D20 Conversion Notes for The Ancient Empires Campaign

Races and Classes:
All classes are available in the Ancient Realms. There are some special considerations, as follows:
Barbarians: Barbarians will always be foreigners, such as Africans, Gauls, Britons, and Arabs; they will never be native to the Republic.
Fighters: This is the most common class of the game.
Rangers: Rangers are considered a rare class, and assumed to be Gaulish or otherwise not natve to Rome.
Paladins: Paladins are not recommended, unless you wish to call them Holy Equestrians and allow Paladins of Herkules or Mithrais, which might be somewhat appropriate. If you tone down the chivalric elements, and make Paladins equestrians dedicated to one of these two deities, then they will work fine. Keep in mind that the ethics paladins are often shown holding in classic D&D are not the same as what an Equestrian paladin of Mithrais would show. This is a class purely for fun, and not really historical.
Rogues: Rogues are almost as common as Fighters. Note that Rogues of the Ancient Realms do not have access to such sophisticated tools and technology as would be needed for locks (which are simple, like a bar across a door or a latch), and emphasis on other skills is more common.
Bards: Entertainers are common throughout the world, Ovid, Livy, and many other classical writers, sophists, and orators could be considered Bards. Most performers will simply be Experts, but there is no reason the player character couldn’t be special, and also foster a magical interest.
Priests: Priests of the Ancient Realms should choose a god or religion appropriate. Most priests of the land were either dedicated to a certain temple or worshipped a plurality. See elsewhere below for more details.
Sorcerers: Sorcerers are perfectly reasonable in the Roman Republic campaign.
Wizards: Wizards in the Roman Republic are reclusive figures, usually with some nobility, and often part of the hermetic tradition.
Aristocrat: Any character wishing to belong to the aristocracy of Rome must start with a level in this class.

Races:
Not all races are available; in fact, it is recommended that no non-human races be made available for play. You could allow this in the following situations:
Elves and faeries, often called Alfar in the north or Fae ones and Sidhee in Britania may come from the seelie kingdoms of the deep woods of Gaulish Europe, Germany, and Britania.
Minotaurs might be possible from the bastard descendants of Crete, and tend to be good sailors to boot. In the Ancient Realms, some minotaurs are still around.
Pigmies of Africa would make excellent real-world counter parts to halflings (size-wise, at least).
Centaurs were spoken of by Herodotus and others. The Centaurs are of a strong Hittite-like civilization in the distant lands of North-East Asia, but one could have somehow wandered in to or been captured and brought to the Republic.
Dwarves of the utter north are conceivable, and would be of Teutonic descent.
Dock-Alfar, the dark elves, are also found in the distant north. They may be considered equivalent to Drow.
The stats for all of these races are standard as described in the PHB or MM.

Ancient Realms Magic:
All magery done by the wizard or other spell caster comes from hermetic mana sources, and is a talent caused by drawing energy from ley lines that criss-cross across the world. Sometimes ley lines are stronger, other times they are weaker, and these strong and weak zones can have an effect on your spell casting. A Weak zone of ley mana will require a SR check of 15-20 to see if the spell even works due to the weak ley mana effect. A Normal Zone will work as normal magic does. A Strong Zone of ley lines will actually amplify the effects of spell casting, and the spell may be calculated for casting purposes as if the wizard were one level higher than he or she is. Weak and Strong zones are rare, but some lords or mages will choose such locations on which to build their homesteads or strongholds.
Examples of Ley Zones: A strong ley zone would include ancient temples, Stonehenge, battle fields of legend (the fields around Carthage, for example), and so forth. Weak zones would be areas where the continuous habitation of man has worn down the reserves of ley mana over time through spiritual corruption, such as the urban sprawl of Rome, or areas where the land itself has died (the Dead Sea would have pockets of weak magic).

Arms and Armor:
The following conversion notes are suggested for choosing weapons of a flavor specific to the Roman Republic:

Weapon
Knife
There are a variety of knives are found in the world for use. Any siple weapon of this description is available in some form, although more sophisticated weapons like a kris or poniarde will be fairly unique or specialized weapons, and not in common use.
Dagger
The Romans used short daggers and punching daggers (katars of a sort).
Gladius
The gladius is the most famous of short swords, but the common short sword would simply be a variant of the gladius.
Spatha
The long sword is called a Spatha in this time. Note that the Gauls had lots of more conventional swords identified by common names.
Hasta
The spear of choice in the roman world, this is the common spear listed in the rulebook.
Pilum
The roman javelin, this is a wicked weapon and pretty effective. Common javelins would also be found among the Gauls and in Africa. Real romans use the Pilum!
Fuxina
The Fuxina is the trident, popular in the arenas.
Iaculum
The gladiator’s net, also popular in the arenas.
Cestus
The infamous spiked gauntlet or the arenas. This weapon would be 1d6 damage, Threat on a 20, X2 damage, weight 10 lbs., and makes it difficult to do subdual damage in unarmed combat. It is close range slashing/bashing.
Axes
Axes of all kinds were in common use, both in Rome and abroad.
Short Bows and other ranged weapons
The romans were known to use the short bow or composite short bow. There may have been long bows out there, but they were uncommon. Slings were also a common ranged weapon.

Armor Types:
Light Leather Armor
Soft worked leather, equivalent to a full leather suit.
Curbolli Leather Armor
Hard boiled leather directly equivallent to Lamellar.
Bronze Breastplate/Greaves
Partial bronze plate equivalent to a Full suit of Plate.
Lorica Hamata
Partial chain mail equivalent to a Full Chain suit.
Lorica Segmenta
Partial banded mail equivalent to Scale Mail.
Lorica Squamata
Scale mail for cavalry, but equivalent to Ring-Joined Plate.
Thracian Armor
Leather leg bands for protection and not too much else, this suit consisted of greaves only.
Gallic Armor
Gladiator’s armor popular in the arenas, this would be equivalent to a suit of mail.
Samnite Armor
Gladiator’s curiass and metal bands of protection, these would consist of greaves, gauntlets, and Back and Breast plate (curiass).
Legionary Helmet
Pot helms with tighter protection, they work like the Steel Cap.
Gladiator Helmet
Bronze helms that worked like the open-face Greek Helm.
Clipei and Parma Shields
Small round shields that worked like the buckler and target shield.
Scutum Shields
These oval great shields worked like Knights Shields, and were designed to deflect arrow fire.