D20 Modern - What are your house rules?

[SteveC]

Third .. I have to agree with some other posters, I would like to hear about this schtick skill that you implemented, it sounds like an interesting idea.

Doh! This goes to show me about not getting back to threads that I post to. I don't have the exact rules for schticks here with me, but this is the gist of it:

Each character is meant to be the special authority on a particular skill. A fast hero might be good at a lot of different physical skills, but when it comes to hiding, they are an absolute ghost. This will be their schtick skill. Characters are not required to pick a schtick, because it brings along with it a set of baggage: your reputation is defined in some ways by the schtick you choose. A schtick has two sets of benefits, one in-game and the other purely roleplaying.

To set up schticks, all of the players in a campaign get together and pick one skill to be their schtick. One character might pick concentration, another disable device, and so on. There needs to be agreement among all of the players as to who can have a schtick, because it will limit how good the other characters in the group can be at it to a certain extent.

Once you pick your schtick, you get the following benefits to it:

1. The skill is automatically a class skill for you.
2. You may purchase one extra rank in it, so your max ranks become Level +4. This may make it easier for you to acquire an advanced or prestige class.
3. You receive a skill focus in that skill as a bonus feat.
4. No other character can take skill focus in that feat, even NPCs.
5. You receive a special schtick bonus of +3 to reputation checks made in the area of your schtick.

That last bonus is really a mechanical way of saying that your schtick is something that your character will be known for in the campaign, which can be both a blessing and a curse depending on the situation.

The effects of schticks on a campaign are pretty obvious: characters with identical stat bonuses have a net bonus of +4 to their skill bonus over another character of comparable level. One thing to note, however, is that a character can actually be worse at their schtick than another character if there is a significant difference in level or ability scores. This is intended, because it can set up some excellent roleplaying. As an example, one character who joined the campaign later on chose knowledge (arcane) as their schtick. Another character, a smart hero, was actually much better at it, but all of the NPCs in the game kept coming around to talk to the newbie about their knowledge of the magical world. This left the original character seething! I should note that both players discussed how this would work and were fine with it.

One thing that I chose to limit myself with was that no other character, even an NPC could take skill focus in the schtick skill. I did this because I wanted the characters to be unique and not be overshadowed by an NPC. Now I did have higher level NPCs in the game, and they might have had more ranks in a particular skill than one of the characters, but they were always keenly aware of the potential the character had. Sometimes this meant they would seek to be mentor figures, other times it meant they would be rivals. In either case, the schtick rules gave both a mechanical advantage, and also gave a real sense of being "special" to the character.

Two caveats: first, if a character dies and is replaced, the new character can keep the same schtick, or pick a new one as the player prefers. Once again, the group must come to a consensus as to what skills are available for this because of of rule 4 listed above.
The second caveat is that if the players can't come to an agreement as to who can choose a particular schtick, the skill is simply unavailable as a schtick choice.

In the campaign I chose, we had hiding, survival, climb, knowledge (arcane), spell craft and diplomacy as schtick skills. The most amusing one chosen was climb, and it actually became the focus for a series of adventures as the group was approached as the "formest experts in climbing" to rescue a stranded expedition in the mountains.

And finally ... I'd personally like to hear more about your more cinamatic gun rules.

If, ofcourse, you don't mind sharing.

I'll have to dig those up...and I'll post them when I can.

--Steve