Damn you, Dave! You and your… logic…

Thanks to Dave of Critical Hits, I have found some holes in my “no more ability checks” idea.

Making Bull Rush an Athletics check steps on the toes of at-will forced movement powers like “Tide of Iron”.  A Fighter trained in Athletics would actually find it slightly easier to Bull Rush than use “Tide of Iron”.  The only disadvantages would be the lack of damage and the lack of marking.

But this is not the kicker.  This can be accepted and dealt with, especially for powers like the Warlord’s “Opening Shove”, which allows an ally to shift or make an attack.

Rule 42.  Actions the rules don’t cover.  Ability checks come in during some of these, as attacks without weapons are essentially ability checks.

Trip: Strength attack vs Reflex

Throw sand in their eyes: Dex vs Fort

etc.

So, unfortunately, ability checks can not be completely done away with.

(But the little boxes on the character sheet that people keep confusing with their damage bonus, or vice versa?  Yeah, that can probably be removed.  Or at least moved away from the ability scores box.)

32 hours of D&D gaming party!

Remember the bigass 32-hour gaming event my FLGS (GameKnight) hosted last Game Day?

Well, they’re doing it again.  It’s starting… right now, actually.  I probably should have mentioned this earlier.  Oh well.

If anyone in Winnipeg didn’t know about this and wants to come down, get your ass down there!

I’ll write about it after the fact, and maybe post something before I crash tonight.  I will also have a twitter feed going once I get there this afternoon.  Check it out, if you’re into that sort of thing. This liveblog/livetweet/whatever won’t be on the site until later, however.  My schedule lately didn’t give me enough time to set that up.

UPS? More like You Pee… Freely… or something…

Dear UPS,

The next time a package comes to me from UPS that isn’t handed directly to me with no additional charges or trouble, I’m refusing shipment.

You attempt delivery, I ask you to hold it so I can pick it up.  You attempt again, I angrily ask you to hold it, as I plan to pick it up the next day.  I go to pick it up, OH LOOK IT’S OUT ON THE FUCKING TRUCK!

And you have the tenacity audacity to charge me $40 for the privilege.

Your service sucks.

Fuck you,

Graham

EDIT: Just to note, this is just the latest time I have been screwed around with by UPS.  I have yet to have a good experience with them.

So… Notice anything new?

Damned straight!  I finally got the new site design finished and up!  I listened to the feedback you gave us, too.

The navigation is primarily the same, but you’ll notice some changes.  For instance, the gravatar of the post author is at the top left, beside the date.  Just below is the author name and the number of comments, followed by category links.  This all used to be (inconveniently) at the bottom of the post.  Now you can tell who wrote the post right away.

How does everyone like the new header?

That’s right, a Critical Ankle Bite is a melee basic attack.  Speaking of which, I have yet to relate that story here.  Odd, considering the site is named after the event.  I should also credit Josh/Daelkyr over at EN World with originally creating the 4e icon font used in the header.

I know some of you may be missing is the Wiggum quotes.  But have no fear, for I did not leave you lacking in this area.  Just hover over the title image (or Gah the gully dwarf in the top left) for the random Wiggum quote.

I may replace these with something else, however.  Lately, around the game table, we’ve been keeping a list of “things that have made Nonnie/Alabaster’s player giggle”…

So yeah.  Change: Scary and confusing.  But also awesome.

I hope you agree.

Comments are welcome.

Story Time – Chicken Mage

In a discussion of encumbrance rules, we got onto how chalk is weightless according to D&D (and I will often buy 200 pieces of chalk at chargen just to wipe out my starting gold and mock the encumbrance system while I’m at it).

And from there, buying senseless cheap animals (guinnea hen, mongoose) in 2e was mentioned.

Well, along those lines is my Chicken Mage.

Essentially the first character I ever made in 3e, using that character builder program from WotC, I decided to make an elf wizard.

And after buying the tiny amount of gear I needed, I had about 10 gp left.

So I tried to find something else to buy, and came across the trade goods tab.  I bought a goat, and spent the rest on chickens.

But these were not useless, pointless chickens.  Oh no.

These chickens were to be used as spell components.

Chicken Mage: “Magic Missile!”

Chicken, being thrown: “Buckaw?” *whap*

CM: “Fireball!”

Chicken: “BUCKAAWWW!!!” *FWOOMF!*

I never got a chance to use the character, however.  We’re still not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

I’ll post more of my insanity in the future, for sure.  How about any of you?  Any crazy character concepts you never got to play and wish you had?  Or did you play them?

There are comments!  Use them!

Whoa…

…they’re rereleasing the Dark Sun novels?

Could this be a sign of what the next WotC campaign setting will be, after Eberron?

We’ll see, I suppose.

Merry Geeksmas – Updated

Or, y’know, whatever holiday you want to celibrate.

But if you really want to geek up your Decemberween rituals, you’ll need appropriate background music.

Like a little horror with your turkey?  Well, you should check out the HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s album A Very Scary Solstice (and the followup album An Even Scarier Solstice), which includes such holiday classics as:

• Death to the World
• Freddy the Red-Brained Mi-Go
• Slay Ride
• It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish-Men
• and the Elvis hit: Blue Solstice

Or do you prefer your Eggnog with a little shot of 1985 brandy, just for that retro feel?

If so, you may want to check out 8-bit Jesus, a new Christmas chiptune album, with each song done in the style of a different 8-bit era game.

Be sure to listen to “The Legend of Noel” and “Carol of the Belmonts”, my personal favourites from the 9 available thus far.

In site news, we still have two new session logs to go up, but we’re taking a seasonal break from gaming until January, as the next couple weeks are busy for everyone.  New posts will hopefully keep coming, though.  And that site redesign is being worked on now that my computer has returned.

But tonight we need to put up our gorram tree and geek wreath.

EDIT: The 8-bit Jesus album has been updated, and it is now completed.  New link above and here.  You can also get a physical copy now, if you feel like dropping $15 (US) his way.

New favourite songs:

• Bubbles we have heard on Bobble
• Have Yourself a Final Little Fantasy

Changing things up…

Well, you’ve probably all noticed that I (Graham) am not the only one writing here any more.

But it’s difficult to tell just who is writing, isn’t it.

So that, among other reasons, has spurred me to finally redo the site (a task I have been planning since the spring).  But something occurred to me.

I don’t know what all of you like/dislike about the current design!

So comment!  Let me know what parts of the current design you would have to see go, or what parts annoy the hell out of you!

Do you love the Wiggum quotes to death?  The Gah caricature?  Hate the d20 in the title bar or the unfinished “Aboot” section?

All suggestions and comments will be considered.  Some will be laughed at.

Holy Hell

The float for the cartoon “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” (a pretty awesome show, actually) got Rick Astley to Rickroll the entire fucking Macy’s parade!

Seriously epic.

As a side note, please continue to let me know if you experience any issues with posting comments.  We’ve been having some problems with the captcha lately.

Not September Yet

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our wrong-day-Thanksgiving-celebrating backwards American readers.

Silly Americans.  Thanksgiving isn’t in November!

Anyways, we are going to be posting more soon.  The time since the last post has been extremely hectic, with university projects piling up, my main computer dying a week before the end of semester (with shitloads of project work left and a bunch of important data on that computer, creating a panic to get the data off and restore the computer, so much fun), and Christine landing in the hospital for a few days (she’s good now).

So yeah, more soon, but life comes before blogging.

As if that wasn’t already apparent from my sporadic-at-best update schedule, eh?