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Shadowrun Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

Athelas

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Jun 24, 2013
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4,502
Four runners can fit into a taxi, that's why the game has 4 runners max. One passenger seat, three in the back.

This game really, really needs personal vehicles. In Dragonfall you're taking the metro to and from your jobs... it's really sad.
It's a video game, I don't think it's beholden to how many people fit into a taxi in real-life (setting aside the fact that you can squeeze more than 4 people into a car at the risk of breaking the law).
 

dryan

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Jan 14, 2014
Messages
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Four runners can fit into a taxi, that's why the game has 4 runners max. One passenger seat, three in the back.

This game really, really needs personal vehicles. In Dragonfall you're taking the metro to and from your jobs... it's really sad.
It's a video game, I don't think it's beholden to how many people fit into a taxi in real-life (setting aside the fact that you can squeeze more than 4 people into a car at the risk of breaking the law).
Not to mention we're talking about the anarchic F-State.
 

Crichton

Prophet
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Jul 7, 2004
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1,210
In the kingdom of anarchists, I don't suppose anything is illegal. My question is: who keeps the trains running on time?
 

tuluse

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I was talking about the next expansion - meaning that the devs can increase the number of enemies. You cannot argue that the game is better when you're forced to only use 2-3 runners, compared to battles where you have 6-8 in your team.
The somewhat simplistic systems might get more boring with more runners.
 

pippin

Guest
In the kingdom of anarchists, I don't suppose anything is illegal. My question is: who keeps the trains running on time?

according to sr lore, the flux state in berlin is some sort of "controlled anarchy", so if you don't have robots controlling the subway system, then it must be some sort of corporation.
 

GarfunkeL

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Insert clever insult here
I was talking about the next expansion - meaning that the devs can increase the number of enemies. You cannot argue that the game is better when you're forced to only use 2-3 runners, compared to battles where you have 6-8 in your team.
The somewhat simplistic systems might get more boring with more runners.
It's not that simplistic.
 

Shadowfang

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A bigger team would lead to an easier experience.
I was talking about the next expansion - meaning that the devs can increase the number of enemies. You cannot argue that the game is better when you're forced to only use 2-3 runners, compared to battles where you have 6-8 in your team.
My point was never about the amount of enemies you have to face, but the loss of value of the choices you make while comming together with a party.
Unless they are comming up with new classes, bringing 6 runners with you means you can easily bring a party that covers all grounds.
Sometimes i decided not to bring a Decker losing extra solutions and nuyen, so i could have a more solid combat party.
Those are cool choices that you won't have to make with a bigger party. The number of enemies has nothing to do with what i said.
 
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Vadio

Scholar
Joined
Nov 10, 2014
Messages
102
You can make:
A AoE focused mage.
A disabling focused mage.
A support mage.
A cyberware focused samurai.
An adept.
A pure shaman.
A sniper.
A pure rigger.
A pure decker.
And hybrids between all those oprions.

You go out of your way to bring wierd examples and the system doesnt really incentivize you to. For example the mages, the game doesn't have enough variety in spells or they just dont work properly to justify an AoE mage. There is only two useful spells - Manaball (lingering damage ignores armor) and Lightning Ball (does ap damage). And atleast in my experience enemies in the game do a good job of spreading out. A support mage is viable but are very karma hungry (although I guess this is a campaign problem).

Regarding the sniper, nothing in the abilities sheet allows to specialize in snipers, only rifles (which already includes snipers). And specializing in rifles already gives a ton of utility - You can use weapons which emcompass every range and can still use AoE with grenade launchers. This makes all other ranged options crappy - more stuff they need to change for the next campaign.

I also think that they need to change the summoning system for a shaman to be viable, perhaps remove the randomness (which I hate) and substitute it with something else.

There is something to be said about the adept to, which I think is the most worthless class in this game. Chi casting has bad buff/casting spells and are not worth it from a karma standpoint, so you're probably better using a cyberware focused samurai with chi focus. To be fair, you could change certain things in the campaign like give more karma or make willpower/chi casting skill checks that affect the game in a meaningful way instead of being there just for flavor (like most checks in the game).

And with that, IMO, the only archetypes focused on dealing damage really worth considering are ranged and melee samurai.

Since hybrids can go either way in your party - i.e. they can complement one or more party members with the same abilities, or branch to other abilities that dont exist in your party but don't require full on specialization in that path - they shouldn't be considered.

It isn't a question of the character system being not varied enough
Of course it is, atleast partialy. I want the game to be combat heavy and want party options to matter also in combat, but this is personal preference.
 

thesheeep

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I also think that they need to change the summoning system for a shaman to be viable, perhaps remove the randomness (which I hate) and substitute it with something else.
I wouldn't do that. Randomness in summoning is default Shadowrun.
In the original rules, whenever you summon something (except simple watchers), you need to make a check to determine if whatever you summoned actually follows your orders or how well it does that. Remember that summons are not mindless. They are "living" entities with a mind of their own that you dragged into your world (from whereever they were before) and try to force/convince them to do something you want done.
It is no wonder they might be pissed.

Then again, in the actual Shadowrun ruleset, summons are vastly more powerful (and thus the added danger makes more sense).
 
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pippin

Guest
If anything, the chaotic nature of summons makes it all more fun, like in BG2, when you tried to summon demons they could turn their back on you quite easily.
 

Vadio

Scholar
Joined
Nov 10, 2014
Messages
102
thesheeep haha I actually am not familiar with shadowrun pnp at all. My only experience is with Dragonfall DC.
How different/similar is dragonfall from the original rules? I actually dislike randomness in general as a game mechanic.
 

thesheeep

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thesheeep haha I actually am not familiar with shadowrun pnp at all. My only experience is with Dragonfall DC.
How different/similar is dragonfall from the original rules?
Very, very different.
The basic ideas are recognizable, but everything in the original rules is FAR mor diverse and open. Hard to explain without a wall of text.
Of course, it is also much more complex, which is why I get why they did not implement it. But I wish they implemented it... a bit more. Especially the magic system is completely off the road, which is sad as I always use the original SR magic system as a prime example of how to do a magic system right.

The game does ooze Shadowrun in setting and story, but not in rules.

I actually dislike randomness in general as a game mechanic.
You would not like PnP at all ;)
It is all based around on how randomness can totally change a plan/situation. If there was no randomness, everything would feel like LARPing a chess match.
 
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Vadio

Scholar
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Messages
102
You would not like PnP at all ;)
It's not that I don't like games with randomness, there is randomness in just about every rpg. It's just that I find it to be lazy design, and just not fun to have situations that are decided by lucky or unlucky rolls.

And you are right about the summons not being strong enough. I was irritaded with the fact that even with alot invested in spirit control they would still have a 35-40% chance to escape. And the fetishes also cost way too much.

BTW, do you know how the summon escape mechanics work in dragonfall/dms and and how different they are from pnp? Is there randomness in what they do after escaping control? In DF sometimes they disappear, others they fight you or your enemies. I've looked around for this but never really found anything. And the game doesn't make things easier. They could've at least had this things explained in the help menu or better yet, a combat log.
 

thesheeep

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And you are right about the summons not being strong enough. I was irritaded with the fact that even with alot invested in spirit control they would still have a 35-40% chance to escape. And the fetishes also cost way too much.

BTW, do you know how the summon escape mechanics work in dragonfall/dms and and how different they are from pnp? Is there randomness in what they do after escaping control? In DF sometimes they disappear, others they fight you or your enemies. I've looked around for this but never really found anything. And the game doesn't make things easier. They could've at least had this things explained in the help menu or better yet, a combat log.
Well, for starters, there are no fetishes for summoning in the original rules. You might need some for roleplaying reasons (like needing some sand to summon an earth spirit, maybe), but that is really left to you/the GM.

Summoning is a normal spell casting check (just using the Summoning instead of Spellcasting skill), which you have to succeed in in order to summon something. Then comes a drain check to see if the casting hurt you. In SR, casting is simply a demanding action - the stronger the spell, the more demanding the casting will be on your mind and body. Cast something too much for your character and the character might collapse. It is the most perfect balancing. Easy spells can be cast pretty much without limit (except failing badly at the drain check), while very strong spells will almost certainly hurt a caster who is not a master - which might be acceptable, if it would kill the opponent, for example. I really don't like that SR:R has changed the damage mechanics so much. With just an HP bar, the described mechanic would not work too well.
So far, summoning is normal spellcasting.

Now, at least in 4th edition, the number of leftover successes in the summoning test determine how many commands you can give to the summoned spirit. Failure in casting when we played was always a GM decision. In some cases, no spirit would appear at all (which is I think default by the ruleset), in some, the spirit would just go on a rampage, etc. In all cases, you would still have to do a drain check, as the try alone is the demanding thing, not succeeding. But even if you succeed, the GM controls the spirit, so you better give logical, clear commands :)

There is no real "breaking free" for summoned spirits. Just the normal "leaving" when the command is done. Of course, when the caster dies or becomes unconscious while a spirit is summoned, all kinds of stuff could happen (again, GM decision, mostly).
Of course, there are things like friendly spirits (who just happen to like you - giving more or unlimited commands), hostile spirits, bound spirits, etc.
 

Vadio

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thesheeep Well, thanks for going out of your way to explain that. Appreciate it.

The casting system does look interesting. Can your caster actually die or become unconscious from failling or succeeding to cast a really powerful spell?
 

thesheeep

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That's the thrill about it :D

Though getting physical damage (in contrast to mind only damage) due to drain would really require to cast a spell that is way above your character. IIRC, you get stun damage from drain until your stun damage track is full, the rest of the damage then becomes physical.
So to amass enough damage in a single drain to fill both the mental and physical stun track would require a mage to try casting a spell that he knows is suicide. A pretty awesome way to go, though, if that spell succeeds.

We had that one mage in the group whom we gave the nick "Single-Serving Mage". That guy cast three spells in three sessions, collapsing every single time due to the most horribly bad luck I have ever seen in Shadowrun. It was like rolling a dozen 1s in a row in D&D. These things just don't happen, one would think.

The spells always succeeded, but that character's part was pretty short in the run. On the third time, the player came in with a new character that he had prepared - just in case. He played his rigger from then on.
 
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Stompa

Arcane
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Dec 3, 2013
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531
You can die from drain if you're overcasting the spell (i.e. force of the spell exceeds the character's Magic), that makes it do physical damage rather than stun.
 

GarfunkeL

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Insert clever insult here
You go out of your way to bring wierd examples and the system doesnt really incentivize you to. For example the mages, the game doesn't have enough variety in spells or they just dont work properly to justify an AoE mage. There is only two useful spells - Manaball (lingering damage ignores armor) and Lightning Ball (does ap damage). And atleast in my experience enemies in the game do a good job of spreading out. A support mage is viable but are very karma hungry (although I guess this is a campaign problem).
You forgot the various "wall"-spells that allow you to shape the battlefield. With only 6 slots for spells - and that with maximum Essence - there are plenty enough of spells to use but because you're usually restricted to max 2 casters in the party, many of the "average" spells don't get used.

Regarding the sniper, nothing in the abilities sheet allows to specialize in snipers, only rifles (which already includes snipers). And specializing in rifles already gives a ton of utility - You can use weapons which emcompass every range and can still use AoE with grenade launchers. This makes all other ranged options crappy - more stuff they need to change for the next campaign.
The difference between a sniper and a weapons specialist is the equipment and cyberwear. For a street sammy, I'd go with shotguns and submachineguns and grenades, cyberwise I'd pump armour and HP as much as possible. For a sniper, I'd go with sniper rifle and an assault rifle and grenade launcher, cyberwise I'd pump Accuracy. As the cyber slots are far more restricted in SRR than in the P&P, you aren't able to get all the good stuff, or even anywhere close.

And with that, IMO, the only archetypes focused on dealing damage really worth considering are ranged and melee samurai.
You completely ignored the previous pages where people were showing off their insane killing machine Adepts?

Dude, you don't know what you're talking about.
 

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