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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tsyr" data-source="post: 1267597" data-attributes="member: 354">I'll list my five favorites thus far for D20..Sovereign Stone My favorite setting. Dragonlance meets Wheel of Time meets goodness.Pros: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Best third party D20 magic system that still allows for something not all too different from standard DnD casting. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A great new take on three of the standard races. Nomadic fire-magic using horse-lord dwaves styled after the mongols in many respects. Magic-fearing warrior/noble elves that are styled heavily after feudal japan. Sea-faring mercantile orc gypsies. Plus the pecwae, a race that combines elements of halflings, kender, and elves (No, they aren't kleptomaniacs or fearless. Good traits of the kender. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Even if you don't use the setting as a whole, the races port great to any world.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A fresh new look on the role of gods in day to day lives. Sovereign Stone is a very godcentric setting in many ways, but the gods interact with the world in different ways. No clerics in the DnD sense, for example. Magic-wielding priests are just mages with Profession: Priest. The Dominion Lords (Paladins x10) and Vrykyl (Anti-Paladins x10). The portals. The list goes on.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If you like the feel of the Wheel of Time books, or of the Dragonlance books, or better yet both, you will probaby like Sovereign Stone. It's like having the best elements of each (Vast worlds, clashes of culture, the dark side of magic and the gods, vast distances to cross to get anywhere at times, unknown hoards from beyond...) all rolled up into one setting. The Taan are a far nastier bunch than the Sean'chan ever could hope to be, though.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The main book comes with a number of new base classes... All non magical, except for Elemental Mage and Void Mage, the two magic using classes in the book. Good classes, too.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sovereign Stone is a nice mix of low-magic and traditional magic. Magic is everywhere in Loerem...  Mages are common enough, for example, that they are no huge amazement, and divine magic in the form of Portals and Dominion Lords and such are readily apparent. But at the same time, not every person is going to be a magical entity... wilderness warriors and mounted knights and minstrils arent slinging magic about like a wannabe archmage in Sovereign Stone. Magic is practiced by mages. Period. If you want a magic-using knight, well, better have him take some Mage levels. Even priests and clerics get their magic from mages levels.  There is no difference between divine and arcane magic, on the player character level... magic is magic is magic. Divine magic as in miracles from the gods, well, thats something else... But that's as it should be. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It doesn't fundamentaly change the basic feel of DnD very much, it just... kinda shifts it around a little bit. You still feel like you are playing a DnD game with Sovereign Stone, not a whole new game... But at the same time, you do kinda feel like you are playing a whole new game.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The good-vs-evil theme is very strong in Sovereign Stone. </li> </ul>Cons:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Well, there is only one type of magic. That might be a con to some. Same with magic being a little more scarce. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The world *is* a little contrived, in places, but I'm not one who really cares if the tectonic plate movement patterns are consistant with the continental shape. If you are, well, I guess that's something to consider. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It doesn't fundamentaly change the basic feel of DnD very much, it just... kinda shifts it around a little bit. You still feel like you are playing a DnD game with Sovereign Stone, not a whole new game... But at the same time, you do kinda feel like you are playing a whole new game.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The good-vs-evil theme is very strong in Sovereign Stone. </li> </ul>Slaine Celtic Buttkicking in the Days Before Yore. Pros:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A very flavorfull world... Using a cement ball made from the brains of your fallen foe as a weapon, bartering for goods, flint and crude iron weapony human sacrifice for magical powers... All allong side flying airships and undead hoards and berserker warriors from hell.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Second best D20 magic system ever. Very low magic in feel. It's a point-based system. A lot of focus on storage and accumulation of points in stones and through sacrifice and such. Most spells have a very primal, earthy feel to them... But not in the happy-feel-good way of some earth magic systems and games, but rather the "The earth giveth only when it feels like it and you have made it happy enough, and the earth also taketh away... with an attitude" way. In a wild departure from what you would think of in the normal low magic game, everyone in the game can theoreticly cast spells... It only involves taking ranks in the proper skills (It's a skill-based system), and learning how to do it. So a lot of people could know simple warding charms and stuff. There certain classes that are better at it than others, however. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A very rich world that is at the same time almost completely devoid of details... You can't look at a map and see 100 cities, then look them up and see what they are. It doesn't work that way. It's a primative world, and it's really up to you what its like outside of a few certain areas. </li> </ul>Cons:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A very rich world that is at the same time almost completely devoid of details... You can't look at a map and see 100 cities, then look them up and see what they are. It doesn't work that way. It's a primative world, and it's really up to you what its like outside of a few certain areas. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Pretty much none of the usual fantasy races. Dwarves exist, kinda, but they are not at all like DnD dwarves. </li> </ul>Midnight and Kalamar have been covered in enough detail already...My fifth is Arcana Unearthed, but I have no doubt someone will get to that in due time...</blockquote>

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