What would you change for d20 Modern 2.0

[JPL]

Y'know what would be a nifty campaign to slide in that core rulebook.

NINJA FORCE 2000

Sorta like G.I. Joe, without all the non-ninja guys.

That beats the hell out of Agents of PSI.

 

[The Shaman]

Perhaps, but what direction should WotC take the d20 Modern line toward?

Why choose a particular direction? I rather enjoy the toolkit technique.

I prefer toolkit approaches as well, but that's because I a grognard - for new or less experienced gamers, particularly in a genre ("Modern") that can mean so many different things to different people, it helps to have someplace to hang your hat at first.

IOW, while Greyhawk is distinctly D&D, you want a campaign setting that is distinctly d20 Modern.

Like Urban Arcana, or Shadow Chasers, or Blood and Relics, or Pinebox, or any of a number of other distinctly D20 Modern settings?

I don't consider either Urban Arcana or Shadow Chasers to be "distinctly d20 Modern." Urban Arcana is "D&D with guns and cell phones," the campaign model intended to draw Dungeons and Dragons players to d20 Modern. Shadow Chasers is the nod to the Buffy/Angel crowd; Blood and Relics is for the Constantine fans. I'm not familiar with Pinebox.

I think something that appeals to less of a niche audience and more to the gamer who's not looking at Modern as a break from medieval fantasy, but rather as an exciting genre in its own right, would be a better move.

Sure, I have no objection to that. Question is: why is WotC taking so long to develop one?

Perhaps they don't see it as a viable selling point?

I think Wizards of the Coast would probably drop the line altogether instead of "GURPSifying" it the way they are now, ninety-six pages at a time, if they weren't at least interested in selling d20 Modern. It does seem that their support is rather tepid, though.

WotC seems to follow a very conservative business strategy - publishing a full-blown Modern-specific setting (that's not just another flavor of Dungeons and Dragons, that is) would be a pretty bold commitment of resources. I happen to think it would be worth their while to do it, but I tend to be an optimist about the genre's appeal.

 

[Ranger REG]

WotC seems to follow a very conservative business strategy.

Too conservative, if you ask me.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Not to attack, but how is it bad? I haven't run into any problems with it in my game, but my players haven't tried to abuse it, so it's likely something I haven't seen.

My computer has been dead for a while, so I couldn't respond. My problem with Profession is two-fold.

1) The minor problem. You can gain lots of Wealth from level gains, due to rolling high. Too random, IMO. But it does auto-correct by preventing wealthy characters from getting wealthier. It does, IMO, cap too high, if your players max out Profession, which they frequently did.

2) The big problem. You gain free Wealth per level just from having ranks, without touching teh dice. Any player with more than 5 ranks in Profession had a Wealth of at least 27 by 10th-level. One time, one player advised another (who was just joining the campaign) to take 6 ranks in Profession, so he could gain 2 free Wealth per level, on top of Wealth gains from adventuring. That's when I decided the old system just wasn't working. I had already not given players Wealth for adventuring in a long time (which hurt PCs who didn't use Profession a bit).

I see your first point (Dazed even if you save) as somewhat countering the second. The reason it's hard to get to the massive damage threshold is that once you get there, you can take somebody out of the fight for a round automatically, even if you don't knock them out.

What happens if you can easily do 15 damage a hit? I've got a problem with that. I'd rather see a scaling save DC for Knockout Punch, but at the same time no effect if the victim makes their save.

Aside from wanting weapons to easily cross over from D&D to d20 Modern, I totally agree with you on this. The system is different enough that I'd like to see weapons that play to the strengths of the system. There are some, but I'd like to see more. Like, say, NOT the tonfa.

Silly nightstick IMC, it just has the stats of the DnD club.

 

[C. Baize]

Actually... speaking from experience with Tonfa and with the PR-24 (metal version of the tonfa, police weapon)... When properly applied, the end of the tonfa confers slightly MORE PSI damage than your standard 9mm round.
It deserves a higher amount of damage. But I'd almost make it an exotic weapon proficiency... because not just anyone knows how to properly use one.
I'd also give a defense bonus with one in hand to hand combat.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

The biggest thing about writing d20 Modern is the following:

You have to heavily support it.

If you buy a Forgotten Realms book, how many other books out there support it?

If you buy a book of 100 Arcane Spells, how many campaigns can use it?

If you buy a D&D class book, how many campaigns can handle it.

Now...

How many books support a book entirely devoted to cybernetic ninja's who work both in the real world and cyberspace, with limited magic to back them up?

How many books have supported Urban Arcana?

How many books does the Menace Manual support, outside of d20 Modern and Urban Aracna?

See where I'm going here?

And writing a d20 Fantasy book, and writing a d20 Modern book are two different animals.

Number one, nobody can come along and say:

Ahem, as anyone who has ever studied it may know, the Elvish Lords of Car-Nig-Boln in the late Steel Era never put outposts in the Tilverton area, nor has the Goblin Ogliarchy of the Sneeziod Ilses of the Sea of Fallen Stars ever used assassins. Both of these were listed in your book in the timeline section.

But go ahead and out the manufacturing data of the M-4 Carbine as 1979 as a typo, and see what happens.

Plus, things are a lot more difficult, when writing an adventure, for d20 Modern. You have to take into account:

Police response.
Possibility of armed citizens.
New casts.
The Internet.
Federal Law Enforcement.
Ambulance times.

You have the big showdown between the PC's and the Styrofoam Cyborg in the large computer labs of E.V.U.L. Inc. and the PC's first action is to hit the sprinkler, then the Halon system, choking out the Styrofoam Cyborg as he tried to access the mainframe.

Great. now your bad guy is dead, and the PC's didn't break a sweat.

Plus, in D&D, if you stab some orc in the face in the slums, nobody usually cares.

If your Strong Hero kicks an evil hobo to death whose been skinning school children to make himself hand puppets, he's now on the run from the law.

So, a lot of people found out that writing d20 Modern is a lot more difficult than writing for d20 Fantasy. This turned them off, and many projects never got beyond bare bones conception. Many products started out with one or two good books, and weren't supported.

Too many gaming groups run waaaaay too different d20 Modern games. I don't think I've EVER seen the same two types of games in two different gaming groups.

And writing a setting for d20 Modern is a lot more work, a lot larger investment in time, research, effort, etc than writing a setting for d20 Fantasy. With fantasy, people can handle it if there isn't much detail on the lands. You could probably get away with detailing an area only the size of Oregon for your first product.

With d20 Modern, you have to account for the whole world. Mainly due to travel times. In D&D it will take the characters week to go from Waterdeep to Daggerdale, with all kinds of encounters.

Getting from Seattle to NYC is a plane ride.

See the differences?

As to what I'd change?

• Ditch the craptacular unarmed combat rules. Use them MAYBE in conjunction with d20 Fantasy unarmed rules. Combining both of them works fantastic.
• Upgrade armored vehicles into rolling death machines, unstoppable by anything less than anti-armor weaponry or massive amounts of explosives.
• Multiply the ranges on the weapons by 3.
• Change the auto/burst fire rules.
• Change modern body armor to equal DR, that is bypassed by reaching over the Defense Bonus. (Example: Tactical Vest adds _6 to Defense. But if the strike gets between 10-15 the damage is reduced by the DR. 16 or higher, it's subtracted from hit points.)

Just my not-so humble opinion.

 

[Thanee]

Well, I would definitely remove the weird base classes and replace them entirely.

A flexible point based system would probably be better suited.

HERE's something I had written up once to change the classes to a more flexible concept.
Not entirely finished, but the idea should be clear.

Bye
Thanee

 

[The Shaman]

Well, I would definitely remove the weird base classes and replace them entirely.

AAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE! NOOOOOOOOOO!

The basic classes are a big part of what I love about d20 Modern - I think they strike the right balance between point-based systems and class-as-profession.

Bye
Thanee

I'm not sure why, but this always makes me smile.

The biggest thing about writing d20 Modern is the following:

You have to heavily support it.

Beyond simply putting out more, I think it needs to be fairly focused support.

And writing a d20 Fantasy book, and writing a d20 Modern book are two different animals...[T]hings are a lot more difficult, when writing an adventure, for d20 Modern.

I'm sorry, but I disagree - it's different in some ways, but not as different, and certainly no more difficult, as some folks make it out to be.

You have to take into account:
Police response.
Possibility of armed citizens.

Like the noble's captain and men-at-arms, and the local militia?

The Internet.

The Modern equivalent of divination magic (both of which many adventure designers fail to account for adequately, I'll grant you...).

Federal Law Enforcement.

All the King's wizards and all the king's champions?

Ambulance times.

A cleric wind walking?

Okay, not the best example perhaps, but there is a lot of curative magic in fantasy games that's absent in many Modern games, so EMS and hospitals are the replacement. Again, different, but hardly adventure breaking - usually this results in a slight adjustment to pacing for Modern adventures, IMX.

You have the big showdown between the PC's and the Styrofoam Cyborg in the large computer labs of E.V.U.L. Inc. and the PC's first action is to hit the sprinkler, then the Halon system, choking out the Styrofoam Cyborg as he tried to access the mainframe.

Great. now your bad guy is dead, and the PC's didn't break a sweat.

The same thing happens with mid- and high-level magic - again, it's different, but not more difficult, IMX.

Plus, in D&D, if you stab some orc in the face in the slums, nobody usually cares.

That's pretty campaign-specific - there are places where non-player characters in a fantasy setting might care very much.

If your Strong Hero kicks an evil hobo to death whose been skinning school children to make himself hand puppets, he's now on the run from the law.

Again, the same could be true in a fantasy game - a lawful evil society might have no problem executing the vigilante as easily as it would the child-murderer.

Too many gaming groups run waaaaay too different d20 Modern games. I don't think I've EVER seen the same two types of games in two different gaming groups.

I agree that there is tremendous diversity, but I see that as a strength of Modern gaming, rather than a weakness.

And writing a setting for d20 Modern is a lot more work, a lot larger investment in time, research, effort, etc than writing a setting for d20 Fantasy. With fantasy, people can handle it if there isn't much detail on the lands. You could probably get away with detailing an area only the size of Oregon for your first product.

Yes, but there is no fantasy setting that I know of that has as much background information, available largely free of charge, as the real world.

With d20 Modern, you have to account for the whole world. Mainly due to travel times. In D&D it will take the characters week to go from Waterdeep to Daggerdale, with all kinds of encounters.

Getting from Seattle to NYC is a plane ride.

Teleport does the same thing, though in Modern you can make an adventure out of the plane ride itself - like divination, this is an area that's a challenge for some fantasy adventure authors as well.

I'm sorry, Warlord Ralts, but I'm not seeing the same problems you are.

 

[Vigilance]

I'm sorry, but I disagree - it's different in some ways, but not as different, and certainly no more difficult, as some folks make it out to be.

Sorry Shaman, but I agree with Ralts here, at least when talking about a module as a product someone would pay for.

The problem with writing adventures for d20 Modern is the range of campaigns is much wider. There is no agreed upon "Tolkien/Howard/Dungeon Mag" center for d20 Modern.

You could write the best Shadowchasers/Urban Arcana/Buffy style adventure in the world and it would be completely unsuitable for over 75% of Modern games.

Similarly, an adventure involving a non-FX style military adventure, say a hostage situation, would have to be almost completely rewritten for a Buffy style game where one or more of the PCs had access to magic.

Think about the difference in tactics between a group with access to something moderately low level, say Invisibility and a group of elite Special Ops. Just the difference of a single invisibility spell makes a huge difference in terms of being able to see inside the plane.

And then of course, an adventure that took into account the Buffy style AND the no-FX style (which I contend already makes writing a Modern adventure much harder than a typical fantasy adventure) would STILL be unsuitable for a lot of campaigns.

Let's take the example of the airplane hostage assault.

Obviously the "prime" setting for such an adventure would be a no-FX special ops game.

The Buffy game would need to tweak the premise (perhaps a friendly NPC or magic item needed by the characters is on board) and would still likely need to up the difficulty to take into account the magic at the PCs' disposal.

Let's look at other popular genres the adventure would STILL be wholly unsuitable for:

Supers- major tweaks required. NPCs that came with the adventure would have to be completely rewritten into supervillains.

Also the rationale behind the adventure would likely need to be changed. Also, supers just dont generally DO hostage situations often so the reasoning behind the adventure will ALSO likely need to be changed.

In short, tweaking (rewriting) such an adventure for a group of supers would likely render it unrecognizable.

Psionics: One of the campaign models in the core rules, a group of psychic PCs would likely find a typical hostage scenario incredibly easy. Simply control their minds and have them surrender.

Again the NPCs would need to be rewritten from scratch or heaviliy modified.

X-files/Conspiracy games: Some tweaking required. Such PCs might have the negotiation skills to handle such an adventure, but an hours long negotiation is not the stuff of a typical hostage investigation. What if combat is required? A typical Call of Cthulhu type party won't have the combat muscle needed to take on heavily trained terrorists.

And of course, if the PCs have magic or psionics, see above.

This is just an example of one of the more typical adventure scenarios.

You mention some spells, like Divination or Teleport are difficult for fantasy authors as well and this is true. But the difficulties are magnified tenfold when you have to write an adventure for a group of PCs who MIGHT or MIGHT NOT have access to those spells.

Writing an adventure for 10th level Modern PCs means configuring encounters for a group of PCs who might have guns, but who might also have access to invisibility.

Up that to 15th level, and you're trying to write encounters for PCs who might have no FX, or who might be able to teleport.

THAT isnt "difficulty" its a nightmare.

Its just harder to determine the "mean campaign style" for d20 Modern than it is for D&D. And anytime you see me say "tweaking required" in the examples above, you've lost a sale if its a professional module.

People dont PAY you for an adventure where they need to reimagine the premise and rewrite all the antagonists. It would be no less trouble to write something themselves.

So like Ralts, imo writing adventure for d20 Modern is a lot tougher.

 

[Thanee]

AAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE! NOOOOOOOOOO!

The basic classes are a big part of what I love about d20 Modern - I think they strike the right balance between point-based systems and class-as-profession.

I know that many people think they are a brilliant idea, but I do not.

That's one of those cases, where they picked the worst of two concepts to find a middle ground IMHO.

I'm not sure why, but this always makes me smile.

Good.

Bye
Thanee