D&D 5E A modern fantasy setting?

[Mind of tempest]

From my (limited) understanding from my mates in the military, in a boring real-world scenario, strength is mostly useful for machinegun usage in terms of actually carrying the thing around. The gun itself it not light, and you're probably also carrying a spare barrel, and the gun's weight again in ammunition, maybe a bipod/tripod.... it's a lot of metal and the weight adds up fast. A fully kitted-out automatic weapon could easily mass as much as a set of full plate armour and be considerably more awkward to bear - which is why the load is normally split over multiple people in actual militaries.

But of course in a game context that gets us into the world of encumbrance and load limits, and that's not fun for anyone really.

And again, in the real world I think weapons like these are usually fired from bipods etc. I could certainly see Strength being useful in a Hollywoody full-auto-from-the-hip scenario though - and this IS a game where cinematic stuff should happen, so that sounds like a reasonable way of doing things.

Still doesn't solve the armour issue though. Or what Str is useful for in my pre-Gatling Napoleonic rules hack...

apparently making the armour would not be the problem as we could make armour that makes you safe against everything other than anti-material weapons the problem would be moving in it but we have the cheat know as magic to solve that.
so most low tear armour dies to bullets but you get into heavy stuff made for the purpose resist everything but explosive and anti-material weapons, which likely have some stuff made to reduce base armour class by some decent number.

 

[Ixal]

In terms of advancing the tech level, I've been messing around with some 1800s/Napoleonic-era rules modifications, and to be honest it's very difficult mechanically.

The big hurdle is that the fundamental guts of the combat system in D&D is very melee-focused, and it operates under the assumption that armour is effective and useful. The later the time period, and the better the firearms, both of these become less the case.

Basically, Strength becomes pretty much useless, and as armour also becomes obsolete and ranged combat increasingly dominates, Dexterity becomes an uber-stat. I've messed around with assigning firearms a Str prerequisite that a PC must meet in order to use them without suffering to-hit penalties from the recoil, but this is really just tinkering around the edges. The AC issue is one that I haven't thought of a way around. But without some sort of tweaks there, non-spellcaster PCs would all be a bit samey with high Dex and Str as a dump stat. Except barbarians might do ok, but to be honest I haven't had much experience with the class, and how well any melee-only PC would do in a setting where ranged combat was the base assumption is another question...

Even during the Napoleonic wars officers wore breastplate, so armor still exists.
And until the Maxim gun you needed strength to operate automatic weapons like the gatling as you still needed to crank it. But D&D does not simulate this kind of activity which is why archers can shoot all day, etc.

Another problem I can see is the HP bloat, making every combat a melee anyway as no one past level 1 can be killed at range.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Another problem I can see is the HP bloat, making every combat a melee anyway as no one past level 1 can be killed at range.

Yup.

This is the real reason STR would be useful in a "modern day D&D" setting, because people would immediately close to melee range if it was advantageous to them. D&D doesn't have rules that can remotely handle any kind of firefight in a way that's not going to make a lot of people go "what the hell?!". This was very clearly demonstrated by a lot of d20 games which tried to retain most of the basic D&D rules whilst moving to a modern setting, very much including d20 Modern.

The only reason to stick with guns is if they do a higher DPR than you can with a melee weapon, but you can guarantee that in the name of Holy Balance that won't be the case.

With 5E and guns in a modern-day setting you'd basically have a deeply-mediocre '80s/'90s action movie simulator, when we've got dozens of games that are actually good at that. You'd witness the joy, of, for example, the Scientist character totally failing his check to identify the alien substance, where the INT 10 zero science skill grungy bounty hunter next to him immediately identifies it, due to the wonders of D&D's incredibly swing-y/unreliable skill system. The hacker would be routinely outhacked by some rando who can barely work a cellphone (shades of "2 idiots 1 keyboard").

You'd shoot for Die Hard or Jurassic Park or John Wick, but in all three cases you'd end up with a mildly-themed episode of Archer. There are worse things in the world than an episode of Archer, but d20 modern and similar systems were basically all your ticket to Archer, whatever premise you tried to use.

 

[Ixal]

Yup.

This is the real reason STR would be useful in a "modern day D&D" setting, because people would immediately close to melee range if it was advantageous to them. D&D doesn't have rules that can remotely handle any kind of firefight in a way that's not going to make a lot of people go "what the hell?!". This was very clearly demonstrated by a lot of d20 games which tried to retain most of the basic D&D rules whilst moving to a modern setting, very much including d20 Modern.

The only reason to stick with guns is if they do a higher DPR than you can with a melee weapon, but you can guarantee that in the name of Holy Balance that won't be the case.

With 5E and guns in a modern-day setting you'd basically have a deeply-mediocre '80s/'90s action movie simulator, when we've got dozens of games that are actually good at that. You'd witness the joy, of, for example, the Scientist character totally failing his check to identify the alien substance, where the INT 10 zero science skill grungy bounty hunter next to him immediately identifies it, due to the wonders of D&D's incredibly swing-y/unreliable skill system. The hacker would be routinely outhacked by some rando who can barely work a cellphone (shades of "2 idiots 1 keyboard").

You'd shoot for Die Hard or Jurassic Park or John Wick, but in all three cases you'd end up with a mildly-themed episode of Archer. There are worse things in the world than an episode of Archer, but d20 modern and similar systems were basically all your ticket to Archer, whatever premise you tried to use.

To be fair, this would still kinda work up to and including the napoleonic wars were bayonet charges were still a large part of warfare and in the usual small scale combats the PCs participate in you would not usually encounter cannons (maybe swivels) or gatlings.
But once you enter WW1 combat the ineffectiveness of guns thanks to HP becomes a real problem for most D20 games.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One of the unfinished setting seeds rattling around in my noggin is some sort of modern(ish) D&D setting, but I really have no use for it currently and it also is so gonzo and conceptual that it sort of seems to elude further definition.

It would be explicitly a very over the top fantasy world with all the usual wizards and dragons etc, but sort of modernish trappings. Some sort of mix of 80s action movies, D&Disms, Final Fantasy and Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. Fighters and wizards, elves and orcs, driving around in an old American convertible, wearing sunglasses, carrying magic wands, great swords and Walkmans, fighting trolls while 80s rock plays, and then stopping to a small town to buy healing potions from a wending machine.

The imagery is pretty clear in my head and I think it is a cool image. But when I try to actually think anything concrete about the world, it gets muddy. I might use this for some one shot one day, just a small context-free piece of action adventure.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But once you enter WW1 combat the ineffectiveness of guns thanks to HP becomes a real problem for most D20 games.

I think the problem d20 Modern really has is that it still can't quite decide that HP aren't "meat points". It's weird because d20 Star Wars did - it used a split HP system with a large pool of easily-replenished Luck Points shielding a small pool of hard to get back Meat Points (which actually works really well to simulate a lot of action movies/TV). Pure HP work when almost every PC is wearing armour and/or magically shielded or the like, and the weapons are mostly avoidable, but in d20 Modern, these are guns, most of us know how they work, you aren't dodging them per se or rolling with the blow or w/e, and Modern HP are clearly "Meat Points" from how they're treated generally, and it just seems really weird as hell that someone can hit you with a shotgun blast, perhaps unarmoured (because in d20 Modern you get a big chunk of AC from class, not armour), roll max damage, and you're totally unaffected. Maybe we're applying a double-standard with D&D because we're not as familiar with medieval weapons (I mean, there's no maybe, we are). But it just seems bizarre. Even if you keep passing it off as "just a scratch" or whatever it starts getting pretty weird because all these guns are blazing away and all these PCs are pretty blase despite mostly being unarmoured or lightly armoured and sometimes getting hit by the odd bullet. I think they should have just made them luck points and literally the moment you're actually hit by a gun you're "down" - it would have fit a lot better with the setting and what they were trying to do (body armour could maybe have given a buffer of "armour points" after you run out of luck).

And that "Pfffft bullets" plus the extremely random results you get from using d20-based skill resolution (without, say, skill minimums to even roll in most cases) tends to cause this sort of game to descend into farce extremely quickly (esp. as PCs do things like try to jump a fence and fail lol, not something that happens to James Bond or the like, and not because, in game terms, he has an Athletics skill so high he can't fail, but because he's operating in a narrative way that means you can avoid farce). A 5E take on similar material is likely to descend into farce equally quickly.

Probably the best way to avoid it would be to just start at farce/insanity like the fun-if-now-a-stereotypical-of-my-generation setting Crimson is musing about. You can't become Archer if you're already Archer - thinkaboutit.gif

 

[Ixal]

I think the problem d20 Modern really has is that it still can't quite decide that HP aren't "meat points". It's weird because d20 Star Wars did - it used a split HP system with a large pool of easily-replenished Luck Points shielding a small pool of hard to get back Meat Points (which actually works really well to simulate a lot of action movies/TV). Pure HP work when almost every PC is wearing armour and/or magically shielded or the like, and the weapons are mostly avoidable, but in d20 Modern, these are guns, most of us know how they work, you aren't dodging them per se or rolling with the blow or w/e, and Modern HP are clearly "Meat Points" from how they're treated generally, and it just seems really weird as hell that someone can hit you with a shotgun blast, perhaps unarmoured (because in d20 Modern you get a big chunk of AC from class, not armour), roll max damage, and you're totally unaffected. Maybe we're applying a double-standard with D&D because we're not as familiar with medieval weapons (I mean, there's no maybe, we are). But it just seems bizarre. Even if you keep passing it off as "just a scratch" or whatever it starts getting pretty weird because all these guns are blazing away and all these PCs are pretty blase despite mostly being unarmoured or lightly armoured and sometimes getting hit by the odd bullet. I think they should have just made them luck points and literally the moment you're actually hit by a gun you're "down" - it would have fit a lot better with the setting and what they were trying to do (body armour could maybe have given a buffer of "armour points" after you run out of luck).

Even when you split HP between meat and luck, the problem still remains that in most D20 games you have so many of those points that it is impossible to kill someone with one hit and everyone knows it. Meaning modern D20 characters will have no problem with sprinting through suppressive fire even action heroes do not cross to start a fistfight. And snipers are all so bad that they will miss their first 5 or 6 shots (luck points) until they maybe hit someone.

 

[Oofta]

Even when you split HP between meat and luck, the problem still remains that in most D20 games you have so many of those points that it is impossible to kill someone with one hit and everyone knows it. Meaning modern D20 characters will have no problem with sprinting through suppressive fire even action heroes do not cross to start a fistfight. And snipers are all so bad that they will miss their first 5 or 6 shots (luck points) until they maybe hit someone.

Is that really that much different from most video games? Or any movie/TV show where the target has plot armor for any reason? Do you really think D&D simulates pre-gun warfare at all realistically?

Real warfare, no matter what era, is not fun. Games are supposed to be fun.

 

[jgsugden]

Even when you split HP between meat and luck, the problem still remains that in most D20 games you have so many of those points that it is impossible to kill someone with one hit and everyone knows it. Meaning modern D20 characters will have no problem with sprinting through suppressive fire even action heroes do not cross to start a fistfight. And snipers are all so bad that they will miss their first 5 or 6 shots (luck points) until they maybe hit someone.

In every edition of D&D, since the beginning, I have used HP to represent 'toughness'. When you get hit for damage, it is not a real wound - it is scrapes, bruises, bangs and bumps. When you get a healing spell, it replenishes you by curing these minor impacts. I only describe an attack as dealing an actual wound when it takes someone down, or if it puts them close enough to be within one strike of death. It is a subtle clue to my parties that enemies are weak.

When it comes to gunplay, or archery, or any other piercing attack, I usually describe the blows as glancing blows or near misses that had to be dodged awkwardly.

This approach has allowed me to make great narratives without treating hp as meat points. It takes some practice, and at high level gets a bit odd with so many near misses/glancing blows at times, but usually by then the players have seeped into it and do not register it the same way a stranger to the table would.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I think the problem d20 Modern really has is that it still can't quite decide that HP aren't "meat points". It's weird because d20 Star Wars did - it used a split HP system with a large pool of easily-replenished Luck Points shielding a small pool of hard to get back Meat Points (which actually works really well to simulate a lot of action movies/TV). Pure HP work when almost every PC is wearing armour and/or magically shielded or the like, and the weapons are mostly avoidable, but in d20 Modern, these are guns, most of us know how they work, you aren't dodging them per se or rolling with the blow or w/e, and Modern HP are clearly "Meat Points" from how they're treated generally, and it just seems really weird as hell that someone can hit you with a shotgun blast, perhaps unarmoured (because in d20 Modern you get a big chunk of AC from class, not armour), roll max damage, and you're totally unaffected. Maybe we're applying a double-standard with D&D because we're not as familiar with medieval weapons (I mean, there's no maybe, we are). But it just seems bizarre. Even if you keep passing it off as "just a scratch" or whatever it starts getting pretty weird because all these guns are blazing away and all these PCs are pretty blase despite mostly being unarmoured or lightly armoured and sometimes getting hit by the odd bullet. I think they should have just made them luck points and literally the moment you're actually hit by a gun you're "down" - it would have fit a lot better with the setting and what they were trying to do (body armour could maybe have given a buffer of "armour points" after you run out of luck).

The reasons were different, but even old school World of Darkness, with all of its modern-day-urban focus, couldn't figure out how to handle guns. I liked the normal/aggravated damage mechanic, since it made perfect sense to have a vampire or werewolf regenerate pretty quickly from a bullet wound, but nurse a claw slash for a long while. But the damage for guns was just so piddly. I wound up bumping it up for every kind of gun, not for balance reasons, but because it constantly broke the fiction. A pistol was just the worst, most laughable thing someone could ever carry or pull out.

I don't want to force us into the kind of thread madness that went down elsewhere, re: "realistic" gun damage, but I do think this is a common system issue--how do you make guns at least feel scary, without completely sidelining all melee combat. There are setting fixes, I think, like having certain kinds of PCs and enemies be mostly or fully immune to guns (like insect spirits in Shadowrun, for example, or specific resistances in supers games), but from a core mechanics POV it's just real tricky.

This doesn't address the melee-and-guns issue, but as far as interesting, maybe-even-realistic gun damage goes, I like how the new Twilight 2000 handles it. It's less about guns doing horrendous amounts of damage, but rather them being more likely to cause a critical injury, which could take you out of the fight (or possibly kill you) regardless of points lost. Seems to really simulate the fact that some people can get very lucky and survive multiple bullet wounds with relatively little effect, and yet a single stray round could just straight-up murder you.