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First real *Troll* in forever. It's just too odd for most other mini companies to other with.

Durnit.

Oh... my... Sokath, his eyes uncovered.

...and there are ways around that too...

Turning off wireless is not a 100% safe option.

Max, we are not typically in the habit of posting Warngins that we issue in threads, mainly for two reasons. First, because we'd rather let the conversation continue without interruption, as once an actual Warning has been issued, it's usually already moved on. Secondly, we're not usually fans of calling people out unless it's called for. Like right now.

Another user acting out of line is not an excuse or endorsement for you to begin posting with the same behavior you are supposedly calling others out for. We especially watch threads like this one because of the mess that the 4th edition announcement caused. It's frustrating when it's one or two people causing issues. It gets worst when more start jumping on the band wagon. So don't, please.

Which is why you absolutely remove that capability for Cyber before it is implanted.

I know I'm late for the party, but... Dammit, I had been taking a break from Shadowrun, to run Exalted, and Delta Green, and maybe some Legend of the 5 Rings. It's the longest shadowrun-free period of my life! A full year and a half without running a game.

I suspect this will be changing with 5th edition.

Still isn't 100% safe.
(Hint: nanites)

Which removes your ability to have diagnostics run on it, or to do software or firmware upgrades to it afterwards. I remember reading a few days ago about wireless pacemakers being implanted in people in the modern age - and the fact that there was later discovered an exploit which would allow people to 'hack' them. And that's someone's heart.

I think I'd allow someone to have wireless functionality removed - then just drastically increase the price for repairing it if it gets damaged. Or have it go obsolete sooner.

Not sure how I feel yet about 5e. I like some of the stuff I'm reading for it(okay, it's not much so far), but the 'Grittier and Deadlier' tag sorta turned me off. I kinda prefer when a game is sorta made with a default 'moderate' set of rules, and then optional rules to tune the game up-or even down-to how you see fit.

I know it's basically the same thing to have a deadlier default set of rules and then optional rules to tune it down...and then down again I guess(for those folks who liked playing with the 'low lethality' rules. Or it's no different than just putting out three setups for 'Low' 'Medium' and 'High' lethality. But I guess when I saw a big glaring bulletpoint with 'Grittier and Deadlier', my pink mohawk self sorta went '':('' a bit.

Again-this is very early and we know absolutely nothing about it. But I also hope that my old books will still work. I finally got comfy with 4e after I got all the optional books(I like my lots of books for SR, always have), and yeah-starting again can be rough. But I'm staying open. Hopefully I can still have fun with my more crazy character concepts.

I'm wasn't really jumping on anykind of bandwagon, someone posting same lame inaccurate comparison everytime a subject comes up just gets really fraking annoying(especially after the inaccuracy has been explained multiple times)

Yes, Nanites...
Lets look at them, shall we.

Intruders and Activators infiltrate and either open the device for unrerstricted access/control the device with preprogrammed instructions (Intruders) or re-activate the Wireless capabilities on Electronics (Activators),. And while it is interesting to have intruders mucking with Cyberware, they have to be preprogrammed ahead of time, and you have no real control of which device they actually hit (as they attack the foirst device they encounter). And if the Intruders hit an encrypted device, it is out of luck. As for Activators, it is kind of hard to reactivate something that is not there, don't ya think?

Broken Arrow and Deactivator Nanites will not affect the DNI only cyberware at all: Again, no Wifi to affect.
FUZZ can, but they only apply a penalty, they do nothing else mechanically. *shrug*

So that really only leaves Gremlins. Easy to protect against, if you ask me. *shrug*

Diagnostics are not imparied... WIRELESS ACCESS to that Diagnostics package is removed. That is what a Datajack is for.

Sure, if you want to pay the extra essence cost to have a datajack. Oh, and of course, you'll need the fibre to run from the datajack to whatever other cybernetics you have - this isn't automatic. Cyberleg or cyberarm? Probably doesn't have a direct connection. Mind you, you're probably using older technology, then, to run diagnostics.

It'd be sort of like "You're using a 56k modem? How quaint."

Of course, this also means you aren't getting real-time updates to your cyberware, either.

Which is not a big deal...
There is absolutely no "cost" for Fiber in 4A. Assumed to be one of the options you have.
All CYBER, regardless of what it is, has the option for full DNI with no wireless whatsoever. Anything else is just a houserule.
Again, not Canon.

So what. There is absolutley no mechanical effect for that whatsoever. Fear-Mongering comes to mind here.

Actually, it gives the GM some extra ammunition on glitches or when a character takes significant damage. "Oh, look, your cyberarm malfunctioned. Yes, if it had the normal updates this wouldn't have happened. You'll need to shell out about 5000 nuyen to get it fixed. Oh, look, the communication between your datajack and your cybereye is broken, and your eye blacked out. You could just upload the patch. Oh, right. You can't."

I don't mind the players handing the GM ammunition to screw them over with. Especially on a silver platter.

On the flipside, I can also use this under normal circumstances, too. They go to a street doc, who doesn't have the tools to hook up a cyberlimb except through wireless, for example. Sort of like I love picking on the players in my game who don't have their AR up all the time -- 'sorry, this door won't open for you'.

I see Glitches/Crit-Glitches so rarely that this is a non-starter for us. *shrug*
Any street-doc who cannot hook up a piece of Cyber without DNI interfacing is a poor street doc in my opinion. And remember, in the modern World, a Trode Set counts as DNI interfacing (which I think is stupid, but there it is). *shrug*

How in blazes do you keep players if you pull ridiculous shenanigans like this?

Nanites can't turn on, what was physically cut, burned, and torn out.






If it's surface-accessible without bleeding, you simply replace the Wireless module with a direct jack-in port.

If it's not accessible like that, you hard-wire it to a datajack.






"Oh wait, yes I can, I just have to download it to a datachip and then slot the chip into my datajack first. Whoo, a complex action, so difficult."

Not to mention, "So you're telling me that an update that would have prevented this problem, was released during the exact five minutes that I had my commlink switched off in order to maintain radio silence?"

I mean, there's being a hard-line GM ... and then there's just being a dick. Guess which one I think your scenario falls under?

Simple. My players accept how the world is operating, and don't try to deliberately try to short-circuit the setting. Though they do tend to let me give them enough rope to hang themselves with. We have three game masters in our local circuit, and I'm the go-to person for GMing, so I must be doing something right.

"Sensibly protect yourself from real and present threats" is not the same as "short-circuit the setting".

You know how I tend to set up a PAN, for a character with extensive cyber augments?

Skinlink for everything. Including a datajack. Wireless removed for everything, including the datajack.

Want access to the augments? Either touch the character with something skinlink-enabled, or plug directly in to the datajack. Or, maybe - for some characters, in many but not all situations - hack through the much-better-defended commlink, thus taking control of the entire PAN at once.

You should take note here, Tashiro. It generally means something when Pax and I are in agreement on something because it doesn't happen often.

Fair enough. Though, again, it has never come up in my game, either. (It might be because we had two characters with gremlins, mind...)

This is he only time I'm going to get involved in this tangent of the conversation: people play and approach Shadowrun in some very adversarial ways, and I'm glad I seem to have a decent contract with my players.

These last two pages have been very enlightening.

Yes it was a typo. Point still stands.

I just want to point out that I don't disable all the wireless functions on things, due to any adversarial intent WRT playing SR.

I do it because it strikes me as what the smart shadowrunner who intends to live more than a few months, would do, given half the opportunity. And a good number of smart non-shadowrunners.

There's also this: if your augments are all WiFi active? Then just searching for hidden notes will reveal what augments you have.

And IMO, a good shadowrunner cultivates a mild paranoia where "information security" is involved. Cutting out the wireless on cyber, is the same thing IMO as favoring bio instead: "make it less easily detected". Rendering it much more resistant to hacks, is just a happy side-effect.

I'd like to note that such things should be stated in the rules in plain and simple terms.
Because let's be fair, hacking someone's cyberlegs and turning a fight into a breakdance disco inferno is just stupid awesome.

Well, at least part of that was accurate.

and there are five more threads about just that.
all continuations, not parallel discussions to boot.

if that had not happened, then not many would be thinking to badly of cgl.
as it did happen though, many take watever they do with truck loads full of salt.

the very bad quality of release stuff, like the Bogota! book and actually de-errataed stuff in later printings of other books does the rest then.
meanwhile we germans get a rally nice and good publisher for shadwrun related stuff. with errata and extra stuff and corrections on stupidity.

I'm starting to see the reasons behind the First Euro-Wars.

Edition change?

A thousand times this.

Unfortunately the Russians never got Hamburg.

Not for the lack of effort. :ь

If somebody sprays me down with some unknown compound, the least of my worries is "oh noes, this might have been nanites which would allow an opposing hacker to attempt to hack my cyberarm, which, if successful, would allow that hacker to try to strangle me". I'd be far more worried that the compound is harmful without any detours...

PS: I think the SOX is fine where it is, no need to turn Hamburg into another

No, see, it was a bucket of water (containing nanites) that was precariously balanced on the top of that door.

(Six hours later...)

Gak! *Strangled*

Now that's just taking practical jokes one step to far

Could have been caustic acid instead. Just saying.

Caustic is a way of referring to a strong base, not to all acids or corrosives.
There are plenty of liquids that could interact with a body in a way that would near-immediately kill the target, though, so the point about not bothering with water still stands. I think I'd go for concentrated hydroflouric acid.

Assuming you survive long enough to do the hacking within range of signal 0 (the cyber legs' signal rating). Remember, you have to be in MUTUAL signal range, which means that you have to be in range of the device's signal and within your comm's signal range (just your comm's signal isn't enough).

As has been pointed out ... MSR is only a device-to-device limitation. If you can build a chain of devices between you and the target node, MSR between you and your target is no longer a factor.

That seems to be more of a cheesy attempt to weasel out of mutual signal range in my opinion. If you're out of range, you're out of range. No hack for you.

Except for all the examples about weaseling out of it in the rule books.

Like I said, just seems too cheesy for my tastes, so no "daisy-chaining" like that in my games. No sir.

I dunno, it's kinda how the entire wireless matrix works. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

SR4A, p218; "Getting Online", second paragraph of thatheading:
"Once you have your commlink, you need to connect to the Matrix. Your commlink must be able to connect to at least one device, which must be able to connect to at least one other device, and so on throughout the civilized world. “The Matrix” is all of these nodes, including yours."

I mean, seriously, All4 ... how do you think the Matrix works? You don't REALLY think that you have to be in MSR of someone, to start a phonecall with them ... do you?!?



So ..... you games don't have a Matrix at all, then ... because that very "daisy chaining" is how the Matrix works. Wireless, orotherwise.

...

Heck, it's even how the real-world Internet works. My desktop, I guarantee you, has a Signal rating of "-". It is NOt in MSR of the server this forum lives on, and also not in MSR of your computer. Yet there you sit, reading these words ... because of a daisy-chain of connected systems 'twixt here and there.

Funny how that works.

I only limit HACKING to mutual signal range. I do this so that the shenanigans of "Oh, I hack your limbs and make you dance" can't happen. It also ensures that the hacker can't just sit three continents away and do their thing. They actually have to go with the team.

Indeed. You should try running a traceroute to some website. It'll actually show you the servers you're going through in that chain.

Here's an example of how I get to google.com

.... which flies in the face of the setting and rules as written.

Don't want your limbs hacked? Uninstall the WiFi. Physically remove it. Poof, unhackable limb.

Want to retain non-surgical diagnostics and firmware update capabilities? Put in a datajack, and then either hardwire the implant to it, or, equip both of them with Skinlink.

Want the Hacker to need to be on-site?
(a) Wireless blocking paint and wallpaper exist for a reason.
(b) The target site can simply be far enough from other wireless nodes, that there isn't an unbroken chain from A to E, without getting onsite and at least as close as C or D.
© Daisy-chaining imposes Response degradation ... IOW, "Lag" and/or "Latency". Enough of that, and your whiz-bang-good hacker becomes little better than a script kiddie.

... all of which is written directly into the game. Funny how that still works, eh?

I tried letting things work that way, and I didn't like how it turned out. After that, I resolved to try out hacking only in mutual range. I haven't tried starting another game since then (haven't wanted to be the one running, as the game ended because a player vanished from the group for a while because of another player's actions in another game), but I'm at least going to try that ruling before I let anyone talk me out of it.

Wait, what? I mean the skill list and attributes were the same but combat pool, weapon staging, adept powers all were major changes