some thoughts for d20M houserules

[Greg K]

I am not sure if this should go here or in house rules (is the HR section for d20M?). Anyway, I am going to give d20M a run for my group despite not liking hit points (even with the massive damage save) and a few other minor gripes. Anyways, some things I am thinking about doing are the following:

I Occupations
1. I am going to break down many of the occupations into more specific occupations (e.g., divide athlete into athlete and martial artist and divide rural into rural (farmers and herdes) and hunter)

2. Assign mandatory skills to occupations when applicable. Doctors should have treat injury, Religious should have Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy.

3. Reassign bonus feats when applicable. What does archaic weapons or brawl have to do with gymnastics, bobsledding , track or ice skating? If Athlete covers martial artists, why isn't combat MA or defensive MA listed as a choice when the Law Enforcement receives comba MA?

4. Balance the occupations with additional class skills or some other bonus. Why does one occupation get a choice of two skills and wealth +3 or +4 while another occupation with a choice of two skills receives only a +2 wealth.


II Skills
1. New Knowledge Skills:
Culture: Customs, social mores, myths and legends
Sports: Rules, Regulations, facts, and figures

2. Seperating some skills:
e.g., breaking Earth and Life Science into two seperate Skills:
Life Science- biochemistry, botany, genetics, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, zoology

Earth Science-geology, hydrology, meteorology, paleontology

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I think the occupation changes should fly fine without problems.

I would, echoing the designers, watch creating new Knowledge skills and splitting out Knowledge skills into multiple skills. While it PROBABLY won't realy hurt anything, recognize that you're creating more choices without creating more skill-points ... I.E. every new skill you create makes the characters LESS SKILLED, because they can't afford to have as much, well, skill.



Being new to the HP/MDT thing, just try to keep MDT in your memory. If it's been a while, or you've never used it, you can just totally forget about it and never roll threats. If you want the players to feel like their characters are "mortal", keep a good eye and call for them.

--fje

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Starting Occupations:
I think that a part of the balancing of the Starting Occupation was also supposed to be achieved by the age prerequisites. Personally, I doubt that it really works.

I am currently considering an alternate take:
A Starting Occupation always grants a bonus feat.
If the bonus feat is combat related (like a Armor or Weapon Profiency), I effectively reduce the number of bonus skills or the reputation/wealth bonus by one.

Skills:
For skills, I can only agree with the HeapThaumaturgist - you quickly fall into the problem of the amount of skill points. And in the end, you also have to wonder if the skill split will actually improve the game experience. It might be more "realistic" to split a few of the broad skills, but how often will the skills really come up? And how likely is it that any one of the characters will have invested in them then?

By the way: Culture and Sports seems to fall under Popular Culture.


---
Furthermore, I am considering a few changes to weapon profiencies and firearms.
I think firearms can be reasonably considered as simple weapons. Everyone is proficient with them. The benefit of the Personal Firearms Profiency feat would then become that using medium size or smaller firearms would no longer provoke AoOs (The Gunslinger Close Combat Shot ability would probably be improved to use such firearms for AoOs instead).

The rationale behind is that melee combat can still become pretty strong in D20 Modern. Firearms might initially deal more damage, but strength bonus to damage usually negates this benefit and can easily exceed it. And once a melee fighter is in range (and that isn't that difficult in urban enviroment), he also steadily gains AoOs.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

That'll work to increase gunplay.

Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. I think, as it is, the designers specifically went with the decision to allow melee to still be "effective" in a gunplay environment ... so that whacking about with a broadsword would be as effective as shooting with a gun, after all of the drawbacks and benefits are weighed out.

Melee stays pretty powerful, but stuff like Double Tap and Burst Fire can drop a guy in his tracks at range. Seeing as most combats tend to start at charge distance, it can come down to who has init as to who forces an MDT first (double-tap vs. Power Attack).

I like d20 Modern BECAUSE it can be house-ruled to death.

For instance:

I changed Advanced Weapon Proficiency to add your Base Reflex Save Modifier to the DC of your autofire attacks (letting that DC stay dangerous).

I've lowered the MDT to 10 and allowed armor to stack (MDT = 10+Armor).

I've increased the MDT DC from 15 to 10+(1/2 Damage).

Etc etc. Depends on the final "feel" of the genre you want to play that week.

--fje

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like d20 Modern BECAUSE it can be house-ruled to death.

Yes, that is true.
Messing with the MDT alone can be so much fun...

 

[genshou]

• Occupations:
  The given occupations are generic so an "Emergency Services" character can cover a broader range. For instance, in a Year of the Zombie game I ran a couple of months back, one of the PCs (a Dedicated hero) used the Emergency Services occupation to represent an ambulance driving career, and chose Drive and Treat Injury as his occupation skills. When I made a PC with the Emergency Services career, he was a member of a wildlife rescue team that discovered a creature from Shadow in the mountains (and thus he became involved with the party proper and Department-7). I wouldn't get rid of the generic nature of the occupations; that's one of the strengths of the ruleset rather than a drawback.
• Occupation Bonus Feats:
  Archaic Weapons Proficiency for fencers and other athletes using archaic weaponry of one kind or another, and Brawl for wrestlers. Combat Martial Arts should definitely be a choice, too. In all other cases I think the occupations offer bonus feats that make sense. Feel free to provide a counter-argument about any specific occupation.
• "Balancing" Occupations:
  IMO, a bad idea. Everyone is not "born equal", and all occupations are not equal. If your players are only choosing occupations for the Wealth, Reputation, and bonus feats, then perhaps you are looking for players with a different playing style. I pick an occupation based on the background I want the character to have come from.
• Breaking Up Knowledge Skills:
  Unless you are using some kind of cascade skill system, your players will never have the skill points. Now, if you were to use such a system as the one I am shamelessly pimping, that'd be fine.
• As to the hit point issue, that's a whole different can of worms right there.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Cascading skills is an interesting solution to the general lack of d20 skill points.

I lifted an idea from Malhavoc Press's Iron Heroes and not only eliminated the concept of cross-class skills but grouped the d20 Modern skills into an organization that allows for a character to have most of the skills that fit his archetype and a few of skills that are purely personal choices. So far it has resulted in skillful characters that are more generally competant, something that both I and my players greatly enjoy.

 

[genshou]

I'm too hard-nosed to go that far in my D&D/d20 Modern games, ValhallaGH, but Iron Heroes is some good stuff, for that and many other reasons.

I have some pretty complex rules there regarding retroactive Int gain, cross-class skills, etc., but I game with players who are all electrical engineering majors. Math is not a problem, nor is tracking skill points in a spreadsheet.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

• Occupations:
  
• "Balancing" Occupations:
  IMO, a bad idea. Everyone is not "born equal", and all occupations are not equal. If your players are only choosing occupations for the Wealth, Reputation, and bonus feats, then perhaps you are looking for players with a different playing style. I pick an occupation based on the background I want the character to have come from.

That is certainly a valid perspective. But I think that D&D and D20 (Modern) are striving for balanced characters, so I think that should also apply to Occupations.

Thinking about Iron Heroes:
Occupations (instead of classes) could grant access to Skill Groups - might be an interesting alternative, though I have no idea how this would work exactly and what effects that might have. (Just playing with concepts - D20 Modern houseruling is indeed fun )

 

[Vigilance]

RE Balancing Occupations (on the rare occasion I design new ones): I give each occupation 6 points, with a skill counting 1 point, a Wealth modifer 1, Reputation modifier 1 and a feat 2 points.

For feats I never give an occupation more than one and tend toward the less optimal feats.

Age prerequisite is for flavor as I don't think it serves to balance occupations either way.

Obviously this is for me as a designer to make sure every occupation *I* make is of equal strength. I would never, ever let a player design an occupation this way or you'd end up with some really, really munchiny occupations.