D20 Shadowrun

[Ranger REG]

Then tweak the rules.

Spycraft tweaked the rules to make it a modern-day superspy game, just using the original System Reference Document (based on D&D core ruleset).

P.S. Whateve happened to creative people thinking outside the box, these days?

Forget about the Urban Arcana model and homebrewed your own.

 

[Saeviomagy]

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.

Not quite what I meant, but...
The point that SR's initiative system is flawed when compared with d20m's is somewhat disproven by your example - a character with good initiative and heroic surge effectively goes 1.5 times before anyone else gets a go. I believe felon called that bad game design.

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.
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.

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)

Is this "different brands of magic" some universal truth? Or is it a phenomenon very specifically linked to the worlds of D&D? Along with ideas like "spell level" etc. There's more than one setting that completely ignores that sort of thing, and because it does, D&D, or d20m become inadequate to simulate it.

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
[/quote]
Then the world of SR isn't for you. Magic is magic is magic is magic. Priests don't get exclusive access to healing and wizards don't get exclusive access to blasting. That's part of the world, not just the rules.

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.

Umm... no. Even in D&D, giving wizards the entire spelllist would not produce uber-characters (with exceptions given to certain spells that synergise in obviously unintended ways). Wizards do not gain enough cash in their careers to scribe every spell on their list as it is. Some wizards complain they never get any spells outside their granted 2/level. How is it that in your world, they'd mystically have the resources to scribe not one but TWO spell lists? AND have the spell slots to cast spells from both? Don't clerics already whinge about being the group "band-aid"? Why would the wizard want to subject himself to that?

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.

So why is a dumbass able to become a cleric? Or a bard? What's so fundamentally different about those types of magic that you don't need a brain to use them?

But back to the original point - it's just as restricting as SR's "no multiclassing to a spellcaster unless you started as one".

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

Hey, I thought this was on game-design. Regardless, you're correct.

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.

Still, having only 1/20 of the bullets that hit you have any effect on you is quite powerful. And of course, by virtue of having been around a bit, less bullets hit you. And even the ones which DO hit you have to overcome that MD threshold. Gunfights stop being dangerous. That leads to a complete shift in the flavour of the game. Caution goes out the window unless you know you're fighting an endboss.

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

2 strong, 2 tough, 2 dedicated, 2 charismatic, great fortitude and a good con. That's a level 8 character - it fits right into my speculations that outside of levels 1-5, d20m ceases being similar to SR?

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

Why, because all the business the PC's have been hitting later have a "what level are you" line on the job application for security guard? Why is it the PC's never attempted these businesses before? Why should they try them later? Do the security companies advertise the experience level of their security (Try LoneStar, now 20% more experienced, with level 5 guards!)

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.

At low levels, or against artificially matched opposition, yes.

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

Hmm, I seem to remember that I said you could play in this style, but that you had to remember that the game would be totally different. The d20m realistic rules don't make that much of a difference.

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)

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.

You DO get advancement. You DO get the ability to do new things. This stops you from getting bored with the character (try running D&D sometime and never letting people level - they'll start complaining pretty quickly). You don't get new powers which dwarf the old ones. Your characters progress, but at the same time, you don't have to rewrite the NPC stats whenever it happens.

What's the point of advancing in D&D when all your opposition advances with you? Same net effect, much harder on the DM, much harder on verisimilitude.

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?

A veteran is no more immune to gunfire than a rookie. In d20m, that's not the case. There are rookies in SR, but in SR, it's the difference between an 11th level character and a 12th level character in d20. Not a huge difference - both can compete on the same stage. Unfortunately, running a game in d20m with 11th and 12th level characters has the problem that they've ceased being worried about gunfire unless they're exceptionally unphysical.

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.

You mean like the 1 for 1 BAB class, the strong character? Looks like a good fort save to me. Or maybe the soldier? Ditto. d20m does bruce willis "the hero only ever gets minor injuries" style. SR isn't like that.

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.

Except it tends to be more luck than resource. 5 levels more is 5 more hit dice. 5 more hitdice is an entire round's worth of shooting. Not to mention the differences in BAB and defense.

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)

But how many of them make sense, especially when aiming for a particular setting? We're back to the security guard entrance exam and it's "what CR are you sir?" situation.

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.

Weren't you the one complaining that your PC could never be top-dog due to artificial limits?

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 that first level wizard with 20 years of training versus that 20th level wizard with 20 years of training and two years of running around the countryside gathering treasure, don't you?

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.

At which point he does what, retires? Because of a game mechanic?

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.

And once you crack about 10th level, only those with the absolute best scores in skills will be succeeding to any consistent degree. Untrained skills virtually just fail all the time.

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.

Eh? I don't understand what you're trying to say.

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

I fail to see how it's going to come up, but yes. Mind you, the meaning of "really lucky" is a bit vague. I'm guessing you'd call winning the lottery "having a better than average day".

In D&D, assuming the DM even lets you roll for it, you could dodge the sun 1/20 times, regardless of how low your dex was, whether you were asleep, blindfolded and deaf or not.

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

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

I thought we were talking about comparisons between specialists and non-specialists. It seems foolish to compare two specialists in that case.

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

Beyond role-playing considerations, why was he attempting to avoid it in the first place if he's capable of defeating it?

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.

So, all in all the specialist is inferior to the generalist? Didn't you say that was a bad thing?

My point is that the difference is that in D&D, the specialist is better, and will perform in situations that the generalist is incapable of performing in. The generalist got nailed hard by the rules. In SR, the specialist will tend to be more consistent, not flat-out across the board better.

I think you're mistaken here.

And I think I'm not. Certainly not in the case of the 10/10 wizard cleric. Most likely not on the sorceror/fighter.

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.

So apparently he gets all the benefits of being a magical specialist, AND all the benefits of being a fighter? Didn't you already say that was a bad thing?

Overlooking that - he HAS to use his magic to boost his use of a weapon in order to make that use worthwhile.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

 

[Felon]

Not quite what I meant, but...
The point that SR's initiative system is flawed when compared with d20m's is somewhat disproven by your example - a character with good initiative and heroic surge effectively goes 1.5 times before anyone else gets a go. I believe felon called that bad game design.

My words-take-out-of-context alarm woke me up so I thought I'd stop by and chime in real quick-like, maybe rebutt to other stuff in more detail when I have time....

What I was referring to--and possibly what you meant when you said d20 doesn't allow you to create a "fast character"--is that in SR you could make a character who's so wired that he always gets take more actions than other characters. I say with confidence that's not a good design, because while the speed demon player may think it's wonderful to get in all those actions, it's inherently at the expense of other characters being reduced to a statue for an extended period of time--and not just his opponents, but even his fellow players. The problem is compounded as it quickly becomes obvious that anyone who doesn't try to close the speed gap is ignoring a huge tactical advantage, so a LOT of players crank-up their speed, and not because they think it's cool to play a speed demon, but simply to remain effective in combat. At that point you can expect NPC's to often be revved-up as well in order to keep encounters challenging.

All of that steadily increases the amount of "statue time" that the slower characters have to endure and diminishes their ability to contribute. Even if it's just one player who winds up taking naps between his actions--which are are largely meaningless at that pace he's moving anyway--that's still one player bored out of his gourd.

In d20M a player can make a fast character in a lot of different ways, just not one that's pretty much guaranteed to be a detriment to many other players' enjoyment. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to see changes made to the d20 initiative system, but at least it's relatively streamlined. Each round each character does all the things he wants do at once (regardless of whether he's a rookie or an epic character), and then the round passes over to the next name on the initiative chart.

As for Heroic Surge, it only provides one extra action a finite number of times a day. And if a GM should find even that to be a problem, he can just eliminate the feat from his campaign without affecting any core game mechanics.

 

[Felon]

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

Fair enough. Hate to admit it, but I've done the same myself in the past once or twice…or thrice….

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. [/b]

Yes, I originally got into Fantasy Hero because I loathed the idea that a character who's stealthy can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag of holding, while conversely a character that can fight well only knows how to fight so he always clangs an' clomps down the dungeon in full plate + shield waking up every monster on the level. I can't think of too many heroes of fantastic fiction that never did any sneaking around…

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.

When players actually base their characters off of a (reasonable) concept, then complete freedom to custom-build doesn't work against the game. It’s a wonderful asset for a system. When players are mindful of the niches that other players are trying to fill, it doesn't work against the game. It makes for the most diverse, dynamic, flexible party of PC’s you could hope for. Again, in my youth I praised HERO and GURPS for embracing these concepts…

But y’know what I’ve come to realize? Expecting all gamers to exercise restraint in a system that offers total-customization is like expecting them all to exercise restraint at a really good buffet: many, if not most, just can’t help themselves. They want to have a little bit of everything that looks tasty, and all they leave off their plate is the stuff that’s boring to them (heal me, cleric!). And what makes this a problem is that at most buffets—and in most games--the things that look appetizing to one person generally look appetizing to everyone.

So most of all, I can agree that total customizability doesn’t work against the game if—and only if--the system in question ensures that there’s enough cool stuff laid-out on the table that one player can’t get them all onto his tray, with the "tray" being a representation of the limited number of points, picks, etc. that each character is allotted. The big question is, in SR is the tray big enough to allow everyone to be satisfied with their character, while small enough to prevent the emergence of a small handful of uber-templates that allow a single player to cover every major base, to be utterly self-reliant, and to never yield the spotlight to another character. I’ve seen that happen repeatedly in many “free-generation” systems, and the end result is that there’s no party, just a bunch of show-offs competing for attention and regarding each other as superfluous. Ace-of-all-trades, not jack. That complete freedom leads to ubiquity (as the templates take hold) and ignominy (as the non-templates watch the do-everythings get a larger share of air-time, including co-opting anything cool that the non-templates can do).

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.

Heh, Saev, it’s not that I’m saying no one will like it—I’m saying that all-too-often the wrong ones will like it, lol. What I realized after years of frustration playing in those other systems, never truly coming away satisfied, is that it’s just like any other freedom; when it is left unchecked it winds up becoming abused. A point-based system allows more freedom and as a result offers greater potential for abuse. It’s all a matter of how much you’re willing to trade off the former for the latter.

Essentially, we are at a crossroads of gaming philosophies, and they are philosophies which can’t help but prioritize one aspect of the game over another. You are prioritizing the desires of the individual player (who should have the potential to create the exact character he wants), while I am prioritizing the gaming group as a whole (because the game has needs other than allowing everyone to have their ideal character, such as encouraging players to form a cohesive, interdependent unit).

SR skills. SR flaws and perks.

OK, here’s where I’d like to take a serious looke at that tray I mentioned. to boil down whether or not Shadowrun leads to that uber-template problem. As has been previously-stated, Shadowrun is a skill-based system, so let’s look at the skills. I don’t know’em all of the top of my head, so I’m going to provide a list of generic RPG skill categories. By all means, tell me what I’ve overlooked in regards to SR and point out my mistakes.

• Combat skills (Firearms, Armed Combat) Allows you to overcome NPC’s through direct force.
• Bypass skills (Stealth)—Allows you to overcome hazards and obstacles between you and your objective through subtlety.
• Social skills (Etiquette)—Allows you to circumvent and manipulate NPC’s.
• Equipment skills (Vehicles, Electronics)—Allows you to operate/construct/epair equipment that can perform physical tasks..
• Information skills (Computer, Knowledges)—Allows you to identify an unknown quantity (creatures, objects, people, etc) and perhaps provides insight on how best to deal with it.
• Healing skills (Biotech)—Allows you to cure damage and other negative effects.
• Fluff skills (Dancing, Pottery)—Allows a player to mimic skills that exist in the real-world, but have little or no practical game applications.

I’d like to classify magic skills in there, but I’m not sure what Conjuring, Sorcery, and Magic Theory really do anymore.

Once we have this list straightened-out, here’s what I’d like to figure out:

1. What skillsets absolutely essential in order for a team of Shadowrunners to be effective?
2. How quickly would a Shadowrun team reach a point where characters had all the essentials covered and start to either overlap each other or simply bring non-essential skils to the group?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Then the world of SR isn't for you. Magic is magic is magic is magic. Priests don't get exclusive access to healing and wizards don't get exclusive access to blasting. That's part of the world, not just the rules.

Then there are no wizards, no clerics. It's spellcasters.

So why is a dumbass able to become a cleric? Or a bard? What's so fundamentally different about those types of magic that you don't need a brain to use them?

Wizards learn their magic through long studies, memorizing lots of facts about magic, learning the precise formulas and gestures, learning what component you need with what..... thousands of facts. You need a good memory for that.

Sorcerers, on the other hand, don't need to learn magic - they have magic. They use their confidence to cast these spells. They don't need to memorize anything, cause their gestures and words are just some conductor to set free the powers within them. They're probably not even the same everytime. So they don't need to be smart, just confident.

Clerics don't need to memorize arkane formulas and somantic components, either, and usually don't need any materials that act as catalysts. They invoke the power of their god. They channel their power through their holy symbol, their verbal components is beseeching their deity for power, theri gestures underscoring that. They have to be dedicated to use that magic. They don't have to be smart.

But back to the original point - it's just as restricting as SR's "no multiclassing to a spellcaster unless you started as one".

Not being able to use magic cause you don't have what it takes is one thing. But not being able to use magic cause you went into a dojo first to train kung fu is another: it doesn't make sense that a person can't learn to be a spellcaster later.

2 strong, 2 tough, 2 dedicated, 2 charismatic, great fortitude and a good con. That's a level 8 character - it fits right into my speculations that outside of levels 1-5, d20m ceases being similar to SR?

Does it fit right into your character design, or are you using a smackdown to prove something?

Why, because all the business the PC's have been hitting later have a "what level are you" line on the job application for security guard? Why is it the PC's never attempted these businesses before? Why should they try them later? Do the security companies advertise the experience level of their security (Try LoneStar, now 20% more experienced, with level 5 guards!)

No, because all the business the PC's have been hitting have more than one type of guards. There's no Company that only hires low-level guards, or another with exclusively mid-level ones, or one with high-level guards and nothing else. When the normal guards see that they're overmatched, they call for reinforcements.

Hmm, I seem to remember that I said you could play in this style, but that you had to remember that the game would be totally different. The d20m realistic rules don't make that much of a difference.

But they do: a flat thrashold of 10 means that quite a lot of shots will force you to save against massive damage, even in the highest level. And the low-powered point buy means that the ability scores are lower than usual.

You DO get advancement. You DO get the ability to do new things. Your characters progress, but at the same time, you don't have to rewrite the NPC stats whenever it happens.

So you get to learn new things, while you don't learn to do things better? Things you have been doing for a long time?

What's the point of advancing in D&D when all your opposition advances with you?

Not all the opposition will advance with you.

A veteran is no more immune to gunfire than a rookie. In d20m, that's not the case. There are rookies in SR, but in SR, it's the difference between an 11th level character and a 12th level character in d20. Not a huge difference - both can compete on the same stage.

The way I see it it's like a soccer match. The rookies being a village team, who aren't pro soccer players, but gardeners and insurance agents and what not. The veterants are the ones from the national top leage, or from the national team, or from champion's leage, or even an international all-star team. So both the rookies and the veterans can bompete on the same stage?
Or some soldier who has just absolved his basic training and the guy who has fought in a dozen of conflicts, and has received his training from several special units. The one amost wets his pants when they hand out live ammo, the other doesn't care if he kills one dozen or two.

Unfortunately, running a game in d20m with 11th and 12th level characters has the problem that they've ceased being worried about gunfire unless they're exceptionally unphysical.

How many games of d20M have you played about 11th-level so that you can say that they all are unconcerned about gunfire? I very much doubt that it is so.

At which point he does what, retires? Because of a game mechanic?

Uses epic rules. And still, epic monsters will overshadow him. The fact is, that the DM can always put something against them that is even stronger. The characters won't become the very strongest of all unless the DM wants them to.

I fail to see how it's going to come up, but yes. Mind you, the meaning of "really lucky" is a bit vague. I'm guessing you'd call winning the lottery "having a better than average day".

No, winning the lottery is about as likely than to survive that meteor. The chances for that are quasi-nonexistant. And before someone makes me roll a d1.000.000 we just say it's impossible, that just saves a lot of time.

In D&D, assuming the DM even lets you roll for it, you could dodge the sun 1/20 times, regardless of how low your dex was, whether you were asleep, blindfolded and deaf or not.

You won't roll for it.

Beyond role-playing considerations, why was he attempting to avoid it in the first place if he's capable of defeating it?

I think role-playing considerations are valid ones - in fact, about the most valid. But to get to the point: The fighting might cost you precious time, or alert other enemies with the noise, or might use up resources you might want later. So you try to sneak past. If you don't succeed, you'll probably dispatch the enemy (the fighter/roge has better chance to do that than the pure rogue), but it will cost you.

So, all in all the specialist is inferior to the generalist?

No. Their advantages are on different areas, that's all.

And I think I'm not. Certainly not in the case of the 10/10 wizard cleric. Most likely not on the sorceror/fighter.

A warrior with a lot of fighting talent (BAB +15, many feats cause of the fighter bonus feats) that can buff himself? That is not to be underestimated. Make it Ftr8/Sor12 and give the boy Tenser's and he can become a full-time warrior should the other magic fade. He won't have as many hit points as a full-time fighter (30 less on avt) but will still have more than a rogue or wizard, being around the level of a monk. He's able to counter the mobility advantage a wizard has (he can have haste and fly, dimension door, and the like) and will blast him in melee. He can stand toe to toe with a pure fighter, or avoid him. In fact, that combination is to be reckoned with (and I haven't even taken PrC's into account)

So apparently he gets all the benefits of being a magical specialist, AND all the benefits of being a fighter? Didn't you already say that was a bad thing?

A wizard will still outdo him with spells of mass destruction, fighters warriors have the edge with the better BAB and their feats or other special powers. Still, the cleric is very strong, that much's true.

Overlooking that - he HAS to use his magic to boost his use of a weapon in order to make that use worthwhile.

Would you like it more if he didn't have to use his magic and still be in the same leage as the fighter? Who would want to play fighter then?

 

[Saeviomagy]

Originally posted by KaeYoss
Not being able to use magic cause you don't have what it takes is one thing. But not being able to use magic cause you went into a dojo first to train kung fu is another: it doesn't make sense that a person can't learn to be a spellcaster later.

The central idea is that a magician in the world of SR has something unique to him or her which allows them to utilise magic, and that factor isn't present in a large proportion of the population. I believe it's a fantasy staple. The equivalent in D&D is not having a stat at a certain level. In SR you essentially buy a secondary stat in 'magic' which can never be increased.

Does it fit right into your character design, or are you using a smackdown to prove something?

That particular one is a smackdown. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have a strong/tough/soldier/martial artist though. Few players pay much attention to save bonuses, but I can certainly see them making an effort to do so in d20m

No, because all the business the PC's have been hitting have more than one type of guards. There's no Company that only hires low-level guards, or another with exclusively mid-level ones, or one with high-level guards and nothing else. When the normal guards see that they're overmatched, they call for reinforcements.

How do you stop the players inadvertantly meeting up with the high-level guards at low level then? Like I've kept saying, it requires some serious suspension of disbelief to keep the players evenly matched throughout their careers.

But they do: a flat thrashold of 10 means that quite a lot of shots will force you to save against massive damage, even in the highest level. And the low-powered point buy means that the ability scores are lower than usual.

Having just run a game which fell into a large firefight - players aren't scared of guns in d20 modern. They're not. It doesn't matter how much of a drop your opponent got on you (in this case, it was multiple opponents with readied actions), every player across the board was perfectly willing to risk being hit with shotguns, and just assume they could take a shot or two. I expected it to get quite messy quite quickly. In the end, one character did die (although he did so because he was making use of the "remain conscious" talent), and a couple more were put to unconscious (through multiple wounds). The chance of being taken down by a single shot is close to negligable, and we're talking about first and second level characters here.

So you get to learn new things, while you don't learn to do things better? Things you have been doing for a long time?

In terms of world class athletes - would you say that the worlds best is twice as good as the worlds second best? Or are we talking about fractions that are sufficiently close that a mild cold can make all the difference? The first scenario is that of the 'heroic' game. The second is that of a more 'gritty' game.

Not all the opposition will advance with you.

The way I see it it's like a soccer match. The rookies being a village team, who aren't pro soccer players, but gardeners and insurance agents and what not. The veterants are the ones from the national top leage, or from the national team, or from champion's leage, or even an international all-star team. So both the rookies and the veterans can bompete on the same stage?
Or some soldier who has just absolved his basic training and the guy who has fought in a dozen of conflicts, and has received his training from several special units. The one amost wets his pants when they hand out live ammo, the other doesn't care if he kills one dozen or two.

I've seen a number of exhibition games in which the amateur leaguers gave the pro team some serious what-for, but you're saying that they should have just taken their ball and gone home without even trying.
The other half seems to be focussed on the psychological differences between the two rather than any firm indicator of combat ability. Are you trying to say that d20m covers that?

How many games of d20M have you played about 11th-level so that you can say that they all are unconcerned about gunfire? I very much doubt that it is so.

See above. It's happening way before that.

Uses epic rules. And still, epic monsters will overshadow him. The fact is, that the DM can always put something against them that is even stronger. The characters won't become the very strongest of all unless the DM wants them to.

When you're talking epic monsters, how many times are the heroes going to save the entire world from yet another uber-godzilla? Especially given that epic rules for d20m don't exist.

No, winning the lottery is about as likely than to survive that meteor. The chances for that are quasi-nonexistant. And before someone makes me roll a d1.000.000 we just say it's impossible, that just saves a lot of time.

Let me rephrase that to something which makes sense:
"Winning the lottery is about as likely as surviving a meteor". Perhaps. The human mind is traditionally ill-equipped to deal with vanishingly small probabilities, a reason why lotteries are so effective.

My point would be - why precisely is the DM dropping meteors on people?

You won't roll for it.

Because the DM rule-zeroes the save. The allowance of arbitrary rulings by the DM is hardly a trait restricted to d20. You're the one who brought up the silly example in the first place about how SR rules couldn't cope with it. Neither do D20 rules.

I think role-playing considerations are valid ones - in fact, about the most valid. But to get to the point: The fighting might cost you precious time, or alert other enemies with the noise, or might use up resources you might want later. So you try to sneak past. If you don't succeed, you'll probably dispatch the enemy (the fighter/roge has better chance to do that than the pure rogue), but it will cost you.

No. Their advantages are on different areas, that's all.

A warrior with a lot of fighting talent (BAB +15, many feats cause of the fighter bonus feats) that can buff himself? That is not to be underestimated. Make it Ftr8/Sor12 and give the boy Tenser's and he can become a full-time warrior should the other magic fade. He won't have as many hit points as a full-time fighter (30 less on avt) but will still have more than a rogue or wizard, being around the level of a monk. He's able to counter the mobility advantage a wizard has (he can have haste and fly, dimension door, and the like) and will blast him in melee. He can stand toe to toe with a pure fighter, or avoid him. In fact, that combination is to be reckoned with (and I haven't even taken PrC's into account)

A wizard will still outdo him with spells of mass destruction, fighters warriors have the edge with the better BAB and their feats or other special powers. Still, the cleric is very strong, that much's true.

Would you like it more if he didn't have to use his magic and still be in the same leage as the fighter? Who would want to play fighter then?

Yes. I'd much prefer him to be in the same league. Just as I'd much prefer the wizard to be in the same league in other departments as the fighter. It would leave a lot less situations where the fighter has bugger-all to do except wait for the rest of the party to finish their razzamatazz (almost any time there isn't an ongoing fight in otherwords).

 

[Saeviomagy]

Fair enough. Hate to admit it, but I've done the same myself in the past once or twice…or thrice….



Yes, I originally got into Fantasy Hero because I loathed the idea that a character who's stealthy can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag of holding, while conversely a character that can fight well only knows how to fight so he always clangs an' clomps down the dungeon in full plate + shield waking up every monster on the level. I can't think of too many heroes of fantastic fiction that never did any sneaking around…

I think that the current d20 alleviates that problem slightly, but it still tends to end up an all-or-nothing scenario

When players actually base their characters off of a (reasonable) concept, then complete freedom to custom-build doesn't work against the game. It’s a wonderful asset for a system. When players are mindful of the niches that other players are trying to fill, it doesn't work against the game. It makes for the most diverse, dynamic, flexible party of PC’s you could hope for. Again, in my youth I praised HERO and GURPS for embracing these concepts…

I agree entirely. With a group of players willing to work as a team and create useful, vibrant characters, freedom is a significant benefit for a system.

But y’know what I’ve come to realize? Expecting all gamers to exercise restraint in a system that offers total-customization is like expecting them all to exercise restraint at a really good buffet: many, if not most, just can’t help themselves. They want to have a little bit of everything that looks tasty, and all they leave off their plate is the stuff that’s boring to them (heal me, cleric!). And what makes this a problem is that at most buffets—and in most games--the things that look appetizing to one person generally look appetizing to everyone.

Except for the fact that I don't think there is any game where that won't happen. Nobody (seemingly) wants to play the cleric. Why? They don't see it as appetising, and all the restrictive character typing in the world won't change that.

So most of all, I can agree that total customizability doesn’t work against the game if—and only if--the system in question ensures that there’s enough cool stuff laid-out on the table that one player can’t get them all onto his tray, with the "tray" being a representation of the limited number of points, picks, etc. that each character is allotted. The big question is, in SR is the tray big enough to allow everyone to be satisfied with their character, while small enough to prevent the emergence of a small handful of uber-templates that allow a single player to cover every major base, to be utterly self-reliant, and to never yield the spotlight to another character. I’ve seen that happen repeatedly in many “free-generation” systems, and the end result is that there’s no party, just a bunch of show-offs competing for attention and regarding each other as superfluous. Ace-of-all-trades, not jack. That complete freedom leads to ubiquity (as the templates take hold) and ignominy (as the non-templates watch the do-everythings get a larger share of air-time, including co-opting anything cool that the non-templates can do).

I think that SR has addressed many of the problems which you suggest. However, my gaming group hasn't had more than one munchkin in it for a while now (and even when they are present, they don't overshadow the other players). I think SR rewards the generalist to a significant degree, and thus it's easier to produce a party which synergise well (they have a large body of skills in common - typically some stealth, some athletics, some form of combat ability, be that magic or tech, close or ranged etc, and they each bring some further skill to the team).

Heh, Saev, it’s not that I’m saying no one will like it—I’m saying that all-too-often the wrong ones will like it, lol. What I realized after years of frustration playing in those other systems, never truly coming away satisfied, is that it’s just like any other freedom; when it is left unchecked it winds up becoming abused. A point-based system allows more freedom and as a result offers greater potential for abuse. It’s all a matter of how much you’re willing to trade off the former for the latter.

Essentially, we are at a crossroads of gaming philosophies, and they are philosophies which can’t help but prioritize one aspect of the game over another. You are prioritizing the desires of the individual player (who should have the potential to create the exact character he wants), while I am prioritizing the gaming group as a whole (because the game has needs other than allowing everyone to have their ideal character, such as encouraging players to form a cohesive, interdependent unit).

Except I don't think the class-based system does that. With the same type of players, unwilling to make any form of accomodation for others, you STILL end up with a group with no cleric, or a group with no thief, or a group who are all fighters or... whatever. Groups which are fundamentally lacking in some department, where everyone treads on everyone elses toes, and where everyone is trying to be the best without regard to what the party need. In this case, without severe regimentation(like allocated character classes), I think you'll always get that. It's a function of the players and not the game.

OK, here’s where I’d like to take a serious looke at that tray I mentioned. to boil down whether or not Shadowrun leads to that uber-template problem. As has been previously-stated, Shadowrun is a skill-based system, so let’s look at the skills. I don’t know’em all of the top of my head, so I’m going to provide a list of generic RPG skill categories. By all means, tell me what I’ve overlooked in regards to SR and point out my mistakes.

• Combat skills (Firearms, Armed Combat) Allows you to overcome NPC’s through direct force.
• Bypass skills (Stealth)—Allows you to overcome hazards and obstacles between you and your objective through subtlety.
• Social skills (Etiquette)—Allows you to circumvent and manipulate NPC’s.
• Equipment skills (Vehicles, Electronics)—Allows you to operate/construct/epair equipment that can perform physical tasks..
• Information skills (Computer, Knowledges)—Allows you to identify an unknown quantity (creatures, objects, people, etc) and perhaps provides insight on how best to deal with it.
• Healing skills (Biotech)—Allows you to cure damage and other negative effects.
• Fluff skills (Dancing, Pottery)—Allows a player to mimic skills that exist in the real-world, but have little or no practical game applications.

I’d like to classify magic skills in there, but I’m not sure what Conjuring, Sorcery, and Magic Theory really do anymore.

Typically they do something very similar to a skill, but in a different way and with a cost.

Once we have this list straightened-out, here’s what I’d like to figure out:

1. What skillsets absolutely essential in order for a team of Shadowrunners to be effective?

1. 
   That's entirely dependant on how the 'runners want to do business. If they're willing to just run away whenever there's a fight, then they could potentially restrict their abilities to bypass skills (I include electronics there, as it's very much a bypass skill), and take nothing else.
   
   Alternately they could ramp up to the opposite end of the spectrum, and take nothing but combat skills.
   
   However, like a character, specialising too heavily in one department will most likely lead to weaknesses in another.
   

   
   [*]How quickly would a Shadowrun team reach a point where characters had all the essentials covered and start to either overlap each other or simply bring non-essential skils to the group?
   

They wouldnt. In D&D, an entire group made up of rogues CAN be successful via non-conventional approaches to problems. In fact such a group will most likely result in significantly more teamwork that a group which (say) has only one member capable of a given task. Only the rogue scouts, and everyone else sits back and waits while he does so. Only the bard gathers information. Only the wizard summons demons and asks them secrets man was not meant to know.

I think that group synergy is primarily something that is the responsibility of the players, and barring rules which specifically relate to interaction between player characters (like the dying earth RPG), rules will have very little impact on that.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Originally posted by Saeviomagy
Few players pay much attention to save bonuses, but I can certainly see them making an effort to do so in d20m

I beg your pardon? I don't think d20M offers better reasons to raise your saves than D&D.
There are a couple of guidelines (stereotypes, if you will): fighters have low will saves, rogues have low fort saves, clerics have low ref saves. Smart persons usually exploit that. Any obvious fighter can expect to be the prime target of mind affecting spells or harm. So every warrior that doesn't try to increase his will save will be possessed, held, or dominated half the time when fighting against a spellcaster worth his salt. Iron Will is a must for them, especially for fighters.

In terms of world class athletes - would you say that the worlds best is twice as good as the worlds second best? Or are we talking about fractions that are sufficiently close that a mild cold can make all the difference? The first scenario is that of the 'heroic' game. The second is that of a more 'gritty' game.

The worlds best isn't twice as good as #2. But he's twice as good (and better, far better) than an amateur - except in a 'gritty' game obviously, where the outcome of the great match FC Bayern München versus Quetschemembacher Hobby Soccer Team (who hardly get 11 people together, and have substitutes only if they all can get the day off for the match) is uncertain. Excuse me, but that's just rediculous. I prefer to take the "staged combats" where the party fights someone with their powers (and, often enough, much weaker foes, that are just a diversity - or, sometimes, an adversary they better run away from).

I've seen a number of exhibition games in which the amateur leaguers gave the pro team some serious what-for, but you're saying that they should have just taken their ball and gone home without even trying.

It was just a analogy. I know that there were games where the sure favorites lost - but you forget that in RPG's, we ain't talking about a friendly match, where the champions won't give 100%, but against a real threat with weapons that cann well kill them. They have adrenaline pumping through their veins and won't pull their punches.

And of course they should play even they know they can't win. It's an experience for them, and losing won't make them lose the face (while the pros will face some humiliation if they lose). It's no fight to the death...

The other half seems to be focussed on the psychological differences between the two rather than any firm indicator of combat ability. Are you trying to say that d20m covers that?

The vets do have more experience. They do have a better BAB (so they can shoot better), they have a better will save bonus (which is usually used for morale checks if they do come up). So I think it's in there.

See above. It's happening way before that.

The example above shows that those players are quite reckless. I don't think that it's the norm. If one of those "bulletproof" characters just because of one or two unlucky rolls, they will be cured of that.

When you're talking epic monsters, how many times are the heroes going to save the entire world from yet another uber-godzilla? Especially given that epic rules for d20m don't exist.

They can very easily be adapted. You don't get spoon-fed everything.

Let me rephrase that to something which makes sense:
"Winning the lottery is about as likely as surviving a meteor". Perhaps. The human mind is traditionally ill-equipped to deal with vanishingly small probabilities, a reason why lotteries are so effective.

I know, lottery is really a tax on people who are bad at maths.

My point would be - why precisely is the DM dropping meteors on people?

He won't. It was just an example. It could also be making a strength check to remain on your feet if a dam breaks in front of you.

Because the DM rule-zeroes the save. The allowance of arbitrary rulings by the DM is hardly a trait restricted to d20. You're the one who brought up the silly example in the first place about how SR rules couldn't cope with it. Neither do D20 rules.

It's in the rules that some things are impossible and therefore you don't get a roll (or one that you can't beat at all, like DC 50 for a 1st-level character's jump check or something). On the other hand, it was said about SR let you roll everything, even if there is only an astronimically small chance of success.

Yes. I'd much prefer him to be in the same league. Just as I'd much prefer the wizard to be in the same league in other departments as the fighter. It would leave a lot less situations where the fighter has bugger-all to do except wait for the rest of the party to finish their razzamatazz (almost any time there isn't an ongoing fight in otherwords).

Then screw the fighter. The cleric you envision is a fighter with spells as a plus.
I have played some D&D now, including fights against otherworldly enemies, and the situations where the fighter can't contribute are rare to the extreme. Same goes for other classes or character types. Of course, sometimes they have less impact than usual (and at other times, they really shine).

Originally posted by Saeviomagy
won't happen. Nobody (seemingly) wants to play the cleric. Why? They don't see it as appetising, and all the restrictive character typing in the world won't change that.

I play a cleric. And it's fun as hell. People who think clerics are dull still have the AD&D-version in mind, it seems. 3e clerics are a very versatile lot (as a whole and as individuals) and, as I said, can be quite a lot fun. It's far more than just casting healing spells.

[edit:code error]

 

[navriin]

Reading this thread has been entertaining to say the least.

I suppose I am one of the rare few who enjoy BOTH D&D and Shadowrun. Rare I say because it seems most people like one or the other, and defend there game with a fanboy's zeal.

You arguments about game mechanics are silly to a degree, it doesn't change the way the setting is done, just how it is accomplished. Both systems do the same thing in different ways.

The main argument comes from the implied deadliness level in either system. Since d20 modern has a low damage threshold, I would say the threat of dieing is there. However, most people use the HP mechanic to say d20 characters are invincible to a certain degree, which is true. You could also say a SR character can use his Karma Pool (to reroll failures) to make himself invicible as well to a certain degree, which is also true. Basically a 10th level fighter with 98 hp generally can survive several rounds of a gunfight, while a SR character with 8 Karma Pool and loads of combat cyberware can do the same.

The difference really is the on/off mechanic in d20 versus the degree of success mechanic in SR. in d20 you hit or miss, you are dead of fine, you hack the computer for all the info or you don't. In SR the number of successes you generate in a task tells you how successful you were. You get some of the info but not all, you can injure but not kill your target, etc.

Now gasp, you can actually solve this problem by yoursing you imagination! You can expand the degrees of success rule, introducing mechanics for wounds, etc, and whatever else is needed to simulate SR.

But you know what? You can do the same in reverse. You could make rules in SR to have your character become guaranteed to live/succeed in certain tasks, to only be able to pick certain skills, etc.

This is why I think this argument becomes irrelevant. If someone wants to play SR in d20 fine, let them. If someone wants to make SR more like d20, good for them. Anything is possible if you change the rules enough for your liking.

Now in the interest of time I prefer using the rules that are already threre, when I play SR I use SR rules because they are already made to simulate the theme of the world. Likewise I use d20 rules for my heroic fantasy campaigns. Both rulesets are optimized for what they do, but either, as I said, could be modified for the other.

The only real problem I see is the change in play style. in D&D you are encouraged to confront problems, rewards are given for defeating adversaries, etc. In SR, you generally want to avoid encounters, as they seriouly put your character in risk of jail time or death, or worse. You could also fix this by just explaining to your players how things are in this world, and by giving xp in D&D for *avoiding* the encounter, which is one of the most underused rules in the game IMO.

I guess my point is that let each person do what they want to. You have the right to disagree, but not to deny each other an opinion. And while I prefer SR rules for SR, I think coming up with rule mods for other systems, d20, SR, gurps, whatever is a GOOD thing. This kind of experimentation leads to new ideas, which improve the rules, but for the modified ruleset and the new rulesets to come. Stagnation is never a good thing.

 

[Benedict]

navriin has the right of it. It really is HOW you play the game.

benedict