"Fixing" d20 Modern - The Definitive Thread

[garrowolf]

Well I designed my Nexus D20 game to deal with these issues. I took a lot from Spycraft and SWSE but I went a bit farther.

Guns are realistic and lethal from one shot. They are based on the idea of a character with no real skill or dex can kill a person with one shot from a light pistol. Heavier weapons are ever more lethal.

HPs don't go up with level. You have about 20 + toughness as DR.

Combat is extremely quick. You have one roll per action. No damage roll. No defense roll. No saves. One shot is one roll for the attacker and defender gets no rolls. No confirming criticals.

Getting hit is bad. You take damage penalties to everything for each shot and one shot can stun, stagger or even kill you. Damage penalties apply to your defenses as well so you become an easier target even after one shot.

Your margin of success increases the damage level so a good roll is a good roll. You can't have a good attack roll and a bad damage roll.

There are a lot of feats and you get two per level. Each feat makes sense and has value. There is a feat list per skill. BAB, Saves, and Defenses are all a part of the skill system. The skill levels are easy to understand and make sense in the real world. They are alot faster to use as well.

Every skill is Attrib + Skill Rank + Class Level Bonus. Skill Ranks are Basic (+0), Trained (+4). Focused (+8), and Mastery (+12). Class Level Bonus is your Class Level/2 rounded down. So if I have a 6th level character with Dex +2 that is trained with Ranged Weapons then I have 9 + 1d20.

It's simple to use and fast to play and run. It's also designed for play in all eras. I'm working up an equipment and vehicle list for each tech level. So far I'm up to the Fusion Age which is after the Cyber Age (which is after the Modern Age).

 

[Walking Dad]

For Action Points, I would look at Mutants and Masterminds 2e Hero Points (and Complications).

I started a thread about updating modern and adding superpowers. It seems related to this thread. Please comment my ideas and solutions

Designing OGL Supers for d20 modern

 

[garrowolf]

One of the problems I had from D20 Modern as well as most RPG games was that there didn't seem to be a great reason to bother with cover. It gave ou a bonus but after a certain point you were just so good at defenses that you didn't bother with it. So people would just stand around, OK Corral style, in a firefight.

What I did was introduce cascading defense. Each defensive action after the first is a -1. Any wound penalties apply to defense immediately. However your Defense couldn't go below 10 at range (8 at point blank). Your cover provided you with a flat bonus added to 10 at the minimum and didn't cascade.

So if you have a defense of 18 and you are fighting from half cover (+4) you get a defense of 22 on the first attack, 21 on the second, then you take a moderate wound (-2) on the next attack so you are down to 18 defense. Your defense can't go below 14 because of the cover. If you drop prone as a free action then you can get full cover for the rest of the round and no more cascading defense. Your damage doesn't effect the cover based defense either.

So basically players started finding cover fast in my games.

 

[Locien]

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried to discard the classes as written for d20 modern and rewrite new classes? That could also be used to rebalance any weak points in the system and possibly any other problems that have come up.

 

[giant.robot]

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried to discard the classes as written for d20 modern and rewrite new classes? That could also be used to rebalance any weak points in the system and possibly any other problems that have come up.

For a space opera game I made some V-shaped classes that seemed to work well. I like the idea of a generic "class" but the idea of one tied to only a single ability score never made much sense to me. It seemed to me they had an idea for a couple of single ability classes and felt they had to make one for each ability. I think that's why so many of the talent trees are so boring.

I kept the classes fairly generic with occupations still giving the characters bonus feats and skills germane to those jobs. I mixed and matched talent trees from the printed base classes so I didn't need to go write whole new ones.

 

[Walking Dad]

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried to discard the classes as written for d20 modern and rewrite new classes? That could also be used to rebalance any weak points in the system and possibly any other problems that have come up.

The d20 SRD variant of the Amethyst had military modern classes based on the modern 20 classes. [SIZE=-1]Etherscope[/SIZE] even uses talents, but with new stting specific classes. And there is Spycraft...

 

[CharlesRyan]

A lot of stuff in this thread, but I'll pick up just one of the OP's little quibbles:

Regarding the Wealth system, if you're playing a post-apocalyptic game, you should just ditch it and go with a cash or barter system. The Wealth system was really designed to mimic the modern world of finance and credit.

(I have some authority on this: I designed the Wealth system. And then I wrote a whole lot of d20 Apocalypse, including the rules for buying and bartering stuff.)

 

[garrowolf]

Wow! Interesting running into the guy who designed the Wealth system on here.

No offense but I really dislike the Wealth system. I'm sure you a re a nice guy so please don't take it personally. My problem with it is that it is trying to replicate an even more complex system of economics but it ends up pulling players out of the flow of the game as they try and get credit and loans.

There is sort of a direct connection between those that want to gain money in a rpg and the loot and gear that they want. They get money to get loot. A major part of this is escapism. Your character has money and gear that you can never have. Then you take all that and end up with a dice roll judging your credit. It feels like you are back in reality again and being turned down for real loans. It's connected with a touchy spot that most people have these days and that is credit.

Basically if you have "wealth" in a game then you should be able to spend it however you like and not hae to deal with a dice roll saying yes to one things and no to another.

I understand that it was an attempt to simulate a complex economy but I think that most people would like to forget that during a game.

Maybe it would have been better if it was an optional system instead. If you could run the game without it (ie had all the prices for everything normally as well) and only use it if you wanted to (ie the game wasn't focused on money as a motivator).

 

[garrowolf]

For a space opera game I made some V-shaped classes that seemed to work well.

What is a V-shaped class?

 

[CharlesRyan]

No offense but I really dislike the Wealth system. I'm sure you a re a nice guy so please don't take it personally. My problem with it is that it is trying to replicate an even more complex system of economics but it ends up pulling players out of the flow of the game as they try and get credit and loans.

No offense taken!

Funny you should say that, because the issues you express are exactly what the Wealth system is supposed to fix.

It's a tough nut to crack--most RPG purchasing systems are based on how much money you HAVE, whereas the modern world is based on how much money you MAKE. For better or worse, relying on the cash-based system in a modern game basically amounts to "you can buy a car, OR you can buy every single thing you can think of except a car."

The Wealth system is an abstraction, and so it'll never appeal to everyone--that's understood, and I'm not going to try to change your mind on it. (I also concede that it might not be the best possible execution--though it works for me.) But the sad truth is there's no easy answer to money in the modern world.