So, I decided to take my old Tir book, and convert the Path of the Wheel to 5E. I toned down a few things, and had to make a few judgment calls, but I'd like to hear any suggestions. The Path of the Wheel's going to be playing a big part of the upcoming adventure arc, so I wanted to convert it early. (I also had to put in a few notes from 4E, simply because there's no 5E conversions to them yet... but ah well).

Why wouldn't you use the SR4A Street Magic version of Path of the Wheel? No conversion necessary, except that Guidance spirits might change or go away.

The Path of the Wheel listed in Street Magic 4A doesn't touch on almost anything presented in Tir Na nOg. Each Path has their own distinct rules, separate from their spirit mentors (which they don't even need to take), they have special bonuses depending on time of year and such, weakness to specific styles of magic, while being better at other styles, and the like. The stuff listed in Street Magic was very 'bare bones' for the Path.

If it were me doing the conversion, one of the things I'd have to focus on tackling is how differently "traditions" are defined between 2E and 4E/5E. IMO, a quick-and-dirty version that would maintain most of what I think of as the original spirit of the Paths would be a hybrid of the 4E versions of traditions and magical groups, with each Order being a magical group and each group's Path patron (Cu Chulainn, Etain, Brigid, Ogma, or... the Moon and Stars, I guess) being the equivalent of a group avatar. Like so, using SR4A rules because I'm more familiar with them:



I know it doesn't translate straight into 5E, but it's somewhere to start, anyway.

Its Dagda & Morigan for the Order of the Sun, Moon and the Stars.

One major specialty of the 2nd ed paths was the mixing of elementals and spirits - thats obsolete because everybody can do it rules wise in 4th, which I always interpreted as a progress in overall magic knowledge (unified magical theory yay).

another big characteristic were the massive karma discounts (and minimum spending percentage of whole karma) for certain core skills and attributes. That was allways a bit messy imho and kind of power gamy. You can simulate the spirit of the rules by making mystical adepts with relevant powers or by including an appropriate mundane skill bonus in the totem description.

I think Freyas suggestion captures the major feeling and is well balanced though

I've taken a number of these suggestions to heart (and thanks for mentioning Dagda and Morrigan, I didn't know that). I adjusted the karma discounts (x4 for core attributes instead of x5, and x1 for core skills instead of x2), and I also reduced how quickly core skills are added to the discount list. It looks a lot cleaner, I think.

Yeah, the 'mixed spirits and elementals' of the Path of the Wheel was interesting, that's for certain. It is more mainstream now, true. I'm curious about the Bright Shining Ones, as well. Are those the actual Passions?

Thanks, MK, glad you found it a worthwhile read. The "feeling" of the Paths (that snarky, elven-supremacist mystery cult feeling, specifically) was exactly what I was going for, partly because I didn't actually play 2E and would've had a miserable time trying to convert stats. I didn't know about the Dagda/Morrigan connection to the Order of the Sun, Moon, and Stars either.

As for the Bright Shining Ones/Passions connection, I'm not certain, but I'd lean towards no. TnN had this to say about it: "'Ascending to the cities' refers to the uniting of Mind with Spirit, free from the shackles of the physical world. The Ascended spirit no longer incarnates, becoming instead a Bright Shining Spirit and remaining in the metaplanes." Even the Tuatha Dé Danaan don't quite fulfill the role of a Passion analogue/successor as far as the Path of the Wheel goes, since it's my understanding that they're elven souls reincarnating through the Cycle. Of course, you could always just ignore that and go back to their RL mythological basis, then justify it as "humans thought they were the Gaelic gods, but they're actually the Passions". YMMV.

Oh, hey, random thought: I personally would be wary of core, non-magical skills having Karma discounts as a result of following a specific magical belief system, just on balance principles. (It might not be an issue in your game, and if not, enjoy!) But, how about some Way of the Adept-style discounts on PP costs for powers that apply to the Path core skills? You could even do some quick-and-dirty mapping of existing Ways to the different Paths: Warrior's Way for the Order of Cu Chulainn, Speaker's Way for the Order of Etain (that whole "clear thinking"/persuasiveness thing), Artist's Way for the Order of Brigid, Magician's Way for the Order of Ogma, and... blah, the Order of the Sun, Moon, and Stars is being difficult again. I'm sure you see what I'm going for, though, and the adept bonuses might make a good companion to the "patron"/simulated mentor spirit bonuses for the magicians in each Path.

That's actually not a bad idea. Really, what I've wanted, as far back as 3rd Edition, was to see the Paths laid out in the detail that they had in 1E. Moving the Way of the Adept into the Wheels actually make sense - though I'm uncertain what the Righ would have. It is something I might consider though - once the Magic Book for 5E is out. I've already allowed my players to import the Ways with their characters from 4E, since we're just moving on with the game and shifting editions.

Actually, you might end up wanting to give the Path of the Righ the Magician's Way-style association, since one of the options there is basically "get the power discounts of another Path". The Path of the Druid could then either take the metamagic-focused option from the Magician's Way or something else entirely. Alternately, you could say that the Path of the Righ enables (or requires?) the character to take at least one discount from each of the other four Paths.

This is an idea. The problem with the Ways at the moment is that a lot of the adept abilities haven't been moved to 5E. Honestly, it would have been nice if all the expanded spells, initiations, adept abilities, and such were all put into the one book. Sure, the SR5 book would have been about 30 pages thicker or so, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Alternatively - it would have been interesting if we had a 'core rulebook' which just dealt with the basic rules of character creation and combat, and had a 'matrix' book, a 'sorcery' book, a 'rigger' book, and an 'augmentation' book, all released at the same time. In a nice slipcase. >.> But that's just wishful thinking.

Awesome (even if wishful) Idea... but they would lose money implementing it, I think.

I don't know - the GM would be getting everything, of course. The players would probably get the main rulebook, plus anything they're interested in (cyberware, gear, magic, whatever). In most of my circles, I pick up all the books - and nobody else does. If the books were slimmer, and tailored, my players might be more inclined to pick them up, so they can go over the things they're interested in specifically.

That's True...

Oh. Right. That would make it tough. >.>

Just a little. I'm really hoping that the expansion books come out quickly. I'm itching to see what they do.

You know, there really isn't any reason you couldn't invent versions that are somewhat generic now and can be expanded later. Spy Games came out after Way of the Adept, but I can't imagine that Kinesics Mastery, Light Touch, or Master of a Thousand Faces wouldn't fit into the favoured powers list of Invisible Way adepts.

Actually... I may just whip up a Google Doc with ideas and send you a link in PM. At this rate it's going to end up being a wall of text if I think "out loud" on the forums.

That would be kind of cool. I'm slowly converting some things to SR5, depending on the needs of the players. The pixie's going to be... interesting. And we've got a minotaur to deal with as well.

Okay, well, I got about 2/3 of the way through what I wanted to get through before hitting a conceptual wall. Details and link in PM.

That's one thing that always pissed me off about new editions - how things that had already been published were deliberately held back from the core book, just so the new tertiary books could give you the new stats for them later. I would have liked to see all of the old stuff in the new edition, and some actual new content in the augmentation/gear/magic/matrix/etc. books.

Indeed... But it will never happen, sadly.