What would you change for d20 Modern 2.0

[Vigilance]

I agree - when I responded to Warlord Ralts above, I wasn't thinking in terms of "published module intended for all Modern gaming styles," since as you noted that's an exceptionally tall order to fill.

I do think that if you know the 'subgenre' of Modern to which you wish to write, however the specific concerns that Warlord Ralts shared aren't really as challenging to address as he seemed to imply.

Right I was looking at the question from the standpoint of modules for publication, because that's how I interpreted Ralts' issue with the modern module, mostly cause I know he has written quite a few adventure products for d20M.

When you say that you can pick a subgenre and write a good adventure for it, I heartily agree. However, again looking at the issue from a product perspective, that again makes modules insanely difficult.

When you pick a subgenre, chances are you're excluding 75% or more of the campaigns out there. Id say even if you wrote for the Urban Arcana/Shadowchasers model, you probably are still leaving 50% of the existing campaigns out.

Even just lumping FX and non-FX campaigns into two piles is problematic. An adventure for Darwin's World is unlikely to work for a supers game, for example, even though both have mutations and superscience.

Which isn't to say that I don't wish there were more modules, obviously I do, since in my guise as a writer for RPGObjects I'm a regular contributor to the Modern Dispatch adventure weekly, as are Adamant, Ronin Arts and 12 to Midnight.

 

[Vigilance]

The D&D fighter class can do all of those as well, depending on how you put your ability scores and what feats you take.

Sure, but I disagree with that analogy. Of course if the ability scores and feats are different the character will be different.

But if you generate a Tough 4/Soldier 2 and a Fast 4/Soldier 2, give each the same Ability scores *and* feats, they will still be noticeably different.

You call it a bug, I call it a feature

I agree that if I designed the game I would have broadened skill access (anyone who has read my stuff knows Im a big fan of using feats to broaden skill access) but I still think that d20 Modern as written is a nice way around characters of the same class being too similar.

And the Modern genre needs this. Look at Saving Private Ryan. How many of the PCs in that movie were soldiers? Um, all of them.

But they were all recognizably different. d20 Modern lets me do that without a lot of fuss.

Of course, GURPs does too and having run GURPs off and on for 10 years or so its hard to get me to say a bad word about GURPs. But I can get a d20 Modern party generated in about 20% of the time of a GURPs party, which is another plus, since it means an adventure on the first night of a campaign instead of a character creation jam session.

 

[Thanee]

But if you generate a Tough 4/Soldier 2 and a Fast 4/Soldier 2, give each the same Ability scores *and* feats, they will still be noticeably different.

That's not a fair comparison, though. Tough and Fast already have some predetermined abilities, which would simply be feats for the fighter class. If I write down two bonus feat sets for the fighter class and call one of them Tough and one of them Fast, and only leave the regular feats open, I will get the same thing, basically (not exactly, but the same idea).

You can really build a lot of very different characters just with the fighter class in D&D.

But I can get a d20 Modern party generated in about 20% of the time of a GURPs party, which is another plus, since it means an adventure on the first night of a campaign instead of a character creation jam session.

That's certainly a bonus of 'inflexible' systems, that they are faster that way, but that's not something I am looking for.

And the Modern genre needs this.

Yep. This and a lot more than this.

Bye
Thanee

 

[C. Baize]

Way off topic.

Totally off topic, but...
Heap... excellent job on that SFX Skills: Diabolist book.

I'm sure my wife will be throwing that stuff against us in our usual tabletop game...
So, if there's new iconics for Modern Backdrops 3, it's because she killed our characters with your info.

 

[Vigilance]

That's not a fair comparison, though. Tough and Fast already have some predetermined abilities, which would simply be feats for the fighter class. If I write down two bonus feat sets for the fighter class and call one of them Tough and one of them Fast, and only leave the regular feats open, I will get the same thing, basically (not exactly, but the same idea).

So, your problem with basic classes is that they could be deconstructed into feat trees?

I mean seriously, couldnt you say that about ANY class?

Also, the D&D system isnt really designed to handle "feat tree classes".

I notice you keep using the fighter in your examples. Which makes sense since he gets nothing but bonus feats for his abilities.

How is, say a Paladin to take advantage of your feat-tree classes? A Cleric?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The D&D fighter class can do all of those as well, depending on how you put your ability scores and what feats you take.

What I most dislike about them is how the various benefits are tied together. In order to get skills you need to pick up levels in Smart pretty much, so if you want to have a skilled combatant, those levels will hurt you big time, since Smart is very weak in combat, and so on.

My standard example is a modern elite soldier. Intelligent and well-trained in combat, both close-up and at range. So, you might multiclass between Fast and Smart to get there, but you end up with a weak combatant who gets all sort of weird talents that make no sense for the character you have in mind. Might be a bit exaggerated, just to get the idea. I don't only want the system to seem to make sense, I also want the mechanics to actually support the flexibility they are meant to provide, and I simply don't see this with the modern classes.

I disagree. Give him Exploit Weakness. Seriously - that's what you use if you want a Smart combative hero (as opposed to a Smart noncombative hero). Yesterday (so it's still clear in my memory) I inflicted a Strong/Fast/Soldier and a Smart/Strong/Soldier on my players. The latter had the same attack bonus when using Exploit Weakness. (He also had the same Defense, but he spent feats on armor, and the other guy didn't, being a Third World soldier.) And then both enjoyed the Plan talent.

If the Smart guy had taken Fast instead of Strong, he would have an attack bonus of one measly point lower. I'm not seeing this as a bad thing, considering the way Plan applies to the Smart Hero using the talent in addition to allies.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I agree - when I responded to Warlord Ralts above, I wasn't thinking in terms of "published module intended for all Modern gaming styles," since as you noted that's an exceptionally tall order to fill.

I was addressing why there is limited support available for the d20 Modern market.

You stated that you doubt it is difficult to do as I make it seem.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a 12th level module for d20 Modern that can be put into ALL campaigns. Get artwork for it. Layout. Editing. Printing at $0.12/page in a minimum lot of 100.

Now, price it so that you are not losing money.

Honestly, if you find it that easy to write d20 Modern adventures, by all means, start cranking them out. There's plenty of publishers willing to pick them up if you can write one that can be used in nearly every d20 Modern campaign.

That's beyond the difficulty of writing pan-genre modules. When writing for d20 Modern, unlike d20 Fantasy, as Vigilance pointed out, you have to narrow the to a specific sub-genre, AND place that within the ad/blurb/purchase page. If you throw down $6.50 for a module, you don't want to rewrite CRAP, much less 40 NPC's, redo a map.

As for specific examples, I have seen how it is handled in Fantasy. Everything from wishes prohibiting teleport to gorgon's blood in the mortar. Augury and Commune spells are often ignored or the god's phone line are busy. Clerics are already figured into basic party size. Nobody expects a character that can toss out 5 Cure Lt. Wounds spells (that could easily heal a pistol wound with each spell) to be accompanying a British S.A.S. unit when they are writing the module.

You state that clerics are comparable to hospitals. Well, the cleric is usually within the party, where as a GM needs to know how long it will take EMS to arrive on the scene, will they be allowed to enter if it's a live fire zone.

You state that the King's Guard are equevalent to SWAT/Police forces, but when you get right down to it, there's a lot more complexity. You vastly over-simplified the problems that occur.

In a d20 Fantasy game, when the PC's cross blades and blow off a fireball, it will take what, 10-15 minutes for the guards to be alerted? In a d20 Modern game, when the first burst of automatic weapons fire happens, how long till the police are notified? Seconds? Throw in cell-phones, helicopters (which are different than flying mages, before you even try), how amny police are in the area.

I do think that if you know the 'subgenre' of Modern to which you wish to write, however the specific concerns that Warlord Ralts shared aren't really as challenging to address as he seemed to imply.

Actually, they are. If you do not take this stuff into account, your reviews will let you know.

Now, I was addressing why there isn't much support, and the difficulty in spanning multiple genres is one of the reasons that WotC hasn't put out a specific campaign setting, specific modules, etc.

Yes, the fact that there are many different d20 Modern campaign styles is a strenght, but at the same time, it makes it so that there are VERY few companies willing to produce d20 Modern products, because they don't (and can't) have the same kind of cross platform application that a d20 Fantasy product does.

 

[Thanee]

So, your problem with basic classes is that they could be deconstructed into feat trees?

No.

I notice you keep using the fighter in your examples. Which makes sense since he gets nothing but bonus feats for his abilities.

This might have been a little misleading, I don't want d20 Modern to use archaic class concepts like D&D. I just meant that even those can be as flexible as the so-called flexible base classes in d20 Modern.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Give him Exploit Weakness.

That seems more of a work-around to circumvent the problem (I have ), then a solution for the problem itself.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

I think the talents are actually one of the bigger problems I have with the classes (apart from my main gripe, that all the class abilities are tied to hypothetical ability concepts and cannot be fit to the character concept one has in mind - which is what the comparison with the fighter class was about, that even some of the D&D classes are not more restrictive), there are what, two talent trees available each? So every character of a given class will have to choose one or the other (well, or both). And what if a talent from another class fits perfectly, but not the class itself?

Here's the core of what I meant, when I pointed to my link above, for your convenience:
[sblock]The general idea is to remove base classes entirely from d20 modern!
Advanced classes would still exist as normal, only the six base classes would be replaced by a single highly flexible "class", which can cover all six and a lot more.

Every character begins play with the starting feat Simple Weapon Proficiency.

At each level up, you gain a fixed number of CP (character points) to be spent on the various class benefits. You automatically gain some advancements and you have to pay for everything beyond that.

8 CP/lvl sounds like a reasonable number (w/o Defense/Reputation figured in yet).

Automatic advancement:

+0.5 BAB (fractional)
+1d6 Hit Die
3 Skill Points
low Saves
standard Action Points
(lowest Defense advancement)
(lowest Reputation advancement)

Selective advancement:

1 CP upgrade BAB to +0.75 -or- 2 CP upgrade BAB to +1.0
1 CP upgrade HD to d8 -or- 2 CP upgrade HD to d10
1 CP +2 Skill Points (maximum +6)
4 CP select a class bonus feat* (only at odd levels)
4 CP select a class talent** (only at even levels)
1 CP upgrade one save to high (fractional advancement required)
(upgrade Defense)
(upgrade Reputation)

* You need a 13+ in the corresponding ability score (i.e. Str for Strong, Dex for Fast, etc) to pick from the various class lists for bonus feats.

** You need a 15+ in the corresponding ability score (i.e. Str for Strong, Dex for Fast, etc) to pick from the various class lists for talents.

Not sure how to handle saves exactly, but with some thought, that should work basically the same way as BAB with low save progression being automatic and high save progression (fractional) being selective. Also Defense Bonus and Reputation Points have to be figured in still (but the general idea should be clear).

Maybe Feat/Talent cost could be reduced to 3 (and total number of CP/lvl reduced by 1 accordingly).[/sblock]

(And don't pick on the specifics, it's just meant as a general idea, not a perfectly finished one. )

Bye
Thanee