D&D 4e With a "Modern" Campaign Setting

[Estlor]

Last week my gaming group got to talking about how we could change things up and keep 4e fresh and more than a string of dungeon crawl combats (we're currently still in heroic tier playing through the WotC PoL adventures). Aside from working in an alternating Eberron campaign, a comment was made about how you "can't use D&D in a modern setting," which I immediately took as a challenge to prove them wrong.

The way I see it, there are really three hurdles you have to overcome: flavor, equipment, and races. I've been doing some brainstorming and thought I'd kick it out to the ENWorld community and see if anyone else had thought about similar things.

Races are probably the easiest thing to handle. All PCs are humans, but most of the races without mystical powers can be repackaged as types of humans. Dwarves become "sturdy humans," elves become, "agile humans," half-orc become, "brawny humans," tieflings become, "vengeful humans," and so on. Mechanically, it works out something like this:

• Human (Adaptable Human) - No changes
• Dwaf (Sturdy Human) - No changes
• Elf (Agile Human) - Drop fey origin
• Half-Elf (Versitile Human) - No changes, but Dual Heritage's flavor changes to imply choosing between "Adaptable" human and "Agile" human feats.
• Tiefling (Vengeful Human) - No changes
• Deva (Insightful Human) - No changes
• Goliath (Powerful Human) - No changes
• Half-Orc (Brawny Human) - No changes
• Shifter (Athletic Human) - Shifting is explained as a burst of adrenaline; there is no accompanying physical change
• Changeling (Resourceful Human) - Drop shapechanger. Changling Disguise doesn't change your form, but allows you to accurately mimic the accent and mannerisms of different human cultures.

The important thing about all of these races is that, with the exception of the changeling, their racial power isn't overly fantastic and can be tied to physiology, force of will, or cleverness. Some of the racial feats might need tweaking but I haven't gotten that far down this path.

As for equipment, the real challenge seems to be how you explain armor and melee weapons. To me, it seems the best thing to do with armor is convert it into a class-based enhancement bonus. The upside to this is you maintain the same level of AC defense that D&D assumes without needing to explain why you're walking around in plate mail in the modern age. The downside (maybe) is now you've adjusted the economics of the world; PCs don't necessarily need to buy magic "armor" unless they want a specific special ability/power it grants, and even then they only have to spend for the lowest level's cost to get it. Of course, IMHO, if skewed wealth is an issue you can handle that easily enough by subtracting an appropriate number of treasure parcels over their life to offset the "free" armor.

What I end up with are four Defense Tracks - Light, Mild, Medium, and Heavy. Light corresponds to Cloth Armor, Mild to a melding of Leather and Hide, Medium to a melding of Chain and Scale, and Heavy to Plate. You get an increasing enhancement bonus to AC every five levels. Classes give you access to one or more Defense Tracks from which you pick one that you're stuck with. You can use Defense Track Proficiency (Mild, Medium, or Heavy) to upgrade. So I'm playing a fighter. At 1st level I decide if he's a Mild Defense fighter or a Medium Defense fighter and go with it. If I'm a tempest or battlerage fighter I'm probably picking Mild, otherwise I'm picking Medium.

Level    Light    Mild    Medium    Heavy
1         +0       +3       +6         +8
5         +1       +4       +7         +9
10        +2       +5       +9        +11
15        +3       +6      +11        +13
20        +5       +8      +13        +15
25        +6       +9      +15        +17
30        +8      +11      +18        +20

Skill      -       -        -1       -2
Speed      -       -        -1       -1

There would be feats similar to armor specialization. Mild Defense Specialization would offer a +1 feat bonus to AC. Medium Defense Specialization would offer a +1 feat bonus to AC and reduce the speed penalty by 1. Heavy Defense Specialization would offer a +1 feat bonus to AC and reduce the skill penalty by 1. So if everybody took their specialization feats, Light Amor gives you nothing, Mild Armor gives you a +1 to AC, Medium gives you a +1 to AC with a -1 skill penalty, and Heavy gives you a +1 to AC with a -1 skill and speed penalty. I kind of like the elegance of a maximized Defense Track stepping up one level of rider effects with each track. Of course, it means you have to wait till that divisible by 5 level to increase your AC... not sure how that changes the dynamic of combat.

Guns are the other troublesome aspect. Realistically, guns break any sort of HP model of damage/health. They blow through conventional armor and if you get hit in the right place, you're dead. Period. Now there has to be a certain degree of abstraction so I figure the damage of a gun becomes something in line with the bows and crossbows and they target Reflex instead of AC. The trick, of course, is finding a balance between "realistic" simulation versus so good everyone uses it.

In terms of flavor, I go back and forth between whether "modern" becomes current day or "modern" is World War II era. The advantages of the latter is you can work a lot of Nazi occultism into the flavor of the setting (and steal heavily from ideas presented in the Fullmetal Alchemist anime), plus you don't have to worry about every PC carrying a cell phone and a submachine gun with them. I also think you need to do some class limitations, perhaps to just martial and primal to start the campaign. Certain aspects of primal classes get a bit fantastical, but for the most part those classes could be grounded in the real world. If you approach the world from the Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth concept of two worlds (which dovetails nicely with stealing things from Fullmetal Alchemist) there is a place for Arcane classes and races like the Eladrin, but it's something you wouldn't necessarily want starting PCs to have access to. I'm thinking something like requiring a martial or primal starting class, but then permitting multiclassing into arcane classes or (if a certain point in the plot has occurred and the PCs are mixing freely with the people of Gaia/Shamballa) replacing a dead PC with an arcane PC.

Some of this is still very nebulous and sketchy. Just an exersice in public brainstorming... Anyone else attempted to run a modern setting with 4e yet? Any advice? Any serious balance concerns I should reconsider before I fall headlong into them?

 

[Derren]

Guns would be problematic, but not for the reason you stated.
A well placed hit with an axe is equally lethal to a headshot. So that kind of abstraction is already build into the system. Its just problematic that PCs have so many HPs now which makes them able to run through sustained fire to go into melee rather easily. Thats not an image most people have in mind when thinking about modern combat.
To still keep it tactical instead of becoming a immobile standoff a expanded cover system would probably be needed.

No idea if there should be an automatic trait (for full automatic weapons) and what it should do, but considering that in most fights people will use guns there should be a bit more distinction between them then just "pistol" and "rifle".
Also, the range of modern arms is a little bit greater than the 200ft maximum range in 4E so far.

The use of guns is a balance problem as only 2 classes in the game actually have powers which use ranged weapons (not spells). Maybe the Warlord has also one, but still, thats not much. That means a lot of classes are suboptimal in a combat heavy modern game.

Also, guns make defenders useless. You don't need stickyness when everyone has ranged weapons. The role of fighters is obsolete in modern combat.

When you have guns target reflex, why have AC granting armour? AC would come into play rather rarely, unless you are fighting some gangs or other lowlife who only have knifes.
I suggest to make two sets of armour, one granting AC (thick leather, etc) and one granting reflex (Bulletproof vests).

A other problem with modern 4E I see are skills. Saying that an adventurer automatically becomes good in climbing, picking locks and diplomacy is one thing, but saying that a soldier, during his tour of duty, automatically gets better at hacking and other high tech skills is a different matter.
You should probably try to make such high tech skills rituals instead of skills. Although you still would get better through leveling as rituals are linked to skills. I don't think you can remove this without completely rewriting the skill system.

Then, there are powers. In a modern game without magic having daily powers is a little bit unbelievable.

And the economy/reward system must be changed. The PCs earn a ridiculous amount of money and in a modern setting there isn't really a believable way to price personal arms in a way so that the 4E economy stays the same. Even the blackest black market rifle will not cost what some high level magical weapons in classic 4E costs. And I don't think that rocket launchers should be the default weapons for high level modern characters.
The problem is that everyone is familiar with how much modern items cost, so its harder to get away with pricing items by level.

Also the whole way buying and selling is handled must be revised. Everyone knows that pawnbrokers exists, and there is always Ebay. So "Not selling modern items" and "Only get 20% of the original value while everyone else sells for 100-150%" is even harder to swallow than before.

There is also the problem of the law. Even in the US the weapon laws are a wee bit more strict than in fantasy 4E. Unless you want to restrict modern 4E to either army or lawless nations this should be taken into account.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I don't see any particular reason that the non human races need to be redefined as human, either leave them out for a purely human feel or take a leaf from Urban Arcana, RIFTS or Shadowrun and give some back story as to why they are there and why they are or are not noticed.

As for guns, I would go with a targetted mode where they attack AC and a suppressive mode where they make ranged burst attacks against reflex. I think you should consider adding a pinned and suppressed condition to the game. Pinned, slide the target to the nearest cover (if none they go prone) and the can shoot back but not move.
Suppressed is similar but they cannot fire back, save ends.

As for skills, I would adapt the system from D20 Modern or Star Wars D20 to game.

 

[Estlor]

I don't really think skills are that big of an issue, though some of them definitely need to be recast or given a modern spin. Perception, Insight, Athletics, Acrobatics, Diplomacy, Bluff, Stealth... they all still make sense as is in a modern setting. The knowledge skills are where things become dicey. I can see mapping the natural sciences to Nature so that it covers basic Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Anthropology, Astrology and Physics. Someone who is trained in Nature has good general knowledge in a lot of areas and knows where to look to supplement it. Religion would cover Theology and Mythology. Dungeoneering doesn't have a great matchup... maybe archeology and architecture? Arcana would probably cover Occult and superstition.

What doesn't really have a roll (naturally) is technology. I don't know that I'd want to include computer hacking in Thievery. I'd be tempted to add a knowledge skill to cover technology if 2009 was the baseline year. If I went with a 1940's setting that's not going to be quite as much of an issue as the computer revolution hasn't happened yet.

As for the issue of resolving a modern PC's improved talents through the skill system, I don't think there's really much difference between medieval PCs and modern PCs; both are exceptional examples of society. Anyway, the character classes handle some of the disparities naturally; an infantry soldier is likely to be a fighter or ranger and would have Athletics and Endurance, not a host of knowledge skills.

I was definitely considering adapting the D20 modern wealth system into 4e for a modern setting. Honestly, 4e economics are such that after a certain point mundane goods and services may as well cost them nothing at all. Unless you play with a bookkeeper DM that wants to track supplies carefully most of your fund goes toward purchasing magical items. Nothing would change in that regard in my envisioned "modern" setting; there would still be a high degree of mysticism involved in the game and magic items, whether relics of an ancient era or stolen from the "other world," would still be a large focus of PCs as they go up in level. There would probably be an opportunity for more artifacts in this style of game, (Longinus, the Holy Grail, Excalibur, etc).

I was already assuming a baseline restriction of Martial and Primal (maybe Psionic) power sources early in the campaign. I got to thinking maybe pagan and Greek mythology both has a place in this kind of setting. If we assume Terra is the Earth of science and learning and Gaia is the Earth of magic and ritual, then Gaia could be the Feywild and the home of the Arcane classes. Likewise, the Elysian Fields would be the Earth of gods and fate and could map to the Shadowfell (well, kind of). I'm not 100% certain about setting information just yet. I like some of the aspects of Urban Arcana, but other parts of it just seem silly. I think there needs to be some supernatural and mystical component to a modern game setting because its a large assumed part of the D&D ruleset.

 

[Derren]

Seems we have a different idea of what a modern setting is then.
Some mysticism is fine, but you seem to focus heavily on those aspect instead on the modern one.

Imo, when its more easy to leave out the "modern" than the "magic", its not really a modern setting.

 

[Dysturbed]

I know the crafting is being messed with now for the creation of weapons by weapon masters in Martial Powers II. I think they are kinda like rituals now er something kinda like alchemy is a operate thing. So you would not have to include that in the skills. The skills list is pretty good like you said though there wouldn't have to be much change.

If your worried about the weapons not doing enough damage double what a equivilent style martial weapon would do. Say I would consider a .45 caliber pistol equal to a longsword so you would call it 2d8 instead of the 1 a longsword normally does. Also give the characters the option to make called shots at a -4 to hit. And if they shoot randomly at something as the GM use a 1d10 to determine where the target is hit. Adds some realizm if you do that anyhow. Far as I saw from the d20 modern at a glance that is what they where doing.

Also when shooting at stuff I would call it more of a Weapon Vs Reflex that it would be vs AC. That being said the "tank character" would be wearing heavy body armor and have a high con just like dnd.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I played in a modern 4e game that was something like a cross between Silent Hill and Sliders. IIRC, the biggest issue the DM had was that we could often avoid encounters entirely when we had vehicles. He quickly wised up, establishing many (though not all) adventure areas such that they were difficult or impossible to reach via car, through the use of swamps, roadblocks, etc. As such, our vehicles became primarily a means of getting us from point A to point B as well as a mobile base (though we certainly delighted whenever we managed to circumvent an obstacle).

You might find Amethyst useful for mining ideas as well, particularly the Biohazard adventure http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/Amethyst-Biohazard.pdf.

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

Thanks for the plug, Fanaelialae.

Just an FYI, we just included a new chapter (before going to printers) which deals with adapting Amethyst to your own settings (Western, Steampunk, etc). Hopefully that may help you adapt those rules to your (honestly) nifty sounding Silent/Sliders game.