Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: deathwishjoe on <08-23-14/2250:05>
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***RE-UPDATED***
So I've heard a lot of arguments and discussions about the viability of technomancers as opposed to standard deckers. The following post is a challenge to all the character optimizers out there to show us what this new edition can do in relation to deckers and technomancers. I've always felt that all characters will need to contribute in combat no matter their archetype so there will be some meat space combat involved. The idea is to provide a typical and level playing field between the two archetypes and see how well they compare against each other. In order to prevent any sort of janky dice from skewing the results the best option I can think of is to use a large array of pre-rolled dice for the encounter and then pull the dice to be used for the roll from the pool at hand. Since any player who attempts this challenge will have access to the same dice pool array it should limit the effects of luck on whether or not one succeeds or not. In order to participate in this challenge one simply needs to make a character that would fit under the decker or technomancer archetype and then run it through the below run posting your results. Trying to game the system by say burning some dice by humming a tune and using the “perform singing” skill during combat as a free action is heavily frowned upon. The pool of dice for yourself and another for NPCs is listed at the very bottom. If you use up either pool just start over from the beginning. If both archetypes are somehow able to complete this run successfully then I will write another more difficult run and see how well that goes. If there are any questions about the run or the set up please feel free to ask me. Either way here goes nothing
After your meet up with the Johnson you are now 1000 nuyen richer with another 9000 nuyen upon completion and are as stuffed full of all the soy ribs you could eat. The job is simple, waltz into one of Renraku's local subsidiaries, get to the top floor, access one of the research labs work stations to get a file name for the schematics on the new "Bust-A-Move II, now with twice the krumping action" and then hack the local Renraku host, locate the file by its name and then after removing the protections on the file copy it and turn it into the Johnson.
Physical security isn't slated to be very tight, although the Johnson did say to expect a few rent-a-cops in the meat world you might have to deal with. Once you were in the host he suggested things might get a bit more difficult but that’s why he's offered you the job and not some know-nothing ganger or street sam for this job.
After a little bit of leg work you find the lay out of the building and get a decent idea of how to navigate the place. After hours there is a rent a cop at the front desk and 1 more per floor patrolling at any given time.
Response times for knight errant is about 8 mins to the location from when the call is sent out. security alarms and cameras are on all doors except the front entrance which is left open for late night deliveries and employees working overtime. All security devices are hardwired to a commlink in the front office manned by one of the rent a cops and slaved to an offsite cyberdeck. Each device is wired to the commlink using its only data port so hacking individual devices requires unplugging the device from the network or using a datatap. You can tap devices with data taps but this will be rather difficult due to cameras angles and the way things are wired. The Matrix security for the building security system is protected by an agent running from an offline location. The agent travels through the matrix to each devices location and looks for icons inside the building running silent or for any of the devices to be disconnected from the network.
You decide the best option for getting in is surprisingly through the front entrance where you will need to neutralize the guards and take an elevator to the top floor. From the buildings security schematics you notice that one of the elevators seems to be set up to only go to and from the ground floor to the third floor were as the other elevators offer access to all of the other floors. You also discover on the third floor commlink which will need to be turned on and accessed in order to get the file name of the schematics which are on the host under file protection.
Before neutralizing the guards you will need to hack the security cyberdeck via the commlink in the front desk in order to get access to the executive elevator and the camera feeds. All of the devices in this office are run on the renraku grid. The cyber deck is a novatech navigator with its asdf arranged in the following way, 4 3 5 6. Its running a level 4 agent, armor and tool box. The agent will send out an alert if any device is disconnected from the PAN and spends its time looking for icons running silent. It will ignore icons that don't attack it or the devices slaved to it.
After disabling the cameras and gaining digital access to the executive elevator you stroll up to the front entrance in your best Cicero’s Pizza uniform with a large "soy"peronni pizza in hand. At the front desk you see two of the rent a cops chatting it up over cups of soycaff. One is seated at a receptionist’s desk and the other is leaning against a wall behind the receptionist desk to the right of the other. The desk is about 20 ft. from the front entrance. They nod to you as you enter the building and ask you who the delivery is for.
They will not let the PC any further into the building and will try to contact whoever the delivery is for to pick up the food at the front desk. None of the player’s legwork revealed any names of people currently working at this late hour. While the player should be able to surprise the guards with a little finesse there isn’t really a social option for getting past the two of them. The one sitting will try to use the desk for cover and the one standing will charge the player and try to disable him with his stun baton if provoked.
Professional rating 2 corporate security with armored vest (9) and no sub machine guns.
B A R S W L I C ESS
4 4 4 3 3 2 3 3 6
Initiative 7 + 1D6
Condition Monitor 10
Limits Physical 5, Mental 4, Social 5
Armor 9
Skills
Automatics 3, Etiquette 3, Perception 2,
Pistols 4, Running 4, Unarmed Combat 3
Gear
Armor vest [9]
Fichetti Security 600 [Light Pistol, Acc 6 (7),
DV 7P, SA, RC (1), 30 (c)]
Renraku Sensei commlink (Device Rating 3)
Stun baton [Club, Acc 4, Reach 1, DV 9S(e),
AP –5, 10 charges]
The guards should be too busy fighting for there lives and trying to keep the shock of going from one boring night like any other to the most excitement either of them have ever had to call knight errant untill the fight is over. If an alert is activated during the initial hack or due to the fight with the guards going poorly a call is sent out to knight errant informing them of a breach of security. Keep track of the time at this point if they have been notified. 20 turns = 1 min and the response time is 8 mins.
It takes 2 turns to get from the security desk to the elevator.
It takes 5 turns to for the elevator doors to open.
It takes 10 turns for the elevator to reach the third floor and open up enough to let you in.
It takes 1d6 turns to find a terminal on the third floor you can access.
And 2 turns to reach the elevator from the workstation
Upon reach the top floor of the building there is a single orc guard waiting in ambush. He has taken cover behind a large receptionist desk and has taken a dose of jazz to up his game.
B A R S W L I C ESS
7 4 5 5 3 1 3 2 6
Initiative 8 + 3D6
Condition Monitor 10
Limits Physical 9, Mental 3, Social 5
Armor 12
Skills
Automatics 3, Etiquette 3, Perception 2, Pistols 4, Running 4, Unarmed Combat 3
Gear
Armor jacket [12]
Colt Cobra TZ-120 [SMG, Acc 4 (5), DV 7P, AP—, SA/BF/FA, RC 2 (3), 32 (c)]
Renraku Sensei commlink (Device Rating 3)
Stun baton [Club, Acc 4, Reach 1, DV 9S(e), AP –5, 10 charges]
Unexpectedly there are no other guards or emplyees on this floor. A brief search reveals the workstation commlink of the head developer for the prototype schematics you're after. after turning it on you can now hack the device. It has a device rating of 4. the file is listed as one of the ones recently used in the history of the device and its not hard to tell which one is the file name you need.
You can now travel via the matrix to the local Renraku Host. The host looks like a large office building on the inside not unlike the one your meat suit is currently residing in. there is a security spider and a patrol IC active on the host. No other icons appear visible this late at night. The patrol IC and the spider run matrix perception test to see if they can detect any icons running in silent mode. If you have marks on this host and aren't running in silent mode the Spider is immediately suspicious of your unfamiliar icon and will have the host deploy IC (which will ignore you since you have the host marked unless the spider says otherwise) and begin questioning you. Since the spider in the above instance is aware of you and suspicious he counts as having taken the full matrix defense action if you try to surprise attack him. A search of this host will locate the prototype schematics with an extended test threshold of 1 and a time frame of 1 minute. Each success above the threshold halves the time frame. The file is protected and also has a data bomb on it that will go off if the file is accessed; however the file will be undamaged in this event. Characters are assumed to be smart enough to search for the data bomb but if a critical glitch occurs during the disarming, it will go off. Once it’s protection is disabled and the data bomb is difused it can be copied and moved safely. both the file protection and the data bomb are rating 4.
host rating 7
A 8
S 7
D 9
F 10
Patrol IC
Spider
>> Black IC
>> Sparky
>> Killer
>> probe
Security spider
METATYPE: DWARF
B A R S W L I C ESS EDG
3 2 3 3 5 5(6) 4 2 5.0 2
Condition
Monitor
10 / 11
matrix initiative 8 or 9 + 4d6
Limits Physical 4, Mental 6 (7), Social 5
Active Skills
Cybercombat 6, Electronic Warfare 6, Electronics skill group 6,
Engineering skill group 4, Hacking (Hack on the Fly) 7 (+2),
qualities
Code Slinger (Brute Force)
Augmentations Cerebral booster (Rating 1), cybereyes [Rating 1, w/ low-light,
thermographic], datajack, skilljack (Rating 2), sleep regulator
Gear
Hermes Chariot cyberdeck [Device Rating 2, Atts 5 4 4 2, Programs 2], programs (Armor, Biofeedback Filter, Encryption, Hammer,Toolbox)
Typically run as A4 S2 D5 F4 until an alert is made where he switches to A5 S2 D4 F4 and then moves to A4 S2 D4 F5 if things start going badly. typically has armor, biofeedback filter toolbox and either encryption or hammer
Your dice pool NPC dice pool.
6,1,6,1,3,6,4,2,6, 6,2,1,1,3,3,1,2,3,
6,4,6,6,2,6,5,5,5, 6,2,4,1,1,5,5,1,1,
4,6,2,1,2,1,2,6,5, 1,6,2,2,5,6,5,4,6,
2,5,1,1,5,1,3,4,2, 4,3,6,3,5,1,5,1,2,
2,5,1,2,3,5,6,4,6, 2,1,5,4,3,2,1,5,5,
3,5,3,1,5,1,4,3,4, 2,6,3,2,3,3,5,2,3,
6,1,2,5,5,4,3,1,6, 6,3,5,2,6,3,5,2,2,
3,2,5,6,6,5,5,2,5, 1,5,1,6,2,3,3,2,5,
4,5,5,1,5,6,2,5,6, 3,1,2,6,5,1,6,5,4,
3,3,2,1,5,1,6,5,1, 6,6,6,4,1,2,1,1,2,
4,3,3,4,6,1,3,3,6, 1,3,4,1,4,3,6,1,1,
2,6,2,4,4,4,4,4,3, 4,4,6,6,1,4,6,4,1,
6,1,3,3,2,4,6,3,4, 5,2,1,1,1,6,4,4,5,
1,2,1,3,5,6,6,2,2, 1,3,5,5,2,2,6,3,1,
5,4,5,2,4,5,5,5,4, 1,6,5,4,3,1,4,5,1,
4,5,4,2,6,1,2,1,2, 5,1,6,3,2,4,4,1,1,
1,1,1,4,1,2,6,6,5, 3,1,3,1,3,3,2,4,1,
2,5,5,3,1,1,5,2,6, 6,2,6,1,3,1,5,6,6,
5,3,3,4,6,5,6,6,3, 4,5,1,2,6,5,4,6,2,
2,2,5,2,3,1,2,1,3, 4,2,3,4,3,4,1,2,6,
6,4,5,6,2,4,2,6,1, 5,6,6,4,1,3,3,4,4,
2,6,5,6,2,4,4,2,4, 5,6,3,2,5,6,6,2,2,
1,4,5,2,5,1,4,4,2, 4,3,6,6,6,4,4,3,3,
2,5,6,2,1,1,6,1,3, 3,5,5,5,1,4,4,6,4,
2,6,2,3,6,5,6,3,2, 5,6,3,5,1,4,1,4,5,
6,2,6,1,1,1,6,3,2, 6,5,2,5,4,2,6,6,1,
1,5,6,5,6,5,3,4,1, 1,4,3,3,3,3,6,5,2,
4,6,5,5,3,1,2,2,6, 4,1,1,2,2,2,5,2,6,
2,3,6,1,5,4,1,4,1, 2,3,3,3,2,6,1,5,1,
6,2,1,5,4,2,6,5,5, 3,5,2,2,6,1,3,3,4,
4,3,3,4,5,5,2,1,3, 1,6,3,6,2,6,1,1,5,
5,3,3,2,6,1,3,4,4, 3,2,3,5,1,4,3,6,1,
6,5,5,1,6,3,2,1,3, 2,3,2,2,6,4,1,5,1,
2,5,4,6,3,2,4,4,2, 3,3,6,3,5,3,5,6,5,
4,3,5,4,2,1,1,4,6, 1,2,4,1,4,6,5,6,2,
6,5,4,4,5,1,2,2,4, 3,1,4,4,3,5,5,5,2,
3,4,3,6,3,3,2,2,3, 1,2,2,2,6,1,5,2,4,
1,6,5,4,4,2,4,3,3, 6,2,2,2,1,4,5,1,4,
5,6,6,1,5,3,1,6,2, 1,1,2,1,4,6,2,4,2,
6,6,4,4,5,2,3,6,4, 5,1,2,1,2,3,6,1,1,
5,5,1,6,5,5,5,4,3, 4,2,2,4,6,1,4,3,5,
3,1,4,4,2,5,3,5,2, 2,5,6,3,3,6,6,1,6,
2,2,2,1,6,3,4,6,4, 1,1,6,1,5,5,4,1,4,
1,1,4,2,2,4,5,3,6, 1,1,2,1,3,6,6,2,3,
2,2,4,2,1,5,1,1,4, 3,3,6,1,5,3,6,3,4,
3,3,6,4,6,2,1,3,4, 6,6,1,3,1,4,4,6,3,
1,1,4,6,2,1,3,2,3, 5,3,5,3,2,5,1,5,6,
4,5,5,4,4,2,4,3,2, 6,2,5,1,6,2,2,6,6,
3,2,1,1,1,4,3,1,6, 6,6,1,4,5,6,6,5,5,
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I am hoping someone would put a char through this, so I could learn more about matrix work. When you do, Please add crunch (ex roll needed is Firewall(5) + Resonance(6) [mental 9] -> 11d6 got 4 successes)
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I agree, it should be interesting to see how a technomancer makes his way through these challenges. The decker should be pretty straightforward, but I just imagine it's quite a bit harder to "go solo" as a technomancer.
Oh, and don't forget to poison the pizza and get the guards to eat it :o
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Maybe I'm gonna try this with my Technomancer this WE. Don't really have time before that.
I'm curious myself how he'll hold up... probably not very good but oh well ^^
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Game mechanic wise you basically have two hacker archetypes in SR5.
The dedicated hacker with serious investment in mental attributes, cracking and electronics skill groups and a persona with really high matrix attributes (including attack and sleaze).
The more physical AR hacker that invest in reflex increasing augmentations and physical skills such as sneaking and pistol/automatics in addition to decent mental attributes, a cyberdeck with decent matrix attributes and skilled in hacking and electronic warfare.
The dedicated hacker (which probably also include most technomancers as they can't (ab)use the physical direct connection exploit) is the hacker archetype we are used to from earlier editions. They hack from their apartment or maybe in the rigger van. More often than not they hack from hot-sim VR and have big enough dice pools to fight security Deckers and even endure a a few combat turns against IC. They are skilled enough to gain access to a host without (ab)using a physical direct connection and they can also extract pay data and doctor protected files even if the file is protected by a host. If a device is wired the team will connect a wireless data tap for him which let him hack the device wireless from a safe distance. His primary challenge is to fight host ratings and other Deckers.
The hybrid Decker follow their team into the hostile facility and is skilled and wired enough to pull his own weight in a firefight and sneaky enough to not draw unwanted attention. Doing almost all hacking from AR while on the move. Using the close proximity to establish physical direct connections to bypass host ratings and wired devices. But he is probably not skilled enough to fight security Deckers or extract host protected files. His primary challenge is to control devices while he and the rest of the team is breaking into a facility.
...waltz into one of Renraku's local subsidiaries, get to the top floor, access one of the research labs mainframes and get some schematics in an offline data store ...
In a shadowrun where you actually have a team of specialists then you would let the agile B&E expert place a data tap at the wireless OFF device inside the facility... then turn the data tap wireless ON... and voila! the long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer-or-decker would have wireless access to the device no matter where in the world they are located(!)
Since the device is wireless OFF and not connected to the matrix it will be easy enough for anyone to hack once you gain access to it (since it can't be slaved to a host since hosts by definition only exist within the matrix to begin with)... this particular scenario will greatly benefit the second archetype (the on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker) over the first archetype (the long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer-or-decker).
The first node of the network...
This doesn't sound very much like SR5 to be honest....
In SR5 there are no "nodes" or hosts within hosts.
You access the device, file or host etc. you want to access directly.
Without first hacking into a gateway / proxy / router / server -node and from there get access to other "nodes".
The facility might have an elevator device on the grid that might or might not be slaved to a host.
You can either attach a cable from your cyberdeck directly to the elevator which let you bypass host ratings, hack the elevator out on the grid (against host ratings - but there will be no IC out on the grid) or first hacking the device from the direct connection you get if you already are within the host.
A decker of the first archetype will probably hack the elevator on the grid, fighting host ratings. Possible using edge to not raise any alarms. Once he get a mark on the elevator he also have a mark on the host and can enter the host as a "legit" icon (and now he can hack other wireless security devices slaved to the host without fighting host ratings). He must do this close to the actual run since when he start to bend the matrix he will cause ripples that GOD will start to track... and he can't hack too many devices since his OS might increase for each time he perform an illegal sleaze or attack action. If he is forced to jack out he will have to fight host ratings again if he wish to enter the host anew.
A decker of the second archetype will probably go to the site and connect his cyberdeck to the elevator and thus bypass host ratings. Once he get a mark on the elevator he also get a mark on the host and can enter the host as a legit icon (and now he can hack other wireless security devices slaved to the host without fighting host ratings). The on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker doesn't really need to be a very skilled decker since he will bypass host ratings via direct connections through out the entire run.
A technomancer of the first archetype will probably go up early and hack the elevator (and the host it is slaved to) via the grid... many many hours before the actual run. Threading low level cleaner to reduce OS but still keep the mark. Once she get a mark on the elevator he also have a mark on the host and can enter the host as a "legit" icon (and now she can hack other wireless security devices slaved to the host without fighting host ratings). Several hours later, when it is time for the real run she will have marks on all security devices (such as cameras, drones, elevators...), traced all their physical locations (with real-time updates) and snooping all camera feeds and drone sensor readouts.
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The challenge is an attempt to see how well deckers and 'mancers stack up to each other in what I would deem common situations we would see during actual play. If technomancers can't stack up then hopefully this will be noticed by the game developers and well see some goodies come down the line in later supplements. I remember looking over technomancers when 4rth edition was still very new and feeling like they were worse at char gen at hacking then standard hackers. This was simply not true and really came down to my not understanding 4rth edition matrix rules. a reasonably well designed technomancer even only using the main 4rth edition rulebook makes the matrix cry for its mommy in a corner. Now I admit it took a few splat books to also make the technomancer decent in combat as well but that came with time and even some experience on my part when it came to optimizing characters. I'm hoping that 5th edition will be similar to my experience in fourth.
The dedicated hacker (which probably also include most technomancers as they can't (ab)use the physical direct connection exploit) is the hacker archetype we are used to from earlier editions. They hack from their apartment or maybe in the rigger van. More often than not they hack from hot-sim VR and have big enough dice pools to fight security Deckers and even endure a a few combat turns against IC. They are skilled enough to gain access to a host without (ab)using a physical direct connection and they can also extract pay data and doctor protected files even if the file is protected by a host. If a device is wired the team will connect a wireless data tap for him which let him hack the device wireless from a safe distance. His primary challenge is to fight host ratings and other Deckers.
So as some sort of corporate goon in charge of matrix security I know I would want to have as much as I could if not all of the important company information stored on a host that was offline. Having important information connected to the matrix just seems to scream to hackers to "come and get me. Pay data waiting." you would be like a red flag for any hacker organization who could pool its resources to cut through your defenses no matter how high the hosts matrix stats where. I would almost suggest that if the goal for a Shadowrun was information on a host then by default if the Johnson is hiring a team of runners its offline.
Now the wireless data tap tactic is a valid point. .the team can run in and take out all the meat space guards or stealth their way in and install the data tap for the hacker allowing him to hack from the comfort of his apartment or the riggers van. However there are indeed precautions that a corporation can take here as well. the data tap still uses a wireless connection which can be hindered by wireless inhibiting wall paper or paint or stopped completely by a Faraday cage. This would then be countered by using some sort of large cable as an antenna attached to the data tap you could roll out to the other side of the Faraday cage. maybe it could be rolled to another floor or out a window. The downside to this tactic is that guards are very likely to notice a new wire roll across the floor they normally patrol and a cord that long wouldn't be easy to hide very well. This means the guards have to be eliminated before the tap and antenna can be installed. This also more then likely gives the high threat response team more time to get on location and take the team out.
Now from a GM stand point I would allow the paranoid agoraphobic hacker to use the rest of the team to install a data tap for him allowing him to work from home but after a few runs I would feel obligated to throw a wrench into the plan and try to make the hacker come along with the rest of the team. If the hacker is nothing more then a liability in a firefight then at that point you might as well not have a hacker on the team.
Since the device is wireless OFF and not connected to the matrix it will be easy enough for anyone to hack once you gain access to it (since it can't be slaved to a host since hosts by definition only exist within the matrix to begin with)... this particular scenario will greatly benefit the second archetype (the on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker) over the first archetype (the long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer-or-decker).
I'm sorry I'm not as familiar with the rules for 5th edition as I was for 4th edition, but where is it written that all hosts must be connected to the matrix?
This doesn't sound very much like SR5 to be honest....
In SR5 there are no "nodes" or hosts within hosts.
You access the device, file or host etc. you want to access directly.
Without first hacking into a gateway / proxy / router / server -node and from there get access to other "nodes".
To be honest your right. The idea for the system comes from some examples listed in 4rth editions Unwired book. However I expect similar examples of matrix security to be shown in any upcoming matrix splat book. I feel having a multi-tier defense protocol system like this seems like it should fall under basic matrix security design. Aside from the costs why shouldn't I be able to have a host that is only connected to one other host and requires multiple security authentications in order to access.
While the rules don't explicitly point it out and say that yes this is permissible I'm not aware of anywhere the rules say this cannot be done anymore. I feel however that while I have taken a bit of creative liscence with the rules in this area it does indeed pose a challenge for prospect hackers to work through.
A decker of the second archetype will probably go to the site and connect his cyberdeck to the elevator and thus bypass host ratings
While as a GM I would allow this, because the host rating is at 4 I dont see any reason why the device rating for the elevator control unit cant be 4 as well. It would bypass the IC on the host I suppose but I'd also require a hardware test to open up some sort of panel to get to the device which could also set off an alert. I'll adjust the original post though with an update to reflect this possibility.
hack the elevator out on the grid
While the host would have access to some sort of internal wireless network allowing communication between the guards I really dont see a need for the host to be connected to the matrix as a whole. In fact from a security stand point I really don't want it to have a presence on the matrix. I would ideally set it up so that by utilizing chains of low power wireless signal repeaters (which I realize haven't been introduced yet with this new edition) and wireless inhibiting wall paper making it impossible to access the host off company property and very difficult outside the building if not impossible as well.
The way I see it there are 4 primary challenges to overcome.
1. first challenge is the question of whether or not your character can take two surprised un-augmented mooks down. This should be pretty easy for anyone who has put forth any sort of effort into making sure the character can contribute in a fire fight.
2. the next portion asks can the character hack a low level host or device in order to access the elevator. If this poses a problem you probably need to work more on making a better hacker cause you suck at it. IMO a respectable hacker should be able to do this sort of thing with ease and be able to do it repeatedly.
3. Then the one guard on the third level asks can you go toe to toe with a mook whose ready for you, armed to a moderate level (SMG rather then pistol and better armor) and is using a solid amount of initiative enhancers? while not as powerful as an optimized street sam he should pose a solid physical threat to be dealt with. If you can take out this level of power in a firefight then if your out on a run and your team gets hit by another team of runners or something comparable you will definitely not be a liability and should even assist quite a bit in the fight.
4. While I realize the last portion of the challenge bends the rules as they currently are I strongly suspect that such things will be implicitly allowed in later books. I pulled some of its inspiration from one of the free Denver missions available for 4rth edition (I don't remember which) which had an Ares? server one could hack with outrageously high stats. most of my hackers with rating 6 stealth programs couldn't get in reliably where as the technomancer with his stealth threaded to 10 or so could slip in quite easily. The tiers on this portion will allow us to more accurately measure those who fall short of the most difficult "node" and hopefully give us a better comparison between the two archetypes. With out having a ton of experience designing matrix challenges in this edition and how tough they should be to push characters, my hope is that this one will pose a challenge to both deckers and technomancers but we will see shortly.
I've explained why I think hackers need to be able to contribute to a fight and why I feel a hacker that can go on location during a run is superior to one that stays in a van or at home during the run. The corner cases that require a hacker to be there I feel will pop up enough to warrant having this ability. This will also possibly put to rest one of the primary arguments against technomancers in that deckers can contribute in a fight due to being able to afford more cyberware and essence loss.
I've also gone over each portion of this challenge and why I put it there in the first place. I feel that any rules bending I have done have only been to provide a better challenge and more accurate comparison of power level. I ideally would want others with some experience playing one archetype or another to make a character and run it through but if there aren't any takers I suppose I'll make a decker here sometimes next week and run him through. If that goes well I have some ideas for a technomancer I will try after another short waiting period to see if anybody in the community wants to try it out.
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Since the device is wireless OFF and not connected to the matrix it will be easy enough for anyone to hack once you gain access to it (since it can't be slaved to a host since hosts by definition only exist within the matrix to begin with)... this particular scenario will greatly benefit the second archetype (the on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker) over the first archetype (the long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer-or-decker).
I'm sorry I'm not as familiar with the rules for 5th edition as I was for 4th edition, but where is it written that all hosts must be connected to the matrix?
In SR5, hosts exist only in the matrix. Think of them as enormous semi-autonomous programs that provide security and ease of access by linking together devices. They aren't based in the real world, they are literally just matrix code.
This doesn't sound very much like SR5 to be honest....
In SR5 there are no "nodes" or hosts within hosts.
You access the device, file or host etc. you want to access directly.
Without first hacking into a gateway / proxy / router / server -node and from there get access to other "nodes".
To be honest your right. The idea for the system comes from some examples listed in 4rth editions Unwired book. However I expect similar examples of matrix security to be shown in any upcoming matrix splat book. I feel having a multi-tier defense protocol system like this seems like it should fall under basic matrix security design. Aside from the costs why shouldn't I be able to have a host that is only connected to one other host and requires multiple security authentications in order to access.
While the rules don't explicitly point it out and say that yes this is permissible I'm not aware of anywhere the rules say this cannot be done anymore. I feel however that while I have taken a bit of creative liscence with the rules in this area it does indeed pose a challenge for prospect hackers to work through.
The reason why a host cannot be only connected to another host is that they are based entirely in the Matrix, and therefore have no physical location. I'm not familiar with SR4, but with SR5, you can literally log onto a host from anywhere in the world with no noise penalities due to distance since there is no physical distance between you and the host. Everything in the Matrix is technically connected to everything else in the Matrix, you can access any device from any other device, although you might get penalties due to noise, have to fight through protection, etc.
If the host is running silent, it uses it's sleaze rating, it doesn't mean it's impossible to spot. If a hacker knows it's there and spots it, then the hacker can try to sleaze a mark onto it. Of course, if a host is running silent and meant to have no marks, as soon as it notices that it has a mark, the hacker's stealth has been compromised and the host starts taking serious defensive (as well as offensive) measures.
Currently, the only way to beef up defenses is to have a higher rating host. However, if you want to take some liberties, what you can do is have the host be Admin only. Currently, 1 mark = user, 2 marks = Editor? (some middle tier level of access), 3 marks = Admin, and 4 marks (which is impossible to get without being the owner) = Owner. If you really want to make is impossible, you can make it so you have to be the Owner of the host to access it, which would mean that someone would have to pull data out of the host to make is accessible. However, that is pretty unfeasible. If you make it Admin however, you need 3 marks to even get into the host, which means your OS is gonna start to rack up if it's a higher level host, and if you fail your sleaze test? Well then, the Host notices you, get's a mark on you, and you literally cannot enter it without IC being launched, which makes it rather hard to hack (although, technomancer sprites might mess some of that up). Note however, that this is a seriously extreme representation that is not even defined in the rules. However, this is understandable, as it basically makes it so that only people who are supposed to access the host can access it. This kind of host is not something you hack at Chargen; this kind of security is probably reserved for AAA Megacorporation Headquarters or some trillion nuyen experimental facility.
A decker of the second archetype will probably go to the site and connect his cyberdeck to the elevator and thus bypass host ratings
While as a GM I would allow this, because the host rating is at 4 I dont see any reason why the device rating for the elevator control unit cant be 4 as well. It would bypass the IC on the host I suppose but I'd also require a hardware test to open up some sort of panel to get to the device which could also set off an alert. I'll adjust the original post though with an update to reflect this possibility.
Sure, the elevator control unit can be at rating 4, which is ridiculously high for such simple usage of a device. If someone is that paranoid about being hacked, they make it so that you have to access it wirelessly through the host. Also, you don't have to open up some sort of panel (unless they're paranoid like I said), since every single device has a universal adapter port that can be accessed by someone with a datajack (which isn't useful for technomancers, and there isn't skinlink in this edition, sure you can use trodes, but it's not the same).
hack the elevator out on the grid
While the host would have access to some sort of internal wireless network allowing communication between the guards I really dont see a need for the host to be connected to the matrix as a whole. In fact from a security stand point I really don't want it to have a presence on the matrix. I would ideally set it up so that by utilizing chains of low power wireless signal repeaters (which I realize haven't been introduced yet with this new edition) and wireless inhibiting wall paper making it impossible to access the host off company property and very difficult outside the building if not impossible as well.
I know I went over this earlier, but a host is not a device. It has 0 presence in the physical world. It is a collection of software that exists in the omnipresent Matrix, so it can be accessed from anywhere in the world, as long as you don't mind not being able to hack something in it's WAN to get easier access. I have no clue how it worked in SR4, but in SR5, there is no seperate places on the Matrix. Sure, there are grids, but grids can always be hacked onto, as they need to be able to connect to the rest of the matrix to perform even the most routine of operations. If you don't want it to have a presence, have it run silent. It works just like a character does. However, a low rating host is meant to be hacked into from a game viewpoint. Otherwise, what's the point of having a hacker? Might as well just blow buildings up to get through your runs, er... some people do that anyways. If you really, and I mean really, want to be super paranoid and hard to hack. Make every single damn thing in the building wired. However, you don't get a host to defend stuff, and people can tap a wired connection anyways. Hosts are generally considered more secure.
The way I see it there are 4 primary challenges to overcome.
1. first challenge is the question of whether or not your character can take two surprised un-augmented mooks down. This should be pretty easy for anyone who has put forth any sort of effort into making sure the character can contribute in a fire fight.
All right, just about anyone can do that with an assault rifle. Need to have 2 action passes at least, but not difficult.
2. the next portion asks can the character hack a low level host or device in order to access the elevator. If this poses a problem you probably need to work more on making a better hacker cause you suck at it. IMO a respectable hacker should be able to do this sort of thing with ease and be able to do it repeatedly.
Yes, a hacker should be able to do this easily. However, I should note that unless you make the elevator's universal access port hard to access, they can just hack it directly (well, not a technomancer, but you get the idea). A low level host should hopefully not stop people, unless you build a different technomancer build.
3. Then the one guard on the third level asks can you go toe to toe with a mook whose ready for you, armed to a moderate level (SMG rather then pistol and better armor) and is using a solid amount of initiative enhancers? while not as powerful as an optimized street sam he should pose a solid physical threat to be dealt with. If you can take out this level of power in a firefight then if your out on a run and your team gets hit by another team of runners or something comparable you will definitely not be a liability and should even assist quite a bit in the fight.
Starting to get a little heavy with your expectations here. Can you go one on one? Sure, why not? He has less stuff than you and you have roughly the same Physical Boxes. However, as a test for a Decker/Technomancer, that will be all your doing. I would rather have a hacker who can brick people's guns, shut down their security system, and protect my stuff. If they can take out a guy, then great, that's swell. That's the point of having a whole team, rather than one man. If my team gets hit by another set of runners, I want my decker standing way in the back, preferably in some armored vehicle, where they can brick my enemies' guns, protect our own PANs and in general perform Cybercombat. Oh, and destroy those rigger drones, because that technically gets rid of extra guns and combatants without firing a bullet. Nonetheless, I agree that any hacker who doesn't have the ability to shoot a gun is a bad hacker. Just realize that they have better things they can do.
4. While I realize the last portion of the challenge bends the rules as they currently are I strongly suspect that such things will be implicitly allowed in later books. I pulled some of its inspiration from one of the free Denver missions available for 4rth edition (I don't remember which) which had an Ares? server one could hack with outrageously high stats. most of my hackers with rating 6 stealth programs couldn't get in reliably where as the technomancer with his stealth threaded to 10 or so could slip in quite easily. The tiers on this portion will allow us to more accurately measure those who fall short of the most difficult "node" and hopefully give us a better comparison between the two archetypes. With out having a ton of experience designing matrix challenges in this edition and how tough they should be to push characters, my hope is that this one will pose a challenge to both deckers and technomancers but we will see shortly.
In this case, a rating 4 host is most likely a cakewalk. I have seen a decker do his thing, and it took about a rating 6 host (this guy is straight out of chargen, and it wasn't even the most optimized) to pose a challenge. Technomancers are very hard to balance on the priority table, and the main problem is that you need to thread really creatively to do stuff. For example, a decker can hack with his dicepool of 16-20 against a host, and with his cyberdeck having his Sleaze at 7, he can count 7 hits. The technomancer can hack with his dicepool of about 12-16, but can only use a number of hits equal to his Sleaze, or Logic in this case. If he doesn't have a good Logic, well, tough luck. The technomancer can turn to another place if he wants to; Sprites. He can supercompile a Sprite that can hack extremely well, but there are a couple of problems. First, limited amount of tasks they can have, so a limited amount of stuff you can use them for. Second, fading. A level 10 Sprite will cause you somewhere around 6-10S fading, resist with Resonance + Willpower. Granted, it can be less fading, but it's still annoying and still applies wound penalties and such.
I've explained why I think hackers need to be able to contribute to a fight and why I feel a hacker that can go on location during a run is superior to one that stays in a van or at home during the run. The corner cases that require a hacker to be there I feel will pop up enough to warrant having this ability. This will also possibly put to rest one of the primary arguments against technomancers in that deckers can contribute in a fight due to being able to afford more cyberware and essence loss.
I've also gone over each portion of this challenge and why I put it there in the first place. I feel that any rules bending I have done have only been to provide a better challenge and more accurate comparison of power level. I ideally would want others with some experience playing one archetype or another to make a character and run it through but if there aren't any takers I suppose I'll make a decker here sometimes next week and run him through. If that goes well I have some ideas for a technomancer I will try after another short waiting period to see if anybody in the community wants to try it out.
I think this challenge is a very interesting concept, but maybe it's just me, it seems the Technomancer will probably lose every time. Decker's have a limit that they reach after a while, and eventually they have to have obscene amounts of money to get farther, however, at the beginning they seem to be stronger. The Technomancer, on the other hand, can become nearly infinitely powerful, provided they are given a ton of Karma. To me, it comes down to this. If you want someone who is really good at pretty much everything in the Matrix, and can still interact reasonably well in the meatworld, you get a decker. If you want someone unique and interesting to play because of his/her connection to the Resonance and all the cool stuff that comes with it, you get a technomancer. Technomancers can be really good at a few things in the matrix, while still being useful in the meatworld, or they can be pretty damn good at almost everything in the Matrix, but really useless in the meatworld. Now, maybe if you put a lot of karma into a Technomancer, you can do well, but at character creation, I just don't see it happening.
Perhaps I don't have a good understanding of technomancers, and someone can prove me wrong. Hell, someone prove me wrong, this is something that bothers me and is on my mind. Until we get an in-depth Matrix book, I just don't think this sort of challenge can be conducted reasonably. These are my views, but I wish you luck in your challenge.
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Technomancers have a few fundamental problems with them that make them inherently worse than deckers in 5th edition. Sadly, you will not find a repeat of how it worked in 4th. As written, Technomancers are just bad.
The most crippling problem Technomancers have is the priority system itself. They are priority starved, needing three high priorities to be built effectively. A Technomancer needs high Resonance to be a technomancer at all, needs high Skills since they need three skill groups to be competent both at normal hacking and using sprites, and needs high Attributes because their Matrix attributes are equal to their Mental attributes, requiring them to beef up 4 attributes as high as they can. You're hard pressed making a technomancer that is even good at being a hacker, let alone able to also function outside of the matrix.
Comparatively, a decker only has two high priority needs: Skills and Resources. As long as he can get two skill groups worth of skills and enough cash to afford a deck, he has free reign over what to do with the rest of his priorities. And high resources naturally lets him mitigate sacrificing Attributes a bit, since he can grab numerous augmentations to bring his stats up with his spare money.
The second big issue Technomancers have is a complete lack of ways to deal with Noise. A decker can come out of character creation with 3 points of Noise cancellation from the Signal Scrub program and a wireless datajack. Technomancers have zero means of doing the same. None. The best they can do is get Signal Scrub as a resonance program, which takes submerging for an echo. And if you use the book by RAW, that costs a minimum of 30 karma, for something that costs a decker 80 nuyen. (Obviously its a typo that badly needs errata, but even 13 karma for an 80 nuyen program is nonsense.)
The third big issue Technomancers have is that they aren't allowed to form PANs, making them pretty useless as a defensive hacker protecting your team's gear. This is just a straight up nerf from 4th, and was totally unnecessary.
And the fourth big issue technomancers have is an inability to form a Direct Connection. Every cyberdeck, control rig, commlink and datajack comes with a built in retractable plug for Direct Connections, and technos get no ability to duplicate this. And this is a big deal, since Direct Connections let you bypass noise as well as ignore the firewall of a master while hacking a slave. And while a Data Tap is one way for a technomancer to get access to a wirelessly inactive device, it does not grant a Direct Connection over wireless: you have to be directly connected to the data tap to be directly connected to the device it's plugged into.
So in conclusion, Technomancers will have smaller dice pools off the bat out of creation, because they have less points to spread around in all the things they need to get. They will have lower limits out of creation, because their limits are equal to their mental attributes, and they can't Reconfigure like a decker, nor load the +1 programs, to set their limits higher on the fly. And they will also tend to have higher dice pool penalties on top of that, because they can't do anything about noise.
The only way to really build a successful Technomancer is to completely ignore the Cracking group and rely entirely on compiling sprites and using complex forms.
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...stored on a host that was offline...
A Host only exist within the Matrix.
By definition you can't store a file in an "offline" Host.
You can store a file on a wireless OFF device.
There are actually specific devices designed for this,
SR5 p. 440 Datachip:
For occasions when you want to transfer data by physical means—like bringing the project specs on the competition’s new cyberdeck to Mr. Johnson in person at the meet—a datachip can hold enormous quantitites of data in a small finger-sized chip, accessible by any electronic device. Datachips have no wireless capability, so you need to plug them into a universal data connector (found on any device) if you want to read or write to them.
But even a wireless OFF, Throwback device or a Datachip have a Universal Data Connector that you can connect to and get access to the file. And unlike a file that is stored "on-line" in a Host, the file in a device will only defend with owner ratings instead of (the potentially much higher) Host ratings.
...the data tap still uses a wireless connection which can be hindered by wireless inhibiting wall paper or paint or stopped completely by a Faraday cage.
This is true.
And in situations like that you rather want an on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker over a long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer-or-decker (a wireless OFF device, a Throwback device or a Datachip cannot, by definition, be slaved to a Host so hacking it will be relatively easy as the File will only defend with owner ratings).
However, Pay Data can also be Protected and stored in a Host.
To get a mark on a file in a Host you need to fight Host Ratings (which might very well mean an opposed test pool of double digits!). To Crack the File Protection you need to use an Attack action. Once successful the Host will automatically know it is under attack and will now launch IC and it's Patrol IC will start to search for the "Icon that attacked the File". If you are not running silent by now you will automatically be spotted. To Edit the file after you got a mark on it and cracked the protection you need to fight Host Ratings again(!). For situations like this you rather want a dedicated long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer-or-decker as an on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker don't have near the dice pools to accomplish this unless they get lucky (have a lot of Edge to use) and/or it's a low-ish rating Host.
...where is it written that all hosts must be connected to the matrix?
SR5 p. 216 Host:
A self-contained place in the Matrix. Hosts have no physical location, as they exist purely in the Matrix cloud.
While as a GM I would allow this, because the host rating is at 4 I dont see any reason why the device rating for the elevator control unit cant be 4 as well.
Can, yes. But rather unlikely.
A host with rating 4 would just be a Low-end commercial, private business, public libraries, small policlubs.
An Elevator Device slaved to a rating 4 host would probably be a rating 2 device or so.
(device ratings only goes up to rating 6 and host ratings goes all the way up to 12).
A device with rating 4 would be a high-end betaware security device.
Also,
A device with device rating 4 would defend with 8 dice
A host with host rating 4 would defend with 8-11 dice
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The most crippling problem Technomancers have is the priority system itself.
You could build a technomancer that skip sprites and threading and just play it like a decker (not sure why you want to do that since sprites and complex forms are awesome sauce, you you could). She would need to invest into mental attributes, but if you don't plan on using complex forms or sprites you don't even need more than a moderate resonance attribute.....
Also,
Investing into mental attributes post chargen both increase matrix attributes and mental attributes at once.
...and a decker can't really expect to ever earn enough money to get better matrix attributes.
(Another option to "save" karma is by dumping charisma and use some of the Karma to buy Focused Concentration and sustain Infusion of Attack; for times when you need a higher attack rating)
The second big issue Technomancers have is a complete lack of ways to deal with Noise.
Noise is an issue, yes. But I don't agree that they completely lack ways to deal with it...
They might have access to Resonance Channel which can be used to reduce noise due to distance.
They might have access to Transcendent Grid to remove the negative dice pool penalty due to public grid and/or working cross grids.
The third big issue Technomancers have is that they aren't allowed to form PANs
Nothing that stop a TM to form a PAN on a device rating 6 commlink.... ;)
(and by RAW it is actually not crystal clear if a decker can use his cyberdeck as a master device in a PAN when he form a persona on it since the cyberdeck device icon will be replaced by his persona icon and a persona of a decker cannot be a master of a PAN anymore than a living persona of a technomancer).
And the fourth big issue technomancers have is an inability to form a Direct Connection.
This is a real disadvantage that make TMs unfit to be a on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker.
But compared to a dedicated long-distance-hot-sim-VR-decker the dedicated long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer doesn't really have any disadvantages (as Physical Direct Connections does not help you when Marking, Cracking and Editing files located in high rating hosts - which is what a dedicated decker will have most challenges with anyway)
Actually quite the opposite. One thing that a long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer have that make her unique is that she might have access to the complex form Cleaner. A TM with that complex form can thread low level Cleaner to stay ahead of GOD while she gain marks on virtually all devices, snoop all cameras and drones and trace the physical location of all security guard PANs in the entire facility... Hours before the actual shadowrun(!) A decker can only keep his marks for an hour or two (less if he want to mark, trace and snoop multiple devices and GOD will pretty much always manage to converge on a decker before he manage to mark, trace and snoop all devices in a facility).
Something a TM can do that a Decker can never hope to achieve is to hack 3 marks on a rigger's vehicle, use puppeteer to force the rigger to leave the captains chair and then use Mind over Machine to jump in. Since a rigger don't have an attack attribute and since jumping in is the highest control order there is nothing the rigger can do to force the TM out of his own vehicle or even issue any commands at all to it :D
...And while a Data Tap is one way for a technomancer to get access to a wirelessly inactive device, it does not grant a Direct Connection over wireless: you have to be directly connected to the data tap to be directly connected to the device it's plugged into.
True, you don't get to bypass master ratings when hacking a wireless OFF or Throwback device with a wireless Data Tap, but then again a wireless OFF or Throwback device will not be slaved to a Host (since Hosts only exists within the Matrix). So odds are you will not need to fight huge double digit dice pools when hacking wired security anyway (the big advantage of bypassing master ratings is quite diminished when you are specifically talking about wired devices).
But yes, wired security combined with wireless inhibiting wall paper or a Faraday cage will force the hacker on site and for this a on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker would be a much better option than both a dedicated long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer or a dedicated long-distance-hot-sim-VR-decker.
The only way to really build a successful Technomancer is to completely ignore the Cracking group and rely entirely on compiling sprites and using complex forms.
I would not say this is the only way to successfully build a TM, but yes, this is another viable option (which might be quite fun actually).
Other odd examples we seen here on the forums that also seem to work quite well include the mastermind / technomancer hybrid that use sensory input from various devices, hot-sim VR initiative and multiple Leadership rolls to guide and buff her team.
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You could build a technomancer that skip sprites and threading and just play it like a decker (not sure why you want to do that since sprites and complex forms are awesome sauce, you you could). She would need to invest into mental attributes, but if you don't plan on using complex forms or sprites you don't even need more than a moderate resonance attribute.....
That would still be a much worse hacker than a mundane decker, as deciding to forgo sprites just saves you from having to purchase one skill group. You skill need high Skills to get both Cracking and Electronics, and you still need at least Resonance C to be a technomancer at all.
Also,
Investing into mental attributes post chargen both increase matrix attributes and mental attributes at once.
...and a decker can't really expect to ever earn enough money to get better matrix attributes.
I heartily disagree with this being an advantage. It's a karma sink.
First and foremost, lets look at the best possible combination of matrix attributes available to a Technomancer. A typical human Technomancer can have an array of 6 5 5 5, with their 6 placed wherever they deem most important. Maybe they max Intuition because they want 6 sleaze, or maybe they max Logic because they want to improve the majority of their rolls, and end up with a 6 in Data Processing. Or maybe they stick it in Willpower for 6 Firewall. Whatever the case may be, they have 6 5 5 5, and cannot reconfigure these at all. Other possibilities are 7 6 5 5 for an Elf, with the 7 in Attack, 8 5 5 5 for an Elf, with an 8 in Attack, 7 5 5 5 for a Dwarf, with the 7 in Firewall, 6 6 5 5 for the Dwarf, with one of the sixes in Firewall, 7 6 5 5 for the dwarf with Exceptional Attribute allowing for that second 6, 8 6 5 5 for the Elf using Exceptional Attribute, or even 9 5 5 5 on the Exceptional Elf.
No matter what metatype or Exceptional Attribute combo you go with, you're most likely going to end up with your highest possible matrix attribute being a 7, with everything else at 5, with maybe a 6 in there. If you're gung ho about Attack, you can get a 9, but only in Attack. The 7 can only be Attack or Firewall, and none of these attributes can be reconfigured.
By contrast, a starting Decker can have a Sony CIY-750, with an array of 7 6 5 4. However, he also has +1 programs available to him, so he can increase any of those attributes by 1, or if he wants to use all four of his program slots for higher attributes, all of them, giving him an array of 8 7 6 5. He can also put those numbers anywhere he pleases. Need an 8 in Sleaze right now? No problem. Specifically in the case of Sleaze, he also has access to Exploit, which lets him go up to a possible limit of 10 on Sleaze at character creation. It is physically impossible to achieve that with a technomancer, as no metatype gets bonuses to intuition, and even if they were willing to sacrifice resonance for augmentations, there are no augments for Intuition.
Now, what about your comment about increasing the matrix attributes with Karma? Well, let's assume you're a Human with Exceptional Attribute to get 6 6 5 5. First thing you want to do is get your 7 and then get 6s across the board. That costs you 95 karma. But 7 6 6 6 isn't good enough, The decker basically had that at creation with his Sony CIY-750 running two programs. So you start submerging, getting each of the Upgrade echoes twice. that puts you at 9 8 8 8, and costs another 183 karma to get to Submersion Grade 8. But wait, your grade maximum is equal to your Resonance attribute, so you can't get to 8. Then let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you started at Resonance 6, and add the cost to get to 8. That's a total of 258 karma, plus the 90 you already spent on raising your mental attributes, you've now spent a total of 348 karma.
Going by the Run Rewards table, the average run will net you 5 karma and between 9,000 and 21,000 nuyen. So lets go with an even 15,000 nuyen per run. By the time you've earned 348 karma, you'd have earned 1,044,000 nuyen. That's enough to buy a Fairlight Excalibur with 220,750 to spare, not counting the cost of fencing your old deck. So while you have attributes of 9 8 8 8, the decker can now have 10 9 8 7 with 2 program slots to spare on anything else. If he tosses Exploit into the mix, he can have a Sleaze of 12 on Hack on the Fly. Not to mention the decker also earned 348 karma, and he didn't have to blow it all on raising his matrix stats. So he now has the Cracking group at 12, with 63 karma to spare. Assuming he started the game with Logic 6, Intuition 5 and Willpower 5, He can upgrade Intuition and Willpower to 6, and then buy a rating 3 cerebral booster with his leftover cash to get Logic to 9. He's now throwing dice pools of more than 20 dice on just about everything, with a limit in the double digits.
And that's assuming the GM never throws the decker a bone and lets him steal a higher level deck off an enemy decker. It is always easier to get nuyen and gear than it is to get karma.
Noise is an issue, yes. But I don't agree that they completely lack ways to deal with it...
They might have access to Resonance Channel which can be used to reduce noise due to distance.
They might have access to Transcendent Grid to remove the negative dice pool penalty due to public grid and/or working cross grids.
And neither one of those deal with the most common way you'd get noise; just by being in a high noise area. The default assumption for noise in Chicago, where Missions is being run right now, is 2. That's a 2 dice pool penalty that Technomancers can do nothing about, in the current official shadowrun campaign.
Nothing that stop a TM to form a PAN on a device rating 6 commlink.... ;)
Nothing to stop everyone else on the team from doing that either. Deckers are still innately better at being the head of a team PAN, not only because they can get higher firewall, but because they have access to Wrapper. Running all the gear on the team silent might draw attention, but making all their smartguns look like credsticks is a lot harder to spot.
This is a real disadvantage that make TMs unfit to be a on-premises-hybrid-AR-decker.
But compared to a dedicated long-distance-hot-sim-VR-decker the dedicated long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer doesn't really have any disadvantages (as Physical Direct Connections does not help you when Marking, Cracking and Editing files located in high rating hosts - which is what a dedicated decker will have most challenges with anyway)
Actually quite the opposite. One thing that a long-distance-hot-sim-VR-technomancer have that make her unique is that she might have access to the complex form Cleaner. A TM with that complex form can thread low level Cleaner to stay ahead of GOD while she gain marks on virtually all devices, snoop all cameras and drones and trace the physical location of all security guard PANs in the entire facility... Hours before the actual shadowrun(!) A decker can only keep his marks for an hour or two (less if he want to mark, trace and snoop multiple devices and GOD will pretty much always manage to converge on a decker before he manage to mark, trace and snoop all devices in a facility).
Cleaner is not nearly that good, and if you're trying to hack all the things, it will not keep up with the overwatch you're generating before you knock yourself out from Fading. Static Veil is more decent, assuming you have Focused Concentration to prevent yet another -2 penalty on all your dice pools.
Something a TM can do that a Decker can never hope to achieve is to hack 3 marks on a rigger's vehicle, use puppeteer to force the rigger to leave the captains chair and then use Mind over Machine to jump in. Since a rigger don't have an attack attribute and since jumping in is the highest control order there is nothing the rigger can do to force the TM out of his own vehicle or even issue any commands at all to it :D
There are plenty of things Technomancers can do with Puppeteer that deckers can't do at all, but that's one complex form that is more likely to blow your own brains out than to actually work. If you get lucky on dice rolls and actually pull off Puppeteer, good for you. Doesn't change the fact that every other aspect of the technomancer pales in comparison to the decker.
True, you don't get to bypass master ratings when hacking a wireless OFF or Throwback device with a wireless Data Tap, but then again a wireless OFF or Throwback device will not be slaved to a Host (since Hosts only exists within the Matrix). So odds are you will not need to fight huge double digit dice pools when hacking wired security anyway (the big advantage of bypassing master ratings is quite diminished when you are specifically talking about wired devices).
Nothing stops it from being slaved to another device in the building via the wiring, like a central server based on a Fairlight Caliban with a device rating of 7. 14 dice on resistance is still a pain in the ass.
I would not say this is the only way to successfully build a TM, but yes, this is another viable option (which might be quite fun actually).
Other odd examples we seen here on the forums that also seem to work quite well include the mastermind / technomancer hybrid that use sensory input from various devices, hot-sim VR initiative and multiple Leadership rolls to guide and buff her team.
Only way that still resembles being a hacker. You just have your sprites do all the hacking, and support them with complex forms.
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So I have to say I'm very disappointed in the new matrix rules. If anything I feel like the matrix is less secure now in this edition then in the previous edition. I'm sure with them bringing decks back as a thing that several low end hackers dropped out of the game since they couldn't afford a new shiny deck costing several hundreds of thousand dollars but any really good hacker in the world probably had enough in savings to buy one right off the bat. And certainly while technomancer may have had a bit of a learning curve with the new matrix protocols but I don't see the changes causing any of them to retire.
Now under the previous matrix rules one could have a virtual environment guarded by IC and spiders that could only be accessed on company property. Your company employees get the added productivity benefits of working on there projects in VR. Faster initiative means more work done in an hour then in meat space not to mention a few employees using hot VR for an extra edge to try and get that upcoming promotion. All of the important company data would be highly secured on sight with as much physical and matrix security as you wanted to put into it.
If an Ares executive wanted its research protected it could put it all on a high end military grade node with several combat trained spiders and black IC that can only be accessed after going through a fortress guarded by an on site high threat response team, security riggers using drones and turrets, paracritters like hell hounds and highly trained corporate security guards.
sure a team of shadow-runners could conceivably breach your secure fortress and a hacker could steal whatever paydata was on that ultra violet node but dam,.it would take an epic team to pull it off and even then there would be alot of luck involved.
Now with hosts being always connected to the matrix and part of the matrix "cloud" there doesn't seem to be any comparable way of defending ones information while still having a virtual environment for employees to work in. Now I can kind of see how having the hardware portion of hosts spread across the matrix with what I would suppose are multiple if not enumerable back ups would make the matrix as a whole more difficult to take down or be damaged by malware or crazy rogue AI's. while the matrix as a whole is possibly more secure from these crazy corner case threats of apocalyptic nature I would venture that corporations have much more to fear from relatively small groups of skilled hackers working together and stealing your data.
with out admittedly having actually run the numbers I feel a few really good hackers with solid equipment backed up by technomancers buffing them with complex forms and sprite support could raid a rating 12 host raping and pillaging the place until anything and everything they wanted was copied.
I do have a few ideas that might provide hope but there not looking very useful at the moment.
I thought possibly that I could use the noise rules to limit access to a host. Maybe surrounding the corresponding physical location of the matrix location where the host resides with the Faraday cage. this would require the hacker be on the inside of the cage in order to access the host. However with the source of the software that represents the host not being inside the cage as well and wireless signals not being able to penetrate the cage means there can be no host inside the cage.
Now I do remember seeing a reference stating that some hosts had a set up that meant they could only be entered by doors as opposed to just touching the outer surface of the host to gain access. This might mean that we could prevent access to the door of the host using the Faraday cage with out turning the location of the host into something that causes a 404 page not found error. In order for this to be an effective form of matrix defense certain rules would have to be in effect in the new matrix protocols. The Faraday cage would by necessity not be complete as employees would need line of effect from inside the cage to the door of host. This would also allow wireless signal to enter the inside of the cage and possibly allow matrix persona's to teleport inside the cage. Matrix protocol may allow this or may prevent someones persona from moving through a hosts icon. I'm not certain one way or the other. If we combine the possibility that one cannot teleport through an icon to get to the door with the possibility that the host can control where people are deposited when leaving a host then the host could deposit certain persona's into a Faraday cage hallway leading to another host allowing the tier type architecture I described earlier. However this is allot of ifs.
Finally I also remember some reference to another security feature not in the previous edition. Namely archived files. Unfortunately this was not fleshed out very well and will hopefully have more rules in the soon to be written hacking book.
I currently have a few ideas of how a technomancer could be built to also be rather deadly in meat space but I am not certain how effective it would be at hacking afterwards.
First and foremost, lets look at the best possible combination of matrix attributes available to a Technomancer. A typical human Technomancer can have an array of 6 5 5 5, with their 6 placed wherever they deem most important. Maybe they max Intuition because they want 6 sleaze, or maybe they max Logic because they want to improve the majority of their rolls, and end up with a 6 in Data Processing. Or maybe they stick it in Willpower for 6 Firewall. Whatever the case may be, they have 6 5 5 5, and cannot reconfigure these at all. Other possibilities are 7 6 5 5 for an Elf, with the 7 in Attack, 8 5 5 5 for an Elf, with an 8 in Attack, 7 5 5 5 for a Dwarf, with the 7 in Firewall, 6 6 5 5 for the Dwarf, with one of the sixes in Firewall, 7 6 5 5 for the dwarf with Exceptional Attribute allowing for that second 6, 8 6 5 5 for the Elf using Exceptional Attribute, or even 9 5 5 5 on the Exceptional Elf.
No matter what metatype or Exceptional Attribute combo you go with, you're most likely going to end up with your highest possible matrix attribute being a 7, with everything else at 5, with maybe a 6 in there. If you're gung ho about Attack, you can get a 9, but only in Attack. The 7 can only be Attack or Firewall, and none of these attributes can be reconfigured.
By contrast, a starting Decker can have a Sony CIY-750, with an array of 7 6 5 4. However, he also has +1 programs available to him, so he can increase any of those attributes by 1, or if he wants to use all four of his program slots for higher attributes, all of them, giving him an array of 8 7 6 5. He can also put those numbers anywhere he pleases. Need an 8 in Sleaze right now? No problem. Specifically in the case of Sleaze, he also has access to Exploit, which lets him go up to a possible limit of 10 on Sleaze at character creation. It is physically impossible to achieve that with a technomancer, as no metatype gets bonuses to intuition, and even if they were willing to sacrifice resonance for augmentations, there are no augments for Intuition.
I have a question on how important matrix attributes are versus the dice pools a character possesses. with a matrix attribute being say 7 that requires on average 21 dice in the dice pool to meet the limit that the matrix attribute imposes on a character. Can we even push a non awakened decker into the realm of that large of a dice pool or are we just being overly hopeful that we'll get allot of successes on a smaller dice pool?
There are plenty of things Technomancers can do with Puppeteer that deckers can't do at all, but that's one complex form that is more likely to blow your own brains out than to actually work. If you get lucky on dice rolls and actually pull off Puppeteer, good for you. Doesn't change the fact that every other aspect of the technomancer pales in comparison to the decker.
Puppeteer seems like it could be a very powerful complex form. With a force 2 threading of the form you can get 3 marks on any device for only needing 5 fading to resist. can we push the fade resistance dice pool of a technomancer up to 15 reasonably? with the force of the complex form only being 2 wouldn't that also more then likely be stun damage after the resistance test?
Quote from: Xenon on Today at 01:45:49 PM
Nothing that stop a TM to form a PAN on a device rating 6 commlink.... ;)
Nothing to stop everyone else on the team from doing that either. Deckers are still innately better at being the head of a team PAN, not only because they can get higher firewall, but because they have access to Wrapper. Running all the gear on the team silent might draw attention, but making all their smartguns look like credsticks is a lot harder to spot.
The technomancer can also use complex forms to increase the firewall rating of the commlink to something more respectable like 9 or even higher and use sprites to defend the device if needed. the street sam can't say the same thing. The one downside to this set up I see is that the dice pool to resist being noticed while running silent is based off of logic alone as the commlink doesn't have a sleaze rating. The wrapper idea is pretty cool as well though. One can always leave the wireless off until the team is ready to go in hot I suppose. Isn't it a free action to activate somethings wireless capability? I seem to remember reading that but I'm too tired ATM to look it up to verify.
well I'm a going to bed its late and this post is long enough for now
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A rating 12 host defend and attack with 24-27 dice (depending on the hosts matrix attribute array). This include, but is not limited to, Mark and Edit Files.
It is a free action to go wireless OFF (at least if you have DNI). To turn it back on require that you physically touch it (since it is now wireless OFF you can no longer control it wireless).
I would assume that it will take (at least) a simple action p(er device) you want to turn wireless ON. Possible more if there isn't a manual switch or button you can press so that you are forced to connect to it via universal data connector to turn the wireless ON.
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@deathwishjoe
From your posts it seem add if you are asking very much for hybrid decker.
A few viable combinations include, but is not limited to;
Physical Adept Decker
Hermetic Magician Decker
Street Samurai Decker
Breaking and Entry Decker
On the Decker-side you basically only need Intuition, Computer, Hacking, Electronic Warfare and a moderate cyberdeck. All the rest can go into your primary role.
And if you don't mind optimization you could even go with a dedicated decker skilled with 1h firearms such as pistols or automatics and get an agility 9 armored cyberarm for a solid 15 dice (or 17 with specialization). Pretty buff for a character that focus on mental attributes... Throw in a few armored used feet and a left hand. With an armor jacket and a helmet you are now looking at 26 armor...(!)
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A rating 12 host defend and attack with 24-27 dice (depending on the hosts matrix attribute array). This include, but is not limited to, Mark and Edit Files
So we take what I would think to be a medium sized organization of hackers and find the top three best hackers in the group. Out of maybe 50 people in the group I would think we could find 3 people with 8 in the relevant skills. As far as the stats we can bump those up temporarily by paying a few magicians to cast increase logic, willpower and Intuition on the three for an evening. for simplicity sake lets put those stats at 9. the technomancers of the group spend time registering machine sprites so that they can use diagnostics on the 3 hackers cyberdecks douling the skill portion of the hackers dice pool with team work tests. +2 for hot sim. We can also use a few iterations of the infuse matrix attribute from the technomancers to make sure we don't run into any issues with exceeding our limits. We can also have a few nurses or paramedics with the first aid skill and biomonitors on hand to help with any matrix damage they take.
8 skill
+8 team work from machine sprites
+9 stats augmented by magicians
+2 hot sim bonuses
=27 dice
for three people matching or exceeding the dice pools of the host I would think there is a reasonable chance of success on the mission. There may be even more dice we could squeeze into the 3 amigos I've shown above but I suspect then we start to limit the number of hacking organizations who can ge into the thick of things. As it stands I would suspect at least several dozen groups capable of pulling this sort of thing off in the fluff. It would take a bit of initial investment but Im sure the payoffs would equal or exceed 100-1000 times the investment as long as you were the first one into to host cause once its been hacked the information would lose value rather quickly.
And if you don't mind optimization you could even go with a dedicated decker skilled with 1h firearms such as pistols or automatics and get an agility 9 armored cyberarm for a solid 15 dice (or 17 with specialization). Pretty buff for a character that focus on mental attributes... Throw in a few armored used feet and a left hand. With an armor jacket and a helmet you are now looking at 26 armor...(!)
As GM we all have limits to the amount of optimization we are willing to accept in our games. However when it comes to challenges like these I high encourage you optimize the character as much as possible. push the envelope and see what the game engine can do. 26 armor is indeed impressive but I think you might end up losing out on initiative bonuses this route. The single cyber arm has always been one of my favorite pieces of gear for a character.
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A rating 12 host defend and attack with 24-27 dice (depending on the hosts matrix attribute array). This include, but is not limited to, Mark and Edit Files
So we take what I would think to be a medium sized organization of hackers and find the top three best hackers in the group. Out of maybe 50 people in the group I would think we could find 3 people with 8 in the relevant skills. As far as the stats we can bump those up temporarily by paying a few magicians to cast increase logic, willpower and Intuition on the three for an evening. for simplicity sake lets put those stats at 9. the technomancers of the group spend time registering machine sprites so that they can use diagnostics on the 3 hackers cyberdecks douling the skill portion of the hackers dice pool with team work tests. +2 for hot sim. We can also use a few iterations of the infuse matrix attribute from the technomancers to make sure we don't run into any issues with exceeding our limits. We can also have a few nurses or paramedics with the first aid skill and biomonitors on hand to help with any matrix damage they take.
8 skill
+8 team work from machine sprites
+9 stats augmented by magicians
+2 hot sim bonuses
=27 dice
for three people matching or exceeding the dice pools of the host I would think there is a reasonable chance of success on the mission. There may be even more dice we could squeeze into the 3 amigos I've shown above but I suspect then we start to limit the number of hacking organizations who can ge into the thick of things. As it stands I would suspect at least several dozen groups capable of pulling this sort of thing off in the fluff. It would take a bit of initial investment but Im sure the payoffs would equal or exceed 100-1000 times the investment as long as you were the first one into to host cause once its been hacked the information would lose value rather quickly.
There really isn't a reasonable chance of success in that example. A host can have up to its rating in IC running at once, each rolling Host Rating *2 dice, possibly with a +2 on there if IC count as being in Hot-Sim the way agents do. That's twelve IC programs against your three hackers, and four to one odds with equal dice pools are terrible odds. Especially since IC can't be stopped permanently. If the deckers do manage to brick any of them, the host will just launch another one at the beginning of the next combat turn. And that's without the host having equally good security spiders on their side, which they definitely would.
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A host can have up to its rating in IC running at once, each rolling Host Rating *2 dice, possibly with a +2 on there if IC count as being in Hot-Sim the way agents do. That's twelve IC programs against your three hackers, and four to one odds with equal dice pools are terrible odds. Especially since IC can't be stopped permanently. If the deckers do manage to brick any of them, the host will just launch another one at the beginning of the next combat turn.
in order to not brain fry your lead research scientist or god forbid a high level executive due to some sort of misunderstanding or read write error on the part of there commlink or something like that anything that could kill you should be stored and then deployed during an alert. while I personally didn't go higher then patrol IC in the original challenge for this very reason the rating 12 host might have a few blaster IC active patrolling the area before the host realizes its under attack. This way it would only knock out or seriously harm someone during a misunderstanding and not kill them. It then deploys one IC per combat turn just like lower level hosts.
The real question is how long does it take to locate and DL all the pay data on the host? the hackers need only fight off the IC for that long before making a retreat.
And that's without the host having equally good security spiders on their side, which they definitely would.
While the security spiders might be as skilled as the 3 people going in they aren't very likely to have all the support the three themselves have. your looking at needing to have roughly three shifts of spiders guarding the host 24-7, then having 2-3 mages per spider to buff there mental stats each day and each shift and then a small group of technomancers who can call and register the sprits each day fo reach shift an then a few more on top of that to increase each of there matrix attributes with complex forms. Now the Matrix spiders probably costs close to a million nuyen each. we've got highly trained professionals with high salaries along with needing the best matrix equipment money can buy and keeping them ahead of the curve as new tech comes out. Then we have 2-3 mages each which arent cheap. I mean only some people can become mages and as such there services are never cheap. So lets say another million nuyen a year for the magician support per spider per shift. Now finally we have the technomancers. Most corps don't trust them and have been hesitant to hire them in the first place. Assuming the corp was able to get over its paranoia of technomancer in order to feed its paranoia of people stealing there data were looking at an even smaller pool to hire from then mages and since there so new its not like there are any universities they can get training from in the traditional sense for a long term life contract style of investment most mages get. were pobably looking at another 1-2 million a year per hacker per shift.
Maybe I'm wrong but to me this just doesn't seem financially viable. But since only megacorps can generally afford this level of host (I assume at least since prices for a host aren't listed) and there aren't many other cost effective ways of protecting them maybe I'm wrong and its worth it. How much money is the megacorp willing to pay annually on matrix security though for one host? Its not like its the only host the megacorp needs to worry about and they will probably have a few of these in different parts of the world.
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1: Every file on a host that secure is likely to be Protected. You cannot copy or read a Protected file without breaking the Protection. Cracking a file is an Attack action, and thus immediately notifies the host that it is being hacked as soon as it is successful. It is impossible by the existing matrix rules to steal even one file without the Host being aware its being hacked. The countdown would begin immediately, and you have 3 deckers that have to fight off the incoming horde, and at least one of them needs to devote all his attention to copying files.
2: Security Spiders can launch IC in a host. So if there's a dedicated spider in the host (and there would be), they can get a full regiment of IC running much faster than your team of three deckers can take them out.
3: Never assume that a runner team is better equipped and better supported than the corps. That is never true.
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Perhaps you underestimate the amount of money corps are willing to spend on security. I can honestly see a corp like Evo, or hell, Ares that would spend this much nuyen to protect something. I mean, when they have experimental data that could make them trillions or quadrillions of nuyen, then sinking 10 million into just security doesn't seem so bad. If your data gets out, you could lose all your profits. Not to mention that some of these megacorps are run by dragons, and I'm sure we all know how long term their plans are. Personally, if I were running a megacorp that had data that was this valuable, I'd shell out enough to top all of your hackers, set up multiple security spiders, make sure everything is nearly impossible to discover to begin with, and have a lot of Track IC running anyways. 2 hits on you gets your physical location, which any megacorp who is this invested in security can probably annihilate with no issues.
So, is hacking it possible? Yes. Feasible? Not so much. Sure the rewards are amazing, but the fact that you probably have to run hotsim and that everyone involved has large chance of dying, not so amazing.
Oh right, don't forget the billion black IC that make it impossible to leave the host. They fry your brain too.
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2: Security Spiders can launch IC in a host. So if there's a dedicated spider in the host (and there would be), they can get a full regiment of IC running much faster than your team of three deckers can take them out.
I'm not seeing where this is listed. Its not in the listings of matrix actions and I didn't see it in the section talking about IC but maybe I missed it. Another interesting note is that a host can only have 1 of each type of IC active at any time. Kinda sucks not being able to have 5+ Black IC fighting on your side.
I can honestly see a corp like Evo, or hell, Ares that would spend this much nuyen to protect something. I mean, when they have experimental data that could make them trillions or quadrillions of nuyen, then sinking 10 million into just security doesn't seem so bad.
10 million only gets you one spider buffed like that on shift at any given time. Plus there's the costs for the host itself which can't be cheap but is currently unwritten so who knows. Since the hardware costs of the host are spread around the world in the cloud the only financial solution for paying for a host has to be a fee paid to whatever megacorps are in charge of the basic structure of the matrix. probably all of the big ten get a share of the fees and share the maintenance costs of the hardware itself.
Oh right, don't forget the billion black IC that make it impossible to leave the host. They fry your brain too.
You can still jack out you just take dump shock. Also remember we have nurses on site to help with the damage.
2 hits on you gets your physical location,
hack from a bunch of trucks when the run is over drive off. by the time the po po catch wind and get someone on location your long gone delivering milk to the thirsty suburbs.
even if the numbers are an issue a few of these organization could band together and share the loot. Now I have images of a cyberpunk oceans eleven.
After much thinking on the matter I think I've found a reasonable way of protecting data in the new rules. If the data is stored on a device the device itself could be made inaccessible being surrounded by brick steel or whatever. The device will have a switch which employees will use to connect the device to the host when they need to use it. during an alert the host should be able to severe all data connections with these sorts of devices thereby making the information inaccessible. The data Is still vulnerable while its being worked on but presumably there are a bunch of other people on the host during business hours working which would make a stealth option of getting the data very difficult.
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The core book mentions data on a host only accessible if an allowed user accesses it first. It's called an Archive. Host Archives, page 247. There's no info on how to access an Archive, which will presumably be in Data Trails.
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The core book mentions data on a host only accessible if an allowed user accesses it first. It's called an Archive. Host Archives, page 247. There's no info on how to access an Archive, which will presumably be in Data Trails
They specifically say that the only way of accessing it is to have someone who already has a mark on it bring it out of archives. I have to say in a world like shadowrun this s really a silly idea. Sure it makes an interesting complication for a team of runners but can you imagine what kind of headaches this causes for company executives or system administrators who are unable to access files because an employee was killed or captured? maybe your company has a policy though where a local system admin or your direct manager ill also have marks on all files you archive thereby having some sort of redundancy in place if you are no longer a company asset. Well this system then breaks down during a local disaster and lets face it there are a lot of those in the 6th world.
So I'm going to adjust the original post soon to update it accordingly. I don't think however that I will be using the archived file set up as it requires a bit of social engineering. While one can indeed make a hacker with skills in also being a face I feel the combat requirements would stretch the system too far to be good at all three areas.
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Spiders are considered owners of all files, devices in a host's WAN, and vehicles (which are technically devices). So, if they have a security spider/decker, they could retrieve the files out of the host. It is a hassle, I will admit.
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I've updated the original post. If there's any issues please feel free to voice them and I'll do what I can. Wish I could keep the 3 tiered system but alas its not an option. I have a few finishing touches to make to a hacker I've been working on. If no one posts any attempts in the few couple of days I'll post him and his attempt for this run as a baseline.
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"You can tap devices with data taps but then wont be able to work against the items device rating."
You get a direct connection to both the cyberdeck and the security device if you attach a physical cable to the data tap....
Cyber decks are also pretty darn expansive. You would get payed more for this run to just shot the guard in the front desk, steal the cyberdeck and fence it for money....
Faraday cage work both ways. How can you seems a message to KE if all devices is within Faraday cage?
It sounds a bit extreme to have everything wired and shielded, including the first floor and the first floor elevator..
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I'll update with an alternate scenario soon
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Suggestion:
All devices and hosts are located on the Renraku Global Grid.
Two security cameras on the first floor that overlook the front door and reception area are not slaved to a host, but they are running silent. The live feed is send to a file in the a rating 7 Renraku Security Host (Local Corporation Host) for safe storage. The elevator on the first floor is not slaved to a host.
The elevator on the 3rd that goes up to the top floor as well as maglocks on the third and top floor are all slaved to the rating 7 Security Host. All security devices (camers, sensors etc...) on the 3rd and top floor are running silent and slaved to the rating 7 Security Host. Live feed from cameras are sent to the rating 7 Security Host for safe storage. There is a camera right outside the first elevator on the 3rd floor that will capture any shadowrunners that exit the elevator unless they take actions.
The actual lab is surrounded with rating 4 wireless inhibiting wallpaper and the new hot "Bust-A-Move II" and a data bomb are both stored in a protected file on a wired off-line device in the lab.
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*sighs* I have to say it rankles me to think of having wireless accessible security devices. However I concede the for the purpose of this challenge having things connected to the relatively high level host will be sufficient.
Cyber decks are also pretty darn expansive. You would get payed more for this run to just shot the guard in the front desk, steal the cyberdeck and fence it for money....
well, who wants to buy a cyberdeck that's owned by someone else? another one of those areas where the matrix rules are weak. For all we know at this point ALL electronic devices with the ability of having a registered owner may be functionally unfencible. technically the grand you have in your pocket was the upfront amount you got for the run and the amount you get for complementing the run is as of yet undisclosed. Assuming you could fence it your looking at probably getting about 1/3 or less of the items value which comes to about 60K. This is allot of money but truth be told you could make as much or more boosting cars for a living. At least with a high end car there isn't a guard standing withing reach of the item usually. I'll admit that this does pose a problem. too bad commlinks can't run agents anymore.
It sounds a bit extreme to have everything wired and shielded, including the first floor and the first floor elevator..
well were looking at a remodeling job. It's not cheap but certainly not out of reach of even a small office. what amounts to chicken bailing wire is installed underneath the drywall or futuristic equivalent. its then attached to a ground wire so when the electromagnetic waves turn into a current in the cage it has somewhere to go. A special conductive film is placed over the windows and plugged into a ground wire as well and your good to go. Theoretically 4 guys an afternoon and a few hundred dollars could shield a small office if it weren't for the fact that the bailing wire is ugly as sin and people would want it installed under the drywall. While we are tearing up the drywall might as well make everything wired and run the data cables around the building next to the power cables going through everything.
"You can tap devices with data taps but then wont be able to work against the items device rating."
You get a direct connection to both the cyberdeck and the security device if you attach a physical cable to the data tap....
I could have sworn I read otherwise. I don't know where I saw it but a quick read of the rules shows you are correct sir.
Faraday cage work both ways. How can you seems a message to KE if all devices is within Faraday cage?
the idea was to have some sort of wireless device just outside the cage that was wired directly to the cyberdeck but somehow limit it to only one way communication. calls go out but nothing goes in. *shrugs*
However all that aside the ability to hack a rating 7 host multiple times does indeed serve the purpose of showing that the character can hack a difficult target.
All devices and hosts are located on the Renraku Global Grid.
Sorry if this wasn't said earlier. I guess I forgot to mention that this was the case.
Two security cameras on the first floor that overlook the front door and reception area are not slaved to a host, but they are running silent. The live feed is send to a file in the a rating 7 Renraku Security Host (Local Corporation Host) for safe storage. The elevator on the first floor is not slaved to a host.
So by not slaving them to a host we are essentially asking the challengers to take an opposed test to locate the hidden devices against a dice pool of 4? the cameras would fall under the security item heading under device rating and since there is no host or cyberdeck to provide a sleaze rating we roll against just the device rating if I remember correctly. If I'm correct on this then you might as well just have the security spider watch Adam West batman reruns for as easy as it would be to nullify the cameras. It would take a little thought on the players part to make sure the spider didn't see anything but the point here is to challenge the characters not the players.
The elevator on the 3rd that goes up to the top floor...
the entire office was supposed to be three floors + a basement level or two. nothing really big as then they might have an on site HTR team. I've based the elevator idea off of a few things I've seen in the real world. I worked in an office which was I think 5 stories tall. The CEO of the company was rather well known and voiced his political views quite frequently. As such there were more then a few threats on his life and bomb threats to the building. As such you had to use a key card in the elevator to access certain levels of the office building. I've also seen express elevators in much taller buildings that jump right past the lower levels and directly to the higher levels. Combine these two ideas together and we have a special elevator that only executives and scientists use. In a world of Shadowrunners and corporate espionage this seems practical. Keep all high value targets on the top floor and limit who can and cannot reach said floor.
So looking back at the challenge how do we pose both physical challenges that a combat secondary character can and indeed have to over come and matrix challenges the a hacking primary character needs to overcome? To be honest aside from the two fights and hacking the high level and pretty well guarded host everything else is secondary. I've tried to put some level of believability into the scenario but my experiences and expectations are off from what others here have. There also needs to be a bit of written in railroading which while normally is bad for an adventure we want this one to force the character into certain challenges and not allow them to bypass them creatively.
I wish I had more examples of matrix security in the current edition. Any place that employed or outsourced even one security spider will have had to spend some major nuyen to protect its assets.
The elevator on the 3rd that goes up to the top floor as well as maglocks on the third and top floor are all slaved to the rating 7 Security Host. All security devices (camers, sensors etc...) on the 3rd and top floor are running silent and slaved to the rating 7 Security Host. Live feed from cameras are sent to the rating 7 Security Host for safe storage. There is a camera right outside the first elevator on the 3rd floor that will capture any shadowrunners that exit the elevator unless they take actions.
The actual lab is surrounded with rating 4 wireless inhibiting wallpaper and the new hot "Bust-A-Move II" and a data bomb are both stored in a protected file on a wired off-line device in the lab.
So in this instance on the elevator ride up or before we show up to the office entirely we hack the host and then either regain access to edit the video feeds and unlock the doors. We then locate the lab it's stored in and then hack a low level device to get the info?
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If we slave the easy to physically access cameras in the public reception area then we make it to easy for them to get a physical direct connection and with that a mark on the host. By having them unslaved we still force the hacker to fight device rating x 2 (which would be the same if he get a direct connection anyway - and for a hybrid build that just have a little hacking on the side might still struggle.... This will also start the timer for the Renraku demiGOD to begin his search) but we prevent him from getting a free mark on the host.
The big matrix challenge will be to hack the first slaved camera before you exit the elevator. You can't physically connect to it without first being recorded. This is where you would normally use improved invisibility while exiting the elevator or have the B&E expert use the service tunnel or ventilation system.
Either you walk out of the elevator. Get caught on film which might or might not raise an alarm. Establish a direct connection to the camera (Decker only). Hack it and with that gain a mark on the host. Enter host. Now you have a direct connection to all other devices. Hacking the protected video file will still use host ratings (so hacking will be very hard). Finding it would probably be a matrix search test with a base time of one minute (reduced by net hits).
Or you hack the device wireless. It will defend with host ratings so this test will be really hard. A TM with cleaner and/or static veil could start the run some 10 hours earlier by hacking the host. Once you get a mark on the host you can enter it and use the direct connection to the device to bypass host ratings. Edit the camera feed in the camera in real time as the elevator doors open.
Once you are in the host you get a direct connection to all devices and you will probably not have much trouble with high matrix ratings from this point.
The device the file is located on might for example be a high rating commlink. The file protection is not depending on the device (but limited by the Data Processing attribute of the device we used when we protected the file). The data bomb rating is not depending on the device either (but limited by the Sleaze attribute of the cyberdeck used to create the bomb).
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If we slave the easy to physically access cameras in the public reception area then we make it to easy for them to get a physical direct connection and with that a mark on the host. By having them unslaved we still force the hacker to fight device rating x 2 (which would be the same if he get a direct connection anyway - and for a hybrid build that just have a little hacking on the side might still struggle.... This will also start the timer for the Renraku demiGOD to begin his search) but we prevent him from getting a free mark on the host.
Let me just rephrase what you are saying so I can make sure I understand where your comming from. The issue with slaving the cameras in the front entrance area is that it would allow a hacker using a direct connection to put a mark on the camera resisted against the cameras inferior dice pool which would also transfer over to the host. More or less meaning that we get marks on the host with out having to go up against the hosts crazy dice pool which I think we both agree is bad.
The big matrix challenge will be to hack the first slaved camera before you exit the elevator. You can't physically connect to it without first being recorded. This is where you would normally use improved invisibility while exiting the elevator or have the B&E expert use the service tunnel or ventilation system.
So there's the mirror shades version but it occures to me pink mowhawk just wears a mask they put on during the elevator ride up and shoots the camera. Even if we reduced the knight errant response time to somthing like 3-5 mins we would need something to slow down the character a bit or they just walk out before the cops show up. No need to deal with the host and we bypass the possibility of gettng into matrix combat. Sure when they get to the device they have some decent pools against them if we assume the databomb and the file protection are done by the host but a significant portion of the challege is still bypassed.
I've been mulling around a few ideas. I like having the cameras slaved to something with a sleaze rating. that way they can run silent with a decent dice pool. The Cyberdeck idea was nice because if there was any sort of breach of security on any of the devices an alert is sent out directly. what if we wired everything to a commlink at the front desk and have everything including the commlink slaved to an off-site cyberdeck running an agent like before. This seems like a very affordable method of doing matrix security for a small company.and having it offsite fixes the issue with people stealing it. They should have a reasonable number of dice in order to run silent or defend against hacking. Now you can still wirelessly connect to the slaved commlink thereby getting marks on the cyberdeck and the security devices. This method would not however gain you access to the high level host. In order to get a direct connection you need to use a data tap but the benefit of this can be limited by using securty level or higher devices.
I really liked the button idea I had. It forced the characters into the building and forced them into the high level host. However the more I think about it the more I think its vulnerable to data taps. I can prevent direct connections using standard data cables using archetecture to make the device more or less inaccessable but with a building surrounding it its going to have noise issues and if we wire a cable off to an antenna or dish on the roof for good reception its then vulnerable to data taps. Even if the device is put on the roof and an armored casing is built around it your not going to want the casing ruining the connection and that means an antenna or dish outside the casing which will have a cable going to it which can again be tapped. .
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Re not slaving public or easy access devices. Yes.
However, I am not sure it is a bad thing. It still resist with device rating x 2 dice. This is the same amount of dice it resist with if you "hack" a maglock "manually", using lockpicking.
It will still be a challenge to a samurai, adept or hermetic magician with a bit of hacking on the side. Advantage of the on site hybrid is that he can use a physical direct connection to bypass host ratings (which would be impossible for him to hack).
A dedicated hacker should not really have much problem hacking devices, or else it would be pointless to bring one. It would be much safer to bypass them "manually". The big challenge for a dedicated hacker is to get that initial mark on the host without raising alarms (and without physical attributes he will probably do it from a distance) and to copy and/or alter host protected files.
From the rest of your post it seem as if you want to make it really difficult for the hacker to support his team. In that case you could just slave each device to a different host.... But I don't really agree that it is the GMs job to make the players role impossible to act out.... quite the opposite. You should probably create flaws that your players can abuse. Maybe there is a service hatch in a semi public area (like the underground garage where visitors are allowed to park) with a maglock slaved to the same host as security devices on the 3rd floor....
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UPDATED
So I've heard a lot of arguments and discussions about the viability of technomancers as opposed to standard deckers. The following post is a challenge to all the character optimizers out there to show us what this new edition can do in relation to deckers and technomancers. I've always felt that all characters will need to contribute in combat no matter their archetype so there will be some meat space combat involved.
that right there is the techno's biggest disadvantage. Deckers can have reaction enhancers and wired reflexes, or Synaptic boosters. Technos can never get their physical initiative score up without drugs or edge. Also throw in the fact that deckers can have 1 agi 1 str and then buy crazy 9 agi/str cyber arms and be boss. Techno's cant afford any dump stats or dump priorities and cant afford the essence loss that comes with cyber that closes the combat gap.
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From the rest of your post it seem as if you want to make it really difficult for the hacker to support his team. In that case you could just slave each device to a different host.... But I don't really agree that it is the GMs job to make the players role impossible to act out.... quite the opposite. You should probably create flaws that your players can abuse. Maybe there is a service hatch in a semi public area (like the underground garage where visitors are allowed to park) with a maglock slaved to the same host as security devices on the 3rd floor....
Remember this isn't a mission for regular players to play with me as the GM. This is a challenge designed to stretch an individual player and see where his limits lie. When designing an obstacle course I don't want people skipping a tire swing over the mud pit portion of the course because they found a path off of the course skipping ahead. Now I'll admit I've spent way more time and effort into this challenge then I ever would as a GM trying to dick with potential challengers. However let me walk you through the latest iteration before I go through the work of posting it.
So before entering the building we need to jump to the Renraku grid and hack the security system. its running silent so matrix perception to notice it (you already know its there. The Commlink at the front desk is slaved to an offsite Microtronica azteca 200 running a level 4 agent and a stealth program. its current ASDF is 2345 before the bonus from stealth. The agent moves around the office space in the matrix looking for hidden icons and making sure each device is still connected to the commlink and thus the cyberdeck.
watching and waiting to hack the commlink and get marks on the cyberdeck and thus control over the security network while the agent is in another part of the office wont be too hard. first you'll need to find it since its running silent resisted by 8 dice. then you'll need to get a mark on the device. Since we don't want an alert you'll need to hack on the fly or use puppeteer. This would be resisted by 9 dice. You would then capture some video going through the commlink to the cyber deck and put it on a loop. technically the rules say you should spend a complex action each turn on editing but it sounds like what they mean is to remove your image manually from a live feed and the image looping trick is featured in allot of the stories. so lets say resisted by 9 dice for the edit.
we then walk in and fight the mooks. after the fight use the mark you have on the commlink to spoof the elevator door. resisted by 9 dice again.
go on up to the third floor and fight the guard there.
So I've come up with the following solution to forcing people into the third floor and then on to the always connected host. The host has always had the file needed for the run however due to not knowing the file name and the protections on the file (which would make it unsearchable according to the matrix search table) you need to find the team leads workstation. Hacking a commlink/workstation (not slaved currently to anything) to get the project name and the file name for the info you need and then hacking the host stripping the protections on the file and run like hell.
we then locate the commlink on the third floor and hack it after we turn it on. device rating lets say 4 so resisted with 8 dice. get the info and verify it and then hack the host. Here's where the real hacking begins
So hack on the fly, puppeteer or brute force attack to get a mark on the host resisted with 17 dice. your probable going to need some edge assistance here.
Once in you need to go to the file and begin stripping the protection which will be resisted by lets say rating 4 protection or 8 dice. This will however trigger an alert if successful and the host will begin launching ICE and the patrol IC currently active and the spider will search for you in earnest. the host and its IC (first turn should have the patrol and black IC out are rolling 14 dice to spot you and the spider is rolling 12 dice. If they find you then they initiate combat while your trying to defuse the data bomb. You may even get link locked. if you fail against 8 deice by some chance then you have a turn of the spider and patrol IC trying to find hidden icons on there host.
you then need to notice the data bomb using a matrix perception test. Since its probably running silent were looking at 14 dice to perceive it. after wards we need to disarm it. I'm guessing a rating 4 data bomb. it should be high enough that no one wants to try and set it off since its likely to kil or seriously harm. Id use an even higher number but it looks like setting a data bomb requires that someone use net hits against device rating which I assume is the same as the host rating. Otherwise what the device rating for a file? even then 4 may be a bit high I dunno. once the data bomb is removed and as long as no one has linked locked you it should be good. just log off or if you have jack out and take your dump shock.
looking back over this I see this is a difficult run for a single person to make. I don't know for certain if the hacker I built as a baseline can actually do it. he might very well die mid run. Also my thinking may be wrong on several points and I'll have to redo the whole thing.. again... but well see. If my hacker doesn't take any lucky shots on the way up the office building and doesn't attract too much attention on the host h should be fine I think.
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@imveros post your best combat hacker then. I recently reformatted my computer and while I can rebuild him Im sure itll take me some time. We can compare notes between the builds and in the mean time I can focus on getting the specifics of the challenge worked out.
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Sounds like fun. I've been working a few combat decker builds for a game a friend of mine will be running in the near future. I'll try to get it out today, but if i cant find the time, i wont be able to post him till the start of next week. Leaving for a wedding tomorrow and I'm a fool who never invested in a laptop :(
The jist of the build is:
A $
B Skills
C Stats
D Human
E Magic
Low physical stats supplemented by cyber arm cheese, a low to mid range deck (so as to afford more battle cyber) using programs and edge to bring the limits where i need them
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...if we are using stuff like low physical attributes but an agility 9 cyberarm you might as well also shift magic to D and metatype human to E (special points into edge). get 2-5 points of augmentations during step 6 of chargen (including, but not limited to, a couple of armored used feet and a left hand) and left over karma in step 7 of chargen to raise your magic rating to get 1-4 power points (depending on how much augmentations you went for).
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I've updated the original post.
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TBH it is not too hard to just con your way through the guards at the entrance. How many dice do they roll to judge intentions or to see through lies? I think it is easy to pretend that it was a pranker call and just share a (clorophormed) pizza with them. You just need to say that your boss will charge you the cost of the pizza anyway so why not give them a discount to not pay the whole price yourself? Then the camera's feed will be edited. If everything goes smoothly then the guard on the 3rd floor will be unalert and it will be easier to take him down one way or another. Is it possible to talk your way inside or you are looking for an ultimate combat hacker build?
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TBH it is not too hard to just con your way through the guards at the entrance.
I would beg to differ. Even if they believe the lie they're going to stick to company policy and procedure much like the cops from that movie Idiocracy.
I think it is easy to pretend that it was a pranker call and just share a (clorophormed) pizza with them. You just need to say that your boss will charge you the cost of the pizza anyway so why not give them a discount to not pay the whole price yourself?
roll well enough and you might even get some nuyen out of them. will they let you past the front desk. probably not.
The problem with chloroformed pizza is most knock out drugs will more then likely have a strong smell and or taste. If you can find one that is odorless and tasteless in the rule book Id allow it.
If everything goes smoothly then the guard on the 3rd floor will be unalert and it will be easier to take him down one way or another.
Via GM fiat the guard on the third floor calls down to the guards on the first to check in and ask why the security elevator is in use. He freaks out when they don't respond and is ready and waiting for you. the jazz has made him quite paranoid and he shoots to kill. Even faces need to fight sometimes.
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Your points are solid, ESPECIALLY about the guard on the 3rd, I was just throwing in some suggestions. As far as I remember the opposite of the stim patches (don't have a book right here and don't remember the name) don't have a smell or taste. You know, these things that cause stun damage on contact.
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tranq patches aren't really edible. .you could slap them on the first two guards. Id recommend r10 tranq patches or else they might not go under. successful palming roll after you convince them to chill with you a while with the pizza. Then you'd need some sort of hand to hand dice pool spit since your using bot hands probably unresisted but there's a chance for a glitch.
It's doable but personally a HE or flash-bang with a wireless trigger hidden in the pizza box would probably be simpler. When they ask you who the pizza is for put it down on the reception desk pat your pockets like your looking for a receipt or something and say "just a moment" while you casually jog out the front door leaving the pizza behind and boom! I suppose you could also use some inhalation vector drug in a gas grenade as well. It'd be quieter.
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You don't need to eat them, a contact is enough. If you bite a tranq patch that is slapped to the bottom of the pizza that is quite enough to get S damage IMO.
It is easier to just outright kill those guards but I feel uneasy when it comes to some Joe McGuard and Stan Watchsky that just happened to stay on the way. I know they are imaginary but...
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It is pretty obvious that OP want a combat character that can hack (a hybrid Decker), and not a dedicated hacker that is super focused on mental attributes and hacking from a safe distance or use social engineering....
In a more shadowrun realistic scenario you would have the samurai, adept or magician deal with human patrols (if physical breaking and entry would even be required - maybe you could just get the pay data from the virtual host without getting close to the physical facility at all).
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It is easier to just outright kill those guards but I feel uneasy when it comes to some Joe McGuard and Stan Watchsky that just happened to stay on the way. I know they are imaginary but...
I would recommend one of three options. And this list is by no means exhaustive for characters who want non lethal alternatives.
Defiance EX shocker stun-gun and tazer.
your favorite SS or SA gun loaded with gell rounds
your favorite gun loaded with stick-n-shock rounds.
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So the following is a baseline for the hacker build. We'll call him cowboy. I'm tossing about 14 dice for anything relevent. You might be able to get some dice pools higher but not with out sacrificing
something else and even then only to the 15-16 area. I havn't done alot of experamentation in the adept hacker area and it might fare better I don't really know. if someone wants to build
one and show me up then thats cool too.
== Priorities ==
Metatype: D - Human
Attributes: B - 20 Attributes
Special: E - Mundane
Skills: C - 28 Skills/2 Skill Groups
Resources: A - 450,000¥
== Info ==
Movement: 4/8
Composure: 8
Judge Intentions: 9
Lift/Carry: 5 (30 kg/20 kg)
Memory: 11
Nuyen: 70
== Attributes ==
BOD: 3
AGI: 2
REA: 2 (5)
STR: 2
CHA: 3
INT: 6
LOG: 5 (6)
WIL: 5
EDG: 5
== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 0.42
Initiative: 11 + 3d6
Physical Damage Track: 10
Stun Damage Track: 11
Damage overflow: 4
== Limits ==
Physical: 4
Mental: 8
Social: 4
Securetech PPP kits: -3 if visible
Astral: 8
== Active Skills ==
(2 Close Combat Group)
Blades : 2 Pool: 4 (11 when using cyber-arm)
Clubs : 2 Pool: 4 (11 when using cyber-arm)
Computer : 6 Pool: 12
Cybercombat : 6 Pool: 12
Electronic Warfare : 6 Pool: 12
Hacking : 6 Pool: 12
HArdware : 1 Pool: 7
Perception : 3 Pool: 9
Pistols : 4 [Visual] Pool: 6 (13 when using cyber-arm)
Software : 1 Pool: 7
Unarmed Combat : 2 Pool: 4 (11 when using cyber-arm)
== Qualities ==
Mild Addiction to long haul
Insomniac basic
Allergy uncommon mild peanuts
Natural Hardening
== Lifestyles ==
Low 1 months
== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Cerebral Boosters R1
Obvious full right arm Used
(armor 2, custom agility 6, customer strength 6, enhanced agility 3, enhanced strength 2, spurs)
Reaction enhancers r1 used
Wired reflexes r2 used
== Armor ==
Armor Jacket 12
Securetech PPP: Arms Kit 1
Securetech PPP: Legs Kit 1
Securetech PPP: Vitals Kit 1
Cyber Armor 2
== Weapons ==
Spurs Pool: 11 Accuracy: 4 DV: 5P AP: -4 Reach: 0
Ares Crusader II
+Concealed Quick-Draw Holster
+Gas-Vent 2 System
+Smartgun System, Internal
+Sound Suppressor
Pool: 14 Accuracy: 6 DV: 7P AP: - RC: 5
Fichetti TIffani Needer
Pool: 13 Accuracy: 5 DV: 8P(f) AP: +5 RC: 1
Unarmed Attack
Pool: 11 Accuracy: 4 DV: 2P AP: - RC: 1
== Electronic Devices ==
Novatech Navigator (Device rating: 3, ATT: 6, SLZ: 5, DP: 4, FWL: 3)
Renraku Sensei (Device rating: 3, ATT: 0, SLZ: 0, DP: 3, FWL: 3)
== Gear ==
Ammo: APDS (Machine Pistols) 70
Ammo: Flechette Rounds (Holdouts) 20
Armor
Baby Monitor
Biofeedback
Biofeedback Filter
Blackout
Browse
Configurator
Contacts R2
Image Link; Smartlink
Data Tap
Decrypt
Defuse
Demolition
Earbuds R3
Audio Enhancement 3
Edit
Encryption
Exploit
Fake License (Concealed Carry Permit) R4
Fake License (Driver's License) R4
Fake License (Cyberdeck License) R4
Fake SIN (Charles Carmichael) R4
Fork
Glasses R4
Thermographic Vision; Vision Enhancement 3
Guard
Hammer
Lockdown
Mugger
Shell
Signal Scrub
Sneak
Stealth
Subvocal Mic
Toolbox
Track
Trodes
Virtual Machine
Wrapper
==================================================================================
Cowboy sat inside a coffin motel accross the street and on the corner from the renraku subsidiary. He lit up a coffin nail while his commlink pulled up the most recent jackpoint articles posted to the p2p network as he went over the mission details in his head.
Satisfied with his plan he stubbed out his cigarette on a small potted plant in his "room" sitting on a 3 inch ledge next to the bed one can use to put there personal belongings on. He wasn't sure why but this place deffinitly seemed to try too hard. He flipped on his cyberdeck and adjusted his profile for for the business at hand. (A:3 S:6 D:4 F:5) he jumps into hot sim mode and jumps over to the Renraku Grid.
Hack on the fly action hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. Limit:Sleaze 6 (14) Vs 6 dice for global grid (6)
6,1,6,1,3,6,4,2,6,6,4,6,6,2 (7 limit:6) VS 6,2,1,1,3,3, (1)
OS: 1
He then tries to locate the icon for the office buildings security system.
Matrix perception test Computer 6 + Inuition 6 +2 hot simm. Limit:Data Procesing 4 (14) VS Logic 6 + Sleaze 4 (10)
6,5,5,5,4,6,2,1,2,1,2,6,5,2 (7 limit 4) VS 1,2,3,6,2,4,1,1,5,5 (3)
OS: 4
So far so good. having located the commlink he pulls out his exploit program which looks like a scoped revolver. he takes and and fires away.
Hack on the fly action hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. Limit:Sleaze 6 + 2 exploit (14) Vs 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
5,1,1,5,1,3,4,2,2,5,1,2,3,5, (4 limit 8) VS 1,1,1,6,2,2,5,6,5, (4)
Ooops! tie would go to the defender so were going to need to use some edge to reroll. 4/5 edge left
6,4,6,3,5,3,1,5,1, (4 + 4)
OS: 8
Success! we now have one mark on the commlink and as its slaved to the cyberdeck we have a mark on that as well. Lets keep trying till we get three marks.
Hack on the fly action hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. Limit:Sleaze 6 + 2 exploit (14) Vs 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
4,3,4,6,1,2,5,5,4,3,1,6,3,2, (4 limit 8) VS 4,6,4,3,6,3,5,1,5, (4)
hrmmm this isn't going well. 3/5 edge
5,6,6,5,5,2,5,4,5,5 (4 + 8 limit 8)
OS: 12
Hack on the fly action hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. Limit:Sleaze 6 + 2 exploit (14) Vs 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
1,5,6,2,5,6,3,3,2,1,5,1,6,5, (7 limit 8) VS 1,2,2,1,5,4,3,2,1, (1)
Well we now have three marks. lets stroll over to the office building.
OS: 13
lets a we get stopped in the lobby by some chatty person and it takes 15 mins to get over to the office building entrance in our disguise. 2d6 = 5,5, or 10
OS: 23
Cowboy waltzes into the front door of the office building with a bit of swagger in his step like he owns the place. With a grin on his face he waves at the guards and says "Hey guys, Ive got a large pizza delivery here for..."
Surprise test!
Cowboy
reaction 5 + intuition 6 + 3 not surprised VS 3
1,4,3,3,4,6,1,3,3,6,2,6,2,4, (3) success!
Guard 1
reaction 4 + intuition 3 VS 3
2,6,3,2,3,3,5 (2) failure
Guard 2
reaction 4 + intuition 3 VS 3
2,3,6,3,5,2,6 (3) success
Initiative
Cowboy 11 + 3d6 4,4,4 = 23
Guard 1 7 + 1d6 3 -10 surprised = 0
Guard 2 7 + 1d6 3 = 10
Cowboy tries to quick draw his machine pistol.
pistol 4 + Reaction 5 (9) VS 3
4,3,6,1,3,3,2,4,6 (2) Failed
Cowboy fires a full auto burst into guard 2's center mass
Pistol 4 + Cyberarm Agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS Reaction 4 + Intuition 3 -5 full burst (2)
3,4,1,2,1,3,5,6,6,2,2,5,4,5 (5) Vs 5,2, (1)
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 4 = 11
VS
Modified Armor value 9 - 4 = 5 damage is physical
Body 4 + modified armor 5 (9) vs 11P damage
2,1,5,1,6,2,3,3,2 (2) Soaks 2 damage and takes 9
Guard 2 initiative 12 -3 = 9
Guard 2 used a simple action to ready his stun baton and moves to position to charge next action.
Next initiative step
Cowboy 23 - 10 = 13
Guard 1 0
Guard 2 9 - 10 = 0
Cowboy fires a full auto burst into guard 1's center mass who is still surprised
recoil from last round: 6 -1 automatic -2 gas vent -3 strength = 0
Pistol 4 + Cyberarm Agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS nothing
2,4,5,5,5,4,4,5,4,2,6,1,2,1 (5)
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 4 = 12
VS
Modified Armor value 9 - 4 = 5 damage is physical
Body 4 + modified armor 5 (9) vs 12P damage
5,3,1,2,6,5,1,6,5, (5) soaks 5 damage and takes 7
Next initiative step
Cowboy 13 - 10 = 3
Guard 1 0
Guard 2 0
Cowboy takes an action to edit himself out of the video feed.
Computer 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. (14) Limit:Data processing 4 VS intuition 3 + firewall 6 (9)
2,1,1,1,4,1,2,6,6,5,2,5,5,3, (5 limit 4) VS 4,6,6,6,4,1,2,1,1 (3)
Cowboy 11 + 3d6 1,1,5, = 18
Guard 1 7 + 1d6 2 - 2 wounds = 7
Guard 2 7 + 1d6 1 - 3 wounds = 5
Cowboy fires a full auto burst into guard 1's center mass
Pistol 4 + Cyberarm Agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS reaction 4 + Intuition 3 -2 wounds -5 full auto (0)
2,6,5,3,3,4,6,5,6,6,3,2,2,5 (7) vs (0)
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 7 = 14
VS
Modified Armor value 9 - 4 = 5 damage is physical
Body 4 + modified armor 5 (9) vs 14P damage
3,4,1,4,3,6,1,1,4, (1) soaks 1 damage and takes 13
Lets just call that head splodey.
guard 2 charges with his stun baton
Agility 4 + Unarmed 3 + charge 2 - wounds 3 (6) VS reaction 5 + Intuition 6 (11)
4,6,6,1,4,6 (3) VS 2,3,1,2,1,3,6,4,5,6,2 (3) tie goes to the defender.
Cowboy takes an action to edit himself out of the video feed.
Computer 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. (14) Limit:Data processing 4 VS intuition 3 + firewall 6 (9)
4,2,6,1,2,6,5,6,2,4,4,2,4,1 (4 limit 4) VS 4,1,5,2,1,1,1,6,4, (2)
Initiative
Cowboy 11 + 3d6 4,5,2 = 22
Guard 1 dead
Guard 2 7 + 1d6 4 -3 wounds = 8
Cowboy fires a full auto burst into guard 2
Pistol 4 + Cyberarm Agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS reaction 4 + Intuition 3 -3 wounds -5 full auto (0)
5,1,4,4,2,2,5,6,2,1,1,6,1,3, (4) vs (0)
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 4 = 11
VS
Modified Armor value 9 - 4 = 5 damage is physical
Body 4 + modified armor 5 (9) vs 11P damage
5,1,3,5,5,2,2,6,3, (4) soaks 4 damage and takes 7
...and another one bites the dust.
Cowboy takes an action yet again to edit himself out of the video feed.
Computer 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. (14) Limit:Data processing 4 VS intuition 3 + firewall 6 (9)
2,6,2,3,6,5,6,3,2,6,2,6,1,1 (6 limit 4) VS 1,1,6,5,4,3,1,4,5, (3)
Cowboy heads over to the elevator sending the commlink a signal to open the elevator door as he begins reloading the clip of his gun.
that was surpisingly alot of work. I think i'm about 1/3 to halfway through the run. I'll post the rest later
-
The elevator door opens just as cowboy finishes relaoding the machine pistol.
Surprse test
Cowboy reaction 5 + intuition 6 VS 3
1,6,3,2,1,5,6,5,6 (4) success
Ork Guard reaction 5 + 1 jazz + intuition 3 + 6 ambush VS 3
1,5,1,6,3,2,4,4,1,1,3,1,3,1,3 (2) failure
Initiative test (P.S. I've never really liked the surprise rules for shadowrun.)
Cowboy 11 + 3d6 5,3,4 = 23
Ork Guard 8 + 3d6 3,2,4, - 10 = 7
Cowboy sends a full auto burst fire at the ork guard
Pistol 4 + agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS reaction 5 + jazz 1 + Intuition 3 - 5 full burst + 4 cover (8)
1,4,6,5,5,3,1,2,2,6,2,3,6,1 (5) VS 1,6,2,6,1,3,1,5 (3) 2 net hits
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 2 = 9
VS
Modified Armor value 12 - 4 = 8 damage is physical
Body 7 + modified armor 8 (15) vs 9P damage
6,6,4,5,1,2,6,5,4,6,2,4,2,3,4 (6) Soaks 6 damage and takes 3
Ork Guard Initiative 7 - 1 = 6
The Ork guard sends a full auto burst cowboys way
Automatics 3 + agility 4 - wound 1 (6) VS Reaction 5 + Intuition 6 = full auto burst 5 (6)
3,4,1,2,6,5 (2) VS 5,4,1,4,1,6 (2) Grazing hit no damage
Next initiative step
Cowboy 23 - 10 = 13
Ork Guard 6 - 10 = 0
Cowboy fires a full auto burst at the ork guard
Pistol 4 + agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS reaction 5 + jazz 1 + Intuition 3 - 5 full burst + 4 cover (8)
2,1,5,4,2,6,5,5,4,3,3,4,5,5 (6) VS 6,6,4,1,3,3,4,4, (2) 4 net hits
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 4 = 11
VS
Modified Armor value 12 - 4 = 8 damage is physical
Body 7 + modified armor 8 (15) vs 11P damage
5,6,3,2,5,6,6,2,2,4,3,6,6,6,4 (8) Soaks 8 damage and takes 3
Next initiative step
Cowboy 13 - 10 = 3
Ork Guard = 0
Cowboy fires a full auto burst at the ork guard
Pistol 4 + agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS reaction 5 + jazz 1 + Intuition 3 - 5 full burst + 4 cover - 2
wounds(6)
2,1,3,5,3,3,2,6,1,3,4,4,6,5 (4) VS 4,3,3,3,5,5, (2) 2 net hits
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 2 = 9
VS
Modified Armor value 12 - 4 = 8 damage is physical
Body 7 + modified armor 8 (15) vs 11P damage
5,1,4,4,6,4,5,6,3,5,1,4,1,4,5 (6) Soaks 6 damage and takes 3
Initiative test
Cowboy 11 + 3d6 5,1,6 = 23
Ork Guard 8 + 3d6 6,5,2 - 3 wounds = 18
Cowboy fires a full auto burst at the ork guard
Pistol 4 + agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS reaction 5 + jazz 1 + Intuition 3 - 5 full burst + 4 cover - 3
wounds(5)
3,2,1,3,2,5,4,6,3,2,4,4,2,4 (2) VS 5,4,2,6,6 (3) 0 net hits
Miss! it never goes easy, does it?
The Ork guard sends a full auto burst cowboys way
Automatics 3 + agility 4 - wound 3 (4) VS Reaction 5 + Intuition 6 - full auto burst 5 (6)
1,1,4,3 (0) VS 3,5,4,2,1,1, (1) No Net hits
Next initiative step
Cowboy 23 - 10 = 13
Ork Guard 18 - 10 = 8
Cowboy fires a full auto burst at the ork guard
Pistol 4 + agility 9 + 1 smartlink (14) VS reaction 5 + jazz 1 + Intuition 3 - 5 full burst + 4 cover - 3
wounds(5)
4,6,6,5,4,4,5,1,2,2,4,3,4,3 (4) VS 3,3,3,6,5, (2) 2 net hits
Compare modified damage value of 7 + 2 = 9
VS
Modified Armor value 12 - 4 = 8 damage is physical
Body 7 + modified armor 8 (15) vs 9P damage
2,4,1,1,2,2,2,5,2,6,2,3,3,3,2, (2) Soaks 2 damage and takes 7
after a total of 16 damage the ork guard is dead
Cowboy heads over to the lead developers desk an finds the commlink at his desk. He plugs his cyberdeck directly into the device and gets his free mark on the device. Well say though that to get the names of previously worked on files from the history flder we need 3 marks.
Hack on the fly
Hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS device rating 4 + device rating 4 (8)
6,3,3,2,2,3,1,6,5,4,4,2,4,3, (3) VS 6,1,5,1,3,5,2,2 (3)
failure. oh ell lets try again. rather then using edge to reroll and prevent an alert for the device we'll just take the alert and keep trying. we wont b here long enough to be caught.
Hack on the fly
Hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS device rating 4 + device rating 4 (8)
3,5,6,6,1,5,3,1,6,2,6,6,4,4, (7) VS 6,1,3,3,4,1,6,3, (2)
we get a second mark.
Hack on the fly
Hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS device rating 4 + device rating 4 (8)
3,5,6,6,1,5,3,1,6,2,6,6,4,4, (7) VS 6,1,3,3,4,1,6,3, (2)
we get a second mark.
Hack on the fly
Hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS device rating 4 + device rating 4 (8)
5,2,3,6,4,5,5,1,6,5,5,5,4,3, (7) VS 6,2,6,1,1,5,3,2, (3)
we get a third mark.
we grab the info off the commlink and hightail it out of there.
Cowboy edits himself off of the cameras on his way out before beginning his hack.
Computer 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm. (14) Limit:Data processing 4 VS intuition 3 + firewall 6 (9)
3,1,4,4,2,5,3,5,2,2,2,2,1,6 (3 limit 4) VS 3,5,1,4,3,6,1,2,3, (2)
after we reset the cyberdeck and once we are out of the neighborhood we'll find a coffee shop thats open late. Cowboy would order a soy latte and after getting himself comfortable he would begin the hack on the node. We load up exploit and stealth to help us out.
Hack on the fly against the host
Hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS host rating 7 + Firewall 10 (17)
3,4,6,4,1,1,4,2,2,4,5,3,6,2, (3) VS 2,2,6,4,1,5,1,3,3,6,3,5,3,5,6,5,1, (7)
Spend an edge to reroll failures 2/5
2,4,2,1,5,1,1,4,3,3,6, failed
Host gets a mark on us and an alert is sounded.
OS: 7
So we are not even into the host yet. I dont think it makes sense for the spider to come out of the host and lose his defensive position. He can send a message to knight errant informing them of an attempted break in. Because things happen in the matrix so much faster lets say we have one combat round before one of knight errants cyber crime teams comes to check it out. wel'l copy the security spider stated out and send two of them over to the outisde of the host. everybody roll initiative.
Cowboy 10 + 4d6 4,6,2,1 23
Patrol IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 2,4,1,4, 27
Spider 9 + 4d6 6,5,6,2, 28
Cyber crimes agent 1 inactive
Cyber crimes agent 2 inactive
Host deploys Black IC
Black IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 3,1,4,4, 28
Black IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
3,5,5,5,2,1,2,2,2,6,1,5,2,4 (5) No icons running silent found
The Spider takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12)
6,2,2,2,1,4,5,1,4,1,1,2, (2) No icons running silent found
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
1,4,6,2,4,2,5,1,2,1,2,3,6,1 (3) No icons running silent found.
Cowboy tries erase the mark on himself he got from the host
Computer 6 + Logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS Host rating 7 + firewall 10 (17)
3,4,1,1,4,6,2,1,3,2,3,4,5,5, (3) VS 1,4,2,2,4,6,1,4,3,5,2,5,6,3,3,6,6, (5)
Ill need to use some edge here or I wont be able to sneak in at all. At this point I suspect I am going to fail.
4,4,2,4,3,2,3,2,1,1,1
1 edge left
OS 12
Next initatve pass
Cowboy 23 - 10 = 13
Patrol IC 27 - 10 = 17
Spider 28 - 10 = 18
black IC 28 - 10 = 18
Black IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
1,6,1,1,6,1,5,5,4,1,4,1,1,2 (4) No icons running silent found.
The Spider takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12)
1,3,6,6,2,3,3,3,6,1,5,3, (4) No icons running silent found
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
6,3,4,6,6,1,3,1,4,4,6,3,5,3, (4) No icons running silent found.
Cowboy tries erase the mark on himself he got from the host
Computer 6 + Logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS Host rating 7 + firewall 10 (17)
4,3,1,6,6,1,6,1,3,6,4,2,6,6, (6) VS 5,3,2,5,1,5,6,6,2,5,1,6,2,2,6,6,6, (10)
OS 22
I'd spend another edge here but I'm hoping to spend my last one getting a mark on the host.
Next initatve pass
Cowboy 13 - 10 = 3
Patrol IC 17 - 10 = 7
Spider 18 - 10 = 8
black IC 18 - 10 = 8
Black IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
6,1,4,5,6,6,5,5,6,2,1,1,3,3 (7) No icons running silent found.
The Spider takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12)
1,2,3,6,2,4,1,1,5,5,1,1 (3) No icons running silent found.
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
1,6,2,2,5,6,5,4,6,4,3,6,3,5, (7) No icons running silent found.
Cowboy tries to erase the mark on himself he got from the host
Computer 6 + Logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS Host rating 7 + firewall 10 (17)
4,6,6,2,6,5,5,5,4,6,2,1,2,1, (7) VS 1,5,1,2,2,1,5,4,3,2,1,5,5,2,6,3,2,(5)
Finally the mark is removed.
OS 27
New initative round
Cowboy 10 + 4d6 2,6,5,2, 25
Patrol IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 3,3,5,2 29
Spider 9 + 4d6 3,6,3,5 26
Cyber crimes agent 1 9 + 4d6 2,6,3,5, 25
Cyber crimes agent 2 9 + 4d6 2,2,1,5, 19
Black IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 1,6,2,3, 28
Host deploys Sparky IC
Sparky IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 3,2,5,3, 29
Wow! thats alot of heat. If cowboy cant get in on this next action I think hes going to high tail it out of here
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
1,2,6,5,1,6,5,4,6,6,6,4,1,2, (7) No icons running silent found
Sparky IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
1,1,2,1,3,4,1,4,3,6,1,1,4,4, (1) No icons running silent found
Black IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
6,6,1,4,6,4,1,5,2,1,1,1,6,4 (5) No icons running silent found
The Spider takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12)
4,5,1,3,5,5,2,2,6,3,1,1, (4) No icons running silent found.
Cowboy does a Hack on the fly against the host
Hacking 6 + logic 6 + 2 hot simm (14) VS host rating 7 + Firewall 10 (17)
5,1,1,5,1,3,4,2,2,5,1,2,3,5, (4) VS 6,5,4,3,1,4,5,1,5,1,6,3,2,4,4,1,1, (5)
OS 32
Spend an edge to reroll failures 0/5
6,4,6,3,5,3,1,5,1,4, Success! we have our mark. might be too little too late
CC Agent 1 Spends an action to locate any hidden icons,
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12)
3,1,3,1,3,3,2,4,1,6,2,6, Success! They know something fishy is afloat.
free action to notify agent 2 of the hidden icon close by.
CC Agent 2 Spends an action to locate the hidden icon running silent,
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12) VS Computer 6 + Intuition 6 (12)
1,3,1,5,6,6,4,5,1,2,6,5, (6) VS 3,4,6,1,2,5,5,4,3,1,6,3, (4)
Cowboy has been spotted.
Next intitiative pass
Cowboy 25 - 10 = 15
Patrol IC 29 - 10 = 19
Spider 26 - 10 = 16
CC agent 1 25 - 10 = 15
CC agent 2 19 - 10 = 9
Black IC 28 - 10 = 18
Sparky IC 29 - 10 = 19
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
4,6,2,4,2,3,4,3,4,1,2,6,5,6, (4) No icons running silent found
Sparky IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
6,4,1,3,3,4,4,5,6,3,2,5,6,6, (5) No icons running silent found
Black IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
2,2,4,3,6,6,6,4,4,3,3,3,5,5, (5) No icons running silent found
The Spider takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12)
5,1,4,4,6,4,5,6,3,5,1,4, (5) No icons running silent found.
Cowboy uses a complex action to get inside the host.
the CC agents see cowboy enter the Host and send a message to the spider to have the host invite a mark from each of them.
Next intitiative pass
Cowboy 15 - 10 = 5
Patrol IC 19 - 10 = 9
Spider 16 - 10 = 6
CC agent 1 15 - 10 = 5
CC agent 2 9 - 10 = 0
Black IC 18 - 10 = 8
Sparky IC 19 - 10 = 9
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
1,4,5,6,5,2,5,4,2,6,6,1,1,4 (6) well someones hiding
It notifies the host and spider of its findings
Sparky IC tries to directly locate cowboy now that hes inside
Host rating 7 X2 (14) VS Computer 6 + Intuition 6 (12)
3,3,3,3,6,5,2,4,1,1,2,2,2,5 (3) VS 2,5,6,6,5,5,2,5,4,5,5,1, (8) Failure still cant locate him
Black IC tries to directly locate cowboy now that hes inside
Host rating 7 X2 (14) VS Computer 6 + Intuition 6 (12)
2,6,2,3,3,3,2,6,1,5,1,3,5,2, (4) VS 5,6,2,5,6,3,3,2,1,5,1,6, (6) Failure still cant locate him
Is this going to actually work?
Spider spends two simple actions to invite marks for the po po. Gotta trust the police right?
Cowboy begins looking for the file with a matrix search.
Computer 6 + Intuition 6 + 2 hotsimm
5,1,4,3,3,4,6,1,3,3,6,2,6,2, (4)
1 min = 20 combat turns. we are down to 2.5 combat turns
CC agent 1 enters the host
CC agent 2 enters the host
New initative round
Cowboy 10 + 4d6 4,4,4,4 26
Patrol IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 2,6,1,3, 28
Spider 9 + 4d6 3,4,1,6 23
Cyber crimes agent 1 9 + 4d6 3,6,2,6 26
Cyber crimes agent 2 9 + 4d6 1,1,5,3, 19
Black IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 2,3,5,1, 27
Sparky IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 4,3,6,1 30
Host deploys killer OC
Killer IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 3,3,6,3 31
killer IC tries to directly locate cowboy now that hes inside
Host rating 7 X2 (14) VS Computer 6 + Intuition 6 (12)
5,3,5,6,5,1,2,4,1,4,6,5,6,2 (7) VS 4,3,6,1,3,3,2,4,6,3,4,1, (2) he's spotted
Sparky IC Attacks Cowboy
host rating 7 X 2 (14) vs intuition 6 + firewall 5 (11)
3,1,4,4,3,5,5,5,2,1,2,2,2,6 (4) VS 2,1,3,5,6,6,2,2,5,4,5 (5)
for a failed attack action sparky takes 1 damage for each net hit cowboy made. so it takes 1 damage
Patrol ice twiddles its thumbs for now.
Black IC attacks cowboy
host rating 7 X 2 (14) vs intuition 6 + firewall 5 (11)
1,5,2,4,6,2,2,2,1,4,5,1,4,1 (3) VS 2,4,5,5,5,4,4,5,4,2,6, (5)
Black IC takes 2 damage
Cowboy finishes up his search for the file.
Computer 6 + Intuition 6 + 2 hotsimm
1,2,1,2,1,1,1,4,1,2,6,6,5,2 (3) found the file. If his luck keeps up maybe he makes it out with the data
CC agent 1 sends a data spike cowboys way
Cyber Combat 6 + Logic 6 + 2 hotsimm (14) VS intuition 6 + firewall 5 (11)
1,2,1,4,6,2,4,2,5,1,2,1,2,3 (2) VS 5,5,3,1,1,5,2,6,5,3,3, (5)
The agent takes 3 damage.
The Spider sends a data spike cowboys way.
Cyber Combat 6 + Logic 6 + 2 hotsimm (14) VS intuition 6 + firewall 5 (11)
6,1,1,4,2,2,4,6,1,4,3,5,2,5, (4) VS 4,6,5,6,6,3,2,2,5,2,3, (5)
spider takes a point of damage
CC agent 2 sends a data spike cowboys way
Cyber Combat 6 + Logic 6 + 2 hotsimm (14) VS intuition 6 + firewall 5 (11)
6,3,3,6,6,1,6,1,1,6,1,5,5,4 (7 limit 4) VS 1,2,1,3,6,4,5,6,2,4,2, (3)
Cowboy resists 5 matrix damage
device rating 3 + firewall 5 (8)
6,1,2,6,5,6,2,4, (4)
and takes 1 point of matrix damage
Next initative pass
Cowboy 26 - 10 = 16
Patrol 28 - 10 = 18
Spider 23 - 10 = 13
CC agent 1 26 - 10 = 16
CC agent 2 19 - 10 = 9
Black IC 27 - 10 = 17
Sparky IC 30 - 10 = 20
Killer IC 31 - 10 = 21
Killer IC Attacks Cowboy
host rating 7 X 2 (14) vs intuition 6 + firewall 5 (11)
1,4,1,1,2,1,3,6,6,2,3,3,3,6, (3) VS 4,2,4,1,4,5,2,5,1,4,4, (2)
Cowboy resist 9 matrix damage
device rating 3 + firewall 5 (8)
2,2,5,6,2,1,1,6 (3)
and takes 6 damage
Sparky IC Attacks Cowboy
host rating 7 X 2 (14) vs intuition 6 + firewall 5 (11)
1,5,3,6,3,4,6,6,1,3,1,4,4,6 (5) VS (3) 1,3,2,6,2,3,6,5,6,3,2, (4)
Cowboy resist 9 matrix damage with biofeedback now
device rating 3 + firewall 5 (8)
6,2,6,1,1,1,6,3, (3)
and takes 6 damage his device is bricked,
Cowboy resists biofeed back damage now
willpower 5 + firewall 5 (10)
2,1,5,6,5,6,5,3,4,1, (4)
and takes 5 physical damage to the brain
SInce his device is no longer working he takes dump shock damage as well.
He tries to soak 6p damage
willpower 5 + firewall 5 (10)
4,6,5,5,3,1,2,2,6,2, (4)
and takes another 2 damage
hes still aive but will probably need to spend some time learning how to eat solid foods in a hospital while he recovers. Well thats all folks this run is over. I have a technomancer which I think has a better chance of accomplishing the run but we will see.
-
Well that was educational!
-
So this technomancer build I feel harkens back to the SR4a days of the hacker rigger combination archetype. I feel that while certainly it fullfills both the roles of decker and rigger it does the hacker role very unconventionally and IMHO does them both better then non technomancers.
I did make a few assumptions when making this character. The first assumption is that when adding turrets to drones that they are the equivalent to SR4a's internal turrets as opposed to concealed turrets or external turrets. This means that the turrets on this technomancers drones can be covered or are not readily obvious from a distance. The second assumption was that sprites are able to use the send messege action in the matrix since they as far as I'm aware unable to directly store information. The third assumption is faraday cages are quite uncommon when it comes to security design. Yes they hose riggers who aren't onsite but they require that a building be built with the cage in the designs or a rather extensive remodel. They also limit what sort of matrix security that can be used in a building. Not having gone over the new chicago missions I do not recall a single faraday cage being used to defend a property in any of the other missions.
== Priorities ==
Metatype: E - Human
Attributes: B - 20 Attributes
Special: A - technomancer compiling 5 registering 5
Skills: C - 22 Skills
Resources: A - 140,000¥
== Info ==
Movement: 4/8
Composure: 9
Judge Intentions: 10
Lift/Carry: 3
Memory: 10
Nuyen: 190
== Attributes ==
BOD: 2
AGI: 2
REA: 3
STR: 1
CHA: 4
INT: 6
LOG: 5
WIL: 5
EDG: 3
== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 5
Initiative: 9 + 1d6
Physical Damage Track: 9
Stun Damage Track: 11
Damage overflow: 2
== Limits ==
Physical: 3
Mental: 7
Social: 6
Astral: 7
== Active Skills ==
Compiling (Crack Sprite) : 6 Pool: 11 (13) crack sprite
Decompiling : 1 Pool: 4
Disguise : 1 Pool: 7
Electronic Warfare : 4 Pool: 9
Gunnery : 4 Pool: 6
Pilot Aircraft : 3 Pool: 6
Polit ground craft : 1 Pool: 4
Pilot Walker : 4 Pool: 7
Registering (machine sprites) : 6 Pool: 11 (13) Machine Sprite
Software : 5 Pool: 10
== Qualities ==
Focused Concentration 2
Moderate Allergy to Pollution
Outspoken Prejudices against Go-Gangers
UCAS SINer
== Lifestyles ==
Middle 1 months
== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Control Rig rating 1 1 essence
== Armor ==
Armor clothing 6
== Weapons ==
Ares Alpha
+Smartgun System, Internal
Pool: 12 Accuracy: 7 DV: 11P AP: -2 RC: 3
Under barrel Grenade launcher
Pool: 12 Accuracy: 6 DV: grenade AP: - RC: SS
== Electronic Devices ==
Easy motors DroneMaster (RCC)(Device rating: 3, ATT: 0, SLZ: 0, DP: 4, FWL: 4)
Transys Avalon (Commlink) (Device rating: 6, ATT: 0, SLZ: 0, DP: 6, FWL: 6)
Living personna (Device rating: 5, ATT: 4, SLZ: 6, DP: 5, FWL: 5)
== Gear ==
Ammo: APDS (Assault Rifles) 270
Autosoft (Evasion) R6 1
Autosoft (Targeting (Ares Alpha))R6 1
Fake License (Drone License)R3 1
Fake License (Driver's License) R3 1
Fake SIN (Alice Liddell) R3 1
Grenade: High Explosive 9
Signal Scrub 1
Virtual Machine 1
Wrapper 1
== Vehicles/ drones ==
Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit (Subcompact) "The White Rabbit"
handling: 4/3 Accel: 2 Speed: 3 Pilot: 1 Body: 8 Armor: 4 sensor: 2(0) Seats: 2 Device: 3
Sensor Array Rating 2
MCT-Nissan Roto-drone (Medium) "Tweedle-Dee"
handling: 4 Accel: 2 Speed: 4 Pilot: 3 Body: 4 Armor: 4 sensor: 3(0) Seats: 0 Device: 3
sensor array rating 3 (smartlink)
weapon mount: Ares Alpha
MCT-Nissan Roto-drone (Medium) "Tweedle-Dum"
handling: 4 Accel: 2 Speed: 4 Pilot: 3 Body: 4 Armor: 4 sensor: 3(0) Seats: 0 Device: 3
sensor array rating 3 (smartlink)
weapon mount: Ares Alpha
Shiawase Caduceus 'CAD' 7 (Medium) From Bullets and Bandages page 23 "white knight"
handling: 4 Accel: 1 Speed: 2 Pilot: 2 Body: 5 Armor: 3 sensor: 1(0) Seats: 0 Device: 3
sensor array rating 3 (smartlink)
weapon mount: Ares Alpha
Autosoft (Evasion) Rating 6;
Autosoft (Targeting (Ares Alpha)) Rating 6;
Sensor Array Rating 2 (Smartlink) ;
Virtual Machine
Shiawase Kanmushi (Microdrone) "Dormouse"
handling: 4 Accel: 1 Speed: 2 Pilot: 3 Body: 0 Armor: 0 sensor: 3(0) Seats: 0 Device: 3
Autosoft (Stealth) Rating 6;
Autosoft (clearsight) Rating 6;
Virtual Machine
Diffusion of [Matrix Attribute] (Firewall) Device S L+1
Infusion of [Matrix Attribute] (Firewall) Device S L+1
Puppeteer Device I L+4
Static Veil Persona S L-1
Transcendent Grid Self I L-3
Machine Sprite Level 5 Services 1 "Walrus"
Machine Sprite Level 5 Services 1 "Carpenter"
So for anyone who's taking an interest in this build but doesn't have Bullets and Bandages I chose the caduceas because its an anthroform drone. With actual hands I don't need team mates to open doors for me and with legs rather then treads I can walk any where a human can rather then geting stuck in a narrow hallway.
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Bad kitty finished the disguise for white knight finishing with a painted on curly mustache. Because everyone knows you cant have a pizza delivery drone wih out a mustache. The plastic red rain poncho works perfectly to further conceal the turret placed in white knights chest and a cicero's pizza hat finished off the costume. After taking a moment to appreciate her work she sends white knight to go have a seat inside the white rabbit. She then hope inside the white rabit herself and tells it to head over to the office building and maintain a holding pattern around it once it gets there. Once there she switchs her perception over into the matrix as hr body goes limp. Bad kitty begins pulling peices of resonance out of the area around her in the matrix to compile a sprite whoes appearence looks like a feline with a large grin.
complex action to compile a rating 8 crack sprite.
Compiling 6 + resonance 5 + specialisation 2 13 vs Sprite level 8
6,1,6,1,3,6,4,2,6,6,4,6, (6) VS 6,2,1,1,3,3,1,2, (1) = 5 net successes
fading of 1 X 2 = 2
Willpower 5 + Resonance 5 vs 2 physical
6,2,6,5,5,5,4,6,2,1, (6) vs 2 no fading damage taken
She then asks the sprite to gain full access to the security commlink at the front desk.
Since this uses one service per round of matrix actions we have the sprite roll initiative.
I might have tried to use the remote services to only use 1 service to edit me out but this seemed to be a little murky rules wise and possibly a little unfair.
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 2,1,2,6, = 29
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
5,2,5,1,1,5,1,3,4,2,2,5,1,2, (4) VS 3,6,2,4,1,1,5,5,1, (3) Success the sprite has one mark on the device
29 - 10 = 19
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
3,5,6,4,6,3,5,3,1,5,1,4,3,4,(5) VS 1,1,6,2,2,5,6,5,4, (4) Success the sprite has two mark on the device
19 - 10 = 9
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
6,1,2,5,5,4,3,1,6,3,2,5,6,6,(7) VS 6,4,3,6,3,5,1,5,1, (4) Success the sprite has three marks on the device.
9 - 10 = 0
1 service used up. 4 services left
She then asks the carpenter to use its diagnostics power on the white knight untill further notice. She directs the white rabbet to park in front of the office building and then jumps into white knight. He picks up the pizza and heads to the front reception area with pizza in hand. "greetings from ciceros I am here to deliver a large delicious "soy"peroni pizza!" says bad kitty in her best robot voice as she walks through the front door.
Surprise test!
BadKitty
Data processing 4 + intuition 6 + 3 not surprised VS 3
5,5,2,5,4,5,5,1,5,6,2,5,6, (9) success!
Guard 1
reaction 4 + intuition 3 VS 3
2,2,1,5,4,3,2, (1) failure
Guard 2
reaction 4 + intuition 3 VS 3
1,5,5,2,6,3,2, (3) success
Initiative
Bad Kitty 10 + 4d6 3,3,2,1, = 19
Guard 1 7 + 1d6 3 - 10 surprised = 0
Guard 2 7 + 1d6 3 = 10
Badkitty takes a simple action to rip off the plastic poncho and deploys the turret
Badkitty then takes another simple action to do a full auto burst at guard 2
Machine sprite diagnostics test 5 X 2
5,1,6,5,1,4,3,3,4,6, (4)
Gunnery 4 + logic 5 + sprite 4 + hotsimm 2 + Smartlink 1 + control rig 1 (17) VS Reaction 4 + Intuition 3 -5 full burst (2)
1,3,3,6,2,6,2,4,4,4,4,4,3,6,1,3,3, (3) vs 5,2 (1) 2 net successes
Compare modified damage value of 11 + 2 = 13
VS
Modified Armor value 9 - 5 = 4 damage is physical
Body 4 + modified armor 4 (8) vs 13P damage
3,6,3,5,2,6,3,5, (4) Soaks 4 damage and takes 9
Guard 2 10 - 3 = 7
Badkitty uses a free action to ask the crack sprite to edit her out of the video footage.
Crack sprites initiative.
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 2,4,6,3 = 33
Crack Sprite takes an action to edit Badkitty out of the video feed.
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS intuition 3 + firewall 6 (9)
4,1,2,1,3,5,6,6,2,2,5,4,5,2 (4) VS 2,2,1,5,1,6,2,3,3 (2) success!
1 service used up. 3 services left
Guard 2 used a simple action to ready his stun baton and moves to position to charge next action.
Bad Kitty 19 - 10 = 9
Guard 1 0
Guard 2 10 - 10 = 0
Badkitty takes a simple action to do a full auto burst at guard 1
Machine sprite diagnostics test 5 X 2
4,5,5,5,4,4,5,4,2,6 (5) limited by skill of 4
Gunnery 4 + logic 5 + sprite 4 + hotsimm 2 + Smartlink 1 + control rig 1 (17) VS 0 surprised
1,2,1,2,1,1,1,4,1,2,6,6,5,2,5,5,3 (5) vs 0
Compare modified damage value of 11 + 5 = 16
VS
Modified Armor value 9 - 5 = 4 damage is physical
Body 4 + modified armor 4 (8) vs 16P damage
2,5,3,1,2,6,5,1, (3) Soaks 3 damage and takes 13 damage and is dead
Next initiative round
Bad Kitty 10 + 4d6 1,1,5,2, = 19
Guard 2 7 + 1d6 6 -3 wounds = 10
Badkitty takes a simple action to do a full auto burst at guard 2
Machine sprite diagnostics test 5 X 2
6,5,3,3,4,6,5,6,6,3,(6) limited by skill of 4
Gunnery 4 + logic 5 + sprite 4 + hotsimm 2 + Smartlink 1 + control rig 1 (17) VS Reaction 4 + Intuition 3 -5 full burst - wounds 3 ()
2,2,5,2,3,1,2,1,3,6,4,5,6,2,4,2,6, (5) vs 0
Compare modified damage value of 11 + 5 = 16
VS
Modified Armor value 9 - 5 = 4 damage is physical
Body 4 + modified armor 4 (8) vs 16P damage
5,4,6,6,6,4,1,2, (3) Soaks 3 damage and takes 13 damage and is dead as well
Badkitty uses a free action to ask the crack sprite to edit her out of the video feed
Crack sprites initiative.
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 1,2,6,5, = 32
Crack Sprite takes an action to edit Badkitty out of the video feed.
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS intuition 3 + firewall 6 (9)
6,2,4,4,2,4,1,4,5,2,5,1,4,4, (3) VS 1,1,2,1,3,4,1,4,3, (0) success!
1 service used up. 2 services left
Bad kitty heads to the elevator and asks the sprite to open the elevator and send her to the 3rd floor.
same initiative round no services used.
Bad kitty takes a ride up, the elevator door opens, and she and the ork guard share an awkward moment no longer then a blink of and eye before they open fire on ach other.
Surprse test
Machine sprite diagnostics
2,2,5,6,2,1,1,6,1,3, (3)
Badkitty data processing 4 + intuition 6 + 2 hotsimm + sprite 3 vs 3
2,6,2,3,6,5,6,3,2,6,2,6,1,1,1, (6) success
Ork Guard reaction 5 + 1 jazz + intuition 3 + 6 ambush VS 3
6,1,1,4,4,6,6,1,4,6,4,1,5,2,1, (5) Success
Initiative test
Badkitty 10 + 4d6 6,3,2,1, = 22
Ork Guard 8 + 3d6 1,1,6, = 16
Badkitty sends a full auto burst fire at the ork guard
Machine spirit diagnostics
5,6,5,6,5,3,4,1,4,6, (6)
Gunnery 4 + logic 5 + sprite 4 + hotsimm 2 + Smartlink 1 + control rig 1 (17) VS reaction 5 + jazz 1 + Intuition 3 - 5 full burst + 4 cover (8)
5,5,3,1,2,2,6,2,3,6,1,5,4,1,4,1,6 (6) vs 4,4,5,1,3,5,5,2, (3) 3 net hits
Compare modified damage value of 11 + 3 = 14
VS
Modified Armor value 12 - 5 = 7 damage is physical
Body 7 + modified armor 7 (14) vs 14P damage
2,6,3,1,1,6,5,4,3,1,4,5,1,5, (5) Soaks 5 damage and takes 9
Ork Guard Initiative 16 - 3 = 13
The Ork guard sends a full auto burst cowboys way
Machine spirit diagnostics
1,3,4,4, (4)
Automatics 3 + agility 4 - wound 3 (4) VS logic 5 + intuition 6 + sprite 4 + 2 Hot simm - 5 full auto (12)
1,6,3,2, (1) VS 3,4,5,5,2,1,3,5,3,3,2,6, (4) miss
Badkitty 22 - 10 = 12
Ork Guard 13 - 10 = 3
Badkitty sends a full auto burst fire at the ork guard
Machine spirit diagnostics
1,3,4,4,6,5,5,1,6,3,(4)
Gunnery 4 + logic 5 + sprite 4 + hotsimm 2 + Smartlink 1 + control rig 1 (17) VS reaction 5 + jazz 1 + Intuition 3 - 5 full burst + 4 cover - wounds 3 (5)
2,1,3,2,5,4,6,3,2,4,4,2,4,3,5,4,2, (3) vs 4,4,1,1,3, (0) 3 net hits
Compare modified damage value of 11 + 3 = 14
VS
Modified Armor value 12 - 5 = 7 damage is physical
Body 7 + modified armor 7 (14) vs 14P damage
1,3,1,3,3,2,4,1,6,2,6,1,3,1, (2) Soaks 2 damage and takes 11 and he's dead.
Bad kitty heads over to the lead developers desk and turns on the commlink there.
She asks the crack sprite to hack the device and message her the name of the blue print file
Initiative
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 1,1,4,6, = 30
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS device rating 4 + device rating 4 (8)
6,5,4,4,5,1,2,2,4,3,4,3,6,3, (4) vs 5,6,6,4,5,1,2,6, (5) failure oh well lets try again
Crack sprite 30 - 10 = 20
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS device rating 4 + device rating 4 (8)
3,2,2,3,1,6,5,4,4,2,4,3,3,5, (3) vs 5,4,6,2,4,2,3,4, (2) success 1 mark
Crack sprite 20 - 10 = 10
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action at a minus 4 for two marks
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids - 4 two marks (10) VS device rating 4 + device rating 4 (8)
6,6,1,5,3,1,6,2,6,6, (6) vs 3,4,1,2,6,5,6,6, (4) success 2 marks.
1 service used up. 1 services left
next initative round.
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 4,4,5,2, = 33
simple action to send messag with file name.
1 service used up. 0 services left
and the crack spirte fades into the resonance. unfortunately bad kitty needs someone to edit her out of the video feed on her way out. Sooo...
-
complex action to compile a rating 8 crack sprite.
Compiling 6 + resonance 5 + specialisation 2 (13) vs Sprite level 8
3,6,4,5,5,1,6,5,5,5,4,3,3, (7) VS 4,1,3,3,4,4,5,6, (2) = 5 net successes
fading of 2 X 2 = 4
Willpower 5 + Resonance 5 vs 2 physical
1,4,4,2,5,3,5,2,2,2, (2) vs 4 whch means bad kitty takes 2 fading damage
she takes the elevator down and asks the sprite to gain access to the security feed edit her out of the video feed.
Initiative
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 2,1,6,3, = 30
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
4,6,4,1,1,4,2,2,4,5,3,6,2,2, (3) VS 3,2,5,6,6,2,2,4,3, (3) draw tie goes to defender
crack sprite 30 - 10 = 20
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
4,2,1,5,1,1,4,3,3,6,4,6,2,1, (3) VS 6,6,6,4,4,3,3,3,5,(4) failure its got 1 mark on the spirte
crack sprite 20 - 10 = 10
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
3,4,1,1,4,6,2,1,3,2,3,4,5,5, (3) VS 5,5,1,4,4,6,4,5,6,(5) failure its got 2 marks on the sprite
Bd kitty gives the sprite the "look" and asks "do you needs some help?"
1 service used for nothing and 4 left
Initiative
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 4,4,2,4, = 32
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
3,2,3,2,1,1,1,4,3,1,6,6,1,6, (3) VS 3,5,1,4,1,4,5,6,5,(4) failure its got 3 marks on the sprite
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
1,3,6,4,2,6,6,4,6,6,2,6,5,5, (8) VS 2,5,4,2,6,6,1,1,4,(3) success! finally. 1 mark on the cyberdeck
crack sprite 22 - 10 = 12
Since bad kitty is still probably in the elevator riding down even after 2 matrix combat rounds we'll assume the sprite uses the rest of the round to scrub the marks off of it.
Sprite takes an erase mark action
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 4 for two marks at once (12) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
5,4,6,2,1,2,1,2,6,5,2,5, (5) VS 3,3,3,3,6,5,2,4,1, (2)
Sucess! 2 marks gone
crack sprite 12 - 10 = 2
Sprite takes an erase mark action
Sprite level 8 X 2 (16) VS 4 intuition + Firewall 5 (9)
1,1,5,1,3,4,2,2,5,1,2,3,5,6,4,6, (5) VS 1,2,2,2,5,2,6,2,3, (2)
Sucess! the sprite is now markless.
1 service used and 3 left.
Badkitty exits the elevator and heads outside
(L X 2 + 2) 18 + 4d6 3,5,3,1, = 30
Sprite takes a complex action to edit Badkitty from the video feed.
Crack Sprite takes an action to edit Badkitty out of the video feed.
Sprite level 8 X 2 - 2 for hacking accross grids (14) VS intuition 3 + firewall 6 (9)
5,1,4,3,4,6,1,2,5,5,4,3,1,6, (5) VS 3,3,2,6,1,5,1,3,5, (3) success!
1 service used and 2 left.
Bad kity has white knight hop inside white rabbit and they drive away from the crime scene. Now for the last little bit. So Badkitty is going to try and attack the host from two sides. First Shes going to lower the firewall attribute of the host as much as she can using firewall diffusion complex form. Second she's going to compile a level 10 sprite to have as many dice against it as she can. Hopefully these two combined will allow her to get the info she needs off of the host.
Badkitty ask the walrus to assist her with threading her complex form goo goo g'joob.
Bad kitty threads diffusion of firewall at level 1 but uses edge to break the limit
Software 5 + resonance 5 + machine sprite 5 (15) VS Host rating 7 + Firewall 10 (17)
3,2,5,6,6,5,5,2,5,4,5,5,1,5,6, (10) VS 2,2,6,1,3,3,4,1,6,3,6,2,6,1,1,5,2, (5)
5 net successes she uses her focused concentration to sustain the threading
Edge 2 out of three left
2 is the minimum Fading she needs to resist against.
Willpower 5 + Resonance 5 vs 2 physical ~interestingly wether or not damage is physical or stun is based off of hits and not level of the complex form.
2,5,6,3,3,2,1,5,1,6, (4) vs 2 no fading damage taken
Bad kitty dismissed the current crack sprite and then threads transcend grid at level 5 so that the next sprite she compiles will be on the renraku grid.
Software 5 + resonance 5 (10)
5,1,4,3,3,4,6,1,3,3, (2) 2 mins of being on every grid.
Willpower 5 + Resonance 5 vs 2 Stun
6,2,6,2,4,4,4,4,4,3, (2) vs 2 no fading damage taken
complex action to compile a rating 10 crack sprite.
Compiling 6 + resonance 5 + specialisation 2 (13) vs Sprite level 10
6,1,3,3,2,4,6,3,4,1,2,1,3, (2) VS 3,5,1,4,3,6,1,2,3,2, (2) = 0 net successes
Spend an edge to reroll failures. 1 of 3 edge left
5,6,6,2,2,5,4,5,2,4,5, 6 net successes!
Willpower 5 + Resonance 5 vs 4 physical
5,5,4,4,5,4,2,6,1,2, (4) vs 4 no fading damage taken.
Okay we have our sprite and we have also lowered the firewall level to 5 but I think we can go further.
Bad kitty threads diffusion of firewall at level 6
Software 5 + resonance 5 (10) VS Host rating 7 + Firewall 5 (12)
1,2,1,1,1,4,1,2,6,6, (2) VS 2,6,4,1,5,1,3,3,6,3,5,3, (4)
Use my last bit of edge to reroll failures.
5,2,5,5,3,1,1,5, (4) this gives us 2 net successes bring it down a further 2 points to 3 firewall.
Willpower 5 + Resonance 5 vs 5 physical
2,6,5,3,3,4,6,5,6,6, (6) vs 5 no fading damage taken.
Bad kitty asks the crack sprite to go into the host and search for the file remove any protections on it and send it to her commlink.
Initiative
(L X 2 + 2) 22 + 4d6 3,2,2,5, = 34
Patrol IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 5,6,5,1, 33
Spider 9 + 4d6 2,4,1,4, 20
The sprite takes a hack on the fly action
Sprite level 10 X 2 (20) VS Host 7 + Firewall 3 (10)
2,3,1,2,1,3,6,4,5,6,2,4,2,6,1,2,6,5,6,2, (7) VS 6,5,6,2,3,1,4,4,3,5,(4) We have a mark on the host
Next Initiative pass
crack sprite 34 - 10 = 24
Patrol IC 33 - 10 = 23
Spider 20 - 10 = 10
crack sprite uses a complex action to enter the host.
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look inside the host for intruders runing silent.
Host rating 7 X2 (14)
5,5,2,1,2,2,2,6,1,5,2,4,6,2, (5) Presence of hidden icons detected
Spider takes a complex action to look for the hidden icon
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12) VS sprite 10 X 2 (20)
2,2,1,4,5,1,4,1,1,2,1,4, (1) VS 4,4,2,4,1,4,5,2,5,1,4,4,2,2,5,6,2,1,1,6, (5) failed to find him
Next Initiative pass
crack sprite 24 - 10 = 14
Patrol IC 23 - 10 = 13
Spider 10 - 10 = 0
Crack Sprite begins looking for the file
Sprite level X 2 = 20
1,3,2,6,2,3,6,5,6,3,2,6,2,6,1,1,1,6,3,2, (7)
Search took a third of a combat round
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look for the hidden icon.
Host rating 7 X2 (14) vs sprite 10 X 2 (20)
6,2,4,2,5,1,2,1,2,3,6,1,1,4, (3) vs 1,5,6,5,6,5,3,4,1,4,6,5,5,3,1,2,2,6,2,3, (9) failed
Next Initiative pass
crack sprite 14 - 10 = 4
Patrol IC 13 - 10 = 3
Crack sprite goes to the file and searches it for any sort of file protection
6,1,5,4,1,4,1,6,2,1,5,4,2,6,5,5,4,3,3,4, (7) sprite finds the data bomb and the level of protection on it.
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look for the hidden icon.
Host rating 7 X2 (14) vs sprite 10 X 2 (20)
2,2,4,6,1,4,3,5,2,5,6,3,3,6, (5) vs 5,5,2,1,3,5,3,3,2,6,1,3,4,4,6,5,5,1,6,3, (8) failed
one service used 5 services left
New initiative round
Crack Sprite (L X 2 + 2) 22 + 4d6 2,1,3,2, = 30
Patrol IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 6,1,6,1, 30
Spider 9 + 4d6 1,6,1,5, 22
Host deploys black IC
Black IC rating 7 + data processing 9 = 16 + 4d6 5,4,1,4, 30
So after going this far I find out that Sprites dont have access to the software skill and you cant default on it. well lets see if the sprite can take the hit.
Crack sprite uses a complex action to crack the file
Sprite level 10 X 2 (20) VS protection rating 4 X 2 (8)
5,4,6,3,2,4,4,2,4,3,5,4,2,1,1,4,6,6,5,4, (6) VS 1,1,2,1,3,6,6,2, (2)
Data Bomb goes off dealing 4d6 damage 3,3,3,6, 15 damage to the sprite
Device rating 10 + Firewall 11 (21) VS 15
4,5,1,2,2,4,3,4,3,6,3,3,2,2,3,1,6,5,4,4,2, (4) soaks 4 damage and takes 11
13 matrix monitor - 11 = 2 barely alive but it works and the protection is off the file.
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look for the hidden icon.
Host rating 7 X2 (14) vs sprite 10 X 2 (20)
1,5,3,6,3,4,6,6,1,3,1,4,4,6, (5) vs 4,3,3,5,6,6,1,5,3,1,6,2,6,6,4,4,5,2,3,6, (9) failed
Patrol IC takes a complex action to look for the hidden icon.
Host rating 7 X2 (14) vs sprite 10 X 2 (20)
3,5,3,5,3,2,5,1,5,6,6,2,5,1, (7) vs 4,5,5,1,6,5,5,5,4,3,3,1,4,4,2,5,3,5,2,2 (8) failed
Spider takes a complex action to look for the hidden icon
Computer 6 + intuition 4 + 2 hot simm (12) VS sprite 10 X 2 (20)
6,2,2,6,6,6,6,1,4,5,6,6, (8) VS 2,2,1,6,3,4,6,4,1,1,4,2,2,4,5,3,6,2,2,4, (4) our sprites been spotted
Crack Sprite 30 - 10 = 20
Patrol IC 30 - 10 = 20
Spider 22 - 10 = 12
Black IC 30 - 10 = 20
Crack Sprite uses a simple action to send a message to badkitty's commlink with the documents and the run is over.
=============================================================================================================
So overall I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. Bad kitty has more dice then cowboy when it comes to initiative, shooting, dodging attacks and what not. I was a bit worried about the viability of the sprites as proxy hackers. Would I be able to get enough services to accomplish the hacking tasks? As we can see the answer is yes. I'm a little concerned about the issue that came up with the data bomb.. Sprites are however expendable if one dies you just summon another.