Thoughts on the Arcanist class

Is the Arcanist the best arcane spellcasting class in Pathfinder? For this comparison, I will be leaving aside the Magus and the Bloodrager, which are really martial classes that use arcane spells to improve their combat abilities. The true arcane spellcasting classes, in my opinion, are the Wizard, the Sorcerer, the Bard and the Arcanist.

Bard:
Advantages - medium BAB advancement, decent weapon and armour proficiencies, lots of skill points, healing magic, two good saves, best "face" in the game
Disadvantages - medium spell advancement, heavily-weighted toward mind-affecting magic, no high-level spells

Synopsis - Limited combat ability, decent, but not great spellcasting, some healing, vulnerable to creatures with resistance to mind-affecting magic
Nemeses - undead, constructs, high SR creatures

Sorcerer:
Advantages - good spell advancement, high-level spells, good balance of spells, one major stat
Disadvantages - low skill points, poor weapon and armour proficiencies, underwhelming bloodline abilities, limited metamagics

Synopsis - poor combat abilities, yet many bloodlines encourage melee, good spellcasting
Nemeses - constructs, high SR creatures

Wizard:
Advantages - best spell advancement, high-level spells, good balance of spells, one major stat, unlimited metamagics, low skill points balanced by high INT
Disadvantages - poor weapon and armour proficiencies

Synopsis - poor combat abilities, best spellcasting
Nemeses - constructs, high SR creatures

Arcanist:
Advantages - good spell advancement, high-level spells, good balance of spells, many supernatural abilities, unlimited metamagics
Disadvantages - low skill points, poor weapon and armour proficiencies, two major stats

Synopsis - poor combat abilities, good spellcasting, supernatural abilities
Nemeses - you tell me...other arcane spellcasters, perhaps

Based on this analysis, I call it a toss-up between Wizard and Arcanist. The Bard makes a great addition to a party, especially when a lot of social interaction is involved, but you definitely don't want him to be your sole arcane spellcaster. The Sorcerer is also pretty good, but there are too many conflicting abilities. The supernatural attacks of the Arcanist are great for dealing with monsters that have high SR and really good saves, but they still require a ranged touch attack, so a decent DEX and a couple of ranged attack feats are essential. This forces the Arcanist to spread himself a bit thin compared to the Wizard. Otherwise, the Arcanist is solid, with a wide variety of abilities and no obvious weaknesses.

-Rognar-

Note: In hindsight, I realize I didn't consider the Witch in my analysis. I have never played one, so I have little experience with the class. Perhaps Obiri can enlighten us and make an argument for the Witch class.

Savage Tide 3 There is no Honor - The Bullywug Gambit

We are playing back to back weekends so I have to get this updated or else I'll fall behind.

We left off with the PCs deep in the Lotus Dragons Guild lair. I realized that most of the remainder of the guild that was unexplored would fit on a roll out map so I drew it all out a head of time and only left out a few secret doors and hallways.

Heading towards the main part of the Thieves' base, the party triggered a trap and half of the fell down a chute and landed in should deep water. A mystery woman's voice taunted them a bit before a large crocodile attacked them. Bytor and Trevain lowered a rope down for Isis, McDougal and Kaeless allowing them to escape after Isis put down the Gator.

Rogues harassed the party as they continued exploring, popping out from behind corners and taking sneak attacks before trying to disappear again. Eventually they made it to the where the rogue's boss was waiting. A big brawl ensued but most of the thieves were knocked out immediately when Trevain hit them with a Sleep spell. He proceeded to end the sleeping thieves' lives while the rest battled the now invisible Guild boss and her bard enhanced pet Drake.

Rowyn sang her bardic tune while Guttugger tried to chomp on the PCs. It took some effort but eventually they managed to kill Guttugger. Rowyn cursed them and became silent. The PCs did their best to keep her from escaping but somehow she got away. Stealth + invisibility is tough for 2rd level PCs to over come.

They searched the rest of the lair and this time managed to break into the part of the guild that they couldn't reach their first attempt. They found Rowyn's bedroom which contained lots of fine clothes and jewelry as well as some spicy letters from Vanthus. They also found the vault. Some of Lavinia's family gold was still here which they returned to her. There was also lots of unmarked funds which they kept for themselves. Lavinia would also reward them for their honesty so they ended up with a pretty good score loot wise.

Going through the letters reveled some hints of details to Vanthus' plans. His other lover has connections with the Crimson Fleet and the two of them are going to go rob the pirates of their loot at a location called Kraken's Cove.

The PCs do some research and discover the location of the cove and then rent a boat to make the trip. It takes them about 8 hours in their little sail/row boat to make the trip. As they approach they see smoke rising from the cove. The source are three fairly large sailing ships that are burning. There is a fourth ship moored further out which seems to be unharmed.

This ship, the Sea Wyvern, is both deserted and in full working order. The PCs are a bit hesitant when they realize that the ship belongs to the Crimson Fleet and so they decide to leave it alone. They do spot something weird on the beach. Two pirates are walking along the water's edge but they've changed in some way. They've been mutated some how and now have extra limbs, tentacles, teeth, claws, horns and all arranged in very unnatural ways.

The PCs engage the two on the beach to discover that these things have a nasty habit of first taking a death bite just as they are killed and then exploding into pools of acid. The Golden Retrievers explore the beach but only find a cave entrance. Going inside the find the place filled with horrors. Half eaten and mauled bodies are everywhere with many more mutant pirates wandering around looking for another meal. The PCs even do battle with a mutated Oviraptor.

Killing mutants as they go, in the deepest cave they finally find someone unmutated and alive. Captain Harliss Javell is battling a few mutants but with the PCs help finishes them off quickly. She explains what happened.

Vanthus and his lover showed up and posed as potential buyers. The pirates allowed them to hang around until the next shipment of goods showed up which included a black pearl the size of your fist.  When the goods arrived and were being unloaded Vanthus dropped whale oil into the bay and lit it on fire. As the pirates fled, Vanthus and his lady slipped on board and started stealing the choicest loot. Javell caught them and began a duel. Vanthus was losing badly and dropped the now blood covered pearl he had grabbed which dropped to the desk and cracked. If began oozing some sort of foul smoke. Alarmed, Javell tossed the pearl into the bay but it exploded releasing a wave of madness and evil. Javell and Vanthus were both unaffected but most were turned into the hideous mutants that they had seen. Vanthus fled by leaping into the bay, but Javell returned to the caves to try to restore order and rescue any still unchanged. She and another pirate captain had survived for a while but he had recently been overwhelmed.

Javell realized that if the PCs had made it this far the path behind them was likely clear. Isis escorted her out of the caves while the remaining PCs searched for more loot. Javell warned Isis of her revenge. She had sent her First Mate Drevoraz back to Eleder to deal with Vanthus. He was headed to the Vanderboren Manor where he would slay Vanthus, his mother, his father, and his dear sister Lavinia, then burn everything to the ground. No one messes with the Crimson Fleet. Now she was leaving here ASAP and he better not try and stop her.  Isis tried to get her to stop her first mate since Lavinia and Vanthus don't exactly get along but she Javell didn't trust them and was having none of it. Isis let her go in peace.

With the caves clear of mutants, the PCs decided to quickly get back to Eleder and save their boss. Unfortunately the gods are cruel this day and high winds and rough seas make it impossible for the PCs to leave immediately. They must spend the night in the cove before they can leave when things calm down in the morning.

Savage Tide 2 There is No Honor

Where is Vanthus Vanderboren?

The only clues Lavinia could offer the PCs is that she'd heard Vanthus was shacking up with some artist in the Azure district of the city.

With only that weak lead the Azures shuffled over to the Azure district and started asking around. Lots of people knew Vanthus and many had seen him - just not recently. After posting rewards for information about his whereabouts, the party were contacted by a shifty half elf named Sefton Rosk who claimed to know where Vanthus was hiding out. The party was suspicious but with no other leads they accepted his offer to lead the party to Parrot Island where Vanthus was hiding in some old smuggler caverns.

Sefton led them to the island, up through the thick vegetation along a well trodden path. At a small clearing was a trap door leading into the earth. Sefton offered to stay behind and watch the boat and the PCs, though again suspicious, agreed.

Spying on Sefton a bit, the PCs decided it was safe to descend. The half elf was nervous but didn't seem like he was going to betray them. Climbing down the rope ladder the PCs found them in a dark dank smell passage. As they slowly crept down the tunnel, they heard a noise coming from the room with the ladder, like a heavy weight being dropped from a height. They quickly return to the room to find the body of Sefton lying at the base of the ladder. A figure could be seen above silhouetted by the light. He called down, "Say 'Hi' to Penkus' ghost for me while you are down there. Later losers." He then slammed the trap door shut and started moving heavy rocks to cover it.

The PCs took this instride and searched Sefton's body to see if he still had the money the PCs had paid him to take them to Parrot Island. He did so the PCs felt a little better about their situation.

This didn't last long as they started to explore. The whole place echoed with strange noises. Some of was probably a sea cave but some of it sounded like moaning. It didn't take too long to find the source of both. Sections of these caves were flooded and there were a bunch of zombies down here. The PCs quickly figured out how to deal with the zombies - attack them and move away. Zombies are slow. Things got a little more complicated when they ran into the Huecuva but since they'd found a silver dagger then eventually managed to kill it without getting infected by its contagion.

With the smuggler cave's undead occupants all dead, the PCs found the smugglers vault with some treasure remaining. The key item was an Earth Elemental Gem which was used to remove the debris from the trap door and allow the PCs to escape. Just outside the vault the PCs found the body of Penkus. He had been trapped down here and left to die. He has become infected by the Huecuva and had slowly wasted away. He managed to pen a letter begging for revenge.

The gist of the letter is that Penkus no realizes what Vanthus' game plan is: to get in with the Lady of the Lotus  and with Penkus out of the way it should be easier. Penkus reveals an entrance to the Lotus Thieves Guild where Vanthus should be. There is a trap door in the Taxidermist's guild hall that leads into the Lotus guild.

The PCs returned to Lavinia's manor  to report what they'd discovered and recover. The next day they bought a few supplies in towns and with two late PCs in tow, they strolled over to the Taxidermist Guildhall.

No one greeted them at the front door but a plethora or stuffed beasts all all shapes, sizes and prices. Rather than ding the bell for service they let themselves into the back of the shop area and started to search around.

The Guildmaster, Nemien Roblach was not pleased to see them and after quickly determining that they were not here to buy, order them to get out. Trevain tossed a Sleep spell at him and knocked Nemien out.

The PCs quickly found the trap door leading down in the thieves guild. The party found a training room and battled a few thieves but one escaped. They chased after him but between another Rhagodessa and a solidly locked door, the thief escaped.

The PCs had a debate about whether or not it was evil to kill sleeping rogues but then accidentally woke them up. The rogues were killed and the PCs explored a bit more of the underground lair before we called it a night.

Next time: The Lady of the Lotus.

Savage Tide 1 There is No Honor Intro

The Golden Retrievers are a recently formed mercenary/adventure group. There first mission was success retrieving some rare mushrooms from a far off jungle and now they are looking for their second gig. While hanging out at the local adventurer's guild, the Drunken Dragon, the  team were approached by a young child carrying a note. The note read:

"Greetings, and I trust this missive finds you in good health! My name is Lavinia Vanderboren and I humbly request your attendance at dinner at my estate on Festival Street and Blue Skink Lane tomorrow evening. I think that I can present you with an opportunity uniquely suited to your skills. Please inform the carrier of this letter of your response to this invitation and I hope I will b speaking to you soon."

The PCs accepted the invitation and showed up at the Vanderboren estate the next evening in their adventuring gear. The had no trouble getting past the guard and upon knocking on the door met Lavinia's chief servant, the old halfing woman Kora Whistlegap. She escorted them to the dining room and helped them get settled. While waiting for Lavinia to arrive they encountered another group of adventurers pass through. Kaeless recognized as members of the Jade Ravens, another of Eleder's adventuring parties, which have been in Lavinia's employ for a couple years.


After dinner and a bit of small talk Lavinia got down to business. Her parents had recently died in a boating accident and she had inherited their estate and a large number of debts. There should be enough money in the family vault to cover everything but she did not yet have one of the signet rings that would allow passage. Her mother's ring had gone missing over a month ago, and her father's was kept on his ship, the Blue Nixie. Because no one had been paying docking fees, the ship has been impounded by the harbor master. She paid the fine to one of his employees, Soller Vark. She didn't think to get a receipt but the man then claimed to have never received the payment. The PCs first task is to get Lavinia access to her father's former ship so that she can reclaim his ring. Idealy this will be achieved in a lawful manner but the exact method was left to the PCs.

The PCs went down to the docks in the evening only to find the Blue Nixie was no longer where it had been docked. Trevain the sharp eyed elf spotted the ship anchored further out in the bay. After renting a row boat, the PCs rowed out and climbed up onto the ship trying to be as quiet as they could. There were two guards on the deck and the PCs managed to quietly knock one unconscious with a sleep spell but the other one escaped into the hold.

The PCs slammed the trap door to the hold shut and prepared for battle. A number of scruffy humans emerged from another entrance to the hold and began to battle the PCs. Several of Vark's guards were hit with a fire spell and jumped into the water to escape. One tried to steal the PC's rowboat but was dispatched by Trevain's arrow. Vark was rendered unconscious but not before smoke began to pour out of the hold of the ship. Kaeless tried to descend the ladder that they had initially blocked only to encounter another ruffian trying to escape. The fire in the hold was panicking the animals and numerous exotic monkeys, and birds escaped. Also in the hold was a strange arachnid type creature that managed to break free of its cage. This beast killed the poor girl who had set the fire and too big chunks out of most of the PCs before they finally brought it down.

Vark was tied up and the PCs began to search the ship. They managed to find Verik Vanderboren's ring as well as a piece of parchment that listed some numbers. Lavinia was thrilled to hear of the PCs success and after freeing Vark they set off to Castle Teraknian to enter the Vanderboren vault.

They entered and encountered the vault guardian - an iron cobra. Kaeless was fascinated with it and wanted to keep it. It was ordered back to its alcove. In order to open the inner chamber a secret door needed to be opened. The slip of parchment found on the Blue Nixie corresponded to the number of eyes of the many examples of creatures depicted on the walls of the vault. The PCs activated the creatures in the correct order and access to the inner vault was granted.

Lavinia was upset to find that many of the chests were empty but there was still enough left to pay off the PCs as well provide a list of a large number of debts that were owed to the Vanderborens. Upon leaving Lavinia asked the custodian if anyone else had entered the vault lately. The man admitted that he had seen her brother Vanthus enter a few times, the last only a few days ago. Lavinia was quite shocked by this as she had believed he had left town.

Lavinia provides some backstory about her brother. They used to be close but after getting caught committing a major prank, he was sent to do a few years of hard labour and she was sent to a special school for girls where she was taught proper manners. After they reunited, her brother was no longer the free spirit of his youth but had a hard edge to him and he had started hanging out on the wrong crowd. They no longer got along and after one argument he hit her. He was shocked for a moment only for the hardness to return and he stormed off. When her parents had died he was furious that they had made Lavinia their sole benefactor. After another fight, he packed his bags and left the estate. Lavinia had assumed hed left town but apparently he is still around.

Lavinia tasked the PCs to find her brother and return him to the manor so they can talk.

The Major Players of Savage Tide

This post denotes key characters in the Savage Tide campaign. I will update and add details to each character as we go.

The Cast:
Lavinia Vanderboren

Her parents have died in a boating accident leaving her in charge of the family estate. She has hired a new group of adventurers to help her reclaim the family fortune and pay off some debts.

















Jessica of Waldsby 

Leader of the Jade Ravens, the other adventuring group working for Lavinia

















Ruggan the Dwarf

A member of the Jade Ravens


















Ivy

A member of the Jade Ravens













Morgoth the Mighty

Member of the Jade Ravens

















Vanthus Vanderboren

Lavinia's brother. Missing for the last month, it is now believed he has recently stolen some of the Vanderboren family fortune. The PCs current task is to find him.












And the PCs: (I will add more PC pics as they send them to me
Trevain the Arcanist

Trevain Avallorn was born to a small tribe of nomadic desert elves that wandered back and forth across the desolate wastes of Osirion and Thuvia. Originally descended from wild elves of the Mwangi Expanse that migrated north during the time of the great ancient Osirian empire, Trevain’s people retained much of the knowledge of that time, knowledge that had mostly been lost by the human descendants of the ancient Osirians.

Trevain was fascinated by stories of the great Ancient Osirian mages and their Elder Elemental allies. Being a talented practitioner of the magical arts in his own right and desiring to learn more than his fellow nomads could teach him, Trevain journeyed to Sothis, capital city of modern Osirion. Sadly, Trevain was gravely disappointed by what he saw. The human inhabitants knew virtually nothing of their former greatness, having only recently overthrown their Keleshite rulers. They were debased and avaricious. Even the most learned among them seemed only interested in using their intellects for selfish purposes. Still, Trevain remained in Sothis for a decade, learning what he could from the fragmented remains of Osirion’s great libraries.

During his time in Sothis, Trevain learned of a technique by which the Ancient Osirians could fuse elemental and human bloodlines to create the first Ifrits, Undines, Oreads and Sylphs. The Keleshites would later consort with genies, creating weaker, degenerate versions of these original geniekin. Yet, Trevain was fascinated by these original elemental bloodlines. He moved on to Absalom, the scholarly capital of the Inner Sea, in order to continue his studies. There he learned of another ancient civilization, the Shory Empire, which was most known for its great flying cities. The Ruins of Kho, in the northern reaches of the Mwangi Expanse, which Trevain had heard of during his youth, were the crashed remains of one such city. Trevain theorized that the Shory were inheritors of ancient Osirian magic. He decided he had learned all he could in Absalom and booked passage to Sargava, the most southern outpost of the Inner Sea nations in Garund. He would spend several years there learning what he could and eventually becoming entangled with a group of fools called the Golden Retrievers. But that is a story for another time.

Isis

Isis grew up on the island of Aegos in the Land of the Linnorm Kings. His family was all fisherman and by the age of 14 Isis ran away to find something new and exciting. Instead he entered virtual slavery aboard a privateer. By 18 he had moved through the ranks and was looked on as a risk because of his popularity with the rest of the crew. Understanding his predicament, he ran and travelled far to the south to avoid his old crew.

On his way south Isis met with Kaeless a fellow traveller with a strange brother. One of the largest problems Isis has run into is the huge difference in how his crew and culture in general treated women and the ways in more civilized parts. This has led to many miss understandings and a few angry mobs. Isis Cosby has vowed to try and understand theses strange southerners and do better here.

Kaeless

"My brother and I were raised in the northern city of Riddleport.  He was never really accepted in Riddleport, so we had to live in hiding or on the periphery of the city.  Still, the scummy citizens of that diseased port eventually turned on us and drove us out.  We happily left, joining The Run from last season.

"I met Isis on the long voyage.  Of all the creatures on that ship, Isis alone was worth any conversation and camaraderie.  Isis was kind to my brother and I appreciated his rapist wit.  It was on that voyage that we decided to work together at the terminus of our long voyage.

"if the pay is good, and there is a chance to uncover lost knowledge in dark jungles of the south, I will always be interested in working with the Retrievers.  I know you all have good intentions and that I can rely on your powers when the time comes."

Kaeless is a human that speaks very little.  However, when he speaks, it is for a good reason.  He is curt, sometimes abrasive and seems to have little appreciation or patience for social graces.  Still, he is loyal, brave and seems to use his abilities for the benefit of all the Retrievers.  While his blunt tongue seems to chafe with the public, it is clear that he has no ulterior motives and says exactly what is on his mind.

Another curious point about Kaeless regards his brother.  His brother resides in Eleder but not a single retriever has actually interacted with him.  Kaeless seems to spend a large portion of his gold buying supplies for his brother...

And we're back! Savage Tide

Things have gotten a little dusty around the blog as no one has felt like posting much this year. Hopefully that is about to change. We kicked off a new campaign last weekend, an old Paizo Dungeon adventure path - The Savage Tide.

We played the opening session where we finalized the PCs, worked out background details and got the story rolling. I will try to do recaps in the future and as soon as I get the notes from last session finalized I'll post the first recap.

Hell's Vengeance

Things have been busy lately so I haven't been very focused on my RPG hobby. I usually follow PaizoCon closely to get any tidbits or hints of future releases. This year I forgot it was going on and only looked over the Paizo website after the fact.

There were not very many announcements that excited me but one did stand out. Starting in August is the Hell's Rebels adventure path. This was announced last year at GenCon and takes place in Cheliax. I think it is mean to be what people were hoping for from Council of Thieves. I think there is an audience for an urban adventure where the PCs battle the Devil aligned House Thrune. Council of Thieves starts out that way but turns into a big mess.

The follow up AP to Hell's Rebels is an AP titled Hell's Vengeance. Details were a bit scarce but it was made known that this is Paizo's first Evil adventure path. While I don't think they ever said they'd never do an evil AP that was certainly the impression that many people had including me.

I think with the great success of Way of the Wicked (which was a pleasure to run) they realized there was an untapped market for it. I get the impression that in this AP the PCs are agents of House Thrune and either try to rollback the events in Hell's Rebels or strike against their enemies elsewhere. Either way I have to say I'm really looking forward to this one. Assuming my job situation is a little more stable by then I may even resubscribe.

Star Wars and Disney Infinity 3.0

This week we got our first look at Disney Infinity 3.0 and it comes as a surprise to no one that Star Wars features heavily. There will be three Star Wars playsets. The first two have already been announced. Twilight of the Republic, set during the Clone Wars, will feature Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Yoda and Darth Maul. The second, Rise Against the Empire, set during the Rebellion Era, will feature Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Darth Vader. The third set, based on Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be announced at a later date.

Marvel will also be getting some more representation in DI3. Already announced will be Hulkbuster Iron Man and Ultron, but there will also be an as yet unrevealed playset as well. I am especially curious as to what this one will be as the number of possible choices within the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems limited at this stage. The Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy have already been done. Big Hero Six is possible, but Hiro Hamata and Baymax have already been released as toybox-only figures in DI2. More likely is that they will go with the X-Men. Disney doesn't have movie rights to the property, but other merchandising options shouldn't be a problem.

Still another playset, based on the upcoming animated feature Inside Out is also revealed, as well as new toybox-only figures for Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Olaf (Frozen), Mulan and Sam Flynn and Quorra (Tron: Legacy).

-Rognar-

Pathfinder Unchained: Review

I've always thought Pathfinder  Unchained sounded like an interesting concept. A bunch of optional rules changes or modifications sometimes adding complexity, sometimes simplicity but often moving further away from the 3.5 system.

The first section deals with alternate version of a few character classes. The barbarian has the Rage feature changed a bit. instead of it changing your characters stats during Rage, you just get a bunch of bonuses. They've also tweaked some rage powers (now unchained!). Overall I don't see a big difference. I still prefer the original but those people bad at math or don't manage their characters on a spreadsheet might like the simpler version. Some of the really bad Rage powers are a little better unchained and some of the really good rage powers are a little worse unchained.

The Monk is quite controversial. They've cleaned up the class a bit so that some of its abilities work better together but over all the new version is probably still worse than the brawler at fighting and lost some of its defensive strength which was the hallmark on the original monk. A minor improvement but overall still not something that interests me.

The Unchained Rogue is definitely improved. Better at skills. Better at fighting. Better overall. Combat-wise they are still tied to the unfortunate sneak attack mechanic but that shouldn't stop hardcore rogue lovers. The first (and only) Unchained Class that I could see myself using.

The Unchained Summoner is grossly misnamed. It should be the Chained Summoner. The poor summoner got nerfed just about every way you can think of. Worse spells, worse Eidolon. About the only advantage here is that DMs that hate the summoner and ban it might allow this defanged and impotent version.

The next section deals with Skills and Options. There are lots of possibilities here but my favorite is  Background skills. There are lots of kills that anyone hardly uses because they have no mechanical benefit and unless you get a ton of skills its hard to bring yourself to take them. With this subsystem everyone gets two background skills per level. This way the noble PCs could take Knowledge Nobility, the ex-farmer takes Profession: Farmer, That sort of thing. It clearly defines which skills count as background and the only one that provides any sort of mechanical benefit is Perform and that only applies to Bards.

Skill unlocks are kinda cool but seem like a lot of extra things to keep track of. They figure into one of the Unchained Rogues new abilities but anyone can use them (although not as well or easily).

The variant multiclassing is rather neat. For the price of your feats at 3, 7, 11, 15 and 19 you get a secondary class that advances at your character level but you only get certain class features. For example if bard was your secondary class you d get Bardic Knowledge at level 3, Bardic performance at level 7 (at -4 level getting Inspire Courage and Inspire Competence), Versatile Performance at level 11 in one perform skill (allows for a free retrain). At level 15 gets Lore Master as a 5th level bard. At level 19 gets Dirge of Doom and Inspire Greatness. Just the Core classes, the Advanced players guide classes and the Magus and Gunslinger are listed as options. No Hybrid classes.

I'll post a second part later.

The Strange, pt.3

Our excursion to Ardeyn went ahead without McNulty and Soderstrom. Rumours around the Estate suggested that McNulty got a sudden assignment somewhere in Siberia and that Soderstrom got a tryout with the Canucks in some NHL-based recursion.

[spoiler warning]

Our first obstacle was the entrance to the Mouth of Swords, a cave opening ringed with dozens of blades. A few nicks and cuts later we were through. Further on, we came to a central chamber with a giant copper brazier and encountered a hooded figure in tattered robes, a wrath lord calling itself the Myth Keeper. We decided to talk to the wrath lord and he offered to keep treasures safe for a fee. We had nothing to give it. We said we were there to claim the dragon eggs. However, we did not have the means to prove ownership and the Myth Keeper told us to leave. Roll for initiative!

The Myth Keeper proved to be less of an adversary than we anticipated. He had a seven-sided ring that controlled the fire in the brazier. There were seven doors around the room, each one inscribed with one of the Incarnations of the Maker; Death, Desire, Lore, Silence, War, Commerce and Law. With the ring, we could direct the fire toward one of the doors, which would then become unlocked. For no particular reason, we selected the Silence door first. It opened to a long stairway circling downward, eventually reaching a chamber with a statue of a unicorn. The statue was made of stone, while the horn was metal. We uncovered a secret door that could be opened by rotating the unicorn's horn to the left. A sign on the wall warned us against entering the Night Vault, lest the umber wolves consume our souls.

With the sound of howling in the distance and no sign of dragon eggs, we decided to try our luck somewhere else. So we chose the Death door. I mean, why not, right? We headed down a corridor, past another unicorn statue (which we chose to bypass) and came upon a chamber with four large sarcophagi and a large, smoking urn. A layer of water covered the ceiling. Not liking the look of this room one bit, we decided to try our luck elsewhere, although we all had a sneaking suspicion we would have to return eventually.

We next tried our luck at the door of Desire. A short passage led to a room with several corpses. We searched the room thoroughly, suspecting a secret door. There was a secret door and we also uncovered a small, hidden cavity in the floor containing a qephelim clay figurine. After some study, we determined it to be a talisman that allows the Myth Keeper to regenerate. Not knowing how long it would take the wrath lord to return, we decided to keep it as leverage in case we couldn't find all the eggs and needed to force the Myth Keeper to reveal them to us. Moving on throughout the secret door, we found a room with three statues. One was a muscular human male throwing a hammer, the second, a graceful qephelim dodging two pendulums and the third, a female human reading a large book. Holbein approached the second statue. It animated and reached out a hand. Upon making contact, Holbein got blasted for some serious Speed damage, but the outstretched hand of the statue held a dragon egg. Wilcox and Buckingham followed suit with the other two statues, each doing a type of damage appropriate to the style of the statue and relinquishing its treasure. However, neither held another egg. Rather, they were a large gem and a book.

Moving on, we found rooms behind the door of Lore to be largely empty, so we continued on to the door of War. By this time, our more martial team members were itching for a fight and that seemed like the best place to find one. Inside, we found a large black-tiled chamber with a large statue of an armoured qephelim and racks of weapons on the walls. An open door led to a large chamber beyond. As we examined the room, Wilcox touched one of the weapons. Suddenly, the open door slammed shut, the statue bellowed "Your challenge is accepted" and Wilcox disappeared. Wilcox found himself in a large chamber with a stone step pyramid occupying most of the available space. He stood at the base of the pyramid with the weapon he had touched in his hands, while two sark stood atop the pyramid raining arrows down toward him. As Wilcox worked his way up the pyramid to close on the sark, Holbein touched a weapon as well. Holbein and two more sark joined the battle. Holbein provided cover fire with his bow as Wilcox dispatched the sark with his sword. As the last sark fell, the previously open door reopened. At the top of the pyramid was a bronze altar with a bronze dial affixed to it. Wilcox turned the dial and the top of the pyramid collapsed. Fortunately he was able to dive to safety. After the trap reset itself, Wilcox tried again, this time turning the dial in the opposite direction. Another door in the room opened revealing another room beyond. Inside was another armoured qephelim statue and several chests. The chests contained some ancient bottles of wine, a few cyphers and another dragon egg. Two down, one to go.

After skipping over the door of Commerce (seemed lame) and spending some fruitless minutes not finding any eggs behind the door of Law, the time had come to return to the door of Death. Back at the room with the sarcophagi and the water on the ceiling, we jammed a large rock into the door to keep it open. Then Buckingham went inside and proceeded to push open the closest sarcophagus. As soon as it budged, the door started closing, crushing the rock as it did so. At the same time, the water on the ceiling started flowing down the walls and pooling on the floor. Buckingham dove throughout the door just as the rock shattered. We waited for roughly an hour and the door opened. The water was once again pooled on the ceiling. Holbein had a cypher that allowed him to breathe under water, so he volunteered to go in and look for the final egg. Sure enough, as he searched each sarcophagus, water continued to fill the room. Holbein was able to open the sarcophagi, retrieving some coins, a valuable amber statue and the third dragon egg. We smashed the Myth Keeper's talisman to ensure he wouldn't return, then fled the Mouth of Swords with a good supply of stolen treasure and the precious dragon eggs.

-Rognar-

The Strange, pt.2

Our second session saw us add a new agent to our team, a slick, smooth-talking bloke named Buckingham. McNulty would be sitting this one out. Presumably, a few of the higher-ups at the Estate wanted more details on the Seattle operation and why some local college kids had hired lawyers and were accusing the local authorities of harassment and police brutality. The rest of us boarded a flight to Denver.

[spoiler warning]

Nederland is a small, hippie town a half-hour west of Boulder. Soderstrom and Sinclair posed as Southern California hipsters looking for business opportunities selling healing crystals and other New Age paraphernalia. Soderstrom is a master of disguise and Sinclair has an MA in philosophy, so it wasn't difficult to be convincing. The rest of the team set up a surveillance cordon so we could keep watch on the Dreaming Crystal.

After checking out some of the local businesses and scoring some legal weed from a nearby head shop, Soderstrom and Sinclair headed over to the Dreaming Crystal. A tattooed young woman was outside smoking a clove cigarette. Her name was Delsey and she was an employee of the store. She didn't have a great deal of useful information to share, other than when to expect her boss, Lydia Nance, to arrive. Later that day, when Nance arrived, Sinclair and Soderstrom returned and proposed a business partnership whereby they would open a store in California. After some friendly banter and a few drinks, Soderstrom furtively brought up Spiral Dust. Although Nance was initially concerned about how we came to know about it, after mentioning Leroy Cain and indicating our interest in selling dust in SoCal, she seemed interested. She invited Sinclair and Soderstrom into the basement of her store where she said her Spiral Dust operation was located. Sinclair, a paradox, initiated a Mind Reading revision, allowing him to determine the combination of the lock on the door to the basement which she hid from view. This also allowed him to recognize that Nance was leading them into an ambush, At the foot of the stairs, clinging to the ceiling were two night spiders, horrific giant arachnids from Ardeyn. Soderstrom opened fire with his 9mm, while Sinclair started launching Exception revisions and signalling to the rest of the team for backup. It was a tough fight, but with help of the rest of the team, the night spiders were killed and Nance was taken into custody. Several dead bodies were discovered, victims Nance had lured down there to feed her pets.

The rest of the basement was explored and a room was discovered with a taped off square in the middle of the floor. Further questioning of Nance revealed that her source of Spiral Dust, a woman by the name of Donna Ilsa, would translate from a recursion called Area 51 into the taped off area, drop off the dust and collect money Nance would leave for her. She didn't have a fixed schedule, although drop-offs were typically every couple of weeks. It was decided to take up residence in the store and wait in the translation room in shifts for Ilsa's next appearance. It turned out Sinclair and Holbein were present a few days later when she arrived.

Subduing Ilsa proved no mean feat. She possessed several cyphers which she used to great effect. The first one was some sort of chemical grenade which she used on Sinclair. It covered him in a greasy, sticky substance which effectively immobilized him. The second created a force wall intended to keep Holbein at bay. However, a spectacularly successful attempt to vault over it allowed him to close with her and engage in a grapple. Holbein was able to subdue her long enough for the rest of the team to arrive. Once captured, we were able to interrogate her with the aid of a Mind Reading revision,

We soon determined that Ilsa was actually a dragon from Ardeyn. A creature she referred to as the Dustman was holding a clutch of her eggs hostage in order to coerce her cooperation. She was running Spiral Dust for him through a recursion called Area 51, a chaotic place in which a human rebel movement was fighting against a classic 50's movie style alien invasion of Earth. She knew roughly where her eggs were being held. but a previous attempt to rescue them had failed. Upon hearing this, we offered to rescue her eggs. We would allow her to continue running dust so as not to arouse suspicion, with an Estate agent waiting here to receive the shipments and dispose of them. Though reluctant, she agreed to give us a few weeks to try our rescue mission. She told us the eggs were kept in a dungeon in Ardeyn called the Mouth of Swords. And so, we're off to a old-fashioned dungeon crawl in Ardeyn.

-Rognar-

Our first campaign in The Strange, pt.1

Posts have been few of late. I'm not sure why. There just hasn't been much to talk about lately. Nonetheless, our gaming group has been busy delving into Monte Cook's new Cypher gaming system. We started with Numenera, but have recently switched to The Strange. For the uninitiated, The Strange is a multi-genre game that harkens back to the classic TORG game of the 90's. The title of the game refers to an ancient technological marvel created by a hyper-advanced alien race from the inconceivably distant past that permeates the universe. Thought to have originally been intended as a means of intergalactic travel, the Strange has decayed into a dark energy network that is capable of giving birth to pocket dimensions called recursions. Typically, these recursions are anchored to an inhabited world and derive their reality from popular fictional or mythological sources.

Our group is currently running through The Dark Spiral [spoiler warning] with some added material from other sources. We started out with five agents; Soderstrom, a mysterious Swede with a troubled past, Wilcox, a gung-ho ex-military NCO and unofficial leader of the team, McNulty, a disgraced ex-cop who's not afraid to bend the rules, Holbein, a former military sniper and all-around glass-half-empty kind of guy and Sinclair, a Canadian writer and philosopher who acts as the voice of reason. We are operatives for the Estate, a secretive private organization that monitors and investigates the Strange to protect the Earth from the many dangers that lie in wait. Our first assignment together involved investigating a drug dealer in Seattle named Leroy Cain who has been selling a mysterious drug called Spiral Dust which seems to have an unearthly origin. Pretty quickly, we were able to determine his home address and decided to stake out the place. We found Cain's car parked out front and someone inside, but despite repeated attempts to gain entry, the occupant could not be coaxed into opening the door. At one point, McNulty and Holbein tricked their way into the apartment next door which was occupied by two college kids playing video games. The young guys were clearly stoners and McNulty suspected they might be customers of Cain's despite their protests to the contrary. They applied a little bad cop/worse cop on the college kids to coerce their cooperation and get them to try and gain access to Cain's residence, to no avail.

Some time later, the sole occupant of Cain's apartment, a woman named Janice Cordell, left and headed toward a nearby car. Sinclair intercepted her and, posing as a police detective, placed her under arrest. Returning to Cain's apartment, we found a picture of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original Star Trek TV show which we determined to be a focus used to translate to a recursion based on the series. Realizing that Cain had gone there, we followed, taking on classic character types from the show. McNulty became the pilot/navigator, Soderstrom, the science officer, Wilcox manned the weapons console, Sinclair became the engineer and fittingly, Holbein became the redshirt, a character who repeatedly died and was replaced by another. Each of his deaths, however, was beneficial to the rest of the party. We pursued Cain through a Federation ship that was fighting off a boarding attempt by Romulans. After successfully bypassing the automated defensive systems of the ship, we fought a pitched battle against the Romulans who were attempting to seize the engineering section. We were successful in defeating the Romulans and taking Cain back to Earth. He revealed his source of Spiral Dust to be Lydia Nance, owner of a small gift store in Nederland, Colorado called the Dreaming Crystal. We're off to the Centennial State.

-Rognar-

Jupiter Ascending - unfairly maligned

Jupiter Ascending, the new big-budget sci-fi film by the Wachowski siblings, is currently imploding in a theatre near you. The movie stars Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones, an illegal Russian immigrant working as a maid with her mother and aunt in Chicago when she finds herself the target of an alien hit squad. Coming to her aid is Caine, played by Channing Tatum, a disgraced former soldier who is a hybrid of a human and a wolf-like creature. Jupiter, it turns out, is the genetic reincarnation of the recently-deceased matriarch of a massive interstellar corporation. The discovery of Jupiter's existence threatens to destabilize the delicate balance of power among the children of said matriarch as each seeks to deal with the situation in different ways so as to derive some benefit or simply to eliminate the threat.

The visual effects are dazzling, as befitting the massive budget, and the plot is far better than one usually expects from a popcorn flick. Sadly, some of shock of the big reveal is tempered because of the trailers. One of the scions of Abrasax mentions his intention to "harvest" the earth, betraying some hint of the true evil of this family. Still, when all is revealed, it is pretty chilling.

The acting was a bit uneven. Kunis and Tatum delivered performances worthy of their talents. Eddie Redmayne. who claimed a Best Actor Oscar last night for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, was less inspiring. I don't know whether he was attempting to portray his character, Balem Abrasax, as deranged or merely an evil caricature, but suffice to say, the scenery was thoroughly chewed by the end of the film. Still overall, the film deserves more love than it is getting and seems destined to join John Carter on the junk heap of good sci-fi movies that never found an audience.

-Rognar-

Skylanders: Trap Team turns the wackiness up to 11

Although my kids and I have been playing a lot of Disney Infinity 2.0 lately, we have been Skylander fans for a lot longer and it was inevitable we would get the new Skylander: Trap Team when it was released. Each iteration of the Skylanders franchise brings with it some new gimmick. The original Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure introduced the "toys-to-life" concept whereby collectible figures with embedded RFID chips could interact directly with a video game. A world of floating islands with a force of defenders known as the Skylanders is being menaced by a diminutive, would-be conqueror known as Kaos. Many races including elves, dragons, trolls and robots inhabit the world and many of the Skylander characters are derived from these races. Next came Skylanders: Giants which introduced a new story involving the indefatigable Kaos, a giant robot voiced by George Takei, and a new group of special extra-large figures. The third installment, Skylanders: Swap Force, introduced a new group of figures that had separable upper and lower halves, each of which had its own RFID and which could be interchangeably attached to mix and match capabilities. Once again, the Skylanders battle Kaos, but this time, his mom shows up.

Finally, in the most recent version of the game, we have the "Trapmasters", a special team of Skylanders who have mastered the power of traptanium. a magical crystalline material that has the power to trap villains and turn them to good. Extra crystal traps are available to allow the player to call up trapped villains as needed to either fight or engage in certain side quests that only the villains can do. Obviously, there are a lot more unique villains in this game than in previous Skylanders games in order to utilize this new game mechanic and some are pretty crazy. The elite villains are a gang called the "Doom Raiders" led by the imperious Golden Queen and included among their ranks are a giant disembodied doll head with a Vally Girl accent, a leather-pants-wearing rock star wolfman and a Cajun chef who is an anthropomorphic chili pepper. Of course, Kaos is also back (this guy has more lives than a cat which has been genetically spliced with a cockroach). When you are carrying a trap, the villain can talk to you through the portal. It's generally quiet enough to ignore, but some of the chatter is quite entertaining. Spend a few minutes carrying Broccoli Guy around and you'll never want to bring anyone else.

After spending a fair bit of time playing both Skylanders and Disney Infinity, I have come to some conclusions. First, I like the two-person split screen play of Disney Infinity better than the single screen two-person play of Skylanders. My oldest daughter is a better and more aggressive player than the younger one and she often finds the tether to the other character very frustrating. Hence, they don't play it together very well. However, in Disney Infinity, my younger daughter can interact with the game environment at her own pace while the older one can charge ahead and do as she pleases. On the other hand, the linear adventures of Skylanders seem to be more playable for my kids. The adventures in the DI playsets are often quite challenging even for me and nearly impossible for my kids, while the worldbuilding opportunities of the toybox mode just don't appeal to anyone in my family. After twenty minutes of putting up buildings and laying down racetracks, we are pretty much bored to death. So overall, I give a slight edge to Skylanders as far as playability is concerned.

But damn, those Disney figures are sweet!

-Rognar-

Intermission +

With our Way of the Wicked campaign finished, we took a couple weeks off and debated what to do next. We often play something a little different in the space between long Adventure Paths to try other things out or get a break from the norm.

We've done short evil adventures, tried out Basic Role Playing, did Star Wars and probably others I can't think of right now. For this break we agreed to play some Numenera. Rognar broke out his GMing short and some of us got together to try it out.

Character creation is pretty simple and quick. Once you get a general idea for your character it comes together pretty quickly.When it comes to role playing games, not all option are created equally and its always tough to guess what sort of character is going to be the most useful. The players discussed what they had in mind for a character. We had one fighter type, one Nano (wizard type), and two Jacks.

I was one of the Jacks. I played Dennis Duvalier, a reformed smooth talking thief. So far at least the game hasn't had much combat so a skilled base character has been very handy. The system itself is quite light. you roll a 20 sided dice and tell the GM what the result was and whether you are trained in the task or not. You can put in effort to make the task easier. The GM thinks about how difficult the task is and lets you know whether you succeeded or not. That's it. No adding different buff modifiers, or adding circumstantial bonuses, or rolling a fistful of dice and then multiplying them on a critical hit.

My initial view of the system is that the PCs were pretty wimpy until we actually fought a battle. I quickly realized that we were not super powerful but most other things are pretty wimpy so in actuality the PCs are pretty tough. With that being said we decided not to pick fights with two very bad-ass looking body guards or an ancient monstrous work. Strong we are, suicidal we are not.

So our Numenera campaign should run until the end of the year. This seems to be quite an epic quest we've found ourselves. The first session was lots of fun and I think everyone is looking forward to what comes next. If I can find the motivation I'll do a write up of the session from my characters point of view.

Looking ahead it appears we're going to be playing Wrath of the Righteous next. After playing evil-doers, we switch over to Big-Damn-Heroes. Everything I've read and my test PCs indicate that the Mythic rules for Pathfinder increase the level of Rocket-tag exponentially

. I look forward to inflicting 1000+ points of damage a round.

Unpopular geek opinions

One of my "go to" geek sites is io9.com. Like most of the Gawker media world, they do spend a lot of time railing against the Patriarchy which can get a little tiresome, but the good outweighs the bad most of the time. One of the things I like is when they pose questions to their readers about their tastes in geek entertainment. The latest asks what unpopular opinions do you have about geek culture. It's an interesting question and one sure to elicit strong opinions, so I put it to our readers. What things do you like in geek entertainment that are unpopular?

I will start:

1. I don't hate Michael Bay. There, I said it. I recognize he is no Stanley Kubrick or even Steven Spielberg, but he's no worse than George Lucas. Nobody in the business, with the possible exception of James Cameron, is as adept at FX as Michael Bay.

2. I never got into Doctor Who. I first watched it in the Tom Baker era and stuck with it for awhile mainly because there wasn't much else to watch. Now, just not interested.

3. I think the Cthulhu Mythos is very cool, but I think Lovecraft's writing is weak and dull. Other writers did a far better job bringing the Mythos to life than HPL ever did.

Note, these are just my opinions, your mileage may vary. Anyone else?

-Rognar-

Way of the Wicked 26 - The End

Its interesting that this campaign  went 26 session which assuming we played every two weeks would be exactly one year.

The original plan was to start this session with a Kracken hunt but the player that was driving this was missing so the PCs decided to put that off until the next session. Kingdom building continued. The cathedral to Asmodeus was completed and a foreign princess arrived looking to marry the king. She had with her a thousand of loyal soldiers and a large dowry.

The king thought about it briefly: a young hot sly virgin princess that wants to have my baby and whose dad is rich? They got married and was shortly after pregnant.

Being a Vampire is pretty awesome but comes with some pretty serious drawbacks. Knowing what was coming, I threw the vampire a tainted bone in the form of an Elixir of Protection of Sunlight. Knowing that the PCs would want to make more I came up with an ingredients list that was meant to signal that they should forget about it move on: a Tooth from a Demilich, a Balor fart, essence of rainbow, and the tears of a Ancient Great Wurm Gold dragon. The PCs thought that the Balor fart was hilarious and it was good for about 20 minutes of solid laughing as different people riffed on it. Even though they had no intention of going after the other ingredients, collecting a Balor fart was just one of those things that will never ever happen in another campaign and so it had to be done.

The wizard began researching Balors trying to learn a name so it could be Gated in. I tossed out the name of the Balor Lord Khorramzadeh and one of the players (who is currently DMing Wrath of the Righteous) went very pale and suggested that they go after a regular non-Barlor Lord.

A less TPKing candidate was found and was gated in. The Balor spent the first round threatening the PCs but they immediately hit it with a spell that made it Helpful and then diplomasized the Balor into fart for them and allowing them to collect it. I thought it was simple, funny and seemed legit so I let them get away with and they talked the Balor into returning through the Gate before their spell wore off. That Balor is going to need some therapy.

Word came form the Frost Giant Queen Ellisif that there was trouble in the far north and to come ASAP. The PCs arrived and were told of a strange shadowy substance that was spreading across the land killing every living thing that touches. They quickly discovered that it ignored the undead and so they set off to find the source.

The shadowstuff was erupting out of a volcano in a remote mountain range. The PCs found a tunnel that led into the heart of the volcano and there faced off against two monsters from the darkness between worlds. The two Shoggoths were dispatched without too many problems (some of the PCs being grappled and engulfed aside) and then much time was spent trying to figure out how to stop the flow of the shadowstuff. The key was several large magic stones. These were moved and the flow began to reverse. The PCs then moved the Stones to a location near Matharyn were they could be studied further.

At this point we were cruising right along with still 2 hours left to play so we decided to start the end game. Everyone leveled up to 20 and the Princess returned. She sent riders across the land to summon the faithful. The PCs called up their armies and used  Gates to transport them to the capital. The Princess led her forces to the Fields of Tamberline where the Makardians had to defeated the Barcans to take the crown 80 years earlier. There a Solar extended the artifact, The Veil of Mitra, to cover an area a mile across protecting it from Divinations and Teleportation.

Thinking they were being cheaky, the PCs challenged Belinda to a 4 vs 4 duel, winner take all. Thinking how many lives would be saved and knowing the strength of her allies she accepted.   Cleric, Vampire Fighter, Bloodrager, and Wizard vs an Elysian Titan, an Ancient Wurm Silver Dragon (Mom), Half Dragon Sorcerer, and a Solar. While they PCs grumbled a bit after the battle started that they should have been sneakier about attacking, doing it this way saved them from having to deal with the Titan's Cohort a Ghaele, and the High Inquisitor. The Princess had no shortage of high powered companions.

The battle stretched on over 4 long hours although in game time it was probably only a couple minutes. Lots of very high level spells were tossed and there were some big hits ( a couple PCs can cross off "Getting hit with a Maul of the Titans" from their bucket list). The Titan was the first to go down despite getting Healed twice. The vampire kept the Princess Belinda pinned and was slowly draining her blood. The Dragon and Solar were on a rampage with the PCs trying to keep away from them. Finally the Bloodrager went down and the Wizard a few seconds later. The cleric moved next to the vampire and used Word of Recall to whisk away the Vampire and the Princess's body.

We decided to end the campaign here because the logistics for continuing would be difficult with the Bloodrager and Wizard in the custody of the forces of Good, and the Princess in the hands of the Vampire and King who have retreated to their sanctuary in the Agathium.

The forces of good hold the field and most of the PCs forces would surrender or withdraw after the defeat.

The forces of the White Unicorn take the capital, arrest the Queen and other members of the PCs court. A few battles are fought but troops loyal to the PCs quickly find themselves isolated and are forced to revert to banditry to stay alive. As the capital is restored to Markadian rule, the heroes of the White Unicorn begin their search for the missing princess. The Titan is True Resurrected and joins the search. The High Inquisitor begins to purge Asmodean influence from the kingdom.

But where are the remaining PCs?

As the King used Word of Recall something felt slightly off but under the circumstances (a colossal dragon coming to eat you) it was ignored. As things cleared the King was immediately aware of a few things that were not as they should be. Firstly, this was not his sanctuary in the Agathium. This was  a second circle that had been drawn outside the walls of the Agathium. Second, the almost continuous storms of the area were not present today and the sun was shining - perhaps that was why Sergent was screaming beside him. Thirdly, they were surrounded a number of beings. There were the Death Knights, the wizard Grigori with a far away look in his eye and lastly a large Skeleton in fancy robes. There was something about its skull that seemed familiar, the Gems that were set in it perhaps? It whispered in voice heard long ago, "Welcome Home" and began to laugh.

The power of the Raccoon

It looks like Disney Infinity 2.0 is set to eclipse Skylanders as the leader in the collectible toy/video game market, thanks largely to Marvel. Pre-orders of DI2 starter packs and figures, due for release later this month, are skyrocketing, with Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise being exceptionally popular. Because of this, Disney is already starting to announce future figures most likely to be available next year. The first of these are Yondu from GotG and Falcon from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Here we see the first image of the Yondu figure:

I better go pre-order the GotG starter pack this weekend.

-Rognar-

September Blahs

So after a flurry of posts in August we are back to the regular pace of updates for September. The kids are back to school and starting after school activities which sucks up energy and free time.  There won't be a Way of the Wicked update today since our game this weekend got postponed due to scheduling conflicts and the coming weekend is already looking iffy. We are coming to the end of the campaign and I'd kinda like to see it over with.

I have the next session planned out but I'm still a bit up in the air about how I'm going to close things out. The Adventure Path has some good suggestions but some elements are dumb. Why would some of the antagonists split off from their group and try to fight the PCs one at a time? The PCs always fight as a team so why would their opponents be dumb and not do the same? I do like the idea of a duel though. maybe I'll slide that in their somewhere.

I have also let the PCs get immensely powerful this campaign. I hate tracking WBL rules (and XP for that matter) so we implemented some training rules that replace a lot of the Big six magic items in the game (weapons, armor, headbands, belts, cloaks, and amulets of NA). Rings of protection are still in. This has made for highly optimized PCs. They pretty much ROFLStomp most of their opponents and I'm ok with that. As long as they assume that combat is not going to be easy and they have to retreat from time to time I know they are still being challenged.

So Good vs Evil, Evil vs Good. Who should win?

EROEI - the unseen enemy of the bright future

We Albertans are widely-derided within our own country for being insensitive to the environmental consequences of our oilsands development. It is true that we have an out-sized carbon footprint and there are many Albertans that would like to see better environmental stewardship. In fact, despite the ugly pictures of tailings ponds around Fort MacMurray, a lot of Alberta looks like this:

We have invested a lot of money in carbon sequestration, the process of capturing carbon during the burning of fossil fuels and burying it, typically in old oil reservoirs. Of course, the environmental groups disapprove of this approach, preferring the oil to stay in the ground and the energy production replaced by renewables. Well, it turns out the environmentalists may have it all wrong, a future of wind and solar is just not possible. The villain is EROEI, energy-returned-on-energy-invested.

A recent paper by John Morgan, a prominent Australian expert on energy storage technology, lays out the problem. In order for a power plant to be viable, it must return more energy over its operational lifespan than it requires to build it. Dr. Morgan calculated the minimum EROEI of 7:1, once maintenance and operational requirements are included. Anything below that and the project makes no sense. Under current conditions, that is, an energy grid with ample baseload supply from fossil fuel and/or nuclear plants, wind and concentrated solar power (CSP) comfortably surpass that minimum EROEI. Interestingly, photovoltaic solar doesn't even achieve the threshold now, so you might want to reconsider any plans to install solar panels on your roof.

Anyway, a future without fossil fuels would require extensive energy storage capacity for times when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, a problem fossil fuels don't have since the energy is already stored in the fuel. There are two main ways of storing energy, batteries and pumped hydroelectric. Batteries are more mobile but are ten times more energy intensive to produce per unit of energy storage. In other words, batteries will have to become an order of magnitude more energy efficient just to achieve the current EROEI of pumped hydroelectric and, of course, batteries require lots of rare metals which have their own scarcity issues to deal with when considering massive scale up. So, the best case scenario assumes pumped hydro, which involves pumping water to a place of higher elevation, then releasing it to run turbines like a normal hydroelectric dam. Even with the assumption of using pumped hydro for energy storage, wind power falls well below the threshold and CSP is just marginally above (and even then, only in ideal conditions for solar power). Nothing short of a miraculous new technology unlike anything we are currently working on can turn the trend line on this. We simply cannot maintain our civilization without fossil fuels or a huge increase in nuclear power generation.

-Rognar-