This is not a d20 system, but a nifty simple 2d6 system that has a lot of potential.  It's very rules light, but has enough meat on it to expand upon it and have a long term campaign.  It's called Dimensional Militia by Andrew Shields based on the work by Brendan and Jack Shear.  Good work guys, I like it.

Dimensional Militia

Home brew Class: The Falconer

This is a fighter subclass, based off the ranger called the Falconer.  The Falconer of course fights in tandem with a...you guessed it, falcon.  The class is a bit powerful, but I think it will be fun to play.  You can use this for any d20 system, but I designed it for Swords & Wizardry.

Falconer (Fighter sub class)

You are a Falconer, trained in the art of martial combat as well as falconry.  You and your trained falcon fight as a team.  You call use all weapons and armor, but you prefer to stay mobile and unencumbered with heavy armor and weapons.  The Falconer prefers to fight from a distance while his falcon distracts his opponents, leaving him open to attack unopposed.    The Falconer has raised his falcon from birth and trained it as a weapon.  The falcon will fight for the Falconer and sacrifice its life for its handler.  The falcon can also help with foraging, helping find food for the Falconer, such as small animals (rodents, rabbits).

Prime Attribute: Strength, 13+ (5% experience)

Hit Dice: 1d8/level (Gains 3 hp/level after 9th.)

Armor/Shield Permitted: May wear light or medium armor.

Weapons Permitted: Any.

Falconer Class Abilities

Establish Stronghold (9th): At ninth level, a Falconer may establish a stronghold and attract a body of loyal Rangers, Falconers and Woodsmen who will swear fealty to him. Most likely, the protection of a fort will attract villagers, and the Falconer will become a feudal Lord, Baron, Bandit King or Leader or Highwaymen.

Multiple Attacks: Against creatures with less than one full hit die, a Falconer makes one attack per level each round with a ranged weapon.

Ranged Weapon Proficiency:  The Falconer receives a +1 to attack and a +1 to damage with a ranged weapon of their choice.

Falcon Ally: Falcon: HD 1+2 (10); AC 6[13]; Atk 2 claws (1d6), beak (1d4); Move 30; Save 15; Special: distract enemy, if the falcon makes a successful attack, the enemies AC is reduced by 2 for the round.

Falconer Advancement

Level	Experience	Hit Dice	Saving Throw
1	0	1	16
2	2,000	2	15
3	4,000	3	14
4	8,000	4	13
5	16,000	5	12
6	32,000	6	11
7	64,000	7	10
8	128,000	8	9
9	256,000	9	8
10	350,000	+3 hp	7
11	450,000	+6 hp	6
12	550,000	+9 hp	6
13	650,000	+12 hp	6
14	750,000	+15 hp	6
15	850,000	+18 hp	6
16	950,000	+21 hp	6
17	1,050,000	+24 hp	6
18	1,150,000	+27 hp	6
19	1,250,000	+30 hp	6
20	1,350,000	+33 hp	6
21+	+100,000	+3 hp/level	6

Random Plot Generator 1 by Matt Turnbull

This is a great random plot generator I found on RPGnet by Matt Turnbull.  Looks fun when your're out of ideas.  There are several other random generators, sci fi and what not.  Enjoy.

The plot in an RPG is often simply a MacGuffin, an entity solely designed to get the players from point A to point B, with the journey and the adventures along the way being the important part.

Many GMs don't have the inclination or the energy to come up with complicated or involved plots. They're too busy with the minor details, the dungeons and monsters to be faced along the way, the towns to be visited, the challenges to be overcome. Who has time to create something solely to help string all this together?

That's where the Random Plot Encounter Table comes in. If you've ever played a Fantasy-genre RPG, I'm willing to bet you're familiar with the concept of an Encounter Table. Basically put, it's a chart that you reference a roll to, which determines an outcome, event, or encounter. In some games, there are random tables for everything from town names to treasure piles. What follows is a handy and easy to reference chart, to be used in the creation of a random Fantasy-genre RPG plot.

The way this table works is almost like one of those word-replacement games I won't mention due to copyright infringement concerns. Let's just say it's like an angry person who opposes abbreviations of conservatives. You replace the variables (whose value is determined by rolling a D20 and referencing the appropriate random tables) in this phrase: We need to rescue the A from the B, because he/she is the only one who knows the location of the X of Y. We need to find it/them if we want to have a chance at stopping the Z from D!

See, easy! At the bottom are some sample plots created by this table. The charts are found below.

A:

1. Princess
2. Scholar
3. King of Thieves
4. Court Jester
5. Librarian
6. Pixie Queen
7. Queen
8. King
9. Town Magistrate
10. Daughter of the Great Wizard
11. Insane Child
12. Royal Historian
13. Court Shaman
14. Tribe's Chief
15. Town's Cook
16. Orphan
17. Empress
18. Seer
19. Reformed Villain
20. Village Idiot

B:

1. Carnivorous Dinosaur
2. Dragon
3. Dracolich
4. Undead Horde
5. Lizard People
6. Earth Elementals
7. Orcs
8. Bandit King
9. Cannibals
10. Mutated Forest
11. Merfolk
12. Evil Wizard
13. Demon Lord
14. Neighboring Kingdom's Prison
15. Dark Amulet's Power
16. Himself/Herself/Themselves!
17. mind-control spell
18. Cave-Dwellers
19. Dark Council
20. Gallows

X:

1. Gem
2. Sword
3. Dirk
4. Amulet
5. Spell
6. Scroll
7. Tablet
8. Statuette
9. Eye
10. Heart
11. Bow
12. Arrows
13. Writ
14. Word
15. Winged Boots
16. Jewel
17. Potion
18. Council
19. Sand
20. Helm

Y:

1. Darkness
2. Light
3. Death
4. Power
5. Prophecy
6. Omens
7. Awakening
8. Hawk Sight
9. Beauty
10. Obedience
11. Antiquity
12. Divinity
13. The Holy
14. Righteous Indignation
15. Flight
16. The Sun
17. The Moons
18. The Heavens
19. Fortune
20. Yore

Z:

1. Elder God
2. Forces of Evil
3. Ones who watch from the edge of the world
4. Beings of Pure Chaos
5. Mage Lord
6. Lich's King
7. Beings of the Outer Worlds
8. Neighboring Kingdom's Leader
9. Childlike Queen of the Undead
10. Roll on Table B again, re-roll if a location is rolled.
11. Horseman of The End Times
12. Wrath of the Divine
13. Kings of the Night
14. Roll on Table A again, re-roll if the same result as was rolled orignally for A is rolled.
15. Sun-Dwellers
16. Creatures that crawled out of the meteor
17. Underworlds's Guardian
18. Last of its kind
19. Oldest of the Elementals
20. Inventor, driven insane by his own genius

D:

1. Poisoning the Water Supply
2. Destroying the last hope for peace
3. Devouring the world
4. Plunging the world into perpetual night
5. Opening a terrible portal
6. Summoning his/her/their true leader to our world
7. Leading all of the children into the ocean
8. Eradicating life as we know it
9. Turning everyone into stone
10. Causing the greatest unnatural disaster ever seen in this kingdom
11. Creating a rift in space and time that could prove to be the end of all that is known
12. Spawning his/her/their twisted progeny
13. Being used as the vessel(s) that bring the ultimate evil to this world
14. Killing the world-famous diplomat who is our last chance at peace
15. Unleashing a plague that could kill millions
16. Toppling the kingdom's government
17. Causing a famine the kind of which has never been felt by these people
18. From capturing the (roll on A again, re-roll if the same result as was rolled orignally or subsequently for A is rolled.) and forcing him/her to help him/her/them
19. Bringing about his/her/their treacherous rule
20. Reaching the fruition of his/her/their terrible scheme

So, that's it. Not too hard, and the results can be very useful indeed. Here's some examples as rolled from above:

We need to rescue the King from the Merfolk, because he is the only one who knows the location of the Tablet of Prophecy. We need to find it if we want to have a chance at stopping the Beings of the Outer World from Turning everyone into stone!

We need to rescue the Pixie Queen from the Dark Amulet's Power, because she is the only one who knows the location of Powder of Light. We need to find it if we want to have a chance at stopping the Inventor, driven insane by his own genius from Poisoning the Water Supply!

Cudgel the Wicked

Cudgel the Wicked (Orc)
Armor Class: 15 (12)
Hit Dice: 3
No. of Attacks: 2 weapon
Damage: 1d8 or by weapon (Maul 1d10)
Movement: 40'
Save As: Fighter: 2
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: D
XP: 200

Cudgel the Wicked is a large and nasty Orc.  His skin is dark green and he wears thick hide armor.  He carries the heads of his victims as trophies on his armor and his tusks are broken.  He carries a large maul as his weapon of choice, but has no qualms using his hands.  He has been wandering the borderland with his band, looting and pillaging villages along the way.  Cudgel sets up camp either in caves or densely canopied woods in the daytime.  He wanders in the evening times and camps in the daylight.  At any given time, Cudgel is accompanied by 1d6 Orcs while looting, if encountered in camp, roll 1d12 for number of Orcs.

Alternate Combat Resolution System

I've always wanted to make my OD&D games more like a swashbuckler movie, where characters strike and parry back and forth.  The problem with that is combat can take quite awhile and slow game play down, defeating the purpose of a rules lite system.  One option I've been mulling around is an opposed roll system for melee combat.

Basically, both combatants would roll a d20 and whoever rolled the highest, won the combat and possibly damaged their opponent.  Each combatant would use there base attack value to the d20 opposed roll.

     Argyle the fighter has a +4 base attack value and he's facing off against a large and mean looking Orc.  The Orc has a +2 to his base attack value.  Both combatants roll a d20, add their base attack values and compare the results.  Argyle rolls a 15+4=19.  The Orc rolls a 12+2=14.  Argyle wins the roll by 5.  Argyle and the Orc go back and forth, trading blows and ringing steel against steel, but Argyle is victorious.  Argyle would roll his damage and subtract it from the Orcs health.  Minus any damage reduction the Orc may have (see earlier post on Damage Reduction).

You can also use a system where you add a bonus to damage for however many points a combatant beats the other.  I think for every five points over, add +1 to the damage roll.

Attack Roll Greater By	Damage Bonus
1 - 4	+1
5 - 9	+2
10 - 14	+3
15 -19	+4
20 +	+5

Ranged combat can be the same, as long as the defender is aware of the ranged attack.  If not aware, use the formula 10+DEX+Modifiers as the difficultly.  My optional armor rules would be in play here.

More to follow, once I iron out the kinks.

Optional Armor Rules

I've been thinking about optional combat and armor rules for awhile now, but I've never found the time to put pen to paper.  When I used to play the Stormbringer and Elric! Roleplaying games, they had a damage reduction system with the armor.  If you were struck in combat, you would roll your armor dice and the result was the reduction you took in damage.  Some armor rolled a 1d6-1 and so on and so forth.  The idea I have is classify armor by type, such as light, medium and heavy.  Light armor would reduce damage by 1d4-1, medium 1d6-1 and heavy 1d8-1.  Shields would not act as damage reduction, but would affect the to hit factor mentioned below. 

Now with this system, you would have to rework the to hit system just a bit.  For this, I would use the base to hit number of 10 and add your DEX bonus, shield bonus and any other situational modifiers such as cover or concealment.

           

To hit ≥ 10 + DEX + Shield + Situational Modifiers

Armor Type	Damage Reduction w/o Helmet	Damage Reduction with Helmet
Light Armor…Padded, hide, leather	1d4-1	1d4
Medium Armor…Chain, Scale	1d6-1	1d6
Heavy Armor…Plate, Full Plate	1d8-1	1d8

This is just a rough draft and I’ll expand upon it in later posts.