(My comments below are geared toward the Conan RPG, which is a d20 3.5 clone. But, the book I'm talking about from the OP is useful to any d20 game, especially if your game has a touch of realism to it.)
I spent a lot of time today with this supplement, and I've got to tell you, this is a hell of a supplement for your Conan game. I highly recommend it. This is 352 pages of dense goodness.
I can't tell you all the good things this will bring to a game, especially a game with a foot in gritty reality, such as Conan, but I will hit some of the highlights for you.
The first seven chapters, about two-thirds of the book, are in depth looks at different eras in history: Sticks and Stones; Chariots of Bronze; Iron and Empire; Rome; The Far East; The Dark Age, A Golden Age; Pagentry, Platemail, and Pistols.
Depending on where you set your game during the Hyborian Age, you read the corresponding chapter, and it should not only act as a type of supplemental sourcebook for the area where you are gaming, but it will also give you a ton of ideas.
Let me give you an example: Let's say you have set your game in one of the more primitive, more savage areas known during the Hyborian Age. Maybe we're talking about Pictland. Maybe we're talking about The Black Kingdoms. Or, maybe we're talking about some lost civilization between Hyrkania and Khitai.
What's appropriate is that we look at the first chapter, titled Sticks and Stones. Therel, we're going to find all sorts of weapons and armor appropriate for that type of game. There's in-depth commentary on just about every weapon type and armor type that you can think of. The chapter is illustarated with weapon and armor examples, and there's notes on technological advances.
You'll never see more game-related info on a Net made of grass, I'll tell you!
And the commentary doesn't stop there. You get notes on stuff like arrow flights and the pack mentality of primitive man.
There's a bunch of new rules scattered throughout the chapter, too. For example, there's a system you can use for adding wound infections into your game. Also included are extended thoughts on First Aid and Healing.
If you want to get creative with Crafting skills, there's sidebars with information and game stats for things like barbs on weapons (they can get lodged!).
Plus there are Prestige Classes included, with full rules and new Feats for historically based character types. The Eagle Knight, the vanguard warrior of the Aztecs, would make a perfect prestige class for a Pict warrior.
There's plenty of notes, complete with game information, on different material types (for example, bamboo or obsidian), and those notes continue to include various peoples from around the globe.
And, that's just in the first chapter that covers primitive peoples!
Each chapter ends with a Armor and Weapon charts for the items covered in that chapter. I will mention, though, that you'll have some work to do here. You'll need to add the Conan stats not usually used in normal d20 games (like Armor Piercing ability), and you'll want to increase damage a step to make the weapons compatible with those in the Conan game (and this is easy to do because a chart in the appendix is provided for doing this very thing).
Other chapters include like in-depth material for various technological ages of the real world. There are extended riding rules; rules for enhancing weapons; chariot combat rules; in-depth notes on specific aspects of items like Greek Fire; morale; d20 common animal statistics; partial armor notes; new combat maneuvers; religion; history; weapon and armor materials; and notes on mass combat and sieges.
With this book, you can: make a flail more useful with the optional mechanics, engage in shield combat, expand the use of helms with new rules, and use a polearm to unseat a rider.
One chapter discusses Myth and Magic with a section on real-world mythical items like Excalibur and Thor's hammer.
Lastly, the book presents optional rules that you can pick and chose from for your game. For example, there's a whole system that you can use to create your own items. The book tells you enough about the materials and helps you assign stats to items based on how they are made. You can also use these rules to slowly degrade items that your characters use in a game--on anything from fabric to bone to gemstone to metal and all sorts of other materials.
Let me give you an example of a neat rule form this book and show you how to use it in your Conan game: Consider a Stygian Bow. The core rulebook says this weapon has a range increment of 60 feet.
But, what about bows that are strung for specific pulls? The sidebar rule on page 147 of that book discusses this.
From Stone to Steel presents a system for changing the range increment on such weapons based on their pulls. What you do is take the original base increment (60 feet) and subtract 20. This gives us 40. Then multiply the STR rating bonus by 10, and add them together. So, if a Stygian Bow has a pull rated for a STR 19 character, it's range increment would be 80 feet.
Pretty nifty.
Here's another neat rule. Let's say you've got a scholar character with a STR 10 who, for whatever reason, wants to use a big, heavy weapon. This book as a quick minimum strength calculation that will tell you if a character can effectively weild weapons based on the character's STR rating. Our STR 10 scholar can effectively weild (still needs to be proficient, of course) with weapons that weigh up to 8 lbs. For every pound over that, apply a -1 penalty to attack throws (plus any non-proficiency penalties).
It's a good rule, forgiving, and in the spirit of Conan as it really only penalizes the very weak as most weapons are 8 lbs or less.
How about a long term Fatigue System? This is a reality rule. Let's say your characters are in Argos and work the docks all day long for a little coin. When the work is done, they collect their pay and head for the dockside tavern to blow every coin they just made. There, the characters get into a fight with the local drunk bully.
Well, aren't the characters plum tuckered out? Aren't they tired from all that work at the dock that they've put in since dawn?
Some DMs may not want to use this reality rule because the characters are HEROES, and that's fine. The rule is here if you want to use it. If not, ignore it.
What this Fatigue rule will do, though, in this particular example, is penalize the PCs with a -1 penalty for every hour they worked at the docks. This penalty is applied to all skill checks and attack throws.
So, the next time the characters trek all day through the hot Darfari jungle with Heavy loads on their backs, whip out this rule. It will make them realistically rest before they start exploring the ancient ruin they just found.
If you're into Crafting, this book provides extended rules for the quality of the items you craft, above and beyond what you see in the Core rule book and in Tito's Guide.
OK, enough about this book. Suffice it to say that I think it is a must have item for any GM's library. What I've told you above is just a small sample of what this book has to offer.
I highly recommend it.
