Post originally by Bhikku at 2003-08-05 11:55:09
Converted from Phorums BB System

Any d20 material can be plugged in, with varying degrees of difficulty for the DM. It's been Mr. Cook's contention that any kind of import requires careful consideration, and this may be even more the case in AU than in other campaigns. An experienced and/or insightful DM shouldn't run into much trouble inserting things like the Psions into the game - as a general guideline, keep the Psion's original experience table to maintain a balanced power-level, and be highly selective about using imported feats vs. AU's new & modified feats - since each set of available feats are balanced internally, if someone were to mix 'em there could develop some wierd combos that just go all off-kilter.

The one thing about adding the Psionic's Handbook material is that flavor-wise it might not stand out from spellcasters as much as it does in regular D&D - between the Mind Witch class and the Psionic Mage feat, a lot of psionic style is already present. Certain particularities, such as the types of powers a psion has, and the use of psionic crystals, will help the character stand out somewhat more, though. [I'll also note that multiclass spellcasters add up all their casting-class levels to determine "caster level" in terms of range, duration, etc; PsHb classes don't get that benefit normally, so multiclassing characters will require some extra thought and preperation on your part.]

Malhavoc stuff shouldn't be too hard to fit into the game - since that is generally written by Mr. Cook or other ranking veterans of game design, the material may tend to be more reliable than the average of d20 materials as a whole, but it's still important to watch for weird combination synergy. There's been some requests on the Montecook.com messageboards to see conversion/integration guides for assorted Malhavoc products, and I think Mr. Cook has indicated he'll be making such available as web enhancements... but I may be misremembering. Still, those boards are pretty good for getting author-support and input from other experienced gamers.

I have noticed that some of AU's standard spells are drawn from the Books of Eldritch Might, and Mr. Cook has said that he wanted to design a magical music-flavored class, but realized it would be either too much like the variant bard in BoEMII, or too much like an Akashic (the AU class) with some extra flavor. So right off the bat we can see some Malhavoc-published materials that are well-suited to AU (with the usual caveats about importing materials).

As for monsters, any monster resource you have, be it the Monster Manual or the Tome of Horrors, will suit. The Diamond Throne setting book will have some new monsters as well as guidelines on what monsters from various resources are setting-appropriate (classical monsters like griffons and harpies are in; orcs and hobgoblins are out), but your own AU world can play by its own rules. The game generally assumes 3.0 monster stat blocks rather than 3.5, for however much difference that may make in your gaming.