To Ride Pegasus, Pegasus in Flight, Pegasus in Space

To Ride Pegasus, Pegasus in Flight, and Pegasus in Space

By

Anne McCaffrey

   Another series of books that I love. Having just acquired them from the internet and reread them I would like to say I advise them to anyone to read. While it may be better to read the first series placed in the setting as the Pegasus series is a prequel to it you can read either series first.

   The books are about Talent with a capital "T" which is used to mean psychic ability. Things like Telekinesis and Telepathy. The three books take you from the first time Talent is made legitimate and proven scientifically right up to its first use to traverse from earth out to the stars.

   The first book is a collection of interconnected short stories. The first of the short stories follows Henry Darrow, a man who can see the future and through an accident is able to prove Talents existence and set up an organization to find and train them. The three other short stories in the book follow Op Owen who is a powerful Telepath and is the person to take over after Darrow is gone.

   The second and third books are more connected to each other and follow a good amount of time after the first book as there is only a single person from the first book still in the other two and she was a young child in the first one and an old lady in the second and third.

   Both the second and third books follow Peter Reidinger from when he is a teen right after he is in an accident that paralyzes his body from the neck down to when he first sends a colony ship to another solar system. There are a number of other characters of course and while I won't be naming them, basically all of them are brilliantly portrayed.

   To wrap up as I said at the top I advise this book to anyone. Also anyone who has read the Pern series Anne McCaffrey also wrote that so if you enjoyed those books you will most likely enjoy these.

Thoughts dealing with self contained dungeon features

   Recently I have been rereading Ascii Dreams a blog by the creator of Unangband and I ended up thinking quite a bit about some of what I read. As it pertains to this post I was thinking on what I had read in This article which is part 6 of 9 on how Unangband's dungeon is generated. Particularly I was interested in the idea of complex dungeon features being achieved by simple self contained states. An example from the post is that there is regular Water which when hit by something that can hurt water causes it to transition to another state, the crest of a way. The crest in turn hurts all adjacent water tiles and transitions into a wave then next turn into rough water which does nothing except transition into Water. combining this all together and you get dynamic waves that don't need to store any kind of information past what they are. While not that realistic of a water system it does a good enough job without all the hassle of trying to figure out stuff like how to combine flows and water pressure.
   I in an uncharacteristic bout of whimsy programming set up a little console demo thing. Nothing complex but I was going for base level simplicity anyway. I started it to find out what a fire affect would look like. The rules for the fire was that if a space in a cardinal direction was empty the space became fire and the current fire tile transitions to smoke. Smoke does nothing but transistion to empty space but serves the same purpose that the rough water did, IE a buffer zone so the fire does not double back on itself.
   Of course I made a mistake in the code that would check if a space was empty and did not realize it so I made light smoke which I had smoke transition to. That was the beggining of my sinking more then four hours into something that technicly could have been done in one. You see the smoke was interesting. Sure all it did was transition turn by turn till it was gone but each state only took three lines of code in a simple Switch, one of  which was for the break. The code went like so:
      case '▒':
         NewMap[x,y] = '░'
         break;
Now I will admit I am a little over exuberant about all this and it is mostly old new and what not but still I am posting it because it was amusing for me to fool around with. Anyway the next thing I whipped up was A weird arrow thing that I can't really remember what I did except that because of how I cycled through the tiles it ended up having artifacts and a big fondness for diagonally downwards arrows and the whole thing ended up being transformed into the current form.
   As I mentioned I like how the smoke worked and wanted to do more with it so I thought of it in roguelike terms. How could I incorporate the spreading of smoke as a goal in and of itself. The easy answer would have been magic so I decided to try a different route. Smoke arrows was what I finally came up with. What good would they be? Why smoke obscures line of sight and maybe even light. The only problem I had was that the simple smoke I had lasted at most three turns. Of course while in flight the arrow itself puts out smoke so there is a trail but and seeing as I did not really plan on doing anything big with it the arrows have infinite range seeing as all they do is check if the space in the direction they are facing is empty and going there if so. It still did not leave a smoke trail like I wanted so I did something more complex. Well calling it complex is a little overstating it. All I did was have the tile be a number going from 6 to 1 and when the console actually writes out the screen I have it put '░' for 1 and 2, '▒' for 3 and 4, and '▓' for 5 and 6. I only applied this to the smoke left directly in the arrows path and it created a good looking affect.
   Now for the specifics on the actual code. The map itself is held in an char array called CurrentMap and is 35 characters wide and 21 characters tall though because of asthetics I only have the actual game space take up 35 by 19 leaving the bottom two rows blank where in a roguelike the stats and such would be. I then use a for loop nested in a for loop to fill in the NewMap array with what the game space will look like. All this currently means is that it puts a wall around the game space made of '#' and fills the interior with spaces. After that a few thing including the code that resizes the actual console size and buffer as well as a line that puts a character in the middle of the map so I can test the functionality of whatever I am working on.
   The main game loop is simple enough, just a do while loop that continues until you press the escape key. Inside the loop the first thing is once again a for loop nested in a for loop which lets me cycle through all the characters stored in CurrentMap and put them through a Switch with a case for each of the currently implemented tiles. Because most of them are just smoke and the ones that are not I have elsewhere in the code most of the cases take three lines if that. Then surprise, surprise more for loops though this set is important as its the place we put all the characters on the screen from. First there is an If statement that checks whether CurrentMap[x, y] != NewMap[x, y] so I don't end up redrawing the whole game area every time and only change what has actually changed. Then it has the bit of code that changes the numbers into smoke, just another switch. Finally the program makes the CurrentMap equal the NewMap and thats all there is to the main loop.
   Of course thats not all the code though. I have most of the functionality of the various things in methods. I have one for how fire spreads, one to write what I want where I want, one for all the smoke arrow directions all in one, and finally two I should probably merge together because the only difference is one checks if the  spaces next to a tile in the cardinal directions are clear and the other checks the diagonal directions. Both the checks return a bool array so I can just declare it 'i' and do If (i[0]). The only thing really stopping me right now is after I removed the weird arrow thing I did not use the diagonal check for anything so having to check four extra spaces did not make much sense.
   The full code as of now is below and its not really commented that well as I only did what I needed to have right when I was coding it. I should have more even though most of it is really simple if only for the fact I know I will forget something import later when I come back to it. If you have any questions just ask in the comments. Also if you see any errors on my part don't keep it to yourself and snigger at my incompetence, point it out in the comments so others can avoid my mistakes.



using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace Testing_with_Squares
{
    class Program
    {
        static char[,] CurrentMap = new char[35, 21];
        static char[,] NewMap = new char[35, 21];
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            for (int x = 0; x < 35; x++)
            {
                for (int y = 0; y < 19; y++)
                {
                    if ((x == 0) || (x == 34) || (y == 0) || (y == 18))
                    {
                        NewMap[x, y] = '#';
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        NewMap[x, y] = ' ';
                    }
                }
            }
            Console.SetWindowSize(35, 21);
            Console.SetBufferSize(35, 21);
            Console.CursorVisible = false;
            NewMap[17, 9] = '>';
            ConsoleKeyInfo cki = new ConsoleKeyInfo();
            do
            {
                cki = Console.ReadKey(true);
                for (int x = 0; x < 35; x++)
                {
                    for (int y = 0; y < 21; y++)
                    {
                        switch (CurrentMap[x, y])
                        {
                            case '*':
                                FireSpread(x, y);
                                break;
                            case '1':
                                NewMap[x, y] = ' ';
                                break;
                            case '2':
                                NewMap[x, y] = '1';
                                break;
                            case '3':
                                NewMap[x, y] = '2';
                                break;
                            case '4':
                                NewMap[x, y] = '3';
                                break;
                            case '5':
                                NewMap[x, y] = '4';
                                break;
                            case '6':
                                NewMap[x, y] = '5';
                                break;
                            case '░':
                                NewMap[x, y] = ' ';
                                break;
                            case '▒':
                                NewMap[x, y] = '░';
                                break;
                            case '▓':
                                NewMap[x, y] = '▒';
                                break;
                            case '<':
                            case '>':
                            case '^':
                            case 'v':
                                SmokeTravel(x, y);
                                break;
                            default:
                                break;
                        }
                    }
                }
                for (int x = 0; x < 35; x++)
                {
                    for (int y = 0; y < 21; y++)
                    {
                        if (CurrentMap[x, y] != NewMap[x, y])
                        {
                            switch (NewMap[x, y])
                            {
                                case '6':
                                case '5':
                                    Write(x, y, '▓');
                                    break;
                                case '4':
                                case '3':
                                    Write(x, y, '▒');
                                    break;
                                case '2':
                                case '1':
                                    Write(x, y, '░');
                                    break;
                                default:
                                    Write(x, y, NewMap[x, y]);
                                    break;
                            }
                            CurrentMap[x, y] = NewMap[x, y];
                        }
                    }
                }
            } while (cki.Key != ConsoleKey.Escape);
        }

        static void Write(int x, int y, char c)
        {
            Console.SetCursorPosition(x, y);
            Console.Write(c);
        }

        static void FireSpread(int x, int y)
        {
            NewMap[x, y] = '░';
            bool[] i = CardinalCheck(x, y);   // 0 = ^, 1 = >, 2 = v, 3 = <
            if (i[0])
            {
                NewMap[x, y - 1] = '*';
            }
            if (i[1])
            {
                NewMap[x + 1, y] = '*';
            }
            if (i[2])
            {
                NewMap[x, y + 1] = '*';
            }
            if (i[3])
            {
                NewMap[x - 1, y] = '*';
            }
        }
       
        static void SmokeTravel(int x, int y)
        {
            NewMap[x, y] = '6';
            bool[] i = CardinalCheck(x, y);   // 0 = ^, 1 = >, 2 = v, 3 = <
            switch (CurrentMap[x, y])
            {
                case '<':
                    if (i[3])
                    {
                        x--;
                        NewMap[x, y] = '<';
                        i = CardinalCheck(x, y);
                    }
                    break;
                case '>':
                    if (i[1])
                    {
                        x++;
                        NewMap[x, y] = '>';
                        i = CardinalCheck(x, y);
                    }
                    break;
                case '^':
                    if (i[0])
                    {
                        y--;
                        NewMap[x, y] = '^';
                        i = CardinalCheck(x, y);
                    }
                    break;
                case 'v':
                    if (i[2])
                    {
                        y++;
                        NewMap[x, y] = 'v';
                        i = CardinalCheck(x, y);
                    }
                    break;
                default:
                    break;
            }
            switch (NewMap[x, y])
            {
                case '<':
                case '>':
                    if (i[0]) { NewMap[x, y - 1] = '▓'; }
                    if (i[2]) { NewMap[x, y + 1] = '▓'; }
                    break;
                case '^':
                case 'v':
                    if (i[1]) { NewMap[x + 1, y] = '▓'; }
                    if (i[3]) { NewMap[x - 1, y] = '▓'; }
                    break;
                default:
                    break;
            }
        }

        static bool[] CardinalCheck(int x, int y)
        {
            bool[] i = new bool[4];   // 0 = ^, 1 = >, 2 = v, 3 = <
            if ((CurrentMap[x, y - 1] == ' ') && (NewMap[x, y - 1] == ' '))
            { i[0] = true; }
            if ((CurrentMap[x + 1, y] == ' ') && (NewMap[x + 1, y] == ' '))
            { i[1] = true; }
            if ((CurrentMap[x, y + 1] == ' ') && (NewMap[x, y + 1] == ' '))
            { i[2] = true; }
            if ((CurrentMap[x - 1, y] == ' ') && (NewMap[x - 1, y] == ' '))
            { i[3] = true; }
            return i;
        }

        static bool[] DiagonalCheck(int x, int y)
        {
            bool[] ii = new bool[4];   // 0 = ┌218, 1 = ┐191, 2 = ┘217, 3 = └192
            if ((CurrentMap[x - 1, y - 1] == ' ') && (NewMap[x - 1, y - 1] == ' '))
            { ii[0] = true; }
            if ((CurrentMap[x + 1, y - 1] == ' ') && (NewMap[x + 1, y - 1] == ' '))
            { ii[1] = true; }
            if ((CurrentMap[x + 1, y + 1] == ' ') && (NewMap[x + 1, y + 1] == ' '))
            { ii[2] = true; }
            if ((CurrentMap[x - 1, y + 1] == ' ') && (NewMap[x - 1, y + 1] == ' '))
            { ii[3] = true; }
            return ii;
        }
    }
}

Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 9, page 12, The Magic User

For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the 

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

This is the ninth part of a series, here are links to the
1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th parts

The Magic User

   My favorite class to play next to being a dwarf. There is no restriction on being one though its prime requisite is intelligence. Not only do they have the smallest hit die but they are unable to wear any armor and can only use small weapons such as a dagger. As a trade off for being one of the weakest at the low levels they are the only magic using class  that can get 9th level spells and thus become amazingly powerful at high levels.
   I will say one thing about the class. I prefer the OD&D Magic User as it represents a purer view of what the Vancian magic system was in the books by Jack Vance. Because Labyrinth Lord uses variable sized hit dice and weapon dice Magic Users start out quite weak. I have nothing against the changes made to the class, its just that the change makes Magic Users different when compared to the Magic Users in the Dying Earth books. For a better idea of what I mean I would advise reading the last part of the article Cause For Incursion (the Supplemental part) at Game Set Watch, it also has a number of other interesting insights about OD&D as well. While the @Play articles are mostly about Roguelikes, because the earliest of them, including Rogue itself, happen to be based on OD&D it gets talked about in a number of the articles.
   I have nothing against the weak Magic Users that have populated roleplaying games since variable sized hit dice. They are as I said one of my favorite classes to play and one of the few I can actually keep alive. The tactical knowledge needed and the ability to judge when you need to cast or more importantly hold your spells is something I enjoy about the class. It takes a different kind of thinking to be able to prepare the right spells and to get the full use out them. Magic Missile may be a certain hit but I would prefer to use Sleep or Ventriloquism to avoid a fight all together. Or at least I would in a game played Old School, more modern games tends toward rewarding the killing of monsters instead the acquiring of their treasure.
   The Magic User that is presented in Labyrinth Lord matches up to what is expected and follows through with an interesting list of spells. One thing of interest is that not in either the Elf's nor the Magic User's entry is it mentioned how many spells they start out knowing. You have to go to page 19 to find that out.

This is the ninth part of a series, here are links to the
1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th parts

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

And so the end has come to the game yet the future shines bright

   So yeah, the others in my group got tired of our current campaign and decided to end it. We plan to take the next couple weeks off and then the Sunday after I get back from Pennsylvania we will start a new campaign with someone else as DM. The guy that was playing the Sorcerer was learning to DM 3.5 so he's going to be given a chance to give it a whirl. Since there will only be three players we each get to play 2 characters. I am going to have a Warblade and a Cleric.
   I plan to have a couple small dungeon crawly things myself just in-case the new DM doesn't get everything prepared quick enough. Probably using some of the maps I already posted here.

The Dragon Jousters

The Dragon Jousters

By

Mercedes Lackey

   The Dragon Jousters is a series of books which are some of my favorites and I just finished rereading them all so I decided to review them. In order the books are "Joust", "Alta", "Sanctuary", and "Aerie". They follows the life of Kiron and has Dragons as an integral part of the plot. It starts with Kiron being a serf called Vetch who ends up at the Jouster compound. The place where Dragons and their riders who are called jousters fly from to battle the nation Kiron is from.

   The characters are all enjoyable and have actual personality behind them. They actually grow and change as the series progresses and in a believable fashion. The setting itself fits together quite well even with the magic that is present. This is quite a feat in and of itself seeing as magic is harder to properly represent then most fantastic elements. 

   This review by fact of me not wanting to the story is a little shorter then I would want. I love the series and would advise it to anyone though its probably better if you keep it to teenagers or older. I would love say more but as I hate it when someone spoils a book for me I can only have the decency to not spoil books for others.

So why all the reviews?

   I truly don't intend to turn this into some kind of reviewing blog or what have you. The thing is though I am blogging when I feel the need to and my life has been boring recently. So yeah reviews for everyone. Also while I am at it let me put down a little bit on how I review things. First if it is a series I will review the series as a whole. Second is that I will probably tend to only review stuff if I really like it or really hate it with movies I see in theater being about the only exception. Finally the shorter a review is the more I probably liked it because I will try harder to avoid spoilers. Any thing I actually go through the trouble of actually labeling as a spoiler doesn't count towards this and just means there was something that really caught my attention and I felt that it needed to be pointed out.

   In other news my Monday Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover post was my 100th Post so go me. I guess if I was able to stick it out this long then its not going to be a passing fancy for me. [insert naive promise to try to post more ofter here]

   Also from August 5th to August 12th I will be in Pennsylvania visiting my Mom and vacationing on the beach so I probably won't be able to access the internet let alone post stuff. I will try to remember to schedule a LLCC post but no promises on that. I am happy about the trip but am slightly sad that I will be missing a whole week of the August Dungeon Crawl tournament. Last year I was able to place 185th with 6 other people and my team Bay12_Miners came in 17th. I don't plan to skip it but missing the week will be hard on whichever of the Bay12 teams I join.

Edit: apperently the tournament wont start till the 13th because of another tournament they did earlier. That means I don't have to miss anything!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

   I just watched it today and I must say, the 3D was actually worth it. Some of the 3D movies I have seen *cough*Thor*cough* where not worth it in the least but this one did it. I feel that it was worth the extra money to see it in 3D.
   As for the movie's story, that too was better then I was expecting. Normally with sequels Its about the 3rd one that things really start going down hill. This one though was as good if not better then the first movie. Random new love interest was random sure, but that was because of real world reasons and can be excused in this case because it not only fits into the story but adds to it.
   If you saw the other two movies then you should definitely see this one. I would like to suggest it to anyone and it does stand somewhat on its own but as with most sequels you need the ones before it for the background information to fully understand a number of points. Now its time for some
SPOILERS(in white)

   I like how they ended the movie with both Sentinel and Megatron being killed. They could end the series right here and now. If they do then I think they will have made the right choice. This is because they may have defeated the downward spiral that is sequels but I don't think they can do it again. Better to end it now on a high note with all the plot points wrapped up and the main and backup evils dead then stretch it further.

   Also I would like to mention how ironic Sentinels talk to Optimus about making the hard choice is. Sentinel is the one who made the easy choice. He gave in to the enemy, he chose saving his planet over others freedom, he gave up his honor and morals. That is the easy way out folks. It is many times harder to stick to your guns and keep your ideals even when faced with defeat.
End Spoilers

Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 8, pages 11 and 12, The Halfing

For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the 

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

This is the eighth part of a series, here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th

The Halfing

   Or if you prefer the Hobbit though it hasn't been that since the first couple printings of OD&D. To play one you need at least 9 dexterity and constitution and will be restricted to only 8 levels. Their prime requisites are strength and dexterity. Being small you can't use large or two handed weapons but anything else is fair game. An interesting thing they can do is in bushes or other outdoor cover they can hide with 90% ability. Whats interesting about that is not the ability itself but the fact that Halfings are the ones with it. Generally its the elves that get to be at one with nature like that. A Halfing can even hide in your normal dungeon setting but in that case the Halfing has to be completely still and quite and only on a roll of 1-2 on a d6. This part does raise a question though. If the second part needs to add the motionless and silent part does that mean the outdoor hiding does not need them to be so?
   Being so dexterous if the Halfing is alone or in a party completely composed of halfings they get a +1 on initiative rolls. Also because of being so coordinated they have +1 on any melee attack which is yet another thing you would think of elves having instead. The final ability is that against any creature larger then human size they get an better armor class by 2.
   To finish up I will say that the Hobbits Halfings are definitely an interesting class. They are quite limited in the level department but other then that seem to be an interesting class. The description does not actually give any specific role for them to play but the hiding ability means they are going to be scouting ahead a lot and the bonus to initiative from being alone means they can escape quickly if they find something.

This is the eighth part of a series, here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

And the bandit spits mini bandits at you!

   We made it to the bandit cave and in the finest tradition it had multiple entrances. The first one we found and just went into was of course a dead end trap. A giant stone covered the entrance and water was starting to fill the place after the person in front triggered a pressure plate  when getting a scroll that basically said that the person did not beleive we would be stupid enough to fall for the trap. Unworried I simply stone shaped the rock away and put a message in it which was what the scroll a said followed by "I'm a ****ing dwarf, [female dog]!".
   We searched for more entrances and luckily one of us got a nat20 and found the other 3 entrances. I followed this up by rolling spot checks at each to spot how much activity there had been at each. The entrance next to the first was the correct one.
   Inside the correct tunnel I went in the lead and proceeded to ignore the traps we came across. Then I went around a corner and found a ballista firing at me. It missed me and the operators retreated. We went on and around the corner was ambushed by bandits. The bandits then spit 2d4 mini bandits at us. They would have been more of a threat if not for the fact everyone had at least DR1/- so they could not damage us though if they did hit you there was a DC15 fort save or lose some wisdom. Most of the party being either fighter types or dwarven this did little though the fighters did manage to get pretty low in wisdom. My dwarf was only hit a few times even when he had twenty of the blighters stacked on him attacking and saved every time. We killed them all finally, and it helped that the little ones only had an hp apiece so my fiery burst auto-killed them. In case you are wondering about the spitting mini bandits at us apparently the DM was using monsters as bandits. They where not what he was thinking they where so the next fight he switched out to something else.
   The group continued forward after a little bit of healing on the DMPC and found an actual room. It had
"rogues" with a fly speed. There was a good number of them but we cleared a large portion of them quickly. the mage helped a lot by using a bead from his necklace of fireball. This fight had everyone but me get knocked out though luckily I was able to throw down a mass lesser vigor on them all. After a little healing on the psi warrior to get him on his feet I proceeded to get extremely lucky. The enemy was rogues so if they saved against my ability they would have took nothing but in all the times I used my ability only once did any of them save. We managed to find a great number of interesting magic items on them including a Hand of the Mage and an Everfull Mug, both of which I commandeered. There was also a wand of cure light and a couple scrolls of bull strength which will be nice. There was also a number of other items but either no one needed them or someone else took them.
   We are not finished with the cave system but with the wand I should be able to get the group on their feet quickly. Probably will finish the cave next week. The group has also decided that we should make an adventuring group of 1st level characters to go quest with as well. I have a Warblade set up already and will probably have to make the group healer as well. At least this time I will be able to make a pure healer so he can do his job better. The extra feat from being human should help as well.

Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 7, page 11, The Fighter

For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the 

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

This is the seventh part of a series, here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, 5th, and 6th part

The Fighter

   The most basic of classes to play. No requirements nor special abilities till level 15. Its not even a supernatural type of abilities, just an extra attack a round at 15 and every five levels after to a max of four total attacks a round. Their prime requisite is Strength and have a d8 hit die, the highest matched only by the dwarf.
   Now if your angry at me calling it the most basic class because that may be seen as calling it easy don't worry I am not. Just because its a no frills added class doesn't mean one jot about how easy it is. In fact in some ways it could be considered harder! Roll low and you don't have any special things to make up for it. You could end up with a single hit point at first level and that is all you have then! Now they can of course use any kind of weapon or armor but that is not much consolation when your expected to lead the part into unknown danger.
   Ironically I actually have a harder time with straight melee characters. I just end up dead to much. Its probably something in the way I play them but I don't know what. Its not tactics which is something you should understand at least the basics of and its not me blundering into danger unprepared. Well whatever it is I will probably figure it out eventually. Till then I will probably stick with ranged characters which is an option with fighters. You can use any weapon and a bow is a weapon after all.

This is the seventh part of a series, here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, 5th, and 6th part

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

Not much but I healed the enemy

   Because the other players in the group where tired today we only did one encounter today. It was against some fire dinosaur things. The male shifter from before was with it and started off strong and kept it up. First round crit, hit, hit, miss. Second round crit, hit, hit, miss. Yeah, I think having him along will greatly improve our DPS. As for the heal thing I mentioned apparently fire healed them. I knew they probably were not affected by fire but healing? I think I would at least get some form of notice of this. Wounds closing up as they bask in my fiery conflagration should be something a cleric would figure out. Worse yet they kept up the tactic every enemy has adopted after I attack them, IE keeping spaces between themselves so my burst attack can only hit one of them. Sure they were not stupid but if they don't care about my attacks they should not be purposefully moving to make it so I can't hit more then one of them. Anyway we took them down right fast anyway. Going to have to look up if you can make a check to notice if an enemy takes damage or heals it.

Tremors, Tremors 2: Aftershocks, Tremors 3: Back To Perfection, and Tremors 4: The Legend Begins

Tremors

   I love all four of the Tremors movies and rate them a some of my favorite movies. I just finished re-watching all four of them and decided that some fan boy gushing on my blog was the perfect thing to cap the event.

   The first movie "Tremors" was released the year I was born, 1990, and while it did poorly in theaters once it went on to VHS it became a hit managing to triple the box office gross.  The movie starts slow and you don't even know exactly what the Graboids look like exactly for most of the beginning.

   The second movie "Tremors 2: Aftershocks" was released direct to film in 1996. The setting unlike the other films takes place somewhere in a Mexican oil field. The set up is that Graboids have apeared there and shut down the fields so the owners of the field need someone to kill them and are willing to pay 50k for each dead one and 100k if the manage to catch one alive. They go to one of the main characters from the first film who was cheated out of his share of the revenue from all the Graboid stuff that was made and a fan of his who advised them to go to him manages to convince him to do it. This is the film that Shriekers first appear in and they cause quite a bit of havoc until its figured out how they hunt.

   The third movie "Tremors 3: Back To Perfection" was released direct to film in 2001. The movie starts somewhere in Mexico for a short scene but quickly returns to the main setting of Perfection. The time is 11 years after the first movie and when the Graboids returns it surprises most of the populace. A number of the people decide to take care of the Graboids but someone calls in the Fed who decide that Graboids are an endangered species. Basically no killing them till they can catch one and if they can't they decide that they will force everyone out of Perfection. This angers the person who called them in because she thought they would help, not force them out of their homes. Things happen and Shriekers emerge but because of a situation they get left alone and the Ass-blaster makes its first appearance. This is also the movie where the albino Graboid "El Blanco" makes its first appearance.

   The fourth movie "Tremors 4: The Legend Begins" was released straight to film in 2004 and was a prequel to the first movie. The setting is 1884 in Perfection back when it was called Rejection and had a thriving town because of a silver mine. Of course whats a Tremors movie without some people diapering into the ground? A large group of miners get eaten in the mine with only one left to tell the tail. This closes the mine and causes the mine owner to have to come sort it out himself. We get introduced to yet another stage of the Graboids life cycle, Though with no official name seem to be called Dirt Dragons. They are a larval form of the Graboid and are quite fast.

   My favorite character is Burt Gummer. If you have not seen the movies think Gun Nut who is constantly prepared for the worst and has the resources to be prepared. He is in the first three movies and his great-grandfather Hiram Gummer is in the forth.

   El Blanco is an important Graboid and the only given an actual name. Because of Graboids being endangered species it allows the residents of Perfection to keep out a greedy developer who was trying to turn the valley into a bunch of "ranchets" in the third movie.

   If the reviews seems a little sparse on details and names its because even though they are not exactly new movies I tried to keep the spoilers down to a minimum. Also there is a Television series for Tremors that takes up right where the third movie leaves off and I quite enjoy it as well but I didn't just watch it so will be left out of this review.

   To wrap up I rate them as some of my all time favorites. There is a bit of cussing if the Graboid's third form didn't tip you off so not quite children friendly and all the films but the third are rated PG13 (the  third ironically managing a PG rating). The cussing is generally appropriate for the situation so it doesn't lessen the experience of the film. I highly advise these movies to any one who is old enough.

Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 6, pages 10 and 11, The Elf

For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the 

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

This is the sixth part of a series, here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, and 5th part

The Elf

   I will admit to being slightly prejudiced against them coming from my Dwarf Fortress background but I will try to give the cannibalistic nature loving elves a fair review.
   The first thing to know about them is that they are Magic User and Fighters all rolled into one class and as such have both strength and intelligence for prime requisites and require both to be big enough to get bonus experience points and to be one you need at least 9 intelligence. Their hit die is the d6 so while worse then a true fighter is better then a true magic user in this regard.
   Now the fun stuff. Elves have a lot of abilities. First up is they have infravision out to 60 feet. Along with this their eyes are so keen they have a 1 in 3 chance to find hidden doors  unlike the normal 1 in 6. Next is that because they are SO connected with nature they are unaffected by a ghouls paralyzing touch.
   Now the thing that is supposed to balance all of those abilities, a level cap of 10. This does mean they only get spells up to level 5 and being a spellcaster is more affect by the level cap then say a dwarf but still if your group doesn't get up to high levels, well I will let you make up your own mind about it.

This is the sixth part of a series, here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,  4th, and 5th part

Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found Here at Goblinoid Games

Escaped the fort and then suddenly shifters

   We basically died again. All the monsters but one where killed and the one knocked us all out and then hightailed it out of there. Its partly my fault, it really creeped the enemy out when it kept knocking us out and we would keep coming back. Extended lesser vigor tends to do that. Later we woke up healed up and then went back to town.
   In town we found a disturbance around a peasants shack. There was a dead guard and the captain of the guard was wounded. The story was a merchant had met some travelers who joined him then when they got to just before the town they beat him up and took some of his stuff. Also they where lycanthropes. After aquiring a masterwork silver long sword for the melee PC we went into the hut to face the foe...
It was a guy and his pregnant wife. Also they had apparently been hired by the merchant for protection and all they had done when he had refused payment was beat him up a little and then take what he had said he would pay them. Of course being unwillingly cursed is illegal and cause for you to either be killed or put into slavery. Now to make it even better they where not even lycanthropes but actually shifter, the half lycan types who don't go mad at the full moon. We solved the first part of the problem of them being illegal by having my character just declare as of the day before the event happened being a shifter was no longer illegal which was fun. Next was the fact that killing a guard was cause for death or slavery, IE back to square one. This we solved by having the guard raised in exchange for the shifters agreeing to work for us. After the session we found out they where both level six so for 5000 and change we acquired some heros who until we leveled where of higher level then us. Oh and we leveled.
   Finally I can stop worry about traps that cause reflex saves. Currently at level six my save is three which is horrible but with the feat I am taking once an encounter I can instead of making a reflex save make a concentration check which basically takes my 3 and making it a 13. For anyone currious this is what I am using:

From "Tome of Battle"

   "Martial Study" on page 31-32
By studying the basics of a martial discipline, you learn to focus your ki and perfect the form needed to use a maneuver. As a result, you gain the use of a combat maneuver.

Benefit: When you gain this feat, you must choose a discipline of martial maneuvers, such as Desert Wind. The key skill for the chosen discipline becomes a class skill for all your classes (current and future). Select any maneuver from the chosen discipline for which you meet the prerequisite. If you have martial adept levels, this maneuver becomes one of your maneuvers known. If you do not have martial adept levels, you can use this maneuver once per encounter as a martial adept with an initiator level equal to 1/2 your character level. If you do not have martial adept levels when you take this feat, and you later gain a level in a class that grants maneuvers known, these new maneuvers can be used only once per encounter and have no recovery method. If you later gain levels in a martial adept class (crusader, swordsage, or warblade), you use the recovery method for maneuvers learned as a result of those class levels, but your previous maneuvers (gained through this feat or through prestige class levels) do not gain a recovery method. A maneuver learned through this feat cannot be exchanged for a different maneuver if you are a crusader, swordsage, or warblade (see the class descriptions in Chapter 1 for details on swapping out maneuvers as you gain levels). Once you choose a maneuver with this feat, you cannot change it.

Special: You can take this feat up to three times. Each time you take it after the first, you gain one of two benefits. You can choose a new discipline, gaining one of its maneuvers and its key skill as a class skill, as described above. Alternatively, you can choose a maneuver from a discipline to which you have already gained access by means of this feat. In either case, you must meet the maneuver’s prerequisite.

   "Action Before Thought" on page 62
Diamond Mind (Counter)
Level: Swordsage 2, warblade 2
Initiation Action: 1 immediate action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Your supreme sense of the battlefield, unmatched martial training, and simple, intuitive sense of danger allow you to act faster than the speed of thought. When a spell or other attack strikes you, you move a split second before you are even aware of the threat.
Your mind is a keenly honed weapon. Other warriors rely on their physical talents. You know that a mix of mental acuity and martial training, along with a strong sword arm, is an unbeatable combination. This maneuver epitomizes your approach. Your mind, rather than your raw reflexes, dictates your defenses. You can use this maneuver any time you would be required to make a Reflex save. Roll a Concentration check instead of the Refl ex save and use the result of that check to determine the save’s success. You must use this maneuver before you roll the Reflex save. A result of a natural 1 on your Concentration check is not an automatic failure.