(Psi)SeveredHead said:
Are the AdCs balanced with the AdCs in D20 Modern...?
In the
Pulp Heroes minigame, David Noonan (the author) wrote, "Characters in a
Pulp Heroes game tend to make more saving throws than in many other d20
Modern campaigns, however. Accordingly, the advanced classes presented below provide above-average saving throw bonuses" (
Polyhedron 161, p. 15). Looking over the class abilities, I think the same could be said of the AdCs generally: compare the Gangster to the Bodyguard, which both begin as Tough heroes and have similar saving throw progressions - however, in addition to having those good saves, the Gangster also has a huge boost to offensive skills which makes the Gangster more effective on both offense and defense whereas the Bodyguard's good saves are linked to his mostly defensive abilities.
It appears that WotC boosted the
PH AdCs with little thought to balance: while the AdCs for
Pulp Heroes are internally consistent with one another (so that the relative power level remains the same), they are out-of-kilter with the other d20
Modern AdCs. (BTW, if you have
Polyhedron 161, you have the Explorer and Gangster already - aside from swapping the Defense and Reputation scores for the Explorer, the classes are identical.)
For example, the Gangster AdC strikes me as cracked (that is, not quite completely broken...). The Gangster's bonus damage is
way overpowered compared to other classes which get extra dice, IMO. It applies anytime an opponent is denied a Dex bonus to Defense - with a high Dex and Improved Initiative, this becomes pretty deadly.
Compare the Gangster to the Dead Shot in The Game Mechanics'
Modern Player's Companion which requires expending an Action Point to gain an extra +1d6 damage at 5th level, or the Gunslinger in Dog House Rules'
Sidewinder: Recoiled which can expend an AP to gain +3d6 damage at 10th level. (I also created a homebrew AdC, the Hunter, which gains extra damage dice against no Dex bonus - it provided +1d6 at 4th level and +2d6 at 8th level.)
