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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.
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."
Honestly speaking, I think you could manage something like this without really changing the classes at all. Just push people towards the more appropriate archetypes.
The big difference between a fantasy setting and a more modern setting is swords being replaced with guns. We've got the gunslinger class, and gun-focused archetypes for a fair number of classes. You might want to just plain make everyone proficient with firearms, and reclassify everything martial as exotic, but otherwise, viable versions of everything already exist.
Equipment would need a bit of work. You probably don't want "gold pieces" as your main unit of currency, firearms should be cheaper (and lose that armor-ignoring quality), while melee weapons should be more expensive. For armor, I'd keep the stats and just refluff everything. You'd need to stat out a bunch of common useful consumer gadgetry like phones and cameras, possibly computers...
... which are potentially an elephant in the room. At the bare minimum, you'd want to add a skill to cover any sort of IT stuff. I think making some sort of hacker class would be a bit over the top, but I'd definitely toss in some rogue tricks and/or feats for a few things like that (you COULD let Disable Device handle it, depends how big a focus you want on that sort of thing).
A few spells would need inventing or tweaking. A cantrip to call elevators as you approach? Message getting a huge boost in range? Protection from Electromagnetic Pulses? You'd probably want spell-e-readers too... that's probably another refluff issue. The cost of jotting down new spells is thanks to DRM.
Monsters would need some major overhauls, or you can just be choosy. Still assuming firearms are in, there's a lot to be said for making everything faster.
The biggest concern I see though is rationalizing it all. If you go the Shadowrun route, where all this stuff gets dumped on a magic and monster free modern setting, that's easy enough to manage. Going the other way though, things get weird.
A typical fantasy setting had a low general population of humanoids, scattered in isolated pockets, most of whom are so powerless against all the monsters out in the wilderness that the PCs represent the special few who can really get out and about in the world. It's not so much a technology gap that prevents people from building huge urban sprawls and highways and such, it's that constant manticore attacks make it kinda hard to build that interstate. Now, modern weaponry solves that problem nicely, but now you have no monsters left really. Similarly, concern for innocent human lives causes people in the real world to hold back a bit when it comes to waging war, but if you're dealing with an army of the undead, there's no reason not to just bomb them into oblivion immediately. Same with any intelligent tool-using humanoid that everyone doesn't accept as a person.
Magic and population density have a weird relationship too. City growth is all about access to food water and means of generating electricy. Magic can handle all of that, and it's more or less impossible to regulate. And how commonplace is it? If only one person in a thousand can cast fireball in fantasy land, OK, that's about 2 people in a nice sized city. They probably run it. In a city of millions though, that's thousands of powerful mages. Make it more rare? OK, but now they're all going to be big time celebrities...
Just food for thought here.
I'd like to see something on this, and I'd be willing to throw some mental energy on this. I have long periods of time at work that I can dedicate to working on rules and suggestions.
I bought a couple of the d20 modern books and thought they were a lot better than 3.5 DnD... then I discovered Pathfinder and realized how much better it was than D20 Modern. I would love to be able to bridge a gap between the two.
D20 modern had a number of problems, the main one I noticed when I ran a session of it was how the gun and healing rules worked to make even low CR encounters tremendously deadly. Damage from guns was incredibly high and hit normal AC, as opposed to having high crit damage and resolving against touch AC, and the way the class system worked, anyone who wanted armor anyway had to spend a feat on it.
I had a group of 5 players go up against 4 CR 1 robots armed with assault rifles. Only two of them had armor. One of our character was unconscious after 1 round, and the doctor was out of the fight trying to get him back in the fight with a meager 3 hit points gained per round.
Pathfinder rules for guns NEED to stay. A single bullet from a pistol that doesn't strike a vital area, as in Pathfinder, wouldn't deal much more damage than a spear. With things like guns around it's also important to take into account that hitpoint loss does not necessarily means a physical injury, as it did in d20 modern. It becomes increasingly hard to justify every bit of damage you take as an injury when a high level character has 100 hp and has taken 5 direct hits from a greatsword and is barely phased.
I'm partial to using Evil Lincoln's Strain/HP variant for hitpoints in pathfinder, I think it would be appropriate for this version of the game as well.
Also, I'm not sure about the class system. I don't feel there's any particular NEED to switch to a more generic class system like they had in d20 Modern. Given the vast number of archetype already available, the existing classes provide a vast number of options. I think what needs to be done is defining these classes's roles in society.
For instance, Wizards are magic users with a degree in their field of study, while Witches and Sorcerers have no formal education in magic and as such can't get the really good magic jobs that Wizards can, but probably have more connections with the urban underground (giving them Know Local as class skills).
Clerics may not fit the flavor, but Oracles sure can. They wield magic that comes from their faith in some divine source, but there isn't any evidence that it is any different from a Sorcerer's, so it's still possible to have divine spellcasting classes while still having faith be a struggle.
The martial classes would be more or less unchanged, since there's always a need for security guards, soldiers, and other tough hombres.
At the risk of spamming this post, naturally we'd have to do away with WPL and use an adapted version of the Purchase DC system that d20 Modern uses. I made a Pokemon d20 conversion awhile ago and I worked it like this:
Every character got a certain amount of money to spend on starting items and rolled for their spare cash, 1d20 and adding all of their Craft and Profession bonuses.
Every character with a Profession skill also received a Wealth Bonus equal to 2d4 plus the number of Craft and Professions skills they had put ranks in. They coudl automatically afford any item with a price equal to or less than their WB, and they had to roll for more expensive items against a purchase DC. Failure meant they couldnt afford it until their next paycheck, success meant they bought the item and their WB went down by 1.
Isn't this already being done?
I'm pretty sure on d20pfsrd.com there is a link to a PFmodernSRD that seems to be a pathfinderization of d20 modern.
Isn't this already being done?
I'm pretty sure on d20pfsrd.com there is a link to a PFmodernSRD that seems to be a pathfinderization of d20 modern.
I have differences of opinion on the best way to go about modernizing D20 Modern.
Pathfinder rules for guns NEED to stay. A single bullet from a pistol that doesn't strike a vital area, as in Pathfinder, wouldn't deal much more damage than a spear. With things like guns around it's also important to take into account that hitpoint loss does not necessarily means a physical injury, as it did in d20 modern. It becomes increasingly hard to justify every bit of damage you take as an injury when a high level character has 100 hp and has taken 5 direct hits from a greatsword and is barely phased.
I'm partial to using Evil Lincoln's Strain/HP variant for hitpoints in pathfinder, I think it would be appropriate for this version of the game as well.
You have a point that the gun rules in D20 Modern aren't good enough, and that guns should be equivalent to, say, spears and bows. I also DO NOT like the fixed reflex save DCs for explosions and automatic weapons.
I'm looking at either Evil Lincoln's system or the Unearthed Arcana wound/vitality system, with the caveat that some weapons go strait to the wound system, bypassing vitality. This is because having a rocket go off right next to you should either kill you or come pretty damn close to it.
Also, I'm not sure about the class system. I don't feel there's any particular NEED to switch to a more generic class system like they had in d20 Modern. Given the vast number of archetype already available, the existing classes provide a vast number of options. I think what needs to be done is defining these classes's roles in society.
I'll keep that in mind. It is a good point.
For instance, Wizards are magic users with a degree in their field of study, while Witches and Sorcerers have no formal education in magic and as such can't get the really good magic jobs that Wizards can, but probably have more connections with the urban underground (giving them Know Local as class skills).
I like the idea here as it pertains to Wizards and Sorcerers. For Witches, I want to tie them to a grimoire (a spell book with a lot of ritual significance) with an arcane bond in a similar manner to how vanilla Pathfinder ties them to a familiar, and flavor them as Wizards who use a much older and more traditional form of magic. Essentially, Wizards are the researchers, inventors, and visionaries, while Witches are the proponents of the old ways.
Clerics may not fit the flavor, but Oracles sure can. They wield magic that comes from their faith in some divine source, but there isn't any evidence that it is any different from a Sorcerer's, so it's still possible to have divine spellcasting classes while still having faith be a struggle.
That works for Oracles, and for Clerics I could have them put their faith in the spirits that inhabit the natural world. These spirits don't say much, and will assist any who honor them with the proper rituals, so whatever gods exist is still quite a mystery. I would make the Druid a Cleric archetype under this system.
The martial classes would be more or less unchanged, since there's always a need for security guards, soldiers, and other tough hombres.
I'd make the Paladin into a more general character type to cover religious warriors in general, and make it a Fighter archetype. The Barbarian wouldn't exist, but it's class features would be available as options for the Fighter or Ranger. I plan to retain the Cavalier, but respected as a vehicular class. I could so see a Cavalier being a fighter pilot or tank commander, or maybe a police officer who's really good at car chases.
At the risk of spamming this post, naturally we'd have to do away with WPL and use an adapted version of the Purchase DC system that d20 Modern uses. I made a Pokemon d20 conversion awhile ago and I worked it like this:
Every character got a certain amount of money to spend on starting items and rolled for their spare cash, 1d20 and adding all of their Craft and Profession bonuses.
Every character with a Profession skill also received a Wealth Bonus equal to 2d4 plus the number of Craft and Professions skills they had put ranks in. They coudl automatically afford any item with a price equal to or less than their WB, and they had to roll for more expensive items against a purchase DC. Failure meant they couldnt afford it until their next paycheck, success meant they bought the item and their WB went down by 1.
I'd rather just track characters' bank accounts. I'd only pay attention to big purchases (more than $100), ignoring little things that don't matter like fast food or gas, so it shouldn't be too hard to do.
I'd like to see something on this, and I'd be willing to throw some mental energy on this. I have long periods of time at work that I can dedicate to working on rules and suggestions.
Thanks. I could use as many thoughts as possible.
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.If you're interested to make it a project rather than just a discussion, I'm on it Kelsey.
Lets say, first step we gather all those really interested, second we organize ourselves and, third working seriously on it I've no doubt we can have our beta Pathfinder d20 Modern/Future before summer.So, if you're seriously ready to develop it, we're already two.
Anyone else??
I'm seriously interested, and I have enough on my plate with school and extracurricular activities to need the help.
Who is interested in joining a team for this project?
Honestly speaking, I think you could manage something like this without really changing the classes at all. Just push people towards the more appropriate archetypes.
The big difference between a fantasy setting and a more modern setting is swords being replaced with guns. We've got the gunslinger class, and gun-focused archetypes for a fair number of classes. You might want to just plain make everyone proficient with firearms, and reclassify everything martial as exotic, but otherwise, viable versions of everything already exist.
I want to attach weapon proficiencies to the trait system like I am with skills (a soldier is going to be able to use almost anything, a police officer can use guns and batons, and a security guard can use the same stuff as a cop, but a civilian journalist likely can't use anything unless that's where they put their bonus feat), eliminate the Gunslinger, and give it's toys to the Fighter (Fighters can now sacrifice bonus feats to get rage or grit abilities. Nobody can accuse my Fighters of being bland and uninteresting :D). I just don't see the need for the class in this sort of setting.
Equipment would need a bit of work. You probably don't want "gold pieces" as your main unit of currency, firearms should be cheaper (and lose that armor-ignoring quality), while melee weapons should be more expensive. For armor, I'd keep the stats and just refluff everything. You'd need to stat out a bunch of common useful consumer gadgetry like phones and cameras, possibly computers...
I agree here, though I am using a system similar to gold pieces. They just aren't actual gold pieces.
... which are potentially an elephant in the room. At the bare minimum, you'd want to add a skill to cover any sort of IT stuff. I think making some sort of hacker class would be a bit over the top, but I'd definitely toss in some rogue tricks and/or feats for a few things like that (you COULD let Disable Device handle it, depends how big a focus you want on that sort of thing).
I'm going with a skill for it, some rogue tricks and feats, and maybe an archetype or two.
A few spells would need inventing or tweaking. A cantrip to call elevators as you approach? Message getting a huge boost in range? Protection from Electromagnetic Pulses? You'd probably want spell-e-readers too... that's probably another refluff issue. The cost of jotting down new spells is thanks to DRM.
I'm doing all of this, except it doesn't cost anything to jot down new spells. However, some spells aren't around any more, I use a spell point system, and I'm making 3rd the highest spell level. This is something I would do even with vanilla Pathfinder, and it works better than it sounds like it would. I took away the feat cost for metamagic and allow it to be applied on the fly, and spellcasters can cast more in a day. This takes away some of the sheer firepower of the Wizard, and they have a lot fewer spells, but they can do more stuff with their spells and they can do it for a longer period of time, and playtests with this were actually pretty fun. It encourages less rote casting and more on the fly thinking, and I did some really neat things with the metamagic system. A player who doesn't use metamagic won't have much fun with this system, because liberal use of it is what makes this magic system work as well as it does.
Monsters would need some major overhauls, or you can just be choosy. Still assuming firearms are in, there's a lot to be said for making everything faster.
They definitely needs to be an overhaul, especially with the big spell levels being gone.
The biggest concern I see though is rationalizing it all. If you go the Shadowrun route, where all this stuff gets dumped on a magic and monster free modern setting, that's easy enough to manage. Going the other way though, things get weird.
A typical fantasy setting had a low general population of humanoids, scattered in isolated pockets, most of whom are so powerless against all the monsters out in the wilderness that the PCs represent the special few who can really get out and about in the world. It's not so much a technology gap that prevents people from building huge urban sprawls and highways and such, it's that constant manticore attacks make it kinda hard to build that interstate. Now, modern weaponry solves that problem nicely, but now you have no monsters left really. Similarly, concern for innocent human lives causes people in the real world to hold back a bit when it comes to waging war, but if you're dealing with an army of the undead, there's no reason not to just bomb them into oblivion immediately. Same with any intelligent tool-using humanoid that everyone doesn't accept as a person.
Magic and population density have a weird relationship too. City growth is all about access to food water and means of generating electricy. Magic can handle all of that, and it's more or less impossible to regulate. And how commonplace is it? If only one person in a thousand can cast fireball in fantasy land, OK, that's about 2 people in a nice sized city. They probably run it. In a city of millions though, that's thousands of powerful mages. Make it more rare? OK, but now they're all going to be big time celebrities...
I'm taking a fantasy world and advancing it to the modern day over time and natural evolution of technology. I am thinking on these issues, but it will take some time to formulate a response to the questions brought up here.
One of the most successful visions for a naturally advancing fantasy world and what that might look like was the Legend of Korra series. It was pretty clear the old Avatar: The Last Airbender was starting to see a strong revolutionary age and while many things looked familiar to our real history, there were some wonderfully clear deviations there.
Elaborate on this spell system/vappung at 3rd level. Personally, I think spellcasters get really crazy after 6th, what with Wish and everything, and I prefer the progression of spells that Alchemists and Magi get.
I think it's very important that all of the new content created is balanced in such a way that it would fit right into the default Pathfinder as a supplement: characters are just as powerful numerically (though the source of their power may differ), replacing magic with technokogy as needed to maintain power level.
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This sounds like an interesting project. And yeah, for something high urban fantasy, I agree with the sentiment that you'd tweak existing Pathfinder classes, adding Modern skill sets and the like.
I've been working on my own Pathfinder-d20 Modern hybrid for awhile, but the focus has been extensively much more on making a contemporary/sci-fi game; with a few exceptions (writing up a "psychic" class), I've mostly been leaving the "Urban Arcana" aspects of it alone (with the advice being along the lines of "if you want a spellcaster, use the wizard class and add x skills"). So it's very interesting to me to see someone coming from the opposite end and focusing solely on the urban fantasy possibilities of the system. I'll definitely be interested in seeing what you come up with.
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Don't want to hijack the thread or anything (this is an AWESOME read! Keep it up) but we're actually developing a Surrealist/H.R Giger inspired sci-fi
(Thread) setting and we're running into a lot of the same stuff you guys are talking about. Maybe I can give you guys some good info from the playtests we've been running.
-Something to conceder is the prevalence of firearms in a modern game. This shifts the dynamic a lot, particularly due to their increased range (If you are going to do that). In traditional play people are up in each other's faces, fighting and a few guys are blasting away. In a modern game everyone is blasting and a few guys are running up face to face.
-Scale everything back a bit. Let people have d8s and d6 hit dice. Save the big dice sizes for the thickies. Guns that do burst fire or automatic might just get higher dice size. We made a mistake and pushed some guns to what they SHOULD be... it didn't end well for the playtest characters. Abstract it a bit. Maybe ammo should be counted on a "how many rounds can you fire this gun" scale rather then on a 1:1 scale.
-Guns kill. Armor (unless your using magic or sci-fi armor) really isn't that effective against bullets in the same way armor was effective against swords. Dodge/cover is much more important. Might want to play with improved cover rules or whatever.
-I saw you guys are strait converting some classes for a kind of urban-punk vibe. That's good. We're running into issues regarding healing.
Anyway, hope you guys get something out of our trials and tribulations!
Your fringer kind of sounds like nomad from cyberpunk 2020...
Your paladin type could be an android/cyborg/warforged...
would totally love to get involved with this, especially when it comes to feats, since feat creation is a bit of a hobby of mine.
I don't see why Sport wouldn't be governed simply by movement speed, Swim, Acrobatics, AB and AC,depending on the sport.
Dot.
Elaborate on this spell system/vappung at 3rd level. Personally, I think spellcasters get really crazy after 6th, what with Wish and everything, and I prefer the progression of spells that Alchemists and Magi get.
I think it's very important that all of the new content created is balanced in such a way that it would fit right into the default Pathfinder as a supplement: characters are just as powerful numerically (though the source of their power may differ), replacing magic with technokogy as needed to maintain power level.
I'm pulling that rule change. I had quite a bit of fun with it, but it's still a rough homebrew with a lot of kinks. I have just purchased Elements of Magic along with Lyceian Arcana, which is a more refined and more tested system that achieves the same feel my homebrew goes for. This will be the magic system used.
I also picked up Thaumatech, which will be used very heavily when I dive into magic items. I bought Modern Magic volumes 1 and 2 and Elements of Magic: Mystic Earth to use in tailoring the magic system towards modern games.
I don't see why Sport wouldn't be governed simply by movement speed, Swim, Acrobatics, AB and AC,depending on the sport.
Agreed.
would totally love to get involved with this, especially when it comes to feats, since feat creation is a bit of a hobby of mine.
I can use all the help I can get.
Concerning hit points they must be enough to give a Die Hard flavor, still players should feel some stress when someone's aiming at their character.
The simplest way to do is to consider hit points much like stamina and to have another indicator for vitality like constitution score.
When a critic is rolled the damages are not doubled but removed from constitution score, if greater than the score the character is unconscious (equivalent to negative hit points), if less the character would be wounded (reduced CON) until healed or killed.
So even having a hundred hit points you won't consider a fight too lightly.Firearms damages could be as follow:
.22 : 2d6 (crit. 19)
9mm : 2d8+1 (19)
.45 : 3d6 (19)
.44 : 2d10+1 (19)
.50AE : 3d8 (19)
12 g : 2d12 (19)
5.56 : 3d6 (18)
7.62 : 3d8 (18)
.50BMG: 3d10 (18)Skills list
Acrobatics
Appraise
Bluff
Climb
Craft (Demolitions)
Craft (Electronics)
Craft (Mechanics)
Craft (Multimedia)
Craft (Pictural) (drawing, painting)
Diplomacy
Disable Device
Disguise
Drive
Escape Artist
Fly (includes parachuting/0-G maneuver)
Forensics (finding & collecting clues, initial conclusions)
Gambling
Handle Animal (includes Ride)
Intimidate
Know. (Administration) (includes business & management)
Know. (Arcana) (includes Spellcraft/Use Magical Device)
Know. (Astronomy) (includes astrogation)
Know. (Biology) (includes genetics, botany, zoology)
Know. (Chemistry) (includes biochemistry, pharmacology)
Know. (Geography) (includes geopolitics)
Know. (History) (includes archeology)
Know. (Law)
Know. (Planetology) (includes geology, meteorology, oceanography)
Linguistics
Medicine (includes Heal)
Navigation
Perception
Perform (Acting)
Perform (Dance)
Perform (Music)
Pilot
Sense Motive (includes psychology, profiling)
Sleight of Hand
Sport
Stealth...
I'll have to do some thinking on this.
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No Offense but a .22 doing 2d6 is just hilarious in its ridiculousness... 1d8 for .22LR and 1d6 for standard .22 is more in line to the damage they deal.
If you want help I am more than willing. In fact I have the rights to a Setting designed for 3.5/d20 Modern that is easily modified to fit in with Pathfinders Firearms and CMB/CMD set-up.
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.
'64 or '67 Chevy Impala Full-SS/Super-SS Metallic Black. Sweetest car ever made. 67 and 64 respectively remain in a repairable condition.
So you want a '50 and '60 era Golarion (that even sounds like a car), eh?
I really can help. Though can I throw in a little of the '20 and '40 eras?
Clerics may not fit the flavor, but Oracles sure can. They wield magic that comes from their faith in some divine source, but there isn't any evidence that it is any different from a Sorcerer's, so it's still possible to have divine spellcasting classes while still having faith be a struggle.That works for Oracles, and for Clerics I could have them put their faith in the spirits that inhabit the natural world. These spirits don't say much, and will assist any who honor them with the proper rituals, so whatever gods exist is still quite a mystery. I would make the Druid a Cleric archetype under this system.
I feel like this is suggesting a move away from the importance of gods in PF, and I have to wonder, why? Assuming there wasn't some mass god genocide at some point, gods are probably just as important, if not more so, in a modern PF setting as they were in the medieval setting. There would probably be some changes in the known gods(some become less important, while ones, like Amodesus and Abadar perhaps, gain more followers and maybe some new gods from the starstone show up(some kid hacks the starstone computer system and becomes the god of hacking(this is a terrible idea actually, don't do it)), but to just kinda ignore them as a whole would be a huge loss for the setting I think.
When I think of divine magic in a modern setting, I'd be more likely to want Oracles. But, you're right, Dead Phoenix, I think that actually having gods in the world would be interesting in a modern setting. Amodesus and Abadar would be appropriate, as would Desna (as we'll still have dreams) and Pharasma. I mean think of modern temples to Pharasma (dealing with cremation, the dead, and judgement).
Religion is still a major part of modern life. It makes since for some form of religion to exist in "Modern Golarion".
Maybe make them into Vestiges or such.
Like in my setting all domains are ruled over by a Vestige. A demi-plane that draws in raw energy and provides the necessary energy to Cause the items related to their domain to function.
Such as Artifice being over creation. Travel powering Transportation and such.
Hmm, Maybe all Clerics in my setting should be Separatist...
Why have magic be fantastic? In Shadowrun UCLA teaches magic and a variety of magic courses. However,Shadowrun doesn't have a Wish spell either. I can see some powerful circle of wizards that monitor magic use, similar to Dragonlance.
You mentioned magic before,I think the hurdles would be:
1: How magic affects travel? Why fly if you can Teleport?
2: How magic affects medicine? Flesh eating virus? No problem!
3: How magic affects warfare? Do you want a Magic Missle to the groin maggot?!
Also, there were optional rules for armor reducing damage taken, similar to Earthdawn. This might make more sense with guns. But this would change the whole "Touch AC" system.
I might be up for some assistance, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.
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I did a quick and dirty conversion of PF to D20 Modern for a Borderlands campaign I ran. It needs a lot of work, not everything is tested, and some things probably seem really off, but it worked really well for what I wanted it to do. I had to do an entire splatbooks worth of work for the Borderlands parts, but this served as a pretty good basis.
1: How magic affects travel? Why fly if you can Teleport?
2: How magic affects medicine? Flesh eating virus? No problem!
3: How magic affects warfare? Do you want a Magic Missle to the groin maggot?!
My thoughts on these.
1. Teleportation circles/Greater teleport items are the method of choice for between major teleportation hubs. Most people travel this way for international travel. Buses, Trains, and Cars are used for shorter distances. Planes are still used because of their versatility, but have a more limited role: Rural areas, wilderness, cargo, and military.2. If you can afford it. For most people, traditional medicine will still be the main stay. If you've got strep, you'll probably choose a few days being sick and taking antibiotics rather that paying several months wages. Overall all you're right though, far fewer people dying to serious infections. However, some diseases may be resistant to magical, or non-magical, cures. Or, perhaps what we regard as traditional medicine is the alternative here, just starting to get accepted as something that can contribute to the traditional magical cures?
3. In most situations, spells can't compete with modern weapons. A 5th level caster has to get within 150ft to use fireball. A squad of 1st level fighters armed with automatic weapons would riddle him. Remember, WWI era artillery could hit targets leagues away. No spell can match that. Or this may be the common perception, a result of a WWI/WWII style conflict where squads of casters were out-shined by battalions of tanks and legions of riflemen. I see magic have the greatest effect in urban and other close environments among specialist squads. The conflicts in Iraq, Libya, and Syria would be excellent areas for military applications of magic to shine. Need to take out the sniper in the building across the square, send in a squad with invisibility. Need to escape the squad sent after you? Potion of gaseous form.
Hope these responses were useful.
There area I'd be most interested in helping out with is religion.
That works for Oracles, and for Clerics I could have them put their faith in the spirits that inhabit the natural world. These spirits don't say much, and will assist any who honor them with the proper rituals, so whatever gods exist is still quite a mystery. I would make the Druid a Cleric archetype under this system.
Is this the route you'd like to go? If so, you're losing a lot of the Pathfinder flavor, but make the setting more similar to our own.
If you go the Pathfinder route, you do something that makes some gamers very edgy. The gods in the modern world are real and everyone knows it. This differentiates the setting from our modern setting in a number of way.
I prefer the second option, as I love the mythology of Golarion and would be interesting in attempting to bring it into a modern setting.
Instead of Airports you have something like Teleportation Crystals like in FFXII. And then the cheaper way is Airship.
Magic, It is studied at universities and such. But you must pass a certification exam to legally use it.
Less Diseases means higher Populations. Which normally means more Wars.
Switch Firearms to use Normal AC and give some firearms a Property called Heavy.
It cuts the AC Bonus from Armour by Half.
Make armour into Body Armour style gear. Use Piecemeal rules and generate stats for Light, Medium, and Heavy versions.
On Automatic Weapons. I have rights to a 3.5 Supplement that has 3-Burst, 5-Burst, Full-Auto, and Heavy mundane weapon properties.
Look for the Metro 2033 Campaign thread in this very forum.
I am of the opinion that each gamer has a couple of things that they happen to loath as a matter of personal taste. In my case, this would be ressurrection, alignment, the magic item economy, and teleportation. This will factor into my worldbuilding.
As for the magic system, I myself plan to use Elements of Magic, but I see no reason that the option to use Vancian magic couldn't be left open, as not everybody has Elements of Magic or prefers spell point systems. If you can slot Elements of Magic into a game as a replacement for Vancian magic relatively easily, you should be able to do the reverse.
As for the rest, I will respond in a few hours.
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I use Vancian Magic but make use of Modular Spell Slots.
A Wizard can take 3 Level 1 Slots and make a single level 3 slot.
Or take a Level 9 slot and make 9 Level 1 Slots.
I use Alignment as a guideline. Magic Items tend to be rarer in my campaigns. Teleportation is one of those specialist things that is hard to obtain.
Though I make Wizards gain only 1 spell each level and it must be approved.
67 GTO and 67 Impala... Prrrr.
I am of the opinion that each gamer has a couple of things that they happen to loath as a matter of personal taste. In my case, this would be ressurrection, alignment, the magic item economy, and teleportation. This will factor into my worldbuilding.
I have to agree with you on these, especially alignment.Teleportation may not have to be completely removed, but perhaps a bump in level. You could always make magic too unstable to be bound to items, allowing for more advanced tech. Maybe keep the minor items such as potions (which I think would be cool as modern day "patches") and scrolls.
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Make it to where weapons and other permanent items are harder to make do to Magic starting to go into a "Low Tide" phase.
Say 1.5x Cost and +5 DC.
67 GTO and 67 Impala... Prrrr.
Yes, and built with modern technology? That engine's gonna sing.
I am of the opinion that each gamer has a couple of things that they happen to loath as a matter of personal taste. In my case, this would be ressurrection, alignment, the magic item economy, and teleportation. This will factor into my worldbuilding.I have to agree with you on these, especially alignment.Teleportation may not have to be completely removed, but perhaps a bump in level. You could always make magic too unstable to be bound to items, allowing for more advanced tech. Maybe keep the minor items such as potions (which I think would be cool as modern day "patches") and scrolls.
I'm working with the idea that permanently binding magic to an item can be done, but it's very expensive and generally only for the filthy rich. One shots like potions and scrolls are much easier to do, and, while not exactly dirt cheap, they are easier to get.
Instead of Airports you have something like Teleportation Crystals like in FFXII. And then the cheaper way is Airship.
I would prefer airports.
Magic, It is studied at universities and such. But you must pass a certification exam to legally use it.
Yes. Perhaps make them register, too.
Less Diseases means higher Populations. Which normally means more Wars.
Economic status has to be factored in, too. A strong economy and good healthcare system generally mean a lower birthrate. However, in a setting heavily based off of the 50s and 60s, I cannot ignore the possibility of a baby boom.
Switch Firearms to use Normal AC and give some firearms a Property called Heavy.
It cuts the AC Bonus from Armour by Half.
Make armour into Body Armour style gear. Use Piecemeal rules and generate stats for Light, Medium, and Heavy versions.
Perhaps, though I was looking at level based AC bonuses, wound/vitality, and having heavily weapons deal damage strait to wound points. However, this is not set in stone yet.
On Automatic Weapons. I have rights to a 3.5 Supplement that has 3-Burst, 5-Burst, Full-Auto, and Heavy mundane weapon properties.
Look for the Metro 2033 Campaign thread in this very forum.
I'll take a look.