Urban Planescape-How futuristic?

I think you underestimate how quickly Wealth awards add up. In a game I ran, the party decided to pool their Wealth, by giving their Wealth awards to a single character (rather than dividing it amongst the party). By level 7, they had enough to buy a tank. They didn't (probably because they lacked the feats to drive and shoot the thing), but they could have. By the rules, anyone with enough money can buy a license for a tank, then go out and buy one. Doesn't matter if they're civilians, military men, terrorists, or what have you. By level 7, they can get enough wealth to buy a tank. A tank that can be blown up by a few decent spells, or a couple shots from other tanks. If the PCs use a tank against enemies that are on foot (and who don't really have any means to easily destroy the tank), then the PCs get less XP by the rules.

Not neccessarily true. A tank would also be good to defend against random encounters, roadside attacks, and planned assaults on fortified positions.

As for magic influencing tactics... reminds me of the time I ran Adelie 14 in the Urban Arcana game I mentioned earlier. Everything went fine... I think I got rid of the russian soldier encounter, but when they saw that they were being backstabbed by their employers (who they had suspected of being untrustworthy from the beginning), they promptly went into planning mode, and moved all of the scientists into the dining room, and set up a kill zone in the corridor leading to the east exits. In RL, they spent at least a couple hours planning their defense, and it went off without a hitch. A combination of summoned Vivilors, wolves and badgers summoned from a Bag of Tricks, and hand grenades improvised from WW1 tank shells they'd looted in an earlier adventure resulted in a bunch of Ukrainian soldiers splattered all over the room. I think a couple soldiers managed to retreat, but got taken down by wolves shortly afterwards.

'Ulden Throatbane' wrote:

I hate to think what the gas milage would be lugging the tank everywhere

If you're not using d20 apocalypse rules, you can drive the tank for free

On the darker side, imagine taking a wrong turn with your tank and ending up in gehenna... weee :twisted:

I think this conversation is turning into "What kind of campaign style is better" debate. Frankly, I believe the rules of D20 Modern accomodate both styles well-it's up to the GM to determine the style of play.

As for the "Wealth System" in D20 Modern, I actually think that it's even more appropriate for UPS. If Sigil is supposed to be place where you can buy anything, then 'anything' should include military grade hardware. What you do with it is up to you, berk. Sell them to geurilla units in Ysgard? No one bats an eye at making jink. Go raiding trade routes in the Outlands? Sure, there's always room for another cross trader! Form a mercenary group? Hey, the Blood War is always looking for fresh cannon fodder. Try and take over Sigil? You're welcome to try-it's been a while since the last public flaying

No one is denying that compacts are easier to come by than a Bradley. On the other hand, we aren't talking about what Joe six-pack can reasonably afford. These are supposed to be heroes (okay, and villains too, Mr I-wuv-"The Book of Vile Darkness"), and like their ancestors of old, heroes tend to acquire a lot of jink. How that jink should be spent is up to the players and GM-if there is anything that the GM does not want in his campaign, it's always his call. No one has disputed this here.

Yeah the hardheads aren't happy that sods are buying and selling tanks in Sigil, just as they weren't too keen about, say, fireball scrolls being freely traded in the old days. They never really ran Sigil back then, and they have even less control these days thanks to the sheer number of potential power players these days.

And tanks aren't the only thing you can buy with the wealth that comes with higher levels. There's also connections, expensive cars, relics created from forgotten magic, a bar that happens to have a portal you guys need, Nightmare-possesed motorcycles, a start-up to serve as a front for your hare-brained schemes.

Even fireball scrolls aren't listed in the PHB equipment lists. All I'm asking is to put tanks alongside power armor and laser weapons in a "special equipment list", per se. That way, players don't expect a handout of rare and powerful weaponry simply because they have amassed enough money to buy it, which I personally think is kind of a boring way to get rare and powerful weaponry.

Hi, new here, but saw the technology discussion and thought I'd chime in. I'm currently using the Dragonstar (FFG) rules for technology. The campaign is sort of a Planescape/Dragonstar mix, centered around the fringe of the Dark Zone. You might call it, "Giths in Space". This is hi-tech, of course (Star Wars/Star Trek) which might be a bit out of place in Sigil.

OK.

I think this may have drifted from the basis of the thread a little bit. As I understand it, the question was : what progress level will UP hold as canon. I think this was answered as PL 5 (or is it 6? whichever one we are at.) The topic then got a bit distracted by the concept of magic enhanced tech. Would it exist? Almost certainly. Would this produce effects similar to a futuristic socioty? Possibly.

Then the topic got blown into the discussion about if high grade military weapons should be common enough that an everyday adventurer can buy them off the street. This has to do a lot with the types of games that individual players/DMs perfer. Can a player with enough money buy a tank, almost certainly. If you have enough money, you can get your hands on just about anything. Its hard to refute this. However, should everybody and their mother have a tank? No. Thats just silly. But they should be available, with some restrictions.

Now, on a specific note about tanks, I belive we can get the desired effect by simply placeing greater restrictions on the license required to get a tank. It would make sense that, with all the possibly hostile groups on the planes, goverments and factions and whatnot would do a bit more of a background check before tossing around access to military weapons, right?
I don't know how one could make the rights to a license more exclusive, D20 modern isnt my thing. But I'm sure if could be done. Just have certain groups only sell powerful equipment if you share the same, or similar, causes. Getting a tank is still possible, you just have to shop around a bit.

Also, on the topic of magic enhanced tech, a simple way of preserving the modern progress level withough changin the feel of the setting through the use of magic applied to tech is to limit the practical use of tech when used with magic. For example: when you come right down to it, magic exploits the laws of physics new and interesting ways. Now, it could be that an enchanted item doesnt obey all the laws of physics it needs to for high level tech (such as anything that uses electricty) to work. Becuase when these spell where designed to make magic items, the only desired effects would be to accomplish the point of the spell, and not harm the weilder or warp the item in any noticable way. They wouldn't have checked to make sure that electrical systems would not be impaired, becuase there were no electrical systems. So, any equipment or item that has magic cast on it runs the risk of ceasing to function, as the specific rules of reality that they need to work in exactly the right way change a little bit. Not alot, mind you, but enough to make an item that depends on electricty to do what electricty normally does and nothing else to break.
Just a possibility.

Sigil was always famos for the possibility of buying ANYTHING :twisted:

damn gota stop getting on drunk.

Stealing them? Maybe from the demons who are planning on using them in the Blood War, but I doubt that they would need to steal them from anyone else. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the Demon Princes involved in the manufacture put a few tanks aside for precisely this reason. Besides, if you are looking to buy tanks from the tanarri, you're a fringe group who wants to blow stuff up by definition.

Err... Tanks?

But I'd prefer a tank stolen by the Tanar'ri.