d20 Modern and d20 Future are composed of suck

[Lord Zentei]

I just took d20 Modern at the local library, along with d20 Future, and all I can say is, thank goodness I didn't spend any money buying this crap.

Seriously, what the hell was up with this nonsense? Bland design and stupidly low military vehicle resilience, bah.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

d20 is composed of suck

Fixed.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Fixed.

wat

Seriously, I don't get all the hate that gets thrown at d20. So it isn't the most realistic system around, so what? Go use GURPS or whatever it is the hardcore PnPers use nowadays. d20 does its own job fine. And it's certainly an improvement from 2E AD&D.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Ugh, not again. Please, nobody else take the bait.

[Imperial Overlord]

And it's certainly an improvement from 2E AD&D.

Jesus Christ, talking about damning with faint praise.

D20 is, when done well, an workable game mechanic. Unfortunately, people are using it all over the place instead of designing or using more better ones.


The idea of D20 Aberrant chills the blood. And yes, I know they did it. *lights fire and tries to stay warm*

[Eleas]

d20 is composed of suck

Fixed.

Trolling again, Spanky?

[SirNitram]

@whee, trolling.

Yes, d20 Modern and Future are pathetic. Honestly, I'd take Storyteller for those settings. We will not discuss the horrors that are d20 World Of Aeon. UNDER PAIN OF DEATH.

But broadly? Discussing PnP systems is more volatile than religion and politics.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I like the D20 books. They all have their place in my gaming library, and I have 20 gigs of them on disk Some aren't so great, but occasionally you find something like Dragonstar or Chaositech and then its all good.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Without getting into a discussion on the merits or flaws of d20 in general, could some knowledgeable person go into more detail about why d20 Modern and Future suck so badly?

[Duckie]

Without getting into a discussion on the merits or flaws of d20 in general, could some knowledgeable person go into more detail about why d20 Modern and Future suck so badly?

d20 isn't really a universal system, it's explicitly made for old fantasy wargames revamped a hundred times, since d20 is just 2E with a new and improved clarity factor and some improvements.

Hitpoints hardly make sense for most D20 games, let alone modern conspiracy gaming or kung-fu action or whatever. Then they try to go generic character creation but stick to classes instead of shifting to a better method. Classes are okay in some cases but not the way d20 Modern does it. Gun combat feels wrong, with autofire being area effect attacks and burst fire being extra damage and so forth. It just doesn't feel as fun as say using a sword in combat, which incidentally is still as viable if not more so than a pistol at close range due to hitpoint totals.

My two obols.

[Stark]

But broadly? Discussing PnP systems is more volatile than religion and politics.

It's the football-team thing. No matter what the qualities of a system, people remember or enjoy it based on their particular group and can easily have positive memories or experiences of a fucking horrible system. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

But really, any system can be hacked into working order. It just worries me that people need to be held by the hand so much.

[brianeyci]

I think people think D20 modern and D20 future sucks because they're too generic. They're available free over the Internet legally, well most of it anyway. Some people don't want hit locations or anything more complicated than a hit point bar so it's good for some things maybe bad for others. It's the most familiar system too so there might be some elitism going on, but I don't play pen and pencil so I can't tell if it's elitism or true criticisms. Make something generic enough and it's jack of all trades master of none.

[SirNitram]

Without getting into a discussion on the merits or flaws of d20 in general, could some knowledgeable person go into more detail about why d20 Modern and Future suck so badly?

d20 is built for high fantasy; heros that can eventually come to fight armies, wizards that shake the heavens, and so forth. Modern and Future just aren't able to do that shit. And the difficulties of trying to kludge it into shape are too great.

[Civil War Man]

I have seen attempts to fix d20 to fit in something other than epic fantasy type stuff, and some of it has been okay.

Wound and Vitality Points instead of HP, for instance, is something I see as a good step for someone trying to do a d20 in a modern setting. For those who don't know, Wound Points play the same role as traditional HP, and are equal to your CON score (so typically between 8 and 18). Vitality covers all non-vital damage like subdual damage, exhaustion, glancing blows, etc. If you take a hit when you have no Vitality Points, you start losing Wound Points. Critical hits become a lot deadlier than in standard d20, as they ignore Vitality Points and start deducting directly from Wound Points. So a well-placed sniper bullet can kill your ass regardless of your level.

[Edward Yee]

So a well-placed sniper bullet can kill your ass regardless of your level.

Which led to a blink-blink from me when Sarli claimed in (JC101) that in SWd20 they were too lethal over the long run...

As for d20 Modern, massive damage threshold I believe was intended as a concession to realism (MDT = Con score), and I remember a WotC board post about it literally saving a campaign (the one last chance the almost-defeated party had against the BBEG)... but it's very easy to raise the MDT way beyond what could normally be brought against the PCs.

Also, I feel that in particular it doesn't scale great with firearms damage. Have a Con 13 and at least 12 hp? You're officially immune to one-hit takedowns by unenhanced .45s, even doing max non-critical damage (12), with no stat modifiers.

P.S. I feel that the Soldier in SWd20 is better for "multiple-methods" combat than the d20M classes.

[Lord Zentei]

Without getting into a discussion on the merits or flaws of d20 in general, could some knowledgeable person go into more detail about why d20 Modern and Future suck so badly?

Well, for one thing, you can kill a fucking tank with several bursts of automatic weapons fire. So: the damage system.

Also, the class-and-level concept doesn't work too well outside of fantasy - they tried to fix that with "generic" classes: the "strong hero", the "fast hero", the "tough hero", the "smart hero", the "dedicated hero" and the "charismatic hero" - all showing generic training centered on one of the stats. At that stage why not go for a points-based system?

Gun combat feels wrong, with autofire being area effect attacks and burst fire being extra damage and so forth. It just doesn't feel as fun as say using a sword in combat, which incidentally is still as viable if not more so than a pistol at close range due to hitpoint totals.

To be fair, they did lower the Massive Damage threshold from 50 hit points to equal the character's constitution score (and firearms do 2-4 dice of damage). Not that this alone is sufficient.

I have seen attempts to fix d20 to fit in something other than epic fantasy type stuff, and some of it has been okay.

Wound and Vitality Points instead of HP, for instance, is something I see as a good step for someone trying to do a d20 in a modern setting. For those who don't know, Wound Points play the same role as traditional HP, and are equal to your CON score (so typically between 8 and 18). Vitality covers all non-vital damage like subdual damage, exhaustion, glancing blows, etc. If you take a hit when you have no Vitality Points, you start losing Wound Points. Critical hits become a lot deadlier than in standard d20, as they ignore Vitality Points and start deducting directly from Wound Points. So a well-placed sniper bullet can kill your ass regardless of your level.

I understand that Star Wars is moving away from the Wounds and Vitality points system. Apparently they think it is too deadly, since heroes get killed too much.

Instead, they are going for a system called "Wounds Categories" which apparently means that if you exceed your Massive Damage threshold you need to take a saving throw or shift to a more "Wounded" condition - each category imposes penalties (-1, -2, -5 and -10, respectively) on all rolls.

It's pretty much inspired by the Inquisitor wounds categories as far as I can see, though the categories are for the character overall (as opposed to hit locations) and hopefully the weapons will pack a greater punch than the Inquisitor weapons do.

[General Zod]

I have seen attempts to fix d20 to fit in something other than epic fantasy type stuff, and some of it has been okay.

Wound and Vitality Points instead of HP, for instance, is something I see as a good step for someone trying to do a d20 in a modern setting. For those who don't know, Wound Points play the same role as traditional HP, and are equal to your CON score (so typically between 8 and 18). Vitality covers all non-vital damage like subdual damage, exhaustion, glancing blows, etc. If you take a hit when you have no Vitality Points, you start losing Wound Points. Critical hits become a lot deadlier than in standard d20, as they ignore Vitality Points and start deducting directly from Wound Points. So a well-placed sniper bullet can kill your ass regardless of your level.

Or you could simply do away with levels entirely and use something like White Wolf's Storytelling system. Since it takes into account that skills and character's natural abilities are more important than something artificial and arbitrary like levels, any character can snipe at another character who's been around for years with gobs of XP, and the bullet will kill them just as easily if they don't have some type of protection against bullets, supernatural or otherwise. So having more xp isn't an automatic guarantee that you'll defeat another PC who hasn't been around for as long. It does make it more likely if you have a higher dice pool however.

[Civil War Man]

Or you could simply do away with levels entirely and use something like White Wolf's Storytelling system. Since it takes into account that skills and character's natural abilities are more important than something artificial and arbitrary like levels, any character can snipe at another character who's been around for years with gobs of XP, and the bullet will kill them just as easily if they don't have some type of protection against bullets, supernatural or otherwise. So having more xp isn't an automatic guarantee that you'll defeat another PC who hasn't been around for as long. It does make it more likely if you have a higher dice pool however.

I prefer the Storyteller system myself. I just know a lot of people who aren't entirely fond of it. Also my experience with non-D&D d20 is limited to the Stargate RPG, which isn't quite d20 modern.

[Edward Yee]

Well, for one thing, you can kill a fucking tank with several bursts of automatic weapons fire.

To be fair, though, vehicles' destruction is at negative max-hp, and they've DR, so assuming no criticals/further modifiers, on a vehicle like the Abrams you have to burst to get past its DR 20, unless you found yourself a .50-cal (2d12) and consistently roll a total of 21 or more, and do 128 points of damage after DR... assuming that a crew isn't shooting right back with its own .50-cal and the main gun.

To be fair, they did lower the Massive Damage threshold from 50 hit points to equal the character's constitution score (and firearms do 2-4 dice of damage). Not that this alone is sufficient.

Agreed that this is not sufficient; 18 Con + Improved MDT feat (x2) = you need max damage on even a pistol or SMG (critical or burst fire), or on a .50-cal, assuming no DR or damage bonuses, to invoke massive damage.

I understand that Star Wars is moving away from the Wounds and Vitality points system. Apparently they think it is too deadly, since heroes get killed too much.

That was what Sarli claimed... although, isn't a hero (with Con 12) having an over-33% chance of dying before reaching 20th level supposed to be the norm?

[Lord Zentei]

Well, for one thing, you can kill a fucking tank with several bursts of automatic weapons fire.

To be fair, though, vehicles' destruction is at negative max-hp, and they've DR, so assuming no criticals/further modifiers, on a vehicle like the Abrams you have to burst to get past its DR 20, unless you found yourself a .50-cal (2d12) and consistently roll a total of 21 or more, and do 128 points of damage after DR... assuming that a crew isn't shooting right back with its own .50-cal and the main gun.

Well, the problem is that an assault rifle burst should not be able to damage an Abrams at all, barring a critical hit or something.

With a burst, you're dealing 4d8 damage. On average that's 18 points per round per infantryman shooting at that tank - just under half of them are likely to gain over the DR in any given round of shooting.

I understand that Star Wars is moving away from the Wounds and Vitality points system. Apparently they think it is too deadly, since heroes get killed too much.

That was what Sarli claimed... although, isn't a hero (with Con 12) having an over-33% chance of dying before reaching 20th level supposed to be the norm?

One would think that, yes...

[LaserRifleofDoom]

I believe one of the game dsigners talked about small arms killing a tank in terms of not necessarily destroying it outright, just making it unusable.

Edit: This is it.

[Edward Yee]

Well, the problem is that an assault rifle burst should not be able to damage an Abrams at all, barring a critical hit or something.

With a burst, you're dealing 4d8 damage. On average that's 18 points per round per infantryman shooting at that tank - just under half of them are likely to gain over the DR in any given round of shooting.

Don't you mean 18 pounds per burst? I wouldn't be surprised if the rules in this regard are intended to make it unlikely that mooks would hit at all (due to the -4 for Burst Fire), much less beat the DR. Admittedly a higher-enough-level hero will overcome this penalty to hit, but at first glance a high-enough attack bonus (and thus a specific kind of hero/character build) would seem almost necessary to give that hero a better chance of doing 4d8 damage than someone who has to rely on criticals.

*Then after the article from LaserRifleofDoom, has a big laugh at comparison of the Abrams to D&D attacks and d20M AT munitions* Never thought of it that way...

(Incidentally, rather than stat out hit-locations if a player didn't call it, I'd prefer to let the critical-or-not and damage dealt relative to target's HP, determine hit location/angle when I narrate it.)

One would think that, yes...

Herein lies my issue with the health system revision. Statistically speaking the change may be for the better, but the reasoning...

[Civil War Man]

Don't you mean 18 pounds per burst?

I think when he said round he meant combat round, not rifle round.

[Lord Zentei]

Don't you mean 18 pounds per burst?

I think when he said round he meant combat round, not rifle round.

Correct. One combat round = 6 seconds.

A burst fires 5 rounds (as in, bullets) unless ït has a 3-round burst setting.

[Stofsk]

Don't you mean 18 pounds per burst?

I think when he said round he meant combat round, not rifle round.

Correct. One combat round = 6 seconds.

If you want it to. I treat combat rounds as an abstract. In T20, personal scale combat has a round of about 20 seconds, vehicle combat has a round of about a minute, and starship combat has a round of about 20 minutes.

But I don't treat these as hard and fast rules. Something like D&D might have to, because quite a few spells have a duration of several combat rounds, but you can easily fix that with a bit of work by making the duration a quantity of seconds/minutes, then have the combat rounds be whatever you want them to be.