Roll for Initiative

Pathfinder Minis: A Review

2012-01-20T09:18:00.002-07:00

Since Wizards of the Coast's Harbinger set quietly surfaced on the shelves of the Sentry Box back in 2003, I have been actively collecting all sorts of gaming miniatures and coincidently hemoraging cash from my bank account. After collecting nearly every single miniature from the D&D minis line, most of the Axis and Allies minis, many of the Star Wars minis and hundreds of Reaper and Rackham miniatures, I now humbly consider myself an authority of 28mm collectable minis.

Pathfinder Minis came out recently. Obviously, I was obliged to buy a case. Here is what I think of Pathfinder Battles: Heros and Monsters from Paizo:

Good Stuff:

1. Only 40 minis to collect. I like smaller sets. They are easier to complete.
2. The plastic is nice and hard. There was little 'floopy-dong' syndrome that plagued D&D minis.
3. Some of the painjobs are quite good. The Lich is particularily good.
4. Great distribution in a case. If you buy one case, you will most likely get the entire set. There seemed to be a really good small-to-medium ration.
5. Nice details in the muscles on many of the creatures like the minotaur, ettin and ogre.

Bad Stuff:

1. Price. These little suckers are expensive. A booster pack is around 4 bucks. A booster comes with one or two minis. A large booster is around 6 bucks with one mini. WOTC's stuff was far cheaper than this.
2. Packaging. Holy crabapples, the packaging weighed 4 times as much as the minis. Seriously, for one single mini, there is a full color box and large plastic insert. The way Paizo packaged this stuff will surely fuel any pro-green organizations out there.
3. Sculpts are a little shakey for some. The wings on the chimera and on the manticore were very poorly done. My manticore actually came with two left wings.
4. The look of the monsters. I really hate most of the artwork from the Pathfinder Bestiaries. Some of the minis are exact duplicates of the crappy artwork in the book.

I suppose this set was better than the first set that Wizards put out 9 years ago, but Heroes and Monsters still pale in comparrison to most WOTC sets. Rackham sets are still far better than any of the prepainted minis sets that have been put out so far.
I have hope for Paizo, though. This is their first set. Just like Wizards, Paizo's future sets are sure to become much better as they continue to release stuff.

3 out of 5 stars.

A Tale of Two Gaming Stores

2012-01-16T09:40:00.006-07:00

Most of my adult life has been spent in two major Canadian cities, Montreal and Calgary. The former is the cultural and financial centre of French-Canada, with a laid-back, fun-loving style. Montrealers play much harder than they work. Hockey and politics have replaced Roman Catholicism as the religions of choice for most of its residents. Montreal is very cosmopolitain and more than a little decadent. If jazz and sex are your pleasure, Montreal is your town. Americans might compare it to New Orleans, with much harsher winters.

Calgary is the home of Canada's oil industry. An island of concrete and suburbia surrounded by a sea of ranchlands and canola fields within sight of the Canadian Rockies. Calgarians play hard too, but they work even harder. Climbing the corporate ladder and owning the biggest, most gas-guzzling, all-wheel drive monstrosity you can buy are what it's all about. Calgarians may be more concerned with padding their portfolios than discussing Sartre over a pitcher of sangria at their favourite terrasse, but their capitalist ways go a long way toward funding the "joie-de-vivre" of Montreal. If skiing and rodeo are your pleasure, Calgary is your town. Americans might compare Calgary to Denver, with only slightly harsher winters.

Both Montreal and Calgary are blessed with truly awesome gaming cultures. French-Canadians love games and there's a fascination with the occult and New Age philosophy that is clearly evident. This is reflected in Montreal's most famous gaming store, the incomparable Le Valet d'Coeur. Though by no means spacious, the gaming mecca of Rue St. Denis is packed to the ceiling with gaming goodness. How they manage to jam in so many titles (in both English and French) is a mystery to me. I'm sure there's a little sorcery involved. In keeping with French sensibilities, they also have a lot of stuff you probably wouldn't find in most gaming stores. Occult supplies, tarot decks, crystal and pewter figurines, puzzles and other odds and ends are displayed throughout the store. Still, role-playing games, collectible card games and miniatures are their bread-and-butter and every trip to Le Valet d'Coeur is a feast for the hungry gamer.

Not to be outdone, Calgary has its own pilgrimage site for gamers, the awesome Sentry Box. Far larger than its Quebecois counterpart, the Sentry Box is unlike anything I've ever seen in Canada. It's inventory of role-playing games, CCGs, wargames and fantasy and sci-fi novels is unmatched. Even more impressive (if that's possible) is the amount of space available for gaming. Weekends at the Box are like mini gaming conventions, with 6-8 tables active at any one time. Miniatures games like Warhammer are particularly popular, making the gaming area a cool place to hang out and watch the proceedings. Workshops on miniature painting are also frequent. Now don't think the Sentry Box is some corporate store with whitewashed floors and immaculate displays, it's not. It's a bit cluttered, the stairs creak, the shelves sag, and dust can sometimes collect on the less popular corners of the place. It is truly a mom-and-pop operation and it's fantastic.

-Rognar-

What do I want from D&D 5?

2012-01-12T13:04:00.003-07:00

The short answer is nothing. Now that's not to say I wouldn't play it under any circumstances. I can certainly conceive of the possibility of D&D 5e being a more enjoyable gaming experience than Pathfinder and, if that were the case, I might be inclined to switch. However, I know what the parameters are for the redesign of D&D and they don't excite me. WotC has tried to slaughter a few sacred cows since taking over TSR, but despite the protests of the more vocal critics to the contrary, in my opinion, they've mostly been cosmetic changes. Feats and skills add some complexity, but the fundamentals are intact, hit points, armour class, class-and-level character design and advancement. It's all still there, it's all uniquely D&D and it's all untouchable. Whether the next iteration of D&D looks more like BECMI or D&D 3.x or AD&D is largely irrelevent to me because all those versions of the same game still exist and they all share the same flaws in my mind. Here's the thing though. I don't think D&D 5e should change a thing. Ok, they should change a few things, but they are mostly superficial. D&D is what it is, warts and all, and if they can "Unite the Clans", that's great. But with what I consider to be far superior games like Legend, BRP and Traveller out there, it's hard to get too excited about ascending vs. descending AC or whether dwarves can be wizards.

-Rognar-

The Latest A&A Minis

2012-01-12T12:59:00.003-07:00

Hi, my name is Derrobane-bane and I am a plasti-holic.

I'm not sure what to make of this new set of WOTC Axis and Allies minis that is supposed to come out next month. They are sure to be obscenely overpriced, to have floppy propellers and wings and they are sure to have paint jobs that my 6 year old daughter could easily trump in quality. Still, there are only 30 randomized minis in this new set which means I would spend only half a fortune collecting them all as opposed to a full-on fortune. The game is supposed to be a new independant A&A minis game that is fully compatible with the old army minis game.

With my latest case of minis coming in from Paizo, these new A&A minis may have me back on the plastic-meth train that took me the last 36 months to get clean from. May the gaming gods have mercy on my addicted soul.

To no-one's surprise...

2012-01-09T11:06:00.003-07:00

WotC has announced the upcoming release of D&D 5e. Learning a lesson from Paizo, they are going with a playtest. Good for them. I wish them all the best and if they make a game that's better than Pathfinder, who knows, we might even play it. The addition of Monte Cook to the design team certainly adds to my level of interest in the project.

Don't expect to see much from WotC on your store shelves in the next 18 months.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on superheroes

2012-01-06T23:35:00.002-07:00

I've fallen a bit behind in my blogging, what with the holidays and all, so here's a double shot of SomethingAwful.com from Zack and Steve as they explore the Marvel Superheroes and Heroes Unlimited games:

Heroes Unlimited: Villains Unlimited

Marvel Superheroes

-Rognar-

Hey, the OSR won.....something! I guess

2012-01-06T23:08:00.005-07:00

Some self-described members of the old-school renaissance (revolution, revival,...whatever it is) have declared victory. I didn't even know there was a game on, but apparently we're on the losing side. At least I think it's us, (i.e. non-OSR gamers), since it's not clear what the rules of the game are or even who's playing. Now, it would seem to me, a clear victory condition for the OSR would be for WotC to re-release all the older edition pdfs, but that hasn't happened. According to the "winners", the victory results from the release of the D&D Essentials red box and the fact that Mike Mearls likes old-school D&D. Well, I guess you take your wins wherever you can get 'em. Of course, before they pop the champagne corks, they should recall that WotC just hired Monte Cook. Remember, he's was one the main guys behind D&D 3e, the game the grognards used to complain about before D&D 4e came along. If the OSR guys think D&D 5e is going to be 1974 all over again, I think they're in for a surprise. There are certainly some admirable qualities to the DIY mindset of the OSR, but it doesn't give them much influence as far as the business of rpgs is concerned. Nobody is going to market a game to you if all you intend to do is praise it. Approval won't cover the payroll.

-Rognar-

Monsters for Christmas

2012-01-03T14:49:00.006-07:00

This past year's Christmas haul of gaming goodness was certainly smaller than previous years. Sadly, there simply isn't much new product these days that catches my fancy. However, it wasn't a total loss as I scored two books of monsters, the Pathfinder Bestiary 3 and Monsters of Legend. Although the two books are of a similar theme, they couldn't be more different in design. Paizo's third monster book is typical of all the Pathfinder hardcovers, high-gloss, lavishly-illustrated and weighty. Production values are first-rate and the price (around $40) is reasonable. Perhaps more so than in previous bestiaries, B3 has a theme, or more accurately, a couple of themes that govern its content. One of these is Asian influence, particularly East and South Asian. There are new races of outsiders, such as Asuras and Divs which clearly exhibit a strong South Asian flavour, not to mention a variety of new Rakshasas. Likewise, representing East Asian cultures, there are Foo creatures, a whole slew of new Onis, and the introduction of Imperial Dragons. The second theme is that of misfit monsters. Many of the despised and forgotten beasts from editions past have been given a new coat of paint. In most cases, these atrocities should have been left dead and buried. I am no more enamoured with the Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing, Flumph and Flail Snail now than I was way back when.

Now, I'm not much for the Asian stuff and there is a fair bit of silliness in B3, but there's enough cool stuff in there to satisfy me. Clockworks are awesome and I hope to see more in future releases. I also like how they have expanded the Kyton with a bunch of new variants. They are serious nightmare fuel now. The Cthulhu Mythos gets some more love with the inclusion of the Moon-Beast, Zoog and Yithian (aka Great Race of Yith), and best of all, the Demilich rises again.

Monsters of Legend is a digest-sized, softcover costing about half as much as B3. Not every monster is illustrated and what illustrations do exist are black and white. Anyone who owns MRQII Monster Coliseum has seen it all before, including the artwork. Though much less impressive than the Bestiary 3, MoL is a handy little tome. All the Glorantha-specific entries have been removed and what's left are the standard beasties every fantasy world demands, elves, dwarves, trolls, orcs, ogres, giants, dragons, etc. The entries are brief and focused. Even the entry on dragons is a single page. I consider this ideal for a generic fantasy game because it leaves lots of room for the DM to decide things like ecology and social structure. For a mere $20, you get over a hundred pages of monsters. Good deal.

-Rognar-

Arms of Legend - a test for Mongoose

2011-12-15T13:42:00.002-07:00

Mongoose has always been a bit of an enigma as far as gaming companies go. They have some great writing and truly creative game design, but they are often hobbled by some really spotty editing. One classic example of sloppy editing was the Arms & Equipment book for MRQII. Most consider it to be the worst of the MRQII books, although Necromantic Arts is a close second. Well, in January, Mongoose is coming out with Arms of Legend, which is obviously a re-release of Arms & Equipment, as it is written by Lawrence Whitaker, the original author of A&E and no longer employed at Mongoose. This represents a golden opportunity to make amends for past mistakes and do a proper job of editing. I am cautiously optimistic, although that optimism is tempered somewhat by the fact they repeatedly refer to the new release as "Arms & Equipment" on the website. It's a small thing, but that lack of attention to detail is troubling.

-Rognar-

Traditional Xmas bloodletting at WotC

2011-12-15T11:01:00.003-07:00

You have to be a real glutton for punishment to work for WotC. Every year around this time, the Christmas layoff notices get dropped off to undeserving game designers and their families. This year, it's longtime employees, Rich Baker and Steve Winter. I understand how business works and sometimes costs have to be cut, but guys like Baker and Winter bring something to the table that some nameless desk jockey in accounting never will, creativity. That's worth more than a few dollars on a spreadsheet. I suspect much of the decline in the quality of WotC's products results from the annual loss of talent and the inevitable drop in morale that follows.

-Rognar-

Legend for a buck

2011-12-02T13:24:00.003-07:00

I make no bones about it, I consider RuneQuest II by Mongoose to be the finest game design in the entire tabletop rpg industry. I know those who prefer a less simulationist style of game will rise in protest, but for my money, MRQII is the best. So now, with Mongoose cutting loose from Issaries and releasing its game engine under its new Legend brand, it's only fitting that they release the corebook with a splash. The pdf is being sold for $1 at DriveThruRPG. So, go get it! Now!

Special note to my group, at some point I will definitely run this game, even if it's just with my daughters and a few of their favourite plush toys. If you want in, now is the best time to own this game.

-Rognar-

My reading project continues, pt.2

2011-11-28T11:37:00.011-07:00

As my gaming exile continues, my effort to read all the sci-fi classics that I have missed proceeds according to schedule. This month, I have finished two '50s-era novels which couldn't be more different, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.

Certainly the more literary of the two offerings, A Canticle for Leibowitz chronicles a thousand years of history as it relates to a monastery in the American southwest centuries after a global nuclear war. Divided in three parts, corresponding approximately to the Dark Ages, the Renaissance and the Modern era, the book explores the cyclical nature of history and the conflict between faith and reason. While not exactly a page-turner, Canticle is clearly an important work in science-fiction. Many of the tropes we've come to expect in the post-apocalyptic genre were clearly articulated first in this book. Interestingly, A Canticle for Leibowitz was the only novel Miller published in his lifetime. A follow-up, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman was released posthumously, nearly four decades later.

Asimov's I, Robot is more appropriately described as a short story anthology, although each story is presented in a linear chronology as a complete narrative through the reminiscences of a "robopsychologist" who participated in most of the events described. The narrative basically describes the history of robotics from the humble beginnings in the late 20th-century to a time in which robots basically run everything in the latter half of the 21st-century. Like Canticle, I, Robot is somewhat dated and, at times, a bit of a dry read. One amusing "Austin Powers" moment arose when the main character, fearing a rogue robot which had somehow broke out of its programming was hiding among a shipment of some 60 identical robots, recommended that the entire shipment be destroyed. Others in the company argued against it as it would cost the company TWO MILLION DOLLARS! So, in about 20 years the unit cost of a sentient robot will be roughly on par with a base model minivan. Still, I, Robot is, without question, an influential book, and if you can get past the fact that Wil Smith is prominently displayed on the cover these days (mercifully, it bears little resemblance the film), it's worth a read.

-Rognar-

A Pathfinder MMO....bold move or suicidal overreach?

2011-11-22T21:28:00.005-07:00

As the gaming world breathlessly awaits what is grinding away behind closed doors at WotC, Paizo is taking advantage of the deafening silence to make some big moves. There was the release of the well-received Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box and now this! Now I know precisely squat about the business of online gaming, so others may correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume launching a new MMO would be the type of project that requires insane amounts of money. Paizo is a pretty big fish in a small pond, but they don't have Hasbro to bankroll their adventures. I wish them luck.

-Rognar-

Adventure Paths

2011-11-09T16:17:00.002-07:00

Someone at the gaming table said something last weekend which echoed in my head. "I have this great idea for a character..." I have this problem all of the time. Pathfinder has so many options, many of them sound cool and there are tons that I'd like to try out. The problem is that we tend to play Adventure Paths. They take 6 months to a year to finish and we usually play one character for the duration. Kingmaker was close to a year and near the middle many of us introduced a second character to act as the "B" team when our original PCs were busy running the kingdom. Mainly this developed because we wanted to try other classes.

As we are currently just starting Book 2 of Carrion Crown, I expect us to be playing this campaign for at least another 2-3 months even though I intend to end things at Book 3. I've noticed the last couple adventure paths, the PCs have either been largely unaware of the meta plot or just haven't cared. If this is the case, why not just run Modules or the more self contained AP parts? We could play more characters, and let our ADD shine through. Derobane can play even more crazy characters.

Just tossing that out there.

My reading project continues

2011-11-01T11:45:00.004-06:00

I have finally completed the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, all 2300 pages of it. I won't go into details of the story, as there is a thorough synopsis on Wikipedia for anyone who is interested. However, I will say that I enjoyed the first two books, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion more than the last two, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion. Although comprising four books, the Hyperion Cantos is really two novels, each released in two parts. The two novels are separated in narrative time by almost three centuries. I would say that the first pair is pretty near perfect. The characters are deep and compelling and the story is impossible to set aside once you have immersed yourself in it. I simply couldn't put it down.

I can't say the second novel was quite as good. It was almost 300 pages longer than the first and it really felt like it. I confess that I didn't read the second book completely in the order in which it was written. About a third of the way through the second book (which would be the fourth book overall), I was beginning to feel so bogged down by what seemed a rather repetitive and overwritten plot about the messiah-like figure Aenea spreading her message and fleeing her pursuers that I skipped ahead and read the ending first. I did eventually return to where I'd left off and read the entire book, but upon completion, I never felt those initially skipped pages added much more to the narrative. I would suggest the author could have probably dispensed with a couple of hundred pages and not harmed the novel in any way. Having said all that, the entire series was extremely well-written and well-worth reading.

So, next on the agenda, I have the following titles queued up and ready to go:

A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
I, Robot - Isaac Asimov (yes, surprisingly, I've never read it)
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolf
A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge

I'll definitely need to take a break after that.

-Rognar-

Rappan Athuk for Pathfinder

2011-10-27T11:43:00.003-06:00

I never played the classic original megadungeon for D&D 3.5, even though I did buy the pdfs for a song a while back. That may change next year as Frog God Games has announced that Rappan Athuk will be released for Pathfinder in 2012. The release is described thusly:

Weighing in with over 50 dungeon levels and dozens of wilderness areas, Rappan Athuk will be released next summer as a hardbound, library-stitched book in both Pathfinder and Swords and Wizardry formats. The book contains 18 more levels even than Rappan Athuk Reloaded, as well as the outdoor adventures supporting them. I am also working on a leather cover (or faux leather) for thebinding.

This thing is truly the granddaddy of all dungeons. It represents years of play testing, years of adventure, and hundreds of player character deaths. Many parts of my campaign that have transpired over the years are included in its pagesfrom the dead remains of fallen heroes, to marks left on walls, to cryptic scribblings left by lost or dying adventurers.

Just like the dungeons of the early 1970s played by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, Rappan Athuk is like a living being, big enough to be used for thousands of hours of play. From the Goblin city of Greznek to the Hall of the Titan Cyclops, from the Well of Zelkor to the Mithril gates, and from the Well of Agamemnon to the Abyssal pocket-plain and to the throne of Orcus himself—this terrifying place will create memorable experiences for all players and Game Masters.

This Tome represents the completed manuscript, including the wilderness surrounding the dungeon, three villages nearby, and the dreaded Temple of Tsathogga, where the sinister, evil priests of the frog-demon seek dark secrets and dark powers lost when the army of light destroyed the temple of Orcus at the site.

This book will be available for pre-order in March or April 2012. Retail price and page count are still to be determined (though it will probably be about $125 and 1000 pages or so). The pre-ordered copies will contain bonus material as a pdf enhancement that were cut from the final manuscript and will not be available after the pre-order period ends.

The estimated price point of $125 for 1000 pgs. compares favourably to a typical Pathfinder adventure path and given the relative scarcity of interesting product coming out over the last year, I see this an investment I can easily justify.

Maybe I'll go now have have a look at those pdfs and see what kind of misery I can inflict on my players.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on...scary monsters!

2011-10-24T14:14:00.001-06:00

Just in time for Halloween, Zack and Steve reveal D&D's scariest monsters.

Scary Monsters

-Rognar-

The Campaign Continues

2011-10-15T18:10:00.002-06:00

After a bit of a break we finally got to play session 2 last night. Strange happenings continue in Ravengro and more and more clues point to the old haunted prison Harrowstone just outside of town. Second Level brought another chance to retry a bunch of skill checks that went poorly the first time and were met with much more success this time. The PCs began to piece things together and after learning a bit more about what they'd be facing, made a second attempt on the prison. Avoiding the areas they explored the first time (and were forced to retreat from), the PC discovered an entrance into the prison's dungeon. Fighting off numerous spirits and undead, they eventually uncovered a secret tunnel leading from one of the prisons wings to a wing that they'd been unable to access. However the tunnel contained a grey ooze which nearly killed the party's paladin and alchemist. Resources exhausted, the party has once again retreated back to town. One of the prison's main haunts has been defeated but 4 remain.

This has been a great adventure so far. It has a good mix of role-playing and combat with some very unconventional enemies. Its always a tough time with mysteries - you don't want to just hand out clues and at the same time the PCs can't get too frustrated. So far everyone seems to be having a good time. I think I will designate a map cleaner next time as I received some feedback after the session that I should map out more of the rooms. That's find, I don't mind mapping the rooms out - its cleaning the board off afterwards that bugs me. I find it interrupts my flow so let's delegate the task out! Any takers?

Warlocks in Pathfinder... Never tell me the odds.

2011-10-12T10:03:00.002-06:00

Spellcasters are tons of fun in Pathfinder, whether they are arcane, divine, bard, sorcerer, cleric, wizard... whatever. They are all really fun to play. What makes me sad is the clear absence of my favorite arcanist in Pathfinder, the warlock.

For obvious reasons, there is no 3.5 version of the warlock in Pathfinder. The warlock class came out of a 3.5 splat book that does not fall under the umbrella of the OGL, so sadly there is no warlock in Pathfinder. If you want to play a warlock, you need to ask your DM and trust in the backward compatibility of the Pathfinder system.

Why is it that I feel dirty when I play something backward compatible? Why is it that I feel some false sense of 'correctness' when I only use official Pathfinder materials? I don't know... I just do. For this bizarre reason, I find it tough to feel legit playing one of my favorite classes while others use traditional classes and feats.

What are the odds that Pathfinder will ever get a hold of the 3.5 licensing that they need to canonize the warlock?

Wizard vs Sorcerer - the solution!

2011-10-11T19:15:00.006-06:00

Maybe it's a legacy of 3.5 but I've always preferred the wizard over the sorcerer. Wizards get a new spells level one level earlier, know more spells, and if they leave slots empty can fill the gaps with utility spells mid day. Wizards also have better school powers then sorcerer's bloodlines. Sorcerers get only 2-3 skills so they even have trouble acting as the party face since after you've covered Perception and Spellcraft, and are tempted by the ever awesome Use Magic Device, there aren't any skill points left. Bards are, hands down, the best choice as party face.

Wizards aren't all sunshine and rainbows either. While they get spells earlier, in order to be even slightly competitive with a sorcerer's spells per level, a wizard must specialize. This greatly restricts what spells you can cast. Sure you can still memorize them but it requires 2 slots/forbidden spell, defeating the point of specializing in the first place. There is the issue of having a spell book - best hope your DM isn't a dick and likes to mess with it, and that you have to prepare your spells ahead of time. This isn't the end of the world because most people pick out the best spells from each level and prepare those over and over, and carry the rest as scrolls or leave spell slots empty.

I have finally found a solution to this quandary. In Ultimate Magic, the Wildblooded archetype was introduced which allowed for mutated versions of the standard Bloodlines. The Sage is a mutated form of the Arcana bloodlines and solves many of my main issues with sorcerers. All of a Sage's abilities key off Intelligence and not Charisma. They even get a few extra spells known. The only missing piece is that you have to play a Human and choose the Known Spell favored class bonus. With this combo you'll have 6-7 spells known for each level excluding your top 2 spells levels (so roughly what a wizard would have based on my previous wizards) but you get about 2 extra spells/day/spell level. It like getting some of the best perks from each class. About the only thing missing is a wizard's spell access rate. The sorcerer's skill selection rather sucks too I suppose but this can be mitigated slightly by traits, and it won't make a huge difference overall anyway.

Alas, this is another character build that sits in my head along with the Zen Archer, the Debuff Cleric, the Come and Get Me barbarian, and the Dirge Bard. Actually this would be a pretty sweet party.

As an aside the Sohei monk is the first monk archetype I've found that can almost keep pace with the full bab classes in melee combat.

My reading project

2011-10-10T15:20:00.002-06:00

For personal reasons, I anticipate being absent from my regular gaming activities for at least the next few months. It's unfortunate, but it does afford me the opportunity to do some recreational reading, something I haven't been able to do for several years (unless one considers reading Dr. Seuss stories to pre-schoolers recreational). At just the right time, out comes the NPR Top 100 Science-fiction and Fantasy Books list. I've read about one-third of the books/series on the list, so I figure it's about time I jumped into the rest, especially the SF books. First on my list, #51 - The Hyperion Cantos. I completed the first book, Hyperion in about a week and I'm now roughly a third of the way through the conclusion, The Fall of Hyperion. Endymion and The Rise of Endymion are in the pipeline and ready to go. At the rate I'm going, I figure to be through the complete series by mid-November. I will have a more complete report of my thoughts at that time. My initial impressions, the books are, not surprisingly, extremely well-written. The main characters are deep and the trials they face elicit genuine emotion in the reader. As a parent, the odyssey of Sol Weintraub and his daughter, Rachel, is particularly poignant (and, at times, gut-wrenching) for me. My only criticism, on the other hand, relates to the "illness" that befalls Rachel. I won't go into details, but suffice to say, I felt it was a bit contrived and strayed far beyond my concept of science-fiction and deeply into the realm of fantasy. Still, as a plot device, it was powerful and I find myself deeply invested in that particular subplot.

What's next after The Hyperion Cantos? Well, I just picked up a copy of A Canticle for Leibowitz, a classic that's older than I am. I always meant to read it, but never got around to it. Now's my chance.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on...whaaaa?

2011-10-06T13:10:00.003-06:00

Zack and Steve at SomethingAwful.com have finally stumped me, bringing out an '80s game I'd never heard of. No doubt, Cyborg Commando must have been a real stinker to be so obscure, but man, what a design team!

Cyborg Commando

-Rognar-

Wheel of Time

2011-10-04T19:03:00.003-06:00

And so my epic odyssey begins. I am going to read the entire Wheel of Time series from beginning to the very end. All 15,000 or so pages of it. At my standard reading pace I should be finished by the end of April which is perfect since the last book is due out in April sometime.

I know what I'm doing this winter.

Xanesha

2011-10-01T11:30:00.010-06:00

For anyone that plans to play Paizo's AP Rise of the Runelords. Please leave now as the post below is full of spoilers.

There is a boss in RotRL that is crazy powerful. She has several abilities that synergize well, her lair is well defended and the terrain favors her a great deal. Officially she is CR 10 vs a party of level 7 but with her gear and the terrain, she is much much harder. Reading the paizo boards, there are innumerable entries on the TPKs Xanesha has caused. I have always wondered: I game with a bunch of smart guys that min/max pretty well. Could we beat her as written?

We had a slight shortage of players last week end so I had our 4 remaining players show up with characters ready to go. They only had a vague idea what they were up against but everyone was rather combat focused. They made short work of the golem at the base of the clock tower. The paladin smited him down quickly. Climbing the tower proved to be tricky. Everyone thought the bell trap was awesome and although it smacked the sorceror, he was ready with feather fall. The cultists at the top of the tower proved to be rather ineffective but the noise of the battle would alert the next encounter.

The rogue was able to scurry up the scaffolding without being spotted by the now airborne Xanesha but the paladin would not be so fortunate. The image of a demon distracted the PCs for 2 rounds allowing Xanesha to buff further. She then landed on the rooftop to prevent the cleric and sorcerer on the lower floor from targeting her. The paladin and Xanesha traded blows and the rogue sneaked in a blow or two as well. Although the paladin had hot dice, so did the DM and the paladin fell to a massive critical hit. With the only PC who been able to really hurt Xanesha dead, the PCs tried a few different things, but her AC and spell resistance made her really hard to affect.

It was a bit of a stand off, Xanesha slowly healing herself from the massive damage the paladin had done, and the remaining PCs trying to figure out what to do. They finally decided that retreat would be the best tactic. They almost got away but the cleric blew his save vs her Charm and was left behind to his doom.

For the deadliness of the encounter 2 dead PCs out of 4 PCs is pretty good. In a campaign, Xanesha would have known about the PCs and adjusted her tactics accordingly. I forgot that part of the rooftop was covered in a Silence spell. The PCs made a few critical saves and the paladin got two critical hits on her.

There is good reason she'll be redone for the re-release of the AP next year. She is just way too difficult. She has an opportunity to pre-buff making her AC sky high, she has good SR, excellent saving throws, and a crapton of hitpoints.. The only way I can see her being beaten is with an archer, a paladin, a wizard who gets lucky with a couple dispel magics, and a cleric who tries to keep everyone alive. If the tower is properly scouted, that would also make the fight easier. Retreat was a good solution. If everyone had been equipped with flight, the who battle dynamic would have changed.

I like to see the retreat tactic used. I know that we (as players) don't use it very often. In our current campaign Carrion Crown, the (low-level) party was faced with an enemy that they could not hurt. Eventually the party retreated back to town to pick up some more supplies (and follow a different plot thread).

Monte Cook returns to the fold

2011-09-21T11:19:00.002-06:00

The big bear has come out of hibernation, it seems. In this case, the bear is WotC and it's hungry. Seeing the upstart Paizo eating its lunch for the last year or so, WotC has decided to bring some gaming royalty onboard to reinvigorate the brand. Monte Cook is joining the D&D R&D department. It's on!

-Rognar-

What am I reading?

2011-09-20T19:10:00.002-06:00

I check the blog daily to see if anything is going on and since its been a while since we've posted anything, it is time.

Two weeks ago we started a new campaign. Everyone is playing their new characters to the hilt and is eager to get back into the swing of things after taking most of August off. We'll be enjoying a small interlude as I attempt a TPK using a rather over-powered boss from an adventure path we have yet to play (we're missing people this weekend).

I continue to zip through novels. In the last couple months I've read about half of Michael Moorcock's Elric books, and the first Chronicles of Amber. I quite enjoyed the first one but I put the second Chronicles down about half way through book 2 (or book 7) and never picked it back up. Not sure why I didn't like the second as much. It just had a very different feel from the first series and I didn't get into it as much.

My grand plan is to read the entire Wheel of time series start to finish. The last time I did it was about 10 years ago which involved reading parts 1-10. With the final book being released in April, I figure it will take about 6-7 months to read the first 13 volumes again. I have yet to read part 13. What to read until I start my Odyssey in October? Poking through my digital book collection, I discovered that I had Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. It seemed logical that since he was finishing the Wheel of Time I should check it out.

I am pleasantly surprised. The first book was very enjoyable and I'm constantly trying to find time to work on book 2. The world is logical but mysterious, the "magic" systems make sense, and he writes interesting and realistic characters. The plots are well laid out and make sense, the point of views are easy to follow and he has good pacing. I'm always a bit apprehensive starting a new series because I tend to try to stick it out even when they are almost unreadable (I'm looking at you Steven Erikson). But at the mid point of book 2, I'm still quite happy with my decision to read them and I can honestly say I'm not really sure where he's going to take the series. I highly recommend it.

Narrativism...is that how it works?

2011-09-09T13:16:00.006-06:00

I have never given much thought to the GNS Theory or the Threefold Model or any other theory related to rpg design, for two reasons. One, I don't care. My sole criteria for buying a game is how much fun I think it will be. Typically, I go for games with well-developed rules for combat (as I likes me some hackin' an' slashin') and lots of options for character building. A cool game setting helps too. The other reason is that I've never had a clear understanding of the different components of the models. I have a pretty good idea what Gamism is, largely because the classic example of Gamism is D&D in all its iterations. Typically, we talk about rpgs being non-competitive. There are no winners or losers. Compared to boardgames or CCGs, that's true. But clearly, games like D&D are competitive. You don't compete against your fellow players, but you do compete against the world controlled by the DM. Victory is achieved by gaining treasure or levels or in-game objectives, while defeat typically means character death. So, having established that rpgs like D&D are competitive, the gamism comes into play with issues such as game balance and setting victory conditions. Now sit down, you OSR guys. I played old-school D&D and there most certainly was game balance. Monsters were defined by level and typically, the deeper underground you ventured, the deadlier the monsters became. Game balance wasn't as strictly defined as it would become in later editions, but players still knew that they wouldn't face an ancient red dragon in the first level of the dungeon.

Likewise, I sort of understand what Simulationism means, although the definition seems a bit fuzzy when applied to modern games. Basically, simulationist games try to model the reality of the game world as accurately as possible. In older games, this typically meant modelling reality itself. For example, RuneQuest was more simulationist than D&D because it had hit location tables and armour-as-damage-reduction and other aspects which made combat more realistic (and more deadly). However, the broader definition means modelling a reality defined by the setting. If you had a game based on cartoon physics, for example, you would have to include rules that accurately model the fact that you don't fall after running off a cliff until you notice that you have done so.

Where the GNS Theory really breaks down for me is Narrativism. I have read the definition on Wikipedia and the best I could distill from the verbal diarrhea is that narrativism is role-playing, you know, all the stuff we do between fights. Deciding that your elven character doesn't like dwarves, knowing full well your buddy is going to play a dwarf, then playing up the conflict, that's narrativism. By this definition, every damn role-playing game ever written is narrativist, making it a fairly unhelpful term for defining game design characteristics. Now, there are games like Vampire: The Masquerade which are described as narrativist, or, I suppose, more narrativist than every other narrativist game. So, I assumed that meant you spend less time throwing dice and more time talking about your character's alienation. However, I have recently uncovered some information which suggests to me there is something more to narrativism than I thought. Reading up on the HeroQuest rpg from Moon Design (under license from Issaries), I found this little tidbit regarding the narrativist aspect of the game:

The game's mechanics are focused on quick resolution; Contests are resolved by comparing the results of two twenty sided dice, each tied to a character ability chosen by players and/or narrator. After the die roll, the participants work together to interpret the outcome in story terms.

So, apparently narrativism actually impacts game mechanics and conflict resolution and does it in the most pablum-spewing, self-esteem-building, non-confrontational way possible. It's like playtime at pre-school where everyone wins and ribbons are awarded for participation. Maybe I'm interpreting this wrong. Help me out, Storytellers and indie gamers, what does narrativism mean to you?

And please remember, I'm a science guy, so use small words.

-Rognar-

Balkanization of the rpg industry, pt.2

2011-09-08T11:17:00.003-06:00

My previous post on the fragmentation of the tabletop rpg industry was picked up in this post over at one of my favourite gaming blogs, Whitehall ParaIndustries (someday I'll work up the courage to ask what the name means). Gleichman and I are in general agreement about the state of the industry, although I sense he is somewhat more pessimistic than I. However, we disagree about the relative importance of the D&D edition wars to the overall state of things. I actually believe the divergence of D&D 3.5/Pathfinder and D&D 4e is, on the whole, beneficial to the industry. I don't believe the rpg industry lost very many customers as a result of this. D&D fanboys got a whole new line of gamebooks to buy with the emergence of 4th ed. People like me, who were more or less satisfied with D&D 3.5 got Pathfinder. The beauty of Pathfinder is that for many gamers who didn't feel the need to either move to 4e or the Pathfinder Role-Playing Game, they could still purchase the adventure paths and use them with their old D&D 3.5 rules with only a small amount of tweaking. As a result, you have D&D 4e fans, Pathfinder fans and D&D 3.x fans still spending money on game materials.

This brings us to the OSR. I think the big question that needs to be asked is when did these guys drop out? Gleichman believes this exodus resulted from the release of D&D 4e. That doesn't ring true to me. Sure, the OSR movement seemed to coalesce sometime around 2008, judging from the start dates of many of the most high-profile old-school blogs, but these guys seem no more enamoured with 3e than 4e. If the OSR is a response to 4e, why scurry all the way back to '74 or '77? No, it appears more likely that the old school guys were lost to the rpg industry for much longer and there is not much the industry could do to keep them spending. The one big mistake WotC did make with respect to the grognards was to remove the old edition pdfs from circulation. Selling out-of-print games doesn't keep game designers employed, but giving up an easy revenue stream makes no damn business sense whatsoever.

So where do I think we're heading? Well, I think eventually WotC will abandon the traditional tabletop rpg industry altogether, leaving Pathfinder and maybe Warhammer as the flagship games. The Dungeons & Dragons brand still has some value, so I think it will still exist in some form. The real carnage I think will happen among the second teir companies. There are simply too many of them selling too many products to a market that is not growing. Many of the casualties will probably not die completely, but will contract into one- or two-man operations selling pdfs and POD or turn into living dead companies like Palladium Books, selling one popular game over and over again to a small, but fanatical following. The industry won't die, but nobody is going to get rich either.

-Rognar-

Balkanization of the rpg industry

2011-09-06T12:13:00.005-06:00

When I started playing tabletop rpgs back in 1981, there were only a handful of games that anybody ever played in my little corner of the North American continent. Most everybody played something from TSR as their main game, be it AD&D, Basic D&D, Gamma World, Star Frontiers or something more fringe like Boot Hill. Some people played Traveller, although I never knew any personally. A few adventurous types even dabbled in games from Chaosium or FGU, but you typically had to go to conventions to try them out.

Of course, we all knew about other games like Original D&D or Empire of the Petal Throne, but they were really more myth than reality. Even back then, a set of the OD&D books would have been something akin to a hockey stick used by Rocket Richard, more of an heirloom than something you would take out to the local rink for a game of shinny. Other games like GURPS or MERP which would garner a lot of attention were still a few years away.

I mention this because in gaming circles, the early '80s are often described as the golden age of tabletop role-playing. It seems, the trpg community has been wringing its hands in existential dread ever since. Every new development, from the parting of ways between Gygax and TSR to the rise of CCGs to the demise of TSR and the emergence of online gaming has been greeted with a new round of doomsaying. Now, I agree with those who say the tabletop rpg industry is in decline, but I don't think any of the reasons usually cited are responsible. I think the big problem is fragmentation of the market. I'm not talking about the OSR and the edition wars here. The OSR guys have their own little thing going on and good for them. As for the WotC v. Paizo melee, both are big enough to nourish the industry and a little healthy competition is good for both companies. No, I'm really talking about the second tier of game publishers. The most egregious example is what is currently going on with RuneQuest.

Back in the day, RuneQuest, released in 1978, was a pretty popular game in some quarters. Not D&D popular, but it held its own and allowed Chaosium to become a major player, especially with the 1981 releases of Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer. The Basic RolePlaying system used by Chaosium today is based on the d100 game mechanic developed for RuneQuest. In the early editions, RuneQuest was intimately tied to the Glorantha setting, but in 1984, a new edition (3rd ed.) published by Avalon Hill, broke that connection and the game went into decline. Eventually, Greg Stafford, the original designer of Glorantha, reacquired the rights to RuneQuest under his own company, Issaries. Issaries later licensed both RuneQuest and Glorantha to Mongoose, which released two editions, the second of which is, in my humble opinion, the single best-designed tabletop role-playing game ruleset ever devised. It should be noted that Issaries also publishes another game, called HeroQuest, which is mechanically very different from RuneQuest, but which also uses the Glorantha setting (confused yet?).

Jump ahead to 2011, Mongoose has just ended its licensing agreement with Issaries (note, by this time, Chaosium is completely out of the picture). However, it is justifiably proud of its MRQII rules and wants to continue to support them. Enter Legend, a rebranded version of Mongoose RuneQuest II. Interestingly, Mongoose owns the rights to the Stormbringer license, having acquired them from Chaosium in 2007, so for a few years, Stormbringer, renamed the Elric of Melniboné Role-Roleplaying Game, and RuneQuest were reunited using the same ruleset. Anyway, we now throw in another monkeywrench. Peter Nash and Lawrence Whitaker, the two game designers most intimately associated with MRQII, have left Mongoose to form their own company called the Design Mechanism and wouldn't you know it, they promptly acquired the rights to RuneQuest and Glorantha with the intention of releasing RuneQuest 6 next year. Meanwhile, Mongoose, has several IPs, Deus Vult, Wraith Recon, Age of Treason and Elric of Melniboné that all use the Legend game engine. With that many properties, chances are none are going to get the support they deserve. Indeed, based on the release schedule Mongoose recently put up on their site, it looks like the newly-published Age of Treason campaign setting may be left to wither on the vine.

So, what is the point I'm trying to make here? I think I represent pretty much an ideal customer when it comes to the gaming industry. Tabletop rpgs are my primary hobby. I don't own an Xbox or a World of Warcraft account. I've played Magic: The Gathering once and even that was with a borrowed deck. I go to maybe five movies a year. But I spend a lot of money on games, many I will probably never play. I am the kind of customer a game publisher wants to keep happy. What the rpg industry doesn't want to do is to confuse the hell out of me! Almost every game I have invested heavily in over the last few years has gone through some kind of similar trauma to that described above. CthulhuTech, Cthonian Stars, Eclipse Phase, d20 Modern, Septimus, an endless litany of failures and lack of support, some terminal, some temporary, but in every case, I stopped buying the game. Only the Star Wars Saga Edition (and, of course, Pathfinder) managed to survive to what I considered an appropriate conclusion and I bought every single book. What I'm saying is, please gaming industry, show me some commitment. I wouldn't buy a car if I thought the automaker was going to hand off the model to another company which would completely redesign it and stop making parts that fit my vehicle. Likewise, I don't want to invest in a game if I think the company is going to abandon it half-finished.

-Rognar-

Ed. note: The real reason for this post, I just bought Age of Treason and it looks there won't be any supplements for it in the next 10 months at least. I am not amused.

Myth-A-Con Gaming Report, 2011

2011-09-04T07:58:00.009-06:00

For 40 bucks, I was able to attend a three day gaming convention in Calgary called Myth-A-Con. I only spent two of the three days because that's about all I can handle in a single weekend. I constantly ate food (awesome hamburgers, sub-par baked goods) and rolled dice for roughly 20 hours of gaming. Here is a report on the new gaming systems that I tried.

Shadowrun: Awesome genre. I loved the mesh between magic and technology. It was awesome to be in the middle of a gang war. The rolling mechanic was a little bit bulky with all the 6 siders, but it was not really a hindrance to the game. Bruce was a really good DM for this one. No minis were used; it was all old-school in your head combat. I played a car thief that had an awesome van with a mounted heavy machine gun. Yeah, we did a totally cool drive-by shooting and threw a captured orc gangbanger out of the speeding van.

Savage Worlds: This version of Savage Worlds was set in the 1930s. It was sort of an Indiana Jones/ Mummy type of setting. The DM (Mike?) was pretty good. He knew the game system and was able to add lots of flare to make the game believable. The game system was all exploding d6s. You only get 4 hits until you die, but you can use little story points as re-rolls to help you survive gun shots and crocodile attacks. I liked the exploding dice but I thought the system was a little bit bulky. We used little miniature paper cutouts and a little photocopied grid to roughly show the position of our guys for combat. Very cool genre, so-so game mechanics. I played Buck, a sexist, over-the-top man's man that led an expedition to the rain forest to snatch a gem from the natives.

Dresdin Files: I wish I could make a better judgment on this system, but the person running the game didn't really know what they were doing. Very disappointing. The genre was really cool, though. Vampires, undead, demons and that sort of thing running around the modern world. I played an emo-kid that wanted to turn into a white vampire that fed off of depression. At least it was fun to play an emo kid. I modeled the kid after the South Park goth kids. The DM used dice and a piece of paper to roughly position our pcs for combat. The system used a cool and very simple system for resolving combat: 1-2= fail, 3-4= nothing, 5-6= success. Successes cancel failures and viceversa. I need to play this game with an experienced GM to really get a better feel for it.

Eclipse Phase: This was the coolest game at the con. I loved the simple percentile dice system. I loved the genre, BIGTIME. I played a computer hacker that was working for a major corporation and got to hack elevators, security doors, cameras, and other high-tech thingys. I think I have found my new favorite role-playing game for space D&D. The DM was fantastic. No minis were used. This was all old-school in-your-mind combat. Cant's say enough good things about this game. Please go to http://eclipsephase.com to check this game out.

Legend of the Five Rings: I am a sucker for Asian themed games so this one was instantly appealing to me. The GM was really good at building intrigue and was really good at promoting role-playing by giving out pre-gens that had certain quirks and mandates. I played a samurai retainer that needed to protect another PC, was jealous of another PC, and despised other PCs. Role-playing in this event was a lot of fun. Combat in Lot5R is all 10 sided dice that explode. The exploding thing is really fun, but the system is really bulky. Hit points are complicated and counting up 9d10 with 7 players in the party made for very slow combat. Combat was all old-school in-your-mind. The DM was quite good, but sort of evil. We failed in our quest, and he put the blame of the failure squarely on the shoulders of on poor PC.

Playing these games over the weekend was really a terrific experience. I got to know a bunch of new people, and learn lots of new games. I also learned that I put way too much emphasis on tactics and miniature combat in my homegames. I love combat with the guys, but doing so much role-playing this weekend reminds me of the pleasures of role-playing, mystery solving and creative, critical thinking. I will surely be adding more of these elements to my home games.

Rippin' on Changeling: The Dreaming

2011-09-03T10:30:00.002-06:00

Zack and Steve are back and ready to revisit the World of Darkness. Aww, Changeling: The Dreaming, how adorable.

Changeling: The Dreaming

-Rognar-

Age of Treason campaign setting for MRQII/Legend

2011-09-02T15:03:00.007-06:00

Mongoose recently terminated its license to produce RuneQuest and any related Gloranthan material. However, it is still quite happy with the MRQII rules and intends to continue supporting the game under the new brand Legend. The first product under the new branding (even the core rules aren't released yet) is Age of Treason - The Iron Simulacrum campaign setting. Age of Treason centers around the Taskan Empire, a collection of city-states with a decidedly Roman flavour. Ruled by a God-Emperor, who has been in seclusion for centuries and speaks to his court through a golem-like entity known as the Iron Simulacrum, the Taskan Empire is a potent and enlightened nation at the height of its power. This is in contrast with the frequent fantasy rpg trope of a campaign world living in the shadow of an ancient golden age. The golden age of the Taskan Empire is now. However, as with all great empires, the fall begins long before it becomes apparent to all. Rivals from beyond her borders grow more confident, while would-be rulers from within grow restless and the masses, comfortable in their prosperity, are none the wiser. It is up to the player characters to battle the treasonous forces that seek to undermine the Empire...or perhaps, join them.

Age of Treason introduces a few new rules to distinguish it from the standard MRQII ruleset. Most obviously, Common Magic is no longer available to everyone. This was always controversial anyway, being a feature of the Glorantha campaign setting that elicited strong feelings on both sides. My own feeling is that magic should be rare. When every blacksmith and barmaid knows a few minor spells, it creates a feeling of magic as being mundane and ordinary. So, I'm gladdened by this change. Common Magic doesn't exist as a discrete type of magic in the campaign setting, rather being mixed in with other sources of power and cultural factors. The other major types of magic from MRQII, namely Divine Magic, Spirit Magic and Sorcery are all present, however. Another important change is the addition of a new characteristic, Social Status (SOC), in keeping with a general emphasis on intrigue and social interaction prevalent in the setting.

While it is generally expected that most players will be citizens of the Empire, other races are possible. Interestingly, there are only humans in this world, but some are so different from the mainstream that they might as well be different species'. For example, there is a brutal race of barbarians called the Orcs of Kasperan who practice human sacrifice on a massive scale to appease their vile gods. Although technically human, their physical appearance and brutal behaviour are certainly congruent with D&D-style orcs.

Religion in the setting is complex and integral to every aspect of the campaign. By virtue of being a citizen of the Empire, everyone has a Pact with the Imperial cult. However, there are other gods which characters may also form into Pacts with and, indeed, any character wanting to use Divine Magic will have to do this as the Emperor has not achieved full divinity and cannot grant spells. In keeping with the RuneQuest tradition, there are all manner of mystery cults and funeral clubs to join. All worship is understood to be transactional. A character agrees to worship a particular god, granting power to that divine being, in exchange for some measure of favour in the present and protection in the afterlife.

It's all pretty cool stuff and a bit of a departure from the standard fantasy campaign setting fare. The book itself is 200 pages, hardcover with all black-and-white interior art and fairly striking cover art. It includes a 70 page mini-campaign to get you started and sells for about $40. For fans of MRQII, it's a pretty solid investment.

-Rognar-

Phineas and Ferb

2011-09-01T10:52:00.004-06:00

OK, this post has nothing to do with gaming. I have two small children and its a struggle to find TV for them that does not make my eyes bleed or brain rot. While on vacation and staying at the in-laws I had to find some new TV for the kids to zombify them and keep them from driving me insane.

Most of the shows were junk but I did stumble across Phineas and Ferb. Created by the same guys that created Rocco's Modern Life and wrote for the Family Guy, it works on multiple levels. I laugh at stuff all of the time and my oldest just looks at my and asks what was so funny.

Most episodes follow a similar plot. P&F are deciding what to do with a day of summer vacation and end up building something crazy. Their older sister Candace is constantly trying to "bust" them to their mother. The second plot involves the pet platypus Perry who happens to a secret agent. Each episode he has to go stop the evil doctor Doofenschmirtz from building his latest "inator". The battle always ends up destroying and removing any trace of whatever Phineas and Ferb built that day just before their mother shows up which makes Candace look crazy.

Most episodes have a short little song of a style matching the episodes theme. There are some great lines. Ones which stand out include "Karl, keep up the good work and you may make unpaid intern". "I was part of the resistance but I'm so good at resisting, I started resisting them."

The New Conan the Barbarian Movie

2011-08-21T07:01:00.002-06:00

The original Conan the Barbarian movie is one of those epic films that was a major contributing factor to my deep interest in all things sword and sorcery. I used to swing my mom's broomstick over my head, mimicking Conan's moves, killing imaginary cultists or whatever. I even memorized Conan's legendary prayer to Crom and would quote it for the kids at school:

"Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!"

With Conan being such an important icon in my youth, I find it very difficult to be unbiased when reviewing the new film that just came out on August 19th, 2011. Still, I will do my best to be as objective as possible.

The new Conan film was good by sword and sorcery movie standards but lacked the emotional drive and spirit that the original so mysteriously and effortlessly carried. There were both excellent and terrible aspects to the new film. Thankfully is was not a total bomb, and regrettably, it really lacked in some key areas. Here is a breakdown. MINOR SPOILER ALERT.

The Conans: The new movie's young Conan and adult Conan were very well chosen. The Adult Conan had an excellent barbarian attitude. He was grim and brutal, just the way Conan should be. Jason Momoa, the new Conan, looked more true to the comics version of Conan. He was muscular and had the classic long, black hair. Still, Arnold was more buff and carried a barbarian attitude without having to speak too much. The younger Conan in the new movie was fantastic and puts the older movie's kid Conan to utter shame. It was awesome to see such a brutal 12 year-old Conan with those dead eyes and pure barbarian rage. This little kid really may have been one of the best parts of the new film.

The Conan Dads: Ron Pearlman made a pretty good Conan dad, but I was not really happy with the way that he looked. I didn't like the long beard and I didn't like the advice that he gave to his son about being patient and disciplined. I really didn't like the old Conan movie's dad much, but I did prefer his father-to-son chat better than the new movie's chat.

Villians: One of my biggest disappointments of the new film was the shitty, shitty villains. The BBEG of the film was an old dude with a retarded-looking evil mask sucked to his face. Picture an evil Patrick Star hugging an old man's head. This was the guy that killed Conan's dad and burned his village. Even worse was his sorcerer daughter and her very unmenacing steel fingernails (one of which conveniently broke off as a painfully obvious clue as to who stole Conan's girlfriend later in the movie). Her acting skills lacked, UTTERLY. James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom (awesome name, btw) was infinitely better. His raw charisma and onscreen presence is very rarely matched in any film.

Setting: I really liked the computer generated settings of the new film. Far better than the models and desert scrubland of the original. It wasn't Rivendale awesome, but it was fantastic, nonetheless.

Music: Basil Poledouris is a legendary composer BECAUSE of what he did in the original movie. The Anvil of Crom and The Riddle of Steel are two of the most iconic songs in all movie history, especially in the sword and sorcery genre. The new movie really didn't have much more than *meh* going for it. Its tough to live up to legendary soundtracks.

Dialog: The original movie had better bits of dialog than the new movie. "What is best in life?" and Conan's prayer to Crom in the original are far more memorable than the new movie's "I live, I love, I slay and I am content." I did enjoy the way that the new Conan spoke to women. It was refreshing to hear some unPC barbarian chat in a major Hollywood film.

Special Effects: Obviously, the special effects are far superior in the new film. There are no rubber snakes or blood pouches that explode when struck by a movie prop sword. Hey, that's 1981 for you. One of my favorite aspects of the new movie is the sheer brutality that brought via special effects. Gratuitous blood splatter and crunching bones were a welcome bit of awesomeness that should be expected in a barbarian movie. My favorite part had to have been young Conan slicing off a guys nose and then the older Conan sticking his finger into the nose orifice later in life. Cool, cool, cool.

There are other aspects of the movie that I have probably forgotten about, but I think you get the general drift regarding the new movie. It was good, but it still lies firmly in the shadow of the original. I recommend the new movie for anyone that is a D&D nerd like myself, but just be gentle on the movie and realize that the original Conan the Barbarian is a very challenging movie to top.

Conan the Barbarian original movie: A
Conan the Barbarian new movie: B-

...oh, and never park your slave encampment in a ravine with dozens of massive, unstable boulders sitting high in the ridge sides. You are only begging for a renegade freedom-loving barbarian to destroy your pens and steal all your topless, super hot slave girls.

My latest obsession - MRQII and Elric

2011-08-11T13:18:00.004-06:00

Ever since I picked up RuneQuest II from Mongoose last year, I've been looking for a suitable setting for it. I finally found what I was looking for when I bought the Elric of Melniboné Core Rulebook last week. Although published last year, I never really felt compelled to give it a look until recently and I'm glad I did. Now I will confess, I've always found the Elric saga a bit of a hard slog. While not especially complicated plotwise, Moorcock's writing has, for me at least, always been easier to put down than to pick back up again. I have read all the books in the Elric saga, but it took years. Having said that, the setting of the series is impressive. Melniboné and the Young Kingdoms is quite possibly the most perfect campaign world possible for a dark fantasy rpg and Mongoose has done an admirable job of bringing it to life.

Not surprisingly, the book starts off with some 35 pages of history and geography of the Young Kingdoms. Though probably not necessary for most players, GMs will find some useful background in here for running a campaign. The second chapter deals with character generation. Human is the default race and many GMs may decide just to allow humans. However, rules are included for playing Melnibonéans, Half-Melnibonéans and several minor humanoid races from various time periods including a race of extinct giants called the Karasim, a winged race called the Myyrrhn and a primitive, dwarf-like race called the Pukwadji. In addition to the new races, new cultures are added to supplement the four already provided in MRQII, Civilised, Barbarian, Nomad and Primitive. The new cultures are Melnibonéan, Poor, Outlaw and Wanderer of the Time Streams. The first three are pretty self-explanatory, but for those who have not read a lot of Moorcock's stories, the last one might need some explanation. The world of Elric is just one of many in Moorcock's Multiverse, known as the Million Spheres. The worlds of the Million Spheres are connected to each other by several overriding concepts, such as the Eternal Champion, who is destined to fight for Balance in each world. Besides Elric, other manifestations of the Eternal Champion include Dorian Hawkmoon, Earl Aubec and Corum. Some characters, including Elric himself, have been able to transport themselves between worlds within the Million Spheres, while others do so unintentionally. Characters who shift from world to world are Time Stream Wanderers. Needless to say, such characters are a challenge for both players and GMs. Also included in this chapter are new skills, such as Dreamtheft, Rune Casting and Witch Sight. Most of these new skills relate to the unique magic systems in the game (see below).

After a brief chapter on currency and equipment, there is a discussion of metaphysics. The eternal conflict between Law and Chaos is central to Moorcock's stories. Powerful forces on both sides struggle through their mortal proxies to control the Multiverse, while the somewhat quieter force of Balance seeks to ensure neither comes to dominate. The Eternal Champion typically works toward greater Balance, although in the case of Elric, it is not his original intention. Next follows a section on magic. There is no Common Magic, but Sorcery and Spirit Magic do exist in the game. Two other types of magic, Dream Magic and Rune Magic are also introduced. Rune Magic is not unlike Sorcery except for the obvious addition of runic symbols during casting, but Dream Magic is quite different and rather unique to the Elric stories. There are two types of Dream Magic, Dreamtheft and DreamQuesting. The former involves the theft of someone else's dreams for the benefit of either the Dreamthief or a client. Stolen dreams can provide insight into the dreamer's personality and motivations, can aid in the solution of a dilemma into which the dreamer might have some insight or even allow the recipient of the stolen dream to improve a skill which the dreamer possessed. DreamQuesting, on the other hand, allows a dreamer to travel to alternate worlds or distant time periods to experience real events. It is a particularly popular pastime for Melnibonéans, which is why their capital city of Imrryr is known as the Dreaming City.

A large chapter on cults is next. Cults play a big role in the various versions of RuneQuest as a source of knowledge, both magical and mundane. Typically, every character will belong to a cult. The cults in the Elric of Melniboné Core Rulebook revolve around the various Lords described in the Elric saga. These include the Lords of Law and Chaos, the Elemental Lords and the Beast and Plant Lords. The book finishes with a chapter on monsters and prominent NPCs, another on tips for GMs and a final one on playing the game in other eras beyond that covered in the Elric saga. All-in-all, it's a pretty solid core book. It is well-written and, perhaps even more importantly, given Mongoose's track record, well-edited. The interior art is sparse and all black-and-white, but competent. If you like RuneQuest II and seek a campaign setting that doesn't have any Ducks, this may be just what you're looking for.

-Rognar-

Ultimate Combat, what's awesome?

2011-08-10T13:04:00.007-06:00

Hot off the presses, I have my new copy of Ultimate Combat and I'm hungrily chewing through it. I won't go into a discussion of the Gunslinger class or the firearms rules since we have gone over those in some detail here, here, here and here. Suffice to say, the second version of the Gunslinger playtest is pretty much the final version. I'm also not going to talk about the Ninja and Samurai classes, since I simply have no interest in them. Instead, I'm going to pick out the juicy bits that immediately caught my eye and which make me want to use them in a future build.

Archetypes:
I'm not a big fan of archetypes. It's not that I don't like the options they provide, it's just that they typically require replacing a superior class feature with a more specialized and, therefore, inferior one. So, for an archetype to pique my interest, it has to replace a class feature that doesn't impress me to begin with. Two archetypes fit the bill for me, the Crusader Cleric and the Spellbreaker Inquisitor. Not surprisingly, both archetypes come from classes that, in my opinion, need all the help they can get. The Crusader archetype allows a cleric to give up some spellcasting ability in exchange for additional feats, including feats such as Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Focus which are normally limited to Fighters. Even sweeter is the Spellbreaker archetype. I would never play an Inquisitor unless I was using this version. You give up Monster Lore (nice, but not awesome) as well as all those annoying teamwork feats and the Solo Tactics class feature in exchange for a bunch of saving throw bonuses against spells and the ability to make the DC for rolls to cast defensively higher for enemy spellcasters. As they say on the interwebs, it's full of win.

Feats:
There are several awesome feats in the new list, but given there is a gigacrapload of feats in Ultimate Combat, It's not surprising. Here are a few of my favourites.
Hammer the Gap - great for piling up the damage at high levels, each hit as part of a full attack gets a damage bonus equal to the number of previous successful hits.
Dimensional Agility, Dimensional Assault and Dimensional Dervish - the Monk and the Magus will have great fun with this combination as it allows you to use dimension door or abundant step with far more tactical flexibility.
Clustered Shots - Oh come on now, total damage from full-round ranged attack added before DR is applied, because you know, archery really is underpowered in Pathfinder.
Pin Down - you get an AoO against an opponent attempting to withdraw or a 5-ft. step, if you hit, he takes no damage, but he can't move. No escape for you, little wizard.
Guided Hand - although it requires Channel Smite, not exactly the most must-have feat around, being able to replace your Str or Dex modifier with your Wis modifier on attacks with your deity's favoured weapon is worth it for clerics who already have to spend precious build points on both Wis and Cha.

That's it for now. I will have more to say as I digest more of this tome. I have to say, it appears, at first glance, to have much to offer.

-Rognar-

Summer Reading

2011-08-08T17:56:00.003-06:00

I am going on vacation next week. Not a vacation I am especially looking forward to although I'm sure it will have some enjoyable moments. I am expecting lots of down time when I am not chasing children trying to prevent their early demise. Since I will be computer free it will be a chance to catch on my reading. In the last few months I've reread the entire Song of Ice and Fire series. At long last the final book of the Wheel of Time series is out in April 2012 and I figure it will take at least 6-7 months to reread the entire series before I pick up the final book. I have until October or so until I begin that odyssey and so I have a few months to fill.

There are tons of influential books that I've never read so why not fill my vacation with them. I'll be reading them on my iPhone which is not the ideal media I'm quite used to it now and people can't snoop at my reading materials. First up is Elric. I started last night and I'm already over half way through Elric of Melnibone. It's a pretty easy read compared to Martin.

When I tire of Elric, Zelazny's Chronicle's of Amber will follow. Beyond that, I have no idea. Those two series alone could keep me going for a long time if I read them all.

Fantasy Flight Games gets Star Wars

2011-08-03T10:11:00.005-06:00

So, the worst kept secret in the gaming world has at last been revealed, Fantasy Flight Games has acquired the rights to the Star Wars franchise. Ever since WotC dropped the licensing rights and Mongoose rather oddly revealed that they didn't get the license but that another company did, speculation has been that the other player had to be FFG. No other company seemed to be big enough to afford it, except possibly Paizo and they never seemed to be a good fit for Star Wars.

Well at last, the cat is out of the bag and the first announcement of new product lines include both a tactical ship-to-ship minis game called X-Wing and the Star Wars: The Card Game ccg. Although there is no announcement of a tabletop rpg at this time, there is a suggestion that one is in the works.

-Rognar-

Some declarations of my own

2011-08-02T12:29:00.004-06:00

I'm not usually much for memes, but I can't resist any opportunity to inflict my opinions on the public at large (or at least the miniscule subset of it that actually reads this blog), so when Joseph Bloch and, later, Zachary Houghton posted about their personal gaming preferences, well, I felt compelled to join the fun. Please note that the following represents only my opinions, and does not necessarily reflect those of my fellow contributors (although they are welcome to add their own).

On game design:
I love "kewl". I know that as a 45-year old gamer who first started playing D&D in 1981 and has been continuously playing tabletop rpgs for three decades, I don't really fit the demographic profile of a new school gamer. But I am. I love to min/max, but I also love to play suboptimal characters just to see what I can get out of them. I am a powergamer. Character background, story arc, narrative, none of these things mean very much to me beyond providing a framework in which my character can develop. I don't care what is going on four kingdoms over and I don't care what happened 2000 years ago, unless that information is relevent to what my character is attempting to accomplish. It's a bit odd, since I am history buff, but I guess it's because I only care about real history. I like a lot of options for character design. I know a lot of old school types prefer to personalize their characters outside of the rules, but I want tangible game effects from the decisions I make. I want to know that choosing a two-handed sword over a longsword and shield will have some meaningful consequences.

I definitely fall into the simulationist camp when it comes to game design. Even though I have played some iteration of D&D for most of the last 30 years, I have always chafed under some of the more gamist aspects of the game. I've never liked AC, preferring something like the BRP system in which armour reduces damage, but not the chance to hit. I also don't really like the power curve of class-and-level games. No character should ever be so powerful as to be able to confidently take on an entire army. I prefer that players never be completely confident of the outcome of any fight. Even a lowly goblin should have at least a slight chance to seriously injure any PC with a lucky shot.

I am comfortable with Tolkienesque player races, but I'm also willing to entertain divergence from those templates as long as they're not too weird. Gloranthan elves and dwarves, for example, would certainly be "too weird". I don't care for subraces, however, unless they are radically different and only serve as evil alternatives to the PC races, such as drow or duergar.

On setting:
I'm a bit of a stickler for consistency in setting design. For example, I don't like Asian settings in general and I certainly don't like them freely intermingled with my pseudo-European medieval D&D setting. No knights and ninjas for me, thank you very much. I do like the inclusion of firearms of the appropriate technology level for a High Middle Ages European milieu, but I've never been satisfied with any of the efforts to incorporate them into D&D. It seems impossible to model the advantages of firearms using the D&D rules, without making bows completely obsolete, so they are inevitably underpowered and overpriced.

Oddly enough, my gaming history and my personal preferences on setting are, once again, at odds. I am a sci-fi guy. I'd prefer a rail gun and a powered exoskeleton over a longsword and a suit of chain mail any day. Yet, somehow I always end up slinging spells and swinging battleaxes. I guess fantasy is simply more conducive to my hack-and-slash style of gaming.

On pronouns and gender issues:
I always use the male pronoun. I find reading a game book that switches back and forth from male to female pronouns to be very distracting. I don't have any problem with female gamers, but my group is all-male and we like it that way (and so do our wives, I'm sure). Game night is boys night out. We don't have to suck in our guts or tighten our sphincters. Most importantly, we don't have to censor ourselves and worry that what we say might offend the ladies.

On politics and religion:
I am a Canadian conservative. That means I'm of a different breed from our friends on the right of the American political spectrum. It means, for example, that I believe religion is something best not discussed in polite company. I don't want to know how you did the nasty with your wife last night and likewise, I don't want to know how you scored with your personal savior on Sunday. Having said that, there are some similarities which have implications for my gaming experience. I despise moral relativism. Some things are just plain wrong and no amount of cultural sensitivity training is going to change my mind about that. This means the morality in my world may seem a tad Victorian to some. There are good guys and bad guys. Sure, there are some occasions of moral ambiguity, but inevitably, my heroes prevail, though the price of victory may be steep. It also means I don't really like playing in evil campaigns. That's not to say I haven't done so and I've been told by reliable sources that I can whip up a pretty awesome villain when situation demands, but it's always well outside of my comfort zone. I'm very pro-military and my games always have a healthy dose of righteous smackdown by the thin olive drab line. If I can find some way to stick a tank in there, mores the better (I know most guys are into fighter jets, but I'm a tank guy). I'm queasy about violence against women and children. Such violence exists in my campaigns, but I always prefer to leave the details to the imaginations of my players. Needless to say, any character, be it NPC or PC, will encounter swift and brutal judgement from the appropriate authority for perpetrating such violence. On the other hand, if a paladin wants to thrash some bad guy to within inches of his life, so be it. Men are expendable and evil men even more so. Waterboard the terrorists to your heart's content, boys.

On technology:
Whatever. Use it if you want as long as it doesn't grind things to a halt. In our group, we have a mix of technophiles and technophobes (ok, that last category is mainly just me) and it seems to work fine. There are laptops and iPads operating cheek-and-jowl alongside dice and pencils with no problems. Of course, no one has spilled a bottle of Dr. Pepper on someone's keyboard yet.

-Rognar-

Cowboys and Aliens would make a great game

2011-08-02T08:50:00.004-06:00

I went to see Cowboys and Aliens last night. It was excellent. For older nerds like me who find the screen-filling CGI, eye-searing lens flares and nausea-inducing jerky camera effects of today's sci-fi movies to be a bit too much sensory overload, Cowboys and Aliens is a nice change. That's not to say this isn't a F/X-heavy film, but it isn't the visual assault and battery that most big budget sci-fi movies are these days. I won't reveal any spoilers, because there are some genuine surprises in this film, but I will say the acting was pretty good. Daniel Craig was excellent and Harrison Ford was decent in an unconventional role for him. While not exactly a villain, his character certainly was a nasty piece of work.

I kept thinking, as I watched, how cool this would be as a game setting. There were great character types, such as the gun-totin' preacher man (played by Clancy Brown), the ruthless, wealthy rancher who owns the town (played by Harrison Ford) and the honest sheriff who has to walk a fine line (played by Keith Carradine).

The best part of the film is that there aren't any obvious dumb plot devices. The aliens are tough SOBs and the relatively primitive technology of the humans is no match for them. The only effective weapons the humans have are the aliens' own arrogance and a bit of stolen alien technology.

Also, since the aliens land in the American southwest, you know they didn't come for the water. Go see it. You won't be disappointed, unless you need a Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich special-effects explosion to feel truly alive.

-Rognar-

Pathfinder Minis

2011-08-01T22:02:00.003-06:00

I was a bit late to the mini game. I have a bunch of reaper minis I painted myself but I own zero monsters. It seems that Paizo has started their own mini line. The first big set will be available at Christmas with a Rise of the Runlords set out next summer (which also suggests that they'll be reprinting RotR for Pathfinder).

I'll probably pick up a case for Christmas. Buy it from Paizo and they throw in a free huge black dragon which looks pretty damn cool.

Weird War II monster factory 3

2011-07-31T08:07:00.002-06:00

The "Widowmaker" demon is the most powerful of the common extradimensionals and the only one to demonstrate any significant intelligence. Though apparently unable to direct the actions of the lesser abominations, widowmakers are able to use the natural instincts of these monsters to their own advantage. They will use the extremely aggressive racknees and devil dogs as cannon fodder before moving in to mop up any survivors. Besides their enormous ripping claws, the most terrifying aspect of the widowmaker is its mind blast attack, which can render several foes helpless before the demon moves in to rend its victims limb from limb.

STR 5D6+9 (ave. 26-27)
CON 3D6+6 (ave. 16-17)
SIZ 5D6+9 (ave. 26-27)
INT 2D6+6 (ave. 13)
POW 3D6+3 (ave. 13-14)
DEX 2D6+3 (ave. 10)
APP 1D6 (ave. 3-4)
Move: 8 Hit points: 21-22 Damage bonus: +2D6
Armour: 4 pt carapace
Attacks: Claw 50% 1D10+db (bleeding)
Skills: Dodge 30%, Hide 30%, Jump 20%, Listen 35%, Sense 50%, Spot 35%, Stealth 20%, Track 30%
Powers: Super Sense (Infrared Vision) 2, Mind Blast

-Rognar-

Weird War II monster factory 2

2011-07-30T17:09:00.002-06:00

Devil Dogs are the second most common of the dimensional horrors, after racknees. The size of a riding horse, but with the ferocity of a badger, devil dogs are a nightmare of fangs and claws. They are not as fast as racknees, so they often fall upon victims already crippled by the smaller, faster abominations that precede them. Otherwise, they use their greater strength to hunt prey which has managed to find some protection from racknees, such has locking themselves in a car or room.

STR 4D6+3 (ave. 17)
CON 3D6 (ave. 10-11)
SIZ 3D6+6 (ave. 16-17)
INT 5
POW 2D6 (ave. 7)
DEX 2D6+6 (ave. 13)
APP 1D6 (ave. 3-4)
Move: 10 Hit points: 13-14 Damage bonus: +1D6
Armour: 2 pt hide
Attacks: Bite 50% 1D8+db (bleeding)
Skills: Dodge 40%, Hide 30%, Jump 50%, Listen 35%, Sense 50%, Spot 35%, Stealth 40%, Track 50%
Powers: Super Sense (Infrared Vision) 2

-Rognar-

Weird War II monster factory 1

2011-07-30T16:31:00.003-06:00

This new series of posts will reveal new monsters created for my "Tommies at the Gates of Hell" Weird War II campaign for BRP. Only monsters that have already appeared in the campaign, now into its third session, will be presented.

Though details are sketchy at this point, it is clear that Nazi scientists have released some kind of monster apocalypse upon the war-ravaged European continent. The carnage has been horrific. The Allies are in full retreat, leaving civilians behind to face an onslaught of horrors from some alien dimension. Whole nations have been depopulated, including Germany itself.

Small pockets of survivors struggle daily against the waves of alien abominations that sweep across the land, including a small group of British soldiers and Belgian civilians near the city of Rochfort. This is where the story begins.

The Horrors:

Racknees are six-legged arachnoids the size of large dogs, but with the speed of a race horse. Though not displaying any discernible intelligence, racknees are exceedingly cruel. They rarely kill their prey immediately, preferring instead to take one or two large bites from the victim's legs or flanks and then moving on, leaving the wounded person or animal to bleed out.

STR 2D6+6 (ave. 13)
CON 3D6 (ave. 10-11)
SIZ 1D6+3 (ave. 6-7)
INT 5
POW 2D6 (ave. 7)
DEX 3D6+6 (ave. 16-17)
APP 1D6 (ave. 3-4)
Move: 12 Hit points:8-9 Damage bonus: none
Armour: 2 pt carapace
Attacks: Bite 50% 1D10+db (bleeding)
Skills: Dodge 50%, Hide 40%, Jump 50%, Listen 35%, Sense 50%, Spot 35%, Stealth 40%, Track 30%
Powers: Super Sense (Infrared Vision) 2

-Rognar-

Rippin' on...World of Darkness

2011-07-30T07:46:00.002-06:00

Zack and Steve are back. I've never heard of this particular White Wolf offering, but I never was a WoD fan anyway.

Mummy: The Resurrection

-Rognar-

Ultimate Combat Cometh!

2011-07-26T16:04:00.002-06:00

This is the time of year I probably hate most as a gamer. All of the good stuff is getting released at GenCon and there are sneak previews all over the internet.

Last year it was Paizo's Advanced Player's Guide that had me all worked up and this year its Ultimate Combat. Ultimate magic came out in the Spring and it was good but wasn't stuffed full of awesomeness as I had hoped. Some of the previews already have me drooling. It looks like they are making monks awesome and throwing lots of bones to most of the other melee type classes.

Of course even after I have it in my hands, I'll have ideas for dozen of awesome characters. Although, as I will be DMing next, I could slide them in and throw them at the players...

What is the future of manned space exploration?

2011-07-22T10:53:00.004-06:00

With the end of the Space Shuttle program and no new generation of manned space vehicle on the horizon for the United States, those of us who care about the future are naturally concerned. Sure, the Russians have their Soyuz program and the Chinese seem to have every intention of being the second country to put a man on the Moon, but without the Americans in the game, it seems the exploration and eventual colonization of the Solar System is becoming ever more the realm of science fiction. I have heard some suggest the future of American manned space exploration is actually better off without NASA. They believe private companies like SpaceX can do it for less money. I don't doubt that private enterprise can handle routine low Earth orbit operations such as launching satellites or shuttling personnel to the International Space Station, but are we ever going to see a manned mission to Mars, for example, from a private company? I seriously doubt it. Where is the profit in it? There's little evidence to suggest there are any resources of value to us on Mars, at least in the short term. No question, the resources of the Solar System are vast. One can imagine limitless solar energy or asteroid mining for all the raw materials the human race would need for the next ten thousand years, but these are extremely long-term efforts. Most financiers don't want to invest in projects that won't see a return for centuries. So what is the future of manned space exploration? I see three scenarios.

One, we let the Chinese do the heavy lifting for awhile. In other words, we do nothing. It's definitely the path of least resistance and there is no law of the universe that says the future belongs to English-speaking peoples. Maybe the first space colonists will speak Mandarin.

Two, we get NASA back in the game. This is certainly a possibility, especially if the Americans get shocked by the successful launch of a manned Chinese lunar mission. It seems to be a question of timing and the current American debt crisis. Will the Americans pull themselves out of their malaise in time to get their space program back on track before the Chinese get too far ahead? It's hard to say, but in my experience, it's never a good idea to bet against the Americans.

Three, turn space exploration into a non-profit, charitable endeavor. Wait...what? Admittedly, this is an unconventional idea, but I think there are a lot of people who would like to contribute to space exploration. First, there are private individuals. Millions of Americans (and Canadians) who dream about our future in space might be willing to make small tax-deductible donations to a manned space program. Even more importantly, big investors could benefit from tax incentives as well in order to get access to the billions of dollars required for manned space flight. I envision a manned mission to Mars involving some input from NASA, private companies like SpaceX and non-profit space exploration organizations working together. If we don't want to see the future of the human race shaped by the regressive, totalitarian regime in Beijing, this may be the only way.

Thoughts?

-Rognar-

Yay! More RuneQuest

2011-07-20T23:00:00.003-06:00

As mentioned previously, Mongoose has unburdened itself of RuneQuest and Glorantha, but will continue to publish its MRQII rules in a new game called Legend. Now, two of the game designers that worked on MRQII have started their own company and negotiated the rights to RuneQuest from Issaries and will release a new edition, RuneQuest 6, next year. This will make four major tabletop rpgs in print, Basic RolePlaying, Call of Cthulhu, Legend and RuneQuest 6 based on the BRP game engine. Does this represent a renaissance for the venerable system? My guess is probably not. I don't get the sense that a gritty and realistic game like BRP appeals to the younger gamer looking for the anime-inspired hyperpowerful characters wielding ridiculously oversized weapons. Still, it seems the game has endured and continues to attract a following. I just hope they don't oversaturate the market.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on D&D 3.5 monsters

2011-07-07T18:14:00.002-06:00

Zack and Steve really reached out for an odd one this time, the Monster Manual IV. Dragonspawn, oh the horror!

Monster Manual IV

-Rognar-

Paizo Ascendant

2011-07-07T11:21:00.004-06:00

The Paizosphere is all abuzz about this forum posting. The big boss lady at Paizo is certainly a source of some authority, so it's taken as at least somewhat credible. A few blogs have taken up the discussion, noticing, among other things, that Pathfinder occupies the top 2 spots on the fantasy gaming bestsellers list at Amazon.com. Well, the domination is even more pronounced here in Canada. The Amazon.ca fantasy gaming list has Pathfinder holding down the top 5 spots and 6 of the top 8, with no WotC product appearing until the 9th spot. Now, as others have noted, these numbers may be deceiving. WotC has been moving toward a different business model recently, with a greater emphasis on online, subscription-based gaming. It seems clear, however, that as far as traditional tabletop role-playing is concerned, the type of gaming in which a group of friends gather around a table to drink Mountain Dew (or, in my case, Coke Zero) and throw dice, increasingly, the game of choice is Pathfinder (especially in Canada).

-Rognar-

Michael Bay - I just can't quit you

2011-07-04T09:48:00.006-06:00

So I went to see Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon 3D over the weekend. I've seen every one of the movies in the series despite having absolutely no attachment to the franchise at all. I was too old to embrace the Transformers when they were first introduced and, quite honestly, I find the idea of hyper-advanced robots that transform into pickup trucks and tapedecks to be ridiculous. Yet, despite the mountain of criticism directed at him from many quarters and the lack of quality material to work with from either the source material or his actors, Michael Bay does one thing better than anyone in the business. He knows how to direct a kick-ass action sequence. If you can endure the interminable sections of the film in which Sam Witwicky (Shia Lebeouf) bemoans his miserable life (despite being on his second supermodel girlfriend), the payoff is well worth it, as the climactic battle sequence for the salvation of the human race is simply awesome. Disengage your brain and enjoy the eye candy.

-Rognar-

New Pathfinder books announced

2011-07-04T09:28:00.002-06:00

Not surprisingly, the next hardcover Pathfinder rulebook to be released after Ultimate Combat will be another bestiary. More interesting is what Paizo just announced will follow, the Pathfinder Advanced Race Guide. I am particularly stoked about the inclusion of monster races as PCs. Complete rules for playing drow, tieflings, goblins, etc. will be a much needed addition to the game. Too bad it's ten months away.

-Rognar-

HeroLab

2011-07-04T09:10:00.003-06:00

I am constantly building characters examining the classes trying to figure out what does and doesn't work. To speed the character building process I've found a number of spread sheets that do most of the work for me. They are never perfect and I always have make manual adjustments for things they are not equipped to handle. It would be nice if I could find a product that could do everything.

HeroLab is a pretty good product. I bought the base package for $30 and then the APG and Ultimate Combat for $10 each. It has lots of cool features but the thing I'm most impressed with so far is how well it handles archetypes. There are a bunch of features I haven't really played with yet. It could be a great GM tool if all of the encounters were preplanned in the software with all the NPCs and monsters loaded. The tactical display can monitor initiative, any status effects in play, give you a quick view of spells available, hit bonuses and damage, and even has a complicated dice roller. I mean if you fully loaded the software with everything you need, you could easily use it to run every combat. I would probably track hit points separately, and you have to look up the details for some spells but for the most part it does it all.

When I assume the DM mantle I'm strongly considering loading all the monsters and NPCs into HeroLab and see how well it works. Last time I was DM, I had a small stack of notes and character sheets that proved a bit tricky to manage. It could prove very helpful. I'd have to buy the two Bestiary add-ins first. Maybe next paycheck.

Cthulhu's ongoing war against CthulhuTech

2011-06-23T10:33:00.006-06:00

Few games in recent memory have had to overcome more hurdles than Wildfire's CthulhuTech. Originally published by Mongoose, that relationship ended very quickly. It was soon followed up by Catalyst Game Labs, which published the bulk of the game books until an allegation of financial wrongdoing on the part of one of CGL's owners forced Wildfire to seek out yet another publisher. That new publisher is Sandstorm. It seems, however, that the ongoing financial malaise (and the obvious ire of Great Cthulhu) is about to claim another victim. There is growing speculation on the interwebs that Sandstorm and/or CthulhuTech may be coming to the end of the road. These developments have further implications for other games as well. Although it could be argued that CthulhuTech was reaching the end of its cycle anyway with all the books that had been planned already published or in the pipeline, Wildfire's new game, The Void (aka, The Game Formerly known as Chthonian Stars) is just getting started. Will it, like CthulhuTech soon find itself orphaned (again, it was also originally going to be a Mongoose release) and looking for a new publisher? And what about Posthuman Studios and their game, Eclipse Phase, which is also published by Sandstorm? It seems to be a very bad time to be in the business of publishing tabletop rpgs with high production values that are not part of the D&D legacy. It may be that the only way for small publishers to stay afloat these days is to limit themselves to pdf and POD sales.

-Rognar-

Update: Forget speculation, here is confirmation. At least it appears The Void will see the light of day.

New Comments - Old posts.

2011-06-21T21:45:00.002-06:00

I was poking around the blog today taking a peak at our most viewed posts and I saw Derobane's post about building monks was near the top. I didn't recall what the post was about so I took a look. There were a ton of comments (ok, half a dozen) I didn't recall ever having read. At least some of them we added very much after the fact since they refer to the APG which wasn't released until 6 months later.

Is there anyway in Blogger to see what new comments are being added? It makes me wonder how many other old posts are being commented on, and I (perhaps we) have no idea.

Free RPG day!

2011-06-17T21:55:00.002-06:00

Is June 18th this year so make sure you get down to your FLGS and check it out. I'm hoping to pick up the new Paizo goblin adventure released this year.

My apologies to the Barbarian

2011-06-17T21:20:00.005-06:00

A few posts back I ranked the different pathfinder classes and I placed the barbarian below the fighter. I've spent some time over the last couple days messing around with barbarian builds and really looking at the powers and realized that I've made a mistake. When you try to build a barbarian like a fighter, the fighter will always be better. If you build a barbarian around some key Rage powers, you get a terrifying beast that makes a fighter quiver with fear.

If you just look at the numbers the fighter is better. He hits more often for more damage and has those nifty crit feats. But if you put your optimization hat on you can see how the ole barb can surpass his rival. Let's start with the beast totem line of rage powers. Claws are a great back up weapon, by level 16 you've got a +5 natural armor bonus making your AC better then the equivalent fighter, and at level 10 you get Pounce allowing a full attack after a charge. With the Lunge and combat reflexes feats, the Come and Get Me rage power, and Enlarged the barbarian can make Attacks of Opportunity against anyone that either moves or attacks him within 15'. Against the fighter, the barbarian would reply with 4 attacks of opportunity and then do his own full attack. With a good enough Dex, a barbarian could do over 10 attacks per round most of them AoOs at full BAB.

Superstition gives him an awesome will save (with a big caveat), Reckless Abandon allows him to hit as well as a fighter, and Witch Hunter give a damage bonus against anyone with spells/spell-like powers. The Invulnerable Rager archetype trades uncanny dodge and trap sense for much better DR which really helps a build like this.

This barbarian will need lots of healing available because he is going to take tons of hits but the devastation he can unleash exceeds even what an archer can do.

More on Mongoose, MRQII and Wayfarer

2011-06-16T14:01:00.006-06:00

As I posted previously, Mongoose has not renewed its license to publish RuneQuest and the Glorantha campaign setting. It will, however, continue to publish the core rules in a new format, originally called Wayfarer. However, there is a game called Wayfarers and by a strange twist of fate, the company that produces it has approached Mongoose about a publishing arrangement. Mongoose has agreed (beware of referer spam page) and has also decided to rename its new RQ clone Legend. Since I already have MRQII and Legend is supposed to be virtually identical to MRQII with the Glorantha-specific material removed, these developments would not normally be of much interest. However, Mongoose has decided to make Legend OGL. This is awesome, or it would be, except for the little caveat that there will be no SRD. Yeah, that's right. You can freely use anything from Legends in your publications, but you have to have the book. So, to Mongoose, from the handful of gamers out there that don't publish their own work (i.e. 99.9% of us), thanks for thinking of us.

-Rognar-

All Hail the King!

2011-06-05T13:49:00.003-06:00

The volley flew true and Nyrrissa, unable to escape, felt the arrows pierce her body. There had been no escape to heal herself this time after being anchored to this dimension.

She felt the insane rage drain from her soul as the last of her life blood leaked away. Halak the ranger lowered his bow and flexed his stiff fingers. The Archon hovering behind him was the only thing shielding him from Nyrrissa's mental control. He thought her saw the cursed Nymph smile at him as the life and magic faded from her and she began to fall into the frozen river below.

Lung the barbarian reached out and grabbed her and carried her over to the cliff, his body still riddled with Halak's arrows. Peskar, the arcane trickster, followed, shifting back to his natural form. Merissa the summoner, collapsed on the cliff edge. The insane nymph had nearly disintegrated her in the battle's dying moments. The cleric followed the pack to the cliff and began patching everyone up.

Our kingdom is safe again (for now). The evil fey who had been manipulating things behind the scenes for years had finally been brought down. It had been a rough battle. The key to defeating her was the sword Briar but its wielder, Lung, had been banished via Maze as the battle began and had only managed to return at the tail end of the fight. The rest of us had been trying to strip her of her defenses which had made her near invulnerable. Halak was the only one that had any significant chance of hurting her so we had to keep him alive (and not dominated). In the end we managed to eak out a victory.

Rippin' on LotFP

2011-06-04T00:30:00.001-06:00

Congrats to James Edward Raggi IV and the OSR. Zack and Steve have noticed you. You have arrived.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess

-Rognar-

Role-playing vs. roll-playing in Pathfinder

2011-05-31T13:13:00.004-06:00

As our group eagerly anticipates this weekend's finale to our long-running and highly-enjoyable Kingmaker campaign (thanks, Tayloritos!), I find my gaming style has changed dramatically from what it was perhaps 5 or 10 years ago. I don't know if it is late-onset ADD, but last week as we battled hordes of minions in our quest to lay a beatdown on the evil fey queen, I came to the conclusion that a part of me was subconsciously hoping my current character would bite it. "Why?", you may ask. "Do you not like your character?" On the contrary, Pesker, the Arcane Trickster, is actually quite awesome. Though not a heavy hitter in the party, our barbarian, our ranger and our summoner's eidolon are far more impressive at that. He is, however, supernaturally stealthy and often waltzes through combats without a scratch. He's also quite versatile, having potent spellcasting and skills to draw from.

So, what's the problem?

The new hotness has worn off....after four sessions! Yeah, this isn't even the guy I started with. My original character is Dakros the First, Priest-King of Drekmore. Once the kingdom was well-established, it became clear to me that King Dakros would not continue to wander about the hinterland, risking his neck. He needed to rule his kingdom and lead his armies. So, I retired him from adventuring and created Pesker to serve as the King's Man and deal with the dangers that threaten from beyond the temporal borders of the realm. I've learned a lot from the short time of playing Pesker. Having never played an arcane trickster (magic-user/thief in old-school parlance) in either D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder, I never had a good feeling for how to get the most synergy out of the combination. I see now that while rogues are pretty weak in Pathfinder, combining them with arcane spellcasting can make them pretty solid, especially using the Arcane Trickster PrC.

Anyway, getting back to the point of this post, it makes no sense that I should develop so little attachment to my character, that I am already looking at a replacement. I remember in my teenaged years playing the same character for years and being deeply invested emotionally in their survival. I even remember playing a dwarven fighter for months after he had hit his racial maximum and could not advance any further in levels. I can't even conceive of doing that now. Strangely, it seems my 15-year old self had a longer attention span than my 45-year old self. Or is it the nature of game today that encourages players to invest more in the "build" than the character itself? How do we get back to the "character-as-alter-ego" concept that tabletop rpgs are based on as opposed to playing a package of stats more akin to a boardgame or computer game? Would we even want to? Do any of you guys see this same trend or is it just me?

-Rognar-

All feats are not created equal

2011-05-26T10:46:00.006-06:00

Love 'em or hate 'em, feats are probably the most prominent feature of D&D 3.x/Pathfinder as compared to previous incarnations of the beloved game. They have changed the whole concept of character generation. In the past, you chose your race and class and you were pretty much done making decisions about your character. From that point on, character development was story-driven. With the introduction of feats, the powergamers could go crazy. It's not uncommon for players like me who enjoy us some hardcore min/maxing from time to time to generate a character with 15 or 20 levels of character advancement already mapped out before we ever get to the gaming table. Heck, I've been known to spend a few hours of leisure time generating characters I have no intention of playing just to see what combination of feats I can come up with.

Spend any amount of time generating characters like this, you will soon realize some feats are way better than others. Some, like Iron Will and Toughness are just plain good, no matter what class you choose. Others like Point Blank Shot, Power Attack or Spell Penetration are indispensible for certain types of characters. Still others, like Intimidating Prowess or Catch Off-Guard are so lame, nobody would ever think of wasting a precious feat slot on them. Rarely, however, does a feat come along that is so good, it literally dictates character design decisions. In Ultimate Magic, there is such a feat. It is called Versatile Channeler. It allows neutral clerics of neutral dieties to use both positive and negative energy in their channeling. Without this feat, a player must decide at the time the character is generated which type of channeling he will use. With this feat, he can use both. He still has to choose which type will be the dominant one, but he can channel the other energy type as a cleric two levels lower (i.e. -1d6). This is huge and it means playing a good cleric has suddenly become a really bad choice. Expect to start seeing a lot more clerics of Gozreh and Pharasma showing up in your Pathfinder games.

-Rognar-

Pathfinder Character classes - Ranking.

2011-05-25T08:01:00.004-06:00

After responding to Rognar's post (which was eaten by Blogger) I got to thinking about the rankings of character classes. I am going to do something that I am sure not everyone will agree with put them in order of greatness. I guess what I'm really ranking here is there ability to do everything(or anything) and excel at it.

1. Summoner. I have to put the summoner first because its almost 2 characters in one class. The Eidolon is basically a tripped out killing machine. It can unleash almost as much damage as the dedicated fighters while having much better AC, HP, and other abilities. The summoner himself is no slouch either. When the Eidolon is not the right tool for the job, he cast Summon Monster as a standard action and pull from the vast selection of critters available. His spell list is awesome gaining early access to lots of great spells including tons of buffs and utility spells. As Cha is the primary spell casting stat she can act as the party face or use UMD to cast just about anything. A summoner's versatility is unmatched.

2. Wizard. With foreknowledge and prep time the wizard can do it all. The wizard works best when complimenting the party and messing with the enemy.

3. Sorcerer. The Sorcerer has been improved to the point where it may now be better then the wizard especially if using the Human favored class ability to get more spells known which is the Sorcerers main drawback. With Cha as the primary casting stat, Sorc make great party faces. If only they had more skills.

4. Druid. While these guys along with clerics were kings in 3.5, the nerfs to polymorph hit them hardest. Druids still have tons of versatility but no longer can be awesome at everything. They have to choose whether they are combat kings or great spell casters. The other side suffers. They can still summon things as back-up.

5. Clerics. While clerics have lost all of the splatty 3.5 goodness and their best spells have been nerfed, clerics can still do a lot. Clerics are still really scary at high levels. The problem is that I find clerics to be boring to play until you get to high levels. At low levels they are poor fighters without rounds of prep time and most of their spells suck. They are the best healer but generally you are better off trying to kill the enemy than spending your actions doing low amounts of healing. Cleric Domains are nice and can really add some power to the class but not enough to make me want to play one.

6. Oracle. Haven't played one so its hard to judge for sure. 9th level casting goes a long way. Most divine spells are not really the type of thing you want to spam cast. Would have to see a min-maxed one in action to really be able to judge.

7. Witch. Witches are awesome or awful depending on what you are doing. Their limited spell selection hurts but its partially made up with Hexes. Witches are near useless against anything that is immune to mind affecting effects which includes many high end monsters. In anycase, they get a bit boring since you tend to cast the same hexes in same order fight after fight.

8. Alchemist. There are several different Alchemist builds and I think most can work quite well. The class looks fun to play with a wide variety of skills and abilities. The alchemist is a class that can do lots of things reasonably well.

The next three are all very similar but with a different focus. Their ranking are almost interchangeable.

9. Magus. Not having seen one in action I am guessing a bit here. I've built a couple test PCs and they seem quite effective at all levels. Their biggest problem is that they seem to need to be in melee for their best skills to work. They can cast from range of course but then they are just a poor wizard. Getting into the thick of things means requiring decent scores in dex, con and str. Str can be dropped if you are will be to pay the massive feat costs for the Dex to Damage feat chain. Magii can do scary damage at high levels - imagine delivering a critical disintegrate one out of three casts/swings. Of course you need a high enough DC for your opponent to fail the save.

10. Inquisitor. Useful both in and out of combat. Many of its abilities are free or swift actions. I think it would a scary good archer as long as the bane ability holds out. Has great spells but has limited spells known and gets them a bit late.

11. Bard. Yes, the Bard. In the right party, the bard is a game changer. A clever bard can make combat easy for everyone else but it's hard for the bard to shine alone. Lots of skills and probably the best party face in the game.

12. Ranger. While not the damage dealer the fighter is, the ranger brings much more to the game. A few spells and lots of spells give the ranger something to do when not making the enemy a pin cushion. The rangers ability to ignore prerequisites to certain feats is very powerful.

13. Fighter. The King of Damage. No one can unload more hurt then the fighter. Sure there isn't anything he can really do but at least what he does, he excels at.

14. Paladin. In certain campaigns the paladin will really shine. BBEGs quiver in fear at the sight of a paladin charging towards them (or scarier still shooting arrows). Paladins have unmatched defenses with high Saves and likely high AC. When they are not Smiting evil they can still act as the party face and have a few spells to play with. The paladin code is a real downer.

15. Barbarian. Trades damage for a bit of versatility. Rage powers don't really make up for the loss. I'd go fighter over barbarian any day.

16. Cavalier. The biggest problem with this class is the focus on a horse. In a campaign where you could take a horse with you everywhere, this class would scoot up the list but as it is it's down near the bottom. It has some interesting flavor but I can't see myself ever playing it.

17. Rogue. The poor rogue. Terrible saves. No dependable way to inflict sneak attack damage from range. Other classes get almost as many skills and bring so much more to the table.

18. Monk. While I am still digesting the magical oriented monk in UM, the only decent build of monk currently existing is the Zen Archer. Any other monk is likely going to be underpowered. The base monk is highly mobile and can annoy spell casters, but that's all. The monk has some neat tricks but that's all they are and the monk is quickly out shined by other party members.

Keep in mind just because I ranked something lower doesn't mean I would not play it. I really like rangers but they lack the versatility of other classes and one of their big powers hinges on the whims of the DM (Favored Enemy).

I miss power creep

2011-05-24T11:31:00.004-06:00

One of the most common criticisms leveled at D&D 3.5 was power creep. Every new splatbook upped the ante with more powergaming options. I had my own misgivings about power creep at the time, but now I think what I disliked was not power creep, but the related problem of rules bloat. I have come to this conclusion as a result of my experience with Pathfinder. The good folks at Paizo have made controlling both power creep and rules bloat a top design priority. As a result, their release schedule for rulebooks has been far more modest than that of WotC. Since the Pathfinder Core Rulebook was published in August 2009, Paizo has only released the Gamemastery Guide, the Advanced Player's Guide the Pathfinder Bestiary, the Pathfinder Bestiary 2 and now, Ultimate Magic. Now, I appreciate the wisdom of releasing only about three rulebooks per year, but I wish the books that did come out had more awesomeness in them. The Advanced Player's Guide, for example, introduced six new base classes. I have played one, the Alchemist, while my co-blogger, Obiri has test-driven the Witch (ok, that sounded dirty) and the Summoner. I did like the Alchemist and Obiri's Summoner has proven pretty effective, but the Witch did not impress me much and the other classes, the Cavalier, the Oracle and the Inquisitor are so lame, no one has even bothered to give them an audition. Furthermore, despite a mountain of new feats, spells and alternative class features, I have found very little in the book that appeals to me unless I'm actually playing one of the new classes.

Well, now we have Ultimate Magic. I will leave it to Obiri to review UM, but I will make a few observations. It introduces one new base class, the Magus, which mirrors the Eldritch Knight prestige class (and even uses the same iconic art). I like the concept of a fighter/mage and so I may try the Magus at some point, but most of the rest of the book follows the same recipe as the APG, an occasional morsel of meat floating in a thin, bland broth. The problem is power creep, or more precisely, the lack of power creep. It's a delicate balance to produce new options for character generation that are just as cool as the old stuff, but not more powerful. It is a balance that neither WotC nor Paizo seems able to manage. WotC chose to throw caution to the wind and just kept ramping it up. However, they were able to keep most of the core classes relevent by giving them lots of new hotness in parallel with the new classes they introduced. Paizo has chosen the opposite approach, introducing less new stuff, most of which is less appealing than what was already released in the core rules. I'm sure many will disagree with me, but I'm starting to look back fondly on the WotC way of doing things.

Let the flaming begin!

-Rognar-

Mongoose and RuneQuest/Glorantha part ways

2011-05-24T10:19:00.002-06:00

Mongoose has announced it will discontinue its licensing agreement with Issaries to publish RuneQuest II and any related Glorantha-specific material. It will, however, retain its core MRQII rules, which it intends to repackage as a new fantasy rpg called Wayfarer. It will port its other IPs that use the MRQII rules (Deus Vult, Wraith Recon, Eternal Champion) to the Wayfarer system.

I really like the core rules and don't care much for the eccentricities of Glorantha, so this looks like it might be good news. However, my general opinion of Mongoose is that they have a tendency to bite off more than they can chew. In the case of MRQII, the core rulebook and Monster Coliseum were both quite well-done, but some of the later supplements, notably Necromantic Arts and Arms & Equipment were seriously flawed. Also, Mongoose doesn't have a reputation for timely releases of errata. So, I'm, at best, ambivalent about this development. If Mongoose gives Wayfarer the attention it deserves, it has the potential to be a truly first-rate game. I sincerely hope they get this project right.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on...BattleTech

2011-05-20T14:56:00.001-06:00

80s retro art from BattleTech classics, courtesy of Steve and Zack

BattleTech

-Rognar-

Chthonian Stars at long last

2011-05-13T14:10:00.005-06:00

Chthonian Stars has finally been released to much fanfare...ok, no fanfare. Still, it was the best-selling pdf on DriveThruRPG for a couple of days, so I can't be the only one who bought a copy. To recap, Chthonian Stars is a mashup of Alien, The Fifth Element and Call of Cthulhu. A rogue celestial body is approaching our solar system emitting some strange form of radiation which is causing all manner of apparently supernatural phenomena. Weird cults are popping up all over the solar system, ships are disappearing, atrocities are being committed by otherwise normal people and rumours of monster sightings circulate. The publisher, Wildfire, originally intended to release the game through Mongoose, using the Traveller ruleset. Something changed their minds and the game is undergoing a reboot. The new game will be called The Void and will use a new ruleset. However, there was much hype and excitement about the original idea and Chthonian Stars was pretty much complete when they decided to pull the plug, so they released it in pdf format.

The look of Chthonian Stars is very reminiscent of Wildfire's other rpg, CthulhuTech. It has the same artistic style and the same interspersed pieces of short fiction, although in general, I found the quality of the writing to be a bit inferior to CthulhuTech. It seemed to lack the same ability to inspire dread in the reader. Choosing to name one of the characters in one of the stories "Capt. Zack Bradigan" didn't help.

The setting of Chthonian Stars is a veritable cornucopia of future history tropes; a global economic crisis, a bushfire conflict in the Middle East leading to WWIII, a terrorist nuke and then everyone coming to their senses just in time, a golden age of cooperation and a return to space, colonization of the solar system and then, inevitably, an end to the glory days as the colonies grow restless. It is certainly a script we've all seen before, but it serves the campaign setting well enough. The "present" is the latter half of the 22nd century as the Chthonian Star approaches the solar system and end of the age of humanity looms.

Chapters on character generation and rule adaptations follow the setting description and they are fine. The default character concept is the Warden, basically a government agent mandated to investigate and, if possible, eliminate supernatural threats throughout the solar system. While other classes are certainly possible, only the Wardens have the authority to go anywhere from the mines of Mercury to the lonely outposts of the Kuiper Belt, thus making them the best choice for a party of investigators and they have a wide range of backgrounds so no two Wardens need be alike.

Technology seems to be a bit of an eclectic mix. Firearms are the default ranged weapon type. There are no lasers or particle beams, yet, oddly, there are some very high-tech melee weapon options including monofilaments and vibroblades. There is a surprisingly large number of space ship designs included in the game, warships, freighters, transports, shuttles, rescue vessels and the special "Knight's Errant Class" corvette used by the Wardens. There is no FTL capability and no artificial gravity, so setting aside the cosmic horror aspects, the game is quite hard sci-fi.

Following the chapters on equipment and ships, there is a chapter detailing the planets in the solar system as well as major extraplanetary bases and colonies. There is also a fairly extensive bestiary, which may be my favourite chapter in the book. My understanding is that a more detailed bestiary entitled Horrors of the Void is due to be released this summer as a pdf. If it is as good as the one in the core book, it should be excellent.

The last two chapters in the book are intended primarily for gamemasters. One deals with gamemastering in general. It includes advice on how to run a game, as well as a list of plot hooks and rumours GMs can use to get things moving. The other provides a lot of secret information on the setting as well as a few short adventures. I was a bit surprised by how much of the background on the Chthonian Star was actually revealed in this section. It's common for rpg designers to leave a lot of those details up to the GM to decide, but not in this case. It is well-advised that players keep away from the last chapter.

All in all, Chthonian Stars is a decent offering and given that Horrors of the Void will be the only supplement released for the game in this form, it should make for a nice complete game requiring only the core Traveller book to play. The setting is, perhaps, a bit less compelling than that of CthulhuTech, but it avoids the clunky Framewerk game mechanics, making it, in my opinion, a better and more playable Cthulhu space horror game.

-Rognar-

Cross-posted at Rognar's Space Horror RPG Blog

Rippin' on Magic the Gathering...again

2011-05-13T10:48:00.002-06:00

Zack and Steve take another shot at MtG.

Magic the Gathering

-Rognar-

Ultimate Magic

2011-05-11T14:26:00.000-06:00

As subscribers start to get their PDFs, the spoilers are going up on the Paizo message board just as they did with the APG. It will be at least a week before our FLGS gets a copy so I have to get by on spoilers until then.

I am eagerly looking forward to this book for a couple reasons. My summoner character in our current Kingmaker game is level 16 and probably will only a gain another level maybe 2 before its over. My eidolon has pretty much maxed out its awesomeness and each level there is only a small list of evolutions worth considering adding. I'm hoping to see one or two that I can slap on before the big boss fight art the end of the campaign (although the last few sessions seem to be mainly big boss fights and we kill off the greater henchmen and minions).

The biggest reason I'm looking forward to this book is to redeem clerics and druids. In 3.5 these were two of the strongest classes but each has been hit rather hard with the nerf bat in Pathfinder. The druid now has to focus on either casting of shape shifting both of which are now weaker then they were in 3.5 when the druid could do both.

The cleric has great high level spells but the low level ones that are not buffs largely suck. Even some of the best cleric buffs have been nerfed. The default way to play a cleric is as a support character. I find support characters boring. To me the most fun part of the game is rolling the dice and support characters don't have to do that. Your fellow PCs are not going to try to dodge or save against your buffs or blocks your heals with Spell Resistance. The problem is with the current spell list its hard to play any other way until late in the game. Low level debuffs are terrible compared to a wizard, and clerics lack any other meaningful offensive spells. You can try to play as a battle cleric but to be offensive you need to buff yourself for a couple rounds since all of your good buffs have a really short duration. By the time the battle cleric is ready to party, the ranger has kissed all the women and the barbarian drunk all of the booze. The options a battle cleric had to buff in 3.5 are not available in Pathfinder. The only option is Quicken Spell and its not until level 15 or 17 that you can quicken the best buffs like Divine Power and Righteous Might. What I'm hoping to see is an expanded spell list for clerics that give them options to be anything other then healer/buffer.

The druid doesn't have it quite so bad (ie boring) but its spell list could use some jazzing up as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Magus. This sort of character which is a blend of sword and sorcery seems right up my alley but we'll have to see how it is implemented. The version in the Beta was ok but needed a stronger spell list for me to want to play it.

Book Review: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 1: A Game of Thrones

2011-04-29T12:25:00.003-06:00

"When you play the Game of Thrones, you live or you die."

I first read this book about 13 years ago when it first came on in paperback. The reason I picked it proved to be a bit ironic but that's a tale for another time. HBO has recently aired its version of the series which has sparked an interest in the book at my office so I went back to read through it again (I am also watching the TV show which so far is quite loyal to the books).

I had almost forgotten how great a book it is. Its a fat book packed full of story goodness. Initially there are two plot lines. The peripheral storyline involves the exiled princess Danaerys. and the main plot involves King Robert and the Lord of the North, Eddard Start. The main plot quickly branches into many storyline involving most of the big players and each chapter is written from one of several characters' viewpoints. The cast is quite large and you are fed lots of backs story and world information early on and its easy to lose track of who is who and many of the minor details get lost. On this read through - the first in 4 years, I am picking up many tidbits that I had never noticed in earlier passes.

What is the book all about? Well, if I had to define it, I would call it a medieval political thriller. The author, George R. R. Martin, used England's War of the Roses as inspiration. The book's main plot involves intrigue between the realm's major houses as they jockey for power. There is lots of sex, violence, and intrigue. There really isn't much in the way of magic. Dragons have been extinct for centuries and monsters and other things that go bump in the night are the stuff of children's stories (although the prelude would indicate that there is still something out there).

All of the characters come across is human. While you can easily classify some as heroes and villains, many fall into the grey in between and all have their faults and failings. The best example is probably Tyrion Lannister. The Lannisters can easily be viewed as the villains of the tale. Tyrion is a dwarf with mismatched eyes, and lacks the beauty of his kin. He is the stereotype trickster. His tongue both gets him into trouble as well as out of it. He seems to be involved in lots of awful things but its hard not to cheer for the underdog. While Tyrion can be merciless to his enemies he has a soft spot for other outcasts and cripples and will go out of his way to assist them.

This is not a Disney fairy tale. Don't expect the heroes to win or things to work out in the end. This is a realm where cheaters do prosper, and where might makes right. The climax of Game of Thrones punches you in the gut and leaves you reeling. The ending will leave you begging for more. Thankfully the awesomeness continues on though books two and three. I found book 4 dreadfully disappointing. Hopefully when book 5 is released in July it will get the series back on track.

Review: Dragon Age 2 (long)

2011-04-25T11:22:00.003-06:00

I know that a video game review falls outside of the normal realm of what this blog is all about but Dragon Age has its own RPG (that actually looks rather fun although I haven't played it).

The first game was great. Epic story line, interesting characters, very difficult combat system. So difficult in fact I had to play through the game on easy because I was tired of TPKs every 30 minutes on Normal.

Dragon AGE brings back most of what was good about the first game and tries to expand on it. The combat system works a little better now. Fights don't involve pausing the game to issue new commands to your party every 10 seconds because the AI is now smart enough to run party members you are not directly controlling fairly effectively.

The Difficulty has also been toned down. In DA1, on easy, I would still suffer the occasional TPK but in DA2, I pretty much only had to worry about Boss fights once you learn a few combat tactics.

Again there are three main classes - Warrior, Rogue and Mage. Your choice influences the storyline but not a great deal. The mage's area effect attacks have been toned down in DA2 but they are still not to be trifled with and are to be killed first whenever encountered. The warrior and rogue both can focus of specialty skill trees (2 handed vs sword and board for the warrior or 2 weapon vs archery for the rogue) or work on generic trees which affect all combat. At levels 7 and 14 (game caps between 20 and 25) you unlock a specialty focus which opens up another skill tree (there are three to choose from so you can only get 2). The mage's skill trees grant spells instead of special attacks and work much the same way.

Combat animations are great. The amount of blood and gore borders on the ridiculous but few things are more satisfying than watching an enemy burst into pieces, blood spraying everywhere after they die from a critical hit. Any cut scenes after a battle still show the characters covered in splattered blood and gore. Most boss fights include a death animation when the main character finishes off the baddy on some wicked way. I think my favorite occurs near the end as you leap onto the head of an abomination, stab it a few times before pulling a smaller maggot demon from within. You hurl it to the ground and then walk over and crush it's head under your boot.

The settings are a bit of a mixed bag. At first you'll find each area really impressive. The reason they were able to spend so much time making them nice is that you return to the same locations over and over and over again. You fight in the foundry at least 4 times and the same can be said of most of the other locations.

Of course the best things about the game are the plot and the characters. The main plot focuses around the conflict between Mages and Templars as told by one of your companions to a Templar Seeker. There are a couple spots in the game where the dwarf begins to exaggerate and the Seeker cuts in, accusing him of lying and makes him start that part again. Each of your companions has their own quest lines which do affect how the main plot progresses. I have played through twice trying to make different choices each time and although the game plays largely the same, some of the side quests are different and your companions will react differently as well.

The characters make this game. They will chit chat with each other as you run around and depending on how things play out some will come to hate each other and others like each other. The emo elf hates mages and if you put the 2 mages in the part with him they do nothing but bicker. The pirate and the dwarf flirt and the pirate gives sex advice to the captain of the guard. Aside from your brother or sister (who you get depends on your choice of class) each of your companions fills one of the archetype roles (sword and board (Aveline) vs 2-Hander (Fenris), 2 weapons (Isabel) vs archery (Varric), offensive mage (Merill) vs defensive mage (Anders)).

Overall its a great game which is probably why I've sunk over 60 playing through twice so far. I may play through a third time as a warrior and try to find anything that I've missed. My daughter loves watching me play and is constantly asking to play the "Red game" (after the color of its start-up icon) so we can "Kill monsters". She's found it scary in a few spots but she's tough. I can see her being a big gamer in a few years.

What's going on out there?

2011-04-21T10:38:00.005-06:00

Is it just me or is there a palpable air of decline in the tabletop rpg world lately? Even though the stock market crash that led to our current global recession hit back in October, 2008, it didn't seem as though the economy had all that much of a chilling effect on the gaming business over the last couple of years. However, I sense that the recession is finally beginning to bite just at the time when the global economy seems to be bouncing back. I'm sure much of the apparent malaise comes from the recent announcements from Wizards of the Coast about cancelled product lines and reduced publication schedules. When the biggest player in the market is producing less product, it no doubt trickles down through the whole industry. Still, it seems the effect is percolating throughout the tabletop rpg community, even to corners which should be largely insulated from goings-on in Renton, such as the OSR. A lot of fairly prolific rpg bloggers seem to be posting less often. Also, many small publishers seem to releasing fewer products, or at least fewer products that attract my attention. I don't mind the extra money in my pocket, but I do miss trotting over to the FLGS to lay down my sheckels on the new hotness.

There are, of course, bright spots in the gloom. Paizo is still going strong and Ultimate Magic is due for release next month. Also, Chaosium seems to be enjoying a bit of a revival thanks to the success of Cthulhu Invictus and The Chronicles of Future Earth. They have a new hardback version of BRP due for release very soon and a massive new Viking-oriented BRP setting called Mythic Iceland is in the pipeline. Likewise, something or other is always going on at Cubicle 7, although I'm not much for FATE, so I'm only dimly aware of their activities. Hopefully, the current lull is only temporary and we will have more to talk about and gush over in the months ahead. While I shudder to think about it, D&D 5e might be just what we need to kickstart things. Just don't expect me to buy it.

-Rognar-

You Never Know Who Plays These Games

2011-04-19T13:32:00.002-06:00

As a high school teacher, I see and hear a lot of weird things. Just yesterday I saw a guy picking his butt with a clicky pencil in the hall and a kid trying to rip the fountain off the wall for whatever reason. Yeah, weird stuff happens here but I am used to it. Today, however, I saw something totally surprising. I walked into my 12th grade social class and saw the class princess (you know, the so-called 'totally hot' chicks that wear tons of make-up and mini-skirts)with a 4ed D&D DM guide on her desk. I literally tripped over my own feet as my body kept walking but my eyes stayed fixed on the book. I looked at the kid and asked what the crap that was doing on her desk. In a very matter-of-fact manner, she replied that she was the DM in her group and she plays every week. I thought she was full of crap and totally putting me on so I decided to ask her some trick questions to test her knowledge of the game.

Q1: So, you are into Demons and Wyrms, huh?
A: No, this is D&D 4E.

Q2: Did you ever get into 3rd?
A: 3.5 was where I started.

Q3: Have you ever played the minstrel class?
A: I don't think there is a minstrel class.

Q4: What is your favorite campaign setting?
A: I only play Forgotten Realms.

Q5: Who is your favorite god in the Realms?
A: Shar, for sure. Is this a test?

"No, but you get 100%, kid."
"Thanks. Do I get a bonus mark?"

"No. Put your D&D book away and get ready for class."

Completely floored, people. You just never know who plays this game. Kids like this give me hope for this wicked past-time.

Weird War II - The Sons of Solomon and the OSI

2011-04-11T14:38:00.010-06:00

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, more commonly known as the Knights Templar, was a powerful Christian military order charged with the defense of the Holy Land during the Crusades. From humble beginnings, the Knights Templar grew to become a wealthy organization, with holdings from the eastern Mediterranean to the British Isles. With the fall of the Crusader States in the late 13th century, the Knights Templar lost its primary function as an order of fighting monks, becoming, in effect, a multinational bank with a standing army. This was a situation which caused both envy and fear among the kings of Europe. In 1307, King Philip IV of France, with the grudging support of Pope Clement V, brought the hammer down on the Knights Templar, executing its leaders and seizing its assets under trumped up charges of heresy and corruption. The Templars were no more, or so the official historical record says.

During the time the Knights Templar resided in Jerusalem, they were exposed to the ancient knowledge of Greece, Persia and Egypt. They learned of prophecy and the mysteries of the world beyond the frontiers of Christendom and they grew powerful in the practice of sorcery. Although their accusers did not realize it, some of the Templars really were guilty of the crimes of which they were accused. Forseeing their own demise, they orchestrated events to ensure the survival of their inner circle of sorcerers and their most valuable and potent treasures and magicks. Escaping to Scotland, which was under papal excommunication at the time, the surviving Templars eventually made their way to North America. Abandoning their old name and their association with the Roman Catholic Church, they became the Sons of Solomon, a fraternal order of sorcerers dedicated to understanding the true nature of the universe and defending humanity from the horrors of the void. They remained very secretive for centuries, but questions persisted. Only a handful of Templars were executed and a minority were absorbed in other orders. This still left many hundreds of Templars unaccounted for. Rumours of a secret order circulated and it was assumed, of course, that much of the wealth of the Knights Templar remained in the hands of that group. As the population of the United States grew, it became more difficult for the Sons of Solomon to keep their activities secret. So, they created Freemasonry. Purposefully secretive and incorporating many symbols associated with the Knights Templar, the Freemasons drew the attention of those who believed the Knights Templar persisted. They were well-funded and they attracted a lot of powerful men, especially in 18th-century America. Once fully-established, the Sons of Solomon drew away from the Freemasons, secure in the knowledge that they could retain their anonymity. In truth, the Freemasons, though steeped in mystical traditions, never had much understanding or belief in the arcane basis of their rituals. They were little more than decoys, providing cover for the true power, the Sons of Solomon.

Throughout their history, the Sons of Solomon have fought many evil sorcerers, who sought power through alliances with horrors of the void. The most prominent include Vlad Dracul and his son, Vlad Tepes, Countess Elizabeth Báthory and Rasputin. Throughout the centuries, their power was always sufficient to ensure the enemies of humanity could not establish a foothold in our dimension. However, the seers of the Sons of Solomon saw a rising darkness as the Nazis rose to prominence in Germany. Their visions were cryptic and hazy. A great, malevolent force was rising in the heart of Europe and for the first time, the Sons of Solomon felt their power was inadequate to contain the enemy. Using their Freemason connections, the Sons worked to influence the US and UK governments and militaries. They arranged for the creation of the OSI to serve as their eyes and ears on the battlefronts of Europe. Embedded within the Allied armies, but not part of them, the OSI would investigate incidents of a weird or supernatural nature, always seeking to ascertain what Nazi sorcerers were doing. They even recruited the great British sorcerer, Aleister Crowley, despite his unsavoury reputation and far too public profile. Crowley's sorcerous delvings proved immensely invaluable, giving the OSI much-needed intelligence into the activities of the Ahnenerbe. Sadly, his scrying efforts would eventually cost Crowley his sanity, but without him, the Nazis would have surely proved victorious in the war.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on Rifts...again

2011-04-07T19:45:00.002-06:00

Zack and Steve take another shot at Kevin Siembieda with their look at Rifts Worldbook 10: Juicer Uprising

Juicer Uprising

-Rognar-

Weird War II - The Thule Society and the Ahnenerbe

2011-03-28T10:34:00.009-06:00

The Thule Society and the Ahnenerbe were both real organizations. The former was a secret society formed in Germany in the dying days of WWI. The Thule Society was created to advance a theory of German racial superiority based on the works of 19th-century mystic, Helena Blavatsky. Though never a large organization, several of its members would be influential in the early days of the Nazi party. Rudolf Hess and Hans Frank were known to be active members, while Dietrich Eckart, Heinrich Himmler, Alfred Rosenburg and Hermann Göring were believed to have had some association. The formal association between the Thule Society and the German Worker's Party (later to become the Nazi Party) was severed at Hitler's insistence in 1920 and the organization was dissolved in 1925. However, one of its founders, Rudolf von Sebottendorff revived it briefly in 1933. The Nazis moved to suppress the organization and von Subottendorff was imprisoned briefly, before being released and fleeing to Turkey. That is where the official history of the Thule Society ends and the unofficial history begins. Rudolf Hess still believed in the theories of the Thule Society, even if the Führer did not. Working behind the scenes for the next several years, he aided the Thule Society, providing documents and money to former members, allowing them to escape Germany and set up branches of the organization in Istanbul and London. During that time, Thule members delved deeper into the occult, learning about sorcery and psychic powers, parallel dimensions and extraterrestrial beings. The mysticism of Madame Blavatsky, the racist theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and the speculations regarding Atlantis advanced by Ignatius Donnelly, combined with their own occult experimentation and their sense of betrayal by Hitler, forged a powerful league of sorcerers determined to overthrow the Führer and bring about an Aryan superpower that would encorporate all the Anglo-Germanic nations of the world, including Britain and America.

The sorcerers and psychics of the Thule Society faced a difficult dilemma in the early stages of the war. They wanted to undermine Hitler, but the success of the military campaigns in Poland and France served their interests. Furthermore, what efforts they did undertake were easily countered by Nazi blood mages, who were far more numerous and powerful than the Thules realized. In fact, Nazi occult research had advanced far more than that of the Thule Society. A secretive bureau within the SS known as the Ahnenerbe, created by Himmler, was advancing the theories of the Thule Society far beyond anything that had been conceived of before. Formed in 1935, they had, by the start of the war, made contact and even alliances with extradimensional beings. They had learned much from these entities and their sorcerous knowledge had grown exponentially. Opponents, such as the Thule Society and the Sons of Solomon (descendants of the Knights Templar from which the OSI would be formed), were no match for the sorcerers of the Ahnenerbe. Indeed, only Aleister Crowley, Britain's most powerful sorcerer, had any insight into what the Ahnenerbe was capable of and his grip on sanity was failing by then. Oddly enough, the Ahnenerbe and the Thule Society were working toward the same goal, removal of Hitler and the establishment of an Aryan empire that would span the globe. However, the Ahnenerbe had far more ambition and could see much farther into realms of space and time that were beyond the modest abilities of the Thules. They needed to keep the Führer around for awhile longer until their grand plan could be fully realized. On December 25, 1944 at a place of horror in southern Poland, the first stage of that plan came to fruition.

-Rognar-

Miniature Painting 2B

2011-03-28T07:32:00.004-06:00

Ok. My wife pulled the rest of the pictures off her camera. These are the ones I worked on Sunday.Most of the guys I paint are use the same colors over and over. greens, browns and black through white - not much color. So with a wizard I decided to brighten him up. I can't say I love the result, but I don't hate it enough to repaint it. I rather wish I had reversed the yellow and purple.

I tried to paint some characters on the scroll. Calligraphy has never been something I'm skilled at and trying to do so on such a small scale, and 3D no less, was really tricky. Just another thing that amazes me about the pros.

I have no idea how the pros paint so well. When I post pictures you can really see every last little mistake. The skin looks chalky, you can see the spots where I've slipped and gobbed one spot and missed another. Their's look spotless with clean crisp lines. I swear they must have an enlarging/shrinking machine that allows them to paint the minis at super size and then shrink them down afterward. Or maybe they use a magnifying glass.

Next up is this assassin looking guy. I tried to do some shading on the cloak but it really isn't visible. He was very quick and easy to paint and still looks pretty cool. I wasn't thrilled to discover his arm was a separate piece. I think I have at last mastered the fine art of crazy glue so I didn't get too many grey hairs trying to attach it.

I started to add texture to the cloak but chickened out. Watching the online videos the best way to figure out the lighting is to shine a bright light on the figure, make a note how the light hits the different areas and then paint the shadows and bright spots in. I tried doing that one and hated the result. Now that I'm a little better, maybe I should give it another shot.

Queen Ileosa worked out quite well. Unlike most Paizo minis which I try and paint to look like their pictures I did this one using my own color scheme. I really liked it until I looked at the picture on the Paizo site. Damn professional painters. Anyway, i liked the way the detail work turned out, one yellow glob aside the hair looks great and even the face turned out well. And yes, I don't care that she looks like a Disney princess. That was half the fun.

When I saw this picture I could see that I had messed up the mouth so I have gone back and repainted it. I tried doing a design on the fan but it looked lame so I white washed it and left it as is.

The last guy is a plague doctor from Paizo's second AP, Curse of the Crimson Throne. You can't really see it from this angle but he's wearing one of those creapy plague masks. I like the idea but find his rather static pose boring.

Derobane: I bought more paint colors this weekend on my trip the the Sentry Box.

Combat rogue - critique this build

2011-03-27T22:49:00.004-06:00

The goal is to create a character with most of the benefits of a rogue (i.e. skills, evasion, sneak attack) which is still a formidable front-line combatant. My main strategy is to incorporate the sneak attack ability into combat without resorting to invisibility or other magic tricks to deny the opponent his DX bonus to AC. The best approach is to use the feint option. Since the improved feint feat only reduces feint from a standard action to a move action and there is no way currently available to reduce it to a swift action, the character is limited to a single attack per round, so that one attack better be a heavy hit. Here's what I've come up with.

Using a 20-point human build, I generated the following stats: ST 17 IN 14 DX 14 CN 12 WS 11 CH 10 including the +2 stat bonus on ST. I take my first level in rogue with toughness and power attack as my feats. He's going to need the hps since as a rogue, he's going to limited to light armour to use evasion. The power attack will come into play soon. My second level will be fighter. I will switch to great sword and take the furious focus feat. This allows me to enjoy the damage bonus of power attack without the attack penalty and since I'm using a two-handed weapon, the power attack is even more potent. So, already at second level, I'm pounding out 2d6+7+1d6 points on a sneak attack. I take another rogue level next, taking the iron will feat and using rogue talent (weapon training), I take weapon focus (great sword). My fourth level will be fighter again and I take combat expertise as my fighter bonus feat. I also bump up my ST to 18. By this level, my sneak attack damage is 2d6+9+1d6.

Over the next four levels, I continue to alternate rogue and fighter levels. I add improved feint, skill focus (bluff), weapon specialization and I use rogue talent (combat trick) to take the vital strike feat. By 8th level, my sneak attack damage is 2d6+17+2d6+2d6 (assuming a normal weapon). Now, of course, an 8th level fighter could probably do more damage on average and would almost certainly have a higher attack modifier, more hps and better AC, but this character has enough skill points to max out bluff, perception, stealth, climb, acrobatics, disable device and use magic device, and retains evasion and uncanny dodge. So, is it worth it? What could make it better?

-Rognar-

Sorcery in Weird War II

2011-03-25T10:46:00.004-06:00

Sorcery, as it's presented in the core rulebook of Basic RolePlaying, is actually a small subset of a much larger set of options broadly outlined in the Stormbringer and Elric! roleplaying games. For those familiar with Call of Cthulhu, which also uses sorcery, the biggest difference is the variety of offensive, defensive and utility spells available. CoC tends to view sorcery as something performed under special conditions, requiring detailed rituals and much preparation. Except for a handful of offensive and defensive spells such as the Elder Sign, most CoC spells involve contacting various Mythos entities or summoning/binding servitor races. For this reason, sorcery is a pursuit best avoided by most right-thinking characters in Call of Cthulhu, except in cases of extreme duress. And, of course, the very act of performing sorcery in CoC has a corrosive effect on one's sanity.

In BRP and Stormbringer, sorcery is more common and has no sanity implications, although the requisite POW score is prohibitive, ensuring that sorcerers are a rare breed. There are three main types of sorcery and typically, a high-level sorcerer will be adept in all three. These are spells, runes and summonings. Spells represent the default form of sorcery, the type to which most low-level sorcerers will be limited. Spells have the advantages of being quick to prepare and demanding modest power point expenditures, although durations are quite short. This is the type of sorcery used most often in combat.

Runes, as the name implies, require the preparation of an inscribed symbol which will trigger a sorcerous effect when certain conditions are met. Runes can persist for days or even years until triggered, making them useful for setting traps. Some runes duplicate the effects of spells, while others offer unique options such as wards or alarms. Most forms of Lawful sorcery are runic.

In game terms, summonings work just like spells, except they are more detailed and require greater preparation. In that respect, they are similar to Call of Cthulhu sorcery. Sorcerers can summon demons or elementals. There are also some necromantic summonings which allow a sorcerer to summon spirits to inhabit prepared corpses or even living hosts. In the latter case, the spirit of the victim is destroyed and the summoned spirit takes possession of the body. The newly-created undead is then bound to the service of the necromancer. Summoned entities are often bound, either in their living state or as the animating essence of some powerful magic item. The summoner has to spend enough power points to define the summoned creature. A fully-formed demon servant will be more costly because points will have to be spent to define physical characteristics such as STR, SIZ, CON, DEX and Move as well as POW and INT. Such a demon would require far more power points than even the most powerful sorcerer would have available. Therefore, a means of storing power points is needed to cast summonings. This requires significant preparation. Also, binding demons, elementals and undead requires the sacrifice of POW points. This is a particularly demanding requirement and one only considered by truly powerful summoners.

-Rognar-

More on allegiences

2011-03-25T09:12:00.003-06:00

In the previous post, I talked about earning points in allegiences in order to define your character's motivations. Now I'll discuss what sorts of actions earn those points. As one might expect, it is easier to earn points for a Chaos allegience than either Law or Balance. Betrayal, wanton violence and vandalism are all ways that can potentially earn Chaos allegience points. Another way is the use of sorcery. Sorcery is inherently Chaotic, although there are a handful of Lawful spells and runes. Ironically, even the casting of Lawful sorcery can earn Chaos points, unless the sorcerer atones afterwards. A sorcerer with a Lawful allegience has to walk a fine line, using his powers reluctantly and always mindful of his allegience budget. Needless to say, demon summoning and necromancy are extremely Chaotic forms of sorcery and should never be pursued by Lawful sorcerers.

Law stresses self-discipline and respect for authority. A character with a Lawful allegience will depend on skills rather than sorcery or supernatural aid. Advancement of skills to high levels will earn Law allegience points. Other Lawful actions include obeying one's superiors and destruction of obviously Chaotic constructs such as summoned demons and animated corpses.

Balance is, perhaps, the most difficult path to follow. It demands much of its followers, including, sometimes, the ultimate sacrifice. An adherent of Balance must be merciful and a defender of the weak. He must resist both tyranny and anarchy without resorting to either. He may use sorcery as long as it serves the greater good, but must never dabble in summoning or necromancy. Any effort on the part of a character with a Balance allegience, either through the use of sorcery or skill, that prevents death and destruction will be worthy of allegience points.

-Rognar-

Allegiences in Weird War II

2011-03-23T15:49:00.005-06:00

Basic RolePlaying does not use an alignment system the way Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder do. Rather, a character has multiple allegiences and builds up points in them depending on his actions. To use D&D as an example, the GM might decide to create five allegiences; Good, Evil, Law, Chaos and Neutrality. A character would typically start out with 1d6-2 pts. in each and then gain more points in one or more of the allegiences through the campaign. If one allegience exceeds any other by 20 pts. or more, that allegience becomes dominant and may attract the attention of powers who share that allegience. For example, a novice cleric of a lawful diety might not attract much notice from either his god or the hierarchy of his church. However, if he acts in an exemplary fashion and accumulates a lot of points for his Law allegience, he may be rewarded for his piety. Of course, if he acted in a chaotic manner and his Chaos allegience began to overshadow his Law allegience, the resulting attention he would receive would not be welcome. Furthermore, when a character reaches 100 pts. in one of his allegiences, he may be approached by a supernatural agent to recruit him to serve as a champion for some diety or similar powerful being.

In my upcoming Weird War II campaign, I will be using the Law-Balance-Chaos allegience system introduced in the Stormbringer role-playing game. Although, Good and Evil are not explicitly represented in this arrangement, it is generally accepted that the closer one gets to perfect Balance, the more "Good" characteristics one displays. Extreme Law is oppressive and hidebound, while extreme Chaos is anarchic and destructive. To illustrate this, I have created a graph showing where all the various powers in the campaign fall along the Law-Balance-Chaos axis:

As you can see, I've added a Good axis projecting from Balance. I define Good as respect for life and beauty and a capacity for self-sacrifice. Those organizations that demonstrate such qualities tend to cluster close to Balance, while the more evil and destructive organizations tend to find themselves at the chaotic or lawful ends of the scale.

-Rognar-

Miniature Painting part 2.

2011-03-21T11:15:00.008-06:00

We had another painting party last Saturday. I finished 2 on Saturday and finished 4 more on Sunday (see next post).

Since my last painting blitz the second batch of miniatures arrived and there were some really nice ones in there. However, I decided that I wanted to try our a couple techniques and this Gray Maiden mini was a good place to start.

Somethings turned out really well. The sword looks great even though I got rather lazy with it. The detail on the shield was crazy hard and I missed some spots so lets just call it the worn look. As for the armor itself I love the way the detail pops out from the armor wash but it made everything too dark. I think I know now how to pop the detail without blacking everything out but I'll have to try it on a different piece.

With this bard I really wanted to get the hair right. Last week I discovered among my wife's vast collection of crafty stuff a bucket full of inks. Although it worked out pretty well, her inks are not the same as the other inks I have. They take hours to dry and and until they do dry they bleed into any paint that comes near them. After playing around a bit I got the color I wanted but it took too long and isn't really viable.

Nothing really special about this mini but I like the gold trim on the boots. It makes me wish I had a busty pirate wench miniature. My wife took these pictures on her fancy camera which is why they are lot nicer then the first batch. She is going to photograph the rest later and I'll post them when she does.

Lastly here is another shot of the minis I painted last time. I got tired of waiting for her to process the picture so I took my own. As you can see, she a much better photographer than I am.

Chronicles of Future Earth....more tasty goodness

2011-03-17T11:32:00.006-06:00

I'm happy to report that, despite my initial concerns, the first supplement for The Chronicles of Future Earth has already been released. Although only available in pdf format from Chaosium.com, The Chonicles of Future Earth - Children of the Worm is an excellent little contribution to the setting. It includes a short adventure, but the real value of the publication is the added crunch. A new race, the P'Tek (aka Troglodytes), an Esteri race of subterranean humanoids, is detailed as well as their primary diety, Babisiya, the goddess of darkness. Several cool new demon powers and spells are also provided, including necromancy spells adapted from the old Stormbringer rpg. This is hella cool for me, because I recently bought a pdf of The Bronze Grimiore from the Elric! edition of Chaosium's Elric of Melniboné rpg. This book introduced necromancy and it is excellent. Seeing at least some of that stuff showing up in Chronicles makes me even more excited about the setting.

My one beef with Children of the Worm is that it is only available as a pdf. While it is probably not long enough to be a stand-alone print publication, it has clearly been ready for some time to have been released so soon after the first book. This leads me to wonder if this was material that was intended to be part of the original setting and was later edited out in the interest of achieving a particular page count or price point. If so, it's unfortunate. I would have gladly paid a few more dollars to have this material included in the original setting book. Hopefully, sometime in the future, Children of the Worm will find its way into a print format.

-Rognar-

Pathfinder Gunslinger v.2

2011-03-08T10:05:00.009-07:00

Paizo has released a revised playtest of the Gunslinger class for the upcoming Ultimate Combat release. Most of the changes seem fairly cosmetic. Notably, the class is now a base class rather than an alternate fighter class, but given how different the two classes were to begin with, it didn't seem as though the ability to alternate fighter and gunslinger levels freely was going to be very attractive anyway. The biggest change, as far I can see, is how they dealt with problem of really expensive guns in the hands of really low level characters. A 1st-level gunslinger with a 1,500 gp musket is asking for trouble. The solution the designers decided upon was to give a starting gunslinger a broken gun that only the character himself is able to use properly. To others (except those with the Gunsmithing feat who could fix the gun), the broken gun is just scrap metal. Not the most elegant solution, but probably the only way to keep guns expensive, while still allowing a low level character to own one.

Not surprisingly, the firearm rules themselves are largely unchanged. The design team made it clear with the original playtest that the firearm rules were not subject to playtest. So, the rule about guns being used against touch AC remains as do all the potential pitfalls associated with it. They have added an expanded list of guns to choose from, including advanced guns such as revolvers and rifles. While I have no problem with 15th-century matchlocks showing up in my fantasy rpgs, I'm less enamoured with the idea of 19th-century sixguns. Like everything, it's up to the DM, but I would certainly keep guns fairly low-tech in any game I was running.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on Magic: the Gathering

2011-03-07T11:15:00.002-07:00

Zack and Steve at SomethingAwful.com have taken a break from the endless ridicule of tabletop rpgs and lay a beatdown on Magic: the Gathering. Richly deserved, in my opinion.

Magic: the Gathering

-Rognar-

Miniature Painting

2011-03-06T11:05:00.011-07:00

Derobane was nice enough to come over last weekend and while his spawn played with my spawn we did some painting. I recently put in a big order for minis and the first batch had arrived. There were a bunch I was dying to start painting.

So while DB worked on a few Nazis, I got to work on this piece. This is Eando Kline, the star of the first series of fiction in the Paizo Adventure Paths, and a key NPC in the Serpent Skull AP. I had not painted in months and this mini was pretty straight forward. I was quite happy with the face although I was kinda sloppy in a few other spots.

Derobane was kind enough to leave his painting supplies behind when he left and yesterday I ignored my wife and children and worked on a few more pieces.

This is a piece I've always liked. I can't see me ever using it for anything but there you go. I got a little experimental with this one. I thinned the paints and tried layering and it worked out pretty well. I let my wife and daughter pick out the color scheme for the outfit. The hair was a bit of an experiment that I wasn't completely satisfied with. When I do hair, it never looks quite right. I got some nice shading effects on the skin but I still have to master doing it on fabrics. Looking at the picture I can spot a mistake but I guess I should put the critical eye away and just enjoy it. This one turned out better then most.

The next Mini is another Paizo mini. This is Shalelu, elven ranger and a minor NPC in the Rise of the Rune Lords and Second Darkness APs. I tried something different again with the hair (green ink) and although it turned out darker then I wanted, it works. Overall, I thought this one turned out quite well. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture but it looks like she has white eyeliner. Not what I was going for but it was even on both sides and I decided I liked it. I tried shading on the cape and it really didn't work. My attempt to fix it didn't go so well either. Rather then repaint the cape I just left it as is. If I wanted perfection I'd never finish.

The last one is the Red Mantis Assassin, another Paizo mini. I really like how the ink was able to pop the detail on the armor but it made the red a little darker then I intended. Still how many assassins would walk around in bright red armor, right?

I also spent about an hour yesterday gluing the minis with multiple pieces together. My least favorite thing about painting the miniatures is assembling them. I have no patience for it. I only got the epoxy working once and that was after Derobane told me his trick (mix and let it start to dry before applying). I tried Crazy Glu yesterday I still had to hold one piece for 15 minute before it set (getting evil looks from my wife the whole time since it was supper time). Everything is assembled now and maybe next weekend I'll consider painting some of those ones as well. Seltyiel has some crazy detail work including a fiery familiar. On second though I'll save him until I get better.

Chthonian Stars and Traveller, not totally dead

2011-02-28T21:48:00.003-07:00

Wildfire has finally made the announcement on the future of Chthonian Stars and it is not a total loss for those of us who looked forward to the game being available for the Traveller rule system.

Chthonian Stars Set For Release!

Fans have been eagerly awaiting the release of Chthonian Stars: the Cthulhu Saga I, an original Lovecraftian sci-fi/horror setting for the classic Traveller roleplaying game. This project was to be published by Mongoose Publishing, though developed by WildFire, the team that created the award-winning CthulhuTech. Over the last month, these two companies have agreed to part ways.

There's good news for Traveller fans, however, as WildFire will be releasing both the Chthonian Stars Core Setting and the Horrors of the Void monster books as PDF's on DriveThru RPG – with the option for physical copies through OneBookShelf's new print-on-demand program. The Core Setting is scheduled to be released in April 2011, as originally planned, with Horrors of the Void following in June 2011.

On the other hand, WildFire will be taking Chthonian Stars in its own new direction, starting in June 2011. Through their partnership with Sandstorm Productions, WildFire will be re-tooling the product for proprietary release. The brand new Chthonian Stars will likely see a name change, and be home to a brand new system. The entire product will have a focus on accessibility, making it easy for new players to pick up and play the game.

The new Chthonian Stars Core Book will be available as a complete roleplaying book in June 2011, through standard distribution and retail. The revised Horrors of the Void monster book will be available as the first supplement in September. The rest of the line will follow in 2012, starting in January.

Details about these books final sizes, page counts, and price points will be available as they are solicited.

The pdf releases of the core book and the first supplement are welcome concessions to us Traveller fans. Beyond that, there is no mention of Framewerk, so I will give the game a look. Hopefully, they will use a system I am already familiar with, but if it's FATE or Savage Worlds, I'll have to give it a pass.

-Rognar-

Movement rates in BRP need repair

2011-02-24T12:49:00.003-07:00

I've started disassembling the Basic RolePlaying rules in anticipation of my upcoming campaign with an eye toward establishing any quirky bits that will grate on my OCD tendencies if not fixed. Some can be dealt with using various optional rules (of which, BRP is amply endowed), but some require house ruling. The first is movement rates. A fit, unencumbered human is expected to be able to move 30 metres in a 12 second combat round, assuming he is performing no other actions. This is a movement rate of 2.5 m/s (5.6 mph) and is represented by a MOV characteristic of 10. A top sprinter can move four times as fast, but we're not talking about a world-class athlete under ideal conditions, so I accept that movement rate to be reasonable. However, once you start looking at the MOV rates of other things in the game, it goes off the rails a bit. For example, two things I'm interested in for my campaign are horses and tanks. A horse has MOV 12 which corresponds to a movement rate of 3.0 m/s (6.7 mph). Now I know horses aren't the most sure-footed of beasts and their size means they need a few seconds to get going, but an average horse can run about 25 mph (to say nothing of a thoroughbred). So, even if you cut their speed in half, they should still have a movement rate twice that listed. Incidentally, all the other large mammals listed in the BRP core book have the same MOV 12 (or less) save one, the bear, which has MOV 14.

Things really get wobbly when you look at vehicles. A "vintage" tank is described as a WWI-era tank and has MOV 42. This works out to 10.5 m/s (23.5 mph). Yet, the fastest tank of WWI, the British Medium Mark A Whippet, had a top speed of 8.3 mph. The blinding speed of the vintage tank is closer to a Panzer IV which has a top road speed of 26 mph, but even the Panzer IV could only manage about 10 mph off-road.

Based on this analysis, I would suggest the following changes. A human MOV 10 serves as a baseline for a speed of about 6 mph. A horse can sprint about 12 mph, so it will have MOV 20. A WWII-era tank such as a Panzer IV or a Sherman can move about 18 mph if we simplify things and average its road and off-road speeds, giving it a MOV 30.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on...Heroes Unlimited

2011-02-23T16:01:00.002-07:00

Is there any rpg-related pastime more enjoyable to the unwashed masses than mocking all things Palladium? Zack and Steve take on Heroes Unlimited. Even the URL is funny.

Heroes Unlimited

-Rognar-

2011...where's the cool?

2011-02-23T09:21:00.005-07:00

A few months ago, 2011 seemed like it would be another year of exciting new releases from several companies that would easily consume my monthly budget for entertainment all year long. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm has really taken a beating lately. Sure, there have been some good products out already, namely The Chronicles of Future Earth by Chaosium and Traveller Supplement 8: Cybernetics by Mongoose, but it looks like things could be getting a bit sparse from here on.

We've had two playtests for Pathfinder Ultimate Magic and one for Pathfinder Ultimate Combat and, at this point, I have to say my enthusiasm for those upcoming releases is not high. No doubt, I will still buy them and I hold out hope that the design team will find a way to make firearms awesome in Pathfinder, but right now, I am not exactly counting the days until the release of those books. The other project I've been looking forward to seems to have gone completely off the rails, that being Chthonian Stars by Wildfire. Originally intended to be published by Mongoose using the Traveller game system, that plan has been terminated. We currently await an announcement from Wildfire about the future of the game. We do have confirmation that there are still plans to release it in a dead tree format, but speculation is that Wildfire will publish it (or maybe Sandstorm, the publishing house of CthulhuTech, Wildfire's other rpg), using their own Framewerk game engine. I can see why they would want to support their own rules, but I really don't like the system with its rather gimmicky dice-rolling mechanics. If it turns out that Chthonian Stars does end up using Framewerk, I think that would be a dealbreaker for me.

Combine all that with the end of Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures and AT-43 and 2011 looks like a lean year for me. On the plus side, it means more money in my pocket.

-Rognar-

Rippin' on...Space: 1889

2011-02-10T21:12:00.004-07:00

I remember back when GDW released the original Space: 1889 game, one of the guys in my gaming group bought it. For some reason, we never tried it out. Too bad, it looks like we missed out. Zack and Steve at SomethingAwful.com have some fun at GDW's expense.

Space: 1889

-Rognar-

D&D Mockery at its Best

2011-02-04T17:12:00.005-07:00

I got a call from my brother down in the States last night. He only calls if something really important is going on, so I was curious as to why he called. He was laughing histarically at me, telling me to watch this video

link

My brother knows my nerdish self all too well. This episode of Community was probably the best D&D roast, ever. Please, for anyone that has ever played this game, watch the video and enjoy.

Wildfire and Mongoose, a match made in Hell

2011-02-04T09:34:00.004-07:00

Why is it that Wildfire and Mongoose simply cannot work together to produce a worthwhile product? Mongoose, as you may recall, was the original publisher of CthulhuTech, Wildfire's signature property. I had the misfortune of buying the original core book from Mongoose. It fell to pieces in under 24 hours. I was able to get a sturdier replacement, but it was not long before the Wildfire-Mongoose collaboration fell apart and Wildfire jumped over to Catalyst Game Labs (an even bigger disaster, Cthulhu clearly hates this game). Anyway, when Wildfire came up with its second rpg property, Chthonian Stars, they decided to renew old acquaintances with Mongoose. The game was originally going to be released in Q4 2010. It got pushed back to Q2 2011. Now it appears it won't be released at all, at least not as a dead tree Mongoose product (see here and here). Hopefully, Chthonian Stars will still see the light of day, but it won't be from Mongoose.

-Rognar-

Canadian Gaming

2011-02-03T12:49:00.010-07:00

Being the only American among my gaming group has its disadvantages. For instance, not knowing who Maurice Richard is or not knowing about Mr. Dressup or April Wine has caused some embarrassing situations that clearly mark me as a foreigner. Watching Rognar chuckle as he buries his head in disbelief is usually an indicator that some sacred Canadian cow has been trampled upon by blissful ignorance. Admittedly, I have started to brush up on Canadiana prior to gaming sessions to avoid embarrassing situations.
So last night there was a Canadiens hockey game played that gave one Gionta another goal, making it three points in two nights. As I listened to the report of this good news for the player, I thought to myself, "Man, that player has a name just like the thylacine animal companion of the ranger in our party." Knowing this info, I was planning on making the other players at the table aware of the correlation between the hockey guy and the animal companion... until I looked up the name for any known Canadian references. It turns out that the ranger, Halak, and his two animal companions are all named after famous Montreal Canadien players. I knew that Maurice, the ranger's roc, was named after the Rocket, but the other two guys were a complete surprise.

It looks like I will need to spend another decade in this place before I completely disappear into the mix.

Chronicles of Future Earth - mine at last

2011-01-30T21:49:00.008-07:00

The wait was a bit longer than I'd hoped, but The Chronicles of Future Earth finally arrived at my FLGS and I eagerly bought myself a copy. It's a 112 pg. softcover with a removable double-sided, two pg. map of the city and the province that comprise the setting (more on that in a moment). Chronicles, written by Sarah Newton, author of the Mindjammer campaign setting for Starblazer Adventures, describes the territory of southern and central Spain as it might be a hundred thousand years in the future. The province of Korduva (modern-day Cordoba) is the northernmost territory of a great, but decaying empire called the Venerable Autocracy of Sakara spanning what is now North Africa (Sakara = Sahara, perhaps). Just to the north of Korduva is the Amadorad (modern-day Madrid) Protectorate, a vassal state and ally of Korduva against the Chaos Wastes which lie further to the north. The world of Chronicles is strange, depleted and decadent. Dozens of races, some human, some near-human and some decidedly non-human struggle to survive in a world haunted by summoned demons and creatures of chaos. The Gods are real and their temples are sources of magical power. Employing ancient technologies such as gravity cannons and force blades along with powerful sorcery and simple spears and shields, the peoples of the future earth defend the remnants of civilization from the horrors that wait Beyond the Veil.

Chronicles of Future Earth begins with a chapter on races and cultures. There are very brief descriptions provided for a couple of dozen races, human, humanoid (Jeniri, the "Cousins of Man") and non-human (Esteri, "Not-People of Urth"). Of these, four races are given detailed descriptions for use as player races. Two of these are human, the Hivernians and the Amadoradi. The former are the people of Korduva [and the neighbouring province of Elikan (modern-day Alicante)], civilized citizens of the Venerable Autocracy, while the latter are the people of Amadorad, hard, militant folk only recently brought into the imperial fold and still chafing under the yoke of civilization. The third race are the Virikki, a Jeniri race of blue-skinned scalyfolk with powerful psychic abilities and a refined aesthetic sense. Finally, there are the Hsun (or Spider Folk), an Esteri race of large arachnoids known for their skillful artifice and their ability to produce alagin, a hard substance used instead of metal (which is rare and expensive).

The next two chapters, detailing character generation and divine powers and demon summoning respectively, serve to adapt the Basic RolePlaying game system to the setting. The details on summoning and using demons are particularly welcome as I always thought the rules outlined in BRP were a tad sparse and unclear in this regard. After that is a chapter on the Gods of the Great Compact, powerful extradimensional beings who united in the distant past to defeat an evil entity known as the Great Hegemonist. Two in particular, Regos, the god of rulership and conquest, and Vareltias, the god of diplomacy and trade, are described in detail such that their temples can be used as patrons or sources of spells. A chapter on artifacts and equipment, another brief chapter on the city of Korduva and a bestiary follow.

Lastly, there is a sizable introductory adventure included which incorporates pretty much everything that is detailed in the rest of the book. It ties everything together quite nicely and provides a pretty good feel for the setting. Other features include the aforementioned map of the city of Korduva and the territory of Hivernia, a handy glossary, a complete index (though no table of contents) and an appendix for various tables and maps.

I really can't find much to criticize in this book. The artwork is black-and-white throughout, but it's quite well-drawn and appropriate (although a couple of images are used more than once). My only concern might be the limited scope of the book. Many things are described briefly, but not to an extent that they could be readily incorporated into an ongoing campaign. This wouldn't be a problem if further supplements were to be released in a timely fashion, but it would not be unfair, I think, to describe Chaosium's publication schedule as glacial. Thus, it could be many months before we get to see the next installment in this excellent campaign setting. I hope Chaosium realizes what a gem they have in Chronicles and proceeds to quickly get some new content into the pipeline.

-Rognar-

Guns in D&D Land

2011-01-28T10:12:00.005-07:00

D&D combat is mostly about visceral, blood spattering axes and spikes, sprinkled with flesh-searing fireballs and face-melting acid. Sure, D&D has ranged elements to the game such as crossbows and composite longbows, but certain game elements keep these ranged attacks in check, which keep melee the primary solution to conflict. Feats like snatch arrow, spells like windwall and elements like damage reduction all help to keep ranged combat a nice secondary choice to melee.
Introduction of firearms on a mass scale to a D&D setting could destroy the nice ballance that already exists between melee and arrows. Enemies and hereos armed with pistols would make the game become a trenchwarfare exercise that would make melee combat rare. Soon enough, D&D mortars would be invented, rules for cannons would be developed and soon you have a totally different dynamic of play that does not look anything like current D&D. These games are euphamistcally refered to by some of us as 'Space D&D'.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love guns and rockets and ranged fighting RPGs. Space D&D provides different challenges and opportunities that traditional D&D does not. As such, I love to play both genres. I would not, however, completely mix the elements of the two games. Pig and elephant DNA just don't splice.

As long as guns are rare as vorpal swords, or are only available in a very limited quantity in some wierd anti-magic lands, I don't mind them being in D&D land. The day that peasants have pistols in their cabbage wagons and knights stop wearing armor due to obsolete design flaws due to guns will be the day the coolness of D&D will be wrecked.

Rognar's comment:

For me, primitive blackpowder weapons are a natural, especially for mechanically-inclined races like dwarves and gnomes. The image of a dwarven cannon, all covered in spikes and billowing smoke being pulled by a couple of giant lizards is totally D&D to me. In fact, I can't even understand how dwarves have survived as long as they have with all the magic-wielding races around without some technological edge. I guess my idea of D&D is closer to Warhammer than Lord of the Rings.

By the way, I believe cannon rules will be included in Ultimate Combat.

Firearms in Pathfinder

2011-01-27T10:55:00.003-07:00

With a growing sense among the Pathfinder community that the new firearms rules are going to be a mess, it got me to wondering how guns could be incorporated into the game some other way. One simple option that has been used before is the exploding dice mechanic. Roll 1d8 for damage, if you roll an 8, roll again. Repeat as necessary. It's simple enough if you just have one type of gun, but what happens if you have a pistol that does 1d6 and a musket that does 1d8? You actually have a better chance of exploding your die and, thereby, rolling more damage with the smaller weapon. You could do a dice pool approach, a pistol does 1d6 and a musket does 2d6. Any sixes are exploded.

This approach is functional, but I find it inelegant, largely because it is an exception to the normal combat rules. I think a better approach is to take armour out of the AC business altogether and make it all about DR. Give characters a defense value equal to 1/2 BAB. All AC modifiers other than armour and natural armour, but including shields would be added to the defense value. Then, make another type of damage, called ballistic, which would plug into the DR rules just as slashing, piercing and bludgeoning already do. As an example, take leather armour. Instead of +2 AC bonus, give it DR: 1/ballistic. Magical leather might be DR: 2/ballistic. I would want heavier armour types such as plate or dragon scale to have some DR against firearms, so full plate would be something like DR:5/ballistic and 2/- (no stacking). Monsters would also have this. A creature with a natural armour
would, instead, get DR similar to armour of comparable AC bonus. I think natural DR (such as that granted to the barbarian class) should stack with DR granted by armour, which, I concede, is an exception to the general rule on DR, but I think it's an exception worth including.

So what do you all think about this?

-Rognar-

More thoughts on the Gunslinger

2011-01-27T09:55:00.003-07:00

After reading much of the discussion on the Paizo messageboards, I have come to conclude that my initial enthusiasm for the gunslinger class and the firearms rules in general was unfounded. I have been convinced that there are serious problems which I did not initially consider. First of all, giving guns touch attack capability is really going to mess up any sense of realism. While it is true that in the real world, guns largely rendered armour obsolete, this is not necessarily realistic in a fantasy world. I mentioned in my previous post the problem of adamantine armour, but we also have to consider magic and, for that matter, natural armour such as dragon hide. Should a primitive, non-magical firearm be permitted to ignore the natural armour of an ancient red dragon? Heck, many modern firearms can't reliably penetrate the hide of an elephant or rhino, let alone a dragon. No doubt, there will be some new magic armour quality included in Ultimate Combat which will negate the touch attack ability of firearms, but that doesn't help the dragons and other thick-skinned monsters out there.

The other concern is the economics of the gunslinger. A 1st-level gunslingers starts out with either a musket or two pistols as well as 50 bullets and sufficient black powder to fire them for free. This is roughly 2000 to 2500 gps worth of treasure, giving a 1st-level gunslinger the highest treasure/CR ratio of any monster in the game. What is going to stop a group of players from wandering the country hunting down low-level gunslingers to collect their extremely valuable guns? And low-level PC gunslingers will have massive bullseyes painted on their backs. They will become walking ATMs.

The Pathfinder design team still has a lot of work to do on this one.

-Rognar-

New Pathfinder playtest - the Gunslinger

2011-01-26T13:09:00.007-07:00

Paizo has come out with the first playtest for the upcoming Ultimate Combat splatbook for Pathfinder. The pdf includes three new classes, the ninja, the samurai and the gunslinger, as well as new combat rules for firearms. I don't really have much to say about the ninja and the samurai. We've seen those classes done numerous times before and my only response to yet another incarnation is profound indifference. However, I'm very interested in incorporating blackpowder weapons into my games, so I was more than a little curious to see what Paizo had in store for us.

First off, I'll get it out front. I hate the name of the "gunslinger" class. I would have preferred something like "fusilier" or "arquebusier". For that matter, given the sort of swashbuckler character this class seems designed to create, the name "musketeer" might even be appropriate. The primary class feature of the gunslinger is Grit, a pool of points the character can draw from to execute various daring maneuvers or shooting tricks. It ends with the inevitable True Grit capstone ability which ties in with the name of the class. Still, the iconic image included in the pdf is far more reminiscent of Capt. Jack Sparrow than Rooster Cogburn, so there seems to be a bit of confusion as to what cultural icon (with an avian name) the designers were going for here. Yet, despite the aggravation caused by the Wild West terminology used, the class itself seems decent enough. I doubt most gunslingers in the game will concentrate solely on their guns, given the limitations of those weapons (which I will discuss below), but a gunslinger with a handy rapier at the ready would be a formidable combatant.

Even more than the gunslinger class, I was interested in reading the firearm combat rules. D&D has always had a problem with guns, because of the nature of the armour class rules. Guns are inevitably inferior to bows unless some way of incorporating armour penetration exists in the game system. Some d20 games have done a good job of dealing with this, most notably True20 by Green Ronin, by introducing a new saving throw, called Toughness, which represents a character's ability to avoid damage. The armour bonus adds directly to the Toughness save, rather than the Defensive Modifier (the character's ability to avoid being hit). Likewise, the attacker's weapon adds a modifier to the DC of the save, with firearms generally having higher modifers than more primitive weapons. This approach, however, requires wholesale changes to the game mechanics, since True20 uses a damage track, rather than hit points. The Paizo design team is using a simpler approach to model firearms. Attacks within the first range bracket are touch attacks. Why didn't I think of that? It's so obvious now. No fiddling with DR, just turn off armour altogether versus guns at close range. A few people might have a problem with it, because it means even adamantine armour won't stop a bullet, but that could be house-ruled easy enough. Just increase the cost of adamantine to reflect its added advantage and say that guns don't get touch attacks against adamantine armour. You could then add adamantine bullets to get the touch attack ability back.

Now guns do still have disadvantages, notably the rate of fire, though how much of a disadvantage that will ultimately be is a bit hard to tell right now since only the most basic firearms rules are included. It's possible that feats and magic options may appear in the final product which can mitigate the problem. Another problem I see is the cost of ammo. One shot of black powder costs 10gp and a single bullet costs 1gp, so it's going to cost 11gp per attack. Contrast that with 20 arrows or 10 heavy crossbow bolts for 1gp. Conserving ammo and using a backup weapon whenever possible is going to be the order of the day for gunslinger PCs. Nonetheless, I can't wait to try out my first gun-wielding character.

-Rognar-

Update: One more comment about the Gunslinger. It has a class feature called Brave and Tough which provides bonuses to both Fortitude and Will saves. The Reflex save is the good save for the class, but with the bonuses provided, Fort and Will never fall less than one point below Ref, giving the gunslinger almost monk-like saving throws. This is quite a major advantage that might be easily overlooked.

Further Update: Upon further perusal, I notice it is possible for a gunslinger to use grit points and the Lightning Reload Deed feat to reload as a free action. This doesn't really mitigate the rate of fire problem though, since grit points are not typically abundant. Still, it's good to have when you really need it.

Rippin' on...Rifts Canada

2011-01-20T12:34:00.002-07:00

About time the Great White North got to enjoy some of the derision. Zack and Steve take on Rifts: Canada.

Rifts: Canada

-Rognar-