There's been a big kerfuffle recently regarding how hacking is, and always has been, a solo endeavor. Rather than merely thinking of ways for a decker to join the group, I thought I'd toss out an idea for ways the group could help out the decker.

We do have a few standard issues facing us, such that bringing along a half-done decker is about as bad as ONLY sending a half-done hacker. Even when a few eyes could be helpful, the risks often outweigh the gains. So I started thinking, why does the team have to actually trek along with the hacker to help? Besides the meat-space guards protecting Mr. Naptime or Miss Snoozypants, couldn't people be protecting the hacker in the virtual space, too, without viewing some far away node? Ultimately, only Technomancers really go outside-of-body to jaunt into other nodes (if they even care to), while traditional deckers stay in their own brains and use tech to brain-code info from other nodes. So, in those signals and impulses, there is information available to anybody who can siphon it adequately, meaning that any friend of the decker could offer support without bulling their way through the decker's china shop. In other words, when all else fails, why not try "crossing the streams" and seeing if you can survive the horrible burns.

So, my attempt at crossing the streams, ways teammates could contribute to decking without getting in the way:
Teammate helpers only need access to a select part of the decker's rig, a sort of "lobby" where the datastream funnels through. Teammates cannot act on any node that the rigger is not active on, but they can take limited actions to support the decker from their side. They can use programs to assist the decker, such as Matrix Perception (Scan), Armor (Adding dice to the decker's soak), Medic (healing damage the decker or his system takes digitally), etc. Each teammate runs his own programs off of his own commlink, though cracked+copied software runs a risk of malfunctioning (like Gremlins) if run along copies from the same source (or the source itself). The teammates cannot edit or affect the node the hacker is on, and because of this they do not risk setting off alarms. They can defend the decker's system, and can even spend an action to "take a bullet" for the hacker. It relegates the team to a support roll, but does not punish the decker for having his friends help him out with his work.

And, for the record, I do not regret what I have done, only what I have failed to do.

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IREGRETEVERYTHING!! 8-@

Queue the hacker fabbing up some agents on commlinks to build himself a meatsponge army.

If they're running on his own node, they take up his resources. If they're cracked copies of each other, they each start with a standing glitch on any action they take when together. Heck, make the gremlins thing stack to add some risk to being a cheapskate. Besides, even if he splurges on some good agents, they can go with him, the rest of the group can't, but they can still increase the yield, and mitigate some of the risk.

It hasn't been a major issue with my group, but I'd point to what I suggested in SR2050 where the group watches the hack happen and lay bets.

Interesting concept, and one that I'd love to hear more about. One thing that crossed my sleep-fogged brain just now was, "Tacsofts in the Matrix?" I know that's not how actual tacsofts work, but I wonder if you could finesse the acting-in-concert rules into something similar that would help multiple hackers during hacking/cybercombat.

wasn't there some awful 90's movie about "hackers" ? and random attempts to BotNet the world in a DDOS of Doom ?

it sounds plausible enough, but if the PC's can do it, then all of a sudden the NPC's can do it too !

and then you have essentially the whole "Inception Movie" but in a Shadowrun Matrix !

the runners are then surrounded by an army of virtual ninjas ... and steam trains riding down main street and the earth folding in on itself over head ...

I'm gonna go take some drugs now .... thanks

The other group members could watch the run and give advice. The hacker decides on the course of action and that player rolls the dice. Yet everyone can help find solutions to the various problems.

I was thinking more along the lines of them actively helping, just restricted in how they can help without being proper deckers themselves. Each one handles a different tactical roll/program. Kind of like a tank or bomber crew. Depending on their stats, they might not even need to Sim; the Adept with improved initiative? He can scan through data safely through an AR feed, or keep a scan running on the Deck the crew is connected to as fast as anybody Hot Simming. The Cybered out Troll? He can swap out programs for the hacker on his initiative and help soak biofeedback if it gets past the armor. Agents? They aren't meat or filters, so they can't soak biofeedback that's already hit the decker's icon. Agents would also be more useful loading onto that node or handling remote tasks that the rest of the crew couldn't. Any or all of the team could run medic to keep the deck, connected agents, and connected systems running when they need to, and all without tripping alarms on a connected system.

TL;DR
Give each of the team a "battle station" (essentially, their connected Commlink) they can man to support the rigger, either through AR, Cold Sim, or Hot Sim. It'll also turn matrix encounters into real group battles instead of betting on if we'll need another Timmy.

I don't see anything in the RAW that directly corresponds to delegating tasks rather than acting in concert (someone else might correct me on that though). If I were a GM house-ruling it I would probably go with treating another player as equivalent to an Agent, using up a subscription and able to apply its own dice pools - in this case, that of the supporting team member - to the task at hand. It would still be limited to whether the supporting character had appropriate software, since I don't think you could "loan" them what's on your commlink to do that, but it's a step in the right direction. (The only other thing I can think of that has a remotely similar system is spirit possession, where the supporting character is the "possessing spirit" and the main hacker is the "vessel", but that's so far into house rules that I can barely see the bottom.) Again, if someone else has more accurate info, I'd love to see it.

The point is that it's NOT in the rules. Rather than sitting on my thumbs and moaning about th... wait, that came out wro... alright, joking aside, this is a creative exercise. People are complaining about the lack of team unity when a hacker does his work, since any tag-alongs need to be either redundant or loadable on the node, and, either way, extra bodies are still just extra chances to trip security. By allowing teammates to assist by protecting and monitoring the decker's feed, you give them something to do in the digital to increase success and safety without endangering the operation.

If the rules are lacking, it's within a GM's right to alter and adapt them.

Oh, sorry, misunderstood what you were going for - I thought you had the idea and were trying to figure out if there was an existing rule for it. In that case, let's see... What if there were some kind of special-use software to extend a Stealth program to other members of the team, or a way to "distract" IC from a teammate? (I don't really have a more solid idea than what you've come up with for the "battle stations", just throwing suggestions at a wall to see what sticks.)

I feel like this is just tackling the problem from the complete wrong direction.

No one ever would ask for ways to include the team in combat, for example. Why? Because combat is comparatively simple, quick, and efficacious by design. You pick a target, you attack, you deal damage or achieve some other single tangible effect, you move on. In contrast, hacking is slow and cumbersome, often requiring multiple extended tests, navigation through multiple nodes, and the compromising of an entire system just to open a single locked door.

Want to fix hacking? Make it more like shooting. When it's quicker and easier to just have a troll take a sledgehammer to a door than to hack the lock, there's not much point in hacking, is there? Streamline hacking. Make it quicker, simpler, more self-contained, less expansive. Throw realism out the window if you must - abstract it, handwave it, inject it with Phlebotinum and Essence of McGuffin, just make it fast and fun.

My own personal ideas? Maybe give electronics their own special form of hit points, call it "Integrity" or something. Your path is blocked by an electronically locked door? The hacker simply "attacks" the lock device itself, dealing "damage" to it's code integrity. Do X amount of "damage" and the device is "knocked unconscious", temporarily rendered exploitable, giving you a brief window of opportunity in which to control the object before it "wakes up" and adapts its code to compensate. Or keep "attacking" until you do Y amount of "damage", and then the device is "killed", giving you more permanent control which can only be undone by 1) manually repairing the device at a later time or 2) counter-hacking the device to regain control of it. With the latter option, the opposing hacker must once again "attack", "damage", and "kill" the device to transfer control to themselves.

~Umi

UV nodes are hyper real, right? So real that you use non-Matrix skill + program to do your dirty work? While it might not be wise to use them all the time, but I've thought it'd be interesting to make a whole team go hot VR and have a whole fight in a UV node, and it allows non-hackers to do stuff in the Matrix and be viable.

I agree with your overall thought, but I don't think that everyone is involved in combat because it's simple. There are about as many rules for combat as hacking, though perhaps a little less arcane. The difference is that everyone has something to do in combat. The sam can shoot, mage throws stun balls, etc. And how complicated those actions are depends on the players choice. I might just roll the same set of dice every time and take my shot without worrying about maneuvers and other more complicated things, if that's how I want to play, and it works. If everyone had something they could be doing, all those extended tests wouldn't be too bad. Afterall, shooting someone is just an extended test to kill them.

I like the idea of the whole team getting in on a hack. I think I would go about it like this:
Your hacker is still the star of hacking (duh), they'll probably be in VR and make the important rolls. Stealth and exploit. The rest of the team is doing the following secondary roles. (which I gave names just for fun)

Rabbit: If something should go wrong and the hacker's detected, the rabbit is the distraction. They're operating in AR in a nearby node using a burner, someplace away from the hacker physically. As soon as an alert is sounded, they raise hell. They launch several obvious attacks against the node icons and set off a few data bombs in surrounding nodes. They make it seem like vandalism or an incompetent hacker trying to use brute force. Then they book it, jumping from node to node wasting as much time as possible. They get the spider or IC to target them and trace them. Then they let themselves be cornered in a specific node and crash the node, hopefully crashing the IC and dumpshocking the spider. They ditch the burner and physically leave wherever they launch the attack from.
Meanwhile, the real hacker has time to fix their mistake and use the distraction to get in hopefully undetected. Focus: Attack Program, Data Bombs, Analyze (to pick up alerts).

Hangman: The hangman is focused on tracking spiders and patrolling IC. They intercept traffic, tracing it back to the point of origin, trying to locate where spiders are operating from. They also try to identify choke points, bridging nodes that connect areas without a lot of connectivity. When one of their targets get into such an area, they Jam or crash all of the points of connection to the matrix at large trapping them in a small network. Agents and IC will be stuck unable to connect outside the network. Spiders will be jacked out. The hangman can also notify the hacker if they're about to be hit by a random sweep. Focus: Electronic Warfare, Scan, Trace, Sniffer, Jamming

Gatekeeper: Very similar to the hangman, while the hacker is hacking, the gatekeeper is accumulating access IDs. All of the access IDs for anyone legitimately sending commands or logging into the system of interest. Then they start hacking surrounding nodes, preferably low security ones with public access. Then they start blocking traffic and denying access to the IDs from their list. The goal of this is to push more and users through a smaller number of nodes, slowing down their system. So suppose you're targeting Generic Corp (makers of the off brand wigets) and your hackers trying to get into their secure network. Normally their employees are using the public network for most general nonsecure use. They're sending a message to their brother that's going to bounce from the coffee machine to the lighting system outside out into the world at large or through the vending machine to the parking meter to the RFID in someones car, etc. The gatekeeper makes it so that none of those will accept Generic Corp traffic, so that more and more of the load is routed through the secure network. Eventually, the traffic slows down their secure network decreasing its response and the rating of its analyze and other defense programs. They can also use their accumulated access IDs to unleash a spoof bombardment, spoofing every node in the secure network to reboot from various access IDs (except the one the hackers in). Most won't comply, but a large number suddenly shutting down could crash the network and render the system vulnerable. Focus: Spoof, Sniffer, Exploit, Edit, Command, Scan

So, the way I would lay it out for a team of Sam, Hacker, Mage, Infiltrator- Mage is the rabbit, (probably mage, since they have their own realm of play already and this is the least active) standing by as plan C, the infiltrator acts at the Hangman actively helping the hacker by blocking caging up IC, and sam acts at the gatekeeper helping to give bonuses to the hacker by degrading the system. To accomplish several of these under the current rules would be very time consuming (accumulating a hundred access IDs for example, bleh), so I would just use equivalent roles, remembering that they are not going to target anything that has any real security. And everyone is rolling alongside the hacker, doing their part. (except the rabbit, who you really hope doesn't have to roll)
And the hacker is of course probing the target and putting in back doors and editing access logs. Having to deal with degraded systems with weaker security and not having to worry about patrolling IC. With a back-up plan that means he won't be dealing with dumpshock as often if he does trip the security.

At least that's how I would approach it.

Technically speaking, a form of this already exists in the rules.

By the RAW, the icon-persona of someone is present in every node in which he is subscribed to. You're always subscribed to the node of your own commlink, so the hacker's icon will always be at home.

Also, by RAW, your Matrix Condition Track only exists once, changes to it that happen in one node apply to it in all nodes.

Therefor, a friend with half-assed Matrix stats who would trip security in a nanosecond if he tried joining the matrix fight directly, can still lurk on the hacker's home node and use programs that benefit the Hacker's icon. Unfortunately, this isn't going to be a very big list, but it does exist.

They can...
(SR4/20A)
Analyze his icon or home system, on the off-chance there might be something about it he hasn't had time to figure out for himself.
Attack him. Rarely useful, but if he gets nailed with a Black shot, it might be better to attack his icon to forcibly crash and dumpshock him, rather than let him stay connected to the 'trix and keep taking Black hits. (Though this would be more easily accomplished in meatspace by shutting off his commlink, shooting his commlink, or wrapping a faraday mesh around his head. But if you don't have meatspace access to him...)
Use the Medic program to repair Matrix damage on his icon.
Possibly use Spoof to Redirect tracing attempts against him. This one isn't fully clear and is up to the GM, but I'd allow it.
(Unwired)
Use the Purge program to take Disinfect actions to nuke any viruses that someone might be sending his way in combat time.

That's about it. Medic seems to be the most likely thing to use on him. Also, obviously, if someone does track him to his home node and raise trouble, you can engage them in cybercombat there, but chances are that if that happens, forcibly crashing him might be the smarter move. And even then, having a couple of half-baked hackers throwing dice pool 6 Medic programs at you is only going to really help if the whole team is doing it.


@Thorya: Your plan is fantastic, except it will never work, because Generic Corp has the ultimate trump card to your team hacking: hardware access.

When your Hangman starts crashing company nodes and the Gatekeeper has started beating through dozens of low-key pointless nodes like the coffee maker and the dusty photocopier that exists in a back closet because every office must have a photocopier that never gets used, the company will realize that they are under a cyber attack.

They will respond by flashing a company-wide emergency notice telling everyone to save whatever they're doing locally and then shut down their machines. Then, when their dozens of workers are offline, one of two things will happen.

(1): The Big Boys come out. Not every company can afford to have a Rating 7 Hacker (that is, a superstar hacker with Rating 7 equipment and programs and their cyber-skills at 5 or 6) on staff, but they can definitely afford to pay a retainer to a Matrix Security company that will let them flash that company an emergency message when and if their normal security detects a hacker they can't deal with. Now you're dealing with professionals who likely have equivalent or better equipment than your star hacker, and equivalent or only slightly inferior skills, and they will find your hacker when they start Analyzing around. He has to roll Stealth + Hacking every time they roll Analyze + Computer, sooner or later he will get a shit roll when they get an average roll, and the jig is up. (If you pissed off a AAA Mega, a national military or federal law enforcement agency, Zurich Orbital, the GOD, or a Great Dragon, expect the incoming hacker to be Rating 10.)
(2): They will simply shut down all their systems, go into wired-only mode if a full shutdown is unacceptable, and make everybody break out the fiber-optic cables and datajacks like it's 2056. The drones will be switched to their emergency mode, in which mode they refuse to accept orders altogether unless they're in a specific room and they either follow their patrol route, or a designated metahuman 'handler,' engaging either by predetermined profiles, by the metahuman handler targeting a target/area with a laser designator, or both. So congratulations, now you're hacking like it's SR3 again, and a general security alert has been issued.

I disagree, if the response to an increase in traffic or a node going down is full on emergency response they're going to be dealing with false alarms all the time. Especially, if they're worried about nodes that aren't really part of their network but of the larger matrix network, like the coffee pot. Any corp that wanted to bankrupt you with matrix security fees could just periodically hit you with a jammer for a second or two to start full on alert and overkill response. Imagine if your company ordered everyone to turn off their computers and go into lock down mode every time there was a problem with the company network or because an external site went down.
"Oh no, the copiers jammed!! Everyone we're under attack, shut down your computers. Get out the typewriters!" or "Oh my God! CNN.com isn't responding, stop all work. Nothing can be done until the security flaw is fixed."
It's not sustainable.

Also, one of the points of hitting the surrounding nodes is to be able to isolate them, so how exactly do they send out the alert to the off site mega hackers? Do landlines even still exist in 2072 to call up tech support?

And if you're jamming nodes rather than crashing them, they're just losing wireless connectivity, they're not sending alerts. When nodes are constantly being added to a network and moving, etc. Why would one node suddenly not being connected signal mega emergency? Does someone carrying their secure company commlink into the elevator that blocks the signal cause a matrix lock down? You crash nodes once things have already hit the fan and gotten bad, which still doesn't necessarily cause an alert to go out if it's a peripheral node.

There ARE dead-man switches. A simple variant, if the system doesn't make a regular check in (every couple meat-space rounds), the Nanny system flashes a simple "check up on it" alert. If it flashes "check up on it" for too long (a couple rounds), it upgrades to medium alert, the "Whiny Kid" mode. Too long on "Whiny Kid" mode (a minute or so), you get to Code Red, a.k.a. the "Dead Baby" alert. The first one might be overlooked. The second one, even if the hacker isn't passively detected, would at least result in a quick response and a more cursory look, and lock-down of an isolated node until scans and maintenance. Dead Baby would be a default lock-down until a full scan and maintenance, and activate the Spiders to go through attached nodes with a fine-toothed comb.

My plan was to allow each team member to take part, to some degree, in the hack. A single teammate with a medic program CAN extend the decker's lifespan when things go south. It's also reasonable to think they'd have access to info on the nodes he's scanning through HIS connection, and a simple hardware & software modification would allow teammates to subscribe and assist THROUGH the decker's icon. They could even potentially eat some of the biofeedback damage, just like meat-space combat lets them eat a bullet for you.

I do understand that if you give this to players, then you also give this to their opposition... is that REALLY such a bad thing for the Shadowrun setting? The image that comes to ME is a criminal organization's spider with a bunch of incapacitated and involuntary meat-shields strapped down and forcefully subscribed to eat biofeedback for him. Alternatively, a corporate wage-slave was unfortunate enough to be logged in at the start of a cyber attack, going home with a strange headache and disorientation because he was logged in when a hacker tried to geek the Spider. Meanwhile, the corp goes on to rail against the HORRIBLE CRIMINALS who attack INNOCENT CORP CITIZENS in pursuit of their ill-gotten gains, and compliment their BRAVE MATRIX DEFENSE TEAMS that fought back the incursion to keep the DANGERS OF OUTSIDE away from their BELOVED EMPLOYEES. Even more shadow-run of it when the attack was merely to gain information about the corp using involuntary meat shields to defend their systems for a PR attack by a rival.

For the rules, I'd say it requires a "lobby unit," comparable to a Hot Sim module, allows the Decker's rig to include support Feed-Share without degrading the Decker's own node as quickly. Feedback share has to be determined ahead of time, but cannot remove ALL biofeedback from the main Decker in the share. In the case of a Black shot, the Decker rolls his filter, and remaining damage is split between him and his meat shield, with odd numbers affecting the Decker with the 1 extra. Feed-Shared teammates cannot take actions on any node but the Decker's without running their own separate feed/connection with associated risks. They can scan information available to the Decker, and they can change program loadouts for him. And I have to go to work, but I'll be willing to accept suggestions and go more in depth afterwards.

And signals reporting in from the coffee pot can be spoofed, if the company really feels the need to have it check in periodically to verify that it's still working. But that's beside the point, sure, there are defenses against such a distributed attack. There are defenses against hackers in the rules, but it doesn't mean that the system is fullproof. There should be a way for the team to take an active roll in a hack that is fundamentally different from what the hacker is doing, but still beneficial.

Ultimately, I guess I'm just not interested in what you're proposing if the team is not playing an active roll, because players won't be interested.

Ask someone if they want to volunteer to be the body shield for the Sam in combat or if they would rather be shooting or casting a spell at whatever the threat is. Most people are not going to be lining up for the exciting roll of body shield, where their only duty is to occasionally roll to soak damage and change his clips for him. You might find someone willing to be the designated medic, at least there they are getting to use their own skills. It's the same problem that we have now, where the team does nothing while the hacker works, only now they get to suffer damage when he screws up. Sure, in combat, you might be playing the part of damage sponge for the more combat capable characters by dividing fire, but at least you have some agency in it.

Teamwork Tests are useful for this purpose.

Interesting Idea, Thorya...

isn't all this a little bit too risky ?

would the SAM and the mage really want to be involved in this and risk being dumped, then have to deal with meat-combat with a head full of cheese from Dumpshock ?

My chars would much rather leave it to the professional

and me personally, would HATE having 4 other guys in my node ... "Oi Chummer .. don't touch that .. no not that program ... GAH gerrrorf my pr0n !!! ..... did someone move my firewall ? Which idiot unplugged the fraggin' FIREWALL!"


it's just be ... horrible

Maybe THAT'S what the team could do to help. "Quick, everyone, log into this node and start moving things around! It'll drive their spider CRAZY!"

(e: Only half serious here, I know that's pretty much a variation on what we've already discussed.)

Would the hacker REALLY want to be involved with a firefight and risk being geeked or disabled, and then have to deal with cybercombat with his negative health modifiers? Would the Mage REALLY want to be involved with a firefight and risk being geeked or disabled, and then have to deal with astral combat while suffering swiss-cheese syndrome?

Besides, as I said, the team would be in a special "Lobby" module, not on the decker's proper node. His private files wouldn't be available to the team, unless THEY are hacking his system, in which case why aren't they doing the cracking themselves? You're STILL leaving the heavy work to the specialist, but the rest are lightening that load and making things flow more smoothly for their compatriot. It's changing a pizza-run to a squad-tactics game.

Some justification from IRL: Tank crews, Bomber crews, Snipers (the Sniper proper, a spotter, armorer/gunsmith, etc.). Also, if the Decker started shunting his biofeedback filter without warning to the people who are watching his back, he'd better expect a severe beating (at best) when he gets back to his meat body!

Mach_Ten mentioned something I found interesting. People typically do think of hacking as something that only professionals do. It's like the digital equivalent of safecracking. If runners needed someone to pick an analog lock half as often as hackers need to hack devices, runs would crawl along at a horrible pace.

Maybe the problem is just intrinsic to hacking. Maybe hacking is just not the sort of thing that lends itself well to quickness or joint efforts. Maybe it's just too specialized and too limited. As thorya pointed out, anyone can take part in combat, because there are so many different ways to do it. But there's only one way to hack, and consequently only a dedicated hacker can hack effectively.

~Umi

While I'm thinking of it, you could probably create a "lobby" the same way you do the "public commlink" trick - slave a second 'link into the main one that the other team members can log into, and choose which traffic you let through (namely their helpful programs) while keeping the rest out.

As someone that doesn't normally play Matrix specialists, my line of thinking goes toward efficiency. Yes, I could effectively give the decker extra IPs by running a Medic program for them instead of making them take an IP to do it themselves. Whether it would be useful is another matter entirely; even with good software I'm probably only going to have half the dice pool that they do, and in any situation that the hacker can't handle solo that's not going to make a huge difference. In those cases, my time might actually be better-spent by using Teamwork tests (as others have suggested upthread) to buff the hacker's skills and hopefully reduce the amount of time they need to get through all those Extended tests. (Come to think of it, that dredges up images of how I always imagined Echo Mirage-style "cybercommando" teams working together, or possibly a Matrix-based version of Voltron.)

That just leaves the question of whether a bunch of non-hackers twiddling their thumbs in the hacker's lobby while they wait to make their next Matrix Perception or Medic program roll is really any different from them sitting in the hallway twiddling their thumbs while they wait to make their next Physical Perception or Automatics roll.

I'd have to agree with Umi here - hacking isn't really something you can just dabble in and still be reasonably effective at it. It takes a pretty significant investment of both Karma and nuyen to pay for skills, gear, programs, etc., and then there's the fact that there are only so many ways to crack a system. Even magic-heavy adventures aren't as restricted as the Matrix; spirits and wards blocking the path to your objective can be handled by mundane means, and it doesn't take any specific extra skills to do so that a character wouldn't already have. On the other hand, there's no way to retrieve paydata from a node without using the Matrix at some point. (Even if you were to physically remove the server and carry it out of the building with you, somebody would still have to hack it.)

Edit: To add an example that I hope will clarify things, if I'm on a run and an elemental is standing between me and where I need to go, I don't have to be an Awakened character to deal with that. For the purposes of "get the elemental out of the way", I could just as easily use weapons or possibly social skills as some kind of magical solution. If there's a firewall between me and my paydata, though, it's impossible to retrieve that without someone using Matrix-based skills.

I do understand that issue. Still, we face a few core issues with it regardless:

1. It's integral to the setting.
2. It currently requires hyper-specialization to even participate.

The first issue won't go away until we either remand hacking to a plug-in device or come back around and hit Earthdawn; deckers/hackers are a staple of Shadowrun. Rather than wallow in the fact that hackers are the loneliest specialization, I'm trying to offer suggestions on how to change things so that teammates can still help out, even if they don't have the gear to be pros. The decker can still have his toys. I'm curious, though, as to why people think it's so horrible an idea to give otherwise useless teammates something to do during the hack? The magician can heal if they have the right spells, but how about the other teammates?

Because that just treats the symptom, not the illness. The very fact that hacking requires most of the team to stand around and wait on the hacker is bad. Giving them little jobs to do while they wait is like putting magazines in a waiting room. Sure, it's nicer than no magazines, but I'd rather just not have to wait in the first place.

A fight breaks out. The entire team can take part in a variety of ways - shoot guns, cast spells, throw grenades, play decoy, tank damage, command drones, interact with the environment, whatever. Someone gets wounded. Anyone with even moderate healing resources can heal them - use a medkit, apply a stabilization patch, cast a healing spell, use an adept power, assist a teammate on their first aid test, et cetera. But then a device needs hacked. The hacker drops into VR and goes to work on it. Everyone else just stands around - maybe they protect the hacker's meat body, if there's any threat nearby.

Hacking as it exists just ruins a run's pace. It's too much of a niche role, the barrier to entry is too high. Give a mage a gun and a couple skill points for it and he can assist pretty well in a fight. Give a face a medkit and he can heal someone. But if you give the street samurai a commlink, he still can't hack.

Part of the problem is that hacking is unforgiving for those with low levels of skill. Shooting a gun without much skill doesn't really have a downside, you're just less effective. Using a medkit without much skill is the same. But hacking without skill is just asking for trouble. Rolling badly on a hack can get you and your entire team killed - something that can never happen firing a gun or using a medkit.

~Umi

Just to be clear, that's not my position. I have no problem with the idea of everyone having something to do, or with the system that you've laid out. The concern I have is that it's situational and forces a player into a playing style they might not want. To the first point, say I'm playing a non-hacker character whose job it is to run a Medic program on the hacker if they take damage. I'm chillin' in the lobby watching the status of things on my AR display, maybe nomming a soy bar while I wait, the hacker starts doing his thing... and keeps doing his thing... then gets into cybercombat but doesn't actually get hit, so he doesn't need the Medic program I have... then does more of his thing... and eventually, the hacker jacks out with the paydata we need. In that case I haven't actually done any more than I would have if I'd just not bothered logging into my hacker's node in the first place.

The only way around that (aside from changing the system itself, which Umi already spoke to) is for the GM to make a point of creating a situation that I'd be useful in as a non-hacker in the Matrix. The thing is, if the GM has to go out of their way to create something for a non-hacker to do anyway, why shoehorn them into a situation their character isn't suited for? Sure, sometimes it's fun to get out and do something different now and again, but with how central to the setting hacking is, it won't just be "now and again" that this happens. Eventually it just becomes busy work that the character isn't particularly good at, due to being out of their element. As a GM, I get and agree with the value of being able to keep my players involved, but as a player, if I'd wanted to play a hacker full-time I would've made my character into one in the first place. Of course, if you opt out of "being given something to do" rather than being railroaded by the structure of the Matrix rules, the problem is back to square one - and the only way to address it is for the GM to come up with something the character to do that isn't Matrix-related, like they would've had to do in the first place.

Please don't take all this the wrong way, though; I actually do like your idea. I might even go so far as to steal borrow it when my own game gets off the ground. So in the spirit of focusing on the positives, my next question is this: Let's assume my non-hacker character has a couple of points in the relevant skills and the appropriate software at 3 (assuming I've decided that trying to copy better software wasn't worth the hassle of potentially dealing with gremlins). If I only have a pool of five dice to work with, will taking my own actions (and likely getting one or two hits per roll) actually be the biggest help to our team's hacker when so many Matrix actions are opposed or extended? In that scenario, I would think the bonus to my hacker's dice pool from Teamwork tests would actually be a bigger benefit, but I haven't personally seen it enough to be able to say either way.

The real problem with the Matrix is that having someone who's not very good along is worse than not having them along at all, because they'll be detected, and once they get detected, the jig is up. In a physical infiltration, this is not true to the same extent, because in a physical infiltration, the other guys can't just slam all the doors shut, automatically teleport-expelling you from their domain and probably dealing you some Stun damage.

There's also relatively cheap ways to make it so someone who's not fully-vested in pajama ninja stealth antics can still get by most defenses. Wearing a rutherenium stealth suit automatically penalizes dice rolls made to detect them. Add in the Concealment power from a good-Force spirit (say, Force 4 or 5,) and now detecting them is outright impossible for most things; cameras can't detect them, metahumans can't see them. Even specialized sensors can still fail, thanks to that massive penalty from the Concealment power, which doesn't give one shit about what method you're using to try to detect them.

And that's just passive measures. The hacker can hack their systems to disable their sensors, metahuman guards can be bribed or blackmailed to look the other way, animals can be mind-controlled to leave you alone (or worse, do your bidding, turning on their handlers,) and, if worse comes to worse, the Samurai can just pull out his gyro-stabalized automatic grenade launcher and start raining death in the general vicinity of your enemies.


The problem with Matrix intrusions is that only one set of skills, and only[/y] one set of expensive equipment and software are applicable without being a Technomancer. The mage can't nuke hostile IC with a Stunbolt. The Samurai can't blast a hole in a node that's rejecting your access codes the way he can bypass a door by making a new one. The Face might be able to fast-talk his way to Matrix access codes by bluffing someone, but that's very iffy. His pheremones won't be applicable, though, so he's gonna be on the wrong foot to start with.


There really isn't a great way to solve this problem, though there are things you could do to mitigate it... But only if you felt like skull-fucking anything resembling logic, to the tune of making it impossible to just switch off the system or switch off its connections in the event of an intrusion, so a hostile cyberteam could simply smash in the door and start beating down your IC and then there's nothing you can do to stop them from raping your computers once they're through the IC. You [i]could go half-way to this by going back to the SR3 paradigm wherein VR Matrix turns happened incredibly faster than regular combat turns, such that it would take ten matrix turns for one normal combat turn to pass, thus making it so a hack team who knows what they're doing could theoretically beat in the door, smash their way to the datastore they want, icing the IC on the way, grab what they need, frag the rest, and be out before you can react to what's going on, but that then makes AR useless as anything except fluff.

Maybe AR should be useless as anything except fluff, then. It certainly doesn't offer much of value currently.

It also doesn't quite make sense, if you stop to think about it. For example, why isn't a Smartlink considered to be AR?A HUD that feeds you additional data about the world, overlaid on top of your normal vision - that's pretty much AR in a nutshell. It's pretty mundane and essentially no different than any other forms of non-DNI computing.

~Umi

I was under the impression that a smartlink is considered AR, by virtue of not having to go full immersion to use it. (I usually think of them like the lead indicators in space flight sims, that show where you need to aim to hit a moving target.). As far as I can tell, the RAW say that a smartlink can be used in any hardware that can support an image link, whether it's DNI, cybereyes or goggles.

Also, the Build/Repair Table in SR4A (p. 138) lists a separate modifier for "Augmented Reality Enhanced" plans/blueprints for Technical rolls, as opposed to non-AR versions. I'm not sure how often that's actually used, though, and I wouldn't say that's a big obstacle to treating AR in general as fluff. Having to either lose or go full immersion for a smartlink would be more annoying, IMO, not to mention pointless in the latter case.

The problem with that is that it makes Hacking even more of a hackers only game, though. In SR4, if a firefight breaks out while the hacker's hacking, the hacker takes his Matrix actions, the Sammie shoots someone, the mage whips up a fireball, the IC tries to find the hacker, the PhysAd who rolled really poorly on his initiative grabs a guard and snaps him into another guard's head, the guards shoot at the team, and the Face with Combat Paralysis finally gets to go and dives into a dumpster.

If VR actions just take place at zip-zam-zoom speeds, you don't even have thaty much simultaneity.

As for the question of how often AR Enhanced blueprints are used... at our table, they are used extensively. If it can be piulled apart and put back together, we have an AR Enhanced Blueprint of it. Security Systems, Hardware of all types, Vehicles and/or Drones especially.

You nailed it in the other thread ... it's not that hacking is needing the whole team to interact, the scenarios need re-working to have several layers

i.e. plan A is for the SAM et al to cover fire while the hacker gets the door open

plan B is for the SAM to shoot the Commlink and carry the hacker when he melts from DumpShock,
while some one else get's the foam-explosives on the mag-lock.

if they are getting bored waiting for the hack, that is the absolute perfect time for an ambush, when they are lounging around arguing over who is getting the coffee.

Yes...

To reiterate, I don't think giving team mates something useful to do is horrible. I just don't like the way you're approaching it. I think giving teammates something useful to do while hacking is something very intriguing, which is why I put out so many other possible roles for team members.

The other part of this is that the hacker's one of the few members of the team that can solo many jobs. They can steal pay data, hack a system to sabotage another company, reprogram the autocab to kidnap someone for you, launch a major PR blow to a competitor of your Johnson, etc. There are a lot of possible runs where it doesn't make sense to have any physical presence at all. So offering something useful to a team to do during primarily hacking runs lets the rest of the team get involved and also opens up a lot more possibilities of fun runs for the whole team.

Because while some jobs can be worked to be multi-layered, some really shouldn't. If you can crash a corp's main production line and steal the paydata, right before their new cola is set to come out from off site, why would you break into the company to do it in person?
Similarly, some jobs shouldn't have hacking shoe horned into them, though it seems like the number of jobs where hacking is not helpful at all is relatively small compared to the number where combat is not necessary.

So what I want is a number of activities that are useful to a hack, but not necessary, that can be performed by team members with 6-9 dice acting along side the hacker that gives the rest of the team some choices and making all matrix runs viable and fun for everyone. Ideally, there would be useful roles for at least two other team members on the hack and they could focus on electronic warfare, scan, and spoofing, which might not be the primary hacker's specialty.

I will throw out some other ideas towards that end:

Fake Data Trail
This less experienced hacker's roll is primarily to cover the tracks of the hacker while the hack is in process. They establish a fake data trail, much like redirect trace. They are laying out a legitimate looking path complete with a fake access ID, fake location, etc. This is an extended test based upon how detailed they want to be with it (not sure exactly how to lay out the numbers for this, but essentially you are building a rating for the data trail). They can also have options of what to put at the end of the data trail. Your fake data trail makes an opposed test (ratingx2) against the trace attempt. If the fake data trail wins, they trace it instead of the real data.
At the end:
Dead End- The secondary hacker designates a node that has apparently been turned off or hidden as the final node in the trace.
IC trap- The trace takes them to an area where they will encounter intrusion countermeasures and an apparent copy of the fake hacker's persona. Cybercombat starts and the attempt is to trap or crash the spider or pursuing program in this node while your hacker is off somewhere else.
Frame- The trace leads to a real node and real access ID, just not your hackers. It will become apparent pretty quickly that this is a frame under careful scrutiny, but is not readily obvious.
A normal hacker can simultaneously spoof their data trail as they're hacking to prevent tracing, but because it is an ongoing process of maintaining logs throughout the nodes of the fake trail, they must split their dice pool between hacking and spoofing the trail. For most individual hackers, this is more dangerous than just trusting to their stealth program and redirecting a trace if they are discovered.

Decryption-
A series of encrypted nodes is one of the surest ways to slow a hacker down and can make hacking take a very long time. And while your decrypting, your hacked access could potentially be found. A supporting hacker can take over the role of decrypting while the hacker is probing the system or hacking on the fly. Encrypted files are passed from the primary to the support hacker who is running several instances of the decryption program, this allows the hacker to go much faster and lets hackers maintain a hide speed even when hacking encrypted nodes on the fly. The supporting hacker and primary hacker roll side-by-side. (not sure exactly how this work out) Additionally, the support hacker is passed all encrypted files, so if one is data bombed, it goes of in a node separate from the main hacker. (having disarm data bomb might also be useful)

Rerouting and Slowing Traffic-
(I don't have Unwired, so I'm making some assumptions here. Primarily, that all routing is done automatically and behind the scenes and people aren't aware of it)
The hacker is offsite, but it gives a team that needs to go in physically something to do. Could be discretely performed by a face. They physically enter the compound or location that is being targeted with a concealed repeater. A secondary hacker is using the redirect trace action to instead redirect people's traffic through the router. They get as much traffic from the secure network and other users routed through the repeater. This can be used for phishing data that passes through it to pull out passkeys and other important information. These can be provided to the primary hacker for any spoofing attempts.
Phishing-
Successful use of the phishing approach could also let even an unskilled hacker accumulate enough information to establish a basic account on the secure nodes of the system, posing a legitimate user. From there, they could start doing data searches to locate information that will ultimately be the target.
Dumping users followed by DOS-
The repeater can also be rigged to crash, so that once security and many users have copies of their persona on the node, they can be quickly crashed. This would be done in concert with a more direct brute force style attack on the location in question, or once an alert has been sounded. This is coupled with a swarm of agents simultaneously trying to access nodes creating a DOS attack. The users and security will have to log back in. This is hindered by a large pool of copied agents performing a denial of service attack on the system. This could potentially let a team without a good hacker- disable the ability of a facility to call for help, keep an alarm from being sounded letting people on site know about the runners, prevent security from locating them using facility sensors, create general confusion to act as a cover, knock spiders off the matrix for a smash and datagrab hack, or as part of a matrix vandalism attack against a company.
Corrupt Data Stream-
Finally, the repeater can be used to introduce noise and corrupt data into the stream of data it is routing. The commlink will hold up data packets, corrupt them, send them several times, etc. This limits the speed at which users routed through the repeater can perform actions. This is done using the electronic warfare skill. The response of any device routed through the repeater is effectively reduced by 1, reducing the rating of the programs they are using by 1 in most cases. This may be detectable with a matrix perception check.

The initially the hacker must use Sniffer to identify a target and then the Redirect Trace action to send the user through their repeater node.
Security can notice the rerouting of traffic by Tracing a legitimate users or Using Sniffer to intercept traffic and then examining it for anomalies. The likelihood that they'll do so or find anything varies. (don't have any rule suggestions right now for how to implement), but it goes up as more people are routed through the repeater. This can be overcome somewhat by getting several repeaters into place, since dividing the data traffic makes it hard to pinpoint that it's being specifically diverted.

Another option I'd suggest is to give the players (outright give to them) a bunch of hot drek commlinks. Like, have them find a crate of Battle Buddy Basics with one Battle Buddy (which presumably goes to the designated hacker,) complete with milspec versions of Common Use programs and the defensive Matrix programs, all of them freely-copyable and anonymously updatable to boot.

There, bam. There's the major entry barrier to dabbling in hacking without utterly sucking balls done with. Suddenly the price of a Rating 6 Attack program doesn't seem so bad when that's literally the only price you have to pay out-of-pocket to jump into cybercombat to support your hacker in a clinch, and even if you only invest in Rating 3 skills, that still gives you enough dice to help out.

I love this idea. You could even turn it into a "side objective" on a run sometime. "Hey, these would be really helpful for our backup-hacker routine..." (As long as the players don't just turn around and sell them, of course.)

If they turn around and sell them, that's okay.

It's their windfall. If you'd rather have a bit of cash now than a pretty decent 'link for until you get a better one, that's on you. Just like if you come across an unguarded crate of laser weapons. If you'd prefer to parlay that into cash, that's fine and dandy, and if you later come up wishing you had a laser weapon, oh well.

I have made this observation as well.

The hacker in the high end campaign I am playing in is good. But he needs to be good in many things, know many things and there are less alternative paths for him to take (which tie into needing to be good in many things and knowing many things). Me? I just ask my GM, "What do I see, what can I sense?" That's it. Between all the sensors I am carrying, the sensory enhancement gear I am using, what I do not perceive cannot be perceived. The hacker needs to Analyse, Spoof, Trace, Command, Edit, etc. There are so many doors and he must have the keys to open them all and there is no skeleton key either.

I agree with this... If you want to be a Good/Great Hacker, you have to invest in it. Passable is okay for minor things, but if you are not good/great, you will not survive the higher end runs when they come along. The tricky part is determining where that line lays at your table.

My thought would be that the non-hacking characters can use the Agents that they have on their commlinks to help the hacker.

Kinda like a mook army, but have the non-hacker characters be the Agents.

Which we have done from time to time, and it works great.