Modern House Rules... what are yours?

[Tom Cashel]

I'm adding the Madness Meters (a psychological mechanic) from Unknown Armies.

I'd considered just using the D20 CoC Sanity mechanic, but it's a little too simplistic with its sane/not sane binary results.

[The "amoral RPG" style (kick down the door, slaughter everyone no matter what, take their stuff) drives me up the wall. I'm not running a cathartic murder fantasy here. I mean, players can do what they want...but killing, fr'ex, has psychological consequences for characters.]

In any case, I'll use the UA Madness Meters (Violence, Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, Self) but instead of a Mind roll for each event, PCs will make a DC 15 Will save. Penalties for becoming Callous will include the inability to spend Action Points.

 

[Ranger REG]

1. 3e nonlethal damage (accumulating)
2. Unearthed Arcana "Armor as DR" rules (allow armor to absorb damage from both physical and special attacks -- attacks that requires wearer to roll a saving throw)
3. Advanced Firearms Proficiency feat also allows you to make Burst Fire.
4. Personal Firearms Proficency feat also allows you to make Double Tap (double-barreled shotguns and semi-automatic weapons only).
5. Modified Martial Artist's Flurry of Blows (acquired at 1st class level, reduced penalty at 5th level, no penalty at 10th level).
6. Modified Soldier's BAB to the best progression.

 

[takyris]

Hey, not to hijack, but for the people who added "accrual of nonlethal damage" to d20 Modern, have you found anything unbalanced about the Brawl chain of feats? I'm picturing Improved Brawl with Improved Knockout Punch, which would do something like 3d8 (probably +1d4 for streetfighting). Or Improved Brawl at 1d8 per hit. Has it made things unbalanced, or was I worrying about nothing?

 

[Holy Bovine]

76 Gunmen (T20 PDF), Weapons of Charted Space (T20 PDF)

Can I ask you where you got these two pdfs? They were listed in your sig and I am very interested in them.

 

[Psion]

Can I ask you where you got these two pdfs? They were listed in your sig and I am very interested in them.

Either here:
http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=325

or here:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/T20/ebooks.html

I actually prefer the latter because you can download new copies from their elibrary once you have purchased them.

Weapons of Charted space is also in print from what I understand.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

TAKYRIS: I haven't found that Brawl unduly changes the balance of the game. It's just about the same as having a weapon of some sort with regular melee combat, and it opens up a few more options than killing everybody ... you might tater them with a quick punch (MDT save) or you might pound them for a few seconds.

One thing that balances it for me is that ranged weapons are so much more effective, normally, in d20 Modern, so not as many people are looking to stock up on melee related feats. Second time you get cut down trying to rush into melee combat, it gets old quick.

'bout the same as Melee Smash, Power Attack, and a Katana could get unbalanced if you don't let the bad-guys get 60-90' of starting space to open up with the ol' machineguns...

--fje

 

[ecliptic]

We use the Automatic Weapons Fire Opposed Reflex Check like Hildulf (He and I have discussed it, and used it extensively in the YotZ playtest, after a bunch of Wolf-Pack kids charged through automatic fire from a Bushmaster 20mm rotary autocannon)

Opposed to what?

Autofire: I chuck and replace with the Arsenal autofire rules. It makes no sense to me that you cannot take advantage of burst fire unless you are trained, and that a spray of automatic finre disregards armor.

What are the Arsenal autofire rules?

 

[Thanee]

Not really playing modern, but I would replace the base classes with a single class, which allows complete freedom of character development, as seen in the House Rules forum (Thanee's Ultra Modern).

Bye
Thanee

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Hey, not to hijack, but for the people who added "accrual of nonlethal damage" to d20 Modern, have you found anything unbalanced about the Brawl chain of feats? I'm picturing Improved Brawl with Improved Knockout Punch, which would do something like 3d8 (probably +1d4 for streetfighting). Or Improved Brawl at 1d8 per hit. Has it made things unbalanced, or was I worrying about nothing?

I found the only reason I liked it was because of Knockout Punch.

 

[italianranma]

I modified the base classes slightly. I thought that the strong hero had the ideal balance of level dependent bonuses (such as defence, bab, and skill points) and that the fast hero was a little too good and everything else was a little too bad (especially the charismatic hero). I modified some of the talents to make them better (like not having to roll a charima check to activate some of the charismatic hero's talents). I lowered the cost of some of the vehicles, and I give periodic profession checks to raise their wealth, and finally I give out action points for good roleplaying. (so far out of 6 games I've given out 2).