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.