talien
Community Supporter
Mercenaries: Born of Blood* will be debuting in September!
In M:BOB, mercenaries are divided into three time periods: Historical, Modern, and Futuristic. Historical is your standard D&D-era mercenaries. Modern is the cigar chomping A-Team type mercenaries. Futuristic is mercenaries today and beyond -- professional units of a few heavily armed men.
The book starts out with a timeline and history of mercenaries to ground the book. Then there is a discussion of mercenary classes along with two new classes, the Professional for Futuristic campaigns and the Soldier of Fortune for Modern campaigns. The Soldier of Fortune already debuted in Forgotten Kingdoms -- BOB should be fully compatible with it. This chapter covers mercenary backgrounds, mercenary experiences (for rolling up NPCs or PCs), a brief discussion about role-playing mercenaries, a day in the life, and information about mercenary leaders and how their alignment affects their command.
The next chapter deals with mercenary tendencies, which determines other factors (including pay). It covers every Monster Manual critter that can be hired and gives rules on determining pay scale for your own monsters. And yes, it uses the silver piece cost for mercenaries in the DMG as the baseline rate. Along with the various monster discussions are sample mercenary troops with stats. This section also includes a new subrace of halfling, the gorkha.
Then there's the chapter on mercenary companies. It covers using the leadership feat for leading mercenaries companies, the organization of mercenary companies, hiring mercenaries, and a system to calculate a mercenary's cost. 38 types of mercenaries follows, with stat block examples of each. Budgets, headquarters, and company prestige are also discussed.
Chapter Five details new prestige classes. 17 of them. All of them are exclusively mercenary classes.
Chapter Six discusses skills and their application for mercenaries. It includes eight "new" skills -- as in, profession/craft/knowledge skills and a handful that were necessary for Modern/Futuristic campaigns (like Pilot).
Chapter Seven is feat-o-rama. Too many to count. A lot here because it covers all three campaign types.
Chapter Eight covers the mercenary's best friend: his equipment. It details transportation, weapons, and armor of all types and eras. A bunch of magical standards and horns round out the chapter.
Chapter Nine details combat rules. It covers various modern firearms techniques as well as morale.
Chapter Ten is all about contracts. How often a mercenary company gets a contract, the type of contract, how much it pays, how many men it requires, negotiation modifiers, employer types, command, conditions, duration, pecuniary acts, and more. You could run an entire mercenary campaign by just using a randomly generated table of contracts from month to month. This section contains my personal favorite, the "body part table" which is based off of a real contract -- compensation for loss of a pinky, an ear, a toe.
Chapter Eleven covers codes. If contracts are about a mercenary and his employer, codes are about a mercenary's conduct with other mercenaries. It details alignment and guidelines for how mercenary companies act. It also explores the various methods of punishment mercenaries face -- internally and by external authorities.
Chapter Twelve involves a discussion of spells and psionics -- including the various schools and a list of new spells that apply to mercenary companies as a group.
Chapter Thirteen involves a sample mercenary headquarters, complete with map.
Chapter Fourteen provides information on ten different mercenary companies, along with statistics using the rules in BOB.
The appendices include an annotated bibliography, sample contracts and a mercenary glossary.
For more information or to ask questions about Mercenaries: Born of Blood, visit http://www.otherworlds.cx/sforums/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=11
* Please note that the final product may differ slightly after final edits are made.
In M:BOB, mercenaries are divided into three time periods: Historical, Modern, and Futuristic. Historical is your standard D&D-era mercenaries. Modern is the cigar chomping A-Team type mercenaries. Futuristic is mercenaries today and beyond -- professional units of a few heavily armed men.
The book starts out with a timeline and history of mercenaries to ground the book. Then there is a discussion of mercenary classes along with two new classes, the Professional for Futuristic campaigns and the Soldier of Fortune for Modern campaigns. The Soldier of Fortune already debuted in Forgotten Kingdoms -- BOB should be fully compatible with it. This chapter covers mercenary backgrounds, mercenary experiences (for rolling up NPCs or PCs), a brief discussion about role-playing mercenaries, a day in the life, and information about mercenary leaders and how their alignment affects their command.
The next chapter deals with mercenary tendencies, which determines other factors (including pay). It covers every Monster Manual critter that can be hired and gives rules on determining pay scale for your own monsters. And yes, it uses the silver piece cost for mercenaries in the DMG as the baseline rate. Along with the various monster discussions are sample mercenary troops with stats. This section also includes a new subrace of halfling, the gorkha.
Then there's the chapter on mercenary companies. It covers using the leadership feat for leading mercenaries companies, the organization of mercenary companies, hiring mercenaries, and a system to calculate a mercenary's cost. 38 types of mercenaries follows, with stat block examples of each. Budgets, headquarters, and company prestige are also discussed.
Chapter Five details new prestige classes. 17 of them. All of them are exclusively mercenary classes.
Chapter Six discusses skills and their application for mercenaries. It includes eight "new" skills -- as in, profession/craft/knowledge skills and a handful that were necessary for Modern/Futuristic campaigns (like Pilot).
Chapter Seven is feat-o-rama. Too many to count. A lot here because it covers all three campaign types.
Chapter Eight covers the mercenary's best friend: his equipment. It details transportation, weapons, and armor of all types and eras. A bunch of magical standards and horns round out the chapter.
Chapter Nine details combat rules. It covers various modern firearms techniques as well as morale.
Chapter Ten is all about contracts. How often a mercenary company gets a contract, the type of contract, how much it pays, how many men it requires, negotiation modifiers, employer types, command, conditions, duration, pecuniary acts, and more. You could run an entire mercenary campaign by just using a randomly generated table of contracts from month to month. This section contains my personal favorite, the "body part table" which is based off of a real contract -- compensation for loss of a pinky, an ear, a toe.
Chapter Eleven covers codes. If contracts are about a mercenary and his employer, codes are about a mercenary's conduct with other mercenaries. It details alignment and guidelines for how mercenary companies act. It also explores the various methods of punishment mercenaries face -- internally and by external authorities.
Chapter Twelve involves a discussion of spells and psionics -- including the various schools and a list of new spells that apply to mercenary companies as a group.
Chapter Thirteen involves a sample mercenary headquarters, complete with map.
Chapter Fourteen provides information on ten different mercenary companies, along with statistics using the rules in BOB.
The appendices include an annotated bibliography, sample contracts and a mercenary glossary.
For more information or to ask questions about Mercenaries: Born of Blood, visit http://www.otherworlds.cx/sforums/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=11
* Please note that the final product may differ slightly after final edits are made.
