| Warwick |
Mike,
I was looking at the D20 modern rules and I think you missed the importance of the begining profession section. This inital profession exists only in d20 modern and adds to normal D20 modern classes, allowing additional feats and skills to be added to the character classes, adding to the initial first level and further down the line. D&D classes lack this initial point and although the core D20 modern classes look weaker initially; long term, gain more class features than their D&D counter parts. Think about fighters for a second and compare them to the strong hero. The overwhelming advantage of fighters is their first level proficency in all martial weapons, and light, heavy and medium armor, but the archaic weapons feat gained from the adventurer begining profession counters this significantly. Additionally the strong hero picks up a talent or feat every level compared to a fighter that gains a feat every second.
In previous games I have been involved with the modern classes were placed along side the normal classes but significantly were the only ones able to access the advanced classes easily. Players mixed and matched a fair amount but if you took a modern class you always added "the profession" to it on the first level you took a modern class. We also used action points and the advantages and significant additional action points gained by D20 modern classes are significant when this is incorporated.
Beyond that the use of Armor damage reduction (arcana unearthed) was also useful in making melee a very common addition to the game.