D&D 3E/3.5 Combining d20 modern with 3E

[Tyberious Funk]

I posted this on rec.games.frp.dnd but I think there is more active (and intelligent) discussion here on enworld, so I'll post here too.

Our little Friday night group has been trying to develop a D&D campaign without some of the traditional D&D flavour or genre. We started making some rules modifications, including borrowing from SW and d20 modern. Anyway, I started flicking through the d20 modern SRD (I don't have the published rules) and have been thinking of adopting the d20 modern core classes.

I think it would give us a little bit more flexibility in building characters, particularly characters that don't fit the typical archtype like rogue or warrior. I was thinking that the standard D&D classes could be presented as 'prestige' classes... presumably with relatively low requirements so people that *do* want to play to a standard archtype can hit the PrCs as quickly as possible.

I'm pretty certain that there are other groups out there that have done this... it just seems to make a lot of sense to me. Does anyone have any rules conversion write-ups? Websites I can be pointed towards? Or I am going to have to build this sucker myself?

 

[Spatzimaus]

WotC just released "Urban Arcana" for d20 Modern, that adds all the spellcasting and stuff you need. You could try that.

My group is finishing up our own version of something similar, coming up with a more generic ruleset that leaves out many of the Sacred Cows of the D&D setting. There are some published works out there that take care of this already, but not much. It's sort of like making a d20 GURPS.

The big headaches?
> Magic
> Planar Cosmology and what it implies for how magic works. (The whole Prime Material/Elemental Planes/Outer Alignment Planes thing doesn't really work well, IMO)
> Making it generic enough that you could immediately transfer to a modern setting if you wanted.

There aren't many Shadowrun-style settings that effectively combine magic with technology, that I've seen. You're probably going to have to design your own if the existing rules don't work for you.

Anyway, our version uses the six D20Modern classes (except with most skills and weapons tweaked to the D&D setting), and adds three "magic" classes, each of which has only one prerequisite: the appropriate Wild Talent Feat. That is, you start off at level 1 as a "normal" class like Smart Hero, take Wild Talent (Wizardry) as your level 1 Feat, and at level 2 you can begin taking levels in Wizard. A few races start with these Feats, which not only gives them a small amount of magical power, it allows them to take the class at level 1.

Then, add some Prestige Classes that mimic the D&D classes, and you're set.

The three magic classes:

Mutant: (Either think of the X-Men, or the 3E Monk) Based on the Four Color to Fantasy "Hero" class, you get a certain number of points at each level, which can be used to buy increased abilities, or to mimic spells. These are usable at will, and are CHA-based. So, you want a guy who is very agile, can Dimension Door at will, and has heightened senses? No problem. (*BAMF*)

Wizard: The D&D-style spellcaster, sort of, but more like a Cleric than a Wizard. You prepare spells, but when you run out you can still throw raw power at the enemy at a high cost. It's a WIS-based class.
(For those of you familiar with the Amber books, think Logrus magic)

Channeler: Like a Psion or Sorcerer, but not quite. Basically, if you can imagine the effect, you can cast the spell. It's like the ultimate in metamagic: if you want the spell bigger or smaller, just make it that way. Instead of learning specific spells, you learn generic schools, like "Fire Magic", and then you do just about anything involving fire you can think of.
The downside is that they don't have power points, or spell slots, or anything like that. Every time they cast a spell they take damage, and if they try to cast above their heads (a level 2 caster doing a level 5 spell) it can easily be fatal. But, by raising Channeling skill you can make this damage subdual or remove it entirely, so a level 10 Channeler can cast level 1 spells all day.
INT-based class.

Anyway, with the rules we have for this, we've been able to convert characters from just about every game into the one system, so it seems to work well.