The stealth one came up during a combat. One of my players had bought the camo armor and when we looked at it, it looked like it increased the difficulties on enemies trying to see her. So, when she hid behind some boxes and they searched, I used her stealth, modified by the armor as their target number. The problem was, this made her a passive participant in things. She wasn't actively stealthing, she was just staying still.

Finally, what all can be hacked? My players have asked before "can we hack the enemies guns? Or their cybernetics?" Stuff like that. I didn't see anything in the books about it.

I think the optical camouflage suit should give a bonus to stealth checks, as most of the time pcs (as opposed to npcs) are doing the sneaking, and thus are the active part in a check.

Luckily, Genesys easily lets you switch active and passive roles in opposed rolls - I'd just upgrade the player's stealth skill, which (statistically) will lead to very similar results as upgrading difficulty for spotters (as this difficulty is directly informed by the stealth skill anyway).

3 hours ago, Riggswolfe said:

The stealth  one came up during a combat. One of my players had bought the camo armor and when we looked at it, it looked like it increased the difficulties on enemies trying to see her. So, when she hid behind some boxes and they searched, I used her stealth, modified by the armor as their target number. The problem was, th  i     s made her a passive participant in things. She wasn't actively stealthing, she was just staying st  ill.  

If She’s wasn’t actively stealthing, the yes she’s the passive one and her Stealth is used as the difficulty for Perception (actively searching) or Vigilance (passively noticing) checks. If she were “actively stealthing” and moving to avoid notice, that’s when she rolls vs their Perception/Vigilance.

in Genesys , the active party is usually the one rolling the dice, but it won’t break too much if you let the PC roll more of the dice pools. Just note that some things don’t exactly equate. For instance, some talents and abilities remove setback dice…if the dice rolling is swapped that talent/ability doesn’t do anything, since setback dice aren’t applied to the now-passive skill.

The optical camo felt pretty lame. She would just go "I'm going to keep hiding" and then the NPCs would roll on their turns. It made her super passive. I may do what you all suggest next time.

Any thoughts on my hacking question?

On 8/8/2019 at 11:12 PM, Riggswolfe said:

Finally, what all can be hacked? My players have asked before "can we hack the enemies guns? Or their cybernetics?" Stuff like that. I didn't see anything in the books about it.

In the Android universe in order to hack something remotely it needs to be connected to the network. In addition you also have to be connected to the network actively.

So, based on what I've seen I don't think guns and cybernetics are generally connected to the net (the exception being the spinal modem). Guns might be connected to the net if they are using the trigger ID lock, or have some sort of a monitor for police. However, just based on real world experience I highly doubt the actual firing mechanisms will be anything but as low tech as possible in order to prevent jams and malfunctions.

There are also a few other interesting cases worth mentioning. Bioroids, might be able to be hacked. However, considering they are run by mechanical brains I don't think it would be easy, and I don't think their brains are actually connected to the net. Lower level robots are totally fair game however. All autonomous non-intelligent robots will likely be connected to some sort of network for things like GPS and stuff. Hoppers can be hacked I think. However, some of them are piloted by androids/clones and not by AI so those ones you probably can't.

Thank you. The question came up because in our prior cyberpunk game guns could explicitly be hacked. It was a world where pretty much everything had some kind of connection to the net. So our hacker used to do stuff like remotely eject ammo clips and the like.

On 8/10/2019 at 8:43 AM, Riggswolfe said:

The optical camo felt pretty lame. She would just go "I'm going to keep hiding" and then the NPCs would roll on their turns. It made her super passive. I may do what you all suggest next time.

I am not too familiar with the camo suit, but does it hide noises such as breathing? I would have given the NPCs a heap of boost dice if they are looking directly at her.

On 8/9/2019 at 2:12 AM, Riggswolfe said:

One of my players had bought the camo armor and when we looked at it, it looked like it increased the difficulties on enemies trying to see her. So, when she hid behind some boxes and they searched, I used her stealth, modified by the armor as their target number. The problem was, this made her a passive participant in things. She wasn't actively stealthing, she was just staying still.

There's a few ways I can see to handle this.

1. Have the NPC's roll an Opposed check. It's the most boring option for the player but doesn't require anything beyond what the rules say.

2. Have the PC roll an Opposed check. All you have to do beyond the normal skill/proficiency to difficulty/challenge dice conversion is to turn those negatives the camo suit gives into positives for the player.

3. Have the PC and the NPC's roll a Competitive check against the same difficulty (PC rolls Stealth skill, NPC's roll Perception), giving the negatives to the NPC's as per the camo suit's rules. Whichever rolls higher would be the successful party.

As GM, handle it how you like. My preference for my table would be option 2.

16 hours ago, Andreievitch said:

I am not too familiar with the camo suit, but does it hide noises such as breathing? I would have given the NPCs a heap of boost dice if they are looking directly at her.

I mean if its in the middle of combat, breathing sounds may not play a major factor. Plus it has sound baffles.

I also wouldn't make a determination if the pursuers are looking directly at the character unless the die rolls indicated they were. These suits seem rare enough that if someone ran behind some boxes and turned one on, its possible that one would think there was another way out rather than thinking he must be here but invisible. Now if the suit was activated in direct view of the enemies, that's a different story as npcs would think camo suit. The 2 defense rating of the suit is suppose to be because you can't see them clearly as opposed to the resilience of the hologram projectors.

Why exactly is it boring for the player to not make the roll to not be seen? If moving dice is such a factor on player engagement, then just let the player roll the dice on behalf of the NPCs. Its the randomness and consequences of the dice that generate excitement, not who is actually physically rolling them.

Plus we all know the axiom of Checkov's Camo Suit: If a player invests resources in getting invisibility powers, the GM had better introduce scenarios where said camo suit can be used to cool effect. (I think that was Checkov...)