What would you change for d20 Modern 2.0

[JPL]

When you pick up one of the six classes you get a whole bunch of stuff you might not want, or that does not really fit the character you have in mind, unless you happen to have one of the few concepts in mind, which these classes are tailored towards.

I'd be interested in hearing some of these character concepts, and how a standard d20 Modern class hits them with "a whole bunch of stuff you might not want." Your "elite soldier" example doesn't really prove your point.

I mean, if it's something like, "He's the greatest shot with a pistol in the world --- but he can't fire a rifle worth a crap!," then yeah, d20 Modern doesn't really do that.

If we're just talking about making the talents into feat chains, note that d20 Future does just that --- the "________ Hero Plus" feats let you take two talents for the price of one feat. I don't like these feats, generally, but for the right character concept, I'd consider it.

 

[Thanee]

I think the Unified Class Theory is INTERESTING, don't get me wrong. But you're currently in the position of saying: "Wow, I think Internal Combustion is a poor model, we should use fusion for vehicle powerplants. Fusion would be great and have no problems at all!"

Heh. No, really, I'm the first to admit, that my proposal is not (yet ) perfect, I actually said so in the first post. It's mostly the basic idea, which I find a lot better than what's in the book.

The ability restriction is completely arbitrary right now, it could be set to anything, but I definitely wanted to tie the ability scores with the appropriate talents, since that's a restriction that makes sense.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Roudi]

No! Broken! You can't use Wealth as a balance tool, which means there's no way to balance gadgets, other than having the GM say "no, you can't have that".

Uhm... then what's the point of Wealth in the first place? It certainly isn't to show off your bling bling to PCs and NPCs alike; it certainly isn't to pay rent to your character's apartment or buy everyone combos at the local Jack-in-the-Box. If you can't use Wealth as a balance tool, then what in the high holy hell would be the point of using Wealth at all?

Let me hit you with a personal example. I just released a mecha product with a number of gadgets, a couple of which can be used to significantly boost the damage dealt by the mech's weapons (Weapon Hardpoints and Fire-Linked Weaponry). Consider the following: a mech (any size) with two Weapon Hardpoints (+10 to the base mecha's purchase DC) and four M-87 Talon Missile Launchers installed in them (each missile launcher has a Purchase DC +2 higher thanks to the Fire-Linked gadget). Now, the base mecha will, at the smallest size, cost at LEAST DC 50, before factoring in superstructure, armor, weapons, or other equipment, assuming that all purchases stick within the Progress Level (with just the missile launchers, the minimum Purchase DC for this mech is 51). However, the mech's missile weapons will deal 29d6 damage with each successful strike. This is higher than any other mecha weapon can produce... so naturally, all mechs should be so outfitted, right? After all, if this is the most effective output, why would anyone settle for less?

This is where Wealth comes in. For mechs, most characters likely won't have the Wealth modifier to be able to purchase one "off the showroom floor", so we look to the bodies who are more likely to purchase mechs: organizations. This is why the standard organization listing in the Menance Manual provides a Wealth modifier for the organization. A merc squad with a Wealth mod of +25 looking to replace one of their scrapped mechs is going to find the above missile boat WAY out of their price range and look for something a lot cheaper (probably something from a lower progress level, with MUCH lower damage capacity, protection, etc). This explains why every merc squad on Mother Earth isn't fielding these insane-damage missile boats; if Wealth weren't providing the mechanical balance for in-game finances, surely nothing else would stop them.

If your problem is players gadgeting up gear to the high heavens and then abusing the Wealth system to buy it, then this is no fault of the system. In cases of system abuse, the fault lies with the player (for abusing the system) and the Gamemaster (for allowing the abuse). Claiming that "you can't use Wealth as a balance point!" because the system has the potential for abuse is a faulty argument (if that is indeed why you claim that) because of what I just stated.

Wealth is a necessary balance point; without it, gadgets become useless (among other things). If Wealth is not a balance point, then surely, XP and gold piece costs for creating magic items in D&D are similarly frivolous.

 

[C. Baize]

There's also another way to handle them not getting gear until you want them to, or are willing to let them...

"Okay. You can purchase it. If someone is selling, or if you can find someone to make it for you."

Which can create adventure arcs all their own, employing a wide variety of skills from the skills list just to find the right folks.

Remember... as GM, it's YOUR game AND their game. You're not there JUST to provide story arcs, you're there for rules interpretations and tweaks for what doesn't work in your game.

Whiny Rules Lawyer: "But, the rules say that the Purchase DC also represents the number of hours it takes to purchase the item...."
GM: "And if it were a standard item, that would be true. You, however, are getting a very nonstandard item, and for that item, the Purchase DC represents the number of 24 hour increments it'll take to create the gadget and have it put on your gun/armor/butt cheeks. Too bad he only works 8 hours per day..."

See... you can let them have it, but not right away.
Unless you're completely opposed to letting them customize their gear list...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Uhm... then what's the point of Wealth in the first place? It certainly isn't to show off your bling bling to PCs and NPCs alike; it certainly isn't to pay rent to your character's apartment or buy everyone combos at the local Jack-in-the-Box. If you can't use Wealth as a balance tool, then what in the high holy hell would be the point of using Wealth at all?

You know, that's a good question. I was under the impression that people used Wealth because it's easier than balancing a real character's checkbook.

When I played and ran Modern, Wealth turned out to be nearly useless. You bought a gun and maybe armor at character creation. You just might end up buying a house and car. But that's it. Characters who put ranks into Profession got ridiculously high and semi-random Wealth values, but they could do nothing with it. So they ended up wasting ranks.

Then we ran a D20 Future game. I wasn't the GM - the GM was very permissive, however. He let us buy anything at PL 7 or lower except for Dermal Plating, as that was too broken even for him. And this is a DM who let us play prestige classes from first level in DnD!

Let me hit you with a personal example. I just released a mecha product with a number of gadgets, a couple of which can be used to significantly boost the damage dealt by the mech's weapons (Weapon Hardpoints and Fire-Linked Weaponry). Consider the following: a mech (any size) with two Weapon Hardpoints (+10 to the base mecha's purchase DC) and four M-87 Talon Missile Launchers installed in them (each missile launcher has a Purchase DC +2 higher thanks to the Fire-Linked gadget). Now, the base mecha will, at the smallest size, cost at LEAST DC 50, before factoring in superstructure, armor, weapons, or other equipment, assuming that all purchases stick within the Progress Level (with just the missile launchers, the minimum Purchase DC for this mech is 51). However, the mech's missile weapons will deal 29d6 damage with each successful strike. This is higher than any other mecha weapon can produce... so naturally, all mechs should be so outfitted, right? After all, if this is the most effective output, why would anyone settle for less?

For PCs, it isn't that much, actually. If you could buy the same mecha for a Purchase DC of 3 lower, but it did much less damage, then what is the point? You get to do a heck of a lot of extra damage due to rolling a couple points higher on your Wealth check. I think there's something ... wrong ... with that. The player is going to lose his 2d6+1 Wealth regardless of what the actual purchase DC of the mecha was. Furthermore, the results of that higher Wealth check stick around a long time.

Making matters worse was how you "added together" Purchase DCs. A player of mine actually complained that he could build an overly-powerful 8-legged robot that could do 30d6 damage (mind you, the bullets were expensive) because he was able to buy it as one unit, rather than piece-by-piece.

This is where Wealth comes in. For mechs, most characters likely won't have the Wealth modifier to be able to purchase one "off the showroom floor", so we look to the bodies who are more likely to purchase mechs: organizations.

We did have a PC who bought a mecha. I don't know what his Wealth rating was like, however, but I do know he could afford it. (He was the player who understood the Wealth system the best, too, but he did not have the highest Wealth rating in the game.)

This is why the standard organization listing in the Menance Manual provides a Wealth modifier for the organization. A merc squad with a Wealth mod of +25 looking to replace one of their scrapped mechs is going to find the above missile boat WAY out of their price range and look for something a lot cheaper (probably something from a lower progress level, with MUCH lower damage capacity, protection, etc). This explains why every merc squad on Mother Earth isn't fielding these insane-damage missile boats; if Wealth weren't providing the mechanical balance for in-game finances, surely nothing else would stop them.

And if the organization rolls high ... well, I guess the GM can have them "take 10" but he can't do the same thing to the players. A Wealth "swing" of 20 points is a huge deal, and can result in lame mecha or uber spaceships.

If your problem is players gadgeting up gear to the high heavens and then abusing the Wealth system to buy it, then this is no fault of the system. In cases of system abuse, the fault lies with the player (for abusing the system) and the Gamemaster (for allowing the abuse).

There are pages and pages of threads on this forum about how "product x" and "feat y" are broken. I'm expecting balanced and useable rules coming out of something I paid money for. I don't think we can just blame the players or the DMs.

I see little love for 2e psionics, another system widely regarded as broken (more than Wealth anyway) even though the problem was just bad DMs and munchkin PCs. It wasn't just them. The system actually had problems.

Claiming that "you can't use Wealth as a balance point!" because the system has the potential for abuse is a faulty argument (if that is indeed why you claim that) because of what I just stated.

I disagree. Strongly.

Wealth is a necessary balance point; without it, gadgets become useless (among other things). If Wealth is not a balance point, then surely, XP and gold piece costs for creating magic items in D&D are similarly frivolous.

XP is a character cost. As for magic items, I do think they're broken. It's really really hard to hand out magic items (or treasure) at the "right rate", taking into account magic items sold for half value (or slightly higher with Diplomacy). It comes out too low, even with the massive heaps of treasure players find. It also makes NPCs wimpy compared to equivalent PCs - at least, for non-spellcasters who can't blow all their slots in one battle and are equipment-dependent. And finally, it makes character generation take much longer, although that's less of a balance problem and more of a "increase prep time by three-fold" problem.

"Okay. You can purchase it. If someone is selling, or if you can find someone to make it for you."

Nah, I can't agree with this one, either. It's "hidden nerfing". It's a bit like, in a DnD 3.0 game, having every NPC you use have a gem of true seeing because the PC mage overused greater invisibility. Sure, the DM has to share some of the blame for not finding a good solution to the problem, but it's also the rules' fault for making the spell so overly good.

Unless you're completely opposed to letting them customize their gear list...

I have no problem with them doing that ... provided they do it with their own skills, instead of complaining because huge chunks of the gear chapter are rendered "illegal". Alas, Modern Crafting rules have their own faults. Not that DnD has better non-magic crafting rules.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Not having access to your game group, I wonder how you guys are using Wealth and how you're implementing it.

Dunno. Using the RAW and guidelines for taking time to buy (and taking 20) and having any sort of time table, not sure I've seen the wide-spanning problems your group did.

If your GM is handing out cars, space ships, and super-mega laser cannons as common rewards to the point that the players find all of their gear needs taken care of entirely outside of the Wealth system, then yea, they'll probably not have a whole lot to do. But there are rules for requisitions and Org wealth bonuses and stuff like that.

I've found Wealth to be very balanced and very useful out of the box.

--fje

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Not having access to your game group, I wonder how you guys are using Wealth and how you're implementing it.

Dunno. Using the RAW and guidelines for taking time to buy (and taking 20) and having any sort of time table, not sure I've seen the wide-spanning problems your group did.

If your GM is handing out cars, space ships, and super-mega laser cannons as common rewards to the point that the players find all of their gear needs taken care of entirely outside of the Wealth system, then yea, they'll probably not have a whole lot to do. But there are rules for requisitions and Org wealth bonuses and stuff like that.

I've found Wealth to be very balanced and very useful out of the box.

--fje

No one was getting stuff for free in any of the campaigns we were running. Wealth was only a problem in D20 Future - in Modern, as I said above, it was nearly pointless.

I wonder what you mean by "gear needs", however. There were hardly any. I think one of my players had to buy a laptop computer on top of his weapon and armor. One more point of Wealth lost - not a big deal.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Cars? Plane tickets? Disposable items? As you say, laptops, computers, PDAs, video cameras, digital cameras, SLR cameras, Craft kits, Fake IDs, Surgery Kits, binocs, GPS recievers, laser sights, services, air fare, HEALING, doctor's care, auto repair ...

All of which nick at least a point, and all of which were pretty regular purchases in most of my games. Especially violent games where folks cars get blown up with their GPS, camera, extra guns, and laptop were residing.

--fje

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Cars?

Only one player bought a car, and one bought a motorcycle. The guy with the car blew his up, and rented cars (for less than Purchase DC 15) after that. Getting cars blown up doesn't happen on a regular basis. A vehicular combat is far more likely to end up with a damaged car, which the players can Repair for themselves.

Plane tickets?

The players flew to Antarctica, but their employers paid for that flight. Same for when they flew to Albenistan (part of Sword Edge Publishing's series of adventures). In both cases, it wouldn't make sense for them to pay for their own flights, and in both series of adventures, they were loaned weapons. (You're not expecting US Marines to actually pay for their own rifles, are you? Not unless they're taking the rifles home with them.) Now, when they went to Mexico, they rented vehicles, but it didn't cost them much at all - I think two points, since the players were ridiculously wealthy due to the broken Profession skill in the first place.

Disposable items?

Such as?

As you say, laptops, computers, PDAs

One player bought a laptop, which he uses as his main computer. Other than that, buying computers hasn't happened. There's little point of buying a computer if you don't have ranks in Computer Use. This is why I think Modern may need a "lifestyle" cost system to take care of purchases that PCs may want but not need. I think a lot of TV sets have a PDC of over 15, but I've yet to see a PC buy one.

video cameras, digital cameras, SLR cameras

Nope. The most expensive camera in the Modern book has a PDC of 17, but my players would rather go for digital or disposable if they even bothered to buy any ... which they didn't.

I don't want to spend hours going over character sheets making sure they have any and all pieces of equipment they "need", either, and I'm not likely to write an adventure where they "have" to have a camera. I hear it's a bad idea to write an adventure like that anyway, the same way it's a bad idea to write an adventure where you can't succeed unelss someone has the Track feat, or something along those lines. Besides, my players are resourceful enough to handle the lack of "necessary" equipment most of the time.

Craft kits

You buy these things once, unless I missed something really important. An electrical kit, forgery kit, demolitions kit, disguise kit, evidence kit, mechanical kit and multi-purpose tool all cost less than PDC 15 anyway. Now that I think about it, Craft (chemical), Craft (pharmaceuticals), and Treat Injury are slightly shafted due to losing a Wealth point for buying the kits, but the latter is so important that no one is likely to complain about it.

Fake IDs

These are pointless, actually. They're too easy to see through. If the NPC in question is very suspicious, they just need to check what day you issued the birth certificate that started the chain, and competent guards are going to have decent enough Forgery checks to see through the Forgery about half the time - not something you can rely on, and not worth the PDC 15-19 you usually pay for on the black market. If you want to spend Wealth on fake ID, I would suggest getting a Forgery kit from the black market and doing it yourself. You save Wealth that way, and you get a more reliable document as well.

But maybe I'm wrong on this. Maybe you can tell me when Forgery is actually useful.

Surgery Kits

Cheap when you have a Wealth of over 30. I can't recall any time when PCs had to use up more than one such kit per level.

binocs

Nope. Not one player bought any. And the regular binoculars have a PDC of 7.

GPS recievers

Buy these once. And they don't have any of these. They're not even that useful - if you don't have the Navigate and Survival skills to make it in the wild away from useful landmarks, you're going to get lost whether you're enjoying a +4 bonus to Navigate or not.

laser sights

Nope.

services

The only ones the players "need" are lawyers. But if you're getting stopped by cops, I would expect a fine (and Wealth penalty) anyway. And this shouldn't happen regularly, either, unless it's that kind of campaign.

air fare

See above. I could try to make them travel by air, though, but again, they're not going on long-distance flights every level unless it's that kind of campaign.

HEALING, doctor's care

I have never seen a Modern party last long without a party member who has Treat Injury and Surgery. So no. Ironically, in the last encounter, the doctor was dropped into negatives, after having used Treat Injury on himself earlier in the day. You can only get Treat Injury used on yourself once per day for the purpose of healing hit points, so the other party member with Treat Injury can only stabilize him (which he did). However, they're in Albenistan, and working with CASFOR-A. Once they get him to a medical facility (either the NGO or Camp Parker) he would get treated for free. Unless, you know, Marines are expected to pay for the medical treatment required after taking a bullet in the line of duty, and I don't think they are. So in the one case where they may have had to pay for medical care, they dodged it.

This is a situation that I haven't seen since the first time when I was a player with a new GM and new group, where nobody had Treat Injury.

auto repair ...

When your party has a Smart Hero with a decent number of ranks in Repair, you don't need to go to the repair shop. (Unless your car got wrecked, in which case, you buy a new one! But that's only actually happened once.)

All of which nick at least a point, and all of which were pretty regular purchases in most of my games. Especially violent games where folks cars get blown up with their GPS, camera, extra guns, and laptop were residing.

But as I said, they don't buy many of these things, and many don't cost a point. They're certainly not buying these on a regular basis. I can't see why you would need to buy more than one digital camera, for instance.

--fje[/QUOTE]

 

[Roudi]

Thank you, folks; this thread has officially become not fun for me.

C.Baize, Ralts, Heap, and a few others of you have managed to keep on topic and provide useful insight. Thanks for the brain candy.