Shadowrun 6 Matrix thoughts

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The SR6 CRB is out and I've gone through the Matrix section.

See my initial thoughts on the QSR first.

To start with, most things aren't very different from 5e. MARKs have been replaced by user access levels, there are attack and defense ratings for calculating the new edge system, and OS accumulates differently. Grids have been errata'd-out. Hackers lose some of the extra stuff they gained in 5e Data Trails and Kill Code. The skill-squish means that coming up with dice pools for Matrix actions is much simpler, and hackers are no longer required to get a bunch of skills just in case some obscure roll comes up and they don't want to have to default. CGL said that they wanted to reduce the buy-in for hackers, but decks (and now cyberjacks) are still very expensive (and Technomancy still requires selecting it at chargen, of course).

How things look in the Matrix is a bit different. Like before, icons can be "normal" or running silent, but running silent no longer brings a -2 penalty to all actions while in that mode. Since MARKs aren't a thing anymore, Matrix users cannot see who has access to icons, including their own, making knowing if you're being hacked kind of impossible for the average user unless the hacker is using Attack actions. Making the Matrix Perception action just a minor action is a huge QoL improvement.

When it comes to access levels, I'm happy with the change. In 5e, it was often tedious to get multiple MARKs on a target quickly (out-of-game time) with all the rolls. There's definitely still rolling, but the difference between "fast and loud" and "slow and quiet" in 6e are quite nice. Very few actions require Admin access (why Snoop though?), so fast hacking with Brute Force will be a pretty simple way to make things happen. Probe and Backdoor Entry are a bit of a throwback to 4e pre-hacking everything, but with Noise and the really excellent piece on Host-linking, hackers are still more like 5e than 4e in that they're still physically with the group most of the time. With the changes to initiative in 6e, I'm not worried about hackers being off in the corner playing minigames with the GM while the rest of the party is bored.

Most of the Matrix actions are straight copy-paste jobs from 5e, but I'm mostly fine with that (except when the writes copy-pasted rules that don't exist anymore). Matrix Search and Hash Check together is a pretty cool solution to RAI problems in 5e that I like having as RAW. Hide is more wonky than it was in 5e because there's no RAW way to tell if someone has access to things in your PAN. I really like Probe and Backdoor Entry, as they give a way around the harsh OS-from-time rules when the hacker has time to prepare, while making Brute Force a useful action on its own. This is definitely better than 5e in my opinion. Snoop requiring Admin access but Spoof only requiring Outsider is extremely weird to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if they got changed in errata.

The programs are pretty much the same, with some that grant dice bonuses instead granting temporary Edge. The mix-and-match of dice bonuses and penalities with edge bonuses and penalities is a little weird; it's like they wanted to move entirely to edge but couldn't make it work, so some things are still in dice mods.

IC is pretty much the same.

For Technomancers, being able to add their Resonance to their Matrix attributes and move it around is very nice, making Technomancers less attribute-starved. Additionally, making starting Complex Form count equal to Resonance * 2 is a change for simplicity that I'm fine with. Complex Forms look almost identical to 5e, even including Transcend Grid which had to be day-0 errata'd-out. Sprites are also almost identical, though have a few new cool powers. Echos are a bit of a let-down: after the first submersion, most players will still take Skinlink, then Living Network, then Overclocking, and then not really bother from there. At least they wrote the right Submersion cost this time.

Looking over my questions from reading over the QSR, I can answer some of them:

  • What's required to access a host? -- depends on the host
  • What's required to access files in a host? -- being in the host and having user access
  • No more grids? -- correct
  • How does a hacker hide? -- with the hide action
  • Why does the OS increase so fast? -- who knows, but there are ways around it
  • How does a hacker revoke their access to something? -- no clue
  • What's the difference between user access and root access, mechanically? -- which actions can be performed
  • Is there a way to invite access to another persona? -- no clue
  • Which actions require hacking the icon beforehand, and which don't? -- the CRB has the list
  • Technomancers? -- yup