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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreatLemur" data-source="post: 3690018" data-attributes="member: 28553">Okay, I couldn't resist typing 'em up in more detail.  Here they are, in release schedule order.1 - Magic: The Great ArtOutside of the Forgotten Realms, we've never really heard a lot about exactly how magic works.  This book would offer information of the workings of the various types of magic in D&D, and seek to answer such questions as what material components are for, how Sorcerers know the words and gestures to unlock their inherited powers, and why Clerics have to pray for specific sets of miracles each day before they use them.  What is "preparing a spell", anyway?  Major sections would be devoted to arcane magic, divine magic, and psionics, with additional smaller sections for the various non-core magic systems.  Alternate explanations and few optional rules might also be offered to help DMs tweak the workings of magic according to their preferences.In addition to this, the book would detail magic's place in the world, and its impact on both civilization and the environment.  This would include such issues as where all those magic items are coming from, who can be a Wizard and what it takes to get the necessary training, what kind of impact healing and resurrection magic might have on society (given different levels of availability), and how things like law enforcement, transportation, entertainment, and warfare might be changed by magic.A section on different magical organizations (schools, unions, watchdog groups, military units, etc.) would also be cool, but such a topic could run long enough to be a book in its own right.2 - untitled Keith Thompson campaign settingOne good look through <a href="http://www.keiththompsonart.com/" target="_blank">his site</a> will show that this man clearly has several good campaign worlds in him already, if only he could be given the publishing deal to get them out.  Paired with a good developer, and put in charge of a team of other artists with compatible styles, I have no doubt that he would produce a distinctive, flavorful, and playable campaign setting, as well as one of the most beautiful, coffee-table-friendly books WotC has ever published.  I'm imagining this as a slim, heavily-illustrated, crunch-light (or even crunch-free) book, with a distinctly different style of art direction than other D&D books.  It should be intended to inspire and awe, rather than serve as a campaign bible or world atlas.3 - Heroes of IntrigueA lot of people have been asking for this for a while, and it's a subject that can encompass a whole lot of material.  The "intrigue" the title refers to would include both mystery stories and political intrigue.  At its core, this book would be about non-combat, non-athletic challenges, focusing instead on the social and informational tasks that PCs might face.It would include articles about (and new mechanics for) tracking, clue analysis, library use, NPC contacts, reputation-building and reputation-ruining, scrying, cryptography, and other ways of obtaining information or denying it to your enemies.Additionally, there would be DM advice for running mystery-based adventures, engaging PCs as political pawns, and managing PCs who become political powers.  A lot of "How to make sure what's going on makes sense, and that your players have a handle on everything that's going one, without giving away the stuff you want them to find out on their own" advice, along with things like faction influence/relationship flowcharts and how they can relate to PCs during and between adventures.Finally, the book would offer a sample city--one described more by a faction chart than by a map--with several of sample organizations including political parties, criminal gangs, religious groups, merchant cartels, trade guilds, and so on.  This might also include some NPCs, but full statblocks wouldn't be as necessary as lists of personal values, alliances and enmities, and short-term and long-term goals.4 - untitled Brom campaign settingI know he all but defined the look of Dark Sun, but Dark Sun is long out of print, and Brom's work clearly shows a greater array of ideas than ever made it into that setting's visuals.  I'd love to see what he'd come up with these days.5 - Tome of Alchemy: Fantastic ScienceTaking alchemy--which is a more popular concept these days than it's generally credited as--beyond a simple Craft skill, this book would expand it to a kind of non-magical "magic" with its own particular capabilities, limitations, and subsystems.  It would include the following:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Alchemist base class - Similar to the Artificer, but with a more specific focus.  Would learn and use "concoctions"--alchemical mixtures with a one-day shelf life--in a manner similar to a Wizard's spells, and create alchemical items, poisons, exotic materials, and non-magical potions using the Craft (alchemy) skill. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Refined base class - Warrior/hyrbid class focused on an internal, biological alchemy, referencing both the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xian_%28Daoist_immortal%29" target="_blank">immortals of Chinese myth</a> and the matter-into-spirit magnum opus sough by Western alchemy.  This class would focus on temporary self-buffs, such as stat boots and bodily transformations. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Catalog of rare materials - This section would detail hard-to-obtain (that is, impossible to simply purchase) animal, vegetable, mineral, and supernatural materials with useful magical and/or alchemical properties.  Primarily, these things could be used to decrease the GP costs and Craft DCs of certain alchemical projects (and possibly the XP costs of creating certain magic items), and might even be completely necessary for some recipes.  Further, some of these materials could be useful in their own right, either for their basic properties or as spell components (possibly using the metamagic components rules from Unearthed Arcana).  Recognizing and harvesting many of these materials (whether from plants, mines, or dead monsters) will generally require skill checks. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Catalog of alchemical items - The game's existing array of alchemical items would necessarily need to be greatly expanded, taking them from their current status as weaker magical items to a class of objects all their own.  Alchemy's status as non-magical--and thus essentially a kind of technology--would be played up, here.  Also included would be components of the well-equipped alchemist's lab, including the expected "+X to Craft (alchemy) checks" items, and odder things like protectives against lab accidents and detectors for specific classes of rare materials. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Expanded poison rules - Poison-making and -use hasn't gotten much attention in D&D 3.x, so far, and this would be the perfect place to address this.  Additionally, we could use a longer list of poisons with more varied and interesting effects than some ability damage, and then more ability damage exactly one minute later.</li> </ul>6 - untitled Wayne Douglas Barlowe campaign settingWhile he's known primarily as a science fiction illustrator, if you've seen <a href="http://www.waynebarlowe.com/barlowe_pages/index_inferno.htm" target="_blank">Barlowe's Inferno</a> or his various <a href="http://www.waynebarlowe.com/other_works_pages/other_thype_mach2.htm" target="_blank">Thype</a> sketches, you know he has even more to offer fantasy.  For that matter, if you've read <a href="http://www.waynebarlowe.com/expedition_pages/index_expedition.htm" target="_blank">Expedition</a>, you know he's got the capacity to develop and deliver whole worlds.  Getting this guy to head up a campaign setting book would be a tremendous coup, and pure gold.7 - Base Matter: The Book of ConstructsThere aren't many monster types in D&D with the infinite possibilities, cool visuals, and modern feel of constructs.  This book would discuss the whys, hows, similarities, and differences of familiar construct types such as golems, homunculi, and clockwork automatons, just how what kind of orders a "mindless" creature can follow, the morality of creating constructs, and their place in society in various types of settings.  It would also be cool to examine constructs in terms of the nature of their animating force: arcane, divine, psionic, alchemical, mechanical, and so on.Naturally, this book would also include a moderate selection of new constructs, along with the requirements for their creation.  It would be particularly cool to include one or two new (non-Warforged, non-robot-like) playable "races" of constructs, and to explore the idea of a construct lich-equivalent: powerful spellcasters who have transferred their minds or brains into immortal, artificial bodies.  And I really like the idea of construct animation as a kind of magical disease, which some kind of "wild" construct spreads to inanimate objects of one type or another.One of the most interesting things about constructs, though, is that they can be custom built.  They can be made from a wide variety of materials, can be constructed to look like almost anything, and can certainly be built with non-standard features and components.  These could be represented mechanically through templates and built-in magical items, and would add the same kind of mileage to the clay golem that class levels add to the orc. Furthermore, a lot of PC options could be included in a book like this: We definitely need new, low-level (even non-combatant) constructs for PCs to create, and I think there's room in the game for task-specific "constructs" which are statted up as magical items rather than monsters (think spider-like spy drones sent to infiltrate a fortress, and relay images back to a viewing device).  And, ever since I saw the half-golem template, I've been dying for a more viable way for PCs to have golem-like cyborg parts.8 - Worlds Without EndThe Great Wheel cosmology doesn't work for everyone.  Many D&D campaign settings offer alternate planar arrangements, but they're generally very strongly tied to those specific settings.  Therefore, I think there'd be a lot of use in offering a set of alternative cosmologies, including both new ways to organize the standard planes, and whole new sets of planes (along with different ways to organize them).  It would be nice if this was a somewhat art-heavy book, offering both illustrations and diagrams to make the natures of these planes clear to gamers.It would also be nice to work details on the Far Realms, the Plane of Shadow, the Dreamlands (or similar), and possibly even Sigil into this book, but honestly, they all deserve their own books.  On the other hand, giving each of them a short section in this one would be a good way to gauge people's interest in seeing more material on them.</blockquote>

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