The Opera Mobile Web Browser

I picked up the Verizon XV6900 "Vouge" with Windows Mobile and was utterly disappointed with it. It feels as if Microsoft isn't even trying to compete with Apple or Google they just suck.

Then I picked up the Opera Mobile Web Browser and HOLY CRAP! It really feels like a brand new phone. They did a fantastic job with that web browser. But still, I think this phone is the last Microsoft OS product I'll ever purchase. Every line of there's OS's lately have been terrible. I'm either going pure open source or apple. I just wish Either Apple or one of the Linux Distros would get serous about competing with Microsoft for gaming. That's the only thing holding both of them back the gaming community is secondary to the business community for driving the market but still. Oh well.

Grandpa Tompson Tells A Story

To fix the economy we need to give money to the buisness that failed "It's like a fat guy trying to loose weight by eating doughnuts!" LOL Holy Shit that's awesome!

Been playing a lot of Warhammer Online lately. It's been a lot of fun for the most part. I joined a guild called "Draconum Knights" and the community is great and loads of fun but the responsiveness of the developer community has been far less than stellar and frankly is typical of what I expected from an EA product, crap. Mythic put together a potentially awesome game but it feels like EA put their foot down to make sure it turned into crap.

I played "Breetai" the witch hunter for the last month or so and got him to Rank 40 with 42 renown. Not fantastic but certainly quite respectable but this weekend we decided to move our guild to a new server. It's hard to let that character go but we have too. The Wolfenburg server is dy9ing a slow death Mythic is doing nothing about it and there's nothing we can do to stop it, so we better get off that sinking ship. Dealing with the other guilds on that server was more irritating than fun so that makes Open Realm vs Realm even tougher, it shouldn't be that way.

So far the Skull Throne server has been a blessing. Gotten to know some of the local guilds and they're not a bunch of Pre-Madonnas like we had on Wolfenburg. I've got a new toon, "Norburg" the Archmage whom I got to rank 12 this weekend. I'm trying to get my main Breetai transferred to Skull Throne but EA/Mythic are giving me the run around. Partly because I'm not on the list of "Approved" server transfers at the moment and want to do a paid transfer and I'm trying to find out if and when they'll be available the other part is the legendary support of EA never providing an honest answer.

EDIT: Update
Not a week after we leave wolfenburg and I get vocal about it in the Forums does mythic open up wolfenburg for transfers. Is mythic listening? I hope so, but I doubt it they're other issues with the game as well openly argued about on the warhammer alliance boards that make it pretty clear to me that the game developers Mythic are actually playing favorites with the side of destruction on most issues it's no wonder they drastically out number the order side. It's unfortunate, it'll shorten the lifespan of the game if they don't change that.

Family Loss

We lost my grandfather this week. Things were initially looking quite hopeful that he may make a recovery and add a few years of fun but it wasn't meant to be. The day before he died he was excited and happy about the fact that he was able to hop around on one leg in his walker without help. I guess my sister's experience in hospitals pretty much nailed it when she said before the surgery to remove the leg that his spirit and will power are there and strong but his body is shot and done.

Good bye Popa Ron

It's Voting Day!

Cross your fingers. With any any luck no incumbents will be reelected.

On either side.

WE ARE VICTORIOUS!!!

The Black Dragons Have Killed Lolth and ended the "War of the Demon Queen!" I don't think this fight could have been any better if it were deliberately scripted the way it turned out. Momma Lolth came in invisible in her humanoid Drow form after buffing herself the entire time she was upstairs and only a few team members could see her when she made her arrival. But it made me a little more confident that I had made the right move picking up Blind Fighting for LoMak even though it never did come into play because when ever he did manage to lay a blow on Lolth no reroll was needed.

First once Kira was up she threw her big mass heal and brought everyone up to full hit points, then Olek was the first to make an attack on her, it was a weak roll and only hit around a 30ish AC which we knew would miss but points out her position to the rest of the party. Then LoMak rolls in, Debuffed for the most part but using no power attack and still had his major enhancement bonus' and bane up in an attempt to get Lolth with his call to justice(Dimensional Anchor) I used the ability of the Black Dragon Greatsword to ignore natural armor bonus' and go for it, I roll a Big 19! Awesome right? Total Hit was an AC of 64.... Missed.... As a group we were stunned at that! Our Big hitter just went in with no power attack to ensure a hit got a really good roll and missed! Granted he didn't use his furious strike on which adds another +8 to hit but still Holy Crap! The Target AC was 67 and with his Furious strike that's well within reach of his Leap Attack but we had to get that Dimensional Anchor on her to stop her from using several of her abilities that would allow her to escape.

Now she lets her Divine Blast go, 17d12 damage OMG she tossed Bart the War Mage like a Salad and almost straight up killed him in one blast. Marek was quick to move to Bart and stabilize him as Kira hit Bart with another heal spell bringing him to full again. Yak Could not get into position for the most part to make himself useful so he spent much of the game using his Ioun Stone of Absorption to Absorb her quickened spells and abilities to great effect in the beginning. Hugo was hidden within one of the pillars of Lolths chamber so she performed an alter reality to change the pillar from stone to a pure force effect trapping Hugo within the pillar. Lolth was getting iritated that she had not succeeded in killing Bart so she charged herself up with a spell as the Team discovered she had used a play from our play book and made herself immune to dispel magic spells. But we did have some success with the last charge from an Artifact called the Magic Cipher and Olek was able to drain close to a dozen of her spells with it but not anywhere near half of them and not the important ones and dropped it chargeless on the ground and refocused his mind blade to attack her again.

LoMak continued in vain to lay his Call to Judgment Ability on the Demon Queen and Anchor her from dimensional travel as Olek continues in Vain to try and hit her. Marek Lets loose his Spirit of War Power and Kira quickly follows up with another buff of her own. Finally Lolth let her spell loose, and Automatically crit with her Divine blast on Bart Killing him outright for 34d12 damage! Hugo in Ghost form has no disintegrate spell handy to free himself from the tubed column that he is trapped within. Instead he goes to a spell he never figured he'd use in such a situation, and transforms himself into the ghostly visage of an eye tyrant(beholder.) He is then able to use the disintegrate stalk and make a hole to escape the pillar of force. Kira Moved in to raise Bart with a revivify.

Liking the effect it had on Bart Lolth begins charging it up again Olek moved into flanking position and got a small hit in, allowing LoMak to move in and finally get a 20 with a full power attack doing just over a hundred to her. Now she is anchored and we've actually managed to get a few shots in but had only begun to scratch the surface. As we do she lets her Blast go again this time targeting Yak with her Automatic Crit Divine Blast, luckily he's made of much tougher stuff than Bart and sucks up the damage but is reduced to 9 hit points. Bart attempted to hit her with one of his Orbs of Acid but failed to connect. Kira Moves in with a Heal spell and Yaks natural fast healing kicks in. Now with Lolth Anchored LoMak moves to using his Furious strike and is able to land more blows in on Lolth, they're not full power attacks like he normally likes to do but he has an honest chance of hitting from here on out with his first blow. Hugo Tried to help by exposing Lolths position with the eye tyrants natual anti-Magic cone. But that turned out to be more hindrance than help. Kira hits Yak with a Cure Critical wounds bringing him up to just below a hundred hit points.

Again Lolth Blasts Yak as her greater invisiblity comes to an end and is about to kill him as Marek saves his ass as he has done to LoMak so many times taking half the damage onto himself. Lolth Looks at Yak and Says "Leave, and I'll let you live." Yak having traveled with the black dragons as long as he has knows not to trust demons let alone the "Demon Queen" she won't let him live and he knows it, or at least she'll make him wish he was dead he looks at her and says "I don't think I'm the one who needs to worry about that." Olek and LoMak continue to nickel and dome Lolth getting a few more hits in with the added buffs allowing them to hit on rolls lower than 20. Several of LoMaks attack rolls slightly exceeded my original guesstimates as I had not figured in the Luck Bonus from Kira allow in the hit bonus' on allowing LoMak to reach +58 to hit on particular one roll. That may sound impressive, but where fighting a freaking god here! the hit chance on that is almost 50/50 with an AC 67 so if you think about it it's perfect.

Hugo dismissed the eye tyrant form and he and bart made several failed attempt to attack the Demon Queen as her Spell resistance was too astronomically high even with his assay resistance buffs or she turned out to be immune to the orbs they had actually managed to hit with. Marek finally gets to let loose his Alpha strike, it would have been an automatic x3 damage crit as she was doing to us but one of the spells she had up gave her immunity to critical hits so the alpha strike from the psion only did around 250pts of damage. Knowing that he will not survive another blast from the Demon Queen Yak decides to charge the bitch and put her on her ass before he goes out and over runs the crap out her putting her ass on the ground.

Olek and LoMak continue to nickel and dime Lolth getting a few more hits in (mind you they're nickle diming her with hits doing form 80 to 100pts of damage which at this scale of game play are nickle dime but they all add up) with the added buffs allowing them to hit on rolls lower than 20. Gabrielle retrieves the Sipehr and Merak uses a full Bend Reality to Recharge the Artifact. Lolth Blasts Yak as she had "warned the impudent fool" and Kills him our right.

Finally Gabrielle Lets the Magic Cipher Loose and with clutch timing strips Lolth's important buffs (most importantly the crystal body went down which prevents crits.) LoMak and Olek Continue to Nickle and Dime her but are able to get even more hits in now as Marek lets loose with what will be his last and final alpha strike regardless of the outcome as he does not have enough left to try for another. He rolls poorly and uses an ability allowing him an immediate reroll using that last of his power points and got himself an 18 and a hit! Lolth dosn't like that, so now she uses her immediate action with an alter fortune and forces him to reroll again knowing the odds are in her favor of forcing him to miss. He rolls a 19 even better! With his Daughter's blessing on his axe it's an automatically confirmed critical hit with the overcharged alpha strike! Total Damage was in the neighborhood of just over 600 points of damage, As Marek's Axe embeds itself in Lolth's skull and the Black Dragons must make a hasty exit as her plane begins to fall apart.

All in all it was a fantastic, scary (Could we actually pull thiss off?!?), and great end to a fun campaign.

More to come with the after effects of killing Lolth as we already have our next campaign in the making.... "Generations."

Vote Yak/LoMak '08!

Team DPS FTW BABY!!

Sad news at home

My Grandfather just lost his leg above the knee last week over the weekend to diabetes. He has a family history of very bad circulation in the legs and it finally caught up with him. The doctor wanted to take his leg higher up but due to several hip replacements opted for taking it just above the knee. We're not related by blood non-the-less I can't help but see a bit of my own future if I don't my own diabetes issues under control. My heard goes out to the guy and as far as I'm concerned he's family hopefully we can make his remaining days comfortable and enjoyable at least. With any luck there will be many more but as my sister said just before the surgery despite the fact that his mind and spirit are incredibly strong but his body is shot to hell.

Adventures of The Black Dragons Continued

From last Sunday's game. Things are actually going slightly better than I expected, and the fight definitely has an Epic feel to it. Today we took a direct assault too Lolth's High Priestess and Generals. We started off with Olek scouting the Entry Chamber to Lolth's Lair where a guest book sat on a pedestal, the place was about half the size of a Track Field and covered in webs and filled with thousands of spiders from gnat sized to that of a house cat with the exception of one spider that despite the immense sized spiders we've seen up to this point, this one dwarfed all the others but it was unclear if it was alive or not. There was a guest book near the entrance, at LoMak's suggestion Marek read the guest book using a short distance scry ability only for it to set off a symbol if death that endangered some party members so Olek Thinking quickly snatched the book and shoved it into his handy haversack which safely made the symbol of death a non-issue. Unfortunately as he did the giant spider in the center woke and began moving. Despite the soft movements of it's padded feet the sound of stone grinding stone was audible as it moved toward Olek and the floor moaned at the weight of the Behemoth sized spider. Although it could not see Olek The Spider was clearly intelligent and knew something or someone had disturbed the lair. Realizing all Hope of any surprise was gone LoMak turned to his companions and said "Gentlemen, it has been an Honor." With that he let out a bone rattling roar leapt at and engaged the spider.

We knew it was not Lolth, this spider while being larger and more powerful than any we had encountered in the Demon Web was clearly one of the Spell Warped, but as it turned out it was fiendish as well so LoMak being a Demon and Devil Hunter was able to Tear into it that much easier. It wasn't long after that that I had to go and missed out on a few things (I'll get what it was in another post.)

When I got back after LoMak and Yak where being NPC'd I was surprised to see the original house spider was still up and there where several new combatants the others where chasing several Yogoul demons with levels of Swordsage as well as some Demonic Spiders the Bebilith. I got the Reigns with LoMak and Yak again and discovered that the two very well optimized damage dealers had not stopped pounding on the House Spider while I was gone for 2 hours. I look at my buddies like you gotta be kidding me?! These two have been pounding on it not missing for 3 rounds and it's still up?! (Turns out That this titanic spell Warped Fiendish spider was a 60 hit die behemoth and it had close to 1 thousand hit points) Gameplay got slowed down since they had to NPC LoMak and Yak because they had to figure out where those insanely high numbers where coming from in order to run it correctly. As well as the Fact that our caster pulled out some of his big trump cards and dealing with that takes time as well. He Cast a time stop (which explains why we we're still in round 3) buffed himself and used his Staff of the Magi (the artifact) to Summon 4 Elder Earth Elementals reviewing their capabilities are so you can run them correctly takes time.

That round I proceed to drop the Big Spell Warped Spider while Olek continued chasing the two swordsage Yochlol demons. The Elder Earth elementals charged after the casters at the back of the room as they ran back and the Bebilith Demons moved to engage the Elder Elementals and protect their masters. After dropping the Big spider LoMak chased down one of the Yochlol as it said 'bye dad', to Marek. However the Yochlol misjudged the Raging Hellreaver's speed and leaping ability as LoMak charged completely leaping the dead body of the colossal spell warped spider bringing his greatsword down to bear on the Yochlol (he's got a +71 jump check and has a 70ft move while hasted plus the extreame leap skill trick that adds an extra 10ft movement on top of that.) One of the Elder Earth Elementals got hit with a Dismissal, another disappeared when as it charged after the drow casters due to a dispelling screen that the group could not see. Weather or not the there was any truth to that statement 'bye dad' we won't find out from him as LoMak destroyed the Demon knowing that the word of any of these creatures are rarely the real truth. The Yochlol did have a retributive amulet however and the blow he delivered was felt by him as much as it was the Yochlol, feeling the power behind his own blow was quite a sting. Olek did the same to the Other Yochlol dispatching the creature with his psionic blade only to feel the cut come back at him. LoMak truns his attention to the sorceress behind him and drops her as she was no match for the might of his blow. It was then he saw a flash and a puff of silvery feathers from the corner of his eye. As he turned he saw Gabrielle, the daughter of Merak and Larazhi was on the ground crushed into a ball not much larger than LoMak's huge fist.

LoMak is probably the only one amongst the group able to recognize Merak's body posture and is able to read Merak's anger through his stone cold discipline. As the armored psion moves to try and make a shield to cover Kira so she can save his daughter LoMak leaps 20 feet straight up to the Dais and Charging toward the caster. Not knowing the real caster had moved off to the side of the dais.

Olek Moved to engage the Beblith That was near the body of Gabrielle as he did that the Last of the Elder Earth Elementals brought it's slams to bear on the Marilith who like the other Marilith's the day before was weiling a brilliant energy long sword that did little to aid her against the Elder Earth Elemental, not that she needed it. Kira got to Gabrielle and successfully revivified her saving her. Yak Charged the Bebilith that Olek was engaged with and put it down fast as LoMak dropped the succubus with a disgustingly large amount of damage from a leap attack (whom he thought cast the implosion but he was wrong) he was engaged with at the top of the Dais, but was foiled getting to the Marilith as the last Bebilith engaged him trying to tear off his armor. The Drow caster engaged bart and Hugo in a spell battle. As powerful as she was she soon found that she was no match for Barts powerful offensive reputaur and Hugo's Batman like anticipation of her spells.

As LoMak engaged the Bebilith the Marilith made short work of the Elder Earth Elemental and ensnared Kira with her Snakelike tail sqeezing the life out of her. Yak moves in have not had the time to hit himself with a freedom of movement he attempts to get it onto Kira but fails. Then the Marilith decides to end toying around with Kira and relases her down the stairs of the Dais and unloads with 6 swords. Kira was ready for but even that was not enough as the marilith laid waste to her. Marek, Olek, and Yak Simultaneously pounced on the Marilith After that putting the bitch down with amazing speed. Lomak puts the last of the Bebilith down as Hugo and Bart finish their spell casting duel.

The Drow caster continues her assault with a greater chain dispel only to have it reflected right back at her with Hugo's Spell Turning Spell which he had cast moments before that battle. She used her ring of greater spell battle to reflect it back but there was just enough of Hugo's spell turning left to rebound it once last time successfully striping her of all of her spell buffs (and she had a lot!) Hugo and Bart continue pounding on her then as she casts a Miracle Bart attempts to steal it with his own ring of spell battle, she steals it back and successfully brings all of her buffs back up. After another round of getting pounded on she realizes she is in no position to continue this fight and casts time stop. and disappears as Marek is applying the potion of Resurrection to Kira.

We have defeated Lolth's High Priestess in Lolth's own chambers. Now she's cast time stop so she can retreat go up stairs and tell momma somebody broke into the house and beat her up.

Next Game, we face MOMMA!

Ahhh... SHIT we gonna die.

The VLC Player DirectX Wallpaper

WOW this is cool! My Favorite little tool for watching Video's got a major upgrade.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

It's got an Option called the DirectX wallpaper. What it does is make the Video your playing your desktop wallpaper! I think it's pretty awesome, I'd post a screen shot of it but it dosn't work. The only problem I've found is that when it hits the end of a video it bugs out. If I hit the forward button it'll play the next video or repeat the current one just fine though.- I'm not sure if it's a setting on my end or not but I have yet yo find a fix.

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Found that quote and had to share.

The latest version of my characters in the Team Heroes D&D Game

EDIT: Updated Content 11/04/08 with my last character builds
I've gotta Admit, this character competes with my old 2nd edition ranger Lupine log rolling the dragon or my champions character Warhead taking a nosedive for being fun and memorable. He really started out being a really one sided damage monkey but the final result was a worth while fun and memorable run. The only thing missing was the showdown with "Team Heroes" and "Team Evil" that we were supposed to have but wasn't meant to be, but the tension of it looming over our heads had a lot to do with the campaign being so memorable. I just loved the concept of RPing and playing against other group of pen and paper D&D players.


I thought I'd have some fun and post the Characters. This just made me realize that I never wrote up a Character Description for Yak. He's pretty wacky and needs one, especially considering last session we realized that Yak is Both Big Bird and Mr Snufulupigus. XD


Lo'Mak'
The Raging Hell Reaver



Physical Description:
Lo'Mak is big for a Goliath, he stands eight and a half feet tall and is close to six hundred pounds of pure muscle covered by skin that is a light grey with tiger like dark green stripes, has no hair, and bright green eyes. The only visible lithoderms he has are on his arms and neck. His clothes are a deep blue plaid kilt pleated and made of a wool material that feels silky to the touch and wrapped it over his left shoulder with a pleated tail hanging off the back and is held up by a black belt with a large buckle that is gold and platinum with red Sapphire's set to spell out "Lo'Mak," two small silver skulls, a large bag, a golden scepter of elven craftsmanship and markings set with over a dozen green emeralds and a large Diamond at it's base hang from his belt. What appear to be a pair of bladeless foot long silvery rune stitched mitheral and black pearl sword hilts of exquisite quality are tucked into his belt (they are actually two large brilliant energy long swords, think light sabers or thundarr's sun sword and yes they're from the Mariliths that killed him.) A flowing dark green tunic over his bright mitheral breast plate is laced with gold and silver has a prominent symbol of Kavaki on the chest. Around his neck dozens of gold and silver necklaces with various pendants and gems (including a holy symbol of Kavaki, the medallions of Knight protector of Furyondy/Veluna, Knight protector of Greyhawk, & the Hero of Greyhawk medallion all of which are made of gold and platinum and covered in gems,) bandoleers of scores of potions hangs across his chest. His bear skin head dress is a brown bearskin head of a bear that canopy's his neck and shoulders and wears dark brown moccasins laced with gold. His cloak is a brown bear skin fur of unusual softness hangs just past his waist with a pair of fox tails adorning each shoulder of the cloak and from the left shoulder hangs what appears to be a stuffed cat sized black dragon. Slung on his back is a worn brown pack and a large black quiver with golden embroidering that indicates an elven origin. His sword "The Black Dragon" is an impressive sight, a great-sword over 10 feet tall and made of adamantite with the pommel literally being made up of the skin and scales of a black dragon with the head and jaws cleverly built into the guard and a bright green emerald at it's base. He is also immune to fire and can Breaths a 40ft cone of fire like a dragon (every 1d4 rds.)
NOTE: His gold trimmed clothes and jewelry from the Rod of Splendor are temporary and become mundane if the rod or clothes are removed.
(Great Excuse to pimp him out)

Personality:
One of the Founding Members of the Black Dragons, Lomak is wild at heart but has a keen sense of righteousness but can be overconfident to a fault. The group decided it needed a name during the time that LoMak strangled his second black dragon that makes up the handle of his sword, the first he arrogantly hangs from the shoulder of his cloak for all dragons to see(One of the guys got me to do that so I could honestly say my 1st level character strangled a dragon, I got lucky and had two opportunities at low levels.)

His Goliath upbringing has left him quite naive in many ways he lacks any real comprehension behind the real motivations of greed and envy but can just as easily identify it when he sees it. He has become quite fond of Aria, a friend of Merak's Daughter Gabrielle created by the deck of many things. The two are ruled by the moment and their passions and are quite a match. Many might be offended by the fact that they have not been wed but to Lo'Mak marriage is a foreign custom that he does not feel comfort able with. In Goliath custom if two are meant to be together they will be. The idea of Children and parentage is also quite different to Lo'Mak and Gabrielle's sudden growth to adulthood was quite a culture shock to Lo'Mak normally there are no parents or siblings only elders and everyone pitches in to raise and guide the children in Goliath custom. But she completely bi passed childhood and was born with all the knowledge and wisdom of a young adult so did she really have any elders? She considers herself Lo'Mak's niece while Lo'Mak has trouble with the concept has come to think of her as part of the Black Dragon's Tribe so to speak but is he really an elder to her since he didn't help raise her? Being a Goliath the Tribe and Family are synonymous but never the less he guesses it's okay. It's no more unnatural than his own immortality he supposes.

One of the reasons I thought it important to post LoMak's misunderstandings of Human Culture and such was that as players we thought it would have been fun if LoMak had hooked up with Gabrielle the Daughter of Merak making Marek LoMAk's father. As a player I thought it would have been fun and as a character LoMak would not have seen an issue with it. Ultimately the DM put his foot down on that "No she's not going to make out with Uncle LoMak!" and I'm good with that. But going with this was the idea behind why we made LoMak IMMORTAL! Gabrielle's fiendish heritage gives her immortality so LoMak drank a potion of Immortality from Castle Greyhawk and then later Hugo used one of his wishes from Castle Greyhawk to grant LoMak the Timeless body ability. Effectively making him truly immortal the idea being he could then spend eternity with Gabrielle and watch over Merak who reincarnates being part of the order of the Jade Phoenix. Now he can spend eternity with Aria and still help Gabrielle and Laurazhi watch out for the Reincarnated Merak. He has also sworn duty to watch out for Laurazhi as their 'forced rehabilitation' of the Succubus (Used an artifact level cursed item to change her alignment to lawful good, Merak figured giving her a conscience would be a more fitting punishment than killing her.) Many Demon hunters would not care that her heart is no longer blackened and so LoMak must stay vigilant through the centuries seeing to her safety.

Although Lo'Mak is certainly no tactician and makes no bones about the fact that he does not think in terms of strategic movements of troops and armies thinking ahead like a game of chess and such, his element is in the moment. He is a master huntsman and in combat to him it's less about strategic maneuvers as it is about instinct and it's fair to say that LoMak's strategic prowess is similar to that of the great hunting cats and predatory animals. He can read the lay of the land to prepare for or spot trap in the wild that no strategic thinker would consider, often catching them off guard. His favored prey is not of nature though. It is hunting fiends. Ever since Marek's wife Larazhi bested them in combat and charmed LoMak making him kill his friend the Kavin Cleric of Hironius, LoMak has studied his prey extensively transforming himself into a Hellreaver, a warrior who specializes in slaying Demons and Devils. He has gotten so good at hunting their trails he can literally feel the presence of any fiend near him.

When LoMak enters a state of Rage however all those tactical instincts are well utilized when he releases the the beast within him. His reckless abandon has nearly cost him his life on several occasions but his unquestionable raw power that few creatures can match has no doubt saved his allies on many more occasions by attracting the fire of their enemies or putting them down in short order or both. However due to LoMak's personal combat experiences oddly he finds fighting strategically to be a flawed and foolish way to fight. When ever he enters the fray and he's not in a state of Rage he usually looses. This has now happened to him exactly twice. Once when the group was betrayed by Marek's wife the Succubus Larazhi and then again when LoMak was defeated by the Marilith with the light saber.

On Another note... LoMak has a very competitive spirit and is legendary for asking anybody and everybody from gladiators, kings, to clerics of Kord or Baccob if they want to Arm wrestle (of course clerics of Kord tend to love the big guy since he actually presents a challenge for them) weather it's the right time for it festivals and bar rooms or at the most inappropriate moments, dinner banquets and noble events ect. LoMak has gotten better about when it is appropriate or not but he just dosn't understand many of what he considers the wacky human customs. Many a time Marek and Bart could be over hears saying 'let the wookie win.' I do a pretty good wookie so it stuck.

Lo'Mak' and Aria have a their own keep called Freehold near Songhold where they can often be found with their tiger cubs Tiger and Tiggy. It is not as structured a place as Songhold nor is it anywhere near as gigantic a castle as Songhold, there are no regular patrols and no stationed guards. Indeed freehold is very much a wild frontier and attracts free spirits, wanderers, and sometimes those who have no where else to go. Many a raider would confuse it with a place that would be an easy mark only to discover the rangers and druids who have have hidden themselves well throughout the countryside of Freehold calling it home, and are quick to keep LoMak informed of potential dangers they can't handle themselves. I like to think Freehold has the flavor of the "Bear Country Jamboree" it's got that rugged frontier flavor and when you get down to it where LoMak and Yak are involved there's something surreal about it, even to those who call it home.


Lo'Mak's PDF Files (Using Google Docs now)
The Juicy stuff (Like his potienal 16d6+106 Damage Attack and +58 to hit) is on the Last Sheet.

Yak (the NPC)
Ummm... Are you aware you guys have an elephant with a bears claws and yak horns in your party?


LoMak's Noble Steed... Plfftt... Yeah, Sure.

Originally at 1st level looking at all the mounts we realized that LoMak was just damned too heavy for any standard mount, even a heavy war horse. So we found that you could add the warbeast template to anything which is basically where the warhorse stats come from. Add the warbeast to a horse and viola or in this Case add war beast to Bison and you've got the closest thing to a WarYak you can get and thus started the endless Mongo Impersonations. Well at the time we were 1st level and even at 1st level LoMak was already ridiculously strong with a 28 Strength when he raged even so he was absolutly no match for Yak. Yak was by far the most powerful thing in the party. Which is what got the legends of Yakdom started and the running joke about how Uber Yak is, there was a hint of truth too it.

So that's why we had Yak in the group, then later the group realized we had need a rear guard guarding the entrance to the places we adventure. Then Marek realized if we awaken Yak He'll be the perfect guard so we did it. He'll be totally inconspicuous and can stay hidden simply by staying quite. LoMak has the ability to actually speak with animals so when Yak was awakened he already considered LoMak a good friend. However Yak's calling was that of nature and not LoMak's moral high ground, it just wasn't his way. The other Joke about Yak was saying that Yak IS Team Neutral, after we were 10 to 12th level and found a Deck of Many Things and Yak pulled from the Deck and skyrocketed past everyone to 19th level by time he was done witht he Deck of Many things. So for a while there Yak actually would have pwned both Team Heroes and Team Evil maybe even at the same time. He hasn't really changed much since then though now that Team Heroes has caught up to his level he is among equals once more. Inside Joke: It was also about this time a running Joke got started that Yak was "The Keeper of the God Points," yeah okay actually that kinda fit well at the time. There was also a little known issue of Yak's willingness to sell out the elves if necessary to pacify the Hobgoblin threat in the Wild Coast. The Hobgoblin lack of self sufficiency meant they needed to raid burn pillage ect and in turn had no understanding of maintaining a harmonious balance with their enviornment. The opportunity to nurture a Hobgoblin balance with nature was something that Yak would see done at what ever cost was needed.

So anyway now years Later Yak is probably one of the most powerful druids on Oreth. He's not an ordinary druid he's a warshaper he can create claws and natural weapons in forms that normally don't have them he uses his "Ferocious Slayer" form when in combat usually takes the form of a Huge Elephant with Bear Claws and Yak Horns. A truly frightening sight to any one sane. He's using the shapechanger variant from the PHB2 and I'm loving it for it's simplicity. You get a set set of bonus' and can wing exactly what your changing into to suit your flavor, this fits very well with warshaper Yak can be any natural form or any combination of natural forms if I wanted for that matter. He Also often takes the form of a Giant Yak Horned Eagle when speed is needed in "Avian" Form Which although is not quite as fast as a Dragon does have perfect maneuverability. Having a Giant Bird and Elephant forms kinda makes Yak both Big Bird and Mr Snufalupogus. LoMak does not ride Yak anymore although LoMak is actually just as fast as Yak and can can actually do a forced march for far longer then Yak. Besides the last time LoMak fought from Yak's back to get a little extra reach to hit a spider on the ceiling, Yak entered a cave while running chasing a spider but the cave entrance was just barely big enough for him alone and LoMaks face made an imprint in the webbed wall over the entrance just before he hit the ground (not how it really happened but it catches the flavor better.)

Yak has now left his buddy LoMak and retired to the Barren's where the Local's worship him as the Demi-God that he is. :)

Most Importantly, Lets Put Cleaning up after Yak in perspective 8D



Yak's PDF File (Using Google Docs now)
Like LoMak the Juicy stuff with Yak's Gross numbers (like where his 40 Strength comes from) is on the Last Sheet.

UPDATE Adventures of The Black Dragons Continued

Well I missed out on last weeks game... I got wasted the night before and was basically still drunk the next morning so I was going no where. But luckily I had emailed the DM my character sheets a few weeks before. But the party must go on so to speak. The group had a few encounters with some a few powerful demons and spiders. We're definitely getting close to Lolth now as no Demon, Spider, or Drow is some unintelligent mook. Also thought I'd mention one of my favorite little bits about LoMak and the Demon web, LoMak as the ability to feel the presence of Demons and Devils and pin point thier exact location. But entering the Demon Web has prevented him from using that ability, it's like staring at the sun. You know it's there but you really can't see even if your looking right at it, most of all it hurts.

There were several traps for the party the usual lures and such but the best of them was the story about the Succubus' luring LoMak to attack and grapple her as her friends and their buddies dispelled his protection from evil because it makes him immune to their charm spell the Succubus used a Cube of force to entrap the two and prevent LoMak's escape. They pounded him with charm spells only to realize that while Hellreavers(a Demon Hunter Prestige Class) have powerful wills LoMak is exceptional in that capacity and easily shrugged off their charm attempts. The Succubus then attempted to drain his life force away only to find LoMak was literally immune to her life draining kiss and realized to her horror that she had just locked herself in a cage of force with an uncontrollable demon hunting beast that she has no hope of stopping. LoMak pulled his weapon and the two disappeared as the inside of the cube of force as as a mist of blood engulfed the area inside the cube and soon obscured all vision into the cube.

As for the Game today... I finally got LoMak Killed! Sort of, luckily he got hit with a Revivify spell which brings you back to life without penalty/level loss if you can get it cast fast enough, but it was the first time in his long history he was taken past the -10hp mark. He has hit -9 on more than one occasion. It was a typical long walk down halls in the demon web and we came to a large room with two Mariliths who orders us to surrender. Naturally we respond in kind and they let loose a pair of Blade Barriers down that hall and enfulfed the corridor we were in that totally chewed up Yak because he took up the whole corridor. Yak charged and engaged the Mariliths directly who pulled out their six long swords each was magically enhanced and each Marilith carried one sword that was brilliant energy as their primary weapon (which quickly got dubbed the light sabers) Yak got dropped pretty quick. LoMak move up to engage the Marilith but was stuck inside the blade barrier so he couldn't rage with hurting himself because he'd become large and hit the blade barrier. So he engages the Marilith 's and without raging he drops one in a round after an ally had softened her up and some really good rolling. Then the other Marilith opens up on LoMak and surprisingly she tears him up about as fast as both did Yak never missing dropping him in 1 round. Luckily there were still 2 PC's and 1 NPC left in the fight as half the party and half the Mariliths where down as well. Gabrielle (Marek's good demon blooded daughter) uses one of her abilities to create a flame whip and suppress the Marilith's resistance to fire as she opens up a can of whoop ass on the Marilith and smack her around with a crit on the fire whip! That was awesome but then the Marilith grapples Gabrielle and now she's near death. Markek and Olek both come in and droped everything they've got on the Marilith killing her. They got lucky though, there was a chance of hitting Gabrielle with those big hits because she was wrapped and being constricted in the Marilith snake like body. the one time I try and fight smart instead of raging and rushing I go and get killed, go figure. From now on as far as LoMak is concerned the best defense is a good offense. The DM Told us later that both Marilith's where advanced versions with specially picked gear to match their capabilities and specifically to make it a more interesting fight than the usual oh look it's a Marilith, the Demon Generals, how cute... Squish. I gotta admit it was much more fun this way but it makes the DM work a lot harder for it. Except that I screwed myself, I totally forgot that I had prepared myself for just such a fight and have a shirt of Damage Reduction vs Silver, it would have reduced the damage significantly and LoMak would have survived. So LoMak didn't die be cause he lost he lost because I was stupid, Oh well.

Oh the Bright side LoMak's Ranger weapon specialty is a dual wielder and seeing as how the two Light Sabers are technically "Large" swords (a Marilith is a large creature) LoMak is the only one in the party that can use them. So now if he's not wielding his trademark ten foot tall adamantine great sword the "black dragon" he's wielding two light sabers. Having a pair of light saber's as your back up weapon is pretty sweet eh?

We're pretty sure we've found Lolth's lair but are way too beat up and spent not to rest, we've really pushed ourselves to the limit getting to this point and if we go in now we're dead. So looking for a place to rest we found a cave with 7 colossal spell warped spiders, which we have now dubbed "House Spiders" since they're as big as a house. It was a potentially dangerous fight but fought smart with Yak hitting LoMak in the head regularly trying to steer the raging hellreaver in the right direction. The team has cleaned out the cave, killed the spiders after a short fight and are preparing and getting ready for the final assault tomorrow.

My Battlestar Galactica Playlist

I figured since I've been posting my favorite youtube videos I'd include my Battlestar Galactica Playlist. The first one is just awesome and so is the second even though I agree that the Music by Craig Armstrong; Hanging, Escape can make anything feel epic it dosn't matter to me, BSG is the kind of show that deserves it. Now that I think about it I'm kinda surprised Heroes doesn't have Fan Vids of this quality.

Fusion Man! HOLY CRAP!!!

So I make a Champions Super-Hero Character over the summer. Holy Fuck, this is him!

LOL it's War-Hawk!

I made Poster!

I was screwing around over the weekend and made a Breetai Poster.

EDIT: I Made a new one. I'm not sure Which I like better I like the origonal because there's no cursing I guess but the new one is just bad ass.

A New World War Hulk Fan Vid

This one is based on a "What if" comic of World War Hulk/Planet Hulk. Basically the premise is that when the warp core overloads and explodes on the ship that brought him to Planet Hulk, instead of it Killing his people and his Pregnant Queen, Hulk saves just her instead of trying and failing to save everyone, but dies himself standing at ground zero. Then instead of Hulk declaring war on Earth, Caiera does. The result was not good for the heroes of the marvel universe. This one is almost as good as the ones done by thebabaysealpoacher who put together the first three vids in my Hulk playlist on youtube.

EDIT Well this sucks. Apparently the guy who made the video made the settings on the video personal only. Hopefully he'll make it publicly viewable again someday soon. In any case here's a slide of RED HULK to replace it.



EDIT Again. SWEET! Someone else Posted it!

Star Wars: No Easy Way Out

What the Hell, here's another Youtube Vid that's frakkin awesome. At first I was like, aww man it's that corny rocky balboa music. I'm a speed metal freak but trust me, it just works. Just hang in t'll the singing kicks in then you'll see it starting to fit. As Obi-Wan would say, let the Music Flow through you.

Google's Chrome... Damn it!

Been testing out Google's new Chrome browser for the last couple of days and loving it, but I just read an article by Ina Fried that noted that what ever you type in the Omni-Box or Address bar is sent to Google weather or not you hit return. Great what other surprises has it got? I was really loving it too, uber useful, simple, didn't run into any bugs, stable, looks slick bottom line Goggle made a fantastic web browser. But it's a keylogger.... I had to uninstall it even though I like it better than any of the others by far. It was creepy enough having Google and other companies trolling through our trash so to speak seeing as how we leave behind a trail on the internet looking for keywords and stuff but now they looking at the address/search bar live? Looking at it live... eh... That's different and crosses the line from tracking where you've been to pro-active spyware. Funny thing is so many people are too incompetent to see the bigger picture, whats the real problem with it? Eventually crap like this is going to lead to your insurance company and police departments installing cameras in your bedroom within my lifetime that's what wrong with it. And the death of liberty will be meet with thunderous applause.

I seriously do not understand how this fact is not getting more press.

Ina Freid's Blog

Syncing My Pocket PC with Ubuntu

I found this fantastic website with a pretty cut and dry tutorial on Syncing my Pocket PC with Ubuntu. I just wanted to see if I could make it work. Haven't been able to get it to work yet but I'll get it.

http://www.synce.org/moin/SynceWithUbuntu

Adventures of The Black Dragons Continued

The Black Dragons (Team Heroes) Successfully defended their home of Song Hold. It was a crazy fight and LoMak came as close as he ever has to dying facing off against a Drow Division. With Hundreds of blows reigning down on LoMak he was reduced a single hit point after taking close to a hundred of points of damage per round and was kept conscious thanks to Kira the Cleric as his buddy Marek once again came in to save his ass by drawing the fire of all the Barlegura to himself with one of his abilities and then exploding killing them all.

A few days later came an event that will forever be known as"The Midnight Sun." Pelor a greater deity of the good and righous himself stepped in to lend a hand and at midnight 2 days after the battle of Song Hold the sun appeared as if it were noon on a clear day with all the might of Pelor behind it as it charred all the Drow and Demons who were exposed to the direct sunlight. Unfortunately the Demon Queens armies had already taken several cities and while this did significant damage it alone does not secure victory as 6 Major Cities have been enveloped in a black globe representing six of Lolths eight limbs. All eight are needed to grasp Oreth in order for her to drag the world into her Demon Web Pit. However an unexpected consequence of Pelors and Lolths Direct intervention has sprung forth, the other gods as well are now becoming directly involved. As Lolth herself began to grasp the world trying to drag it into her plane and capture it the elven god Corellian Latherian entered the battlefield, the Orc God Grumish responded in kind and so on. We soon began to realize things are about to spin out of control.

It was as we realized this that the Tranthyrians approached us with an offer. They gave use a Dagger with the essence of Arynthol, the Deity formly held in the God Trap of Castle Greyhawk. With this dagger we can kill Lolth and decisively end the War of the Demon Queen. The Tranthyrians went on to explain that they could do it themselves but their assets won't be available for six weeks and by then these giants in the playground will have killed millions of innocents. They knew how to pull our strings and so what choice do we have really? If we fail the Tranthyrians have eliminated an enemy and they can still complete the job themselves as they want Oreth for themselves, but we can not stand idly by as millions are massacred under the feet of the gods.

And so we begin our new Mission "END THIS!"

We have descended into the 1st level of the Demon Web Pits hunting the Demon Queen herself. We took the map room easily enough but from their to road was unclear. We found a keep but surmised it was not our target and magically determined we were right. We also discovered several other worlds the Demon Queen has stolen and looked upon the perpetual blackness of them reminding us of why we must complete this mission. With one other place to check a Celestial ally Chenda who knew of our mission altered a gate spawning hundreds of fiendish fire giants into the Demon Web the Drow and Demons thought it to be an invading force as our ally Chenda knew they would causing a distraction that allowed us to easily slip passed a very large force of Drow and Demons and hopefully the eyes of Lolth. To what we hope will be the entrance to the Demon Queens Lair.

World War Hulk Youtube Vids

I made a play list of my favorite Youtube Hulk Vids. The first three are some fantastic fan vids of the World War Hulk series and thought I'd share. The third one is actually the best of the series but It's in the third slot for chronology if you play it in order.

Got my Office Ubuntu All Dressed up with Nowhere to go

I'm tired of trying to use a product that *you purchased* (in this case the shop) on an OS other than windows is getting more and more difficult. Damned Monopolies the whole Windows monopoly thing is starting to piss me off, Fuck Em In The Ass With The Head Of A Hammer! Fucking Microsoft can't make anything that works right. Ahh... I feel better. Well I still can't get freaking AutoCAD and Adobe to work on my Ubuntu at the Office computer, I've been talking with some guys who had success with the older versions but that was before the current Anti-Piracy Measures. No I think I should be able to get Adobe working though, but it's less critical to the job. I'm not sure about AutoCAD, I doubt that will ever work right. At least it's looking maiiighy puuurty.

Here's a Pic of my Desktop. It's Dual Screen so I made two backgrounds for it.

UPDATE: I updated the Pics with the New Hardy 8.04.1 and WOW does it handle dual Monitors Better than 8.04 the cube in it was wonky but this one rocks the way it wraps the cube around the dual monitors and there is one cube per monitor that is at a different angle than the other. There's only 2 desktops on the Cube above but the way it wraps it around the cube by default rocks!

Facing down the Demon Queens Armies

Well I have finally done it! I may finally get LoMak Killed.

We have destroyed the Drow Leadership of the Army Group But the bulk of the troops remain and a Division is heading to Song Hold but now faced with four Brigades of Drow and Demons one at our front, one at our left, one at our right, and one at our rear any smart warrior would be on the defensive seeing as how there are 6 of us facing down this Division.

Unfortunately while LoMak is raging smart tactics get thrown out the window in favor of a charge. Which he did, he charged a Brigade of Demons and killed a few Demons before he got dog piled on by one hundred Bar-lgura demons. They're no match individually for Lomak but that many are a problem. After Pouncing on LoMak they pounced on Yak doing the same thing. They got a full attack round on LoMak and did well over a hundred points which means he's in trouble if he doesn't get out and so is Yak. They're both hurt pretty badly at this point but Lomak is looking better than Yak.

Back from Denver

I got home from Denver Yesterday it was a blast. We had a justice Inc game using the Hero System that we didn't get to finish no biggie. After a few days of fishing we went out to shoot a few guns off and target practice stuff with My Buddies Sister-in-law the Sheriff. One of my buddies had to bail early witch was disappointing so we decided to cut our losses with the Justice Inc game and went with a Champions game. I built a great brink named War Hawk who was a lot of fun to play. I really got myself in a jam with the build because it turned out to be a spy game more than a champions game. I put a little computer skills in him more for flavor than backup skills, since I had planned on using his father as the contact and skill monkey to help aim him in the right direction. I'm not sure if my GM and I were not clicking in sync on that one or if I just misunderstood, it was his suggestion tough oh well, turned to be even more fun when the PC got caught Hacking FBI's Database only to defy is fathers orders to stay home on house arrest and go out and catch the bad guys. It was great how things worked out. We caught the bad guys and helped the CIA during the bust and my PC's Secret Identify is now a Hacker working FOR the CIA and helping them out so they cleared his record. Worked out far better than I expected.

D&D Team Heroes Update

Team Heroes has finally met the Drow armies in battle. It's been interesting so far to say the least. We only took out a few hundred Drow and a score of demons before we had to run. On the positive side we did achieve the goals we had set for ourselves and our little group now knows what the enemy can hit us with and can prepare accordingly. Still what we had set out to do was not enough, we need to do much more. We should be able to dish out a lot more damage to them in the next fight by lasting longer. The best part is everyone had a mind blank up and we will continue to keep it up since it a 24 hour spell which will prevent any divinations from being cast on us, we're really a force to be reckoned with.

On a personal note, my goliath barbarian/hellreaver Lo'Mak' layed layed down a hit bigger than anything I've ever seen or even heard of in a 3rd edition D&D game. He crit with a Spear for 304 points of damage to a hezrou demon. I won't be able to hit that amount of damage for a while, everything lined up just right along with a really good damage roll. We also finally got to see the fabled "Yak" in action, it was beautiful right up until he got royally pounded with negative levels. I'm fairly proud of the build I came up with for him, LoMak is quite powerful with his 38 Stregnth for 15rds a day and his +50 damage bonus with full power attack, well Yak has a standing strength of 40all day long and is +68 damage and does a point of Con damage with each hit and gets 5 attacks.

Et tu, Intel?

Ouch! Intel gave Vista the Cold shoulder. I've been saying this since for a long time. Intel doesn't want Windows Vista Either.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/et-tu-intel/index.html?hp

"Intel, the giant chip maker and longtime partner of Microsoft, has decided against upgrading the computers of its own 80,000 employees to Microsoft’s Vista operating system,"



-

Linux at the Office

Well my experience/experiment using Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 at the office is complete. It's got potential and it's really cool but I simply can't make use of it because too much of what I need to get my job done is proprietary. The Majority of which is AutoCAD & Adobe specific but the office apps worked fantastic and just like at home I prefer the Compile Fusion Cube/Desktop while using my office apps to my dual monitors in windows. But at least I finally did get my dual Monitors to work with Ubuntu. Wow that was a pain in the ass, I finally found the X-Server download to get it working correctly.

Getting the networks to work was simple and easy as was printing but the ghost-script drivers are only black and white. Except for the big plotter which is key for the job. There is a driver for the HP 500 series plotter but it doesn't work, just hangs, I couldn't get even get a test page out.

Battlestar Galactica

George Carlin Rules

I found this Youtube vid. Really hits home to my own political beliefs. It's called "America is Tyranny" and he's right.

The North American Union

I find this scary. Think about this for a second. The North American Union, No US, Canadian, or even Mexican representatives had any input.

It was just DONE!

Who's pulling those strings? Do the representatives know they're supposed to be involved in things like this? It's insane.

My PC is Overheating

Well so much for any PC gaming this weekend. It's over a hundred outside and my AC borke again! Argh... It's about 98 degrees right now and rising inside my apartment and it's making my PC overheat and reboot when I try to play any games. I've never had a heat issue with my PC before I hope it doesn't cause any real damage.

Oh well I guess it's to the mall or some place cool.

The Supporters of Vista

I have finally come to a realization about who the supporters of Windows Vista are. They're not users, that makes no sense since Vista is dead weight as a productivity tool. It's the OEM's and technicians who make money selling and servicing hardware. Bunch of lying used car salesman scumbags.

Over Produced Products

I saw this the other day and it made me realize that I'm among a growing number of people who prefer Microsoft Notepad to Microsoft Word. Then I looked at my AutoCAD Custom Menu's at work and it was the other way around. It made me realize how great Microsoft Word is for a journalist, but for me it's about as useful as giving a journalist a compass and telling him to use it write a story. He could do it but that tool is not the right one for HIM. Kinda like Word is the wrong one for me.

Installed Ubuntu at the Office

Well we'll see how this works out in the long run. I can't run AutoCAD or Adobe on it which are my two primary money makers so that sucks. But when it comes to other little things I think it'll make me a little more productive. Most of all I want to try VMWare to run windows inside Ubuntu and see if I'm more productive or not. Generally I get the feeling it'll make an improvement. But we'll have to see where it goes in the long run. I thought that I HAD to reinstall windows today anyway but it turned out my CD/DVD burner is just plain broke not the drivers.

I'm running the up to date official release of Hardy Heron LTS 8.04 both at the office and home now.

A New Encounter Level System (D&D)

I've seen this issue written about before. At this point there is no question that the Encounter Level system in 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons doesn't work at higher levels. One thing that is clearly out of balance with both Team Evil and Team Heroes is that both have gold totals that are grossly out of whack with their level. So we decided to use the gold levels of your Items as part of the determining factor for a PC's Effective Level. Here's how it works, DMG pg 135 has a list of typical gold levels for PC's. We basically use this as a level determination tool, add up the gold value of all your magic items you don't include your keeps, non-magical jewelry, and all non-combat relevant stuff (including piles of coin,) let's say you have the gold of an 18th level character in items but you have the XP of a 12th level character. Take the Average of these two and you have the PC's Effective Level in this case it would be 15th level. So when determining XP treat the PC as 15th Level.

Or DM seemed a little squeamish about using this system. He says he fears player resentment which I can understand, but I think he doesn't need to worry about that. I can certainly see why it's a concern and I sure would like to see this system work and balance the game out. I think it will... Kinda sorta not really work. But it'll make everyone feel better about it. At least everyone involved is making an honest effort trying to make a system that wonn't work, work.

I think the real bottom line is that Dungeons and Dragons has gone from a poorly balanced role-playing game since 3.5 was released. To a grossly unbalanced role-playing game now that all the splat books are out. You've got the the two worst offenders Magic Item Compendium and the book of nine swords along with sprinklings throughout the splat books (like the Goliath and Hell Reaver) that definitely add excellent flavor but drastically lack game balance.

Getting Hit with the Nerf Bat (D&D)

Yesterday the DM for our weekly D&D Game with Team Heroes expressed concerns about the apparent power level of our group as whole as well as the power level of Lomak. It was after my 15 ECL Goliath did 154 points of damage with one hit without a crit. That's deceptive but true, he was using steadfast boots which double the damage dealt to a charging creature.

We discussed the issues and pointed out the fact that our 3 12th level, 2 13th level, and 1 15th level character's have the gold of a typical 17th level character each with one exception. We got to thinking about it and decided to Nerf our character's down to our level or get closer to our level in gold. And in the future we should take total gold value into account to figure for ECL.

The results of our attempted nurfing were not as inspiring as I had hoped. I dropped a ring that was very expensive but may have been broken anyway. That by itself brought my gold level down to my level since I am 15th it was easier for me than the other member's of the group.

We ran another fight in Moore Castle where we continued to level everything. We ran into a demon prince 18 ECL and in a matter of 2 rounds we dropped him. I was in shock, one of my buddies was insistent that this is just how it goes in high level games. If one of us go down it will be the same way he did quite a bit of damage in but by a fluke because of a magic Item that was not removed but thought would never get used the Demon Prince's attempt to heal himself healed my character instead. On the surface it did not look like a challenge but up until we stole his heal spell my character was well down past half and went from half to full hit points.

Then we decided to do some real testing. Our character's are specifically designed to fight "evil" and "Demons or Devils" So the results might be a little skewed in Moore Castle with the large number of fiends and evil in general. We ran a test run of 4 Iron Golems to see what would happen. Sure enough, the 4 Iron Golems lasted 7 to 8 rounds, the difference in how long the enemy lasted was stark. Individually the Golems were a CR of 13 but a total of 17 together. It was a really telling experience, we were really in no danger until the end when I started screwing around but the point had already been made clearly that the neutral golems were lasting far longer than the demons of Castle Moore even with thier lower CR. The important thing was they were not evil or demons.

So now I'm going to take my character's Gold to a 16th Character level, since I'm 800 XP away from leveling.

Case Closed

Well my first and hopefully last (well at least until I retire or actually have the time) run of jury duty is over. Now that it's over I can discuss it. It was about a malpractice suit I could never really be certain who the right person to believe in the case was but there was one thing I could trust not to lie the numbers.

I had written a much longer version which explained my opinion but couldn't cut down to bite sized so dang it I'll just give my opinion of the case instead.

That guy should count his blessings! The doctor saved his ass... Until it comes back, but if he's lucky he'll die of natural causes before it comes back.

On a positive note I'm not nearly as behind on work as I thought I was. I noticed I don't have the usual pile of work for a missed week. That may change Monday though.

Jury Duty

Well this sucks. I was one of those guys who got the jury duty summons and thought to myself Oh crap screw that I don't have time for that! Well, now that I'm on a jury the truth is I like serving on a jury, but now I know I really don't have time for it. I'm still expected to perform at work, and I know I'm failing. The owners don't say anything. Well... They're great people and say it's important and say that they support me but I can't get the feeling out of my head that now I'm a failure and I'm not going to recover from this It's caused a cascade of problems with the timing I had with my jobs. I've never been this far behind on the job before and it's really stressing me out. Oh well, tomorrow is closing arguments and hopefully we're all on the same page to make it quick.

Silverlight

I have heard a lot of good things about Silveright and I 'was' pretty excited to see a competitor with Adobe's Flash. Played around with the BETA and it was looking... Well BETA can't fault them for that it's just a new kind of flash app at this point not seeing anything special yet but does have potential and does look prettier. But I just discovered that Silverlight is designed to work with Vista's DRM capabilities and is a flash app specifically designed to do DRM, my hopes for a more reliable stable Flash app have been shattered. DRM has destroyed everything it's touched... Microsoft is investing wayyyy to heavily in DRM and it it's probably going to sink it seeing as how it's destroyed every product that's used it except apple. IF Vista isn't a shining example of the damage that the idea of "wrap DRM in a nice pretty package and everyone will buy it" has done to the PC industry I don't know what is. No one is buying Vista because it's pretty and they "want it." They only ones who get it do so because of Microsoft's virtual OS Monopoly and it's shoved down their throats. They'll probably try to do the same with Silverlight.

I'm certainly not saying it's gloom and doom for Microsoft, hell their management could join the ranks of the catholic church in infamy and continue churning out sub par products and they would still come out unscathed financially thanks to the OS monopoly. Until Google decides to openly break their business model they're not going anywhere.

Dungeons and Dragons

Been having a helluva time with my gaming group lately. Unfortunately I've been having a hard time making it to our weekly games. A few weeks ago I thought the game was canceled but I got that mixed with last week so I missed the scheduled game off and on. Then today I had to go into work, I can't catch a break.

I've got a character that I built to be quite the min/maxed monster. Lomak is now at a 15 ECL Goliath he's still primarily a damage dealing raging barbarian but with only 1 level of barbarian. I went with the hellreaver PrC because it's primary ability is the Holy Frenzy which has a nice holy barbarian flavor too it. But I underestimated just how powerful it is. It's abilities are all supernatural so they can be used while raging, in fact it's arguably a near broken class really pushing the limit especially the way I put it together it's just grossly powerful. I didn't expect it to be THIS powerful when I was doing it. My DM nerfed one of it's abilities which I really don't see a problem with seeing as how it is similar but superior to an ability of another well established holy class. That ability was only a supplement to the rest.

Still this is my first 15th level character in 3rd edition (or 3.5) and despite the fact that there is a lot of min/maxing the character is well rounded in combat but is capable of more damage than anything I've ever heard of. In his opening volley as a 15ECL he did well over 200 points of damage to a fiendish T-Rex in ONE ROUND! I've heard of crits on boards like that but the thing about this attack... there were no crits! just a straight up large amount of damage from a full power attack and 4 attacks due to haste. The amazing thing is he's well over +20 to hit with a full power attack. I know it's impressive to me but maybe not other's, this is the first 15th level 3rd edition character I've played. So I'm kinda left feeling is this broken or not?

Still it's frustrating that I feel min/maxing is required to play a character long enough to establish him. I had another character that was pure flavor but was feeblely min/maxed for combat, but now that I think about it he was min/maxed for flavor if you take my meaning. I think I had more fun with that rouge/wizard than any since my old group with my ranger who latest 8 years in a 2nd edition campaign which was a VERY long time for a character to survive. The rouge/wizard never died but the team broke up and the group fractured because of one player who seemed to enjoy causing problems. Still it was kind of nice retiring a character whom the DM would use later to be lord of the last metropolitan cities of his lands. The PC was perfect for the part of the lord who hires future low level adventurers to kick start new campaigns.

Got 8.04 Hardy Beta 64 bit Installed

Well I noticed that Grub loader got screwed up after going back and forth between the 64 & 32 biit Versions. So I decided to start back in square one and wiped my hard drive. This time I said screw it this time I'm going to dual boot the 32 & 64 bit only on purpose this time. For some reason I installed the 64 bit version first and the Video drivers installed just fine this time. I don't understand why but it is what it is I suppose. I'm going to be trying VMWare but I'm wondering about the fact that I got my 64 bit version working and I only have a 32 bit version of XP I may wind up having to reinstall Ubuntu 32 bit.

Broken Ubuntu

Well I was screwing around with wine trying to get it to recognize my CD's and I broke my Beta Ubuntu 8.04. Apparently there is a bug caused by copy protection that prevents many games with CD based copy protection from running (I first ran into it in Ubuntu 7.10 it's no beta problem.) It's not unusual for games to require access to the CD that installed them but with wine for some reason after installing it from CD it won't see the CD that just installed it. :/

I was probably way too tired when I lost access to the CD drive. So I reinstalled everything, now I can't install my freakin Nvidia drivers. DOH'

I'll have to try it again after some sleep. On the positive side of things Microsoft Windows improved a bit. I reinstalled XP to start dual booting again and service pack 3 has resolved one of it's major driver issues, I can use the mouse again, Yeah. I still need to use the fix for the sound using some generic microsoft sound drivers instead of the standard Realtek sound drivers. I'm not sure I trust the source though, it's one of those that makes me a bit paranoid it might be some sort of backdoor trojan that's unknown.

Back up

Well that's odd. I thought for sure I was using the 64 bit version of Ubuntu Hardy but on a hunch I threw the 32 bit verision of Hardy and everything including the video drivers installed fine this time. I thought for sure I was using the 64 bit version before but Now I think I was mistaken. Oh well, all is good in the world again.

Just Found this on Dvorak.org Very cool and reopens up some interesting concepts like are some animals actually sentient? If you don't rethink those ideas after watching this your head must be made of concrete. Dosn't mean you can't arrive at the same conclusions but WOW this throws a interesting wrench into it.

Is there something wrong with Vista at a more basic level?

The most common complaint about Vista is usually people pointing at drivers. What if it's something much more basic?

I find this scary where it leads. Let's pick on EVGA since I use them(Any manufacturer will do.) check out their Video Card specs. They all carry the claim "built for Windows Vista."
http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/512-P3-N802-AR.pdf

Now The Motherboards however are another story. No such promises or even claims that Vista will work. I'm pretty sure I remeber seeing it on there when I got it just after vista's release, but it's gone now.
http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/122-CK-NF68.pdf

This is pretty much consistent will ALL motherboard manufacturers. My tinfoil hat theory is that it's for legal reasons. I think that the "driver problems" are related to a more basic problem that Microsoft and the manufacturers must know about but won't discuss openly, because Microsoft accidentally broke Vista in an attempt to increase hardware requirements to help them sell hardware. Again this is a tinfoil Hat theory, but it's either that or Microsoft has blown billions of dollors being totally incompetent.

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron BETA (New Operating System)

Having an interesting time with my first Linux BETA OS. Had my first little glitch with the video drivers trying to resize the resolution. On the very positive side however my sound drivers work much better with this build. In previous builds I had to max out the volume to make it what I consider medium. Other than that I have run into little in the way of hang ups. Plays all my Amazon music and DVD's great for entertainment.

All I can say is WOW this OS is purrrty. In the screen shot above I discovered I can have more than 4 desktops, that one has 5. Open Office has turned out to be much better than expected.

The state of PC gaming

The trend of video games the last few years has been a big push to consoles. PC gaming has been getting pushed to the side for many reasons the past few years for many reasons which make sense unfortunately. Many gamers hate the expensive system components, insecure operating system (windows,) crappy stability, and general buggyness of PCs. Unfortunately I tend to agree with those assessments but do they really outweigh the fun you can have on PC game system? Windows Vista has most certainly not been helping the situation. Direct X 10 is no good without a functional operating system. Then there is the Linux OS's, not much better. Wine is a great attempt at bringing the mainstream games to an alternate OS and it's got some potiental like most Linux to Microsoft items compatibility has been less than stellar. I really wish I could say otherwise. It's a hobby in itself just getting the stuff to run, I'm not giving up on it I find the challenge to be fun but that will prevent it from ever becoming mainstream.

Never the less the flexibility to do what you want with a PC system is clearly superior. The consoles are definitely trying to bring the two closer but when it comes to being part of a group on the internet PCs crush consoles. There is Xfire, Teamspeak, Ventrillo, Team websites, message boards, chat clients, the list goes on for days when it comes to PC's and community. Some of these are accessible with some browsers now built into the consoles but there's still no comparison to a PC when it comes to communicating on a message board.

Dispite that console gaming have some more obvious advantages. Hacking and piracy are a lot less common in the console world, it's there just less common and game makers like that which makes sense why they would want to promote it. It's not that they're less hackable it's just that hackers often like the same kind of flexibility and community (different circles though hacks take the fun out of it for me) that I like. Then there is the fact that windows has not been making improvements and frankly they've been making it difficult to see a future in PC gaming since game publishers will only publish on a windows system. The console game systems tend to be more stable in general, you don't have to worry about drivers crashing or the blue screen of death. Your console will run the game effectively it's practically a given. Most of all, a top notch console will run you about 600 bucks plus the extras. A top notch PC well that'll vary a lot! Opinions vary and they've all got good points. I think it's safe to say that you can figure on 2 grand for a good gamers PC that's a pretty huge discrepancy and it makes sense why parents buy their kids a console while many of the older gamers like myself tend to go PC.

With Parents buying their kids more consoles than old timers are getting PC's it's no wonder the number of console game titles are finally outnumbering the PC game titles. That may be the final blow to PC gaming making it a bastard child of gaming in the near future letting consoles take over.

Disappointed with Microsoft Windows

For a long time I've been one of those fanboys making excuses for windows. It's been over a year since the official release of Windows Vista and a despite that fact I recently felt so disenfranchised with this last release of windows (Vista) I can't continue making excuses for it since the service pack and/or patches haven't fixed the buggyness of Vista and I have now have switched to Linux. It was quite an eye opener, and made me realize just how bad Microsoft really is between their questionable monopolistic business tactics and poor quality product. If they were not a monopoly they'd out of the job with this considering what they wasted making it. If you compare the minimum requirements of the latest Linux vs the latest Windows the differences are gross. The latest Linux is backward compatible to the Pentium 2 generation, how is it possible that Microsoft spends billions on R&D for the new Windows and can't achieve that kind of efficiency and compatibility? I don't like the only possible conclusion I can see. They must be deliberately bloating the hardware requirements for the hardware manufacturers to secure hardware sales. It's the only thing that makes sense or are they really that incompetent? I can't say I'm too surprised, I've listened to a few of Steve Balmers interviews on Vista's poor performance. It really points out the whole attitude at Microsoft of sticking their fingers in their ears and humming. They spend all that R&D on bloating and overproducing the product instead of thinking of the basics and streamlining the kernel for both security and efficiency. I guess they've got their priorities where they want them, protecting the big corporate interests while screwing their consumers and the only thing out of their customers is "thank you sir may I have another." Well not this former customer, not anymore.

Maybe they'll come out of their funk. But I have a suspicion it's going to take the Return of Gates full time or something drastic to make that happen.