What would you change for d20 Modern 2.0

[Roudi]

I'm quite content with what I have.

Amen!

 

[jaerdaph]

I don't need a d20 Modern second edition - a second printing with errata worked in would be great, and I would consider buying it to have the most up-to-date core rulebook. But I'm not interested in a new edition. - SNIP -
No, no second edition for me, thanks. I'm quite content with what I have.

Quoted for truthery!

 

[JPL]

I've been following this thread pretty closely and with great interest.

I don't need a d20 Modern second edition - a second printing with errata worked in would be great, and I would consider buying it to have the most up-to-date core rulebook. But I'm not interested in a new edition.

I also agree. There are certainly things that would make the core book better suited for me personally, but I don't see that anything that's flat-out broken.

 

[Hjorimir]

Ugh. Maybe as options, but not hard wired.

You're in luck! WotC isn't hiring me to design Modern 2.0.

But the point of the thread is what I would change and that's exactly what I shared.

 

[King of Old School]

1) Refine/rationalize the skill list. Fewer, broader skills make for more enjoyable characters IME. I'd also define a significant number of "basic" skills as class skills for all of the Base Classes.


2) Personally I think the dichotomy between generic Base Classes and archetypal Advanced/Prestige Classes is annoying and problematic. I'd significantly increase the number of talents available, incorporating most of the special abilities of the current Advanced Classes; and then I'd redo the Advanced Classes as prebuilt combos of Base Classes (like the class combos from the MPC), just to demonstrate the flexibility of the Base Class system and cater to the crowd that likes their classes defined archetypally. Prestige Classes would remain pretty much as is, but in all cases would be very campaign specific -- no generic classes that aren't built from Base Classes, as that totally contradicts the point of generic Base Classes in the first place. It's also clunky, and clunk is the devil.

(Yes, this means that FX abilities would have to become part of the feat/talent system. That's intentional. Skill-and-feat FX systems rock.)

I'd also make sure that feats which allow the selection of extra talents, or talents from other classes, are part of the core so that the flexibility is there for those who are willing to expend the feat slots. Breaking the feats into thematic trees, a la Spycraft, would be a good innovation as well.


3) Use subdual damage and damage reduction from D&D3.5. Accept that the nonlethal damage experiment was unsuccessful and unpopular.


4) Charles Rice's ideas on armour sound good to me too.


5) Include some kind of abstract-ish system for handling vehicles (or at least one that isn't so unwieldy with the use of squares).


6) Change the campaign models in the back! Combine Urban Arcana and Shadow Chasers as a single model (they're a single setting anyways, just using two different PC perspectives); replace Agents of PSI with Genetech, incorporating psionics as a character option (psionic franks? makes sense to me); and include a non-FX campaign model as well, though I'm not 100% sure what -- maybe a "caper" setting that makes good use of the new vehicle rules.

KoOS

 

[C. Baize]

You're in luck! WotC isn't hiring me to design Modern 2.0.

But the point of the thread is what I would change and that's exactly what I shared.

Oh I know.
Just thought I'd show an option for that which would make more people happy.

 

[JPL]

6) Change the campaign models in the back! Combine Urban Arcana and Shadow Chasers as a single model (they're a single setting anyways, just using two different PC perspectives); replace Agents of PSI with Genetech, incorporating psionics as a character option (psionic franks? makes sense to me); and include a non-FX campaign model as well, though I'm not 100% sure what -- maybe a "caper" setting that makes good use of the new vehicle rules.

KoOS

Well...UA and Shadow Chasers certainly have overlap, but the former is more "D&D in the real world" while the latter is Buffy / Angel / Blade. Rather than merge them, I'd like to see Shadow Chasers better differentiate itself --- maybe bring in more of a Cthuhlu vibe, or a Hellboy pulp horror vibe [one of my dream campaigns is a Gulliermo Del Toro tribute kinda thing --- Blade II meets Hellboy, cinematic action heroes vs. TMWNM2K in the sewers].

Agents of PSI has never particularly floated my boat, whereas a ribofunky Genetech with psi rules would be more to my liking.

I would just plug Top Secret S.I. in as a non-FX setting. Espionage is a perennial favorite. Just make sure to set it up for group play --- less James Bond and more Mission: Impossible.

 

[Ranger REG]

Ranger, I don't have discussions with people who use disingenuous debate tactics, even through inference. So please stay civil and polite and above-board.

I'm about as civil as I come. Trust me, you'll know when I am uncivil. But also know, I will never resort to personal attacks (having been a victim myself countless times).

1) I'm statting a cleaver, as should be obvious, since I wrote "cleaver".

2) Raising it to medium due to its bulk was one of two options I suggested. Feel free to read the other one.

3) If you're thinking of a big enormous professional cook-kitchen cleaver, then it's at least as bulky as a tonfa, which is listed as medium in the book. And if you're thinking of a small home-kitchen chopping tool, then I don't see why that weapon should do more than 1d4 damage, given that the large slicing knife would only have the stats for a dagger.

You got some valid points there. Makes me wonder if size of weapon should determine the damage ceiling. The thing is, since d20 Modern uses 3.0e weapon size rules, a typical cleaver in my book can be as large as a short sword which is a small weapon, if not hefty enough (I know, it has nothing to do with the game definition of "weapon size") to cleave through bones, which is why I can accept it having 1d6 damage, while being a Small weapon. (BTW, what is the hardness value for meat bones?)

 

[RangerWickett]

4. Get Steve Kenson to write a skill and feat Magic System or beg, cajole, and plead with Green Ronin to use the True 20 magic system.

I'm not Steve Kenson, but how does Elements of Magic - Mythic Earth compare to what you'd want?



Assume I'm planning to write d20 Modern, 2nd edition. Give me a definitive list of alternate/additional rulebooks I should pick up as research for making the system work. Blood & Fists is apparently good. I'd definitely want to get Hot Pursuit. Spycraft seems to be getting a lot of love. What else?

 

[takyris]

You got some valid points there. Makes me wonder if size of weapon should determine the damage ceiling.

I'd agree with that, I think, with the possible addition of "Size + Proficiency Required" determining the damage ceiling. 3.0 D&D was pretty good at this:

Tiny: 1d4
Small: 1d6 Simple, 1d6 and bonus if Martial (19-20 or 20/x3 or bonus on Disarms/Trips)
Medium: 1d8 Simple, 1d8 and bonus if Martial, 1d10 and crit-bonus if Exotic
Large: Sketchier, but generally 1d10 Simple, 1d12 or 2d6 and bonus if Martial

And within those, you've got weapons that go down in damage to go up with special abilities, like pole-arms that do less damage than greatswords but have reach and/or trip bonuses or set-against-charge bonuses. Or the D&D 3.5 elegance of the Simple One-Handed weapons, that do either 1d8, or do 1d6 but can be thrown.

The thing is, since d20 Modern uses 3.0e weapon size rules, a typical cleaver in my book can be as large as a short sword which is a small weapon, if not hefty enough (I know, it has nothing to do with the game definition of "weapon size") to cleave through bones, which is why I can accept it having 1d6 damage, while being a Small weapon.

That's a good point. I guess, for me, the tonfa is sort of in there as a deal-breaker on d20 Modern weapon sizes. I don't know that "amount of volume displaced in water" or "length from end to end" really work for determining weapon sizes, because that means that a pistol butt (small) is the same size as a cleaver, and I have real difficulty buying that. It seems that they must be talking about "heft" when they talk about weapon sizes -- the sizes are already different from Object sizes (which is a pain when trying to determine the size of, say, a gun lying on the ground -- it's certainly not a Small Object, the size of a coyote or a halfling, but the "weapon size" versus "object size" distinction is a tough one for many people to make), and those weapon sizes are there primarily to tell you whether 1) It takes one hand or two to use it and 2) Whether it's a light weapon for dual-wielding and Streetfighting purposes.

I agree that a restaurant meat cleaver (ie, a big one, not a little dinky one for home use) can be as big as a shortsword. No argument there at all. But while that meat cleaver might displace about the same amount of water as a shortsword, I'd argue that the big meat cleaver, with its weight mostly in the blade while a shortsword has its weight mostly near the grip to allow for fast movement and stabbing, is going to be a lot more of a heave-and-chop weapon. For me, that means one of two things:

1) The weapon, while physically small, is hefty enough that it doesn't make sense to let a player finesse it. It weighs as much as two other 2-pound weapons (tonfa and baton, both of which are classified as Medium), so it ought to be a medium weapon as well. To inflict D&D 3.5 logic on it, I can't imagine finessing a massive kitchen cleaver, but I can imagine somebody using both hands to chop harder -- which means that the cleaver I'm imagining works better as a one-handed non-light weapon -- or, in d20 Modern terms, Medium. For a big-as-a-shortsword-but-weighted-near-the-end kitchen cleaver, this is the option I'd take.

2) We say that the cleaver is indeed a light weapon, light enough to finesse or use easily as an off-hand weapon, but heavy enough that it ought to do more damage than a knife. In D&D 3.5 terms, its closest relative would be the handaxe (and if you look at the small axes in hardware stores and not the absurd D&D art, handaxes aren't much larger than good-sized kitchen cleavers), which does 1d6, 20/x3 -- which would likely get turned into 1d6, 19-20/x2 in d20 Modern because x3 crit multipliers were avoided like the plague in the core book (excepting Advanced Martial Arts, if I recall correctly). So this cleaver is about equal to a handaxe... which means that while it should be easy to use the cleaver to chop vegetation, it should require the Archaic Weapon Proficiency feat to use it properly in combat. In fact, it's a bit of a mystery already, given that it's the only slashing weapon currently in the Simple Weapon list -- bludgeoning weapons are evidently easy enough to hit people with, and stabbing is in a straight line, but the cleaver is apparently the only slashing weapon on the Simple list. And it has better damage output on crits than the Kama, which is a Small Exotic Slashing weapon that also does 1d6 damage and also weighs 2 pounds. I'll save my "save the kama" argument for another thread, but this still seems to point to the cleaver being out of whack. If it was kept as a small weapon doing that kind of damage, it really should be Archaic -- the kind of thing that a player with Archaic Weapons Proficiency could find in the middle of a kitchen fight, pick up, and be happy that his character's feat has come in handy, letting him use a nice weapon without the -4 penalty for it being oddly balanced in a way that takes training to use properly.

(BTW, what is the hardness value for meat bones?)

Hah and ew, in roughly that order.