pres_man

02:38 pm

Gotz tickets.

Actually $2 cheaper than later movie even with Fandango charge because it is a matinee.

11:18 am - Troll race "class" progression

1: 1d8, BA +0, Fort +2, Ref +0, Will +0, 1 feat, low-light, speed 30 ft, medium, +2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 4(2+int) skills [listen, spot]

2: 1d8+1d4, BA +0, Fort +2, Ref +0, Will +0, 1 feat, low-light, speed 30 ft, medium, +4 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 5(2+int) skills

3: 2d8+1d4, BA +1, Fort +3, Ref +0, Will +0, 2 feats, low-light, darkvision, speed 30 ft, medium, +4 Str, +2 Dex, +4 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 6(2+int) skills

4: 2d8+2d4, BA +2, Fort +3, Ref +0, Will +0, 2 feats, low-light, darkvision, speed 30 ft, medium, powerful build, +6 Str, +2 Dex, +6 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 7(2+int) skills

5: 3d8+2d4, BA +3, Fort +3, Ref +1, Will +1, 2 feats, low-light, darkvision, speed 30 ft, medium, powerful build, +6 Str, +4 Dex, +6 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 8(2+int) skills, +2 natural armor

6: 3d8+3d4, BA +3, Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +2, 3 feats, low-light, darkvision, speed 30 ft, medium, powerful build, +8 Str, +4 Dex, +6 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 9(2+int) skills, +2 natural armor, 2 claws (1d4) and bite (1d4)

7: 4d8+3d4, BA +4, Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +2, 3 feats, low-light, darkvision, scent, speed 30 ft, medium, powerful build, +8 Str, +4 Dex, +8 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 10(2+int) skills, +2 natural armor, 2 claws (1d4) and bite (1d4)


8: 4d8+4d4, BA +5, Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +2, 3 feats, low-light, darkvision, scent, speed 30 ft, large, +10 Str, +4 Dex, +8 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 11(2+int) skills, +2 natural armor, 2 claws (1d6) and bite (1d6)

9: 5d8+4d4, BA +5, Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +2, 4 feats, low-light, darkvision, scent, speed 30 ft, large, +10 Str, +4 Dex, +10 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 12(2+int) skills, +5 natural armor, 2 claws (1d6) and bite (1d6)

10: 5d8+5d4, BA +5, Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +2, 4 feats, low-light, darkvision, scent, speed 30 ft, large, +12 Str, +4 Dex, +10 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 13(2+int) skills, +5 natural armor, 2 claws (1d6) and bite (1d6), Rend [damage 2d6 + 1½ times Str modifier]

11: 6d8+5d4, BA +6, Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +3, 4 feats, low-light, darkvision, scent, speed 30 ft, large, +12 Str, +4 Dex, +12 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, 14(2+int) skills, +5 natural armor, 2 claws (1d6) and bite (1d6), Rend [damage 2d6 + 1½ times Str modifier], Regenerate 5

06:29 am - 100 reasons why Kirk is Better than Picard

From: http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=4329

( Read more... )

06:50 pm

You are Red/Blue!
Take The Magic Dual Colour Test - Beta today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

10:00 pm - Beholder Beauty

Bouncy eyeball ... ball:



Base paint:



Final paint job:

03:05 pm

Watching Troll 2 on Hulu, and I have to say, I've seen better acting in a Elementary Christmas pagent.

EDIT: Saved from watching it more by a visitor.

02:41 pm - Zero Amigos

Looks like the showing of three amigos will be delayed until next week.

07:40 pm - Versus!

Clancy Brown versus Ron Perlman!

Fight!

04:19 pm - Discussions about 4e and gaming restarts in general.

Here are a couple of posts I made on a thread discussing 4e and the idea of gaming companies "restarting" their brands after a time.

Response to someone talking about how WotC is advertising an abomination and calling it D&D.

Still, what I am getting from you is that you don't view the current edition as really "D&D". That it doesn't have the same cows (though some of those weren't even heifers in earlier editions) or feel or whatever.

Ok, but now let's take a step back from the deeply entrenched position of the old school gamers and look at it from an outsiders point of view. This outsider has no idea about spelljammer or darksun or ravenloft or even the forgotten realms. They may vaguely recognize Drizzt, though not know his name, just from seeing the covers of books in the sci-fi/fantasy sections. So many of those cows and true to the past settings and whatever are totally unknown to them. So what is D&D to them? What are their basic ideas about it from what little exposure they have picked up in their life?

1. D&D is a game for geeks.
2. You use dice to play it.
3. You often use little miniature people to play it.
4. It is based on fantasy ideas.
5. You have elves, dwarves, humans, and halflings in it.
6. You have fighters, wizards, thieves/rogues, and a healer in it.
7. You have hps.
8. You have a lot of options on how to build your character.

Does 4e have these things? If yes, then to an outsider, someone who may just now be getting into gaming, that is what they are expecting. That is D&D to them. Not FR, not Darksun, not half-orc barbarians, not gnome illusions, not Gygaxian naturalism, not G-N-S theory. People get so wrapped up in what they have experienced and liked that they forget that very first day they played, before they even knew the rules. They weren't worried about minis or if the realms had been blown up or anything. They just wanted to play a fantasy game where they were a hero, and that is what D&D was for them. 4e, just like every other edition, provides that experience, and that is why it is still D&D.

Response to a question about how counterintuitive it is that gaming companies restart their products.

But is it really counterintuitive? Let's consider. Any game system that produces new material on even a semi-regular basis is going to increase in complexity. Complexity of mechanics and/or fluff. Now, if you start off on the ground floor, you are building on knowledge you already know. You can deal with it on a step by step basis, in a natural fashion. In that case, the increased complexity isn't a huge burden for the person who has been invested in it from the beginning.

But what about the newcomer. With each new product that comes out, that is another thing they have to deal with to catch up. It may be that they are only able to consumer products at the rate at which new ones are produced. This means they will never make any headway, they will always be far behind of the cutting edge of the system.

Now that can be pretty frustrating to the gamer, especially if they want to play in organized play. But consider the position of a new developer. For this new employee (and you will always have some turn over, even without "evil" reasons, marriage, death, retirement, change of career, progression of career), not only do they have to make new product, but they have to make it legitimate in light of all of those previous products. They have to consume all of those, let's say they do in a timely fashion (they are already fairly knowledge about the system to begin with), they are now hamstringed by the mechanics and the fluff that preceded them. That can be stifling to a designer. Anyone that has ever run their own homebrewed world probably has experienced this with just their own material.

So what is the answer then, you have a very complex system. Much of the complexity is now a burden to the new material and to bringing in new players. Old players are decreasing (death, change of system, grown out of gaming). Changing the dynamics of the system and the setting seems a very intuitive response to me. Start over from scratch, wipe the slate clean. Learn from the things that worked, drop the things that just added complexity but did not improve the experience. Of course this is going to be frustrating to those that have invested so much of their resources (time, money, sweat, etc) into the old systems, now they have to start over from scratch. But it is a natural way for companies to stay alive.

What about backwards compatibility? Again, that is just continuing the burden of complexity, the more backwards compatible the system is, the more added complexity from day one must be added in. Read some of the discussions about the Alpha and Beta testing for PF. There were people saying that they should abandon the idea of backwards compatibility because it was too restrictive, it didn't allow PF to make the changes that needed to be done (drop magic down and boost melee up) and that it remains as "broken" as 3.5.

The really only other choice is stagnation. To reach a point where the mechanics and fluff do not increase anymore and the company just maintains its products (doing reprints every so often). I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing for a big company, look at Monopoly, how much has it changed in the last 30 years? Still everyone pretty much has a copy of it, even if you never play it. But for small companies, they have to continue to make product. Thus they continue increase their complexity. And thus at some point it is untenable to maintain anything remotely coherent. And thus the new system.

10:40 am - A Cloth Stronger than Kevlar, Made by a Million Spiders

A Cloth Stronger than Kevlar, Made by a Million Spiders

This must be why drow are so kick butt, they all are wearing kevlarish clothing.

10:30 am - Hitler hates 4th edition D&D

11:21 am - Finally got around to knocking out some stats for a middle sized cat

Lynx
Size/Type: Small Animal
Hit Dice: 1d8
Initiative: +4
Speed: 30 ft.
Armor Class: 16 (+1 size, +4 Dex, +1 Natural), touch 15, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-3
Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d4+1)
Full Attack: Bite +5 melee (1d4+1) and 2 claws +0 melee (1d2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +1
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Skills: Balance +12, Climb +8, Hide +8*, Jump +12, Listen +5, Move Silently +8, Spot +5
Feats: Alertness, Weapon Finesse B
Environment: Temperate forest
Organization: Solitary or pair
Challenge Rating: ½
Advancement: 2 HD (Small)
Level Adjustment: --

The statistics presented here describe a fairly small cat of about 20 to 50 pounds in weight. They also can be used for other small wild cats such as servals, caracals, fishing cats, and clouded leopards.

Skills
Lynxes have a +8 racial bonus on Jump checks and a +4 racial bonus on Climb, Hide, and Move Silently checks. Lynxes have a +8 racial bonus on Balance checks. They use their Dexterity modifier instead of their Strength modifier for Climb and Jump checks. *In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus rises to +8.

08:45 am

04:08 pm - Make a list of Deities

If you were going to make your own list of deities for a roleplaying game, what kind of deities would you have? Four that jump out at me are:

Deity of Nature, Domains: air, animal, earth, fire, plant, sun, water, scalykind, weather
Deity of Death, Domains: Death, Destruction, Law, War, Repose
Deity of Chance, Domains: Chaos, Luck, Travel, Trickery, Charm, Glory, Liberation
Deity of Knowledge, Domains: Knowledge, Magic, Mind, Artifice, Creation, Nobility, Rune

I see nature and knowledge both being true neutral, death being lawful neutral, and chance being chaotic neutral. I see chance as being female (Lady Luck), death and nature being asexual (angel of death), knowledge feels male to me (but that could be my sexism).

So what other deities if you were working from scratch occur to you?

List of Open Game Domains:
( Read more... )

02:37 pm - Massachusetts Senate seat thoughts take 2

Wouldn't it be too late to change the law if the seat has already come open (due to the death of Sen. Kennedy)? Would a new/old law not take effect for seats that come open after the law takes effect? Isn't there some kind of "grandfather" clause or something? Could people who were challenging it take it up to Massachusetts' supreme court? The US supreme court? I mean we saw what happened with Franken and that was with an actual vote.

01:33 pm - Got to love Mass.

Gov. would OK law change for Kennedy successor

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Wednesday he would support changing state law to allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat while a special election is held.

Unlike most states, a successor to a vacant U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts is chosen by special election, not appointed by the governor.

Wow, that is pretty generous of him. He would support that would he?

The succession law was changed in 2004, when Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., became his party's presidential nominee and Republican Mitt Romney was the state's governor. Before the change, the governor would have appointed a replacement to serve until the next general election.

That would have created the opportunity for Romney to install a fellow Republican in office, a move that Democrats who control the state legislature sought to prevent.

So they changed the law to screw over Romney if Kerry had won, and now that it is biting them in the rear, they want to change it back. Classy.

03:20 pm - Highs and Lows

Good idea: Get to the room with the projector and make sure you can hook up your laptop to it.

Bad idea: When the top of the cart it is in doesn't open up easily, don't decide it must be stuck and pull a bit harder. Thereby pulling the screws out of the wood and ruining the cart.

Good idea: Either get someone to show you how to open it or look for that latch that is holding it close.

02:18 pm - How iconic is your cleric?

How iconic do you consider the idea of a heavily armored cleric for roleplaying games and/or fantasy is? Something almost unheard of? A common occurance? What do you think?

04:14 pm - Maybe I should be calling the stove and not my wife about dinner.

It ain't poltergeists: Cell phone activates oven

How did this happen? Melnikov and his Brooklyn apartment building's skeptical super eventually figured it out through trial and error: The tenant's ringing cell phone somehow turned on his nearby Maytag oven when it rang. If you're skeptical, check out the video of this in action at the New York Times website and see for yourself.

04:00 pm - Evolutionists may need to find a new whipping dog, still have wisdom teeth

The Appendix: Useful and in Fact Promising

The vermiform appendix is a slimy dead-end sac that hangs between the small and large intestines. No less than Charles Darwin first suggested that the appendix was a vestigial organ from an ancestor that ate leaves, theorizing that it was the evolutionary remains of a larger structure, called a cecum, which once was used by now-extinct predecessors for digesting food.

Darwin thought you stored corn there? Who knew? ;)

However, Parker and his colleagues recently suggested that the appendix still served as a vital safehouse where good bacteria could lie in wait until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhea. Past studies had also found the appendix can help make, direct and train white blood cells.

"Those changes left our immune systems with too little work and too much time their hands - a recipe for trouble," he said. "Darwin had no way of knowing that the function of the appendix could be rendered obsolete by cultural changes that included widespread use of sewer systems and clean drinking water."