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yeah, turns out the first veered south and the second veered north.
the first one brought heavy wind and rain, but i've had worse when i was in okinawa for monsoon season (it can actually flood a room above ground level from the force of wind pushing water through the tracks of a window).
the big island shielded us mostly, i hear they got it pretty bad.
all in all no damage, just refreshing wind and rain
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And I am currently more or less living at work as we prepare to open a new store on Monday without bothering to hire the damn staff to make it possible. For an owner who is a micro managing control freak, this is shaping up to be the most disastrous store opening I have ever seen. It is really unbelievable.
At my house we are in the final run-up to our annual fall adventure. This year, we will not have access to wifi for at least four days. In addition, pressure at work related to my anticipated absence and ongoing major project may take me out of the game earlier than that and may keep me off the boards for a while after.
I wanted to post this to all my games while I could to explain that I may go silent for a while. I may get a few more posts in - I'm not sure when radio silence will begin. It could start as early as today - probably late tomorrow - and might run through the 26th if the project goes poorly.
Please don't let my absence stall the game. Bot me as necessary and we will pick up the pieces (or roll up my new character) when I return.
Peace.
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It's running and doing well. Extremely good location. The store front was previously a Louis Vuitton store on the square of an old money Athens suburb. Our daily work more than doubled considering the city is empty in August then everyone returned and a new store opened. We are still trying to work out the logistics of how to tighten everything up so that people aren't working 12+ hours a day but it is on the way.
And... I'm back.
That sounds really encouraging, Ithuriel! Glad to hear it!
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So yeah- I'm here checking in, but damn. I'm waiting for the 28th to be my first day off this month and now that I have 4 people the one who has been around the longest has quit due to the insane workload. So yeah. Anyway I'm thinking ahead to saying my own good byes to this place, but in early spring for me.
that sounds fun.
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That spider was a deathweb (Bestiary 3) advanced a couple of sizes and a lot of HD, plus the futility gaze weapon, using the rules at the back of the Bestiary 1 for advancing monsters. They might need a little bit of calibration - it should have been a CR 12 but I reckon that was a bit more than that. On the other hand, Improved Vital Strike really made that bite dangerous - the base damage was only 4d8+20-odd, but the feat made it 12d8.
Yeah, tough bastard. But definitely fit well with the theme of the place.
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The spider itself was plenty scary - and then there's the added complications created by the ettercaps minions, and the very real challenges created by the environment. We're once again illustrating why the whole "determine what is balanced through fights in featureless arenas" school of thought is completely worthless.
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Nev, since our group make up has changed a little you may find yourself on the front line more than you anticipated. We need Janosz using his bow, Gelb is more of a rogue and the rest of us are casters. With an 18 AC you are going to get smashed while trying to hold the line. I try to keep Ez always away from the front line and he has AC 19. We will eventually get Rolund back and he is pretty solid on defense but that won't happen until we finish Gath's complex.
These are all the AC bonus categories and what you currently have access to:
Dex +1
Armor +7
Deflection 0
Natural 0
Dodge 0
Shield 0 (+4 Force Screen)
Cover 0
Size 0
Insight 0 (+2 Chain of Defensive Posture, 3/day)
These are the quickest/cheapest possible boosts:
[Deflection] Ring of Protection +1 (2000)
[Deflection] Ring of Protection +2 (8000)
[Deflection] Ring of Protection +3 (18000)
[Natural Armor] Amulet of Natural Armor +1 (2000)
[Natural Armor] Amulet of Natural Armor +2 (8000)
[Natural Armor] Amulet of Natural Armor +3 (18000)
[Dexterity] Belt of Incredible Dexterity +2 (4000)
[Shield] +1 enhancement (1000)
[Shield] +2 enhancement (4000)
We aren't exactly in a place to go shopping right now and may not have the free resources to do so in any case. I can loan you a ring of protection +1. I would loan you the belt of dex, but it conflicts with your Str belt. If you can find even a basic shield in this complex you should grab it.
Yes, I was considering picking up the next shield we find, since i'm not married to the concept of a two-handed weapon. I do more damage that way, but If i need to be more of a defender, my damage matters less.
Right. Part of the problem is i need to figure out when i should stop a sec and buff, and when i should go attack, hahah
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Well that just shows how unfamiliar I am with psionics. I was imagining the force screen power as the psionic equivalent of shield and generally Vancian- as in you might use it 2 or 3 at most times per day. I didn't realize it is 1 point from a pool of 80 and wasn't thinking about how it allows you to continue using a two handed weapon. It is clearly better than any shield you are going to pick up along the way. Ignore me.
But you should kick that thing on pretty much every fight and consider powering it up to +5 or +6 on tough fights. That and the chains will get you to 24-26 and then another +1 from the ring puts you somewhere more reasonable.
Yeah, thanks for the advice everyone, and keep it coming if you have more. It has been a long time since i have played the mid levels, and i had forgotten how dangerous things can get.
Hello,
I think I'm going to take a hiatus for a while from pbp.
I have so much crap to do that when I get free time I'm a zombie and can't hardly function, or I spend a long bit figuring out what the hell is happening and every time I get back into it, guess what: it's time to flake off again for a week.
In the future when I seem to be able to be involved with this form of gaming in some sort of fruitful way I'll let everybody know and see what/where/when is good to pick up the pieces and go on.
But, I am at least putting my pbp games on hiatus for the nonce.
I will check back in whenever I'm not so damn busy that I can pay rudimentary attention to what the hell I'm doing.
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Guys, I'm thinking of running a Wrath of the Righteous PbP here. I say "thinking" because it would be an additional commitement of time, albeit I don't plan anything that would be at much variance to the scenarios as written. Would people be interested? I'd be looking for the usual six or so players.
I was in one that just died. I'm pretty sure we were still in the first book and would love to give that character another go, if you are willing and she fits the party dynamic. Of course, all things considered, maybe I should take a non-caster this time.
Here's her link - would obviously need to be cleaned up to start again: Lyddy
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You always play girls... Or ladies, rather. Sure - she'd have to go back to 1st level, but otherwise should be fine. There's a discussion thread here already started.
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Last night was one of the annual protest days in Athens, this one originally marking the junta's attack on students at the University in our neighborhood who were broadcasting pirate signal protests. The backlash against the attack led to the downfall of the junta. These days it is more a protest against police state tactics and still has a little bit of anti-American angle since they were backing the junta (who opposed communists) at the time. Like every other occasion in recent years it is also an occasion to protest austerity measures, unemployment and everything else.
These links aren't all that interesting, but I saw it on reddit (which front pages Greek stories because of my location) and thought I might share just for the hell of it. I don't really have a position on this. The protesters in general are fine and peaceful, but there are clusters of people who always use the occasion specifically to fight police with bricks and molotov cocktails and they have in the past burned buildings and in some case killed people by doing so. Likewise the police in general are doing their job, but the specific unit assigned to our neighborhood are notoriously thuggish- partly because it is one of the most s#@@ assignments possible in Athens. To get posted here means you either have no connections, are in trouble within the police, or scored really poorly when competing for positions. Supposedly around 40% of Athens police sympathize with Golden Dawn (the neo nazi party) and days like this are an opportunity for those so inclined to crack skulls in areas where they are not typically permitted to show force.
Anyway- like I say I don't really have an angle here I just post for curiosity sake. My main thought when looking at these was who in the hell goes for coffee in Exarcheia Square on the night of November 17th? That is a really terrible idea. The city removes all dumpsters from our neighborhood for a few days on either side to deprive anarchists of rolling flaming barricades but they still block the streets around the square with trash and light it on fire. I could hear helicopters and tear gas cannons going off throughout the evening from our place. (We live about 4 blocks from the square.) Also in those photos of people marching, looking at the cars parked on that street I can't help but think, really? You left your car on Stournari St today? It seems like every year at least one car gets burned to the ground.
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How are things employment-wise there? You seem to have been working your pretty little derriere off for the last year or so, which seems odd in the context of high unemployment? Are things getting better or is this still and extended slump with no end in sight? And is Syriza on line to win the next elections and plunge Europe into a new crisis? And what do you think, having lived in greeece for a while - a lot of the stuff you come back with seems to indicate it's an ungovernable mess?
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Unemployment is not good. I think it is still generally between 20-25%. And the minimum wage has been lowered so many times it is ridiculous. I think take home pay on minimum wage is a little under 400 euros a month now. I want to say it was about 800 when I moved here. Still things are better than they have been. We see new businesses opening for example instead of only continually closing. Cheap food and bakeries spring up everywhere.
Working crazy hours in an unemployment crisis isn't all that unusual from what I understand. I read recently that the same thing had happened in the US through the last some odd years for many people. Businesses cut back to the minimum number of people possible and pile more work on those people rather than hiring a full staff. More or less the same thing happened in my wife's work although it didn't result in so many extra hours but more of a divided focus on her projects. My situation is getting better these days. I'm working 8.5 - 9 hours a day for the most part which is a huge improvement. Figuring out how to give people vacations will be problematic, but we'll see how that goes later.
Syriza... I don't know. There are no good choices for citizens to vote for in elections here. Each of the major candidates are so power hungry that they are willing to sink the ship just so they can wear the Captain's hat as it goes down. So continuously for years now whichever party is not in power says, just vote for me and we'll get rid of all this austerity business- or in this case exit the IMF. Then as soon as they get a taste of power and have to actually try to do something its like "What I meant to say was..." What I have understood is that they cannot possibly win outright and that no other party wants to form a coalition government with them.
I can say that throughout all of this process it seems that almost no substantial changes to the state and the roots that led to the problem have been changed. The payments to the EU just come from massive tax rates rather than any of the real reforms they have suggested or demanded.
I used to be very eurosceptical until I started working for a German bank with good benefits, so now I'm concerned about the UK leaving the EU (maybe that's the cure for euroscepticism in the UK - give all UKIP voters a job at Deutsche Bank). But the stuff going on in southern Europe makes you wonder how the EU can carry on. Politics is just a mess pretty much everywhere, but I can't help thinking that something nasty is lurking round the corner to throw the world economy another curve ball. Pfft... I think I'll retreat to my fantasy worlds again.
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I should temper that a little. I do think that Greece is making progress and that the worst is behind us. Also that our experience of the crisis is not the one people might imagine by hearing things like this. All of our friends are professionals in their 30's and 40's who are employed and own their own homes. Certainly they make less than they did before 2007, but everyone is doing fine. I wonder more specifically about people trying to start now. For example my niece just started at Imperial College in London. I wonder if things will have changed enough by the time she graduates that starting a career here will be an option for someone with her ambition or if she will end up living and working abroad.
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Aubrey-
Capital Group's thoughts on Syriza's financial plans
This is flying around the Greek media now. Couldn't say for sure that it is genuine, but it rings true as most of the things attributed to Syriza are actually part of their party platform they have been campaigning on for years now. I remember us all laughing about how it was complete nonsense when they first made progress in elections some years ago. A friend's brother who works somewhere in the finance world of London mentioned that his own group came back with similar opinions/findings.
Merry Xmas!
Merry Christmas, everyone!
happy holidays!
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I read a funny story that I thought I'd share, by virtue of some of you being British:
Douglas Adams tells what is probably the most British story ever:
This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I’d gotten the time of the train wrong. I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of biscuits. I went and sat at a table.
I want you to picture the scene. It’s very important that you get this very clear in your mind. Here’s the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of biscuits. There’s a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase. It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.
Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your biscuits.
You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn’t do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?
In the end I thought, Nothing for it, I’ll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a biscuit for myself. I thought, That settled him. But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another biscuit. Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice . . .” I mean, it doesn’t really work.
We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight biscuits, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away. Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my biscuits.
The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who’s had the same exact story, only he doesn’t have the punch line.
of the last bit of loot we got, i know i picked up the +1 keen falchion.
did we decide who got the +2 ring of protection? Nev mentioned being able to use it but a cursory scan of the posts doesnt seem to reveal a resolution to that end.