Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 2075574" data-attributes="member: 26473">My comment regarding talents wasn't specific to d20 Past, but rather the Modern class system generally. I agree that for the most part the existing talent trees are "genre generic," which is a tribute to good design on the part of the original authors. However, expanding the talent base offers more options for players who want more mechanical options allowing them to stay with the base classes rather than enter the more narrowly construed and constructed advanced classes. Talents are one of the great strengths of the Modern SRD compared to 3.x, and in this case playing to the system strengths would be A Good Thing, IMHO.To some extent this has been covered by 3rd-party supplements such as 22 Talent Trees and Another 22 Talent Trees or in books based on the Modern SRD like Grim Tales and OGL Wild West but I'd like to see this line of thinking applied to the 800-lb. gorilla of gaming market-share's products as well.I agree and that's exactly what I'm doing for my own <s>d20 Past</s> homebrew historical campaign - it would be nice if that same huge hairy primate would carry more of the water for me, at least if they want me to buy their products, that is.A tool box book is one which, IMHO, makes a GM's job easier.Agreed on all counts - that's how I approach my homebrew AdCs as well, since I too value a no-FX or light-FX game (and if I want heavy FX, then I'll use Mutants and Masterminds instead anyway).I think there are very few concepts a player can't create using just the base classes withou AdCs or PrCs - of course, then you can buy Grim Tales instead of d20 Modern.I like the approach taken by Dog House Rules in Sidewinder: Recoiled with respect to AdCs - I think they "get it" when it comes to making AdCs that are good representations of related skill groups while avoiding stepping on the strengths of the base classes.Wow, you have a lot more faith in the WotC designers than I do - I think it was more like, "What's going to sell the most books? Pirates, horror, and pulp!"  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> If I want to sell a product, I can appeal to the lowest common denominator and give people what they want - that's pretty much a guaranteed business model, no questions asked. There is another approach however that says "I'm going to tap an untapped need," or "I'm going to make people want something they didn't know they wanted until my marketing machine began ticking over." That's entrepreneurship.I don't expect that model of thinking from WotC, a relatively small product line in a very large company (while simultaneously being the largest company in the RPG business, an interesting dichotomy), but wouldn't it be nice if that 800-lb. gorilla was nimble and capable of feats of finesse rather than just throwing its weight around?You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Indeed.</blockquote>

Verification