Part 3: Blood in the Water

Part 03 - Blood in the Water


(We still have some mechanics to cover so this first half will again be a bit of a block of but it'll mostly go away after this, so please do your best to bear with it a bit longer. And hey, at least we get to shoot people this time.)


The people have voted on the character creation, and the results are in! Our down-on-their-luck protagonist whose social connections consist of a single dead guy will be a female elf going by the streetname Amazon who fights primarily using drones. We thank Mr. L-P for his services in the first update, and wish him luck in the eternal limbo we have doomed him to. Have fun with that busted computer.



(Remember your safety goggles when handling killer drones with claws, kids. Just having them on your forehead isn't enough!)

Credit for the name goes to forums user LightWarden, whose powerful reasoning won the people's hearts:





The choice of using drones means we will be a Decker-Rigger hybrid, a combat nerd if you will. This is a popular combination due to the fact that the effectiveness of both decking and drones are governed entirely by the Intelligence stat, allowing us to focus most of our Karma in one place. Efficiency!

That said we'll still go and dip a little into Quickness both to get some evasion and to have at least some firearms skill to fall back on. We'll go with shotguns, because in the end they're the only friend you can truly rely on.


Also, being an elf gives us a +1 Charisma boost which reminds me of something I maybe should've covered last time but hey, nobody's perfect. Charisma is the primary stat used by the Shaman class, but it also comes with a secondary benefit: unlocking additional Etiquettes.



What this means in practice is that having a certain Etiquette will sometimes open up additional dialogue options in conversation, either for added flavor or some tangible benefit. For example "Academic" will give you smart-sounding options and "Street" will get you laughed at on the streets because you picked Street which is practically useless in this campaign.

Therein lies the problem with this otherwise neat system - Etiquettes aren't all equally useful, but you have no way of knowing that ahead of time outside of looking it up. The good news is that none of them make a dramatic difference in The Dead Man's Switch, so it's mostly just an "eat drek" to perfectionists who lose sleep over not making the optimal choices.

Anyway, we'll get enough Charisma for two Etiquettes, we're no Shaman so going any further is a huge waste of Karma. Even two aren't really necessary, honestly. But seeing as we're such a smarty-pants and considering the line of work we're supposed to be in, Amazon's Etiquettes will be Academic and Shadowrunner.


Now, the very last thing to cover before we can finally give New Larry some new hardcore face piercings to go with his tattoo is cyberware. L-P had none, but anyone with points in Decking or Drone Control start with a datajack which allows them to do their thing, namely using their mind to enter the Matrix or to take direct control over a drone. Both, in our case.



As you can see, cyberware comes with an "Essence cost" which in this case is 0.5. Essence is a central concept in the world of Shadowrun, and is best described as the connection between one's soul and physical body. Lifeforce, basically. By default, people have an Essence value of 6, and the less you have (most commonly, but not exclusively, reduced by replacing your fleshy parts with mechanical ones) the less "human" you become. Hit 0 and your soul no longer has a place to hang out in and so it flies away to star in From Software's popular video game series or whatever. Point is, you die.

Except if by some highly questionable means you go to negative Essence instead. That's a pretty bad scene and a tale for another time, but if I someday end up doing Dragonfall, you'll see, oh yes.

Essence is also directly tied to your magical aptitude and in gameplay terms, for every point of Essence below 6 you lose a spell slot (E: This also apparently increases spell cooldown which is another major downside). Since this always rounds down, our datajack already costs us one slot. This is why specializing exclusively in magic for the purposes of dealing death is a suboptimal choice for anyone relying on a datajack, although some basic spellcasting ability can be handy if you're not planning on going all-out with cyberware.



Anyhow, where were we?



Oh right the flashback to the betrayal and the ambush. Shadowrun.




(A quick word about the soundtrack, most themes in the game are divided into an ambient part and a combat part. I encourage clicking these music links as some of the combat themes in particular are quite good and there's a decent variety of them. No Return isn't my favorite of the bunch, though. Oh and sorry for the hackjob loop.)




Sure enough, a couple of Renraku goons charge in from the... southwest? I'm not really sure with this camera angle, but we'll go with that. Predictably, New Larry who you can see next to the table there also turns hostile.

Oh by the way, the combat's turn-based with the entirety of each side acting on their turn. Enemies like to get their turn before you get yours which can sometimes be problematic. Here, too, New Larry and co. act first, and in fact the two Renraku fellows act twice in a row because I guess their initial entrance is some scripted thing and thus doesn't count.

Oh well, this is the literal first fight in the game so we won't have any pr-




















Okay, so I didn't actually switch to Easy, but that is some -ass start. Apparently Sam wasn't kidding about Larry's lightning bolts, seeing how he immediately crits the hell out of Sangoma's 40 health before I even get to move. Normally the AP damage would be enough to knock her out for the next turn to boot, but for some reason it didn't apply here. I'm guessing it's the same weirdness that allowed the Renraku duo to move twice, but who knows.

Let's look on the bright side, Sangoma is a Bear shaman which gives her a magical area effect healing spell. Magical healing always heals the last instance of damage taken, so even though we took 20 here we should be able to heal it all ba-





Pictured, Sangoma taking a relatively harmless pistol shot from a Renraku guy after the lightning bolt. This is the big catch about magical healing in these games; it's extremely powerful if you cast it right after taking a big hit, but if a mosquito bites you between the shotgun blast to the chest and the healer getting to you, your itch will go away but your lungs will still be on the wall. This makes MedKits the more reliable option, with the primary downside being that they take inventory slots and can't be used from a distance.

Well, I've never seen a start this bad, but at least we finally get to act.



So, combat. If you've played the modern XCOM games then you're sailing in pretty familiar waters here. All characters have 2 or more Action Points and doing things such as moving or shooting consume them. Once you've spent them all, you can't act until the next turn (unless someone casts Haste on you or something). Whether you hit or miss and how much damage is dealt are decided by the almighty RNG, taking a bunch of things into account such as one's skill in handling a weapon, cover, distance and what have you.

There are some strange mechanics in play here relating to cover and damage which were completely revamped in the later installments. I won't go into the nitty-gritty details but in short, cover isn't as big of a deal here and damage can go from half damage to double damage. Which end is more likely depends on one's beefiness (Body stat, armor) and the other guy's offensive skills.


But anyway, now that it's our turn it's time for Amazon to show what she's made of! That's right folks, it's time...

TO UNLEASH THE DRONES!!








Haha psych, we made a custom character so we don't have any drones in the first battle. We have a pistol, an SMG, a couple of grenades and absolutely no skill to use any of them. Our odds of hitting anyone float at around 15% and our Strength is so low that we can just barely toss a grenade far enough not to hit ourselves with it.



No, we're all but a complete waste of space and pretty much 100% on nurse duty here. We're actually the worst Shadowrunner and completely deserve the predicament our current self is in.



Sam here, who comes with a shotgun and an SMG, on the other hand actually has some basic firearms skills, giving him some combat options such as the old classic of blasting the hell out of your enemies' kneecaps with a shotgun, the joke that never stops being funny.



He can also give up all pretense of aiming and paint the walls with bullet holes with his SMG. Great party trick, always leaves an impression.



He immediately puts his skills to good use, blasting Larry for 11 points worth of damage with a shotgun after taking cover. Notice the 76% hit chance by the way, on Normal that'd be 99% without question thanks to the invisible bonus you get. Even from this distance it'd probably be at least around 90% on the enemy further away. Since they can hit multiple enemies from long ranges, shotguns are particularly strong on lower difficulties.

As for Sangoma, the eagle-eyed amongst you might've noticed a skull icon on top of a glowy puddle in an earlier screenshot. This is related to a shamanic ability, namely the ability to summon spirits from certain pre-determined parts of the environment.





What a cute fellow. Typhoon here comes with a ranged attack, a Dodge buff and the Manabolt spell which ignores normal armor and targets Willpower. Unfortunately this thing's damage output is a little lacking, and it harmlessly splashes some water on Larry with a missed shot.



Sangoma compensates for her watery pet's shortcomings with an aimed shot from her AK-97 assault rifle. Rifles are the "balanced" weapon type that focus on taking down one target at a time.



Larry doesn't take it well, opting to use his pistol instead of his magic but still landing the shot.



...And both of his friends join in adding some ventilation to the poor ork. Quit with the aimbotting you jerks.

Note the "Weak!" shot, the opposite of a critical that deals decreased damage.



Inbetween trying to keep Sangoma from bleeding all over the cooled drinks in front of her, our heroine's decking experience does at least allow her to mark enemies, making them slightly easier for more competent people to hit. The odds of landing the mark itself aren't great, but it sure as hell beats the comedy routine that's her trying to hit someone with a gun.



On subsequent turns after they're initially summoned, spirits like Typhoon here can be given different amounts of AP to use on that turn, but they also have a chance to go rogue and start attacking anyone nearby with the odds increasing the more AP you go for and the more turns they've been around. Extra AP is so powerful that I almost always to go for the maximum possible, especially since the escape odds don't really increase that much.

Thankfully the 10% disaster doesn't strike here, and while Typhoon isn't particularly strong, having twice the AP of anyone else certainly compensates for it.

And where Sam whiffs trying to go for New Larry with his shotgun despite standing right next to him, our spirit friend's cute lil' blasts of water finish the job, showing that the little guy really can make a difference in changing the world for the better.



Guess he'll never get to be Old Larry.

The next turn is spent the usual way with Sangoma eating a bullet and Amazon failing to do anything of any real worth. The most competent member of our team, however, continues their rampage.



Meanwhile...



I'm not kidding when I say these guys would be in more danger pouring their morning coffee than in front of our weapon. The annoyingly hard-to-see red color for some of these combat texts was thankfully changed after this game.

Also these Renraku jokers have 20 hitpoints, making them pretty much complete paper. The frail grandma section of the security forces must've been the only ones available for this gig.



And bingo night must've just ended as while we're chasing after the remaining enemy, two more come out of the shadows behind us. Dick move, but mostly an annoyance due to our lack of firepower.



Typhoon continues to show off its amazing magic trick of turning water into blood. I don't know what the rest of us are even needed for.



We do proceed to learn a valuable lesson about staying too grouped up as suddenly a grenade flies in from seemingly a hundred miles away with pinpoint accuracy and shreds the hell out of everyone. I didn't even know these guys carried grenades, so this was purely an oversight from my part.

Grenades are the single biggest reason to keep your people spread out whenever possible, at least until Hong Kong which introduces a hilarious countermeasure to them.




The grenadier's friend grows overly bold and we ask him kindly to calm down.

Despite our injuries there's now only one of them left so... wait.



More reinforcements from the northwest? Did I somehow stumble into Fire Emblem?

These two are actually a Mage and a Shaman which makes them a little scarier than the rest of the bunch, so it's fortunate for us that they didn't bother showing up in time. Seriously, these guys are terrible at this ambushing business.



Things go from Fire Emblem to Pokémon as the Shaman proceeds to summon a spirit of her own using a consumable item.

I've never been into Pokémon so you have to come up with your own hilarious in-joke to insert here, sorry.



Sangoma demonstrates her Bear healing ability which is incredibly satisfying in a situation like this. She did get nailed by another pistol shot before I could get it off though, resulting in her healing for 3 instead of 12.



By this point Typhoon is starting to seriously wonder if maybe a career in accounting would be preferable to being a serial murderer, but thankfully those sweet sweet hit chances convince it to stay faithful to us a while longer.





You may not have been with us for long my friend, but I gotta hand it to you.

You really knew how to make a splash.


Oh, and the shaman's death automatically caused its spirit to vanish as well.



Sam cleans up the grenade-tossing nuisance, and then it's over. No more reinforcements come.








[Sam's breathing is heavy and he looks shaken.]

That was a helluva thing.

Part of the life, Sam. You know that.

You were born for this gig, Amazon. Me... not so much. I think I'm gonna hang it up - find a nice brothel somewhere. Stay drunk until I croak. What about you?

I'll find a safehouse out of town. Lay low. Renraku has a long memory.

I do too. I don't forget my friends.

End flashback!



[You stare at Sam's face on your commlink. Shake off the memory. Focus.]

...I had your back that night, didn't I?

Well, a water spirit carried everyone on its back but you did alright.

Now, I'm asking myself - who would care if I die? Who would give a rat's ass? Better or worse, your name is at the top of the list. Maybe it's the only name *on* the list...

Man, this is one sad relationship we have going here.






Rather than real life yen, the value of nuyen is roughly the same as the real life dollar. The hell did he get that kind of insurance from?

Contact my law firm - Rogers, Mengert & McCain - when the job is done. They'll know what to do.

[He turns to his left.]

Chet?




[Sam straightens up. Talks seriously. First time.]

You could say he's now a serious Sam.

Look, Amazon... I've led a drek life and I probably left a drek corpse. I've hurt people... hurt myself... I don't know. Maybe I just want the last word. Maybe I just want someone to give a crap that I sucked air for awhile. What do you say?

I'd say that this is a hilariously dodgy proposition in more than one way, particularly since we have literally nothing to go on, but also let's be honest...

I'd say my schedule's pretty clear right now.




I've got a locator chip slotted in my head these days. If... when... my heart stops, it'll activate. That's how you'll find me.

See you on the slab.

Well... Seattle can't be any worse than this.


Spoilers, Seattle will be all kinds of worse than this.

But that's for next time.


Concept art: Seattle docks