I think you've hit on what the actual problem was in SR4A: Deckers shouldn't have to rig to be relevant in combat.

Why not?

Faces have to Sammy.

Not true. They can also Mage. Shaman faces aren't exactly uncommon, and with the new Mystic Adept rules, it'll probably be even more common than before.

Either way, Face isn't a major character archetype. It isn't something defining about the character. You may choose to play a Face, but in terms of actual resource investment, it only takes a fraction of your resources. Compare the level of investment to casting, decking, rigging, or even mundane combat/infiltration, and being able to talk to people is relatively minor. It typically represents a relatively minimal resource investment to do.

You can argue that shouldn't be the case, and you should be able to invest more into being a Face in exchange for gaining an actual role in combat. If that is what you actually want, I want to ask one thing, can you name any example of a character in fiction that walks into a fight unarmed, with no magic, and just talks... and actually succeeds in combat? I can't think of one. In fact the closest thing I can think of is the D&D4e Warlord, and even there you typically had a weapon and knew how to use it. Also, even if that really was all you wanted to do, SR4 did have the Commanding Voice adept power which pretty much let you shout at people and cause mayhem in combat without touching a gun.

So please elaborate here, what is it you want? Do you actually want an expansion of the Face role, or are you just using the Face as a false equivalency to provide an excuse for Hackers not being able to do anything with their specialty in combat?

I'm trying to point out that SR4 hackers are essentially a pet class, to use distasteful MMO jargon. Doing dumb things to the setting in order to give them more direct combat options is silly.

We are talking about a team-based tabletop RPG. Not every character is going to, or should be equally useful in every situation. This is why direct combat isn't the only challenge in the GM's toolbox. Traps, security, and information gathering are arguably more important, and those are areas that a hacker is uniquely equipped to excel in.

The problem as I see it is that instead of making Hacking itself more powerful, the new rules make everything else weaker by exposing them to unrealistic vulnerabilities. Thus, my proposed fix would be to instead just make Hacking stronger. You want to make hackers more combat proficient? Give them the tools to let them be, don't take tools away from others.

Instead of requiring gear to be wireless enabled to get bonuses that shouldn't in any way depend on wireless, give hackers a "hacking gun" - a small handheld device that operates off of their hacking skills instead of combat skills, and which affects electronics in close proximity.

Make it operate by way of some handy McGuffin - high intensity beams of focused energy; integral and irremoveable GOD mandated factory installed override chips which forcibly turn the wireless on when receiving the proper codes; a swarm of flying nanites that home in on the kind of electrical fields and radio waves generated by 'ware and gear and infest and compromise them; sticky or spike projectiles that tap into a person's PAN and act as a wireless access point for the hacker until removed (with great difficulty); some strange new quirk of Technomancy combined with developments in Manatech to create "Manatech-nomancy" devices which allow you to "magically" tap into an otherwise protected system at short range; whatever.

There are countless ways to come up with new tricks and tools for hackers, without stumbling over the issues of "punishing" other archtypes or ruining internal logical consistancy.

~Umi

I disagree. Charisma, Edge, multiple social and knowledge skills, cyberware, bioware (depending on which chameleon option you use) - a social chameleon (as in: specialed set up and not only charisma 4 and con (seduction) 4+2) can take a significant amount of nuyen and Karma. Perhaps not as much nuyen as a dedicated rigger/sam, perhaps not as much Karma as a full mage, but if you want to specialise and really push the limit you will have to invest a significant amount of your game ressources.

SYL

Charisma +4, Influence 4, Tailored Pheromones or Kinesics 3, and possible a quality or two. Done. The rest starts you into crossing over into other roles.



This is true. It does not, however, mean that there are no circumstances where every character should be relevant.



A hacker is not automatically a rigger - going for a full hacker/rigger is pretty much a full build, and in the case of technomancers that issue only gets worse. While it's an easy enough crossover, it is far from the only option and the design of the game needs to account for that.

and? The Hacker needs only 5skills (Computer, Data Search, Hacking, Electronic Warfare, Cybercombat) and a bunch of cash.

A whole not of programs, Hardware, Software, a bunch of ware... While no character "type" consumes all of your resources, building a good hacker consumes a pretty large share.

Your reduction of a face to "charisma und influence" is like "a sam only need agiliy and automatics). Charisma may be the main attribute and could be enough for an acceptable face (just like "I have agi 6 and automatics 4 and wired reflexes 1 and a smartlink" could be enough for a decent samura). The moment you push your role (that of a social chameleon) to the limit (as the hacker or the sam) you add voice modulators, perception ware, false fronts (or puzzle ware) , improved skills, enthralling performce, commanding voice (in the case of an adept of course only), knowledge skills, logic, DNA Masking/alteration, intuition (after all, high reaction, strength and body are expected from a samurai as well, not only agi for shooting) etc. A face is not only "he can talk", just as the samurai is not only "he can shoot". It is true, that a face can easier combined with other roles and archetypes - making a decent hacker-mage or to push a rigger/sam to the limit costs more nuyen and karma. But please, do not reduce a face to charisma + con - otherwise a sam will be reduced to agi + automatics + smartlink, a hacker to logic + hacking and a mage to magic + spellcasting + stunbolt.

SYL

I think I read that essence will factor into social interactions.

I like the idea of a face that is also a good infiltrator (sometimes able to con her way out of situations when seen). So infiltration, running, jumping, climbing, etc. could be useful. Also, I like the idea of being a good investigator, so knowledge skills and of course contacts would be helpful. Even the ability to work undercover would be fun, maybe even needing unarmed combat when discovered. I think a wide range of attributes and skills could help a well-rounded, face character.

But much of that also helps you cross into, say, infiltration. That is more my point. Simply put, the Face represents a smaller share of your overall resources,

"smaller sahre of overall resources" sounds way better and different to "it only takes a fraction of your resources."

SYL

I guess the question should become, why should a hacker take so much in skills and resources? Instead of giving them all these requirements, making them a "core class", and contriving these stupid ways they can be useful in combat, why not just have a hacking skill that, like the infiltration skill, many characters will take?

Or, if you want to keep them as a "pet class", then instead of Ghost In The Shell-type hacking, have them stick to their main roles - scouring the matrix for information or leads, breaking into secure data storage, subverting security systems, drones, and tacnets, and keeping their team connected but not vulnerable. Hackers have a ton of useful stuff to do! The don't need this nonsense of turning people's wired reflexes off, making their guns eject their clips, and such. If they want to get involved in combat, nothing is stopping them; it isn't too difficult to make a hacker/sammie.

+1. SR is supposed to be a classless system, yet these new rules are pushing it into a much more class-like direction. There are archtypes, but they aren't supposed to be classes. Yet now "the hacker" needs combat abilities, just like "the mage" and "the fighter sammie" have combat abilities. There's isn't anything stopping any character from picking up several ways to be relevant in combat (except for the magic/mundane divide I suppose), but these new wireless-hacking rules have the feel of giving the "hacker" a new class-feature thing to do in combat.

I'm not seeing it like that. Don't get me wrong I think wireless cyber is lame, but I don't see it as an attack on the classless system. I kind of suspect the hacker is mostly going to apply minor penaties, so the Sam shooting them will be a more effective choice and quite frankly the decker hacking a drone and shooting them or just shooting them with his own gun might be the better choice. So yeah its a combat option, but I doubt it will make the decker some universal one skill set almost a class character.

You miss a few design concerns by a wide margin.

On the first point, that's a problematic suggestion because a focused hacker is a valid concept that the system needs to support. For some extremely valid hacker concepts, both normal combat and rigging are completely inappropriate.

Further, there is the idea that the system is not supporting a concept if that concept cannot impact general-case combat - it is true that no character is going to be involved in every challenge, but it is also true that some challenges necessitate that every character be able to be involved.

Why does every character need to fit some combat-effective archetype?

They don't. Full stop.

That said, I agree that hackers are too costly. If you specialize in a non-combat role, you should still be able to at least be useful in combat. Comparison to Faces is apt - no one expects a Face to end a firefight with a winning smile. The difference is that you can build an effective face and still have character resources left over to spend in other areas, including combat skills if you so choose. Not so with hackers, unless they go full hog on Rigging.

~Umi

Because combat is one of those situations that everyone needs to be able to participate in effectively. I'm not saying I agree with him, but that is what he said. Some apsects of the game are things he thinks everyone needs to be involved in. I'm nost sure why a focussed decker needs to be a viable concept but a focussed face doesn't, or why it breaks that focus to be a half assed shot, or hell just rely on a drones piloting skills and have it shoot and drive for you, or why he not only needs to partiicpate in combat but through directly hacking cyber. And honestly while it is currently expensive to be a decker, our team has seen combat deckers, rigger deckers, a combat medic decker etc. It has neve consumed all of there resources and usually not that much more than a faces.

Ugh.

All it takes for someone to be useful in a fight is a few points in a gun skill and a good sense of cover management.

Let's address this directly. For all that it's being touted as making hackers combat effective, how exactly does all of this help a hacker in, say one of the most common combat moments in all of Shadowrun.


Decker A is walking down the street, minding his own business, on his way to bible study class. Two Halloweeners, having decided that he looks like he'll make fun noises when they kick his spleen in, step out of the alleyway, armed with a length of chain and an 18" black rubber dildo, resepectively.


How does poor littler Decker A preserve his physical integrity and ocular virginity?


I'll give you a hint, it involves either fast talking, fast running, or fast shooting. None of which all the hacking prowess in the world is going to help with.

This whole boondoggle is just forcing more vulnerability onto every other character in the game, and it isn't even fulfilling the stated purpose because it only makes hackers more combat viable in edge cases where they're fighting someone heavily cybered or who is using advanced weaponry. Mages, adepts, spirits, critters, and regular old dudes with bats all get to bend him over and use him as an umbrella stand.

Simple. I've run hundreds of hours of Shadowrun and a LOT of combat. If I don't want a player sitting around like bump on a log I feel they SHOULD be a part of the combat / action scenes. Even simple one or 2 round combat scenes can chew up a lot of time when there are multiple passes and multiple attacks being staged every pass. Players know it too, so most of the hackers I've run always had a bit of Street Sam in them or drones to fight conventionally. I am quite curious to see how Matrix / tech attacks might work (and I'm sure there is a defense against them) just to make things different. I've always wanted to see the three layers of Shadowrun jibe together better in action scenes but it never played out that way because Hacking needed too much prep to be successful in a combat situation. I don't know if it will be like I hope, but I am pretty geeked thinking about Sammies shooting it out with sec guards while mages duke it out with spirits and the Security spider is counterhacking the decker's tech attacks.

And not in a good way

A couple of ways he can preserve his physical integrity, ocular virginity, and general dignity.
1: The Decker's trog heavy pal the Halloweeners didn't see because he's wearing active camoflauge and covered by a high-Force Concealment decloaks behind them like a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and attempts to disprove the physical concept that two objects cannot occupy the same point in space-time with their heads.
2: The gun bunny on his arm (because sexy gun bunnies dig scrawny hackers, right?) drops two machine pistols into her hands and lights them up, then collects the 18" black rubber dildo as loot for later.
3: His pal the mage waves his hand, says "these are not the hackers you're looking for," and the Halloweeners go looking for their nightly skullfucktoy elsewhere.
3a. His pal the mage whips up a fireball and incinerates the Halloweeners.
4: The hacker drops a collapsable baton into his palm, activates his wired reflexes, and warps the baton around their skulls.
5: The hacker drops an Ares Predator into his palm, activates his wired reflexes and smartgunlink, and smokes both of the bastards.
6: The hacker sends a wireless command to his overwatch gun blimp, which deploys a semiautomatic sniper rifle and smokes both of the Halloweeners before they even know they've been targeted.
7: The hacker drops a pair of SMG ball-drones to the ground which deploy landing legs, acquire the Halloweeners as targets, and smoke them.
8: The hacker hacks GridGuide to reroute a passing motor vehicle through the Halloweeners at full speed.
9: The hacker fires up his wired reflexes and uses his extra speed, agility, and processing time to leg it faster than they can chase him.
10: The hacker fires up his pheremones and convinces the halloweeners to go fuck someone else's skull.
11: The hacker offers to pay them off and successfully convinces them that they can't just beat him up and take the bribe anyway.
12: The hacker calls Lone Star/Knight Errant, and happens to be in an area where they can and will actually arrive in time to do jack shit. (Or at all.)

In only one of these options is the hacker even hacking at all. That's about the only way I can imagine for Mr. Hacker to combat hack his way out of that situation. Everything else is based on having buddies, being clever, being prepared, or just plain out having invested in other skills/abilities/equipment.

Because combat hacking your way out of getting skullfucked by a couple of Halloweeners is dumb, and it only gets dumber from there, unless you happen to be fighting drones.

Other possibilities include hitting their bargain bin cybereyes or cyberears with garbage data to overload their senses like a digital flashbang so you can actually escape, using nearby speakers to make them think that the cops are nearby, hacks their commlinks to make them think they have an urgent reason to be somewhere else... And more, depending on what sort of looted ware they happen to have.

A hacker's options will always diminish as the sophistication of their opponents diminishes, but that is not a reason not to let them have options.

Even if they have bargain bin ware, not even Halloweeners are likely to be stupid enough to leave it connected to the 'trix. Sure, hacking their 'links might work, assuming they take the time out of their busy schedule of bludgeoning you with an 18" black rubber dildo to check their "urgent notice." Hacking nearby speakers to play out gunshots or "This is Lone Star! Hands in the air!" might work, I'll agree, but it might now.

But you're still reaching.

The entire point, which you seem to be missing, is to make it so that it ISN'T strictly stupid to have wireless on so that it's an actual decision to make. What is missing from this conversation, then, is precisely what the risk actually is. For example, hacking someone's arm doesn't have to mean you can use it to strangle them.

No, but it's very likely you can make it shut down completely. If the arm holding your gun shuts down in the middle of combat, you are boned. Same goes if your chemsuit decides suddenly that everything is hunkey-dorey and that unsealing to let its owner get some fresh air is a good idea despite the fact that the chlorine gas outside is so thick you can see it. You're also boned if your vision gets completely replaced with spam or just blacked out, you're pretty boned if your gun decides it no longer feels like delivering hot lead downrange, you're pretty much completely boned if the gear your whole plan is depending on decides to suddenly stop working.

I think shutting it down requires something like 3 Marks, which from what I hear is a minimum of 3 Complex Actions? Those are possible actions a hacker could have access to, but that doesn't mean that they have it rapidly with permanent effect.

You do realise this was the whole point of his post?

What are these "Marks" and why do I get a creepy, nails-across-the-chalkboard feeling of D&D4 when I hear this word?

Matrix Authentication Rsomething Keys

They tell a device what a user is allowed to do, much like access levels did, but less complicated

Ok cool, thanks for that. On the surface I could get behind this idea, in that it keeps the essence of elevated security priviledges while divorcing it from real-world "security levels" that cause so many conceptual problems.

I have said it more than once... it is not the GM's responsibility to make sure that each and every character has something to do in a firefight, unique and different from everyone else. It is the Player's responsibility to ensure that he is useful in different situations. How many times did the Cyberlogician (Nexus) grab a gun and shoot while intercepting enemy transmissions, grabbing drones, and dinking with their tacnets, all teh while ensuring our own tacnet was protected? That was MY responsibility, not Yours. If a Player is bored, it is because he is allowing himself to be that way, especially in your games TeOdio. There is NEVER a lack of things to do. And your games are always engaging and entartaining.

You do realize I was basically agreeing with him, right?

Doesn't exactly seem like that when you answer his rhetorical question with a long list of answers, it seems much more that you just missed his point entirly and then made the same point.

Well, now you know better. And knowing is half the battle.
(The other half is trog heavy-induced violence.)

And you're not boned if the jumped in hacker obliterates you with a sensor locked full narrow burst from a drone's machine gun sporting AV rounds? Please... It sounds like in 5th Ed I might have my own hacker providing some defense against tech attacks. Not many chummers are willing to step in front of the lead hose for me. Well maybe for me

Okay, this was seemingly buried by a certain other issue, so could somebody enlighten us?

Summoning vs. Binding as in SR2050? Mages have to constantly expose themselves to astral attack if they want their stuff to work?

I don't disagree with that, but it helps if the system encourages it. Lets be real. In a 1 or 2 round fire fight, where most of the participants have multiple passes, how effective is hacking currently in the 4th edition in a 2 round scene? More so than previous editions I grant you. But then they introduce all sorts of things to "bone" the hacker. Hard encryption, skin link, running hidden, laser data transmission.... So while your cyber logician could do every thing else you still HAD to grab a gun (because you had multiple passes in the meat world and could BTW). The Yak boys that ran Nexus and Jet down were heavily cybered and one was basically the Yakuza version of Nexus. It might have been pretty cool if Nexus was duking it out over the matrix with them while Jet was laying down fire to dissuade pursuit. But I have not seen the rules, so for all I know these Matrix attacks are merely minor annoyances and it is still better to pick up a gun and start firing away. Very few players out there are willing to play a mage that casts blindness and not Stun Ball at force 10, lol. You sir, are a special player.

If you're not willing to pick up a gun and shoot a motherfragger right in the ghost-damned face, you don't belong on a Shadowrun, whether you're the hacker, the face, the mage, or whatever.

Exactly. This has been hammered on from all the way back to the first novels, when Twist was trying to get over his wageslave mindset to succeed as a runner.


You know, that said, I'm going to use that Halloweener example I wrote up as my new final step of character approval. Any character who can't deal (via combat/magic/social savvy/etc) with two utterly mundane guys with average stats and melee weapons is clearly mis-built, as it would not survive in the sprawl it is supposed to be from.

Go a step further: before the game starts, tell the group members you want to see them individually for a solo session, and pop that on them: you're alone in the barrens, none of your chummers are within quick contact range. You're just taking a quick walk down the street from your doss (or the doss of a friend who asked you to doss-sit his place while he was out of town,) to the Stuffer Shack to get yourself some Taco Hell-brand soy burritos, now with a guaranteed 10% actual meat content, when you find yourself surrounded by two gangers slinking out of the shadows in front of and behind you. One of them has a chain attached to a rusty pipe with several padlocks padlocked to the end as some sort of barrens flail, the other is wielding an 18" black rubber dildo. Yes, an 18" black rubber dildo.

To the sides are nothing but uninterrupted storefronts, mostly with collapsed, unnavigable interiors, and the few alleys you do see are dead ends. Wat do?


If they can't get out of this, have their character subdued and tell them that character suffers a fate most likely worse than death, please come up with something new.

You do have a point or two here...
All those things that they added to "Bone" the hacker, as you so eloquently put it, I was okay with (Old School Decker here), and would have used them myself if we had adopted those optional rules. Since we did not, I secured our systems as best as we could, which was no joke anyways). I have no problerm grabbing a gun for several rounds if that is required. I have no real interest in trying to Hack someone else's ware to feel useful. I thought the scene with Nexus and Jet against the Yaks was inspired, and my Hacking their Sam would have not been as interesting, or resulted in as great a storyline hook, as was generated by what occurred.

Blindness is so much cooler, though. Wait till I blind the Astra Perception of those annoying mages assensing things I don't want them to assense
Thank you Sir, you are a Scholar and a Gentleman.

I'm wondering how effective a single hacker can be in the new paradigm anyway. It's said you can hack 'ware, but what does that really mean? Even if you hyper-accelerate Matrix tests, would it look like this:

IP 1
1) Scan for enemy commlinks
2) Hack-on-the-Fly into to one enemy commlink
IP 2
1) Snip wireless bonus from one piece of gear (impose extra penalty?)
2) Snip wireless bonus from another piece of gear (impose extra penalty?)

Assuming zero failures, is that it? Even at those breakneck speeds, wouldn't it still be more efficient to dump 2 long bursts from your Ingram Smartgun into the target?

Was the sexual content and implied rape really necessary or appropriate? Do you really see raping a player's character as appropriate punishment for them making something you don't agree with? (I don't need an answer, I just want you to consider the implications of your statement)

Most hackers I've played with would use this opportunity to test one of their over watch drones and SnS those goons without breaking stride.

If your hacker subdues them with on-call Close Air Support drones, then the character has passed the test, crass as the wording may be.

Well, you're gonna get one: I'm not the one who originally came up with the "18" black rubber dildo wielded as a weapon."

That said, if a character can't pass that simple hurdle (2:1 confrontation with unaugmented gangers wielding improvised melee weapons,) then they're not Shadowrunners, they're what the street calls "meat." I leave it up to the imagination of the player to decide (or not to decide) what happens to the character who manages to get beaten unconscious by two sprawl gangers.

The phrase "torture buddy" comes to mind. So does "Thrown to the ghouls for entertainment," or "organlegged whilst alive." Could it be, like, all the rape? Sure, that's a possibility. However it goes, though, you're gonna wish you'd managed to buy it in the fight.



Congratulations! By virtue of having close air support to call upon to resolve your conflict with these unwholesome gentlemen, you have reaffirmed your status as "Not Meat", at least for tonight. Enjoy your Soy Burrito. You earned it.

Some of my more sociopath leaning characters would agree, but I can think of a lot of concepts out there where the thought of shooting someone in the face might make them vomit in the mouth a little. Like I said, I haven't seen the rules yet so I am merely speculating on what I think is a good idea in allowing VIABLE OPTIONS for deckers other than straight up murder and mayhem. In the end, if they are just ineffective annoyances then deckers once again become riggers with drones or street sammies in combat. There are always going to be silly fluff things I don't agree with and large logic plot holes in almost any entertainment I consume, but I'm not going to damn an entire product based on one idea that for all we know... MAY BE FUN. And if it isn't, well there are 4 and a half editions worth of rules to cobble together what you like and run with those.