Criticisms of d20

From Tab Wiki

Let's start with the simple reason: I plan to continue to run games in GURPS because I don't want to switch systems between every campaign, forcing everyone to learn yet another set of rules and adjust yet again. I generally like the GURPS system for its flexibility and ability to cover most concepts without extensive custom trait-making like I was doing when I ran d20. In addition, the GURPS system is "generic," so if we switch genres between campaigns, we don't have to learn a new system for fantasy, scifi, modern, western, mechas, fluffy bunnies, etc.

So why then not stick with the d20 system that we had been playing? Well, I have a few complaints about that system in general.

Complaints About the d20 System

• While there do exist fantasy, modern and scifi versions of the d20 system, there are subtle differeneces between these different versions that make adapting between then difficult. For example, in D&D Two-Weapon Fighting requires Dex 15. In d20 Modern this requirement is only Dex 13 and it requires another feat: Ambidexterity. While this may seem minor, when you internalize the small parts (like requirements) of one version of the system and try to run with the other version, you stumble a lot. Heck, even damage reduction works differently between them. And psionics work differently. (The result of different revisions between D&D 3.0, d20 Modern and D&D 3.5).

• When last we played the d20 system, I was asked to make all sorts of custom content, from races to classes to feats. While I did this, custom content isnt always that well play tested before it it put into use and the balancing between them and is rather abstract and difficult in the d20 system. This is something GURPS almost entirely avoids. So you can get your custom abilities and concepts without extensive rebuilding of Prestige Classes!

• Quite frankly I don't feel that some of the content in a lot of the D&D 3.5 and d20 Modern supplements are that well balanced. Were we to play it again I would have to either have to say: Stick with core content only (forcing me to make a lot more custom stuff, since the core stuff only leaves lot a lot) or go through all the supplements and decide what I feel is balanced and not balanced, a feat in itself.

• I learned from the Dragonlance campaign that unless you follow the suggested wealth curve between levels closely, the classes quickly become unbalanced at high levels. Fighters begin to get more and more behind and wizards, who aren't as dependent on items, begin to get more reletive power. This lends a great deal of inflexibility to d20 games. For example, say you wanted to run a game where each player had their own fief (like the old Birthright setting in D&D 2e). Money is a little issue for players, as they can set taxes how they want to milk more or less money from their peasants. This could be an interesting campaign premise. But this causes class balancing at high levels to break down. Or say you wanted to run a campaign where magic items were rare. This too causes class balancing to break down at high levels.

• The D&D challenge rating and XP system is built around the premise of 13.3 encounters per level, with 4 encounters a day, each taking roughly 20% of the party's daily resources. Now, 4 encounters a day is doable. At low levels what constitutes a challenge is fighting a band of goblins. This is not unbelieveable four times a day. But as the party raises levels, the encounters have to get more and more over the top in order to remain a challenge. By 10th level you need to be facing those goblins with several class levels piled on top on a bridge over hot lava in order for it to be a challenge. By 20th level, those goblins needed to be loaded with magic items, over a 50 foot drop to hot lava covered by an antimagic field. You know, that makes a good climactic battle. But when the premise is you face that four times a day, that's a little too much to digest. (Note the math that forces the encounters to take this aspect: The average 20th level fighter is going to have somewhere around 215 HP. A 50 foot fall is going to deal an average of 17.5 damage and the lava will deal an average of 35 damage a turn, meaning after the fall he can splash around in that lava a good 6 turns before he bites the dust, without any penalty for the pain!) And by 20th level he'll have a magic item to allow him to fly/teleport out of there anyway, so even that's not a challenge unless there's an antimagic field. Furthermore, the premise of the system is that he'll face something like this 4 times a day! Thirteen to fourteen times to raise a level.

• At low levels the game is better balanced, but characters at low levels suffer from all being very similar. Two different 1st level barbarians will always have the same base saves, the same BAB, the same class ability, the same class skills and will probably even have similar ability scores since in order to be an effective barbarian you need certain ability score builds.