[X] My Assistant

[fistandantilus4....]

[ludomastro]

You might also take a look at some of the rules for True20 which is based on the OGL but takes a different tack for a d20 game. Never played it but like what I have seen of the rules.

[Garrowolf]

I'm not a big fan of D20 these days but I did a conversion a while back. I disagree with the need for a classless system in Shadowrun. I think that it would work. Most of the archetypes can be converted into classes easily. I personally would love to figure out how to put feats into shadowrun but it never works out.

One of the things that I would suggest is do not use D20 modern first and fore most. I think that it sucks. I based mine off of Spycraft 2.0 and it makes more sense. The feats are nicer. You just have to create a whole new set of classes. DO NOT use the ones in the book as they are VERY powerful.

Spycraft uses initiative bonuses as a part of your level which means the more experienced you are the better you react. It also uses Defense score. You can take the equipment bonus stuff and assign cyberware as gear.

I give everyone their constitution as their wound points from the beginning so even your normal ganger will have their con. I remember coming up with a fairly harsh system. I'll try and find it again. I think that you took a penalty to defense, initiative and dodge for each point of wound damage.

Armor is Damage resistance in that game if I remember correctly. Nearly every major kind of ammo is listed with damage codes for a huge number of guns. It wouldn't be very hard at all to add a few more and add smartgun links as gun modifications. Give it a few virtual feats and you have it.

I've seen a version that added to damage per 5 points past defense.

Keep in mind that shadowrunners are not 1st level characters. I figure that they are at least level 5 starting off. Come up with some classes for basic street type people and make shadowrunners a series of prestige classes. You could have a Soldato that becomes a Street Sammie. The Soldato would be the base class. Or you could have a Ganger (base class) become a Soldato (base class) and then a Street sammie (prestige class requires wired reflexes). Merc would require several levels of soldier. Maybe a Street Thief class becomes an Infiltrator (prestige class).

The mook system is a little complex but can be simplified. Just translate the shadowrun equipment.

Magic would be done as a saving throw for drain based on the drain code from shadowrun (multiply it by 2 and add 15 or something similar). You take a level of stun as in the game (staggared etc). Drain is also taken to hit points which are similar to fatigue ( I mixed hit points and fatigue but the game has them seperate - it's simpiler this way).

You can keep up with your essence as normal. The ability to have magic was a feat that was negated if you got over 3 points. Otherwise it added to all of your TNs to cast.

And yes I think that this is the wrong part of the board for this. It should be in the general gaming or the shadowrun board - not the 4th ed board.

[toturi]

I was afflicted with D20, but a steady diet of ninja-pirate-stripper girls with brown...ahem into my bloodstream cured me of the cancer.

But I'd second Garro's recommendation of Spycraft 2.0 if you really have to do Shadowrun in D20(arrgh!) But I'd use the base classes at level 1. Remember the Spycraft system itself already have a system for mooks and level 1 PCs wipe the floor with mooks. To add magic, just include the Spellbound supplement.

[Erebus]

Hmm... To be constructive. D20 would work... but for lethality just make sure you use very low Massive Damage Thresholds.. Personally, I'd use straight CON. Call of Cthuhlu d20 did something very similar if I recall correctly.

That will put the fear of combat into your d20 players... if they have to make a Fort save everytime they take a decent hit or else end up with -1 hps.

[celegar]

FLAME!!!!!!!!!!
ok, with that out of teh way, i guess it relly depends on why you play shadowrun. if you play it for the background and story then you could realisticly convert a d20 game to match with your shadowrun game. HOWEVER doing this would drasticly change how the game is played.

altho, come to think of it, doing this could allow characters to attain greatness within the span of a campaign, whereas using the shadowrun rules you could not do. for example, in one campaign i could not start out as a hacker and end better than fastjack. just cant happen.

stew on that one for a while.

[Thanee]

[ludomastro]

Hey cybertrucker, I just put up a poll in General Gaming that might help you with this. You can find it here.

[hyzmarca]

If you want deadlyness, used a fixed number of hitpoints for everyone instead of D20's usual level-based hitpoint progression.

[eidolon]

I don't remember the specifics at the moment, but isn't it Unearthed Arcana, the book that's all optional rules and variants, that has a few different wound and injury systems in it?

[Synner667]

Hi,

I do admire someone willing to take the time and make the effort to rewrite rules and do something different, but I think converting SR -> DnD20 is not really the way to go.

There's already supplements and source material for Modern Day, Future and Magic within a D20 framework, and they would cover almost all the material necessary.


I've disliked D20 from day one, from its Feats to the variations that people have done to the horrid way that things are described in a DnD-esque manner, to get games to work well and have a particular feel [Judge Dredd uses a variation, for instance].


From my point of view, if you can do it, do it - but it really is the arse-backwards way of doing it.


Peter

[Catharz Godfoot]

Shadowrun is, with a few exceptions, an excellent gaming system. It is far better than either of the d20 systems I've played in (Modern & D&D). I say this as a harcore D&D player who has only done three Shadowrun adventures, period.

That said, you could probably come up with a d20 system that would work decently well for Shadowrun. It would be a lot more effort than just getting your players to learn the system, but it could be done. True d20 looks like a good start, having scanned through the three rules preview PDFs.

If I was seriously going to do this, I'd probably model it after Frank's SAME system. SAME has the advantage of being easily scaled as level-based or 'open'/points advancement, and has a remarkably rebust and extensible combat/conflict system while staying very simple.

In terms of physical ability scores, you do the opposite of SR4: combine Strength & Body into one stat while keeping Quickness, and similarly combine Will & Charisma while keeping Intelligence. This gets you to the basic stat array (Strength Agillity Moxie Elan).

You can do skills in either a binary fashion (you have it or you don't) or in the normal SR fashion.

Anyway, I'm probably going too much into this. Good luck.

[6thDragon]

Sounds very time consuming. The only advantage to this other than to attract new players would be to limit player's ability to min-max. At least this way they wouldn't be able to start as the very best at something right at character gen. I also don't know how you would include all the little extras like VR, riggers, astral travel. Stuff like that. Plus I always liked the karma award system. You would constantly have to adjust the experience you gave out for things like roleplaying, or would you change it to the "you kill something, you get experience" model DnD has? Personally I've never seen the D20 systems, I just always imagined them to be a DnD knockoff.

[ludomastro]

[fistandantilus4....]

I liked the West End GAmes D6 Star Wars system better personally.

[ludomastro]

[Garrowolf]

D6 has been republished and sold as D6 Adventure. They have a scifi version too. It's a good system.

[ludomastro]

Ok, I have had this stuff rolling around in my head for several days and it is driving me nuts. I will dump it all here and let those that want sort through it and determine what they want.

WARNING: Read at your own risk. d20 is known to cause cancer and this article deals with d20. Do not read if you plan to operate heavy machinery, drive, or stay up late.

:grinbig:

First up, let's start with attributes:

I will assume human for the basis of comparison based on humans being the average/base for SR, DnD, and generic d20. Given that I have never played d20M, I will have to assume that this is still accurate.

Minimum attribute
SR - 1
d20 - 3

Maximum
SR - 6
d20 - 18

It looks like a simple x 3 multiplier; however, let's check a few things.

Mathematical Average
SR - 3.5
d20 - 10.5

x 3 holds

However, while d20 has a simple way of dividing these - both 10 and 11 are considered average scores. SR doesn't have this benefit. The stated average for human attributes is 3. Our x 3 multiplier gets us back to a 9 in d20. This correlates to a -1 attribute modifier. More on this later.

3.5 is actually not a bad average for SR as with maximum BP expenditure (assuming 400 BP build) a human would have 4 3's and 4 4's for attributes. The issue is going back to d20. 3 -> 9 (-1) and 4 -> 12 (+1).

In d20, the attribute isn't nearly as important as the attribute modifier. This means that average SR humans are less than average in d20. d20 tends to lend itself to better than average characters. The issue is compounded by the "elite array" - a device used in d20 to avoid rolling scores. The player gets 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15 for scores. The mathematical average is 12 (SR - 4). Also the total attribute bonus is +5. Furthering the gap between SR averge and d20 average.

Where does all this take us?

If you translate SR to d20, the average human needs to be made stronger or the characters weaker in order to preserve the feel of SR.

Next up: Attribute Correlation and Classes.

[Ranneko]

You could try looking at Mutants and Masterminds, and make the damage system a little more harsh.

It is classless, doesn't use HP, (it is possible to take someone out with one shot, just not very likely). And you can easily duplicate cyberware, magic and bioware, as well as the various races through powers and drawbacks with the appropriate descriptors.

[ludomastro]

Attribute Correlation and Classes:

Since SR has 8 main attributes and d20 6, we have to economize. Here is my take:

SR ~ DnD

STR = Strength
AGI & REA ~ Dexterity
BOD ~ Constitution
CHA = Charisma
LOG ~ Intelligence
WIL & INT ~ Wisdom

I didn't put intuition and logic together b/c d20 treats wisdom as intuition for many rolls.

Classes:

1. Face
2. Technomancer
3. Hacker
4. Rigger
5. Street Sam
6. Mage
7. Adept
8. Mystic Adept

You can argue that the Mystic Adept isn't needed but then you get into collapsing Mage and Adept which dominoes to collapsing Hacker and Rigger and perhaps Technomancer as well.

There ya go.

Next up: Feats and Skills

[ludomastro]

[ludomastro]

Feats and Skills:

After this I am done.

This is where any conversion to d20 meets the road in my opinion and is therefore the hardest to deal with.

Are Adept Powers feats? Skills available only to the Adpet class? Part of the Adept class "ladder"?

All I can say is, "Good luck!!"

May cybertrucker et al have fun with this!



Yeah, the d20 demons have been expunged. :spin: :spin: :spin:

[IvanTank]

If you really want to convert to something, then convert to the WoD system. Hell, SR4 is the new WoD with d6s instead of d10s

[Ranneko]

Yeah, but Shadowrun has more dice, and besides, d6s stack, d10s don't, they heap.

[Wandering_D]

I think Moon-Hawk has the direction you should be going in right. Build a set of DnD rules that can support the big ideas behind SR and then bring in the atmosphere. The problem otherwise is that your trying to go from a very dynamic system to a linear one.

I.e. in SR if you want your adept to have some minor hacking skills you can spend a couple nights karma and be only slightly poorer for it, but in DnD you will forever be behind everyone else by a full level. And not just that but with the way DnD scales DCs your either going to have to level your hacking class up again or it will be useless shortly. This is not to say DnD doesn’t have its place, it handles the whole hero angle better then SR ever could due to its linear nature but as I hope I’ve illustrated they just don’t mesh going SR -> DnD. And yes there are solutions to this but their messy and timeconsuming.

Now with all that said I have contemplated turning DnD rules into SR rules so I could run a non-linear grittier DnD game, but most defiantly not the other way around.

Now recovering from his cancer thanks to a pair of lovely nymphs.