Greetings, I am reading the core rule book (5E) what is all this you are talking about Bricking?
Sounds like Samurais are no longer viable if its what I sounds like. What is the run down and what are you all doing about countering it, if you can at all.

Thanks![/font]

Hacking a device via wireless access and essentially trashing it, turning it into useless dead weight - a "brick."

Bricking is the practice of a Hacker messing up (causing damage) any wirelessly activated matrix connected hardware devices...

Easiest Counter to Bricking is to not put your cybernetics, weapons, (really, anything but a comlink) on the matrix...
Since being on the matrix requieres you to be trransmitting a signal, you cannot HIDE that signal with any real reliability, and therefore are broadcasting your position to all and sundry around you. Pretty Stupid, really... *shrug*

Ok so if a Samurai has Wired reflexes 2, a smart link, cyber eyes and a data jack. Can he simply declare not of his stuff is on the matrix?

I am a little fuzzy since I am 1rst and 2nd edition. In the example in the 5E book the hacker just saw the ares smart gun and bricked it.

So can wired reflexes and your smart gun be bricked if you are samurai and cant you simply tell the Gamemaster, none of my shit is visible on the matrix?

Thanks for answering stupid questions.

Take a look at your equipment in the SR5 core book. See how lots of them end with a "wireless" subsection, explaining a bonus you get? If you don't want that bonus, your stuff doesn't have wireless turned on (and nobody can hack it). If your thing hasn't got a bonus listed, your stuff doesn't have wireless turned on (and nobody can hack it). If you have the option for that bonus, and you want that bonus, you can have your wireless turned on (and if people see it, and if people choose to hack it, and if people beat your hacking defense, they can hack it).

Not exactly. He can turn the wireless off and lose the bonuses (which for some of those items you listed is non-trivial!) but it's not as simple as declaring his stuff isn't on the matrix simply because he has a datajack.

Ok I understand. That really makes the 'Street Samurai' rather lame. Why in the fuck would you bother with any cyberware if you cant use it the way its ment to. Better to just go full adept and have skills that cannot be hacked.
Also seems like really expensive wired reflexes would be too vulnerable to being bricked.
After reading quickly you can have your reflexes off wireless always. Turning them on is a complex action which you just do prior to the run. My question is this. If the reflexes are on {for the reaction and dice bonus} does that mean they are also running wireless?

The answer to this has been, pretty much, "combat hacking is fun, and if you don't see it that way you are probably retarded".

It's also my single largest problem with SR5. Fixable with house rules, but we're talking a 10+ page document and some real work here, not some quick numbers juggling.


Or locate you, alert their local demigod and instantly hammer you with 10 boxes of physical and unresistable damage.

Thank you for the reply. I am returning back to the game and this was not in the 1rst or 2nd ed. Seems to me a Game master can really screw (and easily so) the tech heavy runners in a party.

This leads me to believe that tech is running way 2nd to magic. I mean if you turn on your wired reflexes and your smart link prior to entering the building, that would be like blaring a search lite in the matrix screaming "Hack me before I enter"... Lame lame lame.

Again it seems like you can do everything a Samurai can with an Adept and not run the risk of having your gear ruined, shut down or bricked. Is this a correct conclusion?

I know people complain about SR turning into "MagicRun" but I stand by my sig. This is one of the major reasons I prefer a team comprised solely of Mages, Adepts and Technomancers. When technology is so costly and so vulnerable, having abilities that are built-in and undetectable to technological scanning is almost a necessity. Things also tend to go your way more often when you can tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up.

Samurais are perfectly viable.

Yea this really kinda slams the brakes on the entire game for me and my friend. He wanted to run a Samurai and after I was telling him this he was like really?

The fact that there is NO counter part to this for an adept is lame. I mean background is supposed to be the hamper to 'all mage/adept parties but really that reduces your abilities. With combat hacking you are talking about not just stopping the player cold but actually reversing his character if you brick his Cyberware.

Honestly if you have internal Cyberware like reflexes, eyes and such they should be immune to combat hacking. I daresay that a smart link is part of that. The idea that you can shut down everyone's guns during a run seems pretty cheesy. I can see why close combat with melee weapons are now favored.

So if my friend wants to run his Samurai who is mundane and has like .00000001 essence left after all his gear, he would need a nice decker friend with him to 'overwatch' and keep out the hackers.

I love Shadowrun, but I am kinda on the fence at the moment with how this is being presented.

So Janessa you feel a good party is one which has few or no Mundanes, correct?

That's my take on the situation, yes. Leave the muggles at home - they're strictly support personnel.

Also, just play SR4. SR5 is not worth all the trouble to patch it.

I went out and got SR5 thinking it was an improvement. What is the difference between the two editions? Sorry thats probably a long answer.

Yeah...that's kind of a long list, as you can see from many, many threads here. In short, there were a lot of things in SR4 that may not have been perfect but are now...less workable in SR5. I've noted that many things (spells, software, etc.) essentially stayed the same, but were renamed for no reason I could see.

Just pick up the SR4A Rules, and then the Mage, Decker, Rigger and Street Samurai books in PDF format at DriveThruRPG and you should be set fairly well.

Samurai and EVERY AGUMENTED MUNDANE only really became viable again with the Re-Introduction of an Implant that had existed in SR3 already.
The INTERNAL ROUTER! Yes, that's right, for the Price of 0,7 Essence AND 15k Nuyen, you too can now flip your GM the bird and declare yourself a NO HACKING ZONE! See Chrome Flesh Page 84

Well, aside from stuff that obviously still needs Matrix-Access, like Skillsoft, GPS, Comlink for communication purposes and also Hacking and probably Rigging-Stuff as well . .

You want to know WHY the wireless shit and bricking are so insanely retarded?
Because THE GUY WHO WROTE THE RULES thought the Implants only had to be PAN active, NOT WAN active!

But the OTHER SIDE of the Process was all like:"nah man, we want hackers to fuck with stuff they have no business fucking with!"

And why you need to spend essence and money on having your wires inside your body back?
BECAUSE ERRATA ON THAT WOULD BE ADMITTING THEY WERE WRONG! And this is the point they will NEVER acknowledge as them having been wrong on.
Even if the internal router implant is basically exactly that acknowledgement, even if it is now a shoehorned must have implant . .

Technically, as soon as you move your Samurai into a dead zone, where there is no wifi/Matrix-Access AT ALL (like, for egg sample, parts of the barrens and in the wilderness basically over the next mountain), he will become a very sad sight indeed.


As for which edition is best?
TECHNICALLY SPEAKING SR3 is best.
Practically, SR4 is more useable, but not that much more betterer . . It has its flaws, but if you have the choice, go for SR4.5A over SR5 any day of the week.

Seriously, right now i WISH i had that option, but nooo . . SR5 because SR3 rules are long forgotten and why start with a dead edition? *grumbles*


Bitter? Who? Me? Perish the thought!

Why? What exactly does he think is going to get hacked? None of the things you've listed are vulnerable to hacking. Cybereyes? They don't have a wireless option. Smartlink in your cybereyes? Likewise. Wired Reflexes? They only have a wireless option if you're trying to stack them with Reaction Enhancers (which wasn't on your list). You keep worrying about things that are already hack-proof. And you can make the problem go away entirely with Chrome Flesh, snagging yourself an internal router, anyways (even though, again, all the pieces of 'ware you're worried about being hacked aren't likely to get hacked).

And even if things can be hacked, it doesn't mean they will be hacked. Part of the introduction of wireless (which, remember, happened in SR4, not SR5) was to give hackers something to do; but that includes defending against incoming hacks (not just doing the hacking themselves).

Get a decent commlink with good Firewall and this problem goes away about 90%, anyways. Have your team decker helping out (just like you trust the mage with counterspelling) helps, too. Or just talk to your GM, and see if the problem goes away entirely (if you're that worried about a GM constantly throwing great hackers at you, hackers who will for some reason target you with the multiple actions required to find and hack your stuff, hackers who will be more combat effective doing so than just shooting a gun at you, then talk to your GM and let them know that would be un-fun, so they can tone down the Matrix opposition). Or, again, internal router.

Yes, the way wireless and wireless bonuses were implemented has some problems and inconsistencies (I've never said otherwise, and neither has the guy who wrote the equipment chapter and all those wireless bonuses, in large part because they were meant to be PAN-centric). But I think it's overblown on here, just as much as the complaints about 'magicrun.' I know I'm not going to change anybody's mind, but I can at least say my piece.

Thanks VERY Much!! You have changed my mind. I can simply say all Betaware and above has the equivalent of a wireless router which is easy enough.

This thread has tons of information and it was very helpful!

That . . is actually a pretty reasonable, quick and easy fix for it . .
But some things will still need actual Matrix, not just PAN connectivity to work properly.
GPS/NavigationSystem/Skillsoft-Downloads/Comlinks/Cyberdecks/Controlrigs obviously.
Most of these should be useable with preloading stuff.
So, datajack, external comlink, download stuff you will need beforehand, store stuff in implants.
Remove cable between comlink and Datajack. Done.

That... yeah, that's pretty much what a lot of the older players have been saying since SR5 came out.

Especially since the text on bricking quotes bricked devices as often sparking and being physically damaged, and I hate to think about what that should logically mean for a bricked set of Wired Reflexes, given that they're a system replacing parts of your spinal cord.

The two Editions are quite similar and interchangeable
( one of the Games I'm running plays in 2055 and is a mixture of SR4A and SR5 Rules)
SR5 HAS some advantages and even some better rules ( I like the Initiative and the fixed +4 Max Attributes,Armor has only one value, f.E)
the Devs also tried to erase some of the SR4A bad Rules (Manablast is too effective a Spell, max Skill Level of 6 is too low)
but instead of fixing it in a good /perfect way ( Manablast Damage 1/2 Force + Net Hits, Skill Level 9) they ..."Overdid " it ( Manablast Damage is now only Net Hits, Skill Level 12 is too high and to costly in Karma).
So SR5 is a mixed Blessing which has its own faulty Rules (ImO even more bad Rules than SR4A ).
ImO if you want the best Game of Shadowrun, get the 4A Rules, compare them and use the best of the two as houserules.
By itself raw SR5 is not as much Fun to play as SR4A.
The general tendency of the 5th Rules(as I see it) is to harmstring Playerchars (Bricking, extreme expensive 'ware, Limits, less Karma and ¥ Payment, less effective Martial Arts, less effective & expensive Weapon Mods or Vehicle Mod Rules , the Technomancers abilities are terribly nerfed,
Bricking an Item(by Default ) causes small fire, electrical discharge, a scorced Item....now Imagine what this would mean to a Char how has 'ware impalntd to his Spine ( wired Reflexes & REA Enhancer ) or his Brain (Cybereyes ,Datajack)....
And contrary to what Critias wrote, Cybereyes with Smart link and/or Vision Enhancement need to be WiFi to function the way they used to work in former Editions.
WiFi is a Stick disguised as a Carrot to lure Player Chars into the WiFi Matrix so that enemy Deckers can brick them.
( and if you want to play is a classical Run into a Megacorp( to steal the McGuffin ), guess how may Deckers a Megacon can summon in a few seconds, once there is an Intruder Alarm....Mundane Corp Security is not even a Fraction of the Difficulties the Chars could face)
And what irritates me to some extend....:
In one of the official Runs from CGL the NPCs have turned the WiFi off so that they can't be bricked (It makes perfect sense Ingame, no one who's not as dumb as molded Bread would leave WiFi on, but Out-of-Game its a Kick in the Teeth to all Players because they're supposed to be Online in the Matrix but the NPCs aren't)

So,
lots of smaller and bigger examples of how the Rules try to keep Characters down and Low and there's much,much more of them.
In SR4A I got the contrary impression, lots of smaller and larger examples to aid the Char, to Improve him(sometimes they overdid it f.E. Climbing Claws gave +2 Dice to climb, a Char with 2 sets at his Hands and 2 at his Feet got +8 Dice.Too much ImO )
but generally I see more ...benevolent Rules Mechanism and Fluff in 4A than in SR5.
I play it nonetheless ( I'm in 5 SR Games 2 are SR4A, 2 are SR5 and one is said mixed Game, and I most often play Shadowrun at Conventions)
But for SR5 I play (like any sane Player should ) mostly awakend Chars ...only one of my 12 Chars is totally Mundane .The others are either awakened or withh latent awakening ( they start as Mundane but any Time ingame they can and will awaken)

with a sane Dance
Medicineman

The two biggies for a street samurai are smartlinks, and the combination of wired reflexes and reaction enhancers. Using smartlink with wireless off reduces it to a mere accuracy bonus (you lose the dice pool bonus), and wired reflexes and reaction enhancers only work together if they are both wireless-enabled. So if you use a laser sight and have just wired reflexes (or synaptic boosters), you should be fine. Yes, you lose 2 dice and have a lower augmented Reaction, but you will still have a playable character. An adept in a background count can have it much worse.

So you're saying the impanted smartlink automatically gets the dice pool boni (forget the Limit boni, they'Re not worth it unless you're playing a minmaxed sharpshooter). Whre do you get that from? The rules say the implanted smartlink is "more effective" but don't mention this (in fact, they refer to the external smartlink adapter for guns). Is this a house rule you go with?


It's called (demi)GOD. As soon as you are located, a security spider can call in their demiGOD. Unresistable 10 boxes of damage, followed by legions of uberdeckers. Unfortunatly, hiding while wireless is difficult with a cyberdeck and impossile without. Sure, the GM can tone that down, but how fun is running a character you know only doesn't instantly drop dead because of GM fiat?


Sure, the way to go if you want to play without houserules. Of course, this burns 0,7 essence.


Yes, accumulating recoil is a good idea. Seriously. I really like that.

being Wireless gives you bonuses to your gear (see the gear for what those bonuses are). you can turn wireless off, which protects you from a hacker but you lose the bonuses. you can also slave your gear to a high-end Commlink with a good Firewall and hope for the best, OR have your team Decker slave it to his deck (better, because it has a Firewall, Hardening and an active Decker to combat an enemy Hacker)

short answer: yes, but your gear is slightly less useful.

All the Samurai in our group run just fine with Wireless Off... *shrug*
AS the Intelligence gathering Spy (Technomancer) I do not provide protection to their devices and it works out fine. A Hacker cannot hack what he cannot detect, and with Wireless off, he cannot detect crap.

The idea is good, the execution is lacking (spending an entire phase to compensate was too much, getting the compensation free for something you'd do anyway is too little), and of course you can't discuss recoil without the rules monster that is recoil compensation. "First, add one to your gun's RC, because that's easier than just increasing the RC on all guns by one. Then add up a bunch of other numbers, because something players do multiple times each turn absolutely is the right place to require calculations"