Hey all,

Wondering if anyone has any good resources for running a chinese-historical campaign; specifically one set in the Three Kingdoms period, but I'm looking for anything at all that could be juicy/useful for the chinese campaign.

RPGPundit

i'm something of a sinologist. what sort of books are you looking for? anthropological? historical? fantastical? literary? archaeological? any ideas you want to bounce, i'd love to talk about han dynasty china

edit: oh, and there were some roman embassies with china at the time. this was at the very beginning of the silk road. it might be interesting to play as westerners coming in, instead of chinese.

where are the rules for trample? i can't find them anywere in the SRD

are there any games or systems known for having really good space battle rules? how is such a 3d thing even done?

just on positive and negative energy. i don't like how people associate one as good and the other evil. i don't have a problem with other interpretations of course (it's just a game) but here is my take:

both positive and negative energy are necessary for life to exist. i wrote a short adventure where a druid was drawing on a slice to the positive energy plane, which was making all kinds of problems. it can grow bacteria to massive power, it can make cancerous cells gain terrible life. after all, life isn't necessarily good for humans, that's why we use anti-bacterial soap and kill flies when they get in the house.
neither negative nor positive energy is necessarily good or bad (you can even blow people up with too much positive energy as per the rules). they are only bad when they are in disharmony. this is the yin-yang of the dnd universe. or something. :bow:

enchantment always seemed liked the most evil of the magical schools, even more so than necromancy.

after all, what's the difference between nuking someone with fire or nuking them with negative energy? you're still killing someone. in my daydreaming mind, i even think about how negative energy could be used to cure cancer in fantasy worlds and other stuff like that.

but enchantment is all about controlling other living things. basically, you are taking away other sentient beings' free will and forcing them to be your slaves. that is pretty evil. plus, there are a bunch of spells which cause pain and stuff like that. in addition, the Hold spells mean you spend a lot of your time on the battlefield slicing the throats of helpless foes. not exactly what they told you about in LG Hero school.

so, how can an enchanter be played with a good alignment?

I have an idea for coming up with spells which are essentially mechanically identical to pain spells, but because of the distateful nature of such spells, instead produce euphoria.

 Distracting Euphoria (Crushing Despair)
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Brd3, Sor/Wiz4
Components: VSM
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: 30ft
Area: Cone-shaped burst
Duration: 1min/level
Saving Throw: Will negates
SR: Yes

An invisible cone of euphoria causes great pleasure in the subjects. Each affected creature takes a -2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, skill checks, and weapon damage rolls.
----

Stuff like that. What other stuff have you come up with for good enchanters?

for me, gaming isn't the time to confront "deep real world issues". i don't want to talk about sex abuse. i don't want to talk about abortion. i don't want to talk about whether paladins can kill kobold children. these aren't fun to me. i want to have a good time, i don't want to work out issues.

sometimes the games i game in have gay characters, but it isn't made into a big deal. we don't explore how fantasy societies deal with homosexuality. heterosexuality never really comes into it either except for the

ME: "i blow all my money on ale and whores"
DM: "ok everybody gets laid. the next day..."

i found one, but reality maelstrom wasn't on it. has this spell been eliminated in 3.5?

this past weekend i was walking around The Wawel in Krakow, and i saw all these different sorts of armor. some were chain mail, some were plate mail, etc etc. none were magic, of course.

it seemed to me that some of the armor which was less protective in DND terms was better made than that which was mechanically more protective. so it got me thinking... why is chain mail better than a breastplate?

so i've come up with a new way to do armor, and i want to know what you all think of it.

You have four basic categories of armor, clothes, light, medium, heavy (as well as shields).

Each category of armor has a basic AC value. For example, lets say light armor has a basic +2 AC value. Then, we have different levels of (non-magical) quality.

Light Armor
Poor Quality +1 AC
Normal Quality +2 AC
Good Quality +3 AC
Excellent Quality +4 AC
Amazing Quality +5 AC
Supreme Quality +6 AC

For medium armor, say the Normal AC bonus would be +4 or +5. Then, you can call the armor type whatever you want, be it scale, or ring, or chain, or whatever.

Anyway, this is a half formed thought, let me know if it is worth pursuing.