Whats Different

THIS NEEDS UPDATING!

What whats different about Future Path? What sets it about from Future d20 or for that matter any other Pen and Paper game? Well glad you asked! The biggest goal is to create a game system where Characters will have more well defined strengths and weaknesses. Balanced is achieved by groups/teams of characters. Another major goal is to help speed up combat to make it feel more action packed and involved. Here is a list of things different from Future d20 and what we strive to make uniq about our game system.

1. Wealth System:

A lot of P&P (Pen and Paper) game systems use a simplified way of handling wealth. The goal is to stream line game play and make it more about the story then about epic shopping. However this forces the GM and the Player to roll play in a certain way. What if you want to play out attempting to pay for the illegal substance or for your new Star Ship. Buying a ship can be a major commitment and achievement for a Player. So why not have Players manage there money? Well... its difficult when you get into modern finance. Things are more complicated. There needs to be a middle ground. We believe that our Wealth System is a good middle ground that helps to express a Players Wealth in a way that represents modern money without bogging down game play.

2. CTO/CTD :

CTO stands for Combat Technique Offence and CTD stands for Combat Technique Defence. This is inspired by rules from d20pfsrd.com. Except we change it up a little. Our take on it is simple. In Future settings its more about epic laser battles and space ships. Not swords or melee combat. This isn't to say there isn't melee. But you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. So we take all melee style fighting and got it into Combat Melee System. That includes the classical maneuvers like trip and grapple. But also means punching or pistol whipping. Our goal here is to make melee combat smooth and quick. You roll the same d20 dice and you already know your modifiers because they are on your Character sheet. Combat should be able to transition quickly into melee and back into use of a ranged weapon. This also includes Advanced Combat Techniques. These are Techniques that require a feat or special class ability to preform. An example is the Combo Melee Attack.

3. Campaign Setting:

What originally inspired this was the serious lack of a Campaign Setting to explore for d20 Future/Modern. There was no Forgotten Realms or Golarion to explore. Although not completely a bad thing it kept the d20 Modern/Future game from feeling whole. Although it did make some sense. d20 Future is simply an expansion/module for d20 Modern. And Modern didn't really need a full Campaign Setting. It could be easily based in real world today. Maybe with just a few twists in it. d20 Future never had the attention it needed. It was too tied to its base on which it was founded on. The first thing that inspired this whole project was simply to give d20 Future a galaxy to run around in. Still largely unknown with possible mysteries or dangers at every star system but at the same time a home to go back to. Large amounts of explored space with civilizations all striving to prove themselves.

4. Tech Level:

The Progress levels explained in d20 Future seamed over simplified yet also possibly over complicated. On one end there was not a lot of restrictions laid out on characters Progress Level. There civilizations progress level doesn't effect a Players Knowledge/Crafting and general experience with items of different levels. On the other end there was a lot of different levels. 9 to be exact. When Playing a d20 Future game rarely did we bring in Progress Levels with any relevance. But technology is so cool! Sci-Fi is surrounded by neat tech that unlocks wondrous impossibles and brings them into the palm of a Characters hand. They can bring power and awe. People of lower understanding may simply view someone with advance Technology as a god. Or at least someone of great power that should be feared. Technology is the fuel source of Sci-Fi story plot and can be used to empower GMs and Players alike. In Future Path Player Characters inherit the Tech Level of the civilization they grow up in. The Tech Level effects what level of items a player can repair/modify/craft. And penalties are given for the use of items with Tech Levels to high for a character to understand. More on Tech Level here

5. Attack Bonus:

Taking a page from D&D Next while also attempting to better balance Classes and levels we have separated the amount of attacks per turn a Class gets from its Attack Bonus. Now extra attacks are special abilities awarded at certain levels. Also the term "Base Attack Bonus" has been replaced with "Affinity Bonus". Although similar to D&D Next its not quite the same. Your Affinity Bonus goes towards your Melee and Ranged attacks with weapons you are trained to use. It also is a modifier for saving throws with Attributes you have an affinity with. D&D Next doesn't stop there and applies the bonus to other things. Also how you determine Attributes you have an affinity with differ slightly. And even more different is you can have different "Efficiency Bonus" for each class. So you have a Base Class Affinity and your Advance Class also has an Affinity Bonus.

6. Skills:

Our approach to handling Skills may seem at first glance to be the same old same old. However there are several major differences. There are 3 types of skills. Natural, UnNatural, and Rank Dependent. The "Rank Dependent" is a new addition to our rule set. The idea is that the rank of the skill determines the best possible outcome. Instead of it just helping to beat a DC by adding a modifier to your d20 roll it also predetermines how good your success is if you do indeed successful. The best example is with Language. Now Language is handled by having a skill rank for each Language you know. If you have a rank of just 1 in say "Common Human" then your best possible outcome is just being able to tell that what you are reading/listening too is indeed Human speech and maybe a few words here and there. Even if you succeed with a natural 20. Your Character is just learning the language. Higher the rank the better the best possible outcome will be.

We also add more rules on how to add more ranks to Natural skills. All skills have to be Trained before you can put ranks in them. Class skills are automatically Trained at level 1. However in order to apply the Character's ability modifier to an untrained non-class skill it must first be trained which costs a skill point. If the skill is a Natural skill can still attempt the action but they simply do not add any bonuses too it.

To Learn more please visit the Skills Basics page.

7. Language:

As noted above in the Skill's section we treat language differently. You simply do not add a language once you level up and instantly are fluent in it. There is a Language skill. This skill determines the amount of languages a character can have. It also is added to any check that evolves comprehending a foreign language. Each language you use has its own skill and skill rank. The rank of that skill predetermines the best possible outcome. Your roll is simply to see if you succeed or fail to achieve that outcome. At rank 1 of a specific language skill a player is just learning that language. The rank is 1 through 6. 6 being that they are fluent in the language so much so they the appear to speak and write it as if it was there first language and they are able to manipulate accents. Each language skill is considered a "Trained" skill and to move up a rank in it costs 2 skill points instead of just one. That also goes for the primary Language skill itself.

For the Campaign Setting another twist is added. A lot of different pen and paper games have different philosophies on how to handle language. We want to make a system that can be flexible for both major scenarios. One is that there is a common language and all Players speak it and most NPCs and other characters in the story does as well. Language barriers are rarely brought up. The other side of the fence is a more gritty/realistic approach and has language barriers be a common problem and even used as a plot device. Our approach will be to introduce a common language but have it up to the GM and Players on just how "common" it is in the universe. The the official Campaign setting there will be two common languages. Low Common and High Common. Low being a very simple and easy to learn language thats only confusing part is its many different ways of expressing meaning in order to facilitate species biological differences. Its simple in that it is used to convey only the most basic ideas. High Common is far more complicated with far more exceptions however with complexity you also gain the ability to express much more. Of course there will be other languages but these two are the best way to communicate to the average alien. Will you use this setup? Its honestly up too the GM. But more rules on language skill can be find in the Skills section and more about Low/High common can be found in the Campaign Section.