Shadowrun-to-Pathfinder conversion?


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I beg of you, if you're not making the default era the 2060's, please do not go the way of 5th edition and bring back cyberdecks. They got left behind in 4th for a reason.


Seth Dresari wrote:
Okay, I had another idea; since Metahumans all stemmed from, well, humans, then Half-Elf, Half-Dwarf, Half-Orc and Half-Troll should all be available templates, with both advantages and disadvantages, that could be applied at character creation to other races (with a few exceptions; you can't apply the Half-Elf template to an Elf or the Half-Orc template to an Orc, but you could apply Half-Orc to Elf and vice versa)

Though as I understand the may metahumans work in SR, there aren't half-races. Children of a mixed race couple are still purely of one race - usually one of the parents races, but occasionally not. Genetics and the magic that led to metahumans interact oddly.

Not to say you couldn't add such templates, but it's not how SH normally works. (Or wasn't. I haven't looked at the latest edition or all the supplements.)

Liberty's Edge

Neurophage wrote:
I beg of you, if you're not making the default era the 2060's, please do not go the way of 5th edition and bring back cyberdecks. They got left behind in 4th for a reason.

Enlighten me. What was that reason? If it was a good reason, then as a GM, you always have the option of banning cyberdecks.

thejeff wrote:

Though as I understand the way metahumans work in SR, there aren't half-races. Children of a mixed race couple are still purely of one race - usually one of the parents races, but occasionally not. Genetics and the magic that led to metahumans interact oddly.

Not to say you couldn't add such templates, but it's not how SH normally works. (Or wasn't. I haven't looked at the latest edition or all the supplements.)

Creative license. For all we know, magic just wasn't in the world long enough; in your average D&D setting where half-elves exist, magic has been around for several hundred years. Also, keep in mind that DNA is just advanced Biochemistry, but now that we have magic we also have Alchemy. Soon, somebody might invent an alchemical vaccine to cure some disease that as a side effect allows people of different races to crossbreed... I dunno.

Oh, there were also Half-Dwarves in the Darksun setting, but they were infertile.


Neurophage wrote:
I beg of you, if you're not making the default era the 2060's, please do not go the way of 5th edition and bring back cyberdecks. They got left behind in 4th for a reason.

I say bring back cyber decks if only to keep the shenanigans that became a part of decking in later editions to a minimum.

Liberty's Edge

Just out of curiosity, what exactly were those shenanigans, anyway?

Also, I came up with a house rule involving the seldom-used D30; if yor attack bonus is at least 10, then you swap out the D20 for a D30 and subtract 10 from your bonus, that way there is always a chance the attack will miss, even when up against the lowest ACs, but you will still have a higher-than-normal chance of hitting since the odds of getting higher than 10 are now 2 in 3 instead of 1 in 2.

It would be sort of like the DC house rule somebody else came up with earlier; if you get a Nat 20 but still do not meet the DC, then you get a free re-roll with an additional +10 bonus.


Seth Dresari wrote:
Neurophage wrote:
I beg of you, if you're not making the default era the 2060's, please do not go the way of 5th edition and bring back cyberdecks. They got left behind in 4th for a reason.
Enlighten me. What was that reason? If it was a good reason, then as a GM, you always have the option of banning cyberdecks.

When I said "bring back cyberdecks," I meant demoting the commlink from a hacking device.

As for reasons, there are two main ones. One of the biggest inconsistencies behind the size of a cyberdeck in 3E was the presence of the cranial cyberdeck. The fact that a person could, at no penalty, implant this device inside of their head implied that the necessary components for it were relatively small, and thus did not require the keyboard-sized bulky case. The case's size was so it could ergonomically be used as an interface. Before the 2070's made AR and haptic interfaces the new standard, the cyberdeck as an interface made sense. However, once the size of an interface was no longer a factor, shrinking down the case just made sense. This is doubly so given that ASIST technology for simsense interface also became pretty small. Commlinks were a sensible logical progression. Reverting back to cyberdecks in 5E was not a logical progression.

The second reason is that the development of new cyberdecks in the 2070's doesn't make any sense given their cost and the apparent ease of conversion. No previous-generation technology can interface with the new Matrix outside of the Megas' parameters. The new cyberdecks are developed exclusively by the Megas and ridiculously expensive, but the parts involved in making them are sufficiently-common that an enterprising young decker can make one out of spare parts they got raiding an electronics store dumpster.

This next part, you can absolutely ignore if you feel like. It's, mostly, an aesthetic issue.:

The last and (to me, which should be noted because this part is ultra-opinionated) most egregious aspect of cyberdecks (that you would be free to change and which I would strongly recommend changing) is how prohibitively-expensive they are. The price range, to get a bit analytical, overly-exposes hackers. We live in a new decade of a new century. The ideas of cyberpunk's criticism of technological developments have changed. From the perspective of the general public, the hackers of yore were basically wizards. They used a near-opaque technology that next to no one understood in ways that were meant to be impossible. The fear of the hacker (what little there was) came from a lack of understanding of both the technique and technology behind what they did. But nowadays, computing technology is ubiquitous in First World nations. We carry around wireless enabled devices everywhere we go. Controlling traffic lights or ATMs with the touch of a cell phone's screen isn't just possible, it's trivial with the right knowledge. Because that's what separates an expert from a novice. Not their technology (though better technology can give you an edge), but their knowledge. The fear of the hacker today is that they could be anyone. The guy in a cafe staring at his laptop screen? He's running a phishing scam and stealing people's credit card numbers. The girl fiddling with her phone on the corner? After she jailbroke her phone and installed her own custom software, it's the master key to every car made in the last five years. If science fiction is supposed to reflect aspects of our current society's technology (and I think it is), then it should also reflect the changing views of the people who use and abuse that technology for their own ends.

edit: For the record, cyberdecks still existing in the 2060's is fine. My issue came from reverting back to them after already advancing past them, as well as the dubious reasons for which this reversion happened.

Liberty's Edge

Ah, I see. Well, whenever I say Cyberdeck, I guess I am actually thinking of DNI (Direct Neural Interface)


Perfectly understandable. Besides smartguns, I don't even remember if any devices in 3E besides cyberdecks were DNI-enabled. I also don't remember if any devices besides cyberdecks and the Rigger interface used ASIST.

Liberty's Edge

What is ASIST? Also, what did you think of my advancement tree concept?


Artificial Sensory Induction System Technology was the tech development that made Simsense possible and, thus, what makes it possible for people to experience the Matrix as virtual reality. As I recall, cyberdecks and cyberterminals were the only computers in the 2060's that could be outfitted with the ASIST interface, with the possible exception of the rigger interface, and I don't remember how that thing was implied to work.

RE: Advancement trees. It sounds like a less-restricted version of what Fantasy Flight Games does in a lot of their RPGs (check out Dark Heresy for an example) though I'd recommend representing the major areas of play the game (Combat, Stealth, Matrix, Magic, Social) before breaking into fields like Resonance. Cybernetics as its own field is a little odd, since the point of augs is supposed to be that anyone (except a mage) can use them.

You might've mentioned it up-thread, but how are you planning on reconciling Essence? Or, are you not and every PC is assumed to be a Jake Armitage?


Cyberdeck money cost is high for gameplay balance. Since 5th Ed use the priority system for starting money/magic this prevent someone to be extremely good both at magic and at decking by chosing high priority in magic and skills and getting away with buying a cheap DNI for decking. This way instead a "pure" decker can afford to put A priority in money and buy some big expensive decking gear that would actually make him better at doing his job.

Essence is very easy to handle in a classed system since the system itself gates you, with each level you pick up in "tech stuff" eats your potential levels in "magic stuff".

The actual real problem would be handling the "priority" starting system where money and levels are not two separate track but actually share the same pool, so you need to balance someone straight better with someone with better gear.

Liberty's Edge

Neurophage wrote:

RE: Advancement trees. It sounds like a less-restricted version of what Fantasy Flight Games does in a lot of their RPGs (check out Dark Heresy for an example) though I'd recommend representing the major areas of play the game (Combat, Stealth, Matrix, Magic, Social) before breaking into fields like Resonance. Cybernetics as its own field is a little odd, since the point of augs is supposed to be that anyone (except a mage) can use them.

You might've mentioned it up-thread, but how are you planning on reconciling Essence? Or, are you not and every PC is assumed to be a Jake Armitage?

I will make more advancement trees for everything, don't worry. As for Essence and Augs, I already have my own approach to that (co-developed with my locks GM), but I will most likely be saving it for later... It kinda delves into metaphysics, and that is why I don't really want to go into full detail as of yet.

I will give you a few clues though; running out of essence doesn't kill you, it just makes you a lot more unstable (mages without any essence basically turn into Mr. Tetsuo, only with less mutations). The loss of essence is much less severe if you only augment yourself gradually, and don't keep getting parts replaced. Also, essence comes back overtime as long as you don't upgrade too much, too quickly.

I was wondering something about magic... I want to make the benefits and drawbacks to spontaneous and prepared casting balanced with eachother, same thing with Arcane versus Divine magic. I don't know if I did a good enough job earlier...


Dekalinder wrote:

Cyberdeck money cost is high for gameplay balance. Since 5th Ed use the priority system for starting money/magic this prevent someone to be extremely good both at magic and at decking by chosing high priority in magic and skills and getting away with buying a cheap DNI for decking. This way instead a "pure" decker can afford to put A priority in money and buy some big expensive decking gear that would actually make him better at doing his job.

Essence is very easy to handle in a classed system since the system itself gates you, with each level you pick up in "tech stuff" eats your potential levels in "magic stuff".

The actual real problem would be handling the "priority" starting system where money and levels are not two separate track but actually share the same pool, so you need to balance someone straight better with someone with better gear.

This balance already existed in 4th Ed because the only thing more cost-intensive in terms of entry cost and upkeep cost across both money and karma than being a hacker was being a mage. Being competent at both was basically impossible.

It's okay to just throw away the priority system because it's the worst chargen system I've ever seen that still technically works. None of the different levels have ever been balanced against each other. Go with the advancement path idea, check out FFG's games (or even Adeptus Evangelion, an Eva-based hack of Dark Heresy that you can find online for free) to maybe get an idea of how you might refine it, and give starting characters a pile of XP to buy their way into the paths they want.

Liberty's Edge

And along with that pile of XP, there would be example builds that would give you everything you would need to be roughly equivalent to a Level 1 class in PF for the appropriate XP cost?

Also, I still don't know how I should balance the magic system against itself; every spellcasting character should be able to cast spontaneously and should be able to prepare spells, and every spellcasting character should have access to both Arcane and Divine, but because preparing spells and using divine magic require more dedication and involvement I was looking for benefits to make players want to use them over spontaneous spells and purely arcane magic... But when I try to give benefits it makes the spontaneous/arcane magic look like complete drek.


The benefit to spont/arcane magic should be that it's fast and versatile. Spont/arcane casters should be the mage equivalent to Matrix-ninja hackers and wired-up samurai. Speed should be everything to these guys. Every extra second you spend casting a spell, commanding a spirit or even drawing your focus or reloading your gun is a second you could be using getting and exploiting an advantage. Who cares if those prepared drekheads don't need words or can do it more efficiently? You've got more than enough mojo to burn and you can demolish a corpsec team with a couple of words. Not to mention, you're not gonna get geeked just because you prepared "Talk to Plants," "Get an Intern to Write my Next Academic Thesis for Me" and "Pretend My Imaginary Friend isn't Just a Delusion I Dreamed Up Because My Parents Didn't Love Me Enough" instead of something that might actually get you out of a jam. /Shadowslang

... Right. Anyway, Shadowrun's the kind of game where you can't always depend on someone having the right tool for the right job at the right time. The benefits of never being caught with your pants down should be obvious. Also, if you want spontaneous arcane magic to be attractive, give it more oomph. Give them the choice between overcharging their spells to get the most out of them or, at the heights of their ability, recycling some of their expended mana to make their casting more efficient. Another option relates to an unusual phenomenon that happens with powerful magic in Shadowrun. Sometimes, when a ton of mana is channeled at once by one person, a burst of force happens. It's usually just enough to break glass, but the fact that arcane/sponts channel a ton of mana for their spells should give them an incentive to weaponize that effect.

Oh, right. Spirits. Completely forgot about those guys. How are you gonna handle them? They're kind of integral to the whole "mage" deal.

Liberty's Edge

Um... I don't actually know enough about spirits to give a half-decent suggestion. I guess spirits could optionally serve in place of deities, and summoning them would of course be a "Divine" spell, with elements of both preparation and spontaneity... is that even a word?

Anyways, because spontaneous/arcane magic needs more oomph, I guess one mixed blessing (pun fully intended) to prepared spells is that you don't need to roll, whereas with spontaneous you have both a failure chance and a Crit opportunity.

Also, I think players should have the option to roll their DC when casting DC-based spells instead of always having a fixed value.


Spirit summoning became something of an integral ability for mages starting in 4th ed. Before then, I thing Hermetic mages couldn't summon, but Shamans could. What you're describing sounds pretty close to Mentor Spirits. A mage can align themselves to one in exchange for some kind of benefit (generally a bonus on checks to cast a specific variety of spell or a skill bonus) in exchange for accepting a behavioral restriction. For example, a mage aligned to Wolf has to make a check to retreat from battle, while someone aligned to Dragonslayer isn't allowed to break sworn oaths.

But that's mentor spirits. Normal spirits are summoned, bound and commanded by their summoners for everything from security to aiding with casting spells that fit their specialization (which depends on the mage's tradition. One tradition might use Fire spirits for detection spells, while another would use them for health spells). At the very least, summoning isn't a rare skill for most properly-trained mages.

I would think summoning would be its own branch, given how powerful it is (and boy, is it powerful. There has yet to be a Shadowrun edition where spirits were not easily better at basically everything than their summoners, their only weakness being their somewhat narrow focus) as well as how much a mage's magical expression is determined by their tradition. Like, a Hermetic mage wouldn't think that they're summoning god when they command a spirit, but a Christian Theurge probably would probably see their spirits as angels or facets of God.

Liberty's Edge

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I wonder how players would be able to influence world events, since the scale and curve of power is both larger and steeper in Pathfinder than in Shadowrun. And since this conversion would also serve as a guide to establishing Cyberpunk stuff on other worlds, like a hypothetical Cyberpunk'd version of Golarion.


Neurophage wrote:

Spirit summoning became something of an integral ability for mages starting in 4th ed. Before then, I thing Hermetic mages couldn't summon, but Shamans could. What you're describing sounds pretty close to Mentor Spirits. A mage can align themselves to one in exchange for some kind of benefit (generally a bonus on checks to cast a specific variety of spell or a skill bonus) in exchange for accepting a behavioral restriction. For example, a mage aligned to Wolf has to make a check to retreat from battle, while someone aligned to Dragonslayer isn't allowed to break sworn oaths.

But that's mentor spirits. Normal spirits are summoned, bound and commanded by their summoners for everything from security to aiding with casting spells that fit their specialization (which depends on the mage's tradition. One tradition might use Fire spirits for detection spells, while another would use them for health spells). At the very least, summoning isn't a rare skill for most properly-trained mages.

I would think summoning would be its own branch, given how powerful it is (and boy, is it powerful. There has yet to be a Shadowrun edition where spirits were not easily better at basically everything than their summoners, their only weakness being their somewhat narrow focus) as well as how much a mage's magical expression is determined by their tradition. Like, a Hermetic mage wouldn't think that they're summoning god when they command a spirit, but a Christian Theurge probably would probably see their spirits as angels or facets of God.

ugh 4th ed mentor spirits....terrible. just awful. 3rd and earlier did a better job with totems and shamans.

Liberty's Edge

Mentor Spirits... Like having a Familiar, but in reverse!


*shudder*

Liberty's Edge

I am going to skim as much as I can of my sibling's Shadowrun rulebook when they get home tomorrow. I haven't actually had much time to look at it.

Liberty's Edge

...did people lose interest?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I don't see why you couldn't just use Pathfinder rules, plus guns and technology guide stuff and reflavor where needed.

Rules don't dictate setting and vice versa.

Liberty's Edge

The reason I was wanting to check the Shadowrun books was so that I would have a better idea of what goes where, especially regarding converting statistics.

Liberty's Edge

Balancing our own magic system against modern technology is gonna be tricky. At first, we thought PF-style magic was gonna be too overpowered, so we tried mixing it with Shadowrun-esque quirks and even ended up trying to sort out internal magic-against-magic balancing, but now the once powerful (and in some respects still very powerful magic) still feels really easy to defeat when you suddenly just throw machineguns and hovertanks and powerarmor into the mix. Should we leave it that way, or throw another mechanic into our Frankenstein-mess and hope it doesn't further weaken the already delicate balance we are trying to achieve? I mean, I am trying to make casters powerful and survivable, but I don't want to make them too powerful. Meanwhile, I want to accurately portray modern technology, but I don't want to make that too powerful as well. And then there is the issue of adapting older martial mechanics from Pathfinder into the new frankensystem we created, like sneak attacks, CMB/CMD, attacks of opportunity, etc.

Maybe this is gonna be more trouble than it is worth, but I don't want to just give up.


Keep going for it! I want to see what you come up with.

Liberty's Edge

How would we replicate the Hit/Glitch system using different types of dice as opposed to dice pools, though? I skimmed through the book, and that "you succeed at your objective but a new problem arises" concept actually looks kind of interesting, and not really something that could occur in D20 without some serious reworking of the rules. I may be mistaken, though.

It would be like having a magic weapon that mixes actual benefits with curses, like a sword that gives you plus three to attack but refuses to let you use other weapons or cast any offensive spells.


Shadowrun spirits turn mages and shamans into Power Rangers, it's a whole new level of f*** you!".
There is a reason why most spellcasting is illegal and a lot of spells require certain permissions to be used.

On topic: I could easily convert shadowrun to PF/d20 system, using a little of d20 modern, technology guide, and creating base archetypes instead of classes (like modern's), but following the same archetypes shown in shadowrun 5ed (decker, technomancer, rigger, street samurai, gunslinger, face, ganger, infiltrator, etc).

But i would most likely limit classes to only 10 levels, add feats every level, and add customization per milestone (or xp cost) past 10th level.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Seth Dresari wrote:
I wonder how players would be able to influence world events, since the scale and curve of power is both larger and steeper in Pathfinder than in Shadowrun. And since this conversion would also serve as a guide to establishing Cyberpunk stuff on other worlds, like a hypothetical Cyberpunk'd version of Golarion.

Players don't generally influence "world events" in Shadowrun either. It's generally a campaign of one corporate job after another, and struggling to survive in a world where you make new enemies with each gig.

Liberty's Edge

I never said they influenced world events in Shadowrun, what gave you that idea? I said that because of Pathfinder's power scale, players could affect the world around them in ways that they couldn't in normal Shadowrun, since all of the sudden you have people who can singlehandedly take down a certain dragon running a certain megacorp, if they put their mind to it.


Actually the "base" archetype in shadowrun are decker, rigger, street samurai, technomancer, adept, magician, mystic adept.

Aspected magician are like specialist wizards.
Pretty much anyone can be a face with some skill points the same as in pathfinder.
Gunslingers, gangsters, infiltrators ecc. are all most commonly subsection of street samurai, witch is you all-encompassing "guy without magic who mostly uses weapons", but they actually can also be other things. For example, adept gunslinger is a quite common archetype, and 90% of infiltrators are also either deckers or riggers.

Aside that, with shadowrun magic you never actually reach the heights of power that a pathfinder character can.


Quote:
Actually the "base" archetype in shadowrun are decker, rigger, street samurai, technomancer, adept, magician, mystic adept.

If you want to nitpick about it, then the base archetypes are only 5: Magician, Adept, Mystic Adept, Technomancer, Mundanes.

Every magician can be a decker, every adept can be a rigger, every technomancer can be an infiltrator, and so on.
Mundanes can be everything but the other archetypes, they cannot become magicians, adepts, technomancers or mystic adepts (which is simply an hybrid).

But when i was talking about archetypes, i meant at first PF's concept of archetype (class variants), and then was talking about the shadowrun's concept of archetypes, which is simply ideas most commonly played and has it's own chapter just at the end of character creation, with a bunch of premade characters.


Personal power doesn't really mean much in the Sixth World, all things considered. Money and the ability to keep it are the sole indicators of influence. Given that the AAA Megas are all under the protection of the Corporate Court Authority, who owns Zurich-Orbital (who happen to be the only ones who can legally create and coin valid currency), doing anything to the CC besides give the deck a shuffle is kind of impossible. The nature of cyberpunk is that every person has the same basic requirements of food, shelter, entertainment and security. Every person has their price, and the guys up top got that way because their wallets are bottomless. Being able to knock down the headquarters for Evo's East-Asian branch isn't that impressive when the entire building, everything in it and every employee therein was insured to the CC. And doing that kind of damage when no one's paid you to is a great way to get blacklisted by the rest of the shadow community and never earn another nuyen for as long as you live. Even the people who pay out for that level of destruction probably aren't that rich themselves. As such, no PC is ever going to get rich enough to have real influence in the "normal" world.

The criminal underground is another matter. Being the "go-to" guys for a particular kind or scale of work brings with it its own kind of influence, and at the end of a run, being basically invincible gives you a lot of leverage for dictating terms. But the kind of fame that comes with that kind of power is also the exact reasons high-level d20 PCs would probably make terrible shadow operatives. When you're one of the best in your field, you belong to a social circle of other specialists whether you want to or not. Being a major hitter in a cyberpunk world is a balancing act. When you're too famous for being a criminal, no one wants your face associated with their business.

Also, killing a Great Dragon is explicitly impossible. The only Great Dragons who have died did so on purpose. If a Great Dragon doesn't want to die, there is no method of killing them.


Yea guess you are actually right on the archetypes. But actually more than "mundane" i'd call them the "tech" side of the magic-tech equation.


Neurophage wrote:

Personal power doesn't really mean much in the Sixth World, all things considered. Money and the ability to keep it are the sole indicators of influence. Given that the AAA Megas are all under the protection of the Corporate Court Authority, who owns Zurich-Orbital (who happen to be the only ones who can legally create and coin valid currency), doing anything to the CC besides give the deck a shuffle is kind of impossible. The nature of cyberpunk is that every person has the same basic requirements of food, shelter, entertainment and security. Every person has their price, and the guys up top got that way because their wallets are bottomless. Being able to knock down the headquarters for Evo's East-Asian branch isn't that impressive when the entire building, everything in it and every employee therein was insured to the CC. And doing that kind of damage when no one's paid you to is a great way to get blacklisted by the rest of the shadow community and never earn another nuyen for as long as you live. Even the people who pay out for that level of destruction probably aren't that rich themselves. As such, no PC is ever going to get rich enough to have real influence in the "normal" world.

The criminal underground is another matter. Being the "go-to" guys for a particular kind or scale of work brings with it its own kind of influence, and at the end of a run, being basically invincible gives you a lot of leverage for dictating terms. But the kind of fame that comes with that kind of power is also the exact reasons high-level d20 PCs would probably make terrible shadow operatives. When you're one of the best in your field, you belong to a social circle of other specialists whether you want to or not. Being a major hitter in a cyberpunk world is a balancing act. When you're too famous for being a criminal, no one wants your face associated with their business.

Also, killing a Great Dragon is explicitly impossible. The only Great Dragons who have died did so on purpose. If a Great Dragon doesn't want to die,...

Is the thing about Great Dragons being unkillable actually stated explicitly? I don't recall it and can't check right now. Or is it just that they're intended to be powerful beyond the reach of PCs? Which wouldn't necessarily apply if you scaled PCs up to the power level of 20th level PF characters.

As for money and power, that's true to some extent. OTOH, Shadowrunners bypass a lot of that. It's kind of the point. Generally you get hired to do stuff that corps or other powers can't just buy. And usually blow through a lot of expensive security in the process. :) Some of the adventures and novels definitely have had the runners have pretty significant effects on nations/megacorps/etc. Not bringing the whole system down or anything, but still serious.

And then there's the whole magical aspect of the setting. Plenty of unique stuff in there that could give leverage. Especially as you scale the PCs power up well beyond normal SR levels.

Liberty's Edge

And given that, with PF's power scale, most people would start out at Street Level... Well, you could actually affect the world, but only gradually and only once you got to avoid 10th or 15th level. If you include the rules from the Epic Level handbook, the Mythic handbook and Ultimate Campaign, you could theoretically get powerful enough to start a Single-A or even Double-A corporation.


Seth Dresari wrote:
And given that, with PF's power scale, most people would start out at Street Level... Well, you could actually affect the world, but only gradually and only once you got to avoid 10th or 15th level. If you include the rules from the Epic Level handbook, the Mythic handbook and Ultimate Campaign, you could theoretically get powerful enough to start a Single-A or even Double-A corporation.

Since there really aren't any rules for corporations and even Kingdoms, which would be the closest thing, aren't that tied to character level, much less Epic or Mythic rules, but boil down to time and opportunity, you could easily manipulate the people in charge of some of those groups into doing what you want or letting you move in on them.

At least the ones who aren't Great Dragons or immortal Elves.


Gun Metal Games (the makers of Interface Zero 2.0 for Savage Worlds) is doing a Pathfinder conversion. We have an open playtest document that's currently in layout. I'm hoping it will be complete and ready for download within about a week. If you'd like to give it a try, there will be a thread up in the Third Party Publisher Product Discussions with a link to the download.

We're designing this strictly as a cyberpunk setting, but since it is fully compatible with the Pathfinder rules, there's no reason why you couldn't just add in elves, dwarves, orcs, and select classes and do Shadowrun.


shadowkras wrote:
Quote:
Actually the "base" archetype in shadowrun are decker, rigger, street samurai, technomancer, adept, magician, mystic adept.

If you want to nitpick about it, then the base archetypes are only 5: Magician, Adept, Mystic Adept, Technomancer, Mundanes.

Every magician can be a decker, every adept can be a rigger, every technomancer can be an infiltrator, and so on.
Mundanes can be everything but the other archetypes, they cannot become magicians, adepts, technomancers or mystic adepts (which is simply an hybrid).

But when i was talking about archetypes, i meant at first PF's concept of archetype (class variants), and then was talking about the shadowrun's concept of archetypes, which is simply ideas most commonly played and has it's own chapter just at the end of character creation, with a bunch of premade characters.

I disagree heavily with your archetypes. You're talking about power sources, not a character's role in a team.

The archetypes are Hacker (someone who manipulates the matrix), Mage (someone who manipulates magic), Primary Combat (someone who manipulates people physically), Face (someone who manipulates people emotionally), infiltrator (someone who manipulates his surroundings), and rigger (someone who manipulates hardware).

Yes, awakened characters are more unique because of their gift, but that doesn't make them archetypes. A character's power source simply determines what roles they can fill (physical adepts don't make great hackers, and cybered street sams don't make good mages), and how they do it. They aren't archetypes unto themselves.

Liberty's Edge

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Shadowborn wrote:

Gun Metal Games (the makers of Interface Zero 2.0 for Savage Worlds) is doing a Pathfinder conversion. We have an open playtest document that's currently in layout. I'm hoping it will be complete and ready for download within about a week. If you'd like to give it a try, there will be a thread up in the Third Party Publisher Product Discussions with a link to the download.

We're designing this strictly as a cyberpunk setting, but since it is fully compatible with the Pathfinder rules, there's no reason why you couldn't just add in elves, dwarves, orcs, and select classes and do Shadowrun.

Oh. Cool! I don't really want to rely too heavily on another company's work for this, though, but if you post a link to the PDF then I'd love to take a look.

Anyways, I am currently working on a bunch of varients of Magic Missile, to diversify the available spells and further convey to Shadowrun's chaotic atmosphere within D20/Pathfinder mechanics. I can give you a few teasers, just the names, without telling you the effects (try to guess them). Remember, this is only a handful of them.

Flash Missile
Swarm Missile
Entropic Missile
Beacon Missile


Why not using the classic Shadowrun nomenclature? Mana Missile sounds awesome

@Squirrel The archetype discussion was aimed at identifying the "base achetypes" that could emulate the class system of pathfinder, not the "role archetypes" that you can chose to specialize your character in. Like the difference between battlefield control wizard or blaster wizard. They specialize in different roles but the "base archetype" from witch they are created are both "wizard". That is why I differenciated between magician and mystic adept instead of using a generic "magic user". In pratice, all the "class archetypes" if you prefer, are "locked on" at character creation by chosing the third priority

Liberty's Edge

Mana Missile, eh? Is that a purely stun-based attack?

Also, no. Screw the priority system.


I'm not saying you should introduce the priority system (even tho i like it), it's just a way to emulate the end product with the classed system that pathfinder alredy have.

Anyway, the mana spell line in shadowrun are just your average "magic damage" baseline spell, like manabolt is your single target damage spell, manaball is your magic damage AOE ecc. Stun spells have the very imaginative naming of stunbolt, stunball while physical damage spells go with powerbolt, powerball and so on. Note that the "mana" spells can also affect the equivalent of shadowrun "ethereal plane" but cannot damage mechanical unit. So, manabolt is basically a magic missile.


Neurophage wrote:

Personal power doesn't really mean much in the Sixth World, all things considered. Money and the ability to keep it are the sole indicators of influence. Given that the AAA Megas are all under the protection of the Corporate Court Authority, who owns Zurich-Orbital (who happen to be the only ones who can legally create and coin valid currency), doing anything to the CC besides give the deck a shuffle is kind of impossible. The nature of cyberpunk is that every person has the same basic requirements of food, shelter, entertainment and security. Every person has their price, and the guys up top got that way because their wallets are bottomless. Being able to knock down the headquarters for Evo's East-Asian branch isn't that impressive when the entire building, everything in it and every employee therein was insured to the CC. And doing that kind of damage when no one's paid you to is a great way to get blacklisted by the rest of the shadow community and never earn another nuyen for as long as you live. Even the people who pay out for that level of destruction probably aren't that rich themselves. As such, no PC is ever going to get rich enough to have real influence in the "normal" world.

The criminal underground is another matter. Being the "go-to" guys for a particular kind or scale of work brings with it its own kind of influence, and at the end of a run, being basically invincible gives you a lot of leverage for dictating terms. But the kind of fame that comes with that kind of power is also the exact reasons high-level d20 PCs would probably make terrible shadow operatives. When you're one of the best in your field, you belong to a social circle of other specialists whether you want to or not. Being a major hitter in a cyberpunk world is a balancing act. When you're too famous for being a criminal, no one wants your face associated with their business.

Also, killing a Great Dragon is explicitly impossible. The only Great Dragons who have died did so on purpose. If a Great Dragon doesn't want to die,...

my Sega Genesis disagrees!


Quote:
Is the thing about Great Dragons being unkillable actually stated explicitly?

They ARE killable, but i simply didn't want to argue about this.

You just need to read the novels and missions, a couple of them died already.


Dekalinder wrote:

I'm not saying you should introduce the priority system (even tho i like it), it's just a way to emulate the end product with the classed system that pathfinder alredy have.

Anyway, the mana spell line in shadowrun are just your average "magic damage" baseline spell, like manabolt is your single target damage spell, manaball is your magic damage AOE ecc. Stun spells have the very imaginative naming of stunbolt, stunball while physical damage spells go with powerbolt, powerball and so on. Note that the "mana" spells can also affect the equivalent of shadowrun "ethereal plane" but cannot damage mechanical unit. So, manabolt is basically a magic missile.

The other thing to mention here is that the way bolt/ball spells are balanced against each other because the game doesn't have spell levels. You can learn any spell in the game at any point as a caster.

- AOE simply aren't always the best option
- The AOE versions have higher drain associated with them, making them more difficult to cast without harming yourself.

shadowkras wrote:
Quote:
Is the thing about Great Dragons being unkillable actually stated explicitly?
They ARE killable, but i simply didn't want to argue about this.

I think the best way to put it here would be that Dragons can be killed, but not by a small team of Shadowrunners acting on their own.

Quote:
Also, no. Screw the priority system.

Fair enough. Just be ready to create your own build points/karma purchasing system, then.

Also, I would highly recommend using a 3d6 vs 1d20 for your key dice mechanic.


Squirrel_Dude wrote:


shadowkras wrote:
Quote:
Is the thing about Great Dragons being unkillable actually stated explicitly?
They ARE killable, but i simply didn't want to argue about this.
I think the best way to put it here would be that Dragons can be killed, but not by a small team of Shadowrunners acting on their own.

Well, I was thinking in terms of a direct port of PF onto the SR setting: A small party of 20th level Shadowrunners.

Liberty's Edge

3d6 only goes up to 18, though. 5d6 on the otherhand would go up to 30, which I guess would be a good substitute for a D30, and a possible compromise between the 1d20/1d30 DC system and the Dice Pool Hit/Glitch system.

Also, that team of Shadowrunners might have a better chance against a Triple-A Megacorp if they were all Epic-Leveled plus Mythic.


Seth Dresari wrote:


Also, that team of Shadowrunners might have a better chance against a Triple-A Megacorp if they were all Epic-Leveled plus Mythic.

No they wouldn't. At least, not by themselves. A AAA Mega can go from basically-dead to just fine in about a year so long so long as the damage inflicted upon them wasn't due to politicking from another AAA Mega or a series of extremely-poor business decisions. Permanently dealing with a AAA Mega would require gaining access to Zurich-Orbital, which requires going to space. Even if the 'Runners can survive in a vacuum (as I'd expect high-level characters to be able to do), they'll be SOL without a craft (especially anyone Awakened, given that there's no Mana in space so any casting or summoning at all is impossible), and a craft that isn't supposed to be on the station just flat-out isn't getting there. The last time a AAA Mega fell (well, got bought out by another AAA Mega), it was because of a god-like AI and a near-apocalyptic weaponized malware that crashed the entire Matrix and almost destroyed it.

Shadowrunners fill a niche in society. They operate in the shadows cast by the massive entities that pay their rent (thus the name). A group of end-game d20-scale 'Runners would most assuredly be a defining force in the shadow world and the criminal underground. Every strategy book about corporate warfare would have a chapter specifically devoted to them. They would also lose a lot of their anonymity because every AAA Mega would probably have a team paid to keep up-to-date information about them. They'd be the ones doing impossible runs, like stealing an artifact from Lofwyr's horde, doing a datasteal from a database operating in some research lab in the Mariana Trench that's gone forgotten for the last ten years but is still operating, and probably a lot of the stuff Dodger gets up to. They'd be players in the darkest conspiracies and best-hidden secrets of their generation and would be better able to handle them than almost anyone else. But there are still things they can't change, and so long as some resource in the world, be it food, space, minerals or whatever, is limited, the nuyen shuffle will be the law of the world. And so long as the nuyen shuffle is the law of the world, some force will freely exploit it and everyone who relies upon it for survival. No force can change that.

The possible exception to this is Harlequin, but Harlequin is such a terrible character than any design decision based on his actions is automatically a mistake.

I'm explicitly avoiding mentioning the Horrors because every TTRPG metaplot is bad and anything to do with the Horrors is worse than most.

Re: Great Dragons. It's wholly possible to maneuver a GD into a position where death is certain (First Dragon President Big D. being a prime example), but this has happened maybe three or four times in the entire run of the game.

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