kinem's page

Outside of game terminology, 'arcane' (in its magic-related meaning) and 'occult' are basically synonyms - meaning magic from secret lore, while 'psychic' (magic from the mind) and 'occult' are not. Shouldn't arcane magic be what is 'occult', and not psychic magic?

Please send me a copy as well. Thanks!

Cool auction and cool background story.

One thing confuses me though: Lots of rich folks getting killed, but no mention of raising the dead. There may be restrictions on it in the oriental setting, perhaps a law against raising the loser of a duel for one, so it may work, but it seems like a big plot hole that should at least be explained. Thanks :)

On the original question, why don't you make them roll the stats using a method that doesn't produce really high ones too often, but allow them to roll up a new set if the total of their ability modifiers is too low? Set the cutoff a bit below whatever the characters you think are balanced have.

I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with any of those, as long as it's done well. There's nothing wrong with using the classics once in a while.

What I have a problem with is "Stop the summoning", where the PCs have to stop something (often not specified beyond "Use something with an epic CR") from being summoned by mad cultists.

I don't have many issues of Dungeon, but I have #114 (the one with Mad God's Key), and all three - all three - adventures in there use this plot device. Many of WotC's free adventures seem to use it as well. This is particularly bad because if world-ending summoning attempts happen so often, like in every single place the PCs happen to go, surely they must happen when the PCs are not around something like 100 times a day around the game world.