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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vigilance" data-source="post: 3773399" data-attributes="member: 4275">Thanks ogre!I got rid of the proficiency feats for weapons and armor because I felt like they were a legacy of a class based system that didn't really fit in the modern world. There are some other things I folded into skills, like the d20M fast hero talents that increased your movement, those are now part of the Athletics skill. Except, to make it cleaner, I made several movement modes for humans: running, climbing, swimming and jumping. So as you gain ranks in Athletics, your run speed, climb speed, swim speed and jumping "speed" (distance) increase. Similarly, endurance is now part of the Athletics skill. Burst Fire, which was a feat, and Double Tap, are part of the Firearms skill. Power Attack is part of the Weapons and Unarmed skill, Shield use is part of the Weapons skill, and Two-Weapon fighting is part of the Weapon skill. Most of these require perks, which are things you get from your occupation in Modern20. Everyone gets two perks, and you can take a feat to get more perks. Best of all, perks can be changed over time, so you aren't locked into your perks. Explaining why your job's on the job training involves two-weapon fighting? That's the fun part!So as you can see, things that are basically facets of being good with weapons, unarmed combat and firearms that are folded into the skills.THis means that a character with 4 ranks in Weapons but a +15 BAB is a tremendously gifted natural fighter, but there would be things a character with a +10 BAB and and 10 ranks in Weapons would be better at (like targeting a specific area of the body or counterattacking). As for non-combat classes gaining combat skills, only one of the classes has a poor BAB (the Star), and only one has a good BAB (the Powerhouse). The other four classes have a medium BAB.So while the Brainiac and Empath are considered skill specialists, they can become excellent combatants in their own right.In fact, during the character balancing playtests, both the Brainiac and Empath did well in the combat roles their players chose. The Brainiac was an assassin and the Empath a martial arts specialist. BTW... for those wondering why the Star has a low BAB, all the classes were built to be equal, with Defense, BAB and Reputation balanced. Each class either has a low, a medium and a high, or two mediums and a low. So the Star has a low BAB, a medium Def, and a high Rep. But he also did VERY well in playtesting, winning several of the combats with his group of well-armed (the Star is *the* class for high Wealth) followers (recruited with the Star's high Reputation) that were very well coordinated (with the Star's high Leadership skill). In fact, the Star was the only class in the playtest that had to be made less powerful TWICE. And the players advocated nerfing him down again, but I felt the Star was just doing well because he had numbers on his side, and because being a party coordinator and fixer (the guy who goes out and gets the equipment for the combat characters) was his role, so he always had the best equipment.</blockquote>

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