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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 3020932" data-attributes="member: 8158">Well, the original post is somewhat deceptive IMO.Much of the "simplicity" of T20 is that there is currently very little material to support conversions. Simplicity's easy to achive if you skimp on options (q.v. Castles & Crusades). We are trying a Star Wars T20 campaign, and we basically had no guidelines to work from. Eventually, someone published their homebrew T20 Living Force rules, and that's what we worked from, but even then much is ad hoc. You have to make up rules for any kind of specialized gear, and things like protocol droids that speak 6 million languages are house-ruled against the way that T20 handles languages. Note that I'm not saying this stuff is particularly hard to house rule, just that once you're doing it's kind of a cheat to give the system credit for all the great stuff you came up with.However, my biggest beef is that the core classes--warrior, expert, and adept--are pretty skewed. Bear in mind tthat when someone praises the loss of a vancian magic system, what they're really praising is allowing spellcasters greater liberty in tossing out lots of spells. Slots (a "hard" control) are replaced with fatigue (a "soft" control; i.e. it's easier to mitigate) in some cases, while non-fatiguing powers are usable at will. Likewise, when someone praises the loss of a hit-point-based damage system for a toughness save, what they're really praising is the effective removal of the "meat shield" role as a character (or rather, if not removal, then certainly a major demotion). Warriors have access to a feat called Tough that adds +1 to their toughness save, but that's kind of a slap in the face because it's such a small bonus that it basically requires a warrior to cash in several feats to get a decent bonus--and remember, all a character gets in terms of class features is one feat per level. So, put the two paragraphs together, and you might start to get the picture. But let me make it even more clear. As previously stated, all classes gain one feat per level. However, adepts get to cash in their feats to buy powers. This is a pretty sweet deal since a typical T20 power is wonderfully potent numerous applications, and easily better than a single feat that's available to other classes, even taking fatigue into account (I provide some examples a couple of paragraphs down). But wait, there's more. Every class gets a core ability at first level--this is your reward for taking your first level in that particular class. Experts can spend a Conviction point to gain 4 ranks in any skill. Warriros can spend a Conviction point to remove minor wounds from their character. Adepts? Adepts can spend a Conviction point to emulate any power. Oh, and they get a second ability that allows them to remove all fatigue penalties from their character (remember how I referred to fatigue as a soft control earlier?). Bearing in mind that there are few skills that can't be outright trumped by powers, and that there are powers that can heal your wounds (even the not-so-minor ones), who has the better deal?I played briefly in a T20 fantasy session. The adept could Teleport home whenever he felt endangered or needed something or was just bored, could blast mobs with a variety of artillery, could use Object Reading and Mind Reading to solve mysteries, could detect ambushes with Sense Minds, and could fix his boo-boos with Cure. Oh, and whenever it seemed like a warrior's superior combat bonuses gave that class an edge, the adept could dispel that illusion by revving up Combat Sense. Now, don't get me wrong. This won't be a problem for everyone. Lots of folks don't mind one character that can routinely dominate any given scene--someone's gotta be Gandalf or Anikin, and someone else has got to be Pippin or Jar Jar, right? But for me, seeing how easily a rules-savvy adept can marginalize other characters got old real fast.As for our Star Wars T20 game, the GM simply put enough work into limitng adepts that they're reasonably capable without being over-the-top.</blockquote>

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