We have three levels or categories.
Civil: Ordinary people who investigate but with a bit weapon. A example are Chall or Chulthu. A psico-killer with a knife is enough dangerous. Do you remberber the psico-killer of movies like Scream, Cherry Fall, Saw, Hostal, Halloween...
Military: War campaings. PCs are soldiers with weapon. (Call of duty, Brother in arms, Ghost recon, doom 3, half-life, resistace: fall of men...).
Super-hero: PCs are "Iron Man" ( I mean Tony Stark´s armour from Marvel comics). They are sci-fi campaings of d20 Future.
A same monster (for example a Tiranosaurus Rex) isn´t the same challenge in a campaing like "Age of Adventures" (from d20 Past) that from "d20 Future".
I think d20 Modern 2.0. is coming, and too d20 Modern Insider like a Counter-strike with miniatures...(perhaps miniatures of transfomers, G.I.Joe and even from oficial superheroes comic)
I think the trouble is the Challegen Rating in campaings where the PCs have more or less weapon (guns, armours, explosives, vehicules, FX...).
A T-Rex isn't a big deal if the PCs are in an attack helicopter.
But if the PCs are on the ground, armed only with melee/short range weapons and are being attacked by the same helicopter, they're gonna need to go all Yippie-Ca-Yay-Motherf*cker Die-Hard-4.0 style on it's a*s.
...you know, transforming a car into a surface-to-air weapon.
Movies, comics, and TV are a spring of inspiration, but the rich mitologhy from videogames are became stronger and stronger. A lot of times I imagine the characters like from HALO, Gear os Wars, Batlefield, Resident Evil, Metal Gear solid snake....
We have three levels or categories.
Civil: Ordinary people who investigate but with a bit weapon. A example are Chall or Chulthu. A psico-killer with a knife is enough dangerous. Do you remberber the psico-killer of movies like Scream, Cherry Fall, Saw, Hostal, Halloween...
Military: War campaings. PCs are soldiers with weapon. (Call of duty, Brother in arms, Ghost recon, doom 3, half-life, resistace: fall of men...).
Super-hero: PCs are "Iron Man" ( I mean Tony Stark´s armour from Marvel comics). They are sci-fi campaings of d20 Future.
For me, I'd categorize as...
1) Sims or Second Life
2) FPS or Fighting Games
3) Superheroic or Epic
The weapon you have is very, very important. You can destroy a helicopter if your group have a FIM-92 Stinger, or you can known enemies down with a big truck (or even a Combine harvester!!!). In some films like (Example; Dirty Harry: the dead pool) somebody cans kill a person with a radio-controlled car with explosives, or made, with McGyver´s style, a little flame thrower with a spray and a fire lighter, or a bomb with oil and fertilizer.
What is a spell checker?
A spell checker. A quick translation on babelfish gives the following (I'm assuming you're better in Spanish than English): "comprobador de ortografía".
You know, use Microsoft Words, for example.
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When in doubt, use the internet. Google, Wikipedia, Babelfish... They are your friends.
Please use a spell checker. Please?
And here I was enjoying the whole thing in text to speech.
And here I was enjoying the whole thing in text to speech.
Sorry. ;)
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This is Faith, She is the main character of the future videogame Mirror´s Edge.
Why does is she so familiar?
I want to mention the most of videogames in the modern age are; II WW or battles, sci-fi (aliens, robots, cyberpunk...) or with supernatural elements (ghosts, hell monsters)...
In videogames the main combats are with firearms, nor the hand to hand. The martial artist advance class isn´t so useful like the gunfighter.
Most modern videogames are WW2, Sci Fi or Supernatural?
How about all the RPGs and MMORPGs out there? World of Warcraft, Oblivion, Conan, Diablo, etc...
And the martial arts combat games? Mortal Combat, Tekken, Bouncer, etc...
And how about all the middle-age strategy games? Warcraft, Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Battle for Middle-Earth, etc...
Even a lot of FirstPersonShooter games have hand-to-hand or melee included. Half-Life for example (crowbar!). And some modern/future strategy games include a lot of melee. Dawn of War for example (chainsword!).
Edit: Games like Splinter Cell and Hitman also include a lot of melee.
Do you have Steam? May I suggest you look at the different games they offer just so you get an idea of what you're talking about. If not, just open EA games website and look at what they have produced?
Edit2: Please resize the middle drawing. I have a big a*s screen, and it still annoys me.
Edit3: Btw, concerning Mirror's Edge, d20 Modern Core Rulebook came out a long time before Mirror's Edge (which hasn't even come out yet), around 7 years before, actually.
A same monster (for example a Tiranosaurus Rex) isn´t the same challenge in a campaing like "Age of Adventures" (from d20 Past) that from "d20 Future".
I think the trouble is the Challegen Rating in campaings where the PCs have more or less weapon (guns, armours, explosives, vehicules, FX...).
the term you're looking for is force multiplier. it can be a number of things (intelligence, terrain, and training (levels) being some of the most common), but increases in technology also considered force multipliers.
in World War II, it would take a whole flight of bombers loaded to the teeth with bombs to destroy a target the size of an aircraft shelter (about 5000 bombs, on average). in Vietnam, it would take about 300 bombs, i.e. a small flight group. these days, it can be done with a single tactical strike from an F-117 Nighthawk.
in game terms, that means that rather than 1000 1st-level ordinaries being required for a task, we only need one 4th-6th level ordinary for it.
i'll take a Liandri flak cannon over a wood and stone spear any day.
When I talked about games of modern age, I refered games wich are set in XX century.
There is games of martial arts like Double Dragón, Street Fighters, Tekken, Mortal Kombat...but they are games without firearms.
Even a lot of FirstPersonShooter games have hand-to-hand or melee included.
I don´t discuss it, but there aren´t 100% hand-to-hand warriors in those games. The most similarity is the fast alien type from aliens vs predators 2.
In the movies a lot of times the martial artits are so powerful to defeat a group of soldier with guns buth in the videogames martial artis versus shooters.....Rebember in multiplayers shooter games there isn´t specialit of hand-to-hand combat. Nobody fight like the zealot protos or the zerlings from Starcraft.
I haven´t steam.
And no, of course there aren't 100% hand-to-hand warriors in modern times combat (military combat, that is) games. Simply because modern time military combat focuses on ranged weaponry of various kind. Melee is normally only used as self-defence or in dire emergency.
So I don't understand what your point is.
You'd like modern games to include both firearms and martial arts 50-50?
There is hand-to-hand combats in the videogame Matrix: enter on the matrix. I rebember, or Dead Rising, or Faith, the main character of the new "Mirror´s Edge", but they are the exception.
So I don't understand what your point is.
You'd like modern games to include both firearms and martial arts 50-50?
I want a d20 Modern whith the right balance of advance class. In a campaign with low level of firearms (a war between street gangs) a martial artist is very powerful, because the most of characters don´t use guns. In games with the style of Call of Chutlhu the machine gun is difficult to take and enought powerful againts the Lovecraft mythos...
In other campaigns, for example of war genre, the martial artis isn´t so useful like the soldier or gunsliser. Why? PCs have more acces to firearms.
I want the balance because I would like the return of d20 Modern (and published in Spanish language) and the scoucerbook of d20 spectacular. The problem is the combats of superheroes hand-to-hand (dareveril, iron fist, batman, nightwing) againts "soldiers" enemies of style of Frank Castle Punisher, Deathstroke the terminator (DC), or Cobra, the archi-enemy of G.I.Joe: real American hero.
Sometimes the Game Master wants games like "Buffy vampire slayer", "supernatural", or "charmed", and other ones want about second (or third) world war, or like the old movie Cobra (with Sylvester Stallone and Bridgitte Nielsen).
Let´s imagine a d20 Modern Insider with a "fight club", or a d20 Modern miniatures games. How many characters are hand-to-hand fighters and how many do they use firearms?
...the difficulty is reaching the enemy when he is waiting in the other side of the battle field with a machine gun. And what if the enemy is shooting you from a window of a upper floor?
Balance enough for you?
If you play a (realistic) war-type campaign/setting, it would be kinda foolish to create a melee character. How many melee-only characters have you seen in WW2 movies?
OTOH, if you play a boxing/gangwar (assuming no guns, or very few) campaign/setting, creating a heavymachinegunner or a sniper (assuming he/she does not have access to guns) will also be kinda stupid (balance wise - could be loads of fun to roleplay).
Also, as Azisien pointed out, a Martial Artist (the AdC) is pretty awesomely overpowered no matter what kinda game you play.
You want to be able to play melee kinda games? Either, if you're looking for loads of options, play D&D (after all, most of the classes/feats are melee-oriented). Or, you could look around for the homebrew stuff around the various boards (most creativity has been moved to BG by now), as there are loads of melee oriented AdCs, both homebrew, and those in supplements (web/book). Of the top of my head, melee AdCs include: the Boxer, the Dreadnought, the Thrasher, the Ninja, the Martial Artist, the Gunbrawler, the Archaic Weaponsmaster, the StreetWarrior, the Swashbuckler, the Infiltrator, the ShadowSlayer, the Battlemind, and it goes on. It should be noted that the Soldier AdC can be used perfectly with a melee weapon, and a GM should/could allow a character to select Archaic Weapon Proficiency instead of Personal Firearm Proficiency for the prereqs.
You want melee combat? Use one of the above classes. Mix in feats, and some fluff flavour.
You want superheroes combat? I hear there's the Phoenix project out there (by Orion, if I'm not mistaken?).
Where is the problem in a meleeguy fighting a rangedguy? The meleeguy should own him in melee and the rangedguy should shoot the crap out of him asap. Where's the problem?
I just saw Batman: The Dark Knight, and good ol' Bruce Wayne get's shot a few times. He goes down, but not for long (thanks to... KEVLAR! ..and steel abs. :D), after which he proceeds to kick the cr*p out of the badguys.
This is Faith, She is the main character of the future videogame Mirror´s Edge.
Why does is she so familiar?
Because EA stole her likeness from WotC.
Actually, her face isn't that unusual. More in line with some anime artworks as well as T-shirts promoting local strip clubs in Hawaii. :D
A martial arts champion can be a great help in near combats but....
...the difficulty is reaching the enemy when he is waiting in the other side of the battle field with a machine gun. And what if the enemy is shooting you from a window of a upper floor?
It depends on the details of the encounter. d20 is not the real world. It will never be the real world, ever.
If we're talking to equal level PCs, one a high-level Martial Artist, the other a high-level Gunslinger machine gunner whatever, and the Martial Artist started 1000 feet away?
I'd give it a 50/50, depending how high up the gunner is.
The lower the levels get, I would give more chance to the gunner in that scenario.
Whats is more dangerous, a band of killer clown with bats and axes, or with guns and rifles?
And in the most of times the enemy nPCs are far when the batle starts.
D20 Modern isn´t the real world, but in a d20 Modern Insider...who are going to choose a melee specialist to fight againts other PCs?.
In our last campaign, we had a PC (another one, not the same one as above) playing a Martial Artist.
And my girlfriend considered playing a duelist/swashbuckler in another campaign but she dropped out before she had a chance to bring him into play. In that campaign, I had a PC running around with a spear all the time too.
So who is going to choose a melee specialist?
At least 25% of the players in the d20 Modern games I've GM'ed or played in.