Perhaps, but I have yet to actually see such a crippling of Mundane characters (though I guess it is possible) vs. the Awakened characters. Awakened characters have always outshined the Mundane in practice for the most part, so the wireless issues don't seem to be the issue here. And since you can now get an internal router, some of that complaint goes away (not that that excuses the potential problems). As to no meaningful effect, there is that. I agree that SR5 is working very hard to nerf Augmented/Technomantic builds.

The rules specifically state that each success on a perception test reveals one piece of information about that device. i.e Who owns it, what it is, what it's matrix mumbo jumbo is (Mac addresses or whatever). Having the device hidden just makes the chances of getting net successes harder. It doesn't make it impossible.

here's the thing with that. CLEARLY, the writers were not aiming for this to be a solution. They wouldn't cook up the wireless system to allow such a simple tactic to rend it utterly useless and it's not confirmed in the rules, it’s just assumed perhaps by an absence of rules.

And it has a myriad of drawbacks. For a start, they’re all in exactly the same place. So assuming that a decker/technomancer is within 100m of you and assuming that this completely renders their ability to find and hack your commlink redundant it still makes your location an obvious point of concern.

If I did a matrix search and found 1000 hidden icons that claim to all be commlinks in the same location, I’m probably sending the Red Samurai there to shoot first and to ask questions later.

What a more realistic use of the wrapper program is likely to be is for hiding in plain sight. Someone who can see your icon broadcasting is perhaps less likely to examine it if they are not suspicious of it.

Yes, but the thing is that the rules allow it. So there's a disconnect between the setting (where this kind of tactics isn't supposed to be used) and the rules (where this tactics work). It can be easily solved by saying that for some reason this tactic doesn't work, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a problem in the rule.

Someone who doesn't want to be wirelessly vulnerable has the even simpler tactic of turning their wireless off. Running silent and having a lot of dummy wireless devices also running silently is a valid tactic, though. And Matrix perception only lets you know there is an icon running silently out there; it doesn't light them all up.

Only everyone is carrying 1000 tags. Because it costs like 100 bucks and protects you from any hacker. Do not only shadowrunner would do this, but also security teams and even common folk who don't want their datajack to be bricked.

Then better not even buy them in the first place, because SR5 is designed to punish you for that by having devices and cyberware contribute nothing in any way meaningful without WiFi boni. I suppose they thought this was some brilliant nudging.

The general +2 Limit is a boon (and you don't have to have active wireless for it), if you can use the Limit boosts. But I do agree with you for the most part. No need to Have wireless devices at all, save for the ubiquitous Comlink when one wants to actually look like a common man (Music, Pics, and you have to broadcast that SIN in certain areas don't you know). AS for Wireless enabled Cyberware? Epic Fail on all levels. *shakes head*

I feel like my nose is being forcefully rubbed in it.

Yeah, but it's only interesting if you have a basic pool well beyond 15, and I don't see that being the rule in moderate-Karma characters.

IIRC, Wireless bonuses and cyberware that eats the soul are part of the "everything has a price" concept. Did they finally extend this concept to Awakeneds or not?

Not unless you consider "boundless opportunities and no limits" to be the price paid.

And yes, it was. This concept never extended well beyond them, with the exception of 'mancers, whose prie was being hit with the nerf bat really hard for existing.

Thank you for pointing it out. Here is the issue: Bull explicitly stated that the new matrix is completely abstract. No realism whatsoever - game rules, not simulation rules, not story rules (I know only the German words for the well known holy trinity of rule design, not quite sure about the english words for "gamistisch").

And thats the problem: if you have a complete abstract rule system, which denies any resemblance with reality then you cannot argue with reality, when it comes to limits, possibilities and/or "realistic" actions. You only have the rules and the description of the world, nothing else, certainly you dont have "realistic" limits, because the designers explicitly stated that they wanted to move away from realism (which the SR4 matrix at least tried to balance (perhaps not very successful)).

So.

Fuck realism. More or less Jason Hardys and Bulls words from the development time of SR5 (which was now how many years ago?).

Good. So only rules and a vague world description. Because realism is not gritty and dark and only serves the awakened transhuman skinlink bullshit.

Are tags cheap? Yes they are.
Are tags small and lightweight? Yes they are.
Can you carry 1000 of them with you in a small box without any real size/weight/volume constraints? Yes you can.
Can you distribute 1k tag-packages all over the place with spirits, drones or minions just to lay down wrong hints for the physical location? Yes you can.
Do they give out a wifi / matrix signal which completely fucks up the matrix perception system, both ingame (where NPCs and agents and GODs have to scan) and out of game (where a frustrated GM throws away the dices)? Yes they do.

For that you have play- testers which seems to have failed en masse when it comes to SR5. I mean when the first version of the SR5 PDF went online, it took only several minutes before the broken speed rules were mentioned on English and German boards. It was one or two days later until the first German Player (I think it was Medicineman) connected tags and matrix perception rules together. Granted every edition had some game breakers. Some sometimes random rule combined with X from that book and Y from that run that created something horrible. Mnemoenhancers in SR3. Bloodzilla in SR4. But I have the feeling that it´s more glaring in SR5. I feel that his edition should be nicknamed the "if we only spent more than one combat round thinking about it" edition.

And thats one of the main problems of the current edition. Thinking two steps. Not only one. As in "lets improve mundanes and make them feel engaged by reducing their usable essence, bringing no real new concepts of enhancements into the game and increasing the price sometimes by a factor of 10". The sad thing is: I really believe that the authors and devs wanted to push mundane characters, to make them feel unique and powerful again as streetsams were in the second edition.

Oh hey, one attack only.

And because Wifi is so enganging and fun all our missio3n NPCs are running around with wifi off. You know, so that the PC hacker can have fun too. Or not.

For not having anything to brick besides the guy who is the enemy hacker who could be blackhammered since SR1.

Great design.

As Harlequin 2 with the recommendation to leave two of the most iconic cyberpunk archetypes at home.

PLAY MORE MAGIC; WE DONT HAVE ENOUGH AWESOMENESS FOR MAGIC!!!

BUT MAGIC HAS LIMITS

Yeah, nothing which cannot be solved with 25¥. And there is of course nooooo possible way a clever player could use reagents ... creatively.

That post may contain slight hints of sarcasm.

SYL

"gamist". It's actually an anglicism anyway.


Playtesting has failed. It's unfair to put all the blame on playtesters though, I'd say.

Saying playtest failed, would be implying that it was up to the playtesters. Also it is a question of knowing what the playtests actually prevented. Whatever the case, at the end of the day it is the job of QA and ultimately the Line-Developer to make decisions. The playtesters of shadowrun usually are volunteers that provide data. What has failed is CGL. I gahter it is a mixture of actually liking some of the crap so much, that they pull it through anyway, not caring enough about other crap to do it right and ultimately, not really knowing what they are doing.

That being said, I do not need SR or any P&P to be completely unexploitable, there us a GM after all and a good GM is no slave to RAW. Still, SR5 is far too flawed and incoherent. While there are good authors at work, the core is rotten.

Why doesn't it?

I get 2 net hits. I choose to know the location of the device and what the device is.

So why don't 2 net hits on a perception test totally remove that tactic from validity? Particularly since you can't slave 1000 tags and they're rating 1. They're not going to to be able to stealth very well and so the threshold just can't be that high.

So I get my 2 successes, I detect 1001 icons, 1 of which is a comlink, 1000 others that are stealth tags. I just simply ignore the stealth tags and attack the comlink (given that my 2nd hit gives me the location.

What I meant was, it just tells you there is at least one hidden icon. Yes, you can use your additional Matrix perception tests to get more information about the randomly selected icon you found. But you don't know whether there are 2, 10, or 100 more hidden icons out there. You would think so, but nope. Truth be told, I've never liked the Matrix perception rules, in any edition.

Exactly.

SYL

Point taken. Let me precise it: somewhere in the chain between playtesters, authors and dev something went really wrong. Since we all know what Jason Hardy counts as quality work ...

SYL

ONE DEVICE, of 1000 Hidden RFID's per Shadowrunner on the run, not counting other hidden distractions. So using your logic, you would need 1000 Rolls (of 2 net hits) to debug all those RFID's and you likely STILL did not see the hidden Comlink in the morass of signals generated (because, you know, you only get to identify ONE RANDOM SIGNAL per Net Hit).

Just wait for the HERF gun and EMP grenades...

Oh, wait, that'll totally gimp the hackers that whined that they had nothing to do in SR4 and before.

They will probably only work with wifi bonus. Probably "Wifi off: makes funny sounds / Wifi on: you can project an EM ray on one active item because to create an EMP ray takes too much computer power which cannot be delivered by an 800k cyberdeck. If you do that however you will fry your own devices and cyberware as well. Because, well, you are not as awesome as an Awakened".

SYL

Agreed.

Indeed... Not sure who those Hackers were, though. If they had nothing to do, they were not trying hard enough. My Cyberlogician was always inundated with tasks in SR4, and nary an attack on cyberware was there to be seen on that list...

Indeed, the problems I had, especially as a GM, was that hackers had too many things to do in combat, and more to the point that it took them far too many dice rolls (and quite often too many IPs) to do any of them.

I can get behind that.

In the first Denver mission module the team encounters mafia hacker Dean Costello, who tries to initiate cyber combat with the team when things go sour. Last time I ran it for a party the face/technomancer pulled a gun and shot at him (piss poor skill and still actually scored an impressive hit); I had to pull some [legal] handwavium to make sure he didn't get killed in running away. Needless to say, when Dean showed up again in another mission he was not well liked.

The problem with hackers has never really been about how much you can do, it's how much fun it is. While in 4th you could on occassion hack a forklift and use it to ram something or use environmental conrols to starve a room of oxygen, the majority of the things you're doing is turning lights on/off or openning/closing doors. While providing tactical advantage there's something to be said about direct actions over indirect actions. It's why almost every campaign (no need to state that yours is not, trust me it's the exception) is always heavy on for magicians, adepts and samurais, but generally light on for deckers, riggers, faces, etc. Generally each group has one sap who resigns to doing those jobs because they'd rather play than not,

There's something that's always been more appealing to Shadowrun players about shooting a gun or swinging a sword at bad guys. While a Decker can still do these things, they're not going to be very good at it (unless they're not particularly good at Decking). Giving them something that mimicks attacks that uses their skillset helps solve that.

Sorry Smash, if that's all you think hackers can do then I don't think you're playing them right.

You can always take control of any drones that security might send against you. Also you can hack into the opposition's comm network and have them run around like they were extras in a Monty Python skit. You can also make the enemy ambush their own security forces by changing the IFF on one group.

If you want to be extra sneaky, you can hack an account into the system and make it seem that your group (appropriately dressed of course) is SUPPOSE to be there. That would allow you to get through most of the security mooks without a single shot being fired.


One thing that IS needed for hackers in Shadowrun is that they need to be able to hack things faster. Taking 10 rounds to hack simple things is too damn long.

This right here is the main issue.

But it is a hard balance to make as if they make it too fast/easy to hack, a good decker or TM will OWN everything in a heavy tech environment.

I preferred SR4's approach, where roles didn't demand quite as much in the way of skills and resources, and you saw more hybrid builds that could hack or face and fight. I'll be honest, though - even in SR5, I would still rather invest in a decent gun skill and a heavy pistol than use bricking (or leadership, for a face) in a fight.

So your game master does not use (for his NPCs):
- Tacnets (manipulated by edit)?
- Radio/Wifi Communication (manipulated by edit)?
- Support drones (hackable, corruptable)?
- SimSense/DNI controlled commlinks (hackable and spammable)?
- Wifi enabled equipment for incompentent NPCs?

Well ... perhaps you are looking at the problem from the wrong side?



Partially depending on the quality of rules for riggers and deckers in SR123 (especially 3). If you have a background in "awesome archetype but your rule subsystem sucks" you will not be appreciated immediately in a new edition. But when it comes to the integration of ab abstract matrix rule set combined with real world interaction during combat, there is only one rule system I can only recommend to check out: Cyberpunk 2020, second edition.

(to quickly sum up: real world mass hacking was 1 or 2 actions and you would hack every item in a radius of several hundred meters and could use it again the enemy, net hacking were indeed moving in "computer rooms" with a pseudo physical layout: http://www.abload.de/img/militech_netzwf1u.jpg , where firewalls were real walls and both netrunner and ICE moved around with a predetermined speed per round - like an infiltrator sneaking in, evading guard)

Everything SR5 tried and failed to achieve is found there: an abstract rule system for net runs and a clear and FAST combat/interaction system for real world combats. Netrunners in CP2020 were awesome. Because the designers thought about integration of members in the very basic design of the rules and the game. They even include text sessions for exactly this problem: how to integrate netrunners into combat with tips for GMs and players. Hell, even the computer games Shadowrun Returns: Dead Man Triggers & Dragonfall recognized that and implemented a real cyberspace and not simply a number array. SR4 only hat 2 (major) issues: the extended test system (but in the end it doe snot make much of a difference if you have to roll 4 times for an extended test or 4 times to get the marks up to the necessary stack= and the incomplete scalability of computer systems until WAR! (perhaps the only thing WAR did right).

And I wonder why the same argumentation does not count for faces? I still miss the rules for "I call you a homobophic faggot" and you have to roll damage resistance for the slurs I throw at you. I mean if you want a rule system completely disconnected from reality and believability and make every archetype being able to kill things in combat with their subrule system: why exactly don´t we have racial slurs with an assault cannon damage code? After all the authors accept any kind of nonsense as a rule system without any claim for quality, playability or making sense in any way (because abstract rule design seems to be the perfect excuse for online silencers these days).

And yes, don´t we all want faces killing enemies just by yelling at them? What makes them so special that deckers have the right to kill people with decking rules but faces cannot kill by calling them ISIS terrorists?



But it doesnt work out very well if you want to dive in into a believable world. The sad thing is: SR5 had all the things already prepared and integrated on how the hacker could have interacted during combat with awesome things without falling back to things like online silencers, online fingers, online batons or online air tanks.

Perhaps you want to take a look here: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...c=40095&hl=

I firmly believe that this would fit into Shadowrun. I would even dare say that the idea of a short term psychotrope ICE attack via TacNet manipulation (hey, mind control for mundanes ...) is far more promising than hacking your online air tank, burning it up without doing any damage.

SYL

True - but there is an easy solution. Right now the system is 1 or 0. You have either total control (depending on your permissions) or you have no control. What about short term access ("you now have admin rights for ... 3 complex actions. Make it count!")?

SYL

I have GM'd a lot of Missions games at several different conventions (pretty much every year)and this statement is simply wrong, at least as far as selection of characters for Missions play is concerned.

And given that I've been in multiple campaigns that have not suffered from this and that you feel the need to try to state we're all exceptions to this... I'm not quite sure the word "exception" means what you think it means. (obviously snarky, but you get my point)

There are of course other games who picked up the idea of tacnets and what hackers can bring to the game (we all now that they don´t bring anything to the table besides being able to fake electronic data and cover up proof, subvert security system, gather all-importants information, hack drones, open doors, find and follow people across the globe, jump and get into action worldwide in a matter of seconds depending on the availability of networks and rent-a-drones, control the infrastructure, live a good life without paying for it and being a champ in matrix communities and media ...). Of course some of the game rules and world backgrounds are different, but the basic idea can be transported.





TLDR
1) Protect your own communication network.
2) Subvert and manipulate the enemy communication network.
3) Shut it down or give penalties to enemy actions (yeayh, 4-8 dices differences in SR4).
4) Hack drones, change them into kamikaze devices.
5) Use combat drones.
6) Use psychotrope ICE for mind control and blackhammer to kill the enemy hackerstyle
7) Spray the area with tags / nanites for indirect fire / bonuses for trog with the minigun. Subvert skinlinks with spray-tags and hack them via this improvised connection.

SYL

And we all know 'fun' is an absolute metric that solely relies on the avialability of combat hacking without having to be creative, in ways such as apple outlined.


I trust you have data or a research paper to back this up?

I like that.

But isn't part of this already incorporated into the Overwatch score? So maybe fleshing that side of it a bit better could serve to be the balance to whatever upgrade/housefules we add ito making actions faster/easier.

Can't remember a time where I spent more than a couple of rounds Hacking targets at any given time, really. Some things take longer than others, to be sure, but overall, I think that Hacking is often WAY TOO FAST for suspension of disbelief. I tend to get over it though.

Indeed... This cannot be said enough. A Shadowrunner who is incapable of holding his own in a physical fight is often a very dead Shadowrunner. Every Shadowrunner should be able to shoot a gun passably (Skill 2-3 in SR4, and Skill 4-5 in SR5) as well as being able to be somewhat stealthy. IF they are not, they are a detriment to the team.

I'd jumped from 2nd edition to 5th edition, and one thing that jumped out at me was the lowering of attribute scores. Putting top priority into attributes in 2nd gave you an average of 5. In 5th, the top priority gives you an average of 4. That is somewhat mitigated by the 25-50 karma to be spent at character generation, as that can squeeze out a couple more points if you have a couple of low stats. One thing that I keep thinking is that slightly higher stat totals, while keeping the ‘no more than one attribute at racial max’ rule, could tend to make more balanced characters? Because mostly characters will raise up their most key attributes, so at a certain point having more attributes means that your less key stats go up noticeably.

However I don't know how that compares to 4th, so not sure how relevant that is the original topic.

==================================================

With regards to ‘what is fun’ I agree that there is tremendous variety of players. If you look at the mentor spirits Cat and Shark, I can assure you that for each there are players who think that it is unplayable, and players who think it doesn’t have a drawback worth mentioning, more of an incentive to do what they want to do anyway.

The problem is that different groups will have different mixes of players, so if the world is built to ‘require’ a certain mix of characters types, that is rough on a group that doesn’t have players interested in those roles (This is obviously not a new issue, there were plenty of D&D groups back in the day where nobody wanted to play a Cleric, or at least not a Cleric who put all their spell choices into healing). If the world tends to imply that you need a decker to function, but nobody in the group finds that role to be fun, that is a fault of a rigid game world/system, not the players for ‘not finding fun in the right roles.’

That's only part of the problem. You not only need to do things faster, you need to be able to do them at the same time as other players. Because from your example hacker who makes party fake passes does it before the run? while during the run he just chills. That's why not one of the groups that I played with explored astral exploration - that's a one-character experience. But while a mage can be useful together with the group, hacker - not so much

Oh, SR5 did give faces "something to do" during combat. They can use the leadership skill to give bonuses to their teammates. Yep, faces are now the bards of Shadowrun.

Which is perfectly fine (a clear command and leadership can indeed work wonders when it comes to combat, especially when used with a tacnet). But that was the case for hackers/deckers before, at least if your GM was not playing 1980 gangwar with cybernetics but indeed 2070 with drones, tacnet and radio communication and you were a little bit creative.

So if now is the reasoning that the hacker can attack, damage and kill with the matrix rules, why is the bard not allowed to attack, damage and kill with racial slurs? I mean we are talking about a rule system which is explicitly designed to have nothing to do with reality.

SYL

Where are those quotes from?

Ecplice Phase - Transhuman Sourcebook. In that specific case EP can be seen as SR in space as this chapter give details how a Firewall SpecOps Team in enemy territory can gain the upper hand.

SYL

Agreed. In fact if you're good enough you could accomplish most things (Note 'most' is a qualifier, I'm not saying all) in 2 actions, that can both be taken in one combat pass.

I didn't provide a comprehensive list of all the things you could possibly do as a hacker and therefore the 2 throw away things I listed are therefore the entirety of the things I think hackers could do.