Hey folks! Trying to wrap my head around SR5, and I've got a couple questions.
1) "At character creation, magicians who cast spells, perform rituals, or create alchemical preparations may know a maximum number of formulae from each group equal to their Magic Rating x 2 (i.e. Magic Rating of 4 allows 8 spells, 8 rituals, 8 alchemical preparations)."
Okay, that makes sense. What I'm not totally sure about is whether you can use the "spells" allotted by a choice from the Priority table to learn rituals or alchemical preparations. If you go with "Magic or Resonance" priority A, to create a magician with Magic 6 who knows "10 spells", does that mean you know 10 spells and that's that? And you must spend chargen Karma to learn rituals or alchemical preparations, at 5 Karma per?
Or, does it work how I imagine it works, where you know a total of 10 things, be they spells, alchemical preparations, and/or rituals? For example, a magician built with priority A could know 10 spells, or 7 spells and 3 alchemical preparations, or 5 spells, 3 preparations and 2 rituals?
It really seems like the second of two situations makes the most sense, but I haven't been able to find any specific example where a character is built that way. Anyone know for sure?
2) Slaving a device to a commlink or cyberdeck seems like a pretty obvious move, if your gaming group is into the wireless hackability thing in SR5. The goofy thing: RAW, it seems like it's just absolutely worse to slave your devices to a 100,000 nuyen deck than to slave them to a 5,000 nuyen commlink. Am I crazy?
p.233, SR5: "Whenever a slaved device is called on to make a defense test, it uses either its own or its master's rating for each rating in the test. For example, if your slaved smartgun is the target of a hacker's Brute Force action, it would use your Willpower or its Device Rating, and its Firewall or your commlink's, whichever is higher in each instance."
So, slaving any device means somebody gets to roll their Willpower in place of its Device Rating (which is probably 2). Usually good. But then you roll the device's Firewall (probably 2) or the master device's Firewall, whichever is higher.
A Transys Avalon commlink, for 5,000 nuyen, has a Device Rating of 6, and therefore a Firewall of 6. A Hermes Chariot cyberdeck, with its own Matrix Attributes, has a potential Firewall of 5 (barring any running programs). Firewall 5! For 123,000 nuyen!
Did I make some mistake interpreting the rules here? Or is this one case where the streamlining of rules and consolidation of attributes makes things unbelievably goofy? (There's ALSO the fact, from p.233 of SR5, that "Your commlink (or deck) can handle up to (Device Rating x 3) slaved devices." So the Transys Avalon can slave 18 devices, while the Hermes Chariot, Device Rating 2, can only slave 6!)
Full Version: A couple SR5 questions!
Hello,
From my understanding, RAW, if you take Magic A you get 10 spells. Not 10 items, which can be used as either spells, rituals or preparations. I can see your point as to why it would be cool if you could use them that way, but that isn't the way it is written.
You are also correct that for defense, in general, it is much cheaper to get a high Firewall with a commlink than a deck. The one advantage a deck has is that it has a Sleaze rating, which commlinks do not, and so anyone trying to find your devices that are running silent slaved to your commlink only has to beat your Logic (or the Logic of the person who owns the commlink) as opposed to having to beat the Logic AND the Sleaze rating of the decker.
So for hiding, slaving the item to your deck is better.
From my understanding, RAW, if you take Magic A you get 10 spells. Not 10 items, which can be used as either spells, rituals or preparations. I can see your point as to why it would be cool if you could use them that way, but that isn't the way it is written.
You are also correct that for defense, in general, it is much cheaper to get a high Firewall with a commlink than a deck. The one advantage a deck has is that it has a Sleaze rating, which commlinks do not, and so anyone trying to find your devices that are running silent slaved to your commlink only has to beat your Logic (or the Logic of the person who owns the commlink) as opposed to having to beat the Logic AND the Sleaze rating of the decker.
So for hiding, slaving the item to your deck is better.
I can't find a clarification on question 1, however I would go with your 3rd example ("5 spells, 3 preparations and 2 rituals").
On question 2, you are absolutely correct, slaving to a 5000¥ commlink is a better choice than slaving to a cyberdeck unless you are running silently (where you really need sleaze). If you have the money I would actually suggest purchasing more than one 5000¥ commlink, that way if one gets bricked you boot up the next and can repair when you have the time.
Edit: Heh, ninja'd by Lobo.
On question 2, you are absolutely correct, slaving to a 5000¥ commlink is a better choice than slaving to a cyberdeck unless you are running silently (where you really need sleaze). If you have the money I would actually suggest purchasing more than one 5000¥ commlink, that way if one gets bricked you boot up the next and can repair when you have the time.
Edit: Heh, ninja'd by Lobo.
QUOTE (Captain K @ Oct 7 2013, 10:59 PM) 
Hey folks! Trying to wrap my head around SR5, and I've got a couple questions.
1) "At character creation, magicians who cast spells, perform rituals, or create alchemical preparations may know a maximum number of formulae from each group equal to their Magic Rating x 2 (i.e. Magic Rating of 4 allows 8 spells, 8 rituals, 8 alchemical preparations)."
Okay, that makes sense. What I'm not totally sure about is whether you can use the "spells" allotted by a choice from the Priority table to learn rituals or alchemical preparations. If you go with "Magic or Resonance" priority A, to create a magician with Magic 6 who knows "10 spells", does that mean you know 10 spells and that's that? And you must spend chargen Karma to learn rituals or alchemical preparations, at 5 Karma per?
Or, does it work how I imagine it works, where you know a total of 10 things, be they spells, alchemical preparations, and/or rituals? For example, a magician built with priority A could know 10 spells, or 7 spells and 3 alchemical preparations, or 5 spells, 3 preparations and 2 rituals?
It really seems like the second of two situations makes the most sense, but I haven't been able to find any specific example where a character is built that way. Anyone know for sure?
2) Slaving a device to a commlink or cyberdeck seems like a pretty obvious move, if your gaming group is into the wireless hackability thing in SR5. The goofy thing: RAW, it seems like it's just absolutely worse to slave your devices to a 100,000 nuyen deck than to slave them to a 5,000 nuyen commlink. Am I crazy?
p.233, SR5: "Whenever a slaved device is called on to make a defense test, it uses either its own or its master's rating for each rating in the test. For example, if your slaved smartgun is the target of a hacker's Brute Force action, it would use your Willpower or its Device Rating, and its Firewall or your commlink's, whichever is higher in each instance."
So, slaving any device means somebody gets to roll their Willpower in place of its Device Rating (which is probably 2). Usually good. But then you roll the device's Firewall (probably 2) or the master device's Firewall, whichever is higher.
A Transys Avalon commlink, for 5,000 nuyen, has a Device Rating of 6, and therefore a Firewall of 6. A Hermes Chariot cyberdeck, with its own Matrix Attributes, has a potential Firewall of 5 (barring any running programs). Firewall 5! For 123,000 nuyen!
Did I make some mistake interpreting the rules here? Or is this one case where the streamlining of rules and consolidation of attributes makes things unbelievably goofy? (There's ALSO the fact, from p.233 of SR5, that "Your commlink (or deck) can handle up to (Device Rating x 3) slaved devices." So the Transys Avalon can slave 18 devices, while the Hermes Chariot, Device Rating 2, can only slave 6!)
1) "At character creation, magicians who cast spells, perform rituals, or create alchemical preparations may know a maximum number of formulae from each group equal to their Magic Rating x 2 (i.e. Magic Rating of 4 allows 8 spells, 8 rituals, 8 alchemical preparations)."
Okay, that makes sense. What I'm not totally sure about is whether you can use the "spells" allotted by a choice from the Priority table to learn rituals or alchemical preparations. If you go with "Magic or Resonance" priority A, to create a magician with Magic 6 who knows "10 spells", does that mean you know 10 spells and that's that? And you must spend chargen Karma to learn rituals or alchemical preparations, at 5 Karma per?
Or, does it work how I imagine it works, where you know a total of 10 things, be they spells, alchemical preparations, and/or rituals? For example, a magician built with priority A could know 10 spells, or 7 spells and 3 alchemical preparations, or 5 spells, 3 preparations and 2 rituals?
It really seems like the second of two situations makes the most sense, but I haven't been able to find any specific example where a character is built that way. Anyone know for sure?
2) Slaving a device to a commlink or cyberdeck seems like a pretty obvious move, if your gaming group is into the wireless hackability thing in SR5. The goofy thing: RAW, it seems like it's just absolutely worse to slave your devices to a 100,000 nuyen deck than to slave them to a 5,000 nuyen commlink. Am I crazy?
p.233, SR5: "Whenever a slaved device is called on to make a defense test, it uses either its own or its master's rating for each rating in the test. For example, if your slaved smartgun is the target of a hacker's Brute Force action, it would use your Willpower or its Device Rating, and its Firewall or your commlink's, whichever is higher in each instance."
So, slaving any device means somebody gets to roll their Willpower in place of its Device Rating (which is probably 2). Usually good. But then you roll the device's Firewall (probably 2) or the master device's Firewall, whichever is higher.
A Transys Avalon commlink, for 5,000 nuyen, has a Device Rating of 6, and therefore a Firewall of 6. A Hermes Chariot cyberdeck, with its own Matrix Attributes, has a potential Firewall of 5 (barring any running programs). Firewall 5! For 123,000 nuyen!
Did I make some mistake interpreting the rules here? Or is this one case where the streamlining of rules and consolidation of attributes makes things unbelievably goofy? (There's ALSO the fact, from p.233 of SR5, that "Your commlink (or deck) can handle up to (Device Rating x 3) slaved devices." So the Transys Avalon can slave 18 devices, while the Hermes Chariot, Device Rating 2, can only slave 6!)
1) It may not be explicit, but the 10 things interpretation is probably correct.
2) Slaving things to a commlink can only provide good defense against attacks. Cyberdecks can provide Sleaze, which is impossible to get otherwise. So for Firewall tests, your Transys Avalon might do better with its own Firewall, but the Hermes Chariot will always provide a better Sleaze.
Further, a Slave cannot itself be a Master -- that is, you can slave the Hermes Chariot to the Transys Avalon, but then nothing can get the Sleaze of the Chariot (except itself). This is critical if you want to be able to hide a bunch of active gear for any length of time.
Take a decker with a Novatech Navigator (6 5 4 3). He configures an "on the move" setup with Sleaze 6, Firewall 5, Data Processing 4, and Attack 3. Then he loads 3 (4) programs: Virtual Machine, Stealth, Encryption, Sneak, and Configurator. Configurator is set to a combat loadout.
That'll give Sleaze 7 (+2 vs Trace User), Firewall 6, Data Processing 4 (for matrix perception), and Attack 3.
The Sleaze factor is a huge deal that I somehow didn't think about at all. Thanks for the replies!
QUOTE (Epicedion @ Oct 8 2013, 04:31 AM)
Further, a Slave cannot itself be a Master -- that is, you can slave the Hermes Chariot to the Transys Avalon, but then nothing can get the Sleaze of the Chariot (except itself). This is critical if you want to be able to hide a bunch of active gear for any length of time.
Can you give me a RAW quote on why a Slave cannot be a Master? I can't find an example for it being allowed either, but I don't see why it should be disallowed.
I stumbled over this, when I was trying to find a way to have drones go silent. RCC does not have a Sleaze attribute, so I need a deck. But you can't slave the drones to both the deck for Sleaze and the RCC for its other benefits. I could slave the deck to the RCC, but that would protect the deck and not the drones. On p. 270, it is recommended to have drones run silent mode, but I can't see how this can be done without slaving them to a deck and a deck only.
Ahh... never mind, you don't need sleaze to run silent (p.235), you are just shit at it...
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