[D20] Fallout D20

[Tyrmatt]

Hello Vault Dwellers. I've been tasked with building a Fallout themed campaign for my buddies and since I have a copy of both Exodus and the Fallout D20 sourcebooks (don't ask where my flatmate found a copy of it...), I thought they were good places to start.

Story: A little free-floating at the beginning, it's fairly likely that there will be at least 2 Vault Dwellers in the group and the remaining two likely made up of either two ghouls, a ghoul and a mutie or them all being VD's.
The Vault they're in is likely based somewhere near California, particularly not too far from the New California Republic, as it's a helpful main hub from which they can venture forth from.

The first premise that springs to mind is that the players (at least the dwellers) wake up in cloning pods. They are then instructed by Vault Tec Video that their vault was chosen to help adapt the surviving humans to the reality of a post-apocalyptic wasteland by collecting DNA samples of surviving creatures and people (if any) and inputting them into the powerful vault mainframe, which will then using samples of the original people from this vault (still technically "alive", they're being kept alive in psuedo-cryo pods. At nearly 300 years old, they're never survive on their own but they can be cloned, just like the players were intially, with their DNA modded to make them the most likely to survive in the wastes) in order to start a proper rebuilding of the human race. The computer however will mention that due to unforeseen events, it can only maintain the power and life support systems for a further 150 days before it will become impossible to create a viable number of clones to complete it's task. I'm toying with the idea of there being some kind of explosive device inside their skulls (or their Pip-Boys)which the computer can remotely activate should they attempt to abandon the mission.

Upon exiting the Vaults, after a little instruction and providing of some basic equipment to help them live, they'll either come across the ghoul/mutant players or begin to head out. Since the vault itself is likely to be a bit remote, I'm considering that the vault has one pristine and fully fuelled fusion car for them to use (which makes it a target for theft, stripped for parts or just general resentment from the more hard-up in the Wastes).
They can then set out to gather the required DNA samples and maybe have some fun along the way.

However, the major snag is this is my first time ever running a non-D&D styled campaign under d20 rules. I'm looking for tips on how to run it, rules to avoid dealing with and the fixes to replace them, rationing out ammo and potentially having to cope with PC's who have a level adjustment of up to +3.

Any and all comments on top of that are welcome too :)

[expirement10K14]

I'm intrigued, I love the fallout universe and was unaware of a published Fallout D20...

As a DM that had a lot of trouble starting, I think I can see where you are coming from.

Some tips-
*LA can be offset using class levels- Balance issues will depend on classes taken by your players
*If Fallout D20 uses grappling, throw it out altogether
*Rationing ammo can add to the environment, but too little ammo leads only to frustration.
*Ghouls are people too

Besides those, make sure you are ready for anything. If your players are open to go anywhere with that fusion car, be prepared for them to do so.

[Tyrmatt]

The original Fallout d20 game was sued to hell and back by Bethesda in the run up to Fallout 3's release sometime last year and was reborn as the Exodus book I mentioned.
We have come across a leaked version of the Fallout d20 book but the gist of it is the rules are entirely indentical and really only the fluff has changed. However, upon reading the new fluff two of my players scoffed at the poor rebranding and naming of things and asked me to convert it to true Fallout. So here I am. So everything has an equivalent in the new book that just needs to be renamed, a slightly labourious task but I'm willing to do it to see this RPG be restored to it's proper glory.

To cover those points:
-Ta for the tip on LA, I suppose it's not unfeasible for characters who are clones to have been preprogrammed with skills for survival which I can implement as class levels. If they all choose to be vault dwellers, this problem just melts away.

-I'm looking at a point buy system for stats as at least two of the players are absolute whores for minmaxing their stats to achieve ludircrous effects and I'm unsure of how many points to assign. I could give them an array to assign but I'd like them to have a little control over their stats...What point buy systems do you guys use?

- I'm considering modding the energy weapons to say have the ability to always fire a low power (half damage?) shot with the inbuilt cells and allow them to increase in power with fresh cells. This is to help bridge what would be a natural gulf where energy weapons vastly outclass regular guns by limiting the special ammo for energy weapons and providing plentiful ammo that doesn't affect damage for traditional guns. Unless someone develops a real fetish for wading their super-mutant character into melee, I can see everyone using guns all the time and so ammo management will be a constant point for the team to manage amongst themselves.

-Since the SPECIAL system is just another way of saying the D&D stats with an extra one tacked on the end I'm considering a Luck system where the players roll a luck stat (3d6) for each day in the game. During particularly critical or desperate situations, they can roll their luck against a single D20 to see if the situation tips in their favour. Might even include a perk or two that like one that lets them always boost it by 2 or lets them once a week automatically declare that their luck suceeds. While the second one sounds like an IWIN button, it A) Saps a valuable perk/feat slot and B) Is only useable once in a while. They can never rely on it to be an instant win because it only happens so often. I'll slap in a requirement or two as well to seal that deal.

- The Actions Points system is based on levelling up. This doesn't seem great to me and I'm more intrigued to transplant the D&D4e action points system into the game, giving them a max of 3, one at the start of each session and one new one every two encounters. This lets them mimic the powers of the VATS system without giving it too much edge as street-sweeper power.

- Depending on whether one player joins or not, I don't have to worry about people being accepted whether ghoul or not. If so, I may have to stop this player trying to sell people into slavery or just flat out executing them because they "looked at him funny". Through binoculars. 2 miles away. While looking for their lost puppy. The last I checked, his Fallout 3 karma rating was "Kaiser of Catastrophe"...

Please post anything you guys know about d20, homebrewing or even just accounts of playing in similar systems. I'm open to all avenues here :)

[Cleverrocker]

Hey there a friend of mine was interested in running a game very much like this and i was just wondering where you got the rules and extra bits and bobs from for the fallout/exodus bit we have been looking for ages. Hopefully then we could provide some points and tips for each other, ta

[Tyrmatt]

The Exodus book is available from Glutton Creeper Games (gluttoncreeper.com (http://gluttoncreeper.com)) but it may feel a bit of an affront to the more hardcore Fallout fan. Since it wasn't officially licensed back when it was Fallout, they had to change the names of everything and it now looks like a pale imitation of Fallout. On the other hand, if the names aren't important to you and you just want a Post-Apoc wasteland game, buy it now. They put some good work into it and you can tell they REALLY wanted this to be the Fallout of tabletop. And once you've bought it, I'd feel no guilt about say searching out the original "leaked" Fallout D20 book on the web. There's also a set of free adventures available from Glutton Creeper that conform to the standardish d20 rules that Exodus runs on.

Since this thread was made however, I converted to GURPS and just the other day found a brilliant Fallout book made for free on the web, using old Fallout 2 stuff. This can be found at http://gurps.fallout.free.fr/ in the left hand pane there is a link marked "Compilation". Download that to get all of it in one go. Don't be put off by the French, the GURPS stuff is all 100% English. Unless you're French. In which case don't be put off by the English, it's all pretty good and detailed stuff.

To refer to my previous worries, GURPS solved a lot of them.
-LA has been solved by disadvantages inherent in some racial templates I devised (before I found the Fallout GURPS stuff). Supermutants get Frightening Appearance etc, Ghouls got "Radtouched" a custom perk that lets them heal inside irradiated areas and this particular Vault Dweller got a custom disadvantage called "Cloned Existance". He's aware he's a clone but has been preprogrammed with a backstory to tell to outsiders. And this causes him no end of inner conflict.
- Action Points have been replaced by Fatigue Points, which I will allow a character to expend to enhance a shot, perform a feat of derring-do or similar. Since they are only restored after sleeping, this gives them a useful half-life as they don't gain any more than their total when resting. Players will eventually get to take the Action Boy/Girl perk for a bonus 5 FP.
- We haven't encountered any energy weapons yet but based on the stat blocks, a machine gun is way way more deadly than any of the weapons statted out so far. So now I just limit ammo and we're good. The players have a car that technically runs on microfusion cells so they have a good stash of them. This of course means they may end up without any fuel if they get a bit trigger happy.

My current aim is to give life to the cancelled Project Van Buren AKA the first Fallout 3 with a few twists. I may even have the players chase down the Prisoner and they're definitely going to revisit some famous locations. Particularly Shady Sands is the next on the list but plenty other locations may be visited too as they are guided on their mission by GEARS...

[wick]

Played through 2 adventurers on Saturday. It is pretty good had a great time. The books are full of bugs for example there are 3 prices for prostitutes but they all say " Prostitute (Cheap)". Obviously the quality should go up with the price. You can also still find names of Fall Out stuff that they missed on their conversion from Fall Out to Exodus. Like the "Highwayman" car is mentioned in the description text but is called something else in the tables.

So far there are a few issues that I have noticed:
1. The price of an item is not exactly a clear indication of a superior item. for example M1911 pistol is almost twice the cost of a Colt (10mm) pistol but the Colt is actually superior in a few areas and equivalent in the others. I think the difference in cost is linked to the availablity but that still does not make sense. Sure finding the M1911 is harder than finding the 10mm Colt but why bother since it is actually a worse weapon.

2. Books: like in Fallout you can find books that will give you bonuses to your skills. Problem it is not clear how they work. Do you read them and get a permanent bonus? It says that when referencing the book but I can't see spending a half hour to read the firearms book in the middle of a fire fight. If you read them before your action how long does the bonus last? For example, you know that you will be in a gun fight in a hour so you read up, but how long does the bonus last? Is the book consumed? Can you pass it around the group and all benefit?

3. Can you stack armor? If you look at Cloth armor and the leather Jacket they are almost identical with the leather jacket being over 100 steel more in cost IIRC. The only difference is the Leather Jacket weighs 1 pound less. It does not say so but, is it to possible to wear the Leather jacket over Cloth armor? Probably not but the rules are not super clear on this.

4. It is a little annoying using alternate names to things, monsters, places when you are familiar with the fallout universe.

5. Even though it is D20 and it is nice not to have to completely learn a new system, I think most of the fallout game could have been directly translated into a game system without translating it into D20. Just a flavor thing.


I have not read through all of the book yet but there are plenty of cool and exciting things in it as well. The humor and pop culture references are awesome in both the survival guide and in the modules. Being a big skill but little combat oriented character is actually a very good thing. I had 2 feats at 1st level and they went into Comprehension and Educated and i was tempted to take educated again at 2nd level. And I was still ok in combat for a skill character.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Thread necromancy. Please don't.