[SSS] The Slarecian Legacy - also doomed?

[Anubis the Doomseer]

Given the release date, Krieg, I'd guess that that's exactly what it means - there is no way WotC would allow other publishers to use materials in the XPH in a d20 book, and then release said book a month before the XPH comes out; essentially scooping WotC with their own material. It just wouldn't happen that way.

Sure.
Creature Collection I (released a month before the Monster Manual)
Spells and Rituals I
The Divine and Defeated (released a month earliuer than Dieties and Demigods, with a remarkably similar set of rules for divinities)
Scarred Lands Gazetteer (setting but still, earlier than FRCS)
Class splatbooks.

Sure, SSS would NEVER, EVER release a book earlier than Wizards, that often uses the basic mechanics of a Wizards release.

- Anubis

 

[Gez]

Relics & Rituals contained prestige classes, spells, and magic items, as well as the rituals.

It was published after the Player's Handbook (Wizards' first book with spells) and after the Dungeon Master's Guide (Wizards' first book with prestige classes and magic items).

I'm not convinced by the remarkable similarity of divinity rules between Divine & Defeated and Deities & Demigods. The only real similarity I can see is that both can be shortened D&D.

The Ghelspad Gazeteer was published after both Greyhawk Gazeteers.

The class splatbooks, likewise, were all published after WotC's ones.


More importantly, all of these used only rules that were already published in the System Reference Draft, or the System Reference Document.

With the exception of CC1, which used only an unfinished draft of the rules (and was totally bogus as a result). This is exactly Alzrius' point.

I don't see any scooping of the FRCS in the Ghelspad Gazeteer. Where's the circle magic? The shadow weave? Drizzt?

 

[Alzrius]

Sure.
Creature Collection I (released a month before the Monster Manual)

Um, try a day before the MM came out. Which is why it won't happen again.

Spells and Rituals I

I'm not even sure why you're listing this. It contains nothing that was supposedly released before something of WotC's. And for the record, its Relics & Rituals.

The Divine and Defeated (released a month earliuer than Dieties and Demigods, with a remarkably similar set of rules for divinities)

Irrelevant. It doesn't matter how similar it may have been...which it wasn't, since D&Dg had divine ranks, divine salient abilities, rules for proxies, etc.

Scarred Lands Gazetteer (setting but still, earlier than FRCS)

And yet, curiously, after the D&D Gazeteer.

Class splatbooks.

WotC's class splatbooks were out long before S&S's. So this entry makes no sense.

Sure, SSS would NEVER, EVER release a book earlier than Wizards, that often uses the basic mechanics of a Wizards release.

No kidding they wouldn't. They did ONCE, and we've never seen that again, and we never will. The thing to remember is that there is a world of difference between "similar" material, and the exact same material.

Echoes as it is, won't use 3.5E psionics because WW, even if they have access to that material, won't be allowed to release it before the EPsiHB. Period.

 

[SSS-Druid]

Echoes of the Past: The Slarecian Legacy will not be using the revised psionics rules; it instead uses the current psionics rules in the SRD.

And, to be honest, that's okay. The use of psionics in that books is pretty much just a short-cut, anyway. As I say in the Introduction, we figured that rather than come up with a whole new system of Eerie Mind Powers that will end up looking a lot like psionics in the SRD anyway, we might as well just use those, plus some of the additions that good old Bruce Cordell has come up with for Malhavoc.

The book is honestly about the slarecians, and psionics plays a background role - there are no in-character references to psionics as such, and the game stats are just convenient shorthands for quantifying something in the rules that is very much a mystery in-setting.

The appendix does have some keen new psionics stuff, but unless the new psionics book drastically changes the system (rather than just expanding it, as some folks seem to have indicated), nothing should be rendered unusable by it. The rest of the book is about the slarecians, from their history to the cults that still serve them to the ruins they left behind (including weird architecture, traps and short descriptions of known ruins in the Scarred Lands).

 

[Alaric_Prympax]

Thanks for the information there Joseph. Not that this book wasn't already on my list to buy; so far I've got the entire SL collection, but I looking forward to this even more.

I'm sure that even if the revised PsiHB has a totally new system for psionics; I'm sure I could, with a little work, covert it all anyway.

 

[cats_claw]

[As I say in the Introduction, we figured that rather than come up with a whole new system of Eerie Mind Powers that will end up looking a lot like psionics in the SRD anyway, we might as well just use those, plus some of the additions that good old Bruce Cordell has come up with for Malhavoc.

I was going to say.... the Malhavoc stuff was pretty good. Why should Wizards be the all knowing, all defining standard anyway. (Uh wait a sec... looking for a bolt to strike me down. No, no, no.. WotC is GREAT! LOVE and GOODNESS)

I like what Bruce Cordell did for Malhavoc and it's nice to see someone expand on this for Scarn.

cats_claw

 

[Nightfall]

Agreed. I hope Mindscapes gets more play too.