d20 modern classless
- Thread starter Munin
- Start date
Search the older threads around here. Someone did a really nice conversion from class talents to feats. As I recall, they handled hit dice, Defense bonus, BAB, saves, and skills through a point buy system.
EDIT: And not to attack your idea, but do you have any reason in particular for wanting to go classless? From what I've seen, the flexibility of the multiclassing system in d20 Modern is almost classless -- taking a level of Strong Hero isn't as straitjacketing a choice as taking a level of D&D fighter or wizard. It's effectively having some of the tough choices for point buy made for you...
As I said, though, someone did a really nifty version of it, and you should be able to find it around here somewhere.
EDIT: And not to attack your idea, but do you have any reason in particular for wanting to go classless? From what I've seen, the flexibility of the multiclassing system in d20 Modern is almost classless -- taking a level of Strong Hero isn't as straitjacketing a choice as taking a level of D&D fighter or wizard. It's effectively having some of the tough choices for point buy made for you...
As I said, though, someone did a really nifty version of it, and you should be able to find it around here somewhere.
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Malacoda
First Post
That Would Be Me...
The system Takyris is referring to is The Custom Hero (TCH). I had a web page up with the PDF file, but have since taken it down. I am currently working on version 2.0 of TCH, and while the basic concepts will remain, some things are being rewritten, and I am adding a ton of stuff. Plus, some things need to be worded properly to carry the d20 logo. I had to do some semantic dancing in order to get rules for character creation into a d20 product when the license doesn't allow rules on character creation.
TCH 2.0 will also have rules for magic, including most of the types of magic found in D&D, with point costs for eveything.
I am also working on a supplement (which is currently waiting on the 3.5e SRD) that will include all of the racial, class, prestige class and monster abilities from 3.5e with point costs. After that comes a supplement with a set of rules for superpowers, which is coming along very well.
The system Takyris is referring to is The Custom Hero (TCH). I had a web page up with the PDF file, but have since taken it down. I am currently working on version 2.0 of TCH, and while the basic concepts will remain, some things are being rewritten, and I am adding a ton of stuff. Plus, some things need to be worded properly to carry the d20 logo. I had to do some semantic dancing in order to get rules for character creation into a d20 product when the license doesn't allow rules on character creation.
TCH 2.0 will also have rules for magic, including most of the types of magic found in D&D, with point costs for eveything.
I am also working on a supplement (which is currently waiting on the 3.5e SRD) that will include all of the racial, class, prestige class and monster abilities from 3.5e with point costs. After that comes a supplement with a set of rules for superpowers, which is coming along very well.
Ranger REG
Explorer
Call of Cthulhu d20 introduced the concept of "one-class" which is akin to "classless." Research that book for reference and inspiration.
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
I've been working alot with making characters for D20 for a big 11+ person game I"m going to run.
All the players are playing themselves (sort of a running theme with me) and alot of them are Smart heroes.
And they're absolutely nothing alike. I find that having 6 people take the same class and have almost no overlap in skills and feats is pretty sweet.
Then I have a Tough hero who put alot of skill points into traditionally Smart skills because of Class-Skills opened up via Starting Occupation.
All-in-all, getting in and working with it, I haven't found the class system of D20 Modern to be restrictive. Just the opposite. Hundreds of perfectly viable combinations are there, and the system pretty much does the work for you.
I've played Classless systems before. Everybody vaunts the customizability and how you can find the "Real" hero you want to play. *shrugs* It's just harder to balance, in my opinion. It should all be balances and trade-offs. The Basic Classes system of D20M, as one poster said, basically just does all the troublesome balancing for you.
Because if you DON'T balance correctly, people will abuse the hell out of your system. "Customization" and "truth to the character" aside, super-complex point-buy systems have, in my experience, always degenerated into an excuse to min-max a super character by abusing the little loopholes that appear all over.
Your Mileage May Vary, of course, but I'd suggest sitting down and playing a few dry runs with the classes as they are now and seeing what you can and can't do. I've run into ONE problem ... two people have taken a few years of martial arts and they feel they should get Combat Martial Arts. It's a Feat problem totally unrelated to the classes but for the BAB issue. You have to have a BAB of +1 to take CMA, and the only basic class that has +1BAB at 1st level is Strong.
*shrug* Other than that, not a complaint or a problem. I convinced them to take Defensive Martial Arts instead and I think everybody is happy.
--fje
All the players are playing themselves (sort of a running theme with me) and alot of them are Smart heroes.
And they're absolutely nothing alike. I find that having 6 people take the same class and have almost no overlap in skills and feats is pretty sweet.
Then I have a Tough hero who put alot of skill points into traditionally Smart skills because of Class-Skills opened up via Starting Occupation.
All-in-all, getting in and working with it, I haven't found the class system of D20 Modern to be restrictive. Just the opposite. Hundreds of perfectly viable combinations are there, and the system pretty much does the work for you.
I've played Classless systems before. Everybody vaunts the customizability and how you can find the "Real" hero you want to play. *shrugs* It's just harder to balance, in my opinion. It should all be balances and trade-offs. The Basic Classes system of D20M, as one poster said, basically just does all the troublesome balancing for you.
Because if you DON'T balance correctly, people will abuse the hell out of your system. "Customization" and "truth to the character" aside, super-complex point-buy systems have, in my experience, always degenerated into an excuse to min-max a super character by abusing the little loopholes that appear all over.
Your Mileage May Vary, of course, but I'd suggest sitting down and playing a few dry runs with the classes as they are now and seeing what you can and can't do. I've run into ONE problem ... two people have taken a few years of martial arts and they feel they should get Combat Martial Arts. It's a Feat problem totally unrelated to the classes but for the BAB issue. You have to have a BAB of +1 to take CMA, and the only basic class that has +1BAB at 1st level is Strong.
*shrug* Other than that, not a complaint or a problem. I convinced them to take Defensive Martial Arts instead and I think everybody is happy.
--fje
Strong Hero is actually more straitjacketed than the fighter class.takyris said:
d20 Modern isn't almost classless, and the base classes aren't that generic. Each one has a lot of assumptions built into it - most notably in the class skills, # of skill points, bonus feats, and attack/defense bonuses. You can get around the class skills limitation to some extent with your occupation. You can't get around the bonus feat lists, though, if you're after any of talents that can't be taken at first level.
If your character concept is close to the stereotypes that the designers had in mind for each base class, you're good to go. But a classless system doesn't deal with stereotypes at all.
Now, Call of Cthulhu d20, that's an almost classless d20 system. But it's only really possible, I think, because the characters don't get anything in the way of special abilities. Making the d20 Modern classes more customizable would be a lot of work and I sure wouldn't want to do it. Although I'm glad someone is. I'll be very interested in seeing the finished product.
Malacoda
First Post
Vigilance
Explorer
Slightly off topic license point here Mal-
Rather than dance around the d20 license, as you put it, why not just make the game OGC?
Then you can discuss character generation all you want.
This is what Mutants and Masterminds did, and for a book that IS a character generation system (I had your old PDF and dug it btw), you would be able to explain things in much greater detail.
The only thing you really lose is the d20 logo. And that doesnt seem to have hurt M&M any
Chuck
Rather than dance around the d20 license, as you put it, why not just make the game OGC?
Then you can discuss character generation all you want.
This is what Mutants and Masterminds did, and for a book that IS a character generation system (I had your old PDF and dug it btw), you would be able to explain things in much greater detail.
The only thing you really lose is the d20 logo. And that doesnt seem to have hurt M&M any
Chuck
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