What makes a good splatbook?

[Greg K]

So, let's say I'm writing a martial combat splatbook. What would you like to see?

• Prestige classes with martial feels for different characters
• Martial feats
• Spells that can increase characters' martial prowess
• New weapons
• New combat rules
• New armors
• New magic items
• How to build an army or mercenary company
• Discussions of the role of environment in combat
• How a DM can adjudicate war
• How to duel
• Wrestling, intimidation, and other nonlethal forms of combat
• Gladiatorial combat
• The uses of combat throughout history
• How demi-humans fight
• Siege combat

.

1. Drop How demi-humans fight. This should be a DM decison based on the DM's setting.
2. Include class variants (as per the PHB Thug variant, the UA class variants, and the spellless Paladin and Ranger variants in Complete Champion) for tailoring starting characters to represent characters of martial archetypes. A good source of fighter archetypes is the 2e Complete Fighter's Handbook kits (and the Northman and Nomad kits from Dragon's Completing the Complete Fighter). Had both WOTC's Sword and Fist and Complete Warrior included such variants, I would have found them much more satisfactory.