Xanth D20 (ideas only)

[F.H. Zebedee]

No, this isn't a major homebrew. I don't feel like making a rigid set of rules or anything right now. This is just conjecture about the sort of stuff that the Xanth setting would entail.

Note: I read the books a long time ago, and don't remember much of them. Also, I prefered the more serious first six books of the series, which might also have something to do with it.

Namely, does anybody have any idea what Spell Level is magician class magic? Trent had Baleful Polymorph, Dor had a weird combination Awaken/Animate Objects, Dolph had Wildshape (Or something like it), etc.

I'm thinking it'd be pretty easy to run as an adventure where everybody gets a noncasting class (Probably just Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Warrior) and a Spell Like ability (between levels 0 and 3) that could be used at will, with increasing cooldowns for higher levels. (Just theoretically, Level 0 would be recharged after 1d4+1 turns, and Level 3 would take 2d8+4 turns or something like that). (Ironic, since I want 0 casting or magic barring talents to the players, the NPC class left out is Adept. Any other Anthony fans will get the irony.)

At level 11, each person gets to begin taking PC classes. I'm thinking it'd go directly along the lines of: (ignoring entry prereqs for prestige classes)
Aristocrat: Duelist/Paladin (No spells/Healing)
Warrior: Fighter/Barbarian
Expert: Rogue/Ranger (No spells)
Commoner: Horizon Walker/Bard (No spells)

Magic weapons would be moderately rare (I think there was one +5 weapon mentioned out of all the books I read, the enchanted sword that made Dor an expert just by wielding it.)

Not sure what I'd do for races there. I'd need to reread the series.

How do the rest of you think that Xanth and D&D would get along?

[Joltz]

With all the unusual stuff that has a tendency to happen in D&D I think roleplaying Xanth is a good idea.

Talents as Spell-like abilites with cooldown works. Some of them should be random things (supernatural abilities or new spells) thrown in by the DM though. Talents were always really weird and unusual.

I like your class idea. Nobody in Xanth does really awesome stuff attributed to specific classes in D&D. I think I'd lower your limit on the required number of NPC class levels to 5 or so though. Nobody in Xanth seemed to be much higher than level 12 to me. I'd also reduce the tie-in of each class to a specific NPC class. Just give the classes entry requirements like PrCs.

Other than a few basics like that, you'd need to stat out some of the major things in the Xanth world (love springs XD). You'd also need a pretty good DM who can do a lot of imaginative stuff off the top of his head.

[F.H. Zebedee]

Yeah, tenth level seems a little high now. (As you said, the characters never really get that much oomph. They tend to SURVIVE encounters, not steamroller them, and most victory comes from "Player Ingenuity", one could say.) And indeed, I should probably just go and make each have some Prereqs, and make it just easier for logical matchups. Heck, maybe cap levels at around 10 or so, since it's rare in Xanth to have ANYBODY who can house on dragons of any sort.

I've found that when I'm relying on ***pulls a lot, my DMing starts to resemble some of the lesser novels. In a bad way. However, the setting's inherrent entertainment>art value means something. A so-so DM would be able to do okay with Xanth, and a good one could really get creative.
Essentially, you need to know your overarching plot and plotpoints, but beyond that, you can pretty much improvise most of it.

Also, I've been looking at races and such. It seems that the practical races would be: Human, Centaur, Ogre, Goblin, and (maybe) Harpy. Not sure how to break it down, though, since barring Human and Goblin, they all have substantial LAs. Granted, IIRC, Humans have the most powerful talents (Ogres have none, and the other PC races have weaker ones, probably level 0 or 1, at most.) Maybe force them to start out as Commoners, levelwise? They'd still be a bit stronger than the humans, though, I'd assume.
*Ogre: Just start out with the Racial Hit Dice package, and run with it. Still a bit too strong, but maybe a bit of tweaking (Lower the armor bonus, remove Dark Vision) would be enough to at least somewhat equalize it.
*Centaur: Feels a little less overbearing than the ogres, though they still have some nasty potential. As said before, start off with Racial hit dice, and maybe a limited talent. (The two that stand out to me were essentially Create Sound and Eagle's Splendor) Maybe also, in keeping with Centaur tradition, deny them any armor, since they tend not to believe in clothing. Or something like that, IIRC. Yet again, lose the Darkvision.
*Harpies: Not sure. Kinda tricky.
*Goblins: Pretty much direct, with a limited talent.
*Golems: Now that I think about it, Grundy the Golem and kin would be well covered by the Homunculus stats, -wings and poison. I’m thinking start them off with those stats, and then let them level from there.