Character Builds?

[PhantomVector]

I kinda suck. What do you guys always put on your shadowrunner? Anything you always grab no matter the character?

My favorite so far seems to be the rigger. So anything related to that would be awesome

[St0rmFury]

If you're going the non-magic path, always take the magnetic arm + adrenal pump. In fact, I recommend adrenal pump for all builds. Just get cyberware affinity to 6, it's worth it.

[Clockwork]

Most of the time (practically always), I grab a Datajack and a Cyberdeck.

Lately, I've been putting 1 karma into Spellcasting or Conjuring to get Astral Perception (and one spell).

I mostly play with Rifle, so I practically always carry a Sniper Rifle.

Whenever I play Rigger, I focus on Decker Rigger, with no fighting ability, but most people would suggest taking the Monofilament Whip Cyberware.

Originally posted by St0rmFury:

If you're going the non-magic path, always take the magnetic arm + adrenal pump.

Wait what? There's an adrenal pump in Hong Kong? Oh man, am I THAT blind? I never ever noticed it.

[Batman]

I think these are the 4 cyberwares you should take a look at: Laser Designator, Reflex Trigger, Wired Reflexes, Cross Dermal Sheath. There should be one that reduces incoming dmg but I can't seem to find it on the list in this game's wikipage: https://shadowrun.gamepedia.com/Shadowrun:_Hong_Kong_Cyberware

If you enjoy building a combat character and your parents were killed in an ally by a gun (leaving you alone with your butler and a hell lot of money), you can consider playing STR for melee or throwing. Since guns are not an option for you.

I'll be honest and say melee is quite painful to play. You'll feel like you're going to die/faint all the time.

Melee is quite strong but everyone is going to shoot you since you're most likely the nearest and is soemtimes in the open (vulnerable to crit).. So that means you should put points into body. You'll also see that adept skills are quite essential to have so you'll have points in willpower too.

There's a spell that gives +1 AP and there are drugs for that too. The way I play melee is to buff myself with everything in the world, and for the next 3 turns I should be killing at least 1 or 2 guys on my own in each turn. The rest of my team should do some killing of their own too.

Also, you can mod your fist with cyberweapons. Kinda like replacing your fist with a chainsaw...

I also played throwing. Throwing is quite an easy build since dmg increasee with str, same for accuracy. Its basically a no brainer that you want alot of str. Throwing is more about hitting enemies to break their cover than to outright kill them. When they are not in cover, you can crit them which deals x2-3 dmg or so (after minus armor reduction). Its lot. I usually hit 2 guys to break their cover for my team to finish them off.

There is also a totem that increases dmg but reduces accuracy... Its worth considering. There's one that reduces incoming dmg which is great for melee.

[Nalkor]

Originally posted by Batman:

I think these are the 4 cyberwares you should take a look at: Laser Designator, Reflex Trigger, Wired Reflexes, Cross Dermal Sheath. There should be one that reduces incoming dmg but I can't seem to find it on the list in this game's wikipage: https://shadowrun.gamepedia.com/Shadowrun:_Hong_Kong_Cyberware

If you enjoy building a combat character and your parents were killed in an ally by a gun (leaving you alone with your butler and a hell lot of money), you can consider playing STR for melee or throwing. Since guns are not an option for you.

I'll be honest and say melee is quite painful to play. You'll feel like you're going to die/faint all the time.

Melee is quite strong but everyone is going to shoot you since you're most likely the nearest and is soemtimes in the open (vulnerable to crit).. So that means you should put points into body. You'll also see that adept skills are quite essential to have so you'll have points in willpower too.

There's a spell that gives +1 AP and there are drugs for that too. The way I play melee is to buff myself with everything in the world, and for the next 3 turns I should be killing at least 1 or 2 guys on my own in each turn. The rest of my team should do some killing of their own too.

Also, you can mod your fist with cyberweapons. Kinda like replacing your fist with a chainsaw...

I also played throwing. Throwing is quite an easy build since dmg increasee with str, same for accuracy. Its basically a no brainer that you want alot of str. Throwing is more about hitting enemies to break their cover than to outright kill them. When they are not in cover, you can crit them which deals x2-3 dmg or so (after minus armor reduction). Its lot. I usually hit 2 guys to break their cover for my team to finish them off.

There is also a totem that increases dmg but reduces accuracy... Its worth considering. There's one that reduces incoming dmg which is great for melee.

The three best totems in HK to me are Fish for someone like Decker or Rigger, the -10% chance to be hit. Leopard is +1 movement and armor, while Cobra is +1 damage and +5% accuracy for all attacks. HK is generous with karma, but not nuyen, so I tend to see Cobra as the ideal choice for a ranged character, especially coupled with a smartlink weapon, high quickness, and the +6% accuracy cybereye. Put all those together with Aim buff from a mage, and you can hit an enemy out of cover across the map with the minigun. Melee is strong in it's own right, but then it's more about flushing enemies out of cover so your other runners can crit and not deal with reduced damage from cover.

[WetGoop]

Originally posted by Batman:

I also played throwing. Throwing is quite an easy build since dmg increasee with str, same for accuracy. Its basically a no brainer that you want alot of str. Throwing is more about hitting enemies to break their cover than to outright kill them. When they are not in cover, you can crit them which deals x2-3 dmg or so (after minus armor reduction). Its lot. I usually hit 2 guys to break their cover for my team to finish them off.

"Throwing + magnet arm cyberthingy".Nuff said.
If you just wanna flush enemy out of cover, 8 or 9 point into throwing skill tree is enough and then you can dump point in quickness + dodge + body. This build also requires a little nuyen so you can choose to be a drug addict, grenadier or full body cyberguy.

[climbingeastofwinter]

Whatever you do don't go for a bioware'd mage. I think if you put every ¥ you get into getting the legs and arms done, you won't have anything left for anything else - that means no spell money too. :/

SR:HK is mean when it comes to paydays.

[Batman]

Actually I can't help but feel like I'm getting conned by Kindly everytime I finish a job. Is there ANY job that actually pays decently? Doesn't help with how she's all "you owe me your life" starting from day 1.

[climbingeastofwinter]

I think thats all supposed to be part of the charm of the scenario. :/
It's fun, and without buying anything, including consumables, you can make it through most of the game on Hard. Though you may find yourself reloading a couple of times in certain tough missions. Still though, yea, I feel like upgrades before just about the end-game aren't even an option. Maybe thats just my internal min-max'er talking though.

[Sam]

... if you know what you're doing then melee is always among the strongest builds. Triple hits with high crit, armor shred and ap dmg aint anything to joke at, but you need to know when to go in/out and the buffs as well.

By far you don't need more than 5 points in decking for the whole campaign, there's a deck that grants you 4 ap in the matrix, a little less hp but your decker will be fairly equivalent if not stronger than Is0bel.

Conjuring is kinda bugged, dont get anything more than armor II. But then again you can buy spells and give them to Gobbet, she's better as a shaman/summoner.

Fetishes (summoning stones) are heck o' expensive, don't bother the spirit summoning path.

Generally you can get enough points to get up to 7 points if you want 2 offensive options, or 11 if you pump everything in a single path.

In the last mission... I believe most people don't know you can get more than 5k from Kindly .

[Kinzuko]

i tend to play a wide veriaty of characters. both in the table top and in the videogames though in this particular game i tend to get at least some charisma so i can pick up more etiquettes if i have extra points left over

[fauxpas]

Every last character, mage or otherwise burns a point of Essence for a datajack and cybereyes.

[Magni]

For a bit of an early challenge and a pretty badass build, try a gunslinger adept: Quickness/Ranged/Pistol/Dodge, backed up by Willpower/Chi and a bit of splurging into Charisma for fast-talking and getting a passive totem.

Starts out kinda weak, but later on with Pistols and Dodge pushed up and Combat Sense avaiable, your character basically turns into a John Woo movie protagonist who can roll through a gunfight, dodge a ludicrous amount of fire, flank everything and then put out a pretty nice amount of shots in a hurry.

Because it's relatively cheap in terms of nuyen (pistols are the cheapest gun category and you don't need that many Qi foci), you can even afford to do things like roll aorund with an automatic pistol and a Ruger Super Warhawk, so you can chainshot with the automatic while using the big frakoff revolver for single shot abilities.