d20 Modern Damage Rules Problems

[comrade raoul]

Those of you who make the point that "you should actually play the game" are largely right, I think. But my rules are meant to address conceptual problems, not gameplay ones. If they're successful, they won't change the gameplay at all. The "extreme damage" rule only makes a significant difference to the character's Fortitude save if they take really absurd amounts of damage in one hit (more than 50 points), or if they've been pummeled for a long time and taken an awful lot of non-lethal damage.

And I do stand by the pummeling rules. How else are you going to model a drawn-out fistfight between a pair of guys who can't hit for more non-lethal damage than their Con scores (this'd be fairly common, actually, especially for ordinaries), or a boxing match between master boxers with great Fortitude saves? They wouldn't be able to do anything to each other, unless someone got lucky and scored a critical hit (which, for the pair of ordinaries, might not even be enough) or rolled a 1 on their Fortitude save (for the boxers). And that would just reduce the fights to the person who turned got to be the first one to get a lucky or unlucky roll...

Also, one addendum to the pummeling rules. Characters can "catch their breath" as an attack or move action (but not both) if they can't or don't want to spend a full-round doing that: here, they eliminate 1d4+Con points of nonlethal damage. Also, catching your breath in this way provokes an attack of opportunity (whether or not it's done as a full-round action).

 

[cbatt]

Man.. there are so many ways to adjust the leathality of d20 Modern. And they all work, depending on what tone you want to set.

Here's what I'm planning.

MD Threshold = 10 + Con Bonus + Misc Bonuses (feats, etc...)

It's a small thing, but I want my games a bit more lethal.

Want to make the game killer? Reduce it to 5 + Con Bonus + Misc Bonuses.

It doesn't really mater, it's incredibly easy to adjust.

Don't like unconciousness or are feeling like jerk, Fort Save or die.

So many options... all easy to implement. Why gripe?

 

[buzz]

And I do stand by the pummeling rules. How else are you going to model a drawn-out fistfight between a pair of guys who can't hit for more non-lethal damage than their Con scores (this'd be fairly common, actually, especially for ordinaries), or a boxing match between master boxers with great Fortitude saves? They wouldn't be able to do anything to each other, unless someone got lucky and scored a critical hit (which, for the pair of ordinaries, might not even be enough) or rolled a 1 on their Fortitude save (for the boxers). And that would just reduce the fights to the person who turned got to be the first one to get a lucky or unlucky roll...

Doesn't this ignore the feats and whatnot that reflect whether a combatant is skilled in unarmed combat? I got the impression that the nonlethal rules as-is reflect the fact that two "incompetent" combatants simply aren't going to have much chance of harming each other, barring one of them grabbing a two-by-four. I don't find this all that unreasonable. I'm still making my way through the book, though.

 

[comrade raoul]

Doesn't this ignore the feats and whatnot that reflect whether a combatant is skilled in unarmed combat? I got the impression that the nonlethal rules as-is reflect the fact that two "incompetent" combatants simply aren't going to have much chance of harming each other, barring one of them grabbing a two-by-four. I don't find this all that unreasonable. I'm still making my way through the book, though.

I'm not talking about anyone seriously harming anyone else -- I'm just talking about someone winning or losing a fight (knocking out his opponent). Surely even incompetent characters can accomplish that, can't they? And this doesn't address the example with the tough boxers, either. It's true that only trained martial artists (that is, people with the Combat Martial Arts feat) can do lethal damage with unarmed strikes, but that's not the point.

The non-lethal combat rules in a nutshell: compare an attack's non-lethal damage to your Constitution. If it's less than your Con, it doesn't do anything. Otherwise, you make a DC 15 Fort save; if you make it, you're dazed, if you fail it, you're knocked out.

My rules don't change that very much. They only change the first part; the idea is that if you take lots of non-lethal damage, you can't do as much and it's easier to knock you out.

 

[Blacksad]

two small comments

You fail a save when you roll a 1, don't you?
So with d20 Modern you have roughly the same chance of dying each round from a lucky shot as in Star Wars.

You can take -4 on your attack roll to deal normal damage with unarmed attack, so 2 guys can knock each other.

Though, I don't like those rules, I think that they are ugly:

The Star Wars system allow you to make a clear difference with hits that miss you, but reduce your "luck", while in d20 Modern, "you are hit you take 10 points of damage from the gun", could happens several times during a combat, it's just not right.

With subdual damage, you can hit someone and get him down, while in d20 Modern, when you punch someone, you have to want to hurt your opponent (as if you didn't want to in the first place).

 

[vturlough]

MDT

Greetings!

Good suggestions here!

First of all, I have not played it either. I wanted to state that up front.

Second, for the most part, I like what I have read. If my group is willing to play it, I would certainly GM it for them. I think the designers did a good job.

Third, my beef is more with the system of hit points. This applies to any d20 game that I have seen, so even having not played d20 Modern, I think it applies.

Hit points are described as the amount of damage that a character can take. My issue is this. If that is the system they are going to use, why not use it?

So, here is what I suggest.

Let characters take damage all the way up to their max hit points without having a chance to be knocked out or dropped to -1. As I said, if the system is there, let's use it. (I don't use massive damage rules often in DND but it also rarely happens that damage is > 50.) If any one blow exceeds the MDT for that character, give that character a cumulative -1 penaly on all rolls except damage.

I think this would work. It would allow characters to keep playing through all of their hit points but if they get damage by massive blows, eventually they will not be as effective. Also, they can't be hit by too many massive blows or they will be done from hit point loss.

As for healing, perhaps out of a stressful situation when they can rest, perhaps a Fort Save (DC 15) would allow them to remove one -1 penalty. They can make a save like this every half hour or so.

Just a few ideas I had. I am not fond of the hit point system but if it is there, I would rather use it. And it is very good for heroic games like this.

Thanks!

vturlough