D20 Future
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JoeGKushner
Adventurer
D20 Future takes a shotgun approach in augmenting D20 Modern.
D20 Future
Written by Chrisopher Perkins, Rodney Thompson, JD Wiker
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/d20modern
224 full color pages
Hardback
$34.95
D20 Future is a toolbox for the D20 Modern game. It covers a lot of ground and provides a lot of options. Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of material it tries to cover, it tends to be a useful resource for those already with a futuristic style campaign in mind or those who don’t mind doing a lot of background work.
Me? I’m used to stealing things from GURPS. There is no GURPS Future, there are books like GURPS Ultra Tech, Space, Hi-Tech, Bio-Tech, Mecha, Robots, and many others. In some ways, it’s a good thing that D20 Future doesn’t follow that route as it allows the reader to have a ‘bible’ of science fiction goods.
The book starts off with an introduction and goes through some progress levels. While I sold my old Alternity games a long time ago, these PLs look suspiciously like those and range from 0, the stone age, to 9, the levels where technology and magic are pretty much the same in that almost anything is possible and it’s hard to really comprehend the limits such science might have.
Moving onto characters, we get several occupations that are appropriate for futuristic campaigns, but in looking at them, several would fit any game like heir or transporter. After all, we all know that there’s a Transporter II coming out soon right? These occupations act as backgrounds, giving the character the ability to select a certain number of skills, a bonus feat, and a wealth bonus increase. For me, it seems handled inconsistently. Some of them offer one skill, others three. I know we shouldn’t min-max, but if it’s so blatant, why wouldn’t you?
A quick look at skills show what new uses old skills can be put to and some new feats, like Alien Weapons Proficiency or Armor Proficiency, Powered, allow the characters to burn through more feats to wield those exotic arms and armor that they’ll come across in the far future.
While no new prestige classes are included, we do have several advanced classes, easily accessible classes a bit more specialized than the core classes. Included are the following: ambassador, dogfighter, dreadnought, engineer, explorer, field officer, helix warrior, space monkey, swindler, technosavant, tracer, and xenopile. Each one has background notes, requirements, class information, class features and a table with all relevant information, including bab, saves, special abilities, defense bonus and reputationbonus.
As seen by the list of names, some of these are good for almost any system of campaign. What makes a field officer or ambassador necessarily a D20 Future character? Others like the dreadnought or helix warrior uses the advantages of future science, the former augmented with surgery and outside agents, the later DNA purification or “forced evolution”.
Chapter two provides a few campaign seeds to build on. Some of these are old favorites that used to have their own setting with either the Amazing Engine or Alternity like Bughunters or Star Drive. Each includes some background details, campaign traits, rules set, the PL level in essence, and some game feature. Advanced classes are included, as well as little side bits like ship maps or new monsters. It’s a chapter brimming with possibilities and those possibilities will all have to be carefully mapped out by the GM.
Chapter three is when the toys start to come in. Here, we have gear for all purposes. Need a voice recognition system for your weapon to ensure it’s not used against you? How about a tangler gun or a jetpack? All the common toys of the future are here.
Environments, chapter four, is oddly named. It’s a collection of various elements that a GM may want to include in his campaign. Things like radiation sickness, rules for different gravity environments, different type of atmospheric conditions, and star systems. It’s another short chapter that provides game rules and moves on.
Those looking to raise their hands to the heavens and shout, “It’s alive!”, will want to read over chapter five, scientific engineering. Here you can craft all sorts of templates or abilities such as the aquan template that provides the character with amphibious abilities, as well as blindsight, and low-light vision,and a bonus to some skills and even a bonus feat with advancement by character class. Such gene treatment isn’t cheap and is somewhat tricky, requiring a large number of Fortitude saving throws to accomplish.
Nanotechnology is also covered, including things like nanoviruses and nanoaugmenters, the former tearing down the host, the latter building him up.
Moving onto traveler science in chapter six, the authors give us % encounter for meteoroids, ideas on how PL and interplanetary and interstellar travel collide, jump gate technology, teleportation, FTL, dimensional travel, and time travel are all covered in brief. Some of them relate to earlier campaign ideas, and others, like time travel, could probably get filled out with a book of their own.
But how do you move between the stars or reach those jump gates? Through starships of course. Combat basics are included, as well as an example grid for starship fighting space. Starships have some things in common with characters, like hit points, but because it’s not a living thing, it doesn’t die at –10 hit points. Rather, the ship type determines when it’s destroyed. Numerous example ships, many of them illustrated, but not mapped, are included. These include ultra light escorts and fighters, to star freighters.
To showcase different ships, we have templates. These can include changes to the hit dice or engine type, upgrading armor type and senoss, or even weapon and attacks.
Not quite starships, vehicles include hovervehicles and cars, as well as motorcycles and trucks. Of course you can’t have a hovervehicle without having the armament to back up that flying fortress, so included are weapons and armor to insure that it’s not a one-stop trip.
Mecha, introduced in chapter nine, have size modifiers, equipment slots, hit points, base speed, height, weight, fighting space, reach, purchase DC, and restrictions. Combat statistics, base purchase DC, and equipment slots are noted for the different sizes of mecha, ranging from large to colossal. In essence, most add an equipment bonus to strength, providing the size modifiers to skill and combat checks, and have their own hit points and hardness with read and the ability to be outfitted with lots of weapons.
Weapons are broken up by PL and miscellaneous equipment is noted what PL it belongs to with parentheses next to the item. For example, a stealth suite is written as steal suite (PL 6).
Because of their unique nature, mecha have their own section of feats, including a note on which feats are essential, in this case, mecha operation and mecha weapon proficiency. To go with these new rules, a new advanced class, the mecha jockey is also included.
Some may want to play the machines as opposed to driving them though. For them, chapter ten, robotics is a good place to start. Two types, the biodroid (android) and bioreplica (synthetic), are noted as being appropriate for characters as the yare human enough that a character shouldn’t have a problem playing one and they’re not completely out of balance. See, they have no constitution scores, so despite using d10s for hit dice, they get no bonus outside of their construct bonus. They have some immunities and other abilities, but don’t heal on their own, and can’t use cybernetics.
Of course robots are also a good tool for the GM, and rules for the robot type or traits, is included and rules for different types of robots, including those that don’t necessarily look human, like the biomorph robot dog or armature robots, mechanical skeletons, are included with a few examples. As before, each type has an appropriate PL level and those highly advanced societies can even make the dreaded liquid-state robot. Unlike character robots, these cain hit dice based on their size. Stay away from the colossal ones with their 32d10 hit dice +120 bonus hit points. Dangerous stuff there.
But what about those that want machines in the meat? Cybernetics are covered in chapter eleven. In essence, you can have a number of attachments equal to your Constitution modifier +1 with a minimum of 0. Abilities range from general replacements that do nothing but replace the missing limb or organ, to enhancements like laser beams coming out of the eyes. Some of them would work perfectly for a Dragonmech game and fit into the steam power model very well. When getting that adamantine spine, why not get a fortified skeleton as well and get some damage reduction?
With the inherent limitation of pricing and only having so many cybernetics, I was a little disappointed to see mutations, covered in chapter twelve, use mutation points. To gain a mutation, you have to balance out the points. If you want something that costs 6 points, you need to take 6 points of negatives. I’d rather go for the gene therapy or ask the GM to give me a template. It’s funny that they mention things like X-Men, Spider Man and the Hulk as being mutations, and then require a character who wants to be ‘cool’, go through extensive mutations that cripple them. I can lift one hundred tons but can’t move!
The book ends with xenobiology. We get a nice listing of monsters appropriate for alien play including d20 Modern, d20 Menace Manual, and even the Monster Manual for good old Dungeons and Dragons. A few templates latter, like Extraterrestrial and Space, we get new heroic alien species, amny of which should be familiar to those old fans of Alternity. Included in the line up are aleerin, dralasite, fraal, sesheyan, t’sa, vrusk, weren, and yazirian.
The good news is that many of these races are a LA of 0, meaning you can play them right off the bat. I was glad to see my favorite, the weren included here, as I always wanted to put them in a Spelljammer campaign. See, they’re huge creatures that are like the Yeti and in Alterntiy, were a bit primitive, using huge weapons and primitive fire powder weapons. Included here is the Weren dire axe, a huge weapon that does 2d8 points of damage. The weren themselves though, are a LA +1, so get the GM’s permission before moving them into the game.
D20 Future has a lot of great art. The full color illustrations of the star ships and various weapons, of the mecha and vehicles, really add a lot of visual appeal to the book. The layout while standard two-column, is easy on the eyes, using different colors to make the book quick to read. Page numbers are in the middle of the outer edge with chapter titles at the bottom of the edge, making navigation easy.
I was a little shocked that there was no index. This book has a lot of things going on. The table of contents however, has a nice break down of what’s in each chapter, and an impressive listing of where the different tables are. Unlike some recent products I’ve read, there is only one page of advertisements here, and it’s for the RPGA as opposed to non-related novels and because it’s an official product, it has no declaration of OGC and no OGL taking up pages.
D20 Future is a great tool kit. Even though the chapters have several examples, they are too short by far, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see actual sourcebook similar to GURPS come out one day, as opposed to D20 Apocalypse and D20 Past, both of which cover specific eras and genres, as opposed to well, huge lists of equipment and items that players will want to add to their characters and GMs will want to use as building blocks for their campaigns.
D20 Future
Written by Chrisopher Perkins, Rodney Thompson, JD Wiker
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/d20modern
224 full color pages
Hardback
$34.95
D20 Future is a toolbox for the D20 Modern game. It covers a lot of ground and provides a lot of options. Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of material it tries to cover, it tends to be a useful resource for those already with a futuristic style campaign in mind or those who don’t mind doing a lot of background work.
Me? I’m used to stealing things from GURPS. There is no GURPS Future, there are books like GURPS Ultra Tech, Space, Hi-Tech, Bio-Tech, Mecha, Robots, and many others. In some ways, it’s a good thing that D20 Future doesn’t follow that route as it allows the reader to have a ‘bible’ of science fiction goods.
The book starts off with an introduction and goes through some progress levels. While I sold my old Alternity games a long time ago, these PLs look suspiciously like those and range from 0, the stone age, to 9, the levels where technology and magic are pretty much the same in that almost anything is possible and it’s hard to really comprehend the limits such science might have.
Moving onto characters, we get several occupations that are appropriate for futuristic campaigns, but in looking at them, several would fit any game like heir or transporter. After all, we all know that there’s a Transporter II coming out soon right? These occupations act as backgrounds, giving the character the ability to select a certain number of skills, a bonus feat, and a wealth bonus increase. For me, it seems handled inconsistently. Some of them offer one skill, others three. I know we shouldn’t min-max, but if it’s so blatant, why wouldn’t you?
A quick look at skills show what new uses old skills can be put to and some new feats, like Alien Weapons Proficiency or Armor Proficiency, Powered, allow the characters to burn through more feats to wield those exotic arms and armor that they’ll come across in the far future.
While no new prestige classes are included, we do have several advanced classes, easily accessible classes a bit more specialized than the core classes. Included are the following: ambassador, dogfighter, dreadnought, engineer, explorer, field officer, helix warrior, space monkey, swindler, technosavant, tracer, and xenopile. Each one has background notes, requirements, class information, class features and a table with all relevant information, including bab, saves, special abilities, defense bonus and reputationbonus.
As seen by the list of names, some of these are good for almost any system of campaign. What makes a field officer or ambassador necessarily a D20 Future character? Others like the dreadnought or helix warrior uses the advantages of future science, the former augmented with surgery and outside agents, the later DNA purification or “forced evolution”.
Chapter two provides a few campaign seeds to build on. Some of these are old favorites that used to have their own setting with either the Amazing Engine or Alternity like Bughunters or Star Drive. Each includes some background details, campaign traits, rules set, the PL level in essence, and some game feature. Advanced classes are included, as well as little side bits like ship maps or new monsters. It’s a chapter brimming with possibilities and those possibilities will all have to be carefully mapped out by the GM.
Chapter three is when the toys start to come in. Here, we have gear for all purposes. Need a voice recognition system for your weapon to ensure it’s not used against you? How about a tangler gun or a jetpack? All the common toys of the future are here.
Environments, chapter four, is oddly named. It’s a collection of various elements that a GM may want to include in his campaign. Things like radiation sickness, rules for different gravity environments, different type of atmospheric conditions, and star systems. It’s another short chapter that provides game rules and moves on.
Those looking to raise their hands to the heavens and shout, “It’s alive!”, will want to read over chapter five, scientific engineering. Here you can craft all sorts of templates or abilities such as the aquan template that provides the character with amphibious abilities, as well as blindsight, and low-light vision,and a bonus to some skills and even a bonus feat with advancement by character class. Such gene treatment isn’t cheap and is somewhat tricky, requiring a large number of Fortitude saving throws to accomplish.
Nanotechnology is also covered, including things like nanoviruses and nanoaugmenters, the former tearing down the host, the latter building him up.
Moving onto traveler science in chapter six, the authors give us % encounter for meteoroids, ideas on how PL and interplanetary and interstellar travel collide, jump gate technology, teleportation, FTL, dimensional travel, and time travel are all covered in brief. Some of them relate to earlier campaign ideas, and others, like time travel, could probably get filled out with a book of their own.
But how do you move between the stars or reach those jump gates? Through starships of course. Combat basics are included, as well as an example grid for starship fighting space. Starships have some things in common with characters, like hit points, but because it’s not a living thing, it doesn’t die at –10 hit points. Rather, the ship type determines when it’s destroyed. Numerous example ships, many of them illustrated, but not mapped, are included. These include ultra light escorts and fighters, to star freighters.
To showcase different ships, we have templates. These can include changes to the hit dice or engine type, upgrading armor type and senoss, or even weapon and attacks.
Not quite starships, vehicles include hovervehicles and cars, as well as motorcycles and trucks. Of course you can’t have a hovervehicle without having the armament to back up that flying fortress, so included are weapons and armor to insure that it’s not a one-stop trip.
Mecha, introduced in chapter nine, have size modifiers, equipment slots, hit points, base speed, height, weight, fighting space, reach, purchase DC, and restrictions. Combat statistics, base purchase DC, and equipment slots are noted for the different sizes of mecha, ranging from large to colossal. In essence, most add an equipment bonus to strength, providing the size modifiers to skill and combat checks, and have their own hit points and hardness with read and the ability to be outfitted with lots of weapons.
Weapons are broken up by PL and miscellaneous equipment is noted what PL it belongs to with parentheses next to the item. For example, a stealth suite is written as steal suite (PL 6).
Because of their unique nature, mecha have their own section of feats, including a note on which feats are essential, in this case, mecha operation and mecha weapon proficiency. To go with these new rules, a new advanced class, the mecha jockey is also included.
Some may want to play the machines as opposed to driving them though. For them, chapter ten, robotics is a good place to start. Two types, the biodroid (android) and bioreplica (synthetic), are noted as being appropriate for characters as the yare human enough that a character shouldn’t have a problem playing one and they’re not completely out of balance. See, they have no constitution scores, so despite using d10s for hit dice, they get no bonus outside of their construct bonus. They have some immunities and other abilities, but don’t heal on their own, and can’t use cybernetics.
Of course robots are also a good tool for the GM, and rules for the robot type or traits, is included and rules for different types of robots, including those that don’t necessarily look human, like the biomorph robot dog or armature robots, mechanical skeletons, are included with a few examples. As before, each type has an appropriate PL level and those highly advanced societies can even make the dreaded liquid-state robot. Unlike character robots, these cain hit dice based on their size. Stay away from the colossal ones with their 32d10 hit dice +120 bonus hit points. Dangerous stuff there.
But what about those that want machines in the meat? Cybernetics are covered in chapter eleven. In essence, you can have a number of attachments equal to your Constitution modifier +1 with a minimum of 0. Abilities range from general replacements that do nothing but replace the missing limb or organ, to enhancements like laser beams coming out of the eyes. Some of them would work perfectly for a Dragonmech game and fit into the steam power model very well. When getting that adamantine spine, why not get a fortified skeleton as well and get some damage reduction?
With the inherent limitation of pricing and only having so many cybernetics, I was a little disappointed to see mutations, covered in chapter twelve, use mutation points. To gain a mutation, you have to balance out the points. If you want something that costs 6 points, you need to take 6 points of negatives. I’d rather go for the gene therapy or ask the GM to give me a template. It’s funny that they mention things like X-Men, Spider Man and the Hulk as being mutations, and then require a character who wants to be ‘cool’, go through extensive mutations that cripple them. I can lift one hundred tons but can’t move!
The book ends with xenobiology. We get a nice listing of monsters appropriate for alien play including d20 Modern, d20 Menace Manual, and even the Monster Manual for good old Dungeons and Dragons. A few templates latter, like Extraterrestrial and Space, we get new heroic alien species, amny of which should be familiar to those old fans of Alternity. Included in the line up are aleerin, dralasite, fraal, sesheyan, t’sa, vrusk, weren, and yazirian.
The good news is that many of these races are a LA of 0, meaning you can play them right off the bat. I was glad to see my favorite, the weren included here, as I always wanted to put them in a Spelljammer campaign. See, they’re huge creatures that are like the Yeti and in Alterntiy, were a bit primitive, using huge weapons and primitive fire powder weapons. Included here is the Weren dire axe, a huge weapon that does 2d8 points of damage. The weren themselves though, are a LA +1, so get the GM’s permission before moving them into the game.
D20 Future has a lot of great art. The full color illustrations of the star ships and various weapons, of the mecha and vehicles, really add a lot of visual appeal to the book. The layout while standard two-column, is easy on the eyes, using different colors to make the book quick to read. Page numbers are in the middle of the outer edge with chapter titles at the bottom of the edge, making navigation easy.
I was a little shocked that there was no index. This book has a lot of things going on. The table of contents however, has a nice break down of what’s in each chapter, and an impressive listing of where the different tables are. Unlike some recent products I’ve read, there is only one page of advertisements here, and it’s for the RPGA as opposed to non-related novels and because it’s an official product, it has no declaration of OGC and no OGL taking up pages.
D20 Future is a great tool kit. Even though the chapters have several examples, they are too short by far, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see actual sourcebook similar to GURPS come out one day, as opposed to D20 Apocalypse and D20 Past, both of which cover specific eras and genres, as opposed to well, huge lists of equipment and items that players will want to add to their characters and GMs will want to use as building blocks for their campaigns.
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