Like it.

It should also automatically prioritize targets. A character with tactics can improve things in someway based on the incoming data. IE do a better job prioritizing targets. Directing flanking manuevers etc.

Notice that I'm specific referring not to runners, but to the opposition. It's not until about PR5 or in some rare cases PR4 that I'd really expect that to be a concern worth forgoing the bonuses - it's really useful to a even a veteran cop, for example, to be able to boost his visual and aural acuity as well as to get just a little bit better function out of his sidearm, so given the rarity of hackers it's worth the (actually near-zero) risk.

The wireless bonuses do not accomplish their goal and are implemented in a retarded fashion. All the functionality already worked sans Matrix access before. and no matter how many times you stamp your feet the corporation would not dumb down the functionality. It would be suicide to do so because some corp would offer non dumbed down gear and make a killing.

Never said it was a good implementation - bonuses should have been new functionality. Though it does raise the question... Smartlink would then be Limit+2, and what else? Include the functionality of the Mark 74 (no friendly fire)? Improve Take Aim somehow? Diminish range penalties?

But keep in mind, in setting there's been no loss of functionality - the functionality has been retconned.

What I think you are missing is that it is not a Near-Zero Chance. Hackers are likely to be more numerous than Magicians. as such, it is not a near zero chance that they will have issues.

Nope... Smartlink would have been +2 Dice base (you know, like it was before), with a +2 Limit Wireless. Makes a LOT more sense, considering the premise of the Smartlink.

And that is where you are missing the boat. Since there is a Conversion Guide, they SHOULD work as they did before. Since they do not, the developers dropped the ball. There is discontinuity. Again, Wireless Bonuses were chosen by the author strictly for what he thought were cool ideas, rather than trying to make sense. Since he had no direction, and since the Line Developer was either incapable or unwilling to provide more guidance, we ended up with the crap we have now. Shame, really, because SR5 could have really been amazing (there are some outstanding ideas, that were just not implemented in any sensible way). Well, it is still amazing, but not in the way they intended it to be. It is possible that it could have ended up worse than it did, but not by much.

If they are more numerous than Magicians, it's not going to be by a factor of more than 2 or 3. Given that Magicians are only a portion of what is already only 1 percent of the population... The odds of any given iiindividual being hacked are near zero.



Nope. The Smartlink change is actually part of a design goal entirely separate from the wireless bonuses, and as such (based on what we've been told, anyways) was set to be a Limit modifier before wireless bonuses were a thing.

And we can argue whether the retcons are good or not, but it must be acknowledged that they occurred - and thus there can be no line of reasoning following from an in-setting change on this score.

Speaking of the conversion guide, did anyone else notice it's possible for a starting hacker character in SR4 to get a Fairlight Excalibur cyberdeck for free once converted to SR5?

Yep, My Cyberlogician would have one (and a straight conversion of my 20 Karma Newb would have one as well, if I converted, rather than rebuilt, which I did). But alas, he cannot be converted until many more books come out. *sigh*
Should not matter, though, as I do not see me playing much in SR5. *shrug*

Cookie cutter IE prevent friendly fire would be what I would have done.

I don't care if they retconned. Retcon is a admitting their idea is in a word... Stupid. If you are retconning you are being lazy. take the time to move the clock forward in an intelligent manner.

... No, just not. Deciding, as they did, that there are to be far fewer dice pool bonuses is a legitimate design decision. It leaves two options: Either retcon the way things were in the old edition, or some up with a reason for the change. In the case of gear, the latter is largely untenable and thus the former is the only option.

Just purely curious - where did you see this?

Dev blogs back before SR5, if I'm remembering it right. Might have been a forum post, but I'm pretty sure it was the blogs.

I see - thanks!

Relatedly, I seem to recall Neurosis mentioning here on DS that when he was writing the wireless bonuses in many cases putting the old functionality back in just seemed like a natural fit.

Except that that is not what happened. My Rebuild of "The Suit" (A Veteran level Hacker, 10 years as a fudiciary functionary - 16 Received Karma) ended up with MORE DICE than the SR4A version had, with the same level of competency (And had I converted instead of rebuilt He would have netted even MORE Dice). So, if their desing goal was to reduce the DP's, they failed epically (though to be fair, had I tried to push to the obscene levels of DP often seen in SR4A, it would have possibly not gone up much, if at all). And that is the problem. Limits do not do what they are supposed to do (And I still maintain that hey are a stupid idea), and the DPs became bigger. So, tell me... How is the retcon "The one and true way?"

If you want to reduce the dice pool you need to get back the TN, with the simple correction that you dont count the first reroll as +6 but +5 to preserve the linearity.

This way you wont need the extra large pool to achieve the statistical repartition.

Well, I hate Variable TN, so that is not an issue, and the DP issue is not one at our table, generally. The Big Issue I have with it, is hat it was a HYPED up feature of the New System, and yet, with equal level of skill, the character ended up woth MORE dice. Kinda counterintuitive, don't you think. And with the elimination of the DP Bonuses you can get with the Nanite Boosters,and replacing htem with Skill focus from Adept (Same Bonus Total), the DP's should have sstayed the same, but in the end, the DP went up. That is a Fail in design principle. But, like I said previously, since I never really maxed out the potential of the character, the DP increase is not that surprising, since skills were essentially doubled in effect. Had the character been min-maxed to hell and back, I MIGHT have actually seen a decrease in DP. I don't know. I would have to go back to see how stupid powerful I COULD have made him in SR4A. And maybe that is the Crux of the Issue. Maybe the ultimate DP has been reduced.

Has anyone seen a justification/intent behind why the skill system was changed? Other than diluting the benefit of DP bonuses, it doesn't seem like it fixes anything or speeds things up at all.

More potential to grow I think was the reason given.


go here for the article I remember.

A LOT of players were very upset about the 9 point swing of Normal Skills (sans Adepts - you could go from Unaware to 7 in Skill) because this "just did not allow any advancement for character builds," which was BS from the start, because everyone wanted to start out Best in the World, so of course there was no room to go up. Now we have a 15 point swing (Unaware to 13), which is just dumb, in my opinion, as that only gives EVEN MORE DP bloat. *sigh*

Thanx, I appreciate that. Thinking back on it, I have always played an awakened character or a technomancer, so having an excess of karma have never been a problem. With that explanation I have no problem at all with that change....

Now, on to TacNets, game mechanics wise, what do they do (a bit of rehash with some extra details):

1. A TacNet is a micro-host. As a micro-host it lacks an Attack Attribute, but as a host it can be hidden. When a character joints the TacNet, their icon enters the host and is thereby hidden by the host. Since a normal host is large and usually like a building, I imagine a TacNet could look like a command tent, communications van or mobile command center R.V. depending on the size and scope of the TacNet.

2. Members of a TacNet gain the benefits of being wireless but cannot be hacked from outside the TacNet. If the TacNet has been compromised, connected devices are wide open for attack.

3. A TacNet is an encrypted communications channel. Information shared within the TacNet cannot be intercepted from outside the TacNet, so the party can freely chat at the table without fear of being eavesdropped. However, should an opposing hacker find the TacNet and hack their way in (usually scripted to look like a CiC), they have free access to "over hear" all communications and see all of the displays.

3. A TacNet has minimum requirements:

Device Rating / Sensor Platforms / # of Sensors
1 / 3 / 9
2 / 6 / 18
3 / 9 / 27
4 / 12 / 36
5 / 15 / 45
6 / 18 / 54

In order to be considered a sensor platform the persona/device/drone must provide a minimum of 2 sensory inputs to the TacNet.

4. A TacNet makes an automatic teamwork test (device rating x2) for all actions that could be reasonably assisted. (This idea needs some more work/clarification, I know. Just throwing it out there)

5. Based on its device rating it provides the net a pool of 1 free simple action/rating to be used on things like aiming or 5 initiative points to be used for interrupts. So a rating 4 TacNet could provide 3 simple actions and 5 initiative points, 1 simple actions and 15 initiative points, or any other combination.

6. A TacNet provides a shared pool of bonus dice equal to its rating.

7. A TacNet provides a shared pool of limit increases equal to its rating.

8. A member of the TacNet may only take one bonus from the net per IP.

9. The TacNet pools do not automatically refresh, but are only refreshed by a leadership roll.

10. An enemy hacker with 2 marks may destroy bonuses and with 3 marks may steal them for himself or his TacNet.

Thoughts?

"Reducing dice pools" and "reducing dice pool bonuses" are two very different things. And I'm not saying whether it was right or not - I'm saying that the change to Smartlinks and other similar gear is completely independent of the wireless bonuses.

IIRC it was never the Intention of CGL to lessen the Dicepool but to lessen the ...outside Influence (from Gimmick like Smartlink or Climbing Claws, from Emotitoys, etc) to the Dicepool.
And they succeeded in doing so.
Its totally right to be angry/mad at CGL for what they've done to Shadowrun but You should be angry/mad from the right reasons

with the right Dance
Medicineman

Except the bonus from the smartlink makes NO sense! Those that are affected by the limit don't need it 90% of the time and those that don't hit the limit get no bonus from it.

Yes You're right ,but most of us allready know this
(that's one of the many reasons to be mad/angry at CGL)


with one of many Dances
Medicineman

Which is in no way related to the discussion you're quoting.

It really isn't, though, since that normal function of the Smartlink was subsumed into the Wireless Bonuses. They are part and parcel (and the most obvious issue, along with Wired/Boosters) of the new Charlie Foxtrot that is Wireless Bonuses, and cannot be separated from the discussion of the problem.

Except that those two things happened separately - and the change to the Smartlink would have occurred had wireless bonuses not been a thing.

No they did not, and no, it wouldn't have, because it depended upon the existence of Limits. They feed upon each other for their existence. The Developers wanted a two axis progression that could be boosted to run parrallel to each other. One does not exist without the other. They did not come up with limits and add bonuses later. They were developed together, because they relied upon each other to function.

... Are you saying that the introduction of Limits and the introduction of wireless bonuses are tied together such that if one was gone, the other would be too? Because that makes absolutely zero sense.

They modified a piece of gear because of the limit system that was created (smartlink), then they added the wireless system which added back the original functionality of the item they had modified in the first place. If they removed the Accuracy system, then the current Smartlink would be useless (which for many it already is more or less pointless) meanwhile, they have made the useful part of the gear (the wireless) less desirable because of an arbitrary reason to make hackers feel more useful on the battlefield.

Just as a point of reference, I created a Adept in 5e that has about 18 dice to shoot with with a Rifle that does 13p -4AP & has a 7acc, which is pushed up to 10 with Adept power & Smartlink, Will I ever actually get 10 dice? probably not.

I think that Dolanar covered my position pretty well, RHat. Limits and Wireless Bonuses were developed in Tandem, to work together, so that they could continue to provide the capabilities of the Smartlink from previous editions, but do so in a way that provided additional options to technological implementation in game. However, because the Implementation of Limits and Wireless Bonuses sucked, no amount of benevolent reading is really capable of fixing it, no matter how hard you try to do so.

That actually sounds contrary to everything I can recall reading on the subject, as well as to the general way development WORKS. And the guy who freaking wrote the gear chapter has, to my memory, said that a lot of the restoration of old functionality was his decision when it came time for him to write the wireless bonuses, something which is directly contrary to your stance.

That, and Dolanar's statement is more in line with what I've been saying. First came the modification to the gear because of the Limit system, then came the addition of the wireless bonus system that restored the old functionality. If the latter didn't happen, the former would still have happened. B depends on A, but A does not depend on B.

No, what the writer said was that he did not care about functionality for most of the bonuses, he wanted Rule of Cool. So, the design stage was borked from the very beginning. *sigh*

As for the restoration of functionality, that was planned from the beginning, on a separate axis. As such, they would have had to already have had those discussions, and thus tandem, parallel, development.

What makes you think it was planned from the beginning? Have you read anything to suggest that is the case?

I think most would agree that the RAW sux, many things are arbitrary and many more just don't make sense. I do not hold any great hope that things will "officially" fixed anytime in the near future. I may still buy 5e products (I will not encourage anyone else at my table to do so, one copy for the entire group will be plenty), although I might just stick to the fluff/campaign books and covert them back to 4A (or at least to the 4.5 hybrid I have been tinkering with).

My question is how do we house-rule this in a consistent manor to fix it?

Well , go back a few pages and you can see the alternative tacnet being bounced around. TacNet as minihost has some potential though am sure there will be bugs to work out.

Then you will probably want to go back through all the wireless boni and figure which ones legitimately benefit from being connected to the Matrix and which ones only need PAN or DNI connection.

Like extended baton probably only needs PAN level connection to get it's extension as free action.

Your MedKit however will want access to the matrix to be able to take over for you and get all it's bonuses for treating you.

And so on...

As far as wireless goes, I would suggest houseruling that as long as it is in some way connected to a device that is connected wirelessly then you can get them, that way you can slave everything to a commlink & have it still work, because making things wireless & allowing minimal protection seems utterly silly. As such, to me it would be like allowing all of your household computers to connect wirelessly, but through the primary home router.

nvm, apparently there is nothing saying you can't slave everything to your commlink & have it all wireless, in fact the book suggests slaving all of your wireless gear to your hacker's Pad & let them try to hack him to be able to even touch your wireless gear.

I threw this out there yesterday, but I haven't heard anything on it.

That largely just seems like a static thing that's just there - unless the enemy team has a hacker of their own, this doesn't actually provide something for you to DO. Also, is there any way for Technomancers to operate one?

I think it should be avoided as being known as a host, because Host are big things & if a Demi detects a Host inside it, you can expect all sorts of nasties coming in to deal with it.

My feeling is for most gear you remove the wireless bonus note add the fuctionality as a part of how the gears...IE you scratch out the words wireless bonus and leave the rest. For some gear that the wireless bonus actually makes sense you do the above.


i wish there was a way to lump all the bits in this thread regarding different builds of tacnets together so we can more easily cross polinate ideas.

It would take quite a while, hell it took forever just reading through this entire thing just to get caught up.

I called it a mini-host just to stick with 5e terminology. There is an idea I had that might work, bringing back some 4e terminology.

host: A self-contained place in the Matrix. Hosts have no physical location, as they exist purely in the Matrix cloud.

node: A virtual space in the Matrix. Nodes are projected into the Matrix by a physical device.

I think the quintessential node in everyone's life would be their Central Home Network (CHN). Joe Wageslave comes home to his crappy efficiency apartment (I always think of Bruce Willis' apartment in the 5th element). Unlike Korben Dallas, when Joe gets home to his hovel he has the full VR experience waiting for him. After plunking himself on his couch and going VR, he is able to enter his CHN. Sure he can do all the mundane things there, like manage his Irobot Roomba 63000 cleaning drone, get his food cooking, schedule maintenance, etc. But unlike his crappy apartment, Joe can make his virtual home (CHN) look like anything he wants, here Joe lives like a king... Until tomorrow at 8am when he goes back to work.

Like hell it doesn't relate to the discussion!

You said:

And I said that the changes makes NO sense! Why the frak would ANY Shadowrunner take a smartlink anymore?!? Those very select few who need the accuracy boost would use it but turn off the wireless (therefore getting rid of the target for the Decker to hack... and therefore getting rid of the need for the decker), and those that need the dice pool boost won't use it because it puts a big "KILL ME! I'M FUCKING STUPID!!!" neon sign on the 'Runner that can be seen in orbit... Lunar Orbit!

Your 12 dice shooter will get more than 5 hits approximately 18% of the time, which is a significant enough percentage to make a bump to that Accuracy warranted. Your 14 dice shooter (that is, your 12 dice shooter with his smartlink online) will get more than 5 hits approximately 31% of the time, which makes the Accuracy increase fairly necessary.

Your 8 dice shooter might not get a lot of use out of the offline smartlink, but the online one still pushes him into the range where the added limit will help often enough to be useful.

Your online smartlink doesn't turn you into a glowing billboard, either. You turn it on with a free action, you shoot during combat, and you turn it off with a free action. The shooting part probably draws way more attention than the smartlink. Thousands of deckers aren't lurking around every street corner just waiting to pounce the instant you drop your guard.

If it works that way then there is no risk of using it and therefore fails the Developer's intended design goal of making things vulnerable to being hacked. Also, if you have a smartlink and USE it, it leaves a clue for Lone Star to use to arrest/kill you.

There's a risk associated with using it -- in some situations an enemy decker may attempt to compromise your hardware. You're painting this in such a bizarrely black and white way, where the instant you turn on any wireless gear a 12 year old in western Somalia will instantly know and effortlessly make your eyes explode. It would be like saying that the existence of the Thor Shot means that Everyone is Always getting Thor Shotted All the Time.

Deckers are rare. Decking is expensive. Decking is dangerous. While you're trying to break someone's shotgun, their decker is probably face-punching you with Black Hammer. It's always a potential threat, but it's not always a threat. As in, someone's not shadowing you all the time just waiting for you to turn your gear online.

It is an ignorant SECURITY HOLE that should never have been implemented in the first place; and was only implemented so that a Hacker could be a special snowflake (because he DID have things to do in combat prior to the change... I know, because I did those things as a hacker).