GentleGiant's page

GentleGiant wrote:

*roll eyes smiley* Geez, you'd think that at least some kind of geography had crept into US schools by now. :p

So let's see... you're trying to insult me as a US citizen because you thought that my "not really, unless you're shipping really far away" statement didn't include places outside the US?

**rolls eyes back at GentleGiant**

Woah, lighten up man, didn't you see the :p smiley at the end of the sentence? I wasn't really trying to insult anyone, just to point out that some people rarely take into consideration the global market that exists today.

It's a little thing called humour, where poking fun at stereotypes is quite common. :D

Vic Wertz wrote:

Further, keep in mind that subscribers pay shipping on their copies, and that shipping charge brings the total subscriber cost pretty close to the retail price. For most people, the PDF is the only real incentive, because the discount is a wash with shipping.

Not really, unless you're shipping really far away.

Subscription:
13.99 + 4.00 usps shipping
= 17.99

Retail:
19.99 + 1.20 tax (6% rounded)
= 21.20

Looks like a $3 per month difference to me, where retail pays more. Not exactly a "wash".

*roll eyes smiley* Geez, you'd think that at least some kind of geography had crept into US schools by now. :p

There's actually a whole wide world out there "really far away," where we do have to pay more for shipping. And given the penchant of gaming shops around this part of the world to have very weird currency translations (i.e. selling products at $-price x 10 instead of the current $-value, which is around 5.5. So retail price around here isn't the equivalent of $19.99, but $36.68 instead!), I'm very happy that the subscription option is available (and I take the .pdf file as an added bonus for the extra shipping time ;)).

This is one of those images that really didn't do much for me in D1. And I hate to say it, but the art in general in D1 was disappointing to me. I suppose I was kinda spoiled by the art we have been seeing in Dungeon and Dragon these days, but especially in D0.

I would have to agree completely. I know art is very subjective, but count this as a vote not to use the artists in question again (except for Wayne, of course ;)). I think the only picture that is somewhat bearable is the one on page 9, even though the likeness to Valeros, IMO, is fleeting at best.

Just a couple of thoughts...
First, maybe I'm thinking back to 2nd edition, but doesn't being a specialist mage also prohibit you from using items that duplicate effects from your prohibited schools? I'm thinking of the Ring of Invisibility and the Illusion prohibited school.
Second, you may have 2 cohorts in your group, but the DM shouldn't beef up encounters because of that, since it's inherent in the PC's capabilities. Same goes for summoned creatures or animal companions/familiars.

He rose his left arm in a protective gesture, clearly expecting the rugged-looking dwarf to strike him for having sneezed on his cloak.

"Please sir, for your troubles, let me be buy you a drink..." His eyes darted back down to the floor, while his lilting voice trailed off. He kept his left arm raised and cringed in anticipation of the inevitable blow...

At first the dwarf doesn't even seem to notice what has transpired behind his back, but when the halfling starts to brush off his cloak he slowly turns around.

"Now there, no need for that boy... erm, good sir. Ye look like ye could use a warm drink more than I," the dwarf says while stroking water out of his thick mustache.
"Why don't ye find a warm place by the fire and I'll bring some warm mulled wine for the both of us... and are ye any good with those tools?" A thoughtful look comes over the dwarf's face. "Ach, never mind about that now, go find a table and I'll be back shortly."
The dwarf turns and slowly starts towards the bar while still stroking his mustache. "A carpenter... hmmm, that might be useful, erecting support beams, fortifying crumbling tunnels... yes, I'll see if I can strike up a good report with this fella, he could be most useful"

Okay, it was Errands Day today, so I still have no new information on local towns, and I'm about to leave for work soon, and afterwards I'll be going to a midnight showing of the Simpsons movie, so no more posts from me tonight, but I should be able to respond to questions and/or post some new info for people over the next couple of days.

I'm eager to get under way! I know I wound up pretty quiet last week, and now everybody else is scarce, but we'll get it going on soon.

Mmmmmmmmmm, play-by-post.... grrraaaaaaaaahhhhh

Wohoo!

Gentle Giant, I just noticed that you live in Denmark... jeg har boet i Danmark for 1.5 aar. Jeg laeste udvikling og internationale relationer paa Aalborg Universitet, gjorde en (et?) praktisk ved det Danske Institut for Menneskerigttihedder, og boede en gang i Ishoej og en gang i Koebenhavn (flot by). Jeg har ogsaa rejset rund landet mejet...

Hvor bor du, og hvad laver du?

Please forgive my spelling and grammatical errors... last time I actively studied Danish was in the spring of 2002, and I have had no opportunity to practice around here.

Ha' det godt...

Wow, for someone who's only been here for 1.5 year you certainly have an outstanding grasp of the language (generally, IIRC, considered one of the top 10 hardest languages to master). And no practice since 2002... I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you probably have above average linguistic skills. ;)

Right now I'm living in the western part of Jutland (a small town of roughly 45,000 inhabitants - Holstebro - which is also where I grew up), but I lived in Aarhus from 2000 to 2006.
As for what I do... basically I'm trying to straighten out this thing called life (battling depression, trying to get in shape (down 36 lbs over the last 3 months) and figure out what I'm going to do in the future) which is a full time job in itself. ;)
Probably TMI, but hey, you asked. ;)

Both feats approved.

So, you now have a choice, and I figure it could go either way --

You can either be a refugee from one of the larger cities in Tynear, or you can be the exception to my ruling on Jhesail. You'll have trained at the magic academy there, but you'll also be pretty unfamiliar with the city itself, as more or less the entire time you were at the academy, you were inside a building studying magic.

It's entirely your choice. Oh! And also, you are still originally from somewhere else, even though you trained in Jhesail.

I'm going to go with Jhesail. Originally from the above-ground settlement near a dwarven stronghold (i.e. the term Hill Dwarf would be more appropriate than Mountain Dwarf), Kharid had always been interested in the crumbling ruins dotting the countryside around the small town. Thanks to the local dwarven patrols these ruins were kept monster free (they had also been "looted" already for anything immediately valuable), yet they still spoke of ages past and hidden secrets of those living then.

Thus was born Kharid's interest in archeology.
To further his studies and to develop better means to explore the past, he went to Jhesail to study at the academy there. The city itself holding no interest to him, he immediately went to work searching for new places to explore after his graduation.
What attracted him to Diamond Lake was the rumours of the cairns surrounding the town, and add the mining operation, which in itself could turn up many interesting things from the past, and you have an area ripe for the "archeological picking."

First off, I completely agree with Joshua... Gleemax? That's... I... how does this in any way tie into either the D&D or M:tg brands???
It sounds more like one of those cheap carnival booths where you can play some dodgy game.

And, yes, the site is dog ugly... and, of course, not designed with any kind of adherence to web standards (i.e. it's optimized for IE). *roll eyes smiley*

The forums link to the standard Wizard boards and the picture section is just a link to Flickr. It just all seems very unprofessional and hodgypodgy put together (and apparently in a hurry too, what with everything not being contained on the same site, e.g. Flickr).

When will the Player's Guide be available for download (since it's a pdf file I assume you can put a specific date on it)?
I hope it's something like August 1st, since it would then give my players a little time to read it and use it to generate their characters before the actual adventure arrives and I can start the game.

Okay guys, I have to apologize one more time.

These sixteen hour days are really more like eighteen, not including drive time. I've been doing little except working, and passing out exhausted into bed.

I may have said before, but I work freelance, and I'm working two gigs right now. The second gig came along unexpectedly, and offered way too much money for me to turn down.

The second gig ends after tomorrow.

As of Sunday, I will be back to having enough free time to actually get this started.

I'm really quite sorry. I wanted to start a couple of days ago, and I know you all did too.

No biggie (at least on my part - still can't decide what feats to take!).

You have to take the opportunities life throws at you! :-)

I"m sure I've read this in the PHB or DMG somewhere, but what's the weight of coins? I'm used to not really keeping track of it. It's nice to be able to carry 100,000 gold and not be encumbered. :)

50 coins = 1 pound (should be in the PHB somewhere)

Strange. I can open the first section without any problems, and yes, the spoiler /spoiler code is in place (the /spoiler is at the very end of the ranged combat section)... so I don't know what's going on...

Thanks for the compliments on the background, Gentle G...

It's working now, don't know if you did anything different...

Harlon Happytoes wrote:

Thanks, Dalzig. Essential game stats should all appear if you click on the "show" button beneath the "Essential Game Stats" heading. That button will reveal hit points, AC, move, saving throws, BAB, combat/weapons, etc. I tested it and it works for me... please let me know if it isn't working for you.

For some reason I click on "Show" and it just keeps saying "Show." But as long as it works for you and Sean I guess there's no problem.

I can't open the first spoiler section either, but all the info shows up if you open the page source.

Could it be a fault with the spoiler tags? As in, have you finished all the spoiler areas (it doesn't seem so from the source code, I can only find spoiler code, not any /spoiler code)

Edit: Just read Harlon's background story... übercool! :-D

I'm almost done with my character, had a bit of delay this weekend when an unexpected (but welcome) visitor came around.
I'll give a quick summary:

Kharid Thunderrune
Male Dwarven Diviner, very interested in archaeology, slightly "bookish" type and then not (not quite an Indiana Jones type, but something in that direction).

I plan on taking the Enhanced Awareness Diviner variant from Unearthed Arcana, if that's okay.

Still need the last couple of tweaks and such, but I'll hopefully be able to finish him later today.

I have no problem using InvisibleCastle either, as Traken said, you're only cheating yourself if you cheat.

The question is now... when will we get some decent new DWARF avatars?
(great work on adding more of the others, though ;-))

What with the influx of clerics, I'm thinking of doing something similar themed (no, not another cleric).
But I want to hear what Sean's take on Book of Exalted Deeds is (in particular some of these prestige classes: Celestial Mystic, Exalted Arcanist and Sentinel of Bharrai?).
I'm thinking Sorcerer first and then two of those prestige classes (haven't decided which ones and in which order).
Let me know what your thoughts are on those and I'll think of something else if those aren't up to snuff.
As for race, I'll probably go human no matter what.
Leaning more towards Sorcerer than Wizard at the moment, though (I've actually never played a Sorcerer before).

Another summarization:

Arctaris: Human Rogue -> Soulknife -> Swashbuckler?
TwiceBorn: Binder (from ToM)
Traken: Gnome Cleric (Wee Jas)
Jonventus: Barbarian -> Cleric (Kord)
GentleGiant: Wizard

TwiceBorn's Binder can fill a lot of roles, especially melee and ranged attack, so I'm thinking of going with a Wizard.
With that party combination, how are things looking party roundedness-wise regarding the AP?

Also, Arctaris, do you have a level progression already made up for your multi-classing (I'm mostly curious how many rogue abilities/skills we're going to have available to us - might influence spell choice later on)?

Lastly, the Flaws are from Dragon Magazine #328 (February 2005), the article is called Nobody's Perfect and starts on page 41.
http://www.hanshortes.com/dmindex/issue/issue328.html

Okay, so to summarize what we, probably, have right now:

Arctaris: Human Rogue -> Soulknife -> Swashbuckler?
TwiceBorn: Arcane caster (from ToM)
Traken: Gnome Cleric (Wee Jas)
Jonventus: Cleric (Fharlanghn, Kord, or Wee Jas)

Some muscle might be needed... I'll keep that in mind as I mull it over.

p.s.: waves at Traken :)

I believe that we can't offer Dungeon issues as PDFs until they've been off-sale for about a year, so the latest issues have a long wait ahead of them.

Yeah, I thought I remembered something to that effect.

As for the online supplements... we just did the last ever approval meeting for Dungeon at WotC. It ships to the printer on Monday. After that, we spend a few weeks catching up on Pathfinder #2 and get that shipped. After THAT... I'll be back to working a single job and will have time to get the art/map supplements caught up.

Thanks for the info James, I'll just have to take another dosage of patience then. ;-)

I'm thinking mid- to late August before the first supplements will start to show up then? Always nice to have something to look forward to. :-)

Is there an ETA on when the latest issues of Dungeon are going to be available to purchase as pdfs?
Also, what about the online supplements (haven't been updated since January)?

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.

A nation that continues year after year
to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift
is approaching spiritual death.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am very certain it is (from left to right):

Attic Wisperer, Goblin Snake, Goblin Dog, Runespawn, Sandpoint Devil.

You can find more information on them in one of the older entries of the blog.

BTW They look great; I can't wait to chill them players with my new dolls!

I do believe you're right. Didn't think of going back through the blog for this kind of information.

Nasty critters they be! :D

GentleGiant wrote:

I tried that, but then I still get the overlaying graphic, not the full pagespread that's hidden underneath.

Are you clicking an object, or dragging an area? You should click the object.

If it still doesn't work, try upgrading your Adobe Reader. 8.1 just came out, and it's way, way better than any previous version.

D'oh! I was using the snapshot tool, thus using the dragging method. You are right, with the object/text tool it's easy to select the individual graphics (which I've done before, so it must have been a brainfart on my behalf not to think of it... D'oh! again - and yes, I do have version 8.1).

But since everybody can access the pictures now, I'm curious on what's revealed on them...

What are the other creatures on the bestiary size comparison list?
Left to right they seem to be:
Some cross between a doll and something undead.
A snake with a slightly humanoid head (a Yuan-Ti monster/subrace?).
A goblin dog.
A ghoul "thing."
The Sandpoint Devil

Also, what IS that goblin on page 5 doing with wings???

No need to go to that effort. If you really want to see what's there, you can just use the selection tool in Adobe Reader to select the object, and then you can copy and paste it into a graphics program.

I tried that, but then I still get the overlaying graphic, not the full pagespread that's hidden underneath.

I should warn you that illustrations for future products usually involve mockups and drafts, since the final product isn't necessarily finished. And the further out the release date is, the less the mockup is likely to reflect the finished product.

True, but even with mockups and such it might give us a peek at what's intended to be there, thus the speculations can run amok. ;-)

Just downloaded and perused the Paizo 2007 Summer Catalog.
There are a few spreads from some of the Pathfinder (and Gamemastery modules) books, giving us another small sneak peek at what's to come.
Now, the interesting thing about the catalog (i.e. the pdf version) is that they've used images of the whole spread (i.e. 2 full pages) and overlapped them with covers etc. So when you scroll up and down you can sometimes see the part that's hidden underneath the overlaying graphic.
Now, I don't know if Paizo are too keen on sharing this already, but I took a screenshot of one of those pages, while it was "loading," and it showed some extra monsters in the bestiary section (on a size comparison drawing). I could upload it so people can see it... if the fab guys at Paizo wouldn't mind, of course. :-D
Another thing that piqued my interest... on page 5 of the catalogue there's what looks like a goblin (with wings???) riding some kind of dinosaur!

4. Having the DC of spells listed at the beginning of each spell level's list seems like a good idea -- is there a reason not to save the space used in printing the DC in parenthesis next to each spell?

I assume it's for those cases where casters have feats like Spell Focus, which raises the DC.

Alternatively, one could put the standard DC next to the spell list and then just add a parenthesis next to those spells affected by e.g. Spell Focus.

I'd pay for a poster-sized map of each region too.
A high-resolution .pdf file would be nice too, but preferably as an addition to the actual map... some of us don't have a Kinko's available anywhere on the continent!

I'd go for someone familiar with the rules behind the game to prevent, as someone else has already pointed out, uncharacteristic and "impossible" scenarios (from a gaming perspective).
My top 3 (in no particular order):
* Thomas M. Reid (really enjoyed his Scions of Arrabar trilogy - others have mentioned the War of the Spider Queen series, which he also contributed to)
* Douglas Niles (just an alround good and fun writer)
* Elaine Cunningham (great, great characterization)

This is a great thread and I'm glad the people at Paizo are letting it stay!

Having said all that--we are over 200 employees short of our authorized staffing level and we cannot get enough recruits to fill out or authorized slots. Of course, my job is very demanding and very dangerous, but still...many jobs are. We also have strict entrance requirements, background checks, etc. but I can't believe that more people don't want to do my job. 18 years ago when I started, I was lucky to get my position, the competition to get it was cut-throat and I counted my lucky stars when I got my job and I worked my ass off to make sure I kept it. What's changed??

BTW: If anyone is interested, here's our recruiting website...I personally would love to have another gamer around...especially you military guys and gals getting ready to get out....we have a low crime rate and great weather!! Recruiting page

If it wasn't for that tiny, insignificant requirement that you need to be either a US Citizen or a Naturalized Citizen, I think I could actually have been interested.

But seeing that it takes a minimum of 5 years (if I remember correctly) to become a Naturalized Citizen, then it's not likely that I'll be able to join the "family" down there.
A shame, since I wouldn't have any problems fulfilling the other requirements (the physical test? Since I've played semi-pro American football for 6 years now (including in Los Angeles in 2004) that shouldn't be a problem at all).
Although I could be wrong with the Naturalization process... being a former German resident, can you speak to that farewell2kings?