I know that I may be drawn and quartered for suggesting digging up the past, but if you look back at some of the OLD backissues of Dragon, you can find many of these items and such. Look specifically at "the ecology of..." articles.
As far as superior items such as dragon bones go, ("ultra-masterwork items" etc...) there are many various mentionings of such things if you have the time and patience to scan a LOT of material. The Monster Manual makes reference to dragon materials and such, but the Draconomicon is a wonderful book if your PC's slay these mythical beasts on a regular basis. For example, although I am not usually a power gamer, I do have a character in an Epic campaign who has Dragoncraft scale mail (which counts as light armor, great for my ranger) as well as a mighty composite dragoncraft longbow of the mighty dragon hunter. Dragoncraft materials are clearly superior to many other things. And yet I ramble...
Oh, so I suppose that you believe that Frodo and Gimli and Legolas, and Gandalf were all just supporting characters in the lord of the rings 'with them being demihumans and all... And as far as number crunching goes, the only real crunching that went on in the old additions was that of my skull aS I tried to calculate THAC0. That's all I have to say...
Ahh, I found it! Took me a little while but I did find it. Don't know if you have it, but there is an article in Dragon issue #309. The Article is titled: "Shut Up And Roll! 15 Ways to Speed Up Combat" It offers quite a lot of good advice on general speeding up combat.
As a DM myself I am often faced with this very same quandry.
I don't know how far back you guys go with Dragon magazine, but there was an article on this very topic within the past two years. I don't have my stuff right next to me right this second, but I'll check my archives and I'll post the issue and such. I hope it'll help... --OneWingAngel-- |