Measuring Stick

Sunday afternoon we caught Measure for Measure, a Shakespeare play. Twas an "Original Practices" style, which meant the bitches were dudes. None very convincing, but that's a good thing. The cast was also from the Globe Theater in London, which made for good fun. Thoroughly enjoyed the play. Hell, I wasn't even bothered by the peops behind us. First half, was two old people that couldn't follow the play at all. Intermission came, one asked the other if he knew what was going on, he didn't, and they went back to the retirement home mumbling about new slang and kids these days. Second half of the play, we found those seats replaced by some late comers that grabbed the "open call" tickets on the cheap at the door... Turned our section into the peanut gallery as they commented on everything like it was Jerry Springer.

Regardless, the play was good. I dug the shit outta the musicians. Acting wise, I'm told Steph's into a certain Scotsman that played Deputy Angelo, the main antagonist. His name's Liam Brennan. He's alright. A little old for her, but hey, chics these days, right? I thought Angelo was written exactly the way Brennan played him, serious, dry, predictable and boring.

Now, in my opinion, Duke Vincentio was the star of the play. I know that Isabella, the protagonist, played by Edward Hogg, is supposed to be. Didn't work out that way for me. Once my brain started translating Shakespeare into modern English, and I got up to the speed of light, Mark Rylance brought the character of the Duke to the front of the stage for me. Funny lines, funny mannerisms, great timing on the delivery. Major props coming from me, here.

All in all, a good time. The play runs until November 6, so for any of the MN readers, try to make it if you've got time and can find tickets. Good stuff.

Pabst

LOL. In lighter news, I just got a spammail for some porn site or another. In the keywords listed on the site (those are the words the site should pop up under in search engines), there was Pabst, Miller, and Budweiser. So be careful next time you're looking for a place to drink online. You might just find nekkid bitches instead. And no drunk dude wants that.

Yes, I fully realize that a post like this probably discounts any of my views in the post below to most intellectual readers. I'm pretty comfortable in the knowledge that most of my readers don't hit my blog for 'intellectual' purposes.

Scooter in the Pooper

In case you live under a rock, dig it. Add Libby to yet another prominent Republican on a downward spin for blindly supporting the man up top. From what I've read in other areas, Frist and DeLay are real bad guys, but Libby's actually a lot closer to fitting the bill of the myriad members of government that screwed up once and got hammered. Moral of the story, if yer boss is an untouchable target, toe the line of the law, cause his enemies are going to get to him any way they can.

Here are a few of my other half thought out theories. Now that Miers has dropped out and the investigation has expired with only one victim (but possibly Rove), look for Bush to give us a Supreme Court nomination that is more in line with what he actually wants in the SC. I think Miers was all a smoke screen to take some attention off of the investigation. That's a pretty consistant tactic with this administration. In this case, rather than letting the loyal right start to wonder about the morals behind lieing to go to war with Iraq, Bush gave them something else to piss and moan about, Miers. As usual, I think his timing is off a bit. He should have pulled her next Wednesday, or possibly even closer to the November 7th hearings. Give things a bit of time to slow down on the Libby front. Yet another "Mission Accomplished" move.

For good fun on raising money for elections, check out my friend John's run in with it. Good times.

combat

So, I was wrong. Recoil does subtract from the number of dice you roll on an attack in SR4. Recoil compensation helps. Here's the biggest example I have. As a starting character, you get ONE attribute at 6 and either ONE skill at 6 or TWO skills at 5. Let's say an average player is going to have an Agility of 4 and a Longarms of 4. That gives you 8 dice to roll on an attack. Want to make a full auto attack with your light machine gun? Can't do it. Well, you can, but it's an auto miss because you have no die to roll unless there's recoil compensation in there. Even with your Agi maxed at 6 (human) and a 6 on Longarms, you get to roll 3 dice. In the meantime, your opponent is probably rolling 7 or 8 dice. If he gets more successes, you miss.

I'll probaby ammend this after finishing the book and/or playing a few rounds of combat, cause that's my first read through over lunch at work. Seems kind of screwy to me.

SR4

Huh. At the Source on Sunday, no SR4. Call on Monday to see when they'll get it in. They got it in. Not only that, but when I mention they didn't have it Sunday, the guy's like, "Are you sure you were at the Source?" I've decided this near idiotic form of customer service is actually part of the draw to the place. Nonetheless, I swung by and grabbed Shadowrun 4th edition and a D&D minis booster pack.

Saw that Wizkids has an Axis&Allies style clicky game now. That's purty cool.

Anyway, a lot of changes in SR4. This is only a mini-review as i'm just 1/3 through the book.

No more priorities during character creation. Now you get a set number of build points to make your character with. Making a character is now like building an army in a Wizkids clicky game, especially considering the "recommended" build is 400 points, but the number really determined by the GM.

Stats changed a bit in the sense of what's derived and what isn't. Because of the way the dice system has been reworked Agility and Charisma are significantly more important than previously. This is the ONLY rules reason I've discovered as to why elves cost 10 more BP than Orks while orks get more stat bonuses (but the decreased maxes for them bring the total bonus/penalty down to being equal with elves numerically). Kind of miffs me, because it lends to the impression that elves cost more because they're more rare in the world or something....

Skill groups are back, so you can buy Firearms, instead of buying Pistols, SMGs, etc, individually, but you CAN still buy them individually. There's a max 250K nuyen on resources now. Don't know if cyber/bioware has been reduced costwise, too, haven't made it that far.

For all "tests" (die rolls), the target number is now 5, across the board. You roll a number of die equal to your skill + the appropriate attribute, and these die are added to or subtracted from based on the situation. That's a BIG change from just modifying the target number. A "threshold" is set to indicate how many "hits" (5 or 6 on a die) are needed to succeed. Opposed rolls compare the number of hits.

That's obviously the biggest change game wise. Doesn't bother me either way, but I don't see how adjusting the number of dice rolled is any easier than adjusting the target number. Easier to track hits, I guess, because the "rule of six" has changed. Still, it's such a flip from the original for no reason that's apparent to me. I should try to find some design journals on that, I guess.

Haven't made it to combat, yet, so I don't know how recoil, etc, is calculated. You can't very well drop a die for each bullet fired in a full auto burst and have any hope of hitting....

More later, and look for reviews on Freeport: City of Adventure and Crime & Punishment (if I ever finish it. At this point, I'd just be reading it for review purposes).

weekend and a link

I'll start with the link, but that means you'll prolly not read the rest of this. Still, good news on the Sin City front.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/sincitynews.php?id=3572

As for the weekend:

It shouldn't be impossible to find a gaming resource in the Twin Cities, what with something like 8 shops dedicated to this demographic. Had I looked harder, I could have, I'm sure, but one would think that B&N coupled with the Source (touted as possibly the best gaming store in the nation by some "experts"*) would be about all it takes. Not so. My RPG needs this weekend were:

Heroes of Horror
Shadowrun 4th edition
Any RPG with a magic system remotely similar to Harry Potter

I know HoH is too new for B&N right now. It'll be there in November. It was sold out at the Source. Not sure how this is possible, cause they usually stock about 20 copies, start selling new titles 3 weeks before the LEGAL release date, and then keep about 8 on the shelf til about 2 months after the release date. Must be a popular book.

SR4? Nope. I'd like to say I asked for it and was told it wasn't out or somthing ridiculous. I didn't. Lazy me combined with Hungry Wendy meant I just let the matter lie.

HP? Nothing. Not too much of a problem. It puts the email campaign on hold, but it also gives me an excuse to reread most of the books with an eye toward a game system, and it gives me a chance to whip up a system of my own and have playtesters readily available.

aeonflux

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/aeon_flux/

If they make it a love story, it'll be a little annoying, but still, the visuals in this trailer pretty damn spot on from what I remember of the series. Kind of excited now. Besides, Charlize Theron is pretty damn hot in this one.

Damn, it happened again

Once again, Order of the Stick is damn quotable.

"There is no way I'm saying goodbye to the Trouser Titan just so I can fool some lame-ass assassins."

Whorelarious.

Of course, I laughed so hard I forget my real post idea. :(

Whasa whozat?

OK. So I don't get loads of comments on my blog, but I'm relatively sure that someone reading them would understand what's going on.

Not so over at Xanga (another blog/online journal site). There, if yer reading someone's blog, and you look at the comments, 3 out of 5 of them don't make sense to that particular post or even the five previous posts. Eesh.

But that's neither here nor there. Upcoming gaming stuff to be excited about? On midnight on Halloween, Lichhaven games goes live, which is pretty cool, cause the gaming group playtested one of the first modules they're putting out, and I've got a little input on one of the others. Plus, I just like the guy that's running the company. Second, next month (pushed back three weeks), Suck Da Head, Squeeze Da Tail gets released over at RPG Edge! I'll post a link here when it does release, because the proceeds go to Habitat for Humanities AND it's got my first published work in it. *ding*

Other than that, I got diddly. If you live in Minnesota, head over to www.mpr.org and become a member for this month's pledge drive.

728 days til 30

Yep, rounded corner 28 this weekend. Some of the ladies at work don't believe it, but it happened. *shrug* That's why there's no weekend blog. You'd think, spending about 5 hours in front of my compy this weekend would give me time to blog. Nope. Four of it was spent mapping out Argren, so no blog then. Besides, read on and you'll see Saturday wasn't a day for blogging.

Worked B&N Saturday (my birthday), which turned out pretty lame. Spent most of the day helping the new girls figure shit out, so I didn't get as much done as I wanted. Then I grabbed an assload of books on my way out. Came home, spent a little me time online, got frustrated that the map I was working on was too big for CC2 and took a nap.

After I got up, I revisited the map to try some memory saving changes, but no luck. Erased a whole continent, THEN thought to try a smaller map entirely. Turned out the software was whacked out and it wasn't the map. DAMNIT! Spent the rest of the night looking for my CC2 CD and running various virus scanners to see what ate my software.

So, yesterday morning found me making considerable progress on the Argren map before Wendy and I headed out. We hit Halloween express and both scored a little something for our backup costumes, but no real juice for the primary costume ideas. From there we hit JCPenney and Wendy grabbed me some nice pants, and a Wolvy style leather jacket. X-Men 1 style, with brown and white stripes on the sleeves.... Hell, even the doable, but slightly annoying, cashier commented on how good I'd look in that outfit. *chaching* (Although really, the thought hadn't crossed my mind that the combo was an 'outfit' until that point. *shrug* I don't normally shop for 'outfits'. Hell, I don't normally shop period. This has been an abnormal month for me.)

From there, we headed south to St Paul in hopes of grabbing sushi. No go, the sushi place on Grand was closed. Detour north to Olive Garden and we're stuffed before the entrees arrive. Eat a little more, head home with leftovers in tow, and nap while watching Denver trounce the Pats.

Gas and we're heading uptown before the Pats can score in the 3rd quarter. Caught Mirrormask at the Landmark Lagoon Theater for the day's finale. Damn good finale, too. Great visuals, solid acting, engrossing story, and as Wendy pointed out, it's an excellent meshing of each of the creator's visions. Good stuff.

The cool down lap was chillin on the couch watching World Series of Poker because the Texans/Seahawks game was boring.

I need a muse voicemail

So, this morning I'm working on the map for Argren, my present campaign world. Trouble is, I'm starting to think that some of the founding principles for the world are wrong. I mean, it's flat. That world is flat, right? Nevermind.

Anway, the problem is that our regular campaign there is on hold (even the email style campaign I'm trying to run so we can at least finish our last adventure is waiting for ONE player to give it a nod. *smack Luke, Nick. smack him!*) So I'm taking that time to really nail out this world. Basically I want the place to be fleshed out enough that any new players coming into it have a set of rules to look at, instead of me just saying "Don't play half-orcs, not allowed, and PLEASE don't play an elf."

But then I start thinking about the other campaign ideas I have. The other worlds I want to build. :( Too much going on in my head. I should be writing about Myrrhlanthus or the Buhadjinn. I should be developing the kobold adventure I want to send to Paizo. Hell, there's an OGE website in need of work, plus a TORC Press website, a freelance editing job on my table, and Argren is still a viable publishing option if I flesh it out enough.... But what do I think of on lunch break?

A great way to start a new campaign with a group of heroes, but one is actually that campaign's villain... So jonesed for that right now. Actually, you know what? I think I could work it into Argren. hmm. It's the only one of three great ideas that were sparked by reading another blog today, and it's the only one that fits in Argren. Yep, definitely gotta write this one down in the notebook....

There, I've officially stopped whining.

Dry Humped

Oral Surgery? No problem. But Hello dry socket. Dry socket is the condition you get when a blood clot either doesn't form or gets dislodged post surgery. Apparently, it's more common in women than men and more common for wisdom teeth or lower teeth than upper. Once again, I'm in the top 10, only not so good this time. Scored me some dry socket. Now basically, this means where they took the tooth out, the bone is still exposed, as are the nerves in the area, meaning it hurts like a mofo. Some sources say it'll heal in a week or so, others say it won't. Hell, the dental tech said it would, but the dentist himself freaked out. *shrug* So, here's the solution.

They take a set of medicated packing, soaked in oil of cloves, and cram it into the socket where the exposed bone is, looping shit around long words that Wendy would know, but I didn't pay attention to. No problem, right? Hell, the middle aged lady doing it said, "Now, there'll be some discomfort here, but I've done a lot of these, so if experience lessens the pain, hahahaha."

Then she grabs the packing in the forceps and heads into my mouth. Fucking forceps sprouted lasers though. Laser beams sliced through my skull, shaving off sections of my brain like some high priced chef grabbing slices to decorate some dish that's nothing more than a cracker and cheese. Damn that hurt.

Then the place went horror movie. Blood splashes onto the lady's face and ceiling. My eyeball pops outta my head (nother dry socket for ya) and rolls across the floor. Someone screams. Camera cuts to the exterior of the building as patients and dentists flee in abject terror. This crazy lady rushes into the parking lot, chain saw mounted laser in tow, lunging at cars as the population of Minnesota runs for it's life. She goes limping off after a mini van full of soccer moms, Igor style, calling for Igor's dog Shcrapth (thanks be to Terry Pratchett) to finish off the ones inside.

Then it was over. Prolly lasted like 10 minutes, but the lady didn't shut up the whole time, interjecting an occasional Minnesotan "Ohp, sorry hun," in between mad ramblings. "You're not light headed are you?" She kept telling me the numbing medication would kick in in 5-10 minutes. They need to give me more. It's not working.

Then, the best line all day. "Stop by and set an appointment for tomorrow to have this dressing changed, ok."

Oh sweet mother of God. I get to do this again? What kharmic payback is this stemming from? I must have ran over a baby I don't remember or something. Maybe I died and this is hell. An eternity of little ladies babbling to me while they incur severe dental pain upon my person. Look at me kids. Read your Bibles. This could be you!

Oh yeah, and "Promise me you won't eat anything gooey or pointy, now." Well damn. Since my diet mostly consists of GLUE and SWORDS, I'm fucked.

Can't wait for tomorrow.

Halcyon and on and on

Nother two days without blogging. Obviously, not much goin on right now. Once I switch over to my new position (again) I'm not gonna have time to blog from work at all. :(

Gotta do something to get my energy levels up. In the meantime here are some other sites/blogs for you.

TorC Press webcomic
TorC Press blog

Umm, I'd add more, but that's really all the URLs I have memorized, lol.

up hill. both ways

Been a few days since the last blog. Let's see what we missed, shall we?

Friday - surgery. Oof. Ages ago I got two root canals. Dentist said nothing about caps. Couple years ago a filling fell out and that root canalled tooth has been slowly eroding. Had it cut out Friday morning. My review of anasthesia: SUCK. Too damn weird waking up in another room missing a chunk of my life and spending the whole weekend asking Wendy, "Did X happen on the way home?" or "When did they say that?" Coincidentally, that's why the hardest drug I ever did was weed and while I once drank so much I passed out I remember the entire party quite vividly. Loss of control....not my bag.

Bubba Hotep. This little gem is another film with my boy Bruce Campbell in it. I say gem. What I mean is more like semi-precious stone. It's really not much more than a polished tiger eye agate your grampsy bought you in Taos, NM. Not a bad rock, certainly fun to look at from time to time, but not one that sees a lot of action. BH is well acted, and while cheesy, there aren't any major holes in the script. Give it another 100G for special effects and you've got a shot. Regardless, if you've got a friend that grabbed it off of Amazon to get free shipping on another order (essentially getting the thing free), borrow it from him. Like I said, it's not a bad movie, and I don't feel I wasted time or money on it.

Besides, it's Elvis fighting a mummy with cowboy boots on.

Saturday - After emailing everyone in a still slightly medicated state, the modem crapped out. A very difficult to understand British technician finally agreed with me that we needed a new cable modem and scheduled a replacement for this morning. You think East Indian techs are hard to understand? Try someone that just left a Manchester United game.

So Saturday was dishes, some serious mapping (I've decided since the campaign is on hold, now is the perfect time for me to flesh out the world), and a little bit of coloring. On top of that, I finally watched House of Flying Daggers, which is a beautiful movie, but not nearly as rocking as Crouching Tiger. Regardless, I recommend it on sheer cinemetography and pretty characters alone. Also wasted 2 hours being punched in the stomach by Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God as well. Now, I didn't expect this scifi original picture to be any good at all. I did, however, look for an animation budget of more than $5 and overall special effects budget of more than "I bought that at the local Halloween costume shop that's only open from October 1 to October 31 in the parking lot of the mall."

Why have the last two D&D movies sucked? Because they don't make a movie. They make a cinematic adventure and cram it into an hour and 35 minutes. Seriously, in game, it's hard to have one adventure that tells a great story. Not impossible, just hard. Without a great story, a high fantasy movie is going to suck. And it'd take about 2.5 hours to tell some of the great campaign-style stories I've seen in game. Then there's the lack of character development. But really, you have to look at the core assumptions of the game to see what the problem is. Leveling up and getting treasure don't make for good movies. I had more, but work distracted me. Lucky you.

Sunday - Watched the Packers shift into drive and roll on over the Saints. OOff. Went costume hunting with Wendy. Scored her part of her costume. Failed miserably on mine. Not really though. Got a decent back up plan. More importantly, scored two shirts for $3 each, and a total of 5 for $50. Rock solid considering it was JC Penney and Khol's. Gotta love it.

Game Sunday night. Shadowrun. Enzo blew one bitch to hell with two smg bursts, then proceeded to distract some melee combatants while Aiden (Nick) got down to business on them. Good times, although it's always frustrating to have a character with more experience leading the party. I think having Justin's character in the mix is gonna give the newbs a false sense of security if his character leaves the group....but I'm a little paranoid in SR, cause that's how you survive....

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Enzo

Still can't think of a last name for this guy. He's my new Shadowrun character. He's an ork, decked out with cyberware, although not as decked out as I made him last night... Wired reflexes, smartlink, and dual chipjacks if I remember right. Loaded for bear on skills. Four level 1 contacts, 2 level 2 contacts, but I'll blog about that below. He's basically a gun smuggler. He was partnered up with a Face type buddy, but in the last run, his partner got whacked when the deal went bad thanks to a bust. Enzo made it out alive. Trouble is, to protect each other, Enzo handled transportation and his buddy handled working the deals. So now he's a gun smuggler without any guns to smuggle, but with a network of operations to make that shit easy. Plus, when his buddy went down, the big payoff went down with him, leaving Enzo with just enough scratch to pay off the muscle and make it back to town.

So now I'm having trouble working up his contacts. I'm thinking the level 2 contacts will be:

Diego, transportation. Diego specializes in hot transports. Cars, boats, you name it, Diego can get it for you. As a level 2 contact, he not only secures solid transpo for Enzo, he also provides him with all of the legal documentation to prove ownership and look legit.

Jimmy, Union Boss/Gang Leader. Jimmy's a union boss for the dockworkers union. Most of his boys are part of his gang, too. As a good friend of Enzo, he's able to provide street level security for Enzo's "warehouse" (a low quality apartment) and he knows who can be trusted when a little extra muscle is needed on a job.

For level ones, I'm thinking something like this:

Port Authority clerk. This is the man you see when you need papers to bring a shipment in via boat.

LoneStar insider. This fellow is handy for calling in false reports if LS is hot on Enzo's tail and also great at warning Enzo if they're keying on a safehouse or storage facility.

Coast Guard insider. Same as the LoneStar insider, only on the ocean. Very handy for any runs from Seattle to Cali.

Fixer. There are times when a client won't pay with cash. That's where the fixer comes in.

Now that I think about it, I think he needs a contact at the airport, too. But in what capacity. The control tower? Baggage claims? Security? I should talk to Charley about that.

Unfortunately, I just wrapped up with the biggest asshole I've had to deal with in several months. I don't feel like writing anymore...unless I'm tattooing his head.

so much to say

Oy. The activist part of me wants to rant about Bush and Miers. Last night he said he didn't want someone that would change over 20 years. Why not? The world is changing over that time. That nation is changing over that time. Shouldn't the top 9 people in charge of protecting the Constitution of the nation change over that time? Adapt with the era? Consider the ruling the justices pre-Civil War would be making now. Not good.

Then there's the crusader part of me. This part wants to know why terrorists are suicide bombing mosques. Granted, my divine abilities are on the low end, but if you blow up the storefronts where I offer my followers the keys to my house, when you come knockin at my house, I ain't lettin you in.

And finally, the gamer part. The gamer part is actually in the mood to wax philosophical about game balance and what have you. It'd probably be about balancing gaming with real life. Really, though, I've got nothing.

Spent the morning wrapping up the psion from earlier, although I still might change him around a bit. *shrug* After that, I started coloring Bo Jangles from TorC Press. By the way, the new webcomic is up over there. It rocks.

Still none

Still didn't game this weekend. :( Couldn't get ahold of John and Nick had to work later than expected. By the time he knew what time he was getting off, I was once again tired of the scheduling game (it went from 6:30 to 10 to 6:30 to 8) and decided we'd just get together to plan for his party. Ended up playing Munchkin during that. My only beef with that game is how consistantly it is won by fighting a potted plant, lame goblin, crabs, or some other such beastie that an actualy 9th level character wouldn't even get XP for. I know that sort of thing is what makes it fun early on, but it's frustratingly annoying to be at the cusp of victory twice and lose both times because someone flipped a level 1 monster. Not annoying enough to not play though.

Anyway, I weaseled my way into Nick's late night campaign with the newbies. Here're the character ideas I have. I haven't thought about race much, but I still have a few questions for Nick about style before I do that.

Human Rogue. This guys sort of a charlatan, focusing on bluffing through combat and life. Improved Feint ensures maximum sneak attack damage. Combat aside, however, I gotta come up with a personality/background for this guy.

Human Psion/kid. This kid probably set his home on fire and killed his parents with some latent psionic talent which he's learned to control pretty consistantly at the start of the game. He was taken in by someone in the group of travellers that just arrived in the other PCs home village. Abused, both mentally and phsyicially, he's convinced that using those psychic powers is the work of the devil and does nothing more than menial work for the travellers, earning barely enough food, etc to live on, just your typical Cinderalla/red headed step child. Will the other characters be enough of an outside impetus to get this kid to act out against his slavers? Will he be able to overcome the abuse he's suffered and learn to accept his pyschic talents?

Elven Scout. This character is actively hunting the party of travellers that just rolled into the village. For what? Nick and I will sort that out if I roll with him.

Favored Soul. There's a family of religious zealots near the village. They suck. If I want a cleric, I'm part of that family, perhaps the prodigy. While it would be fun to look down on the other characters as a matter of breeding, coming out of our regular campaign I'm really not all that into causing party strife. Solution, this character. As a favored soul of the deity in power, he comes strolling into town investigating rumors of a family of zealots misrepresenting said deity.

What are my preferences? Can't decide. Any character that challenges the ruling party is always fun. Especially the favored soul, as that's essentially just a divine sorcerer.

Despite wanting to run a scout, I think the concept for this one might be a little boring. Depending on why he's hunting the travellers anyway. I definitely don't want a character that's your typical wilderness angst boy.

Rogue? The build I have in mind for him has a lot of combat potential and could prolly even work as the party face, but I just have no background/personality for that guy yet.

The psion is probably the most fleshed out as far as RPing goes, and he's definitely the most challenging character for me to play. It's just a hard character to build. Looking at the psychic classes, it took me about 10 minutes to see how to make the baddest ass psion in the game. I'm talking dishing out 1-3d10 points of damage with a solid psychic blast. Not a long term sustainable solution though. Trouble is, I definitely DO NOT want to make a character that's so bad ass that Nick has to make special encounters to challenge him. Ignoring the fact that that's unfair to the other players, it also starts to breed feelings of DM vs player, and that makes for bad gaming. So instead, the kid would most likely be a shaper, able to make an astral construct, meaning he spends skill points in Craft(sculpture) just to entertain himself. Obviously one of his powers has to be Control Flame or Agitate Molecules. So, I'd probably go with Astral Construct, Control Flame, and Energy Bolt, and only use his bonus feat for a psionic feat (no other choice there), using his race feats for just general stuff...

Regardless, I rolled up all but the psion last night. Favored Soul, two thumbs down. The 9 and 7 are way offset by the 18, (2) 15's, and 14, so ability scores have nothing to do with it. Solid abilities. What stinks is that limiting the number of spells he knows how to cast takes away one of a divine caster's true strengths; versatility. Especially considering a cleric's ability to spontaneously cast cure spells anyway.

Rogue, rockin. 7 Wisdom hurts, but 2 12's and 3 16's more than makes up for that. This guy is definitely Face from the A-team. I need to talk to Nick about buying a mule though. With a 12 strength, half of a light load is taken up by leather armor. D&D needs a quick release backpack. As a free action you can dump your cargo.

Scout. Nother good set of stats. 18 Dex + elven means he's got a 20 Dex. Grabbed 2 Weapon Fighting as a feat. Now the question is whether to leave it at that and go the bow route for the +5 to hit or stick with the original idea I had and pursue the High Sword, Low Axe feat in Complete Warrior. Still, I might decide to move the 18 to strength and shift the 15 to Dex. Just depends on whether I go with bow or two-weapon for him. He's a solid character either way. I'll see what the party needs.

Got good stats for the psion. I'm gonna make him now. Sans XPH, which I'll go buy if I decide to play the kid.

One More Chick Flick

http://www.superherohype.com/news/x-mennews.php?id=3522

It's called The Prestige. Rival magicians fight for industry secrets and start killing people. Why is this a chick flick?

Hugh Jackman
Christian Bale

Those four words bring a significant portion of the women I know to the verge of...well, very nice thoughts.

Finally! The wait is over. I get boned in the pooper!

Oy. I think it was probably way back in April or May that I actually started trying to buy Freeport:City of Adventure. It's hailed far and wide as the best city sourcebook for d20 ever. Part of that is because there are 3-6 adventures published for the book that take characters from level 1 to level 14 or so. Part of it is it's a rip roaring good look at a pirate city, with some solid black powder mechanics. Most of it, though, is that it's well written, beautiful, and presents a solid setting easily adapted into any campaign. Exactly what I'm trying to do. So obviously, I should learn from the master.

Unfortunately, the book was put out in 2000, I think, and went out of print about '02. Hard to find.

Still, I ordered it from B&N in June. Two months later, they call to tell me they can't get the book. They STILL haven't taken it out of the online store or the database real stores order from. So, I ordered it from Amazon. I knew I'd have the same problem with them, so I've been scouting around for the book since I ordered it. TODAY they emailed me to say there was a delay in my order. WTF? I knew there was a dealy in the order on September 10 when the book still hadn't shipped. It took 20 days to tell me that? Worst part is, they STILL haven't shipped the other shit I ordered with the book to get free shipping. :( As soon as they do, I'm cancelling the Freeport part. Better mail my damn DVDs on Monday, the bastards. I need me some Bubba Hotep.

So, through all of this, I've missed two auctions on ebay that went for about $25 each. A bit high since the book retailed for $19.99 (funny how d20 sourcebooks went from 19.99 to 34.95 in 5 years. Paper must be getting rare). *sigh* In the end, I ended up finding an ebay store that had the book listed, contacted the store (in WA) and was assured they had it in stock. Dude was pretty cool and set it aside for me for the weekend, so I bought it today. I figer I give Amazon til Wednesday to mail my DVDs and go or no, I cancel anything not shipped then. In the end, the thing cost me 32.95 total. $13 more than original, but still cheaper than full price on a new hardcover now...

Still, I won't get into a rant about how page count, paper quality, and general editing quality has gone down in WotC products, but price has risen considerably since Hasbro took over. Most frustrating part is that Hasbro didn't really buy WotC for D&D. They bought em for Star Wars, Pokemon, and YugiOh. :(