We are proud to announce that the game is finally FINISHED all PDF files are free and ready to be sent out.
A small group of us have been slaving over creating a fun and fully functional Dungeons and Dragons style game set in the Mass Effect universe.
We have set it about 11 years before the first Mass Effect, allowing players to forge their own stories, but it is also possible to role play the entire game story if you so choose.
We started this project about a month ago, we are based out of Maryland and there are only 3 of us, but we love this game so much we wanted to create something fun and new to help not only us but our fellow fans to survive until the next game and beyond.
We have titled it Dawn of Shadows and Spectres or DSS for short.
There are other Mass Effect tabletop games, (I think there is one complete version out there) However, we have played them, and found a great many holes in them. Our game strives to be as complete and thorough as possible, but we will need your feedback to keep improving it. If this takes off, we will happily make expansions based on your recommendations.
While this will be our rough draft it is intended to be a living document, we included out contact email in there ([email protected]) so you can give us feedback and share your stories.
This is extensive, we wanted to include as much content as we could think of, all the guns, armor, upgrades, and a large number of ships are included with all the information you need to pick up and play as well as a custom created character sheet to help guide you through this process.
(Please email us at [email protected] for a free copy, or from the dropbox links below.)
Thank you for all your support, the galaxy is counting on you!
Love,
The Dawn of Shadows and Spectres Team
Dropbox links*
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zp5tbs24tr40f69/small-phb.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/le5fjn4iliwu03k/small-bestiary.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/54u6iwrfkl6zdf5/small_ships.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ht1j3zoxrcd3b89/Chapter%2012%20CHARACTER%20SHEET.docx?dl=0
>>43727016
Thank you OP. Have a bump for your efforts.
>>43727664
The Galaxy thanks you friend!
post more miranda tits
>>43728654
Anything for our fans
>>43727016
I thought you guys got C&D'd
>>43728874
Not yet, we made the appropriate mentions in the pdf and it has been sent to Bioware, nothing back yet. However we are giving it a week before we announce any future plans.
>>43728737
now show me the booty
have you had it play tested yet?
>>43728975
Our fans are horny im assuming
>>43729226
We have playtested but we are always happy to hear feedback as well as your adventures
>>43727016
Seems interesting. I look forward to reading through it.
>>43729333
Hey, Miranda is (canonically) a work of art.
>>43727016
>d20
>six attributes
>3 saves
>skill ranks
>race size modifiers
Anything else you wanted to lift directly from 3.5?
>>43729364
Thank you! Please feel free to give feedback we love hearing from people
>>43729392
She is my personal sempai
>>43729417
DSS is a varrient of 3.5 with a lot of the simplifications and improvements made in 4, we tried to make it simple but still keep the aspects of 3.5 in its development. It also makes it easier for dnd fans to be able to jump in without having to relearn a lot.
>>43729460
>>Variant of 3.5
Into the trash it goes.
>>43729460
Hey that's great. As long as it isn't D&D for reta... I mean 5E we're golden.
>>43729418
Is there supposed to be a cooldown on powers? I can't find one listed anywhere.
>>43729392
She is asynthetic human, meaningshe dies at the end with destroy ending.
The Class and calss skills page could be sorted out a little better. The Sub-headings for the powers are the same size as the headings for the classes, so its a little hard to read. And you could stand to have a few stat blocks set up at the end for easy GM reference and use.
I do like the weapon/armor mod system, though.
>>43729771
She's a synthesised human. She was designed, but she's still made of the exact same stuff as humans.EDI, however, is probably dead. Sorry, Joker.
>Hey, a new homebrew system, might be neat
>it's based on D&D 3.5
Well it was worth a shot.
>>43727016
Interesting. Thank you for your hard work guys. After ME3 shit the bed, I've been looking forward to playing my own adventures in the universe. Will give it a look through.
I've gotten that feedback about 3.5 a lot, but I think you will find it does not play like 3.5 at all, it was just simpler to design it with some aspects. Most of it is original ideas.
Powers do not have cooldown, we went through extensive balancing to ensure that will not break anything
Thank you for the note on the subheadings! We will fix that in our next release
I hope you will all at least give it a shot, I think you will find it is very unique and will allow you to have some amazing advenutres
>>43729491
I think you will find it does not include the bloat and retardation from 3.5
>>43729657
There are no cooldowns, but we balanced it extensively to prevent that from breaking the game
>>43729781
Thank you again, we will make note of this and be sure to fix that.
>>43727016
>A small group of us have been slaving over creating a fun and fully functional Dungeons and Dragons style game set in the Mass Effect universe
>dungeons and dragons
Holy shit why the fuck would you do this?
>>43729987
Thank you so much! I hope you will enjoy it, I just wish I could get a response from Bioware.
>>43729855
I am sorry that you feel that way, I completely understand how 3.5 is very... broken, but I think you will find that the system is very different.
>>43730372
After playing so many fantasy games, I wanted out party to move into something new and fun, and we are all Mass Effect fans. I really didn't like the existing systems so we decided to make something not only we would love, but other fans would enjoy too.
>>43730351
I was worried you'd say that. How is endlessly stunning all enemies in a 30 ft radius with no save not breaking the game?
>>43730452
There is a save for most everything. If we specifically missed something please let us know.
Everything that does damage or stuns should have a DC.
>>43730435
I think he meant why you used D&D as a basis to build your project on. And I'd like to second that question.
Why not use generic systems like Fuzion, Savage Worlds or GURPS? Or at least Systems that already do Sci-Fi.
this looks pretty cool, I'll suggest running a one-shot with my group next time we meetup. Thanks man, I've always wanted to do a mass effect game
>>43730484
Ah that makes sense.
We were going to use pre-existing sci-fi games but they did not capture how incredibly details and extensive Mass Effect is. It is a big reason for why we made this instead of using Stars Without Numbers. I think you all will find that a large part of the system is all custom.
>>43730520
Please do! And let us know how it goes at [email protected] we would love to hear feedback and your adventures!
>>43727016
>>43728737
>>43729333
Literally the worst person in the series. Fucking hate her. I would've had her killed somehow, but she was fucking useful.
Anyway! Thanks! I've been dying for a ME tabletop for some time and all the other ones online were terrible.
Going to check this out and see if I can't convince my friends to play.
>>43730473
It has a save for half damage, but the save doesn't mention anything about the stun.
Either way, the save doesn't really matter, since you can very quickly pump the DC up to mid 20s from the starting level, if I've read the rules correctly.
>>43730571
She was pretty to look at!
Thank you so much! Please let us know how it goes we would love to hear feedback and all of your adventures!
>>43730594
The reasons the DCs are so high is because it is not hard to get your Fort/Reflex/Will up to very high numbers, we did that because it would require an entire rework of the document to try and lower them. We tested it and it worked really well, it encouraged the use of the ABS system and the use of boosting powers instead of going straight offense.
>>43730594
I also forgot to note that when orginally the save negated all damage, players were getting destroyed and the powers became completely worthless, our rework of the half damage saved a lot of headache.
>>43730620
>She was pretty to look at!
That's not everything. She pissed off my go-to Biotic (Jack).Whom I also romanced.Thank God Miranda didn't piss off Grunt too.
She fucked with team dynamics too much. Lot of baggage came with her too.
>>43730738
Could always have a campaign where you throw her into a Thresher Maw~
>>43730643
>Very high numbers
The class progression seems to go up to 12, and you can get a +3 from armor. With 5 points on top of an 18, you're looking at +6. That's a total of +21.
At max level, with maximum investment into a Reflex Save, you still have a 20% chance to fail the saving throw for Singularity at rank 3, and it's only 50/50 odds at max ranks.
And that completely ignores the fact that Singularity is an At-will AoE, and as-written, making the saving throw doesn't protect you from the stun effect.
>>43730769
That is an interesting note, I remember when we tested what your max Fort could be we got to around 31 ish. We will look at it and see what we can do, I like your point about the effects though, I will make note that saves negate the stuns, staggers, and other effects.
However, imagine you are fighting an Asari Matriarch, will you really be dodging and resisting her effects that often? Just a thought.
>>43730764
Too useful... And she's good enough never to outlive that regardless how long she's going to live.
I wasn't happy with like half the choices I made in Mass Effect 2 and 3, but goddamn I saved the fucking galaxy.
>>43730803
>However, imagine you are fighting an Asari Matriarch, will you really be dodging and resisting her effects that often?
Exactly. You won't be doing it very often at all. If she spams singularity every turn and the part didn't start off far enough away from eachother, you could very easily get stunlocked, especially for members with lower Reflex saves.
>>43729805
>>43729771I heard that it was just Reapertech that got killed by the Crucible blast.So whilst EDI and the Geth (assuming you didn't kill them) might get a bit rattled, perhaps lose a few terabytes of memory, they'll still be around.
>>43730846
This is correct, but your GM will have this at their discretion, no resonable GM would just spam singularity over and over again just to dick the party, thats bad roleplay IMO.
However, think about entangle, it is horrible to try and get out of that, but you eventually do and you have to adjust your combat techniques to get past it. Another point to note is if people play different classes they _should_ not all be next to each other.
Sam ur a roody poo
Your skill system is shit.
DC 20 to speak in front of the Council/convince some port guards to join your company?
Let's see. Let's assume I roll an 16 on my Wisdom. I'm a human, so my Wisdom is now 20, a +5 bonus. I can't have more than +4 to a skill at 1st level, so I'm at +9.
This already gives me a 55% chance of success. At first level.
I then drink some Serrian Ice Brandy. +4 Wis. I'm at +13 to my roll. Convince somebody with your +13 to give you a Sunfish. You're at another +2, so +15. Which means a 75% success rate.
So yeah. At level 5, I am at a +20, meaning I can't fail.
>>43730940
So are you Joey
>>43730958
You make a good point, we considered raising the DC checks for non combat skills but realized you would run into an issue where players would have to focus on one skill alone if they ever wanted to be "good" at it.
The DCs were meant to be example, it is full GM discretion at what they wish to set the DCs at. Not to mention we made the fish and ship models meant to be late game items to spend all your hard earned credits on.
Another note, how do you plan to roleplay out drinking alcohol before a meeting with the council?
Only my thoughts, we will revisit the skills when we release the next version.
>>43730910
>That's bad roleplay IMO
You've based the system off of 3.5. Terrible players and GMs abound.
Besides, why would it be bad roleplay for a Matriarch to do the most effective thing and continuously force-choke the entire party? If she drops them, they're just going to shoot and potentially kill her. Should she mix it up out of her own sense of fair play?
Besides, of greater concern would be how the players use the lack of cooldowns.
If you walked into a 3.5 or Pathfinder thread and told everyone you had houseruled the game to give Wizards an at-will, longer-ranged, damaging version of Color Spray, they would call you mad.
>>43731024
Simple. The same reason people need to take a drink before talking to a hot chick, to avoid freezing up.
Not to mention that while looking through your abilities, ALL of them are combat. Not utility, some very faint control. You built... maybe an okay combat system - maybe you did good, I'll need to run the numbers - but the rest of it feels flat an uninspired.
And you need to trash half the inventory system. Too many mods that look/sound the same and do the same thing but a little bit better. I understand ME1 had the same idea, but IIRC people hated it.
>>43731026
We took aspects from 3.5, it is not 3.5, but I see where you are coming from.
Remember the fight in ME 1? Benezia would not spam her stuns, she called on her commandos to deal with the players.
We removed cooldowns because we were able to balance the weapons with the ABS system, so it is not strategically sound to just spam powers over and over again.
>>43727034
I like the thought and the concepts, but basing it on 3.5e kind of crushes any purpose to levels above 6 doesn't it?
Skills becoming trivial and all.
>>43731050
Right, but how would you sneak a drink into a council meeting? Not to mention you would need to find a way to get a council meeting in the first place.
I encountered the same comment on other forums and we have already made note that a vast majority of the skills will have notes on how to use them out of combat, but players imagination proved to make them very useful in our playtests.
All of the mods come mostly from ME3 which simplified a lot of what ME1 did, we wanted to give players the same depth and choice that Mass Effect is known for. Your gun is an extension of your play style, we do not want to limit that at all.
>>43731074
In the actual mass effect game, you had cooldowns so you weren't just using your powers over and over. While NPCs might not have had the exact same restrictions, there was an explanation for why Biotics didn't just spam the same thing over and over.
You've gotten rid of the cooldowns, which means that apart from meta-gaming that 'it wouldn't be fair or fun to spam it', the characters themselves have no reason to not spam, especially for more effective powers.
The same fight would be even worse, since even if some of the party wasn't stunlocked, the presence of any other enemy combatants vastly stacks the odds against them.
>>43731080
While the skill DCs may seem low, we worked to balance them so that you will not become broken at later levels. At level 15 our play tests showed that even with some skills highly maxed, they were not ensured success.
>>43731123
I did not support the removal of cooldowns at first, but after playing it, it worked out a lot better than expected. GMs would not want to ruin their game by spamming, and players will find spamming Incinerate over and over will lead to their quick demise against Barrier and Shield protected enemies, imagine it like one think counteracts another, it deters the spam of abilities especially when some weapons can do much more damage than powers.
>>43731164
Except Singularity's counter is to wait for them to get bored of spamming singularity or for you to eventually succeed a save.
>>43731203
Is that not how you get out of entangle? Not to mention as you get farther in the game when the players Singularity encompasses a bigger range, the enemies will not all be standing together, and the enemy saves will scale with the players, there should never be a time when in a fair fight the players or the enemies are stuck in singularity forever.
>>43731234
>Is that not how you get out of entangle?
Is that something in your system?
>the enemies will not all be standing together
While the GM has some control over environments, it's a spacefaring game. Combat in small corridors and rooms in spaceships is a given.
>enemy saves will scale with the players
Which means the power that can deny 1 or more enemies their turns for extended periods is very strong.
Having an at-will chance to make half the enemies in the fight lose a turn and take a bit of damage is spectacular, especially since Players can coordinate to do it more than once.
>>43731400
Entangle is a spell in DnD that holds enemies in place over a large area, it is a fairly low level spell.
That is true, and you may defeat the forward force, but what about when you advance into the bridge? I understand your points but someone who specs into singularity is giving up the choice for a strong combat power, we want it to seem worth it.
It is very strong, but imagine you are an evil character and are fighting a special forces group. If you use Singularity on the main force it will allow you to focus on the snipers and give you a strategic combat advantage, but good luck getting that entire force stunned in Singularity.
And is coordination a bad thing? Mass Effect is a squad based game, you want to be able to be prepared for everything.
>>43731117
Well, a +11 on my roll would probably be good enough to at least ASK for a meeting, especially since I'm a PC, and probably found some sort of plot device.
As far as drinking it, hip flask, or drink it right before.
And it's good that you're getting feedback, but honestly, skills are what was one of the most broken things about 3E/3.5/PF, other than pure spellcasters.
As far as mods, what i would suggest is: stick to the simple +1-5 to hit and to damage, with maybe some special effects. The magic weapons was one thing that the aforementioned systems did right.
>>43731462
Yes, but Entangle uses up a spell slot. Which, at early levels, is a precious resource. You want, if not Vancian magic, then cooldowns, or maybe spell points or something.
>>43731473
Yes I would agree, but you would need that plot device, I don't think you be able to just walk on the citadel, get a meeting, and then convince the council to disband. Perhaps bring their attention to something, but in the end that was all Shepard could really do.
We REALLY appreciate the feedback, honestly, this has taken off far better than we ever expected. I will make notes of this and at the moment we will most likely raise the skill DCs, but they were meant to be example, GMs can set them to whatever they would like.
For the weapon mods, I feel that if we simplified them the weapon would not feel special, there are potentially thousands of combinations for how your weapon could work, and Mass Effect doesnt exactly allow for magic weapons. While i'm open to changing it, I would like to see players play around with the mods for a bit before we decide on that.
>>43731497
And Singularity uses up a power slot which is also very valuable. I actually really like the point system that is something we may implement after review of it.
>>43731462
It also doesn't completely stun them, just prevent them from moving and make some attacks more difficult.
You also don't need to stun the entire force to make use of the singularity. 2 turns of stunning is 2 turns of them not shooting you, as well as the damage as gravy.
And you can do this every turn. Even if you're not stunning all the enemies in a fight, trading your turn for 2 or 3 of theirs is very useful.
>>43730571
>Literally the worst person in the series.
>Tali and Jack exist
Merciful fuck, were they fishing for waifuism in ME2.
>>43732552
>hating tali
Then again I only played ME1
>>43732552
>>43732738
>tali
ashley may have been a racist with survivor's guilt but she was right about the aliens
>>43731966
I see your point, would your solution be the implementation of a point/cooldown system or do you think making it so a successful save negates the stun?
Miranda's face is so fucking ugly, don't know how you could be attracted to it.
>>43736771
This. I never understood the attraction for something with a manjaw so hard she could be used as an anvil.
I'm not very versed in 3.5 but for biotics that are more powerful why not have a longer cast time to off set the more potent the spell. 3.5 does still have those right? Trading being vulnerable for an OP power is kind of a staple of the genre. I could be totally wrong of course just trying to keep the thread alive.
I chose Kaidan over Ashley. And my choice was validated later when I got toshoot the whiny bitch assin ME3.
I regret nothing.
>>43738192
>Kaidan
>not a whiney bitch
Nigga wut?
>>43738340
>reading comprehension
>>43727016
Neat. I'll take a look when I get back to my PC.
Not gonna lie though, that's a pretty terrible name.
>>43736771
>>43737300
Yvonne Strahovsky is actually pretty hot. Bioware just fucked up her face.
>>43737321
You make a very good point, we toyed with the idea of longer cast times but found that eventually it would make biotics so vulnerable that their powers became a lot more useless than weapons.
Thank you though! I love that this is lasting so long we need all the feedback we can get.
>>43739003
Really? You're the first person to say anything about the name lol what is wrong with it?
I hope you enjoy it when you get a chance to look at it.
For anyone who is regularly following this, I just wanted to say thank you so much for the feedback, we have taken note of it and will incorporate it into the next release. I also wanted to note that one of my good friends got it into the hands of one of the developers at Bioware, heres hoping we get some sort of acknowledgement and not a very nasty cease and desist that I will hang on my wall!
>>43738340
He was calling Kaiden the whiny bitch he shot in ME3. Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension, anon.
>>43730890
Not according to the ending cinematic.
>>43740234
Dawn of Shadows and Spectres is quite long and sounds a little pretentious for Mass Effect.
Calling it Spectres and Shadows would fit much better, if you want to stick with that theme.
Personally, I'd just call it the Mass Effect RPG and save the names for Rules and Expansions.
Taking a look at the rules now, but have you seen the Star Wars SAGA Hack for Mass Effect? I ran a few games with it a while ago.
>Reading the Maniponia Backstory
Not gonna lie, I cringed a little.
Have you guys switched the lore up?
>>43742387
Huh, I guess we never thought of it that way. We went with the dawn of name since its set 11 years before the events of the games. Plus theres a lot of them called just Mass Effect RPG, we wanted to try and stand out.
And no I haven't seen that but i'm looking it up now
>>43742448
No we went off the histories that we could find, what is wrong with Maniponia's backstory? It was never meant to be anything other than a rough example.
>>43742387
I have seen this before, we felt like it left a lot of the important aspects of Mass Effect that needed custom creation.
So glad I still have the Fate ME pdf from before it got C&D'd. 3.5 a shit
>>43742593
DSS is not a 3.5 system, we took some of the aspects but I think you will find that it plays a lot differently than 3.5
>>43742473
>Maniponia is a Female Turian, 26 years of age and standing at just about 5ft 11”. She is the daughter of a Turian Sargent and a minor diplomat to the Systems Alliance.
Aside from Sergeant being misspelled, this is a fine start to a backstory.
>Because of her mother’s ties with the Systems Alliance, her father pushed her to sign up for the Human N7 program to help her become stronger and advance their family’s standing as progressives who wants friendly relations with the Humans.
This is where things start to go bad. Here's a list:
>Official name is the Interplanetary Combatives Training Program. (Unofficially, it's called N-School)
>N-Program is Alliance Special Forces. IE, you'd need to enlist in the Alliance Military, which is open to Alliance Citizens only. Which means Humans.
>N-Program is invite only, meaning you have to be exceptional and you can't just join.
>At age 22, she was sent to Jump Point Zero (Gagarin Station) for her training. For a brutal year, she pushed herself to try and join the N7 elite forces, but in the end she was not able to cut it. She knew that she had dishonored her entire family line and could not bear to face her father without making a name for herself.
Another List:
>It's Jump Zero.
>N-School is located on Earth, in Brazil.
>N7 is a Vocational Code, with "N" meaning Special Forces and "7" indicating proficiency.
Nothing major after that, but I highly recommend you read the Mass Effect Wiki Thoroughly.
>>43727016
Miranda does look a fair bit like bethany here...
>>43742679
Full props to your knowledge, I thought we had fixed that mispelling.
My logic behind it was that in an effort to try and build good diplomatic ties with the Turians they would admit those in to the N program who otherwise would not make it.
But yes we made errors and I as a Mass Effect fan feel personally bad about it.
>>43742851
The logic isn't bad, if it was considered some kind of Joint Forces Training Exercise. All Turians are required to serve in the military anyways.
>>43730571
Kaiden and Ashley are both objectively worse.
>>43743383
It needs rewording however, do not worry! This will go into the section of comments we need to fix.
>science fiction game based on dnd 3.5
>only spent a month on it
It's shit.
>>43745115
It was actually 2 and a half months but we weren't really counting.
Could you tell us exactly what was shit about it?
