should be one inspired by the Dark Heresy ruleset about that some Anon was working on.

Haven't played it yet, but looks legit.
http://masseffectd20.freeforums.org/new-me-d20-pdf-t156.html

>>18873266

Sounds good, all a google search populated was a terrible work over at Bioware social based on Pathfinder. I'm a rookie DM and that even sounds like a terrible idea to me.

>>18873301
>d20
>looks legit.
No thanks.

>>18873266
There's also one via the nWoD ruleset that I've seen floating around.

I've also heard it can be run via Saga Edition with little difficulty.

>>18873301

Don't understand the D20 hate. Will def check it out. It's not so much a complete system. I can homebrew some I was hoping I would just have a foundation rather than letting my personal preferences overpower certain things.

>>18873368
>Don't understand the D20 hate
Once you've played a few other systems, you really start to notice the glaring flaws of the system. But, if that's what you want to use, it's your game and I am no fascist.

I would, however, recommend the Mass Effect hack for FATE/Diaspora, it's much more suitable because the whole system isn't built around the 'kernel' of pseudo-medieval combat. And much easier to homebrew things for.

There is a ME pen and paper RPG already.

>>18875073
No, there isn't. There's a bunch of different conversions for varying systems, including Eclipse Phase, GURPS, Star Wars SAGA edition, FATE/Diaspora, and nWoD, off the top of my head.

Alternity works well for it. It works well for ANY scifi setting, really. The amount of work required to convert it would be extremely negligable.

>>18875500
If you can find the books:P

ORE would be simple enough.

There are two Savage Worlds conversions that I know of.

>>18875597
http://www.savageheroes.com/conversions.htm

I like Savage Worlds. It would work with Mass Effect really well.

>>18875500
alternity has not particularly wool thought out dice mechanics. Love the books, must have foyer the takes on start system creation. But when your modifiers are duce it gets convoluted pretty quickly.

Alright, /tg/.

Your next campaign is set in the Mass Effect universe after the events of the third game.

The Victory Fleet is trapped on Earth. The Mass Relays are destroyed. The Normandy has disappeared into the infinite blackness of space.

Your characters are soldiers/technicians/doctors/mercenaries that were part of the Fleet.

What do?

>>18875690
Head to Pluto and pick up Fwiffo!

>>18875690
Twilight: 2283
Obviously, I start carving out a little empire of my own.

>>18875711
BUT WHO WILL PROTECT PLUTO?

>>18875716
Them pesky Krogan say they have a right to several Earth continents and the entirety of the moon. The Quarians are orbiting around Pluto. The Turians are bitching at the Krogan, who are in turn venting their frustrations on the Salarians, who are running themselves ragged trying to build an impromptu Mass Relay from the wreckage of thousands of Reapers. Everyone in the Fleet is looking for an excuse to let off some steam.

Of all the things you could do in that situation, saying that you're founding a new empire is possibly the worst.

>>18875797
>Of all the things you could do in that situation, saying that you're founding a new empire is possibly the worst.

Says you. I'm interested in MY survival.

>>18875690
The galaxy is going to need some repopulating.

Volunteers?

>>18875843
>I'm interested in MY survival.

Which is precisely WHY you shouldn't do it. You're stuck in Sol until further notice. You've got the combined firepower of every species in the galaxy stuck firmly up your ass. Everyone is anxious to get home and quite a few of them are super-pissed at humanity for destroying the Mass Relays (they blame Shepard, whom they never really liked anyway.)

If you try and "take over" you will be proper fucked.

>>18875874
That's another thing people tend to gloss over.

In the Mass Effect universe, humans were considered to be only slightly better than quarians in terms of galactic race relations. The majority of the Council species did not like them.

Now those lovely bigots are stuck in Earth's orbit with some very large guns and a perfect excuse to blow off some steam on a species they hate. Humanity will be forever blamed with the destruction of the Mass Relays.

>>18875582
Pirate Bay. There's a full torrent up, and the books are out of print, with no intentions of reprinting. Nobody cares if you pirate it.

>>18875680
Dude, the step-bonus system is simple as hell. Figure out how many positive steps you have, and how many negative steps you have. Add them. If you're attempting a very hard shot (+3) with an accurate weapon (-1) then you have a +2 step penalty. Roll the relevant die (d6) alongside your d20. It's not as if the step penalty/bonus scale isn't printed right on your character sheet.

Alternity has better dice mechanics than basic d20, and I like the system more than dice pools. Plus, a system designed from the start to deal with modern combat is better for Mass Effect than anything based off d20, since that's built to duplicate medieval mythic heroes, and guns don't fare well under it.

>>18875953
Rather overblown. The other races were mostly nervous about humanity both being rapidly ascending to power and often being dicks about it; it wasn't entirely the same thing, and humans were happy to kick around quarians too.

>>18877824
many systems i see can handle mass effect well.

alternity is one of them yes

others named have been star wars saga, rogue trader, and traveller

any game with space opera at its core could do mass effect justice with minimal reflavoring. seeing how mass effect is a space opera and all

>>18878075
Rogue Trader and Traveller should be fine, but Star Wars Saga Edition suffers many of the same problems of d20 Modern with inflated HP totals and inability to do serious damage with guns at higher levels. FATE or Alternity are better options than Saga Edition.

>>18877824

I just spent approximately 10 minutes re-reading my physical copy of the Alternity PHB and the Mass Effect Wiki and was able to come up with this:

Turian

STR: 4-14
Dex: 4-14
Con: 4-14
Int: 4-14
Wil: 4-14
Per: 4-14

Functionally, Turians are very similar to humans in physical and mental capabilities.

Special:

Predator senses:
-Gain the Perception skill at rank 1 for free.

Metalic Plates:
-Ignore radiation effects in up to a class 2 enviroment, provides 1 point of Low Impact armor.

Claws:
-Unarmed attacks from Turians may be either stun or wound damage, at the Turians choice.

Dextro-amino acid based biology:
-Food eaten that was not grown in this type of biosphere will either provide no nutrition or at worst, may lead to severe allergic reactions.

That's pretty much everything you'd need to play one in Alternity.

>>18878314
true. but the force rules for saga edition are almost perfect for biotics. except theres no light or dark side, its all just pulled from one pile of stuff to do with 'use force' or 'use biotics' skill. but i can also see that causing some balance issues as characters run around with renamed dark and light force powers mixed

>>18878349
Is there anything you could use to represent the fact that turians are unable to duck?

There was that WOD one

>>18878349
that's pretty good. please continue with the other races. i will be monitoring this thread with great interest now

>>18878371

Alternity had rules for psionics that could just as easily be used for Biotics.

But I agree with the other pro-Alternity poster; it was a good system, elegantly simple and easy to play and run, and no matter how awesome you got it was entirely possible to get fucking shot dead. I loathe rpg settings that have firearms and scaling up hit point systems, it just feels silly to me.

The nice thing about Alternity is that it's designed from the ground up for this sort of conversion. It wants to be used to make any scifi setting imaginable.

>>18878411

Sure, why not? Gotham City Imposters has a 2 gig patch and I have some free time while it downloads. Can't promise anything, but I can do some.

Volus
STR: 4-9
Dex: 4-9
Con: 7-16
Int: 5-15
Wil: 4-14
Per: 5-15

Standing at roughly 4 feet of height, the Volus hail from an Ammonia based ecology on a high gravity world; this grants them quite tough bodies, despite lower physical strength and dexterity, but they are forced to wear pressure suits most places they go. Theirs is a society of headily capitalism, which promotes higher learning and barter.

Merchant:
-Gain Bargain and Interview at rank 1 for free.

Suit-bound:
-Require an enrivoment-suit at all times unless in their very specific enrioment (2 point Flaw)

Burocratic Savvy:
-All Administation tasks gain a -1 bonus.

>>18878412
you are a man after my own heart

on other rpgs. stars without numbers is one that could handle mass effect as well.

rogue trader for biotics are pretty much the psyker powers, just remove the side effects tables entirely

>>18878522
good... goood...

>>18878522

Krogan
STR: 7-16
Dex: 4-12
Con: 7-16
Int: 4-13
Wil: 4-14
Per: 4-13

Elevated by the Salarians to be used as shock-troopers in the Rachni Wars, the Krogan have had a checkered past, having destroyed their own civilization at least once through nuclear war.

Ridiculous Toughness:
-Krogan gain 1.5 times their con (rounded up) in their Stun and Wound tracks instead of the normal 1.0.

Seriously, very tough.
-Krogan ignore enviromental effects up to a class 3 enrivonment.

Redundant Physiology:
-Krogan's immense toughness means they do not suffer secondary damage effects. (normally, for every 2 wound you take one stun, every 2 mortal you take 1 wound as secondary)

the salarians would be very close to the t'sa in just about every aspect. except for the natural armor the t'sa have

>>18878851

Yeah, I agree.
Batarian
Str: 4-14
Dex: 4-14
Con: 4-14
Int: 4-14
Wil: 5-15
Per: 4-13

Baterians chose isolation from the citedel races for reasons of their own; they live in a highly militaristic and bureaucratic society with a rigid caste system. They are biologically very comparable to humans, but tend to be confrontational and highly willful.

Militaristic:
-Gain the Ranged Weapons, Modern Broad skill at rank 1 for free.

4-eyes
-Awareness-Perception skill checks are at a -1 difficulty is using eye-sight.

>>18878770
>>18878522
>>18878349
ooh ooh ooh do me next do me next!

>>18878962

Alrighty:

Elcor

Str: 9-17
Dex: 4-8
Con: 8-16
Int: 4-14
Wis: 4-14
Per: 4-14

Elcor hail from an extremely high gravity world, with tough, massively strong bodies to show for it. Their speech patterns seem oddly flat, because well over half their sensory input and communications are based on pheremones. To this end, they have to describe their emphasis and emotion, instead of allowing their voices to naturally convey it, as they are incapable of doing so.

Heavily Armored Hide:
-1d4+1 Low Impact/1d4 High Impact Armor ratings.

Weird Communications:
-All Interaction sub-skills are at a +1 step penalty unless dealing with fellow Elcor, due to communications difficulties.

Extremely steady but oh, so slow.
-Acrobatics tests to maintain balance get a massive -3 step bonus to avoid falling over. No other acrobatics skills or tests gain this bonus.

>>18878770
For the Krogan, you may want to give them the Enhanced Healing or Hyper Regeneration mutations - it represents both regeneration and the redundant organs, since it gives a bonus to resolve checks to remain standing after mortal damage.

Actually, you could give them both the Redundant Vital Organs and the Enhanced Healing mutations. Not sure what you could balance them with in drawbacks though.

>>18879081
what sort of campaigns did you primarily play in alternity? you seem to have a pretty good grasp of the system.

i started it when i found the starcraft box set, then soon moved to star*drive due to it being a much more fleshed out setting

>>18879127
redundant organs would be represented enough with their high max con and health bonus. the healing mutation seems good. but only a mild one though

>>18879081
It's not just pheromones, it's subvocal (for most races) sounds.

Maybe a specialty in VI-assisted heavy weapons?

>>18879136

I ran a Starcraft game for a couple of years and played around with it on Alternity.net, writing a couple of supplemental ebooks for it. Notably a full Ghost in the Shell style Cyberware book and a firearm supplement.

I was looking over that earlier today actually and cringing at the typos, though I'm not sure I could convince myself to go back through and fix them all now, nearly a decade later.

>>18879136
I'm the other Alternity poster, but I generally play homebrew settings. One total-war setting where there was no space travel but dimensional rifts allowed contact and trade with the other core-book species, one campaign that used Dark Matter as a base to do a generic X-files campaign, an Aliens game where everyone had five characters, and by the end of the game we were down to one or two apiece, and a couple homebrew space operas. I'm currently playing in a Firefly-esque game where the party is all crew of a ship that is horribly in debt, and we run around trying to get good paying quick jobs so we can pay our loans. Unsurprisingly, quick and well paying do not go hand in hand with low-risk or legal. It's pretty fun.

I never actually looked through the Starcraft stuff for Alternity. Was it any good?

>>18879166

These are extremely barebones; I can't fit the entire multi-paragraph wiki articles explaining fully biology into the fields here. This is just supposed to be, I dunno, a sort of "lets start here, change as needed" thing, really.

Quarians

Str: 4-13
Dex: 5-15
Con: 4-11
Int: 4-14
Wis: 4-14
Per: 4-14

Quarians are slightly smaller and slighter then humans and tend to have somewhat more dexterity. They have extremely compromised immune systems.

Suit Dependency:
-Every five minutes a Quarian is outside a clean envionment, they must make an Endurance test at +1 difficulty or contract a disease of some kind. All checks to avoid the effects of diseases are at a +1 difficulty.

Technical Expertise:
-Quarians grow up on and around space ships; They gain 1 rank of the Systems Operation broad skill for free.

Zero-G Training:
-Due to their constant exposure to space ships and the like, Quarians gain 1 rank of Zero-G training for free.

Dextro-amino Acid Biology:
-See Turians

>>18879200

It was alright, it wasn't anything to write home about.

>>18879262
>1 rank of the Systems Operation Broad skill for free
Reminder, broad skills don't have ranks. They would just get the Sys Op broad skill for free.

This all looks pretty good for being bodged up in 20-30 minutes or so.

im liking these posts, and talking of your campaigns. brings back very fond memories of my alternity games

remember to give asari a biotics bonus, sort of like how the fraal get a psionics bobus

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6226768/Alternity_Complete_Collection

ive downloaded this torrent already, has all the books, including the starcraft and dark matter ones. it should all be there

no viruses i promise

>>18879292

Right, right. I just skimmed it; like I said, its been years. If anyone wants to edit or change these feel free. I'm just tossing this shit together on the fly, heh.
Drell

Str: 4-14
Dex: 4-14
Con: 4-14
Int: 4-14
Wis: 4-14
Per: 4-14

Drell have similar biological limits to humans, much like the Turians. They hail from a desert planet and are, in fact, lizards.

Amazing Memory:
-Having to remember the locations of scarce resources over immense distances, the Drell evolved photographic memory, and gain the perk so named for free.

Desert Evolution
-Drell are immune to the negative effects of deserts, up to a class 2 environment. Drell

Str: 4-14
Dex: 4-14
Con: 4-14
Int: 4-14
Wis: 4-14
Per: 4-14

Drell have similar biological limits to humans, much like the Turians. They hail from a desert planet and are, in fact, lizards.

Amazing Memory:
-Having to remember the locations of scarce resources over immense distances, the Drell evolved photographic memory, and gain the perk so named for free.

Desert Evolution
-Drell are immune to the negative effects of deserts, up to a class 2 environment.

2nd Edition ME Table Top was much better before 3rd edition.

Everyone now runs Krogan Tomkah companies.

I can only run so many hit and run attacks with my Asari Commando company before my gunships are shot down and they just swarm me.

Also is it worth sacrificing an asari ground team to equip a unit with Widow Anti-Material rifles?

Points wise, I can see it as a waste, but the extra fire support and die rolled againt those massive infantry defense die that Krogan have might be worth it.

Might even be able to disable a few of those Tomkahs...

>>18879360


Argh, I'm not sure how I managed to double post that. I've been writing these in note-pad and copy-pasting em.

Anyway, the rest of the Mass Effect races are the REALLY alien ones. Things with dramatically different biology, or built in biotic powers. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with mapping those out, without a broader idea of how to actually do those powers within the Alternity system.

Me and a few friends ran a game in the setting using the shadowrun system. It all went relatively well. I was thinking of posting the stat blocks and rules we had written up. Since there's still an interest in ME I might get my GM's notes and post them some time next week.

>>18879363

You think thats bad, wait until the Elcor expansion comes out...

>>18879363
>2012
>Not playing Geth
Who needs to worry about Tomkahs when I can just smash them from across the field with my armetures? Throw down the points for pyros and you have a krogan barbaque.

>>18879424

But I spent all my money on these commandos, and I don't wanna pay for a whole army again.

Besides, I love my girls. When the dice are right and the dice crit, biotic explosions everywhere.

And the stock Gunships may be swatted down like flies, the ground support they provide and the ability to deploy troops anywhere on the battlefield I want has always been a huge bonus.

I may not be able to stand toe to toe with a geth prime formation, but I can sure as hell whittle it down.

And hell, if I need someone to HOLD THE LINE, I got a unit of Asari Justicars that I've been painting up...

>>18879378
hey man before you go i need an email or website or something from you. i want to make a mass effect alternity book and i want to credit you and maybe hit you up with a few ideas

>>18879400

You're shitting me.

So far all non Council races have been shafted. Krogan are nice, but too easily swamped and they have that stupid animosity rule that means your commander may have to start the game with upwards of 1/4 of his health taken down headbutting his subordinates into submission.

You're probably going to be paying an arm and a leg for those walking Elcor Tanks.

And what about orbital support? Are they going to just use the Turians?

At that point the Elcor might as well be an expansion for those cuttle bones.

Every torunament I've gone to, its Turians, Turians, Salarian STG, Turians, Turians, Turians, Asari Commandos, Turians.

It get on my last nerve man.

So, break from the races. For guns! Everyone likes guns.

M-15 Vindicator Assault Rifle
Skill: Ranged Weapons, modern, Rifle
Damage: d6+2w/d6+3w/d4+2m OR d8+1w/d8+2w/d6+1m
Range: 90/180/360
Fire Mode: F/B
Clip: - / 18
Acc: 0
Weight: 6
Avail: Controlled

Special: The M15 Vindicator uses a e-zero generator to accelerate particulate matter to relativistic velocities. It slices a tiny sliver of a specially prepared alloy block off and propells it on-target at one of two velocities, based on a toggle. After the Geth invasion, it was decided that issued weapons were insufficient at doing heavy damage to constructs, so they were equipped with disposable heat-sinks and tooled to fire at signifigantly greater velocity. In mode 1 (the first set of stats), this weapon has no functional ammo counter; it can fire up to 60000 shots before it needs to be reloaded. In mode 2, it does alot more damage, but needs to have its heat-sink replaced every 18 shots. In mode 1, the grains are accelerated to 0.03c. mode 2: 0.09c.

I've been working on overhauling Rogue Trader to fit Mass Effect. I'm pretty far in- at this point it's mostly just typing everything up and getting the various versions of my notes to match.

Anyone else trying something similar?

>>18879760
I've been doing something similar. Mainly just been simplifying stuff so far.

Though what races have you decided to include character creation rules for? I'm kind of on the fence about even bothering with some of them.

>>18880081
any race that has appeared legally in the citadel would be good for PCs

batarians too

I will like to be working on my alternity mass effect book, but i will be simplifying some of the alternity rules and reput them in the book. so you dont need to read the original alternity books to use the mass effect campaign book.

it will be a cross between the fast-play and core rules of stuff.

going to bed, hoping this thread will still be up in the morning

>>18880172

Eh, I've been reluctant to really bother with some of them, at least for the "first draft." I'm leaning against Hanar, Volus, Elcor, Geth, and Batarians. Hanar and Volus are kind of self explanatory, the Elcor always end up being really similar to the Krogan when I stat them, and individual Geth characters don't really make a whole lot of sense.

As for the Batarians, well, no one I have spoken to has expressed even the slightest interest in playing a Batarian, so I'm thinking of just keeping them as NPCs and enemies rather than a playable race. Because fuck Batarians. Same deal with the Vorcha.

Put in a archival request.
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/18873249/

A Mass Effect homebrew is really my last hope at gaining satisfaction from a franchise I once held dear to my heart.

Just popping in to thank you profusely for this shit. Seriously. I've been wanting an ME campaign forever. And I'd get to avoid Bioware's glorious bullshit writing skills.

Caught this a couple of days ago in another tg thread; there's a group of guys who are using Alpha Omega as a basis for a ME tabletop homebrew.

http://forums.cincybattletech.com/index.php?topic=321.0

After downloading a copy of AO, I have to admit I like what they're doing here. It's a crunchier system than Alternity (which I consider the next best choice to run it), and I'm completely in love with the Cycle 6-6 combat mechanic. I'd call it worth a serious look.

Plus they're using Silent Death as their starship combat system. That's some serious neckbeardiness right there; Silent Death is a *phenomenal* hex-based space combat game, and any excuse to break out actual minis instead of character sheets for space combat is always a plus.

>>18880479
Where's the bloody download link? And where did you download Alpha Omega?

>>18880502

Sorry. AO can be downloaded here:

http://www.torrentcrazy.com/torrent/2814744/alpha-omega-core-rulebook

The Encountered (their monster manual, which basically already has Brutes, Husks, and some other goodies) can be downloaded here:

http://www.4shared.com/office/tqumc0V3/alpha_omega_-_the_encountered_.html

And the homebrew I was talking about is available to be downloaded in *.doc format in the first post of the thread I linked to before.

>>18880557

Shit, sorry again. I gave you a crappy torrent. This one is WAY better, faster, and includes some extras (self-populating character sheet, etc)

http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/357636177/?tab=summary

>>18880557
>>18880566
Sweet, thanks. Still can't find the attachment to the first post though. Just says it's 'attached below'...

>>18880456
>archival request

NiggaUSrs.jpg

I'm going to assume you're new here and let you know that we have our own archives.

>>18880634
/tg/ isn't my usual stop, but it's fast becoming one.

Which of the archives are the most used?

>>18880610

Huh. I can see it, it's titled "mass effect.rar".

Here, gimme a few minutes. I'll download it and throw it up on rapidshare.

>>18880857

Well, that was quick & easy.

Here you go.

http://www.mediafire.com/?4mp7tzztedmb7dx

>>18880880
Wow, thanks.

>tg
>helpful

Had no idea there were any homebrews in progress. I'm in the midst of getting a Mass Effect game going right now, and I'm using Traveller for it. Am yet to see it in action, but so far, there's been no trouble.

Gotta say, I do love how easy it's been to adapt it's setting to that of Mass Effect, even the Psionics are easily converted into Biotics.

>>18880677
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html

>>18880677

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/

bump

bump for great justice

>>18880557
This system is complicated. Can anyone explain it in a simple fashion?

>>18882555

You have 7 primary stats. You also have 7 secondary stats. Each secondary stat is the average of two primary stats (so "Physical Acumen" is the average of Strength and Agility). Primary Stats are used to resist things or for raw attribute checks, Secondary Stats determine your dice pools for using skills.

Using skills is relatively simple - you have a 6-die pool for your skill (corresponding to your linked secondary stat). Roll those 6 dice, add your skill ranks and your field ranks (so you can have a +3 in the Throwing skill and a +2 in the Core Fitness Field, which includes the Throwing skill among others...this means you'll get a total of +5 on your die roll). Meet or beat a target number. A "very good" starting dice pool for a character is 1d8+5d6.

Where it gets fun is during combat. Each round ('cycle") is made of up 6 segments - each corresponding to 1 second of "real time". You can only act in certain segments, depending on your stats (most people start out acting in segments 3 and 6 - a real stat whore can start off with actions in 2,4,& 6). However, no matter how many actions you get per cycle, you can only roll 6 dice per cycle at most. So if you want to shoot a guy with a pistol on Segment 3 and then throw a Grenade on Segment 6, you divide up your dice pools for the "pistols" and "throwing" skills (3&3, 5&1 or 4&2). If you REALLY want to shoot the guy, you might drop 5 dice (your best 5, so, continuing from above, you throw 1d8+4d6 - keeping the 6th die to throw the grenade later) on that, and then only 1 die to check the 'nade (your single best die from your Throwing skill pool - if it was the same stat as the Pistols skill, you'd throw 1d8). Meet or beat their defense score (modified for cover, range, how much you're moving, how much they're moving...all the good stuff) to hit them.

>>18882971 cont


Magic/Biotics is actually even easier. Each effect has a list of factors (range, Duration, # of targets, etc) that apply to that effect. The better each factor gets (say, it can affect more targets), the larger the casting score. Add up all the casting scores from the various factors to determine your TN to cast the spell, then roll as many dice from your casting die pool as you can afford (given other actions in the cycle). Spellcasting is thus almost completely customizable.

There - that's 90% of the system. It started as a d20 expansion that snowballed totally out of control, but ended up someplace pretty cool. It's quite crunchy, but not much more so in practice than running a D&D spellcaster. Character creation is MUCH slower, though, mainly as a function of being point-based rather than class-based.

>>18882985
>>18882971
Thanks, that really did help a lot. One question, though: What stats are 'average' in character creation? Like how in Pathfinder or 3.5 a stat of 14 is considered 'way above average' to a normal person, and a stat of 16 is considered 'recommended if this is your main stat'.

>>18882985 conclusion

There's a bunch of reasons why I'm liking the AO choice to represent Mass Effect.


FIRST It's already roughly at that apparent tech level. Kinetic barriers exist in AO as a casting effect, for example, so make it tech-based and you've got your barriers. Omni-tools sort of exist in-setting, so a bit of tweaking and you're done. It's a system built to handle a huge variety of character power levels (stats go from 1-100), so it's relatively easy mechanically to drop ME into it.

SECOND AO doesn't have fluff that is inexorably tied to the crunch. Star Wars kind of does, for example; using SAGA to play ME still feels like you're playing Star Wars with different names. The way the Force works, for example doesn't map especially well to Biotics.

THIRD (This is probably the most important to me) The rules are specifically built to handle "smart", tactical firefights, and to resolve them in ways that feel "realistic". ME is a shooter at heart, and so using a ruleset designed around portraying that only seems right. D20 Modern, for example, doesn't model firefights especially well, given the smallish damages guns do, large HP pools, and so forth. In AO, if you go running at a couple of guys with guns while waving a sword around, and they have a bit of space and a clear LoS, you're going to get shot up something fierce practically every time. I've seen that exact thing NOT happen in Alternity, d20 Modern, SAGA, nWOD. Since that annoys me and basically my whole group (a bunch of vets), we like AO for modeling the result of that action correctly.

Finally, fuck the spam filter. I had to reformat this fucking post eight times before it figured out it wasn't spam.

>>18883041
here.

I'd like to add that if anyone was of the mind to run an ME game in this system I would definitely be interested in playing. I can't GM for shit, especially in a system I'm unfamiliar with, otherwise I'd be giving it a shot.

>>18883041

It really, REALLY depends on the power level the game is being run at. PCs start at 500 character development points (CDP), but starting attributes can vary wildly depending on racial preference. Humans, for example, start with everything at about a 10, while Nephilim (half-demon or half-angel...don't ask) *average* their stats at about an 18. All this before a single CDP is spent.

But the difference between this and something like D&D is that stats aren't everything. The most important thing stats do is give you a dice pool with bigger dice...but for the same CDP it costs to pump your stats, you can buy skill and field ranks that give you a static bonus to succeed, which is often more valuable than having a big dice pool.

I can (and did, actually) have a Nephilim rolling 3d8+3d6+7 (Small Arms Field) +8 (Rifles Skill) on her Rifles Success Checks. Nephilim can only buy 7 ranks in any field and only 14-15 ranks in any given skill. So I was averaging 24 on the dice + 15 in static bonuses (39 total). I was getting blown away by ordinary humans with only a 3d6+3d4 pool, because they spent that CDP into skill ranks and had a +25 static modifier; humans have retardedly high skill and field rank caps. We had pretty close to the same end result (a maximum possible score in the low 50s)...but I had a harder time doing things because I had so much more variance in my dice pool.

tldr; don't sweat high attributes, they mean low skills...and low attributes mean high skills. It balances out. Pic unrelated, but shiny

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Mass:_the_Effecting This one seems alright, I really want to run it.

>>18883227
Oh, that makes sense. I was trying to make a character and he ended up with scores being around 14 with a couple of outliers. In d20(can you guess the only system I've played?) medocrity is suck, and you have to specialize. Not so in this system?

>>18883227 cont

Oh, something else I just thought of. 500 CDP is for a LOW-POWER game. it sounds like a lot of points, and really, really isn't. The NPCs given in the core book are all in the 3000-5000 CDP range. Even depowering them, I would suggest starting the PCs at about 1000-1500 CDP and limiting how much they can spend on certain aspects of character creation (no more than XXX CDP on attributes, no more than XXX on Skills, etc).

Like almost any open-ended point-buy RPG, the GM has to be very clear about the power level at the table and what he expects starting PCs to be able to do (and to limit how powerful they can end up).

(I evidently have a dozen or so pics of Black Widow cosplayers in my Reactions folder, and have no idea how they got there.)

>>18883261

It can be. Or it may be a strength. It just depends on the power level the GM wants the PCs at. A lot of starting AO GMs will say something like "I expect you to be able to routinely hit a TN of 25 in your primary *thing*, TN 20 in 3-4 other *things* and the rest to taste. If you're routinely hitting above a TN of 30-ish at game on, tone it the hell back"

Another GM might add 10 to those numbers, while a third might subtract 5 from them. So it's a hard question to answer, yes?

Found a cluster map updated for ME3.

Still not perfect, misses the viper cluster from Arrival (okay, it's destroyed, but it should be included for completeness sake), the Earth Relay links to Arcturus.


Also, it's interesting that the difference between primary and secondary mass relays is never brought up in game.

>>18883305
So it depends on the GM, and probably how much the players are going to minmax. Odd, never heard of the system before today. Thanks for the help!

>>18883424

Glad to help. It's a shame the system never got more exposure. Hope you enjoy!

All my monies for a decent tabletop.

>>18883485
see
>>18880557

>>18880557
There are no weapon tables in any of the posts in that forum despite a post saying that there is. Why?

>>18883663
I think it's an attached file you need to be a member to see.

>>18873249
I have a Mass Effect homebrew based off of Star Wars: Saga Edition.

I thought it prudent because Mass Effect is basically Star Wars with a palette swap. It works well and my players liked it when we ran for shits last year.

I kinda want to give AO a try but the default setting sounds so silly that I have a hard time believing that people who came up with the setting managed to create a good rules system. I know it's silly, but hey.

Give it a shot. It's mechanically great. The core setting is a bit weird, but actually works in practice. It's more functional fluff wise than anything FASA ever came up with.

Looking through the Mass Effect AO-text file, what are the numbers next to species? For example the +14 next to human or +20 next to asari?

>>18883126
>has never been on the receiving end of autofire in nWoD
Seriously. Shit's lethal, especially if you're unloading your entire mag into a target (which is par for the course for its standard setting; you're gonna panic the first time you run into something supernatural).

But I wouldn't use nWoD for a Mass Effect game, especially not after that fucking mess of a conversion some idiot posted here. I would use Savage Worlds, however.

My god, the illustrations on AO weapons. In the near future, the weapons still look the same as today, except sillier.

>I'm sure adding an axe to the barrel of a shotgun is a brilliant idea. What could go wrong?

>>18885393
my favorite is the stock flail lol

so AO is pretty much shadowrun with a heavier taste on arcane magic? oh an a 4 page character sheet?

>>18885603

Eh, the character sheet for my mage in SR4 takes 5 pages; my Pendragon sheet is 11, and even my D&D 3e Fighter was 3. Having a large character sheet isn't a bad thing.

>>18883663 No weapon chart

Sorry; I forgot to post the download link for the weapons conversion back in >>18880880.

Mea Culpa.

>>18885393 WTF weapons.

I KNOW. For all the rest of the book as great production values, their gun images are insane. Half are retarded, and a third are ripped directly of of real guns (Glock 17, MP5N, etc). The melee attachments to the guns make sense in-setting (as you get more badass, melee becomes more important, so you don't have to take an action to get your axe when there's an axe-blade on your barrel). Besides...isn't a weapon upgrade in Mass Effect basically an axe barrel on your shotgun anyway? AO already covered it - no conversion required!

>>18886999

JESUS H FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME TODAY?

Here's the weapon conversion document.

http://www.mediafire.com/?5ldof34abugzy29

Bump for more AO stuff. I find the system intriguing.

I just spend a solid two hours trying to figure out the setting, and have decided that I can't. Whoever's made it must have been on something pretty strong.

That said, the combat system is marvelous. It even solves the 'one turn after another' thing that plagues just about every other system, making it all feel like it happens pretty rapidly. Then there's the Prepare and Delay actions, which solve a lot of problems. In Dark Heresy, you can delay a half action to take later, before your next turn (by using either a half or full action, depending on the GM's interpretation of the terrible wording). There is no downside or upside to this at all. And when you do use that half action, it really fouls up as GMs I know have a tendency to say, 'you can't interrupt the action but you can go right after it', which completely defeats the point of delaying the action.

Just little things like that make me happy.

>>18875797
> everyone needs to let of some steam

Victory Fleet Laserball League!

>>18889041 I just spend a solid two hours trying to figure out the setting, and have decided that I can't. Whoever's made it must have been on something pretty strong.


If it's just being reskinned over to make a Mass Effect game, then the setting doesn't matter all that much, right?

bump

>>18889041

We've always done that in a way that if you express that you're readying for something, you can do your readied action as a reaction, but if the thing ou're readying for doesn't happen, you lose your half action.

>>18889256
>to the right of that picture

>>18894860
He beta tested your mom guy?

Or the huge thunderbigcats?

>>18894869
I think he's talking about thick Cheetara.

>>18894876
>mfw I just noticed that

Do these people not have any shame?

Eclipse Phase and Mass Effect mixture is pretty neat IMO.
You can find the threads in sup/tg/ archives.

>>18894890
She's got on Hooters-denier control tights and it still looks like she's packing jello hams in there.

>>18894902
I don't want to think about it anymore

can we change the topic to mass effect

>>18894899

I don't remember seeing like rules for Eclipse Phase Mass Effect port, mostly just musing how Eclipse Phase's setting would interact with Mass Effect's setting.