Starting up a new 5th edition campaign and have a player asking if he could use a high end commlink with firewall 7 and slave his deck to it. The reasoning goes like this; the commlink with firewall 7 is only a couple thousand where as the Deck with firewall 6 is twenty thousand or so. To get a deck with firewall 8 would cost a million. The costs listed are not 100% accurate but rather to get the idea across. I told him no that it would not work that way but after looking at the rules there is nothing saying you can't. So what would be the draw back? Anyone?

Additionally is there any reason a decker would have a commlink as the deck can do everything a commlink does and more?

A persona cant be a slave so once you start hacking ypu are back to your decks firewall i think.

I can think of reasons to have a comlink you don't want to be carrying a restricted device when you go down the street for a burger at mchughs. I tend to create characters with multiple comlinks. One with a fake id fpr my running. One with my "real" id for around town.

actually to have a firewall of 6 with a Deck you need to spend over 200,000 nuyen, however. Commlinks can no longer use programs & a Decker needs those programs so investing in a higher level cyberdeck is a need eventually, as far as slaving, I don't see why its not possible.

Yeah, the part in Matrix Damage, the damage is applied to the device that's running the persona. So even though you can slave a cyberdeck to a better commlink, whatever the cyberdeck's firewall is will determine how well you soak matrix damage.

Now a decker will likely still have a commlink as well. A commlink is about the size of a cell phone, a cyberdeck is larger. Even though it's not clear that a cyberdeck can take commcalls, a cyberdeck is obviously a cyberdeck, and currently it looks like only deckers will have one. Pull one out to take a commcall and you might draw some unwanted attention.

Now what I find interesting is that all cyberdecks are Restricted gear and automatically come with a hot SIM module, yet having a hot SIM module as part of your commlink makes it illegal gear.

Just another example of a Disconnect... *shrug*

To be fair, legislation often fails to make sense.

Greetings, my first post.


It looks like slaved devices don't loose any functionality it SR5.

You just get the use the better of the two firewall ratings in any checks. Am i correct?

If you slave a deck to a commlink, it uses the deck's or commlink's firewall, whichever is higher. Just because your deck is slaved to the commlink doesn't mean you have to tunnel though the commlink to the matrix. Even if you are in persona, that doesn't mean you don't have a physical device *deck* that is still slaved to the commlink. Currently, I just use the Transys Avalon *Rating 6* Avail:12 and 5,000 . Aside from this all being up to GM interpretation, if your persona gets a mark, that means either your commlink does as well, or not (because your persona got the mark, and not your deck ).

I'm sorry Repulse, but you have it incorrect.

Page 235
Persona
"Personas are the “people” of the Matrix. Some personas
are actually people, users and hackers who are connected
to and using the Matrix. When a person uses a device
to connect to the Matrix, the device’s icon is subsumed
by the persona’s icon, so it’s basically gone from the
Matrix until the persona jacks out."

Page 233
PANs and WANs
"If you want extra protection for some of your devices,
you can slave them to your commlink or deck. Your
commlink (or deck) can handle up to (Device Rating x
3) slaved devices, becoming the master device in that
particular relationship. The group consisting of your
slaved devices plus your master commlink or deck is
called a personal area network, or PAN.

Only devices can be slaves, masters, or part of a PAN."

So - if you are not using your deck to access the Matrix, then yes, you can slave it to your Commlink - in which it would use the Firewall rating of the Commlink to defend itself, if it were attacked. (Mind you, if you are not using your deck to access the Matrix, I'm not sure why you would have the wireless on - but that's another story.

However, the instant you access the Matrix, the device icon disappears, and is replaced by your persona. Personas cannot be part of a PAN, therefore even if you did have your deck's wireless on and slaved to your commlink, the minute it changes from a device icon to a persona, it is no longer protected by the PAN and now uses the Firewall rating of the deck.

Yes, the device "icon" disappears, the device still exists, and its still slaved to your commlink. I still dont see the issue?

Since the device icon disappears there is nothing to attack but the persona the persona won't have the firewall from the master although that may be why a deck can still act as a firewall for other items while you are decking.

And the persona uses the "physical" devices firewall rating, or that of the commlink whichever is higher...

At the same time, I am pretty sure this will be in the ERRATA / FAQ that should be released at the end of the month

Since the persona can't be a slave it uses the stats of the deck not it's master but hey it's your groups game play it however you feel is right as long as the gamemaster agrees.

Repulse,

In the Matrix, you are either a persona or a device. You can't be both.

Once a device allows you to access the Matrix - i.e. a cyberdeck, then for the purposes of rules that apply to personas and devices, it is no longer a device.

As long as something is a device, then it can be a slave as part of a PAN. Once you've jumped into the Matrix using the deck, then it can no longer be part of a PAN. Once it is no longer part of the PAN, it can no longer use the Firewall of the master device of the PAN for defense tests.

Ah, I see what you're saying. One question concerning that though. Why would it suggest that you slave an item to the cyberdeck? Once you start using it, it would no longer be part of the PAN, right?

As part of the PAN, while your not accessing the Matrix through either device they are still hackable. So the firewall is still needed.

"Why would it suggest that you slave an item to the cyberdeck? Once you start using it, it would no longer be part of the PAN, right? "

This, my friend, is an excellent question The answer is, you probably wouldn't. In general, at least the way the rules work, they aren't designed to do that - although they can be used in a pinch.

Using a deck as the master of a PAN is problematic for a couple of reasons. However, here is how it would work.

Assume I am just carrying my Novatech Navigator around, not using it to access the Matrix. It is a device. My friends all have their guns/cyberware/goggles whatever (up to 9 different items) slaved to my deck.

I have my configuration set at ASDF=3456 - which means that all of their devices have a Firewall of 6.

As soon as I enter the Matrix, the deck now can't be part of the PAN, which means that they are all on their own again.

So, the problems with using a Cyberdeck as a master are threefold:

1) If your decker actually does his job - i.e. decking, he can't protect you.
2) You have to spend 205,000 nuyen to buy a deck that can have a firewall of 6 - the same amount of firewall that you can purchase with a 5,000 commlink.
3) A 5,000 nuyen commlink has a device rating of 6, which means it can slave 18 different devices to it. To be able to slave the same number of devices to a cyberdeck, you need the Excalibur, which costs over 800,000.

Really what you want to do is have your decker have the 5,000 nuyen commlink IN ADDITION to his deck.

You slave all of your devices to his COMMLINK, (since a good decker with have a higher than 6 Logic) and he has his deck as a separate item.

Now he defends your items with either his Willpower/Logic or Device Rating of the Commlink + the Firewall of the Commlink.

Well while the decker is doing his job it is likely the person that moght hack your system will be busy with the decker. And if the enemy hacker ignores the decket to say attack your autopicker they can't defend against the hacker. The decker also could issue a command to the pan as a free action to turn wireless off on everything before activating the persona

It just seems confusing that in the book that it suggests slaving devices to your deck, when you lose all of the benefits as soon as you enter the matrix. Why wouldn't the just suggest that you have a Mage with a commlink do your team's device slaving. If he runs out of devices, just pick him up another commlink or three .

The switch all wireless off might make sense, but as soon as that happened once, I wouldnt be slaving any of my devices to the decker again. The decker turning off wired reflexes and reaction enhancers wireless modes... Would make for a very unhappy street sam.

You can use the decks programs for defence.
An Agent can be activated freeing the user's persona up for other actions while the Agent defends the device.

"You can use the decks programs for defence."

This still doesn't the rest of the party the instant you enter the Matrix.


"An Agent can be activated freeing the user's persona up for other actions while the Agent defends the device."

Not sure how this helps the rest of the party.

I mean - clearly, the decker wants to have BOTH a cyberdeck AND a commlink. He uses his commlink to slave his devices to, and then uses his deck to actually do stuff. If he doesn't, if he has his devices slaved to the deck, then the instant he goes into the Matrix using the deck (AR or VR) he looses the ability to protect the other devices with his deck.

Then the slaved devices can use the higher defence rating of the master if it's higher.