I was thinking of a shadowrun-type game with 4E rules. Elves with semi-automatics on hover-cycles, trolls with 50-cal and rocket launchers, Gnome hackers and Dwarf mechanics...
Was there ever a set of rules built for this? I know there was a D20 modern, which I remember being based on 3E.
There's at least a few 3rd party d20 Modern/4e rulesets, as linked above. You could always do your own, too.
I used to run and really like d20 Modern, but it ran into numerous issues, many of which had nothing to do with the ruleset. People who know stuff about guns are common even in urban Canada. (As a DM, one of the advantage of "Fantasy Gun Control" is you never need to deal with players who know more about guns than you.)
Fantasy is just easier. You don't need to know how to jam or intercept a cell phone, or conduct a border crossing, or find a way for legitimate police officers to interfere with badly-behaving PCs. ("Police brutality" was not a crime in the Middle Ages. Usually.)
I liked the classes, or more to the points, the talents
for the base classes, but they don't mesh very well with 4e's roles. Very roughly speaking, the classes would probably be:
1) Strong -> Striker (brute)
2) Fast -> Skirmisher or possibly Lurker (the defensive talent tree supports the latter). Note that I didn't say Striker, as the Fast class had no way to boost damage.
3) Tough -> The bodyguard, at least, would be a defender, but the generic tough's talents are basically a list of feats or utility powers usable by other classes. They had no special offensive abilities at all.
4) Smart -> All of its abilities are utility abilities. It's not really a "class".
5) Dedicated -> The most combat-capable of the mental classes, but has no role, except being able to heal slightly better in combat, once per day per person.
6) Charismatic -> Controller (Leader)... well, at least the Leadership talent tree does this. Fast Talk is basically a rogue utility power or feat.
Things to avoid:
Very heavy weapons. In real-life, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher is simply not balanced with a handgun. But the rules either need to make both viable options, or remove one option. (So you can't have terrorists with RPGs, because the PCs might steal them? Major problem there.)
Vehicles. Spycraft had a good vehicular combat system, but there's still issues such as all the PCs being in one vehicle that gets blown up, vehicles not interacting well with PC-scale movement at all (Spycraft dodges this, but this isn't helpful if your PCs are walking down the street and are attacked in a drive-by).
Hackers. That's like having a diviner PC who refuses to actually adventure, just using spells to give advice and remotely manipulate traps. Hackers force party splits, in a manner that I think isn't very cool. (Adventures should require entry into the target building to do the hacks, you don't make a secure computer accessible via the internet. However, a Shadowrun-style decker, or an Alec Hardison-style Smart Hero hacker, has to run away when "meatspace" combat starts, and 4e does not support that style of play.)
Here is my extremely-poorly-done heavy machine gunner. The suppressive fire rules could use a bit of a workout or rewrite.
Heavy
Level 7
Controller
Medium natural humanoid, human
XP 300
HP 92
Bloodied 46
Initiative +3
AC 21
Fortitude 21
Reflex 17
Will 19
Perception +9
Speed 5
Standard Actions
(mb) Slam * At-Will. Atk: +10 vs Fort. Hit: 2d8+6 damage, and the heavy pushes the target 1 square.
(rb) Machine Gun (weapon) * At-Will. Atk: Area burst 2 within 20; +10 vs Ref. Hit: 2d6+4 damage.
Suppressive Fire (weapon, zone) * At-Will. Atk: Area burst 3 within 20; +10 vs Reflex and Will. Special: The heavy only makes one attack roll per target, but compare the attack roll against Reflex and Will defenses. A target might be subject to any, both, or none of the effects depending on which defenses were hit. Hit (Reflex): The target can choose to fall prone as a free action or take 10 damage. Hit (Will): The target is weakened until the start of the heavy's next turn or until it leaves the zone. Effect: The burst creates a zone of difficult terrain until the start of the heavy's next turn. Any creature that enters the zone or starts its turn there is subject to another attack. Sustain Standard: The zone persists until the start of the heavy's next turn. The heavy can move the zone to a new area in range as a move action. The heavy can dismiss the attack as a free action.
Move Actions
Sandvich (healing, item)* Encounter. Effect: The heavy regains 20 hit points.
Skills Athletics +11
Str 16
Dex 11
Wis 13
Con 19
Int 10
Cha 12
Alignment any
Languages English, Russian
Equipment body armor, heavy machine guns, loads of ammo
