Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Gathrix on <02-08-17/0525:58>
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The decker in my group wants to slave the other player's commlinks to his deck giving him master status over all the devices slaved to those comms. Does this work? I see on pg 233 that a deck can have DRx3 slaved devices, but I do not see a provision against slaving devices that control other devices.
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Master protection from a device does not transfer beyond anything slaved to that device.
It does work the other way, though. Any marks on the commlink's slaves will apply to the commlink, and the commlink's marks will apply to the deck. Great for massive security breaches, if someone is dumb enough to do it.
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As far as I'm aware, Novocrane is correct. The only way to do what the decker wants is for him to slave everything to his deck. That means the decker would have to have space for enough slaved devices so that the team's commlinks and all accessories can all be slaved. Usually this would be around 3 devices per team member, assuming all you're worried about protecting is commlink, vision enhancement, and weapon.
All that being said, accessories don't have to be slaved to function, it just leaves the individual parts vulnerable to hacking.
Also, unless the team is extremely tight on funds, it wouldn't be hard for each team member to buy Rating 6 commlinks, making the decker's "protection" likely no better than the individual runners on their own.
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The only reason to slave to a deck is if you want to use the sleaze rating to keep them secure from detection.
And even than it's usually better to have a dedicated commlink with a stealth dongle/sleaze mod to take care of the protection.
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I thought no one device could be both slave and master at the same time. So you can't slave a commlink to a deck if its a master of your weapon and eyewear to begin with. Am I wrong? I just read a post a few days weeks ago about some one trying to slave there RCC to a cyber deck to protect there drones and the general consensus seemed to be that he couldn't because the RCC is already a master so it could not be a slave. But in this post it looks like he can but it provides no sleaze protection to hide is drones because it only protects one level lower. Which is it? or am I just a crazy person and misreading this some how?
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Nothing in the core book says whether you a device can be a slave and master at once.
Regardless, you can't slave everything to your deck anyways, because once you form a persona on it, it's no longer a device on the matrix, and thus, cannot be part of a PAN.
But that's okay; the way a decker protects his team is not by just having a high Firewall and giving everyone one or two more dice to resist matrix actions with. They protect the team from matrix threats the same way a street sam protects his team from physical threats. By eliminating them with skill and extreme prejudice.
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Regardless, you can't slave everything to your deck anyways, because once you form a persona on it, it's no longer a device on the matrix, and thus, cannot be part of a PAN.
Catch 22. If you don't form a persona, you're not using the device.
I'm inclined to think that if the RAW of this doesn't change, then forming a persona icon is distinct and separate from the device icon.
That would also nix adding Persona Firmware to your firearms to hide their weapon icon on the matrix.
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The only reason to slave to a deck is if you want to use the sleaze rating to keep them secure from detection.
And even than it's usually better to have a dedicated commlink with a stealth dongle/sleaze mod to take care of the protection.
Agreed. It seems to me like you want extensively-modified high-rating commlinks that provide very high sleaze while taking large penalties to matrix actions you'll never use with them.
My first guess for it is a Transys Avalon (rating 6, firewall 6, data processing 6), plug in a sleaze dongle for 5 sleaze, get a program carrier with virtual machine: Smoke & Mirrors plus a good agent to continuously scan itself and report marks to me. Crank up smoke & mirrors to +5 sleaze and noise, getting us 10 sleaze and a -5 to matrix actions that I don't really care about. Then increase matrix attribute by a few. Then just dump the firewall and data processing as much as I feel comfortable with modify attribute. That could get an absurdly high sleaze, potentially over 20 if we're really shameless in terms of dumping matrix condition, firewall, and data processing. It would cost a pretty penny, especially if you buy the electronics parts rather than just stripping devices, but it would give unparalleled protection to 18 devices. Hell, it makes me want to look up rules to see if I could slave my 'deck to it.
Okay yeah most of that doesn't work. I'm actually kind of glad this isn't how it actually works.
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Regardless, you can't slave everything to your deck anyways, because once you form a persona on it, it's no longer a device on the matrix, and thus, cannot be part of a PAN.
Catch 22. If you don't form a persona, you're not using the device.
If that's the case, how do you use devices that can't form persona? Also, not being able to be in a PAN when you're using it is the main thing that stops people from doing the "I slave my deck to my commlink!" thing.
The only reason to slave to a deck is if you want to use the sleaze rating to keep them secure from detection.
And even than it's usually better to have a dedicated commlink with a stealth dongle/sleaze mod to take care of the protection.
Agreed. It seems to me like you want extensively-modified high-rating commlinks that provide very high sleaze while taking large penalties to matrix actions you'll never use with them.
My first guess for it is a Transys Avalon (rating 6, firewall 6, data processing 6), plug in a sleaze dongle for 5 sleaze, get a program carrier with virtual machine: Smoke & Mirrors plus a good agent to continuously scan itself and report marks to me. Crank up smoke & mirrors to +5 sleaze and noise, getting us 10 sleaze and a -5 to matrix actions that I don't really care about. Then increase matrix attribute by a few. Then just dump the firewall and data processing as much as I feel comfortable with modify attribute. That could get an absurdly high sleaze, potentially over 20 if we're really shameless in terms of dumping matrix condition, firewall, and data processing. It would cost a pretty penny, especially if you buy the electronics parts rather than just stripping devices, but it would give unparalleled protection to 18 devices. Hell, it makes me want to look up rules to see if I could slave my 'deck to it.
That is some of the most disgusting cheese I've ever seen. Thankfully a lot of that isn't possible. You can only do one cyberdeck modification; so Virtual Machine module hardwired in is where you're done. That's still really awful though... Virtual Machine used there seems unintended, and you know my feelings on S&M (...the program, not the sexual practice). 10 Sleaze on a commlink basically means most of your gear won't be found by anyone but experts. Even your own hacker might struggle unless your LOG is abysmal.
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Sleaze 5 Dongle is something like $75k Nuyen. Tad expensive. Literally cheaper to pick up the Data Anomaly Quality post-char gen for 6 Karma (~12k Nuyen) than it is to get that 5th point of Sleaze on the Dongle.
Depending on how many devices you really need to keep Running the EvoTech Himitsu with a Program Carrier (Smoke and Mirrors&Stealth) gets you to 11 Sleaze out of the gate, grab a Receiver Dongle and you're down to a manageable three Noise on the Commlink. Data Anomaly and you're up to 13 dice plus Logic to run silent. Stick a Wireless off Nixdorf Sekratar in the UDP and let the Agent babysit your PAN completely offline.
As long as you can get by with "only" 6 devices running wireless on you can pretty well ignore enemy Hackers for 16k Nuyen and an optional 3 Karma. Useful for the very darkest of trenchcoat games with a lot of hostile Matrix activity. Total overkill in most games though.
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Total overkill in most games though.
Especially when you take the Internal Router cyberware into account. Though, if your smartlink, commlink, and AR glasses keep getting attacked, that's one way to tell your GM you won't take it sitting down. Also, fire your decker.
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Sleaze 5 Dongle is something like $75k Nuyen. Tad expensive. Literally cheaper to pick up the Data Anomaly Quality post-char gen for 6 Karma (~12k Nuyen) than it is to get that 5th point of Sleaze on the Dongle.
Wait, is that "2" supposed to be an exponent? I thought it was a typo. The Evotech is supposed to come free with an R5 stealth dongle for 11k. That price makes no sense if said dongle would be 75k on its own.
I did miss the "only one modification" thing. That makes things much more reasonable than I imagined. You could still get ~10 sleaze with a stealth dongle and hardwired program carrier (VM: smoke and mirrors and maybe sneak?), though that is prohibitively expensive if the stealth dongle cost scales exponentially maybe 8 or 9 with an evotech himitsu with hardwired signal scrub and smoke and mirrors? That is bearing in mind that noise exceeding a device's rating disables its wireless, so even with signal scrub you could only squeeze 3 out of S&M before killing your own wireless.
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Nothing in the core book says whether you a device can be a slave and master at once.
Regardless, you can't slave everything to your deck anyways, because once you form a persona on it, it's no longer a device on the matrix, and thus, cannot be part of a PAN.
But that's okay; the way a decker protects his team is not by just having a high Firewall and giving everyone one or two more dice to resist matrix actions with. They protect the team from matrix threats the same way a street sam protects his team from physical threats. By eliminating them with skill and extreme prejudice.
Why would you have to make a persona on any of it?
If you take a cyber deck/comlink get it up to 10 sleeze slave an RCC to it and it has drones slaved to it in a pan. You can run Autosofts to all your drones and hide/protect them with your cyberdeck. You could also own a comlink or cyber deck as a shield and never need to create a persona if you not a decker. The only reason you would add a persona is if your jumping into something. If your not its just a protected self contained system that you can issue commands to.
Where is this rule about persona not being allowed in PANs?
I am looking through the core book but can't seem to find it.
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You form a persona when you take matrix actions, I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about...
Also, the reason why TMs can't form PANs is because their Living Persona is not a device; and the game clearly says that a device stops being a device on the matrix when it becomes a persona. Thus, persona cannot be part of PANs. It makes exactly as much sense as a Living Persona not being able to slave things to it.
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You form a persona when you take matrix actions, I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about...
No where in the core rule book does is say that. It says on SR5 p218 "A persona is more or less what it sounds like: a person in the Matrix." but not all matrix actions require a player to be in the matrix to use the matrix. For example, You can use a commlink like a smart phone without a datajack to perform a matrix search (which is a matrix action) without being in the matrix.
Also, the reason why TMs can't form PANs is because their Living Persona is not a device; and the game clearly says that a device stops being a device on the matrix when it becomes a persona. Thus, persona cannot be part of PANs. It makes exactly as much sense as a Living Persona not being able to slave things to it.
You don't have to make a matrix action to have your cyberdeck as a firewall for your comlink or RCC. So I don't see why you said "you can't slave everything to your deck anyways". You can. Your just saying you can't then jump into a the cyberdeck (creating a persona) or it will disconnect everything. You could still send matrix commands from a commlink not on the pan to those devices because you 4 marks. So you don't have to break you pan to make changes. You just can't you your deck as a shield and to hack. So its an expensive shield. Just like your Deck defends its self while its character is asleep.
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Wait, is that "2" supposed to be an exponent? I thought it was a typo. The Evotech is supposed to come free with an R5 stealth dongle for 11k. That price makes no sense if said dongle would be 75k on its own.
It's not a stealth dongle but a integrated stealth module(so no taking it of and putting it on another) , also with DataProcessing 1 and Firewall 2, it's just really really BAD, especially since you can't run any programs on it.
Nothing in the core book says whether you a device can be a slave and master at once.
except it does:
The group consisting of your slaved devices plus your master commlink or deck is called a personal area network, or PAN
A PAN has one single master device, "chaining" master devices would result in more then one master device being in a single PAN, which contradicts this statement.
If you take a cyber deck/comlink get it up to 10 sleeze slave an RCC to it and it has drones slaved to it in a pan. You can run Autosofts to all your drones and hide/protect them with your cyberdeck.
so this is sadly not possible.
Where is this rule about persona not being allowed in PANs?
I am looking through the core book but can't seem to find it.
Well this one is a complex issue:
at the end of the PANs chapter it says:Only devices can be slaves, masters, or part of a PAN
(this was to differentiate it from WAN's which need a host.)
combined with:
When is a device not a device? When it’s a persona!
led people to say that a persona can't be part of a PAN, counter arguments are:
When a person uses a device to connect to the Matrix, the device’s icon is subsumed by the persona’s icon,
only mentions the ICON not the Device itself, and that
If you’re running an agent along with your persona, it appears with its own separate persona, even though you’re using the same device.
makes it pretty clear that the device is being used and still there, and only in the Matrix has it's ICON overwritten(which is different from a device not existing)
People then further added part of the technomancer rule:
You are not a device, so you cannot be a slave or master, nor can you be part of a PAN or WAN
but there is also:
Technomancers have a living persona not attached to any device.
which means that normal personas ARE attached to a device, and a device CAN be part of a PAN.(even if his ICON is currently part of a Persona)
My interpretation is:
Since a non-living Persona is just a represantation that uses the attributes of the device it's using, while still not part of the PAN itself, the device it's based on, CAN be part of a PAN, and gets treated as such.
yay Rules!
edit: this is just the most common arguments, if someone really wants to go into all the details, feel free, but man it's a time waster.
PS: i do however see the balance issue of being able to slave a cyberdeck to an commlink and then have permanent 7 Firewall while using it's other good stats.
on the other hand is the issue, of using you protection on slaved devices simply because you're using the matrix.
PSS: Maybe we should tell this the errata team, because this discussion is pretty much as old as the 5ed.
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Yeah, I feel like what you said is basically unarguable. But damn it does piss me off that TMs can't use PANs with their persona and that the really stupid "slave your Little Hornet to a Transys Avalon" isn't just impossible. It's such a mess...
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PSS: Maybe we should tell this the errata team, because this discussion is pretty much as old as the 5ed.
@Patrick Goodman
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@Xexanoth great post!
If you take a cyber deck/comlink get it up to 10 sleeze slave an RCC to it and it has drones slaved to it in a pan. You can run Autosofts to all your drones and hide/protect them with your cyberdeck.
so this is sadly not possible.
Just curious what you thoughts are since you have knowledge on the subject, What if you made the deck the master and slaved the RCC and drones to it, then controlled the drones by issuing orders through the RCC across the same PAN? I can't see any reason why a RCC could not be a slave and still issue orders, since you still have 4 marks across the PAN.
Thanks again for your well supported reply.
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By "issue orders through the RCC across the PAN", you mean "use Spoof Command for every action"? Because otherwise I'm not sure you'd be able to do that.
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Just curious what you thoughts are since you have knowledge on the subject, What if you made the deck the master and slaved the RCC and drones to it, then controlled the drones by issuing orders through the RCC across the same PAN? I can't see any reason why a RCC could not be a slave and still issue orders, since you still have 4 marks across the PAN.
For normal orders a drone and an RCC don't need to be in a PAN, you don't even need an RCC to issue orders/use a drone in the first place.
However for the sharing of autosofts, jumping directly from drone to drone and group commands the rules clearly state that the drones need to be slaved to the RCC and it's even mentioned that the main function of an RCC is to build this PAN. So it's kinda hard to argue against that. Not to mentioned that those are very powerful abilitys, with the only drawback being: If someone gets a mark on your Drone, your RCC get's one too, due to the RCC being the master, whcih would not happen if the RCC is a slave too.
CRB p266-267
If it's about getting a sleaze rating as a Rigger, either go for Smokes and Mirrors, which, given the high noise reduction riggers usually have, was pretty much made for Riggers in the first place(which make it kinda ironic that they use cyberdeck so much in its description).
Or houserule that RCCs can use Stealth Dongles, get a rating 3 or 4 one(which are reasonable prices for the good bonus you get) and run the "Stealth" program for one additional sleaze.
The whole problem with RCCs and Dongles is people trying to build cheap powerhouses in the first place, often ignoring other rules/facts, so unless you're playing with soemone like that it really shouldn't be a problem, and if you do you can always add to the houserule that you can't do sleaze actions with the RCC.
PS: soooo...i just realized since dongles are their own devices you could add a programm carrier to it in adition to any modification made to the commlink :o Just in case there wasn't enough dongle cheese around.
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A PAN has one single master device, "chaining" master devices would result in more then one master device being in a single PAN, which contradicts this statement.
Alternatively, the two PANs are not considered a single PAN.
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Interesting discussion. I wonder why they bothered with the flavor text of slaving commlinks to decks. From what has been said here as I understand it, it makes more since to slave a deck to a commlink or maybe a single drone to a commlink. Its clear from several of the posts your really better off taking a different route than trying to have your decker shield your team with their deck. I can see how using a commlink to shield one device could be cheat but its also another expense and don't really have to worry about player cheats, its more of an academic curiosity for me just to understand if the design would allow it. My group has not played for almost a year and I don't expect we will pick up again. I just find the game mechanically interesting for some reason.
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A PAN has one single master device, "chaining" master devices would result in more then one master device being in a single PAN, which contradicts this statement.
Alternatively, the two PANs are not considered a single PAN.
Even IF you could chain PANs together don't forget that each slave gets the device rating of it's Master (not from some great great grand master) and each Slave passes Marks up so
Firewall 10 deck protecting Rating 4 commlink
Rating 4 commlink protecting Rating 3 gun
Mark the gun - against the commlinks rating of 4 - get marks passed from gun to commlink and then from commlink to deck - boom, deck firewall completely bypassed. Use at your own very substantial peril
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Even IF you could
I don't believe there's anything definitive strongly stating otherwise. It's just a bad idea - something that has been said from the first reply of this thread. ;)