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For the record, I would appreciate just getting the word out about the flooding. Apparently it is not news worthy enough. On a different note, most of the rescues have been due to the Cajun Navy. We are use to helping our own. Thankfully FEMA has stayed out of the way of the rescues this time.
As one of those gamers from BR, I appreciate this. I was lucky in that water only got within four feet of my house. My parents - not so much. To put some of this in context, by all accounts I am 1/2 to 3/4 a mile from the recognized flood zone. Most of the people affect were due to backwater flooding up through the storm sewers. At last count 20,000 people had to be rescued from flooding homes. Half of those are in shelters. Death toll is currently at 7.
Unfortunately that is not always the case. Many SWAT teams are being used to serve warrants. Especially for "No knock" raids, but even "knock and announce" warrants are starting to fall to them. Edit: I will admit this case is unusual, but there was not need for a full raid. At least not the way it played out.
You can use metamagic with a spell completion item like a scroll or wand?A spellcaster can't use a metamagic feat to alter a spell being cast from a wand, scroll, or other device. You cannot use a metamagic feat as you cast a spell from a scroll or wand, but you can make an item with the metamagic effect. You would just create it at the higher spell level. For example, a scroll of maximized fireball would be a 6th level spell. Magic Items and Metamagic Spells: With the right item creation feat, you can store a metamagic version of a spell in a scroll, potion, or wand. Level limits for potions and wands apply to the spell's higher spell level (after the application of the metamagic feat). A character doesn't need the metamagic feat to activate an item storing a metamagic version of a spell.
Whether or not it's possible that such a creature exists, I find it perplexing that so many people *want* to believe in Bigfoot. The mysteries of the universe are virtually infinite; why spend so much time and energy looking for evidence of a probably fictional apeman? That is a good question. My wife was an anthropology major. She has long wondered if some of this may be a sort of racial memory (backed up by folklore and tales) of a creature that did exist at one time in prehistory.
The burden of proof is on accepting it as reality. Humans encroach EVERYWHERE, it is simply impossible for such a creature or the very least a cadaver not to be in our hands now if it was real. Actually it is quite possible. Planes have crashed in the Pacific Northwest that have never been located and new animal species are discovered all of the time around the world. Simply put, there are a lot of areas we think we know well, but not really mapped well. I am from Louisiana. According to Wildlife and Fisheries, there are no cougars in Louisiana. Yet, I know two people that have seen them. One of them has pictures of one on his land. Our swamps make create homes for such creatures, which likely migrated from Florida. Cougars are a known species, but according to experts they are not suppose to be in Louisiana. That is the reason I would like to see some actual research done on the subject.
Bob Heironimus, who had ties with Patterson-Gimlin, said that the video shows him in a suit. It looks fake. His gait matches well with the image in the video. Eyewitnesses say they saw the suit in his vehicle. He has passed two independent lie detector tests. If the only way to "completely debunk" the video is to produce the suit or to get Patterson and Gimlin to confess, it is possible that it will never be "completely debunked" regardless of the status of its validity. Thankfully we can disregard the idea of "completely debunked" if it is "debunked enough" that we feel reasonably confident. There is a reason lie detector test are not allow in court anymore, a truthful result does not guarantee the truth. That said, he is the leading candidate if it is a hoax. There are some issues with his description of the suit, but that does not rule out his story. Despite this, serious study by costume experts, digital film enhancement, and experts in the field of body mechanics have yet to rule the film out. This is what I find fascinating. Bigfoot has yet to be really studied in a scientific manner, but the film has on a number of occasions. The link I posted in a previous post is a good example. Scientifically, has not been debunked and so keeps being held up. It is not proof, though. I think it supports a more scientific study in the whole phenomena. Edited.
I am a skeptic (not a scoff-tic). The Patterson-Gimlin film has been studied numerous times and has yet to be completely debunked. I was simply stating that one piece of evidence that gets held up has not been debunked. That one piece of evidence is not proof. The quality is too poor to stand on its own. Proof has yet to come, but at the same time no serious study has been performed to look for such proof.
The burden of proof falls squarely on the people claiming that such a creature does exist. While I will agree with this statement, I feel that it should not be dismissed without serious study. I am a skeptic (not a scoff-tic). The Patterson-Gimlin film has been studied numerous times and has yet to be completely debunked. That does not mean it is not a fake, just that has yet to be proven one. One of the more interesting studies is located here: Munns Report Personally, I think most of the stories are based on prehistoric encounters that have carried over into to legend. Some more recent sightings may also be the result of misidentifying Native American shamanistic practices in some areas (a period of surviving in the wild without any man-made item). On a somewhat related note, what do any of you think of the Orang Pendek (or hobbit)? The locals have numerous tales regarding them, there are still reported sightings, and possible skeletal remains have been found.
Today they mentioned the next playtest package will go to 10th level and will rework, to some degree, backgrounds and specialties. this may relieve some of your concerns with the Bounty Hunter background. For myself, I am fine with the background as it stands. The Bounty Board is under the GM's control. You can always limit it to dangerous monsters or use it as a starting point for adventures (such as a bounty placed by a minor noble wanting to clear a ruined ancestral keep that was abandoned due to a family curse).
Actually, the wands in the playtest document can have multiple spells (think of them as mini-staves) with different charge requirements for the different spells. From what I remember, most of the wands require at least 2 charges to cast a single spell, so burning to zero is more likely after a recharge. A few, like the magic missile wand lets you burn 1-3 charges for 1-3 missiles. With the random recharge number, it is also possible in some cases to end up with a wand that cannot be used, but still has 1 charge in it. Edit: Clarified myself.
I stand corrected. It has been a while since i looked at my 1e DMG. Still, I know selling magic items was discouraged and 2e didn't put a gp cost to items to enforce that belief. Regardless, I did clarify what I was trying to say in a later post, so take that as you will.
I didn't say anything about 1st or 2nd edition. I mentioned the Forgotten Realms and Eberron settings, both of which have thriving magical item economies. For example the Cormyrian Goblinthrasher (+1 goblinoid bane longswords), War Wizards were commissioned to create many of these weapons for distribution among Purple Dragon knights and general sale, in order to create revenue for the country and improve morale. Scimitar of the Fool, (+1 scimitar) carried with it a -3 penalty to Will saves, favored by tyrants to give to their guard so they can be easily controlled. The way D&D:next has it, I'll be lucky to find a magical sword and probably required to carry it with me for all time because I can't find a "buyer". That isn't a sound philosophy for creating any sort of magical economy. The high number of magical items were not as common in the 1e/2e version of the realms. 3e changed that a lot. Ebberon, with the magical tech, does raise problems with the current 5e approach. As for the bounded accuracy, with the cap at +3 and no direct bonuses to attributes, this may not be so bad. It was never really an issue in 1e/2e, but then you did not have multiple added bonuses. It will be interesting to see how 5e deals with it.
I should have been clearer on a few points. I was really responding to the "there goes practically any reason to adventure" comment (and apparently did a poor job of it). In 1e/2e the rules did not support the selling of magic items. I personally allowed for it on occasion as a GM, but typically my players gifted the unwanted items to their church or to an NPC ally. Sometimes, they were used to barter for favors. The 1e DMG gave a gp value for magic items for the purpose of awarding treasure XP. In 2e, no prices existed for magic items as treasure was no longer given out. As a result any selling of magic items fell largely to the GM to determine. 5e seems to be going back to this. The playtest gives a price range for items based on rarity, but no hard price for any specific item.
Ah, 50% of Easy encounters will have a magic item amongst the loot. That really isn't scaling back in any noticeable way. Also, while I agree it wasn't routine to sell magic items in AD&D/BD&D, it also wasn't unheard of. Magic shops existed in several settings, to my certain knowledge. I cannot speak for Greyhawk, but I know the Forgotten Realms had no real magic shops beyond potion and scroll level. There may have been exceptions , such as the one mentioned to exist on the moon, but those were rare (and that one was really tied to Spelljammer). Planescape did have shops, but that helped balance that setting a bit. Even then, there were no hard prices for items. The GM largely decided what was available and for how much. As to 50% of easy encounters having magical items, are most of them common items (largely potions & scrolls)? I don't have my PDFs at works to look for myself. I also ask this, because I don't mind single use items being common magical treasure. However, if there is a chance for a rare item in an easy encounter, then something is wrong.
Its inaccurate to presume that there is a return to 1st or 2nd edition levels. If you actually take an adventure from back in the day, such as Keep on the Borderlands or Dragon's of Desolation (or pretty much any of them really) and convert it to 3rd or 4th edition one of the things you will have to do as a DM is make some serious cuts to both monetary and magic item treasure in order to stay within the modern editions wealth by level guidelines. Fair enough. Some modules were far worse than others when it came to magical treasure and it has been quite a few years since I looked over my 1e/2e modules. I do remember monetary treasure being huge, hence my comment about needing more options for spending non-magical treasure. I may have to pull out my old modules this weekend and see what the percentages are for disposable magical items compared to permanent magic items.
The thing that makes me mad the most is the assumed part about not being able to sell/buy magical items. And when/if you do or have a buyer, your NOT getting full price. Well gee, there goes practically any reason to adventure in the Forgotten Realms or Eberron where magical items is practically in every town in some form or another. :rollseyes:. Given that I have played since 1st edition, I would disagree with you. You could not sell magic items in either 1e or 2e. In both sets you typically gave unwanted items as gifts to npcs or kept them for situational uses. Regardless, the play test rules clearly state that they removed the assumption of gear from the power level equation. As it currently stands, magic items are not needed. This sounds like they intend to scale back the commonality of magic items to 1e/2e levels. This would mean more potions, scrolls, and one use items as magical treasure. The downside to this is that they need to give more options for what to spend non-magical treasure on.
So my question is: Will the players get to craft in 5e? My general sense is that magic items will be harder to make. They guidelines remove the magic shop economy and set rarity levels on items. Common items, such as potions and scrolls may be available for purchase, but more often than not, the creation of a magical item will require a quest to either find it, find someone that can make it, or as payment for having it made. To enforce this, the magic items have a price range based on rarity and not a hard number. Edit: Also, some magic items have to be attune to the user to get the full benefit (the holy avenger is an example of this) and a player can only have three items attuned at one time.
Both would be at the full +8 bonus. Natural attacks do not suffer a reduction in attack bonus for each successive attack. Ninja'd
That would be fair, though if you can't see the doorknob on the other side how do you know it's there? You can assume there is one and order the servant to turn the knob. If there isn't one, or if the door is barred or locked, the order won't do you any good. You may still need other spells to be able to direct the servant once it is behind a closed door.
I would argue that they have to have a line of effect. Not necessarily a straight line, but the caster needs to at least be able to see the doorknob in question without arcane eye or what not. I would place line of effect to where the unseen servant appears. You don't have to target the lock for the spell to work. That said, I would likely require a perception check by the caster, who is trying to look under the door, the place unseen servant where it needs to be. Keep in mind, by RAW, line of effect needs to be unobstructed. A closed window blocks line of effect in most cases (lightning bolt being a good example of an exception).
Based on Comic con info, it looks like less of a Marvel reboot and more of a reorganizing of titles and in-universe alliances to create a new starting point for people. There seems to be no real change in history.
I saw somewhere that season 2 is going to take place both in Republic City and the surrounding area, so it looks like some traveling may occur.
I seem to remember Nickelodeon not picking up the second season option until after the show started airing. If so, season was likely written to be self contained in case there was no season 2.
Yeah, Dwarves apparently get a damage increase with axes and hammers. I am wondering how different Hill Dwarves and Mountain Dwarves are going to be. They seem to get a different attribute bump (based on speculation on the WOTC boards).
So, apparently there's some favored class mechanic, one benefit of which is potentially gaining an increase in hit die type if the class is favored? Curious, I don't really know what to think of it. One average it is 1 extra hit point per level (5.5 vs. 6.5)
The mechanics is actually not that different from the surgery rules in d20 modern or the Reserve Points rule in Unearthed Arcana, both of which are OGL.
For those that are interested in trench layouts, check out the Landships website. The site mostly deals with WWI tanks, but the have a good gallery of WWI trench schematics and bunkers.
You might want to check out this thread as well: Trench warfare: a magic warzone Edit: As to running a trench battle, flyers can act as spotters. This was the original purpose of aircaft in WWI. With casters on the ground acting as artillery (fireball), flyers are not a big threat unless it is a big beast (dragon) or a mass of flyers.
Ghost are an interesting option, because they can be of any alignment. If you have living survivors, you might have a good or neutral ghost serving as a protector, one the living may even be afraid of. I am reminded of the intro to the AD&D Forgotten Realms product, Lords of Darkness. It tells of a paladin of Torm riding into a village in the dark of night banging on his sheild to warn them of an approaching horde of goblins and such. He then turns back toward the horde as the villagers rush to set up defenses. The battle lasts through the night with the goblins fleeing as dawn breaks. It is at this time that the villagers get a good look at their savior. Old wounds mark the paladin's body, dead flesh sagging from bones. As he witnesses the looks of horror, he mounts his skeletal horse and rides away.
The clockwork goliath can serve this function too. If you include counter trenching (digging trenches toward the opponent's earthworks to make charging easier - which likely continued under undead hands), then you end up with a maze of tunnels, trencehes, bunkers, and observation post/platforms that are all interconnected. The land inbetween could be full of roaming constructs like the clockwork goliath waiting for someone to pop up. Specific locations could even have haunts keyed to the events of whatever conflict was fought there.
Dot? It means marking the thread for future reference. The thread shows up with a dot beside it because you have posted in it.
From what I can garner, the rules never said that natural weapons do not count as weapons for this ability. However, in the case of contact poisons, simply touching the poison would make you susceptible. Perhaps this ability is merely a way to protect against contact poisons? I believe, as a general rule, natural attacks and unarmed strikes are not considered to be weapons. This is the reason the monk class specifically calls out its unarmed strikes as counting as both manufactured weapons and natural weapons. A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.
Monsters with PC levels also get a favored class bonus? Also, Do non PC class levels, such as aristocrat, expert, etc., receive maximum HPs on their first level? As far as I can tell, favored class bonus applies for all PC classes. NPC classes do not get a favored class bonus, nor to they get max hit points at 1st level.
The easy way is to use a bolt retaining spring. It is curved piece of metal that the bolt slides under. It puts enough pressure to get the bolt in place, but not enough to prevent it from firing. It is fairly common in modern crossbows, but is not a new idea. I have a paramilitary style crossbow (effectively a light crossbow with a pistol grip) that can retain the bolt under pretty much any condition.
There really isn't any need to... the bulk of the damage for the hand crossbow is intended to come from precision dice and/or poison. It's not intended to be a brute force weapon like it's bigger cousins. True, but the d6 damage has encourged some of my players to use them for more than sell fodder. Of course making it a cheaper and a simple weapon can do that too.
From what I understand, the weapon was historically used by assassins and bodyguards during the Renaissance. The weapons could be easily concealed under a cloak and used to deliver poison from short range or shoot an attacker before they could close on the target. The weapon does not do a lot of damage as it lacks the force of standard crossbows. That said, as a house rule, I up the damage to 1d6. That sets a nice damage range for the crossbows from 1d6 (hand) to 1d8 (light) to 1d10 (heavy) and puts the weapon on par with a shortbow.
Mystery race looks like a spider to me. Agreed. It looks like it has eight limbs, mandibles, and what looks to be spinnerets.
The blue box basic set was the first of the basic box sets. That is the set I started with before moving to AD&D. Some of the later blue box sets included module B2 instead of B1. A friend of mine had that one.
You are not the only one.
Dot for future reference.
Well you can alway go with the Caitians from Star Trek (who, according the Larry Niven, are related to the Kzinti).
In addition to many already mentioned, I will also add the Aslan race from the Traveller RPG, which first came out in 1977. The Aslan from Traveler and the Rakasta from D&D influenced a homebrew catfolk race of mine from many years back called the K'Tarren (Sing. K'Tarra). One of these days, I am going to update the setting and use it as more than an exercise in planning. This was the inital background blurb I did for the race: K’Tarren are a race of feline humanoids. They are covered in short, soft fur that ranges in color from light tan to dark brown, though white, black, and dark red are not unheard of. The ears and muzzle typically have a darker hue that tends to lighten as they age. K’tarren possess piercing cat-like eyes, with vertical pupils, and tails that are nearly four feet in length. K’tarren are expert seafarers and ship builders. They are a proud and emotional race, possessing a strong sense of honor relating to clan, family, and self. They show great bravery and tenacity in battle, and boost openly of their deeds. They are extremely interested in the world at large and this translates into a wanderlust that demands they explore and experience all things for themselves. K’tarren speak K’tar, an old language unrelated to any other. It does not use the script of the Common tongue, but is instead composed of ideograms that can have different meanings based on how the symbols are used in a sentence.
You might find some answers in the construction of real world underground cities like Kaymakl Underground City, Derinkuyu Underground City, and Özkonak Underground City.
The Earthdawn game plays with this. Humans live scattered around in a number of cities and villages, but most of the major cities are controlled by non-humans. You even have the Dwarf Kingdom of Throal as the major power in the region. The main "bad guy" kingdom was an elven-ruled kingdom with a huge number of humans as military support.
My wife uses that feat when she is sick. Given that she has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is trained in Krav Magav, there have been a few times that I have just given her the bed and slept on the couch. It is less painful and I don't have to defend myself in my sleep.
Dot. I will have to look these over when I get home.
I will second Kingmaker. A number of the encounters can be handled by combat or through roleplaying. It is also easy to add roleplaying situations to the AP. I have added a few RP encounters to foreshadow future events.
I once used the amalgam template to create minons for a evil wizard that fused villagers to ogre skeletons. The villagers were still alive and could speak, but had no control over the creature.
I remember an adventure called Tallow's deep, from dungeon 18. We were about levels 7-9 then, but the monsters got us running. I think it was goblins, not kobolds, but they were just as nasty. And had lots of small corridors, of the kind in which you could not cast an old-fashioned 1st level fireball... If that is the one I am thinking off, I played it. A bunch of plain goblins were slaughtering our 8th level party until we figure out how to bypass the trapped filled main corridor. Even then it was a tough fight and gave me some respect of weak creatures using good tactics. |
