d20 content in comic books

Magazines with d20 content aren't that hard to come by, if you know what you're looking for. Mostly this is because they devote the bulk (if not all) of their space to d20 gaming, and advertize as such. Even casually looking into Gaming Frontiers, Signs & Portents, or Campaign Magazine will reveal that they have d20 content in them.

However, this couldn't be less true for comic books. In part, this is because comic books can't afford to publish much d20 material, since it distracts from their main purpose: the comic content. As such, any d20 content they have tends to go unannounced, and quite often missed. This can be a shame, since sometimes they have some real gems.

This list is my attempt to help correct that, at least somewhat. I've listed here every comic I've got that has some D&D/d20 content in it, along with a brief description. Note that everything here, except for Nodwick, is published by Kenzer Co., and as such is considered to be D&D content, as opposed to d20, and thus not OGC. The one Nodwick article does clearly outline what is OGC and what's not.

Enjoy!


Nodwick

#16 - “The Henchman.” This article gives us a full d20 write-up of the henchman core class, including two new feats (intended for the henchman’s employers).


Dungeons & Dragons: Tempest’s Gate

#1 - “Ogh.” Inside the back cover is a full-page write-up on a new orc subrace, the ogh.


Knights of the Dinner Table

#62 - “The Pillager’s Guide to Loot and Plunder.” This article describes several new magical and non-magical gauntlets.

#64 - “Encounters in Kalamar: A Change of Plans.” This is a very sort encounter meant to be easily dropped into an ongoing adventure.

#64 - “A Look Inside the Kalamar Player’s Guide.” This excerpt shows the Basiran Dancer base class.

#65 - “From the Cutting Room Floor.” This article details several spells, feats, and even a new skill, all of an amusing nature.

#65 - “Heroes & Villains & Those In Between.” Three NPCs from the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting.

#65 - “A Look Inside the Kalamar Player’s Guide.” This excerpt details special abilities that can be used by channeling positive energy.

#67 - “Player’s Advantage: First Level Multiclassing for 3E.” This article discusses how to have your first character level be a multiclass between two classes, while still being one level. The system used here is similar to, but still different from, gestalt characters as described in Unearthed Arcana.

#69 - “Gamemaster’s Workshop: No Pain, No Gain.” This article discusses training times for multiclassing in 3E. It covers the eleven core classes, and the six base classes from the Kingdoms of Kalamar Player’s Guide.

#69 - “Player’s Advantage: The Monastic Orders of Tellene.” This article details five of the largest monastic orders on Tellene, with additional short mentions given for two smaller orders as well. There is also a single new feat (the new feat is to treat the quarterstaff as a special monk weapon, which is standard in 3.5E).

#70 - “Portals of Death.” This short article gives us six doors with magical traps for unwary PCs.

#70 - “’One’ is the Loneliest Number.” This short article talks about fumbles in D&D, and has some rules suggestions for them in 3E, including a few new feats.

#71 - “Flying the Unfriendly Skies.” This is a short adventure given in 3E stats.

#71 - “The Pillager’s Guide.” This fluff article discusses the wealth possibilities in Geanavue, from the Kingdoms of Kalamar.

#71 - “Lands of Adventure.” This article covers the town of Whitby, England (c. 1893). It gives abbreviated level suggestions for Bram Stoker, Henry Irving, Count Vlad “Dracula” Tepes, and Sir William Henry Power.

#72 - “Dungeon of the Month: The Garden of Unearthly Delights.” This short dungeon is given dual stats in both 3E and Hackmaster formats, and has a new template at the end, the Guardian Skeleton.

#72 - “Lands of Adventure.” This article covers Normandy under the rule of Henry V (c. 1428). It gives abbreviated level suggestions for Henry VI, Humphrey the Duke of Clarence, King Charles VII, Jeanne D’arc, and John Talbot.

#73 - “Character Plans.” This article discusses how to plan out your character ahead of time (with feats, multiclassing, etc.) to create the character archetype that you want.

#73 - “Lands of Adventure.” This article covers the Canadian Corps of Voyageurs, with abbreviated level suggestions for Venant St. Germaine, William McGillivry, Angus Shaw, and William Harrison.

#74 - “Lands of Adventure.” This article covers Wicken Fen, England (c. 70 A.D.). It gives abbreviated level suggestions for Boudicca, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, and Gnaeus Julius Agricola.

#75 - “Lands of Adventure.” This article talks about the battle of Zuyder Zee (c. 516-534 A.D.). It includes very brief level suggestions for Beowulf, Dayraven, ygelac, and Theudobert. It also includes a random enemy chart.

#75 - “Dungeon of the Month: Pyronius’ Folly.” This short dungeon is given dual stats in both 3E and Hackmaster formats.

#76 - “Effective Wizards Part One: Economics.” This fluff article discusses how to save your wizard character money while maximizing profits.

#76 - “Weapon Skill System.” This article deals with removing BAB in d20 games, and instead using a skill point system to measure competency (and likeliness to hit) with weapons. Includes changes to existing feats as well as new feats for this system.

#77 - “Effective Wizards Part Two: Combat.” This fluff article discusses how to make your wizards more powerful and versatile in combat.

#78 - “The Host of Heaven: Holy Prestige Classes for 3E.” This article gives us a new prestige class, the Harbinger.

#79 - “The Host of Heaven: Holy Prestige Classes for 3E.” This article gives us two new prestige classes, the Judicial Champion and the Seraph.

#79 - “Movies on the Battlemat.” The end of this article gives us full 3E stats for a new monster, the Fire Mare, a new minor artifact: The Glaive, and a new magic weapon property: cutting. All are inspired from the movie Krull.

#80 - “Dangerous Denizens.” This article gives a sneak preview for two monsters from Dangerous Denizens: The Monsters of Tellene: the Eaten One and Sturm-Wolf.

#80 - “The Secrets of Hack-Conversion.” This short article is a fluff-only guide on how to add some elements of a Hackmaster game to D&D.

#80 - “The Host of Heaven: Holy Prestige Classes for 3E.” This article gives us a new prestige class, the Kreuzritter.

#80 - “Movies on the Battlemat.” The end of the articles gives us full 3E stats for the Invader, a monster based on the aliens from the movie Signs.

#81 - “The Host of Heaven: Holy Prestige Classes for 3E.” This article gives us a new prestige class, the Maker, and a new item, the smithing hammer.

#82 - “Lands of Adventure.” This article lists some of the battles between Lord John Roxton and the Peruvian slavers. Very brief level suggestions are given for Lord Roxton, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Pedro Lopez, the king of the slavers.

#82 - “Movies on the Battlemat.”The end of the article gives us a new weapon (bonesword), new armor (armor of the beast), and two new armor extras for said armor (armor spikes and metal claws/fangs), inspired by the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf.

#83 - “Movies on the Battlemat.” The end of the article has the False Legend template (inspired by The 13th Warrior).

#84 - “The Learned Bard: A New Look at an Old Class for D&D 3.5.” This is a variant of the Bard core class that uses spells as a Wizard (with the prime requisite being Int).

#84 - “Movies on the Battlemat.” The end of the article has the Programmed Assassin template (inspired by The Bourne Identity). d20 Modern.

#87 - “Gamemaster’s Workshop: The Paladin as a Prestige Class.” This article converted the core Paladin class into a 10-level prestige class. No mention is made about how this PrC deals with any potential multiclassing restrictions.

#89 - “Rustlers of the Night.” This article features an evil Outsider called a Shadow Stalker. Despite the time of publication, it is 3E, not 3.5E. Also, the ability descriptors (Ex, Su, Sp) aren’t listed for the creature’s abilities.

#89 - “Gamemaster’s Workshop: Making Magic Items Meaningful.” This article talks about making normal magic items more exciting in your campaign. No new crunch is given.

#90 - “Rustlers of the Night.” This article features a new Outsider called the Vodyanoi. Despite the time of publication, it is 3E, not 3.5E. Also, the ability descriptors (Ex, Su, Sp) aren’t listed for the creature’s abilities. Furthermore, no alignment is listed.

#91 - “Gamemaster’s Workshop: Professional.” This article features a new prestige class called the Professional. The PrC’s basic premise is that hits do damage by how well the attack lands.

#96 - “Three Shiny Tweaks for D&D 3E.” This article talks about making three changes to the rules: 1) Multiclassing where, every even level, you take two classes at once. 2) Creating a hybridized fighter/wizard/rogue. 3) High level fighter-only feats.

#100 - “With Your Shield On It.” This article features new shield enchantments, new shield feats, and the bladed shield exotic weapon.

#102 - “Save the Lap Dance for Me.” This article is a short adventure for use with the Complete Mafia for d20 sourcebook.

Alzrius said:

Magazines with d20 content aren't that hard to come by, if you know what you're looking for. Mostly this is because they devote the bulk (if not all) of their space to d20 gaming, and advertize as such. Even casually looking into Gaming Frontiers, Signs & Portents, or Campaign Magazine will reveal that they have d20 content in them.

However, this couldn't be less true for comic books. In part, this is because comic books can't afford to publish much d20 material, since it distracts from their main purpose: the comic content. As such, any d20 content they have tends to go unannounced, and quite often missed. This can be a shame, since sometimes they have some real gems.

This list is my attempt to help correct that, at least somewhat. I've listed here every comic I've got that has some D&D/d20 content in it, along with a brief description. Note that everything here, except for Nodwick, is published by Kenzer Co., and as such is considered to be D&D content, as opposed to d20, and thus not OGC. The one Nodwick article does clearly outline what is OGC and what's not.

Enjoy!

Click to expand...

Wow, that's a pretty cool list. Thanks!

Thank you for the kind words, though since you work for Kenzer, which makes up 99% of the list, I wonder if you have an ulterior motive.

My personal favorites are the weapon skill system from issue #76, which is a very innovative, and more realistic, way of doing combat, and the article on shields in issue #100. Shields are much too ignored in D&D, and that article went a long way to correcting that.

Alzrius said:

Thank you for the kind words, though since you work for Kenzer, which makes up 99% of the list, I wonder if you have an ulterior motive.

Click to expand...

I just have a good reason to say thanks!

A quick update; all of these are for issues of Knights of the Dinner Table:

#103 – “All Things Magical: Brooch of the Basilisk.” This article details a new magic item, the brooch of the basilisk for the HackMaster system, with very brief notes on its d20 powers.

#105 – “GameMaster’s Workshop.” This fluff article gives four “commandments” on how to make high-level play have low-level excitement.

#106 – “Complete Arcane in the Kingdoms of Kalamar.” This article describes how to set the material from Complete Arcane in the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting, going over relevant material from each chapter of the book.

#106 – “Rustlers of the Night.” This article describes a new monster, the Tohdnerian Summoner Beast, with full stats, and notes on training them (as well as using them as animal companions).

#107 – “Skill Spotlight: Spellcraft.” This article discusses the signature style of each school of magic, so that you know what you look for when you use Spellcraft to identify spells being cast. Further, is has several modifiers for identifying spells, and a few new uses for the skill.

#109 – “All Things Magic.” This article presents the potion of insane toughness/horrible wasting, which grants incredible short-term power, in exchange for a severe long-term wasting condition.

#110 – “A Deadly Trio.” This article discusses arsenic, mercury, and phosphorus as poisons in your d20 game, going over both acute and chronic poisoning.

#110 – “Rustlers of the Night.” This article presents a new monster: the Sunderer.

#111 – “Porting Hackmaster’s Pixie Faeries into D&D 3.5.” This article gives full PHB-style fluff information and PC racial information for pixie faeries.

#111 – “GameMaster’s Workshop.” This article discusses language dialects in the game, and has tables regarding how easy it is to understand someone speaking a different dialect of the same language.

#111 – “Crafting on a Budget.” This article discusses a large number of points regarding crafting magical (and alchemical) items to try and minimize the cost of doing so.

#112 – “Knightly Orders of Tellene.” This article presents seven knightly orders of Tellene, each with variant powers for paladins who are members.

#112 – “All Things Magic.” This article presents a spellbook that has five new spells and a new metamagic feat.

#114 – “GameMaster’s Workshop.” This article lists all of the languages and dialects of Garweeze Wurld, with a sidebar giving the DCs for understanding other dialects.

#115 – “GameMaster’s Workshop.” This article discusses bestow curse and gives a variety of new effects for the spell. It also presents bestow greater curse and several new effects for that spell as well.

#117 – “Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Deep Run.” This is a short 3.5E adventure.

#118 – “GameMaster’s Workshop.” This article presents an in-depth exploration of what, exactly, an unseen servant can do, along with a list of 101 possible uses for it.

#119 – “GameMaster’s Workshop: Making the Most of Your Skills, Part One.” This article discusses the background and flavor uses of the Appraise through Jump skills.

#120 - “GameMaster’s Workshop: Making the Most of Your Skills, Part Two.” This article discusses the background and flavor uses of the Knowledge through Use Rope skills.

#121 – “Rustlers of the Night.” This article presents the Throngling, a new monster.

#122 – “Player’s Advantage: Druidic Battle Magic.” This article presents thirteen new druid spells meant for combat.

#124 – “Demon Princes of Tellene.” This article details eight demon princes of the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting, including their lair, servants/enemies/goals, and clerical domains.

#125 – “Player’s Advantage: Why Walk?” This article discusses using mounts, along with giving several stat blocks for advanced horses.

#126 – “Dungeon Crawl Classics KODT #126: Blackstone’s Maze.” This is a short adventure for 1st or 2nd level characters.

#127 – “Spells on Demand.” This article presents fifteen new spells, all of which can be cast as swift or immediate actions.

#127 – “Necromancers of Tellene.” This article presents information on how to build interesting necromancers with the various PHB materials, and other fluff information. It also presents several new feats, items, and magic items.

#127 – “Rustlers of the Night.” This article presents the Eldorian Siege Giant.

#128 – “Kingdoms of Kalamar and Monster Manual III.” This article provides “On Tellene” information for monsters with campaign information from the MMIII, along with a few pieces of new gear.

#129 – “Humans of Tellene: The Defohy.” This article provides a large amount of fluff information on the Defohy people, as well as a new feat, information on one of their towns, a feat chain, and stats for a typical Defohy warrior.

#129 – “Rustlers of the Night.” This article presents a new monster; the Bearbug.

#130 – “Casting Call.” This article provides full stats for a new NPC named Movamo Leshan Aziri.

#133 – “Leadership With Class.” This large article provides a large amount of fluff for how cohorts and followers are applied, what sort of people the various classes and races attract, fifteen new feats, several sample cohorts and followers, and five new magic items.

#134 – “Player’s Advantage: The Feats Make the Man.” This fluff article discusses using your initial feat(s) as a background descriptor tool.

#138 – “Rustlers of the Night.” A new monster, the Death-Blood Medusa, is given here.

#139 – “Tales of Tellene: Slayer’s Brotherhood of Bet Bireli.” This fluff article describes an assassin’s guild.

#139 – “The Chaos Channeler.” A new base class, the chaos channeler, is given.

#139 – “Where’s My +3 Lightsaber??” This fluff article discusses the use of high-tech in D&D. A sidebar lists twenty high-tech adventure seeds.

#139 – “Rustlers of the Night.” A new monster is given here: the Hunger Tree. It needs some errata (e.g. a -5 penalty to Initiative for a Dex of --, which is wrong).

#141 – “Casting Call.” Brief stats and a backstory are given for a half-goblin NPC named Agha Jhaz. The stats seem to be mostly, but not completely, 3.5.

#141 – “Rustlers of the Night.” The new monster introduced in this article is the Man-Ape.

#142 – “All Things Magical.” A new magic item is introduced, Saxet’s Saw Chain. The weapon is a variant of the spiked chain that has been enchanted.

#142 – “GameMaster’s Workshop: It’s all Just Numbers.” This fluff article talks about using existing stats but changing the fluff descriptions to create “new” monsters.

#143 – “All Things Magic: The Alchemy Blade.” This article describes a minor artifact, the alchemy blade, which can change the metal it’s made out of, also changing its enchantment. Nothing is listed for how long it takes it to change its material type, nor a caster level or magic aura.

#143 – “Spells that Break the Rules.” This article presents twenty new spells, all of which break the d20 System rules in some minor way.

#144 – “All Things Magic: Titan’s Wand.” This article gives rules for titan’s wand versions of wands.

#144 – “The Influence Check.” This article introduces an influence skill check in the d20 system.

#145 – “GameMaster’s Workshop: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” This article gives abbreviated stats for Nambji (“The Good”) and Brent Felder (“The Ugly”). No stats are given for The Felderbeast (“The Bad”).

#145 – “Rustlers of the Night.” This article debuts the Onlooker, a cycloptic creature created as a servitor race by the beholders.

#145 – “The Golden Alliance.” This fluff article describes The Golden Alliance, Tellene’s largest merchant guild.

#146 – “And Taking its Treasure.” This article goes over how to maximize your treasure haul.

#147 – “Tower Power.” This article provides variants to the d20 sanity rules.

#148 – “All Things Magic.” This article gives d20 stats for a new minor artifact: Yagamov’s Amazing Flea Circus.

#148 – “Rustlers of the Night.” This article debuts the Child of Set.

#149 – “Tomb of the Frost Kings.” A short adventure for 5th-level characters.

#149 – “Rustlers of the Night.” A new monster, the Hanga, appears here.

#149 – “Skill Spotlight: Gathering Information.” This article describes various modifiers and uses for the Gather Information skill.

#151 – “Deadly Trappings: Shandaran’s Sword of Sorrow.” This article provides d20 information on the trap’s damage.

#155 – “All Things Magic: Shawl of the Washer Woman.” This article provides d20 stats on a shawl with several curative powers.

#159 – “Casting Call: Otto Peel.” This Pathfinder article gives the stats and history of a human expert 3.

#159 – “All Things Magic: J’Sin’s Mask.” This mask grants damage reduction and regeneration, but also imparts an uncontrollable rage.

#168 – “Speak with Authority.” These five magical languages (Arcanum, Celestian, Fellspeech, Feya, and The King’s Tongue) which all have magical properties.

#171 – “Game Mechanic: Playing Without Magic Shops in 3.5/Pathfinder D&D.” This fluff article describes what differences in gold and treasure distribution you should make if custom magic items can’t be bought.

#286 – “About That Infamous “Harlot” Subtable.” This article describes twelve NPCs corresponding to the random harlot table from the 1E DMG. Each has abbreviated “old-school stats” that give their AC, level, class, hit points, and ability scores.