I know this might be a controversial thing, especially on the dumpshock forums, but I thought it might be of interest to some of you Shadowrunners out there. Recently, my gaming group has given up on the Forgotten Realms and have decided that the Seattle Metroplex should be our home for the forseeable future. Despite the setting change, we wanted to keep the same rules of D&D4E since everyone in our group knows them well at this point, and they just seem to "work" for our players. So, I went ahead and starting doing the conversion. Below is the link to the site where I've been posting the conversion information for my players and anyone else who might be interested.

http://sr4e.wordpress.com

Please leave some comments. Obviously, it's difficult to properly transition some of the "feeling" of the Shadowrun rules, but it's pretty close and playtesting has revealed it to work surprisingly well.

Thanks chummers!
Former Company Man

Hit you? Why would I do that...

That's actually kinda cool...

though I think you should have fewer classes and a larger number of at wills, encounter and daily powers.

The classes would be

Mundane

Magic Using

Technomancer


You'd need build options to make a rigger, hacker, street sam, weapons specialist, etc under mundane.

Shaman, Mage, Mystical Adept and Adept under Magic

rigger Techno, stealth Techno and Blaster Techno under Technomancer

You'd also need a whole lotta at wills, encounters and dailies...

Give characters 4 at wills perhaps instead of 2...

Multiclass feats would be only for Magic Using or Technomancers to tap mundane powers. Mundanes would not be able to multiclass into magic using or technomancer.

Ok, my Knee Jerk reaction to D&D4e being married to my beloved SR is to kick you in the face after I'm done retching....

However you've done a pretty damn good job of the conversion, it looks like. It would be interesting to try out, but in my opinion it would be better used for a tabletop miniatures skirmish than an actual role-playing campaign - but that's just my loathing for D&D4e showing through.

Kudos for getting some of your fellow D&D4e'rs to play Shadowrun, regardless of system.

On second thought... perhaps the

Mundane/Magic/Technomancy would be the three core power sources...


Mundane Controller = Rigger
Mundane Leader = Hacker
Mundane Striker = Sniper
Mundane Defender = Street Sam

Technomancer Controller = Techno Rigger
Technomancer Leader = Sprite Master
Technomancer Striker = Stealth Mancer
Technomancer Defender = Blaster mancer

Magic Controller = Mage
Magic Leader = Shaman
Magic Striker = Adept
Magic Defender = Spirit Summoner

Allow them to mix and match fairly freely within their power source but need to burn feats to MC into another power source.

Why not just use the D20 Modern rules and use the SR fluff for your campaign. Saves having to convert everything over to D&D 4e.

ive seen other shadowrun conversions like this. this one though actually seems worth playing though. how far do you plan on taking this? are you going to convert augmentations,street magic,and so on?

That's answered within the first two or three sentences of the first post.

I'm sure that Hasbro will be bringing out a D20 Modern 4e sometime soon. You could also try to find a 3.5e to 4e conversion and convert the gun rules from D20 Modern to 4e. It may save you some time and effort.

Flagged for home reading. Comments will follow.

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm glad everyone likes it so far. Even a self-proclaimed 4E-hater sees some value in it
I don't want to leave a huge post, so I'll just try to sum up replies.

I think the more classes the better. Even though specific classes means you might have to shoe-horn your personal idea for your character into one of a handful of catagories, it means the classes themselves can have more unique qualities and abilities (or powers). Also, this conversion is based off of our groups' collective perception of the Shadowrun world, which is mostly an amalgamation of the 2nd and 3rd Edition Shadowrun books. We never really got into Technomancers or the "deckerless world" of the new 4th Edition Shadowrun.

As for more At-wills and mixing and matching powers, I think that will just lead to unbalance and too many power cards to think about. Balance is a concern of mine since the 4E system is so hard-coded. I'm unfortunately cramming the lovely looseness of Shadowrun into a more rigid, heavily defined D&D. But like I said, the D&D4e system is easiest for my particular group of players, as well as the fact that it makes the GM's job much easier.

I plan to take this project as far as my enthusiam carries it. If my saturday night game succeeds with SR4E, my enthusiam level will stay pretty high for a while. Also, if I keep getting positive comments and have people to discuss the conversion with online, I'll probably take it pretty far. At the moment, I'm focusing on getting the game playable at 1st level. We have six people in our group, plus the GM, so I want to make sure there are at least six classes. At the moment, I'm planning on adding additional three for a total of nine classes. I don't like odd numbers, so I'll likely add some more later.

As far as augmentations, I'm mulling over how to handle this. Right now, it looks like Augmentations will work much like Magical Items in D&D. Shadowrunners don't find as much "treasure" as D&D heroes do, but they do get paid well for successful missions. Rather then the DM handing out a +1 Longsword, the Runners might run across a cache of nuyen, or get a "good job" bonus from Mr. Johnson. So the Runners can then purchase some wiz tech in the form of gadgets, cyberware, bioware, modified weaponry, and modified armor. Any suggestions that don't involve completely rewriting the rules of D&D4E are welcome.

Hit you?

I wanna shoot you! With a Panther Cannon!

It's as if SR4 itself wasn't already horrid enough to make Cthulhu vomit. You make it worse by converting it do D&D 4th edition.

Is there a way to play D&D4e without classes. That way you could get around having to pidgin hole each player (one of the things that I think makes SR great). Maybe just have one class (Shadowrunner) and have is as customizable as the warrior in 3.5 (I don't know 4e, I lost interest in D&D around 3.5).

Look pretty neat. I'm not sure you'll turn a decker into a striker but I'm interested to see what you come up with.

I like your idea for augmentations replacing magic items. You could do the same thing with Foci and Fetishes for the awakened classes. Maybe even allow a multiclass feat like cybermage that lets an awakened character make use of both item types.

One thing you may want to look into for Magic is overcasting as seen in the Wheel of Time D20 game (it shouldn't be hard to modify for 4e). In the WOT D20 you had your set spells per day but you could do a save through against Willpower (I think) to see if you can cast a spell after your all tapped out (of course if you failed you took stun damage (ie drain)). I remember the Shadowrun D20 project used a similar rule to handle magic.

Well... Somebody had to do it.

Well doing D&D 4E style... you have at wills and encounters that become available frequently. The dailies would have to be amazing things though.

One of my friends in my gaming group actually did the opposite, adapting the SR4 rules to a medieval fantasy-type setting. If anybody cares, I'll try to find the latest version and post it on the forums.

The elitest jerk in me screams "blasphemy!" but really, it sounds like a fun project; good luck man. And your site looks sharp.

Why not just do a rule conversion though? I noticed that you had dragonborn and tieflings in there. If you're really wanting to do Shadowrun shouldn't you use the standard metahumans? Changing the metahumans changes the history, and if you do that you're basically just running a generic cyberpunk-with-magic game.

Also, a cyberpunk game was made for D&D 3rd edition. It may have some useful ideas for you.

I appreciate the interest in the project guys. Please continue to leave comments, even if it's similar to the guy who wants to shoot me with a Panther Cannon. Again I'll try to be concise with my replies.

There is probably a way to play "classless 4E", but like I said, I'm not really interesting in re-writing the 4E rules. I want to stick as closely to the existing rules as possible to make sure it stays balanced and useable. But anyone is welcome to expand on what I have done, or of course go and do their own thing.

I like the "overcasting" idea, though it will be applied to non-casters as well since all the classes use the same mechanisms. I'll make a new feat that allows you to spend an action point to regain the use of one of your Daily powers.

As for turning a Decker into a Striker, I actually think that's the closest approximation. Of course, the Decker class in question would not your traditional "pansy" decker, he'd be a decker who also happens to be an adept combatant. I don't think it's much of a stretch, since it's in the best interest of the team to bring along a decker who can defend himself and not just get geeked when the drek hits the fan. That's IMHO of course.

Foci and Fetishes are basically going to become new types of Implements, working the same way a Holy Symbol, Orb, Staff, Wand, or Rod works.

About putting Dragonborn and Tieflings on the race list, like the explanation says, you don't have to use them if you don't want to. If you feel that their inclusion somehow detracts from whatever "Shadowrun" means to you, ignore them. The reason I put them up is because I personally don't think it's far-fetched to imagine their existance in Shadowrun, it doesn't hurt to have them up there for people who like the idea, and because a large number of potential adopters are coming from D&D and might enjoy playing the race they play in D&D.

The 3rd Edition Cyberpunk game I think you're talking about is OGL Cyberpunk, which I wasn't a big fan of, but that might just be due to the fact that I didn't like the D20 rules so much.

Now admittedly, I have no experience with D&D 4E (the groups I played with stopped at 3E/3.5E, but the increasing of hit points with class levels/hit dice is kind of at odds with the shadowrun feel. In shadowrun, a low-karma character that's sufficiently lucky and with a large enough gun could theoretically kill a prime runner. The D&D mechanic isn't particularly conducive to that possibility.

That may be a Shadowrun feel, but it's certainly not the only one. The D&D4E mechanics might actually be better for replicating the action from some of the more over-the-top SR novels. I think that trying them with the SR4 rules will likely just get you a sad string of TPKs...

No, you're definitely right. The rules in the game aren't really suited for recreating the events of the novels (unless your GM is cool with letting you start a game with an 800 point build). If the exploits of the group I played SR with were made into a novel, it'd mostly be a tale of bumbling idiots, with the occasional firefight.

But back on topic, I don't dislike the idea of porting Shadowrun over to the D&D rules, though I'm not such a fan of the D&D 4E rules myself. As long the group enjoys it, then what's the harm.

Looks like a fun project to me too!

I've been working on a "near future cyberpunk" port of 4e myself. I went sort of the opposite direction I think with a single "martial" class for everyone and "powers" divided into trees based on the weapon/tech they rely on and all other power sources only available through multiclassing. I'm using the flat level based bonus to hit, damage, and defenses to do away with the need for neck, armor, and weapon slots... and then using the idea leveled magic items (sans ehancement bonuses) to represent weapons of different power levels (i.e. a standard pistol is a level 1 item while a panther assault canon might be a level 20 one).

Why do all that when I could pretty quickly convert my setting/races to Shadowrun and be done with it? Because I like to tinker. It's been slow going, but fun.

Comments:
Interesting ....

I still GM d20 for my wife and some friends but none of us can stand 4E. So if I put my bias to one side (this is tough) then it looks like it might work.

One nitpick - there are NO half-anything in SR. So, I had to deduct points for the half-elf racial option.

Is there a way to get all of these rules in a PDF? It would make it easier to read the rules that you laid out.

I was thinking of converting SR4 into D&D 3.5 using the BESM d20 rules. I just have not had the time lately.

Actually, you're right Alex. I didn't really think of that. I'll just make note that there are technically no half-anythings.

I'm definitely going to transfer everything to PDF once I have the bulk of the rules laid out. It'll probably be sooner then later because I'm hoping to start the campaign this weekend and having a print-out of the rules will be helpful. First thing on my list though is a working character sheet!

Please keep the comments up! Like I said, the more positive remarks I get, the higher my enthusiasm and the more I'll work on it!

I've been making notes for something similar, a more Steampunkish Spelljammer campaign using SR4. At this point I'm waiting to see what changes get made to the Karmagen system, as I was thinking of running with that for character generation.

As far as being on topic...eh, doesn't look bad (what little I browsed), but doesn't look appealing to me in the slightest. That's just my general dislike of 4E though. If it works for your group, good on ya...

Hello, I like this project a lot. My group has a very similar story of loving and playing SR4, with it's inexcusably poorly implemented rules. We had a good long run but eventually we had so many hadiths to make the RAW playable that we were basically playing a homebrew anyway. So Scrapped it for and 4e conversion ... of EarthDawn rather than shadow run.

So Feed back: I think your approach is fundamentally sound and will get you what you want in the end with a good work/reward ratio. Good job.
___Matrix and Decking:Use Franks rules_________
Second. You should read Frank Trollmans Matrix rules. Frank Hand a heavy hand in the magic sub-system of SR4, and did a total rewrite of the matrix rules, and trying to convert them to 4e will be easier and better. Mechanically, deckers get powers, and usually aren't playing there own mini game. The major premise shift of Franks rules is that Cyber decks can effect machines in LOS /without/ a network connects by means of SCIENCE! (eg. the decker runs a program at a camera they can see and it turns off for a bit, they don't hack into the building, duke it out with the spider, and then turn off the camera). This makes programs work like powers. Also these rules include brain hacking. Theory being the mind machine interface is pretty we documented at this point and if you can pipe specific images into a brain with sr tech you could /more easily/ do horrible horrible things to said brain. Franks deckers, would make PERFECT Fey pack warlocks. I'd just give people a new "matrix defense". While a new defense is more overhead and would require some adjudication I think it would go a long way to making your rules feel more cyber-punk.
Actually I might just do that for lolz.

___Implants and Money and gear, and other ramblings_____
Keep it fluff. Leveling characters will give you a good progression of feats powers and stats ... in months to years of game time. I would simply talk to the players about how they see character leveling IC. Guess when the street-doc clears the sam for that Muscle Toner? If you said level 4 your right! Also I would abstract money ... a lot. I'd use a weath system with DC checks. Paying life style knocks off x wealth per month, Jobs pay in DCs of wealth. Gear should be very disposable/traceable, per genre convention.
Another idea Magic items with slots = Cyberware
Buffs from leveling = Bioware
I like the cyber as slotted items because you can just convert armor to torsos, gloves to hands, etc. Bio generally doesn't construct new macro structures in the body and is easily modeled by feats and ability score buffs.
Another if there is a power that works better as gear call it gear. That level the player made a contact that give can hook them up reliably. This could be in the form of exotic chemical batteries, stem-nanites, or synthetic combat drugs, or just a steady supply of grenades. Now gear isn't as good as a power, so to compensate the player you mimic the spell book mechanics. A player may take a power for make two contacts that can supply power granting goods or services. This also would make "extended spell book" a great feat for a face as it would give them more contacts.


On races I would just skin the existing races except for dragon kin. Cut them, there is too much cannon on drakes, and whatnot. Foreveryone else, I'd just let them pick a D&D race for mechanics, and call it whatever SR4 race you want.

__Things I'd do differently______
Scrap essences. It makes no sense, it's just a backformed balance mechanic. You will have other (equally artificial) mechanics limiting augmentation, and I would just keep essence around ass fluff.

"Former Company Man" IMO isn't one specific archetype. I'd do ranger as as "Vat Grown Ninja (bow)/ Razor Girl (dual wield)".




Closing note, something to keep in mind is that you don't have to do a 1-1 conversion at any point. Many 4e mechanics can be implemented as Cyberware (magic items and class features), just as Contacts can be modeled by many things (spell book powers and craft feats)

I have been working on my own port to 4e rules since the new 20th Anniversary release as I did not want to get left behind by using the previous release. It is a daunting task to say the least. I am doing some things different than you seem to be going with. If you want some notes on how I am going about things with mine just let me know and I will gladly toss some stuff on it here.

Keep the feedback coming! Thanks to those who have given input so far.

MountWeaver: Do you have a link to Frank's Matrix rules? At the moment, I believe I'm going to handle the Matrix in two ways: Either a Skill Challenge, or an actual full length Encounter, depending on how the GM wants to handle it. The decker will also get Utility powers to turn security systems (d&d traps) against enemies and things like that.

If I understand you correctly on the wealth system with DCs instead of costs, I think you're talking about something similar to the D20 modern system. I'm personally not a big fan of systems like this. It's a bit too vague and makes it seem like your finances and the cost of goods and services are random.

I do think you're right about Essence. Story/setting wise, I think Essence is cool because it supports the idea that cybernetics aren't perfect and can be hazardous to people who aren't healthy enough to use them. On the other hand, balance is a big concern for me and since cyberwear and biowear are basically replacing magical items and armor, 4E rules dictate that all characters should be able to possess the same amount of enhancements. After considering it for a while, there shouldn't be anything stopping your character from filling up each Cybernetic Body Slot with a modification.

I'm curious to see what you're working on Necro, so toss some of it up on dumpshock. It'd probably be best to start a seperate thread so this one doesn't get too derailed.

I can understand the desire to drop essence with the conversion to d20; however, I would at least limit the Magic or Resonnance with increasing levels of cyber and bio. Alternatively, don't let them have magic and cyber bio.

OR, brain flash

Have Magic, Cyber and Bio all on the same slot track. Then each extra piece of cyber or bio would limit future magic. Not a perfect analog but not a bad one either.

Well, I'm surprised that I could help with this (I hope) given my distaste for DnD 4E.

Good luck with your conversion!

Actually you could handle it one of two ways..

Multiclassing to get cyber powers... which means a feat + a power swap feat to get the cyber power... which would have a similar effect.

Or

Treat Cyber/Nano/Bio/Geneware similar to armor levels (cloth, leather, hide, chain, scale, plate) and start people in the magic power slot at normals and make them spend feats to level up their cyber to nano to bio to geneware. Then start mundanes at cyber, or bio, etc... Have the ware occupy slots.

Arm slot, neck slot, head slot, reaction slot, armor slot, etc...

Make some of the gear permanent (wired reflexes, synaptic, etc) such that once you select this item and equip it, you cannot remove it, only upgrade it. Or something similar.

Here you go Alternate Matrix Rules.
A little preface, (I have no clue why my last post was soo.... special) These rules illustrate a logical and fairly high resolution picture computing, and computer security with the assumption that hackers can force open a network connection in line of sight. This amazing ability is why people are all using cyber-decks rather than real computers. If you want the fluff it's a great read, if you just want to see what hackers and TMs can do skip to the connection ranges learn those terms and then skip to list of programs and complex forms.

About the Augmentation, I don't think you need a system at all. 4e provides solid mechanics for advancement in terms of both inherent ability and exceptional gear. I'd just stick with the mechanics, and let players call it whatever they want. To clarify, all mechanical effects must come from 4e all description/rendering of those mechanics must be SR compatible. If you players what to install synaptic boosters that's cool. It in no way shape or form gives them extra attacks per round "because that's what it does in SR" ... unless they are playing whatever you call a ranger. In that case there synaptic booster let's them do twin strike. If they up their dex one level they are free to say that Dex +1 is a result of greater neural integration with the synaptic booster. This also means that synaptic booster my windup having different effects on different characters. That's fine. You can use fluff about how implants take differently in different people. Apple Seed and RoboCop both use that trope.

just to offer one more plug for the wealth system (and yes I was talking about the modern d20 mechanic); I really hear you on it being a little random. But I think that is actually a that is desirable in this setting. Runners shouldn't be dealing with amazon.com they should be dealing with shadow markets, where it is a little random. Unregistered Ares Alpha are just not always on sale. Also you can fluctuate the DC to account for market considerations, and give social characters bonuses. Take it or leave it, i only mention that because your reservation was exactly why I wanted it

Synaptic Booster +1
Slot: Reflexes
Effect: Synaptic Booster adds a +1 bonus to your initiative role

Power (Daily, Bioware): Use this ability to spend an extra action point in an encounter.

Good luck with that I hope it goes a lot better then when my group tryed to convert the rifts system over to the hero system *shiver*