D20 Modern Talent Tree Non Sequitors

[Felon]

I'm having a heck of a lot of fun reading through d20 Modern. Great book.

I've found a couple of issues with the various basic class talent trees that don't add up.

First off, take a look at the Strong Hero's trees. Is Ignore Hardness ever a more beneficial tree than Melee Smash? Ignore Hardness deducts 1 point of hardness per level of talent from an object that you attack in melee. Melee Smash adds 1 points of damage per level of talent to your melee attacks. Is it ever better to reduce an object's hardness than it is to simply do one more point of damage? After all, the latter effect is useful against both living and unliving targets.

Secondly, I noticed that the Smart Hero's Trick talent is almost identical to the Charismatic Hero's Taunt talent. The saves against them are different (Reflex vs. Will), but the mechanics are otherwise indistinguishable. Yet, Trick can only be used once against an opponent per encounter, while Taunt can be used any number of times. This strikes me as unbalanced, as they are both on the same tier of their respective trees.

I wanted to run this past my esteemed EN colleagues before posting it on the WotC board in the hopes of an official response. What do you guys think?

 

[Bagpuss]

I think you'll have to wait until I have a hard copy of the rules as I hate reading large blocks of text from a computer screen.

 

[Voadam]

Well, the melee smash talent tree only goes up three levels and you can get 5 talents by 10th level, so you could use it as a second tier effect after maxing melee smash to do even more for things with hardness.

 

[Felon]

Good point, but would you agree with the assertion that Melee Smash trumps Ignore Hardness?

 

[Dismas]

Good point, but would you agree with the assertion that Melee Smash trumps Ignore Hardness?

Depends on the character concept.

 

[Felon]

No, character concept is not germaine to this topic. I'm talking purely in terms of balanced game mechanics. Allow me to rephrase for additional clarity:

Can anyone think of a situation where Ignore Hardness is a more advantageous talent than Melee Smash?

 

[Alejandro]

I can't.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I can't.

Me neither. Sounds like a house rule to double or triple the effect of ignore hardness is in order. Especially since ignore hardness only works against those rare things with hardness, most of which don't fight back anyway. Perhaps doubling the effect and allowing it to work against any form of damage reduction would be a good alternative.

 

[Felon]

Me neither. Sounds like a house rule to double or triple the effect of ignore hardness is in order. Especially since ignore hardness only works against those rare things with hardness, most of which don't fight back anyway. Perhaps doubling the effect and allowing it to work against any form of damage reduction would be a good alternative.

Good ideas. Having the Ignore Hardness double as a magical "plus" for purposes of penetrating damage reduction also meshes well.

Btw, love Master-of-Arms. Are you the same Steve P. of Hero Games fame?

 

[Magius del Cotto]

Hm... As you say it, there isn't really any reason to take it. However, I'm guessing there's a "only against targets without hardness" clause floating around with the damage increase one, in which case, you'd have to take both for the full effect. Outside of that, or adding a "gains +1 damage against targets without hardness" (which would, in the end, make them identical), there seems to be no non-flavor reason to take Ignore Hardness over Melee Smash.