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Is decker/rigger a viable choice?

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Haywire

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« on: <12-04-15/1656:03> »
Hello everyone!
I am an old player of SR. I played most SR3 but also I dabbled SR5, actually playing only 5-6 runs.
I have only the core rulebook.

I was thinking of making a charachter like a decker-rigger. As the title: is a viable choice? Which skills are a must have? Which should I avoid? On what attributes should I focus?

Thank you for your help!  8)
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falar

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« Reply #1 on: <12-04-15/1701:00> »
Eeeeeehh, it depends on what you mean by effective.

Vehicle Rigger who mainly sits in his Ares Roadmaster/GMC Bulldog and uses a badass sensor array to lookout for threats and occasionally jumps into an MCT Fly-Spy for recon?

Totally doable.

Army of drones rigger? Kind of priced out.

Strange

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« Reply #2 on: <12-04-15/1737:33> »
Money is very tight.  Very.  As a decker, you don't need a whole lot of 'ware, but that deck is expensive.  You don't have to get the best you can, however, but it still costs a lot.  As a rigger, you want a bit of 'ware, namely the vehicle control rig.  A level 2 will run $97,000.  Then the cost of the vehicles and/or drones.  For attributes, you are lucky, they do overlap quite nicely.  Some skills crossover.

What I suggest is start out as a decker with the best deck you can get, and maybe add in the rig at level 1, and get just one drone and a rigged van.  Focus the majority of your skills on the decker, fill up on rigger type with what is left.

Skills needed:  Decker needs hacking, Electronic Warfare, those are the most important.  Most people advise against cybercombat, because IC just keeps replicating.  There may be some times when you need to do combat, however. For character sake you might want stuff from the electronics skill group. 
Rigger needs Piloting skills, and engineering skill group makes sense.  Gunnery if you are using drones or vehicles with weapons.  Armorer to a limited level, if it fits character.

Logic is your friend.  Max.  After that, willpower and intuition.  The rest are not important.  If you are doing priority or sum-to-10, you can afford to have less on attributes.

If you are doing priority, I might go A=Nuyen B=Skills C=Attributes D=Race and E=Magic.  Depending on what race you wanted to be, you could probably swap C and D.   Sum to ten I would go A=nuyen, A=Skills, C=Attributes and E for human mundane.  Or something similar (ABBEE looks good to me, too.)

Others might have better ideas as well.  Good luck.

Whiskeyjack

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« Reply #3 on: <12-04-15/2009:51> »
As a decker, you don't need a whole lot of 'ware, but that deck is expensive.
Thing is, the ware you want will be pricy. If you want to be effective at all in the meat, you need to be an adept or pay up for initiative ware.

Logic is your friend.  Max.  After that, willpower and intuition.  The rest are not important.
Considering how combat hacking isn't viable, I would not say this.

Everyone should be able to shoot.
Playability > verisimilitude.

Strange

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« Reply #4 on: <12-04-15/2227:44> »
As a decker, you don't need a whole lot of 'ware, but that deck is expensive.
Thing is, the ware you want will be pricy. If you want to be effective at all in the meat, you need to be an adept or pay up for initiative ware.

Logic is your friend.  Max.  After that, willpower and intuition.  The rest are not important.
Considering how combat hacking isn't viable, I would not say this.

Everyone should be able to shoot.
I don't always subscribe to the idea that the decker needs to be 'wared out and use automatic weapons.  It's a character thing.  I was thinking he might want to use drones and such in combat, being riggerish.  He could totally pull his weight that way.
 

Rooks

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« Reply #5 on: <12-05-15/0006:32> »
viable choice?

considering Riggers as they are now are sitting ducks to hackers its more like necessary considering the huge gaping logic hole that is how the drek do you get drones to run silent rigging by remote ops you pretty much need a cyber deck to hide its icon from would be hackers that would data spike it or place marks on it to take it over and convert it to their side or a stealth dongle that may or may not be able to be used on a rcc or the ambiguous rule of as soon as you slave anything to a cyberdeck you can no longer use said device directly via persona

Strange

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« Reply #6 on: <12-05-15/0032:30> »
considering Riggers as they are now are sitting ducks to hackers its more like necessary considering the huge gaping logic hole that is how the drek do you get drones to run silent rigging by remote ops you pretty much need a cyber deck to hide its icon from would be hackers that would data spike it or place marks on it to take it over and convert it to their side or a stealth dongle that may or may not be able to be used on a rcc or the ambiguous rule of as soon as you slave anything to a cyberdeck you can no longer use said device directly via persona
o.O that is one LOOOOONG sentence.  You didn't even take a breath, I'm impressed!

Csjarrat

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« Reply #7 on: <12-05-15/0702:23> »
Yeah it's perfectly viable. Perfect time and overclocker means you can easily get away with using a cheapo deck or you could mod your RCC for hacking work too seeing as it will run cyberprograms.
You can add sleaze mod, run stealth and smoke and mirrors and use spare program slots for noise reduction as well as Implanted noise reducers too. Only problem is encryption, you need an attack rating on occasion which is why a deck isn't w bad choice. You'll need to focus your funding well but it's totally viable if you go gear A
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gilga

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« Reply #8 on: <12-05-15/1042:55> »
My favoraite build is a Decker/Rigger/Mage. These characters come out very powerful and diverse. You can get quite a bit of decking done with low end deck or a modified RCC. Basically cheaper equipment there are drawbacks to any choice and I often use cheaper drones. (Doberman instead of rotodrone for example).

but essentially, it is doable and you will have a blast, there may be better equiped deckers and riggers out there but you have more tricks you can pull of and if you play to the limitations of the hardware you bring to the table (and your skills) you'll be very effective.


FST_Gemstar

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« Reply #9 on: <12-05-15/1123:37> »
A starting decker-rigger is tough to get out of the gate, and is often weaker in the meat (but per concept, they are usually in VR or jumped into something anyway). For any high willpower/logic characters, I almost always end up having them be psychologically addictive drug users, as they can usually beat an addiction test with flying colors. the Narco genemod helps get some extra bonuses out of the drug use, limit negative effects, and gives your character a reason to take addiction negative qualities at character generation ( +2 addiction test with Narco for drugs your character takes all the time anyway). Decker-Riggers can save on initiative boosting 'ware by being more drug focused. (Wired Reflexes 2 costs $150k and 3 essence, and gives Reaction +2 and +2d6 Initiative dice.  Narco costs $16.5k, a cram/psych combo costs $.21k, and will give +2 Reaction, +2 Intuition, (+2 Logic,) and +1d6 initiative dice, and probably last for a lot of hours due to a decker-rigger not having high Body.)  Drugs can be way to focus nuyen priorities elsewhere than initiative, and get perks to initiative both in meat and matrix.

Have you thought of being a technomancer rigger? Technoriggers  save money by not needing a deck or control rig, and can machine sprite up their rides/drones for added dice bonuses. It does take a few submersions to get the real useful echoes (the resonance control rig, skinlink, etc.) and the character probably starts with less edge.  With drugs and some key 'ware, it is another way of getting a similar kind of character.

Marcus

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« Reply #10 on: <12-05-15/2007:22> »
It's possible. Decker have gotten a solid buff in 5th but they are paying for it in cash. As most have said it's gonna be heavy money build, i'd try hard to keep it focused and simple, don't wander down to many path, pick your drone type, pick hacking focus and don't wander off from it. You may want to consider Decker/Sam as it is a much easier situation, depending on how sam ya wanna go.
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Haywire

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« Reply #11 on: <12-06-15/0959:24> »
Thank you all for your opinions and ideas! I'll try to make a rough draft and post it for your critique. Thank you again  ;)
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Haywire

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« Reply #12 on: <12-06-15/1507:07> »
How do I find out how much does an autosoft cost? I do not find it anywhere in the core rulebook...
Thank you in advance!
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Csjarrat

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« Reply #13 on: <12-06-15/1540:21> »
How do I find out how much does an autosoft cost? I do not find it anywhere in the core rulebook...
Thank you in advance!

rating x500NY
its in the errata, missed it in the first print run!
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Haywire

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« Reply #14 on: <12-07-15/0126:21> »
Do drones get recoil compensation asidefrom gun modification? Maybe equal to Body? Or am I completely wrong as I remember 3rd edition?
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