Dragonsage47's page

Ignoring pesky legal issues like closed content, the 3e books I'd like to see Pathfinder books of are:
Tome of Battle
Spell Compendium (though they could make their own version of this, just using the spells they have released themselves...)
Magic Item Compendium (I really liked item levels, the revised treasure tables, being able to combine a stat bonus and a "fun" item in the same slot without a surcharge, and the focus on low-level fun items)

In addition, I'd love to see a book that would be the logical sequel to the Spell and Item compendiums: Feat Compendium.

Aretas wrote:

Thats the problem, you don't care about realistic. After all its the tax dollars of the American citizen, the productive Americans, hard working business owners who are fattening the pockets of the entitlement masses and the bureacrats.

And if I were not one of those productive Americans, that would be one thing.

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I'm with Kauffman on your religious dictatorship scare tactic. I'm also with Kauffman shoulder to shoulder on your "get out of the way" comment. I think you should know that I checked behind the DM's screen and you rolled a 1 on that intimidation check.

That wasn't intimidation. That was a suggestion, or fair warning, depending on what you want to do about it.

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Anti gay marriage does not mean anti gay.

Yes it does. By the way, the courts agree. If you are against gay marriage, you're a bigot. We know this. You know this. Everyone knows this. And, for whatever reason, you're still trying to deny it.

Stop your hate speech! Your wrong, wrong, wrong about what you just said. Maybe there are some, SOME people who hate homosexuals, so what?

Thejeff- "You can't cut your way out of recession" is a Keynsian formula for neverending increasing government spending. No nation or people can ever get everything they desire. And yes, even though nations can print unbacked money while individuals can't, after a point it is realized that the printed money is worth less and less, until it is finally worthless. Essentially, high inflation ensues, which is what happened in Germany to the Weimar Republic. There, people could walk around with a wheelbarrowful of printed money which could buy a loaf of bread. And you know how that ended. A totalitarian dictatorship and Adolf Hitler... That is why I will not vote for Obama. Unlimited debt and spending, with the implicit promise that people can have all that they can ever desire, is a good intentioned fantasy path towards national ruin.

Obama = $5 Trillion more national debt ( with an additional 1.3 Trillion this year and no end to rising debt anywhere in sight), 3+ years of over 8% unemployment (the longest since the Great Depression), a Democratic Party controlled Senate which hasn't even passed a budget in two years-forcing the nation to operate from one fiscal crisis to another. This is just a short list of his failings. He came to the Presidency with little experience in running anything: and his administration has been a major disaster. God save the United States if he is re-elected.

In fact, I hesitate to even argue for it, since it's usually only raised as a slippery slope counter to talk of gay marriage.

At least you said usually, as opposed to AMIB in the original thread.

No, I see it as a slippery slope. There are genuine slippery slopes, not just slippery slope fallacies. I see no logical stopping point between:
1)Marriage is currently defined as between one man and one woman
2)In the interest of equality, we are going to redefine marriage so that CONSENSUAL people in loving, healthy, committed relationships with one another who couldn't previously get married can get married.

AND

3)Same-sex marriage should be legal, as should polygamy.

If we're arguing that marriage is a civil right, then we can't very well say that some people should be denied it. Period.

I make these arguments out of genuine enthusiasm for seeing everyone freed from state-sponsored prejudice.

Also, I found this after a quick google search. Does a pretty balanced job, as far as a profile feature can do, of showing Polygamy in the first world. The amusing and perhaps saddening thing is that, with further research, you find a lot of negative opinions and articles targeting polygamy in Australia. They are usually veiled bigotry against either gay marriage or Islam.

I honestly don't see why this is a contentious issue. Not saying this to be troll, just seems to me that if you want to be married to more than one person it should be fine. In the States at least, it used to be legal, law was passed to make it illegal, so just repeal the law and let the divorce lawyers have a field day, or weep in despair.

Indeed. :)

we've got issues like the government magically printing up 700 million dollars to bail out private companies, who then turned around and gave their upper management bonuses for the year.

If you're so great at bringing up and solving a moral issue, why don't you lend that genius to, oh say, why 23% of my money goes to federal funding, but not a dime of it goes towards national debt.

It's about time everyone in this world butt's out of other people's business and applies some common sense to their current material environment. Standing on your box isn't going to do you any good if you're in a police state, with no claim to anything of your own.

I'll stick to polyamory. All of the fun, none of the paperwork.

FURTHER EDIT: I think that the war in Iraq was a HUGE propaganda victory for Islamic fundamentalism and must have led to a couple of recruitments over the years.

But we've gone pretty far from filibustering and gay marriage. Why? Because threads that stay on topic suck!

Yes, well I shall not get much into that debate, other than I think filibustering has been used many times by both sides and what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

1. We can be held without trial if we are suspected of being terrorists. Generally speaking, that can be avoided.

2. As far as surveillance, so what? What are you doing that you don't want to be seen doing?

1. If it's fair game, avoidance is at the whim of the people deciding. You avoid it until someone in government disagrees with your views, or just doesn't like the way you look, and decides to accuse you of being a terrorist.

2. If I want to stare in a mirror all day, that's my prerogative. I don't feel that my tax dollars should be used to pay someone to do it for me without my need or permission, and without any benefit. And sooner or later they'll get bored and maybe decide my gray sweat pants should really be blue or I must be a terrorist -- which brings us back to point #1.

Overall, I don't think it's a good model to set up governmment so as to be at war with its own citizens. It sucked in East Germany; I think it'll suck here. YMMV.

I sort of feel like this is the system working the way it should.

The fact that you see no difference between bills that take away civil rights, vs. bills designed to re-instate them where they've been unrightfully hijacked, says that your ideas of how things are "supposed" to work is a long way from Madison's and Jefferson's views on the matter.

the long run, civil liberties will continue to expand.

One step forward, two steps back. We now at least allow women and blacks to vote -- those are definite expansions. But as a trade-off, we are now subject to 24/7 physical and electronic surveillance, can be held without charges indefinately without trial, and can be declared "enemy combatants" by the whim of whomever sits in the Oval Office. We're also potentially subject to prison sentences and permanent records for such things as smoking, urinating, and listening to songs. These are massive curtailments of civil liberties, and speak to me of a net loss, rather than gain.

Until the shoe's on the other foot, and sweeping anti-(whateve you're for) legislation looks to win by a majority. Then you'll wish you had a filibuster option.

If the Bill of Rights were working as intended, then tyranny of the majority would be unconstitutional, and any legal bill passed by a majority would be a case of "I don't agree, but so be it." Filibusters are necessary against majority rule only when the rights of the minority are not being upheld.

Remember, there's nothing in the rules stating that a secret check made by the GM has to be a roll instead of a T10 - you're inserting that yourself. In fact, you haven't even really stated why you think it's "implied". Just because it's supposed to be secret?

On the contrary, it'll be even more secretive if you do T10 on those, since then you don't get to see me roll a d20 and have to try not to metagame.

If you tell me before we start that you have Trap Spotter and like taking 10, then I can write down your T10 result (just by adding 10 to your bonus), flip through the scenario, and put a little note by each trap that you'll spot.

That actually makes things MUCH easier for me as the GM.

As a practiced armchair general for the last 3 decades, I can say that Sun Tzu, Ssu-ma, Wei Lia-Tzu, Toyatomi, Tokugawa, Musashi, as well as Napoleon and Carl von Clausewitz, Julius Caesar, Alexander, Rommel, Genghis Khan, Lord Nelson, Hannibal Barca, and still apply in a role playing game war scenario.

Without having to restort to use of table top war-game size units, I'm a big fan of Heroes of Battle, which has excellent rules for role-playing armies. I used the Heroes of Battle with the Pathfinder mass combat rules (with some Conan RPG mass combat rules thrown in for fun)when my players and I played King Maker AP. Even after the dust settled and the last fire started by multiple fireball assaults died out, the guidelines of Sun Tzu persisted in ruling the Kingdom, especially when our neighbors decided we were too much of a threat to the stability of the River Kingdoms to be allowed to live...

The key to using Sun Tzu, etc., is to avoid the rampant meta-gaming that tends to go on. I tend to focus on the role-playing aspect since the players are in charge and they are given reports by NPCs and they formulate tactics based on those reports - which makes spies - Sun Tzu's most important component of any military campaign - a very important role.

I think the general confusion about warfare comes from people's lack of distinction between strategy and tactics. Strategy is the overall big picture of warfare and tactics change with circumstances of battle. Napoleon's strategies will win a war in the River Kingdoms, but his tactics of using large numbers of troops to form firing lines won't - it would make a very attactive target... heh.

Thanks for bearing with me. In the end, I think you can make Sun Tzu very meaningful at your game table!

My thoughts, why not do both.

The flaw I see with this suggestion is that tax cuts haven't really proven to get the economy moving again. Also cutting those rates and then raising them again later would only work if the economy started really getting growing at a highly accelerated rate. If it is still sluggish, then the politicians will just say, "We can't raise* taxes in the economy because it will dampen job growth." So you end up having the tax rates not return to the current levels.

*Any situation where taxes are lower for a time and then higher is consider a raise in taxes, even if was really a tax holiday and it is just returning to its previous level.

Historically, tax reductions have boosted the economy when those tax cuts helped encourage American manufacturing and industry.

They triggered the Reagan recovery in '83 that lasted to '90. They triggered a lot of the economic recovery that Bill Clinton got credit for, through roughly '99 (though the dot-com boom is also part of this and it's challenging to figure out how much goes where...)

They also triggered the Kennedy recovery of '61-62 that provided the revenue base for Johnson's Great Society...

The primary example where they did NOT provide a recovery was the Bush 2001 and 2003 cuts, and those...those have the same systemic problems that the Obama Stimulus package has. They funnel money to China.

(The 2003 Bush Tax Cuts were referred to, in the financial industry, as a "Dead Cat Bounce..." If you throw a dead cat from high enough, it'll bounce...)

The housing boom was a desperate attempt to get the economy growing, and it's not a coincidence that all that money chased the handful of jobs that can't be shipped to China.

Wow, so there is a portion of people who believe Herman Cain can't win because to many republicans are racist. You know, I believe there are racists in the republican party, I also believe there are racists in the democratic party. I don't believe either parties racists hold sway over the party.

You folks down south also have a problem with tax expenditures, your congress iikes to hide spending programs in the tax code and then pretend they don't exist, or pretend they are tax cuts instead of spending programs.

You need to lower your corporate tax rate, get your small business rate down to 10-15%, add in a non regressive vat, raise your top personal margins and start taxing foreign accrued property income instead of letting it sit offshore.

That way you can continue to buy our oil and lumber and we don't have to ignore chinas human rights violations and constant attempts to spy / infiltrate our government. Your friends and allies want you to get better damn it!

YMMV :)

What she's doing is trying to counter the argument, made by many, that I'm a self-made businessman, didn't get any help from anyone so I don't owe anyone anything.

Well from my own experience it's usually "I'm a self-made businessman, I already pay taxes so why is everyone expecting me to pay even more?"

That those who did extremely well benefited from that support more than others did and therefore have the responsibility to pay more of that forward so the support is still there for the next one who comes along.

And here's the big issue. Just because someone benefited more -maybe from wise business choices?- they have to pay more back in?

I'm sorry, but if we're both homeless and a stranger gives us both $5, if you blow yours on strippers and I set up a lemonade stand and turn my 5 into 20, I'm not giving you ten bucks. :)

So, because some tax dollars are well spent, all of them are? I would say research within natural sciences falls well within what I would call education. Social sciences, and lately, so-called "climate research", however, are too far gone as political fields, and should be relegated to voluntary donations. Oops, there go most of the social studies programs and other previously tax-financed crap. Because, at the end of the day, people want new cancer medicines, but social studies is going to find itself running VERY dry on money if they have to find donations. Take a look at what happened in Russia after 91 - the political/social sciences were the first casualty because nobody needed or wanted them.

My group is coming up soon on Chapter 2, so I took a look at the kingdom building rules. I didn't like the emphasis on a magic item economy, so I changed things around. While I modified it, I also found that I wasn't wild about Unrest as something directly affected by buildings, and more or less lumped it into Stability. Here are the rules that I came up with. At the bottom of the page, I included a modified version of one of the Excel kingdom spreadsheets that you may find useful. I've playtested it to an extent and am pretty satisfied with what I've got, but I'd like some input and feedback. I used the utterly fantastic Jon Brazer Enterprises version of the rules as my starting point.

MAJOR CHANGES:
1. No more magic item sales; Economy check eventually gets a lower coefficient to compensate
2. Different turn order
3. More buildings and development choices for hexes
4. More emphasis on edicts
5. Higher Consumption for cities; buildings can reduce Consumption to compensate

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Definitions, Leadership, Kingdom Turn