Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Cyberpunk? If not, do you want one?

[Dias Ex Machina]

As I mentioned also on the Paizo message-board, as the sales for Amethyst Renaissance come in, I started thinking about our upcoming espionage / cyberpunk setting, NeuroSpasta. Originally, it was designed for 4th Edition, but the book is mostly fluff and not much more would be required to develop a Pathfinder variation for simultaneous publication.

Being a newcomer to the community, I honestly don't know if this ground has been already covered. Has there been a cyberpunk game developed for Pathfinder? And if so, was it good? Not saying mine would be better, but I can try, and we have pretty pictures.

Dias Ex Machina.

 

[tylermalan]

I have never heard of a full-on cyberpunk setting for Pathfinder and would personally be interested because I love everything cyberpunk! This is despite the fact that I find it very difficult to play.

Regardless, I think the closest thing may be ENWorld's Zeitgeist setting? Isn't that sorta steampunk?

 

[ahayford]

Steampunk and Cyberpunk aren't very "similar" other then technology being the driving force of the setting.

 

[Jester David]

The closest I can see is Infinite Futures, but that's broader and less focused at CyberPunk. Looks like a niche to be filled.

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

The feel we are looking to recreate is that of the Shirow Masamune works of Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell. To that end, we decided to make hacking non-grid/map-based and more about abilities, programs, viruses, and die rolls. We have a good number of cybernetics as well. We're also introducing four races based on your extent of transhumanism. Any questions people have I'll be happy to answer.

 

[ahayford]

I'm just throwing this out there...isn't Pathfinder kind of inherently grid based?

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

Yes it is, but from my personal experience, hacking is generally a job for one person--the hacker in the group (I've never had a group of just hackers), so we didn't want to create an entire combat environment and take time away from the other players.

Plus spacial hacking is kinda anachronistic, a relic from the old cyberpunk and this one is more inspired by modern versions of the genre, IE Ghost in the Shell. GITS had the occasional graphical simulation, but not to the extent of measuring a value of your attack based on where you are "standing" in this virtual environment. I hope that came off as making sense.

 

[tylermalan]

I am actually interested in how you handle hacking as a whole. That was probably the hardest part of Shadowrun for me and my players.

 

[Systole]

First off, I like Pathfinder, but I haven't seen it transferred to other settings in a way that I like. (Sorry, Modern Pathfinder.) I would be interested if it worked well, but ... it would have to work well.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but saying there are four new races doesn't really grab me -- races are easy to make and fairly simple to balance. Functional, balanced classes are really what's going to make or break Cyberpunk Pathfinder. What are you doing for character classes? Are you planning on using Modern Pathfinder as a base?

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

First off, I like Pathfinder, but I haven't seen it transferred to other settings in a way that I like. (Sorry, Modern Pathfinder.) I would be interested if it worked well, but ... it would have to work well.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but saying there are four new races doesn't really grab me -- races are easy to make and fairly simple to balance. Functional, balanced classes are really what's going to make or break Cyberpunk Pathfinder. What are you doing for character classes? Are you planning on using Modern Pathfinder as a base?

This project began because of the work DEM did with Amethyst Renaissance, our Pathfinder product. Amethyst is a science fantasy with eight classes already created. Our plan was to use them as the baseline and transfer their basic structure over while also adding in the new hacking class, the manipulator.

NeuroSpasta would be released for 4th Ed and Pathfinder about the same time. The GSL version would be smaller because it uses our previously introduced Ultramodern4, which people can purchase or download for free. Because we're not doing that with our Pathfinder book, and since we can't ask people to buy Renaissance to play NeuroSpasta, we are including all the elements from that book you need. This would make the Pathfinder NeuroSpasta book larger than the GSL NeuroSpasta but we plan on making their prices the same to compensate those who already own Amethyst Renaissance.

As for the setting, we are in now way attempting to emulate the setting of 2020. This is a wholly new idea in the genre, though obviously, the rules will be present for people to homebrew a more classic cyberpunk game. Our game attempts to create a "plausible" geopolitical atmosphere 90 years in the future after a devastating environmental collapse.