[d20 Modern] Common Rules Errors

[hammymchamham]

In the spirt of this thread: http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47033, I ask:

what are some common d20 modern rules errors. Their is a possibility I will be running a d20 modern one shot sunday night (the regular DM can't make it). This will be mine and my fellow players first time playing d20 modern. I've run (and am currenly running) 3rd ed DnD games in the past. So what are some common things.

Thanks for the help

 

[Skade]

You cannot use a firearm to make an attack of opprotunity. That might be just my groups mistake, but it took some convincing on my part that it was true.

 

[denzoner]

actually, you can't FIRE a firearm as an AoO. but you can pistol whip or butt-stroke instead.

Stabilization is a FORT save DC 20 not 10%.

Dont forget about MASSIVE DAMAGE THRESHOLD (DC 15), which is equal to CON (plus any feats and such).

And non-lethal (sub-dual) damage is handled differently (controvesial issue, but try the system first before implementing a house rule.)

because of the guns, ranged attacks are more common. When prone, the target's def will be +4. (-4 in Melee) remind them to use Cover and Concealment, A LOT. make sure your goons use it TOO.

Saving Throws and Combat rolls ONLY (never for Skill or Ability Checks). Natural 1 is always a failure and Natural 20 is always a success. (Found officially in the d20 Modern book, and only in the FAQ for D&D.)

Don't forget that End Bad Guy should have some Action Points TOO.

Hope that helps, good luck. It's an Awesome system and easy to learn, especially if you're a pro with D&D 3ed.

 

[DanMcS]

You gain wealth every level by making the wealth check, plus you get points automatically based on your profession score. For the longest time, we thought the profession skill only gave another point when its rank went up, not every level. When we discovered our mistake, my character got a spontaneous +5 wealth correction, heh.

 

[takyris]

Actually, I believe that you can only make a pistol-whip AoO with a firearm if you recently used the firearm as a melee weapon. Your last attack for the round "sets" the weapon as either a melee weapon or a firarm until your next turn. At least, that's what I vaguely remember from the whole discussion on disarming firearms:

If the person with the gun attacked last round by shooting, it's a ranged weapon. He can't make an AoO with it, and if he's attacked for Disarm purposes, it's treated as Attacking a Held Object.

If the person with the gun attacked last round by pistol-whipping, it's a melee weapon. He can make AoOs, and if he's attacked for Disarm purposes, it's treated as an Opposed Disarm check.

If the person didn't make any attacks last round, it should be treated as a ranged weapon, assuming that the character is lining up shots or preparing to fire or whatever -- unless they specifically say that they're getting ready to conk people on the head with the butt of the gun.

-Tacky

 

[denzoner]

AoO w/ "Ranged" Weapons

I doubted myself for a minute. But this is an important issue because guns are a bit staple of the d20Modern diet. Here's the answer from the FAQ which are answers from Charles Ryan himself or some other designer.

Q: 1) If a character in a threatened area provokes an attack of opportunity from an opponent with a pistol or rifle, the opponent can make an attack of opportunity with their pistol grip or rifle butt. 2) Also, attacks of opportunity cannot be made by using a ranged attack, but can be made by using the melee aspect of an otherwise ranged weapon (e.g., stab with a throwing knife, whip with a pistol grip).

A: Both of these are correct. Now, here's one point you might consider: If a melee attack form does not appear on the melee weapons list, it probably counts as an improvised weapon. For example, whacking someone with your crossbow is probably an improvised weapon attack. In such cases, the attacker suffers a -4 penalty (see Improvised Weapons on page 109).

Q: During a full-attack option, can a character switch freely between the ranged and melee aspects of pistols and rifles? For example, could a character with a rifle and 3 attacks due to high BAB, shoot at one target, strike a melee opponent with their rifle butt, and then shoot another target? If they alternate between modes in one full-attack action, do they suffer an attack penalty to either set of attacks (or both)?

A: The attacker can switch between modes freely. The attacker provokes attacks of opportunity any time she makes a ranged attack within a threatened square.

Make sure you check out the ERRATA and FAQ threads on the official message boards:

ERRATA:
http://boards.wizards.com/community/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=291;t=002414

FAQ:
http://boards.wizards.com/community/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=291;t=000266

They aren't official YET, but they're good enough for me.

 

[takyris]

I DID check the official boards. Make sure you avoid condescending tones in your posts.

For what it's worth, you're dead right. I was extrapolating a different Official Quote for AoO purposes -- I'd never gotten a response on the question I asked, which was essentially, "Can you take AoOs with guns, even if your last action was to shoot?"

CR had just answered this question, regarding whether a gun was considered a ranged weapon or a melee weapon for disarming purposes. Here's his official quote:

"The default answer is that a firearm is a ranged weapon; therefore you use the rules for disarming opponents with ranged weapons. However, if the opponent last used his weapon as a melee weapon (making a pistol whip, rifle butt, or fixed bayonet attack), treat the firearm as a melee weapon."

Since he didn't respond to my next question, I assumed that he'd said his fill on the matter, and that "treat the firarm as a melee weapon if the person holding it last used it as a melee weapon, and as a ranged weapon otherwise" was meant to apply to all combat situations. Apparently, the "however you last used it" rule only applies to disarming and not to AoOs. Contradictory and somewhat silly, but bang-on by his two official rulings.

-Tacky

 

[denzoner]

Sorry Tacky, I was directing my reply, about checking out the FAQ and ERRATA to the original poster [Hammy], not you.

I was confused about that ruling too, so that's why I looked up the final say. and I think it's a really important issue because guns will become primary weapons in Modern.

Now, I'm curious on when should you add the -4 for improvised (non-proficient) weapons. And are there bayonets in the game. [i'm at work and dont' have access to my books.]

Hammy, has any of this helped?

 

[takyris]

denzoner,

Sorry for being touchy. I was frustrated at seeing an official response that flatly contradicted the official response that I got, as I saw it.

Because firearm butts are listed as simple weapons, I don't believe you should add the improvised weapon penalty for them. I think that if you decided to do so, you wouldn't get too many complaints, since few people will argue that a rifle butt makes a better club than a baseball bat -- the weight on the rifle butt is sufficient to hurt things, but the balance isn't geared toward using it that way. I suppose that a rifle butt wouldn't work quite as well for melee purposes as a baseball bat would, but it would work better than, say, a boom box. If you wanted to go for more realism, you could assign a -2 penalty instead of the regular -4 (and let infiltrators negate the -2 penalty just as they negate the -4 penalty for normal improvised weapons), but I think that would overcomplicate things.

And anyway, according to the basic rules, they're listed as Simple weapons.

Bayonets are indeed in the game. A rifle with a bayonet does 1d4/1d6 damage and is considered an archaic weapon -- 1d4 for the bayonet, 1d6 for the rifle butt. You can use it as a double weapon. If you take the bayonet off the rifle and use it on its own, it's a simple weapon that does 1d4, 19-20 crit. Apparently the better crit range is because you can use it with more finesse? In any event, my interpretations aside, that's the text from the book exactly as written:

Knife (the text of which uses an unattached bayonet as an example) does 1d4, 19-20 crit.

Bayonet: 1d4 for the blade, 1d6 for the butt, usable as a double weapon with all appropriate penalties. Crit 20 in both cases.

It does lead to the question of why anyone would use a bayonet when the rifle butt itself does more damage, but I dunno... maybe historically, the butt of the rifle was more useful than the blade.

-Tacky

 

[DanMcS]

It does lead to the question of why anyone would use a bayonet when the rifle butt itself does more damage, but I dunno... maybe historically, the butt of the rifle was more useful than the blade.

I don't know about more useful (you're more likely to kill with a thrust than a club), but definitely more used. Particularly in the late 19th/early 20th century, when man-to-man combat in the trenches and whatnot was more common, studies showed that the vast majority of soldiers wouldn't stab with a bayonet even if they had it ready at hand, preferring to swing the rifle as a club. Psychologists attribute this to the near range of combat- when you can look in his eyes and hear him gurgle when you stab him, you have to admit that he's human, rather like you, and then you don't particularly want to stab him. Plus, people seem to have a natural tendency to swing things when angry rather than stab- the Romans noted they had to train their soldiers well to get them to stab consistently, but then they were much more lethal in battle than the barbarian tribes they went up against, who liked to slash with their swords. But I digress.

Which one should do more damage, well, hard to say, but I think the wider threat range on the bayonet sufficiently represents its lethality. Either one (1d4 or 1d6) is sufficient to kill your average 1st level WWI conscript with a single well-placed (max damage roll) blow, or send him back to the surgery tents if not dead.