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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5340025" data-attributes="member: 1165">I would like to see the following types of changes:Gun combat*Guns need to do scaling damage. Melee Smash and advancing Strength let you increase damage markedly, at least in the lower levels, but there are very few options for firearms. (And many of them are equipment-based.)*Autofire needs to be ... better somehow. Save DCs need to scale at the very least. (The DC could start at lower than 15. It's not underpowered at low levels.)*There needs to be a few new options for gunnery to make it a bit more interesting. There's no cover fire, pinning down, and no damage-increasing options for snipers.Non-lethal Damage*Just copy 3.x. Done.Talents*Generally the mental talents need a better explanation. The designers had to tell me what the Plan talent does on their messageboard because the game explanation wasn't sufficient. I've basically come up with a definition of the Intuition talent for myself... I have no idea how it was playtested.*Some mental talents need to be a little better, at least at lower levels.**Dazzle takes too many actions for what you get out of it.**Taunt is possibly overpowered (due to the high save DCs).**Inspiration is only useful if you have a Charisma of 14+ (expected) and at least 4 levels (a little too weak, IMO) since (IMO again) it's only useful if you can buff 2 allies for two rounds (it takes 1 full round to use). Greater Inspiration, as written, is nearly useless, since it takes an extra round. (I've house-ruled to just give an additional +1 bonus.)Feats*I love Frightful Presence. The save DC is a bit high though at the higher levels. But my player characters love using it for "face-stabbing", as they call it.Balance*Melee ends up being better than ranged combat. There's many more melee options, especially when it comes to cranking damage.**A Strong Hero 5 with Strength 16 can, with one feat (Archaic Weapons Proficiency) dish out 2d6+7 damage a hit at no penalties to attack rolls (indeed, with the highest possible attack bonus). That's an average of 14 damage right there.**The only way to spec out a ranged character to do the same damage is to take a 2d10 rifle and Soldier. (A Strong Hero 3/Soldier 2 could do 2d10 + 2 damage a hit, an average of 13.) A "fully specced" melee warrior, using just core rules, with a starting Strength of 15, could go Strong 5/Soldier 8 and dish out 2d6+13 damage a hit (average 20) while a "fully specced" ranged soldier could only do 2d10+4 without using the risky Burst Fire feat.*Defense can get excessive, although it often seems very high numbers come about by accident. A Strong 2/Fast 2/Soldier 2 with Dex 14 and a light-duty vest has a Defense of 24 in the rules... at 6th-level. He'd have an attack bonus of +7 with the weapon he has Weapon Focus in. That's a bit of a mismatch. (Said NPC was designed with skills in mind, but ended up with an extraordinarily high Defense.)Base Classes*Tweak the Fast class Defense bonus. I trimmed the lower end but left the higher level bonuses the same to discourage single-level dipping.*The Charismatic class should get Sense Motive as a class skill. A little spreading of skill points overall would be nice.Advanced Classes*The Gunslinger needs a rework. It has a pretty low BAB; I'm a little tired of seeing "gunslingers" going Strong and nothing else (for the accuracy and extra attacks), even taking talents like Melee Smash that have nothing to do with their character concept.**IMO it either needs full BAB or (probably a better option) a small (max +3) level-based bonus to ranged attacks. Free Weapon Focus isn't enough.**Furthermore it needs a damage bonus for skilled shots. At present there's no bonus until 10th-level, but then you get a huge bonus... which costs action points. I'd rather see something smaller and scaling without costing that many resources. It also does not need to get 1d10 hit points per level. They shouldn't be as tough as Soldiers IMO. 1d8 is plenty.Weapons*IMO guns should be simplified a little bit. There's no need to have 2d10 and 2d8 automatic rifles in the same game.*For some reason, grenades seem like they're overpowered IME. I'm not sure why, but battles go a lot more smoothly with my new group, which doesn't use grenades.*IMC guns don't grant melee opportunity attacks unless the PC spends a feat on it (I hate useless rolls; if you've specced for ranged combat, you're probably going to miss and do lame damage anyway). Although it's possible the rules actually prevent this but if so, they're not clear.A complete revision of Wealth. The Profession skill is so "broken", not in the sense that it's overpowered (it <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoneyForNothing" target="_blank">definitely isn't</a>) but because motivating PCs becomes very difficult when they can get money for nothing.**Except in d20 Future, which had equipment and various other bonuses as a massive muddled mess. I actually returned it, it was so bad.*IMO PCs should start with more Wealth. PCs don't need houses and cars to start, but they tend to go bankrupt just buying guns and armor. But after that Wealth should only go up with RPing or adventuring.*IMO they should go back to Alternity's take on things. In d20 Modern, there are no "expenses" so PCs can just sit back and get money for nothing. No one pays rent, at least not IME, since Wealth only goes down if you make big purchases, and you only need to do that at campaign start (there's no Wealth sinks†). There's no space for a dirt-poor hard-boiled detective who needs jobs in order to make ends meet. Obviously there's no need to keep track of how much PCs are spending on hamburgers or something; Alternity had a "lifestyle" cost system to take care of this. I don't like Shadowrun rules much, but they had a similar lifestyle system which could (and did) allow PCs to be anything from scrabbling for money to (if you were a lion shaman, say) having a much-above-average lifestyle.†Any sinks that exist are easily avoidable. Who needs to spend money on hospitals when you've got a medic? He's getting paid a part of the mission proceeds anyway, and being your friend shouldn't have any problem healing you for free. (It's not like he pays you to shoot at the bad guys and therefore save his life.) The only cost is an occasional refill of the Surgery kit, much less suspicious than showing up at the hospital with an "accidental" three 5.56 mm bullet wounds.*The random amount of lost Wealth when purchasing needs to go, IMO.Settings*Only "good" settings please. This means no Sunnydale settings.Vehicular Combat*I don't like the ruleset they have there. The scaling is, for lack of a better term, "all wrong". Vehicular and personal combat aren't the same thing, so they don't need to use the same scale. You also shouldn't try to use maps; there's just too much area to cover.*Running someone over is too powerful -- something you can't pull off in a city (you'll be arrested), but in a warzone? In one adventure, I had to move NPCs into buildings because otherwise they'd get hit, and at the very least have to spend an action getting back up!*Spycraft's vehicular combat rules are much more fun. I just stole them; they fit right in, as long as you ignore any reference to the Wheelman (or whatever) class (which was the only way to use the more interesting techniques).*I don't know why this is, but I can never get the hit points right. One system made cars too easy to trash, the other made them too difficult.Action Points*My players requested APs be useable after you make a roll. They didn't like the recharge per level rule, and I didn't like how they stack up over levels (PCs never seem to use them). I'm considering letting APs apply to Defense and even damage.</blockquote>

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