Can't decide on starting character, please help

[RabidRodent]

So played a few hours of the 1st mission...did it over 3 times playing around with a Mage, AK rifle Street Sam, and Rigger/Decker.

Loved the SNES Shadowrun but not sure if that's hazy memory or what not. The isometric view here does remind me of it. With that said a few questions:

1. I'm very interested in trying a ninja like character who uses katanas and maybe some thrown weapons in there. Will this get boring? Is it viable? I'd prefer a human but looking at the stats are there ANY advantages to picking a human over a Troll or Orc for a melee character? Also I think I'd prefer a street sam katana vs adept so I could mod myself with cyberware.

2. Rigger/Decker from the early mission seems kind of boring. Is decking really important in this game? From the one time decking in the 1st mission it seemed kind of complicated with all the programs and whatnot and I'm not sure if it's any fun even. I had all my skills in decking and drones and found myself with only 2 weapon slots (1 drone, 1 computer) with no slots for a weapon even.

3. As for the mage, I'm assuming the Dwarf is the only way to go due to his Willpower levels? Human won't cut it right?

4. Finally, how important is charisma. On the 3 trial runs I had nothing invested in charisma. I'd do custom instead of archetypes and just throw stats in what I thought would be good. Are the archetypes good?

Thanks to any vets for any feedback.

[OptoNick]

1a. There are a few different attacks with swords for street sam. Physical adepts also could be devastating with swords in their own way. Throwing weapons skill tree was expanded in Shadowrun Hong Kong with new abilities, but in Dragonfall it's quite barebone, IIRC.

1b. Humans start with +3 Karma points, free to use. Trolls, basically, have 4 additional Karma points invested by default, but has some limitations. In general, you don't really need to up any skill above 9 points, so humans will do all jobs quite well. But in case if you want to roleplay, let's say, the ultimate shaman, you would need to take an elf.

2. Decking is very useful - it will ease your way through security systems and grants additional money. You'll meet a decker for your team very soon, so you may use his skills.

Decker/rigger build is very heavy both on Karma and money, and when you'll go in the Matrix your drones will turn off, because you can't be in meatspace and Matrix simultaneously - IMO, it's a waste of resources.

I'm used to Decker/Street Sam build, because both archetypes have use of cyberware.

3. Yep. But transition from Willpower 9 to Willpower 10 will give you only a slight edge in hit percentage while it requires 10 Karma points. For an ultimate mage/adept it's ok, but I wouldn't say that it's the most effective way of spending Karma.

4. For non-shaman character Charisma is used only in some dialogues for a skillchecks, and sometimes it could turn mission in different direction. Each 2 points in Charisma will grant a new etiquette of speech - another stat for skillchecks. 2-3 etiquettes won't take much Karma and come in handy.

There are a lot more skillchecks in conversations in Hong Kong, but it's still useful in Dragonfal and Returns.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

1: Ninja builds are actually quite potent, but they become even more so if you go for the unarmed weapons since killing hands stack with those. In active mode it's not uncommon to do 20+ damage with only a modest investment.

As a bonus, throwing weapons are the only ranged option that flushes targets from cover on hit instead on stun, so they're good support weapons.

Still, both are quite close-range, so armor and body are priorites.

2: The races are mostly worth it for fluff. The teoretical maxes are just something you're unlikely to hit in these sorts of campaigns.

...With a cavat on troll rigger/deckers. Played one of those once just to buck the sterotype in Returns, and near endgame I could definatly feel the sting of no access to the best gear for my 'class.'

Fun challange, though.

3: Yeah. But the maxing of those stats is so expensive that it's seldom worth it. Even the uniqe chi spell is rather situational from what I've heard.

4: You definatly get back the investment if you pick the right etiqettes. Not many of them, but there's a few quests you can solve non-leathaly with the right ones.

Since you're stuck as the spoke's man for your team, it's definatly worth at least a small investment.

[RabidRodent]

Thanks. So Lord of Darkness, according to you adept is better than a street samurai since unarmed is better than say a baseball bat or katana? After Optonick's post I considered making a street sam focusing on swords/bats with decking but then realized decking being intelligence based would pull karma away from the melee combat.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Well, I wouldn't neccecery use the word 'better' since the more classical melee weapons get those special attacks that let them attack twice and trice later on, and do AP damage...

But considering how often you get normal attacks off AND that the unarmed weapons have bleed on them?

Yeah. I definatly prefer the fist-weapons myself, but the melee weapons aren't without merit. Think it's one of those personal preference things if you prefer a DOT over stuns.

[frdnwsm]

I'd go with Melee weapons myself. I'd rather whack something hard and strip it's AP than try to bleed it out over a period of time. Either a cybered up street sam or a physical adept will function fine. I sort of prefer the adept, since you can grab a couple of mage spells and buff up your fellows if Dietrich isn't with you.

Troll is best for close combat, only because of the way skill costs scale up with increasing proficiency. Trolls start with lower Int and Char, but it's cheaper, karma wise, to grab a rank in each of those skills than to try and get, say, a human up from 3 to 5 on strength and body. The 3 extra karma for a human doesn't quite compensate for the lower Str/Body.

That having been said, the big need in both DF and HK is for a dedicated mage; otherwise, if you want such a thing, you have to hire a merc on a per run basis, which is definitely not cost effective.

I like Charisma around 4 with corp and security proficiencies. And grab 3 ranks of spirit summoning if you are an adept, to get the Leopard totem. It shows up in the spell slot section of your inventory, but doesn't actually take up one; you still end up with 6 spell slots open for use. The passive +1 movement bonus stacks with Stride and Haste, giving you more battlefield mobility.

[frdnwsm]

You can't really judge a build's effectiveness by the first run. The opponents there, other than the guy with the minigun (the main villain of the game, btw) are all straw men, with only 20 HP and weak armor; they are designed to die easily, in order to make sure you escape alive, since you will be only using 3 characters after Monika gets killed off.

And a note on the decker-rigger combo build. You should invest karma in three ranks of quickness & ranged weapons. This opens up the third gear slot, so that you can manipulate a deck along with 2 drones. And on those runs where you don't need a decker, you can leave your deck in stash and bring along an AK97 smartlink gun. Your accuracy won't be great, but a 50% chance of doing damage is better than nothing.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

And a note on the decker-rigger combo build. You should invest karma in three ranks of quickness & ranged weapons. This opens up the third gear slot, so that you can manipulate a deck along with 2 drones. And on those runs where you don't need a decker, you can leave your deck in stash and bring along an AK97 smartlink gun. Your accuracy won't be great, but a 50% chance of doing damage is better than nothing.

I'd personally argue for a tiny splash towards physical adapt and unarmed instead.

That way you still get the extra slot, but actually have a fall-back beyond hiding for the rest of the mission if both your drones gets destroyed.

If you go high enough for Stride, it helps vastly with your manuvrability when your drones are active as well, as well as giving you some really good defence against spells that's always on.

[RabidRodent]

I ended up with a Decker (playing on hard mode) with a focus on shotguns (I enjoy bodies breaking apart from shotgun blasts). Hardly what I wanted to build but it does seem hacking is a big part. I also enjoyed how when I hack into the matrix the outside battle/world continues going. Didn't know that would be the case and it's certainly a nice touch.

Combat does feel very limited in this game after coming from X-Com 2, there is hardly ever any cover in the environments and even when there are it's easy to flank. Hopefully battles get better. Also annoying that weapons I find and place in the Stash can't be placed on my mercenaries.

[red255]

you place items on loan to your mercs at the start of the mission. yes.

its annoying when I find a tazer in the last mission and was like.... well i'd give it to glory, but I can't. so Its either give up one of my guns (I have a sniper rifle, an assault rifle and a minigun) or send it back to my stash never to be seen again.

but yeah most NPC have a few slots free and if you give them the item when you deploy they'll have it.

As for cover... I guess. this game is more stats based than tactical. you win more by having better numbers.

[La_Anarquista]

Lord of Darkness is that the new protagonist from Deus Ex? I was just posting for games and I bought the original 2000 release or whenever. I just beat the training mode right now, thats all. But I had to get more anarcho-cyberpunk stuff and apparantly Deus is the greatest game ever made.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

My avatar? Yeah, that's Adam Jensen.

And if you can get past the dated visuals Deus Ex is definatly still a most impressive game. Crazy how reactive it is to your choices, espacially for its age.

That being said, I do actually prefer Human Revelution. (Thus Adam over there.) Just prefer the look and feel of that game as a whole—espacially the cyber renecisense and mechanical augs stuff, compared with the 'used future' look and 'nano based magic' feel of the first one.

Still, the whole series is great. Even Invisible War has it's moments, even if I'll freely agree that it's the weakest in the series.

[RabidRodent]

Deus Ex Human Revolution under the right director and writer could be the Blade Runner (my fav sci fi movie) of this generation but they'd ruin it by making it a straight action flick.

As for Shadowrun, just restarted and rolled a straight dwarven mage. I just can't stick to one character...but having fun now with him as the glass cannon and don't feel too left out due to not being a decker (thanks to Blitz).

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Hasn't there been a Deus Ex movie in the works since the original?

Stuck in dev hell, just becuse nobody wanting to touch it for what you just said?

Still, even so, I agree fully. A movie in that universe could be phenomenal, but only in the hands of the sort of team I doubt will ever actually get that chance.

[Zadok]

Human is the best race for any class that doesn't need Strength, although just marginally so. Humans have +3 initial Karma while others have +1 on an attribute (2 Karma saved). The Troll has +1 Body and +1 Strength so if you use the Strength you save 4 Karma.

The higher maximum other races offer is mostly pointless. It may be a nice gimmick to have 10 Spellcasting but since that single point is very expensive it isn't really efficient. Even 9 is pretty much overdone for almost everything besides Strength for Melees or Willpower for Mages.

Edit: 1 point costs as much as the new value, so +1 is worth 2 Karma because it lifts the starting value to 2. That is also why the higher max is overpriced: one point above 9 costs 10+ Karma.

[Lord Of Dorkness]

Originally posted by Zadok:

Human is the best race for any class that doesn't need Strength, although just marginally so. Humans have +3 initial Karma while others have +1 on an attribute (2 Karma saved). The Troll has +1 Body and +1 Strength so if you use the Strength you save 4 Karma.

Your math is rather off since the extra stats are added to your character sheet from the start, at least if you use the archetype presets.

A troll physical adept gets to start with 5 body and 4 strenght, for example, while a human gets 4 and 3. That's 9 extra karma's worth of stats right there.

Still, I'll freely admit that's min-maxing using an UI oversight, but it does mean that on paper the 'chose your own stats' button is always better for a human while penalising any other character.