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pres_man
May. 15th, 2008
May. 2nd, 2008
12:16 am - Glenn Beck can actually be funny.
Here is a video that Glenn Beck put together. Normally I don't watch his show, but I caught this when flipping through the channels. Warning, it is a "conservative" look at the Democrat's Super Delegates, which are getting so much attention this election.
May. 1st, 2008
01:03 pm - Pres_man's Law of Drive Thru Restraunts
The probability a drink will have a defective lid is inversely proportional to the probability that napkins will be provided.
Apr. 29th, 2008
01:38 pm - Some gaming ideas bouncing
Level adjustment change:
Instead of taking an empty "level" for each LA, the character instead takes a level in commoner.
So for example an ogre barbarian 2, would normally have an Effective Character Level (ECL) of 8, with 6 HD (4 racial HD,d8, and 2 barb HD). With this rule the same ogre would still have an ECL of 8, but would have 8 HD (4 racial d8, 2 LA/Commoner d4, 2 barb d12).
The agrument is that having to take totally "empty levels" is too much of a punishment. And that the commoner class has the worse HD, BAB, Saves, number of skills (types of skills aren't that impressive either), no armor or weapon proficiencies to speak of, so this wouldn't be "overpowered". The only thing that makes me concerned about this is that many races with LA get big Con bonuses. Which means even with a d4 hit dice, with the Con bonus this can mean a significant increase in the number of hps. For example with the normal rules the ogre above would have on average (18 con, 14+4) 41 hp. With the commoner level replacement rule it would be 54 hp, a 13 hp increase (32% increase).
Skill Points for classes:
4+INT : Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, Sorcerer, Wizard
6+INT : Bard, Monk, Ranger
8+INT : Rogue
Now this will replace the extra two skill points per level that I am currently giving. You'll notice this gives some classes some boosts and not others. That is because along with this I would consider combining several skills.
Skill Combinations:
Appraise/Craft/Profession - all combined into some kind of profession skill. You make appraisals based on if you skilled in that area.
Balance/Tumble - combined into some kind of acrobatics skill
Diplomacy/Gather Information - because having one rule for talking to individuals and another for talking to lots of people seems silly.
Climb/Jump/Swim - all combined into an athletics skill
Concentration/Control Shape - control shape is only an issue for infected lycanthropes, it seems silly for it to have its own separate skill
Decipher Script/Forgery - nobody usually takes forgery and I think it makes sense for someone to be able say, "Well this looks like an ancient dwarven tablet, which make it valuable, if it wasn't really a fake."
Disable Device/Open Lock - combine into a mechanics skill
Disguise/Bluff - combined into a deception skill
Hide/Move Silently - combined into a stealth skill
Listen/Spot - combined into an awareness skill
Perform/Sleight of Hand - make sleight of hand a specific perform skill, e.g. Perform (Sleight of Hand).
That is a significant combination of skills, maybe too many.
Skill Point Cost:
No x4 skill points at first level. Instead class and cross class skills cost the same for a rank, with the max being equal to your total HD. If you train a class skill you get a +3 bonus on checks with it.
Anyway a few ideas bouncing around right now, no goal to put them in practice.
10:38 am - Saturday Game Update
Kauri dropped a few details but I wanted to do a quick recap for those that weren't there last week.
Tolg, Rose, and Petalwing started taking treasure up and out of the tower. Bruno decide the horse would be ok since the others would be coming out on a regular basis so he joined Marin, Basler, and Eurydice in exploring the "well". Rose loaned Bruno her necklace of adaptation and Eurydice gave the others Water Breathing. And down they went and found it was actually an underwater river. They saw several blind albino fish and then were attacked by some blind albino sharks. They easily handled the sharks and were approaching an underwater structure with an unusual door, when suddenly part of the wall of the tunnel broke off and a roughly humanoid shape covered in coral began coming towards them. The four party members quickly slipped into the door, closing it off from the coral creature.
Inside, they found a tunnel and another door at the top of a ladder. Inside this door they found a room with a sarcophagus and four black marbel statues. All of sudden the statues began moving and one of the said, "Leave now. You will not be allowed to free the creature." The party attempted to reason with the statues, "We are not here to free it, we want to destroy it." The statues in hard-headed fashion (ba, da!) refused to listen, "You have not left, you will now be destroyed" and attacked the party. Basler still in troll form was able to rip one apart, Bruno dealt with another using his adamantine handaxe to great effect. Meanwhile Marin and Eurydice kept the other two busy with a spiritual weapon helping out until Basler could come and help out.
Having destroyed the stone guardians the party turned to the sarcophagus and Basler using a magic wand open the magical locks on it. The lid raised a few inches and beetles began streaming out of it. The party began attacking the beetles when they all grouped together and formed an extremely old looking humanoid creature with long claws. "Please, there is no need for this violence." The party though was not fooled and recognized the creature as some form of vampire and went about trying to attack it. Their physical attacks seemed to be incapable of hitting the creature, but the power of Marin's deity was able to harm it and Basler's "lazers" also were effective. The creature's attempt to turn Marin to its will failed and it was forced to retreat into the sarcophagus. The party, working together, was able to force it fully open and destroyed the creature as it rested.
After gathering up all that was valuable and taking rubbings of carvings on the inside of the sarcophagus which look like maps or directions (the vampire must have been the "navigator" the drider was looking for), the party returned to the surface. But not before Basler went toe-to-toe with the coral creature and destroyed it (barely), go Hydra!
The party then decided to quickly return to NewPort. Rose, Petalwing, and Tolg decided to quickly return to the Seeker's Guildhouse to tell them about the vampire tower and to start getting contacts to sell off the loot. Meanwhile the rest of the group went to ship. When they got there they saw a group of armed dwarves of piratey nature had taken up onboard. Deciding that they dwarves might sail off by the time they had gone for help, Marin, Bruno, Basler, and Eurydice decided to remove the dwarven infestation themselves. After Basler cast fly on everyone and turned himself into a displacer beast they attacked. Lucky for Basler he had displacer form as one of the ship's ballistas was fired at him and would have hit. After some close calls, the dwarves where dealt with a couple of them escaping by jumping in the water and disappearing.
In the hold they found Lothis and the halflings bound and injuried, though not life threatenly. Lothis told them that the dwarves attacked them, killing the warforged and pushing them overboard. The party decides that the warforged might not be dead and might just be inert and could still be rescued. They quickly retrieve them with some more water breathing and are able to reactivate three of the four (the one that was beyond repair was the one Eurydice was not fond of anyway). Also they found a new ballista that was mounted on the front of the ship. Lothis explained that it was delivered a few days before. Apparently the blue fellow sent it as a gift. When a wand is placed into it, a person controling the ship from the Chair can use a standard action to fire off the wand. Lothis also reminds you that he got a message from Highsaile that your "friend" was "visiting" Babba Tul (the crime lord).
Apr. 23rd, 2008
10:57 am - Say what?
Ok, I was browsing around youtube and though I'd see what people were saying about the Expelled movie. One guy who was ranting about how bad creationists are made this statement:
"If you choose to believe in creationism you can't then investigate the world in any realistic sense."
Say what? So all of those scientist of the past, you know like Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Kepler, or heck how about Mendel (an austrian monk), couldn't investigate the world in any realistic sense? Talk about a moronic viewpoint.
I'm not saying being non-creationist is bad, but being a moron sure is.
09:40 am - Disappointed
Ok, so I made a miniature order a few weeks back. I got my order except two of the miniatures were the wrong ones. Now this company puts a little number on the package of each miniature, and the number on the wrong ones was the same as the numbers I should have gotten (they were in different sets of miniatures so they reuse the numbers). Ok, understandable, especially given the number of miniatures I ordered at the time. So I email the company, let them know the problem, offer to return these miniatures (if they send me a package to ship them in, postage paid) and ask for the miniatures I originally ordered to be sent. They say that I can keep the mistakes and they will ship out the correct ones. Awesome, right?
Ok, so today I picked up the second package (stupid fraking mailperson, grumble) and get home and open it. Of the two replacements, they screwed up one of them again, and gave me another copy of the wrong miniature, AGAIN. I even told them, "I ordered X, you accidentally gave me Y", hoping that would key them off to double check they didn't make the same mistake a second time. Most likely no note was included with the second order in the system.
At this point, I emailed them again and told them about the mistake again and told them not to worry about getting me the miniature, I figure I've gotten 3 miniatures for the price of 1, so it is not that big of a deal. I told them, I might try to order the miniature again in the future (with other products), and I hope that I can have confidence that this problem with their filing system will be corrected at that time.
Apr. 22nd, 2008
01:54 pm - Grumble, stupid post office
Supposably a notice was left on the 14th that a package was waiting for me at the post office (because nobody was home for them to deliver it). At least according to the tracking thing, which said before that it wasn't going to be giving tracking data. Ok, but I never remember seeing a notice. Now maybe if was stuck on the door and blew off, we did have some windy days. But if it is still not there when I run by tonight, I am going to be P-ed off.
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annoyedApr. 21st, 2008
10:03 am - Tumbling getting too easy?
Something I just noticed that might be interesting for those individuals that can now tumble past foes without having to roll (at least a 14 in their tumble skill).
Accelerated Tumbling
You try to tumble past or through enemies more quickly than normal. By accepting a -10 penalty on your Tumble checks, you can move at your full speed instead of one-half your speed.
Apr. 10th, 2008
01:55 pm - April the month of crappy new movies
Seriously, the only movie that even looks remotely interesting this month is The Forbidden Kingdom. Next month there is Iron Man, Narnia, and Indy.
Apr. 9th, 2008
04:34 pm - It's been awhile, so a reminder
Just a quick reminder to everyone about what was going on in game, since it's been nearly two weeks. While waiting for the blue guy to return you have gone and purged the haunted house. After returning to New Port and finding he still has not come back. While in town you learned that the giant rocs have been acting up for no apparent reason. You have also learned that some fiends that were called up for the war with the goblins/formians have gotten some followers and been attacking villages in the north. You have decided to go see about these fiends and have encountered a group of gnolls and bugbears both being commanded by a vrock (bird demon). Both vrocks escaped (though one was badly injured) and you have a third set of tracks you can follow. This third set of tracks seems to be either humans or orcs (from boot tracks) from the northern wasteland.
Apr. 6th, 2008
11:59 am
Thanks to siliver_dragon and kauricat for attending the game. I only had two other people that had signed up that made it. I adjusted it just enough that I hope there was still a few new surprises for them. This time went alot better with no TPK, in fact no deaths at all (on the PC side). We also ended with a little bit of time to spare.
Apr. 4th, 2008
01:55 pm - Am I forgetting anything?
Trying to get my stuff together for tomorrow, here is what I have so far:
PHB
DMG
MM
Module: Temple of the Death Goddess
Printed out character sheets
Dice
Miniatures
Apr. 3rd, 2008
02:04 pm - 2-Days till game time
And we have 1 person registered. Yeah! Somebody was actually interested enough to sign up for it (now watch it was my wife feeling sorry for me).
Mar. 26th, 2008
07:54 pm - Dragon Wars! Take 2
We will be watching the movie Dragon Wars on Saturday before the game. We'll start the movie at 4:30 PM. If you want to see the whole thing, make sure you get there early!
Mar. 25th, 2008
12:39 pm - Good and Bad
Good: I found my cell phone that I had lost the Friday before spring break, it had fallen between the seat and the console of the car. I also found the $40 I took out when I deposited my paycheck on the same friday. It was in an envelope between the seat and the console on the other side of the car.
Bad: I got like 5 hours of sleep last night and not much more than that the night before and today is gray (or is that grey) and dreary. Why is it when I am tired, it is always cloudy, "Go home and take a nap, you know you want to. Cloudy days are perfect for napping." Damn you weather! It is a good think I work in another town than where I live, otherwise I would probably cancel my office hours and go home and take a nap.
Mar. 21st, 2008
11:24 am - Hate 3.5, but not wanting 4th edition, Paizo may have a product for you.
Paizo, the former publishers of Dragon and Dungeon magazines is making their own game system. It is loosely based on the 3.5 OGL. It will not be 3.5, though despite early descriptions. Instead it is suppose to be easily convertable from 3.5, so that people using their system can also use older material with it.
So if you dislike 3.5, but also dislike 4th edition is a possible alternative. Paizo will be putting out their Alpha version starting now (as a free pdf download) and into the next few months, then at Gen Con they will have a hardcopy Beta version you can buy or you can download the pdf for free. Then at Gen Con 2009 they will release the final rules. So for the next year and some, they will continue to produce 3.5 material, but August 2009, they will switch to their new system.
Mar. 19th, 2008
04:51 pm - Thanks Guys!
Thanks to everyone that participated in the trial run of the Temple of the Goddess. I learned somethings I definitely need to change to make it more enjoyable. I'm glad I didn't have to walk into the Con without ever having run it. I hope everyone had a good time despite the (practically complete) TPK.
Mar. 17th, 2008
09:35 pm - Dude, I want one.
Hybrid car shoots for 330 mpg. It can seat 2 adults and has room for a child seat.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/aptera-hy
Mar. 16th, 2008
01:56 pm - Tuesday 1 Shot
Like I said on Saturday, I am going to run a one shot session using the game that I am running for the Con. I believe we'll start at 6 PM. I have pre-generated characters, I figure we'll roll to see what order people get to pick them in. I am also going to invite the folks from my Sunday game, so we should have plenty so don't worry about trying to find anyone else.
Temple of the Death Goddess - The zombies are on the march, and unless the heroes act quickly, doom will fall upon the village of Erburg. Strangly, these are no ordinary zombies, for they seem impervious to the powers of the gods.
Here is the list of the classes and the race of the character, all are 5th level or ECL 5.
Barbarian - (full) Orc
Bard - Elf
Cleric - Dwarf
Druid - Halfling/riding dog companion
Fighter - Human
Monk - Hobgoblin (4th level monk due to +1 LA)
Paladin - Half-Elf/Heavy Warhorse mount
Ranger - Half-Orc/Wolf Companion
Rogue - Goblin
Sorcerer - Kobold/Tiny Viper Familiar
Wizard - Gnome/Weasel Familiar
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