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I like the multiple-choice origin options for half-orcs for two reasons: I had something similar set up for tieflings in my previous Eberron campaign In my personal experience, character origin only matters if the player invokes it, and racial origin only matters if the DM invokes it. Really, I...

"We were not defeated. We simply opted for a rematch at a later date in a venue yet to be announced."

History would be a good choice for recognizing the significance (value) of art objects, too. Come to think of it, certain jewels in real life have been valuable enough to have their own history... Hope Diamond, anyone? By the time you get to the epic treasure parcels, the characters are probably...

I consider picking up Thievery skill training and/or the Ritual Caster feat for almost any character I create. If the party turns out to have someone better at it than my guy, cool-- I can go for the assist. Otherwise, to me those are the two biggest "be prepared" features I can think of. This...

With all those disguise abilities and social skills, this character would do well at infiltration, or at least taking the "soft approach" to a job-- go in all smiles and non-threatening, then whip out the divine wrath at the right moment. The question will be finding a patron whose dogma jives...

The Shadow of Eberron I ran a one-off adventure in the 3.5 Eberron setting using the rules for The Shadow of Yesterday. The conceit for the session was that while our regular cast of characters were off adventuring in the jungles of Xen'drik, a party of changelings had been hired to impersonate...

Raising a ranger's pet The companion resurrection ritual seems to function like the swordmage's swordbond-- it's a way to recover a critical tool. It doesn't have to work explicitly like raising the dead. For example: 1) A tiefling ranger has an infernal boar for a companion (hey-- remember...

I used an aboleth and its skum servitors (including a non-standard Giant skum-- which is just fun to say) to very good effect at the start of our current 3.5 campaign. The first "dungeon" was an open-air ruin in the middle of the jungle, and all the structures faced in towards a deep, murky...

1. A foreign language dictionary. When a native speaker of English needs to come up with a fantasy-sounding name on the fly, someone else's language is a handy thing to have. Personally, I prefer Turkish and Japanese for their non-Latin/non-Greek roots; if the words sound alien enough, my...

Is Arkabahce still around? They did the Turkish translation for the 3.0 Players Handbook a few years ago. Kolay gelsin, agabii ;)

To be fair, feel free to step outside the PHB for these. If I'm picking from Dungeonscape, Magic of Incarnum, and Dragon Magic, I'm hardly playing by "core" rules. The polymorph isn't the focus, so much as the "watch me pull a spell out of my hat" stunt. I only mentioned polymorph because quite...

Second Love Shadowrun. I loved the first edition of Shadowrun so much that I still pick up the new editions.

Riddle me this I've had certain character concepts in mind for so long that the separation between the character and the mechanics has blurred for me somewhat. Let's say I wanted to bring a few of my favorites over into 4th: 1) The adventuring polymath. I loved the factotum-- especially a...

Select tracks by Faith and the Muse (especially "Branwen Slayne") might suit your needs, as could some early Changelings. And how about some medieval court music?

The Dark Pact should export fairly well to the Eberron setting. The necrotic tags and "wound your allies" theme would be appropriate for the Blood of Vol, the Daughters of Sora Kell, and possibly Mordain the Fleshweaver (surely he can't be powerful enough to sponsort pacts... OR CAN HE?). I...

This is a minor, minor point, but I've found that flat out telling the players the monster's AC after the first attack saves us the time that would otherwise be spent adding up bonuses. Like Milton Berle, they then only have to take out enough to win.

I'll second a nod for Knaak's Dragonrealm-- I used to love those books. If someone were to do a treatment for the world of the Dark Crystal, I would first decry it as a misuse of Henson's vision... and then get it, for I must have all things Dark Crystal. Hm... Landover, the realm from Magic...

I'd first caution that a little bit of dramatic antagonism goes a long way. Describe the glares and simmering tension, but don't play out every single NPC cursing them. The characters are supposed to feel uncomfortable-- not the players. If I used a mob, I'd make it the large, loud, clumsy kind...

Hmmm... you could replace the metal armors with functional equivalents made from the hides of mythical/paleolithic beasts. Maybe they don't have plate armor, but some tribes can fashion the shell of the still-roaming glyptodon into something statistically similar. Which is another point--...