Our group has been playing our current Shadowrun campaign for about 4 months we just took a 2 month hiatus. I needed a break from runnning. Anyway we just started the campaign back up and we were going to see about converting into the D20 modern/future rules set to see how it would run. We have several people in the group that are HUGE fans of D20. I can say this much. Their Matrix system really is very simple and works very well. Combat is way simpler but just seems to be missing the danger involved with Shadowrun. What really was terrible was our conversion of our mage. He went from being a powerhitter to the biggest most useless wimp in the group.

I had several house rules in place in an attempt to keep the shadowrun feel. For instance only people with the awakened feat were able to use magic items, and they had to spend XP to bind with them to use them. The Awakened feat had to be taken as your first level feat could never be taken later. Anyway we decided after attempting it to just stay with this great system which actually I am very relieved about. Granted we do have one player who is still insisting we give the D20 system another try.

Overall it wasnt a terrible attempt. However if we were to really actually ever do it again. I would try and create a new magic system that more closely represents mages from the Shadowrun universe. Well this rant is over. I am just passing time while waiting for a load...

try the 3.5 D&D psionics system instead of regular magic.

heck, try d20 psionics and have it inflict damage instead of using power points for an even closer matchup. also, you should probably start them off at least around level 4-5 i would say, if you want to represent shadowrun type spellcasting (or just remove the ML cap i suppose).

(incidentally, if you do use the damage method, it should be subdual damage. the only way to take physical damage should be the overchannel feat IMO).

normaly d20 mdoern do not use the d&d3.x subdual damage system.
instead the damage done is checked vs con. if higher, the person is down and out...

I suggest you take a look at the suppliments "Urban Arcana" and "Shadowchasers".

The setting in Shadowchasers is a lot like Shadowrun. :-/

I think the bigest problem you will have, after magic, is getting the danger level right. After a certain level, "dangerous" things like thugs with guns and being outnumbered stop being dangerous. Still, more power to you.

allso, d20 cyberscape. adds more cyberware, way more

You might also want to look into Living Room Games' Digital Burn. I haven't playtested the actual mechanics in it, but nothing really jumped out at me as broken when I looked over it. The fluff is rather nice.

The thing about being a truck driver is you have alot of time alone to think. It helps me come up with some great Adventure/run ideas as well as other things. Anywho I came up with a magic system for D20 that seems to might work quite well for a shadowrun conversion. Granted I did give some thought to the psionic rules as Actually when playing DnD, I much prefer them than the magic system for DnD which I have always hated even back in the days of 1st edition.

So here goes my Shadowrun magic system for D20 at a glance.

First of all as stated in order for anyone to be a caster they have to use their 1st level starting feat to take Awakened. They can not take this later in the game without the GM having some strange reason for letting them.

Second I completely did away with the Spell list from DnD or D20 modern. I decided instead that in order for this to work It would need conversions over from Shadowrun spells.

3rd I turned the system into a skill based system using the new skills. Sorcery, Summoning, Counterspelling, all the astral perception skills would also come into play. In order to cast a spell the caster would have to roll D20 plus his ranks in Sorcery +plus int/wis depending on type of caster. The DC for the spell would be 15+the force level of the spell the caster was choosing to cast at. If a caster wanted to cast a spell at a force over his current caster level the DC for that spell would go up by 2 for every level over his caster level. So if a character that was a 3rd level caster wanted to cast a Force level 3 spell his DC would be 15+3=18 if he chose to cast one at force level 4 though his DC would be 15+3+2=20...So I did away with the spell level system and instead let the caster decide which force level to cast any given spell at.

4th I did away with the spell slot system instead adding burn. To resist burn from casting a spell make a willpower save with DC=10+force level of spell. If you fail your save your character takes 2points of non lethal subdual damage for each point he saves his fail by. If you are casting a spell that is above your caster level it becomes even harder to save with a DC=10+force level up to your caster level then plus 2 for each force level above your caster level. If you fail you are stunned for one round and lose 2 points of Real damage for each point you failed your save by. I also thought about making it a will save DC of 15+force level to resist this type of careless casting. If you were to take more damage from a failed save than your Massive Damage threshold you would also have to make a fort save like normal or pretty much fall over ...

5th I did away with the D20 spell duration system.. concentration would be the way to maintain a spell just like in shadowrun and that would add penalties to casting rolls just like in Shadowrun.

6th Counterspelling would be fairly simple it would be a contested roll. If the counterspeller beat the caster he would simply lower the force level of the spell by the amount he beat the casters roll by. making the spell that much easier to save against by the target

Anyway thats the casting system I came up with at a glance. It would do away with the entire spell slot system and work more like the shadowrun system Granted the spells would have to translated as well. And yes Subdual damage would definately be put back into the game.

Anyway I know this is not a board for D20. But I figured i would throw that out there and see what you guys think. Granted i am planning on still just staying with the Shadowrun system and not worrying about translated but as I said when you drive down the road as much as i do. You have alot of time on your hands to think about things.

Yeah, but why convert? With all the material available for D20 Modern/Future, it's easy to create a dystopian near future with magic setting just by buying books off the shelf.

Besides that, SR4 is far, far superior to D20. Yes, D20, because of its gigantic corporate backing, is widely known. But it's a bad system. The magic system couldn't be more complicated without the help of a supercomputer and the combat system is pretty absurd. A .45 does 2D6, averaging 8, but a 3rd level character with +1 Con and a d8 hit die averages 21 hp. Which means that a .45 slug in the abdomen is an inconvenience.

So if it's not broke, why fix it?

If you're running in D20 and such, you might want to take a look at this site. Some guy did some stuff from Ghost in the Shell, it's an interesting read.

Having an different point of view, voicing it, and asking a question is "thread crapping?"

Stay where you are. The waaahhhh police are on their way. Everything is under control.

Our group has also considered doing an SR game in D20M. I would have wanted to do the StarWars D20 rules where the real HP is = to con, and the dice HP are Cinematic HP that represent near misses. Critical hits do damage directly to real HP, you also take real HP damage when your cinematic HP is gone. I really liked that concept, and would have wanted to use it. Though, for the lethality of SR, just having HP = con score would work too for how low the damage is on weapons usually.

Cyber would have been pretty easy to do. The only problem I had with doing D20M for SR is that all D20 are class based systems and I think that SR would have a very hard time fitting into the Warriors and Wizards caste system. Very often my characters are hybrids of 2 or 3 different concept types, and you can't get that kind of freedom in a Class system.

I thought the nonlethal damage kept accumulating and you fell uncocnscious when it reached your con. I could definitely be misremembering though, as I haven't played any d20 modern in years.

Yeah, you're much more likely to get flamed then get actual advice.

I personally can't help much, as I'm among the crowd that thinks SR works better as SR.

I'd definitely switch to Star Wars hit points. I don't recall if D20 Modern uses DR for armor or not, but if it doesn't then also swipe that from Star Wars.

Someone mentioned a book with cyberware in it. You've got to have that.

I'd replace the Astral Plane with the Etereal Plane, yanked completely from D&D, but without the ability to physically travel there.

You might want to also look at Star Wars as a way of doing magic, as it has a closer tie to the Drain mechanism then the memorization and spell slots system. Psionics could work, but they might be too powerful as written.

If you like or are just more familiar with the D20 mechanics and want to use them, use them. There's no need to write a lot of house rules, because there's more than enough D20 material already published. D20 Modern, d20 Future, Cyberspace.... You can put together your own dystopian near future with magic, or use SR source material with D20 mechanics.

But I have to say again, the SR4 system is a better system; it didn't win the ENnies for nothing. Using it as written requires a lot less labor than conversion house rules or using the SR world with D20 rules does.

Yeah, in D20 Modern canon, the average character can punch another character in the head for 24 hrs straight with practically no chance of having any effect whatsoever.

Call Of Cthulhu D20 had a much better nonlethal damage system. Stun points added up, while hit points, as usual, got used up. When your stun points outnumbered your hit points, you fell unconscious, iirc. So if you've got 11 hp, get punched twice for a total of eight stun, then get stabbed for four hp, you're unconscious: your current hp of seven is lower than your current stun damage total of eight.

the cocd20 system is the same as was used in d&d3.0, dont know if it changed in 3.5.

thank god that D20 modern have a "massive damage" rule then.

take more damage in a single attack then con and face a save. fail said save and your on the ground with -1 hp (ie, your slowly bleeding to death or similar).

one of the stated aimes of the SWD20 saga edition was to make the game more compatible with the miniature game iirc. maybe thats why the HP stuff showed up?

i have heard interesting things about the star wars saga. in relation to SR, there has been talk that there will be something like a condition bar where you take negatives to actions based on your wound status (or how many HP you have left?) so that might be something you would want to yoink from d20, then again that wouldn't be an immediate fix because the book is scheduled for march 07.

but if i had to make a guess at how to use a wound track with HP, i would subtract -1 or even -2 to actions when a character loses a quarter of their HP, then go from there (-2 or -4 at half HP, -4 or -6 at one-quarter HP, and then -6 or
-8 at 0HP). for HP that might work, just a guess.

i got into that fit to switch everything to d20 when it seemed that everything was switching to d20. i even grabbed my SR books and took a long look at the game. i just think that classes don't do Shadowrun System any justice - especially the XP to challenge comparison... you'll have a group of people that don't gain game mechanics benefits from doing runs that are way below their skill level.

but it's your game, your mileage may vary