Medieval Fantasy Shadowrun Options

[Jason Farlander]

Recently, some of my role-playing friends have been bugging me about running a D&D game. It had been several months since I had run said game, and I figured that a little change would be a good thing. So I got together a little one-shot mid-level game with some prospects for continuance into a campaign if things went well...

To make a long story short, a number of things (most notably the repeated failure of the 8th-level monk to *hit* the hill giant...) reminded me all over again why I really dislike the d20 system... hit points, armor class, levels, class-based progression and other aspects all annoy me. After the session ended, I mentioned to the group that these things were all reasons I preferred SR... and they for the most part agreed. However, one particular comment struck me.

"Yeah I like the shadowrun system better, but I cant play the same sorts of characters that I can play in D&D... and sometimes the type of game played is more important than the game mechanics. I just dont want to play a shadowrun sort of game all the time."

This got me to thinking... would a medieval-setting shadowrun (ignoring, of course, cannon timelines and the existence of earthdawn, which I find to have many of the same problems as d20) work? How badly would the elimination of vehicle combat, guns, gadgets, cyberware, bioware, the matrix, and a huge swath of skills cripple the game? How much modification to the rules would be necessary to pull it off? Would a game where basically everyone plays either a mage or an adept really be all that fun?

Preliminarily, I decided that the skill list would need a major overhaul, that I would need to provide a wider variety magic item types and creation rules for them, that chargen rules would need a substantial (?) amount of tinkering, and that I would have to provide some more incentive to play a non-magical character.

...And so I come here, to ask if anyone else has tried this with what they would consider to be success, and, if such is the case, to find out how they went about it.

[Tanka]

Actually, not too much would be hit... You'd just have to lower the power base of the weaponry, lower the armor standards, and houserule that mundanes could use magical items ("Ogres? I've got an Ogre Slaying Knife that has a +9 against Ogres!").

All in all, it could be done.

And, personally, I'd like it better because of the main fact that you aren't limited by your class. I absolutely despise a class-based system.

[GunnerJ]

Remember that if you're playing Medieval Fantasy, guns will probably be rare or nonexistant, while melee combet is the order of the day. So, just like SR2 Firearms became SR3 Pistols, Aslt. Rifles. Shotguns, etc., it may be a good idea to split Edged Weapons in Swords, Knives, and Axes.

I'm working on a SR Medieval fantasy game based off of a novel a friend of mine wrote. The plot of the novel is based around politics and culture clashes between some very inventive fantasy races (read: not elves and dwarves and orks, completely original), so the biggest part is translating their strengths and weaknesses into racial modifiers.

Something to try: an absence of cyberware can be made up for by talismans and things which are inserted into the body to grant special powers, but degrade the soul (i.e., cyberware becomes magical doodads). Maybe a type of magicican exists which can integrate the body parts of monsters into a character's body (magic bioware)?

[Tanka]

That's where special rings and such come into play. I'm going to basically make up random stuff here, but, eh.

Cloth of Secrecy: +2D6 Stealth
Ring of Quickness: +2 Quickness or +1D6 Initiative
Bastard Sword of Slaying: Hey, look, a L4 Weapon Focus! :grinbig:

Besides; he's talking about translating D&D into SR stats, not sending SR back in time (Like good ol' Harlequin did in one of his adventures).

[Kagetenshi]

Cloth of Secrecy adds +2d6? Ick, how useless!

(Remember that in SR terminology, #d6 usually means that the rule of 6 doesn't apply)

~J

[Tanka]

You know what I mean. *Glare of Doom™*

[GunnerJ]

[Tanka]

[Fortune]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Nice coincidence. I'm just in the middle of porting the Forgotten Realms into Shadowrun. This thread show some of the things I've done so far.

Just last night I got the final versions of all Forgotten Realms PC-capable races (everything that can reasonably be used with a CharGen system) done, as well as weaponry, armor and commodity prices (based loosely on estimated prices in Byzantine, I think in the 10th through 12th century). I'll have to gather up all the rules that I've got into one file before I can give you a more definitive list of changes I've made.

[Kagetenshi]

[Jason Farlander]

[Tanka]

On armor and such: Make note of what kind of armor it is and look up what it's actually weak against.

Chain Mail is weak vs piercing but strong vs slashing
Plate Mail is weak vs crushing but strong vs piercing

So on and so forth.

Not much armor stacking was known either... If you tried to put on full plate mail over chain mail, you'd end up having the links being imbedded into your skin by the weight of the plate mail. Not very fun.

Change the weights on things to be heavier, but people were also stronger, so it mainly evened out. The only places it won't is with things like carrying small items like herbs and foodstuffs. A sword would probably be two to three times heavier, depending on what kind and who made it. Increase breakage as well. Enough full powered blows on the thing would snap the strongest of swords back then.

One thing you'll have to remember: If somebody uses a sword with a "bloodgroove" (The middle of the blade "cut out" to allow blood flow or somesuch bulldrek), the reason it was used is much akin to a piece of steel called a I-Beam. It was lighter and didn't lose any of it's stability in structure. Not because you could rip it out of somebody's chest easier. (Source).

[Austere Emancipa...]

[last_of_the_grea...]

I played in a game where we actually tried this. There were a few changes made and I'll describe the important ones. Keep in mind we used the point build system from the Shadowrun Compendium and we allowed all the cool metavariants.

Melee combat: It was still an opposed test, but only the attacker could do any damage. The defender getting more successes just meant he didn't take any damage.

Character generation: You had to buy your starting magic attribute just like any other attribute. This was to keep wizards from ruling the game, since the cool cyber/biowear was not available. You still paid for magic/adept abilities normally.

Equipment: Armour was given different names. An armour vest with plates: Breastplate. Security armour? Full plate.

Magic Items: Magic arms and armour were given the Dikote modification. There were also weapon foci. A really powerfull magic weapon was a foci with Dikote. Potions and wands and such were simply anchored spells. I'm sure you get the idea.

We started with 100 build points. It worked out pretty good. Most players took at least a couple of points in Magic attribute and some adept powers (Usually increased reflexes). Initiation was cheap at the lower levels (We used the initial magic rating as the calculation base instead of 6) but the players were not allowed to form their own initiatory group...or it woulda been too easy.

Wealth: If a lot was put into resources (I think at least 15 points), you had the option of declaring yourself a noble. If you put 30 points into resources, you could claim royalty (A brother's friend's cousin's former room mate is related to you making a direct blood relation to the king). You didn't have to worry about money up to a certain level based on how much you spent on resources...you just would decide if you wanted a basic item and you had it, subject to a customized availability chart (It takes a while to have full plate armour made during game play). Took away a fair bit of bookkeeping, which was nice.

So, it can be done...but it does take some adjustment because the Shadowrun system of character generation was designed with the setting in mind, not generically. Good luck and have fun! :)

[Austere Emancipa...]

As for skills... Behold, the Interim Medieval Fantasy Skill List v0.05A

[Fortune]

[Daishi]

We tried it, but it didn't work so well. Simply put: The Shadowrun Melee system is not deep enough to be the primary combat system. The system collapsed when a pair of giants were surrounded by elves. The giants could never develop the successes neccessary to hit the elves, and the elves could never inflict wounds on the giants. They weren't strong enough for the attack power to be high enough for the giants to not soak it all. Eventually, the giant surrendered and the elves hacked him apart in about 10 combat turns. (I wasn't there at the time so details may deviate from how it went down, but you can see how this might happen.)

To keep magic from ruling the day without cyberware, we added two quirks: 1) Drain tests were not halved to start with. Full power drain. Ouch. 2) Adepts could only have half their powers active at any given time, requiring a free action to switch them around. This seemed to have the appropriate balance.

We just used AD&D tables for gear, divide nuyen by 50 to get gold pieces. Simplified things.

Also, one note regarding armor. Keep armor penaltied tied to quickness and only quickness. Other wise, fast characters have no edge over strong characters. This won't affect melee grunts, since melee skills are strength based and not quickness based. They lose combat pool, but that keeps things balanced nicely. You can either dodge well, or suck it up well. Plus, it makes a lot of sense that a troll in plate mail will not move just as quietly as an elf in leather...


Our group is currently playing an abused D&D that seems to be more liveable. +2 skill points for everybody, and no class skills. Allows for a much deeper game. But it still has many flaws. I just picked up the Decipher LotR corebook. The system is painfully revision 1, but it has potential for the right depth. I'm currently abusing it into being playable by importing D&D 3.5, SR and MW3 mechanics.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Daishi]

[Austere Emancipa...]

You are certainly correct that this might end up favoring the really big guys rather more than it's supposed to. But, you've got to keep in mind that I actually started a thread in the old forums the main purpose of which was to let me rant about how useless the big monsters are in most RPGs. If giants and dragons eat adventuring parties for lunch, I won't mind at all. That kind of threats aren't supposed to be dealt with by engaging in good ole melee.

The biggest PC-characters, like trolls and ogres, with plate armor could still be a problem. Still, I do enforce the movement speed penalties for heavy armor, so the plate armored troll is really damn slow (walking at a whopping 2.4km/h, sprinting 7.2km/h) and can't carry around much more than his armor (40kg of armor alone...). He can't get into any small spaces since he can't crouch well in the armor and won't fit through human doorways. The suit of plate armor for a troll will cost about 350 times as much as the leather suit for the elf, and the troll will still be just as dead when he runs into the first guy with a heavy crossbow and a good skill.

And getting that suit is a lot harder than getting 350 suits of leather armor: Trolls, ogres, minotaurs, bugbears and similar huge monstrous humanoids are universally shunned and often hated. They are definitely a niche market, so the suit will have to be custom made in any case, by very skilled armorers who also happen to be very open minded.

The fact remains that in pure melee combat, not considering any other factors nor how the stats and gear were gotten in the first place, a troll in heavy armor will most likely rule over the elves and humans and dwarves and orcs. It comes down to the fact that I, personally, do not feel that that is a severe problem. The troll suffers so horribly in other areas that giving him supreme reign in that single, rather limited are won't break down my game.

I still need to do projectile weapons, the shield are only half done, the list of combat rule changes is about half done and the rest of the house rules are still scattered in notes all over. This'll take a while...

Edit: Minor changes to armor prices, changed leather vs plate price relation respectively.

Update:
Ranged weapons and shields are done. Minor changes here 'n there (browsed some medieval arms & armor catalogues). Got all the combat rule changes together and made respective Melee & Ranged Combat Modifiers tables. Next up: Common item prices & weights. Local time: 0716AM.

If someone wants the file, it's in Excel 2002 format (currently 67kb). I won't bother posting the complete Armor, Weapon and Common Items tables in at least some 20 hours.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Dec 28 2003, 05:24 AM

[GunnerJ]

Eh, since someone mentioned the over-simplicity of the SR melee rules, I guess now's as good as any time to discuss the crazy advanced melee rules I wrote.

Notes:
1) "Vigor (VIG)," "Agility (AGL)" and "Reason (RSN)" are SR's "Strength," "Quickness," and "Intelligence" attributes.
2)"Techniques" are like the martial arts techniques in CC.
3) This is very much a work in progress.

=====================================================

-Reach and Friends in Melee: If an attacker's reach exceeds his/her opponent's, the difference in reach is subtracted from the attacker's TN. If the defender's reach exceeds the attacker's, the difference is added to the attacker's TN. Reach does not directly help or hinder the defender.

If a defender's friends in melee exceed his/her opponent's, the difference is subtracted from the defender's TN. If the attacker's friends in melee exceed the defender's, the difference is added to the defender's TN. Friends in melee do not directly help or hinder the attacker.

-Success comparison: in the standard SR3 melee rules, if the attacker and defender have the same number of successes, the attacker wins. This does not apply, instead, in the event of a tie, no damage is done, nor any advantage confered.

-Counter attacks: a defender has the opportunity to counter attack when he/she has net successes in the melee attack test. However, net successes cannot be used to stage the damage up. The attacker must still negate the defender's net successes to stage the damage down, but counter attacks do the weapon's base damage. This reflects the fact that most of a defender's concentration is on stopping the attack, not doing damage.

-Two-Weapon Fighting and Using One-Handed Weapons with Both Hands: Melee weapons are defined as being usable with either one hand, two hands, or either one-handed or two-handed.

Fighting with a weapon in each hand imposes a TN modifier. If both weapons are one-handed only weapons, the modifier is +2. If one of the weapons can be held in either one or two hands, the modifier is +3. If both weapons can be held in either one or two hands, the modifier is +4. Under no circumstances can two-handed only weapons be used ambidexterously. If the attack is successful, targets must resist damage from both weapons. Successes can be split between weapons for the purposes of staging down. (None of this applies to Weaponbearer wrist blades.)

If a weapon is designed to be used with only one hand, using it with both hands increases your effective Vigor 50% for the purposes of deteriming the weapon's Power, but such use of the weapon has a +4 modifier. Weapons that can either be held one handed or two handed get no modifier if held two handed, but only get a +1 to power.

-Shield Use: Shields are a hybrid of armor and weapon. Their descriptions as items reflect this, in that they have a damage code and reach, but also armor ratings and a special cover rating.

A shield can be used offensively with the Shield Bash skill, linked to Vigor and with Clubs and Unarmed Combat as its only defaults. A shield typically does blunt stun damage with zero reach, but exceptions exist.

Used defensively, a shield can provide versitle protection for any fighter. Shields have a special armor rating, listed as follows: x, +y (armor type), where x is the shield's actual armor rating, y is the armor bonus, and (armor type) is the type of armor; slashing, blunt, or pierce. If the power of an attacker's weapons does not exceed the actual armor rating, then the shield provides partial cover as described in the next paragraph. If the power of an attacker's weapon is greater than the actual armor rating, and the attack succeeds, than the defender's armor is increased by the armor bonus. So, a wooden shield with an 8, +2 pirece armor rating and a 4, +1 blunt armor rating would cause anyone attacking the shield's user with a pierce weapon with a power less than 9 to take a partial cover modifier. However, anyone successfully attacking the shield user with a blunt weapon with a power greater than 4 would take no modifier, and the defender would only get one additional point of blunt armor to defend them.

Cover is an attribute specific to shields. As described above, a shield can provide partial cover in certain situations. To determine the modifier, double the shield's cover. So a shield with a cover of 1 (such as a small round shield) provides quarter partial cover, a +2 modifier for attackers, and a shield with a cover of 4 (basically a mobile personal siege wall) provides full cover, a +8 modifier. Note that fighters carrying shileds can attack if they use a one-handed weapon in the non-shield hand. This does not take an ambidexterity modifier, but the cover rating of a shield is added to attacks with this weapon, (this is called the shield use awkwardness modifier).

-Basic Attack Forms: the melee skill test is no longer a simple opposed skill test which takes a complex action; instead there are different types of actions that can be taken with a melee attack skill (and these can act as specializations).

Swipe (Simple Action): The basic melee attack. No modifiers.

Thrust (Simple Action): Thrusting focuses all the force of an attack into a small point, making it more effective against armor; however, it is also easier to dodge. A thrusting attack subtracts two from the relevant armor rating, but the defender gets a -1 TN modifier.

Probe (Simple action): Probing means testing an enemy's defenses for weaknesses. It works like a normal skill test, except that no damage is done, and neither reach nor friends in melee modifiers apply to this test. Instead, if the attacker has net successes, he/she gets a -1 TN modifier to his next attack (and every two net successes beyond the first grants an additional -1), but if the defender has net successes, the attacker gets a +1 TN modifier to his/her next attack (and every two further net successes for the defender increase this by one). These modifiers do not apply to, nor are they "used up" by, Probe or Feint tests.

Feint (Simple Action): Feinting means faking an enemy out with an attack designed soley to misdierct. It requires an opposed roll of the attacker's melee skill against the defender's Reason, and the defender's melee skill agaisnt the attacker's Charisma. Neither reach nor friends in melee modifiers apply to this test. If the atacker wins, the defender is put off balance and gets a +1 TN modifier to his/her next action in melee (increased by one for every two further net successes). If the defender wins, then he/she has seen through the attacker's ruse and is in a better position, getting a -1 TN modifier to his/her next action in melee (with every additional two net succeses granting an additional -1). These modifiers do not apply to, nor are they "used up" by, Probe or Feint tests.

Disengage (Simple Action): In order to break off from melee combat, a character muct make a successful Disengage test. This test works like a normal Swipe attack, except that each net success for the "attacker" (the character disengaging) allows him/her to move a half meter away from his/her opponent instead of doing damage. A Disengage test must be made when trying to pass by a hostile person without attacking.

Disarm(Simple Action): Disarming allows the attacker to target an opponent's weapon rather than the opponent. It is a precise task which has a +2 TN modifier, and requires a roll of the attacker's melee skill agaisnt the defender's Agility, and the defender's melee skill against the attacker's Vigor. If the defender wins, he/she retains his/her weapon and can even counter attack, but if the attacker wins, then the target weapon is removed from the defender's hand. Disarm can only be used on weapons held by the defender, and only one weapon can be disarmed per simple action. Requires knowledge of the Disarm technique.

Sweep (Simple action): See Knockdown rules (below). Modification: test for unsuccessful defenders is Agility vs attacker's (AGL + VIG)/2. Being moved a half meter for each net success can be interprested as being thrown while being swept. Requires knowledge of the Sweep technique.

Grapple (Complex Action): Grappling is like an unarmed counterpart to Disarm. Instead of attacking a weapon an opponent is holding, grappling allows the attacker to try to hold an opponent, preventing him/her from attacking. The same test, conditions, and +2 TN modifier (increased to +4 if the attacker only has one arm free, or +8 if no arms are free) applies as in a Disarm attack. If an opponent is successfully grappled, he/she can make an opposed Vigor test agaisnt the attacker to break free on his/her actions. A grappled person takes a +2 modifier to defend against any attack. Requires knowledge of the Grappling technique.

Coup de Gras (Complex Action): The coup de gras is a wild and stylish attack that goes by many names and takes many forms. A character must have learned the Coup de Gras technique to use it. The coup de gras increases the power of a melee attack by three and the damage level by one. It also gives the attacker a +4 TN modifier.

Parry (Complex Action): Character uses his/her entire action to prepare defenses. Roll the appropriate melee skill agaisnt a base target number of four, every success adds one die to a special parry pool (which can be added to any melee skill test) until his/her next action. A parrying character can opt to take a -1 TN modifier on all melee actions in this interval with the cost of not being able to counter attack.

Knockdown (Complex Action): Knockdown works like a normal unarmed attack, except that if the attacker wins, the defender must negate the attacker's successes on a Body test against a TN equal to the average of the attacker's Vigor and Body to avoid being knocked prone. Each final net success moves the defender away from the attacker by a half meter. The GM may require victims of a Knockdown attack to resist medium blunt stun damage with a power equal to the victim's own Body plus one for each half meter thrown.

Evade (Special): Not really a melee action, a defending character can simply use combat pool to get out of the way of an attack like a normal dodge test.

Targeted attack (Special): A targeted attack is either a swipe or a thrust that hits a specific part of the defender's body. The effects vary, but there is usually a positive TN modifier to making a targeted attack, and if it fails, the attacker is vulnerable and takes a +1 TN modifier to his next action in melee. (NOTE: This is a called shot)

Charge attack (Special): Charging allows you to close distance wth an opponent in the same action as an attack. It increases the power of an attack by one for each meter between the attacker and his/her target, but incurs a +2 TN modifier. A character can charge attack any opponent within (AGL/2) meters with a thrust or a swipe, or (AGL) meters with a Coup de Gras or Knockdown attack. An attacker may not charge a defender if the distance in meters is less than or equal to either the attacker's or the defender's reach.

[Austere Emancipa...]

And they said my rules were complex! ;)

You have a very different approach to many things than me. You give very radical modifiers for many things, while most of my rules only change the TNs, dice amounts, etc by a very small number. This is especially apparent in two-weapon fighting, your handling of two-handed weapons, and shield use.

I don't plan on using different "styles" of attacks (swipe/thrust), and there aren't many special maneuvers available for everyone. I might use some of those attack forms as maneuvers for my game, though...

Here are my combat rules for comparison:

Melee Skill Pooling
All melee combat skills are pooled for offense and defense, much like Sorcery is for Spellcasting and Spell Defense. CP can be used for either up to the # of skill dice in that pool. Offense works just like attacking works in canon. A char's melee combat skill pools only refresh in the beginning of his/her action. A defense pool die can only be used to defend against one attack before the char's next action, or against any number ofattacks with a +1 TN per attack beyond the first (this modifies the TN of all the Defence tests). If a defending character gets net successes, he/she does not automatically counterattack and do damage, unless using a Counterattack power/maneuver.

Offhand Weapons
Offhand weapons add half the respective skill (e.g. Offhand Longsword, unless ambidextrous in which case just Longsword), rounded up, to be used for off or def pools. They only add dice to either, an offhand weapon does not increase damage (Longsword 4 + Offhand Dagger 4 just as effective as Longsword 4 + Offhand Longsword 4, unless you lose your main weapon or some other special situation).
A shield is a special type of offhand weapon, which has a defense base TN of 3 and offense base TN of 5. Otherwise it follows all the rules of offhand weapons.

Reach
Net reach increases the offense TN of the character with reach disadvantage. (Not any other TNs.) You can attempt to negate reach by going Up Close and Personal. This allows an Intercept to the enemy, but if UCPer gets net successes, reach is negated and both get a flat +1 TN to offense tests, and +2 TN to shield use. To regain reach, must Break Off Melee.

Breaking Off Melee
Breaking Off Melee allows the enemy an Intercept. If tie or BOMer gets net successes, melee breaks up with distance = longer reach +1 meters.

Intercepts
Amount of Intercepts = 1/Pass + the standard attack (so if you Intercept twice in the first pass, you can no longer do a normal attack in the 1st pass). Intercept uses the same, full, offensive pool as the standard attack.

Defense
All defense dice against an attack (def pool from all weapons, CP for defending with weapons, dodging) must be declared at the same time.

1 One-Hander
With only 1 one-handed weapon, Dodge TN -1 (Base 3).

Armor limits
For every (Body/2 rounding up OR 3, whichever is higher) kg, or part thereof, of armor over Body x 2, +1 to Quickness-linked tests, Athletics, -1 Quickness for movement, -1 Combat Pool.

Shield Breaking
If Penetration of an attack is higher than the Barrier rating of a shield, the shield takes 1 point of damage. If the Power is twice as high as the Barrier rating, the shield takes 2 points, etc. Once the damage taken exceeds the shield's Hardness it is broken.

Attacking an Object
When attacking an object in the possession of a combatant, resolve the attack as a normal offense test, except that the target object cannot be used to defend against the attack (if e.g. shield or weapon). Every net success increases the Power of the attack by 2.

Disarming
Special case of attacking an object. Target must be a disarmable weapon. The wielder of the weapon must succeed in a weapon skill test with a TN of 4 and a treshold of (net successes in the disarming attack) or drop the weapon.

Mounted Combat
Controlling a mount in combat is a Riding/Mounted Combat test with a TN of 4, 2 or more successes makes it a Free Action, 1 success makes it a Simple Action. +2 TN for an untrained mount (TN 4 just to stay in control).
Enemies get +1 TN to attack a character on a mount. Mounted combatant gets +1 TN if mount runs. +2 Power and +1 Damage Level for lance attacks from a running mount.
As a Free Action, Riding/Mounted Combat can be substituted for a Dodge test for the mount.

Update:
Animals & Related Gear done (did you know the average donkey weighs about 140kg?), Clothing done. Local time: 0908 AM.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Dec 28 2003, 07:17 AM

[GunnerJ]

[Austere Emancipa...]