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I know it's not my choice but I'm a big fan of the third horn option.
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Dec 10, 2020 20:35
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I also vote for horns #3.
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Dec 10, 2020 21:07
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This is the only one of the trilogy I never played, so I'm going to correct that now. What is the consensus (if there is one) on the best fan patches and hacks to add?
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Dec 10, 2020 22:41
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p much the ones kanfy is usin theres also entire campaigns that peeps make about as big as the sr:r campaign and that one thats about as big as the whole game
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Dec 10, 2020 22:42
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The cut-off side horns are probably as close as we can get to the 'lots of small horns on the temple'.Podima posted:I know it's not my choice but I'm a big fan of the third horn option. Quackles posted:I also vote for horns #3. Edit: I'm not sure if how often my posts get quoted by Kanfy is a good thing or a bad thing. 
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Dec 10, 2020 23:17
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BrotherJayne posted:This plus hand razors is an amazing out the door combo... but no killing hands on cyberweapons I think ☹ Correct. Especially sad since this is the game that finally introduced proper cyberweapons.
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Dec 10, 2020 23:38
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Third one it is, and any instances of overquoting are entirely coincidental and therefore neutral in nature.Stroth posted:Correct. Especially sad since this is the game that finally introduced proper cyberweapons. You also can't unequip the hand razors and they override your normal fists, so depending on what you're doing it might be actively undesirable to start with them.
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Dec 10, 2020 23:48
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Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about my terrible name idea getting picked. It's like some mixture of pride and shame mixed with some other emotion that I can only describe as, "...really?"
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Dec 11, 2020 00:21
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Alacron posted:Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about my terrible name idea getting picked. It's like some mixture of pride and shame mixed with some other emotion that I can only describe as, "...really?" this will not be within an order of magnitude of the most WTF name in the game. seriously go read that atlantic article I linked about hong konger names
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Dec 11, 2020 00:44
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Aww, I missed the voting. But the result was mostly what I wanted anyway, so yay hivemind. 
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Dec 11, 2020 02:18
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Wait what? Kanfy is already on to a Hong Kong LP? You madman. I'm bummed I missed the voting, but I'm so glad I will have more Shadowrun lore dumps to read!
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Dec 11, 2020 05:32
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bob dobbs is dead posted:this will not be within an order of magnitude of the most WTF name in the game. seriously go read that atlantic article I linked about hong konger names The Atlantic posted:Odd names make for odder situations. Last July, police arrested a woman named Ice Wong with 460 grams of ice -- the drug, not frozen water. brb, restarting my game.
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Dec 11, 2020 14:24
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How anyone could make an adept in this game, especially a bare-handed one, without naming him "Phooey" is beyond me.
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Dec 11, 2020 18:06
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Kanfy posted:As a lil' trick from ol' Kanfy for any other aspiring Adepts having trouble getting started, picking the custom archetype with at least 2 Conjuring gives you the Haste I spell which is very easy to put to good use while you're stuck cowering behind crates. Adepts in general benefit a lot from splashing the first couple of points into shamanism; not only do Haste and Heal Wound 1 help a lot in being useful before the kit catches up with other archetypes (haste naturally continuing to be useful throughout the game, at that) but a couple of points into Spirit Summoning gives you an animal totem, of which a decent amount are always-on passive helpful stat bonuses. You don’t really need to touch Charisma after that for combat bonuses, though, only for being more of a charming, etiquette-filled bastard.
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Dec 11, 2020 22:24
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KataraniSword posted:Adepts in general benefit a lot from splashing the first couple of points into shamanism; not only do Haste and Heal Wound 1 help a lot in being useful before the kit catches up with other archetypes (haste naturally continuing to be useful throughout the game, at that) but a couple of points into Spirit Summoning gives you an animal totem, of which a decent amount are always-on passive helpful stat bonuses. Heal Wound is a Mage spell that a custom archetype can't start with but yeah, there's a variety of helpful things you can pick up without a major Karma investment if you're not looking to be a purist for flavor reasons.
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Dec 11, 2020 23:15
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I can attest that dipping into Charisma is actually useful in combat for several reasons really. I wanted to do a Throwing Weapons Troll, but also wanted charisma due to the eternal thing of the main character needing to do all the speech checks. So I just combined it and found that there's a lot in the charisma skills that are nice for general use. The Lightning Barrier spell (why use everyone's AP to run to cover at the start of a fight when I can just make some for everyone), Haste as always (basically banking AP for myself if I didn't want to move for any reason), and the Armor spell got moved to Conjuring too. And then the snake totem bonus for bonus damage and accuracy. I originally intended on exploring Chi Casting a bit, but never ended up doing it. So he ended up being a minor talent shaman that chose to primarily rely on throwing knives at people with a force harder than gunfire. Very effective and honestly felt thematically awesome.
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Dec 11, 2020 23:36
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Kanfy posted:You also can't unequip the hand razors and they override your normal fists, so depending on what you're doing it might be actively undesirable to start with them. I once played a troll adept with claws in pen and paper and that was fun. Picked up the Smashing Blow power for double base damage against barriers. Hello steel door. Goodbye steel door.
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Dec 12, 2020 00:01
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Forgot to include the music for character creation in the update, it's not the most memorable track in a game with some very good tunes but hey, it's there now.
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Dec 12, 2020 09:04
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...Wait, there's an extended edition? And it came out two months after I finished the original? Ah poo poo, here we go again.
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Dec 13, 2020 03:44
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Will we be seeing any of the director's commentary stuff?
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Dec 13, 2020 17:39
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raverrn posted:Will we be seeing any of the director's commentary stuff? I assume not until the end of the game if at all; there’s some pretty heavy spoilers throughout it.
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Dec 13, 2020 17:44
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raverrn posted:Will we be seeing any of the director's commentary stuff? KataraniSword posted:I assume not until the end of the game if at all; there’s some pretty heavy spoilers throughout it. If you're playing along at home, I'd recommend avoiding it if you're concerned about spoilers...but I'd absolutely read the director's commentary your second time through because it's definitely worth it.
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Dec 13, 2020 17:59
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pumpinglemma posted:...Wait, there's an extended edition? And it came out two months after I finished the original? Ah poo poo, here we go again. If you have your save file it literally carries on from your ending.
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Dec 14, 2020 09:31
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raverrn posted:Will we be seeing any of the director's commentary stuff? I'm not sure if there's a good way of covering them, as was mentioned there are a lot of spoilers in there but beyond that they're also audio-only without subtitles with almost 2 hours total over the duration of the game. Maybe there'll be something in the Extras section from bits that don't constitute as spoilers but we'll see, I never really made any plans for it. Also the Dragonfall LP is now in the LP Archive! As always big thanks to Baldurk for maintaining that site and the image host LPix used in this LP as well. Kanfy fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Dec 14, 2020 |
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Dec 14, 2020 10:20
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Part 02 - A New Beginning Once again the people have spoken, and after a couple of days of heated voting action, we have our protagonist:  Shin Black, street name Taz ("because things are about to get Looney Tunes in here"), the female troll melee weapon Physical Adept! If the last two adventures are anything to go by, it's gonna be a long ride and bumpy ride for our newest heroine. So let's buckle up and get started right away...  ...with an honest to god opening movie! Largely consisting of still images with some minor animation, but still, oh boy oh baby, welcome to 2056!  VIDEO: Opening Movie  The sound of an answering machine chirps the arrival of 1 new message. An elderly male voice begins speaking...  "Uh, hi. It's Raymond. I hope I have the right number."  "Look. I know we haven't spoken in a while, but I need your help. Remember the day I took you and Duncan off the streets?"  "I told you that the past is just a story. That if you could just accept that, your past loses all power over you."  Rapid contextless flashes of a crowd and a tall shadow! "Yeah... hah. I was wrong."  "I'm on my way to Hong Kong now. To finish something I should have faced a long time ago."  "And... I need you with me."  The light outside sputters and fails. Brief darkness.  "I know we're not blood...  "...and we didn't leave things in a good place. But..."  "...you and Duncan are the only real family I have."  "Please..."  "If our past means anything to you, meet me in Hong Kong right away."  "I'll explain more when you get here."  "I'm begging you."  Gunfire and shouting, then darkness and silence. The camera pans up to the skyline.  "I'm almost out of time."  Aaand title!  NEW MUSIC:  (Jon Everist handles the whole soundtrack this time, and it's a very good one too. I definitely recommend listening to the music as you go if possible.)     Mmm, nothing like the industrial musk of modern society to spice up a family reunion. Do deodorant bottles come harbor-sized by any chance?    [He grins.] Green's not really your color, Shin. Doesn't go with that nice new armor I got you.  Alright, this is the first update so let's review some basics here. Any skill checks, etiquette uses and whatnot we're able to select are marked green in-game and such things will be bolded in the LP when we make use of them. Also this LP will try to cover a variety of interesting/funny/noteworthy dialogue we might normally not see, either in separate quote blocks, in the Extras section at the end of an update, or simply by injecting it into conversations if it's possible to do so naturally. Basically the in-game text won't be adjusted in any significant manner, but we'll be a little more flexible with it than normal. Anyway, Duncan making fun of our complexion (which by coincidence makes him sound like he's dissing our hair) already brings us to our first skill check, and there's going to be more of these than ever. We'll get to our full stats in a moment, but this one feels like a subtle reminder that you probably want at least 3 points invested into Body as having 10-20 max HP just might not cut it in this town.  (Body 3) [Tough it out.] Don't know what you're talking about. Must be the harbor lights messing with you. Must be. Guess you've still got some of your old fortitude, at least.[He laughs.] Considering how much synthohol we used to put down... I'd be surprised if you couldn't handle a little chop. Anyway. We gotta go find Raymond. Find Raymond? I thought he'd be here. Never showed up.[He's still got that same baritone rasp. Had it since he was twelve - Wu developed early.] Did you try him on comm? Nah. Just been walking around the docks shouting his name.[He says it as a joke, but there's a note of concern in his voice.] I've been trying him for the last hour. No answer. No clue where he might be? No.[Wu rubs his head.] But I just checked in with the local PD and morgue. If he's dead, his body hasn't turned up yet. That's a good sign, I guess.Or maybe he did end up in the morgue but got back up and walked off to who knows where. There are some real strange people back in Seattle. When was the last time you saw him? A few weeks ago. Before I got his message telling us to meet him here. I'd been working a lot, so I hadn't been by the house in a while. House still the same? Is Mrs. Malony still cleaning up a trail of pipe tobacco in his wake? [He bows his head.] Mrs. Malony's dead, Shin. Three years ago. Bad ticker. He couldn't hire another housekeeper after that. He kinda creeped them out. Creeped them out? But he's just a little old man.There was once a time when it felt like everybody loved him. [His voice sounds far away.] Raymond hasn't been himself in a long time. How so? He's been restless. Staying in his study, inside his own head a lot. And he barely sleeps anymore. I've been worried about him, but I haven't figured out what to do about it.[He looks up at you and shrugs.] And I didn't have a sister to turn to. Hell - wasn't too sure you were even alive still, until Raymond managed to track down your number.Yeah, about that, we've been a little... preoccupied.   Gasp! Our honorary brother and the lady who was seemingly told that no, they will *not* be taking another photo and she'll just have to use the first one no matter how it came out... are cops! Sarge? You his partner? Unfortunately, yes - although partner's not the right word for it, exactly. I like "superior officer" better. [She grins.] I let him carry my coffee for me... write my parking tickets... that kinda thing.[The woman taps her chest with an armored finger.] Carter. Yeah... things didn't really go the way they were supposed to. We weren't really sure either to be honest, spend enough years detached from your old life and at some point it recedes so far back that you start wondering if it isn't better to just close that chapter for good, try and create something completely new instead. Plus the owners of the place we lived in until recently weren't real big on granting overseas vacations. Well, surprise. Here I am. Yeah, well, I wasn't so sure, y'know?[He shakes his head.] Hey, look, I'm glad you're here, Shin. Seriously. But I'm gonna need some time to get used to having you around again. Been a while since I heard from you, know what I mean? Definitely got a lot of catching up to do, but maybe we'll do that somewhere with a lower concentration of rainwater and diesel fumes. Yeah. We'll talk about it later, okay?[Wu stares at you, his goggles reflecting the harbor lights.] Yeah. Okay.[He scans the waterfront, frowning.] Let's just find Raymond. He was supposed to meet us in the plaza on the other side of this pier. The sooner we find him, the sooner you all can have a big happy family reunion over dinner. [She grins.] And the sooner I can find a place to get a drink around here. drat right.  And so it begins. Ah, that new RPG feeling. Climactic endgame events and mowing down the opposition like a superhero with your murder arsenal are all well and good, but there's always something special about the very beginning, where you're still just a small weak fish with a whole ocean and all its sights and dangers ahead of you. As for who's going to be part of our school this time, let's take a look at our crew.   Well, there's us, for starters! Let's do a deeper dive and see what's going with us in detail, shall we? While for examples Mages have pretty clear stat priorities and are very straightforward skill-wise, Adepts can be built in a variety of ways and are overall more Karma-hungry. You might note, for example... - We're not actually doing a whole lot actual Adepting yet. This is because most Qi abilities must be bought from stores, with the first innate ability of interest to a melee weapons user like us only unlocking at 5 Qi Casting which takes a good chunk of Karma. - So before worrying about any of the fancy stuff, we first need a solid base of Strength and Close Combat to make sure we can actually hit things in the first place. One key number here is 5 Strength, which causes our attacks with most melee weapons to deal 1 AP damage (called "stun" or "STN" in-game). As a Troll we could even bring that up to 2 AP damage a swing but that takes a whopping 12 Strength so that level of bashing the living daylights out of things is still pretty far out of reach. - The actual Melee Weapons skill is a little odd in that the weapon abilities and higher crit chance it provides are both pretty well covered by later Qi abilities, making it less important than you'd imagine. Melee Weapons 2 will give us the Thrust ability and displays our crit chances though. - Also, No Quickness or Dodge. We're the absolutely last kid anyone wanted in their dodgeball team, an 85-year-old could land a punch on us even if they first had to get up from their rocking chair to do it. We just plain don't have the spare starting Karma for investing in enough Dodge for it to start making a real difference, and Quickness doesn't help us hit things. - Also, 2 Biotech for displaying enemy HP, primarily for LP screenshot purposes. This is our biggest divergence point from powergaming builds as Intelligence and Biotech both come up in conversations fairly frequently while being of limited use in combat beyond making our Medkits a little better. - What one could consider a bit powergame-y though is our 2 Conjuring, there for the simple reason that it starts us with the AP-boosting Haste I spell. The thing is that while a ranged fighter can always stay behind cover and contribute to really any combat situation, as a squishy early game melee fighter we'll often face situations where charging in to attack is simply suicidal especially against AI modded to make use of all its AP. Haste I lets us make use of those turns when we're stuck hiding behind cover, either by giving a teammate a boost or basically taking a disadvantageous turn off in order to make our upcoming assault more effective. When we go in, we have to go in hard and make an impact to avoid getting ventilated on the enemy turn, and this spell helps us do exactly that. ...And honestly, it's ultimately less that we're trying to be a clever min-maxer and more that we're going to need all the help we can get, because early fights in this game are no joke even with the default AP-restricted enemies. On top of that you can't exactly call Adepts early game monsters unless you follow it up with "as in like goblins or slimes or something". We didn't do it here but dipping into Spirit Summoning for a guardian totem is also a solid option as several give useful bonuses for an Adept. As a final note, this grants us the ability to see into astral space and use Astral Perception in certain interactions.  Lastly 2 Charisma we needed for the Conjuring anyway gives us one starting Etiquette which provides extra options in interactions, for better or worse the same system as always but with Street now having been kicked to the curb where it quite literally belongs. Taz will be breaking troll stereotypes with Academic to start with, but we'll pick up more as we go to the degree our low Charisma cap allows. This is a dialogue-heavy game and Etiquettes come up quite a lot, but once again not all of them are made equal.  Moving on to our gear, Duncan's "stiff new body armor" might visually look like the real deal but in practice we might as well be wearing cardboard. Thanks a lot, bro. The armor system remains the same from before, armor value corresponding to simple flat damage reduction and ranging from 0 to 10. Again, ranged fighters can easily make use of cover to compensate for low armor, but this is not what we'd want to wear when charging into the enemy lines swinging a blade.  Especially not this blade, though at least they were nice enough not to start us with a bottom-tier Baseball Bat. Melee weapons add Strength to their base damage and sword-type weapons deal AP damage on critical hits, though this doesn't stack with the AP damage we already deal with all hits. The Machete also doesn't count as a "real" sword in that some weapon abilities can't be used with one. This happens to include Thrust, the only one we actually have. We technically also have the basic shaman weapon Acid Bolt we got on the side of our Conjuring investment, but we won't be throwing those around.  We have 6 inventory slots as usual, and in there we find some basic consumables. As in really basic, one bottom-tier Medkit and Trauma Kit are better than literally nothing but it's clear that for the time being we won't be able to place much faith in medical science to bail us out from real trouble. At least we can toss grenades a respectable distance away this time, though it's still costly and inaccurate without skill in Throwing Weapons.  Finally, ability-wise we start with the aforementioned Haste I and the Qi spell Killing Hands which helps an unarmed Adept compensate for their lack of a weapon. Unlike Mage and Shaman spells that only do something when cast, some Qi spells like this one come with passive effects that can be activated for a temporary boost to the effect.   Next up is our osananajimi (TL note: osananajimi means "childhood friend") and brother-in-law-enforcement Duncan Wu. Duncan's skillset is that of a classic Street Samurai specializing in Rifles with a side of melee and Throwing Weapons for grenadier purposes. His fairly low starting Ranged Combat leaves his shooting a bit on the inaccurate side though.   His starting weapon is the tier 2 assault rifle Semopal vz/88V, one step above the bottom-tier AK-97. It's actually less effective than its Dragonfall counterpart as assault rifles have gotten a damage reduction pretty much across the board, but they maintain their status as the reliable jack-of-all-trades weapon type with strong burst damage abilities. He's also kept the best armor to himself, the jerk. Crew members automatically upgrade their gear over time, which is good because we're not going to be swimming in a whole lot of spare nuyen in this town.  He's also putting all those pockets on his vest to good use as his inventory is stacked with the same stuff we have plus an extra Basic and Advanced Medkits and a bottom-tier concussion grenade. All concussion grenades deal AP damage and inflict the "Unbalanced" status effect which reduces avoidance by 5-7% depending on the grenade's level. All crew consumables are refreshed between missions, so even the consumable-allergic can make use of their buddies' stuff without worry.  As a side note, a new UI feature in this game allows for transferring items and spells to our crewmates outside of combat. This is handy for distributing loot but is limited to moving items we ourselves own, and while it's possible to "overwrite" a crew member's locked-in item by replacing it with ours, their original item will be gone for the rest of the mission just like how loaning gear in the mission prep menu has always worked. There also seems to be a minor exploit here where loaning an item to a crew member with full locked-in inventory like Duncan's here and back actually unlocks one of their items as if it were ours, but we'll abstain from that one. Finally, while Duncan Wu's no spellcaster, he does have a variety of physical abilities. Firstly, the standard rifle abilities from his Rifle skill:  Aimed Shot: Single shot with +15% accuracy. Cost: 1 AP. Cooldown: 3 RNDs. Burst Fire: Two shots with high critical hit chance using 5 bullets. Cost: 2 AP.Sniper rifles fall under this same skill but there are some differences in the actual abilities, for example the sniper version of Aimed Shot also pierces 2 armor and Burst Fire isn't available at all. Both of these are useful, Aimed Shot helps in finishing enemies off reliably and Burst Fire nearly auto-crits provided the enemy isn't behind cover. Taking 5 bullets isn't a big deal either, reloading consumes AP but otherwise ammo is unlimited in these games. Beyond these generic abilities though, Duncan does also come with some unique melee moves of his own:  Body Blow: Unarmed attack with -1 HP damage but +1 AP damage. Cost: 1 AP. Cooldown: 1 RND. Subdue: Subdues and zip ties a stunned enemy, removing them from combat. Cost: 1 AP. Cooldown: 3 RNDs.While Body Blow has the potential to be one-hit knockout punch if it both lands and crits, it's overall pretty unreliable due to Duncan just not being much of a fistfighter. Subdue on the other hand can be quite potent all throughout the game. It works on most enemies you'll encounter, cannot miss, and most notably ignores all armor and HP, making it especially useful against beefy threats. It also synergizes well with our own AP damage, something which one of Duncan's crew advancement paths focuses on as well. Despite subdued enemies not technically counted as having died, the writing (understandably) doesn't usually take survivors into account which can lead to some odd moments here and there. This isn't completely without exception though.   Finally, we have Duncan's partner Carter, a bona fide Mage! She has other things going on too, having some skill in Rifles and Throwing Weapons like Duncan, but these are just for cop training flavor as she has neither a rifle nor anything to throw.   Powerbolt is the Mage equivalent of a basic weapon which anyone who's read the Dragonfall LP should be very familiar with. Like Duncan, she gets to wear slightly thicker cardboard than us.  She got snubbed on the item front though, not getting so much as a single grenade despite her skill in them. Or a Trauma Kit for that matter, so it's a good thing she has a solid 50 HP instead of being the typical glass cannon mage.  What she does have is a whole bunch of spells, mainly support-oriented ones. Armor has jumped ship since the previous game and is now a Shaman spell despite having kept its Magey color scheme, Aim now has some variance to its effect, and Strip Armor no longer lasts indefinitely. Someone's been waging war on mage superiority in the last two years, it seems...  Phew, alright, that about does it for the party. We have measly 1,200 nuyen to our name, and our goal is to reach the plaza where Raymond was supposed to meet us without having to drag anyone's corpse there. Let's get to it.  As always there's going to be all kinds of things for us to look at, pick up, and fiddle with along the way. Rest assured that nothing will escape our attention.  The plaza is supposedly a straight trip to the north (top-right), though the Chekhov's Locked Gate we pass along the way holds promise for an inevitable detour.   Who could've seen this coming! Huh. Well, that was open earlier.[Duncan frowns.] Looks pretty solid. Maybe if you bang your head against it hard enough, it'll open.It is our sacred duty as an honorary sister not to pass up chances for some friendly ribbing between siblings. Hah. Maybe.[He squints into the guard shack.] Strange that there's no one here though, isn't it? [Carter shrugs.] Who knows. It's Hong Kong. Not exactly sure how things work around here. C'mon, Rookie. We can cut through the construction site. I hate it when you call me that. We make our way back to the locked gate earlier, as we all knew we eventually would.  [Carter examines the control panel for a moment, then throws Wu a backward glance.] Looks like there's another way off the docks on the other side of this gate. I think that I can bypass the lock.With Intelligence 3 we could offer to open it ourselves, but we'll just stand aside and let her work.  Got it. Let's go.We step in through the gate, and then... Movement! Oh boy. NEW MUSIC: .jpg) (Since this is the  update, here's some more of that regarding the combat music in this game: Hong Kong is the first in the series to introduce dynamic music, which includes the presence of multiple versions of the same combat theme with more/different instrumentation depending on the situation. I can't say off-hand if they all follow the same pattern, but there are basically three different variations: The normal battle version for normal clashes, an "intense battle" version used in bigger or more climactic fights, and a third "wrap-up" version shared by the other two that kicks in when a battle is nearing its end. The third isn't present in the OST, but to show it off I've recorded the music in-game and timed the transition to happen between loops. So in the link above the first loop is the standard version while the second loop is the "wind-down" version and I do recommend listening to both for anyone in the habit of clicking music links.)     [He points at their weapons.] You're gonna need some better bait. All you're gonna catch with that is trouble. [Whisper.] Seriously? Did they teach you that in rent-a-cop school? [He turns to you with a smile starting on his face. Then he thinks better of it. Turns back to the smugglers.]We'll show him how it's done. Ahem. [Try out your Cantonese.] We're just passing through. Why don't you put the guns away?[Their spokesman laughs, looks at his crew.]  Hey, you talk good Cantonese, baby. Real authentic. What? No way, we definitely got it right! Bet you just have... too much illegal contraband in your ears! Yeah! Bam! [Wu flashes his badge.] Lone Star. Put the guns down.[The smuggler squints at Wu's badge, then smiles at his friends.] Never seen a badge like that before. Either it's fake, or you're some kind of security guard.[He grasps his rifle.] Either way, this ends the same. I think he's done talking. Alright, it's time for our first battle, the mechanics being the same as in the previous game: Both sides take turns, everyone has base 2 AP (later 3 AP) to use on movement and actions, and cover comes in Light, Medium and Heavy variants providing increasing amounts of protection, most notably immunity to critical hits at all levels. Hit Points are displayed as bars, and the white dots above them indicate Armor. Now while the first game started off with a literally unlosable battle, and even the second one threw some weak museum guards at you as warm-up, Hong Kong opts to say hello with brass knuckles rather than kid gloves. The smugglers have superior numbers and starting positions, with a mage, a melee fighter, and two ranged fighters carrying an assault rifle and a shotgun. They also have grenades. Between this and the scarce medical supplies we start with, it's no great surprise that the Steam achievement for dying in the opening mission isn't a terribly rare one. And be also reminded that the AI has been modded to use all of its AP instead of being limited to one action per turn, and that we're basically a soft bullet magnet who brought a (large) knife to a gunfight.  The main problem is the Enforcer here, he's tough, far in the back, starts behind cover, and can fire his Benelli Raffaello shotgun twice a turn for 10-12 damage a pop before critical hits. Shotguns can damage adjacent targets from medium range and longer, so grouping up can get especially ugly even before the grenades start flying.  Here's something else though, south of the smuggler positions are these glowy lines on the ground. Long-time readers (or players) no doubt remember Leylines which came in three power levels and boosted Mage spells cast while standing on them. The idea is the same here, but they're now called Dragon Lines and come up with a different set of bonuses:  The obvious standout here is the introduction of "Spell bounces", and it's pretty much what the name implies: Mage spells cast while standing on at least Medium-level Dragon Lines will also jump to 1-2 nearby targets. This includes beneficial spells and even area damage spells (which may or may not be desirable) but sadly not Shaman ones like our Haste I. Anyway, let's get the fighting started. Since we can't run in without getting shredded to hell, and Duncan's accuracy and damage are pretty unreliable, the plan is to park Carter on these Dragon Lines and have her do the heavy lifting.  To that end we immediately put our Haste to use to give Carter just enough distance to reach the Medium Dragon Line. Duncan then moves to the cover behind us followed by Carter buffing herself with Aim, the effect which then bounces to Duncan as well. How handy is that? There are some animation oddities here and there in this game, like Carter here flinching as if hit when buffing herself.  Duncan uses his remaining AP to take a shot at the Mage, her cover mitigating most of the damage. The rifle-wielding Tattooed Gunman is in the open, but the Mage is the softest target and more dangerous of the two.  The Gunman joins his buddies and takes a shot at us for 8 damage, followed by the Mage buffing the bat-wielding Thug before tossing the "Rosa classic" single-target damage spell Flamethrower at us. Why, old friend? Why do you scorch us so?  Not wanting to feel left out, the Enforcer also pumps another 11 damage our way with his shotgun while the Thug charges at us. Low avoidance really makes us everyone's favorite target. Despite already having lost more than half our HP in just one turn we actually got really lucky here though. Usually the Enforcer is content blasting away from behind his cover, but now he spent half his turn moving and most of the smugglers have grouped up in the open. Now we just need Carter and her 3 AP to deliver as she goes for a 68% hit Manaball...  And boy does she ever deliver, just look at that beautiful boy bounce! She almost even hits us because I did not really expect it to go for the Thug standing right next to us! Gotta get used to Hong Kong mechanics again...  The Mage is vaporized by the hermetic super ball, and to cap things off Carter even crits the Enforcer out of the picture with a Powerbolt (which doesn't bounce from his corpse). Man it's great to have a real mage in the team, hope Carter with her generic model and no character description will stay with us forever and never betray and/or die on us.  Even we get a chance to get in on the action and just straight-up hack the aggressive Thug's arm off with our machete. Guess somebody's mama never taught him to keep his hands to himself, eh?  Even Duncan is inspired to join the critfest and a perfect Burst Fire brings both the fight and the smuggler boss' criminal career to a shockingly fast end. This really couldn't have gone much better, the RNG was clearly feeling forgiving today. Of course this "optimal scenario" still involved us losing more than half our HP in one turn, but hey. Do you think those guys were Triad? Not sure. I don't recognize their tattoos. For the sake of actually delivering a proper update to the thread, we'll leave it here for today. Not a ton of concrete progress, but with most of the mechanics and party stuff now covered things will pick up from here. See you next time, where we'll no doubt reunite with our foster father without incident and our trio of two cops and a civilian will continue to have absolutely nothing to do with shadowrunning in Hong Kong in Shadowrun: Hong Kong!  Not really much in the way of extras yet but yeah, this is where I'll throw in any stuff of interest that didn't fit into the main update. For the sake of having some reason to include this section, here's the brief exchange for failing the Body 3 check in the beginning: At least I'm not --[Your stomach lurches again as another wave crashes against the pier. The taste of bile fills your mouth.] Listen, if you're gonna hurl, get it over with now. We gotta go find Raymond. Stand still. You make a great target. I'll pass. He never showed up, Shin. It's not like him.Kanfy fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2020 14:58
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That spell bounce is a real rude surprise if you don't realize it can do friendly fire.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:20
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I don't think the game ever goes into what your character did to get locked up. Since she has the Academic etiquette, I'm making it my headcanon that Shin was a doctoral student whose research team's "intellectual property theft" pissed off a megacorp and she was the scapegoat who got a prison term for it. And then while in jail she hit the iron and got fuckin' swole.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:26
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Wow, I never knew about spell bounce! I need to try it next ti...paragon1 posted:That spell bounce is a real rude surprise if you don't realize it can do friendly fire. Never mind. EDIT: Kanfy posted:
Vanilla Shadowrun Returns only had a single actual shadowrun so it could happen! AceOfFlames fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Dec 17, 2020 |
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Dec 17, 2020 18:42
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Incidentally, Academic isn't out of character for a Shadowrun Troll at all. The well-read Troll autodidact is actually a Shadowrun stereotype, or at least it is a couple of editions on from this. A lot of Trolls were forced out of the arcologies in the city cores out into the ruins of what used to be the suburbs, areas that were well supplied with public libraries before everything went on the Matrix. As a result of this Trolls have the highest literacy rate of any metatype, or at least they will by the 2070s.
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Dec 17, 2020 18:58
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habeasdorkus posted:I don't think the game ever goes into what your character did to get locked up. Since she has the Academic etiquette, I'm making it my headcanon that Shin was a doctoral student whose research team's "intellectual property theft" pissed off a megacorp and she was the scapegoat who got a prison term for it. And then while in jail she hit the iron and got fuckin' swole. Servetus posted:Incidentally, Academic isn't out of character for a Shadowrun Troll at all. The well-read Troll autodidact is actually a Shadowrun stereotype, or at least it is a couple of editions on from this. A lot of Trolls were forced out of the arcologies in the city cores out into the ruins of what used to be the suburbs, areas that were well supplied with public libraries before everything went on the Matrix. As a result of this Trolls have the highest literacy rate of any metatype, or at least they will by the 2070s. So you might not meet many trolls who could beat Garry Kasparov III at girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Dec 17, 2020 |
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Dec 17, 2020 19:02
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paragon1 posted:That spell bounce is a real rude surprise if you don't realize it can do friendly fire.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:25
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Specifically from Shadowrun 5th edition "Run Faster"quote:In an interesting intellectual note, trolls have the highest literacy rate percentage of any metatype. Some racially biased individuals will claim this is some misuse of statistics based on the small population of trolls versus other metatypes, but that just shows they don’t know how rates work. The explanation for this is buried in the rubble and cast-off detritus of earlier societies. Trolls live in the ruins of our last information age, when information was written, not coded. Paper books from old libraries, cast-off papers, and forgotten letters fill the spaces where trolls have made their homes. And in their free time, they read. Many trolls can even read and decipher cursive, which died with my grandfather’s generation, and many use calligraphy as an artistic expression. This “secret code,” along with their unique racial trait of horns, has opened an avenue of expression all their own. The ancient art of scrimshaw, the carving of bone, is practiced alongside real-ink tattooing to make the horns and skin of many trolls into works of art. How much of this applies to Shin is open to question given that she and Duncan grew up in Raymond's household and her background with Duncan before that is not typical.
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Dec 17, 2020 21:47
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Servetus posted:Specifically from Shadowrun 5th edition "Run Faster" Oh, I'm sure that horn-carving and tattoos had their place in the lives of any young troll. Poil posted:Especially if you stand on a spot with two bounces. And your party is clustered together. And you used a high damage high -ap spell. That was a short fight and a quick reload. Yeah, spell bouncing not discriminating between friend and foe, and just going from one target to another nearby target without any sort of consistent logic, is why it's just better to not cast some spells on dragon lines unless you know drat well you're out of the line of fire.
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Dec 17, 2020 22:13
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Aww yes the first real update!
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Dec 18, 2020 02:41
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Maybe Taz spent her in between prison workout time in the library?
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Dec 18, 2020 02:49
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Soylent Pudding posted:Maybe Taz spent her in between prison workout time in the library? Or her cellmate was a former college professor who gave lectures in their sleep?
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Dec 18, 2020 02:51
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Soylent Pudding posted:Maybe Taz spent her in between prison workout time in the library? Not a lot of things to do in a prison. I had a family member spend quite a bit of time in one, and on top of being the deadlift champion somewhere over 650+ lbs. he was an excellent chess player. Being a troll, Taz probably got tired of the weights they had in the weight room real quick.
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Dec 18, 2020 03:14
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Sometimes your corporate black site prison is a fenced in bunch of cargo containers in the trackless desert. Sometimes it's the humanities department at Reed. 
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Dec 18, 2020 03:57
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We begin at last.  It can be kind of shocking that the first combat can be as deadly as it is; it's hard to tell if Harebrained expected mostly SR vets to be the audience or if they wanted to put people in the pool's deep end so people would actually learn the combat system. KataraniSword posted:Oh, I'm sure that horn-carving and tattoos had their place in the lives of any young troll. In the Renraku Arcology sourcebook, a rare corporate-family troll teenager is described as having gotten gold end-caps for his horns. Horn bling is super common among trolls. Also if we're referencing Run Faster, those cowards at Harebrained haven't given us a pixie or naga player character in these games yet.  Also, seriously, if you haven't done so, look up a youtube of the opening movie. It's incredibly slick and great for establishing the atmosphere.
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Dec 18, 2020 09:15
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SpaceDrake posted:Also, seriously, if you haven't done so, look up a youtube of the opening movie. It's incredibly slick and great for establishing the atmosphere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsDpv1q9hPM
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Dec 18, 2020 09:37
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