D&D 4E d20 Modern 4E - I want it!

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think I would put Samantha more in the Techie, and Daniel more as a peoples person. But they fit into both... Multiclassed?

 

[Frostmarrow]

On the Millenium Falcon:

Leaders: Han, Luke
Techies: R2D2
Big Guys: Chewbacca
People Persons: Leia, C3PO

 

[Frostmarrow]

I think I would put Samantha more in the Techie, and Daniel more as a peoples person. But they fit into both... Multiclassed?

Daniel is a linguist isn't he? So in the beginning he is a techie (egyptologist) who later evolves into a people person. Samantha is likeable. I think she is in the show so that people who are not themselves leaders, techies, or big guys have someone to relate to. People Persons are 'normal'. I'm a techie; I relate to Daniel.

 

[hong]

d20 Modern 4E, with its heroic/paragon/tiers, sounds like the perfect competitor to White Wolf's Scion.

 

[DarkKestral]

Daniel is definitely the "people" person, as his main benefit to the team comes from in-depth knowledge about cultural things and he's able to diplomatically talk down any number of groups. Plus, initially, Carter is brought in because of her technical knowledge, while Daniel remains because he's proven himself capable of dealing with the alien cultures in a way that convinces them Earth is on their side. Though frankly O'Neill and Carter are not total slouches when it comes to diplomacy either. It's fairly common in an episode to see O'Neill give Daniel the diplomat's role without even appearing to think about it. In combat, I don't exactly know what to call Daniel or Carter; they're definitely not made out to be as good as Teal'c or O'Neill when it comes to combat, but they're not supposedly slouches either.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

d20 Modern 4E, with its heroic/paragon/tiers, sounds like the perfect competitor to White Wolf's Scion.

Quite possible.

I wonder how "superheroes" would fit into a d20 Modern 2.0? Should it be a tier? Or should one rip out paragon and epic paths out and put them at heroic levels, to get superheroic tier?
It's probably a bit premature to think about such details, but it's still an interesting question.

Do superheroes start at a higher level, or do they just get more powers?

 

[DarkKestral]

Daniel is a linguist isn't he? So in the beginning he is a techie (egyptologist) who later evolves into a people person. Samantha is likeable. I think she is in the show so that people who are not themselves leaders, techies, or big guys have someone to relate to. People Persons are 'normal'. I'm a techie; I relate to Daniel.

How so? She's the one who knows all about the crazy technology, and it was even lampshaded in the episodes 200 that she is the techie during the marionette sequence. A direct quote: "I do know this—we need to put together a team, starting with the most beautiful, battle-ready, scientific genius I know: Captain Doctor Samantha Carter." However, Daniel is the "bookworm adventurer who knows 'brains' and 'guts' in 27 different languages." The main tech that seems to be Daniel's specific purview are the DHDs themselves, and we all know Carter can hack into them, though it appears to take more time than to have Daniel just punch in the code.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Techie might be the wrong word for the 'sage' role. Maybe we are back to Expert. But Expert doesn't really fit with 4E anymore since there are no more skill-monkeys.

But what purpose does roles serve in a modern setting? The leader is quite easy. But then we need to think about what the roles of a group in a dangerous situation is. The leader deals extra actions and healing surges to allies. That works for me.

In a skill challenge everybody is supposed to contribute and everybody have useful skills at about the same level of expertise. So there is no clear role here.

I'm not quite sure tv-series help here. Alas. We need a new model. As Dark Kestral points out, Daniel and Samantha are (no slouches) not quite as good combatants as O'Neill and Teal'c. In a 4E modern game I (as a player) would expect to be as good in a fight as any character, albeit not in the same way.

Perhaps we should just shuffle a deck of skills and hand out an even number of skills to each player and say "make a character with this background".

 

[DarkKestral]

Quite possible.

I wonder how "superheroes" would fit into a d20 Modern 2.0? Should it be a tier? Or should one rip out paragon and epic paths out and put them at heroic levels, to get superheroic tier?
It's probably a bit premature to think about such details, but it's still an interesting question.

Do superheroes start at a higher level, or do they just get more powers?

Definitely not a single tier; Modern games generally stay well within what would be a single in D&D for the course of a longer time and there is often a huge jump from action hero to superhero that generally changes the system in ways that a lot of people wouldn't expect, and far more than say "ok, tactic switch to 'scry n' fry' begins in 3... 2... 1..." as it often is in D&D. Emulating superhero comics requires a far different mindset than say... emulating standard fantasy fiction. Many of the basic assumptions don't apply.

For one thing, the power source usually tends to matter, as magic, psi, and tech powers often have totally different effects on heroes; Superman's main weaknesses are krypton (an admittedly tech-based weakness) and magic, and it is often made out that a guy with a big honkin' magical sword may be a weakling, but because the sword is magical, it'll still damage Supes, but were that sword to be a chainsword without a krypton blade, Supes can shrug it off as if it were nothing more than a paper scratch. Additionally, powersources tend to define how a character's powers present themselves in some respects; there are powers which almost always show up only as a result of a specific power source. In a lot of fantasy fiction, powersource doesn't seem to matter so much; the fireball is just as often stopped by the magical plate armor as a sword would be, and a lot of powersources show up in multiple places.

Additionally, most characters in comics (Wolverine, Superman, and Jean Grey excepted) tend to stick with one single rough power level most of the time, occasional crossover specials notwithstanding, so there is little real "progression" to correlate with levels unlike say the genres of fiction D&D has always attempted to emulate.

As well, comics don't always stick with the generally clear delineations of ability sets found within most fantasy fiction; while there are certainly character archetypes that correspond to the main archetypes found in fantasy, not all blaster characters are glass cannons, and many have an array of apparent defensive abilities beyond just "run away." Likewise, a lot of tank characters have powers that aren't just "soak up more and more damage." As a result, some form of point buy is generally present in most successful superhero game systems. HERO, M&M, even GURPS and Tri-Stat have typically done better as superhero systems than pure D&D style classed, leveled systems. Perhaps the system that has done the best while remaining classed and leveled was City of Heroes's/Villains's system. Even there, the game requires that the player pick a few options, so they have a wide variety of given abilities they can choose from. Even there, the developers have now seemingly decided for their next game, they'll be more class-less than is the case in CoH/CoV, though they're sticking with levels and classes.

Even moreso, tactical combat's somewhat harder to do in supers games, as dealing with a mix of characters who can fly, run at super speeds, and other means of odd motion and mechanics makes tactical combat somewhat difficult to keep balanced.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The more I think about it, the more that I think that the defender/striker/leader/controller role set for fantasy games doesn't really work for modern games.

I've not decided what I think -does- make a good set of roles yet; I'm actually leaning towards the d20modern archetypes of strong/fast/tough/smart/dedicated/charismatic as being as good a basis as any for "roles";

Another alternative is to look at True20 and take the three roles they've identified there:

Warrior (defender-striker powers)
Expert (striker - leader powers)
Adept (magi-psychic-weird (arcane/divine) powers)

Cheers