What have you stolen from published sources?

[Wonger]

What have you stolen from various D&D and d20 sources and inserted into your campaign? More specifically, what was very easy to plunk into your game without too much modification? Alternatively, what has ended in disaster when you tried to add it?

For my next campaign, I'm stealing a bunch of Malhavoc's Requiem for a God elements, Warforged from Eberron, the Iron Kingdom's ideas of Mekanika and Warjacks, a bunch of spells and items from the Realms, and so on.

So, any concepts or rules subsystems you've stolen?

 

[Desdichado]

Since my entire campaign is a kitbashed mishmash of elements yoinked from various sources, well, yeah. I've done a bit. Here's a rundown of some of the more notable "yoinkings":

• Damage conversion from UA -- useful in that "no cleric" setting.
• Action points from Eberron/UA/d20 Modern, although I'll likely change that to AU Hero Points after having played with those over the weekend and liking them much better.
• Sanity and Sanity-based magic system from d20 Call of Cthulhu/UA.
• Most of my monsters from from Monsternomicon and Book of Fiends rather than MM.
• Classes are from Midnight, AU, Path of the Sword and Rokugan with very little modification.
• Races are all homebrew.
• Mechanika ala Iron Kingdoms are pretty prevalent.
• "Skaven" from Scarred Lands Warrens of the Ratmen have yet to make an appearance, but I've got'em.
• I've used a Defender (class from Midnight) slapped with the Iron Lich template (from Monsternomicon) and given a few spells (from Call of Cthulhu) as a kick-ass NPC opponent that nearly TPKed the party (by design, though -- he was supposed to be kick-ass...)
• Airships, sorta from Bastion Press' book of the same name, although the rules haven't really come into play anyway yet.

So yeah, like I said, I've used all kinds of strange crap in my game. For a more complete guide to how it plays, check out my story hour (link in sig).

EDIT: Oh, and Dragonmark tattoos will soon be making an appearance I think, as well (maybe) as warforged.

 

[Arnwyn]

A few things have been added to my massive FR/AQ/KT/SJ/PS campaign, though I don't know if I can list them all. For the most part, I won't include the major books I use in their entirety (eg. BoVD, BoED, etc); instead I'll note the "piecemeal" items:

- Warforged (from Eberron) added to Halruaa
- Airships (Bastion Press) added to Halruaa
- Swashbuckler and Hexblade core classes (from CW)
- some Iron Kingdoms material (gunmage, some mechanika) added to Lantan
- some d20 Mecha (GoO, DP9) added to Lantan
- desert dwarf and jungle halfling (from UA) added to Maztica
- city supplements (CSIO, Hollowfaust, Mithril, Shelzar)

Most of these have been untested, so I don't know what might be a disaster or not...

 

[The_Gneech]

I haven't stolen anything! I've paid for everything I use!

Unless it was a free promo download.

My single biggest resource, outside of the core rulebooks and E-Tools has been Dungeon magazine, and most of the things I've used from there have been run almost straight as written with little or no changing. Usually it's just a matter of saying, "This is in Bissel, not the Silver Marches," and swapping out or adding the occasional campaign-specific baddie or NPC.

Saturday, the Midnight Peddler from Tome of Horrors(1) is going to make an appearance in the game, with a bit of added backstory and a small selection of rare and unique items. (My world doesn't have magic shops, but sometimes merchants do have magic items in their collection, and an oddity like the Midnight Peddler, I'd imagine has more.) I'll be curious to see if the players take advantage of his unique abilities, or if they get the willies and blast him on general principle. Sometimes I gotta wonder about them!

I also use a lot of Mage Knight and Combat Hex (LotR) miniatures. They kinda crowd the board, but it's easy enough to make allowances for that.

-The Gneech

(1) Easily my favorite 3rd-party d20 supplement.

 

[Wraith Form]

I think the real question is "What haven't you stolen from published sources?" (Answer: anything with fairies or magic pixie dust )

See that Dungeon magazine over there? See all those old Dungeon magazines since ish #40 or so?

Yeah. All those.

See that pile of scenarios/adventures/modules over there? The ones from AD&D 2nd Edition until Eberron's Whispers of the Vampire's Blade?

Yeah. All those, too.

I try to yoink plots from everything I buy and mold or reshape or re-write them to accomodate my finnicky, fickle, non-kobold-lovin' idea of what D&D should be. It's not easy, but I try.

Oh, and I steal heavy & often from Pagan Publishing's Delta Green & DG: Countdown books if at all possible.

 

[Psion]

Where do I begin?

I am running a seafaring/planehopping game, so many supplements that support either are getting pulled into my game.

In particular, I am using the River of World concept straight out of Portals & Planes
Many planes and stopoffs are out of Portals & Planes, Beyond Countless Doorways,, and Classic Play: Book of the Planes. Some factions are drawn from Planescape and Book of the Planes.

Seafaring material handled with the assistance of Seas of Blood, Seafarer's Handbook, Salt and Sea Dogs, and Book of the Sea with monstrous support from Creatures of Freeport and Creatures of the Boundless Blue

From there is gets complicated:
One world stopoff I will be making features Bluffside, Freeport, and Mindshadows.

New Races from Mythic Races, Mercenaries, Warcraft and the Expanded Psionics Handbook. I am also using elemental elves from Bow & Blade.

In addition to the core classes minus paladin, I am using:

• Psion, Psychic Warrior, Wilder, and Soulknife from Expanded Psionics Handbook (honestly, I hate the Soulknife as a base class; the only reason I pull it in is that under the new rules, Githyanki suck as psychic warriors.)
• Shaman from Shaman's Hanbook
• Favored Soul from Complete Divine &/or Minis Handbook
• Avatar from Avatar's Handbook
• Priest from Good
• Martial Artist from Beyond Monks
• Hexblade from Complete Warrior
• Holy Warrior from Book of the Righteous
• Unholy Warrior from Book of Fiends/Unholy Warrior's Handbook
• Unfettered (slightly tweaked) from Arcana Unearthed

With subsitition levels and class variant options from Unearthed Arcana, Planar Handbook, and Races of Stone

Prestige classes from a slew of resources. Most particularly Spells & Magic
Spells for a slew of resources.

 

[Wonger]

Where do I begin?

...HUGE LIST O' SOURCES...

Aaaah! My brain hurts just thinking of trying to keep it all straight. Obviously, you have access to a huge library of sources, but even my relatively small geek library gives me more options than I know what to do with!

Everybody: Do you do anything or have any system to keep track of what is used for what, beyond the core rules? If not for yourself, do you have some system to keep track of what is allowed for your players to refer to?

 

[jerichothebard]

Corvis
Cloistered Clerics from UA (though, that's what that book is for, yoinking stuff)
music domain from someone here (thanks, whoever that was)
Luminaux, the Blue City, the City of Harmony, from Sharon Shinn's novels of Samaria
A few adventures here and there.
PrC's here and there.

jtb

 

[Psion]

Do you do anything or have any system to keep track of what is used for what, beyond the core rules? If not for yourself, do you have some system to keep track of what is allowed for your players to refer to?

For the players: I kept a list of permissible resources. But it proved to be not too useful, as the players didn't own half of the stuff anyways, but OTOH new stuff would come out that would require me to update it.

Now my rule of thumb for players is simple: CLEAR IT WITH ME FIRST.

For myself: The only thing close is I have a section of my bookshelf reserved for "books currently relevant in the campaign".

If you want to track it, Goodman Games has a DM campaign tracker that codifies this sort of thing.

 

[Voadam]

Stuff I've been using since I took over the current campaign:

Modules: Demon God's Fane, Lord of the Iron Fortress
Complete Book of Eldritch Might: spells, items, prestige classes
Mythic Races: a race
Into the Black: a race
Book of Fiends: Devils, unholy warrior,
Book of Fiends Web Enhancement: Summoning charts and templates
Encyclopedia of Demons and Devils: Demons and Devils
Encyclopedia of Demons and Devils II: Devil
Book of Vile Darkness: Devil info
Creature Collection III: Planar monster
Slayer's Guide to Demons: Demon concepts
Complete Minions: Demon
Monsters of Norrath: bad guy monster race
Librum Equitis Compiled: holy warlord prestige class
Complete Book of Drow: drow variant
2e Outer Planes Monstrous compendium: demon info
1e Roleaids Dwarves Sourcebook: Dwarven Kingdom
1e Manual of Planes: for plane descriptions
1e MM: for demon info
1e MMII: for devil info

Characters also have stuff from:
Hammer and Helm
Arms and Armor
Book of Exalted Deeds
Quintessential Paladin
Complete Divine
Tome and Blood
Wheel of Time d20
Complete Warrior
Book of Templates
and I think Quintessential Druid