Starting character level is now 4. If you join a session and your character is below level 4, add experience until you are level 4 and add 1/10th that exp in gp. New characters that join will start with the standard 5,400 gp.
Finally, the official word on Dinosaurs: they don't live on Ancardia, so you can't summon them or have them as animal companions. Assuming you guys don't throw the flow of the game into an acid lake, though, you'll probably end up in the place that does have them. Basically, dinosaurs are an unlockable for this campaign.
More GM allowed or no questions:
1. Endless rations 350g... from the item book, seems a bit... too reasonable?
2. Liquid Salt, Shapesand, and Slumber Sand. All from the Sandstorm book
3. The Spell Compendium has some nice sand based druid spells, I'd be most interested in Sandblast, Snake's Swiftness, and Saltray, along with all the druid spells listed in Sandstorm(especially, Sand Scimitar, Summon Desert Ally(dustform creatures), and Dessicate). Most should be ok, other than maybe Snake's Swiftness, that seems a bit overpowered to me.
4. Wondering also about Zen archery, that just seems broken all over the place with high wisdom being used for ranged attacks. but I'd love it if I could have it.
1. You'll need to specify WHICH book, but it doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
2. Those three things are fine (although it would have helped to mention that they're alchemical items, took me a while to find them...) Note that for Shapesand, the amount of sand you get out of the jar is the same as the amount the you are able to control, based on your wisdom score.
3. Sandblast is fine
Snake's Swiftness has already been approved
Saltray is fine
From the laconic spell descriptions, the druid spells in Sandstorm look okay. The Scimitar of Sand does not count as a light weapon, because normal scimitars are not light weapons.
4. Zen Archery is fine.
(did I miss any questions?)
Also, session in in 21 hours and 4 minutes... Assuming that I manage to start the session on time, which has odds measured in Tacgnols. (Translation: those are LOOOONG odds) Also,
God
DAMMIT
Fool
*sigh*