What needs to be fixed/improved in d20 Modern?

[Nadaka]

THe black Kestrel: you are forgetting a few things.

1: using iron fist gives a max of +6 damage under standard rules (average of just under +5).
2: tanks have a defense of 6.


8 strong/2 soldier/10 MA
Damage:
starting str 17, +5 levels = 22 +6.
+3 melee smash
+2 weapon specialization
(+2) ignore hardness.
(+1d4) streatfighting 1/round

Attack bonus:
+19 BAB
+6 str
+2 improved brawl (by raw the +2 applies to all unarmed attacks, not just non lethal)
+1 weapon focus
Total attack bonus = +28
attack sequence is:
+28/+23/+18/+13
or +26/+26/+21/+16/+11 with flurry
pr +24/+24/+24/+19/+14/+9 with flurry and TWF (by RAW they can be used together.

Damage = 1d10+6+3+2~5 = ~21.5 damage vs 18 hardness.

But wait... we have sunder, and that doubles our damage!

~43 damage vs 18 hardness = ~25 damage per hit.

Now, we only miss on a 1 while performing a double fisted monkey style attack, if all attacks hit we 152.5 damage! assuming a 5% failure rate our average damage is measly ~144.875. Congratulations, we have, not only disabled a main battle tank, but have irreparably destroyed it as well. Note that with power attack I could squeeze an extra 24 damage without loosing any accuracy at all.

But there is more! What if you do not want to wait a whole round? but instead you want to kill the tank in one mighty blow? we can do that too.

For this we will need to charge and use power attack.
We get to add a +2 to hit, and +10 to damage from the charge using the MA ability "flying kick".
Then we pump all 19 BAB into power attack.

This gives us an attack bonus of +11, more than enough to hit with 95% accuracy against a defense of 6.

Damage = (1d10+6+3+2~5+10+19+1d4)*2 = ~106 damage vs 18 hardness.
Oh!!!!! Not only is this kick strong enough to disable the tank, but its going to explode in 1d6 rounds as well. Isn't that swell?

Even if your DM insists that improved brawl does not grant +2 to hit with all unarmed strikes, it doesn't matter. We still have 95% hit chance on all attacks. And honestly, the iron fist isn't even needed either. In the full round attack we still deal ~92 damage and in the second we still deal ~86 damage.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

Even if some chuckleheaded DM allowed this to happen, aren't you assuming the tank is alone (which they rarely are) and doing nothing while the PC is attacking.

There will be infantry units backing up the tank who will be shooting at the PC. One lucky crit with a powerful weapon and this will force a MD save.
Second, the tank should be shooting at the attacker, if not with its main gun, then with its mounted MGs.

But all this assumes that the DM will allow a person to take out a tank with his bare hands and not exercise some amount of you know, judgement.


What I would suggest to fix kooky on paper things like this though would be something that WEG did with their version of the Star Wars RPG: scaling.

They have scales of weapons and armor:
Character Scale
Vehicle Scale
Fighter Scale
Starship Scale

The bigger the scale, the progressively less each weapon for a previous scale will do to it. For example, a Character scale weapon like a blaster pistol. A PC could take one and shot at the exterior of a Star Destroyer all day 24/7 for days on end and not blemish the plating. Why? Because it's a Character scale weapon being used on Starship scale object made of appropriate plating and materials.
A Vehicle scale weapon, like a speeder mounted cannon may on a very very very lucky shot minimally damage the Starship scale weapon.
Fighter scale weapons will definitely harm a Starship scale object but it may take several shots.

It works similarly going up the scale. Starship scale weapons will do a lot of damage to a Fighter scale object on a direct hit, luckily fighters are fairly maneuverable. Starship scale weapons, though disasterously damaging to Character and Vehicle scale objects, have issues targetting such small objects and the issue may be actually hitting them.

The scaling like this cut out any of one man destroying a starship with a pistol stuff.

 

[The Black Kestrel]

@Nadaka

If it's that big an issue I'd just throw the Ineffective Weapons part of the Attacking an object rules (p.149-150 of d20 Modern) at my PC. Semi-arbitrary? Maybe. Does is stray from the RAW? No. Is using that rule against the PC to maintain "realism" unfair? Again I'd say no. I'd say the PC was trying to pull a fast one on the DM. So while he might be able to massacre another human being, the tank is right out.

So yes, I agree with you that its broken and need of fixing, but the rules can keep it under control.

@Kheti

I've seen scaling rules before and used them as well and I like them. I'm not sure that they could be implemented easily in d20 Modern.

 

[Angellis_ater]

People were discussing the classes earlier in this thread, to which I would point to either True20's abstract roles (Warrior, Expert, Adept) which fit pretty well into a Modern game, or to Alternity's occupations/roles (Tech Op - anything with extensive knowledge, from Doctor to Engineer, Combat Spec - anyone who focuses on fighting, Diplomat - interaction specialist, from a con-man to a peace-negotiator, Free Agent - the "sneaky" role, from spy to stereotypical wildcard adventurer)

 

[ValhallaGH]

Classes, and levels, can work really well for a modern game. And the structure they provide make them far more accessible to most gamers than classless systems.

For example: It took me three years of gaming before I was willing to try a classless system (new World of Darkness), and another three years before I started to seriously look at and play systems that didn't have classes. The lack of structure to help me stay on path and effective was intimidating.

On the other hand, the trick with any class system is to not make it too restrictive. To allow for the combinations that truly work for many concepts. And to not punish concepts that need to be diverse to work. By switching d20 Modern over to the 1/2 level progression used by 4th edition, or even to a per level progression, you'll even out the various classes between themselves and guarantee that characters remain effective no matter what their concept requires.
Then it's just a matter of retooling feats, talents, skills, and such to better fit the heroic feel the system aims for.

 

[serow]

I like the 6 base classes in d20M. I hope they'll retain that concept, along with the talent trees. What I really don't like are the 3E style of "Prestige classing", what with its prereqs and such. 4E style of Paragon Paths are so much simpler to handle (flat easy prereqs, get additonal stuff). d20M needs more talent trees too. But overall, I hope they make it SWSE style more than 4E style for the powers and such.

 

[daddystabz]

The best thing that could happen to D20 Modern and D20 Future is to translate them to Star Wars Saga Edition rules format basically.

 

[MINI]

Wealth is my biggest problem with d20 modern. In terms of story alone its very cool and meaningful to find a briefcase full of cash or credits that are worth something, or even a chest full of bars of gold. But opening a briefcase and seeing a power up for a +2 wealth bonus, well that's lame.

I also think the menace manual could have been done better. Its been mentioned and as a lazy GM I pay the publisher big bucks to set up the majority of my antagonists for me. I still like the idea of a creature factory but 80% of my antagonists should be made up for me in a manual I can buy. Finally i would lose things like goblins and kobolds in D20 modern and lookto replace them with multitudes of modern counterparts such as alien races, varieties of thugs, robots and all things modern. I found when I was running d20 modern I had to pick my monster carefully so it would not seem like a modern day version of DnD. This goes back to the game not being DnD's little brother. Let it offer up some cool plot twists and enemies that the other does not, will not or simply cannot.

Lastly how about the company puts out some creative online tools and map genrators. DnD has campaign cartographer. How about a program thats spits out images that look like real factories, modern day restaurants, hotels and whatever else is needed. This would be a great help as well.

 

[Greg K]

I like the 6 base classes in d20M. I hope they'll retain that concept, along with the talent trees. What I really don't like are the 3E style of "Prestige classing", what with its prereqs and such. 4E style of Paragon Paths are so much simpler to handle (flat easy prereqs, get additonal stuff). d20M needs more talent trees too. But overall, I hope they make it SWSE style more than 4E style for the powers and such.

I don't like 3e style prestige classes either. However, I like paragon paths even less. Of course, I dislike class level abilities that give set special abilities (e.g, +1d6 damage, rage, a specific feat, etc.). I'd rather advanced and prestige classes work like the basic classes, but with feats and talents choices tailored to the Advanced class.

 

[genshou]

Re: OP

1. Autofire.
Still looking for a good way to do this.
2. Iterative attack rate with all firearms (but especially handguns) at lower levels (I can only pull the trigger on my pistol once every 6 seconds until I'm a 12th-level Smart/something Smart-oriented?!).
I use the Modern20 fix for this. Since I have a similar mechanic in 3.x for bows, and the Rapid Shot/Double Tap feats in tandem allow for up to 6 bullets fired per round with semi-automatic, having two semi-automatic firearm attacks per round works well enough.
3. Nonlethal damage (MOAR LIEK NONLETHAL NUFFIN').
Fixed with a simple house rule. MDT=Con OR current hp, whichever is lower. This makes a heavily injured hero or a typical 1st-level Smart ordinary have to roll a save if you clock him for 3 nonlethal with a club or just a good punch, but uninjured, high-level characters take a good ambush strike or a critical hit to be one-shotted, as it should be.
4. No distinction between starting occupation and current occupation.
Fixed with Modern20's Backgrounds and Occupations; vastly superior to d20 Modern's approach, especially with the addition of Perks.
5. Wealth sucks. Period.
I try a different fix every campaign. So far my favourite is a fan-made conversion of the Wealth mechanic for SWd20, with a few personal house rule adjustments, but I've gone the "count your coppers" approach as well and ignored the complexities of modern finance, and everything worked out fine.
6. d20 Future's Starships chapter. The entire thing is an unforgivable mess derived from a much superior Alternity Warships base.
Since I don't run starship-based games, I don't really give a damn. At one point, however, I was rewriting the entirety of Alternity Warships to use d20 System's task resolution mechanic.