Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

[Longes]

Yeah, the stacking of armor is pretty neat . . too bad it is still kinda useless, because SnS, Chem-Tech weapons and Magic more or less ignore it . .

SnS - not really. It's AP 1/2, not AP Infinity. Having more armor still protects you better, and cyberlimbs can easily give you two or three times as much armor as someone without cyberlimbs has. There is just no better way to resist mundane physical damage (the most common source of damage!) than cyberlimbs.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, which is why trying to be an actual TANK in SR is kinda hard and usually pointless sadly. I like to play the Tank, it just does not work as well in SR as i would like it to <.<
Your tankiness is basically not limited by armor, but by the dice you actually roll to resist the damage. So Body usually. In SR3, all cyberware armor, bnoneworks and limbs gave you more and more of that. You could, as a Troll, actually go to hard max. While Bio only gave you actual armor. I think the only Bioware that gave any BODY at all was the Suprathyroid Gland for a whopping one point. Granted, because it's the natural and not cyber attribute, it works against poison and disease as well but for resisting physical damage, you were and are kinda a bit limited.

Which is why the better tanks are people that just do not get hit.
Dodging damage is simply better than actually having to resist it.

[Longes]

Uh. Did you just say that using cyberware to get armor is the best way to get tanky because there are no BOD increasers? Because I think that's exactly what I was saying. If you are really dedicated to being robocop you totally can have 30 dice to resist incoming damage (though you won't be much use out of combat).

[Stahlseele]

And because you spent all your essence on being robocop and not actually being usefull, you won't be of much use in combat as well.
No reflex stuff to get you more actions or enhance your damage output some other way either probably.

I keep forgetting: as of SR4/5, does Armor reduce damage or does armor give more dice to resist a set ammount of damage?

[Shrieking Banshee]

I thought being Possessed by a Spirit was the best armor. I mean its hardened as well. Though if your attacked by magic stuff then your fucked.

[Stahlseele]

SnS halves that as well and you lose control over what you do when possessed and aside from it being without encumbrance, it is limited by the spirit force. Which, in theory, can be unlimited, but in practice will, generally, be somewhere between 4 and 8.

[Whipstitch]

If you are really dedicated to being robocop you totally can have 30 dice to resist incoming damage (though you won't be much use out of combat).

It's not bad if you want to be a driver, either, given that the only thing that's clear about the RAW chase rules is that apparently people are supposed to explode during car accidents. Then again, nobody in their right mind actually uses the chase rules as written, so I guess I'm just babbling.

[Stahlseele]

you are actually kinda close there.
the BETTER way to be robocop is to BE a Jar-Head.
And that means you can be a very good driver as well, because, well, you are a rigger . .

[Longes]

And because you spent all your essence on being robocop and not actually being usefull, you won't be of much use in combat as well.
No reflex stuff to get you more actions or enhance your damage output some other way either probably.

In SR4A you can totally buy all cyberlimbs and torso, Synaptic Booster 1 and have 16 dice for your gun or blade. Git gud, Stahlseele. A character like this will only be good at combat and passable in something else like driving or sneaking, but it would be totally playable. If about as subtle as a golden sledgehammer.

[Stahlseele]

Eh, i guess i am used to a bit higher power characters with more initiative, more diverse skillset and, sadly, way more subtile than a golden sledgehammer ._.

[Korwin]

And because you spent all your essence on being robocop and not actually being usefull, you won't be of much use in combat as well.
No reflex stuff to get you more actions or enhance your damage output some other way either probably.

In SR4A you can totally buy all cyberlimbs and torso, Synaptic Booster 1 and have 16 dice for your gun or blade. Git gud, Stahlseele. A character like this will only be good at combat and passable in something else like driving or sneaking, but it would be totally playable. If about as subtle as a golden sledgehammer.

You can?
My tries at such an Char. where trash. Slow trash.
And no Cyber Skull?

[Longes]

And because you spent all your essence on being robocop and not actually being usefull, you won't be of much use in combat as well.
No reflex stuff to get you more actions or enhance your damage output some other way either probably.

In SR4A you can totally buy all cyberlimbs and torso, Synaptic Booster 1 and have 16 dice for your gun or blade. Git gud, Stahlseele. A character like this will only be good at combat and passable in something else like driving or sneaking, but it would be totally playable. If about as subtle as a golden sledgehammer.

You can?
My tries at such an Char. where trash. Slow trash.
And no Cyber Skull?

Troll with Biocompatibility (Cyberware) can fit in all Standard quality limbs and torso and a Synaptic Booster 1 and have 0.8 Essence left to spare. In the future you can grab an Alpha skull and upgrade booster to 2, but there's just not enough money at chargen to get everything. You won't have the DPS of a gunbunny with 3 passes, but you'll be able to take a rocket to the face and keep on going without a problem.

[Stahlseele]

So, what kind of upgrades do the ressources allow you then?
Full armor? Attribute boosts to the limbs?
While we are at it, what kind of limbs?
The tailored to the character kind that goes up to natural attribute limit?
Or the 08/15 bog standard where you will never have a limb as strong as a Troll would want?
Some extra toys built into the capacity instead of the Essence?
What about Eyes to make you a better shot?

And if you do not have enough MONEY in Char-Gen to build your Mundane Chrome-Monster, then chances are good you won't ever have enough to finish up in game either if my experiences and as of SR5 the rules are any indication to go by <.<

[Longes]

Well, a simple example would be something like this. You can obviously switch things around in the cyberlimbs to fit whatever it is you want.

Obvious Full Arm (BOD 4, AGI 7, STR 13) (Right)
+Customized Strength Rating 9
+Bulk Modification Rating 1
+Enhanced Strength Rating 4
+Enhanced Body Rating 1
+Enhanced Agility Rating 4
+Armor Rating 2
+Spur
Obvious Full Arm (BOD 4, AGI 7, STR 3) (Left)
+Customized Body Rating 4
+Bulk Modification Rating 1
+Armor Rating 2
+Cyberarm Gyromount
+Enhanced Agility Rating 4
Obvious Full Leg (BOD 12, AGI 7, STR 7) (Left)
+Customized Body Rating 8
+Bulk Modification Rating 3
+Enhanced Strength Rating 4
+Enhanced Agility Rating 4
+Armor Rating 2
+Cyberskates
+Enhanced Body Rating 4
Obvious Full Leg (BOD 12, AGI 7, STR 7) (Right)
+Customized Body Rating 8
+Bulk Modification Rating 3
+Enhanced Strength Rating 4
+Enhanced Agility Rating 4
+Enhanced Body Rating 4
+Armor Rating 2
+Cyberskates
Obvious Torso (BOD 3, AGI 7, STR 3)
+Enhanced Agility Rating 4
+Armor Rating 2

Cybereyes don't make you a better shot in SR4, Stahlseele. No one even buys cybereyes for anything other than style because everything you care about can fit into glasses and contact lenses.

[Stahlseele]

right, i forgot about contact lenses and glasses now working like that <.<

and all of that fits into your starting ressource pool? O.O

[Shrieking Banshee]

Also I know of Hackeystack but this is a seperate issue:

Is it just me or is the only Penalty for an Agent Crashing (As apposed to a Persona Cashing) that you gotta boot em up again? Effectively only slowing them down for a round?

And even Destroying a non-hot Persona seems to only cause a need for a systems reboot at worst.

[Username17]

Also I know of Hackeystack but this is a seperate issue:

Is it just me or is the only Penalty for an Agent Crashing (As apposed to a Persona Cashing) that you gotta boot em up again? Effectively only slowing them down for a round?

And even Destroying a non-hot Persona seems to only cause a need for a systems reboot at worst.

Yes. And with Hackastacks you can just leave the crashed personas crashed and act through the ones that still work.

In every edition of Shadowrun you can do various things to brick hardware, but the only penalty of crashing a program is that the owner has to reload a copy from backup memory. Once SR stopped trying to get you to care about I/O speeds and MPs, that penalty was meaningless. In SR4 (and SR5 for that matter), you can conduct your entire hacking experience from software, with no exposed hardware or wetware, and you can basically force any defenders to play space invaders.

Rolling that many dice is unthinkable, but you can't actually lose.

-Username17

[Shrieking Banshee]

Hmm Well in 5e they say that Matrix damage hurts hardware, and that Agents share the same Matrix condition monitor as the hardware they are running on.

Except IC for some reason. Which is a Software and doesn't take Hard damage.

So I guess the reverse is true? Your playing Space invaders with a limited amount of invaders and the Opponent has infinite coins?

Anyway Frank would you mind leading me through the specifics of Hackeystack with Agents? I mean I understand the problem theoretically, but I don't get the specifics.

[Username17]

Anyway Frank would you mind leading me through the specifics of Hackeystack with Agents?

Instead I'm going to tell you a story about 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons Polymorph. There were two interpretations of what happened when you turned into a creature with natural attacks: either the natural weapon was treated as a held weapon (one attack per round for each BAB generated attack you had no matter how many weapons you got) or it was treated as a monster claw (one attack per natural weapon and your BAB can get fucked). Now, some monsters have a single big attack and other monsters have a lot of little attacks. If you get attacks from your BAB, then turning into a Tyrannosaur is big cheese because you get to attack a bunch of times with a huge bite that normally only goes off once per round. If you get attacks from each claw, then turning into a Giant Octopus is big cheese because you can layer spell-based rider effects on your attacks and get medium to large attacks that go off a stupid number of times per round.

Wizards of the Coast gave conflicting answers to the question of which way it was supposed to work. And in a predictable way: if you asked them if the Tyrannosaurus Druid worked, they would tell you no on the grounds that it worked the way the Octopus Druid wanted it to work. And if you asked them if the Octopus Druid worked, they would tell you no on the grounds that it worked the way the Tyrannosaurus Druid wanted it to work. But if you knew both interpretations, you could break the game no matter what interpretation you settled on.

The reason I bring this up is because SR4 hacking rules are way more fucked up than that, and there are a lot of interpretations. Just for starters, it's totally unclear how much response is slowed down by Agents trying to use hacking programs. Hell, it's unclear how Matrix Perception is supposed to even work with minions on the field (notably: some nominally "combat" sprites can't make Matrix Perception Tests at all, so what the fuck?).

You can only discuss Hackastack and Agent Smith in the most general possible terms, because getting into the specifics is just a slog through horrible minutiae trying to pin down interpretations of moving target rules and having people try to declare take backsies on points in the decision tree three or four declarations ago as soon as they realize that you're keying out into something broken as fuck. No person in the history of the planet has ever run a rules as written matrix combat encounter. The perception tests alone would take longer to resolve than the game has been in print. So the specifics are that you are going to be making arbitrary choices of how to resolve some vague rules, and outright ignoring some rules that are too fucked up and/or take too long to resolve. Then Agents are still going to be broken, but exactly how has a lot more to do with what declared and undeclared house rules you are using than it does with anything I can tell you.

-Username17

[Shrieking Banshee]

Good point. Its just too much minutia. Im a rules lover and read rules of books but there is so much niggling minutia in Matrix rules.

Thats a great example. I just want it to work the way it worked in MM BN. Just fuck making it realistic and go with metaphorical stuff. Because thats fun even if it doesn't make full sense.

I want to fight the Sentient Internet as it shoots machineguns a me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGHwpltW3dg

[Stahlseele]

Does Hall of thousand Mirrors still work in SR5?

[Username17]

Does Hall of thousand Mirrors still work in SR5?

Yes.

-Username17

[Ferret]

So if the 4e Mystic Adept fails at life by being kinda unable to do it's shtick outside of some niche builds and super high karma situations, and the 4e Mystic Adept fails at life for being Better Than You At Everything, what's the happy medium?

Is there a way to make them worthwhile without making them...what was the term in frank's review of 5e..."made of liquid awesome"

[Stahlseele]

make them specialize in magical defence only maybe?
only shield, invisibility or such spells allowed?
that'd already be a very hard hit to them, and if you want to go even further, just allow astral perception and spell defence.

[Shrieking Banshee]

Is it possible to crack copy protection on a program, and copy it, but leave the original in its basic form so that it continues to get updates?

Because once a month cracking a copy protected program takes so much less time than coding your own, or even writing a patch (1 Flipping week per program per month!)