I just got D20 Future and I love it! [hugs his copy]

[SetzerZero]

So far I'm loving d20 Future. I've been putting it to use since I got it working on a Star Drive game. As it happens, I wanted to get it to run a Star Drive game without actually knowing they discussed it in there. Now, a lot of stuff in d20 Future doesn't mesh with Star Drive as it's written, but I just looked at the system provided for these things and went to work. I've made my own cybernetics, mutations, designed a few mecha and starships, and I'm looking into some new gadgets. I'm not using a single PL 7 weapon provided in the book, but trust me, there's a lot of weapons. It's really best to not look at the material in the book as "This is the future, deal with it!" but instead as a guideline for your own stuff. Or in my case, as a guideline for converting someone else's stuff.

 

[Sebastian Ashputtle]

I would. WOTC obviously figured that not enough folk would, though.

Someone wanna break down the advanced classes for me a little?

The advanced classes are as follows:

Ambassador class abilities include Diplomatic Immunity and Open Arms (bonus to Diplomacy checks)

Dogfighter class abilities include "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "Keep it Together", both relating to starship combat. (cinematic enough for ya? )

Dreadnought "Sometimes referred to as the "walking tank", the Dreadnought excels at knocking down foes while fearlessly standing her ground." (p.19). Sort of a futuristic Dwarven Defender. Oh, and the illustration features a woman in heavy body armor...with a bare midriff. Who draws these pictures, 12-year-olds?

Engineer Just what you think it is.

Explorer Not an "Extreme" Explorer, just a regular one. Class features include "Explorer Lore", "Survivalist" and "Skilled Searcher".

Field Officer Sort of a Great Mighty Leader class. Can give bonuses to allies, etc.

Helix Warrior A genetically-enhanced supersoldier.

Space Monkey (Gosh, what a stupid name. ). "When a wealthy nation, stellar empire, or megacorporation needs to tame a hostile world or explore a remote corner of space, they often use rugged yet expendable astronauts skilled at adapting to harsh conditions. Willing to tackle almost any challenge for cash, Space Monkeys [giggle] are ideally suited for galactic 'grunt work', able to complete straightforward missions in difficult environments with litle or no supervision. Small teams of Space Monkeys [hee hee] are often called upon to 'clear' hostile worlds, build habitats on them, and prepare these worlds for colonization." (p.28)

Swindler Essentially a character who excels in gambling and, uh, swindling. Has a bizarre class ability called "Warp Probability", in which the Swindler can "affect another creature's attack roll, skill check, ability check, level check, or saving throw." (p.30). Why? We don't know. The only advanced class here that really doesn't belong in D20 Future.

Technosavant The Technomage from Urban Arcana, minus the magery. Lots of detailed class abilities.

Tracer Essentially a skilled tracker/bounty hunter.

Xenophile A character who is skilled in the study and analysis of alien life forms.

In addition, there is a specialized "Mecha Jockey" advanced class for the Mecha campaign, and a "Nuclear Nomad" for the Gamma World (oops, I mean "Wasteland" ) campaign. Other campaign specific advanced classes:

Bughunter (from "Bughunters")
Dimension Ranger (from "Dimension X")
Purifier (from "From the Dark Heart of Space")
Concord Administrator [yawn] (from "Star*Drive")
Star Law Officer (from "Star Law" [which should have just been called Star Frontiers, dammit. )

 

[Furluge]

More generic gadgets, and gadget drawbacks. I gotcha, and am way ahead of you. If they don't make it into the web enhancement, I'll be surprised.

Wow, it's nice to see you reply so quickly. Actually when I posted that I was in the middle of thinking about it, that being I was cheifly thinkin about gadgets good for powered armor, but really there should be basic stat altering gadgets across the board. I made a bigger list of things I'd like to see on the WotC d20 modern boards. (Yeah, I frequent those more. I love my search function.) But basically it just comes down to that gadgets to alter every aspect of the item are good, and also very important if they only affect one aspect of the item and the DC, and are stackable. (IE: Gadgets that raise Strength by one are good, gadgets that raise Strength by 2 or Raise strength at the cost of Dexterity are bad.) Maybe they should have a disclaimer before them, as like I said this more of a GM tool to create new items using current items as a base, rather than a way of having modified items. A quick list to consider are affecting ability scores, saves, skills, defense bonus, die type of damage, number of die, item weight, damage type, critical range, range increment, number of rounds in a magazine, armor penalties, max dex bonus, (Those last two aren't as important since they're in some gadgets already, but it wouldn't hurt to have them in the enhancement as a seperate items that are stackable.) non-prof defense bonus, speed allowed in armor (consider writing this so speed can be increased over a player's normal maximum.), speed in general (for equipment that has can move, like the jetpack.), damage reduction, equipment durability like hardness and HP, and that's really all I can think about right now. I was about to including changing the bullets used for burst fire but I seems like the limiting of the bullets used has been a tradeoff affair with the bullets needed.


And yeah, as I've mentioned so many times, I come from the GoO school of RPGs where everything is easy to customize. But I enjoy the d20 a lot as well for when you want to be "grittier" than GoO stuff allows.

Also if someone hasn't mentioned it already, it's not to difficult to make a powered armor with a "jet booster". You could use the intergrated equipment gadget to put the jetpack equipment item on it.

PS: Although I know the idea was to make powered-armor definently and equipment idea, for the web enhancement it wouldn't hurt anyone to make a powered-suit medium mecha basic chassis so anyone who wants their powered armors to use the mecha rules rather than equipment could go about doing that. I mean one could just go and do that anyway. I would guess such a thing would have a +4 to strength and only have 5 equipment spots, perhaps Boots, Torso, Back, Left Arm, and Right Arm. Though unless the "cockpit" requirement was lowered to one spot the entire production would turn out a bit odd.

 

[Ranger REG]

Space Monkey (Gosh, what a stupid name. ). "When a wealthy nation, stellar empire, or megacorporation needs to tame a hostile world or explore a remote corner of space, they often use rugged yet expendable astronauts skilled at adapting to harsh conditions. Willing to tackle almost any challenge for cash, Space Monkeys [giggle] are ideally suited for galactic 'grunt work', able to complete straightforward missions in difficult environments with litle or no supervision. Small teams of Space Monkeys [hee hee] are often called upon to 'clear' hostile worlds, build habitats on them, and prepare these worlds for colonization." (p.28)

I prefer the term "Astro Bee."

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The advanced classes are as follows:

Ambassador class abilities include Diplomatic Immunity and Open Arms (bonus to Diplomacy checks)

Dogfighter class abilities include "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "Keep it Together", both relating to starship combat. (cinematic enough for ya? )

Dreadnought "Sometimes referred to as the "walking tank", the Dreadnought excels at knocking down foes while fearlessly standing her ground." (p.19). Sort of a futuristic Dwarven Defender. Oh, and the illustration features a woman in heavy body armor...with a bare midriff. Who draws these pictures, 12-year-olds?

Engineer Just what you think it is.

That's an Advanced Class? Prestimyopia is getting very annoying.

Explorer Not an "Extreme" Explorer, just a regular one. Class features include "Explorer Lore", "Survivalist" and "Skilled Searcher".

Field Officer Sort of a Great Mighty Leader class. Can give bonuses to allies, etc.

Helix Warrior A genetically-enhanced supersoldier.

Space Monkey (Gosh, what a stupid name. ). "When a wealthy nation, stellar empire, or megacorporation needs to tame a hostile world or explore a remote corner of space, they often use rugged yet expendable astronauts skilled at adapting to harsh conditions. Willing to tackle almost any challenge for cash, Space Monkeys [giggle] are ideally suited for galactic 'grunt work', able to complete straightforward missions in difficult environments with litle or no supervision. Small teams of Space Monkeys [hee hee] are often called upon to 'clear' hostile worlds, build habitats on them, and prepare these worlds for colonization." (p.28)

Swindler Essentially a character who excels in gambling and, uh, swindling. Has a bizarre class ability called "Warp Probability", in which the Swindler can "affect another creature's attack roll, skill check, ability check, level check, or saving throw." (p.30). Why? We don't know. The only advanced class here that really doesn't belong in D20 Future.

Along with the Diplomat, Explorer, Field Officer...

Technosavant The Technomage from Urban Arcana, minus the magery. Lots of detailed class abilities.

Tracer Essentially a skilled tracker/bounty hunter.

Xenophile A character who is skilled in the study and analysis of alien life forms.

In addition, there is a specialized "Mecha Jockey" advanced class for the Mecha campaign, and a "Nuclear Nomad" for the Gamma World (oops, I mean "Wasteland" ) campaign. Other campaign specific advanced classes:

Bughunter (from "Bughunters")
Dimension Ranger (from "Dimension X")
Purifier (from "From the Dark Heart of Space")
Concord Administrator [yawn] (from "Star*Drive")

If you had read the Gabriel Connor series, you'd probably have a better opinion of it.

 

[C. Baize]

My problem with the Space Monkey stems purely from the iconic who got statted as one....

Moondog .... The Space Monkey ...

Uhmm... Stan? Is there something about fuzzy critters we should know where you're concerned?

 

[Olive]

That's an Advanced Class? Prestimyopia is getting very annoying.



Along with the Diplomat, Explorer, Field Officer...

PsiSH, I'm a bit confused about what you're saying here... care to elucidate?

 

[dargoth3]

Would some nice person be willing to post the D20 Future Contents page?

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I think it was important to strike a balance between a generic system and specific examples. A toolkit is made more useful by providing some specific examples on its use; in other words, the specific material in the book is there to provide examples or simply plug-and-play material, while also serving as a blueprint for creating things for your own campaign.

With the ships, I'm surprised most of them weren't stripped down to bare bones, with some examples of how to build templates to complete them and differentiate them into various classes.

For the record, I'd LOVE a more crunchy starship book that lets me design things.

I guess I'm just not understanding how removing ALL assumptions is possible. Granted, I haven't read d20 Mecha which everyone is raving about, so maybe that's how it should be done. Of course, they were able to devote an entire book's worth of resources to that subject, so that might have something to do with it.

I would've liked transforming mecha, but I guess those had to go for space reasons.

Brad

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

PsiSH, I'm a bit confused about what you're saying here... care to elucidate?

An Advanced Class to be an engineer?

Presmyopia or prestimyopia; the inability to see beyond prestige classes. It's not as bad in Modern as it is in DnD. Not yet, anyway.