Kirth Gersen's page

After seeing both of my neices get caught up in all the texting, facebook, etc crap now a days I think all parents should follow his lead. The internet should have a age restriction.

See as how Mrs. Gersen spends every single spare instant texting or facebooking -- she'll seriously claim to be "going to bed" because she has to "get up early," and then she'll lie in bed clacking away on the g$%#&~n phone all night instead of sleeping -- I sometimes think all social media and cell phones should have a gender restriction... or maybe just a maximum number of daily uses, like a spell-like ability.

About the arcane feat Warmage: the prerequisites are Int 13, and eldritch blast. The bonus damage to spells and SLA's is also Int based. Given that it requires the blast, which all sorcerers now get, is there any reason not to allow it to be based off any mental stat, similar to Canny Defense?

A very strong reason: if it were Cha-based for sorcerers, it would simply be a feat tax (i.e., pretty much all sorcerers would always take it), which under the design guidelines of these rules would mean that it should be a class feature, and not presented as an "option."

However, by making it Int-based, it remains a true option: you can "build" for it by taking high Int at the start, or you can neglect Int and also not worry about the feat, either, but you'll make up for it elsewhere (like pumping Wis for a good ranged attack bonus).

Something I'm not clear on -- this father talks a lot about how his daughter has to work to earn the money for her expensive gadgets. Is the laptop one of those? In other words, did the daughter work to earn money, then use that money to buy said laptop, and then her dad takes the laptop and destroys it (on the order of theft and destruction of private property)? Or is this a laptop that her dad gave to her, so he's totally justified in taking it awaya nd doing whatever else he wanted with it? That would sort of make a difference to me.

Caspian seems to recall that, among humans from Northwind especially, piles of stones are associated with cairns for the dead -- sometimes to commemmorate them, but sometimes to keep their restless spirits trapped so they don't come out and wreack havoc on the living.

So, just to be sure I understand -- no one is particularly interested in these rocks in terms of whether there are old legends about similar monuments (Knowledge: lore); or what religious significance, if any, they might have (Knowledge: the planes); or what sort of arcane significance they might have (Spellcraft)?

I've been thankful that my players tend to be anti-furry without me necessarily having to push them in that direction. I hate to ban stuff just because of personal preference, but, man, I really don't dig any of that yiffing stuff.

I'f you're interested in this topic, don't miss Frank and K's commentary on the Economics of D&D and the "wish-based economy."

Caspian squints and mutters, but just can't seem to get his eyes to register what his hands sense to easily.
You need a 3rd level spell (arcane sight) to read magical auras from a distance -- the range of the detect magic cantrip in these rules is Touch.

Yesterday at Psychicmachinery's game:

Party had gotten separated; the druid and his faithful dog animal companion were trying to open a heavy iron door to rejoin the party, and Strength checks weren't going their way, even with the dog Aiding Another.

Druid Player (perusing summon nature's ally I list): "I summon a pony to help!"

Fighter Player: "Geez, he's got a whole dog-and-pony show out there!"

Caspian: You're going to touch the rocks??!

Str 15
Dex 15
Con 12 +2 = 14
Int = 14
Wis = 11 +2 = 13
Cha = 14 -2 = 12

OK, rogue stats for PM's game:
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (3, 5) + 6 = 14
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (5, 1) + 6 = 12
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (4, 1) + 6 = 11
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (4, 1) + 6 = 11
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (5, 4) + 6 = 15
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (3, 6) + 6 = 15
2d6 + 6 ⇒ (5, 3) + 6 = 14

I'm in one!

Does cyz know you're a bi bigamist?

Who cares if they really did it? It looked really cool on the show. Somehow I can't convince Mrs. Gersen to help recreate that ceremony in our living room, though.

Typically if someone's trying to jerk my chain or get 200lbs of Govt. Issue Jew with PTSD in their face, they use the 'K' word, or the phrase "jewed". Then later on, when they leave the hospital they can Youtube "Krav Maga" and have an "oops" moment.

They ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore

We don't turn the other cheek, the way we done before
Well, you should've heard that redneck scream when he hit the hardwood floor...
They ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore!

My shoulders grow more hair than that!

I take it you're a Chuck Norris fan, then? That dude grows more hair on his knuckles than most people do on their heads!

What kind of message does it send if a teacher calls on boys to answer math/science questions more often than girls?

As a former science teacher, I was intensely conscious of that, believe me. Every kid needs to be called on with the same frequency, in the same way -- the rich kids, the underprivileged kids, the kids good in your subject, the kids who didn't give a damn, the boys, the girls... you name it. I would assert that any math or science teacher who allowed himself, even subconsciously, to favor certain people over gender should be removed immediately. Then again, a lot of my so-called "colleagues" weren't really qualified to wash out the lab glassware, so I'm not saying it doesn't happen -- just that I personally haven't seen it happening, or I'd likely have acted to correct it.

P.S. It gets really tricky when the Guidance department puts 28 boys and 10 girls in the same science class and calls it good. How do you call on the girls with the same frequency? If you do it proportionately, then 3x as many boys are getting the spotlight. If you do it 1:1 by gender, it looks like you're picking on girls and somehow singling them out.

Jason Statham?!? Pfft. Lee Marvin would've womped his ass.

Part of my problem was that I was watching him star in a remake of a Charles Bronson movie, and NO ONE (except maybe Danny Trejo) is as manly as old Chuck. Lee Marvin would've whomped Mel Gibson's ass, as long as we're talking remakes (Payback/Point Blank).

The men should stop telling their sisters and daughters and students the same thing as well.

Like I said in the part you quoted, I don't tell them that, and I've never first-hand heard another man do it, either.

[humor] If I did, I'd kick his ass and tell him he hits like a girl! How's that for gender mysanthropy! [/humor]

I'm half convinced it's only hard because we spend so much time telling kids it is.

Let me clarify: it's hard in the same way that almost everything is hard. You can't be a formula one champion until you learn to drive a car. You can't be Bruce Lee unless you're willing to spend all those hundreds of thousands of hours in training. You can't do math unless you spend the time and work the problems. But math has less tolerance than a lot of other endeavors, because when you do it incorrectly, the answer is just plain wrong. Whereas if you write English incorrectly, there's always that lame, "well, you know what I meant" to fall back on.

Stuff that makes me want to pull my hair out, scream, and cry on her behalf.

I feel for you, Jess. A LOT. And I was going to say that I can't even imagine what that must be like... but then I remembered all the people telling me I could never be an artist because I wasn't "creative" enough. By "creative," they meant "flighty and neurotic." And to this day I refuse to accept that you have to be a basket case in order to pick up a paint brush or design a building.

So what did I do? I became a freaking scientist! But in my defense, that wasn't because "boys are bad at art and good at math." It's because architects were unemployed!

I don't know if you've seen the Sylvan Learning Center adds, but the prepubescent boy asks his mother for help with math homework and she like flees the house and runs down the street. The voice-over says, "Math was hard when you were young, and it's only gotten harder."

I'm thinking, "Oh really? Did they invent a new set of numbers since then?"

I really can't list the ways that ad took advantage of female stereotypes, but I will say it was very obvious writing.

Haven't seen the adds, because they'd make me go ballistic. But math IS hard. It's hard for girls. It's hard for boys, too. It was hard for Einstein (prompting his famous quotation).

I think you might be looking at this the wrong way. Women are routinely told that they're not as good at math and science, in spite of (irony of ironies) studies that prove otherwise. After hearing it enough times, it becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Women are also increasingly hearing how good they are at those things, with proof to back it up. And some of them are listening to that message, and I'd like to see them succeed. But they suffer because of the others who are selectively ignoring that message and focusing on the other one.

I'm not saying that all women should go into math and science. I AM saying that all women should stop telling their sisters and girlfriends "Don't worry, math just seems hard because you're a girl and girls aren't good at that stuff, so there's no point in studying." I'm certainly not telling them they're bad at math and science. I don't hear "society" telling them they're bad at math and science. I very often hear other girls telling them they're bad at math and science.

Mind the quote blocks there, Kirth.

Fixed it. ;)

I can't precisely define dog vs coyote but there is a point where you don't call the dog catcher you just let it go about its business.

Says Rick Perry: "Here in Texas, we can tell dogs from coyotes. And we don't let the coyotes go 'bout their business. We pull out our semis with the laser sights."

(Robert E.) Howard had feminist views despite his era and location

"Feminist views"? The dude was a total mama's boy, to the point of psychosis. Read up on why he shot himself. I really dig his stories, mind you, but I wouldn't call him a positive role model for gender roles issues, is all I'm saying.

Seriously, I know there's a perception that the two parties are very similar, but they have gigantic differences in proposed policy.

That's a big part of my issue -- at least the Republicans will come right out and admit that they're theocratic servants of our corporate overlords. The Dems will claim to be the opposite, but then turn around and follow the Republican playbook all the way down the line. I'm pretty convinced that Obama, after a hard day in the Oval Office, goes home and pulls off his rubber mask -- revealing that he's really just Dubya, having taken speech lessons in order to get re-elected (and a name change to dodge that pesky two terms rule).

You know what really pisses me off? The whole "I'm a girl so I'm supposed to be bad at math and science" thing. My former students pulled that crap all the time, and my wife and her sisters do it, and it's so pervasive and so incorrect it makes me want to puke sometimes. When I was teaching high school, the girls routinely outperformed the boys, by a fairly substantial margin, on the standardized science testing. Now that I'm in industry, when I meet with college-age people for recruiting, the chicks are routinely outperforming the dudes in engineering. Among my co-workers, some of the women are working hard and competently and professionally, and aren't getting recognized for it because so many of the other females pretend to be helpless and collect their checks and figure that's enough to get by on.

I don't think women are naturally better at those things -- I suspect they're dominant academically partly because young guys are more inclined to be slackers, and guys also typically work a lot harder at trying to pick up their classmates, so they have less attention left over for actual studying. But that aside, I can pretty well guarantee that women, on average, are not one iota less able in those fields than are men. Sorry, guys, but it's true. And that being the case, if I'm going to hire a female scientist or engineer, sorry sweetie, but for business purposes I don't care if you're on the beach volleyball team. I care if you're able to meet deadlines and anticipate chemical degradation products and design buildings that won't fall down.

So on the whole I spend a LOT more time worrying about women being welcomed as scientists and engineers than I do about women being welcomed as gamers.

I figured I'd see if there is any room in this PBP.

Jeff,

Thanks for the interest. We're currently full up, but if someone drops out (or gets killed) I'll keep you in mind for the opening.

A confession: I watched a Jason Statham movie last night. Sometimes I think he's way too metro to be an action star. But part of me thinks he's kind of cool, too.

[I'm curious as to why you felt the need to post this.

Is there a reason to see conflict where none exists? Does this make you a happier person? Does it somehow validate you more, to come up with the snarkiest possible version of a person's faith and post it on the internet? Do you get money or something? What am I missing here? What possible motivation do you have for this?

I may be wrong, but I'm guessing that post was intended for the more literal-minded Old Testament-loving Scripturalists out there.

Also, so far, the stones don't hover around the wearer like they do in our favorite rpg.

Just you wait...

So you find the group whose interests best align with your own, and you throw your weight behind them because you know that's how you have the best chance to accomplish something.

From my standpoint, my 0.01% alignment with the Democrats isn't significantly different from my 0.001% alignment with the Republicans -- statistically, they might as well both be zero (even if the Democrat number is, technically-speaking, 10x higher than the Republican one).

On the topic of objectifying characters in RPG art, I wonder how people feel about the comic/toon look vs. the the slightly more realistic style?

Sure, the elf chick in the Elmore piece is showing almost as much leg as Seoni does, but she looks to me like she might also have a personality. Is it easier to objectify genders if you convert all the people into toons first (since cartoons aren't really people anyway)? I don't care which style people like better or think is cooler or more exciting or more boring or more lame -- just about the connection with the topic at hand.

Have you ever seen that happen, Kirth?

Frequently.

I agree male entitlement is a problem, but it's not one that can be adequately addressed by selectively condemning unattractive people for it, or just the people who enjoy certain hobbies, or both. That's like me saying "Bigotry is wrong, so I'm going to kill anyone with blonde hair who makes a bigoted statement. Redheads and brunettes and old people with white hair all get free passes, even though we sort of pay lip service to the fact that it's wrong for them, too."

There's another aspect we haven't touched on that's potentially telling. OK, someone says, "Ew! Those geeks just reek of male privilege!" And so we compare two guys:

Guy #1 is fat and plays video games all night because he doesn't need to study as much, and says things like, "Hey, baby, nice rack!" Is he a geek? Totally. Is he inappropriate? Totally. No debate here.

Guy #2 is tall and good-looking, but he's a slacker and plays video games when he should be studying. He also loves to say, "Hey, baby, nice rack!" -- but he uses a stoner voice instead of a Monte Python voice when he says it. Is he a geek? Most women say, "No way! He's a rebel, and just needs those dumb games to blow off steam!" Is he inappropriate? I'd totally say yes, but most women say "You don't understand, that's just Joey! He doesn't mean anything by it!"

It's important to note that the actual behavior of these two guys is identical. But guy #1 is physically unattractive and socially awkward, so he gets branded not only a geek, but likely a pervo. Guy #2 is attractive to women, so he gets let off the hook and excuses are made for his "geek" behavior AND for his male privileged commentary.

A paladin's Lay on Hands ability is never specifically described to be positive energy, yet SKR says it's 'supposed to be'.

You're right -- it's a problem that even if we start using technical language now, the core rules are still written loosely in non-technical "you know what I mean" language. If Paizo's sales on the earlier printings were good enough, I'd submit that a reprint of the core rulebook, after proofreading by a technical editor, would probably sell a few more copies and would be a service to their fan base.

Barring that, your catch means that we have to add enough language to rectify the past miskakes, as well as fix current ones. Ugh. For example, we'd have to spell out "...spells and effects specifically described as positive or negative energy effects. These include the paladin's lay on hands ability, which was specifically erratad as a positive energy effect, and also the antipaladin's touch of corruption, which was specifically erratad as a negative energy effect."

I still fail to see why the US government feels it needs to interject itself into any religious ceremony.

... or why a religious ceremony or the equivalent is required to apply for partnership benefits. Divorce them (pun intended) completely, is what I'd advocate. You have a nice church wedding? Good, you're married, but that's not a legal partnership, and you don't get the legal benefits. You signed the partnership papers? Good, you have all the legal benefits, but you're not "married" in the religious sense. Most couples would end up doing both.

How do those sound?

We'd need to cut off all the upcoming arguments over which things use negative energy, etc. -- which is easy to do, by specifying "spells and effects that are specifically described as positive or negative energy effects," rather than just "that use positive or negative energy."

Actually, that TLDR was me letting people here know that they could skip all the discussion in the other thread because the net result of that discussion is "yes, this needs to change, and will be changed." I wasn't dismissing what was discussed here.

Ah -- gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

Perception check (perking up the ears, squinting the eyes and sniffing the air): 1d20 + 15

Breakdown:

• Vision: You see the rocks and flames, as described above. The rocks are dark-colored, but don't seemed to be charred as you'd expect if this were a normal fire.
  
• Hearing: The flames don't seem to be roaring the way real flames would -- rather, they make more of a low, hissing wail.
  
• Smell: You smell a faint whiff of sulphur or something. In the background are the smells of the woods and the river.
  
• Taste: Not applicable (I hope!)
  
• Touch: You feel the metallic chill described above.

Wow, I can't believe people are buying into that dbag's act.

Which one? Your epithet doesn't narrow the field much!

I'm still not understanding why "creative" has to mean "succeeds."

Because if "creative" always means "fails," then, in my opinion, the game suffers for it, as does the DM-players relationship. "Creative" doesn't need to mean "auto-succeed" (as my recommended ruling should have very clearly illustrated), but it should mean (again, in my opinion) that the DM is willing to step outside his comfort zone a bit and approach the problem from the standpoint of "if this could work, how would I rule it in a level- and game-appropriate manner," vs. "That's not how the most basic and obvious possible use, it so therefore it can't work, period."

Beckett,

As near as I can tell, the language I proposed above (which admittedly was off the top of my head, and could probably be tightened still further) would handle all of the examples you posted. By referencing "positive energy" and "negative energy" as key terms that must specifically appear in the effect description, we can drastically narrow down the number of cases that might apply. Then all we need to do is spell out, for the remaining cases, what does what.

It's true that one cannot eliminate 100% of all possible corner-cases, but a halfway-proficient technical writer, willing to spend a modicum of effort on it, can easily reduce them by an order of magnitude or more.

EDIT: Then again, when the developer drops in to let us know he isn't reading the suggestions made ("TLDR"), I guess it's a moot discussion.

Revel,

Good examples. You and are are doing the same thing, though -- we start with the standpoint that non-standard uses are possible, and only then come up with some sort of attempt to make that plausible within the game world. So, yes, we can consider spell physics, but only after receiving a "no" answer to the higher-order question of "does this need to be prevented?"

If the answer to our secondary question applies some limitation that's useful in game terms (in the case of my ruling, preventing a character from running up a rainstorm into the clouds), that's an added plus -- but then again it might be cool to have someone do exactly that (although why they'd want to eludes me at the present!).

On the other hand, though, if the initial answer is always going to be "No, you can't do anything except what obviously seems like the most basic intent," then there's no point in debating spell physics, becuase they're irrelevant. Don't make excuses -- if you need to be an authoritarian and lay down the law and tell those stupid players who's boss, then just do it -- don't claim it's about "realism," as some sort of ideological crutch.

NEA is intended as a very specific effect, so that calls for more specific rules language, not a more general statement. For clarity, we'd say something like "If you are targeted by or caught within the area of a negative energy effect that heals undead, you are healed as if you were undead. If targeted by or caught within a positive energy effect that harms or applies a negative status condition (e.g., turning) to undead, you are likewise affected. If targeted by or caught within the area of a positive or negative energy effect that neither heals nor harms undead, you are affected as would a normal humanoid. Spells and other effects that are not explicity positive or negative energy-based (e.g., halt undead) fall outside the scope of this ability."

So a dhampir is still affected by charm person because that spell doesn't say "it affects humanoids like X, but affects undead like Y."

That raises the question of something like command undead and halt undead... which don't affect everyone [except undead by virtue of a pre-existing immunity], but which, rather, explicity [affect only undead]. I'm guessing your intent is that dhampirs, as humanoids, would be unaffected -- but the explanation given, while clearing up one case, makes that "common sense" interpretation look a lot worse.

Do the boulders give off any heat?

The green flames shed no heat. On the contrary, you feel a chill from them -- not like an honest winter breeze chill, but more like the sensation of biting onto cold metal with your bare teeth.

I could probably pick you up and bring you over. Do you think your wife could pick you up to take you home? We usually go from 1 to 7pm. Also, are you willing to play a skill monkey? They are a bit lacking in that department.

Mrs. Gersen's schedule has changed, unfortunately, so that she doesn't get home until 10:00 pm or so. That will be great for me hosting on weeknights, though!

With luck, I'll have my car back by Sunday, but I don't want to make any promises I can't keep (and I sure don't want to be an inconvenience). Regarding being a skill monkey -- that's my favorite role, although rogues and monks in straight Pathfinder are so bad compared to the other classes that it makes me weep to see it. Still, they're fun! Is a dwarven rogue OK?

I'll keep you posted as to my availability as I learn more.

Cool! Sunday the 11th is good -- other days that week I'll have to check on.