Order vs. Chaos...just need some advice/philosophical guidance

[Nerull]

Good post Lucern.

I actually am still working on this, but the more I thought about it, the more I went along with what you were saying. And I even kept the Order = Creative, Chaos = Destructive Theme. I have not studied anthropology, but have some strong historical study under my belt (along with study of mythology), so I saw the order guys as being the big dominant city-state type of level (even the most underdeveloped one technologically would look like a Sumerian city-state). In areas where Order was completely in control, it would look like one of the historical empires (probably with more of a bureaucracy under it like the Chinese). Chaos would be more of the egalitarian society like you stated (the most underdeveloped falling under the tribal organization), and in areas where Chaos dominated confederacies would emerge (each area rules itself, but contributes to common defense and trade).

I even stated that chaos could be destructive and still promote good. How?

• Destructive magic may be bad overall, but it all depends on how you use it. The Chaos guys would probably keep their way of life because of the destructive magic that they wield. Order comes with its organized columns of troops and mages focused on enhancing and healing the troops, and the chaos mages would blast them into dust. The people in the chaotic system would probably fear the chaos mages for it, but they would respect them due to the protection their power gives.
• How do you use destructive magic to heal? We do it all the time in our society with technology. We use terms like surgery, chemotherapy, etc. After reading Encard's post, I envisioned the chaos guys doing stuff like destroying diseases and poisons (but would probably do some damage to the patient as well in the process). By damaging the patient further, they could set it up that the patient heals quicker by doing the magical equivalent of surgery (do 10% of the damage to the patient again, but have double their normal healing rate when resting after that until it heals; this would stack with the benefits of the Heal skill). At higher levels, I could even see them "bringing back" the newly dead (i.e. violating the natural order in such a way as to do so). However, just as the order guys could not bring back the dead, the chaos guys could not remove negative levels (ability damage yes, but negative levels no). Why would anyone go to the "surgeons" when they could go to the order guys and get healed immediately? It would be built into the campaign that the order guys charge heavily for such services (and would be required to do so). Part of an adventuring party? Sure, if you are getting an even share, then it makes sense to do your part and heal the party members. If an adventuring party comes to your door asking to be healed? Charge them heavily for the service. If they refuse to pay, show them the door. Thus, only the very wealthy or the very needy could count on getting healing magic. Chaos "surgeons"? They would probably heal anyone that needed it, not differentiating by status, etc. Anyone could just go to the "surgeon" in between adventures and get free healing (they would be laid up a bit, but still would heal quicker overall).

How would this influence the way a party would operate? A party with an order mage would get buffed up to better handle the encounters, and would be healed afterwards, but could expect only limited help from the mage in the actual combat (some force effects, some charm/domination effects, some summons, etc. but no ability to actually do serious damage to the enemy besides that). A party with the chaos mage would have them tear down the enemy's ability to fight (instead of increasing the party's ability to fight), and would get strong support from the mage in the combat (blasting enemies left and right, plus the summons and controlling effects). However, they would have little healing support afterwards. All in all, it about evens out.

Still, back to the grand scale, I can see even two versions of the creation myth. The order guys would see it as order coming from the chaos, chaos seeking to destroy the order, and they are preserving the good of the universe by stopping chaos. Chaos would see it as order "tore itself" from chaos, and is insisting on living separate from chaos, so they are just seeking to return things to their "true" natural chaotic way. I already envision the world as being primarily order, but chaos runs through and diffuses itself in the world (against order's will, of course). The extraplanar creatures (the most powerful, at least) are the "children" of these two forces, and though they do not have the ability to grant power to worshippers directly (i.e. unlike other ancient creation myths, there is not going to be a "transfer of power" to the gods; those forces are still alive and in control, and are in conflict with each other), they will still play a major part in the conflict, and thus will spawn "cults" following this particular powerful entity or that (i.e. prestige classes where the member gets certain special abilities from their "following" of the certain entity, similar to what is presented in The Book of Vile Darkness and The Book of Exalted Deeds).

Things are beginning to come together on this. However, implementing it in a campaign setting is going to be a bit more difficult (i.e. changing things but still making sure they balance).

[Lucern]

Sounds like it's coming together nicely. Your group is lucky to have a dedicated DM who doesn't just want to run a standard by-the-book hack and slash game. Good Luck!

As far as the balance goes, the wizards seem balanced pretty well in their roles (though I don't see how/if clerics fit in). You might make barbarians and rangers more common than fighters and paladins in the Chaos areas too. Druids would have a stake in resisting a dominance of one side over the other as well, so might interesting to throw them in the mix.

[Nerull]

Since I do not have a hard and fast alignment system in place (there will be "law affiliated", "chaos affiliated", and "nonaffiliated", with no tracking of how "evil" or "good" the player is), class splitting would be pretty important. Let's see...this is what I had planned for the classes:

• Barbarian: common for chaos and unaffiliated, non-existant for order
• Bard: Planning to take a page from Unearthed Arcana and make this a prestige class
• Cleric: non-existant! The whole idea is that the "mage" characters will be the spellcasters in the campaign. I will fill in prestige classes that allow the player to take on the more traditional roles that clerics fall into (healer, the surgeon above, undead hunter, etc.)
• Druid: also non-existant, as this would take away from the order vs. chaos theme. If order created the universe, then the order mage and druid would overlap too much
• Fighter: a staple for both sides and unaffiliated (though most common in the order areas)
• Monk: I thought about making this an order prestige class, but I will probably leave in (but heavily changed to fit the order vs. chaos instead of good vs. evil). Chaos has a couple of extra classes over the order guys, so this would even things up a bit
• Paladin: non-existant. There will prestige classes of "order knight" and "chaos knight" (similar to the prestige equivalent of the paladin prestige class in Unearthed Arcana)
• Ranger: both sides and nonaffiliated will have these guys (hey, order guys will train scouts as skirmish units in the war against chaos). I might alter them a bit to fit each side, but they will be there (I am planning to take away their spellcasting as per The Complete Warrior's Handbook, since there are no druids in this campaign)
• Rogue: chaos and nonaffiliated definitely, but order non-existant (well, they may exist in an order-driven society, but they will hardly find acceptance, so those would be nonaffiliated)
• Sorcerer: thrown in as the nonaffiliated spellcasting class. The whole idea of magic in the campaign is that the person is born with that special spark that allows them to tap into order and/or chaos. If they either do not receive proper training (or choose not to train) with either order or chaos, then they would be the sorcerers. I am planning to tweak their spells (to give a mix of both order and chaos abilities, since they will tap into both, but not be as good at it as the individual spellcasting classes). I will also have special multiclassing rules in place that will allow a sorcerer to "trade in" levels of sorcerer towards order mage or chaos mage if they choose (i.e. they finally pick a side and receive the proper training; once they do that they will lose their sorcerer spellcasting, but the skills they learned help them advance faster). As a part of the campaign, these guys will be hunted down and converted/killed (order societies) or be subject to continual recruitment attempts (chaos, though how "nice" the attempts are depends on who the sorcerer has the fortune/misfortune of running into)
• Wizard: these are the order mages and chaos mages now

Does this sound like a good list? I've thought about giving the fighters following chaos or nonaffiliated a bonus to AC (+1 or +2 dodge bonus when wearing medium or lighter armor) but taking away their heavy armor proficiency. This would fit, since the order guys would end up being the ones to design heavier armor (the other guys could always take the feat on their own if they got access to heavier armors).

[Lucern]

Argh, I had just finished this post and tried to reply when I was disconnected. I'll try to re-create it.

The division of classes seems to work great from here. I had actually forgotten that the monk even existed, because I've never seen it properly implemented in a non-hack'n slash-only game. They certainly fit the bill as a special sect of certain Order societies.

Clerics are my favorite class, but I can see why you gave 'em the axe in this case.

I thought of a position that rogues might be able to fill within Order society - that of smooth-talking bureaucrat or leader. Those he dealt with wouldn't realize that s/he's a silver-tongued rogue of course, and s/he probably wouldn't have chosen the more thief-like abilities. Assassins would be unaffiliated, but might be in semi-frequent employ of the leaders of Order. This depends on how corrupt your Order societies are.

I like how you've dealt with the fighter classes, particularly with the restriction on heavy armors for chaos fighters. Alternately, I thought of two ways to circumvent the difficulty of forging such armors for Chaos. There was a kind of armor in the Arms and Equipment Guide for 2nd Ed called Patchwork Platemail, which I believe would start out as good as a simple (but trashy looking) suite of platemail, but steadily declined in effectiveness as the fighter took heavy hits. It was like a poor man's plate, or short term replacement armor. I think bad hits could lower your ability to fight until you could readjust, as plates wedged into you in awkward ways.

It could also be standard practice for Chaos fighters to target knights of Order who wore heavy armors. Once slain, the armor would be worn as a trophy as well as excellent protection. These would be passed on when no longer needed (or wouldn't fit properly), so a lucky young chaos fighter might be awarded such a suit if it fits. This could also create an interesting encounter if a relative of the slain knight finds his/her family crest adorning the beat-up platemail of such a fighter!