[d20 Modern] Let the gnashing of teeth begin!

[Ranger REG]

High-level characters may be invincible under the VP/WP system, but it still take one good critical shot to bring him down, from healthy to fatigued, if not incapacitated. To do that, one should allow greater threat range on weapons, especially modern firearms.

With HP (using a lower MDT value), you'll have to roll your Fort save to see if you die, just die. If not, you can still fight on healthy as a horse. That means you'll have to modify the HP system a little further to simulate the same kind of semi-realism as VP/WP.

And I emphasize semi-realism, while I like the element of danger and risk of dying, I really don't like having my character die. If that is the case, I might as well play Call of Cthulhu d20.

 

[Darkness]

...

And I emphasize semi-realism, while I like the element of danger and risk of dying, I really don't like having my character die. If that is the case, I might as well play Call of Cthulhu d20.

Or, better yet, Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Re: Re: [d20 Modern] Let the gnashing of teeth begin!

Hm. Call me stupid, ignorant, and foolish (please! please! I'm a worm! I'm a naughty boy who deserves to be...cough. ahem. Never mind) but I don't see the problem, if I'm reading you correctly.

Characters gain HP ala CoC.
If character takes more than Con damage from a single attack, they make a FORT save or die.

I see nothing intuitively wrong with this. It makes guns lethal, especially on a crit, but allows Ahr-nuld to take a few good shots but keep soldiering on, while low->average Con folks risk a fort save with every bullet.

What obvious flaw am I missing?

The problem is that CoC, by its nature, is meant to be overly lethal. However, seeing as how d20 Modern is supposed to be somewhat of a modern game extension of the niche filled by DnD in the fantasy market, I think it safe to say that one should expect characters along the same vein of survivability. Why would I want to face a dragon, even if armed with a mini-gun, knowing that it has enough bonuses that my non-magical kevlar suit still makes me an easy target and, thanks to the Con save rule, I wouldn't be able to survive should the wyrm decide to sneeze at me? At least in Call of Cthulhu I get to go insane before I get turned into fertilizer for Dagon's underwater vegetable garden.

 

[Horacio]

Disabled doesn't mean dead, at least last time I checked my dictionary...

 

[Moon_Goddess]

Disabled doesn't mean dead, at least last time I checked my dictionary...

No, it means lying on the floor defenseless, and dead next round.

 

[Horacio]

No, it means lying on the floor defenseless, and dead next round.

Not if your friends are still alive...

 

[hong]

No, it means lying on the floor defenseless, and dead next round.

"Dying" is a different state to "disabled", at least according to the SRD.

Re VP/WP: I really don't see the point of the direct-to-body crits. If what you want is to remind your players they're mortal, there are better and less abstract ways of doing it. If what you want is to encourage a damn-the-torpedoes, swashbuckling attitude, you can just keep using hit points.

The advantages of VP/WP IMO are:
- better healing rate than hit points, so you don't need a party medic so much;
- improved survivability at low levels, since it effectively expands the 0-hit-point state in D&D into a range.

You could easily use something like this in d20 Modern.

 

[Ranger REG]

Re VP/WP: I really don't see the point of the direct-to-body crits. If what you want is to remind your players they're mortal, there are better and less abstract ways of doing it.

There is something better than VP/WP?

 

[AdamBank]

Crits doing temp Con damage

There is something better than VP/WP?

Well, I think it's all a matter of personal preference, but since you asked ...

How about critical hits do temp Con damage?

(Weapons listed as "x2" roll as normal but reduce Con; weapons listed as "x3" do double damage against Con; x4 weapons do tripple against Con)

I'm intrigued because characters would suffer effects from wounds other than being disabled, dying, or dead.

 

[hong]

There is something better than VP/WP?

For the purpose of keeping hot-headed players in check, yes. VP is just another variant of Dude points, just like hit points. They have most of the features of hit points, good and bad.

- Instead of adding big bundles of Dude points, you can give powerful chars big bonuses to AC (equivalent to PD in GURPS).

- Alternatively, give them some sort of inherent DR.

- Alternatively, use a method whereby every X points of "flesh wounds" converts to a "heavy wound".

These approaches would achieve much the same result in terms of keeping people in check, without the inherent problems of a Dude point system.