reasonable to believe it is intentional since that was a well known problem. As this is not about Sengir's house rules - white I totally agree with you on it being retarded and broken and forbidding it a reasonable and sensible house rule - it can be done according to RAW.

Technically true, but check the Fading rules. "For threading, the Fading DV equals the hits used for rating points". Now since it doesn't specify which threading 'action' to consider, one should therefore deduce that all hits being used for rating points apply, so re-threading actually increases the total damage to resist and makes your baby-steps approach a terrible idea even if the GM was idiotic enough to allow it.

Example:
Thread for +1, resist 1DV
Thread for another +1, resist 2DV
Thread for another +1, resist 3DV
- Or, just thread for +3 straightaway and resist just the one lot of 3DV

You wouldn't even avoid the physical damage issue.

Okay, good catch.

If you want to call my interpretation a houserule yours is one, too, because both are perfectly good according to RAW's wording. If two interpretations are equally valid by the letter it comes down to a teleological decision, and the authors certainly did not intend to allow a TM with a Threading pool of three to get arbitrarily high ratings. Lastly, the proposition "not errata'ed implies correct" is true iff "not errata'ed and not correct" is always wrong. Or with less math, there is a lot of stuff which is plainly wrong and is not adressed with errata, so saying something has to be correct because otherwise there would be errata for it makes no sense

Actually I think script kiddies are less viable than dedicated hackers. The difference between a mook user and a script kiddie is pretty minimal but the script kiddie needs to buy up a lot of skills while the mook user just needs to buy the same gear as the script kiddie, no expensive skills. If the Matrix isn't important, just get a mook user. If the Matrix is important get a dedicated hacker. If the game is in the Matrix, then a Techno is pretty feasible.

(That hackers can compete with Technos)

To what point? Yes, a techno can do everything a hacker can but he has to buy most of the hacker gear and some of the skills for that to work. Also, at that level, a Tank sprite or something isn't going to make a difference, we're talking the kind of vast codezombie armies that make cybercombat a mess. The Techno has a few nice abilities, like high Stealth and some of the echoes, but the number of situations where those are going to be critical is so small I just can't see it being worth the investment.


He can't dump all but resonance skills if he wants to run the hacker stuff as well (if he doesn't want to play with worms and the like, it's his grave). The Cracking and Electronics skill groups will run him 60-80 BP. He has to dump, to the best of my recollection 55 BP to be a Techno with Resonance 5, 25 more BP if he wants either Resonance 6 or some cyberware like the OP had, and at least 80 BP into his fading stats. Resonance skill group will run another 40ish BP. You're looking at 235 BP there and every stat outside of the fading stats is at 1. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd like to see a build than can do techno stuff and hacker stuff without being crippled outside of the Matrix.


Darn straight! Heck, a Nexus should be mandatory for hackers.

Actually, something interesting I'd like to know about WAR!: do they have costs included for Nexi above rating 6 and what are the costs of Response and Systems at rating 10, say with a persona limit of 1 and processor limit of 2. I want to know whether programming is going to be viable again.

It was a known problem. Other known problems were adressed. This one was not. So, given that it wasn't adressed ...


That's why there are House Rules. Still, going by RAW, yes, that's what it means.


No, he just can insta-thread himself skillsoft CF that allow the use, since that's legal to do with skillsoft.


As I said, it's a bad idea to build TMs with the BP system, try Karmagen to get the powerful results (a bit less now thanks to SR4A, but still pretty powerful).


And he has sprites, which are like a passepartout for just about any situation and can teamwork and add mad dice anytime for anything, and are uaffected by Response load. Also, the mancer gets boni from Paragon and Stream and is totally unhackable. And that's not even considering that he has an optional rule that is a flat out I-Win Card against any non-TM Matrix user.

I dunno, it's still fundamentally a "because it's not forbidden it's RAW" argument. And while I think the designers are quite competent, expecting them to fix every issue in a game is difficult, especially since it's hard to make solutions that won't cause other problems.


Fair enough, shoulda thought of that.


Karmagen makes (almost) everything more powerful and if you need to use Karmagen to make something overpowered when BP is the standard that's not a strong argument for something being dominant/overpowered. Nosferatu are incredibly overpowered if you use Karmagen as written in Runner's Companion.


Codezombies beat sprites in cybercombat, plain and simple. It's not even a competition. And while sprites are useful for boosting Stealth and other abilities, that's not going to beat a truly devious security system. You simply do not mess with a paranoid runner on his home ground, whether that's the Matrix or in real life.

Technos being unhackable isn't that impressive. Most hackers will have essentially unhackable systems (example provided at bottom). And Technos pay for this by not having a Matrix condition monitor.

It's weird to see you strictly arguing RAW on one side and then quoting optional rules on the other. Still, I would be interested to know what this I-Win card is.

Example of an "unhackable" system. This is pretty basic but with a personal twist:
Node 1 is you standard hacking node, all the typical goodies. Node 1 is slaved to Node 2.

Node 2 is an R6 node that houses a bunch of agents. This is useful because you're going to want a bunch of agents to both protect your hacking node and do all the little hacking tricks, like lifestlye spoofing and data searches, that you want but don't really have the time to do. Node 2 houses the Log for Node 3. It is also slaved to node 3. All agents are programmed to assume a pre-programmed defensive strategy if the connection with node 3 is lost for any reason and one of the agents is programmed to automatically read node 3's Log, alert the hacker, and then start a trace on the intruder. It's dirt cheap to set one of these up because you can build the hardware in a weekend for half price and duplicate most of the software you use on your hacking node. There's no real reason to give it any Signal.

Node 3 is the crappiest R1 System 1 node you can build with loose change while hungover and it runs one program: an ergonomic Analyze program (the rating doesn't matter). However, every piece of software, including the System and Firewall, are infected with the crash virus. Any attempt to hack in triggers both the Analyze and Firewall automatically, forcing two crash tests, each test rolling 12 dice to crash the system, easily achievable. As soon as the node inevitably crashes, all the defenses on Node 2 will activate and a Trace will be started before you even attempt to hack the node. Node 3 is slaved to node 4. It should not be wireless under any circumstances.

Node 4 is your average "public" commlink that every hacker uses.

It's not a truly unhackable system but it's simple, dirt cheap, and no amount of stealth is going to beat it. You basically have to come up with a sneaky way through. That's one of the things I've been pressing. High level hacking isn't a matter of dice pools. At a certain point you can design systems and tools where someone will win or lose regardless of their dicepool. At this point the question becomes what kind of dirty tricks you can pull and how much you can find out about the opponents dirty tricks before you fight/hack each other.

Technos still have an advantage because there are certain things they can do which hackers just can't, but just boosting CFs or summoning Tank Sprites isn't going to cut it.

That is a very basic premise of the SR4 rules system, so yes.


The popint of using Karmagen here is mainly it's greater flexibilty, as you don't have to buy more than a miniscule amount of skills at all because you can just thread them on the fly. BP wants you to spend a certain amount of BP on skills. Sucks for such a build.


Sure. Sprites just beat them in everything else save node crashing.


But they get to thread themselves any kind of protective CF as an interrupt.

Your system is interesting, good ideas I may want to use, especially the Tar Baby crash node. Usually, I hard-encrypt and have a couple agents teamworking with Analyse, tricked up (the bottleneck's analyse optimised, the agents have home ground 4, ect). Giving node 2 signal would defeat node 3 instantly, so you don't want to. Also, my characters all have a hidden business link with uncommon wifi, and one public link with SIN, random important-looking data and ordinary ratings for the cops to see. Same with vehicles, which usually are isolated but for a slaved connection to the rigger link, and run a separate link emulating vehicle functions that acts as a honey pot (really like the crash node idea, I'll totally steal it for these; been using Agent Smith on self up to now).

So yes, you can make good use of system design, but that is one hell of a lot work that few players are willing to make (I agree though, with that approach, dice won't help you much; the hack-on-touch Echo will, though). For those, teh Techno is hard to stop. And while I may be mistaken again, doesn't a resonance quest give them (quest level) bonus dice against a system no matter what?

The Hacker's advantage is starting with 5 IPs and the Mute option.

The maximum threshold to enter a node by Exploit is 10 Firewall (war! lol!) + 6 for admin.
Threshold of 16.

Mute delays an Alert for one Combat turn from the point it was triggered.

So, even with no Stealth, (zero, none, instant alert on turn 1,) Mr. 5 IPs gets FOUR ROLLS before the lights come on.
That means he only needs to pull 4 hits on average each turn, then use his 5th to cancel the alert.

Blammo. 0 stealth. Exploit DP ~14 (+edge when things go bad.) ZO-level wall is toppled at chargen.

Getting in isn't the real problem. And once you're in with Admin, Spiders are the only problem you can face. ICe is a pushbutton kill. Then you just load your own Agent and spoof it's Matrix ID to match the disabled ICe's, in case a spider is keeping tabs from elsewhere. Scrub the logs and you're the proud owner of that piece of net.

So, really the only thing a resourceful hacker needs to worry about in an unchaperoned system is the chance of being hit by Analyze for the two passes it takes to shut off an alert, find the IC with Analyze and then shut it down too.

Only if he spends copious amounts of BP on the edge that lets you have chargen restricted gear, and the GM actually accepts the character.


I find the idea of nodes where not at least the node is running analyse just absurd. And against analyse, the mancer wins.

You really think that a 15,000¥ 14U (as in unrestricted) commlink plugin is where a GM needs to draw the line?



One more simple action to shut it off.

CT1
IP 1-4: Hack on the Fly
IP 5: Simple Action: Issue command - cancel Alert; Simple Action: Deactivate Program= Analyze. (IC scans you once. node acts after you in Pass, so no scan)

CT2
IP 1: Simple Action: Analyze node - find the dog; Simple Action: Deactivate Program= IC. (Winnar)
IP 2-5: Cleanup.

Some were, others not. The matrix gear of various sample characters, for example


When was the last time your hacker's commlink got rooted?

That is just plain wrong...

TM needs Attributs, which are much cheaper in BP Gen, not to mention the boundaries that you only can spend half you Karma on all Attributs (including Res and Edg).

10CFs (e.g TM with Res5 and Log 5) on 5 cost 50BP or 160Karma

TMs are the only Character Class were you easily end up worse than BP Gen, if you use the Karma Gen.

The hole discussion is the same as usual, your argument is that a TM with unlimited Karma is godlike powerful, which is true, but even with 200-300Karma, a TM more or less just as powerful as a hacker or a unplayable on trick pony. There are so many things a TM needs Karma for, you don't know where to start and in the end nobody just buys Echos and CF, because in the end a TM needs to be able to survive a run.

Why is it that wehen a character is not 150% optimized, members of this board cry "Nerfing"? I mean really, not everything in lfe is maximized to its fullest potential, why should a game character be so? There comes a point in a character's development that Good is "Good Enough." If you can accomplish a goal 99.9% of the time with a dice pool of 16, why shoot for the Dice pool of 24? It is a waste of character potential. And yet, time and again on this board, if the character is not eeking out every last erg of DP potential, he is "purposefully nerfing himself"... What crap...



I disagree with this as well... The Hacker is more than capable of standing upon his own two feet in contests against most opponents... The Hacker is MORE than a viable character. The Hacker I have been playing, for over 300 karma, proves it every time I play him...

Anyways...