My Powers are Fading

A long time again, on a PC far far away I used to play Ultima Online, one of the first and, in my humble opinion, one of the best MMORPGs ever made. 

It ran on a system of skill points. Each character could gain up to 700 points divided among all the available skills to a maximum of 100 in each. As you performed certain tasks, that skill had a chance of being increased do to usage. The funny thing was, if you had already gained all 700 skill points and gained another point in a skill, it would take a point away from your least used skill. This was to simulate an atrophy of skills that are hardly used in favor of those that are used often.

Flourish and Blotts for the Pathfinder in all of us

I was directed to a great site the other day TheGM.org has a great utility called Perram's Spellbook, that allows you to print out spells on cards of varying sizes that are easy to take with you and eliminates the constant page flipping that all you wizards and clerics out there do.

You can print them out as 3"x5", 4"x6" or playing card sized that fit nicely into those Magic: The Gathering card sleeves. Granted, there are a few spells that have extra long descriptions that require multiple cards to get the whole thing, but its still a really inventive and handy utility.

Also, it has the option of inputting your own spells to create your own cards. It looks like it's catered directly for Pathfinder, but I don't see a problem inputting the few spells that may be different between Pathfinder and 3.5. 

And don't even think of using Bigby's Inappropriate Hand, I already have the copyright.

Classic Dungeon Trivia 6

Continuing with my effort to stay of track with Classic Dungeon Trivia Friday's, I'm actually going to post one on a Friday!

As to our last installment...Grendlewulf answered correctly with U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. The candybar goes to him.

Now, on to this weeks moderately challenging trivia. And in the words of your dark lord and mine "I have you now!"

THE CHAMBER OF OPPOSITION
This room is 30' across and 70' wide, the door opening in the center of one 70' wall. Directly across from the door is a mirror of opposition. Lounging throughout the room are 20 ogres (AC 5, MV 9", HD 4+1, hp 25 each, #AT 1, D 1-10). When the door is opened, one of the characters who opened the door will automatically look into the mirror; the DM should roll randomly to determine which one. This character's opposite will step out of the mirror andattack. At the same time, the ogres will join and attack the party. The ogres will automatically treat the opposite as their leader.

Classic Dungeon Trivia 5

Damn it! I just realized I've missed the last TWO Classic Dungeon Trivia Fridays. So I'm gonna do one now, and in 4 minutes after one of you D&D Savants answers it I'll start posting one every Friday...I hope.

As for the last one JB answered correctly in 1hr 11min, and I think he stalled just to make me feel better. Or maybe he was hung over from New Years Eve. Regardless, the correct answer was D2: Shrine of the Kuo Toa.

On to the first of this weeks Classic Dungeon Trivia...

Bedroom

This bedroom is dirty and decayed; the floorboards appear intact but rubbish is scattered everywhere and webs are profuse on the walls and ceiling. From the doorway, you can see a glint of light in the fireplace from what appears to be a small, highly reflective object. There is no furniture in here.

The object in the fireplace is simply a fist-sized chunk of crystal. It has no value though it is superficially attractive. In the webs live two large spiders (AC 8; HD 1+1; hp 7 each; #AT 1; D 1 hit point plus poison) which are 90% likely to attack (check each round anyone is in the room).

The spiders’ poison is relatively weak — saving throws against poison are at a bonus of +2 and the effects of a bite are less severe than most. Thus the poisonous bite will not kill the victim though he/she will be incapacitated and completely helpless for 1-6 hours.

Photoshop and Dundjinni

If you know me at all, you know I'm the Rain Man of computers without all the gambling ability. I barely know how to fill out this blog much less do anything with Photoshop. So I was wondering if anyone out there know much about it and can help me out. 

I'm trying to create some objects for Dunjinni with Photoshop because I think that's what they all use over there to make them. The problem is, when I make an object, it retains the lovely white background that I created the picture on. How do I go about creating an object, in this case a post-apocalyptic building, and get rid of the back ground so I can place it as an object in Dundjinni?

This is an example of what I'm trying to do, but I always get stuck with a white field around the building.

Just curious if anyone has any ideas or useful links

Too Much Detail?

I was flipping through some adventures the other day and I noticed what seems to be a trend with Pathfinder products...

There is A LOT of detail in those things!

My group recently finished, or rather abandoned (for a completely unrelated reason to the length of the series), the Rise of the Runelords series so I decided to go through the modules just to see what sort of stuff we, the players, had missed. I was surprised to see how dense they were. The first adventure "Burnt Offerings", for example, is a 96 page monster of an adventure. Now, we did run through this for a few sessions, but that seems excessive for the amount of time we spent playing. I assumed that we had just missed a lot of what was in there, but as I scanned it I realized that we didn't. We hit nearly everything in there but it was still a huge book, so I decided to read a little deeper. What I found was there is an extraordinary amount of detail put into them. 

Classic Dungeon Trivia 4

I'd like to thank Christopher B for waiting nearly 2 1/2 hours before answering last weeks Classic Dungeon Trivia. I swear I'm trying to make these somewhat challenging, but it's just not turning out that way. Lets try another before I get really serious with you guys.

STEPS OF THE ZIGGURAT If the group reaches this point they will be able to see low altar stones with shells upon them. There are 2 such containers on the first tier of the ziggurat, and other pairs on each successively higher altar. Each tier of the pyramid is 12' high, and the steps are steep. These steps must be ascended by all creatures passing through, so that homage can be paid to the goddess, an offering paid, and passage continued elsewhere. Groups coming in from other tunnels are held in waiting areas while appointed representatives perform the necessary obeisance.

Monthly Poll - Favorite Deceptive Creature

Another poll comes to a close, so lets see how our favorite undead creatures stack up against one another.

First place goes to my favorite, the Lich with 27% of your votes

2nd place was a bit of a surprise to me, Skeletons rock the vote with a solid 23%

3rd place, with 20% of the votes is everyone's favorite grave robber, the Ghoul with 20%

4th place, with a shockingly low 10% is the Zombie

Checking in at 5th place with 9% of the votes is the Wraith

in 6th place with only 7% of all votes cast is the Vampire. I have a feeling our friendly neighborhood blood sucker suffered quite a bit in the polling from recent film adaptations (I'm looking at you Sparkly!)

and in last place, the bottom of the barrel with only 1, count them 1, very late vote is the Ghost. I have to say, the ghost would have been my least favorite too. They just seem a little dull. They serve better as a plot device rather than an adversary. Never failed, every time we faced off against a ghost it was when we had nothing that could even hit it.

So there you have it, your favorite undead. Make sure you tune in this month for your favorite Deceptive Creature. A creature that likes to appear as something other than what it really is.

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

A new year means 365 more chances to game...unless its a leap year, its not a leap year is it?

Anyways, hopefully I'll have a whole year's worth of blogs that someone out there might fight entertaining if not enlightening. Of course, I'm already running late on a few posts, so stay tuned for January's monthly poll and this weeks Classic Dungeon Trivia.