True20 and Modern Games

[MadBlue]

Denaes, I understand what you mean, but in a modern, non FX game, I just see what one could so as a different role. Personally, I think too much is rolled onto "Expert". The moment anyone says anything about skills, people say "that's the Expert's balliwick". In a low-tech fantasy game, the three classes are fine, but in a modern game, if you restrict yourself to the three True20 roles, you're either left with trying to fit modern science and medicine into the Adept role as Arcana or folding the abilities into the Expert role as mundane Feats. Personally, I see the role of people who can dodge fireballs and stun people with their fists as filling a complely different role as people who can invent things or provide healing.

MadBlue

 

[Ranger REG]

A Role determines the source of your characters abilities:

Adept: Supernatural - internal - metaphysical. Encapsulates Magic, psionics, supernatural creatures, humans with special abilities, humans who can leverage a "magic" like powers (be it magic, psionics, inventions, super-science). A strong will is also included.

Expert: Someone who is talanted/dedicated/skilled/learned/etc. They learn things, are gifted, apply skills - be it social or bookish or nature minded.

Warrior: someone trained in martial combat, a strongman.. basically a fighter of some sort. They gain mastery over weapons (including hands/feet)

each grants access to a specific grouping of Feats as well as Save & Combat bonuses.

They cover the three possible concepts, which is why there really cannot be another type of Role without dupilation and watering everything else down.

Then like D&D and d20 Modern, in order to make a modern-genre True20 games, certain concepts must be overhauled. I mean, there is no way we can accept having a Fighter or a Rogue class in d20 Modern, not even before d20 Modern was being developed. So too must True20.

Though the concept is fairly appropriate I think it needs to be defined more for the modern-genre games. Warrior is not just soldiers but athlethes and physically-oriented characters; the Brutes. Experts are those with knowledge though I would define it as bookish knowledge; the Nerds. And then there are those who don't have as much knowledge (didn't really care about education that much, just the social aspect of high school and parties) nor have the physique but have the ability to delegate tasks and sometimes move people to a certain cause or issue. A social-based role that is usually not learned in books, which is entirely appropriate for a non-FX role.

Of course, if you're so hell-bent on keeping the Adept role, then perhaps what we defined "supernatural" about these social-based people are their charms.

 

[Denaes]

Then like D&D and d20 Modern, in order to make a modern-genre True20 games, certain concepts must be overhauled. I mean, there is no way we can accept having a Fighter or a Rogue class in d20 Modern, not even before d20 Modern was being developed. So too must True20.

What? Why?

They're not Rogue or Fighter classes. They're generic roles with non specific feats to choose. They're not fantasy classes. True20 was derrived from d20, Star Wars & d20 Modern. I'm not sure what you would need to convert. Maybe you should read game and create a character before making declarations like that.

In our fantasy game we've been playing for 3 weeks 2 of the players who havn't read the book (just played) just said that they're going to use it for Modern since the Roles are so adapable and not as watered down as d20 Modern (their opinions).

I was only giving examples. The Roles are generic (like the d20 Modern classes) and can be applied to any sort of character you feel is represented by the combat/save bonuses and Feats... warriors can be bullies or jocks or pro-football players or whatever you want. They can buy whatever feats they would find useful to describe what they are.

Of course, if you're so hell-bent on keeping the Adept role, then perhaps what we defined "supernatural" about these social-based people are their charms.

Adept? Thats up for the GM to decide if they want SFX type characters of any sort.

I'm just saying that the Expert models the skill user of any sorts and the warrior models someone who uses fists over skills.

It may well be better not to use the Adept and instead have a Warrior or Expert purchase a random SFX via Wild Talant to cover a special ability.

I'm just saying I don't see why you would remove the adept and replace it with another Role that is already covered - but with worse combat abilities. It pretty much flies against the point of the game and unless these sociolites were supernatural or somehow had abilities that outstripped Experts (which would really make them kind of iffy for most modern games anyway) then they wouldn't even be close to being balanced and you'd just be doing extra work to recreate the wheel.

 

[MadBlue]

I'm just saying I don't see why you would remove the adept and replace it with another Role that is already covered - but with worse combat abilities. It pretty much flies against the point of the game and unless these sociolites were supernatural or somehow had abilities that outstripped Experts (which would really make them kind of iffy for most modern games anyway) then they wouldn't even be close to being balanced and you'd just be doing extra work to recreate the wheel.

I see it as a case of wanting to use a wheel that's more appropriate to the vehicle in question.

MadBlue

 

[Denaes]

I see it as a case of wanting to use a wheel that's more appropriate to the vehicle in question.

MadBlue

And why would that be? What would making another skill based Role acheive?

 

[MadBlue]

And why would that be? What would making another skill based Role acheive?

The Expert isn't a "skill-based Role", it's an "anything that isn't a Warrior or Adept Role", with a bit of combat focus worked in as well. Sure it gets more skills than the other two Roles, but it's really more of a "Generic Adventurer Role" than a "skill-based Role", especially considering the Feats it has access to. As such it works fine for fantasy, but less well for other genres. If you add advanced class abilities from d20 Modern and its sourcebooks (including Modern Players' Guide) to True20 as Feats, the Expert would get the lion's share, because the role of a non-Warrior/non-Adept is much broader outside the fantasy genre, and with the number of Feats a character gets over 20 levels, an Expert could easily turn into an incongruous and unbalanced mish-mash of abilities.

MadBlue

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

That's my feeling on the subject, personally. I think True20's class structure is too firmly rooted in fantasy gaming to make a good go of Modern without some distinct shoe-horning. Warrior/Expert/Adept are balanced against eachother, if one is removed and new skills are introduced weighted toward one or the other, then the problem becomes exacerbated.

One solution is to remove the warrior entirely as well, but I think this really rather limits flexibility in the class builds, as the Warrior and Adept were clearly designed to fill specific roles as opposed to just a "feat holder". It might be the best option with the current book.

I'm relatively disappointed with True20, as the core "3 Roles" concept seriously hinders making it work for stuff other than Fantasy ... I'm finding it just as easy to use M&M as it is to try and crank True20 over to make it work.

--fje

 

[Denaes]

The Expert isn't a "skill-based Role", it's an "anything that isn't a Warrior or Adept Role", with a bit of combat focus worked in as well. Sure it gets more skills than the other two Roles, but it's really more of a "Generic Adventurer Role" than a "skill-based Role", especially considering the Feats it has access to. As such it works fine for fantasy, but less well for other genres. If you add advanced class abilities from d20 Modern and its sourcebooks (including Modern Players' Guide) to True20 as Feats, the Expert would get the lion's share, because the role of a non-Warrior/non-Adept is much broader outside the fantasy genre, and with the number of Feats a character gets over 20 levels, an Expert could easily turn into an incongruous and unbalanced mish-mash of abilities.

MadBlue

The expert being skill based has Feats that they shouldn't have. That is true. Backstabbing & snatching arrows were Rogue and Monk abilities which is why they are there. I don't believe they should be in that category in the least. They're martial feats. They involve combat. They should be general (not likely) or Martial.

Switching combat (ie, non-skill/ related) feats over to martial would solve a lot of headaches in that regard and is the way I would personally acheive that balance. Just because a rogue which was mostly skill based had some martial abilities doesn't mean that they're skill based (any more than you can say any feat requires skill in training).

Well that or scrapping the Feat barrier and making them all general. That would mean you would only need to balance what it is to be an Expert vs what it is to be a Warrior vs Adept.

That would mean that each Role would have to have a progressionary bonus. Adepts would have to have a bonus to using spells while the other two Roles remained static in that respect. The Expert would either learn new skills or an increase in skill ranks above what the other two get. The warrior is already in his bonus with his highest Combat Bonus.

But like I said, that's the way I would do it... or two ways I would it.

That said, you do have a point with the Experts being more than Skill based.

How would you correct this? If you created another role, what would be the division/cut from Expert? How would Expert loose ability and what would it retain. How would this benefit our games (not how does the current system detract from our games).

I'm not trying to bait you or anything - I'd like to hear your ideas, how you would like to go about it and what you plan to get out of it.

 

[arkham618]

Holy cow, why are people agonizing over this? If you don't like the three-way split (Adept/Warrior/Expert), grab the Offensive/Defensive option from CoC and make all feats (including arcana-related) available to both roles. Instant generic character creation, good for all genres, regardless of FX. Sheesh.

 

[Ranger REG]

Holy cow, why are people agonizing over this? If you don't like the three-way split (Adept/Warrior/Expert), grab the Offensive/Defensive option from CoC and make all feats (including arcana-related) available to both roles. Instant generic character creation, good for all genres, regardless of FX. Sheesh.

I don't think the material in CoC are OGC ... yet.

And I'm not trying to make thing too confusing. I just want gamers who look at True20 as not being a rigid rules structure, but a flexible one. Personally, I PREFER the three roles I have stated earlier for my modern-genre game. If you disagree with me, so be it, but I do like the brutes, the nerds, and the slick charmers (err, leaders). So, in a Star Trek game, you have Security/Marine, Science/Engineering, and Command/Administration.