Zardnaar
Legend
With the various posts about advanced D&D and the settings etc I think there is room for a book to address some of that. It would mostly be for the DM but to sell to everyone perhaps as much player content as SCAG. This book would be to coer some of the more popular subsystems used in the various campaign settings. PLayer stuff can be races for those worlds and some feats perhaps. Settings requiring a huge amount of rules (Spelljammer) are out (you can use the 2E ones for space combat if you must), something like Dragonmarks, the bloodline abilities from Birthright are in. If something fits on a few pages you can look at it.
Player Stuff
A few Archetypes
Cleric Domains Air, Earth, FIre, Water (3E PHB domains, useful for Darksun)
Suggested races.
Deva
Half Giant
Kreen
Giff
Gully Dwarves
Kender
Changelings
Tortles
Rakasta
Warforged
More feats (setting specific).
Pathfinder also did a book like this called Ultimate Campaign which clocked in at 258 pages.
That book had 4 main chapters.
1. Character Background
2. Downtime
3. Campaign Systems
4. Kingdoms and War
Trust Paizo to dedicate 50-60 pages to things like back grounds and downtime. Anyway the Kingdoms and war part would be interesting both to ye old 80's D&D where it was a thing and due to things like the Stronghold kickstarter. One could also get the page count down a bit looking at the mass combat rules in the BECMI rules cyclopedia. Mass combat rules could also have a section on Birthright so 2 birds one stone there.
Castles and Crusades also has a section on ruler ship tied to level and it take up 1 page. Basically if you found a domain at XYZ level you get this amount of income. Would not be hard to do something similar and have that modified by PCsa actions, a large rich domain could just have a X2 or X3 multiplier for example. ACKS also has a section like that and its closer to 16 pages IIRC than 50 or 60.
So far we have mostly looked at fairly mundane stuff. Spellpoints are in the DMG but how about other spell casting rules. From the old 2E Spells and Magic they had a section on defiling which went into more detail about it than the 2E Darksun rules. Once again you don't need a huge amount of rules to duplicate this and it can combine with the Darksun races in the race chapter. Once psionics comes out you more or less have Darksun covered and you can use the 2E or 4E fluff.
That is roughly all I have so far but we are probably not even at 100 pages yet. A chapter on some of the planar mechanics could cover planescape, a few more races from various settings could be added to the player section, races do not use up much in the way of page stuff. Since you have to sell this book to everyone some more magic items such as the Dragonlances could fit in (auto crit on Dragons?), moon magic from Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Nerath, Cerilia and even the mists mechanics from Ravenloft could fit in as well along with the Day of Dread from Mystara. Most of the settings do not require that much in the way of mechanics, Spelljammer being an exception due to ship to ship mechanics, rules in space, spheres etc. That is more sue to page count issues and 2E rules while clunky you can still use them if you have to.
Player Stuff
A few Archetypes
Cleric Domains Air, Earth, FIre, Water (3E PHB domains, useful for Darksun)
Suggested races.
Deva
Half Giant
Kreen
Giff
Gully Dwarves
Kender
Changelings
Tortles
Rakasta
Warforged
More feats (setting specific).
Pathfinder also did a book like this called Ultimate Campaign which clocked in at 258 pages.
That book had 4 main chapters.
1. Character Background
2. Downtime
3. Campaign Systems
4. Kingdoms and War
Trust Paizo to dedicate 50-60 pages to things like back grounds and downtime. Anyway the Kingdoms and war part would be interesting both to ye old 80's D&D where it was a thing and due to things like the Stronghold kickstarter. One could also get the page count down a bit looking at the mass combat rules in the BECMI rules cyclopedia. Mass combat rules could also have a section on Birthright so 2 birds one stone there.
Castles and Crusades also has a section on ruler ship tied to level and it take up 1 page. Basically if you found a domain at XYZ level you get this amount of income. Would not be hard to do something similar and have that modified by PCsa actions, a large rich domain could just have a X2 or X3 multiplier for example. ACKS also has a section like that and its closer to 16 pages IIRC than 50 or 60.
So far we have mostly looked at fairly mundane stuff. Spellpoints are in the DMG but how about other spell casting rules. From the old 2E Spells and Magic they had a section on defiling which went into more detail about it than the 2E Darksun rules. Once again you don't need a huge amount of rules to duplicate this and it can combine with the Darksun races in the race chapter. Once psionics comes out you more or less have Darksun covered and you can use the 2E or 4E fluff.
That is roughly all I have so far but we are probably not even at 100 pages yet. A chapter on some of the planar mechanics could cover planescape, a few more races from various settings could be added to the player section, races do not use up much in the way of page stuff. Since you have to sell this book to everyone some more magic items such as the Dragonlances could fit in (auto crit on Dragons?), moon magic from Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Nerath, Cerilia and even the mists mechanics from Ravenloft could fit in as well along with the Day of Dread from Mystara. Most of the settings do not require that much in the way of mechanics, Spelljammer being an exception due to ship to ship mechanics, rules in space, spheres etc. That is more sue to page count issues and 2E rules while clunky you can still use them if you have to.
