[Xexanoth]

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.

[firebug]

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...

[忍]

PSS: Maybe we should tell this the errata team, because this discussion is pretty much as old as the 5ed.

@Patrick Goodman

[ClaytonCross]

@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.

[firebug]

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.

[Xexanoth]

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 Just in case there wasn't enough dongle cheese around.

[Novocrane]

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.

[ClaytonCross]

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.

[maxcarrion]

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

[Novocrane]

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.