Finished the Director's Cut. The Armor-boosting spell is a lot more useful in this revamped combat system, because damage-over-time effects come up against it as well. Say you're set on fire for 5 HP per turn - if your Armor rating is 5 or higher, you don't take any damage. This takes the sting out of a lot of annoying attacks, though obviously it cuts both ways.
Also, Shadowrunner etiquette? Still useless. I'd say the big ones are still Corporate/Security/Gang with maybe also Academic if you can fit it in.
And now for some heavy-duty endgame spoilers.
You can talk Vauclair out of his genocidal plans. You don't even have to have certain Etiquettes or Stats. You just need to navigate his dialogue tree carefully to talk him into not killing all the dragons.
But then Audran shows up and when Vauclair tells him the plan's off, Audran does not take it well and the rest of the endgame goes more or less as before.
I went in relatively quietly (sorry, Lone Star dudes) and things still spiraled out of control, so I'm pretty sure that's guaranteed. I'm not sure if James can die, however; I tried to play it professional and didn't chew him out as much, so maybe he snaps if pressed. I also took the subway hatch out, so I'm curious whether things change based on the overall approach.
I'll say this much: the mission made me wish there was an option to start killing middlemen as a general rule. Of course in Shadowrun you'd be at it pretty much forever. Considering the Lodge objectives were fairly bare-bones in Dragonfall, I'm actually kind of impressed that it got to me.
Also, didn't have enough money for the suit. Being a decker with expensive tastes is suffering.
There's only one small saving grace in there:
You can arrange for James to "die heroically" on the way to the U-Bahn. Jana and I hung back and whittled down the security guards while he tried to re-enact Die Hard. Failing to get turns or heals at the end kind of finished him... Good riddance, I hated him from the first dialogue. The entire thing is vile though and I'm going to rewind just to tell Luca to bite me when he first offers work from the lodge. I'm right with you, I can only wish we could kill him. It would be deeply satisfying.
Edit: I just told him to get out of my kiez in really aggressive terms and after that he just says "Lovely day, isn't it?" for all further dialogue. My hatred just increased.
Finally finished Dragonfall again. Still a damn fine game, though I did see bugs aplenty along the way: some UI glitches, Blitz's ability not working right, one time when an enemy didn't end its turn, etc. Nothing that can't be patched out, and more importantly nothing that kept me from enjoying the ride all over again. I quite liked the new content for the most part, the tweaks to existing missions were pleasant surprises - the spoiler mentioned by @WotanAnubis was fucking awesome - and I can already tell I'll be going back through to try other things.
Every now and then I ask myself what I consider good writing. Obviously that's a very subjective term, as there are lot of ways to gauge effectiveness and presentation, and I hesitate to put it down to hard qualifiers: a story must have this, this, and this to be considered 'good'. That said, Dragonfall is a prime example of what I consider good writing, in no small part because of how it develops its core cast in relation to the world.
Shadowrun as a setting is somewhere between gritty and fantastical - grim in classic cyberpunk fashion, but there's also a whimsical anything-can-happen air to it at times, even if that 'anything' is usually bad. The point is it's full of stuff most of us will assuredly never experience, things treated as mundane by the world's inhabitants. Consider the Dragonfall team: a shaman whose spirit goads him into bigger and bigger fights, a fighter so chromed up her soul is practically absent, a troll ex-soldier, a hotshot decker. I don't know the first goddamn thing about any of that.
Minor character spoilers for those just starting:
But I can understand someone who realized long ago that he made a poor role model, who wasn't there when someone needed his help; someone who ran from an abusive home to another kind of abusive home; someone who lost everything because of a weak link in the chain; someone who habitually ignores the advice of friends and loved ones.
Your teammates all have very human flaws that transcend any one time and place. Most people know how it feels to make a mistake and have regrets, and that's a very effective lens through which one can view a different world.
Magic, cybernetics, metahumanity, and cyberspace are all fictional ideas for a fictional world; Dietrich, Glory, Eiger, and Blitz draw from something a lot closer to home. They're stronger characters for it, and that helps make Shadowrun seem a lot less alien. I sincerely hope HBS takes another stab at an official campaign, and I'll be there on day one if they ever do.
I sincerely hope HBS takes another stab at an official campaign, and I'll be there on day one if they ever do.
Well... the game does hint at a possible new campaign in the Epilogue.
Aljernon tells you he's going to Machu Pichu since something is apparently about to go down there. And considering Aljernon was also there in Dead Man's Switch...
So I'm feeling optimistic about the possibility of there being another campaign. Wonder if it, too, will be standalone or if it's going to be built on Shadowrun Returns like Dragonfall had been.
I really love playing a mage in Shadowrun mainly due to how anachronic it feels. All this cyborg tech, megacorps, and I'm a wizard. Just shrug and get on with the run.
I sincerely hope HBS takes another stab at an official campaign, and I'll be there on day one if they ever do.
Well... the game does hint at a possible new campaign in the Epilogue.
Aljernon tells you he's going to Machu Pichu since something is apparently about to go down there. And considering Aljernon was also there in Dead Man's Switch...
So I'm feeling optimistic about the possibility of there being another campaign. Wonder if it, too, will be standalone or if it's going to be built on Shadowrun Returns like Dragonfall had been.
Nice. Yeah, they're clearly more confident in what the engine can do now, so it wouldn't surprise me if later releases are also standalone. Though they'd probably also centralize the resources so the editor has access to them all with the least amount of fuss. The more official assets are available, the more interesting the UGC will be, I think.
I sincerely hope HBS takes another stab at an official campaign, and I'll be there on day one if they ever do.
Well... the game does hint at a possible new campaign in the Epilogue.
Aljernon tells you he's going to Machu Pichu since something is apparently about to go down there. And considering Aljernon was also there in Dead Man's Switch...
So I'm feeling optimistic about the possibility of there being another campaign. Wonder if it, too, will be standalone or if it's going to be built on Shadowrun Returns like Dragonfall had been.
I thought Eiger's new mission might also be a hint towards the next campaign.
Winternight sounds metal as fuck and would make for an awesome antagonist.
Just finished the game. Not sure how I feel about the change in Glory. Details of her mission follow.
During her mission we originally went in there to "save the children." in the process we saved a guy who was being bled to death by 2 cultists (Glory felt remorse about having to kill them), convinced Marta to give us the key without killing her in the process but then during the fight with the spirit it warned my char that if I continued to speak it would harm me and Glory was like "stay quiet, I've got this" and then we ended up killing it and Harrow in the process.
That's when Glory changed. Apparently she's now possessed by the Adversary? I'm not sure. She got the Hand of Glory as her reward, which imbued her claws with mana burning damage and she no longer cared about the children she went there to save. They all apparently burned to death in the fire and we did nothing to even try to stop it. So cut to the end of the game. The "we're done, time to have the final chat with everyone and wrap things up" bit. Glory is now happy, because Harrow is dead and she has her magic back, at least in her claws. My char expresses concern about this and Glory dismisses it claiming she's in control and then seems to do something to my character that indicates she has more dark power than she's letting on. Basically it felt like logical continuation of the "bad ending" from the original DLC, when she was planning to go kill Harrow and seemed much darker in nature than normal.
So really my question is this, how does the alternative ending for her play out? Was I supposed to keep her on track during the discussion with the demon and purify it? What happens in that case? What reward does she get? I'll end up replaying the campaign at some point but Wasteland 2 is now calling and I'd like to at least know WTF happens to her in the "good ending" because it really does feel like I failed her somehow.
Is there any storyline content for the original campaign for deckers? I heard hacking was kinda pointless in that one and want to know if it is true.
There's not as many actual Matrix opportunities, but one of the key missions revolves around a pretty sizeable hack (akin to the APEX fight here).
I played as a pistol decker in that one and thought it was perfectly fine. And as usual, decking is really useful in terms of opening chests/locked doors/etc, particularly since in the base game you can't take advantage of your allies' skills (so a decker in the party can't hack a safe for you).
Just finished the game. Not sure how I feel about the change in Glory. Details of her mission follow.
During her mission we originally went in there to "save the children." in the process we saved a guy who was being bled to death by 2 cultists (Glory felt remorse about having to kill them), convinced Marta to give us the key without killing her in the process but then during the fight with the spirit it warned my char that if I continued to speak it would harm me and Glory was like "stay quiet, I've got this" and then we ended up killing it and Harrow in the process.
That's when Glory changed. Apparently she's now possessed by the Adversary? I'm not sure. She got the Hand of Glory as her reward, which imbued her claws with mana burning damage and she no longer cared about the children she went there to save. They all apparently burned to death in the fire and we did nothing to even try to stop it. So cut to the end of the game. The "we're done, time to have the final chat with everyone and wrap things up" bit. Glory is now happy, because Harrow is dead and she has her magic back, at least in her claws. My char expresses concern about this and Glory dismisses it claiming she's in control and then seems to do something to my character that indicates she has more dark power than she's letting on. Basically it felt like logical continuation of the "bad ending" from the original DLC, when she was planning to go kill Harrow and seemed much darker in nature than normal.
So really my question is this, how does the alternative ending for her play out? Was I supposed to keep her on track during the discussion with the demon and purify it? What happens in that case? What reward does she get? I'll end up replaying the campaign at some point but Wasteland 2 is now calling and I'd like to at least know WTF happens to her in the "good ending" because it really does feel like I failed her somehow.
The mission went a bit differently in my playthrough.
Though I didn't manage to spare Marta, I kept hammering on how important it was to save the kids and that Harrow was a secondary concern. When Harrow shows up during the fight with the corrupted Spirit, I basically ignored him and kept fighting the Spirit. Once I'd defeated it, Glory purified it, turning it back into a regular and very remorseful Hearth Spirit. Glory allowed the Spirit to merge with her or something so they could work together to fix everything they fucked up.
Then we went out and saved the kids.
Glory ends up getting a Heal spell and her personality stays roughly the same.
At the end of the game, Glory leaves to track down Harrow. She insists that she and the Hearth Spirit have to do this alone as part of their atonement or something. You can keep pushing to go with her, but I don't know what happens if you stubbornly keep insisting you come along because I dropped it and let her go on her own.
It's very much a "Path to Redemption" kind of arc.
Bought this a few weeks back when it was on sale, just played for five minutes for the first time today. I'm not sure how all of the archetypes/skills play but it seems pretty interesting.
Going with assault rifles on your main character is a really good idea for a first run. You'll get an idea of how everything works. You should also have Dietrich cast haste on your heavy hitters. That extra point of AP really helps to put a hurtin on your enemies.
I'm trying a Rigger for the first time in Dragonfall and I wonder if there's anything I should prioritize first when using Karma and buying gear. Also, any good tips for which choices are best for the team's perks?
I'm trying a Rigger for the first time in Dragonfall and I wonder if there's anything I should prioritize first when using Karma and buying gear. Also, any good tips for which choices are best for the team's perks?
If you're going Rigger I feel like you may as well go Decker on top of that and just aim for getting 2 drones and a cyberdeck (which means you won't have any room for a weapon). Otherwise you'll need to have Blitz around for his decking ability and your skillsets will still kind of overlap as he's a rigger too.
Since you'll be hiding out and not exposing yourself to fire, you should plan on carrying mostly drone repair kits and maybe grenades (if you can spare Karma to put into strength and throwing weapons) rather than medkits, as keeping your drones alive will be the hard part in some missions. Drones are also pretty good short-to-medium range combatants. So I'd advise having Glory focus on her perks that boost her melee abilities (which also drain enemy AP, which improves everyone's survivability) and her skills that give improved medkit usage. Have Eiger take all the sniper perks, and I recommend giving Dietrich the perks that cause Electro Core to cost 1AP and drain enemy AP.
So what you'll have is Glory locking down tough single targets with her AP-draining and armor-rending melee attacks, your drones handling the meat-and-potatoes goons, Dietrich hasting/buffing your team, and as soon as anyone falls out of cover from AP loss, Eiger can crit them with her rifle for massive damage.
That's off the top of my head but I think it will work pretty well.
Hello there, first post in here. Wall of text warning.
I was a huge fan of 3rd edition Shadowrun PnP in high school like a decade ago, so seeing this game get funded and become a reality was priceless
I too recently got into my first playthrough of the Director's cut, after several in the original version, and I love it, the improvement is tangible, even before taking into account the added content
Some high points:
- the ability to "loan" the crew weapons and items from my own stash: taser for glory (!!!), grenade launcher for Eiger... I have yet to buy the minigun, but I'm excited to see if anyone on team will have the necessary 7 strength for it by the endgame.
Also it seems Dietrich has an open sixth spell slot, I was skittish of giving him something to put there until now with all the "Idol writes over sixth spell slot" bug thing going on, but now that its fixed...
- the crew advancement system. Hella fun. Fairlight Excalibur for Blitz, Ranger Arms SM-3 for Eiger, Dietrich's nerve bolt and electro core becoming even more awesome - good stuff.
- the armor-cover revamp. All shootouts got a lot more challenging. Im still not entirely clear on what angle does flanking start from - got critted several times when I thought I was still behind heavy cover. But challenge is good, and Im getting used to finishing fights pretty much shot to s**t, which adds to the excitement of it all. Wonder what one can do after getting hit by an armor stripping spell, however, does dispel fix it, or do I have to use a friendly armor spell to "bring it back"?
- Absinthe, the Weinkeller, the expanded donations to Samuel with the actual cute payoff, all the little flavor things
Spoilers galore below
- Glory's mission
I struggled a couple of times to convince Marta to help, with no avail. She kept resorting to violence. So I eventually rerolled and started the game all over again from the start to have Academic etiquette. I wanted things to go well for Glory that badly.
What did the trick, however, might have been both saving the ranger guy, and talking to the kids outside Marta's room, both of which I skipped doing earlier (I read the book through as well).
I have only seen her "good" outcome, in which she got the heal spell - like others said before, I kept reinforcing the "atone, save the kids" message throughout, and she went along with it nicely.
I focused Harrow down whenever his astral projection appeared, dunno how much does letting him linger change the outcome or flow of the battle.
- Eiger's mission
A taser helped a great deal when trying to stop the Engineer. Loved how the situation (i.e. trying to catch up with him) forced you to run past the Rammbocks in the street, making you stay in the open with baddies in your back. it was only two guys plus the Engineer (who didnt even try to shoot me), but still a helluva fight (probably a lot easier for a magic user with spells to stop the dude from the get-go, i played a Pistol decker)
I am familiar with Shadowrun lore, so when I saw the ledger in ancient Scandinavian with the sole english word "Wednesday", I had a proper sinking feeling in the gut. And then the custom drones with the God chips, dear me, it was all there like in the Threats book way back when.
It was done really well, subtly, the danger wasnt spelled out. I loved how Eiger just went "lol dunno" when the name Winternight was dropped, and kept dismissing it as bullshit while I was like OHGODGETTHEF**KOUTTAHERERIGHTNOW
I replayed the mission twice, apparently this too has two ways of going about it - either you get for Eiger some souped up russian "taser grenade", or a Steyr-Aug CSL assault rifle with a laser designator in it. Good stuff.
Im worried about the consequences for Eiger, the post-mission talk has a huge branching dialogue tree, and Im not entirely sure what the best thing to say there is just yet. Will see when I finish, for better or worse.
- Blitz's mission
Great fun. I loved the assassin/accountant terminator grandpa, i loved all the tongue in cheek squabbling about going through every trashcan while on a run with a timetable, and how yet it paid off nicely in the end by letting you leave on friendly terms with said terminator grandpa.
What was much more chilling, however, was how I am now even more convinced that Blitz is not an actual idiot, but a greedy Neutral Evil douchebag who uses being a doofus as cover from blowback. Im pretty sure he locked me in on purpose, and did the run from the Cafe Cezve because he intended to bail when it was over - with me preferably dead.
Maybe im just paranoid, but that guy betrayed my trust like half a dozen times without breaking a sweat, all the time going "ooh look at me im soo silly, isnt that cute, but I totally mean well, honest, yadda yadda". Even the terminator-grandpa points it out for you in the end.
Havent used the comm-hacking doodad yet, but must be cool. Did anyone have a different outcome, maybe with a different reward?
Oh and wasnt it a bit of a dickish move to reward all of *two* karma for that ordeal? I kept shooting goons for a seeming eternity and desperately trying not to get flanked as a mere two guys cant cover angles all that well, and then I finally survive and get home to 2 karma. Man, that was cold.
- Sewers, Doc Ezkibel
I like the new options for the ghouls. At first I didnt have the money, and ended up having the ghouls do wetwork for the doctor as payment. Felt so bad that I redid the thing and coughed up the money (1000, Socialite or Shadowrunner lowers it to 600).
Apparently Ezkibels bioware mission only triggers after the sewers are dealt with, did anyone find out if he offers the job even if you strong-arm him into feeding the ghouls for free? I needed the bioware so I took the safe option and paid up to keep from antagonizing him.
The bioware lab run with Knight-King Philip is pure gold, as others have said before
- Trial run
Depressing, in a good way. I liked the ground floor with the shopping and talking options, nice suit and headware (the latter hella expensive sadly at 5k). Liked the decking aspect on the top floor.
Speaking of headware, did the encephalon+datajack combo really disappear from the store, or is it just me?
The first two guards on the ground floor you can dispatch at the same time without raising an alarm with Jana's help (and security Etiquette iirc), this also enables you to mess with the security terminal (no decking required) and therefore not meet guards on the top floor, nor when going in, nor when the dude presses the panic button.
If you have a decker to open the utility hatch on the upper floor, you can leave straight into the subway without having to fire a single shot. (Aside from dealing with the elf ofc, Im afraid there is no way to save him, I even tried playing an elf to talk to him, to no avail - maybe I should let him turn on the mage? I stood between them save that little twat James so that I could finish the job to specification)
Decking also lets you get into room 302 for the paydata (sex tape), it sells via the matrix (Shadowland) like others.
Luca not paying you if you tell him to sod off is sadly in the spirit of the contract, he stated at the get-go that you only get the 1.5k if you pass both parts of the audition, i.e. the talk as well. Telling him to go screw himself clearly constitutes a fail, I guess
I like the new options for the ghouls. At first I didnt have the money, and ended up having the ghouls do wetwork for the doctor as payment. Felt so bad that I redid the thing and coughed up the money (1000, Socialite or Shadowrunner lowers it to 600).
Apparently Ezkibels bioware mission only triggers after the sewers are dealt with, did anyone find out if he offers the job even if you strong-arm him into feeding the ghouls for free? I needed the bioware so I took the safe option and paid up to keep from antagonizing him.
The bioware lab run with Knight-King Philip is pure gold, as others have said before
Ezkibel will offer you the job, but he'll refuse to pay you anything for it. Although of course he will sell you the new bioware.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited September 2014
How much does Ezkibel pay for the mission of you haven't antagonized him? If it's more than it costs to buy off his problem with the ghouls I might just do that next time.
He's either an idiot or trying to murder you, either way he is pretty decisively the worst teammate. It's especially obvious this playthrough since I'm playing a Decker myself because he's not very good at his job either. If I play a third time I'm just leaving him in that hotel.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
He's either an idiot or trying to murder you, either way he is pretty decisively the worst teammate. It's especially obvious this playthrough since I'm playing a Decker myself because he's not very good at his job either. If I play a third time I'm just leaving him in that hotel.
The idea that Blitz is secretly a manipulative, sociopathic genius is kind of exciting, but I don't think it ultimately fits. The murder plan doesn't work: you get out of the vault pretty painlessly, particularly if you're a decker. Also bear in mind that he fucked himself in a very similar fashion in the Drogenkippe hotel.
And if he really wanted to get you killed for a big payday, the absolute best way would be to sell you out to Vauclair and Audran, or - if that seemed too dangerous - to one of the many targets of your various runs, who would probably be more than happy to pay him off and give him passage out of Berlin. The unreliable, traitorous runner is a longstanding Shadowrun tradition that nobody would bat an eye at, so I think the fact that Dragonfall rejects that possibility, even with a character who seems perfectly suited to the role, means it was very much a conscious choice on the part of the writers: they're telling us something about Blitz by having him not turn heel.
Ultimately I think he's kind of archetypal of a certain sort of person that many of us deal with pretty frequently: technically skilled, probably sits somewhere on the high-functioning end of the spectrum, obsessive about his pet subjects but generally disinterested in things outside of his field, has difficulty thinking of his assigned tasks in terms of a bigger picture. If you navigate his dialogue tree correctly, I think your main character diagnoses him pretty correctly (and ruthlessly): he thinks he's smarter than he is, and he consistently ignores the advice of the people closest to him.
I think unlike the other characters, who are all seasoned vets, Blitz's character journey is towards maturity. And he does take it! He makes some big steps, if you help him.
How much does Ezkibel pay for the mission of you haven't antagonized him? If it's more than it costs to buy off his problem with the ghouls I might just do that next time.
He pays 2000, so placating him first with the 1000 is totally worth it
+1
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
How much does Ezkibel pay for the mission of you haven't antagonized him? If it's more than it costs to buy off his problem with the ghouls I might just do that next time.
He pays 2000, so placating him first with the 1000 is totally worth it
He's either an idiot or trying to murder you, either way he is pretty decisively the worst teammate. It's especially obvious this playthrough since I'm playing a Decker myself because he's not very good at his job either. If I play a third time I'm just leaving him in that hotel.
The idea that Blitz is secretly a manipulative, sociopathic genius is kind of exciting, but I don't think it ultimately fits. The murder plan doesn't work: you get out of the vault pretty painlessly, particularly if you're a decker. Also bear in mind that he fucked himself in a very similar fashion in the Drogenkippe hotel.
And if he really wanted to get you killed for a big payday, the absolute best way would be to sell you out to Vauclair and Audran, or - if that seemed too dangerous - to one of the many targets of your various runs, who would probably be more than happy to pay him off and give him passage out of Berlin. The unreliable, traitorous runner is a longstanding Shadowrun tradition that nobody would bat an eye at, so I think the fact that Dragonfall rejects that possibility, even with a character who seems perfectly suited to the role, means it was very much a conscious choice on the part of the writers: they're telling us something about Blitz by having him not turn heel.
Ultimately I think he's kind of archetypal of a certain sort of person that many of us deal with pretty frequently: technically skilled, probably sits somewhere on the high-functioning end of the spectrum, obsessive about his pet subjects but generally disinterested in things outside of his field, has difficulty thinking of his assigned tasks in terms of a bigger picture. If you navigate his dialogue tree correctly, I think your main character diagnoses him pretty correctly (and ruthlessly): he thinks he's smarter than he is, and he consistently ignores the advice of the people closest to him.
I think unlike the other characters, who are all seasoned vets, Blitz's character journey is towards maturity. And he does take it! He makes some big steps, if you help him.
I'm inclined to agree re: Blitz.
Compared to the rest of the team, his backstory is fairly mundane, and seems to keep coming back to personal foolishness. He strikes me as the kind of guy that latches onto something that he thinks is a good idea, and follows it like an obsessive bloodhound unless someone makes a determined effort to dissuade him. Hearing him break down the numerous possibilities regarding his girlfriend - she's working with S-K, no wait she's with Schockwellenreiter, no she's some kind of triple agent - tells me he doesn't often consider how little he actually knows; or, more accurately, that doesn't stop him from acting on limited information.
@Jacobkosh is pretty much on the money, I think. He's fairly competent and good at adapting quickly on the fly, but he's both impulsive and prone to overlooking details, especially if they clash with the idea in his head. He also smokes and drinks coffee, which go hand-in-hand with him being kind of jumpy; comments during missions paint him as low on personal scruples and somewhat paranoid, but not actively evil by any stretch. In light of his existing personal subplot, his behavior in the new mission makes sense: he wasn't expecting Hasenkamp, he freaked out, and he kept his eye open for any kind of leverage he could find - which left him distracted enough that he puts the PC in danger as well. Likewise during Drogenkippe, when he jumps for the first plan he thinks will work but ultimately winds up trapping himself, too; he exploits the PC's presence to escape, and winds up neck-deep in the Firewing business.
'Blitz' is an accurate handle for the man, to put it mildly.
So, am now halfway in the final mission, the new talky options (plenty!) with Vauclair are awesome.
Spoilery stuff from the endgame:
Silke survived the Kreuzbasar assault this time, ostensibly due to me fully funding Samuel's civic center. So many feels, Samuel literally hugged me iirc.
Kami still does not make it regrettably
Confirming a bunch of ghouls now supporting you in the sewer, not that they are terribly efffective, but its hella cool
Loving the new content on Absinthe, and how it even ties into the dialogue with Vauclair
Anyone have any idea what Trithemius's key is for? I got it from his corpse in Apex's compound, and noticed it getting automagically removed once I went into the basement, but I cant recall using it for anything. Maybe it was what let me in their storerooms once they were dead, and I did not notice?
Minigunning Communion cultist groups is the bomb - AoE ranged weapons ftw. Oh and I recall googling somewhere that the minigun has 8 ranged and 7 strength requirements - I equipped it with 6 ranged, so gotta be lower. Strength is true.
Dietrich's offensive final levelup-evolution (Fury of the Dragonslayer) is awesome - sustained AoE damage and AP drain centered on the caster, yes please. Its even colored red to make it look like death
Also the ley line spell he gets on the Humanis run is now providing medium ley line bonuses, I recall it starting with light. Super useful to cast it under him while in cover and chuck superpowered electric cores
And the loan-equipment-to-your-team goodness strikes again: Dietrich now rocks a lightning barrier in his sixth slot. I bought it specifically for him, best thing since sliced bread to drain AP when there is a nice choke point (and AI aggression) to abuse
Glory is great with the semi-auto grenade launcher (MRGL) from Blitz's mission, and the MRGL is great on the bunched up soft cultists. Haste, adrenaline pump -> bam-bam-bam-bam-bam five grenades in one go
Oh and I wonder why they have Glory's healing magic (from her mission) sound like the adreanile pump instead of a spell -but Im just nitpicking
Your essence matters a lot if you're actually going to cast spells with a cooldown. Each loss of essence increases the cooldown of all spells by 1 turn.
However that's all it does in gameplay terms.
That means that a mage that is going to cast spells should think REALLY long and hard about any form of augmentation, but most lower level adept spells are used mostly for the bonus (and their cooldown is no biggie) or have no cooldown at all (like the melee weapon double strike).
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Be a phys adept and get cyberware. If you're not casting spells your essence doesn't really matter.
As a SR RPG player, this grates on my nerves something fierce.
As a longtime Shadowrun RPG player, I think cybered adepts have long been the combat monsters in the game, both in the fiction and at the tabletop. It's always a tradeoff (ALWAYS... lowering your Magic rating isn't to be trifled with), but balancing the two (cyberware and adept powers) is a staple of the universe, both in the roleplaying game and in the novels/world fiction.
Adepts in SR Returns are a bit of a half-measure anyway. The implementation is clearly a hack, rather than a core pillar of the game. They are neat to play, but they only encompass a single type of adept (melee/unarmed combat).
For meta-gamers, maybe. In the game-world, it is so inherently wrong that they have rules for burn-outs because of it. I mean, each table is different, but I've never had a player take more than a point of cyber/bio as a adept or magician.
And agreed, if adepts in SR:R were more fully fleshed out, you wouldn't even need to think about cyberware. Course, I'm not a fan of the mage/shaman split either, thought it is much better in Dragonfall.
For meta-gamers, maybe. In the game-world, it is so inherently wrong that they have rules for burn-outs because of it. I mean, each table is different, but I've never had a player take more than a point of cyber/bio as a adept or magician.
I wouldn't call it "inherently wrong". That's taking a fundamentalist route, and it's neat if you roleplay like that, but it's clear that the SR universe has more viewpoints than the adept purist. It's always a tradeoff, and there's always a risk of going too far (thus, 5th edition even has an Adept way called "The Way of the Burnout").
One of the major themes of Shadowrun is "Selling Yourself". How far are you willing to go to get that edge that you need to survive? Do you sell your body (cyberware)? Do you sell your soul (magic)? Do you sell your mind (matrix)? And to whom do you sell out (corporations? Dragons? The Ordo Maximus?)? It's part of why the stories are compelling. You break yourself to achieve your goals, and often those goals are just surviving so you can live another day.
There are adepts in the fiction that have varying degrees of cyberware/bioware. Looking at the Prime Terrors section of "Prime Runners", for example has Julio "Chico" Hernandez, who is ware-d up to the gills with bioware and has several Physical Adept abilities. Teachdaire, the assassin of that same section, has a lot of Delta-grade cyberware and bioware, and has Adept abilities, too. You'll find similar adepts throughout all of the editions of Shadowrun.
EDIT: For another example, in "Street Legends", the 4th edition equivalent to Prime Runners, you have Yankee, a famous fixer, who is an adept and has extensive cybermods. Yankee appears in a lot of SR4 fiction, actually, in both Shadowtalk and anything that has to do with Japan.
Don't have much exposure to 4E, maybe that's a trend more prominent there. And wasn't saying you were wrong, just stating my views, wasn't trying to say it was the one true way (though an adept with a totem would probably have some serious explaining to do).
Don't have much exposure to 4E, maybe that's a trend more prominent there. And wasn't saying you were wrong, just stating my views, wasn't trying to say it was the one true way (though an adept with a totem would probably have some serious explaining to do).
Well, in terms of Shadowrun history, Prime Runners is a 2nd edition sourcebook. The concept of the cybered adept pretty much starts with 2nd edition, since Physical Adepts barely existed as a footnote in 1st edition.* They generally fall into two categories when it comes to the fiction (throughout all editions):
* Best of the best - Generally whispered about in Shadowland, these are the top of the line adepts with cutting edge milspec gear and unlimited funding (i.e. not the runners). Think Red Samurai, Tir Ghosts, Aztechnology Jaguar Guards, etc. Teachdaire would fall under this category (assassin for the Tir Na Nog government). A lot of those guys in the printed adventures have a build as a cybered adept, to create a scary walking killing machine that can also punch spirits to death.
* Unknowing Street Thugs - These are the guys either who got 'ware before they knew they were magical or got 'ware to give them a slight edge over their normal powers. There's nothing among magical powers that truly replicates a Smartlink, so a lot of adept thugs who specialize in gunslinging also pick up a Smartlink. And because datajacks are so prevalent in the 2050s and 2060s, a lot of folks have one of those, even before they begin to manifest powers (especially if they have a mentor spirit/totem).
Totems don't necessarily abhor the presence of cyberware, either. Look at the interaction between Dog and Sam Verner, for example (Sam Verner/Twist has some 'ware from his time with Renraku). I think only a couple of totems have that explicit interaction (Eagle, for instance, which I believe takes double Essence loss from augmentations). Also, totemic adepts really didn't come into their own until 3rd edition, I think. It may have been an option in the Grimoire of 2nd edition, but I'd have to check.
2nd/3rd edition Shadowrun actually had way more cheese in terms of what cybered adepts can do, since Bioware didn't count against your Essence and you could safely get a certain amount of Bioware without messing with your magic. You can stack more Bioware versus a hit against your Magic, too, compared to Cyberware. 4th edition is a little less friendly to adepts in this regard, since Bioware has an Essence cost**.
* Although there's something to be said about the auto-successes from 1st edition's Physical Adepts stacking with the various cyberware bonuses, since Magic rating really didn't matter too much in 1st edition (not nearly as much as it did in later editions). It's sort of how adepts work in Shadowrun Returns, too, so maybe that was intentional.
** In 4th, you can halve the Essence cost of either Bioware or Cyberware, if you have both of them... whichever is lower in Essence cost is halved. I will note that 5th edition does not have this.
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Also, Shadowrunner etiquette? Still useless. I'd say the big ones are still Corporate/Security/Gang with maybe also Academic if you can fit it in.
And now for some heavy-duty endgame spoilers.
But then Audran shows up and when Vauclair tells him the plan's off, Audran does not take it well and the rest of the endgame goes more or less as before.
There's only one small saving grace in there:
Edit: I just told him to get out of my kiez in really aggressive terms and after that he just says "Lovely day, isn't it?" for all further dialogue. My hatred just increased.
Every now and then I ask myself what I consider good writing. Obviously that's a very subjective term, as there are lot of ways to gauge effectiveness and presentation, and I hesitate to put it down to hard qualifiers: a story must have this, this, and this to be considered 'good'. That said, Dragonfall is a prime example of what I consider good writing, in no small part because of how it develops its core cast in relation to the world.
Shadowrun as a setting is somewhere between gritty and fantastical - grim in classic cyberpunk fashion, but there's also a whimsical anything-can-happen air to it at times, even if that 'anything' is usually bad. The point is it's full of stuff most of us will assuredly never experience, things treated as mundane by the world's inhabitants. Consider the Dragonfall team: a shaman whose spirit goads him into bigger and bigger fights, a fighter so chromed up her soul is practically absent, a troll ex-soldier, a hotshot decker. I don't know the first goddamn thing about any of that.
Minor character spoilers for those just starting:
Magic, cybernetics, metahumanity, and cyberspace are all fictional ideas for a fictional world; Dietrich, Glory, Eiger, and Blitz draw from something a lot closer to home. They're stronger characters for it, and that helps make Shadowrun seem a lot less alien. I sincerely hope HBS takes another stab at an official campaign, and I'll be there on day one if they ever do.
Well... the game does hint at a possible new campaign in the Epilogue.
So I'm feeling optimistic about the possibility of there being another campaign. Wonder if it, too, will be standalone or if it's going to be built on Shadowrun Returns like Dragonfall had been.
Nice. Yeah, they're clearly more confident in what the engine can do now, so it wouldn't surprise me if later releases are also standalone. Though they'd probably also centralize the resources so the editor has access to them all with the least amount of fuss. The more official assets are available, the more interesting the UGC will be, I think.
That's when Glory changed. Apparently she's now possessed by the Adversary? I'm not sure. She got the Hand of Glory as her reward, which imbued her claws with mana burning damage and she no longer cared about the children she went there to save. They all apparently burned to death in the fire and we did nothing to even try to stop it. So cut to the end of the game. The "we're done, time to have the final chat with everyone and wrap things up" bit. Glory is now happy, because Harrow is dead and she has her magic back, at least in her claws. My char expresses concern about this and Glory dismisses it claiming she's in control and then seems to do something to my character that indicates she has more dark power than she's letting on. Basically it felt like logical continuation of the "bad ending" from the original DLC, when she was planning to go kill Harrow and seemed much darker in nature than normal.
So really my question is this, how does the alternative ending for her play out? Was I supposed to keep her on track during the discussion with the demon and purify it? What happens in that case? What reward does she get? I'll end up replaying the campaign at some point but Wasteland 2 is now calling and I'd like to at least know WTF happens to her in the "good ending" because it really does feel like I failed her somehow.
There's not as many actual Matrix opportunities, but one of the key missions revolves around a pretty sizeable hack (akin to the APEX fight here).
I played as a pistol decker in that one and thought it was perfectly fine. And as usual, decking is really useful in terms of opening chests/locked doors/etc, particularly since in the base game you can't take advantage of your allies' skills (so a decker in the party can't hack a safe for you).
The mission went a bit differently in my playthrough.
Then we went out and saved the kids.
Glory ends up getting a Heal spell and her personality stays roughly the same.
At the end of the game, Glory leaves to track down Harrow. She insists that she and the Hearth Spirit have to do this alone as part of their atonement or something. You can keep pushing to go with her, but I don't know what happens if you stubbornly keep insisting you come along because I dropped it and let her go on her own.
It's very much a "Path to Redemption" kind of arc.
Hurray. That one really bugged me during my Shaman run. Nice to see that one fixed.
Aww. So I wasn't supposed to just max out everyone's armour during the first few turns of every combat? Pity.
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
If you're going Rigger I feel like you may as well go Decker on top of that and just aim for getting 2 drones and a cyberdeck (which means you won't have any room for a weapon). Otherwise you'll need to have Blitz around for his decking ability and your skillsets will still kind of overlap as he's a rigger too.
Since you'll be hiding out and not exposing yourself to fire, you should plan on carrying mostly drone repair kits and maybe grenades (if you can spare Karma to put into strength and throwing weapons) rather than medkits, as keeping your drones alive will be the hard part in some missions. Drones are also pretty good short-to-medium range combatants. So I'd advise having Glory focus on her perks that boost her melee abilities (which also drain enemy AP, which improves everyone's survivability) and her skills that give improved medkit usage. Have Eiger take all the sniper perks, and I recommend giving Dietrich the perks that cause Electro Core to cost 1AP and drain enemy AP.
So what you'll have is Glory locking down tough single targets with her AP-draining and armor-rending melee attacks, your drones handling the meat-and-potatoes goons, Dietrich hasting/buffing your team, and as soon as anyone falls out of cover from AP loss, Eiger can crit them with her rifle for massive damage.
That's off the top of my head but I think it will work pretty well.
I was a huge fan of 3rd edition Shadowrun PnP in high school like a decade ago, so seeing this game get funded and become a reality was priceless
I too recently got into my first playthrough of the Director's cut, after several in the original version, and I love it, the improvement is tangible, even before taking into account the added content
Some high points:
- the ability to "loan" the crew weapons and items from my own stash: taser for glory (!!!), grenade launcher for Eiger... I have yet to buy the minigun, but I'm excited to see if anyone on team will have the necessary 7 strength for it by the endgame.
Also it seems Dietrich has an open sixth spell slot, I was skittish of giving him something to put there until now with all the "Idol writes over sixth spell slot" bug thing going on, but now that its fixed...
- the crew advancement system. Hella fun. Fairlight Excalibur for Blitz, Ranger Arms SM-3 for Eiger, Dietrich's nerve bolt and electro core becoming even more awesome - good stuff.
- the armor-cover revamp. All shootouts got a lot more challenging. Im still not entirely clear on what angle does flanking start from - got critted several times when I thought I was still behind heavy cover. But challenge is good, and Im getting used to finishing fights pretty much shot to s**t, which adds to the excitement of it all. Wonder what one can do after getting hit by an armor stripping spell, however, does dispel fix it, or do I have to use a friendly armor spell to "bring it back"?
- Absinthe, the Weinkeller, the expanded donations to Samuel with the actual cute payoff, all the little flavor things
Spoilers galore below
- Glory's mission
What did the trick, however, might have been both saving the ranger guy, and talking to the kids outside Marta's room, both of which I skipped doing earlier (I read the book through as well).
I have only seen her "good" outcome, in which she got the heal spell - like others said before, I kept reinforcing the "atone, save the kids" message throughout, and she went along with it nicely.
I focused Harrow down whenever his astral projection appeared, dunno how much does letting him linger change the outcome or flow of the battle.
- Eiger's mission
I am familiar with Shadowrun lore, so when I saw the ledger in ancient Scandinavian with the sole english word "Wednesday", I had a proper sinking feeling in the gut. And then the custom drones with the God chips, dear me, it was all there like in the Threats book way back when.
It was done really well, subtly, the danger wasnt spelled out. I loved how Eiger just went "lol dunno" when the name Winternight was dropped, and kept dismissing it as bullshit while I was like OHGODGETTHEF**KOUTTAHERERIGHTNOW
I replayed the mission twice, apparently this too has two ways of going about it - either you get for Eiger some souped up russian "taser grenade", or a Steyr-Aug CSL assault rifle with a laser designator in it. Good stuff.
Im worried about the consequences for Eiger, the post-mission talk has a huge branching dialogue tree, and Im not entirely sure what the best thing to say there is just yet. Will see when I finish, for better or worse.
- Blitz's mission
What was much more chilling, however, was how I am now even more convinced that Blitz is not an actual idiot, but a greedy Neutral Evil douchebag who uses being a doofus as cover from blowback. Im pretty sure he locked me in on purpose, and did the run from the Cafe Cezve because he intended to bail when it was over - with me preferably dead.
Maybe im just paranoid, but that guy betrayed my trust like half a dozen times without breaking a sweat, all the time going "ooh look at me im soo silly, isnt that cute, but I totally mean well, honest, yadda yadda". Even the terminator-grandpa points it out for you in the end.
Havent used the comm-hacking doodad yet, but must be cool. Did anyone have a different outcome, maybe with a different reward?
Oh and wasnt it a bit of a dickish move to reward all of *two* karma for that ordeal? I kept shooting goons for a seeming eternity and desperately trying not to get flanked as a mere two guys cant cover angles all that well, and then I finally survive and get home to 2 karma. Man, that was cold.
- Sewers, Doc Ezkibel
Apparently Ezkibels bioware mission only triggers after the sewers are dealt with, did anyone find out if he offers the job even if you strong-arm him into feeding the ghouls for free? I needed the bioware so I took the safe option and paid up to keep from antagonizing him.
The bioware lab run with Knight-King Philip is pure gold, as others have said before
- Trial run
Speaking of headware, did the encephalon+datajack combo really disappear from the store, or is it just me?
The first two guards on the ground floor you can dispatch at the same time without raising an alarm with Jana's help (and security Etiquette iirc), this also enables you to mess with the security terminal (no decking required) and therefore not meet guards on the top floor, nor when going in, nor when the dude presses the panic button.
If you have a decker to open the utility hatch on the upper floor, you can leave straight into the subway without having to fire a single shot. (Aside from dealing with the elf ofc, Im afraid there is no way to save him, I even tried playing an elf to talk to him, to no avail - maybe I should let him turn on the mage? I stood between them save that little twat James so that I could finish the job to specification)
Decking also lets you get into room 302 for the paydata (sex tape), it sells via the matrix (Shadowland) like others.
Luca not paying you if you tell him to sod off is sadly in the spirit of the contract, he stated at the get-go that you only get the 1.5k if you pass both parts of the audition, i.e. the talk as well. Telling him to go screw himself clearly constitutes a fail, I guess
Ezkibel will offer you the job, but he'll refuse to pay you anything for it. Although of course he will sell you the new bioware.
And if he really wanted to get you killed for a big payday, the absolute best way would be to sell you out to Vauclair and Audran, or - if that seemed too dangerous - to one of the many targets of your various runs, who would probably be more than happy to pay him off and give him passage out of Berlin. The unreliable, traitorous runner is a longstanding Shadowrun tradition that nobody would bat an eye at, so I think the fact that Dragonfall rejects that possibility, even with a character who seems perfectly suited to the role, means it was very much a conscious choice on the part of the writers: they're telling us something about Blitz by having him not turn heel.
Ultimately I think he's kind of archetypal of a certain sort of person that many of us deal with pretty frequently: technically skilled, probably sits somewhere on the high-functioning end of the spectrum, obsessive about his pet subjects but generally disinterested in things outside of his field, has difficulty thinking of his assigned tasks in terms of a bigger picture. If you navigate his dialogue tree correctly, I think your main character diagnoses him pretty correctly (and ruthlessly): he thinks he's smarter than he is, and he consistently ignores the advice of the people closest to him.
I think unlike the other characters, who are all seasoned vets, Blitz's character journey is towards maturity. And he does take it! He makes some big steps, if you help him.
He pays 2000, so placating him first with the 1000 is totally worth it
Oh rad, okay
I'm inclined to agree re: Blitz.
@Jacobkosh is pretty much on the money, I think. He's fairly competent and good at adapting quickly on the fly, but he's both impulsive and prone to overlooking details, especially if they clash with the idea in his head. He also smokes and drinks coffee, which go hand-in-hand with him being kind of jumpy; comments during missions paint him as low on personal scruples and somewhat paranoid, but not actively evil by any stretch. In light of his existing personal subplot, his behavior in the new mission makes sense: he wasn't expecting Hasenkamp, he freaked out, and he kept his eye open for any kind of leverage he could find - which left him distracted enough that he puts the PC in danger as well. Likewise during Drogenkippe, when he jumps for the first plan he thinks will work but ultimately winds up trapping himself, too; he exploits the PC's presence to escape, and winds up neck-deep in the Firewing business.
'Blitz' is an accurate handle for the man, to put it mildly.
Spoilery stuff from the endgame:
Kami still does not make it regrettably
Confirming a bunch of ghouls now supporting you in the sewer, not that they are terribly efffective, but its hella cool
Loving the new content on Absinthe, and how it even ties into the dialogue with Vauclair
Anyone have any idea what Trithemius's key is for? I got it from his corpse in Apex's compound, and noticed it getting automagically removed once I went into the basement, but I cant recall using it for anything. Maybe it was what let me in their storerooms once they were dead, and I did not notice?
Minigunning Communion cultist groups is the bomb - AoE ranged weapons ftw. Oh and I recall googling somewhere that the minigun has 8 ranged and 7 strength requirements - I equipped it with 6 ranged, so gotta be lower. Strength is true.
Dietrich's offensive final levelup-evolution (Fury of the Dragonslayer) is awesome - sustained AoE damage and AP drain centered on the caster, yes please. Its even colored red to make it look like death
Also the ley line spell he gets on the Humanis run is now providing medium ley line bonuses, I recall it starting with light. Super useful to cast it under him while in cover and chuck superpowered electric cores
And the loan-equipment-to-your-team goodness strikes again: Dietrich now rocks a lightning barrier in his sixth slot. I bought it specifically for him, best thing since sliced bread to drain AP when there is a nice choke point (and AI aggression) to abuse
Glory is great with the semi-auto grenade launcher (MRGL) from Blitz's mission, and the MRGL is great on the bunched up soft cultists. Haste, adrenaline pump -> bam-bam-bam-bam-bam five grenades in one go
Oh and I wonder why they have Glory's healing magic (from her mission) sound like the adreanile pump instead of a spell -but Im just nitpicking
I have a pointy object chucking troll, and I need to know if I should opt for melee weapons instead while the going is still good
and I'm still debating if I should go physical adept or get cyberware (cyberware is fucking cool, so I'm definitely favoring it)
just finished the Humanis mission, and I think I've already seen a few Director's Cut changes
pretty excited to play this again since I had so much fun the first time with my Decker/Rigger
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Your essence matters a lot if you're actually going to cast spells with a cooldown. Each loss of essence increases the cooldown of all spells by 1 turn.
However that's all it does in gameplay terms.
That means that a mage that is going to cast spells should think REALLY long and hard about any form of augmentation, but most lower level adept spells are used mostly for the bonus (and their cooldown is no biggie) or have no cooldown at all (like the melee weapon double strike).
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I see a lot about melee, but nothing about throwing in particular
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As a SR RPG player, this grates on my nerves something fierce.
But then you do it in game and you're playing a SRPG version of MGSRising. And all the awesomeness washes away those bad feelings about it.
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Adepts in SR Returns are a bit of a half-measure anyway. The implementation is clearly a hack, rather than a core pillar of the game. They are neat to play, but they only encompass a single type of adept (melee/unarmed combat).
And agreed, if adepts in SR:R were more fully fleshed out, you wouldn't even need to think about cyberware. Course, I'm not a fan of the mage/shaman split either, thought it is much better in Dragonfall.
One of the major themes of Shadowrun is "Selling Yourself". How far are you willing to go to get that edge that you need to survive? Do you sell your body (cyberware)? Do you sell your soul (magic)? Do you sell your mind (matrix)? And to whom do you sell out (corporations? Dragons? The Ordo Maximus?)? It's part of why the stories are compelling. You break yourself to achieve your goals, and often those goals are just surviving so you can live another day.
There are adepts in the fiction that have varying degrees of cyberware/bioware. Looking at the Prime Terrors section of "Prime Runners", for example has Julio "Chico" Hernandez, who is ware-d up to the gills with bioware and has several Physical Adept abilities. Teachdaire, the assassin of that same section, has a lot of Delta-grade cyberware and bioware, and has Adept abilities, too. You'll find similar adepts throughout all of the editions of Shadowrun.
EDIT: For another example, in "Street Legends", the 4th edition equivalent to Prime Runners, you have Yankee, a famous fixer, who is an adept and has extensive cybermods. Yankee appears in a lot of SR4 fiction, actually, in both Shadowtalk and anything that has to do with Japan.
* Best of the best - Generally whispered about in Shadowland, these are the top of the line adepts with cutting edge milspec gear and unlimited funding (i.e. not the runners). Think Red Samurai, Tir Ghosts, Aztechnology Jaguar Guards, etc. Teachdaire would fall under this category (assassin for the Tir Na Nog government). A lot of those guys in the printed adventures have a build as a cybered adept, to create a scary walking killing machine that can also punch spirits to death.
* Unknowing Street Thugs - These are the guys either who got 'ware before they knew they were magical or got 'ware to give them a slight edge over their normal powers. There's nothing among magical powers that truly replicates a Smartlink, so a lot of adept thugs who specialize in gunslinging also pick up a Smartlink. And because datajacks are so prevalent in the 2050s and 2060s, a lot of folks have one of those, even before they begin to manifest powers (especially if they have a mentor spirit/totem).
Totems don't necessarily abhor the presence of cyberware, either. Look at the interaction between Dog and Sam Verner, for example (Sam Verner/Twist has some 'ware from his time with Renraku). I think only a couple of totems have that explicit interaction (Eagle, for instance, which I believe takes double Essence loss from augmentations). Also, totemic adepts really didn't come into their own until 3rd edition, I think. It may have been an option in the Grimoire of 2nd edition, but I'd have to check.
2nd/3rd edition Shadowrun actually had way more cheese in terms of what cybered adepts can do, since Bioware didn't count against your Essence and you could safely get a certain amount of Bioware without messing with your magic. You can stack more Bioware versus a hit against your Magic, too, compared to Cyberware. 4th edition is a little less friendly to adepts in this regard, since Bioware has an Essence cost**.
* Although there's something to be said about the auto-successes from 1st edition's Physical Adepts stacking with the various cyberware bonuses, since Magic rating really didn't matter too much in 1st edition (not nearly as much as it did in later editions). It's sort of how adepts work in Shadowrun Returns, too, so maybe that was intentional.
** In 4th, you can halve the Essence cost of either Bioware or Cyberware, if you have both of them... whichever is lower in Essence cost is halved. I will note that 5th edition does not have this.