Rules Void?

[Incenjucar]

As in "How to make spells" and "how to make monsters" etc? Is that what your talking about?

Yep. Like the old World Builder's Guide, too. How to Create Monsters, How to Create Spells and Magic Items, How to Create Classes and PrCs, How to Create Feats, Skills, and Special Abilities would fill in the rest, more or less.

I think these can be handled by a single book becuase I honestly cannot see an entire feat devoted to rage, let along trip.

To be more specific, the book (at least if done by WotC), would be a compilation of every single self-defined monster, character, PrC, feat, or other ability that can be defined on its own, and a host of new ones, not actually set in to anything yet. Perhaps with some rules for mixing and matching without changing power level, and, of course, everything being broken down to be 'neutral' (Smite Alignment rather than Smite Evil, etc), for greatest utility.

And, again, the abilities would be for anything where abilities are applicabale, from Feats to Class/PrC Abilities to Spells and Magic items.

Say you take the rules for "Rend", and apply them to a matched pair of clawed gauntlets, with "Rake" rules applying to a pair of magical clawed boots that go with the gauntlets. Or, instead, there was a feat tree that got you Rend, or a PrC called the Rending Ranger, or a spell that gave your feet claws for the sake of raking. Etc etc etc. It would be like that list of monster abilities in the MM, but expanded like mad.

 

[Incenjucar]

I second the Native American setting. I would kill for one of those.

I wouldn't be surprised if part of it was a fear of being sued; Native American cultural history is no more pleasant than any other cultural group (and their modern systems have made me decide against hunting down the two tribes I'm related to -- being part of one seriously corrupt culture is bad enough). Now, something INSPIRED on native cultures would be fun. You just have to dodge history like mad, or else hope nobody notices.

 

[molonel]

...

Designing general low magic campaigns. I'm aware that there are campaign settings which are comparatively low magic - Mongoose's Conan d20, Midnight, Testament d20 - but there is no resource for designing good, solid low-magic games.

 

[Incenjucar]

True, molonel. That goes in with the "How To" series.

 

[Janx]

I have SeaFarer's Handbook. I think it was Mongoose. It's OK. Covers sailing and undersea adventures. I wasn't happy with the ship building rules, but that was more a personal thing.

I don't have Book of the Sea...but I've heard good things..

I meant tropical as in Tropical Islands. Versus Jungle, as in the Amazon. They might be considered different environments.

I wouldn't merge China with much more than Japan. Things diverge quite quickly when you account for India and Indonesia.

But either way, there's some holes in those categories that somebody could make a product for (which is what I assume the topic is about).

Janx

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I wouldn't merge China with much more than Japan.

Well, there is O.A. Maybe we need to revisit Kara-Tur. And Zakhara while we are at it.

So mass combat, Oriental material, poison, ruling and sea travel have been covered.

Well, that still leaves a pseudo-Native American setting to cover, as well as the enviormental settings, specific feats, do-it-your-self material and maybe a Renaissance setting and books on trade, commernce and running busiesses for PC and possible non-combat spells and skills.

What else would there be?

 

[CRGreathouse]

I have seen mixed reviews of Malhavoc Press's “Cry Havoc” — at least one asserting its rules for mass combat break down if there are more than a few hundred combatants employed — and it is the only mass combat system I am aware of.

That's due to poor reading, I'd wager; the primary scale combat system may have trouble dealing with over a thousand or so troops, but that's what the other two scopes are for.

The middle scope (sorry, I can't remember what it's called) is good for armies ranging from 1000 to 100 000.

 

[barsoomcore]

Designing general low magic campaigns. I'm aware that there are campaign settings which are comparatively low magic - Mongoose's Conan d20, Midnight, Testament d20 - but there is no resource for designing good, solid low-magic games.

True, molonel. That goes in with the "How To" series.

Clearly you folks have never heard of Grim Tales from Badaxe Games. It is EXACTLY what you're asking for:

Grim Tales is the high adventure, low magic campaign sourcebook for fantastic roleplaying in your favourite pulp genres, from the dawn of Atlantis to the apolcalyptic future of a dying planet. (snip) GMs can pick and choose from a wide variety of design mechanics, variant rules and campaign trappings to create exactly the setting he wants (snip) Grim Tales is a complete toolkit.

This is no idle boast. Grim Tales includes complete rules for creating monsters and figuring out their Challenge Ratings (as does the Monsters Handbook from Fantasy Flight Games -- another GREAT resource for kitbasher DMs). Grim Tales also includes a great magic system for low-magic games, horror rules that work quite differently than CoC (and are better for recreating the sudden shocks and panic attacks of high adventure as opposed to the slow, relentless crawl of madness of Lovecraft), chase rules and man...

Just everything you need to create your own low-magic campaign. It's a truly awesome book. I can't figure out what I did before I got it.

Get it. You'll be so glad you did.

 

[Incenjucar]

Well, honestly, the terms "Grim", "horror rules" (I've never ever liked the notion that so many things would make you go insane, I just can't empathise with anything but torture, chemicals, physical damage, or supernatural effects causing mental damage, then again, I'm a Giger fan.), and pulp don't appeal to me at all. I'd love some nice generic rules for D&D with lower magic, and lets you figure out the themes on your own.

Then again, that's why I have my own setting I'm working on (check the low-magic thread to see some of my ideal notions, it's one of the newer posts).

Then again, a How To book on ubermagitech would be interesting just to see how it would look.

 

[barsoomcore]

Icanjucar, I'm just going to note that you're judging a book by its cover, that your concerns don't really apply, and you ought to check it out before dismissing it. You can indeed figure out the themes on your own.

Not sure what "generic rules for D&D with lower magic" would look like. Don't you just, well, have less magic. That's what I do. What rules do you want?