Thoughts on D20 Modern and Pathfinder

[Kelsey MacAilbert]

A Pathfinder equivalent of D20 Modern has been brought up more than once on these boards, and, inspired by some pictures like this, this, this, this, and this, I've done some thinking on what I think would make a good modernized game based off of the Pathfinder system.

If you viewed the pictures I linked to, you have no doubt noticed what they all have in common: an example of magic or a fantasy trope in a modern environment. This brings us to my first thought on a modern Pathfinder: the fact that I think it needs to be a fantasy game. A big part of Pathfinder is the fantasy elements, and I've grown quite fond of them. I want to keep those elements for this project. Personally, I rather like the idea of elves in jeans and t-shirts and wizards keeping their spellbooks on touch screen tablets.

On to the class system, one of the biggest parts of how D20 works. I like the D20 Modern Advanced Class system, but not the basic class system. Rather than have basic classes for each stat, I'd like to go with Warrior, Expert, and Mage. Furthermore, I'd like to have a variety of archetypes for the advanced classes, allowing a large array of customization without having a whole mess of classes.

As for D20 Modern's background system, I'm looking towards a hybridization with the Pathfinder trait system. I'm looking towards making backgrounds a trait category and having players select one trait from each category at character creation. I want to tie class skills to this system rather than classes, so that how you grew up effects what skills you've developed. Each trait would have five associated skills, and you'd pick three from each trait you have.

Combat needs to encourage movement more, perhaps by making Shot on the Run something built into the system. The cover system should encourage players to use it, while allowing for cover to be destroyed or penetrated. Fixed DC reflex saves for explosions and automatic weapons are simply a no-go. They don't keep up with level changes. I'm not sure what to do instead yet, but something different needs to be done.

The biggest thing, however, is that it needs to have it's own campaign setting while being easily modable to a homebrew effort, just like Pathfinder is. You need to be able to pick this up and play it without having to spend forever building your own setting first.

This wasn't a very long OP, as there aren't a giant number of steps necessary here. They are, however, some rather big steps. Still, I think a Pathfinder D20 Modern can be an excellent game rather than aspiring to D20 Modern's mediocrity.

More thoughts, regarding to specific campaign setting details, later.

[Kelsey MacAilbert]

A conversation on Giantitp led to a statement that I think explains what I'm trying to do perfectly:

"What I want to do is imagine what the end result would look like if I were to take an "average" medieval fantasy world and advance it to a modernish tech level over centuries of in-universe technological and social development."

[veekie]

Fantasy Modern? Presuming of course that things develop more or less similarly to real life, since most people aren't as good at elaborating upon the countless different ways things could have gone to kill or prosper major events.

First question I'd ask on the matter would be: Is magic still a primarily personal force? Magic items and spells alike are made and cast by individuals, whereas industry applies a lot of processes done as mechanical steps and in bulk. Can a machine stamp out +1 weapons without a spellcaster having to invest a lot of training, materials and personal experience into enchanting it?

If so, there would be fairly massive repercussions, as many of these are game balance factors and interact with the world in a limited sense only because they are few and manufactured slowly. The D&D core spell system would see to that, unless you base the magic system off something else(Gramarie seems like a good candidate for example), or do a pretty dramatic weeding and control of what effects are casted and what are manufactured.

If not, you might wind up with technology marching on, with magic items and magic users forming a sort of specialist sub society to deal with extraordinary needs.

[sirpercival]

(1) I've already attempted to do something like this with my Magipunk campaign setting;

(2) If you don't like that, or want more flexible & realistic magic technology, look at Gramarie.

[Kelsey MacAilbert]

Fantasy Modern? Presuming of course that things develop more or less similarly to real life, since most people aren't as good at elaborating upon the countless different ways things could have gone to kill or prosper major events.

First question I'd ask on the matter would be: Is magic still a primarily personal force? Magic items and spells alike are made and cast by individuals, whereas industry applies a lot of processes done as mechanical steps and in bulk. Can a machine stamp out +1 weapons without a spellcaster having to invest a lot of training, materials and personal experience into enchanting it?

If so, there would be fairly massive repercussions, as many of these are game balance factors and interact with the world in a limited sense only because they are few and manufactured slowly. The D&D core spell system would see to that, unless you base the magic system off something else(Gramarie seems like a good candidate for example), or do a pretty dramatic weeding and control of what effects are casted and what are manufactured.

If not, you might wind up with technology marching on, with magic items and magic users forming a sort of specialist sub society to deal with extraordinary needs.

Magic is a primarily personal force that can't really be reproduced through technology, so as you said, technology marches on.

[Kelsey MacAilbert]

(1) I've already attempted to do something like this with my Magipunk campaign setting;

(2) If you don't like that, or want more flexible & realistic magic technology, look at Gramarie.

I'll take a look at both for ideas.

[veekie]

You might want to look into magical interactions with mundane technologies then. Consider the effects of a simple flaming sword and a decanter of endless water and their uses in power generation. Do you want such interactions? Because it means the technological landscape can be quite thoroughly deformed.

[Kelsey MacAilbert]

I've been thinking on what exactly I want my world to look like, and I'm stuck on four things:

High Fantasy (As I said, I want a world where a typical Pathfinder setting evolved into a modern tech setting over time)

Space (I like space exploration and space travel. I want it in my setting.)

Modern Technology (Some things are more or less advanced, but for the most part things are pretty modern.)

Retro (I LOVE the look of the 50s and 60s, and I'm a retro-futurism enthusiast. The era's cars were often downright gorgeous, as there was some nice space age art and architecture.)

I'm thinking I can work with all these things. First off, we cement that the high fantasy and modern technology elements exist. From there, we say that the retro-futurist elements I so love are the culture of the era.

What does this mean? Artistically, things look like the 50s and 60s. A lot of clothing fashions are similar to the IRL era, cars are built to this aesthetic, electical appliances have the space age look to them, 50s and 60s style pulp fiction is popular, the music sounds like 50s and 60s music in many ways, and so on. Essentially, the technology is modern, but the aesthetic is retro.

As for space exploration, I would like to posit a nearby planet to the planet this setting inhabits. The climate of this nearby planet is all wrong for humanoid evolution, but it's not unsurvivable to humanoids. It also has some sort of rather desireable resources. With a planet so near that can support a colony without too much effort (you won't need to wear space suits or build bio domes), and with desireable resources there, there will be a LOT more people, resources, and money poured into space travel than there were IRL. With this greatly increased focus on space, space technology will be a lot more advanced than what we have IRL, even if the general tech level is equivalent. As a result, there are colonies on this planet, and there are outposts all over the solar system with quite a bit of space traffic. Space travel outside the solar system has yet to be realized except with uncrewed probes. That said, most people have not gone into space and never will, and space travel is a minor facet of the world in popular perception, even if it is an important part of the world's infrastructure. It's like how we don't think much about civilian sailors IRL. Space is there if you want it for the story, but if you don't want to touch it, you don't have to.

[Kelsey MacAilbert]

You might want to look into magical interactions with mundane technologies then. Consider the effects of a simple flaming sword and a decanter of endless water and their uses in power generation. Do you want such interactions? Because it means the technological landscape can be quite thoroughly deformed.

I'm considering this. I just bought three PDFs on this subject off of DriveThruRPG, and will go through them for ideas.

[OldManAlexi]

What a coincidence.  I just started looking for something like this.  Okay, I was actually thinking a 3.5 variant but Pathfinder works too. 

I like the idea of a modern fantasy game.  However, with the way the D20 Modern classes work, the system is inherently low magic.  Well, unless you want to throw in an advanced class that works like the Beholder Mage.  Plus, its not balanced with the D&D system so you can't bring in the interesting creatures from the monster manual.  Modern isn't really built to deal with monsters with sorcerer casting or damage reduction.  Trolls either really, unless your party carries around a flamethrower. 

Expect me to lurk around this thread even if I can't come up with something to say. 

Now, for input.  Magic item production has been mentioned. I see two obvious options.  First, all magic items are hand made.  This would probably include some kind of artificer advanced class that gets a ridiculous number of bonus item creation feats.  On the other hand, said mage would miss out on getting an advanced class that helps with more adventure appropriate abilities.  Second option, there are a handful of high level mages who created massive Wish-based magic items that allow for relatively cheap mass production.  Of course, given how rare 17+ level wizards are, there are probably only 3 or 4 of these things which would naturally bring in the super-corporation themes.  Whether or not you're interested in struggles against/between massive corporate entities will effect your interest in that option.  On the bright side, having only 3 or 4 of them would give you a good excuse to keep magic items rare enough so the price doesn't change too much. 

For the saves against automatic weapons, you could always have magic guns.  The save DC would be increased by the enhancement bonus. 

I look forward to seeing where you go with this.