[tytalan]

I have to disagree with you Tecumseh as your comparing the cost of one piece of cyberwear to a Decker main equipment.  No Sam that I have ever seen has only one piece of wear try more like 3 or 4 at minimum.  Your chart just compares apples to bacon. 

[Tecumseh]

I am happy to be wrong if it promotes productive discussion. You've disagreed with my starting point but haven't said in which direction my conclusions are wrong. Too expensive, too cheap?

If there's broad consenus around decks costing less then the next question is how much less. My opinion, based on GM experience, is a lot less at the lower end and just a bit less at the upper end.

[Darzil]

I guess part of the question is do you see a Decker as their deck, or should they have other things too? I reckon a decker should probably either be looking for a deck + Logic and Int enhancers for high dice pools, or deck + initiative enhances for AR decking, or maybe deck + B&E skills/stealth. There is a danger with the cost of the decks at present that Deckers end up as one trick ponies. To be honest, I see it mostly as a trap, as decks are mostly limits, unlike pretty much all other expensive items which improve dice pools or give new functionality, which even for Deckers will tend to give more bang for the buck.

[PiXeL01]

I feel that decks are too expensive I would love to see a price drop from anything between 20 to 50 per cent. My reason for this live if thinking is that decker are more than just their deck especially here in 5E. That is because deckers now are forced into the line of fire and can't be hiding in basements or armored trucks anymore.

In my humble opinion the deck bought at char gen is likely the only deck a decker will ever see in his career because of the huge price tag. Other characters can purchase upgrades that will be them a lot better at their job for at most a few thousand ¥ where the decker is facing prices in the 10s and 100s of thousands unless the GM is merciful.
At my table getting the decker a better deck always becomes a run in itself, which is a shame.

Tldr: Deckers need more than just their deck and should have a chance at meaningful upgrades in this direction too.

[Hobbes]

If I were Wakshaani, I would want some hard numbers. Here's a draft I came up with for discussion.

Full disclosure: I don't have Data Trails and don't know all the ins and outs of dongles. I also don't play deckers, but I do GM them regularly, including both Street Scum and Prime Runner campaigns.

With that said, here's my table:

Device Rating	Current Cost	Proposed Cost	Reasoning / Parallel	¥ Difference	% Difference
1	¥48,500	¥10,000	Boosted Reflexes	-38,500	-79%
1.1	¥58,000	¥12,000	+20%	-46,000	-79%
2	¥110,250	¥39,000	Wired I	-71,250	-65%
2.2	¥123,000	¥43,500	+12%	-79,500	-65%
3	¥205,750	¥95,000	Synaptic I	-110,750	-54%
3.3	¥214,125	¥104,500	+10%	-109,625	-51%
4	¥345,000	¥228,000	Synaptic II, Alphaware	-117,000	-34%
5	¥549,375	¥427,500	Synaptic III, Betaware	-121,875	-22%
6	¥823,250	¥675,000	50% more than Resources A	-148,250	-18%

I decided to use initiative boosters for comparison, as they are the defining trait of a samurai as surely as a deck is for a decker. (For discussion of this topic, in case the point is contentious, see Wak's Street Samurai Survey thread here.) Obviously the parallel is imperfect since cyberware and bioware have an Essence component in addition to nuyen costs, but it's a start.

As a GM, I want there to be a street-level deck option so that there can be street scum hackers that aren't technomancers. This is more for gameplay rather than fluff reasons. Boosted Reflexes (¥10,000) seemed like a good parallel for something an ambitious ganger might be able to scrape together. Costs could be even lower if the GM allows a deck to be bought used.

The differences between the devices within the same device rating (e.g. 1 vs. 1.1 in my table) are based on the price differences between those same steps in the current pricing scheme.

At the high end, I like that the Fairlight Excalibur is more than a runner can afford out of the gate. In previous editions it's always been an aspirational piece of tech, so I went with the same price increase over Resources A that we had in 3E (where the Excalibur was ¥1,500,000 vs. ¥1,000,000 for Resources A). With that in mind, here's a table with the proposed prices as a percentage of the various Resource priorities:

Device Rating	% of Resources A	% of Resources B	% of Resources C	% of Resources D
1	2%	4%	7%	20%
1.1	3%	4%	9%	24%
2	9%	14%	28%	78%
2.2	10%	16%	31%	87%
3	21%	35%	68%	190%
3.3	23%	38%	75%	209%
4	51%	83%	163%	456%
5	95%	155%	305%	855%
6	150%	245%	482%	1350%

Here we can see that a Resources A decker could afford a DR4 device with funds left over, or a DR5 device if they really broke the piggy bank. The Resources B decker could swing a DR3 deck without much issue but a DR4 only with severe restrictions elsewhere. Resources C would probably be looking at DR3 and Resources D (likely a street scum campaign) at DR1. To me, this feels like a good balance between runners coming out of chargen with good equipment but also having some new toys to shoot for, pun intended.

That's a lot of work.  Personally I'm okayish with the current deck pricing once you throw in the Data Trails and some of the PQs available.  I think that giving Deckers the ability to use multiple resources to get to where they want to be is a plus.  Nuyen, Mods, programs plus PQs or just beat it to death with a sack of Nuyen.  I dislike the fact that RCCs and Commlinks are viable options as hacking devices.  Mostly I blame Smoke and Mirrors and multiple sources of (relatively) cheap stacking noise reduction. 

Core book Decks are overpriced without the assorted other options Deckers have.  You're likely pushing 200k for the Novatech for a Deck that is going to last a decker for a long time.  The Hermes and the Aztec 200 with programs hit a limit of 6.  A decker will bounce off that occasionally out of the gate if they throw a lot of resources at something.  Logic 8, skill 6, Specilazation +2, Codeslinger +2.  18 Dice, so Limit 6 actually matters.  Half dozen or so runs in, Decker increases the Logic Augments and picks up a point of skill and 20 dice, that limit of 6 is frequently an issue.  And it's not like 18 to 20 dice is overkill on some of the more difficult Host hacks if you can't get a direct connection.  Hosts can throw 16+ dice easy so it's not like 18 to 20 dice is some kind of powergamer over-specialization overkill.  Limit 7 is actually useful, and can be reached for 205k on the Novatech or for 88k with the Little Hornet and the Overclocker PQ.  Note the HUGE gap in costs, the Overclocker PQ is worth literally 117k IMO.

Edit:  and I really shouldn't post after Beer and football.  Mainly what I wanted to post was that for around a 100k and some Karma you can get a solid deck that lasts you a while, possibly your whole career.  I prefer a fairly linear progression downward.  Pretty much 25k, 50k, and 75k for a deck with a highest stat of 2, 3, or 4 respectively.  With much room for minor variations in cost and secondary capabilities.  Upward progression I like a steeper growth in costs.  50k and 100k jumps for the next increase in highest stat if you've got a variant or two for each step. 

Second Edit:  That is presuming that magically Commlinks and RCCs somehow stop being viable hacking devices.  But I really don't think you can ever put that genie back in the bottle.

[Wakshaani]

Mmm, charts. I'll be chewing on THAT one later.

On a related note, while we discussed the fact that Samurai need multiple bits of gear, but Reflexes are key, so too do Deckers operate better with some extra goodies. Not as much as a Samurai *needs* them, but, relatable.

Which brings up the second, hidden, cost... skills. A Samurai can get by on just a handful if they must, and those same skills (A gun, a melee, sneaking, spotting, etiquette) are ones that everyone needs, but a Decker has a range of skills that they HAVE to have, which is a secondary cost to the mechanical (deck) one. How should this effect the overall cost, if at all? (Yes, design theory can go a bit meta here.I trust y'all can run with this!)

[tytalan]

I am happy to be wrong if it promotes productive discussion. You've disagreed with my starting point but haven't said in which direction my conclusions are wrong. Too expensive, too cheap?

If there's broad consenus around decks costing less then the next question is how much less. My opinion, based on GM experience, is a lot less at the lower end and just a bit less at the upper end.

Let try this again you compared a deck to 1 of many pieces of cyberwear that a street Sam would have. I feel a better comparison would be the group of cyberwear that a typical street Sam would start with,  I.e. The total cost of all the street SAMs starting cyberwear not just a single item

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

The skills cost pretty much makes every decker have Resources A, Skills B, with attributes, meta, and magic/mundane being some combination of C,D, and E. I'm ignoring Sum to 10, point buy/karma buy, and life modules for this currently. You could switch Resources and Skills, but you are going to need to use PQs to get the funds. As I said, I don't have Data Trails, but I have some issues with making using RCC or Comlinks as pseudo decks. Worse when some of the programs make these sets a superior option over normal Decks. That is a major flaw, especially 5th return to Deckers. I didn't play ShadowRun before 5th, but I new of the system and DECKERS! And Deckers used decks. Not that comlink crap (rant done).

[All4BigGuns]

I am happy to be wrong if it promotes productive discussion. You've disagreed with my starting point but haven't said in which direction my conclusions are wrong. Too expensive, too cheap?

If there's broad consenus around decks costing less then the next question is how much less. My opinion, based on GM experience, is a lot less at the lower end and just a bit less at the upper end.

Let try this again you compared a deck to 1 of many pieces of cyberwear that a street Sam would have. I feel a better comparison would be the group of cyberwear that a typical street Sam would start with,  I.e. The total cost of all the street SAMs starting cyberwear not just a single item

He compared the cost of the cyberdeck to the cost of the most common implant taken (not really that necessary, but still extremely common). That is very fair. If you include the cost of all of the Sam's implants, then you also must take into account the much heavier skill requirement Deckers have over Sams.

Regardless of anything, it is patently ridiculous when a decent deck is comparable in price to Synaptic Booster Rating 2+.

[Moonshine Fox]

I am happy to be wrong if it promotes productive discussion. You've disagreed with my starting point but haven't said in which direction my conclusions are wrong. Too expensive, too cheap?

If there's broad consenus around decks costing less then the next question is how much less. My opinion, based on GM experience, is a lot less at the lower end and just a bit less at the upper end.

Let try this again you compared a deck to 1 of many pieces of cyberwear that a street Sam would have. I feel a better comparison would be the group of cyberwear that a typical street Sam would start with,  I.e. The total cost of all the street SAMs starting cyberwear not just a single item

That's to one of the main/defining pieces of gear that the sam will have. It's a comparison of main big tag gear with main big tag gear. A decker will also have many other pieces of gear, and in fact should if you want to take full advantage of your skills, just like a street sam. If you want to compare full lists of gear for a street sam and a decker a workup of that can be done but it moves outside of the scope of this discussion. The other gear that both types would have are fairly comparable, it's just decks that get so crazy in price tag for a main piece of gear.

While not related to price (cause I think Tecumseh hit it out of the park on that), one that that may help deckers is give the deck the ability to bind more devices as slaves to the deck, maybe as an upgrade.  A Host can hold a near infinite number of devices slaved to it, so why not have the deck, which has a lot more processing power that a commlink, with around device rating x4 or x5 slaved devices rather then the normal x3.

[tytalan]

How many of you have played Deckers I have in 3 edition,  1-3 have not played one in 5th yet but my deck plus software  was always 70% to 85% of my coin and I always did level b or a.  Decker is an money /skills build.  I also knew that I would be using most of my extra money to upgrade later in the game.   I strongly disagree that decks cost too much a Decker should be primary a Decker and something else should be secondary.  Most of you are talking like your something else with Decker being secondary and can’t understand why you cannot afford a decent starting deck.

[All4BigGuns]

Just because you had to then doesn't mean that you should ever have to pay that high a percentage of your starting resources for ONE piece of gear that is that required for a role.

[Darzil]

Especially given the 5th Ed aim of getting you out of the Van/Safe House and into the firing line.

[Kincaid]

There are lots of moving parts to this question, so it's pretty easy to go from a question of strict nuyen cost to one of character generation and opportunity costs.

I think cyberdecks should be the best tool out there when it comes to doing illegal things on the Matrix.  Yes, you may be able to cobble together something that can approximate some of a deck's functionality, but a deck should be the standard.  With that in mind, I don't mind their current costs.  They could be a little lower, so as to allow a decker to expand non-decking elements of his character a bit, but I don't think people generally hate the idea that deckers are Resource A characters most of the time.  The problem isn't one of initial cost, it's one of in-play upgrading.  One of the underlying principles of Shadowrun is "earn money and buy improvements."  Deckers plateau for long periods of time--often entire campaigns--which can be frustrating as a player who is forced to watch his companions show off new toys every other run.  Throw enough money at the group so the decker can buy a replacement and you've suddenly thrown off the power curve for the mage's foci and the sam's chrome.

The build-from-scratch rules of previous editions were popular, but build-from-scratch rules (for anything, in many RPG systems) always seem to have a blindspot that turns it into its own minigame.  Win the minigame and you win the bigger game.  Since I want a diversity of good options in order to encourage differentiation among characters, that's not an especially fun prospect.

So with that said, I'd like to see more rules for upgrading existing cyberdecks.  There's some of this in Data Trails, but I'd like to see more and have it be cyberdeck-only.  Between the current modification rules and positive qualities, it's actually not that hard to get next tier performance out of a deck.  Ideally, the customization would encourage specific approaches to decking.  Right now, there's an army of Perfect Time, Overclock, Codeslinger (Hack on the Fly) deckers who all operate in generally the same way.  It's effective, so I can't really blame them.  What if I added something that made Brute Force more interesting?  Not simply a +DV thing, but something that a player could develop a tactic around?  I'm not nerfing the all-Sleaze-all-the-time approach, but I'm making other options as good, just in different ways.

[adzling]

Kincaid is on the money imho.

1). Add more upgrade options for Cyberdecks so you can gradually increase power level over time without saving forever and forking out for a brand new deck.
2). Add in more deck options that help you specialize for certain decking styles (brute force, Hof, device spiking etc).
3). Add in more street level options/ reduce costs on cheaper decks/ add in "used deck" options.