Fantasy with d20 modern classes... help.

[takyris]

I don't know if this helps on the short notice, but Grim Tales does just about exactly what you're asking for, right out of the box. I've used it with a couple of different takes on magic, and it's solid in all departments.

Wulf Ratbane, the guy who designed it, is a regular here, so feel free to ping him with any questions in the d20 Modern forum next door.

 

[Nadaka]

The funny thing is, I have been considering updating my homebrew campain setting to d20 modern. It is definately high magic.

What I was thinking is this:

This is a magic system intended to bring high magic to a d20 modern based high fantasy setting. The core of the magic system is a series of beginning feats that allow effective magic at levels 1 to 3. Further developement requires advanced and prestige classes.

Occupation:
Apprentice Lexical Arcanist (book wizard)
Pre: age 22
Select 2 of the following skills as class skills and gain a +1 bonus if they are class skills for your first class: Concentration, Knowledge:Arcane, Spellcraft, research, use magic device.
Bonus feat: Lexical initiate
Wealth: +1
Reputation: +1
Special: free spellbook

Feats:
Lexical initiate [general, arcane, smart bonus]
Pre: int 10, knowledge arcane 1 rank, spellcraft 1 rank, spellbook
Gain caster level 1 and use of 0 level spells, 4+int mod 0 level spells copied to spellbook for free.

Lexical Novice [general, arcane, smart bonus]
Pre: int 11, knowledge arcane 2 rank, spellcraft 2 rank, spellbook, Lexical initiate
Gain caster level of 2 and use of 1st level spells, 2+(int mod/2) 1st level spells copied to spellbook for free.

Lexical Adept [general, arcane, smart bonus]
Pre: int 12, knowledge arcane 4 rank, spellcraft 4 rank, Character level 3, spellbook, Lexical initiate, Lexical Novice
Gain caster level 3 and use of 2nd level spells, 2 2nd level spells copied to spellbook for free.

These 3 feats are the major prerequisites for an advanced class (Mage) that continues caster level progression up to 13th caster level. There is also a prestige class (archmage) that gives 5 more levels of caster level progression and a class feature that lets you pick up the last two caster levels by the time you reach level 20.

There will be similar occupation, feat, class combo's for all flavors of spellcaster. It should be noted that I am getting away from traditional vancian spell preparation for the most part, so the implementation of the effects of caster level will vary.

 

[ValhallaGH]

(Bracers of Armor, armor enchantment, DEX boosts, miscellaneous AC-boosting magic items)

See, to my mind all those things exist to make up for the fact that you don't get any better at defending yourself over the course of a trillion levels.

My personal choice would be to ditch the magical armors and go with class defenses. Sure, it makes it harder to fight high level characters, since you can't just Disjunction all their equipment and be faced with the AC of a peasant child.
I'm okay with that.

But, to each their own path and play style.

 

[Hammerhead]

If you want to downplay the magic a little bit, my suggestion would be to check out Grim Tales. Here's the SRD: http://www.carcere.net/~kirintor/index.php?x=gtsrd/index

 

[Spatzimaus]

See, to my mind all those things exist to make up for the fact that you don't get any better at defending yourself over the course of a trillion levels.

That's fair, but my point was that to maintain class balance while using a class Defense bonus, you'd have to remove pretty much every magic item or buffing spell from the game, and that's not a small change by any means. Given the choice between a Defense bonus and none of that other stuff, or the path we went, I think it's pretty clear which is more interesting. The ideal path might be somewhere in the middle: a small defense bonus (like the Monk), and with reduced magical AC stacking.

Also, we don't really have any equivalent of disjunction in our system. Since we shifted everything to a more element-oriented system, there wasn't room for many spells that didn't easily fit into one category. Plus, we didn't want to bring up the question of what would happen if you were to "remove" a Mutant's inherent abilities.

 

[Dagger of Lath]

My personal choice would be to ditch the magical armors and go with class defenses. Sure, it makes it harder to fight high level characters, since you can't just Disjunction all their equipment and be faced with the AC of a peasant child.
I'm okay with that.

Just never never never use both at once with liberal stacking rules. I made that mistake once and had PCs that absolutely nothing could hit vs monsters that were quite easy (though other humanoid intelligent opponents were a real danger). I started adding a "compensation" value to every monster's BAB (whoops, almost wrote THAC0) and AC, just to rebalance the system. And IIRC that value was +7, so not insignificant.

 

[ValhallaGH]

That's fair, but my point was that to maintain class balance while using a class Defense bonus, you'd have to remove pretty much every magic item or buffing spell from the game, and that's not a small change by any means.

Just never never never use both at once with liberal stacking rules.

Believe me, I know what the numbers are and how horrible they can become if you don't pay attention to how they interact.
Thankfully, I do pay attention to how they interact.

As Spatzimaus pointed out, each base class's defense goes up by +3 to +5 over ten levels, or +6 to +10 over twenty levels.
+5 armor and +5 ring of protection is pretty common at twentieth level. And both of those stack with the +5 amulet of natural armor as well as any Dex boosting items and any Luck, Insight, Divine, Profane and Dodge bonuses (and maybe a few other types that I'm not remembering) for some really crazy ACs with +15 to +40 or more magical bonuses to AC.

By comparison, +6 to +15 from class is not all that much. While some of those magical defense boosters need to be removed or nerfed when using class defenses, not all of them need such treatment. Which makes a GM's job much simpler.