Newbie's campaign idea - comments?

[CCamfield]

well it seems I will have to check some of these books out. Is there one that you find better or more natural than the rest ? I am curious as I plan on taking a cue from you and trying to introduce mass combat to make the PC's feel like they are part of something larger.

Well, I haven't had a look at The Quintessential Fighter but I have heard that it has a very well-received mass combat system - I think on a larger scale than Mercenaries'. The Merc system basically groups up to 10 (identical) creatures into a squad, and based on the size of the squad and how well it rolls, may score more than one hit in an attack. So you only have to roll once for the group, and the squads while likely larger than 5'x5' are still basically on the same scale as regular combat. I think TQF's mass combat is more like a mini-wargame. There was some discussion in the D20 Publishers forum here about Mongoose reissuing that book with fixes and extra material. Probably well worth it overall.

Mercenaries is kind of a grab-all book. It's got new races, new base and prestige classes, feats, spells, equipment, and some rules related to mercenaries. Some of those last aren't very good - it might be ok for players to have to pay 20gp/day to a level 1 warrior mercenary, but that would make the cost of an army on campaign absolutely phenomenal. And there are weapons which I don't think I'd allow, like two-handed swords doing 2d8 damage.