So the question becomes whether cybernetics make magic more tiring or more difficult when casting spells. If it becomes more tiring since you have less "essence" then strain costs should increase.

If it is more difficult then it could be a combination of setback dice and difficulty increases or automatic threat (or even failures) that are gained as casters get more implants. Each .5 Brawn (or fraction), add one threat to the casting check. The only problem with this is that casters with a high Brawn can have more implants before loosing their ability to cast and will accumulate more potential threat.

Alternately you could do a combination of the the above options.

As a side note, in Shadowrun, characters can take enough physical damage to reduce their essence. This should be added to the Crit Table somewhere above 120 (I dont have the book in front of me).

18 minutes ago, lyinggod said:

So the question becomes whether cybernetics make magic more tiring or more difficult when casting spells. If it becomes more tiring since you have less "essence" then strain costs should increase.

If it is more difficult then it could be a combination of setback dice and difficulty increases or automatic threat (or even failures) that are gained as casters get more implants. Each .5 Brawn (or fraction), add one threat to the casting check. The only problem with this is that casters with a high Brawn can have more implants before loosing their ability to cast and will accumulate more potential threat.

Alternately you could do a combination of the the above options.

As a side note, in Shadowrun, characters can take enough physical damage to reduce their essence. This should be added to the Crit Table somewhere above 120 (I dont have the book in front of me).

3

Well if you go by the Shadowrun rules. It lowers your magic stat, leading to ups Difficulty and upping the possibility of drain, also lower how powerful of spells you can cast.

using Genesys we have three ways to handle this that I think models this effect(in a Genesys way).

1. Add black dice.

2. Upgrade the difficulty.

3. Downgrade the skill.

4. Add extra strain.

you could also do sort of combo of above.

I think number 4 does not model what happens in the Shadowrun system but is more how to spell has been handled so far in Genesys.

with number four once you add that more then once it's going to start adding up fast.

after working all this out I'm kind of liking number 3 or perhaps 3 and 2/1.

adding cyber just makes your caster more of a mediocre spell caster but never stop them from casting fully.

15 minutes ago, adairhammer said:

Well if you go by the Shadowrun rules. It lowers your magic stat, leading to ups Difficulty and upping the possibility of drain, also lower how powerful of spells you can cast.

As you said, harder to cast and more draining. The question is how closely are these going to be modeled in Genesys. Increasing both strain and difficulty, if applied correctly, will provide the necessary encouragement for mages to, not only not go nuts with cyberware but to avoid cyberware all together. A straight increase of difficulty and strain for each per level of brawn used might be excessive. However the question needs to be asked regarding how hard it is for a essence 1 caster to do magic, in SR, compared to an essence 6 caster. Is it appropriate to approximate the severity of casting difficulty in Genesys? If the an essence 1 caster, in SR, has a very low chance of successfully casting a spell and will pass out after only two attempts then perhaps increasing strain and difficulty per point of Brawn would be appropriate.

17 minutes ago, adairhammer said:

adding cyber just makes your caster more of a mediocre spell caster but never stop them from casting fully.

I havent taken a close look at the last two editions of SR but in earlier editions, if caster has a low essence (between 1.1 and 1.9) and takes sufficiently critical damage, he can loose a point of essense resulting in his essense being less then 1. It takes at least an essence of 1 to be able to do magic at all. If this is to be modeled in Genesys then this potential needs to be taken into account.

Cyber could be a cap on casting ability? No cyber means you can cast anything. 1 Cyber means max of Daunting. 2 = Max of Hard. Etc.

2 hours ago, lyinggod said:

As you said, harder to cast and more draining. The question is how closely are these going to be modeled in Genesys. Increasing both strain and difficulty, if applied correctly, will provide the necessary encouragement for mages to, not only not go nuts with cyberware but to avoid cyberware all together. A straight increase of difficulty and strain for each per level of brawn used might be excessive. However the question needs to be asked regarding how hard it is for a essence 1 caster to do magic, in SR, compared to an essence 6 caster. Is it appropriate to approximate the severity of casting difficulty in Genesys? If the an essence 1 caster, in SR, has a very low chance of successfully casting a spell and will pass out after only two attempts then perhaps increasing strain and difficulty per point of Brawn would be appropriate.

I havent taken a close look at the last two editions of SR but in earlier editions, if caster has a low essence (between 1.1 and 1.9) and takes sufficiently critical damage, he can loose a point of essense resulting in his essense being less then 1. It takes at least an essence of 1 to be able to do magic at all. If this is to be modeled in Genesys then this potential needs to be taken into account.

here how magic works in 4e-5e and how cyber effect. (in short form. base on starting char ). cyber lowers the magic stat by one and lowers the cap by one(If I recall that's only 5e) for each point essence lost. if your magic =0 then are no longer magical. if your essence =0 your no long alive.

casting spell first you pick a force for the spell. the force must be lower then your magic rating x2

the force is how many 5 or 6s you need to roll to succeed (1 dice = 1/3 of a success on avg). you roll a number of dice(d6) = to your magic skill(max of 6 in 4e, 12 in 5e)(6 is cap at the start and normal for focused char) + magic(max of 6-essence lost)

then you need to resit drain(does not matter if spell worked or not). drain = force of the spell +/- a number. normally combat spell are 1-3 depending on the area of the spell and most none combat spell is -.

every success removes one point of drain you would take. the dice you roll = your magic stat + a second stat. (normally will or cha depending one type of caster. ). it is stun unless the force of the spell is over you magic stat

other effect cyber/tech has is lots of spell (exp healing) are harder on cybered up people.

so if you had a magic stat of 1 you could still could with a roll of 13( max dice in 5e(avg 4) 7 in 4e(or starting cap) and a drain of 7-8 dice. (unlikely given you just burned all your magic.) you could cast light spells and alot of out of combat stuff but it would not be powerful. people dont take drain alot in shadowrun from my plays in it. your only really losing one dice but you max powerlevel you can cast at is going down by two. I think the math works out so that you would take less drain on avg. but if they both cast on the same power level the person with the lost magic is more likely to have unhanded drain. by about 1/3 of a point of drain per magic lost.

I would not want players to have to select force as (1. most players I have had its seems hard time trying get their head around what force to cast and it add what I see as needless compaction. 2. does not feel very genesysy)

this is why I see just adding strain does not model this well . that does not lower your power level just lowers how long you can cast. black dice/upgrade/downgrade works better for that. less likely to cast harder spells and more likely to end up with leftover threat(added drain). this models both parts of magic in shadowrun to me.

sorry for any poor spelling I'm dyslexic

9 hours ago, TheSapient said:

Essence is modeled by the Brawn cap on Cybernetics and by the penalties that come with them.

So I went back to double check I wasn’t misremembering but the brawn cap was dropped in Genesys for the Strain cost.

Not that you couldn’t use it anyway but just clarifying

What about this? This system would include cybernetics that count as a partial cybernetic (e.g. data jack = 0.2 cybernetic). Cybernetics both reduce the maximum difficulty spell that can be cast, and makes casting more difficult.

I think this allows for minor enhancements for casters, or minor casting for more enhanced characters. Of course, to cast at all, you need to have a career that grants a Spell Skill, so the dedicated Street Samurai is not going to summon the occasional spirit.

A friend of mine and I have been toying with an idea I had one day at work. Now I want to preface this by saying I've only played SR once (SR5 to be exact), but I remember the game fondly. One of the mechanics that really stuck with me that I'd like to incorporate into a SR Genesys game is burning edge.

The idea that my friend and I have been working on is to say that our SR Genesys game doesn't use Story Points, but rather Edge Points. Edge can be spent in all the same ways Story points can, but with one addition. A player can say they'd like to Burn an Edge. After the declaration, all other players at the table (GM included) must agree to the burn. Then, the Edge point is removed from the pool for the remainder of the session. The player who Burned the Edge automatically succeeds at whatever skill check they were attempting with a net result of 1 Success and 2 Triumph.

There's a catch, however. For every Edge Point missing from the pool, the GM can, at any point during the session, add 1 Despair to any check after it has been rolled.

Any feed back on this would be appreciated. We thought it was a fun idea.

againstI'm not even sure you need to have the effect in Genesys as it's not a deadly as Shadowrun. burning edge in Shadowrun is normally only used in rare cases. I'm not sure if we want this the same when it moves to Genesys or modeling as spending all your luck for the moment. It's most common use I have seen is saving you from dying. the balancing of the burning edge is the cost in XP and less luck in the short term(next session). I think it is normally a mistake to make anything besides advancement based off XP as this make the effect that players never want to use. it becomes something that only used if there is no other choice. the other issue I see with burning edge in Shadowrun is for one-shots there is almost no reason not to spend them as its only long-term consequences.

here some alt ideas around how to model burning edge without changing how story points works or only changing it slightly (ie group pools). Unless its a bonus to getting xp like how you get heroic abilities. some of these could be changed to last more then one session to model longer term effects.

any of these, edge can be spent to auto-succeed or save your life, perhaps other effects.

1) players must spend all story points in their pool (min 2). (shows spending all their luck for the moment)

2) spend a (2?) story point now and declare they are burning edge. next session the gm start with one extra story point(from the player pool or the pool is larger), spending you luck now for less luck later. (trading the effect for now for luck being against you later.)

3) remove story point from the pool till next season or perhaps next time the gm spends a point its removed from the pool (less luck to go around)

4) some sort of system where the spending, receiving between gm and players becomes out of balanced

(example, there is an extra pool I will call 'burned' for now between pc and gm, when a player spends a story point, 'burned' is cleared into gm pool. if a gm spend a story point the 'burned' less then the number of edge burned it goes into 'burned' else it goes to players.) (more extream less luck to go around)

5) everyone gets a number of edge points as they earn xp, they can spend them as ie 'burn' them to save their life or auto-succeed, they only get a new one at XP thresholds. (this is more true to how Shadowrun does it.. but the one I like the least)

could also be a combo of the ideas listed here.

Agreed with @adairhammer . I've never seen anyone burn Egde except to not die, and allowing PCs to burn "Edge Points" in Genesys - which is a 100% renewable resource - you will never have PCs ever worried about dying.

If you just want to create a "Super Story Point" effect, sure, go for it, I really don't care.

Why not just use

Impressive efforts thus far! A lot of good work seems to have already gone into a conversion.

It was inevitable that Shadowrun would be a popular conversion. In a pre-viz way, I looked to Shadowrun for my upcoming cyber-noir game (until Android is released) and I stumbled upon

Shadowun: Anarchy which was deliberately made for less crunch and more narrative. It was so good I actually contemplated adopting it wholesale until I came to my senses.

I recommend that anyone interested in cyber-spells and such take a look.

Love the idea of SR in Genesys. The system is perfect for it and wont take much to implement.

Some of the issues here are being a little over analyzed I think. The core book has excellent rules for Hacking that should already cover hacking very well. It already has the 'spell' structure that was recommended before. It may need a little extra added to it if you are not happy with the variety, however the actions are generic enough that narrative fluff can be added to the actions and you have a very robust Hacking system ready to go.

For Essence I believe the core book addresses this as well with a really good suggestion. The amount of cyberware you can have that actually boosts stats and skills is somewhat limited by slots. You could easily allow players to take more than what is allowed by the book. However the limiting factor of using Strain seems perfect. However I would say that instead of reducing Strain Threashold you just limit how much you can install based on your Strain Threshold. Then in game play allow player to use their strain to its fullest with one exception. You would have a secondary Strain Threshold (a Casting Strain Threshold) that is your Normal Strain Threshold minus the amount your would be reduced by Cyberware. You can only cast with this new lower threshold. This would quickly get to zero as you cyber up. You may also want to pose set back or increased diff as that amount of cyberware increases.

The net result of this would be you would only have to track one more value, the amount of strain loss from cyberware.

To each their own, and Shadowrun is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Though I have a couple of the fourth edition books, I guess my fondest memories have always been in the second edition era. As such, my preference would lie with a Magic stat, and an Essence stat. I fully realize that this would mean modifying the Genesys toolkit to a greater extent than simply accepting a couple of the Genesys Core additional rules 'as they are'.

Also, I have been toying around with making a 'Priorities System' like in 2nd. Priority A would give a Magic rating other than 0, Skills and Attributes would be handled by bonus XP specifically used for those skills and attributes, a high priority in Resources would allow the character to start with the better lifestyle, more contacts, more cyberware, etc. This would also mean not all species would have to be created 'equal'.

"But why not just play 2nd edition Shadowrun then?"

Good question. The only real answer I could give now, is that I really like the narrative dice system from the time I first laid hands on the Edge of the Empire book. I like the FFG game mechanics far better than the FASA mechanics, but they had this certain... 'flavour' with stuff like the interaction between Magic and Essence, or the Priorities Character Creation. Something that didn't just come from the background of the setting, but from a bit of the game crunch as well.

All of which is not to say there aren't good ideas in this thread or the files linked to. It did invite me to think. Would a priority A on Magic simply give a Magic rating of 5? Or would it allow you to purchase a new Magic (Tier 1, ranked) talent (which would have the Priority A as a prerequisite)? Essence 6? Or Essence 5 to keep it more in line with the other ability scores (and adjust Essence reductions accordingly to scale)? Use soe or all of the 4th edition metavariant species such as gnomes, cyclopses, dryads and wakyambi?

Questions, questions, questions...

?

@Xcapobl I too am a big fan of the 2nd Ed. era. I would think using a 5 or 6 on essence would depend on how you want to cost cyberware, and to a degree how cyberware impacts your characters stats and skills. If you go with the Genesys cyberware you would probably need to adjust for cost and go with the 5 Essence. If you wanted a more diverse and granular cyberware system (more of what is in SR) then you probably want to have the 6 so you can just bring the costs across without adjusting them much. You would then need to define exactly what each piece of cyberware gives you. May require quite a bit of balancing.

If you do this I would love to see what you come up with. Please share with us if you do!

@Krashwire My guess here would be to use Essence 5 max. That would put it on the same level as the other characteristics. That would also mean one would have to adjust the cyberware Essence cost to reflect the maximum Essence stat being 1/6th lower than in Shadowrun 2nd. Following that, I could port over the cyberware from any (2nd edition) Shadowrun product, convert its Essence cost to 5/6th.

The only problem is, how to handle the effects of cyberware. I can easily convert Skillsofts. Rating 1 of a Ranged (Light) Skillsoft would provide 1 rank in the Ranged (Light) skill, rating 3 would provide 3 ranks, etc. Higher cost for higher ratings would be a given. Other cyberware is simple to convert too. A cyberlung with an oxygen tank that allows you to "breathe" underwater for one hour in SR2 would probably work exactly the same in SR-Genesys. But would a smartlink system work the same? Will a smartlink system that projects a crosshairs on your retina depending on where you aim the smartgun barrel provide a boost die like an Aim maneuver an dwould it be compatible with a true Aim maneuver? Or would this change the aim maneuver into an incidental once per round? Any other effects? How would Wired Reflexes affect the Genesys initiative system? To determine all that indeed takes time, as a lot of this requires tinkering on the individual item level.

I'm just glad Genesys has done some ground work in species. Elves, Dwarves and Orcs are in the fantasy part of the core book. Four types of Humans in the base rules too. And there is a Shadowrun-to-Genesys conversion out there, it just doesn't convert everything I had hoped it would, a lot needs to be worked in from the ground up. But that is, of course, all due to personal opinion.