I've been working on homebrewing Earthdawn using the SR4 mechanics. I dislike the Earthdawn mechanics a lot, and love SR4 mechanics. I love the Earthdawn setting. It's just a personal preference. This is only a small part of that project, but it's complete enough to bother with posting it. I will post the completed project when I finish it.

Some of the powers may not make a lot of sense in the Shadowrun setting. Some of them may have descriptions that don't quite match Shadowrun mechanics, for example, if it says adds 1 to sharp/blunt armor, for shadowrun it probably means ballistic/impact armor.

Disclaimer: Fair use & all that jazz.

The link to the google spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key...Gc&hl=en_US

Ok, I like alot of these and really can't see an issue with adding many of them into the game. Especially like the Multi Attack, Shield Batter and Critical Hit. What can I say I like the Combat Adept wielding a sword and being as much of a threat as the gun bunnies.

Not a fan. I don't think I'll ever look at Earthdawn if it is more of the same as this.

Certain parts of this have not in fact been converted to Shadowrun. Sharp and Blunt armor?

read the second paragraph of the original post.

Uhh, yeah. Just like Laodicea said in the opening post.

Was there anything specific you didn't like? Or just the general flavor of the powers?

Some of the powers do not fit well but enough of them do that the list is worth a look. Of course the GM is going to have to decide which powers fall under which paths for possible discounts.

You going to pull in the artifacts of ridiculousness?
By which I mean, the questy bits to unlock their power. Like a pair of gauntlets that have the task to "go to the mountain where the iron that was used to make them was mined and convince a local earth elemental that it was worth it."

Sort of. The idea of key knowledges to unlock the powers of an artifact is definitely in the homebrew I'm working on for the Earthdawn setting using SR4 mechanics. Here's the unedited version of what I have so far on that.

"Key Knowledges and History:
Earning key knowledges requires access to a Library with a rating equal to the number of the key knowledge you are attempting to gain. Make an extended test using Logic + (any knowledge skill that applies, determined by the GM.) Interval 1 month. The threshold of the test is the number of the key knowledge you are trying to gain.

Example 1: Mina has acquired and ancient sword. It is enchanted and she wishes to gain Key Knowledges to unlock its potential. She is attempting to acquire 1 Key Knowledge with this test. She is fortunate enough to have access to a rating 3 Library, so she can unlock up to 3 key knowledges about this sword. She rolls Logic(3)+ pre-scourge history knowledge skill(2). She gets 1 hit, which meets the threshold of 1. It takes her 1 month to discover the first Key Knowledge of this sword, unlocking its 1st Key Knowledge ability. She then pays a Bonding cost as with Bonding a Focus in SR4. The bonding cost is equal to the rating of the key Knowledge, in this case 1. It is a Reach 1 weapon, and the type of enchantment is like a Weapon Focus, so the Bonding cost is 4 karma.

Example 2: Much time has passed and Mina has learned a great deal about the history of this sword. She wants to unlock the 7th key knowledge and the swords ultimate power. She has access to a rating 7 Library, so she can make this test. She rolls Logic(3) + pre-scourge history knowledge skill(3). She gets 2 hits. The first month has passed and she hasn't unlocked the 7th Key Knowledge. She continues trying, getting 2 hits per month. She will spend 4 months in the Library to gain this final Key Knowledge. It is effectively a Rating 7, Reach 1, Weapon Focus, and so costs 28 Karma to bond.

Key Knowledges may also be granted by the GM as an adventure reward. For example, Your character could meet a Sage who has knowledge of the artifact they are carrying. Or they could be given a book that details the history of the artifact. Characters will still have to pay the bonding cost of the Key Knowledge, but not spend the time researching in a Library."

Seems reasonable enough.
The only lament I have is that it isn't as flavorful. I love the idea of having to trek to the Andies, find an earth elemental, and proceed to convince it that it was a good idea that his land was raped mined for the iron that made the item.

After several hundred iterations (over time, different owners, obviously) I see some schlob hiking up a trail and an earth elemental going, "Again? Geeze. FINE, YOU GET THE GAUNTLETS, GO AWAY."

The library is a nice mechanic, but I'd offer up slightly different resources as possibilities. I.e. rote memorization ("It's really easy to find the names of the prior owners, but you have to learn them all by heart!") to survival ("Build a shelter in the woods with the axe and spend X nights camping").

Mechanically the rolls are all the same, but it uses a wider variety of skills* and locations, plus it gives each item its own unique story.

Otherwise the guy who started with pre-scourge history knowledge (6) is going to end up with all the items. Or at least, owning more, and having higher bonded ranks, on average.

I did intend for a variety of different skills to be able to be used. I really intended the GM to write the history of each item, and determine what powers are unlocked at what levels of key knowledge. The powers obviously need to scale up as the cost of bonding keeps scaling up. If boring library research is too dull, go with key knowledges as part of a quest or quest reward, as suggested in the final paragraph of it. I just wanted to have a general mechanic for it if the GM wasn't feeling terribly inventive, but the player wants to unlock key knowledges.

If your SR character has pre-scourge knowledge, he better have other things to go with it (Like, say, an immortal elf contact. But, really, I wouldn't allow either)

Some of these dont square with the Shadowrun world.

IE: "Create Ammo", SR4 specifically says magic CANNOT create matter from nothing.

Pg 160 Street Magic- The Limitations of Magic

"Sorcery Cannot Create Complex Things
Though spellcraft can transform energy, spark elemental forces, and even provide nutrition, no magicians have yet determined a way for sorcery to create complex items (such as a gun or even a hammer) from mana alone—despite the best efforts of research corps to date. Sorcery can be used to fix and sometimes transmute complex items, but the days of summoning weapons from nowhere have not yet arrived."


A lot of these seem like just taking Magician spells and renaming them to Adept powers. I cant say that it seems terribly useful.

Emphasized that for you. Adept powers aren't sorcery. Sorcery is purely spells that use the Spellcasting skill.

That said, adept powers shouldn't be creating ammo either.

I don't mean to come off sounding like a jerk or anything, but all of these are irrelevant and moot points, because this is NOT the Shadowrun world the OP is talking about. He is taking Shadowrun rules and converting them to the Earthdawn setting, where many of the limitations of magic in SR do not apply. So you don't have to know an immortal elf/dragonkin to have some pre-scourge knowledge, and you don't have to worry about sorcery doing things it can't do in Shadowrun. Most of those sorcery rules have reservations along the lines of "the days of ____ have not yet arrived" anyway that wouldn't hold true in ED.

See the Wealth spirit power.

It's not renaming spells as adept powers. It is literally converting Earthdawn Talents to SR4 adept powers. That said, there may be some overlap.

Wealth isn't sorcery.
It's a spirit power.

Uuups....he did it again.^^ He´s nitpicking...do we like that? No we don´t. Go and get him.^^

How many people actually use mounts and the bajillion talents associated with them? I mean, that's A LOT of mount-related abilities. Maybe in a High-Fantasy (?) setting they have a chance to gallop around and make use of them?

Earthdawn has two core character types centered around animal companions. So, yeah. The answer to your question is "lots of people."

Whoah. And I thought Shadowrun was borderline yiffing.

Aspects of Earthdawn are kind of high-fantasy, though. It's a weird sort of post-apocalypse survival-horror (or Horror?) fantasy setting, but it very much is a fantasy setting. Every character is magical in some way, there are magic items, there are magical external threats, elves, dwarves, spellcasters, flying castles, yadda yadda yadda...so why is it so weird to you that they are able to "gallop around and use them?"

I mean, if you're cool with riggers tricking out their cars and drones in Shadowrun, why is it strange for a magical Cavalryman or Beastmaster to have some magical tricks he can pull with their awesome warhorse they ride or the wolf they boss around?

These powers seem quite cool. My soon to be friend who will be an elf face adept will probaly want to take a power or two from these probaly the language transaltor one. I assume they are mostly balanced? Aka none of these powers will warp the game. I think you should remove some of these powers like mounts, because if we apply modern sr logic mounts=vechiles which may lead to some wonky things. Flying ABC anyone?

No, you probably can't assume these are balanced, because they're not really written to be played in a conventional Shadowrun game. And no, he probably won't remove the mount powers, because they're not really written to be played in a conventional Shadowrun game.

If I want to play High Fantasy I'll play D&D.


He's perfectly correct.

I might hate D&D mechanics more than I hate Earthdawn mechanics.