Fading Suns D20

[Ghoti]

Anyone out there playing this game?

What do you think of it?

Anyone working on presitge classes for it?

Thanks

 

[Rich34]

I'm not currently playing FS, but I did pick up the d20 book. I liked it. The conversion did a good job of keeping the original flavor of the game.

There were a couple of prestige classes in the Aliens & Devilitry reprint, at least, I think that's where they put the Dervish class. A lot of non-magical prestige classes from other sources would probably fit in pretty well.

Richard

 

[aurin777]

I fell in love with the idea of fading suns after picking up the d20 core book, and then I began picking up their old victory point books. Everything they put out is very well written and full of useful information. They currently have 5 d20 books out right now (core, aliens and devilry, the heritics and outsiders, the beastiary book, and the imperial survey compendium), but there are many, many victory point books that you can order straight off their website as well. D20 conversion is relatively easy. No one near me is interested in playing, but I've played in a game before and it was wonderful.
~~Brandon

 

[nsruf]

I'm not currently playing FS, but I did pick up the d20 book. I liked it. The conversion did a good job of keeping the original flavor of the game.

Which sadly includes some awful game mechanics. I picked up the book because I wanted to see whether the d20 system would provide decent mechanics for an interesting SF setting (the FS core system is rather weak, IMO). However, some of the conversion decisions I found really bad. Some examples:

• Rapid decompression deals more damage per turn than being hit by a blaster.
• Firerams damage is rather low, making you wonder why not everybody is using bows and swords.
• They left out powered armor completely but included lots of stats for medieval style armor made of advanced materials.
• There are a few psionic attacks that use a melee touch attack to deliver and then grant the target a Reflex save.
• Psions/theurgists have a hard time developing all their powers, since they can choose new ones only when they level up. Then, they have to try to get them to decent levels with 6+Int skill points per level (each power is an individual skill) while at the same time maxing the powers they took earlier. And without high skill ranks, you only have a small chance to get useful effects.

That's all I can think of right now. I found FS d20 disappointing, overall, since the setting information is basically cut-and-paste from the original books and the game mechanics are lacking, IMO.

 

[Ghoti]

I got a campaign idea from Heretics & Outsiders (this is the book with the dervish in it).

A Hazat noble Questing Knight with an Orthodox Priest, member of the Inquisition, hunting down the dervishes who were part of the rebellion.

I was thinking that they would make use of a penitent psychic. Now for this, should I try to create a prestige class, or just make them a psychic/priest?


Thanks for any ideas in advance.

 

[aurin777]

nsruf, I agree with you on those accounts. I found the FSd20 book lacking in a lot of areas, but still I found it a wonderful book overall. They left out much of the equipment they mention (such as the power armor you talked about) as well as starships and most cybernetics. I found all these to just be minor grievances. They tried to leave firearm damage relatively low to keep players alive - but at the same time these guns are relatively rare besides, so not everyone will have them anyway. As for the psionics, I do understand that problem. They are far too weak to balance out with the rest of the classes. When a vorox living weapon is throwing four fists at a time in flurries of clawed death, a weak ranged touch attack doesn't do squat.

All and all though, FSd20 gets a 5 of 5, and a gold star of my approval.
~~Brandon