Jim Johnsen's page

My wife and I put together a couple simple minis conversions for the end of the Crown of the Kobold King. I wish I'd had the time to make a Forge Spurned, but alas the clock is rarely on my side. I put up some pictures on my blog if you'd like to check them out.

If anyone else has put together custom minis for their games, I'd love to see 'em!

I noticed that Halflings no longer receive a +1 bonus on attacks made with ranged weapons. Is this a balance issue, or was there a specific problem with the bonus that needed to be fixed? I know they already get +1 for being Small, but I thought it gave them a nice edge considering the low damage output from using small weapons and the -2 to Strength.

Man Forever! Batman! Anagrams! Has anyone figured them all out?! Its driving me to madness!

Looking at the prices for golem construction, there doesn't seem to be any kind of consistent formula involved. I seem to remember that in the 3.0 Monster Manual the prices followed a loose formula, along the lines of HD x 5500, rounded to the nearest 10,000th. However, in 3.5 some of the prices have changed, leaving a mess of seemingly random values. Has anyone cracked the code? I know someone here has made up their own golems before. If so, how did you settle on a cost?

I've looked through Mongoose's Constructs: Its Alive! book and was kinda meh'd by it. If anyone can give me a better answer than "just pick a number, no one builds golems anyway" I would be really damn grateful.

Has anyone used the lifespark template from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary? I'm curious as to any recommendations on CR adjustment or Level Adjustments. The template itself doesn't specify anything for CR, and since constructs in general don't have a listed level adjustment, its kind of left up in the air. The example is a bit confusing to me in that regard, as they've added the template and 7 levels of sorcerer to an iron golem, and the CR has gone from 13 to 18. I would have guessed 16-17, based on adding 7 levels of what I consider a non-associated class (adding 1/2 CR per level, as per the monster advancement section of the SRD, equaling 3-4 depending on how you round it). That leads me to believe +1 CR for the template, and +4 for the class levels. I feel like I've missed something or that I'm making this more complicated than it should be. Perhaps the original stats they used for the iron golem are incorrect, as I noticed the golem's bonus hit points aren't added in either.

Has anyone else allowed Varisian humans Weapon Familiarity for the bladed scarf (by which I mean, Varisian treat the bladed scarf as a martial weapon instead of exotic). I personally don't see it as overpowered, though my reasons are pretty self center; I want to play a rogue, and since my Base Attack Bonus starts at 0 I wouldn't be able to take Exotic Weapon Proficiency until 3rd level. With Weapon Familiarity, I'd still have to take Martial Weapon Proficiency to use it effectively, I would just be able to take it sooner. Is this asking for too much?

The Beholder: alien, deadly, a classic D&D foe. It is lamentable that the Beholder is not OGL, so that we will never see a Beholder in any adventure or source material that isn't official WOTC or licensed. So then, how about a replacement? I'm not talking about just taking the Beholder and changing the wording to form some cryptic-but-legal copy, like a thesaurus-born slipcover for the real thing, but rather an entirely new (or existing but underutilized) monster that matches the power and alien-ness in a new, open package. Any suggestions or ideas?

I was in the FLGS yesterday and they had a poster for the new D&D minis set. Has anyone else noticed the flesh-tone four armed Ettercap?

Also, Pig Farmer rules!