[Shamie]

Hello to all.

Im currently running a campaign and testing the new matrix rules. I come from 4th edition and i alway DM in one plane, we only had one PC mage and he never went astral so the astral was out and hacking in 4th was a nightmare so that was out too. So i dont have experience with players acting in different planes.

But on 5th i like hacking, specially combat hacking. But my question is, do the hacker turn works the same way as the rest? While playing SR Returns i saw how every two IP a hacker in the matrix got the rest got 1. Is the same in 5th?

Because i feel it just takes too long to even do anything.

First IP: a complex action to find the device (wich should be in most cases running silent).

second IP: Brute force to put a mark.

third IP on: a Mix between put a mark and damage it but by that poin the rest of the party already dispose the threat. As every device has at least 9 points of "health"

Probably im missing something but after three games it feel the concept of the decker who goes arround bricking the devices of the enemies is way less usefull to what it seems.

thank you

[Csjarrat]

yep, all "planes" work on the same IP system.
remember that to get many IP's, hackers have to be in VR, and to be in VR their body goes limp and defenseless.
I'd imagine that most hackers will hack from AR in a combat role, and will use their normal "meatspace" IP like your sam/mage/face chars do.

[Noble Drake]

Older editions of Shadowrun had a priority timing system that even handled what type of action was resolved first in the event of tied initiative scores - I believe it was Matrix then Astral then Physical, though I may have gotten Astral and Matrix actions backwards.

....but then, I also remember some edition having a rule that matrix turns were 1 second long and physical turns were 3 seconds long, and so you would have 3 times as many matrix actions as physical actions if both were happening at the same time - though I think this is represented just fine by the big boosts that VR hacking get to initiative.

[deek]

I wouldn't think most people would be running silent. The world is setup to run open to get the most out of your devices, so only the ultra-paranoid or those expecting bad stuff to happen would be running silent.

I would start your world off with most people running open and if you find the players are having a field day hacking things to pieces and really disrupting everything, then you can shift to more people running silent.  I think you will find it will not be that big of a deal and the hacker will still have tons of other things to worry about than seemingly everyone in the world running silent.

And even if everyone does run silent, it would be in the decker's best interest to do some advance scouting and marking before getting into combat.  Remember, 100m is a pretty decent range, so most teams will be able to wait a few combat turns to let the decker set things up and get some marks on devices he finds.  If the decker is always getting stuck trying to mark things once combat starts, then you might want to suggest changing party tactics to give the decker at least 15-30 seconds (which even in AR is going to be at least 5-10 complex actions, probably twice that).

[Volomon]

SR Returns is not based on any edition, it has it's own system loosely based around the Shadowrun 3rd edition.  So to use it as a comparison wouldn't be a good idea.

Additionally you can place more than one mark if you place 2 you roll at -4 if you place 3 you roll at -10.  Yes you run at the same pace as everyone else.  I'm not sure about the whole locate device thing if there in the same area and network the device should appear as an icon without looking for it.  It could even appear in ARO while on the move.  Now if your looking for something off site and off that particular net ok.  However it would like telling a street sam he has to take a complex action to notice the bad guy standing in front of him.  If the hacker is hacking a persons PAN then it's right there in front of him most likely.