I did armor as half DR/half AC for d20 Modern for the longest time (tie goes to DR, so studded leather was +1 AC/DR 2/-, and full plate was AC +4/DR 4/-). It worked out really well, especially for dragging down the insane numbers for Def/AC you'd get in that system. In 5e, Armor as AC is probably way more useful, not just mechanically, but balance-wise, due to the bounded accuracy.
The last rules we used for shotguns had them do their damage in xd4: 5d4 at 5 ft, minus 1d4 for each additional, but +1 to hit for each 5 feet of distance, so at max range it's 1d4 damage, but with +4 to hit. This works primarily because 5e adds your Dex bonus to ranged damage, so any damage you give to guns, you'll also have Dexterity bonus mixed in there. I like the cone damage, though. That might be good for a variant.
We dropped the rifle in the DMG from 2d10 to 2d8 after extensive testing.
Raygun pistols do 2d6 and give the next melee attack made on their target advantage (this has resulted in some players wielding a raygun in one hand and a sword in the other, taking a shot, moving up, and using a bonus action to attack with the sword. Player manipulation attempt: success!). Raygun rifles do 2d8 and likewise cause the next melee attack made on their target to have advantage.
The Sky-Person Hotstick - This is a long stick made of the same shining material as a Sky Person basket. It ripples like water when waved around, and can be used as a club. When activated by gripping it with both hands, however, it begins to hiss and bubble inside, and let out streams of smoke. When turned on, instead deals 2d6 fire damage and gives the target disadvantage on their next attack (as long as it is made in the next round).
Sky-Person Fire Catcher - These are small silver orbs that, when grasped, attempt to fly out of the hand. When a user lets go, it hangs in the palm as if held there, and three pyramids hover out of the orb and hang near it in the air. When the user wishes to attack someone with it, she holds out her hand and closes her fingers just a little, and a flash of light leaps out of the tiny pyramids toward the target. They make a hissing noise when used. They count as raygun pistols.
Honestly, the real big advantage to guns, if you have them in your world, is that they ought to be really cheap. Guns won the weapons race not because of how much damage they could do to the enemy army, but because of how quickly and cheaply they could be made. Carving a bow might take days, making a gun took an hour or two at most, at least back in the day. As metal stamping becomes a thing and people figure out how to use it for guns, they will proliferate even faster. At the end of the day, a crossbow and a gun are equally dangerous to flesh, one is just easier to get, easier to load, and can hold way more than just one bolt.
Information Technology! Whether its powered by divination spells operated by tiny djinn, electronic disks, or even non-volatile storage mediums like magical books, the big change once a setting starts to go modern is access to information and information technology. There is a really cool take on this called Cryptomancer, and it's money I consider well-spent. You can slow this down a little by changing when and where you run games (I run mine at the beginning of what looks like he atomic age; it's really driven by the discovery of the smallest responsive elements of its animistic world, and rather than electronics, things operate on complex deals and bargains. "Let's see, Dead Bird is wired in series with Melted Smiley Clown Face. This runs in parallel to Wicked Cool Axe and Fur That's Been Scorched. Capacitance is managed by Mummified Turtle Stuffed With Leaves."), but once you start stepping into a world with working, networked "computers," things will really take off.
I have been thinking about brainstorming a D&D setting firmly in the "1980s," like with a Cold War going on (possibly against Magocratic societies) and synth pop and...
I just finished typing up a google doc with my thoughts of the Modern Magic UA for a discord I'm a part of that's going to be using it (and other bits) to run a game. I feel like some of the urban cleric domain stuff should actually be for an 'urban druid.' I think that the classes that are in that document are too dependent on 'tech spells' that might not be in actual modern based worlds (it seemed like it was written more for a futuristic setting rather than a modern one), and there didn't seem to be any alternatives to guns/swords. Guns might be popular in the US and the settings we make, but most other places in the world that have the tech level needed, have very strict gun laws. I did suggest a lot of stuff, but I don't feel like copying everything here. It's a nice start, but it needs a lot of expanding before it's something that could be used with a wide range of settings.
It all seemed pretty modern to me. I have no less than five smart devices in my house, and I live in, we could just call it "lower income housing." Almost all of those spells that deal with computers are things hackers can already do.
I do agree about the urban druid thing. I would love to see one of those - the Mechanics from Xenozoic Tales would make an awesome druid order.
Guns, I think, tend to be popular in the settings we make because when we build settings they're based on fictions, and guns are the new sword, much like how trenchcoats are the new cape. Also, if you're pushing D&D into a modern context, this is a world where just outside your city is going to be a warzone. Societies living in a modern D&D universe would come in two types - active and passive. Active societies would be engaged with the monsters at their doorstep and be very big on gun ownership and proliferation, because dragon don't care. Passive societies would know that your best bet is to hide behind wall Rose and grow all your food internally. Both of these societies would need access to weaponry because your day at the market could become a Tarrasque buffet at practically any moment. They will have discovered that castles are useless and that building cities underground is a viable option, especially in the light of modern growing techniques.
It all seemed pretty modern to me. I have no less than five smart devices in my house, and I live in, we could just call it "lower income housing." Almost all of those spells that deal with computers are things hackers can already do.
I do agree about the urban druid thing. I would love to see one of those - the Mechanics from Xenozoic Tales would make an awesome druid order.
Guns, I think, tend to be popular in the settings we make because when we build settings they're based on fictions, and guns are the new sword, much like how trenchcoats are the new cape. Also, if you're pushing D&D into a modern context, this is a world where just outside your city is going to be a warzone. Societies living in a modern D&D universe would come in two types - active and passive. Active societies would be engaged with the monsters at their doorstep and be very big on gun ownership and proliferation, because dragon don't care. Passive societies would know that your best bet is to hide behind wall Rose and grow all your food internally. Both of these societies would need access to weaponry because your day at the market could become a Tarrasque buffet at practically any moment. They will have discovered that castles are useless and that building cities underground is a viable option, especially in the light of modern growing techniques.
I mainly meant that that's all they seemed to base their 'modern' spells on is tech. Some of the tech stuff might be a stretch in some environments, too. But in modern times, there's not just tech, but machinery, bio-warfare (which is an alternative I suggested for a modern warlock in my document :P ), and all else.
As for the types of worlds, that really depends on the game. It is entirely possible for someone to make a game where it's not a warzone (or not yet) and where guns and the like are highly regulated. It really depends on the DM and the story they choose to tell. Just like the PHB gives a large selection of races to choose from, the DM could say that only some of them are in a given world. It would just be nice to have more options besides swords or guns.
Oh, it certainly would. I lament the lack of a heavy diplomacy-based class, as one example.
Bio-warfare is one of the oldest forms of warfare. Genghis Khan conquered China with it. The Romans regularly used gas attacks. It was rampant during the Crusades. And there are plenty of contagion and gas clouds-based spells already.
When I say warzone, I mean, there's a book called the Monster Manual, and that stuff that's in there isn't supposed to be rare or one of a kind. That stuff's suffusing the world. The default setting is "points of light." Cities are the bastion of civilization in between tracts of land where the maps say "here be dragons" and they're right. It's not terra incognito, it's terra monstrorum. There are dragons. There are liches. There are bulette. Call me crazy, but I think it's insane that you wouldn't want your locals to have a way to defend themselves, but aside from arming themselves, there isn't a whole lot you can do to a bulette other than putting it down with a well-placed weapon. You can't talk the tarrasque down. You can't put sanctions on the wyverns. You can't tell mimics to stop pretending to be beds and eating people, and transitioning to a modern world requires that you figure out some way to deal with them, and as I said, there's two directions a society can go. It can be a spectrum between those two, but you can't negotiate with about half of the Monster Manual. It's a D&D setting, you have to imagine that the world has wild Tiger tanks wandering around randomly outside cities, they can move freely in three dimensions, and they like to eat people. There are flying varieties, too. Flying Tiger tanks with the ability to turn invisible, telekinetically control the entire forest, and silently cast Wail of the Banshee. That's not even counting on what happens when shadows realize what they can do.
So when you say there needs to be an alternative to guns and swords, and I question that, I'm not so much saying there can't be an alternative, I'm asking "but what's the alternative? How do you respond to monsters?" I'm not looking for "we field a powerful warlock/wizard/sorc/PC class," because that is not an option after the industrial revolution, because we somehow got the ability to perform large scale mining and industrial activities and we can't have that start happening if we have to call in what is essentially a rare thing every time a monster shows up. The modern world is too big and has too many fires for a technologically modern civilization to survive on the backbone of PC-type characters alone.
Oh, yeah, looking through your file, that reminds me. My favorite monster from Urban Arcana was the dumpster what eats people.
Just for completeness's sake, I'm going to stick links to the Modern Magic articles here.
Behind The Screens - My New D20 Modern Campaign: Outlines modern types of armor, very basic firearms, and how to implement Ballistic Damage. (https://tinyurl.com/jaekt5k)
Unearthed Arcana - Modern Magic: Gives us the City Domain, The School of Technomancy, the Ghost in the Machine Patron and 10+ new spells. (https://tinyurl.com/lgpzfnp)
Oh, it certainly would. I lament the lack of a heavy diplomacy-based class, as one example.
Bio-warfare is one of the oldest forms of warfare. Genghis Khan conquered China with it. The Romans regularly used gas attacks. It was rampant during the Crusades. And there are plenty of contagion and gas clouds-based spells already.
When I say warzone, I mean, there's a book called the Monster Manual, and that stuff that's in there isn't supposed to be rare or one of a kind. That stuff's suffusing the world. The default setting is "points of light." Cities are the bastion of civilization in between tracts of land where the maps say "here be dragons" and they're right. It's not terra incognito, it's terra monstrorum. There are dragons. There are liches. There are bulette. Call me crazy, but I think it's insane that you wouldn't want your locals to have a way to defend themselves, but aside from arming themselves, there isn't a whole lot you can do to a bulette other than putting it down with a well-placed weapon. You can't talk the tarrasque down. You can't put sanctions on the wyverns. You can't tell mimics to stop pretending to be beds and eating people, and transitioning to a modern world requires that you figure out some way to deal with them, and as I said, there's two directions a society can go. It can be a spectrum between those two, but you can't negotiate with about half of the Monster Manual. It's a D&D setting, you have to imagine that the world has wild Tiger tanks wandering around randomly outside cities, they can move freely in three dimensions, and they like to eat people. There are flying varieties, too. Flying Tiger tanks with the ability to turn invisible, telekinetically control the entire forest, and silently cast Wail of the Banshee. That's not even counting on what happens when shadows realize what they can do.
So when you say there needs to be an alternative to guns and swords, and I question that, I'm not so much saying there can't be an alternative, I'm asking "but what's the alternative? How do you respond to monsters?" I'm not looking for "we field a powerful warlock/wizard/sorc/PC class," because that is not an option after the industrial revolution, because we somehow got the ability to perform large scale mining and industrial activities and we can't have that start happening if we have to call in what is essentially a rare thing every time a monster shows up. The modern world is too big and has too many fires for a technologically modern civilization to survive on the backbone of PC-type characters alone.
Oh, yeah, looking through your file, that reminds me. My favorite monster from Urban Arcana was the dumpster what eats people.
You are too invested in your own world/campaign. If that's the only campaigns you can see, so be it, but there are others out there. Think of a Harry Potter/Perigrine's Home for Peculiar Children sort of setting where it's secret. The DM has full say in what monsters are in a setting. Not every world is going to have everything in the Monster Manual. Some might not even have the majority of it. In some worlds, who's to say that many of those monsters/other races haven't gone extinct or were banned to another plane? Or how about a setting where someone screws up a science experiment or something and all of a sudden there's magic in the world for the very first time? Anything and everything is possible. As for alternatives to swords/guns, maybe a larger selection of stats on 'improvised weapons' or items found in a location that could be used as a weapon. Take for example, a iron pipe. That's going to cause more damage than 1d3 or 1d4. What's the damage rolls for getting hit by a car? What about pepper spray? I haven't really read through the D20 Modern stuff much to see if those types of stats are given, but if the UA for Modern Magic is going back to more traditional classes, all the damage stuff with likely need to be overhauled.
You are too invested in your own world/campaign. If that's the only campaigns you can see, so be it, but there are others out there. Think of a Harry Potter/Perigrine's Home for Peculiar Children sort of setting where it's secret. The DM has full say in what monsters are in a setting. Not every world is going to have everything in the Monster Manual. Some might not even have the majority of it. In some worlds, who's to say that many of those monsters/other races haven't gone extinct or were banned to another plane? Or how about a setting where someone screws up a science experiment or something and all of a sudden there's magic in the world for the very first time? Anything and everything is possible. As for alternatives to swords/guns, maybe a larger selection of stats on 'improvised weapons' or items found in a location that could be used as a weapon. Take for example, a iron pipe. That's going to cause more damage than 1d3 or 1d4. What's the damage rolls for getting hit by a car? What about pepper spray? I haven't really read through the D20 Modern stuff much to see if those types of stats are given, but if the UA for Modern Magic is going back to more traditional classes, all the damage stuff with likely need to be overhauled.
No, I'm not talking about "my own campaign." I'm talking about D&D's default assumptions. If you want to hear about my own campaigns, I'd be glad to talk about them. I like to think one is pretty cool, it's got organic blimps, 1940s robots as a race, space demon viruses, and is more heavily based on American mythology than D&D's default Greek/European base (which is why I haven't been talking about it much, as it's very far from D&D's default assumptions). The other one is a post-apocalyptic dealio similar to your suggestion about magic showing up for the first time. There are no guns in it. You can check that one out on this very forum.
"In some worlds, who's to say that many of those monsters/other races haven't gone extinct or were banned to another plane?" Monsters going extinct is a pretty good answer to my question. I accept it.
"Or how about a setting where someone screws up a science experiment or something and all of a sudden there's magic in the world for the very first time?" Then everyone is screwed. Get ready for either the collapse of infrastructure due to public panic or World War III as everyone scrambles to get control of magic.
"Anything and everything is possible." You're right, which is why I'm going by D&D's default settings. If we start playing with the switches, we literally cannot discuss anything.
If you want to play a masquerade-type setting (check out number 6), I suggest either Chronicles of Darkness, or, for Miss Peregrine's, Mutants & Masterminds (GURPS would also be pretty cool). D&D is probably not the system for "magic is secret." Not saying you couldn't do it, just that without making scientists (and even pedestrians on the street) into either complete idiots or part of a global conspiracy (both of which are overplayed and out of character for scientists), a masquerade situation will not last for very long.
Sure, an iron pipe is a club. Big monkey wrenches can be great clubs, and so on.
In d20 Modern, pepper spray was useless due to the lack of bounded accuracy - it'd definitely be useful in 5e, though. d20 Modern's damage stuff might not need to be overhauled - most of the damage stuff seems on par with the way 5e works. You might be able to import some of those damage ratings with almost no conversion.
The big weakness of a car is that there's very few places to drive it. If your target is not on a flat surface, as an example, but there do need to be some collision rules. How about something that depends on the size of the vehicle and the speed it's going? Like, okay, what if the sizes are Smart, Coupe, SUV, Truck, Industrial, which gives a rating of 1-5, then you multiply that by your speed rating, let's say Parking, Neighborhood, Street, Highway, and Illegal, which gives another 1-5 rating. Then you multiply the two numbers and roll that many d6s? It's not perfect, definitely something to work on.
We really do need vehicle rules. What have you got?
Sure, an iron pipe is a club. Big monkey wrenches can be great clubs, and so on.
In d20 Modern, pepper spray was useless due to the lack of bounded accuracy - it'd definitely be useful in 5e, though. d20 Modern's damage stuff might not need to be overhauled - most of the damage stuff seems on par with the way 5e works. You might be able to import some of those damage ratings with almost no conversion.
The big weakness of a car is that there's very few places to drive it. If your target is not on a flat surface, as an example, but there do need to be some collision rules. How about something that depends on the size of the vehicle and the speed it's going? Like, okay, what if the sizes are Smart, Coupe, SUV, Truck, Industrial, which gives a rating of 1-5, then you multiply that by your speed rating, let's say Parking, Neighborhood, Street, Highway, and Illegal, which gives another 1-5 rating. Then you multiply the two numbers and roll that many d6s? It's not perfect, definitely something to work on.
We really do need vehicle rules. What have you got?
Yeah. D&D in the books likes to focus a lot on their worlds, but they do always talk about putting a person's own twist on things or making their own stuff up. With weapons, maybe add a con save for tetnis if it's rusty, or the rabid thing I mentioned in my document.
For cars, there would also need to be a roll for if you managed to crash or roll it. More damage if the person isn't strapped in, and if they're going at faster speeds, a roll to see if the vehicle gets torn apart. Motorcycles and 4 wheelers would have even more self damage.
For actual hitting damage... under 1mph is probably not going to have damage and used to shove or pull things (if not parked). With damage, maybe the higher in speed you go, the higher up in dice you go. d6s at the lower end, d10, d12, or d20 at the higher levels (semi truck going 70mph versus a pedestrian? that's like 30d20).
motorcycle/4-wheeler --- base damage d6
smart -- base damage d8
coupe -- base damage d8
SUV & small trucks -- base damage d10
large trucks, kitted vehicles -- base damage d12
smaller industrial vehicles -- base damage d12
large industrial vehicles -- base damage d20
Speed multipliers
For this I found this PDF and am mainly using this excerpt: Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph. Risks vary significantly by age. For example, the average risk of severe injury or death for a 70‐year‐old pedestrian struck by a car traveling at 25 mph is similar to the risk for a 30‐year‐old pedestrian struck at 35 mph.
up to 5mph -- multiply by 0 -object shoved/pulled same amount as vehicle, roll to see if knocked prone
6 - 10mph - multiply by 1 (normal base damage) - object thrown 5 feet, knocked prone
I don't know if such a granular system is useful or even convenient with 5e rules, but this is definitely a start.
Remember that most people, by default, do not have class levels or even hit points. A car hitting your average person is going to kill or severely injure that person, whatever the needs of the story are - therefore, the rules are only going to be used on PCs or DM bad guy characters, so the question you have to ask yourself is really "how hazardous to a PC should a vehicle be?" or, perhaps, "should a semi going 70 mph really be able to take out exactly one-half of the Tarrasque?"
PCs are essentially superheroes, and are not representative of the average hit points of a pedestrian (a pedestrian's average hit points are effectively zero). I don't think mechanics should be designed in such a way that the average pedestrian on the street needs to be John McClane to have a snowball's chance in hell surviving a hit with a smartcar going at a speed typically reserved for parking lots.
I was thinking up that chart with the thought that it would be PCs that would be seeing the damage. The D20 Modern system has sections about drive-by shootings. And chases are part of both systems I think. In a tech-y/mech-y world, there's likely going to be people who will try to hurt the adventurers with vehicles just because they're available.
The damage rolls could also be used for car accidents. Maybe like half falling damage when in the car and halve it again if they're actually belted in. If not, roll to see if they're thrown from the car and then roll the above damage. Being ejected from a car and hitting the ground at those speeds is going to be just as bad as being hit by a moving car.
But also, like in real life, if there's a car coming for you, most people try to get out of the way instead of taking the damage.
I'm also very much against the idea that PCs are somehow superheros. They work to get to the levels they are at, and even at higher levels can be one-shotted by powerful enough creatures/circumstances. Treating them as if they are superheros just makes them Mary Sues.
Hand Crossbow=Handgun/pistol (2d6/2d8 depending on which kind) Light Crossbow=rifle/combat rifle (2d8) Heavy Crossbow=Heavy Machine gun (2d8, multiple shots, -2 to hit cumulative penalty on each round past the 2nd in each burst) Longbow=Sniper Rifle (2d10/2d12 if it’s a .50 cal) Hasp=Mace short sword = bayonet on rifle (bonus +2 to AC on melee attacks incoming)
Armor Equalities:
plate carrier = studded leather old military kevlar vest without plates = chain shirt old military kevlar vest with plates = breastplate full military ballistic vest with plates/side plates = Half plate
Bomb Suit = splint mail, but heavier. heavy enough that the character can only move half their speed without a successful STR check
Also, I assigned HP to the armor. If there was an attack roll that would hit the armor instead of missing completely the damage would be rolled and applied to the armor.
So, in combat, a single round lasts 6 seconds. So we need to figure out how far a car can travel in that time.
I'm an American, so we'll do this to American measurement standards.
a car actively going 60 mph can go 1 mile in 1 minute. So a minute being 60 seconds, divide that by 10 and a mile (5280 feet) to get a car going 60 can go 528 feet in six seconds, or one round. a car going 30 mph can go half that (264 ft) That's the easy part, but lets say you are in combat, and the rogue successfully hot wires the car in the encounter and wants to run over the vampire spawn group that is harassing the rest of the party.
there's a lot of physics involved based on lots of different factors, but lets keep this simple, if there's anyone who is amazing at physics, please correct me.
So the average rate of acceleration of most average cars is between 3-4 m/s squared when testing a zero to 60mph time. So once it gets moving and accelerates over six seconds (Assuming your rogue is flooring it like he's going for the zero to sixty record) he can travel about 280 feet.
Say he only goes 15 feet and he's flooring it, he might be almost to 30 miles an hour and will hit the vampire spawn with enough force to do some serious damage. treat it like a boulder or falling rocks trap, but increase the damage due to force. a basic rolling sphere trap from the DMG deals 10d10 bludgeoning damage moving at 60 feet per round. I would call a car faster and therefor harder to dodge, and more damaging. basic conversions based on speed alone would put the damage at 46d10 at 60mph...DAMN... but your rogue was only at 30mph (at best) after 15 feet, so he'd be easier to dodge and only deal 23d10....
This is still a bit much for me, maybe call it 30d10 at 60 mph and 15d10 at 30. I'm not lobbying for the vampire spawn here, I just like to make it even, how many d10 do you want it to be when your party gets run over by a Buick?
Something tells me that when a real physics person gets a hold of this, they will show how horribly wrong I was and that it should be something like 72d10 or something.
Anyway, AC. that would be really low, they can't jump, usually can't turn on a dime, need to brake. I'd call it a standard 10 for AC, 8 for bigger vehicles, it's gonna get hit. I would give it resistance from bludgeoning and slashing weapons. Piercing like bullets would give full damage. Each section of metal would be resilient, and have 5d10 hp. tires and glass would have 2d4. Those are coming right out of the DMG.
So, in combat, a single round lasts 6 seconds. So we need to figure out how far a car can travel in that time.
I'm an American, so we'll do this to American measurement standards.
a car actively going 60 mph can go 1 mile in 1 minute. So a minute being 60 seconds, divide that by 10 and a mile (5280 feet) to get a car going 60 can go 528 feet in six seconds, or one round. a car going 30 mph can go half that (264 ft) That's the easy part, but lets say you are in combat, and the rogue successfully hot wires the car in the encounter and wants to run over the vampire spawn group that is harassing the rest of the party.
there's a lot of physics involved based on lots of different factors, but lets keep this simple, if there's anyone who is amazing at physics, please correct me.
So the average rate of acceleration of most average cars is between 3-4 m/s squared when testing a zero to 60mph time. So once it gets moving and accelerates over six seconds (Assuming your rogue is flooring it like he's going for the zero to sixty record) he can travel about 280 feet.
Say he only goes 15 feet and he's flooring it, he might be almost to 30 miles an hour and will hit the vampire spawn with enough force to do some serious damage. treat it like a boulder or falling rocks trap, but increase the damage due to force. a basic rolling sphere trap from the DMG deals 10d10 bludgeoning damage moving at 60 feet per round. I would call a car faster and therefor harder to dodge, and more damaging. basic conversions based on speed alone would put the damage at 46d10 at 60mph...DAMN... but your rogue was only at 30mph (at best) after 15 feet, so he'd be easier to dodge and only deal 23d10....
This is still a bit much for me, maybe call it 30d10 at 60 mph and 15d10 at 30. I'm not lobbying for the vampire spawn here, I just like to make it even, how many d10 do you want it to be when your party gets run over by a Buick?
Something tells me that when a real physics person gets a hold of this, they will show how horribly wrong I was and that it should be something like 72d10 or something.
Anyway, AC. that would be really low, they can't jump, usually can't turn on a dime, need to brake. I'd call it a standard 10 for AC, 8 for bigger vehicles, it's gonna get hit. I would give it resistance from bludgeoning and slashing weapons. Piercing like bullets would give full damage. Each section of metal would be resilient, and have 5d10 hp. tires and glass would have 2d4. Those are coming right out of the DMG.
i don't know about the AC full plate gives an AC of 18 and fighters in plate do a lot less dodging then rouges in leather. personally i'd give them something like 14, as for the rating damage i'd stick with the general rules for falling 1d6(b)/10ft moved before impact
but i must ask does the rouge get sneak attack on the damage roll :P
I suppose he could, but I wouldn't treat this as an attack roll, I'd still work it like an environmental hazard or trap at that point. A car would be loud, after all.
So a car going a reasonable speed, about 30 miles an hour and weighing 3000 kg (so, like, a good sized sedan) applies about ~21000N or so.
An average sword swing is about 230N or so (so 1d8, not accounting for Strength or whatever).
Sword swing probably hits about 5 cm^2 of the body's average surface area. Human body surface area is about 1.9m^2. Half that (typically the amount struck by a car) is about .95m^2.
0.05/0.95 = .052
.052*~21000N=1092N
Around 4d8 to 5d8 is about what I expected. That will literally kill anything CR 4-5 or lower in the MM and will almost certainly kill PCs level 1-5 (right in the John McClane area). It will instantly kill anyone not a PC unless the GM wants them to live. Things can certainly be extrapolated from there.
I'm also very much against the idea that PCs are somehow superheros. They work to get to the levels they are at, and even at higher levels can be one-shotted by powerful enough creatures/circumstances. Treating them as if they are superheros just makes them Mary Sues.
D&D, especially 5e, is constructed this way specifically (3.P even moreso). At levels 1-5, you are saving your town. At 6-10, your country. At 11-15, the world. At 16+, you are going to other planes and punching gods in the face. That's the way the game was built. Trying to force it down would require you to come up with some E6 variant (which would be freakin' awesome, and I say go for it), or maybe find another game (I suggest Chronicles of Darkness, it is built for this).
Local Heroes (1-4) - Battling wolves and goblins is the cool stuff at this area.
Heroes of the Realm (5-10) - But suddenly, they can fly, shoot lightning, teleport, and soak dragons landing on their heads. Oddly enough, at the upper end of this tier, they're conjuring massive amounts of rock that exists forever and can turn it into statues with the snap of a finger.
Masters of the Realm (11-16) - It gets worse here, with plane shift, reverse gravity, simulacrum, fire storm, resurrection, and summoning angels for fun.
Masters of the World (17-20) - I shouldn't have to explain what level 17-20 PCs are capable of, what with wish and gate and shapechange in play and all.
Source: check out the 5E DMG, Pages 36-37
And I agree, the PCs do work to get to the levels they're at. You probably misunderstand me - Treating them like superheroes does not make them Mary Sues (any more than making a character with heterochromia automatically means it's terrible and you should not do it), it means you can have demons show up and kick them in the goddamn stomach. They are bigger and better and larger than life to the people around them, so the threats they get to face should be commensurate. That doesn't mean their life is easy, it means the story is about them. If the threats they're dealing with can be put down by some no-level schmuck in a smartcar obeying the speed limit, then why the hell were there threats around for the PCs to cut their teeth on?
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You know what I would like to see though? A really cleaned-up version of d20 Modern. Not with classes based on an ability score, but with classes still very broad in their application. Probably closer to Spycraft.
Hitter -- This is your Strong/Tough Hero rolled into one, this is John McClane, Major Alan "Dutch" Schaeffer, and Max Rockatansky.
Grifter -- This is your Fast/Charismatic Hero, with lying, sneaking, lockpicking, finesse assault, and charming business. Your James Bond, John Wick, and Ulysses Everett McGill.
Brains -- Your Smart/Dedicated Hero, with hacking expertise, planning, bard-like dice granting, and so on. This is Neo, Egon Spengler, Heisenberg, and Hermione.
And I agree, the PCs do work to get to the levels they're at. You probably misunderstand me - Treating them like superheroes does not make them Mary Sues (any more than making a character with heterochromia automatically means it's terrible and you should not do it), it means you can have demons show up and kick them in the goddamn stomach. They are bigger and better and larger than life to the people around them, so the threats they get to face should be commensurate. That doesn't mean their life is easy, it means the story is about them. If the threats they're dealing with can be put down by some no-level schmuck in a smartcar obeying the speed limit, then why the hell were there threats around for the PCs to cut their teeth on?
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You know what I would like to see though? A really cleaned-up version of d20 Modern. Not with classes based on an ability score, but with classes still very broad in their application. Probably closer to Spycraft.
Hitter -- This is your Strong/Tough Hero rolled into one, this is John McClane, Major Alan "Dutch" Schaeffer, and Max Rockatansky.
Grifter -- This is your Fast/Charismatic Hero, with lying, sneaking, lockpicking, finesse assault, and charming business. Your James Bond, John Wick, and Ulysses Everett McGill.
Brains -- Your Smart/Dedicated Hero, with hacking expertise, planning, bard-like dice granting, and so on. This is Neo, Egon Spengler, Heisenberg, and Hermione.
I usually see it as more of a determination/dedication thing. NPCs usually lack the interest to push themselves farther and make themselves out to be a PC/Hero level character (outside the handful that a DM makes up to help or challenge the PCs). Granted, general ability also comes into it. An NPC with incredibly low stats isn't really comparable to a PC with stats over 12 in multiple abilities. Usually what comes to mind when I hear superhero is a Superman type character that can do no wrong and doesn't even have the ability to die. But I have seen a few vids/comments around the net that pretty much assumed that since they were the PCs/Heros of the story that everything they face should be easily defeated or that the DM should allow them to do whatever.
And I agree on wanting a revamped D20 Modern. I just made a character for an upcoming campaign on Twitch, and the entire time I was making a character I was wishing it was 5e. I guess with the way the PHB and DMG are written, you could make a modern setting with 5e, but it would take quite a bit of work. I don't really like the ability point system, Cantrips using spell slots, or the magic caster being a prestige class in d20, so would rather use a modded 5e than the dated D20 Modern that's already out.
Some of my fondest memories of D&D center on Modern d20. It was a whole lot of fun, I really would prefer a slow conversion of that to the Magic: The Gathering articles. It is clear they are pushing that as a potential new setting.
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I did armor as half DR/half AC for d20 Modern for the longest time (tie goes to DR, so studded leather was +1 AC/DR 2/-, and full plate was AC +4/DR 4/-). It worked out really well, especially for dragging down the insane numbers for Def/AC you'd get in that system. In 5e, Armor as AC is probably way more useful, not just mechanically, but balance-wise, due to the bounded accuracy.
The last rules we used for shotguns had them do their damage in xd4: 5d4 at 5 ft, minus 1d4 for each additional, but +1 to hit for each 5 feet of distance, so at max range it's 1d4 damage, but with +4 to hit. This works primarily because 5e adds your Dex bonus to ranged damage, so any damage you give to guns, you'll also have Dexterity bonus mixed in there. I like the cone damage, though. That might be good for a variant.
We dropped the rifle in the DMG from 2d10 to 2d8 after extensive testing.
Raygun pistols do 2d6 and give the next melee attack made on their target advantage (this has resulted in some players wielding a raygun in one hand and a sword in the other, taking a shot, moving up, and using a bonus action to attack with the sword. Player manipulation attempt: success!). Raygun rifles do 2d8 and likewise cause the next melee attack made on their target to have advantage.
The Sky-Person Hotstick - This is a long stick made of the same shining material as a Sky Person basket. It ripples like water when waved around, and can be used as a club. When activated by gripping it with both hands, however, it begins to hiss and bubble inside, and let out streams of smoke. When turned on, instead deals 2d6 fire damage and gives the target disadvantage on their next attack (as long as it is made in the next round).
Sky-Person Fire Catcher - These are small silver orbs that, when grasped, attempt to fly out of the hand. When a user lets go, it hangs in the palm as if held there, and three pyramids hover out of the orb and hang near it in the air. When the user wishes to attack someone with it, she holds out her hand and closes her fingers just a little, and a flash of light leaps out of the tiny pyramids toward the target. They make a hissing noise when used. They count as raygun pistols.
Honestly, the real big advantage to guns, if you have them in your world, is that they ought to be really cheap. Guns won the weapons race not because of how much damage they could do to the enemy army, but because of how quickly and cheaply they could be made. Carving a bow might take days, making a gun took an hour or two at most, at least back in the day. As metal stamping becomes a thing and people figure out how to use it for guns, they will proliferate even faster. At the end of the day, a crossbow and a gun are equally dangerous to flesh, one is just easier to get, easier to load, and can hold way more than just one bolt.
Information Technology! Whether its powered by divination spells operated by tiny djinn, electronic disks, or even non-volatile storage mediums like magical books, the big change once a setting starts to go modern is access to information and information technology. There is a really cool take on this called Cryptomancer, and it's money I consider well-spent. You can slow this down a little by changing when and where you run games (I run mine at the beginning of what looks like he atomic age; it's really driven by the discovery of the smallest responsive elements of its animistic world, and rather than electronics, things operate on complex deals and bargains. "Let's see, Dead Bird is wired in series with Melted Smiley Clown Face. This runs in parallel to Wicked Cool Axe and Fur That's Been Scorched. Capacitance is managed by Mummified Turtle Stuffed With Leaves."), but once you start stepping into a world with working, networked "computers," things will really take off.
I have been thinking about brainstorming a D&D setting firmly in the "1980s," like with a Cold War going on (possibly against Magocratic societies) and synth pop and...
I can feel... I can feel the NIGHT BEGINNING TO SHIIIIIIINE
I just finished typing up a google doc with my thoughts of the Modern Magic UA for a discord I'm a part of that's going to be using it (and other bits) to run a game. I feel like some of the urban cleric domain stuff should actually be for an 'urban druid.' I think that the classes that are in that document are too dependent on 'tech spells' that might not be in actual modern based worlds (it seemed like it was written more for a futuristic setting rather than a modern one), and there didn't seem to be any alternatives to guns/swords. Guns might be popular in the US and the settings we make, but most other places in the world that have the tech level needed, have very strict gun laws. I did suggest a lot of stuff, but I don't feel like copying everything here. It's a nice start, but it needs a lot of expanding before it's something that could be used with a wide range of settings.
It all seemed pretty modern to me. I have no less than five smart devices in my house, and I live in, we could just call it "lower income housing." Almost all of those spells that deal with computers are things hackers can already do.
I do agree about the urban druid thing. I would love to see one of those - the Mechanics from Xenozoic Tales would make an awesome druid order.
Guns, I think, tend to be popular in the settings we make because when we build settings they're based on fictions, and guns are the new sword, much like how trenchcoats are the new cape. Also, if you're pushing D&D into a modern context, this is a world where just outside your city is going to be a warzone. Societies living in a modern D&D universe would come in two types - active and passive. Active societies would be engaged with the monsters at their doorstep and be very big on gun ownership and proliferation, because dragon don't care. Passive societies would know that your best bet is to hide behind wall Rose and grow all your food internally. Both of these societies would need access to weaponry because your day at the market could become a Tarrasque buffet at practically any moment. They will have discovered that castles are useless and that building cities underground is a viable option, especially in the light of modern growing techniques.
Oh, it certainly would. I lament the lack of a heavy diplomacy-based class, as one example.
Bio-warfare is one of the oldest forms of warfare. Genghis Khan conquered China with it. The Romans regularly used gas attacks. It was rampant during the Crusades. And there are plenty of contagion and gas clouds-based spells already.
When I say warzone, I mean, there's a book called the Monster Manual, and that stuff that's in there isn't supposed to be rare or one of a kind. That stuff's suffusing the world. The default setting is "points of light." Cities are the bastion of civilization in between tracts of land where the maps say "here be dragons" and they're right. It's not terra incognito, it's terra monstrorum. There are dragons. There are liches. There are bulette. Call me crazy, but I think it's insane that you wouldn't want your locals to have a way to defend themselves, but aside from arming themselves, there isn't a whole lot you can do to a bulette other than putting it down with a well-placed weapon. You can't talk the tarrasque down. You can't put sanctions on the wyverns. You can't tell mimics to stop pretending to be beds and eating people, and transitioning to a modern world requires that you figure out some way to deal with them, and as I said, there's two directions a society can go. It can be a spectrum between those two, but you can't negotiate with about half of the Monster Manual. It's a D&D setting, you have to imagine that the world has wild Tiger tanks wandering around randomly outside cities, they can move freely in three dimensions, and they like to eat people. There are flying varieties, too. Flying Tiger tanks with the ability to turn invisible, telekinetically control the entire forest, and silently cast Wail of the Banshee. That's not even counting on what happens when shadows realize what they can do.
So when you say there needs to be an alternative to guns and swords, and I question that, I'm not so much saying there can't be an alternative, I'm asking "but what's the alternative? How do you respond to monsters?" I'm not looking for "we field a powerful warlock/wizard/sorc/PC class," because that is not an option after the industrial revolution, because we somehow got the ability to perform large scale mining and industrial activities and we can't have that start happening if we have to call in what is essentially a rare thing every time a monster shows up. The modern world is too big and has too many fires for a technologically modern civilization to survive on the backbone of PC-type characters alone.
Oh, yeah, looking through your file, that reminds me. My favorite monster from Urban Arcana was the dumpster what eats people.
Just for completeness's sake, I'm going to stick links to the Modern Magic articles here.
Behind The Screens - My New D20 Modern Campaign: Outlines modern types of armor, very basic firearms, and how to implement Ballistic Damage. (https://tinyurl.com/jaekt5k)
Unearthed Arcana - Modern Magic: Gives us the City Domain, The School of Technomancy, the Ghost in the Machine Patron and 10+ new spells. (https://tinyurl.com/lgpzfnp)
Speed multipliers
For this I found this PDF and am mainly using this excerpt: Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph. Risks vary significantly by age. For example, the average risk of severe injury or death for a 70‐year‐old pedestrian struck by a car traveling at 25 mph is similar to the risk for a 30‐year‐old pedestrian struck at 35 mph.
at even higher levels, maybe say they automatically fail 2 death saving throws.
I don't know if such a granular system is useful or even convenient with 5e rules, but this is definitely a start.
Remember that most people, by default, do not have class levels or even hit points. A car hitting your average person is going to kill or severely injure that person, whatever the needs of the story are - therefore, the rules are only going to be used on PCs or DM bad guy characters, so the question you have to ask yourself is really "how hazardous to a PC should a vehicle be?" or, perhaps, "should a semi going 70 mph really be able to take out exactly one-half of the Tarrasque?"
PCs are essentially superheroes, and are not representative of the average hit points of a pedestrian (a pedestrian's average hit points are effectively zero). I don't think mechanics should be designed in such a way that the average pedestrian on the street needs to be John McClane to have a snowball's chance in hell surviving a hit with a smartcar going at a speed typically reserved for parking lots.
Especially considering what some of us can live through.
I was thinking up that chart with the thought that it would be PCs that would be seeing the damage. The D20 Modern system has sections about drive-by shootings. And chases are part of both systems I think. In a tech-y/mech-y world, there's likely going to be people who will try to hurt the adventurers with vehicles just because they're available.
The damage rolls could also be used for car accidents. Maybe like half falling damage when in the car and halve it again if they're actually belted in. If not, roll to see if they're thrown from the car and then roll the above damage. Being ejected from a car and hitting the ground at those speeds is going to be just as bad as being hit by a moving car.
But also, like in real life, if there's a car coming for you, most people try to get out of the way instead of taking the damage.
I'm also very much against the idea that PCs are somehow superheros. They work to get to the levels they are at, and even at higher levels can be one-shotted by powerful enough creatures/circumstances. Treating them as if they are superheros just makes them Mary Sues.
i want rules for cars and other vechicels, speeds AC, damage resistances etc..
Oh this sounds like fun, lets figure this out.
So, in combat, a single round lasts 6 seconds. So we need to figure out how far a car can travel in that time.
I'm an American, so we'll do this to American measurement standards.
a car actively going 60 mph can go 1 mile in 1 minute. So a minute being 60 seconds, divide that by 10 and a mile (5280 feet) to get a car going 60 can go 528 feet in six seconds, or one round. a car going 30 mph can go half that (264 ft) That's the easy part, but lets say you are in combat, and the rogue successfully hot wires the car in the encounter and wants to run over the vampire spawn group that is harassing the rest of the party.
there's a lot of physics involved based on lots of different factors, but lets keep this simple, if there's anyone who is amazing at physics, please correct me.
So the average rate of acceleration of most average cars is between 3-4 m/s squared when testing a zero to 60mph time. So once it gets moving and accelerates over six seconds (Assuming your rogue is flooring it like he's going for the zero to sixty record) he can travel about 280 feet.
Say he only goes 15 feet and he's flooring it, he might be almost to 30 miles an hour and will hit the vampire spawn with enough force to do some serious damage. treat it like a boulder or falling rocks trap, but increase the damage due to force. a basic rolling sphere trap from the DMG deals 10d10 bludgeoning damage moving at 60 feet per round. I would call a car faster and therefor harder to dodge, and more damaging. basic conversions based on speed alone would put the damage at 46d10 at 60mph...DAMN... but your rogue was only at 30mph (at best) after 15 feet, so he'd be easier to dodge and only deal 23d10....
This is still a bit much for me, maybe call it 30d10 at 60 mph and 15d10 at 30. I'm not lobbying for the vampire spawn here, I just like to make it even, how many d10 do you want it to be when your party gets run over by a Buick?
Something tells me that when a real physics person gets a hold of this, they will show how horribly wrong I was and that it should be something like 72d10 or something.
Anyway, AC. that would be really low, they can't jump, usually can't turn on a dime, need to brake. I'd call it a standard 10 for AC, 8 for bigger vehicles, it's gonna get hit. I would give it resistance from bludgeoning and slashing weapons. Piercing like bullets would give full damage. Each section of metal would be resilient, and have 5d10 hp. tires and glass would have 2d4. Those are coming right out of the DMG.
it could be worse, you could be on fire.
I suppose he could, but I wouldn't treat this as an attack roll, I'd still work it like an environmental hazard or trap at that point. A car would be loud, after all.
it could be worse, you could be on fire.
So a car going a reasonable speed, about 30 miles an hour and weighing 3000 kg (so, like, a good sized sedan) applies about ~21000N or so.
An average sword swing is about 230N or so (so 1d8, not accounting for Strength or whatever).
Sword swing probably hits about 5 cm^2 of the body's average surface area. Human body surface area is about 1.9m^2. Half that (typically the amount struck by a car) is about .95m^2.
0.05/0.95 = .052
.052*~21000N=1092N
Around 4d8 to 5d8 is about what I expected. That will literally kill anything CR 4-5 or lower in the MM and will almost certainly kill PCs level 1-5 (right in the John McClane area). It will instantly kill anyone not a PC unless the GM wants them to live. Things can certainly be extrapolated from there.
Local Heroes (1-4) - Battling wolves and goblins is the cool stuff at this area.
Heroes of the Realm (5-10) - But suddenly, they can fly, shoot lightning, teleport, and soak dragons landing on their heads. Oddly enough, at the upper end of this tier, they're conjuring massive amounts of rock that exists forever and can turn it into statues with the snap of a finger.
Masters of the Realm (11-16) - It gets worse here, with plane shift, reverse gravity, simulacrum, fire storm, resurrection, and summoning angels for fun.
Masters of the World (17-20) - I shouldn't have to explain what level 17-20 PCs are capable of, what with wish and gate and shapechange in play and all.
Source: check out the 5E DMG, Pages 36-37
Some of my fondest memories of D&D center on Modern d20. It was a whole lot of fun, I really would prefer a slow conversion of that to the Magic: The Gathering articles. It is clear they are pushing that as a potential new setting.