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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cergorach" data-source="post: 641706" data-attributes="member: 725">In Shadowrun three Abilities make up the ability to dodge, those a Quickness (Dex), Intelligence (Int), and Willpower (Wis), these make up the Combat Pool. This is the 'stat' that can be used to 'dodge' bullets (or rather screw with the attackers aim through making yourself hard to hit). The same stat can be used to better hit someone. Armor lessens the impact of damage doing items (such as bullets and swords). Body is used to 'resist' damage (soak the amount of trauma the residual effects of a hit).In D&D (D&D!=D20), Dex, Armor, and certain Feats make up your ability to be hit. Hit Points represent both your ability to evade and to soak damage.To me there are three different parts to evade getting hit (actually there are four, but luck is represented through the dice), skill, experience, and natural ability.In Shadowrun these three things are stuck together in the three Ability scores that make up the Combat Pool. Through experience those stats are raised, it's skill and training that raises them. The starting stat represents natural ability.In D&D natural ability is represented through the Ability scores (although these are also raised through experience/training). Feats and Hit Points are experience/skill.Armor is handled in D&D as an ability to get hit, in Shadowrun it's factored into the ability to resist damage.Doing physical harm is weaved into Hit Points in D&D, but in Shadowrun it's the Health Monitor that represents the actual health and Body is used to represent health level.Both game systems are designed to simulate combat, both are not realistic, and one is certainly not more realistic than the other (they are after all game mechanics and not simulations). Shadowrun is more transparent than D&D though, each stat has it's own job, non overlap, the downside is that a lot of resolution (aka.dice rolls) and record keeping is neccessary by the user. D&D on the other hand makes it's mechanics more dynamic (less dice rolling) by grouping components.D&D is not D20 (D&D!=D20), look for example to Spycraft or Traveller D20. These are all D20 systems that add a lot of transparancy to the D20 equation but do not reduce the dynamic flow of the game. D20 is just a system that uses D20s to resolve actions, it doesn't need Hit Points (Mutants & Masterminds showed us that, although it isn't directly labeled as D20).I think that Shadowrun can be a successful D20 game, but it wouldn't and shouldn't be a D&D clone (or a D20 Modern clone). Classes aren't really a problem, in Shadowrun each character has a certain role, these are in effect classes. A game that uses classes doesn't have to be inflexible...</blockquote>

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