Min-Maxxing in d20 Modern

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Lago_AM3P
Duke
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Min-Maxxing in d20 Modern

Post by Lago_AM3P »

We're not talking about abusing the wonky wealth system or their version of half-assed spellcasting. Oh no.

Just simple, by-the-numbers, straight 20 levels in classes. Of course, since the wealth system is jacked up, there's no way of telling what sort of equipment you're supposed to have at any given point. So. I'm going to try to min-max in a vacuum here. It's not easy.

Or rather, it actually is, if you're just using Urban Arcana and the core book. Apparently, the people who made this game balanced most violent encounters on the assumption that even heavy melee combatants had a 3/4ths BAB, with even combat-heavy classes like the Soldier and the Thrasher on BARD BAB.

Plus. If you're playing in a campaign with Shadow, you want the Shadowslayer advanced class anyway. It comes with:

Very good (for d20 Modern) saves in all categories.

Full BAB (Rock on).

A decent skill list for a bruiser type.

Free enhancement bonuses for all melee weapons in a game where 15th level characters are supposed to be happy with their +1 beatdown stick.

Damage reduction against natural weapons of non-animal critters, non-robot, non-human critters.

The ability to detect magical objects and creatures without even caring.

Fast Healing, the most rockin' ability this side of the Mississippi--it'll even save your life against massive damage saves and it also means that you recover from wounds faster than Wolverine. Seriously. You could get shot in the nads by a rocket and fail the massive damage save and walk away from that a minute later.

The not-inconsiderable ability of Shadow Enemy, which will give you an extra +6 and +4 damage against an arbitrary creature type (including constructs and undead).

And finally, at level 10, Word of Slaying, which will autostun ANY creature of shadow for at least 1 round, allowing the rest of your party to chew through it like a snack. If you saved up all of your action points, your party could take down anything from Shadow but nuclear tachyderms.


That's better than a lot of D&D prestige classes (sadly). Unfortunately, this also means that Shadow Slayer by far and away beats the pants off of most martial PrCs, so practically everyone takes it.

I also had my eye on Holy Knight, but it's really hard to get the godly stats in d20 Modern needed to pull this feat off. Anyone else have some good min-max builds?
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Desdan_Mervolam
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Re: Min-Maxxing in d20 Modern

Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

I got an NPC into Holy Knight through Arcane Weaponmaster with a quck stop-off through Urban Warrior for flavor purpouses. It's not that hard

I've noticed a few things about d20 Modern. For one thing, the first level of fast hero is too damned good. a point of Reflex save, a good skill list with average skill points, and a choice of Evasion or a 5-foot speed increase make it a fair-to-middlin' class to begin with, but the unprescedented three-point Defense bonus has all my players considering a dip into Fast Hero.

With as many guns as there are in the game, don't go lightly into any of the melee-based classes, like the Martial Artist, the Shadow Slayer, or the Arcane Weaponmaster. Sure, you can throw down with the best of them when your opponent is five feet away, but you'll get mowed down in a hail of lead before you get close enough to do anything.

Oh, and if you allow Urban Arcana, save yourself a headache and don't allow an ogre PC. Hell, don't allow any of the ECL races. They're too much of a pain to balance properly.

-Desdan
Don't bother trying to impress gamers. They're too busy trying to impress you to care.
Lago_AM3P
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Re: Min-Maxxing in d20 Modern

Post by Lago_AM3P »

Yup. Unfortunately, I'm hard-pressed to find a full-BAB class that grants any abilities geared towards shootery.

The Shadow Slayer comes to mind, once again, but unfortunately a huge class ability (free weapon enchantins') kind of falls by the wayside.
DracoNova
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Re: Min-Maxxing in d20 Modern

Post by DracoNova »

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:I got an NPC into Holy Knight through Arcane Weaponmaster with a quck stop-off through Urban Warrior for flavor purpouses. It's not that hard


It's a little harder to make a really effective one, though, due to the mad MAD that a good HK will suffer from. He's got to have a 12 or higher in Charisma, for example, if he wants to make any real use of Turn Undead (granted, an Acolyte can do this a lot better a lot sooner, so it's not that important), Divine Touch (which is a little more important given the scarcity of healing, and is also likely to net you praise from your party's Acolyte, who isn't doing all of the healing anymore), or Divine Grace (which is important if you want good saves). He needs a Wisdom of 13 or higher for spellcasting (while this is easily attained through the usual level-based stat boost, such boosts are probably better spent on Strength, which a front-line fighter will need. Furthermore, if he's going through the Strong base class (which you'll want to if you want a full BAB progression), he'll need an Intelligence of 12 or higher if he wants to have any skills of appreciable rank besides the ones required by HK. Individually, the costs aren't bad, but they do add up -- if you're using the 25-point build system, you're going to be feeling the pinch, especially at lower levels. Given these, I'm not sure HK is really worth the costs -- a good percentage of the special features of the class can be done sooner and better by Acolytes.


Lago_AM3P wrote:Yup. Unfortunately, I'm hard-pressed to find a full-BAB class that grants any abilities geared towards shootery.


Well, there is one, but a) it's in a Web Enhancement, and b) you have to either go through one of the spellcasting classes or burn a feat on Arcane Skills to get it. The Spellslinger from the UA Web Enhancement offers full BAB, but pitiful saves (+0 to everything at level 1). Furthermore, its primary ability is Enchanted Shot, which grants an Arcane Archer-like bonus to every round the Spellslinger fires. This doesn't even get interesting until 5th level, where the bonus hits +4 and becomes higher than the bonus a basic caster (not including Archmages or Ecclesiarchs) could get through GMW. On the other hand, it does offer abilities that reduces concealment bonuses, fire short-range "smart" shots at the cost of an Action Point, and imbue spells into the 'Slinger's bullets for an Action Point. The last ability can be pretty nifty if used correctly -- Bestow Curse bullets leap immediately to mind.

At the moment, I'll reserve judgement on the class, but I can see its potential uses in creating a cousin of the D&D cleric archer -- a sort of cleric gunslinger (or the "Wolfwood", as I'll nickname them). I'm still working on a build for such a character; I'll post it for review once I've got it ready.
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