My group played through the beginner adventures Escape from Mos Shuuta and (currently playing) Long arm of the Hutt. We have a slicer / hacker (don't know which word fits it better, "she is good with computers") in our group, and she recently asked how much sense it makes to take a talent which removes black dice when she uses her computer skill defensively. i answered that every talent makes sense (knowing that I would make up some situations, where she will be able to use her talents).

But now I seem to have an uncreative phase.. I have some problems to make up such situations. So which situations could I bring my hacker into, where she needs to defend a computer system?

Maybe have them come across enemies who try to remotely slice their ship's systems during dogfights?

The Special Modifications rules for slicing encounters will be very useful for figuring out how to actually run competitive slicing encounters, on a related note.

7 minutes ago, Tom Cruise said:

Maybe have them come across enemies who try to remotely slice their ship's systems during dogfights?

The Special Modifications rules for slicing encounters will be very useful for figuring out how to actually run competitive slicing encounters, on a related note.

Definitely take a look at Special Modifications - one of the best books they've released in terms of what it adds to rules for running your games. The slicing encounters aren't perfect, but they're solid and relatively well-thought out, and clearly designed with "Defensive Slicing" in mind.

Ok thanks, will have a look. Sadly here in germany we are so far back with the books, Special Modifications will probably come sometime late twothousandwhatever.. And I wanted to avoid mixing languages..

But it seems I don't have a chance when I want to keep somehow up to date

Defensive Slicing doesn't remove setback dice from your Computers checks; it adds setback dice to the checks of anyone trying to slice a system that you're controlling.

And yes, the by far most common useage for this talent is when someone's using the "Slice Enemy Systems" action from the vehicle combat rules. Players are frequently more likely to be slicing into someone else's computer system then they are to defend one of their own. Although if they have a base of operations somewhere that isn't their ship then it can certainly become relevant.

5 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

My group played through the beginner adventures Escape from Mos Shuuta and (currently playing) Long arm of the Hutt. We have a slicer / hacker (don't know which word fits it better, "she is good with computers") in our group, and she recently asked how much sense it makes to take a talent which removes black dice when she uses her computer skill defensively. i answered that every talent makes sense (knowing that I would make up some situations, where she will be able to use her talents).

But now I seem to have an uncreative phase.. I have some problems to make up such situations. So which situations could I bring my hacker into, where she needs to defend a computer system?

Ships Weapon systems can be brought down by remote hacking for example, this would be a classical case of defensive slicing, making it harder to bring down the ships weapon systems. Stealing the ship and breaking in would be another case, actually even your hotel room door might be improved by a slicer with a little bit of time and a dash of paranoia.

Overall, it is one of those talents which works for NPCs better, because players tend to be more offensive, while GMs usually don't try to be mean and use the groups computers against them. But when you have a slicer in the group, sure why not, roll with it and build encounters which actually attack the player's computer systems or make defending a client's base of operation the central theme of your module and this including computer based security systems which need to be hardened and defended. If you like twists, you could let your slicer roll against her own improvements, because they need to infiltrate the same base later own, with all the improvements in security which they have installed first themselves. ;-)

4 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

Ok thanks, will have a look. Sadly here in germany we are so far back with the books, Special Modifications will probably come sometime late twothousandwhatever.. And I wanted to avoid mixing languages..

But it seems I don't have a chance when I want to keep somehow up to date

Easy solution, sell the german copies and get right into the original versions. The german editing is imho not good enough to justify not going with the original language versions. Or just collect within the group two sets, many of the expansions come with really essential extensions, while at the same time overall the system is suffering imho from mechanical bloat based on all those splatbooks. Still, there is imo no middle-ground between going just with the corebook + Fly Casual + Stay on Target and going all out with all the career books.

(Totally OT, the german shadowrun books are miles ahead of the originals, definitely the better choice there)

I really like that idea of the slicer having to infiltrate a system with her own security programs.

Hm, I don't like the mix of english and german in my games. Especially if all bokks are in english. I think that it really kills the atmosphere when I say "Macht mal alle bitte nen Perception Check" oder "Das sind dann 9 Schaden minus deinem Soak" oder "Ich benutz dann mal Defensive Slicing".. I think you get the point. On the other side, I don't like translating everything into german (which results in my players not translating and still using mixed languages). Though I have to admit in a game like Star Wars it could be much less of an issue, because we already have english words there, even in german, in a medieval fantasy setting like d&d or pathfinder it is much more annoying