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I'm sure I'm not the only one to think this, but bees don't actually provide the pollination for most of our food crops. Bees go to flowers, and last time I checked, corn and wheat don't have flowers.

What's really going to kill us all is in a giant land war in Asia. I don't just mean the far Asia, either. The whole bloody thing, from Turkey to Japan. China will get into an argument with India, words will be said, poorly translated, and then the next thing you know, China's bombing the Taj Mahal, and India's knocking on Bejing's door. Of course, China will have their old pal Russia to back them up, and India might just turn to Pakistan (who will have working nukes by now). That'll send China over to Korea, and that's when the rest of Europe jumps in on this. The US will be entrenched alongside India, with Japan and most of Europe as backup. China, Russia, and N. Korea will secretly enlist the help of all the African warlords, who will sneak-attack through the Middle East, beating their way through a very amazed US military. Of course, then the US will be /forced/ to push them back to the Congo, taking over all the oil fields and diamond mines along the way. While they're doing that, drug use and violent crime in America will rise tremendously, because of the attention put on the Asian War by the US will reduce effective anti-drug procedures in South America. By now, someone has used some nukes, and one side is being close to "winning," if you call surviving that winning. I'm not really sure which side is winning, but it doesn't really matter.

The severe beating both sides have given each other effectively weakens any sort of "world-police" power they experienced prior to the war, and thus armed thugs are able to assemble in the forgotten corners and bombed-out shells of countries, gaining power through sheer force of arms, with little regard to such things as conservation and environmentalism. China or India, whichever wins, will become a fortified military state, leaving the other to wither in the now very hot sun, which will breed a lot of impotent resentment in the refugees. The US will now be fighting the combined might of the South American drug cartels, desperately fighting to keep them from our borders. Controversial "Citezen Patrols" will be authorized to defend the southern border of the US with lethal force, and enthusiastic emigration from all parts of the US by racists will effectively turn away all comers. Mexico will by now be a dying country, crippled by anti-immigrant riots decimating illegal and legal hispanic populations from supporting their home countries with money earned in the US.

At this time, Canada will say to themselves, "Now is the time for us to strike!" And strike they will, hard and fast into the midwest, securing America's bread basket for themselves, and leaving the east and west coast struggling to supply their massive populations with food. Most die of starvation, while secret Canadian submarines keep British relief ships in dock. Africa will have reverted to territories, controlled by Warlords and defying any to enter it's borders, as will the remains of the Far East. Europe will fare not much better, also hurt by Canada's monopoly on Unites States food supplies and exorbitant prices. Europe will be starving in it's own fields, and many bands of young, hungry rebels will take up arms and attempt to wrest control from the institutions for the betterment of mankind. Whether or not they succeed is immaterial, for now comes the ...

ZOMBIE PLAGUE!

The first character I ever played... oh wow. Einkil the Dwarven Fighter. It doesn't get any more cliche than that does it? Well, maybe it does. It all began a few years ago (maybe going on five now, wow), we had just started "gaming" (all we had were a few AD&D books, the Internet, and a 3.0 starter box). The elf rogue, another character (a wizard-type, I think), and Einkil the Dwarf Fighter were sort of strolling through a homebrew dungeon. They come upon a room in which a scantily-clad woman was chained to a wall (we were 14). The dwarf, not very interested in human women retired to the previous room to cook himself up some sauerkraut. Turns out, the woman was a succubus, and used her demon-summoning ability to call up some mighty foe from the Pit. Of course, we had no real concievable way of defeating it, until Einkil rushes in with his pot of boiling, salted cabbage and throws it in the eyes of the demon. That blinded it for long enough to banish it back to the fire from whence it came. From then on, every time we stopped Einkil cooked up some sauerkraut "As a precautionary measure, of course!"

One more story I just can't pass up telling is about Kruncher the Minotaur (who was also, gasp! a fighter). Two summers ago, while our best DM was working at a summer camp, the rest of us got it in our heads to try out an evil campaign for the summer. This was quite natural, as we had 3 power-players in the group. It was my turn to DM that week, and as all evil characters do, we were plotting to get rid of each other, so the stronghold we had usurped from the local authorities was heavily protected against magic. I had decided that an evil lich was plotting to take over two neighboring countries, and ours just happened to be one of them. The lich hired a few kidnappers to steal away the leader's favorite concubine, murder her on the frontier of the other country, and leave a momento from one of the guards of that nation in our keep. (I got some of the idea from the Princess Bride) I thought that would give the sorcerer ample excuse to march on the other country, and march he did. As the massive army marched across the rolling plains, the lawful ruler of the neighboring country payed attention, and brought his nearest contingents to bear, with his most skilled commander at the head. They met of the fields of battle (the two armies), one regimented, drilled, and professional, the other held in line by fear and sheer force of Charisma. The battle lasted a week, with 95% casualties on both sides. The evil ones finally won out, but their small army terrifically undermanned. We took a few prisoners, and retired to interrogate them. During the course of interrogations, it was rather late at night, and I said, (half in-character, and half-out) "What's the break DC for a face?" I have more stories, but fear running out of space, and patience from the readers. "Break DC for a face..." Classic.

Man I love 3e.

Indeed. The few AD&D adventures I have read seem much tougher on PCs, though. Well-nigh impenetrable traps, dungeons, and original tactics, many of the newer published adventures just don't seem to stack up.

Funny story: The very first TPK ever in our group was executed upon us by an updated AD&D adventure. We had been playing for three or four years before it happened last month. An oddly exhilirating experience for the DM. I'm kind of hoping for it to happen again, so's I can start us on the Age of Worms. It'll be nice to have a cohesive storyline for once.

But again, many thanks and GP for the DC help. Go buy yourself some Boots of Striding and Springing ;)

What you should do is swap for a lock with a DC equal to say, 15+character level+2. That will approximate the DC (I think).

Awesome! Thanks soooo much. That will really help move things along. And, just because I'm curious, what does THAC0 stand for/mean? I know it has something to do with the attack roll, but any unidentified acronym bugs me.

I'm working on updating an AD&D adventure into 3.0, and it's going alright, I suppose, but the Find Doors checks (and similar, non-combat related rolls, stats, etc.) have me completly stymied. How does a -10% to find hidden doors rolls compare to the 3.0 Search DC? I've never played 2e (obviously), and the only book that wasn't 3.0 or higher was a MM, so I'm really lost. Any sort of help would be greatly appreciated, because I might be in over my head.

We're running a Ninja-style campaign in Rokugan right now. The characters escaped from prison with the help of the mysterious Kage, a 10th-level rogue, and have been on the run ever since. One character killed a couple of Crane patrols for their katanas, and another is a were-tiger. The nezumi is a scout, with an emphasis on ranged weapons. They were assigned an under-the-table deal from the Crab clan to get back an important document from Scorpion spies, and end up accepting a job offer from the Scorpion involving covert double-agent operations in Crab territories.

Ninja theme: very fun (I design the maps, it's about all I'm good for) ninja mansions.

We play often, and long, in any setting. Currently in Rokugan, known to be in Forgotten Realms, and Outer Planes, and custom campaign setting. 17-20 ish old, but will consider others (probably will accept any who respond in area).

Alright, well it seems that what we have been doing is at least very nearly "correct," so I'll explain a bit about our gaming sessions, not neccessarily for more in-depth advice, but some of you might be curious.

First off, we play for long periods of time, meaning a six-hour session is a short one. We do this for two main reasons: 1) Some people don't know how to make decisions before their turn starts, and are power players to quite a large extent; 2) Those same people are rules lawyers too, and argue about several things during the course of a single combat, not giving in unless presented with a specific rule in print, or overwhelming reason.

Hmm... stating things such as the are makes it seem as though certain persons are horrible gamers and should be got rid of at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately with things as they are, more players are not readably available, and we barely have four characters, with the DM playing his character along with the rest (we switch off being DM every once in a while).

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand. I'll look over the DMG again and see if there is something that we are doing differently, however small, and try to fix it this weekend. If that fails, I think I'll just start assigning half XP.

Okay, my group always seem to level up at extremely high rates (as in a level per session, at least). How we have been doing XP is awarding the total XP of each individual creature together and dividing the total between the group. Are we not doing this right, or are we just fighting too much?