tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82634324970706625042024-03-05T09:37:39.879-05:00Ascii, Dice, and WhyA rambling train of thought that vaguely deals with Roguelikes, D&D, and ProgrammingAkhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-56344933018389491122013-03-25T22:34:00.002-04:002021-02-02T01:20:53.704-05:00Sharpened Keep on the Borderland Cave Map I looked around for a nice map of the Caves from the B2 as it seemed like a nice place to have ready if I ever get a chance to run an older edition game and did not find one that fit my requirements. This was unsatisfactory so I took the best one I could find on the net and converted it to black and white then sharpened the image so it would print out better on my colleges B&W only printers (free > color). Of course doing this did not make any of the numbers and other things visible so I also went and hand fixed those things. Most of the things where easy but some points such as area g in the B cave was hard to even figure out what it was at first. Mostly because it used a lower case g which pixelated badly. Those I denoted with a little A then the the g and the print out, even on a single sheet of paper it seems to have looked good enough to use. Anyway here is the picture:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/6lchh0h.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://i.imgur.com/T3HRq32.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">B2 Caves Map</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-43801315174954802572012-06-10T05:04:00.000-04:002012-06-10T05:04:12.103-04:00Dissociated from 4th edition Not posted in a while but a post over at Jeffs Gameblog got me thinking. First though read <a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer">this post</a> on another blog about Dissociated Mechanics and then read <a href="http://jrients.blogspot.com/2012/06/i-think-were-getting-dissociated.html">Jeff's post here</a>. Okay now that you have read them both I can get started with what I think.<br />
I did not like 4th edition as D&D though the game itself seemed fun and I think that the reason for this is hidden somewhat in the two posts I linked to above. What I believe is that first roleplaying games need to be balanced in favor of associated mechanics though this does not mean it needs more of them then dissociated ones. Two over time the mechanics that are a part of a certain game are bound to it, both associated and dissociated. Jeff has his 3 vectors and the third one is in my opinion in need of work. Its not that the community does not accept new dissociated mechanics but that to still consider a new version as a successful update to the old version it needs to have enough of the mechanics connected to the old one. This is where 4th fails.<br />
To explain better I need to take a look deeper into the basic framework of D&D. Wizards and other magic using classes have a limited number of spells a day they can cast because its based on a magic system portrayed in some books Garry Gygax read. It doesn't really make that much sense and when someone first comes into D&D or any roleplay game which has a magic like system that is not purposefully bucking the norm you have to explain why it works the way it does. Sure it is easy to see that it balances magic but the in-game logic needs to be explained. This means that it is at some level a dissociated mechanic used to limit the use of magic. Now you won't see it at such as it is the norm now but its there. 4th editions system makes a lot more sense, you can use easy spells as much as you like and the more difficult the less you can use them without resting. Where in all other editions you have to explain about things like the brain only being able to store so many spells and then get into why you can't just use it all to store magic missile, 4th lets you just say the spell is harder so you can do it less. Then you get to the generic fighter and you realize something else about 4th. Everyone is a wizard, all that changes is what you specialize in.<br />
This its a wizard called fighter problem is something you see brought up in roguelikes a lot as all fighters can do in such a limited setting is bump into things. Sure you can add all kinds of bells and whistles but after a certain point the difference between a magic user and that is that the magic user is less complicated. 4th edition fixes this "fighters are boring" problem by making everything a magic user. I don't care that ones flavor text says its arcane and the other says its something physical there is no real difference in the end as all the classes are based off of the same daily power scheme. Once again I will say that it makes more sense then a lot of other systems that D&D has used. But this is where it all comes together.<br />
4th edition changes too many base assumptions of the game. I have said it before and I will say it again many times, 4th editions is a fun game but it is not D&D. Now I seem to have gotten away from the original topic which was dissociated mechanics being why 4th was "not D&D" and thats because you need one more piece to this puzzle. That piece is that D&D has changed a lot between version before but not llike this and the difference is how they changed the dissociated mechanics. Changing out a number of mechanics doesn't matter as long as you replace them with an equal number, adding more mechanics doesn't matter either though associated ones will be better received. No what matters is that when you replace mechanics you don' replace a bunch of those systems with a smaller number of them. Up until 4th edition D&D has grown every version.. Even if its just by a few sub-systems there has been more. In 4th edition while it may seem that there is a lot of stuff in reality what used to be a bunch of different systems both associated and dissociated where merged into 1. The class system as originally made while not being the most associated of systems it was less of a system and more of a way to choose what system you want to use, do you just want to bash stuff, maybe healing is your thing, or maybe the wizard with your lack of armor to hold in all that cosmic power. Even if some classes are similar they are all generally different systems in some way. 4th has one system and you choose whether you want to call what your doing physical or magic and even that blurs some. In the end this system is even more dissociated then the old systems, it has to be as there is no way around it if you want to be able to generalize enough to fit all the classes in. I am not going to say any mechanic is fully one or the other but overall 4th reduces the systems and dissociates from the game and the source. If it had just changed out systems, if it had only added more, if it had replace them with a more associated mechanic, then maybe I could have called it D&D but because it failed at all of these things 4th managed to fall on its face.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-18765603423659890122012-04-04T23:46:00.000-04:002012-04-04T23:46:16.637-04:00A Minecraft Animation worth watching<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-sH53vXP2A&feature=colike">I normally don't just post links to videos or what have you but this is one of the better quality YouTube videos of its type and is worth sharing.</a>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-37229066078672689062012-03-18T19:39:00.000-04:002012-03-18T19:39:03.214-04:00Interesting fix/nerf for my Soulbow's Saves My character is broken. Almost completely broken in the most amazing way. One way he is no longer broken is his saves which I am actually fine with. The godly saves was actually and accident on my part because for the first six levels only one class did I take twice and that was Soulknife so I could qualify for Soulbow. This meant that without trying my Fort save was +8 and my Reflex save was +9, of course with a wisdom of 28 my will was up there at +18 but when your stacking a stat like that it is to be expected. Anyway long story short the DM did not like that even my worst save was better then some of the other players' best saves. He figured out a good solution for this as well along with improving my base attack bonus. My saves where broken because of having so many classes (same with the BAB but in the wrong way) so he figured out how to normalize it. To put it simply he just looked at how quickly saves and BAB advanced and that is what I got. For saves there are only 2 kinds, good and bad. If a save has a bad progression then for that level you get 1/3 of a point, for a good save its a little trickier if only because first and second character level (not class) you get 2 then 1 and from then on you get 1/2. Saves round down of course. This mean that my Cloistered Cleric 1/Soulknife 2/Fighter 1/Monk 1/Soulbow 1 my saves before stat bonuses was Fort 4, Reflex 3 1/3, and Will 5 1/3 which was a lot more in line with what everyone else had. Of course lets not forget BAB which has 3 different advancement speeds good, average, and bad. A good one advances +1 every level, and average one advances +1/2 every level, and a bad one advances +1/3 every level so my character ended up with 4 1/6 (remember Cloistered Cleric has a bad progression). Of course I lost more then I gained and would definitely revert back to the old way in a moments notice though thats just because of how broken my guy is in combat. The worst bonus to attack I can have if within 30' is now 17 where before it was a 15, not much difference though it does mean I can potentially get a +21 to attack but really most of what we fight I just have to roll to make sure its not a 1. Also we just went up a level which is nice though it did not do all that much for me. Its next level I look forward to because of how our group does stat increases which is you get +2 instead of +1 to a stat. Everything I do in combat is based off of Wisdom so basically next level I get +1 to hit, to damage, and to AC automatically. Also my BAB goes up 1 but until it hits +6 where I get another attack at +1 I don't really notice it that much, I mean really whether I am adding +20 or +21 to my roll is meaningless when anything but a 1 is a hit but when suddenly its a +22/+17 then it matters. Combine that with my making it so I can use flurry with my Mind Arrows means that in reality it would be +20/+20/+15 which matters quite a bit, especially when the damage I do is 1d6+1d4+14. Now the 1d6 and 1d4 are a little boring and I don't really care about them and would replace them with a solid plus instead of a random number its the +14 that I like as its dependable. So yeah, I broke my character and the DM is slowly fixing him though I don't think it can be done that easily especially since I am only about 3k gold away from upping my Periapt of Wisdom from +2 to +4 and thus at level 8 I will almost definitely have a Wisdom of 32 and as I said before, everything I do in combat is powered by my Wisdom.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-32234804269792777962012-02-26T17:59:00.000-05:002012-02-26T17:59:37.366-05:00The end of another game for me I am no longer DMing a D&D game as next week we will be going back to having the guy who normally DM's and starting a new campaign with characters at level 6. The basic problem with me is that I opened up the world so they could go out and create their own story and mostly everyone in the group would prefer a more structured story then that. I tried to give them hooks though not that well I guess. Maybe some other time. I hate to admit it but I knew this was coming when the one guy had to drop from the campaign. He was basically holding the game together by actually interacting with the world in a search for something to do sorta way.<br />
Anyway I am going to be a Soulbow which is a psionic ranged character that is a prestige class of the Soulknife. I don't quite know how I want to make it but I have thought about it before and basically I have to start at around 6 so I can actually be of use as before that I am just a melee guy trying to do ranged combat without a good weapon.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-31530190250802046102012-02-21T05:47:00.000-05:002012-02-21T05:47:58.425-05:00Comparing D&D and WindowsI would like to preface this with the fact that most of my knowledge on both subjects is second hand at best so take it with a grain of salt. I believe what I am saying though for whatever thats worth. <br />
<br />
I'm not really up on any of the new buzz about D&D as I mostly look back for inspiration but I just realized a pattern in Windows versions and D&D versions. <a href="http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2007/10/part-i-continuity-of-rules.html">I was reading through Delta's blog again when I came to this article.</a> Now the problem that came from the complete dropping of backwards comparability is not unique to D&D and if the post's title did not tip you off its Windows that did it and you probably guessed already it came in the form of Vista. Once you get down to it 4th edition D&D is quite similar to Vista in a couple of important ways which will let me predict what will happen to 4th edition and 5th edition which is to come.<br />
First of all the loss of backwards compatibility caused numerous problems for their respective systems. The easiest to see this with is Vista as a number of horrible bugs are the result of throwing away old code to try and make a clean slate. Basically they took hundreds of thousands of man-hours worth of debugging and threw it away. How many of you out there are still using XP because of the fiasco that was Vista? Windows 7 is a decent platform, hell even Vista has gotten better but that does not matter as with the fallout from Vista people realized that they did not have to auto update to the newest thing out there. Now lets look at 4th edition D&D and see what there is to see on this topic. Actually let me tell you why I won't play 4th edition. Its not D&D. Now I have played 4th edition and yes it is a fine game but it simply is not D&D. Like with computers it used to be that once a new version came out you updated and before 4th you could theoretically move your characters to the new version. 4th was a line in the sand and like how Vista made people realize it was fine to stay with an older version and even more so then computers there is no downside. Once again I will say that 4th edition as a game is fine but by being not D&D to anyone that played before it the line in the sand was drawn and people have realized they have a choice.<br />
Now the above is all fine and dandy but how does this let me see the future? Well first of all the second they can rush D&D 5th edition out the door people will try to sweep 4th edition under the rug and try to make people forget the troubles caused by it. Like Vista, 4th edition has made money and with a little ironing its a fine system to use and people will continue to use it just like people continue to use XP/3.whatever and just like how Windows 7 is doing 5th edition will be better. Now the thing is 5th edition or whatever they call will be better and may actually include suggestions from actual people like you or me but it won't like D&D was. It may have parts of it but in the end it will be 4th edition but more so. Just like Vista, 4th was trumpeted as a fresh start for a tired brand and just like Windows 7, 5th edition will be pushed out lower key and mostly to try to catch those they had alienated already.<br />
The biggest difference between what will happen with D&D and what has happened with Windows is that someone managed to make D&D's golden goose public property. People have gone back to Windows not because they fixed what they broke even though they mostly have but instead because they want a Windows experience with a computer and don't want to bother with Linux or Mac but they can't stay with XP because it is no longer supported and it wont be able to keep pace with newer requirements. Here is where D&D differs as 3rd edition is alive and well under the name of Pathfinder so people never have to go to a newer version. Also unlike computers technically all you need are the core rule books and it works just as well now as it did when they first came out even with modern wants and needs or in other words OD&D is still a fun game to play still while DOS is a relic. D&D as a brand won't die just yet but if they contuse down the route of continually pushing new versions they will find that less and less people will be buying the books because unlike computers the rules don't get outdated.<br />
Anyway in-case I was not clear enough a quick bullet point list of my predictions:<br />
<ul><li>4th will be swept under a rug as soon as possible</li>
<li>5th will be 4th but "better" </li>
<li>Even though the above is true it wont capture people quite as much as 4th had</li>
<li>If they try to push out 6th edition within 5 or so years it will do worse then 4th or 5th</li>
<li>5th will only have token bits included that are fan derived</li>
<li>I pray I am wrong but D&D as I know it is gone from the brand</li>
</ul>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-15338811078673616622012-02-13T00:03:00.000-05:002012-02-13T00:03:29.586-05:00I think my group is now tired of centipedes So yeah, centipedes. My group, they fought them. Anyway I now am out of my pre-made caves so I will actually have to prepare for next week. Besides a cave full of centipedes there was a lot of fun to.<br />
The session started slow with them not wanting to go to town so finally they decided to follow the river. This was nice as I could fill out some interesting features on the three tiles there. First night nothing much happened till near morning. One of the players decided that after their watch they would sleep in a tree and of course there was some jokes and such and someone offhandedly mentioned a squirrel attack. So of course I had carnivorousness squirrels attack the character in the tree because he slept on their nest. Only three and they where mostly speed bumps but it was exciting. The player in the tree was not woken by the person on watch shouting so the squirrels got a free attack on him. Then the rock goblin archer type with a freaky ricochet ability destroyed 2 of the squirrels. The player in the tree was awake so he tried to tumble out because he was a ninja or whatever. Rolled a natural 1 so the group decided he should be stunned for a turn and I picked up on this and said he was. Of course the last squirrel tumbled down onto the ninja perfectly and hits him again. The rock gobbo then critted it and did over 3 or 4 times its total health. I decided the two that where killed to start where shot through the skulls and the arrow was stuck in the tree so it was just a couple squirrels hanging on the tree. Next day of course the party decided they should cook them but I said just the skulls where left on the arrows and that even that had scratch marks like something squirrel had been gnawing on them. At the end after we finished they joked about vegetarian wolves so I joke of course there where some after all the squirrels needed mounts after all. Yeah I wasn't joking, I hope they go back there sometime. Not much else happened but the seconded night they found a cave to sleep in and it had a slightly hidden spot which had a gold piece worth of silver coins.<br />
On a slightly sad note for me as I liked him the new player will be leaving the group because of military service. Of course he did go into it by choice so its not a bad thing but he was fun to have in the group. Also he is the one that was on the side making deals with the goblin who originally guided them to their cave home. Because he is leaving I can say that he is getting paid on the side by said goblin for basically spying on the group and is getting extra money for useful information. The location of the cave with nothing much this time and the location of the cave from the session before where the one scarred gobbo had his treasure where particularly good information so he got a good bit of money. Of course since he is leaving and I can't have him just vanishing his character will become a NPC employed by the goblin. Also I am having him level up for next session. No I am not doing this because he is leaving. I would have had him level up anyway because I was basically counting his spying and such as providing bonus XP. I tried to let the other people in the party do similar things but one stayed at the cave so could not, another was getting fitted for plate which is fine but then a second one went with him because he did not want to go to a bar and the final ones first action on getting to the bar was to get drunk, completely and entirely drunk all the way till night time so yeah the only person who was going along with their freedom is now leaving. I have no clue how I am going to get the party moving besides a nice set of rail road tracks onto some structured quest. I don't know why I expected any different a that is basically what the other campaigns where I was a player where. I will mourn the loss of a player who knew what to do when given freedom. Oh and as a final note the rock goblin in the party will become known in town as squirrel bane while the ninja is going to be squirrel bate, about 3 in 10 will recognize the squirrel bane while 1 in 10 will recognize the squirrel bate and if they are together if one is recognized the other will be too.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-3067828856625496542012-01-22T19:48:00.000-05:002012-01-22T19:48:29.540-05:00Wolves and more wolves, or how I terrify my players First off let me tell you how the group has decided to do our campaigns. As it stands we lost 1 person from D&D and 2 from BESM but we got someone new for D&D. Since everyone in the BESM game is in the D&D game we have decided that whenever the odd man out who is only in the D&D game is present we will be playing my campaign. I of course was totally unprepared to DM today so it went quite well except for the first little bit.<br />
We had a little problem to begin with as one person did not have a character yet and another person did not bring theirs but the one borrowed a character someone else had on them and the other knew enough to put theirs onto paper quickly so that worked out. This of course means that next week instead of a fighter there will be a ninja but whatever. Once the game actually started they went to town and sold stuff then a 3 of them loaned money to another so they could have plate. This of course managed to split the party. The rock goblin to start with did not even go to town, the guy getting plate needed time to have it fitted and the cleric turtle did not want to go to a tavern so went with him. The last 2 decided a tavern was a good place to go. Predictably one of them got totally wasted. This of course means I ended up with only one person doing something interactive with me. He benefited quite a bit from this though I won't say more as I don't know if any of them will be reading this or not. Anyway he got the quest for them. A goblin who was horribly disfigured told them where to find some treasure he hid and said they could have 10% of it if they get it for him as he could not leave the town because of something.<br />
They decide this sounded grand so they went home first then onto the cave. Not much to say about the cave. It was one of the small maps I think I posted here at some point and there was not really anything to it except a hidden area. What I decided they would fight is 10 wolves but I could not just throw all of them at the party at once so I did something slightly different. I decided they could handle 4 wolves at a time so whenever they killed one I would have another wolf join the fray after the last wolf moved. This of course was interesting as the first time it caught the players off guard and the wolf was able to get right at the sorcerer. After that when they kept coming the party really got worried. Even though in the end they killed them all easily enough the worry that they would keep coming was quite strong until they finish exploring the dungeon. I was also able to easily explain why the wolves would have treasure. They did not have any, the treasure that go rolled was the 10% they where allowed to keep though I made sure to ask if they wanted to try to keep more. Overall it was a good session and I hope that I can keep it up.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-66826586997194832432012-01-09T22:13:00.000-05:002012-01-09T22:13:02.416-05:00Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 21, pages 123 to 126<div style="text-align: center;">For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the </div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">This is the twenty-first part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html"> 3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>,<br />
<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/11/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-18.html">18th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/12/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-19.html">19th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2012/01/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-20.html">20th</a> parts</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><h2>Labyrinth Lord Lore</h2><div> This part goes over the basics of dungeon creation. Things like making levels equating to character level so that first level characters are fine on dungeon level one but not so much on level two and other similar basics that if you have not done such things before are quite useful to start with. A real handy piece is that it has some reason for the party to be in said dungeon. There is only seven given but they cover most of the bases and one of them I had not even thought of myself so it is definitely worth a look.<br />
After the more squishy non-rule help it gets into the more concrete things. First off it gives the suggestion for mapping the dungeon on graph paper and have each square equal to ten feet. The next part, stocking said dungeon, uses a simple percentage based way of seeing what goes in a room. 30% of the rooms are empty with 15% of those having treasure, 30% have monsters in them of which half will have treasure in the room, 15% will contain traps of which 30% also have treasure, and finally 25% have "unique" content and no set percentage for treasure. The unique rooms are basically DM choices though it does say they should stand out. Also of not is that when a room has a monster result and a treasure indicated you use either the monsters hoard class or roll on the unprotected treasure table not both. To finish up the dungeon creation there is actually some rules for encountering other adventurers and how to roll up a group of NPC's for such an occasion. Very interesting as most later editions of D&D forsake any consideration of this beyond a few scripted adventure meet ups.</div><div><br />
</div><div><h2>Wilderness Design</h2></div> First thing it says is that a DM need not create an entire world which is basically what a good number will probably try to do the first time or at least its what I tried. Probably something that needs to be said sooner to help those frazzled about "needing" to make a world.<br />
It gives some very basic lines on which to start making a world and has the advise to use hex paper to draw it on. Nothing new there though it should probably worded it to be less of a "you should use this" and more of a "its easier to use this" as while I like hex paper it can be hard for some people to wrap their heads around and the coordinate system for such graphs is not the easiest to follow.<br />
Next if gives some guidelines for how many people will live in a few types of settlements such as a village having from 30 to 800 people in it. Finally to warp this up it talks some about wandering monsters in the wild, nothing much new here though it does give a little table for what roll on a d6 means there is an encounter it basically just boils down to going to the tables for wilderness encounters at the end of section 6.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">This is the twenty-first part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html"> 3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>,<br />
<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/11/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-18.html">18th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/12/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-19.html">19th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2012/01/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-20.html">20th</a> parts</div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-74872460331055561782012-01-08T19:11:00.000-05:002012-01-08T19:11:22.199-05:00Splitting the party Literally splitting the party in this case. We just have too many people playing and too many who want to play. I will be taking the group who is mostly the experienced players as I am a new DM so its not going to affect me that much. The other DM is going to be the original guy who has mostly DMed up until now. I don't really know what this will end up doing to the group but since we will be playing on the same day and time I don't think it will break us up and honestly unless the new people stick with it we will probably shrink back down to the old group plus maybe one or two people.<br />
Speaking of losing players we lost the girl from the BESM campaign as life got too busy recently. I don't know if this means the end of the BESM game because she was the reason for it or if it just means well I don't know what else if might mean. I like BESM and had finally figured out what I wanted my character to specialize in but I won't be that sad to see it go and if it does that will probably mean my game will be every week instead of every other week. Ah well, life goes on.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-33628934846221701132012-01-06T04:59:00.000-05:002012-01-06T04:59:11.075-05:00Lets Play OpenTTD part 3) Rebooted for your pleasureWell I have managed to get another OpenTTD video up and here it is. Hope you enjoy it and if you don't please tell me why.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/CZLddF2HgFg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-26130409057143613402012-01-02T02:49:00.000-05:002012-01-02T02:49:22.008-05:00Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 20, pages 121 to 122<div style="text-align: center;">For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the </div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">This is the twentieth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html"> 3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>,<br />
<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/11/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-18.html">18th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/12/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-19.html">19th</a> parts</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><h2>Sapient Swords </h2><div> Thats the heading of where I am starting in the page and boy does it make me smile. The first step to making one of these brilliant blades is rolling its intelligence. A simple roll of a 1d6 decides how smart it is from 7 to 12 or basically 1d6+6. The most basic thing this score decides is how it communicates with the world and more specifically the players. If 7 to 9 then the knowledgeable knife can only commune with its wielder. More interestingly at 10 to 12 it can communicate verbally and knows its alignment language plus a number of other languages determined by the roll of a d20. Also along with just being able to talk at 11 and 12 it can Read Magic and because of this can read any of its known languages.<br />
Next up is to figure out the alignment for your clever cutlass. This is perticuarly important as a person can only wield one with the same alignment as themselves or they take damage every turn they hold it depending on how big the difference is. While the alignment is determined randomly there is a 70% chance of it ending up lawful, 20% neutral, and thus only 1 in ten will be chaotic so most parties will be able to use one when they find it.<br />
Now to decide the Psyche and Willpower of the enlightened epee or basically how easily it is for the sword to take over a player. The Psyche is 1d12 and Willpower is just that added to Intelligence with a bonus of +1 for each spell like power the smart scimitar happens to have. Simple right? Anyway on to the fun part. Every time a few circumstances happen the sword will attempt to take control of its wielder and this is called an influence check. They happen the first time a wielder touches it, when the swords motivation comes into play, someone of differing alignment touches it, another shrewd saber is found, and finally the wielder has lost 50% of their HP. The check itself is just comparing the its Willpower with the wielders which is determined by adding their Strength to their Wisdom and subtracting 1d4 if they are wounded but greater then 50% HP or 2d4 if equal to or lower then 50% HP. The sword also gets a bonus 1d10 if the person wielding it is of a different alignment. If the wielder loses then the foxy foil gets control of the character for an amount of time determined by the DM and will cause them to do something related to its goals such as ignoring the new shiny or go into combat. The control will generally only last a couple rounds but that should be enough to get what is needed done like causing the party to fight a group of orcs instead of just hiding from them.<br />
Now for motivations to be decided. there is only a 5% chance that there is a specific motivation and if the witty weapon has one its intilligence is boosted to 12 right away. You roll a 1d6 to determine the motivation, all of which are to destroy a certain type of creature. The above example where the party is forced to fight orcs could occur on a roll of 6 which is to destroy a certain monster type which in the example would be orcs. There are also a few added quirks depending on the alignment itself. If its lawful and is used to fight something in its target group that is chaotic it will stun the oppenent while the reverse situation will actually stone the opponent though they do get a saving throw versus spells. The neutral side is most interesting as it provides a bonus of +1 to all saving throws for its wielder when combating opponents of its motivation type.<br />
Last but not least are the fun goodies. There is the choice of detection powers and spell-like abilities. The detection powers can only be used once a round and vary from simple things like detecting good in a 20' area to detecting sloping passages though I am slightly disappointed at the available variety as it is clearly missing the detect meal and what kind power which was present in OD&D and is the power I would want because of all the interesting uses it has. Now to segue into the spell-like abilities I will mention that on a roll of 98 to 100 on the detection table you get a spell-like abilities instead. Abilities of which only a bright brand with an intelligence of 12 will always have are usable 3 times a day and go from a simple double damage for 1d10 rounds to Teleportation. All of the abilities barring the double damage and regeneration are based straight off of something else, most generally a Magic User spell though a few are from magic items. This mostly wraps up this scintillating post though I would like to mention that by the book it is slightly more "broken" then in OD&D as you can get all the detection powers and all the spell-like abilities as many times as you like because the rolls that let you roll on the tables again are not restricted though as the DM is the person that should be rolling these up it should not be any problem at all.<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">This is the twentieth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html"> 3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>,<br />
<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/11/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-18.html">18th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/12/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-19.html">19th</a> parts</div></div></div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-46873773900292126282011-12-31T00:00:00.007-05:002011-12-31T20:43:49.528-05:00Looking back on 2011 Running to stay in place for the most part. Despite telling myself I need to stop procrastinating I have managed to ironically put it off. As for general life related things I guess I could technically say I finally got one. I actually have a group to play roleplaying games with and I have increased my online presence to the point of being something more then just a periodic forum poster.<br />
This year has also been amazing in the games bought category as I have purchased 3 games! Now to some of you this may be small but when I tell you that for the last five or so years the number of game I have bought totaled 3 it kinda puts it in perspective. Even better is that none of those games are bad games. Minecraft is of course an amazing experiences. Terraria which is sorta like Minecraft but not actually was quite fun though its long term appeal is not quite that of Minecraft. Finally I acquired Pokemon White with some of my Christmas/Birthday money and while I don't want to say much until I have finished it (I take a long time my first play through as I do everything I can to avoid plot) I will say that the thing I like the most and hate the most about it is that it feels just like how Pokemon felt when I first played it way back in when your choices where red or blue.<br />
Of course my favorite game I played this year and every year in the past since I found it is Dwarf Fortress. The top ten positions are so:<br />
<ol><li>Dwarf Fortress (Duh)</li>
<li>Civilization 4 (specifically BtS with either Bug or something based off of Bug)</li>
<li>Minecraft (this will probably stay in this area for a long time to come)</li>
<li>Pokemon White (and technically most other of the regular Pokemon games)</li>
<li>Prospector (awesome roguelike)</li>
<li>Terraria (good game but its already losing my attention)</li>
<li>X-Com (would rate higher if I had played it more)</li>
<li>Dungeon Crawl (should play it more though the tournament month makes up for it)</li>
<li>OpenTTD (this should probably be higher but I have not played it enough to get it quite yet)</li>
<li>Knights of the Old Republic (nice game and deserves its rep but I have so many other good games it almost did not make it)</li>
</ol> Of course the above is just computer games as I rate games you play in person differently from ones played by some electronic gadget. As I note besides the listed items some of them may rate better or worse in the end once I have played them a bit more but otherwise it seems decent enough.<br />
Other things that have happened are mostly mundane overall. I managed to greatly increase the number of Magic the Gathering books I have, specifically the first few series including the ones from before when they made stories fitting each block. I have gotten quite a bit farther on completing a set of the Kamigawa sets and because of Christmas money have gotten the pages to start putting together the other 2 sets in the block. A good Chinese restaurant opened up nearby that has a good lunch deal so thats nice. Borders Book stone closed which is sad though they had drastically cut their science fiction and fantasy section so I don't mind it so much and as luck would have it another book store opened up in its place and they have twice the shelf space for those sections as Borders did in the end (the new store is called Bam!). I was able to go on a vacation and visit my family that is in Pennsylvania so thats was good.<br />
Overall I guess I can count this year as putting me ahead overall. It had its ups and downs but the ups where mostly higher then the downs where low so I guess its alright. No big changes happened really either so I guess life goes on.<br />
<br />
Anyway Happy New Years, may it be a good one for you all!Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-17003719112451289552011-12-28T21:14:00.000-05:002011-12-28T21:14:18.517-05:00Holidays: The Aftermath I think the universe is conspiring against me having a dependable update schedule for the LL cover to cover posts. I should have had all the time I needed on Monday as its between Christmas and my birthday so should have been a day of resting from the one and preparing for the other. Of course what really happened is that some family visited my Grandmas place on that day so I ended up with a second Christmas. Now don't get me wrong this is quite awesome and visiting family is always fun but it is draining. Basically I got home, checked some things, then fell asleep. Now the holiday bash is through so once again I say I will be back to my regular schedule.<br />
In other news I may have someone who will be able to turn my single player lets play of OpenTTD into a multiplayer which as far as I can tell automatically makes it more interesting if all the other lets plays I have watched are anything to go by.<br />
So yeah, now 21 and my choice not to drink means something and if I wanted to (which I don't) Michigan says I can gamble at casinos. Maybe if I sleep through tomorrow, wait no I think my dad has something planned then as well, ok maybe if I sleep through Friday I can finally be fully recovered from the holidays.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-51126695834334557742011-12-22T17:46:00.000-05:002011-12-22T17:46:50.100-05:00Lets Play OpenTTD part 2) The gift of FailI failed at a lot of things in this video. A quick rundown of the failures is that I lost all my money with no way out, failed to make the video look better, and of course failed at the map in general. This will all add up into me starting on a new map in part 3 so if you want to tell me something to do or what have you now is a good time to do so. I will be giving this a dayish to see if I get any comments.<span id="goog_1522526197"></span><span id="goog_1522526198"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/J41NcZc81fA?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-1332523475026049352011-12-22T04:08:00.000-05:002011-12-22T04:08:11.363-05:00Lets Play OpenTTD part 1I have now uploaded the first part of my OpenTTD lets play and here it is. Sorry about the quality, I figured out the problem so it should be fixed by the next part.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/E0SfTS-mY6M?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-8750430643552440812011-12-20T23:05:00.002-05:002011-12-21T05:20:13.476-05:00Planning play OpenTTD but my head is aching I am planning on doing a Lets Play of <a href="http://www.openttd.org/">OpenTTD</a> (Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe) but I have a headache and it would only get worse if I tried right now. I wish that the game worked with Fraps as I have never had any problem recording with it but that is not to be. I am going to have to use CamStudio which seems like it is almost perfect for what I need if not for not working.<br />
Luckily I think I have it figured out. First of all if you ever use it you need to change the video settings unless your just doing some short thing as it defaults to something like 200 frames a second and the .avi's have a 2GB size limit which you will blow past quite quickly at that rate. Luckily it is fairly easy to change once you realize this. Of course if that was all that was wrong I would have the first video uploaded to YouTube already.<br />
The next problem is the sound. It was not syncing right and because of either Windows 7 or the sound card I can't just record from the speakers. This means that I will be recording fully from my mic which sucks. I will have to have the music louder then I would normally have it so it can be heard. The nice side benefit comes from this though, my mic is really quiet so my normal talking voice is a little to soft and normally would be overshadowed by the music but because of the loud music I will be talking louder cause I like to hear myself talk or something. This will mean listeners may not have to crank their volumes to hear me. As for the syncing problem I have that figured out as well. It had nothing to do with the audio but instead was the video codec I was using so once I just dumped it back into default the problem cleared up for the tests I did though there may still be problems.<br />
This basically means I will probably be recording later tonight if my headache goes away or tomorrow if not. Because I actually mean for these videos to be watched by the general public unlike the other four I have done I will be posting updates here and will probably start a thread in the lets play area of the Bay12 forums. If I manage to get my first video recorded and uploaded tonight I will probably just edit this post to include links and what not but tomorrow night or after I will probably just do an actual post for it. The only thing I am certain of is that I will probably not upload more then a video a day at the most as I am looking for viewer feedback. Also later on after the lets play is done or abandoned I will probably make this post a collections of all the links.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-78940299727487806372011-12-19T18:44:00.000-05:002011-12-19T18:44:11.469-05:00Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 19, pages 106 to 120<div style="text-align: center;">For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the </div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">This is the nineteenth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html"> 3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>,<br />
<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/11/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-18.html">18th</a> parts</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><h2>Treasure </h2><div> This time I get to go over almost every bit of treasure you can get from a strictly vanilla game. I am of course leaving magic weapons for next week as I want to go into more depth when I talk about the intelligent swords because I think they are cool. Anyway the first few pages of the treasure section is filled with the tables on how to generate it.<br />
The different levels of loot prosperity is called the Hoard Class going from I to XXII (1 - 22) and is split into two different sections. From I to VII is small hoards which is supposed to represent things like individuals and from VIII to XXII is Larger Hoards which is for lairs. One important thing to note between the two sides is that only the larger hoards have any decent chance to have magic items. In fact if not for VI and VII you would not even see magical things till the larger. Even with this VI only has a 3% chance and VII a 7% chance so while it is there it is quite unlikely. To put this into perspective I did a quick search and you best shot at a VI class monster is the Giant Carnivorous Fly which is 2HD and appears in groups of 1d6 so you might get lucky and only have to fight one of them. The next best chance is probably A panther which while it is a 4HD monster they only show up alone or in a pair. This mind you is for a 3% chance that they might have a magic item on them. Of course I think this sounds about right actually. Its a little disconcerting in my 3.5 campaign where we kill some random goblins and find 3 or so scrolls and a potion or two on them. Now if you want magic to be really common then I guess that is fine but while magic may be common in a world or not I myself still prefer that magical items are not so common.<br />
Now on to an interesting little quirk of the earlier days of D&D. Basically the first thing the book says about magic items is that they are not labeled and only 15th level or above Magic Users can identify them and that even then it takes weeks. Of course you can identify the items through triel and error but you won't just receive a potion of cure light wounds, you'll get a mysterious magic elixir. Now it might just be my background in Roguelikes but this appeals to me. Of course it does not say anything about finding another of the same thing later in the book but I would atleast run the low level potions and scrolls like Roguelikes do where once you know what one is you know that all the rest of the same ones are though I may do something like having all cure light wound potions made by clerics from the same church looking the same instead of all of them. This could be quite interesting as it would provide a bit more depth to the world as the potions from the fire god temple smell slightly of aloe while the ones made by the nature gods clerics have an earthy flavor and all it would take is just already knowing what gods there are and how many different magical paths/magic colleges there are and you can add the flavor quickly.<br />
Now for the magical toys a party can find while adventuring. As like with the monster entry I can't really go through and talk about each piece I will once again be cherry picking some of the iconic ones along with some that I just adore and talking about them some.<br />
<br />
Potion of Treasure Finding: An interesting potions that for 5d4 rounds lets a person detect in which direction treasure is where treasure is defined as valuables with a value equal to or greater then 50 gold or 100 gems. Of course like most such sensing magics it is blocked by lead so you can still protect any really important hoard of treasure while also giving you an excellent way to trap a party in their own greed. You don't even really need to actively make traps to do so as generally where there is a lot of treasure there is also a lot of monsters such as a lair.<br />
<br />
Ring of Invisibility: Once each turn the ring lets the user become invisible as the spell. A nice affect and honestly you just have to have a specific inscription appear on it when placed in a fire and you will have the party looking over their shoulders every time its used.<br />
<br />
Wand of Magic Missiles: I prefer this version of the wand more then later editions where they connect the power to the level of the person who made it. In this version the wand can fire 1 or 2 missiles a round at the users choice and each missile uses a charge. Quite useful at any level as in LL Magic Missile does 1d6+1 a missile and never misses so it can be used for some reliable damage while not being overpowered.<br />
<br />
<br />
Bag of Holding: This is the one magic item that if I could have any magic item from D&D (barring anything providing a wish as that is cheating) I would choose without a second thought. I love it. Now in LL there is only one size of the bag so I would have to go with 3.5 for mine but then again 10'x5'x3' is nothing to sneeze at nor is being able to hold up to 1000lb while only ever weighing at max 60lbs.<br />
<br />
<br />
Decanter of Endless Water: Basicly what it says on the tin. A flask with a never ending supply of water in it. It has 3 different settings with the highest one being at the level that you get knocked down when holding it if not braced and the stream kills small creatures. Basically if your ever on a rowboat forget the paddles, you have a jet boat on your hands.<br />
<br />
Gauntlets of Orge Power: These are not the newer version that only gives a boost to strength, what these do is make your strength 18. That means that if your strength is at 18 or above these things do not make you stronger and in fact can make you weaker. Of course there are some side benefits, the first is you can lift 100lbs more and the second is that you can punch for 1d4 damage but for an already strong character this means less to them. What this all added together means is that these are gloves for the weak. That 8 Strength wizard you have that needs someone to carry his books? Well now he can not only carry his books he can carry your books as well. An interesting item that in later editions is ruined by turning the neat ability into a straight +2 to strength and making them no different from any other stat boosting item.<br />
<br />
</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"> This is the nineteenth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html"> 3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>,<br />
<a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/11/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-18.html">18th</a> parts<br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-82271033477721798542011-12-14T21:10:00.000-05:002011-12-14T21:10:41.255-05:00Fall 2011 semester = over So yeah the semester is finally over, just submitted my last final a few moments ago. I am feeling much relief at this moment. Of course now I will actually have time to make posts and keep a schedule for this blog. Thats right, I will now have no excuse if I miss a Monday post so expect to see them on a regular basis. Of course after I finish with the LL CtC I will probably make whatever I do next be a Friday post as I can never find any college classes on a Friday.<br />
<br />
Other things of note. After the current area of the D&D campaign I am in is over I will no longer be in a D&D campaign. Of course this sounds bad until I mention that I will no longer be in one because I will be DM it instead. Thats right! I know get to be a DM every other week and the party wants to be evil this time. I will probably be using some of the maps and that world I had previously posted though not the megadungeon. Also because they are evil I get to use my kobolds like I want and still throw the party at them. I will probably be overpowered by the PCs as I am letting them be whatever they want with the restriction of Artificer as the current one was basically a black box that you put treasure in and got over three times the amount out. I can probably handle a party just being overpowered but when they take every GP I give them and make it into 3 I do not think I could handle it satisfactorily.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-2133952034223629582011-11-28T23:11:00.000-05:002011-11-28T23:11:27.705-05:00Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 18, pages 104 and 105<div style="text-align: center;">For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the </div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">This is the eighteenth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html">3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a> parts<br />
<br />
</div><h2>Wandering Monsters </h2><div> Lots and lots of encounters, all random, all the time. Not really of course as all the time would be tedious but these two pages contain a two tables of them. Both are examples that can be used but seem more like guidelines for making your own. Of course unless your using a world sold in a book you will probably want to and if your using a premade world they probably already have encounter tables so its alright. I approve of the small number of example tables instead of a lot of extensive ones. The Labyrinth has enough detail for a new DM to just use and the Wilderness has an interesting mix of high and low level encounters. The book could have spelled out a ton of different tables but that would just freeze a lot of games with those tables. By doing it this way at the least the DM will have to search out more tables on their own.</div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">This is the eighteenth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,</div><a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html">3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-17.html">17th</a> parts</div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-19582647513842530932011-11-17T14:04:00.000-05:002011-11-17T14:04:23.115-05:00Playing D&D With Porn Stars: Rhetoric 101 v. Nerdrage<a href="http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/11/to-me-or-not-to-me.html?showComment=1321556257813#c2054895718405114715">Playing D&D With Porn Stars: Rhetoric 101 v. Nerdrage</a><br /><br />Read it. Memorize it. Follow it. I personally believe what Zak goes over in the post should be something people are required to learn as it would cut down on a bit of the useless noise on the internet if people did.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-2516671999811318212011-11-08T01:33:00.000-05:002011-11-08T01:33:09.872-05:00Maybe I should say its biweekly? Missed another one, SIGH. Anyway I have a reason for this though it is slightly lame as far as excuses go. I "had" to muck around in my computer. See as I have posted my old computer died so I got my dad's old computer which all that was wrong was a few viruses. A reformat later and that wasn't a problem but it only had 512Mb RAM or if you prefer half a Megabyte. This is because when it became my dad's old computer I scavenged the RAM from it for my old computer and put my old stick in it as I had no need for it. I found out when trying to do homework for my programming class that half a gig is not enough RAM to have both Firefox and Visual Studios open without the computer freezing... yeah had to fix that. Long story short I got distracted in my computers insides but now have a gig and a half RAM or to put it in perspective I tripled my RAM but I still have less then half what my new new computer would have if it wasn't broken.<br />
Yeah the new computer my dad got me was broken on arrival. At first we thought it was the graphics card but it wasn't and the tech person on the phone thought it was probably the motherboard. Luckily the people that made it are going to fix it and we don't have to pay shipping.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-88495368923188307002011-11-06T21:01:00.000-05:002017-07-18T17:16:36.840-04:00I got nerfed quicker then expected Not much today beyond a ankheg followed by three cockatrices. The ankheg went down just after I used expansion but luckily it had a couple minutes for a duration so it lasted for the next fight. Anyway for the nerf what happened was that I can't use a trip attack as an attack of opportunity. The DM just said no the second he realized that my it was likely my character was going to completely lock down all three cockatrices that he sent against us by never letting them stand up. Of course we still dominated them as they only have such a high CR because of their gaze attack. Me being in front and large meant that I was the only target and only one managed to hit me and I got a 28 on my fort save. I actually only needed to roll a 4 and I would pass the save so it was not really going to get me barring bad luck anyway. With the trip nerf of course I will have to redesign my later levels but thats okay as I don't think the trip attack was going to be sustainable. I still plan to get the feat that gives me AoO even when a caster is casting defensively and I still am having the artificer in the group making an item that lets me go large as I want as it works with my setup even without the uber trips so nothing really changes though I probably will see if I can change out the feat imp. trip to something else as I don't really need it anymore. Now that I think about it nothing really is changing that much anyway as more then half my build is still valid, I just have to change the trip elements to something else.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-24939908914405356842011-10-31T21:49:00.000-04:002011-10-31T21:49:25.955-04:00Labyrinth Lord Cover to Cover: Part 17, pages 63 to 103<div style="text-align: center;">For this series of posts I will be using the free PDF of the </div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">This is the seventeenth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html">3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a> parts<br />
<br />
</div><h2>Monsters! </h2><div> Oh the coincidence, entirely by accident I am posting about monsters on Halloween. Now sadly I won't be going over EVERY monster in the book as that would be going to far but I will cover a few of the monsters that happen to catch my eye.</div> First up is the Basilisk, the might beast with a stoney gaze. A classic creature to avoid death from being stoned you need to <strike>not do drugs</strike> look away. Doing so of course gives a -4 penalty to hit or just -1 if you are viewing it through a mirror. If you do look at it or happen to touch it though you need to make a save versus petrify or be turned to stone.<br />
The blink dog, an interesting creature that hunts in packs. They actually have their own language! To attack they port next to you and then once they have attacked blink away which is quite mean. They are Lawful and intelligent so it should be possible to negotiate if you can speak the language.<br />
Dragons <== thats about all I should really have to say. Ancient, highly intelligent, and long-lived they are one of my favorite creatures ever and I would not mind being eaten by one if it meant I could meet it and talk to it some.<br />
Another type of monster that I like is Elementals. In LL they only come in four flavors Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. Thats fine though as any of the later additions kind of reduce their primal image. These are beings made of one of the four base elements and they deserve a little more then given.<br />
Gelatinous Cube is almost a trap instead of a creature but we love it all the same. This nearly transparent cube of jelly is the most iconic of the slimes. It manages to in general be exactly the right size to fit in a dungeon corridor though the book does add that larger ones are not unknown so you can really take the party by surprise in that 20' corridor.<br />
The lowly Goblin is next on my list. I actually like them though it might just be from Magic the Gathering. They are a little generic so I would have them be like the Kamigawa Goblins who where called Akki and had turtle shells on their back. Now that is just what I would do, there are enough takes on them in mythology that if you don't want the generic version a little research will be able to revive the species.<br />
A nice flying mount is next up. Of course by that I mean the Hippogriff which if caught young can be trained to be flown. Its how you fly in style if you don't like the idea of a winged horse.<br />
Now for the Kobold to shine. Of course they are "dog-like" in LL but I have always like the idea of them being reptilian. This might of course be connected to them also being portrayed as somehow descended from dragons so it was a way in 3.5 for me to play something close to a dragon in a way that worked for me. See also <a href="http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/">"Tuckers Kobolds"</a>.<br />
Men, truly the worst monsters out there! They come in a number of different flavors including Berserker, Brigand, Pirate, Merchant, and Nomad. Quite a fearsome array!<br />
Phase Tiger... yeah, six legged, intilligent tiger-like beings who look like they are 3' away from where they actually are. Also of note is that they hate blink dogs and will kill any they happen to encounter. They also have reptilian whips growing out of their shoulders which reveals that they seem awfully like displacer beasts which happen to not be in the book. Maybe the two things are connected?<br />
Rats, whether ordinary or giant have been killed so many times in both pnp rpg and crpg games that its a surprise any exist at all. I swear that it must be some kind of requirement to being a roleplayer that you kill something like 2d6 rats.<br />
Next is the fighter-bane that is the Rust Monster. This metal eating monstrosity came about because Gary had a weird looking toy and made stats for it. Thats right, your fighter just lost his magic sword and his full-plate armor because of a toy!<br />
Trolls, Trolls, and more Trolls, better hope you have some fire or acid. Annoying buggers that don't really die until one or the other is applied to them as they will just regenerate till healed. Luckily any moderately prepared party should have some flint and steel along with a torch or two so as long as they think of it once the trolls are down they should be able to keep them down.<br />
And to wrap this up the Whale. More specifically the Narwhal and not the Killer nor the Sperm Whale. This is because for some reason the Narwhal is a Lawful creature unlike the other two which are just Neutral. Of course further reading reveals that they are like the unicorns of the sea and are highly intelligent. Their horn is magic and it is rumored that if severed it will vibrate in the presence of chaotic or evilly intentioned creatures and even if the rumor is not true the horn is still valuable for the ivory.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">This is the seventeenth part of a series, here are the links to the <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-1.html">1st</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/05/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-2.html">2nd</a>,</div><a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-3.html">3rd,</a> <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-4.html">4th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/06/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-5.html?showComment=1309836705983#c6012904090274720034">5th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-6.html">6th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7.html">7th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-7_18.html">8th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/07/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">9th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-9.html">10th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-11.html">11th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-12.html">12th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/08/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-13.html">13th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-14.html">14th</a>, <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-15.html">15th</a>, and <a href="http://asciidice.blogspot.com/2011/10/labyrinth-lord-cover-to-cover-part-16.html">16th</a> parts</div><div style="text-align: center;">Labyrinth Lord rules that can be found <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html">Here</a> at <a href="http://www.goblinoidgames.com/index.html">Goblinoid Games</a></div>Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8263432497070662504.post-79217891060903505662011-10-30T19:44:00.000-04:002011-10-30T19:44:56.903-04:00Elephant like creatures A number of things had happened when I was gone. First and most important is that we leveled up so I now have elasticity which lets me stretch a limb up to five times its normal dimensions so I can not attack up to five squares away from me. Of course the DM decided that does not mean I can have attacks of opportunity out to that far and so it was decided by the group that it was like Luffy's stretching ability.<br />
One of the players forgot his character sheet and decided instead of just remaking it he would be an entirely new character. So anyway the group was out and about on a planet and heard screams so we went to where they where coming from. It was a zoo and the "new" character was fighting some escaped elephant like creatures. The zoo's defense system helped us because otherwise we would have been dead as each of the creatures had three attacks of which the first two did something like 2d8 plus Strength. We managed to hold out fairly well though in the end we only killed three of the creatures when there had been like nine of them. Once all of the alive ones where paralyzed by the zoo defenses the handlers came out and took care of the rest. The new character what unconscious so we basically kidnapped him. This did not jive for the honorable samurai so we had a little inter-character drama. In the end though it all worked out.<br />
Also apparently we had found a ship on the planet and this had been the reason to go there in the first place. Yeah that was about the order I found out about it as well. Anyway long story short, we got some coords to a place outside of known space and used our ships superdrive to get there in about a day when it normally would have taken something like three months. On the only planet with intelligent creatures we found huminoids that looked nothing like any others we knew of and spoke a highly accented version of the Esper language. When we landed and met some locals they called the Espers in our group "Sky Gods". We ended with most of the group in a car we had for some reason driving towards the nearest city.Akhier the Dragon Heartedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982936563965623813noreply@blogger.com0