Earthdawn -> Shadowrun 4E rules conversion, How hard is this? Has anyone tried? Options

[HentaiZonga]

Basically, I want to run an Earthdawn game, but entirely using Shadowrun 4th Edition rules. Any Earthdawn Disciplines and Talents that can translate directly to existing Shadowrun Spells, Adept abilities, or Metamagic, I want to do so. Anything else, I want to figure out how to best create as Shadowrun-style Metamagics or Adept abilities. I want to use all of Shadowrun's attribute and skill rules (including racial modifiers and character creation rules) , which means coming up with racial bonuses for Sprites / Windlings, Lizardmen / T'Skrang and Free Earth Spirits / Obsidimen.

Any place I can start looking for help, or do I have to start this from scratch?

[Ancient History]

It would, frankly, be very difficult. They are completely different systems in nearly every regard.

[HentaiZonga]

It would, frankly, be very difficult. They are completely different systems in nearly every regard.

But with (as you have spent several admirable years chronicling) a shared history and metaphysic.

[sunnyside]

It would, frankly, be very difficult. They are completely different systems in nearly every regard.

You know they really aren't that much, especially in 4th edition.

For example states are on a different scale. But what matters in earthdawn is the step. And the step for a "good" earthdawn stat is about the same number as the equivalent stat number.

And the skill levels the characters have add into that step directly same as SR4 skills.

So roughly a char that attacks at step 9 should roll a dice pool of 9.

Now I think the pluses and minuese for race are similar across SR and earthdawn. Meaning in SR they're more significant. Personally I like the SR4 version better. I don't like it when trolls lose armwrestling regular humans.

For weapons and armor just use the SR numbers adjust as seems apropriate, they aren't all that far off. Handle combat and things via opposed tests instead of defense values. You can check damage step/damage value but it seems like they're fairly close.

Anyway the systems mechanics seem pretty compatable. I guess the problem is he isn't trying to convert earthdawn stuff into SR mechanics he wants adept powers to mimic a discipline.

Well many powers are duplicated.

But you have to realize that in SR everyone is using "raw" magic, which you almost never do in earthdawn due to the background count.

I guess if you want to remotley model disciplines the first thing you need is s spell matrix metamagic.

[HentaiZonga]

I guess if you want to remotley model disciplines the first thing you need is s spell matrix metamagic.

How does this sound:

New Metamagic - Spell Matrix
Prerequisites: Filtering, Anchoring
A Spell Matrix is an incredibly powerful form of Metamagic, which allows a player to ‘prepare’ and then repeatedly cast a single spell without suffering Drain. An Initiate with the Spell Matrix metamagic may prepare a number of Spell Matrices equal to his Initiate grade. Each Spell Matrix must be attuned to a specific spell. Attuning a Spell Matrix requires a Complex Action, during which time the Initiate must resist Drain as if he were casting the spell. The Initiate chooses the Force of the spell at this time. Once prepared, however, the Spell Matrix may cast that Spell as many times as the Initiate desires, at any Force rating up to the rating he originally attuned the Matrix to, without suffering any Drain. Additionally, the astral signatures of spells cast from Spell Matrices is severely weakened – subtract the Initiate’s Grade from the Force rating of all spells cast from a Spell Matrix before determining the results of any Perception tests to detect or analyze the spellcasting.

[Momijizukamori]

You know they really aren't that much, especially in 4th edition.

For example states are on a different scale. But what matters in earthdawn is the step. And the step for a "good" earthdawn stat is about the same number as the equivalent stat number.

And the skill levels the characters have add into that step directly same as SR4 skills.

So roughly a char that attacks at step 9 should roll a dice pool of 9.

This isn't a good conversion, though - ED steps will have higher values than an equivalent SR dice pool. Melee attacks, for example - I have a Nethermancer. His attack step is 6, because that's what his dexterity step is - a touch higher than average, but not by much. He's untrained in melee weapons, because as a caster, he's crap in melee anyway - with that step, he's not going to much. He only has a sword because they're not that expensive (well, not with the starting cash he had). An equivalent SR character will have an agility value of maybe 4. Untrained, he defaults to a dice pool of 3 - less than six. A dice pool of six in SR4 is closer to one of 9 or so in ED.

Of course, if you're generating from the ground up with SR4 rather than trying to convert ED characters, this doesn't really matter (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

How does this sound:

New Metamagic - Spell Matrix
Prerequisites: Filtering, Anchoring
A Spell Matrix is an incredibly powerful form of Metamagic, which allows a player to ‘prepare’ and then repeatedly cast a single spell without suffering Drain. An Initiate with the Spell Matrix metamagic may prepare a number of Spell Matrices equal to his Initiate grade. Each Spell Matrix must be attuned to a specific spell. Attuning a Spell Matrix requires a Complex Action, during which time the Initiate must resist Drain as if he were casting the spell. The Initiate chooses the Force of the spell at this time. Once prepared, however, the Spell Matrix may cast that Spell as many times as the Initiate desires, at any Force rating up to the rating he originally attuned the Matrix to, without suffering any Drain. Additionally, the astral signatures of spells cast from Spell Matrices is severely weakened �" subtract the Initiate’s Grade from the Force rating of all spells cast from a Spell Matrix before determining the results of any Perception tests to detect or analyze the spellcasting.

The problem with this is that you can't get the metamagic until you initiate, which will be a good adventure or two past character generation - ED mages get two spell matrices right off the bat, pretty much, because raw casting is a very, very bad idea in ED. You could make it work, but you'd have to lower the background count a lot from where it should be - it's a lot harder to deal with astral space for ED mages than it is for SR, because ED astral space is a nasty, nasty place, which I think is somewhat key to the flavor of magic in ED. As ED mages are all basically mystic adepts, maybe tie it to the number of points of magic invested in spellcasting instead of initiate grade?

I've actually spent some time considering the opposite conversion - SR4 with ED rules, because while I love them both, I find the ED ruleset to be a little less....hole-y. Plus, Technomancers would make an awesome discipline. Unfortunately there isn't a good way to model cyber, because in ED _all_ PCs are awakened. AH is right, though - there are parallels than can be drawn, such that you can see how the ED world became the SR world, but the rule sets aren't very equivalent.

[HentaiZonga]

This isn't a good conversion, though - ED steps will have higher values than an equivalent SR dice pool. Melee attacks, for example - I have a Nethermancer. His attack step is 6, because that's what his dexterity step is - a touch higher than average, but not by much. He's untrained in melee weapons, because as a caster, he's crap in melee anyway - with that step, he's not going to much. He only has a sword because they're not that expensive (well, not with the starting cash he had). An equivalent SR character will have an agility value of maybe 4. Untrained, he defaults to a dice pool of 3 - less than six. A dice pool of six in SR4 is closer to one of 9 or so in ED.

Of course, if you're generating from the ground up with SR4 rather than trying to convert ED characters, this doesn't really matter (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



The problem with this is that you can't get the metamagic until you initiate, which will be a good adventure or two past character generation - ED mages get two spell matrices right off the bat, pretty much, because raw casting is a very, very bad idea in ED. You could make it work, but you'd have to lower the background count a lot from where it should be - it's a lot harder to deal with astral space for ED mages than it is for SR, because ED astral space is a nasty, nasty place, which I think is somewhat key to the flavor of magic in ED. As ED mages are all basically mystic adepts, maybe tie it to the number of points of magic invested in spellcasting instead of initiate grade?

I've actually spent some time considering the opposite conversion - SR4 with ED rules, because while I love them both, I find the ED ruleset to be a little less....hole-y. Plus, Technomancers would make an awesome discipline. Unfortunately there isn't a good way to model cyber, because in ED _all_ PCs are awakened. AH is right, though - there are parallels than can be drawn, such that you can see how the ED world became the SR world, but the rule sets aren't very equivalent.

Well, it's occurred to me that the whole concept of "Circles" in ED is probably the same thing as "Initiate Grade" in SR - in ED, because the mana level is higher, practically *everyone* is an Initiate. However, because the astral is so polluted, pretty much everyone HAS to be. So basically, I'm figuring that all ED Heroes start out as first-circle Initiates.

[Grinder]

The average Warrior or Archer adept isn't affected by the different grades of pollution of Astral Space at all.
Spell Matrices had been developed to protect spellcasters (Nethermancers, Elementalists, Wizards, Illusionists, Shamans), but the other disicplines don't need that protection since they don't juggle mana directly.

[Crusher Bob]

A better balance for spell matricies would allow you to use them to ingnore background count and drain, but you had to weave a thread for every X force that the spell was. So for every 3 levels for force of the spell, you had to spend a complex action weaving. So up to force 3 spells would basically be cast as normal, force 6 spells would require to complex actions to cast, and force 9 spells would take 3 complex actions. The spell matricies are still worth while since they let you ingonre background count when it comes to blasting people.

[HentaiZonga]

A better balance for spell matricies would allow you to use them to ingnore background count and drain, but you had to weave a thread for every X force that the spell was. So for every 3 levels for force of the spell, you had to spend a complex action weaving. So up to force 3 spells would basically be cast as normal, force 6 spells would require to complex actions to cast, and force 9 spells would take 3 complex actions. The spell matricies are still worth while since they let you ingonre background count when it comes to blasting people.

Hrm, I definitely like this idea.

[Fuchs]

The average Warrior or Archer adept isn't affected by the different grades of pollution of Astral Space at all.
Spell Matrices had been developed to protect spellcasters (Nethermancers, Elementalists, Wizards, Illusionists, Shamans), but the other disicplines don't need that protection since they don't juggle mana directly.

Which is very weird, since magic background directly reduces an adept's magic and therefore his powers in SR.

[HentaiZonga]

Which is very weird, since magic background directly reduces an adept's magic and therefore his powers in SR.

Hence my thought that everyone needs to be an Initiate.

[IC-Pick]

Well, the big thing with ED was that magic was at such a high amount, that magic was that much more effective. They COULD be considdered initiates I guess.

[WeaverMount]

Ok peeps, spell matrices were not about avoiding spell casting penalties. They were about avoiding horrors finding you. What they would do is remove your signature from spell casting. Also IMO SR casters are using blood magic because the ambient mana is still to low to power spells directly is out taking the energy from the caster. I don't think that any ED casting would cause drain.

My large question for you is exactly what are you trying to model? I'm assuming that you aren't running an adventure at the start of the waining of the 4th age or the start of the waxing of the 6th world or you would just be using one of the RAWs. What specifically are you trying to model?

[Raven Bloodeyes]

A quick, shameless plug.... but one that is still months away....

The Equinox ruleset, might be more to your liking in covering both magic and cyber with guns and all..... it should be much easier to modify for ED, esp. as a step system (heavily modified) will be used..... but again, the demo is still a few months or so away....

....end shameless plug..


I guess the best question (that someone else already asked), is what are you trying to capture with SR rules there....

Also, why not just use the ED rules, they may seem intimidating, but I find them less crunchy than SR1-SR3...... (although I think SR4 comes in at less in terms of dice and mechanics, but still beats the pants of ED in terms of the quantity and complexity of all the STUFF...[i.e. equipment])....

[HentaiZonga]

What specifically are you trying to model?

White Wolf had a Vampire: Dark Ages plot idea, where characters play 5th and 6th generation, uber-powerful vampires in a "shadow war" against each other, starting around 1200 AD and moving all the way up to the present.

I want to do the same thing, but with Immortal Elves, starting right at the end of the Scourge at 11,000 BC and ending in 2072 AD.

[Zhan Shi]

Ah yes, "Transylvania Chronicles". I believe there were four, but I could be wrong. I remember that the subtitle of one of them was "Dark Tides Rising".

Personally, I like Hentai's metamagic.

[Raven Bloodeyes]

I still almost think it better to use ED stuff for ED, then do a rough convert to SR.... ED magic had a much different feel and worked so differently, it seems anachronistic to use "metamagics" back in the 4th world.... maybe that's what you could convert them too, but it still seems odd to me...

If noone in the group has played ED, you can probably gloss over that and try it.... that Spell Matrix metamagic is fairly decent and would be quite powerful. Ancient History's site has some ideas for bringing ED elements into SR so you could get some other ideas there if you're not familiar. Adept powers, esp. Improved Ability should start out small and become rather abundant before the ED part closes....

The other things to note are the dearth of healing magic in ED, the more difficult access to astral space is, blood magic in minor forms is actually used by PCs as "life magic," Legend Points (aka Karma) are much more abundant, and initiating and buying new powers is a lot cheaper!

Come to think of it, it might be worth introducing a new mechanic for thread weaving and spell matrices that works with spells of set Force like in ED (and some prior SR#'s), this might help differentiate the magic system more...

Lastly, I remember somewhere on the web someone giving some guidelines for conversions of ED stats to SR3, maybe those could help you to do the opposite so to speak (coupled with the SR3-->SR4 guidelines).

[Zhan Shi]

BTW, a quick and dirty rundown of the elven factions. I no longer have any of the old SR books, so you'll want to independently confirm this through other sources.

The Tir Tairngire Faction. These people are remnants of the elven conspiracy that founded/controlled the Theran Empire.

The Tir Na Nog Faction. Remnants of the old Court at Bloodwood (formerly Wyrmwood).

The Heavenherds. In ED, the best magicians in the Theran Empire. In SR, they survive as an obscure Zulu elven race in South Africa.

Name unknown, maybe "mimis"? These are creepy black Aussie IEs that guard nasty things Down Under.

Various independents. These include Harlequin, Jane Foster, the black chick with white hair (can't remember the name), and...Alachia, is it? The one who goes by the names Hecate and Miss Tick on Shadowland. Anyway, there were hints in some products that she was hunting dragons during the down cycle. In 2070, this category may also include Ehran. Leonardo, the brilliant decker of "Black Madonna" fame, is another. It's quite possible that during the Fourth Age, he was "Leonarus", an elf who lived in...Vasogothia, maybe...who developed some powerful magic based on light and crystals.

[Heath Robinson]

I seem to remember an optional rule in Street Magic which allowed mages to learn new metamagics without additional initiations. It capped the total number of metamagics at Magic + Initiation grade.

[WeaverMount]

Wow. That is a colossal amount of work. First off you will have to write up what happens at the end of the 4th age and somehow shift from the 4th world to the 5th. I see writing the end of magic being a real issue. A half way descent treatment of the end of that era is a campaign unto itself. I would also highly recommend some kind of a torpor mechanic. When I ran my vampires at the dawn of history campaign, I made heavy use of that as a story telling element.

-How does the 4th world become the 5th, and all archaeological and geological evidence of the 4th world. ie 15k year old cities with windling corpses
-How do you reconcile 2 completely different magic systems. The appearance of spirits, and drain. Blood magic working differently. Does name magic still work if you know how etc.
-What mechanics will you use when for magic, races, magic items, etc. Is it possable for an IE to weave another thread into there most treasured item in 2050? What about the year of the commit?
-Also do you intend to have the players active anytime from 2050 to 2065? If you do then you have 3 more games you need to convert to/from

and a lot of other stuff. I'd be interested in what all you have to come up with, but honestly doubt all the work will get done to run this properly

[sunnyside]

I don't think that any ED casting would cause drain.

There was "raw" casting. I forget exactly how it worked, but you cast a spell without using a matrix, and I think you might have gotten out of having to thread it and additionally I believe you could cast spells you didn't know from books. It also allowed people who were not adepts to cast spells. But when using raw magic you'd take drain based on background count, and maybe attract a horrer. It was mentioned in the books that mages using just raw magic could become very powerful and were the norm before the scourge started.

When the scourge hit the background count generated by the horrors shut the raw magic only users down hard.

I believe this raw magic is what regular SR mages and adepts are using.


You know what. Why don't you do yourself a favor and just have the characters select "adept" and then add

6 power point adept power, become an Earthdawn adept.

You no longer lose powers when in areas of high background count (presumably negative background count still works the same)

The metamagics would then be "gain X circle in X discipline" prerequisit, the previous circle and X skills at Y level.

Again I think the mechanical shift from ED powers to SR wouldn't be to hard for the Talents. Also note that the Talent skills would require less karma to raise compared to a "real" skill, but in negative background count areas they lose these skills.

Remember everybody gets certain skills at rating 0 meaning they don't default.
---------------------
On the dicepool thing. I think generally ED would be 1 step vs dice ahead of SR.

i.e

Steps Attribute ED Attribute SR
1 -- NA
2 1-3 1
3 4-6 2
4 7-9 3
5 10-12 4
6 13-15 5
7 16-18 6

As an adept you get the "get out of defaulting free" special ability for melee. Which could be granted to these guys.

I think ED chars tended to start with higher stats than SR chars do now. But SR rules are a lot easier on raising those stats later, so I think it'd balance out.

[HentaiZonga]

and a lot of other stuff. I'd be interested in what all you have to come up with, but honestly doubt all the work will get done to run this properly

Fair 'nough. Here's what I've got so far:

-How does the 4th world become the 5th, and all archaeological and geological evidence of the 4th world. ie 15k year old cities with windling corpses

Well, a lot of it DOESN'T go away. The 4th World lasts another 2,000-3,000 years past Earthdawn. During that time, the mana level slowly ebbs, until you wind up with the following developments:

1. Obsidimen, T'skrang, and Trolls slowly die off.
2. Orks lose some of their more 'feral' traits, the remainder turning into what modern paleontologists call homo neanderthalus before finally going extinct due to the total loss of ambient mana.
3. Most areas with higher-than-normal mana levels rift away from the physical plane altogether, becoming dormant alchera rather than becoming part of the physical fossil record.
4. Most of the Windlings die off, and their dwellings become dormant alchera. The remainder go dormant along with the Dragons.

The 2,000-3,000 years where this happens should be very interesting, culminating in Thera's "last gasp" to save its magically-powered hegemony by attempting to artificially boost the mana levels - an action which results simultaneously in the shifting of most magical evidence of the Fifth World into the astral, and detonating the island of Thera in a massive DePatterning accident (and incidentally creating the legend of Atlantis).

-How do you reconcile 2 completely different magic systems. The appearance of spirits, and drain. Blood magic working differently. Does name magic still work if you know how etc.

Most Spirits existed in Earthdawn before the Scourge; the astral plane is too hostile to them in the Earthdawn era. Nethermancers might be able to slowly re-learn how to summon and sustain them in the warped astral landscape as the Horrors slowly go away. Blood magic actually doesn't work that differently - Drain and Strain are pretty much the same thing; the differences are more due to different ways that ED's rules handle damage than SR. A lot of 'Blood magic' tricks are basically just magical equivalents to Cyberware - a blood charm's "Depatterning Rating" is basically just its Essence loss, with the results of dropping to 0 Essence a bit more spectacular due to the higher (and far more polluted) ambient mana. Name magic works if you know how to do it, and in fact is the entire principle behind SR-era Focus creation (and the reason why SR Foci always link back to their creators and owners). SR has a different thematic focus, so it doesn't go into the Legend and Name of things nearly as much as ED does, but someone within the universe would see the similarities pretty readily.

-What mechanics will you use when for magic, races, magic items, etc. Is it possable for an IE to weave another thread into there most treasured item in 2050? What about the year of the commit?

Well, ED 2nd Edition notes that there's a lot of in-game speculation as to whether the whole "Year and a day" thing is the result of the Horror's manipulation of astral space, and whether it might have worked differently before. I think that a lot of the ED peculiarities of magic have to do with the entire Astral plane being Horror-aspected - think of the Horrors' vanguard invasion force as sort of an "elite astral terraforming team", who surge in, re-wire the astral plane to be more hospitable to the Horrors and their style of magic, and then invite their Masters in for dinner. Natives of this plane have to learn to adapt their style of magic to be more "like the horrors", leading to things like blood oaths and nethermancy.

-Also do you intend to have the players active anytime from 2050 to 2065? If you do then you have 3 more games you need to convert to/from

Yep, but that won't be nearly as hard, and should be appreciated by everyone here - if I can properly convert all the old gear and missions into SR4 rules, that should earn me a bit of on-board Karma, right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[WeaverMount]

Oh and the passions. You have to way in on that!

[Iracundus]

The Passions would seem a relatively straightforward conversion to mentor spirits.


The few hints and clues dropped in the past about the ending of the 4th world suggest it wasn't a smooth and happy transition, particularly given the fact it was dropped by the old FASA people that Thera was responsible for the artificially high mana level in the ED era and that Mother Nature doesn't like to be tricked. My guess is that Thera tries to prolong the age indefinitely but ultimately things get out of hand, as the natural cycles of the world are too powerful to stop, resulting in Thera's detonation. I think the mana level drops precipitously after that, faster than it would have naturally, and that causes widespread chaos and devastation as societies built on magic suddenly find all their things and abilities failing. Such a catastrophic collapse might explain how people became so primitive at the beginning of the 5th world, which is where normal ancient history is supposed to begin.