Fantasy, shadows in the medieval. Options

[shadowfire]

I would have to say that shadowrun is one of the better systems out there. (this does not include 4th.) I wish, though, that they had taken these great rules and did a fantasy game with them. FASA did make earthdawn originally, from what i understand, but it uses a different engine.

what does everyone else think?

[nezumi]

Some of the basic tenets of Shadowrun have difficulty getting carried over, for instance the initiative/combat pool situation becomes a good deal more awkward. However, I made a derivative of Shadowrun which I use for any game where I don't like the existing dice mechanics (which is basically all of them), fantasy or otherwise.

[shadowfire]

i really don't see how the init./combat pool situation would be awkward. could you explain? What i mean is that from what i see in the rules init. is pretty standard, except in shadowrun it follows a chain of order thats different than other systems, but i don't see how that would be awkward in a fantasy game. As for the combat pool. All this does is help the player character to dodge, resist damage, and attack.

[nezumi]

Suppose you have two gunfights. In Shadowrun, you can expect two skilled gunfighters to have at least two, probably three passes before their combat pool refreshes. When they're firing back and forth, each character has to anticipate, is this the best shot I'll likely encounter before my pool refreshes? The worst? Should I try to soak this one in anticipation that he'll do better on the next one? If I shoot with my pool this turn, if my shot doesn't turn out right, he'll have lots of combat pool while I have little or none, and so can focus on making better shots against me, so I should save my pool until later...

In a situation where you no one has cyberware and most people don't have magical initiative boosting, the question becomes simply, if you're first, "will my combat pool more likely cause significantly more wounding, or is it better to save it for dodging?" The second person has it a little easier, "do I use my combat pool for dodging this attack, or for my follow-up attack?"

It's a lot like how combat pool works with melee combat now, you put it all in the first attack. With conservative GMs like me, where the NPCs generally save combat pool for dodging, it's a lot of "you miss" "you miss"... Pretty boring.

It gets marginally more interesting with more opponents, in that two opponents can generally wear one down relatively quickly and the third can go for the kill, but not by much.

In these situations I've found the easiest method is to reduce or eliminate combat pool, or double the time until combat pool refreshes.

[shadowfire]

i think that cyberware would be replaced with magic items that do the same augmentation for the user or herbs or other such things..

but if it was really a problem i would say changing the formula that is used to calculate combat pool.

[nezumi]

You didn't specify that :P But it is something to watch out for.

[shadowfire]

true.

This has me thinking now, so heres an idea.
Lets take the famous Elric kinslayer's sword "stormbringer". its been some time since i read the series but if i recall correctly the rune sword gave elric some increased abilities. So in a shadowrun sense the sword gave him +1D6 to Init. roll, After eating a soul the sword also gives the user an increase to reaction. I'm sure there could be other things that happened as well be i don't remember it all that clearly.


Or lets take another famous Eternal Champion, Corum Jhaelen Irsei. This character was augmented not by cyberware but by the melding of his flesh and the flesh of supernatural creatures. One such creature was the man of the sea (i think that was his name) who was a god in his world or close to it.

[Malicant]

[Smilin_Jack]

I'm currently running a Forgotten Realms campaign using the SR4 ruleset.

The SR4 Magic system absolutely rocks for differentiating the different religions, especially when the mentor spirits are reworked to allow differing bonuses to mages/mystic adepts/adepts. Geas: Mentor, really works wonders in bringing across the feeling of a devoted follower.

Cyberware was a headache until I decided on the following:

1. All bonuses/effects available from cyberware is now available as an "enchantment" on regular gear (ie... Breastplate of Speed = Wired Reflexes 2).

2. Decreases to essence from cyberware have been eliminated.

3. Magic decreases from reduction in essence are now directly applied to the magic stat as a temporary penalty instead - the magical aura's of the items interfere with your connection to the flows of mana.

4. Magic Items cost karma to bond, and are available to all characters.

5. Icons and Protection charms are available that protect against magic.

[Mercer]

[shadowfire]

[Mercer]

[shadowfire]

ya, i have seen many of the old SR adventure and some of them are written for the type of people who don't think and just rush in full tilt and shoot everything.

its one of my favorite aspects to the SR system is the fact that you can die by the hands of a untrained unknown who got lucky.. It makes the whole journey more exiting.. more realistic even. But i'm more of a story person. a meat and potatoes person. I hate when people think that the climax of the game is combat.

[Malicant]

[Roadspike]

[kigmatzomat]

I've used SR2 as the mechanics for a Mage game; I hated the oWoD mechanics and was particularly displeased with 1st ed Mage's contradictions between flavor text and mechanics. It worked pretty well but it was a group of casters.

Honestly I find SR's sweet spot to be pretty shallow, generally lasting less than a year or two of constant play. d20 has a wider range, but it requires a more flexible GM to handle the constantly changing boundaries of power. I dislike WoD in general so no opinion worth carping on. I'd say Earthdawn has the greatest span of any game system but it comes at the cost of a steep learning curve.