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A quick shout out to the SR5 Matrix rules

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StarManta

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« on: <06-17-13/1705:23> »
To everyone who worked on the SR5 rules, I just want to say, you've finally nailed hacking. Previously the hacker has always been there because you needed a hacker, but now, I think people are actually going to want to play a decker. Thank you.

Hacking is now integrated into the rest of the game, it involves some actual critical thought and strategy, and you don't feel like a stooge for choosing to play a decker, even when the shooting starts. And it now pays off to make a complex hacker character, instead of the typical SR4 "Whatever computer action I'm doing, my dice pool is 9" builds.

Prime Mover

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« Reply #1 on: <06-17-13/1838:02> »
Offer any details?
Why do things happen the way they happen? For
all I know the world Is Just one big game and all of
our actions are determined by the roll of a die.
-  Dunkelzahn,  Great-Dragon

StarManta

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« Reply #2 on: <06-17-13/1924:42> »
A couple of things:

- Almost all extended tests are gone. Instead of an extended test taking a bunch of action phases to hack a commlink, you now make one or more individual tests to gain "marks" on the commlink, and different numbers of marks allow you to make different kinds of actions. This allows hackers to be a part of the game, including during combat and such, rather than a separate minigame that bores the rest of your players to tears.

- There are a few different ways to get marks, and each way has "side effects" for your net hits, either Matrix damage or free hits as if from a Matrix Perception check. This lets you think strategically about what actions to use, rather than simply "oh I'm hacking, time to roll the single dice pool I use for every hacking action and wait for the GM to tell me I win."

- Cybercombat is no longer simply a thing you use when you get caught, but an integrated part of your hacking strategy. You can attack a node and drop its dice pool to make it easier to hack on later actions.

- The way hacking devices linked to commlinks has been both improved and clarified.

- The dice pools are now done with ATTR+Skill like every other test in the game, and the Limit for your hits is what's based on your deck's attributes.

- The addition of GOD means that even hacking easier commlinks carries some risk, since every hit on every defense test against your hacks gets added to your cumulative "overwatch score" (whether they successfully defend or not); once that score hits 40, the Man converges on you, dealing hefty damage and dumping your ass offline. Your overwatch score can be reset by rebooting, but that also resets any marks you've gained, so deciding how long to stay in control of the devices you've 0wned is a risk/reward decision as well.

Baquette

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« Reply #3 on: <06-17-13/1929:47> »
How do non hacker defend against hacks? Firewall? ICE / agents? Nothing?

MfG

StarManta

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« Reply #4 on: <06-17-13/1932:26> »
A non-cyberdeck commlink has a Device Rating which serves as its Data Processing and Firewall attributes, so a good commlink can defend itself just as well as a good deck (it just can't attack).

Baquette

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« Reply #5 on: <06-17-13/1934:29> »
Can non hacker buy a deck and use ICE/agents to "minor-hack" as in SR4?

MfG

StarManta

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« Reply #6 on: <06-17-13/1937:56> »
Yes, but decks are really expensive. When you buy a deck, you may as well just be a hacker at that point.

The cheapest - CHEAPEST - cyberdeck is 49500 ¥, and its highest attribute is only 4.

Baquette

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« Reply #7 on: <06-17-13/1941:10> »
oO

So no more the child hacker hacking his own marks in school, deckers need to be rich people as in SR3.

*sigh*

MfG

Reiper

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« Reply #8 on: <06-17-13/1945:24> »
Yes, but decks are really expensive. When you buy a deck, you may as well just be a hacker at that point.

The cheapest - CHEAPEST - cyberdeck is 49500 ¥, and its highest attribute is only 4.

Have they released the info on how they are handling TMs
Talk
Thoughts
Astral
Matrix
"Hello, my name is Johnson, I would like to introduce you to my associates, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson, and Mrs. Johnson."

StarManta

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« Reply #9 on: <06-17-13/1948:37> »
Yes. Complex forms now work more like spells, Sprites haven't changed much, and the TM's equivalent "deck" attributes are derived from his mental stats as in SR4.

Bull

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« Reply #10 on: <06-17-13/2001:59> »
oO

So no more the child hacker hacking his own marks in school, deckers need to be rich people as in SR3.

*sigh*

MfG

Or they steal one, borrow one from someone, or eventually build their own (once those rules are out, though you can easily claim this to be how you did it as part of backstory and during chargen).  Money, especially at chargen, is just one way you explain how you got what you got.

But well, yeah.  Decking is now VERY dangerous.  StarManta is underselling how reactive the new Matrix is now. When we were creating the new Matrix, Aaron had a mantra that I loved:  "The Matrix HATES you". Deckers are now a foreign organism in the matrix, a disease, a parasite, a cancer. And the Matrix now has effectively white blood cells running all through its programming designed to defeat and kill those invading organisms.

Decking is now as dangerous as everything else Shadowrunners do.  And you need to be highly skilled, well equipped, and probably missing a few brain cells to be a decker now.

Baquette

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« Reply #11 on: <06-17-13/2004:49> »
Is this cyberpunk view at least part of the entire world for every non-wage-slave?

SYL

Sipowitz

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« Reply #12 on: <06-17-13/2020:03> »
Yes, but decks are really expensive. When you buy a deck, you may as well just be a hacker at that point.

The cheapest - CHEAPEST - cyberdeck is 49500 ¥, and its highest attribute is only 4.

Have they released the info on how they are handling TMs
I do wonder how t'mancers are compared to deckers,  without the need to spend gobs of money on a deck do they also need to mark,mark, mark stuff or do they follow a different philosophy?

Carz

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« Reply #13 on: <06-17-13/2024:00> »
I'd actually like to know what they did in 5th about technomancers having to lean an entirely different version of their core skills than Hackers/Deckers.

Is that still in 5th?
Did they improve on clarity of what that meant, or is it just gone now?
The Aztechnology ziggurat is imposing in only the way corporate architecture mixed with a an ancient culture renown for its human sacrifice could be. Its hard to really determine which is more chilling, though... the ancient bloody past or modern soulless technology.

Mara

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« Reply #14 on: <06-17-13/2149:31> »
So...is the most expensive Cyberdeck an Excalibur again? At 1 Million Nuyen?