Shadowrun

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Tue May 26, 2009 4:57 am

mean_liar wrote:Have you tried Earthdawn? I haven't, but it uses SR2 mechanics. It might have a few gems.

I managed to borrow a copy from a friend of mine this weekend - I'll try and read it whenever I get the chance and see if that might fit the bill, or if perhaps a hybrid of SR4/Earthdawn would be best.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 26, 2009 8:29 am

Ginbare Gincun wrote:1) What is the formula that they used to determine the BP costs of the starting races? The Troll seems like he's a lot cheaper then it should be in comparison to the other races. I'm interested in playing a fantasy game using the SR4 system and there's a ton of fantasy races that would need to be "converted", so I'd like to be as informed about this aspect of the game as possible.

The formula is:

Take the percentage of People who played metahumans who played that metatype.
Round up to the nearest 5.
Add the word BP at the end.

To be honest, it's not that far off. Orks own you in the face of course, but only slightly. The big problem is the Body and Strength shouldn't be different stats. Not only does every metatype that gets a bonus to one get a bonus to the other (indicating that that they are not conceptually different), but furthermore they don't do anything that's good enough to warrant being an attribute on their lonesome. Having a Strength of 14 is just nowhere near as game defining as having a Logic of 9.

As is, in my personal house rules I don't charge different amounts for different races. None of them are actually good enough to be "must haves" for any character type.

-Username17

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue May 26, 2009 11:33 am

My personal house rules are "Make the character you want. Do not care about availability, BP efficiency, or Karma cost. Do not use a BP limit at all. I'll judge the character and adjust it if needed to fit it into the group."

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Thu May 28, 2009 12:08 am

As a current D&D DM and a prospective Shadowrun GM, which do those of you who have played both find easier to teach to players and run in general?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu May 28, 2009 12:17 am

What do you mean? Starting from ground zero or if they have knowledge of previous editions?

I've found that it doesn't take people very long to get upgraded from 3rd Edition to 4th Edition, though I imagine any edition of D&D would take longer to learn than 4E Shadowrun (minus the Matrix rules).

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu May 28, 2009 5:09 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:...any edition of D&D would take longer to learn than 4E Shadowrun (minus the Matrix rules).

Almost certainly true. Shadowrun, for the most part, is made of unified and re-used mechanics. As for the Matrix, this is the alpha and omega as far as I'm concerned.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:01 am

ages ago on the old boards frank posted a list of 'roles' in a shadowrun team - tasks that someone needed to be able to do.

I'm trying to bloody find it with the search tool, but anyone got a link?

Sir Neil · Post by **Sir Neil** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 4:57 pm

Frank wrote:Gymnastics. It adds to your defense roll when you take the Full Defense Action. It is so good that Street Samurai are well advised to invest in Synthacardiums just to increase this skill's dicepool.

First Aid. An untrained character rolls their Medkit's rating when treating injuries. If you have even a point in First Aid, you roll your Logic + Skill + Medkit Rating. This can even treat Stun, and can be used to lower Drain.

Exotic Ranged/Melee Weapon. Depending upon how your GM reads the skill (the skill description on page 113 is at odds with the description of its use in the Critters and Equipment Sections), this skill is either completely useless (because it requires that you select one fvcking weapon like a D&D EWP) or is wicked awesome (because it lets you use whatever crazy crap you happen to MacGuyver together). Although the Monowhip is so much the best weapon evar that EMW: Monowhip is worth taking even if your GM uses the nerftastic ruling.

Influence. That's right, the whole skill group. You don't give a rat's about Leadership most of the time, but you actually need to not be taking defaulting penalties on Ettiquette, Negotiate, and Con. You really need to not be taking defaulting penalties on those skills.

Perception. I don't care who you are or what you do, you need this skill. This is a game about detectives, spies, and guerilla warriors, the "notice things" skill is made out of pure gold. Or joy. Whichever one is better.

Infiltration. It's the skill where you don't get seen. See Perception.

Various Archetypes consider a number of other skills. I wouldn't make a magician without Summoning, Counterspelling, and Spellcasting. I wouldn't make a Rigger without Electronic Warfare, Gunnery, and Pilot: GroundVehicle. A Street Sam should have at least two weapon skills, one of which should be Longarms.

Depending upon the game you will either want Shadowing and Palming or not. If you do, you should take the whole Stealth group.

Someone in your group should have Medicine. If it isn't your Hacker it should be your Hermetic Mage. Someone should have demolitions, same thing.

If you want to drop people silently, get a super squirt and shoot two loogies of Narcoject at people.

That being said, there's a lot to be said for just being a Street Sam who has no visible cyberware that is anything but extremely legal and common. That means getting your ass kicking from Synaptic Boosters, Synthacardium, and Muscle Augmentation. Possibly even starting life as an Ork (who in SR4 are the master race).

But what you don't want to do is leave long lasting Astral Signatures around, so if you go mage, be prepared to cast spells at a low Force. That means using spells that are good at a low Force (usually you are pretty safe at around Force 3) - Improved Invisibility, Levitate, Combat Sense, Detect Life.

Being Metahuman makes you genetically superior, and buying attributes is cheaper than buying skills (but is even more cheaper than buying skills once play has begun, so the longer you intend to play the character, the more you should jack skillz up). Even a Hermetic Mage is basically better as an Ork than she is as a human, especially if she intends to karate chop people in the nuts. Stun batons are legal to carry, and horrendously effective, so consider them in lieu of kung fu kicks.

If you go unarmed combat, take the "Martial Arts" specialization as soon as play begins (it's +2 dice all the time, but it's the same cost in Karma as it is in BP, so don't flush BP in starting with it).

You can wear a chameleon suit over an armored jacket. If you have a body of 4+ you should do this thing.

In general you should be a dwarf and use strength as a dump stat, but being melee combat oriented makes both of those suggestions less attractive. You'll want a lot of Running, as it will let you go crazy fast.

Orks cost 20 points and get you 50 points worth of attributes in exchange for reductions in the maximum number of points you are allowed to spend in two attributes that not every character even wants. That discussion should seriously be over in like one reply:

What cyberware/bioware should a mage seriously consider setting fire to his/her essence for?
Enhanced Senses and Datajacks. Seriously, you can target people you can "see", so getting vision enhancers is totally worth a Magic point.

Normally, a Shadowrunning team wants someone who can do the following tasks:

Cast Healing Magic.
Use a Medkit.
Kill Things.
Operate heavy machinery.
Stealthfully enter restricted areas.
Fast talk themselves into restricted areas.
Successfully fight a force 8 spirit by themselves.
Spy magically.
Spy electronically.
Spy optically.
Control escape routes with their mind.
Collect information from the Matrix.
Track down restricted equipment.
Bypass doors.
Destroy entire installations.
Triangle Button cars.
Smuggle PCs into/out of various countries.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 5:26 pm

ckafrica wrote: A repository of good house rules would be a good thing.

Yeah, I'd like to see Frank's house rules for SR. His matrix rewrite was very good, since the normal matrix system was heavily lacking.

Sir Neil · Post by **Sir Neil** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 6:02 pm

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=9901

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:40 pm

Out of curiosity, did anyone come up with a good, simple alternative to the basic combat system? The way it goes now has so many steps that it's completely turned my group off to the game, which I think is a shame. For example, let's say I'm trying to shoot a fool.

1) Check for visibility/cover/multiple shot/other modifiers, which are fairly common.
2) Attack roll.
3) Dodge roll.
4) Armor Piercing/Miscellaneous modifiers
5) Soak roll.
6) Compare damage to armor (to check if it gets converted to stun).
7) Check for knockdown/shock/etc.

How can we pare that down without losing too much of the things we want from the system? I'd probably begin by getting rid of armor penetration entirely and taking averages, rounded up, for the soak rolls, and skip steps 6 and 7 entirely. More ideas?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:50 pm

Probably the easiest way to add speed to the process is to ditch the defense roll rather than the soak roll. Attack rolls now merely have a Threshold that is target's Reaction dependent if they are moving erratically (as in combat), and additionally skill based if they take a Dodge action.

3 rolls is not required. But the inadequacy of nWoD shows that 1 roll is insufficient. Warp Cult used a 2 roll system. In the test runs I put it through in January it seemed to work well. I may be able to give it an actual tape measures and minis test in a couple weeks when I get to my mother's house in California.

-Username17

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:56 pm

Also, many people with experience with both 3rd and 4th edition of Shadowrun seem to think that 3rd was a far "grittier," "hardcore cyperpunk" type game like Blade Runner and Neuromancer, where 4th is more of a Ghost in the Shell type thing.

Would anyone on this board care to elaborate on this statement and/or give titles of 3E books that really conveyed this flavor?

Also, how much rules work do you think would be required to port the basic 4E structure into a more medieval setting, or is such an idea not really viable?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:01 pm

Blicero wrote:Would anyone on this board care to elaborate on this statement and/or give titles of 3E books that really conveyed this flavor?

Basically, in 3E having a cell phone jammed into your head was a big deal, and shoving in an outdated USB dongle was a big deal too. Pretty much everything was wired and suffered from limited storage.

That made sense from the perspective of 80's and 90's cyberpunk, but is inexcusable these days. In short, playing 3E is like some kind of 'back to the future' comedy routine, which means that it's far 'grittier' and more 'cyberpunk'.

Also, technomancers.

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 1:43 am

Blicero wrote: Also, how much rules work do you think would be required to port the basic 4E structure into a more medieval setting, or is such an idea not really viable?

A little, but it's completely doable and actually works very well. If there's any interest I'll try to dig up the latest version my friend developped.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:25 am

The Vigilante wrote:
Blicero wrote: Also, how much rules work do you think would be required to port the basic 4E structure into a more medieval setting, or is such an idea not really viable?
A little, but it's completely doable and actually works very well. If there's any interest I'll try to dig up the latest version my friend developped.

There is. The biggest hurdle is to graft a melee combat system onto the deal. Because historically Shadowrun's Melee system was to measure your bigness in melee and have the better guy win (with varying bonuses for outnumbering, which in previous editions were pretty much larger than any skill disparity you were likely to have, and in SR4 are merely noticeable). I've never had the patience to make a melee combat system for it myself, but there's certainly interest.

-Username17

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:57 am

Sir_Neil wrote:http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=9901

Cool. Thanks, that was an interesting read.

Though I was surprised there was no change to summoning. Is it just me or does summoning in SR4 seem crazy powerful?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:01 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote:
Sir_Neil wrote:http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=9901
Cool. Thanks, that was an interesting read.

Though I was surprised there was no change to summoning. Is it just me or does summoning in SR4 seem crazy powerful?

Well, I use the Drain = 1/2 Force + Hits rule from Street Magic, which makes average Summoning more strenuous (at the cost of less head explosions and easier Binding drain). But yeah, Spirits are still crazy powerful. You can reign them in a lot by giving them Skills equal to half Force instead of Force. That puts them onto a more mortal dice pool pretty decisively.

You still can't really hurt them without a badass street sam, but I happen to know that's rules operating as intended.

-Username17

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:02 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
The Vigilante wrote:
Blicero wrote: Also, how much rules work do you think would be required to port the basic 4E structure into a more medieval setting, or is such an idea not really viable?
A little, but it's completely doable and actually works very well. If there's any interest I'll try to dig up the latest version my friend developped.
There is. The biggest hurdle is to graft a melee combat system onto the deal. Because historically Shadowrun's Melee system was to measure your bigness in melee and have the better guy win (with varying bonuses for outnumbering, which in previous editions were pretty much larger than any skill disparity you were likely to have, and in SR4 are merely noticeable). I've never had the patience to make a melee combat system for it myself, but there's certainly interest.

-Username17

Well we're certainly no DnD & co rules expert, so our melee combat system might get laughed at around these parts, but I'm willing to take that chance.

Basically we simply took the base SR4 melee combat system and grafted additional stats to weapons & shields. So you'll get a parrying bonus using a short sword, while you'll get a parrying penalty if you use a claymore. For shields we've added a Shield skill that allows you to block using the blocking bonus from the different shields we've written up.

Also to avoid having casters in full plate armor we've ported the Essence loss from 'ware to the armor, so basically the more armor you wear the more Magic points you lose.

That's the gist of it. I'm waiting for him to send me the latest version he's written up so I can post it here. We're certainly open to suggestions, but after a few sessions I'd say it seems to be working pretty well.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:03 am

The Vigilante wrote:Well we're certainly no DnD & co rules expert, so our melee combat system might get laughed at around these parts, but I'm willing to take that chance.

Most people here aren't married to the DnD ruleset or even particularly like it or the assumptions it brings along, it just happens to be the most familiar set for lots of people. I'm honestly not even sure how many of them would be good in a dicepool setup, so sticking to it probably isn't something worth worrying about. I doubt that your rules will get laughed at... most of us only do that when it's actually intended to be funny or serious attempts at conversation have failed utterly. More likely it'll get looked over and picked apart and maybe even torn to shreds and insulted and yelled at, but most of the things that are said about it will be constructive. And from the ashes a more glorious set will hopefully arise.

We're not necessarily the nicest bunch on the interwebs, but if you can get past that you should find plenty of plenty of honest, abrupt, and direct constructive criticism. That's been my experience here anyway.

Also, welcome and stuff.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:22 am

The biggest "problem" with using SR ruleset for D&D is that SR isn't really made to scale to super high dice pools, so really you could make an LotR style fantasy game with it very well, but you're not going to get the D&D style leveling transition where you can start as a total wimp and become able to take out armies singlehandedly.

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:00 pm

TarkisFlux wrote:
The Vigilante wrote:Well we're certainly no DnD & co rules expert, so our melee combat system might get laughed at around these parts, but I'm willing to take that chance.
Most people here aren't married to the DnD ruleset or even particularly like it or the assumptions it brings along, it just happens to be the most familiar set for lots of people. I'm honestly not even sure how many of them would be good in a dicepool setup, so sticking to it probably isn't something worth worrying about. I doubt that your rules will get laughed at... most of us only do that when it's actually intended to be funny or serious attempts at conversation have failed utterly. More likely it'll get looked over and picked apart and maybe even torn to shreds and insulted and yelled at, but most of the things that are said about it will be constructive. And from the ashes a more glorious set will hopefully arise.

We're not necessarily the nicest bunch on the interwebs, but if you can get past that you should find plenty of plenty of honest, abrupt, and direct constructive criticism. That's been my experience here anyway.

Also, welcome and stuff.

Constructive criticism is actually one of the reasons I left forums such as Dumpshock. I don't care much about being nice and stuff, I just want solid, constructive discussion of rulesets and gaming concepts. It's just that I'm not a seasoned gaming developer / rules lawyer as some people seem to be here, and I just wanted to admit my noobitude.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:The biggest "problem" with using SR ruleset for D&D is that SR isn't really made to scale to super high dice pools, so really you could make an LotR style fantasy game with it very well, but you're not going to get the D&D style leveling transition where you can start as a total wimp and become able to take out armies singlehandedly.

That's actually my biggest beef with DnD, and that's why we ported SR4 rules to a medieval setting. We wanted a break from Cyberpunk (we mostly play SR), but we didn't want to get into hack&slash DnD 3.x. Our rules actually work pretty well if you want a semi-realistic, "gritty" medieval campaign.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 3:46 pm

The Vigilante wrote: That's actually my biggest beef with DnD, and that's why we ported SR4 rules to a medieval setting. We wanted a break from Cyberpunk (we mostly play SR), but we didn't want to get into hack&slash DnD 3.x. Our rules actually work pretty well if you want a semi-realistic, "gritty" medieval campaign.

Yeah, if you want to eliminate D&D super characters then an SR port is probably exactly what you'd want, since SR handles what it's designed to handle very well.

The Vigilante · Post by **The Vigilante** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:41 am

I posted up the conversion's draft in the Homebrew forum. Actual rules & items should follow later.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:52 pm

Would anyone care to comment on the quality of the Shadowrun Missions line?