Hello :)

i've finished shadowrun, DMS and Dragonfall (no director cut) for a while now,, with the same type of character (that i love on table) : a human female adept all the way.

I'd like to re-run shadowrun, i imagine dragonfall only; now there is the director cut (i think about it since a while.)

As i'd like to play a comprehensive leader and to access all the new niceties : what build could you advice me ?

Thank You.

A bit late now probably.
It's a bit tough question, with no other limitations than it should not be adept. :)

Anyhoo, when dragonfall provides you with a shooter, a rigger/decker, a melee samurai and a shaman,
it kind of falls down to if you want to duplicate/not use one of them.

If you want something completely different, I'd suggest a mage.

as i hav'nt begin yet, i'm taking you advice ^^. As i want to use All the crew et profit from all dialogues/particularit of them, i don't want to duplicate, yes.
So, a mage :)
advice for race ?

If I recall, elves make the best mages... or was it dwarves?
Humans are just fine too. i'd go with an elf, since they are somehow most.. magicky.

Dwarves have the highest maximum possible Willpower and start with higher willpower as well, so they make the best mages. At least in the Shadowrun Universe.

Elves are the best shamans, since they have boosts/higher maximums to charisma instead.

Having said that, I've played through a number of SRR campaigns (DMS, DF, DF:DC, various UGCs) and so far I have only once ever managed to lift a stat into the "special" zone for a race - so you probably won't gain much from a race's ability to "max out" a stat - at least not with Dwarves or Elves (when compared to Humans). Orcs and even more so Trolls accentuate the stat min/max and initial bonus more, so they can (in theory) be more beneficial if choosing a samurai-type character.

The race stat "boost" may help initially, but if you're anything like me and occasionally up the stats of "non-core" abilities because it might be useful (e.g. charisma to get a new etiquette or something), then it's probably marginally useful as it'll even out by the end.

One final thing about the Mage - since you've already played an adept (which has willpower as it's base stat), the mage will be quite similar in terms of options presented. I'm not saying don't be a mage - just that your non-combat experience may actually not differ THAT much from an adept.

Not to mention that as an adept, you probably haven't tried much of the cyberwear or ranged weaponry. Or drones or hacking for that matter, but blitz does those anyway.

The mage does of course provide the most variety in terms of combat options (including lots of area attacks), so there is that.

You could always be really adventurous and go for a cyber-mage... ;)

Thanks, forgot which way it was.
Made more sense to me the other way around with all them ogre shamans, but there you go.

Yeah, cybered up shooter would have been my suggestion,
except how there's two cybered up fellas in the team already.

Well one's not really a dedicated shooter though. That and you can't install new cyberware into them and use it like you can for your own character.

The fact that dwarves are good with magic I think is a peculiarity of Shadowrun. Most games with dwarves and elves tend to have dwarves as being good with tech (usually working in the mines with machinery etc), and elves good with magic and other mystical stuff.

Then again the shaman/magic distinction thing is also unique to Shadowrun if I'm not mistaken, since most other games tend to just have "mana" to cover everything.

Actually it's a staple of Dungeons & Dragons, with mages needing intelligence and druids/Clerics needing wisdom. Later editions even have sorcerers which need charisma.

Oh, didn't know about the D&D charisma thing - I always thought they used wisdom and intelligence.

Any kind of magic and cyber is kind of a poor combination.

..but viable anyway, as long as you're satisfied having low end magic and low end cyber.
Like, cyber eyes enabling smartlink weapons isn't too big a hit.
Could even dabble in both mage and shaman spells, which works great for roleplaying/dialogue options.
Main oomph should likely come from weaponry.

One of the funnest builds I've had, was a decker/shooter.
All cybered up, high quickness and ranged weapons skills, high decking.
Poor skills with any individual weapon, so no special attacks but good accuracy.

One thing to pay attention to.
Being able to use high level weapons is dependent on "ranged" skill,
bugged me to no end one time having an accomplished pistol shooter,
but one point too little ranged skill, so I couldn't use or even buy the top pistol before endgame started.

Generally agree on the cyber/mage thing. If you mix n match, I would personally go mainly cyber with one or two mage skills (e.g. healing or a devastating area attack) - i.e. make my primary skills cyber/tech-related and have occasional magic available every now and then. It (kind of) works for Lucky Strike and a few others. Though not my favourite play style, this allows the occasional magic attack/heal and so it feels more "special" when you use it.

Note that some of the new "bio" augmentations have less essence requirements, as do the more expensive data jacks. There are a couple that have zero essence required - these are generally worth it!

On that ranged thing - yes, it completely sucks how they massively increased the requirements for DF:DC. The original SRR (and apparently the P&P Shadowrun) didn't have those high requirements.

The max in SRR:DMS was 6 - in DF it's 8! If you compare the same weapons with each other, they're generally 1 or 2 points higher in DF! This incidentally also goes for close combat weapons.

If it really bugs you (as it does me), I recommend downloading the "rebalanced ranged weapons" mod (or whatever it's called) available from Nexus for Dragonfall/DF:DC. Unlike other mods it requires you to copy over the Berlin files directly (so everything that relies on them will be affected), but it resets the minimum requirements back to roughly what it was for DMS/Seattle.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.. though I'll probably won't bother.
It just caught me by surprise when there was that usual "crunch time, last chance to shop before showdown", and hey, there's a neat new top pistol... which I lack one skill point to use.

It's really the whole concept of this rifle is sooo accurate you cant even hold it in your hands with your feeble skills that annoys me, not the specific point values. Not unique to SR by any means, and annoys me in all rpg's with the mechanic.

Actually the whole "pling, you've leveled up, new weapons and tech has arrived in shops" style of upgrading kind of bugs me. It's hard to know what cyber to buy and what you should wait for.. probably not worth getting anything until late game as there's bound to be a better alternative coming up.

The skill reqs pissed me off in DF way more than in any other game - I think mainly because of the "classless" nature of Shadowrun making it more likely I'd mix and match skills.

Also because I can't use a certain gun because apparently I'm not "skilled enough", and yet Blitz is sporting a weapon a few notches above HIS skill level! They should have at least been consistent... Not actually sure if this happens with other skills (e.g. mage etc.), but I definitely noticed it for ranged.

The other way to avoid this would be to have more karma rewards, which IMO would just have been a good idea anyway since it gives you more options.

Well at least there are only three "levels" of upgrades - and I do like how aiding the weapons dealer actually has an effect on his stock (this also affects his 3rd level upgrades). Not that I would ever consider not helping him since I'm not going to turn down a method of gaining XP and/or cash...

But yeah apart from that and Ezkibel's mission - where the mission directly affects the stock - I would have preferred to have most/all of the upgrades available from the get-go. The skill requirements alone should stop people from buying them too early already one would think.