[4e] Modern Setting

[Blackdrop]

Does anyone know if a d20 modern for 4e is in the works?

[FoE]

Does anyone know if a d20 modern for 4e is in the works?

I don't know, but it's doubtful, the way Wizards abruptly killed off d20 Modern. :smallfrown:

[Dhavaer]

Honestly, I hope not. I really like 4e for D&D, but I don't think the system would work nearly as well for Modern.

[Blackdrop]

I was just wondering because I really want to pull a heist, and not the crappy one my group put together in 5 minutes last session.

[Mewtarthio]

It'd take a lot of work. Currently, almost all the 4e powers deal in either magic or melee combat, which is fine if you want to run a kung-fu action setting or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but anything modern that actually tries to incorporate gunplay will end up with lots of archery rangers running around and nothing else.

[archmage45]

Does anyone know if a d20 modern for 4e is in the works?

Star Wars Saga is probably the closest.

[Starsinger]

It'd take a lot of work. Currently, almost all the 4e powers deal in either magic or melee combat, which is fine if you want to run a kung-fu action setting or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but anything modern that actually tries to incorporate gunplay will end up with lots of archery rangers running around and nothing else.

Well, given the fantasy aspects of it, I can't imagine something akin to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Hellboy with plenty of melee action to be that out of the question...

[RukiTanuki]

I could see it, though I'd suspect there'd be significant changes. I feel like Wizards is still testing the waters with non-damage-focused powers.

I could see a 4e-style Modern system with generic base classes featuring various "stunts" for both in- and out-of-combat, "specialty paths" to refine your character focus, and hopefully something representing Skill Challenges 2.0. The core mechanic works, but there'd be a large shift in focus.

[Armoury99]

Actually I'm positive I've seen something on the WotC website a wile back stating that a 4e Modern conversion is planned "eventually." Given that they're rightly concentrating on straight D&D at present however, I wouldn't count on it being any time soon.

[Glawackus]

The "d20 system" logo on the back of the 4E PHB leads me to believe there must be something up Wizards' collective sleeve.

[gnownek]

I recommend googling hearts of chaos by goodman games.

And if you want to see a long homebrew project
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122283

[DragonBaneDM]

Maybe throw some Shadowrun stuff in there?

One of the best way to homebrew classes that I've seen is to have each player build their own class from level 1 up. Then you balance it as you advance through the levels. So if it's a paragon tier heist, it's no good, but if their just newbie modern day spelunker folk, then it'll work great!

I'd make a Heavy Gunner class that ran offa Con. :)

[Duos Greanleef]

To all ye naysayers...
A friend of mine homebrewed/tweaked an entire modern system using mostly pre-existing material.
It was freakin awesome.
There is a great deal of potential for a 4E modern setting even if Wizards doesn't make one.
Eventually the necessity will cause the design.

[Kurald Galain]

It'd take a lot of work. Currently, almost all the 4e powers deal in either magic or melee combat, which is fine if you want to run a kung-fu action setting or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but anything modern that actually tries to incorporate gunplay will end up with lots of archery rangers running around and nothing else.
Well, you can easily say that the "wizard" is throwing grenades around, or that the "cleric" is using his medical syringe gun.

[Zincorium]

It could definitely use an update/continued lease on life. But I hope the quality of the rules improves with the massive changes.

Things like two incompatible unarmed combat systems (and brawl is either useless or outright broken), shotguns never being a good option, combat magic/psionics being worthless with guns around, dart-board CR ratings, lack of imagination on most base class talents (not all, admittedly), the fact that a bullet proof vest does not work like that, and a slew of other things... well...

The issues I have aren't about the base mechanic (I think the D20 system is perfectly okay for this), or the settings, it's all about the little things- the fine tuning, balancing, even just making sure that your content is actually meaningful all could have used some work.

I, as a non-professional and not even a talented homebrewer, should not be able to fix the rules.

I should be forced to scratch my head, ponder, and decide that even the things that bug me have been dealt with as well as they can be. I believe that the biggest, best-funded, and longest running publisher in the entire industry should be able to awe me with every chapter, or at least provide me with $20-$60 dollars worth of awe per book.

[The J Pizzel]

SW: SAGA. Take away force powers and change the fluff of the blasters to machine/hand guns and voila. By the way, SAGA is incredibly well done. You should try it.

[gnownek]

4e modern can't be done without some rethinking of roles. One big balance item is melee classes vs. ranged. But a proper modern campaign, will have some guns floating around and to stay close to the genre those guns will be fairly effective, making all melee classes pretty weak.

Armor is also an issue. In most modern campaigns, there is no effective equivalent to plate mail once or it wouldn't fit the theme to wear one. We never saw Buffy for example, wear a bulletproof vest. But balnce between some classes depends on the availability of armor.

My approach was to design super-flexible customizable classes. Completed one in detail so far and working on the Second.

-------------------
And if you want to see a long homebrew project
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122283

[Tiki Snakes]

As I understand it, the point behind a lot of the mechanics in SW Saga was to make it, in play, run like star-wars. The whole design of the thing was built around style, sort of, so that play would be appropriately cinematic and things that should be cool in that universe felt appropriately cool.

Not that I've played it, admittedly.

Likewise, the 4e DnD project, I understand, pretty much started out by considering the type/s of play they wanted to encourage, and the feel of the play, keeping some of the more cinematic focus used in Saga, but also very much building towards a very different feel and dynamic.

Whilst the core of the rules could be used to model a modern setting, and homebrew and third party stuff is neither unlikely nor out of the question, I doubt any official effort would be a minor project.

If the philosophy behind the above two project carries over, any new 'Modern' setting/system would likely start out by them deciding how that should feel and having an earnest go at building with that in mind. Which can hardly be a bad thing.

Essentially, I think RukiTanuki probably isn't far off.

But as for the OP's purposes, I'm going to second The J Pizzel's suggestion, SW Saga with minimal refluffing should do anything you might need from a new (D20) Modern, I suspect.

[Asbestos]

I recommend googling hearts of chaos by goodman games.

And if you want to see a long homebrew project
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122283

Here's a link to the PDF that goes with that little adventure. The adventure is neat, but could use some tweaking (Which I'm sure they did over at Dias Ex Machina's forums, but I haven't checked recently) in terms of encounter design (30 minions? I ain't DMing that).

http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/HeartsofChaos-Download.pdf

PDF has some 'modern' monsters and some 'modern' pre-gen characters as well. They have a special system for picking 'basic attacks' vs 'at-wills' but its explained in a forum.

[DiasExMachina]

Little late on this post...

But yeah, Hearts of Chaos was an "early build" of our 4th Modern/Sci-Fi rules. Our later free module Biohazard (http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/Amethyst-Biohazard.pdf)(which is our zombie apocalypse adventure) showcases a later (but still not final) build of these same rules. The final product, Amethyst Foundations, has gone to printers now and is available via pre-order from Goodman or from your local game store. We even have DLC for those that order early. :)

http://www.nick-greenwood.com/am_cover_back.jpg

[Hzurr]

@DiasExMachina

Sorry to butt in, but as a general rule, please try and use spoiler tags around all large images. For those of us who aren't able to browse fullscreen (or are on a device with a small screen, like an iphone or android phone) it really messes up the page formatting.

[valadil]

Power sources might be problematic. Martial/arcane/divine/primal/psionic probably wouldn't work as well in a modern setting. You could keep martial. I liked the Shadowrun idea someone else mentioned, so maybe a tech source. I could also see occult being a power source in and of itself.

[Rockphed]

@DiasExMachina

Sorry to butt in, but as a general rule, please try and use spoiler tags around all large images. For those of us who aren't able to browse fullscreen (or are on a device with a small screen, like an iphone or android phone) it really messes up the page formatting.

I have a fairly large screen and it is broken by that image.

As for 4e modern, I, personally, hated the presentation of d20 modern that I read. It was, quite simply, not a game I wanted to play. Now there are doubtless people who want to play d20 modern as it was presented, but I wasn't one of them. Particularly egregious was the way they presented classes. I understand that it was probably more balanced than d&d, but it still makes me cry inside every time I think about it. I like classes that are pre-packaged growth chains for an archetype. The most bothersome thing in 3.5 was the incredible variety in the specificity of archetypes modeled by classes. Personally, I think the d20 modern choice of using the broadest range of specificity they could was a bad choice.

[DiasExMachina]

I have a fairly large screen and it is broken by that image.

As for 4e modern, I, personally, hated the presentation of d20 modern that I read. It was, quite simply, not a game I wanted to play. Now there are doubtless people who want to play d20 modern as it was presented, but I wasn't one of them. Particularly egregious was the way they presented classes. I understand that it was probably more balanced than d&d, but it still makes me cry inside every time I think about it. I like classes that are pre-packaged growth chains for an archetype. The most bothersome thing in 3.5 was the incredible variety in the specificity of archetypes modeled by classes. Personally, I think the d20 modern choice of using the broadest range of specificity they could was a bad choice.

Sorry about the image...my screen is huge and I often forget that. There is a good gallery of images at Nick Greenwood's site (http://www.nick-greenwood.com/) and at Goodman's site (http://www.goodman-games.com/4370preview.html).

It wasn't our intent to create 4E Modern. That being said, Amethyst does work perfectly well as one, granted you wish to play a military-based class. I didn't bother with wealth rolls and defense values or stuff like that.

[Krazddndfreek]

You need to fix the problem, not just apologize for it. Use spoilers already. If you don't know they work like so:
Stuff
becomes
Stuff

[DiasExMachina]

Done

So since I know how and since I am here, let me share a few more....

These are big...


http://www.nick-greenwood.com/Jibaro_big.jpg

http://www.nick-greenwood.com/chiggoth_big.jpg

http://www.nick-greenwood.com/york_city_big.jpg

[Asbestos]

Done

So since I know how and since I am here, let me share a few more....

These are big...


http://www.nick-greenwood.com/Jibaro_big.jpg

http://www.nick-greenwood.com/chiggoth_big.jpg

http://www.nick-greenwood.com/york_city_big.jpg

Yeeesh, I doubt even a mother could love that face.

[DabblerWizard]

This thread should have been locked for thread necromancy back in April.

... Just an observation. :smallbiggrin:

[tbarrie]

Gamma World is coming later this year; post-apocalyptic isn't exactly the same as modern, of course, but it might be easier to convert than the rules for medievalish fantasy.

[DiasExMachina]

From what I read, Gamma World uses 4th Edition mechanics but it is neither a complete rule system nor directly compatible with D&D. I read it is more like a CCG.

[tbarrie]

From what I read, Gamma World uses 4th Edition mechanics but it is neither a complete rule system nor directly compatible with D&D. I read it is more like a CCG.

All I know is what's in the Product Catalog (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/254600000), but it describes it as "a complete, stand-alone roleplaying game that uses the 4th Edition D&D Roleplaying Game system as its foundation". Though its supplements are called "Expansion Kits", which I'll admit is not a traditional term for RPGs.

[Asbestos]

All I know is what's in the Product Catalog (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/254600000), but it describes it as "a complete, stand-alone roleplaying game that uses the 4th Edition D&D Roleplaying Game system as its foundation". Though its supplements are called "Expansion Kits", which I'll admit is not a traditional term for RPGs.
The mutation power card deck and loot deck make it seem a bit more 'CCG' than regular 4e D&D. At least to me.