D20 Shadowrun

[Saeviomagy]

I say so. And there's a perfectly simple explanation for it: The day's only got 24 hours.

The reason you can't be an Ace of all Trades is that the better you want to be the more time you have to put into exercising. You can be an ace in one thing, and dedicate most of your time into that, which means that you won't have many other strengths (and even a couple of weaknesses), or you can be a jack of all trades, which means you have no real weaknesses and no real strenghts (except versatility): you ain't as good at spellcasting as a wizard, but better than the fighter, and you can fight better than the wizard, but the fighter still outfights you.

In SR, versatility is rewarded, while in d20, it tends to be quite severely punished.

In D&D, the fighter is the fighter. He fights and nothing else.

In SR, the sammy (ie fighter) will tend to be a fighter, with some sneaking, electronics, negotiating etc thrown in. He'll tend to be *almost* as good at these things as the specialist in them.

In D&D, a fighter/rogue multiclass (attempting as many skills as the pure rogue) will tend to be about half as good at sneaking as a rogue. And since monster spot and listen checks are practically directly scaled to CR, that's about as good as being only mostly dead. In SR, the same character concept would only be slightly behind the sneaking expert at sneaking, and only slightly ahead at fighting.

Caster multiclasses are widely recognised as some of the weakest characters around, and with good reason.

Some of what Shadowrun Man said has merit - specifically that d20 does 4-color specialty superheroes rather than the more down-to-earth specialists that SR has.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

No, It doesn't. Everyone gets a go, then extra actions get extra goes. I think it probably works a bit better than the only "extra actions" rules that d20 has - haste and timestop aren't exactly paragons of balance.

Timestop is a 9th-level spell, which means it can be used only by the most powerful arcanists, and even them won't be able to use it constantly. And it has restrictions, because you can't interact with other beings in a timestop.

And haste now only grants a bonus to attack and AC, and gives you another attack when using the full attack action.

Now you're just getting silly. Adding 'flavour' restrictions is an example of bad design.

First, flavor is never bad design. Insulting people doesn't help, either.

Also, it's not just flavour, it's balance. Clerics are powerful enough even without fireball. And why make a difference between "healer" and "warmage" If they have exactly the same spells?

Under D&D I can never make a healer who can throw fireballs, regardless of my justification.

That's incorrect: You could give the healer five levels of wizards and let him throw fireball spells. Or give him one and let him use wands. Or he could use miracle. Or just use flamestrike.

Why is that? Why are all clerics eerily alike? Is it bad game design?

You're so wrong you're almost right again: Clerics are diverse to the extreme: The difference from alignment (which has an impact to spell selection), patron deity, domains, weapon selection, spell selection, way they use their spells and the way they're played make no two clerics exactly alike (except they choose the same stuff, of course, AND play alike). I haven't even mentioned PrC's and multiclassing in general.

There are archer clerics that use their spells to make their ranged attacks better and buff themselves up. There are healers that patch people up and cure them of all kind of ailments. There are protectors. There are warpriests (with lots of pyrotechnics), there are diviners, there are necromancers (using spells and negative energy to create, bolster, and repair their undead minions, maybe even becoming an undead themself).

And disintegrate does what? Only in SR, it's quite likely that you will survive to see medical attention, while in D&D you're just dead.

In D&D, you don't have to stay dead.

In D&D terms, SR has unlimited multiclassing, (....) if you don't start as a wizard in SR, you can't ever multiclass into it.

Well, that ain't unlimited.

I suggest you think some things through before you post.

I have to give you that advice as well, seeing your crass misjudgement of the cleric class.

You could do it. However, there would be some significant changes from basic SR, flavour changes which spring from the mechanics of d20 modern. The system DOES impact upon the style of play.

And the style of play has an impact on the gameworld how? If weapons don't kill with one shot, it ain't cyberpunk anymore?

At low levels (1-5 or so), play would be very much the same as SR.

However, at higher levels d20 shows a far more intense escalation than SR does, due primarily to the advancement mechanisms of the two games.

For me, that's not part of the SR world, it's part of the SR ruleset. (Beside the fact that even high-leveled characters in d20M must fear bullets, for a good hit could force them to do a fort save that could drop them. It doesn't occur every shot, but it shouldn't anyway)

For instance: In SR a 2000 karma character (at a rate of about 1-10 karma per adventure) is STILL roughly comparable with a starting character. They're a bit more survivable (but only a little bit), and probably a bit broader, but the two can still continue in the same game without one completely overshadowing the other.

Once again, that has nothing to do with the SR world.

Also, I don't like that sort of thing. Why should a rookie be almost as good as a veteran? I like it when a character with much more experience is more powerful then a newblood.

Try that in d20 with a first level character and a 200-encounter of equal level character (ie - a character of 15th level). Let alone a 200 adventure character. Chances are you can't. The 1st level character will simply be unable to contribute, and he will likely be crushed like a bug on his first outing.

Yea, and that's how I like it. Why should that greenhorn dogmeat be on par with the figthing legend?

To challenge the rapidly advancing characters of d20, you need to rapidly advance the opposition. 15th level characters are simply no longer scared of 2nd level gangers or security guards.

Why should they? Some guys that thing that they're not paid well enough to be shot on their job, some idiots either fresh from academy or who haven't had more than a handful of real gunfights should prevail against that tough dogs that banged on the gates of hell and lived to tell the tale?

In SR's background, there are a number of legendary individuals who rose out of relative obscurity onto the world scene.

In regular SR, this is likely to never happen to the PC's.

In d20 SR, the PC's would almost HAVE to be these characters.

No matter how powerful a PC is, there's always a better character on the world.

And why sould players never get the chance for their characters to become legends, or even renowned? I hate roleplaying games where the DM/GM/Storyteller/Meister can put the player characters against enemies that have powers they could never achieve, just because they are player characters.

That's the primary difference, one of flavour. Rapid advancement versus slow development.

Which is totally irrelevant to the world of SR

Which is probably why a lot of the SR community doesn't like the idea of d20 SR - they play SR because they like the flavour of it over d20.

They don't have to play it. d20 SR is for people who like the d20 philosophy more but like to play in the Shadowrun world.

In SR, versatility is rewarded, while in d20, it tends to be quite severely punished.

That's not true. Often enough, it's what saves the character.

In D&D, the fighter is the fighter. He fights and nothing else.

Yea. He's a fighter. If he wants to do something else, he can do that by multiclassing. But he won't be as good a fighter as he would be if he stuck to fighting.

In SR, the sammy (ie fighter) will tend to be a fighter, with some sneaking, electronics, negotiating etc thrown in. He'll tend to be *almost* as good at these things as the specialist in them.

And why should that be good? What's the point of being just a little better than someone else? Why should a non-specialist get 95% of the specialists potential? Who would ever play a specialist?

No, I like it more diverse, like very few things at 100%, several things at about 70%, or many things at 50%.
Otherwise, we get characters that are, powerwise, almost alike. What's the point in that? Why have differences at all, if they're almost nonexistant?

In D&D, a fighter/rogue multiclass (attempting as many skills as the pure rogue) will tend to be about half as good at sneaking as a rogue.

He can put his skill points from fighter into sneaking, too. His dexterity score will probably as good as the rogues. So if he wants to be a good sneaker, he could be between 75% to 100% as good as the rogue. But only in sneaking, in other things he will be arount 50% as the full-time rogue

And since monster spot and listen checks are practically directly scaled to CR, that's about as good as being only mostly dead.

Not every monster has spot and listen, and even if he's spotted, he can survive longer than the full-time rogue, so he ain't mostly dead.

Again, I have to throw your remarkt of thinking things through before posting them back at you.

In SR, the same character concept would only be slightly behind the sneaking expert at sneaking, and only slightly ahead at fighting.

So we have almost identical characters. Why bother at all?

Caster multiclasses are widely recognised as some of the weakest characters around, and with good reason.

They can be quite powerful if you do it right. Of course, you won't outsorce the full-time sorcerer and outfight the full-time fighter, but you could very well take on one of them, cause he lacks the versatitlity you have, and you can use his weaknesses (which you don't have, at least not to his extend) against him.

Some of what Shadowrun Man said has merit - specifically that d20 does 4-color specialty superheroes rather than the more down-to-earth specialists that SR has.

With "down-to-earth specialists" you mean a guy which is only slightly above-average? I guess amongst the blind, the one-eyed is king....

 

[Saeviomagy]

Timestop is a 9th-level spell, which means it can be used only by the most powerful arcanists, and even them won't be able to use it constantly. And it has restrictions, because you can't interact with other beings in a timestop.

And haste now only grants a bonus to attack and AC, and gives you another attack when using the full attack action.

And multiple actions are only gained in SR by the most cybered or magiced up individuals. The situation is very similar.

The difference is that you can build a 'fast' SR character while you virtually cannot do the same under D20 rules.

First, flavor is never bad design. Insulting people doesn't help, either.

Flavour in and of itself is not bad design.

Rules which are designed purely to produce flavour, specifically by banning something, ARE bad design. That's when the rules get in the way of the roleplay.

Also, it's not just flavour, it's balance. Clerics are powerful enough even without fireball. And why make a difference between "healer" and "warmage" If they have exactly the same spells?

Clerics are powerful over wizards by virtue of powers outside of their magic. Furthermore, they're only 'powerful' when compared with other spellcasters because of the hard seperations between all spellcaster classes.
Suppose you removed all spellcasting from other classes and placed all of it within the wizard class. What effect would that REALLY have? (note that I'm ignoring the balance between magic and non-magic in this example).

What would the difference between a warmage and healer be in such a case? Simple - the spells each chooses to put in their spellbook and memorise each day. That's SR. That's why the argument was silly.

You're so wrong you're almost right again: Clerics are diverse to the extreme: The difference from alignment (which has an impact to spell selection), patron deity, domains, weapon selection, spell selection, way they use their spells and the way they're played make no two clerics exactly alike (except they choose the same stuff, of course, AND play alike). I haven't even mentioned PrC's and multiclassing in general.

There are archer clerics that use their spells to make their ranged attacks better and buff themselves up. There are healers that patch people up and cure them of all kind of ailments. There are protectors. There are warpriests (with lots of pyrotechnics), there are diviners, there are necromancers (using spells and negative energy to create, bolster, and repair their undead minions, maybe even becoming an undead themself).

And yet they all share the exact same spelllist. They are diverse without recourse to mechanics for forcing that diversity. Thanks for proving my point. To paraphrase felon "Why does an archer cleric's reportoire seem eerily similar to a stealth cleric's?"

In D&D, you don't have to stay dead.

Unless you can't find a sufficiently advanced wizard or cleric. I'd say the penalties for severe damage are worse in D&D than in SR, primarily due to the wider availability of first aid in SR, and the significantly lower occurence of instant-death situations in it (ie - instant incapacitation is more common in SR, but death isn't nearly so common).

Well, that ain't unlimited.

In D&D if you don't start with a high spellcasting stat, the same thing occurs - no spellcasting, IN ADDITION TO the 20% xp penalty mechanic for too many or too diverse classes.

I have to give you that advice as well, seeing your crass misjudgement of the cleric class.

See above. The complaint was that near-identical spell lists prevented a diversity of characters. I stand by my denial of that.

And the style of play has an impact on the gameworld how? If weapons don't kill with one shot, it ain't cyberpunk anymore?

This is telling me that you analysed my post in a paragraph-by-paragraph manner. Read what I wrote subsequently to that.

For me, that's not part of the SR world, it's part of the SR ruleset. (Beside the fact that even high-leveled characters in d20M must fear bullets, for a good hit could force them to do a fort save that could drop them. It doesn't occur every shot, but it shouldn't anyway)

Except it's entirely possible to get to the stage where they simply cannot fail that fortitude save. Or for a character to get to the point where their AC is sufficiently high that every shot becomes a 1/20 chance of a hit. Or...

It happens in d20. It's a particular style of play which is reinforced by the rules. CR 2 does not challenge a 20th level party, almost irrespective of the situation. d20 makes superheroes.

SR, outside of a very select few novels, isn't primarily a game of superheroes. It's rules reflect that.

Once again, that has nothing to do with the SR world.

Also, I don't like that sort of thing. Why should a rookie be almost as good as a veteran? I like it when a character with much more experience is more powerful then a newblood.

Because that IS part of the SR world. The heroes and world players are typically NOT superheroes, and the opponents they face are typically NOT supervillains.

As to playstyle, that's fine. If you like a high disparity between the newbloods and veterans in terms of power, d20 is for you. But d20 SR under such rules mean the game will bear only a passing resemblance to "classic" SR. It has guns, cyber and magic. That's pretty much about it.

Yea, and that's how I like it. Why should that greenhorn dogmeat be on par with the figthing legend?

Because the game isn't D&D. Because starting characters aren't rookies in SR. SR characters don't start their careers killing small animals and end up saving the world two years later. SR characters don't have to ask new members what level they are (and the system doesn't have to adjust character creation based on current power level to avoid those questions).

Why should they? Some guys that thing that they're not paid well enough to be shot on their job, some idiots either fresh from academy or who haven't had more than a handful of real gunfights should prevail against that tough dogs that banged on the gates of hell and lived to tell the tale?

Of course if you want every run to be "kick in the door, blow away security and loot the room", then that philosophy works when your characters are high level. But after a little while, you get to the stage where security can only hit on a 20, and you can only miss them on a 1. Where they shoot you repeatedly in the chest and you're uninjured, while you shoot them once and they go down.

Or you can go for the opposite, where the opponents are above you by a few levels of CR, and you're toast before you know it, while your bullets bounce off their foreheads.

Neither is any fun in D&D, and it's quite a narrow range where that doesn't happen.

That's due purely to a high level of power escalation.

No matter how powerful a PC is, there's always a better character on the world.

Until you hit 20th level. Or whatever other arbitrary limit there is. In SR, there tends not to be "better" characters. Characters right at the top are still on the same playing field as characters that are just starting - a confrontation between the two isn't a foregone conclusion. Say that about 1st level characters versus (say) Elminster. In d20, the GM has to consciously avoid such power disparities, and there have been many claims that doing so is a strain on belief.

And why sould players never get the chance for their characters to become legends, or even renowned?

There's a difference between "reknowned legend" and "unstoppable force of nature". In SR, you can become a reknowned legend. You can't become an unstoppable force. In d20, there will come a point where the DM has to start making up high powered bad guys for the simple purpose of being competitive. In SR, that's not nearly so much of a problem.

I hate roleplaying games where the DM/GM/Storyteller/Meister can put the player characters against enemies that have powers they could never achieve, just because they are player characters.

You mean like a 20th level character in a 1st to 10th level game? It's far easier to do in D&D than in SR. In SR you have to outright break the rules to do something like that.

Which is totally irrelevant to the world of SR

Hardly. The rules dictate the actions of the NPC's as much as those of the PC's - hence a system with such a wide power spectrum as d20 promotes a world with a wide power spectrum.

They don't have to play it. d20 SR is for people who like the d20 philosophy more but like to play in the Shadowrun world.

I didn't disagree with that. However I feel the need to point out that there WILL be differences in playstyle due to the gamesystem. It's more than just design philosophy.

That's not true. Often enough, it's what saves the character.

Due only to some of the hard on/off rules of D&D. ie - either you have it or you don't. If you have it, you succeed. If you don't have it, you fail.

Yea. He's a fighter. If he wants to do something else, he can do that by multiclassing. But he won't be as good a fighter as he would be if he stuck to fighting.

The magnitude of that difference is what matters. In SR, "not as good at fighting" means "will lose a little more often". Past a certain break point in d20, "not as good at fighting" means "may as well not touch a gun".

And why should that be good? What's the point of being just a little better than someone else? Why should a non-specialist get 95% of the specialists potential? Who would ever play a specialist?

Because we're not talking about 95%, or a flat-probability d20 system. In SR, you're reducing the chance to fail, and increasing the chance to succeed and the margin by which you succeed. Failure or success are almost never certain, and EVERY die makes some difference.

Compare that with having a +4 in tumble or a +24 in tumble - one can never succeed in tumbling through an opponents square, and the other can never fail. In D&D that hard-line is encountered on a common basis. In SR, it's almost never there. It makes a serious difference to playstyle - maneuvers go from "Well, if I'm really lucky, I could..." to "I won't even try that".

No, I like it more diverse, like very few things at 100%, several things at about 70%, or many things at 50%.
Otherwise, we get characters that are, powerwise, almost alike. What's the point in that? Why have differences at all, if they're almost nonexistant?

Isn't that the point of "balance"? That most characters should be on an equal (more or less) playing field?

If that's not what you meant (and I think it wasn't):

D&D progresses very quickly from "I can do a few things most of the time, and other things rarely" to "I can never ever do these things, and do these things with 100% success".

He can put his skill points from fighter into sneaking, too. His dexterity score will probably as good as the rogues. So if he wants to be a good sneaker, he could be between 75% to 100% as good as the rogue. But only in sneaking, in other things he will be arount 50% as the full-time rogue

No. If he's got 75% of the ranks of the rogue, he's significantly worse than 75% as good as him.

ie - (just to maximise the impact here) 20th level rogue, std array, dex prime, all bonuses to dex(total 20). Max ranks in hide (23) - Bonus: +28.

10th level fighter, 10th level rogue, std array, dex prime, all bonuses to dex (total 20), 75% max ranks (17) total: +22

Against a creature with a +28 (say) to spot checks, the rogue succeeds roughly 50% (actually 47.5%) of the time. The fighter succeeds 25% (22.75%) of the time.

So, at 75% of the ranks, he's at 50% of effectiveness. If the creature gets any better at spotting, the fighter gets left futher behind.

Meanwhile at the low end, the thief gets to complete undetectability much quicker than the fighter does (thief at +8, fighter at +14).

Drop that to the fighter having 50% ranks, and you're in "why even bother" territory.

SR doesn't do that. 10 stealth IS better than 2 stealth, but it's not a guarantee, and it's expensive to obtain.

Not every monster has spot and listen, and even if he's spotted, he can survive longer than the full-time rogue, so he ain't mostly dead.

Again, I have to throw your remarkt of thinking things through before posting them back at you.

But if his stealth was actually necessary, then he's dead. Otherwise he'd just rush in sword swinging. With the actual effectiveness of the stealth skill he bought, he may as well.

So we have almost identical characters. Why bother at all?

See above. The fighter and the fighter-thief will perform very similarly in most situations.

They can be quite powerful if you do it right. Of course, you won't outsorce the full-time sorcerer and outfight the full-time fighter, but you could very well take on one of them, cause he lacks the versatitlity you have, and you can use his weaknesses (which you don't have, at least not to his extend) against him.

A 10/10 sorceror fighter? Versus a straight caster or a straight fighter? Not too likely. And if you're talking 10/10 sorceror/cleric, forget it.

With "down-to-earth specialists" you mean a guy which is only slightly above-average? I guess amongst the blind, the one-eyed is king....

Yup. Except he's not just one-eyed, he's one-eyed and has glaucoma. He's still the best at what he does, he's just not a superhero.

Does a wizard even touch a melee weapon (without tenser's) beyond 10th level? Or has he specialised to such a degree that his martial abilities have wasted away?

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'd just like to point out that in my 2000 karma versus 15th level character comparison, the 2000 karma should be 200 karma (ie a minimum of 20 adventures). Due to the fact that an average adventure (especially one granting 10 karma) would most likely contain 10 or so encounters, the rest of the analogy stands.

 

[Felon]

Bollocks. I've yet to see an RPG where everyone is so tightly typecast that they can NEVER step on one anothers toes, or one where it's not advantageous to have multiple characters capable of the same thing. Furthermore, if any RPG is guilty of allowing a single character to make the rest of the group extraneous, then D&D is that game.

First off, kindly comprehend that your personal belief in your own impeccable correctness doesn't justify being surly, and moreover being surly in no way advances your position. Rather, it stands to make a fellow sound like a bit of a blowhard with his own hatchet to grind. Admittedly, I don't play with kid gloves on myself when it comes to a debate, but I can at least manage to be civil even when aggressively attacking an arguement. Even now I'll accord you with a greater level of decorum than you've afforded me, and it certainly isn't because you've shown that you actually deserve it.

Now, moving on: there is a difference between a system where characters never step on each other's toes--which is largely inevitable--and a system that has few or no checks in place to discourage it. Among my sharpest recollections of the game I played about 8 years ago were all the magesword-wielding sorcerers designed to appeal to that select set of gamers who resented D&D's restrictive role-oriented class system which didn't allow a wizard that pull out a weapon and school the dumb ol' fighters. I recall all the various pseudo-logical arguements like Shadowrunner Man's, the cited references to Elric and Gandalf, and realized that these people really didn't grasp the basic concept of game balance. Their sole concern was fleshing out their great idea for an omni-capable "gee-whiz-look-at-me" character that needed no one. I wouldn't fault SR for that, except for the fact that they encouraged that kind of design.

I don't claim to be familiar with the current version of SR (and I never did, despite what your attempts to lambast imply). I actually hoped I would hear someone chime in and tell me my memories are quite out date with regards to the current incarnation's mechanics. After all, like I said I thought it was a GREAT setting, with some nice concepts, but with a flawed system regarding generating and advancing characters. However, instead of dispelling misconceptions, you defend them dogmatically, giving me the impression they are still status quo. That does not bode well.

Actually, that pretty much occurs in any RPG, SR included. I have seen games which fix it to some degree, typically through an 'action point' system, where each action taken has a fractional round measurement.

It's harder to pull off in games with very tight increments of time, like GURPS' one-second intervals. The tighter the time interval, the slower movement occurs, giving a character with a gun more chances to plug some fool that's charging from 60 feet away.

While admittedly Shadowrun Man isn't the best arguer, you're not much better yourself felon. Your bias against, and lack of knowledge of Shadowrun clearly shows in your own posts.

In your quickness to cop a snide attitude, you're drawing a lot of conclusions that have no basis in anything stated in thread.

I have no major beef against SR. I'd like to play it again. I liked the setting, loved the art direction, thought pooling dice was a cool little form of tactical resource management, but thought that overall it was a pretty unbalanced system and my character had nothing to contribute that wasn't already covered eight ways to Sunday given the limited pool of meaningful and the lack of individual-defining traits (e.g. D&D class features, GURPS advantages). You, OTOH, have little room to speak, since you are expressing your d20 biases quite unabashedly (indeed, somewhat obnoxiously).

As for my lack of familiarity with the current rules, I let it be known from the get-go that I hadn't played the game in a long time. That's why I started my response to Shadowrunner Man by asking if those elements of bad-design had changed. You're indicating that they're the same in all the wrong ways.

Finally, if you're going to comment on game design, then I suggest you think some things through before you post. Flexibility is not a design flaw.

To my experience, flexibility is a flaw if it allows an unchecked buffet-style approach to character creation. Take the best of this, the uberest of that, and piece together a character. Say you had a concept for it if it makes your DM like it better. Character classes uphold that age-old axiom that good locks make for honest neighbors. That's not a new observation; it's a chestnut from the age-old debate of class vs. point-buy-based systems. For most of my life I was in the latter camp, but one too many attempts to play or GM sessions of Gurps, Vampire, SR, and most of all Hero System won me over to d20's open-ended class system. If this has changed at all, please speak up. Are party roles meaningful in SR?

For instance: In SR a 2000 karma character (at a rate of about 1-10 karma per adventure) is STILL roughly comparable with a starting character. They're a bit more survivable (but only a little bit), and probably a bit broader, but the two can still continue in the same game without one completely overshadowing the other. Try that in d20 with a first level character and a 200-encounter of equal level character (ie - a character of 15th level). Let alone a 200 adventure character. Chances are you can't. The 1st level character will simply be unable to contribute, and he will likely be crushed like a bug on his first outing.

Sure, I'll buy that. that's why new players shouldn't start playing at 1st-level if the average level is 15th.

To challenge the rapidly advancing characters of d20, you need to rapidly advance the opposition. 15th level characters are simply no longer scared of 2nd level gangers or security guards.

d20 Modern's lowered Massive Damage Threshold can indeed give most characters pause, even some of the high-level ones. Having said that I will freely admit that a d20 is more a game of resource management than constant survive-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth encounters. That's a strength and a limitation. Higher-level PC's are not constantly terrified of upsetting some rent-a-cop or street punk or gruff fatass old bartender who doesn't like no funny business in his joint--the PC's know they can probably blow them away--but you've got to explain to me how SR's flavor would sour because of that. Action movies don't suffer because heroes thrash mooks; they're just appetizers before the real fights. Nobody wants to rent the special edition of Diehard where McClaine gets wasted by the first piece of eurotrash he bumps into.

True, d20's design does pretty much restrict it to larger-than-life action--I'm not so sure of WotC's assertion that you can play a Tom Clancy novel based on d20--but Shadowrun clearly does fall into the categorization of "larger-than-life action".

In SR's background, there are a number of legendary individuals who rose out of relative obscurity onto the world scene. In regular SR, this is likely to never happen to the PC's. In d20 SR, the PC's would almost HAVE to be these characters.

So Shadowrun deprives PC's of a chance to actually contend with the likes of the Harlequin and his opposite number (instead, just stand gawking while they duike it out), and you're billing that as an asset of the system over d20?

And for that matter, why would the toughest characters in the world have to be the PC's? NPC's can have character classes. Monsters can get nastier and nastier. It would take some doing for PC's to achieve a high-enough level to go spit in the space of some great wyrm that's the CEO of the world's biggest megacorporation.

That's the primary difference, one of flavour. Rapid advancement versus slow development. Which is probably why a lot of the SR community doesn't like the idea of d20 SR - they play SR because they like the flavour of it over d20.

Different flavors are often pallatable to different people.

The tools are laid-out for a d20 SR. To paraphrase Ryan Dancey's recent statement, there ought to be a better reason to poo-poo a d20 version of a game than "we don't like WotC".

 

[Saeviomagy]

First off, kindly comprehend that your personal belief in your own impeccable correctness doesn't justify being surly, and moreover being surly in no way advances your position. Rather, it stands to make a fellow sound like a bit of a blowhard with his own hatchet to grind. Admittedly, I don't play with kid gloves on myself when it comes to a debate, but I can at least manage to be civil even when aggressively attacking an arguement. Even now I'll accord you with a greater level of decorum than you've afforded me, and it certainly isn't because you've shown that you actually deserve it.

My apologies - I lapsed, and allowed myself to type the same way I speak. No insult was intended.

Now, moving on: there is a difference between a system where characters never step on each other's toes--which is largely inevitable--and a system that has few or no checks in place to discourage it. Among my sharpest recollections of the game I played about 8 years ago were all the magesword-wielding sorcerers designed to appeal to that select set of gamers who resented D&D's restrictive role-oriented class system which didn't allow a wizard that pull out a weapon and school the dumb ol' fighters. I recall all the various pseudo-logical arguements like Shadowrunner Man's, the cited references to Elric and Gandalf, and realized that these people really didn't grasp the basic concept of game balance. Their sole concern was fleshing out their great idea for an omni-capable "gee-whiz-look-at-me" character that needed no one. I wouldn't fault SR for that, except for the fact that they encouraged that kind of design.

Except that if your game balance relies on categorically denying someone the ability to do something (not do something badly, like a mage wielding a sword...), then there's something wrong. 3rd ed has shown that you typicaly don't need to prevent people from wielding swords or casting spells to produce balance - you just need to make them worse at something else.

SR does that. It works. You get a wide variety of characters, all the way from the JOAT to the specialist in a particular trade. It doesn't work against the game.

I don't claim to be familiar with the current version of SR (and I never did, despite what your attempts to lambast imply). I actually hoped I would hear someone chime in and tell me my memories are quite out date with regards to the current incarnation's mechanics. After all, like I said I thought it was a GREAT setting, with some nice concepts, but with a flawed system regarding generating and advancing characters. However, instead of dispelling misconceptions, you defend them dogmatically, giving me the impression they are still status quo. That does not bode well.

However you also stated that some of those personal taste issues were bad game design, something which is flat out wrong - you didn't like the system, and that's ok, but saying it's bad game design is saying that noone else should like it either.

This is particularly bad since two of the three things you describe as bad game design flat-out aren't (tradeoffs, freedom of choice).

I have no major beef against SR. I'd like to play it again. I liked the setting, loved the art direction, thought pooling dice was a cool little form of tactical resource management, but thought that overall it was a pretty unbalanced system and my character had nothing to contribute that wasn't already covered eight ways to Sunday given the limited pool of meaningful and the lack of individual-defining traits (e.g. D&D class features, GURPS advantages). You, OTOH, have little room to speak, since you are expressing your d20 biases quite unabashedly (indeed, somewhat obnoxiously).

SR skills. SR flaws and perks.

My biases on d20 are that it does something very well (heroic settings), and other things badly (gritty settings).

To my experience, flexibility is a flaw if it allows an unchecked buffet-style approach to character creation. Take the best of this, the uberest of that, and piece together a character. Say you had a concept for it if it makes your DM like it better. Character classes uphold that age-old axiom that good locks make for honest neighbors. That's not a new observation; it's a chestnut from the age-old debate of class vs. point-buy-based systems. For most of my life I was in the latter camp, but one too many attempts to play or GM sessions of Gurps, Vampire, SR, and most of all Hero System won me over to d20's open-ended class system. If this has changed at all, please speak up. Are party roles meaningful in SR?

Are they ever meaningful?

Sorry, my times up. Please keep the thread alive till the end of the weekend so I can continue?

 

[jaerdaph]

Saeviomagy, you are aware that you are comparing Shadow Run with fantasy d20 (D&D), not d20 Modern, aren't you? Many of your arguments are no longer valid in the d20 Modern context. For example, see d20 Modern's unrestricted multiclassing and basic classes tied to ability scores vs. fighter or wizard. Also, a 20th level character can't access 9th level spells in d20 Modern as they can in fantasy d20 - spells max out at 5th level (although I haven't seen Urban Arcana yet).

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The difference is that you can build a 'fast' SR character while you virtually cannot do the same under D20 rules.

Sure you can. Make him Fast (the fast hero class) and increase his speed with talents. Then give him the run feat, and heroic surge. Give him high dex and Improved Initiative. There, a fast hero, in more than one sense of the world.

Rules which are designed purely to produce flavour, specifically by banning something, ARE bad design. That's when the rules get in the way of the roleplay.

The different spell lists are are part of the flavour of the class - and of the balance. If you want to be good at magic, you have to specialize in one kind of magic (wizard magic, cleric magic etc), or you take several of those (combining wizard or sorcerer with druid or cleric, usually), gaining versatility at the cost of higher-level powers.

Clerics are powerful over wizards by virtue of powers outside of their magic.

No. They have strenghts the wizards lack: healing magic, for one thing. They're also better at dealing with the undead or with scrying magic.

Suppose you removed all spellcasting from other classes and placed all of it within the wizard class. What effect would that REALLY have? (note that I'm ignoring the balance between magic and non-magic in this example).

They would be able to become powerful in all kinds of magic. I don't like that. There are several brands of magic, and you shouldn't be able to master them all (at least, not with the same dedication as you need to master a single one)

What would the difference between a warmage and healer be in such a case? Simple - the spells each chooses to put in their spellbook and memorise each day. That's SR. That's why the argument was silly.

But you could as well create a warmage-healer. He'd have access to the most powerful battle spells and the most potent healing spells. I don't like that

And yet they all share the exact same spelllist. They are diverse without recourse to mechanics for forcing that diversity. Thanks for proving my point. To paraphrase felon "Why does an archer cleric's reportoire seem eerily similar to a stealth cleric's?"

And yet they could have everything without the need to waive anything. They would be good-at-everything, the need for making different characters nonexistant. Thanks for proving my point.

In D&D if you don't start with a high spellcasting stat, the same thing occurs - no spellcasting,

Which is logical: why would a dumbass be able to become a wizard? But an ability score of 11 (average) is enough to speak the weakest of spells, and with 15 you can make a great part-time spellcaster.

IN ADDITION TO the 20% xp penalty mechanic for too many or too diverse classes.

Those don't apply all the time (and not at all in d20M, what we will use for shadowrun).

Except it's entirely possible to get to the stage where they simply cannot fail that fortitude save.

No. that cannot happen, since a 1 is always a failure, no matter how high your bonuses are. So if there's a lowly guard with a gun, he could drop you with a single shot: he hits, gets enough damage to overcome your threshold, you fail your save - bam, down to -1 HP. And the more guys you encounter, the higher the chance that one will get a lucky shot and you fail that save.

Plus, the save bonuses in d20M aren't that high, so it will take a while till you get fort +14

Or for a character to get to the point where their AC is sufficiently high that every shot becomes a 1/20 chance of a hit. Or...

The enemies' attack bonus advance faster than the AC score of PC's.

SR, outside of a very select few novels, isn't primarily a game of superheroes. It's rules reflect that.

If you don't like superheroes, tone down the d20 rules. Ever played Call fo Cthulu d20? If you call that a superhero game, the games you play in really have weak characters. And d20m, while not leaving you as helpless as CoC, will still let you fear every confrontation.

Because that IS part of the SR world. The heroes and world players are typically NOT superheroes, and the opponents they face are typically NOT supervillains.

I still think you can play SR with "superheroes". And if not, use the d20M "realistic" rules as described in the GM section.

Because starting characters aren't rookies in SR.

If you don't want to start with rookies, start at a higher level. There will be the PC's, which aren't rookies, but if you need a rookie, you can make a 1st-level character for that purpose (even Shadowrun has to have creatures that are rookies. 15-year-old children or something)

SR characters don't start their careers killing small animals and end up saving the world two years later. SR characters don't have to ask new members what level they are (and the system doesn't have to adjust character creation based on current power level to avoid those questions).

If you can't gain any power, why bother with advancing? Why start with 50%, and after the finish of the campaing, have 55%? From 1 to 100 has more diversity.

Of course if you want every run to be "kick in the door, blow away security and loot the room", then that philosophy works when your characters are high level. But after a little while, you get to the stage where security can only hit on a 20,

Security aren't only mooks. Get some more powerful guards. If someone sees that his warehouses are pillaged by a notorious group that just lays waste to his guards, he employs someone who is up to the task. It's just like the movies: There are the mooks, that fall by the score, and there are the real enemies. And that's good. If some guard, who comes right from the academy, is almost as good as me, who has decades of experience, that's not right. If the guard's a veteran himself, I can see why he matches my power, but not a newblood. Saying that SR has no rookies makes me wonder what they do to the unexperienced. Do they lock them up until they're good enough to face the dangers of the world?

and you can only miss them on a 1. Where they shoot you repeatedly in the chest and you're uninjured, while you shoot them once and they go down.

How do they shoot me in the chest when they don't hit me? And if they hit my heart, I go down. The problem is, that if they only make me lose 5 HP out of 60, they haven't hit my heart, it was only a grazing shot. For HP is more than just wounds. Anyway, if he does more damage than my con score (or more than 10 with realistic rules - which is no unrealistic even with a normal hit with a standard handgun) I must make a fort save (and the characters good at shooting usually have fort as a weak save) or drop in spite of my HP.

Or you can go for the opposite, where the opponents are above you by a few levels of CR, and you're toast before you know it, while your bullets bounce off their foreheads.

Again, the bullets won't bounce off them, except when the enemy has natural armor or damage reduction (and in the latter case you have to shoot badly). And it usually takes more than "a few levels of CR": everything up until 5 is "officially" possible by the book, and even more if you're lucky or resourceful.

Neither is any fun in D&D, and it's quite a narrow range where that doesn't happen.

I wholeheartedly disagree. It's more than a narrow range. I have seen encounters with a EL below the partie's level that really annoyed them, and there were encounters that by the CR score should be impossible that the party overcame nonetheless. The CR only means that it's less likely.
Besides, the DM picks the encounters, so he can match the party and its enemies (and on every single step of the cr-ladder, there scores of choices)

Until you hit 20th level. Or whatever other arbitrary limit there is.

Hm... The PHB limits levels to 20th, and the highest CR the MM has is 25. Other books using the same limit have CR's of 28. So you won't be the biggest dog around even at 20th.

In SR, there tends not to be "better" characters. Characters right at the top are still on the same playing field as characters that are just starting - a confrontation between the two isn't a foregone conclusion. Say that about 1st level characters versus (say) Elminster.

And it doesn't occur to you that a wizard with centuries of training is better than a boy right from a farm? In years of experience, that guy on the top didn't learn anything to give him an edge over the newblood who hasn't seen a single real encounter?

You mean like a 20th level character in a 1st to 10th level game? It's far easier to do in D&D than in SR. In SR you have to outright break the rules to do something like that.

First, it may be considered to be against the rules to put a 20th-level character into a 1st-level game.
But the thing is: That 1st-level character has the possibility to become a 20th-level character. It isn't impossible.

Due only to some of the hard on/off rules of D&D. ie - either you have it or you don't. If you have it, you succeed. If you don't have it, you fail.

You can learn most of the skills even if they aren't on your class list, and many of the skills can be used untrained.

The magnitude of that difference is what matters. In SR, "not as good at fighting" means "will lose a little more often". Past a certain break point in d20, "not as good at fighting" means "may as well not touch a gun".

Right. Past a certain point. Past a certain point there should be more than a one-on-a-million chance for you to win the encounter.

In SR, it's almost never there. It makes a serious difference to playstyle - maneuvers go from "Well, if I'm really lucky, I could..." to "I won't even try that".

So you could dodge the falling sun, "if you're really lucky"?

Isn't that the point of "balance"? That most characters should be on an equal (more or less) playing field?

That most of the characters of the same level of experience should be on an equal playing field. That's more like balance.

No. If he's got 75% of the ranks of the rogue, he's significantly worse than 75% as good as him.

ie - (just to maximise the impact here) 20th level rogue, std array, dex prime, all bonuses to dex(total 20). Max ranks in hide (23) - Bonus: +28.

10th level fighter, 10th level rogue, std array, dex prime, all bonuses to dex (total 20), 75% max ranks (17) total: +22

You forget that the fighter/rogue can get 100% of the ranks of the rogue, if he specializes in sneaking.

But if his stealth was actually necessary, then he's dead.

No. Not necessarily. He may not get the advantage of stealth, but he can fight better against what he sought to avoid.

Otherwise he'd just rush in sword swinging. With the actual effectiveness of the stealth skill he bought, he may as well.

That's black-or-white thinking.

He does have less chances than the better sneaker (if the rogue's better) sneaking past, but he has better chances outfighting the enemy. But that doesn't mean he has to use his fighting. He has two skills, and he can try the first, and fall back on the second if the first doesn't work.

A 10/10 sorceror fighter? Versus a straight caster or a straight fighter? Not too likely. And if you're talking 10/10 sorceror/cleric, forget it.

I think you're mistaken here.

Does a wizard even touch a melee weapon (without tenser's) beyond 10th level? Or has he specialised to such a degree that his martial abilities have wasted away?

With the magic he has he can improve his fighting skills (and not just with tensers). Or he can defend himself if an enemy gets toe-to-toe.

 

[tensen]

I'm all for a shadowrun type of feel under d20.. but it will never be exactly the same. I created Dark Quest's Cyber Style as our basis for a Shadowrun type campaign, because I like the game world. But of course our system really isn't intended to replace Shadowrun.. its just a way to be able to take some of the things we liked over.


Something to remember about Shadowrunning as opposed to dungeon crawling. Advancement will be a lot slower.

Typical Dungeon Crawl:
2-10 traps
6-20 rooms full of creatures
treasure all around
possible roleplaying bonus
Most likely will level up at the end of the crawl due to 16 encounters.

Typical Shadowrun:
lots of sneaking... hoping not to run into any guards.
Possibly 1-4 encounters with guards, if you do badly.
lots of locks and things to disarm... (GM may count some of those as traps for XP purposes)
roleplaying bonus at end, preferably.
possibly score some new tech.
Most likely need to do 2 or 3 of these to level up, with lots of roleplaying inbetween.

In a Shadowrun if you run into encounters, you likely did something wrong... And if you run into a Dragon, you know whether you will be a 1st level, 5th level, or 7th level Shadowrunner you really should RUN!!!!

In normal fantasy d20 if you run into an encounter... you laugh maniacally and know you are doing something right.. and treasure is there. If you run into a Dragon... you ready all your weaponry and spells and make a try for it...


Most of the issues are not game mechanics problems... they are a difference in roleplaying and how your characters should expect to live in the setting.


In Shadowrun... I've brought in a brand new character in to work with a team that had been playing for 5 years... with hordes of karma. They could function together. The new character wasn't as versitile... but could function there. This IS an advantage of the Shadowrun system... that will not be able to be replicated under d20 fantasy. In d20 Modern you have a bit more leeway in that you can probably work a 1st level character with up to say a 5th level character without too much difference... anything more and it would be unfeasible.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Saeviomagy, you are aware that you are comparing Shadow Run with fantasy d20 (D&D), not d20 Modern, aren't you? Many of your arguments are no longer valid in the d20 Modern context. For example, see d20 Modern's unrestricted multiclassing and basic classes tied to ability scores vs. fighter or wizard. Also, a 20th level character can't access 9th level spells in d20 Modern as they can in fantasy d20 - spells max out at 5th level (although I haven't seen Urban Arcana yet).

First up, it's Shadowrun, as one word, with no capitalisation of the second word. It's a common mistake.

Furthermore, with regard to d20m and D&D I realise those points, however in one thread the topic of a cleric was specifically brought up (and the use of the adept advanced class in the argument works equally well). In the other one, unlimited multiclassing does alleviate some of the problems found within D&D. The problem that remains is that often an ability that would suit a character is packaged with a number of abilities that impact that character concept negatively.

5th level spells are still a significant jump over 0 or 1st level spells. Furthermore, the progressive nature of d20 spell levels doesn't really fit the world of SR. In d20m, you need an 8th level character to create an explosion of fire, whereas in SR, it's attainable by a starting character.