In a future version, I would love to see skills based off of d20 Modern instead of D&D 3.0. Really, that's about it.
Ditto Steve on the Protection issue. My players made it abundantly clear that sending a bad guy of equal PL with Protection 10 and without a fantastic Con score or Toughness wasn't actually that big a fight. He swings a few times, rolls badly a few times over five rounds, and then gets into "Stunned, Stunned, Unconscious" territory.
Oh, one other note, although it's more a balance issue in games than, I think, an inherent flaw. Super-Speed creates very frustrating characters in some ways. They either out-do just about everyone else in the party, or they get popped like a balloon because of a speedster-specific trap -- an area-effect Fort-save-based attack or something that the speedster's character knows was put in there specifically to take him out of the fight. I figure that as I play more, I'll get better at making the speed-bumps a bit more subtle, but right now, either the speedster runs the show, or the speedster's player glares at me from the sidelines making offhand remarks about me trying to kill her PC.
Other things I'd like to see, although I wouldn't say that they were complaints, specifically:
1) Every GM needs to give his players a sheet telling them what is normal, what is good, what is great, and what is bad in that specific game. I've got some players who think that they need a +10 BAB on every character, and some players who think "Oh, my background didn't specify combat training, so I'll just give him a +3." By the same token, some players max out their Strength before taking Super-Strength, and others say, "Well, he's only strong because of the radiation, so I'll give him a 13 Strength." If you have both players in the same group, the guys who took their guy to +10 BAB and 20 Strength walk all over the other guys. Especially for players coming over from D&D, the ease and up-front nature of minmaxing makes it tough not to do, but that's not always the game the GM wants.
2) An included combat strategy guide with helpful suggestions. Almost every character who's going to get into hand-to-hand combat needs at least two of the following: Rapid Strike, Power Attack, Accurate Attack, All-Out Attack, Expertise. These feats let you go to town and make your attacks more effective against speedsters or bricks. I had to walk my players through the "Okay, All-Out Attack 5, and Power Attack 3, so I'm leaving myself wide open but really helping my chances to hit and do more damage..." process the first few times, but now most of them know what to take to customize their characters. Fortunately, there are places like ENWorld and the Atomic Think Tank to help folks out, too.
3) Some alterations to the skills, above and beyond d20 Modern. The Jump skill, for example... it could just disappear. In any game I run, my Batman clone isn't going to have 12 ranks in Jump. He's going to have the Jump power, with Training as a source, at 3 ranks, likely as a Power Stunt off of his 6 rank Swinging power with the Device flaw. I know that not all movement skills would go away that easily, but I think that many of them would...
Ditto Steve on the Protection issue. My players made it abundantly clear that sending a bad guy of equal PL with Protection 10 and without a fantastic Con score or Toughness wasn't actually that big a fight. He swings a few times, rolls badly a few times over five rounds, and then gets into "Stunned, Stunned, Unconscious" territory.
Oh, one other note, although it's more a balance issue in games than, I think, an inherent flaw. Super-Speed creates very frustrating characters in some ways. They either out-do just about everyone else in the party, or they get popped like a balloon because of a speedster-specific trap -- an area-effect Fort-save-based attack or something that the speedster's character knows was put in there specifically to take him out of the fight. I figure that as I play more, I'll get better at making the speed-bumps a bit more subtle, but right now, either the speedster runs the show, or the speedster's player glares at me from the sidelines making offhand remarks about me trying to kill her PC.
Other things I'd like to see, although I wouldn't say that they were complaints, specifically:
1) Every GM needs to give his players a sheet telling them what is normal, what is good, what is great, and what is bad in that specific game. I've got some players who think that they need a +10 BAB on every character, and some players who think "Oh, my background didn't specify combat training, so I'll just give him a +3." By the same token, some players max out their Strength before taking Super-Strength, and others say, "Well, he's only strong because of the radiation, so I'll give him a 13 Strength." If you have both players in the same group, the guys who took their guy to +10 BAB and 20 Strength walk all over the other guys. Especially for players coming over from D&D, the ease and up-front nature of minmaxing makes it tough not to do, but that's not always the game the GM wants.
2) An included combat strategy guide with helpful suggestions. Almost every character who's going to get into hand-to-hand combat needs at least two of the following: Rapid Strike, Power Attack, Accurate Attack, All-Out Attack, Expertise. These feats let you go to town and make your attacks more effective against speedsters or bricks. I had to walk my players through the "Okay, All-Out Attack 5, and Power Attack 3, so I'm leaving myself wide open but really helping my chances to hit and do more damage..." process the first few times, but now most of them know what to take to customize their characters. Fortunately, there are places like ENWorld and the Atomic Think Tank to help folks out, too.
3) Some alterations to the skills, above and beyond d20 Modern. The Jump skill, for example... it could just disappear. In any game I run, my Batman clone isn't going to have 12 ranks in Jump. He's going to have the Jump power, with Training as a source, at 3 ranks, likely as a Power Stunt off of his 6 rank Swinging power with the Device flaw. I know that not all movement skills would go away that easily, but I think that many of them would...
ower point for those three options, and you'd end up with options for all kinds of games.
