Rules Compendium - what do we expect?

[Shawn_Kehoe]

So the D&D Rules Compendium hits this October, a standard 160-page hardcover. The promotional blurb says that it covers all the most important rules of the game, allowing you to bring fewer books to the game table. With that provision, I'm not certain what it could include/replace.

Books it cannot replace at the gaming table:

Player's Handbook / Dungeon Master's Guide: yeah, you could take the adventuring, magic and combat chapters and condense them, but you'll still need both books on hand to look up magic items and spell descriptions. So while they could include that info in the RC, what would be the point if the other two books are still needed?

Psionics Handbook / Tome of Magic / Tome of Battle: RC could contain the rules for the basic systems. But if a PC or NPC is using a character from these books, they are still going to want the book to refer to spell/power descriptions.

Some things I think it could include:

Epic Rules: the bits of the 3.5 Epic SRD that haven't seen print could be put here, along with the Epic Feats from the various Complete books. Epic Spellcasting and magic items should be available in print, since a fair portion of the userbase is probably ignorant of the hypertext SRD. And c'mon ... there are monsters in the Monster Manual that have DR/epic, but no rules in the DMG for epic weapons?

I wouldn't expect the Epic monsters to be reprinted though.

Divine Ranks: Once again, this material is in the SRD, and I could see it being reprinted here, just without the pantheons.

Taint Rules: After appearing in Oriental Adventures, Unearthed Arcana and Heroes of Horror, it's clear that WotC likes this system.

Feats: I think reprinted feats will be a big focus. There probably aren't enough good feats to fill a 160-page book on their own, hence "Rules Compendium" instead of "Feat Compendium," but they could include the feats from most of the "Complete" books. I think the Psionics material would be ruled too esoteric for the space requirement (12 pages of feats in the Expanded PsiHB).

Any other theories?

 

[No Name]

Maybe they'll have a class section. Was it the last Dragon magazine that had the rules most used by monks? Something like that.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Action points for one and expanded Enviromental rules.

 

[Tewligan]

A massive need for errata.

 

[Glyfair]

Feats: I think reprinted feats will be a big focus. There probably aren't enough good feats to fill a 160-page book on their own, hence "Rules Compendium" instead of "Feat Compendium," but they could include the feats from most of the "Complete" books. I think the Psionics material would be ruled too esoteric for the space requirement (12 pages of feats in the Expanded PsiHB).

I don't see why a feat compendium needs to "fill a 160-page book." Then again, I don't see the need for a feat compendium.

If something like that was done I'd rather see a "character compendium." Compile new base classes, some feats, some prestige classes and supporting rules (spells for the casting classes, for example) into a single book.

I really don't think we'll see feats here, except when they want to examine the rules behind a feat or set of feats.

 

[takasi]

I think a book compiling new and existing non-PHB feats (broken down by metamagic, divine, racial, tactical, etc) and alternate class features could easily take up 160 pages.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I know what I would like in a rules compendium: All of the prestige classes, feats, alternate skill uses, exotic weapons, racial substitution levels, etc from the various Complete Books compiled in one book, balance issues addressed, and printed. That way, I could stop carrying any of the Complete Books and still have what I need for my characters.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the Rules Compendium will hardly contain any "rule".

IMHO, "rules" are for example the descriptions about handling weather and hazards from the environmental books, or subsystems like psionics but the latter cannot be easily used with also introducing character material (e.g. psionic classes).

Other "rules" can be taken from Heroes of Battle/Horror, or maybe rules to create Weapons of Legacy or racial substitution levels.

Feats and classes are not exactly "rules" in my book...

But because there are few actual "rules", I'm quite sure that this compendium will be a "bunch of everything" or even a "best of".

 

[Shadeydm]

Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!

It would be nice if it was a best of book which covered the races, enviroment, and complete series.

 

[Flynn]

I honestly expect this book to be a compilation of the articles from the "Rules of the Game" over at the WOTC site, cleaned up a bit but otherwise a lot of recycled materials. You can read them here at:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/rg

It won't have much in the way of new rules, I don't think, because then it would be be advertised as Unearthed Arcana II or Complete Unearthed Arcana or something like that. I'd love to see a second Unearthed Arcana compilation, but truth be told, that doesn't appear to be on the horizon for D&D.

If there are new rules in this product, then I imagine the RC might gather all the new character sub-systems from various Complete products and put them all under one hardcover. That might actually be helpful. Otherwise, I don't see it being any more than the "Rules of the Game" stuff we've already seen.

With that in mind, I am going to wait until I know more about what's found inside before I even consider picking it up.

With Regards,
Flynn