I'm Thinking Of Playing D20 Modern 3.5

[Bartmanhomer]

I'm thinking of changing the pace of the different system. D20 Modern 3.5. It features the modern era. I check the class a bit and it's good. Have anyone ever play D20 Modern 3.5 before, if so what it like playing D20 Modern 3.5? :smile:

[r2d2go]

Yeah, I don't like it very much but it's definitely functional. The wealth system is kind of interesting, but kind of unnecessarily complicated, the weapons are cool but pretty unbalanced, and a few of the classes can get really wild, but no more than 3.5. Mostly it's just not any better than 3.5 or pf at having interesting abilities for modern characters - just using the weapons is plenty. I guess if you're not invested in 3.5 or pathfinder it's not any harder necessarily to learn, but it doesn't hold any particular advantages that'd encourage me to swap.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm pretty sure it's just d20 modern. Adding 3.5 may cause some confusion that you're looking at a mashup.

Not unlike 3.5, it gets better the more splat you throw at it. Urban Arcana, for example pulls it back toward a modern fantasy setting while D20 Apocalypse makes it shift more toward a Fallout style setting and D20 Future can get you something Star-Trek like. Gather up what you can and mix and match until you get something you like. There's even a couple supplements that are just new monsters and new gear.

Also be aware that it's pretty well presumed that a GM will -not- be using all of the material available. If guns are prominent, there's very little reason to not be a fast hero for example. If you're the one running it, you'll need to decide what you're going to use and what you're not before you even get the players to start building their characters so you can tell them ahead of time what they can and can't do. Be -firm- on this or even the most well-meaning players are liable to start a cycle of power-creep that could become a headache.

The mechanics are all going to be very familiar except that everything presumes the PCs will be human and have that folded into a lot of stuff. Getting going if you're well experienced in 3e and PF will be trivial.

I have only a little experience with it myself but it's perfectly serviceable.

[Bartmanhomer]

Yeah, I don't like it very much but it's definitely functional. The wealth system is kind of interesting, but kind of unnecessarily complicated, the weapons are cool but pretty unbalanced, and a few of the classes can get really wild, but no more than 3.5. Mostly it's just not any better than 3.5 or pf at having interesting abilities for modern characters - just using the weapons is plenty. I guess if you're not invested in 3.5 or pathfinder it's not any harder necessarily to learn, but it doesn't hold any particular advantages that'd encourage me to swap.


I'm pretty sure it's just d20 modern. Adding 3.5 may cause some confusion that you're looking at a mashup.

Not unlike 3.5, it gets better the more splat you throw at it. Urban Arcana, for example pulls it back toward a modern fantasy setting while D20 Apocalypse makes it shift more toward a Fallout style setting and D20 Future can get you something Star-Trek like. Gather up what you can and mix and match until you get something you like. There's even a couple supplements that are just new monsters and new gear.

Also be aware that it's pretty well presumed that a GM will -not- be using all of the material available. If guns are prominent, there's very little reason to not be a fast hero for example. If you're the one running it, you'll need to decide what you're going to use and what you're not before you even get the players to start building their characters so you can tell them ahead of time what they can and can't do. Be -firm- on this or even the most well-meaning players are liable to start a cycle of power-creep that could become a headache.

The mechanics are all going to be very familiar except that everything presumes the PCs will be human and have that folded into a lot of stuff. Getting going if you're well experienced in 3e and PF will be trivial.

I have only a little experience with it myself but it's perfectly serviceable.
So the game system isn't spectacular? Ok but I'm still going to play and see it myself.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So the game system isn't spectacular? Ok but I'm still going to play and see it myself.

I mean... It's d20. The core mechanics are no more or less solid than they ever were. It's the stuff layered on top that makes the difference. Modern isn't exactly balanced but neither is Core 3e.

The biggest difference is that D&D accidentally moved closer to a balanced game and had some effort put in that direction (even if those two points aren't as related as you'd think) while Modern's balance was bad at the start and it never got better. If you want a -functional- D20 Modern game you're going to have trim it like a topiary artist working on a bush that hasn't seen a trimmer or shears in a decade.

Like I said, you can make a perfectly serviceable game with it. You just gotta keep an eye on it.

[frogglesmash]

I personally think d20 modern is a lot of fun, and very versatile, but it's got a lot of quirks and flaws. If you and your players are fine with tailoring the system to your needs as you play, then it should be fine.

[SquidFighter]

One aspect that is extremely important to remember is that even though it says ''modern'' on the tin, it doesn't equate to ''realistic''. Very quickly, your players will feel more like superheroes than gritty action characters, think more arnie's ''Commando'' instead of Willis' ''Die Hard''.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I enjoyed it - but I had a lot of mental adjusting to do for low level survivability.

The common real world technologies are far more lethal than the sort of things you're exposed to in D&D - guns and motor vehicles will kill you way quicker than a sword fight!

I think we had our first ever TPK from a car crash. Not very heroic!
In that case, I wrote it off as a miscommunication between me the GM and the player who's character was driving - "full speed" didn't mean "really fast for this situation", it meant "FULL SPEED". Trying to do 130 mph in your BMW in a winding country lane means you need a crazy DC, and failing it means a terrible full speed crash dealing huge damage to the occupants.
Similarly, a simple side arm is far more damaging than most items a 1st level d&D character will get their hands on - and even the low level gangers will have access to them, depending on your game setting. I'm based inthe UK, so that lets me realisiticly have less firearms in the hands of the antagonists than you might ina country with less restrictions.

The published adventures were poorly balanced, I found: there's an introductory "one-session" adventure involving escaped dinosaurs that killed just about every PC who tried it .... Those dinos were written as attacking from ambush, on difficult terrain that they were immune to, with multiple attacks each due to Pounce, each of them likely to be dealing dozens of HP damage in the surprise round- - whereas the PCs were only able to mildly injure the dinos on their turn... I think the only reason anyone survived the encounter was that the player of one of the dying PCs asked that he could set off a grenade to try to save his friends. Not very suitable for 1st level heroes!

On the other hand, using all the supplements was really fun - I mixed up near future sci-fi tech in a current-day setting, added in some arcane spookiness. It was quite superheoic by the end: psychic detectives, cyborg assassins, mech pilots, werewolves, and wizard librarians, versus a nihilisitc cult of an interdimensional chaos god.
On the other hand, it was really hard work trying to keep things fun for everyone, so that each player felt they had something to contribute.