The Campaign Builder's Guild

Is it possible to aproximate any fictional character using any D&D and/or d20Modern rules.

I believe that you can, you just might need to re-work some rules.  In D&D, you can do that.

core rules are all you need.   :)

With the core rules to guide you, and homebrew material to fill in the gaps.  Of course, I count psionics as core and everything depends on what your DM will allow.

Ah, yes! EPH is core. Well, atleast the core psionics book.

I'm an elementalist when it comes to mechanics; my aim has long been to reduce core mechanics to their simplest, most flexible, and least restrictive essence.

To put it practically, I like it when players find the perfect mechanic to support and describe a precise concept. But I prefer it when that "perfect mechanic" is a creative use of basic building blocks, rather than Incredibly Specialized Prestige Class #873.

To put it bluntly, I think the large number of splatbooks and they way they're written tends to guide players into a trap, wherein we start to replace "a compelling character" ("character" in a literary sense) with "a powerful set of numbers," and are trained to consider new feats, PrCs, and spells a valid substitute for interesting writing.

That said, core rules are not perfect either. If they were, I wouldn't have revised them.

Only so far, in my opinion. Two things have always bothered me about D&D: how you can be an incredible warrior and also a powerful wizard (which would probably come out to good BAB, good HD, and access to 0th-9th level spells at the same time), which I've seen in some RPGs and stories, and how in a lot of stories a powerful person or adversary can be slain in not more than half a dozen hits (often just one or two), while in D&D unless they fail a spell save, fail a massive damage save, or just get dealt a lot of damage in one hit, they can take a lot of blows. The roleplaying kind of fixes these things up, but there are a lot of problems with them.

Quote from: Mezerous, Leader of the Witch-Hunt...how in a lot of stories a powerful person or adversary can be slain in not more than half a dozen hits (often just one or two), while in D&D unless they fail a spell save, fail a massive damage save, or just get dealt a lot of damage in one hit, they can take a lot of blows...

My companion thread, Breaking the limits of the d20: Getting the Impossible Cinamatographics into Your Game (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?8778.0) answers just that. Sorta.

I have no problem with character building... that part is always fun and interesting for me. It's just fun making spiker dread necromancers, four-armed mithral warforged gunslingers, and half-giant samurai with monkey grip and oversized two-weapon fighting.
My problem is with things you can't DO... like choking people, pulling an Indiana Jones and brachiating via whip, slamming people's head against a wall... stuff like that.

Hey, yeah!  I wanna choke someone!  Stuid grapple rules are all...stupid...and stuff...

Quote from: Mezerous...and how in a lot of stories a powerful person or adversary can be slain in not more than half a dozen hits (often just one or two), while in D&D unless they fail a spell save, fail a massive damage save, or just get dealt a lot of damage in one hit, they can take a lot of blows.

My problem is with things you can't DO... like choking people, pulling an Indiana Jones and brachiating via whip, slamming people's head against a wall... stuff like that.[/quote]Sword and Fist[/i].  The same book has the lasher prestige class, which can braciate using a whip.  Just update from 3.0 to 3.5 and you're good to go.

As for slamming heads into walls, that's either an ordinary unarmed strike attack or an ordinary slam attack.  Don't believe me?  Check out the Combat entry for the vampire spawn in the Monster Manual.  It describes their slam attacks as "hammering their foes with powerful blows and dashing them against rocks or walls."

Quote from: Black Jack DaveyHey, yeah!  I wanna choke someone!  Stuid grapple rules are all...stupid...and stuff...

that they are... and stuff.

Quote from: beejazz

Quote from: Black Jack DaveyHey, yeah!  I wanna choke someone!  Stuid grapple rules are all...stupid...and stuff...

that they are... and stuff.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Honestly, the confusion of grappling has never been worth it to me.

With an open DM with a sound head on their shoulders, anything can be done. Beejazz does have a big point, and my counterpoint is that it is up to the DM to create rules for things which require new rules.

An example: a player once wanted to tackle someone to the ground. This effectively combines a charge and a grapple, with making your opponent prone as the outcome of your grapple check. Because there is a downside (you're prone as well), I let him do it with grapple damage as well; he charged the opponent, made a touch attack, then a grapple check, and when he succeeded he dealt grapple damage and they were prone.

As many here know, I am not shy with making new rules. But in a manner similar to Luminous Crayon, I'd rather not add rules willy nilly.

As for creating any character, that comes down to the world too. If a character archetype has no business being in the world (an X-Man style mutant being in a standard D&D game for instance) than a player shouldn't be able to make it. But if it's reasonably fitting (such as a all fighter fencer or an all fighter two-weapon fighter, who are currently weaker than other fighters), then a DM should add material to make it possible.

Then again, I don't condone over saturation of PrCs.

Quote from: XeviatAs for creating any character, that comes down to the world too. If a character archetype has no business being in the world (an X-Man style mutant being in a standard D&D game for instance) than a player shouldn't be able to make it.

If the campaign includes psionics, something X-Men style might actually not be too bad.  Maybe some people in a village withing a few miles of some mage's tower start changing...

meh... tackling is more of a charging trip as I see it. touch attack+opposed strength check. +2 to touch attack for charge. otherwise, the end result is the same except that the player remains standing.