I live in Arizona, and the damn *desert* clones plants all the time. Some of them are so successful at the whole self-cloning business that their seeds are now vestigial and infertile.
Those cholla you see growing on a hillside? They're probably all clones.
You can get a digital camera that fits in your pocket that has an angular resolution of 0.002 degree. (Panasonic FZ18, $299). If you want a little more resolution, put a teleconverter on it for a resolution of ~0.0013 degree. I doubt it would be very hard to disguise one of those and photograph people's checks (or, for that matter, credit cards at gas stations) from a significant distance away.
(1), along with "Pull out of the Middle East", would solve most of the problem by itself; then we can spend the several zillions of dollars/day on something else.
Well, sure, if the spellcasters get the jump on them or have an opportunity to prebuff... but there are other situations where melee combatants are invaluable. That said, one thing I'd like to see in the 4e "more options in melee combat" department is options for strong melee types to do more than remove hp from their targets.
We have something like that in the monk's stunning fist ability; other abilities that can be used similarly might be interesting.
Well, sure. Castle Ravenloft could be adapted, but it's got to be chewed on more first.
To put it another way, it's like asking, would you rather use emacs or MS Word to write code? You can write it in either, but emacs has stuff you want, and Word has a lot of stuff you have to wade through before you can do what you want.
I'd stay away from the Spell Compendium for a while there. There are spells in there that push the bounds of balance, and there's sort of a mutual agreement among our players not to use them.
My first module as a player, and then as a DM, was Monte Cook's excellent Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. The thing is huge and complicated, with an enormous volcanic crater mapped out and populated by lots of NPC's who are -- sort of -- cooperating. Rather than giving detailed descriptions of what these NPC's will do, whether out of combat or in, the module simply gives their statistics and explains their personalities, and lets the DM figure out what they do. There were very few notes about combat tactics other than those that relate to personality ("Imix enjoys whacking things with his greatsword and makes little use of his spell-like abilities"), since it's assumed that the DM is smart enough to come up with tactics on his own.
While NPC's are given locations, there's a note: "The placement of NPC's in, and the description of, the mines is just a snapshot at one point in time. They move around, do stuff, raid each other, etc., as time passes, and it's important to keep the place dynamic." The module encourages a huge amount of flexibility.
This was wonderful to DM, and the players enjoyed the feeling of being in such an active environment.
Now, look at a more recent module, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. The setting is wonderful, the maps are wonderful, but all the encounters are... almost pre-scripted. There's a separate section of the book for encounters, in which separate maps are given just of the "encounter area", with all the NPC's placed on it and combat tactics given for them. So you get "Encounter K42: Wight ambush", with a separate map with a bunch of wights on it. I've not run this module, but it seems like DM'ing it is more of an exercise in executing a pre-written script rather than being creative. There's not much room in there for flexibility, either -- it'd require a bunch of rewriting just to get the NPC information in a format conducive to being flexible with it.
In short: Wonderful setting (not written anew, swiped from 1e), uninspired writing. Writing is targeted to the lowest common denominator of DM's who can't figure out how to run NPC's/set up encounters on their own.
I hear Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is supposed to be pretty good, but haven't heard anything good about any of the other modern writing.
My question is this: Are the modules written for 4e, and the overall design generally, going to lean more on the side of accessibility to less creative players/DM's or the side of giving more experienced players/DM's more flexibility?
Evasion is a special ability that lets you take no damage, rather than half damage, on a failed save against a blast effect. The fact that you're fast enough to duck out of the way of the grenade entirely is perfectly plausible, but the fact that you're still standing where the grenade went off after the smoke clears is not.
IMO it should be house-ruled to: "On a successful save, you may use part of your next turn's movement to move out of the area of effect. This counts as a move-equivalent action for your next turn."
Half-celestial gnome rogue: random spell-like abilities. Has sneak attack, but still doesn't do as much damage as the monk. Winds up absorbing damage much of the time (high Con, Dex, AC)
Gnome druid: Heals people. Blows stuff up. Chews on stuff in wildshape. Only true spellcaster. Crappy AC.
(The half- characters actually have story reasons for their background and aren't just the product of unabashed munchkinism.
We do just fine without having "all four roles covered". That's the archetype, but there's nothing in game balance or the rules that says you have to have a wizard|cleric|fighter|whatever.
What's wrong with gnomes? The campaign I'm playing in has two gnomish PC's, both of whom are interesting and non-stereotypical characters but still have decidedly gnome-like personalities.
Slashdot Mirror
... knowing about the functioning of my kidneys!
*yank*
... bane of new visitors to the desert. I brought my mom out here and it wasn't five minutes before she'd poked one of the things.
I live in Arizona, and the damn *desert* clones plants all the time. Some of them are so successful at the whole self-cloning business that their seeds are now vestigial and infertile.
Those cholla you see growing on a hillside? They're probably all clones.
... seems to be the sum total of evidence against evolution.
http://xkcd.com/54/ is appropriate right now.
That's absurd, then.
You can get a digital camera that fits in your pocket that has an angular resolution of 0.002 degree. (Panasonic FZ18, $299). If you want a little more resolution, put a teleconverter on it for a resolution of ~0.0013 degree. I doubt it would be very hard to disguise one of those and photograph people's checks (or, for that matter, credit cards at gas stations) from a significant distance away.
... because CC#'s are generally transmitted in cleartext...
Don't you mean printf rather than sprintf?
(1), along with "Pull out of the Middle East", would solve most of the problem by itself; then we can spend the several zillions of dollars/day on something else.
Sadly that flight was the one aimed at the Capitol/White House.
So many hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved if, instead, the passengers had retaken one of the planes headed for the WTC...
I can get poisons and explosives on the plane *now*, despite the checks.
Why do you think Clinton is going to screw up international policy?
Nice Godwin dodge there.
There aren't that many non-religious control freaks in the political arena.
The best hackers don't want to control anything.
I can't handle John McCain being announced the winner no matter *how* it happens.
Sure, he's principled and honest. His principles are just opposite mine.
Two-word noun phrases are only hyphenated when used in adjective form. For instance:
Gamma rays are a type of ionizing radiation.
but
The gamma-ray burst released 4.3 blargajoules of energy.
For game mechanics, sure, there are better races. Maybe. From a munchkin perspective gnome wizard > elf wizard.
So?
Well, sure, if the spellcasters get the jump on them or have an opportunity to prebuff... but there are other situations where melee combatants are invaluable. That said, one thing I'd like to see in the 4e "more options in melee combat" department is options for strong melee types to do more than remove hp from their targets.
We have something like that in the monk's stunning fist ability; other abilities that can be used similarly might be interesting.
Well, sure. Castle Ravenloft could be adapted, but it's got to be chewed on more first.
To put it another way, it's like asking, would you rather use emacs or MS Word to write code? You can write it in either, but emacs has stuff you want, and Word has a lot of stuff you have to wade through before you can do what you want.
I'd stay away from the Spell Compendium for a while there. There are spells in there that push the bounds of balance, and there's sort of a mutual agreement among our players not to use them.
My first module as a player, and then as a DM, was Monte Cook's excellent Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. The thing is huge and complicated, with an enormous volcanic crater mapped out and populated by lots of NPC's who are -- sort of -- cooperating. Rather than giving detailed descriptions of what these NPC's will do, whether out of combat or in, the module simply gives their statistics and explains their personalities, and lets the DM figure out what they do. There were very few notes about combat tactics other than those that relate to personality ("Imix enjoys whacking things with his greatsword and makes little use of his spell-like abilities"), since it's assumed that the DM is smart enough to come up with tactics on his own.
... almost pre-scripted. There's a separate section of the book for encounters, in which separate maps are given just of the "encounter area", with all the NPC's placed on it and combat tactics given for them. So you get "Encounter K42: Wight ambush", with a separate map with a bunch of wights on it. I've not run this module, but it seems like DM'ing it is more of an exercise in executing a pre-written script rather than being creative. There's not much room in there for flexibility, either -- it'd require a bunch of rewriting just to get the NPC information in a format conducive to being flexible with it.
While NPC's are given locations, there's a note: "The placement of NPC's in, and the description of, the mines is just a snapshot at one point in time. They move around, do stuff, raid each other, etc., as time passes, and it's important to keep the place dynamic." The module encourages a huge amount of flexibility.
This was wonderful to DM, and the players enjoyed the feeling of being in such an active environment.
Now, look at a more recent module, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. The setting is wonderful, the maps are wonderful, but all the encounters are
In short: Wonderful setting (not written anew, swiped from 1e), uninspired writing. Writing is targeted to the lowest common denominator of DM's who can't figure out how to run NPC's/set up encounters on their own.
I hear Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is supposed to be pretty good, but haven't heard anything good about any of the other modern writing.
My question is this: Are the modules written for 4e, and the overall design generally, going to lean more on the side of accessibility to less creative players/DM's or the side of giving more experienced players/DM's more flexibility?
We already do this in 3.5E.
Everyone's on a voice loop over Skype/Ventrilo. The DM farms out a GIMP window using VNC to the other players, who can see what's going on.
I think you're thinking of a different thing.
Evasion is a special ability that lets you take no damage, rather than half damage, on a failed save against a blast effect. The fact that you're fast enough to duck out of the way of the grenade entirely is perfectly plausible, but the fact that you're still standing where the grenade went off after the smoke clears is not.
IMO it should be house-ruled to: "On a successful save, you may use part of your next turn's movement to move out of the area of effect. This counts as a move-equivalent action for your next turn."
In the campaign I'm in, we have four characters, but they don't fill those roles at all. This is set in the Underdark, 14th ECL:
Drow fighter/rogue/"non-observant" blackguard (in the process of undergoing alignment shift from LE to LN): hits stuff, has high AC, slow. Good saves.
Half-dragon half-drow monk: hits stuff *very* hard, moderate AC, fast.
Half-celestial gnome rogue: random spell-like abilities. Has sneak attack, but still doesn't do as much damage as the monk. Winds up absorbing damage much of the time (high Con, Dex, AC)
Gnome druid: Heals people. Blows stuff up. Chews on stuff in wildshape. Only true spellcaster. Crappy AC.
(The half- characters actually have story reasons for their background and aren't just the product of unabashed munchkinism.
We do just fine without having "all four roles covered". That's the archetype, but there's nothing in game balance or the rules that says you have to have a wizard|cleric|fighter|whatever.
What's wrong with gnomes? The campaign I'm playing in has two gnomish PC's, both of whom are interesting and non-stereotypical characters but still have decidedly gnome-like personalities.