Aberrant and Adventure! D20 books, how are they?

[blackshirt5]

I was looking through the Aberrant D20 book the other day, but didn't have a chance to get really in depth, as I needed to get back from my lunch break. How is it, and what's the setting like? For that matter, how is the Adventure! D20 book, I saw that and I like Pulp action, is it good for simulating Indiana Jones/Mummy/Van Helsing-esque games?

Also, is Trinity D20 on the queue list anytime soon, does anybody know?

 

[BruceB]

I haven't read Aberrant d20 yet, but Adventure d20 rocks. Jim Kiley et al did a fantastic job translating the concepts to d20, and there's a ton of useful stuff in it. (I've drawn it for several of my recent PDFs at RPG Now.) It also incorporates a few conceptual clarifications, particularly about Inspiration use, that reflect definite improvement on the original implementation. Great stuff.

Our design goal with the original was that it should be able to do Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Phantom, The Shadow, The Mummy, and The Rocketeer. I think the d20 version lives up to that in full. And you can put it together with, say, Ravenloft or Scarred Lands or those great race books from Green Ronin for all kinds of exotic combos.

(Declaration of interest: I co-developed the original, but had nothing to do with the d20 version beyond being a friend of Jim Kiley, who oversaw the mechanics part. I contributed a few ideas for the character classes, and that's about it. It's not my work, just the work of people I like.)

 

[JoAT]

I liked it myself, though I did have a couple problems with the book (these pretty much come down to a dislike of their use of a D&D ruleset over a d20 Modern ruleset, and the fact that it doesn't balance very well when you decide to include non-Inspired characters in the game - if, for example, I wanted to have an unInspired werebeast as a character, after the fashion of the afor-mentioned Van Helsing, I don't think I'd have avery good time of it...) Aside from that, however, I'd say it's put together pretty well, and is a great thing to get if your a fan of the pulps, but not a fan of the Storyteller system.

 

[Pagan priest]

I like it a lot, and I am about to start running a Pulp game later this month. Regretably, they made a rather serious design flaw and used D&D 3.5 as the base for the rules and not d20 Modern. They used most of the d20M feats, the wealth system, and even incorporated action points into the system. However, if you don't mind that, then there is only one ofther flaw I have found in the book, and that is the possibility of running out of Daring feats for higher level characters. Or even mid level... one of the PC's in my upcoming game is a 2 Smart / 1 Daring / 2 Aristocrat and she has almost run out of Daring feats that fit the character concept.

If I had know that d20 Past was in the works and I was not about to start a Pulp game, I would have past this up and waited for d20 Past.

 

[Ranger REG]

I like it a lot, and I am about to start running a Pulp game later this month. Regretably, they made a rather serious design flaw and used D&D 3.5 as the base for the rules and not d20 Modern.

It's a marketing gimmick. It's better to attract the much larger base of PHB owners than the small base of d20 Modern Core Rulebook owners.

HOWEVER, I find myself keeping my d20 Modern book (or the MSRD) close to me for frequent references, as there are some rules texts that seem to be missing or felt incomplete.

Despite all that, Adventure! d20 is a pretty decent ruleset with a very colorful setting.

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot. I was hoping they would break White Wolf's tradition and try to include an index page(s). Another flaw of Adventure! d20.

 

[Longshadow]

I liked Adventure! and I'm very snobby in my pulp tastes. It helped that I was already a big fan of the ST version. It did an OK version of 'porting in with the d20 ruleset, but, really, would have had to have done a pretty pisspoor job for me not to like it.

As for the Abbie d20. Ugh.

I'm trying to think of something nice to say, but nothing comes to mind. I was a big Abbie ST fan, and I simply did NOT care for the way the d20 rules were done to treat the setting. Other people on the WW boards have said that they liked the serious powering down of the powers set, but I feel that it no longer represents the published setting. In order to make Adventure, Abberant, and Trinity work on the same power scale, Abbies must now be of ridiculuously high levels to represent even many of the characters that were middle of the road in the ST version. The "name" biggies need 60-70 levels to do (No, that wasn't a typo). Doesn't work for me. YMMV.

Oh, well. I already came up with an M&M version of Abbie, so I'll make due with that.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Adventure! and Aberrant d20

I really like Adventure! d20, my only problem is that a few daring feats and knacks suffered in the translation (I have a thread on the d20 Modern board about that) and that the character sheet and the index weren't in the book (I started an Index, but I haven't gotten around to finishing it). It has replaced Pulp Heroes in my heart as the game I want to play pulp in, need to translate some of the stuff into Adventure! I am also working on using V is for Victory (sigh, the loss of Polyhedron) to keep my game going until WWII.

As for making it d20 Modern, my answer is an emphatic NO! NO! NO! IMHO. Sorry, but the Pulps had strong stereotypes that can be answered by having specialized starting character classes. d20 Modern starts out too generic for a Pulp game (this was a unanimous agreement from my group when Modern d20 Pulp came out). It would be fine for a more realistic or modern cinema based game, but not for the pulps (something more cinematic than base GURPS).

As for Aberrant d20. I am glad the book came out, but it is way underpowered. Also the Mega-Ability scores aren't granular enough to translate the various novas out there. As another poster said I have created my own version using Mutants & Masterminds, using stuff from Aberrant d20 to supplement it (I use hit points because that is what I am most comfortable with starting is Con + 1d6 per level, I just make Aberrant levels +30 power points per level with a +2 to the power stacking cap and 1d10 HD and the Aberration of course, I use 10 + Power Level x 4 + Str mod + Int mod + Con mod as quantum pool and make the powers cost per level/3 rounded down as the quantum cost of the power, and Hero points go well with Archetypes and Dramatic Editing, and I use the NPC classes for normals).

 

[Ranger REG]

Oh, well. I already came up with an M&M version of Abbie, so I'll make due with that.

Um, by default, don't you start as a PL10 character in MnM?