[IKerensky]

I feel like Edit File, Control Device, and Send Message can take care of most of your basic needs. None of those are necessarily Sleaze actions and can be done without issue. Edit File is disgusting, by the way. You want to hack a turret? You can either put 3 marks on it to control it directly, or you can invert its Friend/Foe indicator via Edit File using only a single mark. Or just blind the turret's camera by adding static to the sensors. If  you want to hack a door? You could control device, or you could Edit the files where the password is stored, or just send the message to the door to open.

I dont think just editing a turret would do that... After your editing it will start shooting at everything after all, even features, plants, props, Tv screen... You have to do more than simple editing to rewrite a IFF algorithme.

And the turret camera is probably not it´s main aiming / identification device, a RFID tag reader is more sensible.

[Psikerlord]

As far as marks making you legit, here is the description of Patrol IC from p.251.

Patrol IC acts more like an agent than other intrusion countermeasures. Its job is to patrol a host, scanning people’s marks and looking for illegal activity using the Matrix Perception action on all targets in the host. While the act of placing a mark is an illegal activity, the act of simply having a mark is not. Once you have the mark, you are considered a legitimate user. Patrol IC has no attack, but it shares its information with its parent host. Since the Patrol IC doesn’t use Attack actions, it doesn’t take Matrix damage when it fails. Most hosts have Patrol IC and keep it running all the time.

hmmm u r considered legit by the patrol IC perhaps, i dunno? but u r not actually a legit user... bec u just arent. u rnot using the true passcode. u r faking it.

[Psikerlord]

Spoof Command makes the device think you are the OWNER of the Device, which is naturally much harder because the Owner is at the unreachable 4 Marks level. We're talking about registered, legitimate users here, not the owner. Only 1 person can be the Owner of a Device, but when talking about a secure facility many people will need to be able to access the commands and input orders to do their job. Your line of reasoning does not hold true. I'm also not talking about just 1 mark (at which point many advanced functions should rightfully be locked from you) I'm talking about having 3.

Jump Into Rigged Device (the corp owns the device, the security rigger is an authorized user) suggests that I am correct by virtue of the fact that it's an opposed roll.  Under your theory, simply having 3 marks would be sufficient to perform the action without the roll.  Presumably, the authorized rigger doesn't roll vs. Firewall + Willpower (does he use his own Willpower?) in this situation.

To a certain extent, marks exist simply as a game mechanic to make decking work a certain way, but for the sake of verisimilitude, think of it this way: PC generated marks (as opposed to host-generated marks) simply aren't as good.  Maybe this is because they aren't stored in the host's "authorized user" file.  Or whatever.  But there is no scenario in which an authorized spider and a decker have precisely the same ease of function.  An authorized user can Control Device no problem, but for me to attempt to slice a small piece off of the host's WAN, I need to have 3 marks and even then the host isn't going to go along willingly.

Understand: I'm not suggesting you should be able to do anything and everything with 3 Marks on a device, but as the rules currently are you can't do anything legitimate with it.

What Shadowrunner is interested in legitimate activity? 
I think of marks not as what sort of legitimate actions can my decker take, but rather what depths of illegitimacy can he reach?  He'll never be a legitimate user.  He can kind-of-sort-of fake the host out for a little bit, but the nature of decking is that sooner or later, the clock will start ticking.  Maybe he'll send everything into reboot, log out and log back in to reset his OS, but he can't live in the host 24-7, no matter how many marks he has.  Even doing nothing at all with 3 marks, he's going to accrue OS every 15 minutes.

The Control Device action, at least, should use Data Processing when you have 3 marks, not Sleaze. That still leaves every other matrix action wide open, and Control Device only deals with devices that interact with the meat (doors, lamps, locks, turrets, etc) so there'd be plenty of stuff to do besides plant 3 marks and be done with it. It's not that easy to get 3 Marks on a decent host anyway.

I understand the thinking here, but if Control Device didn't generate OS, a decker could get his 3 marks out side the host (fail a roll?  log out and log right back in), enter the host and then perform DP actions that could literally kill the entire staff of the building without any risk of generating more OS.  Presumably a spider shows up at some point, but it still throws the entire thing out of whack and goes against the design philosophy of matrix rolls being like meat rolls (in this case, opposed rolls to control something).

Agree with Kincaid.

As I understand the current hacking, the hacker never reaches the level a legitmate user does. The legitimate user, with the correct passcodes etc doesnt have to make certain tests, it just works. The hacker is continually faking it, and temporary marks are just an indication of how well he is duping the system at that moment. The hacker is making continual tests to maintain and achieve further effects he desires bec he has to sweat to keep up his techno fakery ruse - the system is continually checking/trying to catch him out. All the time his OS score is rising, and the clock is always against him ....  reminiscent of The Matrix movie (which i love by the way, well number 1 and 2, at least). That's how i understand the basic hacking concept to work. You are never legit, you are constantly faking/tricking the system, the system is constantly trying to catch you out, and you are always time limited (Technos seem to have certain exceptions to OS).

I just want to point out this entire argument falls apart when dealing with a technomancer that used puppetmaster to force invite mark.

The Technomancer is now a perfectly legal  user with three legitimate marks (as far as the matrix is concerned), why wouldn't the tecnomancer then be able to edit/copy a file with no test?

hmm the description of an invited mark = legit is problematic. they should change that, imo, focusing on marks as fake, temporary keys. that concept works best for me at least.

[Unahim]

But Invite Mark is also how you give permissions to your friends, how Corporations give their users their permissions, etc. It's not problematic at all, considering the effects of the changes made in the Matrix can still be noticed by Spiders or people in the meat, and then a witchhunt starts for the Technomancer messing with their stuff. 's all good.

[Ricochet]

Alright, I think I can help clear this up.

I subscribe to the theory that having Marks grants you appropriate access. That's why you need 1 mark to edit a file or attempt to crack it. A normal wageslave user would have that 1 mark.

1) Control Device only works on Devices and a host is not a Device. Thus:
1.1) You can't control guns through the host / system. You need to have Marks on the guns themselves and then they will accept appropriate level commands, depending on how many Marks you have. Just like a normal user with properly granted Marks could.

2) The rule to use Elec. Warfare vs. Int + FW for when no test is available (p.238) works if you understand point 1 above. You are not (as you would have in SR4) telling the Lock/Door/Ventilation system to do something based on your privileges on the host. Instead, you control the Device itself. The Maglock/Keypad/Cardreader itself is built to work a specific way (use card, punch in number etc.) and you are trying to bypass that. In order to have at least some gameplay happen, you roll to see if you make it or not, despite potentially having 3 Marks on it. If you want to rationalize why that is, maybe it's because the command is not coming from the right source. You could have (if you're good enough) also just gotten 1 Mark on the host controlling the devices and then spoofed the command. That would then also have been a roll.

Either way, I don't think there needs to be a new level of "Decker Marks" that are weaker than normal Marks.

This is how we've been playing it.  You need to get your mark on the individual devices, not the host to start controlling things.

[Unahim]

This is how we've been playing it.  You need to get your mark on the individual devices, not the host to start controlling things.

Problem is that, by the rules, if you have 3 Marks on a Device -and- on the Host, you still can't make a Device automatically do actions it's supposed to be able to do without hacking. Even a door made to be opened through the Matrix with Command Device would require any legitimate user who tried to open it to hack, since there's no dicepool associated with it.

Say what you want about SR4's terrible hacking system, but at least user priviledges and accounts were clear in what you could or could not legitimately do with them.

[Kincaid]

I just want to point out this entire argument falls apart when dealing with a technomancer that used puppetmaster to force invite mark.

The Technomancer is now a perfectly legal  user with three legitimate marks (as far as the matrix is concerned), why wouldn't the tecnomancer then be able to edit/copy a file with no test?

I suspect the problem here is actually Puppetmaster--I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of rules clarification on this one down the road.  But if you want technomancers to be simply better at certain things (and I'd be fine with that in my game, they have deficits elsewhere), this could be made to work.  Expect your GM to send spiders, though.

[Typtrich]

I just want to point out this entire argument falls apart when dealing with a technomancer that used puppetmaster to force invite mark.

The Technomancer is now a perfectly legal  user with three legitimate marks (as far as the matrix is concerned), why wouldn't the tecnomancer then be able to edit/copy a file with no test?

I suspect the problem here is actually Puppetmaster--I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of rules clarification on this one down the road.  But if you want technomancers to be simply better at certain things (and I'd be fine with that in my game, they have deficits elsewhere), this could be made to work.  Expect your GM to send spiders, though.

The reason spiders or IC get sent is because the host tells them something is wrong. So if the host thinks your perfectly legit why would it contact or send IC? The only thing that's possible is if you have a spider that patrols and happens to notice what your doing.

I would really get pissed at a GM that just randomly decided that for some reason spiders decided that I was the one legit user it was going to check on every run.

[Kincaid]

I just want to point out this entire argument falls apart when dealing with a technomancer that used puppetmaster to force invite mark.

The Technomancer is now a perfectly legal  user with three legitimate marks (as far as the matrix is concerned), why wouldn't the tecnomancer then be able to edit/copy a file with no test?

I suspect the problem here is actually Puppetmaster--I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of rules clarification on this one down the road.  But if you want technomancers to be simply better at certain things (and I'd be fine with that in my game, they have deficits elsewhere), this could be made to work.  Expect your GM to send spiders, though.

The reason spiders or IC get sent is because the host tells them something is wrong. So if the host thinks your perfectly legit why would it contact or send IC? The only thing that's possible is if you have a spider that patrols and happens to notice what your doing.

I would really get pissed at a GM that just randomly decided that for some reason spiders decided that I was the one legit user it was going to check on every run.

Once the buildings guns fire start firing on its guards, I think that's reason enough for a spider to come check things out.  More to the point, any GM who allows marks to work this way has reduced all matrix runs to a single roll, after which there's essentially no challenge or risk.

From a game design standpoint, is it reasonable to think the deckers have to make a series of contested rolls for just about every action they take in a host while technomancers can easily circumvent the majority of them "just because"?  That plainly doesn't make sense.  I imagine design saw Puppeteer as essentially Hack on the Fly/Brute Force in reverse.  They arrive at the same end (the PC needs marks), but just in slightly different manners--the decker places marks, the technomancer asks for marks.  In my games, the marks a technomancer gets are just as unreliable as the ones a decker gets for exactly the same reasons--the lack of a HR record, record of you entering the building/logging into a terminal, etc.  No one gets to avoid rolling dice.  Being smart might help you avoid rolling dice on occasion, or increase the number of dice you do roll, but no archetype simply forgoes with dice to perform the same tasks another archetype rolls dice for.

[Ricochet]

The reason spiders or IC get sent is because the host tells them something is wrong. So if the host thinks your perfectly legit why would it contact or send IC? The only thing that's possible is if you have a spider that patrols and happens to notice what your doing.

I would really get pissed at a GM that just randomly decided that for some reason spiders decided that I was the one legit user it was going to check on every run.

Actually, this is what Patrol IC is meant to do.  It can actually be out there checking when there is no alert.

[Typtrich]

I just want to point out this entire argument falls apart when dealing with a technomancer that used puppetmaster to force invite mark.

The Technomancer is now a perfectly legal  user with three legitimate marks (as far as the matrix is concerned), why wouldn't the tecnomancer then be able to edit/copy a file with no test?

I suspect the problem here is actually Puppetmaster--I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of rules clarification on this one down the road.  But if you want technomancers to be simply better at certain things (and I'd be fine with that in my game, they have deficits elsewhere), this could be made to work.  Expect your GM to send spiders, though.

The reason spiders or IC get sent is because the host tells them something is wrong. So if the host thinks your perfectly legit why would it contact or send IC? The only thing that's possible is if you have a spider that patrols and happens to notice what your doing.

I would really get pissed at a GM that just randomly decided that for some reason spiders decided that I was the one legit user it was going to check on every run.

Once the buildings guns fire start firing on its guards, I think that's reason enough for a spider to come check things out.  More to the point, any GM who allows marks to work this way has reduced all matrix runs to a single roll, after which there's essentially no challenge or risk.

Obviously if something happens physically or even in the matrix that shouldn't be then the spider going to go looking. But if all you do is go there get marks on a file and copy the file and leave why would the spider even know if you had legit access to that file to copy?

The way the game is set up has some inconsistencies in the rules when dealing with marks. People are trying to explain it away and those explanations make sense when you only account for deckers but technomacers kinda blow that explanation out of the water.  The big issue here is they need to make a difference for hacked marks and legit marks.

This doesn't just effect TM's. Say you as a decker have a face buddy of yours convince a tech in a corp to give you marks on a file that normally just would be impossible to hack. Sweet now you can just copy the file no test right? Wrong by the rules you still have to roll even though you have legit marks. By these rules no player can do any matrix action legit or not without GOD coming for them at some point. The exception being TM but only because they are not really doing matrix actions but resonance actions.

The reason spiders or IC get sent is because the host tells them something is wrong. So if the host thinks your perfectly legit why would it contact or send IC? The only thing that's possible is if you have a spider that patrols and happens to notice what your doing.

I would really get pissed at a GM that just randomly decided that for some reason spiders decided that I was the one legit user it was going to check on every run.

Actually, this is what Patrol IC is meant to do.  It can actually be out there checking when there is no alert.

And I have no problem with patrolling IC or spiders I would just be pissed if where there was no patrols the GM decided to have to spider check just because hey the players a TM and hes getting away with something.

[Kincaid]

Obviously if something happens physically or even in the matrix that shouldn't be then the spider going to go looking. But if all you do is go there get marks on a file and copy the file and leave why would the spider even know if you had legit access to that file to copy?

All of this operates under the assumption that the marks a TM gets are inherently different from the marks a decker generates.  While this is certainly one reading of things, it is by no means the only reading.  Indeed, if you factor in design elements like game balance and parallel rules (which seems to be a big thing in 5e), there seems to be reason to conclude that decker marks and TM marks are, or at least should be, the same.  My interpretation is, obviously, also an interpretation.  But my interpretation is grounded in the context of the game as a whole.  I don't see the contextual support for the TM marks are "real" line of thinking.

The way the game is set up has some inconsistencies in the rules when dealing with marks. People are trying to explain it away and those explanations make sense when you only account for deckers but technomacers kinda blow that explanation out of the water.  The big issue here is they need to make a difference for hacked marks and legit marks.

Not really (see above).  The method of acquisition is different, but the effect is identical.   People are free to come up with whatever plausible explanation for the rules they want for their table.  PC vs. NPC marks is how I'm going about it and TM marks work perfectly fine within the PC mark heading.

This doesn't just effect TM's. Say you as a decker have a face buddy of yours convince a tech in a corp to give you marks on a file that normally just would be impossible to hack. Sweet now you can just copy the file no test right? Wrong by the rules you still have to roll even though you have legit marks. By these rules no player can do any matrix action legit or not without GOD coming for them at some point. The exception being TM but only because they are not really doing matrix actions but resonance actions.

Unless the decker got a SIN and was added to payroll, no.  If the decker got a SIN and was added to payroll, he probably has other issues.  The decker probably should have asked his buddy to copy the file to a chip.  I work at a university.  You can't even get a @university.edu email here without going through a number of different departments.  No single office, let alone single person, generates that kind of authority.  A single wageslave can't, on his own, give some random username corporate access.

[Typtrich]

Obviously if something happens physically or even in the matrix that shouldn't be then the spider going to go looking. But if all you do is go there get marks on a file and copy the file and leave why would the spider even know if you had legit access to that file to copy?

All of this operates under the assumption that the marks a TM gets are inherently different from the marks a decker generates.  While this is certainly one reading of things, it is by no means the only reading.  Indeed, if you factor in design elements like game balance and parallel rules (which seems to be a big thing in 5e), there seems to be reason to conclude that decker marks and TM marks are, or at least should be, the same.  My interpretation is, obviously, also an interpretation.  But my interpretation is grounded in the context of the game as a whole.  I don't see the contextual support for the TM marks are "real" line of thinking.

"Brute Force" and Hack on the Fly are you tricking or forcing ill gotten marks on something this is inherently different than "invite mark," They are not the same they will never be the same. The first two are attacks the last is something that requires you to be the owner to do.

Its also not something most TM will ever be able to use, puppeteer to do as they have to use puppeteer on the owner of that device to get them to issue the marks. which causes other issues like the fact they don't understand why there persona just randomly gave marks to some unknown so your likely using resonance veil to mask there own matrix actions form them. But once that is all done your left with legitimate access for a set time. Is it possible for someone to check records and start wondering why you were given access? Yes which is why you hurry but that spider as far as he knows the person in charge gave you access. Hell he might even start calling people but this is not instant. He has got to go through the chain of command, because while you having access might seem odd if he attacks you and you did have legit access its his ass.

I challenge you to go look at those three abilities and tell me they are not fundamentally different.  Any ability that requires you to be an owner is in a different class than other actions.

[Unahim]

-snip-

Puppeteer lets you make the target do any action without having any Marks on them, and since "Owner" is pretty much just an extension of the Mark system, there's absolutely no rules reason why you'd have to use Puppeteer on the Owner in order to Invite Mark. Else you'd have to use every other Puppeteer function on a persona with the right amount of Marks too, and you do not.

[Typtrich]

-snip-

Puppeteer lets you make the target do any action without having any Marks on them, and since "Owner" is pretty much just an extension of the Mark system, there's absolutely no rules reason why you'd have to use Puppeteer on the Owner in order to Invite Mark. Else you'd have to use every other Puppeteer function on a persona with the right amount of Marks too, and you do not.

The reason is because owner is required to "invite mark" and a device or persona can only do a matrix action it is able to do. So yes you could puppeteer a spider to invite mark but if they are not the owner they won't be able to do it.

If you’re the owner of a device, file, persona, host, or
IC program, you can offer other icons the opportunity
to put a mark on your device, file, etc.

You could also puppeteer a device to invite 3 marks to itself, but since a device does not own itself this would do nothing.