Just a strange thought...

Take some duel natured organisum (say some of that security moss or some other bacteria/plant/small animal/party member you don't like any more).

Load them into a projectile device of some kind.

Shoot them very VERY fast through an astral form (be it a spirit or barrier).

What happens?
Can you damage or even kill in this manner?

FAB III Bullets anyone?

Just a perverted thought.

I thought Astral Forms could pass through each other in 3rd ed.

Bugger...
There goes the "Magicly Active Dwarf Cannon"

This topic has been done to death.

They have rules for astral intersection with an astral barrier. However, astral forms that are not somehow restrained on the astral plane will simply be brushed aside.

Sorry
Long time player....Kinda new to DS.

No problems.

Recent topic about it

Slightly older topic on it

"Are there any chicks? I do them."

Gawdamn funny topic description.

Actually, it's:
"Are there any girls there?"

"Yes!"

"'Cause if there are, I wanna do them!"

Heh, go Dead Alewives...

Hey, you guys remember Dark Dungeons ? First time I read that I thought that was a parody until I got to the end and realised the prat who wrote it was absolutely serious (the page above includes links to some wonderfully "role-playing is evil" essays as well, made me laugh that people actually swallow that crap).

As a "chick" I get out the ol' can of mace.

yeah, "Dark dungeons" is damn funny as just a striaght read. The MST3K parody is even better.

MST3k parody? Explain please!

WOW!!!

The Dark Dungeon ROCKS!!!!!

Sign me up for bondage powers! I can use them on my wif.... better go and hide, I think I hear her.

You know, Jonah's question reminds me of something I read in an RPG-related magazine about 25 years ago.

It may have been a copy of Dragon, or one of the others devoted to D & D and other fantasy games--I'm not entirely certain.

It went something like this:

After their party is surrounded by a group of VERY angry Orcs (IIRC, they spell "Ork" with a "C" in D & D), the group's Magician, who has no combat spells, pulls a Thompson submachine gun out of his Bag of Holding--he cocks it, affixes a 100-round Type C drum magazine, and opens fire after announcing--

"It's a wand of automatic missile-fire!"

I'm not certain if this was before or after E. Gary Gygax came up with that stupid rule about firearms being illegal under the rules of the game. I always thought that that was preposterous, anyway--manufacturing black powder is nothing but basic chemistry--potassium nitrate (a/k/a saltpeter), sulfur, and charcoal-- in the proper proportions. According to historical accounts, black powder was invented in Europe in the mid-14th Century A.D., but there is some evidence that the Chinese had developed it several centuries earlier--perhaps as early as the 6th Century A.D.--roughly the time that King Arthur Pendragon (or at least his real-life counterpart, believed to be a Welsh king of the same era) was kicking around in the British Isles.

My point is that, even if firearms were forbidden under the basic rules (and I'm only expressing an opinion--it is not my intention to offend anyone), I would think that creating black powder for use only as an explosive would be permissible.

-- Foreigner

I'm pretty sure by the time 1st Edition AD&D rolled around, that primitive firearms were available. Hell, some creatures even used rayguns and the like.

Black-powder guns were definately available in 2nd edition.

Not sure about D20 D&D to be honest.

The existence of the arquebus in AD&D (second edition at the least, and I believe first as well) suggests that Gygax never actually did come up with that rule.

~J

Kagetenshi:

I stand corrected.

My brother played some variant of D & D in college (he graduated in 1986), and I thought I remembered him telling me something to the effect that E. Gary Gygax, or someone else involved with the creation/development of the game, had forbidden firearms under the basic rules.

Of course, everything in an RPG is always subject to interpretation by whoever's running the campaign.

--Foreigner

Also worth pointing out that the 3rd edition DM's Guide deals explicitly with modern firearms.

I seem to remember in my old first edition DMG they had stats for hand guns for cross overs between D&D and Gamma world or their old Western Game which slips my mind at this time.

GrinderTheTroll, Tomahawk:

Actually, the DM in the campaign in which my brother played did a D & D/Traveller one-shot crossover adventure (this was in the early- or mid-1980s, a few years before SR came out), during which my brother's character had a rather interesting encounter.

It seems that he came across a magician of some sort, who began speaking in tongues and gesturing, apparently casting a spell. My brother's PC did an Indiana Jones impression. He didn't wait for the guy to finish; he simply drew a silenced automatic pistol loaded with explosive bullets and shot him in the head.

("Geek the Mage *FIRST*!" )

During the same adventure, the DM, who was a bit of a World War II history buff, sent a "Goliath" after them when they ducked behind a wall to get protection from pursuing troops. For those of you who haven't heard of a "Goliath", it's a small remote-controlled tracked vehicle--essentially a miniature tank. There were several models, the largest of which was about 1.6 meters (64 inches) long, .876 meter (34.5 inches) wide and .51 meter (20 inches) high, packed with about 31.5 Kg (80 pounds) of remote-detonated explosives. It was guided by hand-held remote-control unit, linked to the vehicle by an internal spool of wire. Because of this, it was strictly a line-of-sight weapon; the operator had to be within visual range of the intended target.

Unfortunately for the Germans (and fortunately for any intended targets), they weren't very successful when fielded, because they proved to be very slow (only about 16 Kph, IIRC; the source I just consulted, Lone Sentry, says that they were mainly employed in Italy (and possibly Russia as well), describes the maximum speed of a Goliath as "...equivalent to a fast walk..."), and says that they could not travel very well over rough terrain. In addition, they were highly vulnerable to small-arms fire, because they had almost no armor.

Anyway, a PC tried to stop it (by shooting at it with an SMG), and my brother's PC shouted a warning--unfortunately, he was a little late.

The little beastie blew up, and the other character was basically rolled up into a ball and thrown against the wall behind him, bowling-ball style. Had the DM (and the dice ) not been rather kind to him, the character would have died.

As I believe someone on Blaize O'Glory's RPG Character Post-Mortem Hall of Fame said, "[n]ever give a sadistic DM ideas when you're in a vulnerable position. Gag vocal party members early."



--Foreigner

LOL. Nice!

I ran a "back in time" adventure playing SR1 and when a group of angry elves approached then with bows and arrows the elves insisted they surrender. When they refused, the elves replied, "They can hurt us with those sticks! Charge". They all got intoduced rather quickly to Panther Canon, M-107 and Uzi III.

Good times.

If I remember correctly, the Savage Coast 2nd Edition AD&D campaign setting had matching good&evil sentient flintlocks that shot fireballs and lightning bolts in addition to standard ammo.

Heh... cross genre stuff... gotta love it...

I still remember the AD&D session we played after, a few days previously, having had this discussion about Star Trek: TNG. The long and the short of the chat was that it seemed every alien race in the frickin' universe knew Picard. Aliens nobody had ever heard of turned up and the first thing out of their mouths was, in essence, "F*** me! It's Jean-Luc Picard!"

So we're skulking through the heart of... Undermountain, I think it was, and we came across this deeply magical portal. Hell, we're bold adventurers - I was a paladin, fer cryin' out - we're mad enough to try it. The GM described the blue haze of teleportation, and then got into describing the weird, stonelike-yet-warm walls, the strange tough carpeting... the stars outside the window...

That was when we twigged it. We looked at each other and then, in one of those unison moments that takes no discussion, charged up to the Bridge of the Enterprise, threw the turbolift doors open, shouted "F*** me! It's Jean-Luc Picard" and ran out again (pausing only to knee Riker in the gonads... he was going through an unpopular phase at the time...).

To this day, I cannot remember how we got back again

DrJest:

I have a sudden mental image of an embarrassed CDR Will Riker trying to explain to Dr. Crusher or Pulaski how he was assaulted by someone who had suddenly and mysteriously emerged from the turbolift, looking like he/she had stepped out of a 20th Century documentary about the Middle Ages, or a film about life in King Arthur's time, or something of the sort.



Someone else did something similar in a D&D game my brother mentioned--someone else's campaign, I think.

The group had somehow ended up in the era of the original STAR TREK.

A Gremlin which they were pursuing materialized on the bridge of a Klingon D-7 Battle Cruiser (the one seen most often on the show). After a moment of "What in the name of Kahless is *THAT* ?!?" (or another derogatory Klingon phrase of the sort ), the bridge security guards got over their initial shock, and attacked with drawn disruptors.

BIG mistake.

After a brief scuffle, the Gremlin touched one of the weapons (I never played D & D, but I've been told that technological weapons have no effect upon Gremlins, but they have an adverse effect upon anything technological). The resulting "force chamber overload" (a technical term for when a Phaser or similar weapon is deliberately set for self-destruct or, in this case, triggered by the magical effect of a Gremlin ) and subsequent explosion killed everyone on the bridge--except, of course, the aforementioned Gremlin.

Meanwhile, the PC's pursuing the Gremlin ended up on the ENTERPRISE--and were almost immediately thereafter searched, disarmed and confined to the Brig.

The only other part of it which I recall was that Mr. Spock found a gold (or possibly silver or copper) coin among the confiscated personal effects of one of the PCs. The character in question was a magician of some sort, and had cast a "Continual Light" spell upon the coin just for fun.

Picture, if you will, the image of the very logical CDR. Spock walking down the corridor leading to the ship's Brig, flipping a glowing coin in his hand like a gangster out of a grade "B" film from the 1930s or 1940s. (Think Edward G. Robinson or George Raft.)

He shows up at the Brig's entrance and demands of the PCs, "Tell me how *THIS* [glances down at the glowing coin on the palm of his right hand] works...".




--Foreigner