D20 modern and gun scaling issues

[Popertop]

Hi all. It's been a while since I've been on the playground, but I've found a group and have actually just started a D20 modern game (my first time DMing, super excite).

The first session went well enough, here's the setup (skip down to the bold if you want to get straight to my questions) :

An alien mothership has appeared outside of Earth's atmosphere broadcasting a message (in English) to return the renegade or risk sparking an interstellar war. Naturally, the President wishes to avoid such a terrible thing, so he hand picked a group of individuals to search out this alien and return him unharmed.

In the first session, I put the players up against a reasonably prepared group of Russian mercenaries that had found the alien's hiding place. The fight went well enough, everyone that tried normal attacks kept missing except on a 17 or higher, except for the people who tried to autofire (this targets the reflex save instead of Defense). So it did last for about 12 rounds (for a combat at lvl 1 I'm pretty impressed everyone stayed in it that long).



The lethality of this combat was decent enough, but I'm worried about how things will scale further on as the PCs and NPCs get more and more health.

I do plan on introducing psionics when the weaponry is getting stale, but not everyone is going to want to use them, so I need the rest of the party to be able to keep pace.

Specifically, I was wondering how any of you guys beefed up D20 modern, or helped guns keep the pace of other more high-damage options? (namely melee and explosives)

[Ashtagon]

The lethality of this combat was decent enough, but I'm worried about how things will scale further on as the PCs and NPCs get more and more health.

Specifically, I was wondering how any of you guys beefed up D20 modern, or helped guns keep the pace of other more high-damage options? (namely melee and explosives)

d20 Modern has modified massive damage rules. Typically, any attack that does the target's Constitution in hp damage (ie. 10 for average mooks) will trigger a DC 15 Fort save or die. No matter how many hp you have, your Constitution-based MD save won't scale with that.

That can get shockingly lethal for PCs. Personally, I'd swap that for double damage and a -4 on all d20 rolls and damage rolls (cumulative if it happens more than once) until the character has surgery (cf Treat Injury skill). Non-boss NPCs still drop on a failed MD save as normal.

Bear in mind that d20 Modern is not realistic; it is action-movie drama, and quite open about modelling that specific genre.

[AMFV]

Well the fundamental problem is that D20 combat gets less and less lethal as you level, particularly certain aspects of melee combat, ranged combat has always been problematic, and I don't really see a strong way to increase that lethality without changing the fundamental assumptions of the system.

[theIrkin]

also, i really like the mook idea. i think it's mentioned in one of the dm guides, but it breaks down to something pretty simple: mooks die in one hit, regardless of damage done.

the BBEG or any baddy you want to be difficult swamps your party with bad guys. they are usually at least 3 levels below the average party level. lower works fine, because it doesn't matter. all they are there for is to make your party feel awesome. you have 10+ of them swamping your average party of ~4 PC's. i've used as many as 40 with the PC's supported by 5-10 NPC's of their own. the mooks are only their to encumber the action economy, don't worry yourself about the technicalities of what they do. move all of them at the same initiative, roll some dice having them hit on ~15-18 on an attack roll. you can have your BBEG attacking the party while they wade through his mooks. after your PC's have waded through them and used some of their time/spells to kill them, and all of a sudden they have to kill 1-3 guys that are level appropriate. Use that regularly and you cement the idea that your party is a cut above the rest of the world.

edit: also, unless your party really enjoys this, don't overuse this tactic. it can get stale over time, but is good every 2-3 encounters or for set piece encounters.

[Popertop]

oh yeah I forgot about Massive Damage Threshold.

I am letting them use the gadget system from D20 Future (this is set at the edge of PL 5, getting into PL 6), so that could be another way to hit higher thresholds.

I think I will use that modified penalty, but just treat it like Negative Levels until they get Healed. (They do have a Surgeon in their group)


I also like that mook idea, I'll have to play around with that.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, letting them kill mooks in one hit is fine, but I would add a decent number of bad guys with HP<Con, but higher than 5. These guys are there to distinguish the characters who carry the big guns and invest in more damage. Make them someone the damage dealer can kill in one hit and everyone else has to shoot twice.

If everyone in the party is armed in roughly the save caliber, then ignore this.

But yeah, by 6-8th level you are playing the expendables.