D&D 4E Thought Project: 4E As Science Fantasy...

[Pbartender]

[bq]From out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction! Man's civilization is cast in ruin!

Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn...

A strange new world rises from the old: a world of savagery, super science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice![/bq]

It just popped into my head the other day... Using 4th Edition rules in a setting that still cleaves to the core conceits put forth in the rulebooks, while at the same time mixes standard high fantasy with pulp science fiction.

I'm thinking along the lines of Gamma World, Rifts, Flash Gordon, Masters of the Universe, Thundarr the Barbarian and the like.

The idea would be to use as much of the ruleset and basic setting info as possible as is. Make slight flavor adjustments as necessary, and add as little new stuff as possible.

Brainstorm with me.

For example, commensurate to the genre I'm emagining, the 'Prime Material Plane' is an alternate post-apocalyptic version of Earth. Venus could translate into this setting's version of the Feywild, lush with overgrown forests, jungles, and swamps, beneath its clouds. Mars likewise could take the place of the Shadowfell; all desolate wastes, dusty deserts and eerie badlands. Jupiter with its tempestuous storms, becomes the new Elemental Chaos, complete with the Abyss as a penal colony of sorts.

Dragonborn and Teiflings could be "aliens" from the swamps of Venus and the deserts of Mars respectively.

Stats for a few new standard weapons, like guns and maybe lasers, would be needed, but most technology could be emulated simply by using the same rules for magic items.

What do you guys think, could it work?

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

My recommendation would be to embrace an older sci-fi feel for the technology, like technology never developed past what people thought life would be like in the future (think x-ray guns, Buck Rogers style). I'd eliminate computers and networking entirely from the world (use shortwave radio as the dominant technology pre-acocalypse). Reinvisioning your science fiction in this manner makes it more fantastical than mundane, and allows you to leverage a lot of inspiration from old black and white science fiction flicks.

Perhaps the "deep impact" was facilitated by transient metamages from the Tiefling world of Mars, in order to wage war against Earth.

 

[Grimgrin]

How about this for Energy Weapons

Simple Weapons
**All effects that apply to crossbows also apply to these energy weapons.

Energy Pistol (1H): PROF: +2, 1d6, RNG: 20/40, Price: 300gp, W: 2lbs, PROP: Load: Minor, Payload: 20 shots per Micro-fusion cell (50gp ea., 1/2lb.)

Energy Rifle (2H): PROF: +2, 1d8, RNG: 30/60, Price: 500gp, W: 5lbs, Group: Energy, PROP: Small, Load: Move, Payload: 20 shots per fusion battery (100gp ea., 1lb.)

Superior Weapon
Energy Cannon (2H): PROF: +2, 1d10, RNG: 40/80, PRICE: 1000gp, W: 8lbs., Group: Energy, PROP: Load: Standard, Payload: 20 shots per Plutonium Canister (200gp ea., 2lbs.)

NEW GROUP:
Energy weapons are by default laser weapons and inflict fire damage, but they can take any "energy enchantment" available to ranged weapons as an Arcane Science enhancement at the same cost. Energy weapon are powered by fusion batteries rather than kinetic power.



High Tech Skills: It is very apparent that the 4E game doesn't want to add more skills to the game system and wants you to utilize current skills in new ways. Here's my ideas about how to use skills with High Tech.

Repair/Build Hi Tech Device:
In a post apocalypse game technology would come from the past and so repairing or reinventing a high tech item would be a "History" skill function.

Use High Tech Equipment:
Arcana already has plenty of uses in the D&D system, so I propose using "Insight" for the skilled operation of computers, manufacturing machines, ancient appliance artifacts, sensors, cameras, radios, and other such devices.

Computer Hacking/Hot Wiring:
These would be considered Thievery skills.


Vehicle Skills: These skills would be used for skill challenges or extraordinary conditions rather than ordinary usage. Broken into three groups to give everyone a chance to be skilled in piloting a vehicle.

Pilot Aircraft (i.e. rocket pack, hang glider, biplane, jet): Acrobatics skill
Drive Ground Effect Vehicle (i.e. Hovercraft, Trains, Bicycles): Athletics skill
Sail Vessel (i.e. Sailboat, Sandskimmer): Perception Skill


Modern Warfare:
ECM (Electronic Counter Measures): Stealth
Plant Mines or Plan Demolitions: Dungeoneering Skill
Defuse and Dispose of Explosives: Thievery
NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) Warfare: Arcana Skill

Modern Crime
Create Fake IDs: Thievery
Loan Sharking/Protection Racket: Intimidate
White Collar Crimes: Bluff
Fencing: Diplomacy

Sciences:
Biology/Botany: Nature,
Xenobiology/Xenobotany: Dungeoneering
Cryptozoology/Physics/Astronomy: Arcana,
Philosophy/Psychology: Insight,
Chemistry: Alchemist
Pharmacology/Gene Splicing/Cybernetics: Heal skill.

 

[raptor112]

Personally I've been waiting for someone to make a balanced science fantasy game. I couldn't ever get it to work right with my homebrew, mainly cause i'm good with fluff bad with crunch. I do offer this idea, make magic and science seperate, and add only a single skill: Science. This can cover a bunch of specialized skills. Also I've been toying with an idea for a science fiction/fantasy setting for 4E.

 

[chronoplasm]

Goblins make fantastic little-green-men. I made a pretty cool Hobgoblin Star-pact warlock who came to the world in a flying saucer in search of the lost goblin colony. His rod was a ray gun and he wore chainmail reskinned as a silver suit with a bubble helmet.
Anyway, it's really easy to turn magic into laser beams and whatnot.

 

[Pbartender]

My recommendation would be to embrace an older sci-fi feel for the technology, like technology never developed past what people thought life would be like in the future (think x-ray guns, Buck Rogers style). I'd eliminate computers and networking entirely from the world (use shortwave radio as the dominant technology pre-acocalypse). Reinvisioning your science fiction in this manner makes it more fantastical than mundane, and allows you to leverage a lot of inspiration from old black and white science fiction flicks.

Absolutely the sort of thing I was thinking... It also has the advantage that, as science fantasy, you really don't need a good explanation for how the Superscience works. Much like magic, it simply does.

How about this for Energy Weapons

Like I mentioned above, I'd like magic to be technically separate from "superscience", but... As the saying goes, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". There's really no reason to treat superscience any differently, mechanics-wise, than magic.

Having thought about it, what I personally would do is this: First, come up with stats for basic "firearms"... pistols and rifles, mainly. The stats could be based off of, say, the repeating crossbow from Adventurer's Vault. These guns, would not be especially expensive in of themselves.

"Ray guns" could simply be magical versions of these. Consider, for example, a +1 Flaming Repeating Crossbow. With a little creative description, it could, for all intents and purposes, be considered a gun that fires "Heat Rays"... At-will, all damage can be considered fire damage; It deals extra fire damage on a critical; Once per day, it deals extra fire damage and inflict on-going fire damage.

Likewise, you can have Freeze Rays (Frost Weapon), Electro-Rays (Lightning Weapon), Explosive Rounds (Flameburst Weapon), and so on.

And its a lot easier than coming up with unique stats for each.

High Tech Skills: It is very apparent that the 4E game doesn't want to add more skills to the game system and wants you to utilize current skills in new ways.

I thought of that too... But consider adding in a single new skill "Superscience" that covers anything related to advanced technology and science. Leave it off the class lists. That makes supertech exceptional, since while anyone can use it untrained, the only way to get trained in Superscience would be to to take the Skill Training feat.

 

[Pbartender]

Had to go look something up. Alright, try this out:

NEW MILITARY RANGED WEAPONS:

Weapon: Pistol
Prof: +2
Hnd: 1H
Dmg: 1d8
Rng: 15/30
Price: 50 gp
Wght: 2 lb.
Group: Firearms
Properties: Load minor, high crit

A rectangular magazine slides into the hand-grip of this firearm. A double-action trigger moves a bullet into place as a free action, then fires it as a standard action. A pistol does not need to be reloaded as long as it has ammunition in its magazine. A magazine costs 1 gp and holds 10 bullets. It takes a standard action to remove an empty magazine and load a new one.



Weapon: Rifle
Prof: +2
Hnd: 2H
Dmg: 1d10
Rng: 30/60
Price: 75 gp
Wght: 4 lb.
Group: Firearms
Properties: Load minor, high crit

A rectangular magazine attaches beneath this firearm. A double-action trigger moves a bullet into place as a free action, then fires it as a standard action. A rifle does not need to be reloaded as long as it has ammunition in its magazine. A magazine costs 1 gp and holds 10 bullets. It takes a standard action to remove an empty magazine and load a new one.


And then, I'd add a feat that looked something like this:

GUNSLINGER [Rogue]

Prerequisite: Dex 13, rogue
Benefit: For the purposes of power requirements, firearms count as crossbows.

 

[raptor112]

I think the new upcoming Game Setting Amethyst uses the game mechanic of magical items to make their technology. I tend to agree with that thought process too. I also had an idea but I'm not sure if anyone would go for it. I would like to see us get a forum project to design a scifi/fantasy setting complete with classes, paragon paths, epic destines, equipment, magical and technological items, along with monsters, villians and a complete fleshed out universe.

 

[darkwing]

Will this be more like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or The City of Lost Children?

 

[Grimgrin]

Will this be more like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, or The City of Lost Children?

Thundarr the Barbarian has more in common with Road Warrior and Reign of Fire with a dash of Red Sonja and some Star Wars seasoning (energy sword, blasters, and a Wookie-like sidekick).