I've been considering playing a decker character in the near future, but I'm not quite sure about how to set up persona attributes. Is there some cost associated with the various persona programs (bod, sensor, evasion, and masking) and response increase, or do those come with the cyberdeck already?

Decks come with different Numbers in these Attributes.
And you don't get these Attributes without a CyberDeck.
And you can increase them, for a cost in Money and Skill.

If you are buying a stock cyberdeck the programs come burned into the deck. You generally cannot extract the programs from one deck to use in another, although the physical pieces to a cyberdeck may be removed and installed in another deck. (Matrix pg 64)


If you are designing/building your own, you need to purchase or code the programs. This is a significant time and/or nuyen sink if you are building your own deck (especially for high ratings), but it allows you to have a greater degree of control over the final product. If your GM will let you build your cyberdeck "before" the game begins, programming all the parts yourself will save a significant amount of nuyen.

I only use the core book in my game, but my recollection is you have 3*MPCP points to spend, and you can put them however you want as long as no rating is greater than MPCP. There's no cost associated with it, but presumably it requires you take the deck offline so you can't do it in the middle of a run.

About what I thought was the case. I guess I just wanted some outside confirmation on that. Thanks.

There are also the various modes (Bod mode, Evasion mode, etc), but I don't think these were in the core book.

I am aware of the mode setups. I was just unsure if just buying a 'stock' cyberdeck allowed you to allocate persona programs freely or not. For example, a Fairlight Excalibur comes with 3 points of Response Increase, and 36 points worth of persona attributes to allocate.

Masking at 8 might be a good investment for mid-term reward. The Sleaze (I think) program at 6 will give you a TN of 7 for System Test to notice your presence. Then you will probably upgrade Sleaze at 8 for 8 TN.

You may think it makes no difference but it does, because a crashed IC automatically adds his Rating to the security tally while suppressing it don't, but lowers the TN.

It implies that you can suppress 1/2(mid term) with a base TN for beeing detected at least equal to 6.

Usually, when the TN goes under 6, you have not a lot of room left to wander into the system.

Okay...this is actually more complicated a question than it seems on the surface depending on how many optional rules from Matrix you're using.

Basic: Each deck has an MPCP rating and four associated attributes (Bod, Evasion, Masking, and Sensors). The value of these attributes are set by the decker when the deck is built and can be equal to the rating of the MPCP each maximum and the total cannot be more than the rating of the MPCP multiplied by 3.

Advanced: The attributes are set when the chips are cooked and the deck is made (Custom Deck rules). They have an associated programing cost (or skill checks if you're coding it yourself) as well as a skill check to install in the deck. You can also go into a "mode" for each attribute - Bod Mode, Evasion Mode, Masking Mode, and Sensor Mode. Changing modes is a...crap, either Complex or Simple, I'd have to check the book to be sure. When in a mode, you multiply the rating of that attribute by 1.5, but reduce another rating by half to represent the shifting processor strain. This CAN exceed the MPCP rating. So if you're in Masking Mode (which you pretty much always will be unless you're really not in the mood for subtlety) and your MPCP is 8 and your Masking 8 (because your Masking is ALWAYS going to be your highest attribute), when you go into Masking Mode, your Masking becomes 12 but another attribute is reduced by half (usually you'll go for Bod because if you need Bod, it's time to jack out anyway).

If you dig around, there's an oooooold thread where Synner goes over a lot of the Matrix rules and is a great introduction to a lot of the little nuances.

I'm not sure there is any such thing as a 'stock' cyberdeck. Remember that masking chips are very illegal, and are a special modification. So the deck you pick up at Radio Shack (i.e., stock), has MPCP rating in the other three attributes, and 0 masking.