But, whether or not Prak feels like doing this, I'm curious as to what classes are usable as is?Prak_Anima wrote:I'd.... actually be ok with Streetfinder, assuming that they veered away from d20M's big problems:
Those last two are related. In a Dragon annual back in the early '00s, Dragon did an article on using d20 to emulate various movies/shows/etc. They pointed out that even if you don't have magic, you need something fantastic to keep the game from being "I waste it with my crossbowgun till the heat death of the universe!"
- One base class per ability score- This was dumb. I mean, really, really dumb. Especially because of the second problem and how it made the Dex Hero better than all the others (and the fact that a Str Hero is basically useless in the age of guns)
- Talent trees- The basic idea of talent trees was not terrible. I like the idea of "here's a table of thematic abilties, some have prereqs, they all fit this class," but d20M's talents all pretty much sucked. I want to say that Paizo could do much better, but Paizo wasn't the company that wrote the article that makes me think the writers of Dragon could do better (see below).
- Too much mundane, not enough "fantasy"- I don't mean sword and sorcery. Crank and The Transporter are violent action power fantasies, but the key thing to them is that there is still an element of fantasy.
The writers of d20M didn't follow this, and that's one of the reasons it sucked.
Hell, I could probably sit down and write 5 or 6 classes for a modern world that represent different professions. Like "Law Enforcer," "Medic," "Investigator," "Mechanic," "Combatant," (Guy what makes a living being trained to kill fucks-- soldier, underground fighter, hitman, etc) and lets say "Scientist."
In my personal opinion, very few modern people are higher than about third level. Maybe as high as fourth or fifth for that one grizzled bad ass that every city has for a given profession.
So, like, House is maybe a fifth level medic. So level three would represent "Average professional of their field," and fifth would be "THE guy that third levels tell stories about who is the best around."
I'd probably go up to tenth level with tenth level being, basically "SUPER COP!!!" or "SURGEON WHO PERFORMS BATTLEFIELD AMPUTATION WHILE RETURNING FIRE!!!" etc. If you want a gritty realistic modern game, you start at third level (unless you want people playing rookies and med students, etc), and if anyone hits fifth level, they stop gaining xp (or you try to find something for them to do with xp other than leveling), but it's totally possible for you to play a modern game where the tank is basically Transporter Jason Statham because they're a 7th level Combatant.
And some stuff I found:
Tome of Marvelous Heroes
25 Better Video Game Magic Items
60-odd Magic Items inspired by Pop Culture
DnDWiki: Category: Mundane (including d20 modern stuff)
So, anyone tried a modern day game with 3.X? How'd it go?