Carnivorous_Bean's page

Using an alchemist as a villain in a recent Pathfinder session (during which the players managed to totally avoid him and set him up to be taken out by someone else -- and did it very plausibly, so I couldn't find a loophole in their reasoning or arranging to let me set up a fight between him and them instead ;)!), an odd question came up.

The question is - how loud is the alchemist's bomb when it goes off?

My contention was that it was more of a dull "whoomph" sound, more combustion than explosion, so I had a 'practice room' in the alchemist's house where he set off his bombs to experiment, train, etc.

The players, however, contended that it should be a loud, grenade-like bang going off, and thought he should have been detected earlier by the people living nearby.

Although I DM-fiated that it's a 'whoomph' sound (especially since they never fought him anyway, so who cares ;)?), it does raise an interesting question. Just how loud are the alchemist's abilities? Is the whole dungeon full of monsters going to be alerted by the sound of an alchemical bomb? With the wind right, are you going to potentially hear the bangs a couple of miles away outdoors, or are they only going to be audible from close by (and perhaps not easily identified even then)?

It seems like it might be a fairly important question in a lot of adventuring situations. Any thoughts?

Well, I've got another oddity to deal with -- this one on someone else's computer, so I can't give you the full details, much as I'd like to.

The problem is that when they view their folders, the computer won't show them thumbnails of their files even when the folder is in "Thumbnail View." It's making it almost impossible for them to find the photographs they need out of the hundreds they have stored -- there is just a generic icon appearing for every file, showing a palm tree, of all things.

They can only tell what a file is by opening it -- since a file name like "Photo 567" doesn't tell them what the picture is of. And with a lot of files, that's a LOT of opening to find one specific file.

The other odd thing is that they have IrfanView on their computer, and have had it with no problems for over a year. Now, every file is being listed as "Irfanview JPG file" or "Irfanview GIF file" or whatever, when they mouse over it, even when they're not using IrfanView in any way, shape or form.

They've posted it on some tech sites, but they also asked me for help, and since, as I pointed out, I'm pretty ignorant of how computers actually work, here's another Bean cry for help! =) Thanks in advance for anyone who has any hint of what to do!

Okay, I'm only a passable computer user -- I admit it. I can type up a polished document in Word, I can surf the Internet pretty easily, and I play a mean game of WoW ;).

But when it comes to the technical aspects, I'm like a driver who can drive their car well, but has no idea how the thing actually works, or how to fix it when something goes wrong.

So, I'm going to post a plea for help here in the hopes that some kind Paizonian will drop a helpful hint or two my way. Please!

THE PROBLEM: I've been sent an .xls file by a client, who needs to have the information I've typed up for them (my travel writing, in case you're curious) put into the file in the appropriate columns.

Now, I have Quattro Pro 12 and I can create, open, and edit my own .xls documents. However, when I try to open the client's document, I get the following error message (this is exactly what it says):

Error reading a file: C:\Documents and Settings\Carnivorous Bean\Desktop\Assignment 3 Folder\afukdestinations.xls

(I put in Carnivorous Bean in place of my real name ;) ....)

So, does anyone have any idea what is going on? I did a complete reinstall of Quattro Pro and it didn't help.

Well, I finally broke down and bought the PDFs of the Core Rulebook and the Bestiary.

And now I can't download them a chapter at a time.

The Bestiary, for example offers me the choice of downloading it as a 49 MB file, or a 60 MB file. Given the creaky nature of my Internet connection, I was hoping to get the books in slightly smaller chunks.

The core rulebook "by chapters" download is showing as a single 148 MB file.

Anyone have any idea what's going on here?

Well, a few odd things are going on here tonight at Bean Manor, so I thought I'd share in case someone has some insights on whether I'm overreacting or underreacting to them .... or just wants to hear a slightly strange tale of inexplicable human behavior ....

I live out in the wilds of northern Wisconsin, about 2 miles from town and 1 mile from the next house, on a gravel road. A pretty, peaceful area. Hardly anyone comes down my road other than the postman and a couple of people who live even further down it, all of whom I know.

I was sitting here tonight at my computer, typing an e-mail and thinking no evil, when I heard a car with a not-too-good muffler coming up the driveway. I looked out and saw the headlights coming up the driveway, which is pretty long.

As soon as the curtains opened, and my head could be seen looking out through the gap, the car's driver threw it into reverse, backing down the driveway recklessly enough to back into one of my bushes. They went into forward gear, drove out of the bush, then backed down onto the road and drove off towards town.

About 10 minutes later, I heard a car coming -- one with a not-too-good muffler. It slowed, stopped, pulled into my driveway, and drove up it. I turned out the lights this time and looked out -- I could dimly see it was a fairly new-looking midsize car, probably dark blue or dark grey. I think there were 2 people in it. As soon as it got up parallel to the house, it went into reverse, backed slowly down the driveway, pulled onto the road, and drove off towards town again, but I couldn't tell if it left or rolled to a stop a little way up the road.

This time, I turned out all the lights, got my pepper spray, a big flashlight, and a camera with a flash on it. I crept outside quietly, knowing that my dogs would prevent anyone except me from coming in, or at least from coming in without a noisy melee. I walked around the house silently, first, to see if there were any prowlers. Then I went down parallel to the driveway, keeping to the bushes, and looked out at the road. All was quiet.

So I sat down between two bushes and waited with my camera.

Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, a car with a bad muffler came down the road. It didn't pull in this time, but it sounded like it went down to the next side road and turned off on it.

And since then, it's driven past about every 10 minutes, 3 or 4 times now. I didn't get a good look at it, but I can tell it's not a car anyone on this road drives. And if it was someone from this road, why the rapid retreat when I opened the curtain to look out?

It could be someone lost .... but in that case, why on Earth don't they come up to the door and ask for directions if they're looking for directions? I mean, a neat house with a mowed lawn and flowerbeds isn't too daunting .... it's not like they were greeted by a rusty metal shack with bullet holes in the walls or something!

Any thoughts? Am I just overreacting in thinking it's vaguely sinister?

Looking at the magical armor and shields section in Pathfinder, I have to wonder what use spell resistance could conceivably be to anyone, the way it's presented.

The highest SR for armor is 19, equivalent to a +5 bonus. This is going to be worn by high-level characters exclusively -- exactly where it will be absolutely ineffective.

Consider a character wearing SR 19 armor at 18th level confronting an 18th level caster NPC. The roll to overcome SR is caster level + 1d20. Therefore, the minimum roll of a level-equivalent character is 19, enough to AUTOMATICALLY overcome the best armor SR in the game.

Does anyone else agree that SR is abysmally weak for the bonus equivalent that has to be sunk into it?

I was thinking idly about the problems of high level play last night, and it occured to me that one of the problems might be the size of bonuses (BAB, etc.) relative to the possible range of rolls on a d20.

In other words, the possible results on a d20 range from 1-20, which means that each 1 point in a roll represents 5% of the possible range. When you have a +20 bonus, that represents 100% of a possible d20 roll. Even a +15 bonus represents 75% -- a huge reduction of random variance, and thus a corresponding reduction in 'hit chance' on difficult rolls, and 'miss chance' on easy ones.

These are colossal fixed modifiers to a random roll. At 20th level, that means a BAB of 20 represents a +100% bonus to any die roll, for example -- and that's without strength modifiers, magic item bonuses, etc. etc.

Is part of the 'swinginess' of high level play -- the tendency of those who win initiative to win, for example -- due to the excessive size of the fixed modifiers making the random roll pretty much trivial? The exploding fixed modifiers seem to help create a binary situation in which some rolls are simply impossible, while others are inevitable. And this problem seems to me to be traceable, at least in large part, to the huge size of fixed modifiers relative to the random part of the roll.

Another way to look at it is that the d20 roll becomes a far lesser part of the total roll, percentage-wise. For example, when there is +5 fixed modifier, the d20 roll accounts for 80% of the possible range of numbers. Up it to a +40 fixed modifier, and the d20 roll is only 33% of the possible range of numbers.

What if the progression for stuff like BAB didn't go from +1 to +20, but stopped at +5 and then added iterative attacks? For example, a progression like +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, +5/+1, +5/+2, +5/+3, +5/+4, +5/+5, +5/+5/+1, etc., up to a maximum of +5/+5/+5+/+5 at 20th level? And the game was recalibrated so that the d20 roll itself remained at least 50% of any total roll?

I recently downloaded a copy of Beta, and I like many of the features therein, after seeing the system as modified so far.

However, what's holding me back from buying a print copy (which is, technically, what I need to try to run an actual game with these rules) is the fact that the book is printed in China. I have an intense dislike for buying books made by People's Liberation Army sweatshops/slave factories, or anything else made in such a manner, for that matter. In fact, I've sworn to never buy something made in China again unless it's crucial to the health and wellbeing of someone in my family, and there's no American-made alternative.

So, is there any remote chance that Beta might appear on Lulu.com so that those of us who have qualms about such matters can purchase a print version through them?

Since this apparently didn't post the first time, I would like to request the cancellation of order #504956 and a refund of the payment for said order. Thank you very much!

I would like to cancel order #504956 for the Pathfinder RPG.

I received an e-mail months ago notifying me that this order had been cancelled. However, it was apparently not, and I was just charged for it, although the charges are still pending.

Thanks very much for your assistance!

Well, I wavered back and forth for a while, and there are still things that I'm going to heavily houserule for 4th (specifically, non-combat skills -- I want more of them, not less). But some things have finally gotten to me and I'm off.

1. Upper levels still look hellish in Pathfinder. Since I usually DM, the idea of suffering through all those modifiers and cross-references for a monster that's going to die anyway is just too much.

2. The mess of iterative attacks is still there. Ugh.

3. Spellcasters are still going to reduce the melee classes to sidekicks. And worse, the fighter is still as boring to play as a brick. "I miss, I hit, I miss, I hit." Yech.

4. Vancian casting is still haunting the scene. Enough said on that point.

5. Exception-based design is a lot better than the 'rules depict everything' design, IMO. I like the idea that there might be non-human magical traditions which can cast spells that humans can't -- and that can't cast spells which humans can -- for example. And it's damn fast to whip up an opponent, too.

6. And this is the real kicker that finally pushed me over the edge -- 4th edition, it turns out, is being printed in the U.S., while Pathfinder is being printed in China. If given a choice, I will support a company which supports American families rather than the People's Liberation Army slave-labor sweatshop factories.

Have fun with Pathfinder.