Menace Manual

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

THanks Fell, I think I'll feel a lot better once I get that book. I like d20 Modern, and I hope there will be other cool books like this coming out sometime soon. Like maybe we should do something or something.

[Fellfrosch]

Are you asking me out?

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

I wish! But no, really. What I meant, and I guess I lost that thought when I was typing this post, was that we should make our own little supplement and let people download it. And if enough people downloaded it we could do another one and sell it for cheap.

[Fellfrosch]

Game design is my heroin, and therefore I am interested. What do you have in mind?

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Hmmm, you've hit me with a wall. I usually get "thats a silly idea boy," or no reply.

Well I'm not totally sure. I'm really at a loss of thoughts right now. Any ideas?

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

OK ok ok. I had some thought(s). We can make up our own little corporations and stuff. And maybe some wacky-do fancy weapons and stuff. Ya know? Any other thoughts?

[Fellfrosch]

You know what really intrigues me, and what d20 Modern hasn't touched yet, are superheroes. Would you base it entirely on feats? Would it require prestige classes, or would those only get in the way?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Prestige classes feats and special effects, to do it right....
But just special effects for the actual powers, itd be easy to fit into the existing rules...

Reed Richards could have the ability to cast change self and displacement (mimiciing his stretching powers) 2x a day per level The flash has a permanant haste spell on him
Spiderman can cast web, and spiderclimb along with enhance strength and Dexterity

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Fell, that sounds like a good idea. Except I don't know if we should do Marvel/DC hereos, or should we do original things?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Just using examples....

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

The problem with a lot of those suggestions is that they don't form a uniform progression system. Which is fine for a point based system, but wouldn't work for d20. If you want to do d20, you need to have classes.

That's easy enough actually, look at the JLA. There are archetypal heroes.
Fast hero: Flash (all three of them), Impulse, Johnnie Quick, Jesse Quick, Max Mercury, QUicksilver, et al
Strong Hero: Superman (he fits into a few, super multi-class guy), Steel, Captain Marvel, the Thing, The Hulk, Wonder Woman
Ultimate Human: Batman, Robin, Huntress, Batgirl, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Captain America
Artifact enhanced: Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Starman, Blue Beetle, et al.
Alien: Skrulls, Superman (again) Martian Manhunter, Hawkman, a million others
Under-water lord (AKA, stupid heroes): Aquaman, Namor, Aqualad, Fathom

See, those are your classes. Superman has about 50 levels and cross classed into at least three (Strong, alien, and energy projection). Flight is a feat, I'd assume, though it has various levels, so maybe "flying" is a class.

So there's a challenge. Do you make "flight" a class? What if flight is given because of a doohickey? Obviously, the system needs some arrangement. And you've got races. I think it could be overcome though.


and btw, CURSE YOU FELL FOR FINDING A WAY TO DO THIS THAT INTERESTS ME!
Now I have another frickin' project on my plate.

[42]

Actually, wouldn't it be easier to just create superhero templates. All you would have to do it to design the template and adjust the ECL. Certain powers or abilities would effect the over-all adjustment.

This seems a whole lot easier that making classes. And the is a lot of freedom to mix and match. You could also pull lists from other sources, like Palladium's Hero's Unlimited. Like +1 ECL for each minor power, +2 or 3 for major powers, +1 for a certain array of minor bionics or special training. Is this making sense?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

actually, that makes a LOT of sense. There you go, problem solved. I'll let you guys work out the details. Sounds good though. I'll be happy to be a consultant on superhero questions, though if we don't get a lisence from DC, Image, or Marvel, there won't be much point.

Actually, I'd like to see whatever you come up with before you release, just so I can tell you if you've missed anything comic readers would like to see. But that's up to you. Between TW(i)G and another project, I'm busy.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I can't leave it alone: I keep thinking on it

I don't think arbitrarily adding +1 ECL will work. I think that it would need to be done with templates, just make a special rule that Superhero templates can be added multiple times and added instead of a character level.. then have them progress with classes according to d20 modern. Although that'd I'd think about. I think that fighter, sorcerer, wizard (Dr. Strange and Dr. Fate, por ejemplo),and rogue would be appropriate classes. With certain prestige classes also available

[42]

Well the idea is to make templates, kind of. You wouldn't just add +1 ECL just so someone can see in the dark. It would be a package of special abilities that are the reason for a +1 ECL. For example, if someone wanted to fly, that might just justify replacing a feat to class ability for that. However, say they want to fly, have darkvision and increased Saving throws, that would probably justify a +1 ECL.

This actually works really well for mutants and aliens. The higher the added ECL the more stuff you can through in. In fact, it seems like a lot of monster ECLs are figured this way. So this is essentially treating aliens and mutants as a new PC race.

For hero's like Batman or Captain America, I think designing advanced and prestige classes for them would be best. Just remember that D20 holds dear to the apprentice phase of a character (i.e. 1st-3rd level). I've found that a lot of RPGs rather not deal with characters that don't start out fully devoloped. Course, in a campaign where mutants will be starting at level 5 or 6, it's best for batman to start out at the same level and throughing those other levels into background.

Artifact heros like Green Lantern, are easy, becasue the DMG has guidelines for how magic items or artifacts adjust ECL. Simply figure out the cost in gp and see where it lines up on the equipment chart. The nice thing about this is that it doesn't really the character level, just what kind of challenges the character should be facing.

I feel that it is important to keep track of character's total ECL, based on equipment, level and special attributes. Primarily, because it's so useful for the GM to plan sessions and I find it to be the basis for D20 balancing. Although I find not all/many of the D20 designers choose to pay attention to it. Course, I also think it's the GM's job to twidle with balancing enough to make sure things are balanced.