d20 Modern System Reference Document available!

[Bagpuss]

Having looked it over I have to ask:

Other than pretty pictures, flavor text, and the little campaign settings, is there any reason to buy the book now?

Am I missing something?

Its easier to carry to the gaming table (that's in someone else house in my case) than my PC?

I can refer to it even when the power is out or I'm not near a computer?

 

[Henry]

Just the act of having a book itself compared to a PDF makes it worth the price. Plus, they gutted the campaign settings except for the "Department 7" info.

In one word: convenience.

 

[Henry]

I could understand this if it was for just having the Burst Fire feat with fully automatic weapons, ie: you need the wisdom not to just hold down the trigger and spray. But you can't even use Burst Fire with a weapon with the burst setting without the feat.

From the d20M-SRD:

Burst Fire
Prerequisites: Wisdom 13, Personal Firearms Proficiency, Advanced Firearms Proficiency.
Benefit: When using an automatic firearm with at least five bullets loaded, the character may fire a short burst as a single attack against a single target. The character receives a –4 penalty on the attack roll, but deal +2 dice of damage.
Firing a burst expends five bullets and can only be done if the weapon has five bullets in it.
Normal: Autofire uses ten bullets, targets a 10-foot-by-10-foot area, and can’t be aimed at a specific target. Without this feat, if a character attempts an autofire attack at a specific target, it simply counts as a normal attack and all the extra bullets are wasted.

So as you see, there is a point to Burst Fire without the feat - when you absolutely, positively, have to kill every last ****** in the room, use burst fire to attack whole 10' x 10' areas with the same weapon. Burst fire is the norm's fireball, and the poor man's rocket launcher.

Note that the feat doesn't say you can't attack anyone - you just can't attack a specific target in the area, and do the extra 2 dice of damage.

 

[Bagpuss]

Its still mixed up since burst fire is about improving your chance to hit with at least one round not just an attempt to improve your damage.

I can understand having to have a Feat (ie training) to use burst fire effectively but I can't understand the Wisdom 13 requirement?

 

[Henry]

Perhaps it has to do with perception, which in d20 is intimately linked to Wisdom? After all, Wisdom is the contributing attribute to spot and listen, so a higher wisdom means being more alert and perceptive.

Of course, arguments could be made for either strength or dexterity being more useful here, but to be honest, I can't justify any one more so than the other. It DOES mean that those lead-spitting machine-gun maniac PC's are going to be sporting higher wisdoms than they normally would, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

[Felon]

First thought: Why is the "Strong Hero" the only one to get +1 BAB/level? Why not the "fast hero" as well?

Having the best BAB is the Strong Hero's forte'. The Fast Hero gets the best defense bonus.

 

[Felon]

Second thought: How the hell do you knock anyone out with unarmed attacks? You are unlikely to do enough nonlethal damage (1d3+Str modifier) to equal or surpass the target's Constitution score - and if the damage is less than the target's Contstitution, it is unaffected...

Yes, the nonlethal damage rules are a crock. My guess is, they don't want to have subdual damage in a game where healing may be hard to come by (assuming magic isn't present in the campaign).

I'm still a big fan of letting all character spend action points to recover hit points. I see they made second winds the sole purview of the Tough Hero. That was a mistake.

 

[Felon]

HOLY HELL!!!

I just took a look at the SRD, and I can't believe it. Pretty much everything's there. The formatting's poor, but if you don't have $40 to blow on D20 Modern, then don't bother.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Wisdom seems right as the prereq for burst for me.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Well. It looks like the Mage and the other Advanced classes appearing in the campaign settings aren't in the SRD.