Anyhow, a couple bits I've added.

Paladin
   At times a hero will arise from amongst the throng who is graced by the gods themselves.  Such individuals seldom rise from within the structured ranks of existing church and social ranks for they are always placed in the world to face some rising evil or great calamity.  A paladin must be spotlessly Lawful Good and faithful to their patron deity or fall from grace, losing their special abilities.

0   0 - 2650
1   2651 - 5300
2   5301 - 10600
3   10601 - 21200
4   21201 - 42400
5   42401 - 84800
6   84801 - 169600
7   169600 - 339200
8   339201 - 678400
9   678401 - 1356800
10   1356801 - 2713600

   Hit Dice Improvement
   Lance, Sword, and Mace Proficiency
   Plate Mail and Shield Proficiency
   Immune To Withering
   Immune To The Accursed Touch
   Immune To Disease
   +1 Attack Bonus Per Level
   +1 Theurgy Spell Casting Every Third Level
   +1 Magic Saving Throw Per Level
   +1 Healing Every Level
   +1 Repulsion Every Third Level

Monster Abilities

The Accursed Touch
   There are some beings so vile, so damned beyond redemption that their very touch is cursed.  This attack gives a penalty to all success and attack rolls until the victim is able to complete a pilgrimage to a holy site or some other great, selfless, and noble act.  The effects of this attack are not cumulative.

Withering
   The soul it self can be damaged by particularly unholy creatures.  Such wounds never heal and are beyond the power of all mortal magic and natural healing to restore.  The damage is cumulative making this power terrifying and debilitating.  The harm can be undone through divine intervention.  Acting to undo the works of the dark power that inflicted the attack will earn a character such aid.

A couple side thoughts I have considered but haven't implemented though I could see them as optional rules.

The first one is Stat + Stat + diminishing returns percentile skills.  Probably starting with +10 at first, +9 at second, +8 at third and so forth until you only get 1% at tenth and higher.  This would appeal to the Rolemaster fan in me as well as old school fans.  It also makes low level skill use harder and avoids problems with too high skill at higher levels.

Fixed hitpoints per die is another option that might be popular and wouldn't break the game.  Just set all the hit dice at half the die type and run.  So your human fighter's getting 5 hp / level and the magic-user 3.  This can speed up mass battles even more by removing the opposed damage roll.  Alternately you could do fixed damage per die for weapons and have a nice back and forth attack roll / save roll result.

Another is an optional feat plug in.  I personally think this would need to be very specific to giving fighters more combat options.  More stuff like sweeping blow or demon / giant / dragon slaying strikes for double damage, than, good at roasting marshmellows and singing campfire songs stuff.  Generally I view men at arms and hench men as the fighters increased tactical options but adding this would appeal to the 3/4e folks.  I'm thinking it could be a supported option where you'd have a secondary block on monsters to add it in so it wouldn't be one of those situations where there's a great optional rule that's never supported in other books.

So you might get

Half Giant Raider
Level 3 HD 3d12, HP 21, Damage 1d12+3 (from level)

Sweeping Strike (attack 2 adjacent targets), Lawn Bowling (attack close order targets in a cone), Squash Flat (Small Creature Slaying x2 damage)

Since it's separated out you can play with or without it but isn't choking the game either way.

The nice thing about options is that they say "play it your way."

Well, Incandescent is done for the moment and I'm getting back to this.

I have a few questions and I'd appreciate some input.

First off, I'm thinking of this as an ecunumical version of D&D. That is to say a base line that can be modified to match people's needs rather than telling them how they must play. It occurs to me that nobody is doing this. Yes there are a million "how I would do D&D" games out there but there isn't a single "Here is the core of the thing and options to let you play it how you want to." Well, True 20 might fall into that but it falls a fair way from D&D's core from what I've seen.

In that light, I think I should move the personality traits as alignments to an optional rule.

The stat bonus table is basically similar to Gamma World 1e but also AD&D 1 and 2e. Personally I like it but I would like to hear some opinions as it isn't what other versions have done. Is the basic table really better? What about the 3/4e table (I don't love it but where are other people on this.)

Then what about followers? Including the paladin's warhorse but more broadly squires, wolves, annoying princesses that follow you wherever you go even though you're just an assistant pig keeper. At the extreme end you get the fighter's 100+ men at arms. Should followers be core or optional? I'm thinking they probably need to be an optional rule in conjuntion with realm management just to keep the core clean.

Lastly, should I put in the spells tables most other D&D varients use or keep the system agnostic as to the whole memorization thing. Personally, using a roll to learn spells rule is really flavorful and could put strong limits on a character's ability to pick up spells above half their level. 10 + Level x 2 target number?

So, after almost a month here's the finished rules kernal.

The race, class, and spell creation guidelines will be found in a supplement as will the other classes and races, mass combat, naval combat, and sieges.

At present the magic item list is very limited and there could probably be a little more explanation on how magic works.  A few more examples wouldn't hurt either but for now it's done.

On a side note I think I need to upgrade from Corel Draw to Adobe Page Maker, I can't get art to cross columns.

http://www3.telus.net/public/uncouths/Passages.pdf