OK everyone, quick question for you: If you have a datajack do you need to have wireless on to get the +2 dice pool bonus? I mean it should be simple for the gun to be hooked up via a data cable, but reading it seems that you have to connect to the Matrix to get that +2.

Yes, you do, because smartlinks are worth shit without weather reports in SR5, apparently. #bestgamedesign

Can I say again that the wireless bonuses in SR 5 are some of the dumbest pieces of drek I have EVER heard of.

Not saying that there couldn't be improvements made, but at least some of that mechanic was designed to make it so that hacking has at least some purpose in the middle of a firefight. Giving some equipment extra bonuses that depend on wireless connectivity gives an extra mechanic for bonuses that comes with the inherent drawback of being vulnerable to hacking.

And the requirement for the wireless doesn't necessarily have to be just about up-to-date weather, it could also be factoring in the mesh-network computing that is available through the matrix. Environmental effects is just one feature related to that.

There are two problems with that though.

1) They made Hacking simple enough that many characters should probably run with Wireless Off all the time.

2) They made defense against Hacking difficult enough that many characters should probably run with Wireless Off all the time.

Think about it from a pen tester point of view: imagine your character (or choose someone elses' if you like) walking down the street. What defense does s/he really have against a "script kiddie" with a Radio Shack PCD-500 and a dice pool of 6ish? (Not to mention a more geared out and / or skilled hacker?)

Even my tech savvy (device rating 6 commlink with a Intuition of 4) character here can be pwned by said script kiddie. Fairly easily. Same character has sweet f- all he can do to improve that defense other than raise Intuition a couple of points, and buy a one rating higher commlink. And at that point, he is still fairly vulnerable to "random is random" results.

WRF? I mean that seriously, WTF? If I have a street sam with an Internal Router, I can get the 2 dice bonus without the "mesh-network computing" bovine exhaust. So if you don't need the network for that, then why does someone need the network if they DON'T have the router?

As it needs weather reports, smartlink does NOT convey bonuses via internal router (p. 421 Core, "Your Ares Alpha can’t auto-adjust for the wind direction and speed if it can’t download local up-to-the-second weather conditions").


The fun part is that shooting enemies, surprisingly enough, still makes more sense than hacking their stuff, even if you assume the team decker is not super busy trying to prevent security spiders from hacking team members (which is a logical consequence of making hacking sorta viable in a firefight, or, as Core, p. 421, puts it, "Even better, defending against threats from the Matrix is part of your team hacker’s job. If she’s not available, you might occasionally want to turn wireless off."). Neither team decker nor security spider need to be physically present for this; in fact, in either case, physical presence here is, given the boni full VR conveys, a seriously stupid idea. But yeah, the decker now has something viable to do in a firefight all right. Hopefully the combat characters have, too.

Small nitpick: *smartlink does NOT convey bonus dice...

You still get the accuracy bonus, because that isn't listed under Wireless Bonus.

Well yeah, that is so shitty I don't even count it as a bonus. Evidently, nobody in the rules writers' team had the slightest idea of stochastics - unless we're talking skills of 10+, maximized attributes, and for some reason super low-accuracy weapons, it's a one-in-100.000 roll where it actually helps. For all intents and purposes this is a non-bonus.

However, their explicit statement was to make a smartlink "less of a must-have". This speaks of not a failure to grasp the inherent uselessness of this "bonus", but intent. In that spirit, they designed Prototype Transhuman, especially with regards to Awakened characters ... #magerun

The worst is they could probably have rendered things hackable without them having to be connected to the wireless… They chose the lamest possible way here if they really wanted the hacker to be able to hack all the time…

Hilarious that smartguns need this, especially if you happen to be inside a warehouse or large garage where you can't get reports from someplace like weather.com. Like that site's gonna know what the local HVAC system's doing. Makes me wonder what happened to the minor atmospheric sensors smartguns used to have. You know, the one in the gun that actually let it know wind direction and speed as you aimed at your target? Maybe it was too powerful.
Sure, but you'll be preachin' to the choir and the powers that be are tone deaf.
I still find it hilarious that a wireless device Magically receives your Intuition attribute as a bonus to defense by the virtue of you having it in your pocket and doing nothing else. Not like a character would ever have a chance to do anything against a cyber attack as by the time you pull your poor commlink out of your pocket it'll already be a brick, and if it were really due to "user settings" then it should receive your Intuition at all times, even if you happen to be in Seattle and your commlink's down around in Cape Horn.

I guess that depends on your definition of shitty.

I just looked over the Run & Gun firearm tables and didn't see too many firearms with an accuracy higher then 5 without smartlink. Those that I did see were either Light Pistols, or Forbidden availability. At a Limit of 5, you should be reliably hitting that wall at about a pool of 15, and that isn't even a "good" pool for a starting character to some people.

I will grant you it is pretty cheap and easy to raise that accuracy through other means. But player characters should never be relying on a custom weapon 100% of the time. There are too many situations where "stock" should be expected.

EDITed to add:


That is something else I could rant about entirely.
I'll keep it short by saying that "you should realize that you made hacking too easy when you have to give a device a defense bonus you don't give a character in a firefight. Namely a defense against an unknown attack."

If I actually had to play in an SR5 game (presumably alcohol would be involved), I'd simply have no cyberware and no wireless devices outside of a purse full of cheap, disposable commlinks. Any wireless device is such a liability in SR5 that the only possible solution is to "Just Say No!" to all of them outside of an (easy to replace) commlink, as even that will probably get bricked a few times a day, so you'll need to budget for that.

In SR4, where things are more sane, my implant commlink and my smartlinked Ares Predator are both Signal 0; hacking is only possible in mutual Signal range, and if a hacker is actually within 3 meters of me I can simply slap them upside the head.

Having played Shadowrun 5 since it came out, I have NEVER had a character with Wireless active devices, EVER, on a run.
Just asking to get yourself killed otherwise.

Of course it was. This nerf is a CGL writer getting his pet hates "fixed". And of course it doesn't make a bit of sense in-game. In-game logic should never stand in the way of superior game design, after all.


Because this is fun. Unless you are (quoting Devon Oraz here) retarded, you clearly have to see that.


15 dice without smartlink boni? That's adept territory. Edgemonkeys using Edge operate without Limit anyway so they don't count. And even then, we're talking about one in about 30 rolls - not unlikely but isn't gonna help you too often. Not a must-have or even a worthwhile investment, considering the baggage it comes with. Just up your accuracy by other means that don't make you unable to operate silently.


Shadowrun 5 - the Cyberpunk RPG where playing a cyberpunk is asking to get yourself killed. #somuchwinning

(EDITed out some extraneous quoting that escaped my once over before posting.)

Not hardly.

6 Attribute, 6 Skill, 2 Specialization, 1 Take Aim (which you should probably be doing every IP anyway to break cumulative recoil).

15 Dice, no smartlink, no adept.



Careful. Your zealotry is showing. SR4 has its mechanical issues as well*. I don't have the rules handy to look up which ones had me scratching my head, but they are there.

*To be fair, all editions have had mechanical issue big enough to drive quarry sized dump trucks through.

Hell, I wasn't aware I hiding it.

SR4 isn't perfect - this is why I'm in the midst of a major house rules document overhaul that has taken a long time to assemble (I'm about 2/3rds done now); it will be posted here when complete. But I regard it as at least being fixable, and this puts it light-years ahead of SR5, which is just completely FUBAR.

I'm waiting to see what Patrick Goodman and the Volunteers (sounds like a pop group) do with it after their errata sweeps. Of course, that still requires CGL to sign off on all of the fixes...

I'm just fearful that even if it gets finished before 6th edition, that it still won't be in my lifetime.

All game systems do to an extent. SR5, though, is so all over the place and written with so little coherence and fitting so badly it does quite stand out.


And you should improve your firearm enough to boost accuracy to some 7 get some RC (to deal with cumulative recoil because in SR, who shoots first usually wins), and you'll probably use illegal firearms because guess what, if you shoot people the legality of the gun you shoot them with isn't your biggest problem. Your point being?

Look. It is a crappy bonus. It isn't gonna help you a lot, and a lot less than +2 dice will. Can we agree on that?

There's your problem right there.

In a gunfight that lasts seconds, a decker should be worrying about getting their head down or shooting back, not booting up their deck.

The issue is bad rules in service to bad game design.

Is it even worth having a smartlink anymore? I mean looking at the bonuses you gain for the liability of running wireless, you'd be stupid to have a smartlink.



Titan, you're saying that to get get 15 dice you have to have the max Agility a human can get without augmentation (simple to do I admit), max skill for the type of weapon (not so simple), and a specialization (expensive as frak). This is not a small investment.

-----------------------------

***EDIT***

Considering that there are still Sammies running around with the old induction pad smartguns, and how those smartguns don't need wireless or a data cable, how much Essence do you think it would to install one of those pads if you have a cybernetic smartlink installed in your eyes?

The German 2050 has old school SR 5 rules for non-wireless smartlink:

0,5 Esssence, 2500 ¥
That includes the subdermal induction pad. As effect you gain the +2 accuracy and the ability to use one aim action to both gain +1 dice and +1 accuracy

I'll confess something: I actually think it could be fun that your cyberware could get hacked, or at least heavily jammed. You can probably balance it out so that it's not that likely, but that you still have to be careful that you can deactivate it or protect it.

The problem with matrix bonus is suspension of disbelief for me. This is just too ridiculous to be believed, and they went with terrible arguments to justify it, making it less believable every time… Like your smartlink would fucking need to know weather conditions to help you out… I mean it's fucking linked to the brain of an actual shooter who can estimate those stuff in real time…

I remember reading that. The question I have is this: Everyone knows that 'Runners would never run with Wireless on and the data cables would be an absolute pain in the hoop. If you have the cyberware smartlink already installed in your eyes, how much do you think it would cost to have a just the induction pad installed in your hand?

I know I'm being a little bitch about this (and for that I apologize), but as written, Smartlinks are absolutely worthless. If you drop your gun (or worse it gets destroyed) it would take more than one action for you to plug in your other gun. I was thinking that an enterprising Street Doc would find a way to use the induction pad in conjuction with the cyberware in your eyes, bypassing the need for wireless to do things like switch fire modes, quick reload, etc, etc. It would be a way of having skinlink back in, but it would be a dedicated piece of cyberware to hook up to smartguns.

If you don't want to bother with connecting wires you can just use the mod rules from Datatrails and hardwire an Induction Receiver module to a cyberhand or a VR glove that you connect through a discreet wire up your sleeve with one of your data jacks.

It's a neat feature to have in any case - especially if you have an agent program on a cheap deck or other hack-enabled device: Just put your hand on the lock you want to have opened for a direct connection.

Oh, but in general play I don't have any problems with my gear being hacked: A comlink with an agent in your PAN + the Diagnostics app charged to search for MARKs and/or data spike attacks, enabled to shut wireless off for all your devices usually allows you to be quite secure in your everyday dealings. (One reason the Nixdorf Sekretär is such a great comlink to have in your PAN)

How much do you think that would cost both Essence wise and money to have that installed as cyberware?

Also wasn't there rules about having datajacks in locations other than your head?

You need a normal Smartlink implanted in your eyes, an Internal Router, a Touch Link modded with the Induction Receiver.

Essence wise that comes to 1 (0,2 Smartlink, 0,1 Touch Link, 0,7 Internal Router)
Nuyen: 22 700 (4000 Smartlink, 1000 Touch Link, 15.000 Internal Router, 1200 Induction Receiver, 500 Electronic modding parts)

If you don't need the internal router for something else, you would probably want the oldschool system.

Awww yeah, palm induction pads. Now we're cooking with gas.

Sorry Jack, I am not making myself understood.

An Internal Router makes it so that EVERY nerve in your body becomes a data path for cyber. What I'm wanting to know is if you just had a link just to your meat hand.

If you got a cyberhand you just need an induction receiver mod and you're good to go.

I got that. But I can only tell you how to solve this by RAW.

Now that I think about it, you might be able to convince a generous GM that the Touch Link implant already gets you the necessary connections to an existing data jack (since you usually want a Sim Rig for the Touchlink).
With that in mind you might get away with replacing the router with a data jack, turning the whole setup into
0,4 Essence and 6700 Nuyen

What about a Induction Receiver built into a cyberhand? There is a data path to and from the cyberhand. There has to be because you can activate and deactivate systems in the hand (like an ultrasound system)

Sure. Just exchange Touch Link for Cyberhand

Not realluy whining, in my opinion...
It is an in-game observation for why you never run wireless active while on mission... you do not broadcast your location if you wish to remain undiscovered.
Wireless active is so pants on your head stupid because it continuously broadcasts, giving position away.
At that point, you are on the ever decreasing ticking clock and you are going to have to power your way in/out of your objective because they will find you, and in very small timeframe.

In fact, it is so bad of an idea tht he opriginal missions produced after SR5 went live actually had the opposition running with wireless off...
WHY? Becuase they knew it was stupid to do otherwise.

Small point but important. The max skill level in SR5 is 12, not 6. So no, a skill of 6 should not be that big of an investment. Karma costs mean it is but it certainly isn't the max skill level for the weapon.

You're right. I should have said that it is the max that a starting character can have.

Wait, so the SR5 devs are basically saying they know running with wireless on is a Very Bad Idea ™, but they still want you to do it anyway? That's basically enshrining the idea that NPCs should be smart, but PCs should be stupid.

'Special Snowflake' hackers had to have something to do in combat.

"Herp Derp! I is a l33t haxor! Derp! What you..."

***Retarded Decker head exploded because the cranial cyberdeck got bricked by the (demi)GODs***

The opposition in the missions know that.

But how come any serious corpos ever came up with such a stupid idea?

Constant connections work great for society at large (you simply have only to look at our modern world to see that)... not so much when you are a career criminal trying to not be obvious...
Besides... A Hacker has to have something to do in combat, right? I mean, not like they can pull a gun and shoot someone or anything.

Well, yes, but we're talking about military grade equipments, or at least precisely not designed for the public at large*. It's pretty obvious why you wouldn't want hackable equipments in a war. It's pretty obvious why you would avoid it for corporate security, when a team breaking in generally needs a hacker to accompany them anyway.



I'm guessing this might be irony

But let's say it's not, and we want the hacker to be able to do something in combat affecting the enemy's cyberware. It's somehow very important because we'd like to go D&D4's road and make the game into a tabletop's MMORPG where combat is the only goal of the game.

Well, even in this case, you don't need the cyberware to have wireless connection!

*I'm actually wondering what percentage of the population has combat related augmentations.

Very much agrees... Military grade hardware has absolutely no business being wireless enabled.

And yes, a heavy dose of irony/sarcasm.

I would imagine that anyone who has served in some form of combat related roles in the military probably still has the 'ware. Too much effort to repurpose them, in my opinion.
And the Corps don't really care. *shrug*

When wireless bonuses came out, I listed all the other things a hacker should be doing other than hacking people's equipment... the list was pretty long, and was far from exhaustive.
I hate wireless bonuses, personally. I have never used them in SR5... I always build to exclude them.

That's actually a whole other discussion. This is a "dark cyberpunk future" ruled by oppressive corporations and oppressive governments (natch). Pick your poison:
A) As the world is dark and gritty, everyone and their dog carries a gun at all times, and they're practically sold in vending machines.
B) The corps and governments have jacked up gun control into the stratosphere, and thus only the criminals have guns - and they cheerfully use them all day long on a disarmed populace, while the aforementioned corps and governments do absolutely nothing about this, because they don't care.

Up to you which version you use for your Sixth World.

I know… Still hacking other people's equipment or jamming it could be interesting and bring some variety to the game. But I get your point, it's a bit like some people were adamant the face could use its social skills to tone down a fire fight…



Well, there's still supposed to be a huge mass of wageslave who probably don't own much gun because they just want to live their morose life.

Given the pricing even in SR5's inflated economy... A is pretty true. I mean you can effectively buy a Predator with your Nerps down at Stuffer Shack. My last campaign had a character who would actually buy entire crates of pistols, chemically weld the magazine in, and discard them after use for wetwork runs.

So with something like this, how much Essence would it take to hook an old school induction pad up to the new smartlink? Like I said in a previous post, I can SO see a street doc wiring something like this up for 'Runners. Yeah, you don't get the +2 to the dicepool (because you can't hook up to Weather.com ), but you can still do things like change weapon firing modes, quick change the magazine, fire around corners, ammo count, Airburst link, etc, etc.

That would still be worth it. Hell, you can even make the weapon not be able to be fired unless it is in your hand.

***EDIT***

Frag it. Here's my idea

Hardwired Induction Pad.

Essence: 0.05
Capacity [1]
Cost: 4000
Availability: 10R

Based off the technology of Active Hardwires, enterprising Street Doctors have been wiring up "Clients" with an induction pad that allows the user to forge a direct link between their hand and one piece of cyberware. A vast majority of time this is to an implanted smartlink, but Deckers have been known to install it so they don't have to install a datajack just so they can hack into a wireless disabled system using their cranial cyberdeck. Multiple induction pads may be installed, but each must connect to one piece of cyberware.

For example: A Decker has two of these installed. One in his left hand that connects to a cranial cyberdeck and another one in his right hand that connects to an implanted smartlink. The Decker may not use the induction pad in his left hand to hook up to his smartgun.

yup. as a private individual, the idea that my fridge could make suggestions for dinner based on the date the RFID tag on the food inside is showing ("better use up those carrots, they're only good for another day" or know to order daily delivery drone shipments of stuff that i use sounds *wonderful*. the idea of a self-driving car that comes to pick me up when i call it sounds appealing to me as well (though i understand that some people enjoy driving, i do not particularly). the idea that i could have a tag on my keys that lets me find them anywhere in my house within a second or so sounds *amazing*

but if i was a soldier driving a tank into battle, the idea that someone could hack that tank and tell it to start shooting my friend would make it extremely unsafe for the engineer who made that idiotic design decision. if i owned a gun (for hunting or whatever), the idea that someone could hack into it and tell it to fire at any time would be a nightmare (the idea of a gun that has a scope that can wirelessly broadcast to a recording device sounds fine, or that has a GPS locator that can be tracked in case i get lost or if i drop the gun in a river or something like that though... but for the love of all that is holy, what idiot would connect the trigger in anything but an extremely highly specialized custom job for like the 2 people in the world who actually need remote control guns?). there are lots of things where wireless makes tons of sense. but there are also lots of things where it sounds like someone condensed pure stupidity into the smallest package possible and built military-grade gear out of it, and then the military *actually bought it*.

if we were looking at a sourcebook on how the average joe lives, sure, put in every kind of stupid wireless bonus imaginable (some sucker is gonna think it's a valuable addition and buy the one that has the most "extra features"). but the stuff that shadowrunners use should be completely free of that kind of nonsense.

Ah... the Tacti-cool vs tactical debate.

I don't understand that. Guns are neither expensive nor hard to come by today, even in countries with heavy gun control (I know for France, but since it's given as an example of heavy gun control, I guess it's true for many other countries).

Wageslaves don't want to own gun because they don't want to believe that: 1 - Anything bad would happen to them 2 - The state or their defense company won't help.

It isn't that bad to get a 6 weapon skill (bear in mind, I'm not talking a weapon skill group) and a specialization at character generation. It is only 7 skill points. Even if the character uses priority E in skills that still leaves 11 points. Could put 6 in Perception, and 5 in Negotiation for a hired killer. Or 5 in Survival for a hunter / militia / NRA member.

But it it is still too expensive, shift the weight to Agility.

Race: Elf
Qualities:
Exceptional Attribute (Agility) [14]
Restricted Gear [10]
Gear:
Muscle Replacement 4 (100000 ) - or if you are more concerned about Essence you can go with Muscle Toner 4 Bioware for 28K more.
Optional:
Vision Magnification

Then you have 12 Attribute, and with a 2 Skill (without specialization) you can get 15 dice with a Take Aim - and reduce range penalties by one category if you take Vision Magnification.

Of course, you could increase the skill to starting max, grab a specialization, add in Smartlink and get a pool of 23 with a Take Aim.

Would this character be playable? Depends on the table. For some, this build (with 23 pool) is the baseline of a starting character. For others, the player who brought this to the table would be ridiculed and shunned.

I can't say how well it would fit. Just that it is easily within the rules.