Oh, this is very funny on a disturbing silly way...

It is a perfect example of peoples fear of change and the unknown.

That analogy is so ridiculously flawed it would have killed some of our primate ancestors had they tried to contemplate it with their less developed brains.

Exploding isn't a function of a laptop. Turning off, however, is one of its core functions. If a hacker was trying to deny you the use of your laptop, and he could turn it off, why would he only be able to turn off the speakers? Because that's an analogous function to being able to hack a cyberheart, but only being able to be annoying by dialing its performance back to a regular heart.

Which they CAN! they just don't get the benefit if they do.

I think you need to go re-read that sentence again, and maybe parse the last half of it this time.

You don't say . .

Is there even a cyberheart with an wireless function in the book or are you just making that up.

No idea. Critias is the one who brought it up originally. Whether or not it exists is entirely irrelevant though, because there are other critical cyberbits that could easily be inserted into its place, for which a loss of function would result in catastrophic system shock to a human being or potentially be fatal as a secondary effect.

I believe it says "spinal column," which is the vertebrae, not the nerves.

Actually, you can by removing safety controls. Though it still takes time and overheating.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/...ts-batteries/2/

in shadowrun, there ain't . .
in our world though . .

That sounds like a good reason to me. I can use my imagination, and their supplied reasoning to work with that. It seems that in the time it takes to hack a system that same street sam could put the hacker down with gunfire. Might even be quicker to shoot them. Mr. Hardy and company have even added rules (as yet unseen) that make it necessary for the hacker to accompany the party, so he wont be hacking the street sam from the van. Seems balanced to me.
Good Job Mr. Hardy and company. Shadowrun rules have consistently closed rules loopholes and made a stronger rule framework with each new edition and this looks to be no exception. I withhold final judgment until I played it out a bit, but looks good on the surface. I have not read the fluff because I really don't care as long as the rules are solid. I can work with most fluff, and if not I modify the fluff to better explain the rule. Thank you for all your hard work, I look forward to the 11th.

And that is where you and many of the other of us do not agree... The reasoning is not sound.
As for the Hacker accompanying the party, Mine always did.
The rules we have seen are not sound, nor did they make a stronger framework. As for Fluff, there is none.

Shadowrunners aren't your regular customers, and tend to get the sort of ware one would supply elite troops with (Joe Average doesn't get implanted with MBW anyway).
This is my entire point: what isn't good for red sams isn't good for Shadowrunner. They're just as obsessed with their own security.

De-lurking

To the writers...thanks for posting on here and helping with the rules.

Looking forward to the changes, my group has been trying to figure out hacking cyberware since 4th ed came out and its good to see some actual rules.

Just seems like another method to frag someone up, no better or worse than shooting them, lightning bolting them, killing hands them...just another combat option.

Lurk mode back on.

Yeah, if you get strapped on a table and a team of experts is trying to hack your heart...

Oh no, i have seen the rules, they are far from insrumountable. Hacking someone's ware from the other end of the planet? Yea that is hard as hell, makes very little sense but I can buy a game mechanic. But hacking from the van within a kilometer of the target? Negligable noise penalty that can be reduced to nothing. If anything i give them massive props for datajacks finally doing something, of course then they turn around and require the datajack to be wireless to get that benefit, one step forward, one step back.

And don't even get me started on the signal strength sapping effects of dense foliage.

Can you point me to the source of this claim made by me? Last I checked, I was trying to figure out why would bricking an implant only remove the bonuses from it, using a cyberheart as an extreme example to the contrary, of bricking works as so far described.

You can very well make it unbootable, in a single command line command.

Why would replacing vertibrae with supercondictive material make you react faster?

I take it you've read the book, then?

It doesn't require LOS, to begin with.

You're perfectly right, and I agree with you. I was just thinking of some way to find a reasonable explanation for an unreasonable ruling.
And I would rather have "The forces of evil impose this upon new runners and equip their own soldiers with wired ware." than
"It is better for your ware and brain to communicate via an outside relay, because encoding, sending, recieving, relaying, recieving, decoding and finally processing signals makes this process much faster and more reliable than just conveying signals via fiber optics"

Of course it does not help with experienced runners, who should have access to higher (wired) grades, but I can't find a more reasonable explanation. It's not an eqasy quest ...

You're kidding, ain't you? A wireless datajack? I was under the impression that it was common pratice to plug somenthing physically into datajacks. Do they at least still have holes?

"People with heavy cyber and skinlinks started being exposed to brainhacking attempts when they connected themselves to the Matrix due to rampant internal crossover amongst their various DNIs, which caused an emergent cloud processing phenomenon to take place within their central nervous system. To combat this, the cyberware manufacturers removed the interconnectivity of most of their 'ware and replaced it with a wireless network that could be turned off in the event of a catastrophic security failure, without losing basic functionality and becoming hazardous to the user."

EDIT: "Most people blame Technomancers."

In fourth datajacks were already wireless and could function as a wireless hub, good for getting your internal gear connected to other stuff, and indeed could function as a chokepoint for your internal ware (i liked to install databombs on mine). Under 5th datajacks provide internal storage, a way to wire into things, and if you run them wirelessly provide 1 noise reduction. They also provide DNI but since anyone can have that for less then a tenth of the cost with trodes it's kind of a non starter.

Ooh, is storage a thing again?

No, thankfully. You either have it or you don't so another non starter.

Thanks for clarifying data jacks.

And you get crossover from to much ware?
Blimey, we shouldn't have all those wires implanted without shielding! How stupid we were. No wonder we go wireless; it's a nasty thing having all this uncoated copper in your body ...

Not copper, superconductors. Why do you think reaction enhancers work? High voltage energizes like nothing else!

That's... almost the first semi-reasonable explanation I could see, but it needs quite a bit of work before I buy it.

Yes, it is almost as believable as "please wear a glowing pink suit to receivee +3 to initiative and -3 to infiltration and dodge".

SYL

Your standard counterexample is stupid and isn't close to what's in the game, stop using it. Try to stick to the confines of the game, otherwise you just come off as a bombastic nut.

I'm almost sure, that "crossover" and "emergent cloud computing" is a better explanation than what we will find in the book. At least not worse than mine

Hyperbole doesn't help a good, reasonable discussion.

You know, if the hacking cyberware had been made a technomancer exclusive ability it would make way more sense. Because then you could wave your hand and say, "matrix magic". And then the fear of technomancers would be way more justified (I've never gotten a clear explanation for them being hated and feared, when it seems like anyone can hack anything in the setting with a few tries).
"They can hack anything, even stuff that's connected through skin links. No ones safe!"

It´s not?
Why?
It´s risk vs reward without amaking any sense.
Which the entire discussion is about.

So, yes, to be honest, it´s very close to the official opinion and to the desperate tries to explain the it fluff-wise. You, of course, may have another opinion and you are free to love the online reaction enhancers (the ones who replace a part of your spinal column and make you a cripple if hacked). Sleep well.

SYL

I was wrong to say that your examples made you sound like a bombastic nut. Stop actually being a bombastic nut.

It was more 'they can hack anything, even stuff that has no reason to be online and no actual hardware for a network connection!'.

Less justified now, given that apparently this is the new status quo for SR5.

I'm not saying his explanation is good, but the template could be used. The idea that using wired DNI creates border issues of their own that somehow are a bigger threat for heavily cybered people than having to defend against cyberware hacking *does* justify that shadowrunners and redsams would switch to a wireless, semi-vulnerable system.

The problem, though, is that you have to explain what that "greater threat" is. But then again, this is a world with brain magic and fairy dust emergence, so I'm sure someone can find something out that's not more 'stupid' than the concept of technomancer*

*I don't actually think technomancers are stupid, although they're better left unexplained because any explanation would surely be silly.

Bingo. I just gave that as another off the cuff example of how you can reconcile the new paradigm with the existing world. It just takes a few words, not a drastic life change...

Sorry, but it takes more than a few words. This is the sort of stuff you ease the player into via a section in a couple sourcebook.

For instance, one could use Storm Front's last chapter.

Shadowrun is also a universe where people can actually explode or freeze solid in the vacuum of space (Note: that's incorrect) and mercenary groups can have thousands of employees and still make payroll despite not having any jobs ... Maybe they could expand the role of those pesky e-ghosts to explain why you need up-to-the second security patches and offload some cyberware computing tasks to the cloud to deny local resources to the polter-e-geists?

Can you quote the RAW that hacked reaction enhancers cripple you if hacked. In most game rule situations it simply shuts down the benefit. Are you using your own opinion to self nerf here and then passing it off as RAW?

They say when a daddy metahuman and a mommy AI really, REALLY love each other.......

As we near 500 posts, I'd like to remind everyone to play nicely. Flaming, Baiting, Name Calling, etc are grounds for Warnings. Everyone started out their tenure with a damage track of 10 boxes. Along the way there are time outs, and the eventual long nap from DSF. Let's not have to go there this week.

Does a reaction enhancer replace a part of your spinal column? If yes, what happens do you if a part of your spinal column does not work anymore and does not transmit data anymore? How do you call it when the spinal column is into two pieces? It´s the same as "what happens, if my cyberyes get destroyed - am I blind then?".


SYL

So then it is a personal opinion comment. I would rule as a GM unless specifically stated otherwise that the "part" it replaces is the "part" that enhances reaction, not the "part" that allows normal function. I'm not a neuro-surgeon in 2075 so I don't know if that is possible or not, but it allows the players to continue playing without too much grief. Lighten up on yourself and allow this game to be fun, When you go self nerfing beyond the rules you cause yourself untold grief.

No, I wasn't.

For the sake of my own entertainment, let me try and sum up a couple of my impressions from this thread so far:

1) Most of us should probably get better at recognizing that a whole host of questions concerning a game that has yet to be officially released, can not be adequately answered at this point.

2) There have been a number of design decisions made, which seem to have been based more on how to achieve a particular goal for the game on the mechanical side of things, rather than to try and make sure that said game mechanics would also be able to stand up to player level scruteny of the accompanying fluff. Somehow I fail to see how this should really be able to surprise anyone. That being said, however, I do agree that some of the changes there appear to be coming up, do not really stand up to what some people on these boards consider to be reasonable logic and deduction (myself included to some extend). Using a term such as "Bricking", which apparently has a real-world common meaning, implying that a bricked device is most commonly wrecked beyond repair, and then having it "only" temporarely damage the hardware in question, might not have been the best decision. Especially if the repair involves a Hardware repair of a mechanical/electrical system hidden (deep) within the owner's body. Something that a bit of logic would seem to suggest really should require some level of surgery, in order to even get at the afflicted system. Similarly, if a fluff description of "Bricking" something suggests that the action is accompanied with sparks and smoke exiting the targeted device, and then not having this have any mechanical effect when related to hardware located inside someone's body, it might similarly have benefitted from an alternative description which was more in line with the actual mechanical effects within the game. But again, I'm pretty sure that the majority of game designers and decisionmakers are more focused on making the mechanical side of the game work as intended, than part of the gaming community is. Some of us would seem to prefer a fairly high consistancy between the mechanics and the describing fluff, and some of us would probably be quite happy with a lesser degree of balance in the game, if it would lead to a world that, in our perspective, would make more sense.


Personal comment:
I'd like to say that I'm consistently amazed that designers actually bother reading thread like these. It really must be such depressing reading. My hat's off to you gentlemen.

Thank you, Lurker, for the attack.

I did NOT come up with the definition of bricking from any part of my anatomy. I claim field-use as my citation (currently working in a tech-heavy field). In my office, and among other tech-savvy individuals outside of it, "brick" (verb, transitive/intransitive) has a definitive meaning, and is seldom-to-never used for a reversible situation. If one of the products my office deals with is "bricked," it needs to be sent back to the factory and harvested for parts; even a service facility wouldn't be able to get it working again.

Additionally, I was not the first person to provide a definition for "bricking," I added support to the one who did. I'm willing to accept that the meanings of words can be altered over time ("brick" itself is an example in the present day), and willing to accept that the book may have defined it differently. All things being equal, we had nobody and nothing telling us specifically that the book was using the term differently than it's colloquial, common, technological definition. I'm willing to bow to Critias as a higher subject matter expert (he helped make the game, after all). It's refreshing to know a "bricked" cyberlimb isn't just flat nuyen down the drain. But I don't appreciate that insult, and would appreciate an apology. I don't know what your area of expertise is, and wouldn't presume to know what it is or isn't. I'd expect similar courtesy in return.

Hah no unless your making a joke and its going over my head "noise" as a mechanic in 5th Ed is basically a mechanic to stop "from around the world" hacks. If my not at my book right now but at the kilometer mark you incur a point of noise that goes up to 8 for around the world with other environmental factors datajacks, one of the programs, and IIRC a complex form can help mitigate noise. Any noise not mitigated is a straight 1 for 1 dice penalty. The net result is an attempt to get the hacker out of the bunker and into the action. In practice he or she if they are not combat proficient will likely just be in the van instead.

I should note that getting the hacker out with the team is a move I fully support.

So what are the chances that they will pull some thing like this partial special edition release for Origins (and no PDF release until much later) with the sixth Edition of Shadowrun?

Writers like Critias, Aaron, and Bull are able to answer all question regarding SR5, seeing that the core rulebook is written and just two weeks ago from release.

There's a difference between having the answers and being able to adequately answer questions, as a note.

For one, it takes time. Something I no longer have. I've spent a couple hours a day over the last week+ answering questions, and that's time I could (and should) be spending on paid work, like Missions and my Cartoon Action Hour Gig.

Two, sometimes answers aren't as simple as a couple typed lines, and then people freak out because they have questions or jump to the wrong conclusions, and our short answer didn't answer or explain everything adequately. Some of this stuff involves a page or two of text, and it's not an easy thing to sum up.

Three, Honestly? I'm incredibly frustrated trying to answer questions, and I know Aaron and Crit and Patrick are as well. Because everytime we answer something, we get blasted for it by someone. I've been flat out told I was LYING to them, I've been called names, and just generally been run into the ground. I'm just trying to help and provide answers, and it's incredibly demoralizing to have that thrown in your face time and time again.

I've stopped trying to answer any but the simplest questions because of all three points. It sucks, but... It is what it is. Coming on here and answering questions isn't my job, isn't something I'm required to do, and isn't even something I've been asked to do by anyone at CGL. I was doing it to try and be helpful. But I'm honestly burnt out and just don't have the time anymore, and even when I do have the time, I just don't feel it's actually worth the abuse.

I'm still around, I'll still jump in from time to time, but... I'm no longer trying to follow every thread and answer everything I can. Sorry.

Bull