Hey There,

Has anyone here used the SR4 rules for a pure fantasy (e.g. D&D) setting? I'm going to run my players through a metaplanar adventure set in a D&D type of setting (hopefully they're not reading this!). Just wondering if anyone has done the same and how it worked out, what new rules you created, etc...

Regards,

Stryker

well if you're talking 3rd edition (which I assume you are in this forum), there is a pseudo fantasy setting in one of the adventures, Harlequin's Back. I ran that once, and it worked out just fine. Mostly because I love the magic system. I don't think SR's melee system lends it's self well to grand melees like you get in a lot of high fantasy settings. No Great Cleave here. So it depends on just what type of fantasy you're looking for here. If it's more like D&D with taking on hordes, not so much the SR system. If you're looking for something a little more personal, it works good. Basically not the kind of systme to tkae on ork hordes and lots of giants and such.

Yeah, Ork hordes (and schoolgirl hordes) will eat SR characters for lunch. Not a game for open-field Thermoplyae.

~J

combine the two, and you've got some happy tuskers though.

I was thinking of the SR4 rules in particular. I can see what you mean with respects to large scale battles against multiple foes, but I like the realism of the system. Really... even if King Arthur tried to lay waste to a horde orcs he'd get dog piled! In reality it was an army vs. another army, not one against many.


In that Harlequin's Back - how did it deal with cybered characters? I'm thinking particularly around initiative and initiative passes.

Thanks for the replies thus far...

well, ,in that particular instancee, there was no cyber. It took placec on a metaplane. So sorry, cna't help ya there. But if you're looking for a bit more .. ummm... realistic (*shrug*) fantasy game, then it should work fine.

Since someone else will probably mention it, there's also Earthdawn. But it's a completely different rules system, and I figure that's defeating the purpose.

I am running a Fantasy game AND a Space game in a version of the SR4 system rules. For the fantasy game I am running a setting based on Avatar the last Airbender. I loved the magic in it.

I altered the rules a bit. I made the system more freeform but I added more traits to weapons. I added a few things from the base system for Exalted so it is a combination of the two.

The space setting has more skills, no magic and some of the same mechanics changes I made for the Avatar game. I also used my matrix rules in it.

You kind of have to go through and think of the system from the beginning to make sure everything fits. I changed the attributes around to reflect the different priorities for each setting.

I haven't used them for straight fantasy, but I am working off and on on a Western variant.

For fantasy, I just use my favorite fantasy rules. Likewise for space and sci-fi.

Each of the metaplanes in Harlequin's Back dealt with cyber differently. In some you still got the benefits though the cyber was gone, in others the cyber changed (Fist Full of Karma), etc.

If you're planning on taking your players to the metaplanes, it's essentially up to you how their cyber translates. Though I'd personally go with the "it's gone" approach.

SR rules are terrible for high fantasy, but they are good for low fantasy.

As mentioned, for a metaplanar adventure, cyber can translate any way you want. Stat bonuses should always be functional, while other types of cyberware could be translated as magical or pseudomagical items.

I'm of the opinion that a complete fantasy game (instead of just a metaplanar adventure) by replacing cyberware and bioware with pseudomagical implants and grafts with the same essence costs. For example, instead of getting muscle replacement, a character might get a strength-ehancing rune carved into his body if you want to go that way, or he could have his real muscles cut out via magical surgery and replaced with the muscles of a unnaturally strong creature.

Talk to Grinder, he's got some ideas for "magical cyber" that he was working on for his ED campaign.

Depends on the type of fantasy you're doing. Steam-powered cyberarms? Why not? Cyber would be the easy part. Bioware would definitely need magic.

Does anyone have the stats or know where I could find them for medieval armour? Platemail, chainmail, etc...

Another possiblity is to treat both Cyberware and Bioware as enchanted items, and explain the magic loss from using them as different magical fields interfering with each other.

Of course, this idea would allow the enchanted items to be changed out and replaced as needed, making the Essence record keeping alitte more complex but I think it fits with the genre.

Of course, magical Runes and life altering potions are really cool ideas that I'm stealing for use in my games...

*Edit*

Call me lazy, but I think I'd just file off the serial numbers of the existing armor stats and rename them, using Full Security armor as relics from whatever ultra-powerful ancient empire your world has, Armor Jackets as Plate Mail and go down from there...

*Edit*

After alittle more thought, perhaps you could save 'Harden Armor' for the ancient empire, using normal security armor as Plate, ect...

Well one thing you might want to think about is long bows. The long bow was very powerful because of it's penetration value. Now what I would suggest is either make the ballistic almost nothing on most armor or get rid of ballistic and just have one stat for armor but give long bows a high bonus to penetration. Keep in mind that you don't have to really worry about balencing them with modern equipment. You just need the traits that make sense for your setting.

I would also suggest getting rid of IPs and Reaction as traits. Unless you are using magic to go fast you don't need them. Go back to Quickness for anything related to it. It's not like you will have a lot of vehicles in this that you have to deal with the speed of modern vehicles. Quickness will do.

I have a friend--the guy who introduced me to Shadowrun, as a matter of fact--who modified the SR4 rules for the Naruto universe (he calls it NarutoRun); I don't know if an anime setting qualifies as pure fantasy, but it's definitely a departure from cyberpunk

Of course to be fair, based off reading these forums, I'd say that most of the posters here don't play Shadowrun as 'Cyberpunk' anyways. *winks*

I've used the SR3 rules for a variety of settings since I prefer it over D20.

I've enjoyed the firearms system for contemporary setting games.

Regarding high fantasy the problem is that Friends in Melee is too powerful, I think.

Just thought of a great way to explain essense loss for your runeware. Depending on how dark you want your setting to be, you could make it that those runes require blood magic to be inscribed. Maybe just an animal sacrifice or ritual cutting for the lesser stuff to a full on human for the major stuff.

Aye, or maybe they could be literally selling their soul...

Exactly.

Great minds think alike.

I used to use SR2 instead of the old White Wolf system to run Mage 1st ed. It worked pretty well IMO. Of course, anything was better than the WW combat system and the conflicts between the 1e Mage descriptive text and mechanics were maddening as well.

Well I've started my group on the alternative setting. I'm leaving awakened characters as is and doing the following for cybered:

1) Runic / Tattoo Magic - this is my way of allowing cybernetics. Wired reflexes and the like.

2) Armour Bonding - kind of like Warforged in D&D Ebberon - pieces of armour are bonded to a metahuman's body. This replaces cybernetic limbs.

3) Animal Bonding - I had to give the rigger / hacker something! So, I replaced her drones with animals that she can control. Once again these bonds are achieved through the Runic / Tattoo Magic.

- I've also had to create stats for armour (thanks for the suggestion earlier) and other weapons; e.g. Short Sword.

So far things seem to be working very well. As expected they cleaned up a group of kobolds in their first encounter. I'll let you know how things progress. I haven't decided whether to pit them against any classic fantasy fiends - like a beholder. Could be interesting. If you guys have any more ideas on coversion of monsters, etc... keep em coming. Right now I've only used humanoid monsters so its easy to create stats (e.g. kobold is just a weak metahuman).

Later,

Stryker

The one really pressing problem of using Shadowrun's game engine (any edition) for fantasy is that the rules for melee combat have always been a tacked on afterthought.

That's design intent for Shadowrun. It's a game about detectives and shoot-outs. If a guy is running around with a sword it's either because he's such a bad-ass that he intends to win anyway, or it's because he's a god damned idiot who doesn't matter.

There is a reason that D&D has a long combat round than Shadowrun and has people attack less times in it even so. Bullets are wicked fast, and Shadowrun's combat is played on that scale. A sword fighter is a minor consideration in that perspective.

But in Fantasy... that's what people do. They stab people. They block, they disarm, they jump on chandeliers, whatever. And if you keep the Shadowrun-style "check for victory" method of sword-fighting, it's going to be deathly dull.

Even, perhaps especially at low fantasy, a Fantasy setting requires a more involved melee system. A structure for movement and a list of combat options that were distinctly different from "attack with sword to attempt to kill opponent". But the skill system and the magic system work fine in the context of a fantasy setting.

I would suggest that every player be awakened though. Hackers and Street Samurai just don't exist in a fantasy setting and cannot be used to balanced a non-magical character.

-Frank

lol - well our hacker / rigger is not a combat oriented character... so she'd be totally lost without something to go on. She seemed to take it better than you would

I like the beastmaster idea myself. Or maybe you could use the guy from Electra with the tattoo animals that came off.

As for the melee combat, I added some more stats to weapons to vary them more. I added an accuracy, parry, and smash trait and I added more depth to the reach stat. Accuracy was for finesse weapons mostly. Things that are good for defense are high in parry. Smash is the ability to negate their parry through brute force. Reach acted to negate dodge and determine how well you could fight from a horse with it. Some weapons also had AP, especially arrows.

I also openned up the round from 3 to 6 seconds.

Awakened characters are a problem, as Frank points out. But making everyone awakened is just too high fantasy for me. I don't have a Shadowrun-fantasy set of rules/concepts, but now I am very interested in making one. It's going on my to-do list:

Here's a few ideas I have just off the top of my head:

1) I love the beastmaster idea.

2) I would create a telepath and a "telepathy" system that basically replaces hacking. Instead of hacking people's computers to control their devices and alter their secret files, you can control their bodies and actions and alter their memories. This would also work with the animals = rigger aspect. He's just using the telepathy rules differently.

3) Limit magicians considerably. I would suggest that even a high-fantasy setting doesn't need a single omni-magician character that can cast spells AND summon spirits AND astrally project AND read auras. These all sound like they'll get plenty of use in a fantasy game even if each magician only does one or two of these things.

4) Maybe replace Magic with something dark and twisted, that eventually kills you or eats your soul. Alternatively, have different types of magic with each type having a different effect for having a high magic score.

5) Emphasize skills. Skills and knowledge skills are ultimately where the characters are going to specialize since they can't really specialize in inventory like they can in Shadowrun. Think of certain character archetypes and try to make about 4-5 skills and one attribute associated with eachtype, to put it roughly on par with The Face (which is a skills-based archetype).

6) Don't let players buy magic items with currency, like cyberwear. Have them spend Build Points and Karma for it. This way creating a Magician will be similiar to creating a Mystic Knight, in terms of how the Build Points are spent in what areas.

7) Don't forget about rules for animal companions and creature-types. I know a lot of folks who'd be looking to play their favorite Dragon-rider characters...

8) Frank's right. There's no Streetsams or Hackers (unless you use the telepath idea). I would suggest getting rid of adepts or every "Knight" will want to be an adept. Maybe keep adept-magicians, or assume all magicians are adept-magicians. Although there are no Hackers, StreetSams, Drone Riggers, Gunslinger Adepts, you could just as easily have Bounty Hunters, Covert Ops, Enforcers, Face, Occult Investigator, Eco-Shamans,

9) In general, I think the archetypes should be more focussed and there should be less overlap. This will probably mean lowering the BP count.

The following archetypes may be inappropriate for a fantasy setting unless you used rule systems that explained their use: Hackers, Technomancers, Drone Riggers, Street Samurai, and Weapon Specialist,

The following archetypes might be appropriate for a fantasy setting with a little tweaking: Assassin (Covert Op), Bounty Hunter (Bounty Hunter), Cavalry (Smuggler), Dillitante (Face), Sneak (Covert Op again), Thug/Rogue (Street Ganger), Knight (Enforcer), Marksman (Gunslinger Adept - but more gunslinger and less adept).

The Weapon Specialist might be replaceable with an Inventor. The Hacker, Drone Rigger, and Technomancer can be replaced by using a "telepathy" system that mimicks the way the hacking rules work.

It's up to you how you want to have the Awakened archetypes work, but renaming and refocussing them to generic things like Priest, Cultist, Druid, Oracle, and Mage shouldn't be difficult. Again, I think if you broke up the different components that make up the magic system you could have many more. An Oracle might be useful even if the only magic they had was Astral Perception and Assensing, for example. He would also still have other skills.

Actually I like the idea of all of the PCs being adepts to some degree. This is how Earthdawn works and it isn't bad (it's the dice mechanic that is bad). Basically the heros have a small amount of ability that makes them powerful enough to be the heroes. It doesn't have to be super powered.

I also like the idea of breaking up the magic for more character types. I set up a magical tradition creation ssytem that might work here. You would need to define several of the adept powers based more on BP but also limit them by magic rating. Give everyone a starting magic rating of say 1 or 2. That way they could have a few things to start with.

Shadowrun magic is very powerful in a mid level kind of way. It tops out fairly quickly and there are alot of restrictions on the magic avaliable. However it is powerful on the low end because it was trying to keep up with machine guns. Personally I would set some spells as ritual only and require a high magic rating. Then set some of the combat magic to a certain magic rating.

I know that it sounds like spell levels but it would allow you to have a progression of power in a setting where it is the primary power.

Well, there's that, and there's the fact that while the expected result was always correct, the distribution varied pretty widely IIRC.

~J

Yes, the distribution could've been kept closer if they'd only use D4s and incrimented in steps of 2.5.

Step 25: roll 10 D4.

Of course, I thought dice were a way to add variance into a system, and I thought uncertainty was desired in situations too complex to perfectly model, so I see no reason why a loose but truly random distribution would be a bad thing.

Cetiah - I like a lot of your ideas for converting SR4 rules to pure fantasy... especially lowering the magic rating and having ppl concentrate on skills. I think you'd have to bastardize some of the skills / class abilities from other fantasy rule sets to make it work. I'd also think about getting rid of Initiative Passes within a round...

As it stands I'm just doing a pure fantasy 'cameo' within my overall Shadowrun campaign so, coming up with conversion rules is the route I took...

Thanks again,

Stryker

Cetiah - I hear what you're saying RE: the combat rules in D20. I think the overall 'mechanics' may be simpler, but not as well organized as SR4. SR4 is richer in it's complexity... I guess that's what I mean. I like the fact that there are opposed roles in combat to dodge and resist damage instead one throw of the D20 vs. Armour Class. The base mechanics in D20 are simpler, but have more variables... and in this case simpler doesn't equate to better.

Thus the reason I'm giving SR4 rules a spin in a fantasy setting.

I think the SR4 rules can be used very well for a 'realistic' fantasy campaign with some of the tweaks that have been mentioned here. I'm still wondering how well the players would do against monstrous foes (e.g. a Fire Giant). I personally think they would get squashed if you did the conversion correctly... and that's what worries me. That's a lot of what fantasy is about... taking on the monsters.

I'll have to check out that Black Company setting - loved the books!

Regards,

Stryker

D&D 3e is crappy in many ways, but it had one great idea that very few other fantasy settings explore in depth, grafting. The basic idea is simple. Lets say you cut off the arm of a creature that has exceptional strength or that has the ability to inflict negative levels or some such thing. You can take that arm to someone with the ability to perform a graft and have him cut off your arm and put the creature's arm on you in its place. This is a good way to gain power, not unlike cyberware, but it is also a good way to turn oneself into a freakish monstrosity, especially if you tend to graft undead parts onto yourself.
Such a grafting system can easily mimic bioware and, in some cases, cyberware (limbs, for example).

As for the hacking and drones, you can have a low fantasy setting with high magic or magitech, such that you can have networks of of mechanical golems at your disposal for a price and one can have worldwide information systems based on crystals and magitech thought interfaces instead of silicon chips and simsense.
Depending on how you spin it, this may just be cyberpunk with magic supplanting of technology or it might be more akin to fantasy-steampunk. However, it is still quite possible to maintain a low fantasy feeling while incorporating all of these elements.

As for melee combat and such, bows still trump swords in most cases. Preloaded and precocked crossbows, in particular, are quite effective.

Cool - I like the grafting idea. That's what I was going for with the 'Armour Bonding'. Being able to bond certain parts of magical armour to your body to mimic cyberware. The idea of grafting would be very interesting - eye replacement, etc... could be done this way.

Great idea - do you know what source book that came from?

Regards,

Stryker