)Here are my plans:
Unless otherwise noted, keep everything the same as the core D20 Modern rules. This is to maintain game balance.
* Every character has melee basic attack and ranged basic attack as at-will powers, but ranged basic attack DOES NOT add Dex to damage (potentially imbalancing with massive damage rules).
* All feats that share a name with a 4e feat (such as Power Attack) take on the 4th edition rules. Feats otherwise function exactly as worded, and effectively grant new powers. For example, Double Tap gives you an at-will power that allows you to make an attack at -2, but with an extra die of damage. The key here, though, is that feats still function exactly as worded.
* Even though Base attack bonus and base saving throw bonuses have changed considerably in 4th, the 3rd edition system will remain (Characters have variable bonuses to BAB and saves according to their class and level, as before), but they are rebranded as "Class Bonuses", analogous to the class bonuses to Defense.
* 10 will be added to all three saves, to turn them into "Defenses", as in 4th. Effects that used to force a save will now roll an attack against the relevant defense, with a bonus equal to its DC minus 10. Note: the net mathematical effect of this is a 5% (or +1) gain for effects that forced a save in 3rd but now roll an attack. This is mitigated by the next point.
* As in 4e, characters use the higher of his STR or CON bonus for his FORT, DEX/INT for REF, and WIS/CHA for WILL. However, he does NOT get the higher of DEX/INT for his regular Defense (game balance).
* In combat, characters get a standard, a move, and a minor action, and all action types use the 4th edition rules (drinking a potion is a minor action, Run is a move action that gives you +10ft speed, etc). Any other misc. d20 mechanics that have been changed in 4e (Grab, falling, poisons, etc.) use the 4e rules.
* Death and Dieing work the way they do in 4th edition (three failed death saves, and you're out). You also die at your negative bloodied total (instead of -10), just like in 4th. If you're using VP/WP, you may want to have characters die at either -10 WP or at Negative Con Score.
* You gain HP per level as you do in regular D20 modern (con bonus at every level), except it's set HP (not rolled) per level. Each Hit Die is converted to a static number that is equal to half the die +1 (or just half the die if you're using VP/WP). For example, a d8 Hit Die becomes 5 Hit Points per level (or 4 Vitality Points) + Con mod.
* Retraining: Same as 4th. Each level the player may retrain one thing.
And now skills, the biggest change. Skills work totally differently in 4th, and you can end up really screwing up the game by mucking with them, especially when considering multiclassing. I recommend keeping skills either entirely unchanged, or changed very little. Here is my attempt at 4th/3rd edition hybrid systems for Modern:
Skill ranks are gone and replaced by "Trained Skills". However, trained skills are not worth +5 as they are in 4e, they are instead worth +3. Each skill also gets +Class Level, where "Class Level" is equal to the level of the class you trained the skill in. When characters multiclass, they may choose to train the same skill again in the next class, in order to add *that* class's level to the skill bonus (you only get the +3 once per skill, though).
For example, Maxwell, a Strong Hero, gets 3 + Int trained skills. Maxwell's Intelligence is 12, so he gets 4 Trained Skills. He selects Climb, Jump, Repair, and Swim. At 1st level, he gets +4 (+3 for being trained, and +1 for his Strong Hero level) to these skills (in addition to ability modifiers), and always adds his Strong Hero level to those skills. At 4th level, Maxwell takes his first Advanced Class, Martial Artist, and selects 4 skills to train from the Martial Artist list. Maxwell selects Balance, Climb, Jump, and Tumble. Any skills he has just trained that he didn't train before (Balance and Tumble) get +3 for being trained skills, and then he adds his Martial Artist level to these four skills.
Here are his bonuses (except ability scores) at level 3 Strong Hero / level 1 Martial Artist:
Balance +4 = +3 (Trained), +1 (Martial Artist)
Climb +7 = +3 (Trained), +3 (Strong Hero), +1 (Martial Artist)
Jump +7 = +3 (Trained), +3 (Strong Hero), +1 (Martial Artist)
Repair +6 = +3 (Trained), +3 (Strong Hero)
Swim +6 = +3 (Trained), +3 (Strong Hero)
Tumble +4 = +3 (Trained), +1 (Martial Artist)
His other skills have no bonuses except ability scores, as in 3rd edition.
Here are the things I strongly recommend *against* changing:
* Massive Damage save. This is great for keeping up the tension and the realism.
* Con bonus to HP. 4e did away with this, but it has many other sweeping changes as well. Since we aren't rebalancing the rest of the game in this Quick & Dirty conversion, we shouldn't mess with this.
* Healing surges? I'm thinking we don't mess with this - leave healing surges and stuff out of the rules. They make less sense in Modern than they do in DnD. Using VP/WP instead of HP can get you a similar result as healing surges, if you wish (since Vitality Points recover a whole lot quicker than HP).
* Critical Hits. If we change critical hits to simply max out the die, like in 4e, instead of rolling damage twice, then we potentially create bad interactions with the Massive Damage rule.
* The skill list. 4e combined many similar skills into a single skill, decreasing the skill list and enhancing the value of each skill choice. This is possible for Modern, but the classes would have to be rebalanced for this as well.
EDIT: Removed the bit about Occupations, because it turns out they work as-written in my skill system.
I get a bit lost in all the suggested rule changes and it is hard to see where it will all end up.
* Since we are converting to 4th in DnD anyway, doing this allows us to continue to keep that ruleset in our heads, making it easier for us to learn it, and less likely that we'll mix up a 3rd edition rule and a 4th edition rule in DnD.
* The saving throw changes to "Defenses", as in 4th, are done for the same reason it was done it 4th - consistency across attacks.
* Allowing the highest of STR/CON for Fort (instead of just CON) and likewise for REF and WILL makes up for the +1 mathematical disadvantage given to the Defenses by the above change, and is also consistent with 4th. It also lets players feel more freedom in character building, since they are less likely to create a weakness for their character by building to their concept.
* The extra action in combat, after playing with it in 4th edition DnD, feels fantastic - characters are far more flexible and capable in combat with it. It removes annoying aspects of the game, like being unable to open a door without losing an important action.
* Death and dieing, again, simply changed for consistency with 4th. Using set HP instead of rolled HP is something I've been doing since before 4th anyway.
The skills changes are made for a number of reasons as well. I was skeptical of the 4th edition system, since it was less flexible than the the one in 3rd edition, but I love it now that we've been using it for awhile. It turns one of the biggest hassles of character building into something quite simple. I couldn't adopt it wholesale into D20 Modern, though, because of the way multiclassing works in 4th (where you are still primarily whatever class you were, but you've "dabbled" in another class). This is insufficient for Modern, since multiclassing is a much larger and necessary aspect of the game.
However, allocating skill points is an even bigger hassle in D20 Modern, because of all the multiclassing flying around. So I came up with a system that is simple (like 4th, though not as simple as 4th) and flexible enough to allow for D20 Modern-style multiclassing by applying 4th edition's concept of "Trained Skills" to each of your classes separately.
Note also that if you keep the same skills "Trained" in my system as you would have in regular D20 Modern, the effect is the same. That is, in the default system, if you put 4 ranks into Bluff at level 1, that is equivalent to selecting Bluff as a trained skill at level 1 (which gives you +3 for being trained, and +1 for your level). The following example illustrates the key difference:
In the core D20 Modern rules, Maxwell (the character from above) would have tougher choices to make as he chooses his skills for his first level in Martial Artist. Up until now, he's been putting his Strong Hero skill points into Climb, Jump, Repair, and Swim, but now he wants to use his Martial Artist points on Balance, Climb, Jump, and Tumble. Since Balance and Tumble don't have any points in them right now, Maxwell has to pay a sort of "back-tax" on them to bring them up to speed... but he can only do this at the neglect of his other skills. In my system, Maxwell is still behind on Balance and Tumble, but he is less so, and he continues to improve Climb and Jump as he levels.
Game balance-wise, this improves spreading your skill choices around, but not enough that it's any better than sticking with the same skills your entire career (still the optimal choice). It's just that the optimal choice has been difficult-to-impossible in Modern because of all the multiclassing, so a lot of characters *have* to spread their skill points around. This system mitigates their pain in having to do so. And, despite all the words I've devoted to explaining it, the system is simpler as well.
There are a number of very easy "house rules" for d20 Modern that make it a quite functional system. But of course everyone has their personal preferences. I am not familiar enough with the 4e rules to qualify them. But I suspect you do and like them (or parts of them).
There are many good systems "near" to d20 Modern you could steal from.
I tweaked my homebrewed D20 Modern to reflect some new 4e changes, and now i'm going ahead to try to do an ever closer conversion to D&D new system while still keeping some of Modern's feel.
Basic attacks I'll likely do just like Tzepish but Dex/Int mod added to damage since I've chucked Massive damage already for a wounding system that imposed fatigued and exhausted when HP drop to certain levels.
Feats: 100% agreement
Base attacks and saves I'm doing like 4e with classes having static one time bonuses that don't scale over level. I hate referencing the different tables. For multiclassing the best mods will replace those of the first class. Some balancing will need to be done.
Defenses: full agreement. Don't understand the game balance issue with Dex or Int to regular defense. Can you explain?
Combat, actions, dying similar to Tzepish's ideas. Some parts I'll have to review for change consideration.
Skill I've done with a similar idea already but will going nearly just like 4e, complete with skill consolidations I've already playtested.
I'll be writing on this topic on my blog today (two parter likely). I'll give this thread a shout out and hope y'all comment there and here.
Basically, I felt that the STR/CON for Fort, DEX/INT for Ref, and WIS/CHA for Will would mostly result in a small bonus to these defenses (which are used less often), but DEX/INT for regular Defense would add a large increase to the most useful Defense for only certain types of characters.
The abilities that grant Int mod to combat traits could remain, they just add the modifier again.
Defense I plan to deal with a la SAGA Star Wars - as Cyber Dave said - with the Reflex defense being the one for guns and melee attacks, making it even more vital for simplicity sake.
Wouldn't it be better balance wise for more than one class to have the big defense utility than just Fasts as it has been?
Perhaps. But I went into this with the assumption that the classes were already reasonably balanced - the fast types have the best defense, the big types have the best HP, and the smarty and talky types make up for it with other abilities. If you think the smarty types are in need of a boost, then more power to you - and adopting DEX/INT for Defense would kill two birds with one stone :-)
When determining the defenses for these Modern classes I gave Fasts Reflex defense +2, but Smarts have Reflex +1 and Willpower. So the Fasts still hold the highest defense but not by much.
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