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Thread: Good D20 products for Birthright
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06-13-2004, 10:38 PM #1
(Hopefully I'm not rehashing any old discussions I may have missed)
Since there are so many D20 products out there, I was curious if anybody had found any that were particularly useful/applicable to the Birthright campaign setting. I've kept my eye out for these, but they're not always easy to find. Personally I have found two very helpful books:
Dynasties and Demagogues, published by Atlas Games
This one is an obvious choice, as the subtitle (The Sourcebook of Political Intrigue) indicates. It pretty much has all the basics you would expect in a D20 sourcebook: feats, prestige classes, spells, and magical items that are all geared towards intrigue and political activities, but stops short of giving rulership rules which makes it mesh nicely with BR. It also provides some nifty rules for debates that D20 mirror combat.
A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe, by Expeditious Retreat Press
This is a very unique book in the sense that it offers no feats, spells, classes, or magical items (There is a template for a "Magical Medieval King" that borrows from the same "Divine Right of Kings" mythology as Birthright does). What this book contains is everything you need to know about the middle ages and didn't know you needed to know. It is extremely detail oriented while birthright is very abstracted, so the complement each other well even if they don't line up 100% (see my discussion here for an example). However, it does cover pretty much everything that might expect to go on inside a law, guild, or temple holding.
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06-14-2004, 08:36 AM #2
I agree with you on the Medieval Magical Society book. It is very useful indeed. However I haven't read through my own copy of Dynasties and Demagogues.
I have found that "Fields of Blood" by Eden Studios very interesting.
Along with that I like the Gary Gygax line from Troll Lord Games. "Living Fantasy" was good until Medival Magical Society came out. "The Canting Crew" is good for elaboration of the theiving world. And "Extraordinary Book of Names" for those of us who like to look through organized lists of names to use for new characters. BR names can be easily tweaked from these lists. Also a person could just get a bunch of names from a website somewhere.One law, One court, One allied people, One coin, and one tax, is what I shall bring to Cerilia.
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06-14-2004, 05:50 PM #3
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You might find the recently published CityWorks to be handy. I just picked it up and think it's a good tool for DMs who dread when PCs head to the city insetad of a forest full of monsters. Plus it has fun tables with random city events, one of my favorite being a press-gang mistakes a PC for a recent escapee. They aren't all that humorous, of course, but they are interesting.
In general I find the d20 books overpowered and perpetuating an arms race when it comes to prestige classes, skills, feats, and spells -- and I would say the classes in this book are no expception. They do have a neat idea for an urban druid, however, though I don't see it fitting into my BR campaign.
I also think some of the prestige classes and skills from the White Wolf Ravenloft campaign books are great. Specifically, Champions of Darkness introduces the Propagandist, the Mesmerist and the Charlatan. They are all very useful in a politically driven game, and for city adventures. The thing I like the best about the Ravenloft stuff is that it is low-power by design, and you won't find *any* prestige classes, skills, or feats in those resources that outcompetes something from the core books (and certainly not with anything d20). Van Ricthen's arsensal has some more interesting prestige classes, spells, and feats, too. Champions of light not so much for BR, at least not in my opinion... they are more specifically geared towards fighting the sort of evil one might find in Ravenloft, though I suppose they could be tailored to awnshegh. I've made the hypnotize skill a class skill for Magicians from the RL player's handbook as well. Our magician has been using it to good effect playing a bit of a con man at that.
Hope this helps...Carpe DM
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06-14-2004, 08:07 PM #4
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Skip Williams' Cry Havoc on Malv. Press is one of the best, if not the best, d20 war rules resource.
Duane Eggert
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06-14-2004, 11:38 PM #5
Going through some of my collection I found a few more. These have some good ideas for running a campaign and broadening your scope of vision. I wouldn't say they are essentiel but fun to explore new ideas.
"War" by AEG goes into some stuff about war.
"The Noble's Handbook" Green Ronin Publishing tries to elaborate on the class of noble. There is also a power class noble from mongoose publishing along similar lines.
For those interested in a medieval flavor there is, "Medieval Player's Manual" by Green Ronin Publishing. This goes into some earth based ideas both mythical and historical for running this style of campaign.
"Empire" by AEG goes into some domain system rules of their own.
"Strongholds and Dynasties" by Mongoose Publishing the "Classic Play" series makes an attempt at domain style play.
"Twin Crowns Age of Exploration Fantasy" by Living Imagination Inc. goes into a more Brecht style-swashbuckling-colonial style of campaign. It is a campaign setting but there are some good ideas to use.
"From Stone to Steel" by Monkey God Enterprises goes into historical and cultural types of equipment, prestige classes, and feats to allow for using such flavor in a campaign or use in expanding a campaign. I really like this book btw.One law, One court, One allied people, One coin, and one tax, is what I shall bring to Cerilia.
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