Shadowlord
Member
Although d20 modern seems a very good RPG and I consider it an improvement compared to D&D, there are some things that totally evade my comprehension. I especially appreciate how they worked out the skills, what they did to classes, and in general showed us what options there are beyond combat, but they failed to develop guns decently.
Shotguns for ex have all the restrictions they need (short range, non-automatic, damage decreased with range...) but it seems they forgot to add the benefit(s). Other guns (longarms) either have fully automatic modes, or have better range and inflict more damage. Therefore, shouldn’t shotguns inflict an extra damage die in the first increment or something (-1 dam/incr) or even an extra die in all increments with -2 dam/incr ? I favor the first idea, leaving the second as a special shell/bullet option.
The heavy guns need an Exotic feat but the M-60 for instance doesn’t deal more damage than the smaller M-16. Shouldn’t those HEAVY guns inflict HEAVY damage accordingly? Like an extra damage die (3d8). Eventually it costs you a feat so it remains balanced.
This counts for all guns; shouldn’t there be a different feat for Handguns and Longarms? D&D did a great job with Simple, Martial and Exotic weapons, but modern puts everything into one single collumn, trying to keep balance by assigning almost identical stats to all guns.
Second topic: armor. Armor hasn’t been very desirable in D&D (especially heavy with all its restrictions), but it becomes even worse in modern with class bonus to Def and no free armor feats. In fact, why would you even wanna go through all this effort? Armor has become pretty obsolete (which isn’t very unrealistic on modern Earth but lets not forget this game is meant as a standard for many different settings, some that would emhasize protection. Plus it's still a GAME).
I’m not in favor of DR and VP/WP but I came up with a simple idea that isn’t unlike DR and would work perfectly in modern. -> Armor increases the massive damage treshold (on top of the other benefits), similar to the Imp Mas Dam Tres feat, based on type (if you’re proficient). Light +0; medium +2; heavy +4.
For all the things they show us what’s possible outside combat, it seems XP can only be gained through fighting. Where’s the RP& Story Awards ?? In D&D I always used party CR instead of average party level, thus giving away a lot less XP for combat which I made up with RP & Story awards. But in modern the table for claculating CR for different targets disappeared.
Will any of these topics be adreessed soon, in a 2nd printing maybe? I can’t believe that for all the great work they did, they made such obvious flaws.

Shotguns for ex have all the restrictions they need (short range, non-automatic, damage decreased with range...) but it seems they forgot to add the benefit(s). Other guns (longarms) either have fully automatic modes, or have better range and inflict more damage. Therefore, shouldn’t shotguns inflict an extra damage die in the first increment or something (-1 dam/incr) or even an extra die in all increments with -2 dam/incr ? I favor the first idea, leaving the second as a special shell/bullet option.
The heavy guns need an Exotic feat but the M-60 for instance doesn’t deal more damage than the smaller M-16. Shouldn’t those HEAVY guns inflict HEAVY damage accordingly? Like an extra damage die (3d8). Eventually it costs you a feat so it remains balanced.
This counts for all guns; shouldn’t there be a different feat for Handguns and Longarms? D&D did a great job with Simple, Martial and Exotic weapons, but modern puts everything into one single collumn, trying to keep balance by assigning almost identical stats to all guns.
Second topic: armor. Armor hasn’t been very desirable in D&D (especially heavy with all its restrictions), but it becomes even worse in modern with class bonus to Def and no free armor feats. In fact, why would you even wanna go through all this effort? Armor has become pretty obsolete (which isn’t very unrealistic on modern Earth but lets not forget this game is meant as a standard for many different settings, some that would emhasize protection. Plus it's still a GAME).
I’m not in favor of DR and VP/WP but I came up with a simple idea that isn’t unlike DR and would work perfectly in modern. -> Armor increases the massive damage treshold (on top of the other benefits), similar to the Imp Mas Dam Tres feat, based on type (if you’re proficient). Light +0; medium +2; heavy +4.
For all the things they show us what’s possible outside combat, it seems XP can only be gained through fighting. Where’s the RP& Story Awards ?? In D&D I always used party CR instead of average party level, thus giving away a lot less XP for combat which I made up with RP & Story awards. But in modern the table for claculating CR for different targets disappeared.
Will any of these topics be adreessed soon, in a 2nd printing maybe? I can’t believe that for all the great work they did, they made such obvious flaws.

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