Shadowrun

Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: Slipperychicken on <01-19-17/1252:39>

Title: Is "golden screwdriver" worth it?
Post by: Slipperychicken on <01-19-17/1252:39>
I'm thinking about picking up the "Golden Screwdriver" quality (Data Trails pg. 44), and I want to know if the need for such freakishly-rapid matrix repairs comes up often enough to be worth it?
Title: Re: Is "golden screwdriver" worth it?
Post by: ZeldaBravo on <01-19-17/1536:06>
Depends on your GM and your group.
I never ever thought: "Man, I really wish I could repair my deck faster!"
Title: Re: Is "golden screwdriver" worth it?
Post by: firebug on <01-19-17/1645:57>
It almost certainly won't come up much, unless you have a tight downtime schedule.  But it's not exactly expensive, so it's not a huge risk if you pick it.  It becomes potentially more useful if you are on a team with a lot of drones and/or wireless-enabled cyber.  Should you ever get something bricked early into a mission, it can be useful to minimize time spent which is always beneficial.

Though I have not run many games with hacker enemies, so it's hard to say.  In the stereotypical extraction, enemy hackers only deal with your hacker in the Host, and thus your teammates are not often targeted.  In another situation though where one semi-competent ganger with an Attack dongle can fry your Street Sam's cybereyes, I'm sure it'd be nice to have.  But it is definitely not something every, or even most, matrix-specialists need.
Title: Re: Is "golden screwdriver" worth it?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-19-17/1720:20>
No, not usually. It certainly won't help you most times with a typical dice pool.

even six successes only reduce the time needed to 19 combat rounds. That's to long to be relevant in combat.
Spending 8 karma for that is entirely disproportionately - especially if you could get other qualities that would help you to prevent getting damage in the first place (perfect timing for example)
Title: Re: Is "golden screwdriver" worth it?
Post by: firebug on <01-19-17/1745:18>
I don't think being able to do it in combat is the thing...
Title: Re: Is "golden screwdriver" worth it?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-20-17/1222:22>
But that would be the main reason why you would want to have a very quick repair. For everything else... it's usually better to just use a back-up device
Title: Re: Is "golden screwdriver" worth it?
Post by: Marcus on <01-27-17/2354:45>
I'm sure it's possible to devise a strategy that involving getting an agent bricked as your sort bait and switch but in general this falls into a little to much planning for failure.