3 days ago
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
BlizzCon
This post is 3 days old now. After a long but productive weekend of gardening work, I emerge richer by $202.50 and a strained upper back muscle. I guess I wasn't putting enough good energy into the universe... silly me. :P
Begin retroactive post
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What with the shallow and rocky strait that is my bank account right now, I had no plans of buying tickets to Blizzcon. Being of a naturally curious temperament though, I decided to see how expensive tickets were when the y went on sale this past Sat. I checked at about noon. They were already sold out. That seems a bit nutty.
WoW: though I've not played in a good week, I am slowly trying to get the 5000g for epic flight training. Yes, Yes, I know. How does a lvl 80 not have epic flight yet? Leatherworking... that's how. I've spent way too much on buying leather in the AH to level a profession which I've eventually come to the decision is a waste. It's cheaper to just buy mats and have another LW do the work for me than to invest in all the Frozen Orbs I'd need to get to 440.
Diablo II: MV ans I played DII last night. Righteous! We leveled about 3 levels, getting close to lvl 50. We are currently working through Act II on Nightmare difficulty. Only really remarkable drop was a Shael rune, which I'm saving for a bow runeword. All I need is a Ko, buteven then I'll have a choice between two runewords to work on: melody or harmony. Here's a link to a handy runeword tool. Anyway, there's no point in agonizing over this until I actually find a Ko, by which time it will probably irrelevant, as Diablo III will be out.
On that note, let me just say, I can't wait. There are millions awaiting the Starcraft release, there are as many awaiting the chance to raid Arthas, but I am most excited about Diablo III. I am actually waiting until close to release date to build myself a new computer. This will have been the first time I've built a computer for myself before (note the groovy Future Perfect there, peeps). I'll have more disposable income by then (for more, read any). No sense in doing anything until system reqs. are released anyway.
Currently listening to: On the Rise from Dr. Horrible. There are some good songs in there...
Begin retroactive post
---------------------------
What with the shallow and rocky strait that is my bank account right now, I had no plans of buying tickets to Blizzcon. Being of a naturally curious temperament though, I decided to see how expensive tickets were when the y went on sale this past Sat. I checked at about noon. They were already sold out. That seems a bit nutty.
WoW: though I've not played in a good week, I am slowly trying to get the 5000g for epic flight training. Yes, Yes, I know. How does a lvl 80 not have epic flight yet? Leatherworking... that's how. I've spent way too much on buying leather in the AH to level a profession which I've eventually come to the decision is a waste. It's cheaper to just buy mats and have another LW do the work for me than to invest in all the Frozen Orbs I'd need to get to 440.
Diablo II: MV ans I played DII last night. Righteous! We leveled about 3 levels, getting close to lvl 50. We are currently working through Act II on Nightmare difficulty. Only really remarkable drop was a Shael rune, which I'm saving for a bow runeword. All I need is a Ko, buteven then I'll have a choice between two runewords to work on: melody or harmony. Here's a link to a handy runeword tool. Anyway, there's no point in agonizing over this until I actually find a Ko, by which time it will probably irrelevant, as Diablo III will be out.
On that note, let me just say, I can't wait. There are millions awaiting the Starcraft release, there are as many awaiting the chance to raid Arthas, but I am most excited about Diablo III. I am actually waiting until close to release date to build myself a new computer. This will have been the first time I've built a computer for myself before (note the groovy Future Perfect there, peeps). I'll have more disposable income by then (for more, read any). No sense in doing anything until system reqs. are released anyway.
Currently listening to: On the Rise from Dr. Horrible. There are some good songs in there...
Monday, May 18, 2009
D&D this summer, bringin' it to the here and now
So last post I discussed the horrific experience that was my initiation into D&D. I never played again, but always felt that it was worth a second shot with the right group. This time has come. I think we have the right group of people. It will be me; MV (my gf); MV's bro; James, (the DM, we're thinking); and a couple (literally) of friends. These friends are extra cool, newly-wed, and are going to be awesome. At this point we have yet to all sit down together and discuss the game. It looks like James has agreed to DM for us. I think he'll do a good job, as he has a good sense of humor and a strong attention to detail. He's abroad now, so we've not had a chance to hammer down details. As to the other two, we really need to talk about characters. I have no idea what kind of party roles they'd want to fill.
Lessons learned from last post (and from limited raiding exp in WoW):
I want to play an Eladrin Rogue. I've been putting a good deal of thought into this character. This is a DPS char, so, of course I'd be looking to do a good deal of damage. More than that though, I'd like to maximize my skill checks. In particular I'd want a very high Perception score. I've designed the char at lvl 1 and lvl 5, so as to get a feeling for how I'd develop the mechanics of the char. In terms of ability scores, I'd be ranking it Dex, (Cha, Wis), Con, Int, Str. So I'm considering completely ignoring Str to maximize Dex, and then taking Melee Training (Dex). That would mean that I apply my Dex bonus to my attack rolls. Basically + to hit rating. I'd choose skills that look to Cha instead of Str. Meanwhile a highish Wis modifier would allow for fairly good Perception, Dungeoneering, Nature and Heal checks, the former two trained and the latter untrained. My other trained skills would be Acrobatics, Athletics, and Bluff, and the two default Rogue skills, Stealth and Thievery. That would amount to 7 trained skills for an Eladrin Rogue. Taking the Jack of all Trades feat would add a +2 to all untrained skills, giving an extra edge in Heal, Nature, Insight, etc. Every little bit helps I reckon. In order to really maximize perception I'll take either the Skill Focus (Perception) or the Alertness feats. This will put me in a position to be a really good scout with high perception, high stealth, and fairly good modifiers for information checks (e.g. History, Arcana, Nature, etc.). When in party, the higher modifiers can be used to back up others if their checks fail.
Finallyto damage. I should have a fairly high Attack score because of the Meelee training feat, but whe I hit, I'll be hitting with daggers, only a d4. So not much damage from straight melee. My powers will all be augmented by my dex and/or cha modifierrs, so that'll up damage. But the other thing I'm trying to do is maximize the Sneak Attack feature of the Rogue class. Sneak Attack damage can be applied anytime the Rogue has combat advantage and packs a fairly sizable whallop, 2d6. To get the most out of this I'll take the Backstabber skill, which ups the damage to 2d8. That's a really fair bit of damage in addition to any other damage done. But to get this extra damage, you need combat advantage. I am at the stage of mechanics planning where I am trying to figure out the best way given my chosen feats to gain combat advantage as much as possible. I am hoping that I can keep my feat choices as is and look to use actions and allies to gain combat advantage. The more I look, the more possible this seems. It seems that I would do better to choose Alertness than Skill Focus (Perception) though. While SF(P) grants +3 to Perception, Alertness grants +2 and makes it so that you do not grant combat advantage during surprise rounds. I think that that will fit nicely into a character build with high perception, as if even when surprised, he either unconsciously noticed noticed something was wrong or is so agile as to not be left flat footed. In the meantime, though, I am not sure I really know how Stealth is going to work in encounters. It would be nice if I could get into a Bluff, Stealth, Attack + Sneak Attack cycle, but it is unclear to me how exactly this will play out. It may be that I have to be very careful to use the terrain to me advantage. In otherwards, make sure that I am only visible to a maximum of 2 baddies in any encounter, so as to raises my chances for Stealth success. We shall see. More reading for me to understand this.
So far that is my mechanical analysis of my character: maximized sneak attack, high Perception, high level scouting skills, overall high skill modifyers so as to be, as the feat say, a jack of all trades.
Lessons learned from last post (and from limited raiding exp in WoW):
- Party must be properly balanced. We must have a dedicated tank and a dedicated healer, neither of which I had in my last exp.
- People should understand they are choosing their character both to their liking and to fulfill their specific role.
- Players should all contribute to each other having fun, not just to having fun themselves.
I want to play an Eladrin Rogue. I've been putting a good deal of thought into this character. This is a DPS char, so, of course I'd be looking to do a good deal of damage. More than that though, I'd like to maximize my skill checks. In particular I'd want a very high Perception score. I've designed the char at lvl 1 and lvl 5, so as to get a feeling for how I'd develop the mechanics of the char. In terms of ability scores, I'd be ranking it Dex, (Cha, Wis), Con, Int, Str. So I'm considering completely ignoring Str to maximize Dex, and then taking Melee Training (Dex). That would mean that I apply my Dex bonus to my attack rolls. Basically + to hit rating. I'd choose skills that look to Cha instead of Str. Meanwhile a highish Wis modifier would allow for fairly good Perception, Dungeoneering, Nature and Heal checks, the former two trained and the latter untrained. My other trained skills would be Acrobatics, Athletics, and Bluff, and the two default Rogue skills, Stealth and Thievery. That would amount to 7 trained skills for an Eladrin Rogue. Taking the Jack of all Trades feat would add a +2 to all untrained skills, giving an extra edge in Heal, Nature, Insight, etc. Every little bit helps I reckon. In order to really maximize perception I'll take either the Skill Focus (Perception) or the Alertness feats. This will put me in a position to be a really good scout with high perception, high stealth, and fairly good modifiers for information checks (e.g. History, Arcana, Nature, etc.). When in party, the higher modifiers can be used to back up others if their checks fail.
Finallyto damage. I should have a fairly high Attack score because of the Meelee training feat, but whe I hit, I'll be hitting with daggers, only a d4. So not much damage from straight melee. My powers will all be augmented by my dex and/or cha modifierrs, so that'll up damage. But the other thing I'm trying to do is maximize the Sneak Attack feature of the Rogue class. Sneak Attack damage can be applied anytime the Rogue has combat advantage and packs a fairly sizable whallop, 2d6. To get the most out of this I'll take the Backstabber skill, which ups the damage to 2d8. That's a really fair bit of damage in addition to any other damage done. But to get this extra damage, you need combat advantage. I am at the stage of mechanics planning where I am trying to figure out the best way given my chosen feats to gain combat advantage as much as possible. I am hoping that I can keep my feat choices as is and look to use actions and allies to gain combat advantage. The more I look, the more possible this seems. It seems that I would do better to choose Alertness than Skill Focus (Perception) though. While SF(P) grants +3 to Perception, Alertness grants +2 and makes it so that you do not grant combat advantage during surprise rounds. I think that that will fit nicely into a character build with high perception, as if even when surprised, he either unconsciously noticed noticed something was wrong or is so agile as to not be left flat footed. In the meantime, though, I am not sure I really know how Stealth is going to work in encounters. It would be nice if I could get into a Bluff, Stealth, Attack + Sneak Attack cycle, but it is unclear to me how exactly this will play out. It may be that I have to be very careful to use the terrain to me advantage. In otherwards, make sure that I am only visible to a maximum of 2 baddies in any encounter, so as to raises my chances for Stealth success. We shall see. More reading for me to understand this.
So far that is my mechanical analysis of my character: maximized sneak attack, high Perception, high level scouting skills, overall high skill modifyers so as to be, as the feat say, a jack of all trades.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
D&D this summer
WoW was extraordinarily boring tonight. I missed the guild raid by 15 minutes and so was stuck waiting to be an alternate. By the time I realized that I had no chance at getting into the raid, it was too late to bother trying to get into a pug (pick-up group, or ad hoc group, for those who don't know). On the up side I was questing and found a quest in Icecrown where, through flashback narrative, I got to be Arthas. That was fairly awesome, if a bit morally troubling.
Recently my guild moved all of its best geared characters to another guild so as to get raid experience. I moved too because, A) I'm fairly well geared and B) it was pretty lonely in the old guild with all the best players elsewhere. Anyway, this new guild is looking to give raid spots to people who will constantly raid with them. Fair enough. I don't want to be a hardcore raider, but I could maybe do 2 a week. But they also schedule their raids between 7 and 7:30, just when I've been making dinner or hanging out with MV. So, because I am not there for raids to start I'm not necessarily "reliable" enough to be included in raids. Most vexing. We shall hope that this changes.
In less annoying news, plans move forward apace for our D&D adventure. It cannot be worse than my first D&D experience. I shall narrate this briefly, just to give a little background. I had no idea about D&D. I was invited to play with a group of people I knew from community college. Players: 2 spinsters in their late-30's, early-40's; 1 lonely female wiccan with designs; 1 overly-idealistic male with romantic and chivalric notions (read me). DM: younger brother of spinster 1, bassist in metal band, and generally cool, if non overly refined, dude.
So both spinsters decided to play misanthropic cutthroats of borderline, if not, evil alignment (can't remember precisely). Both were that annoying stereotype who would rather glare evilly at you than respond to you. They were your typical I'm a member of the party, but I'll kill you if I decide I want to. This is, of course, a great morale booster. It is particularly useful when you meet a camp of men who know about the way ahead and who seem to be important to the plot (why would the DM have put them there if they were of no value?), and these characters decide they are too suspicious of the men to even investigate. Yet it turned out that I offended these damosels for taking the initiative to talk to NPCs rather than scornfully storm away from them. They decided that I had elected myself leader of the party. If by leader they meant the only person in the group who used polysyllabic vocabulary and who thought NPCs were useful vectors of information, then I suppose I did. Silly me.
The wiccan played a bard. Her high charisma scores, though, I fear were forged, as I saw no evidence of charisma in her character. Again, when faced with a camp of men who seemed to be useful, I did all the talking, and not by way of taking advantage. Me talking was better, in my mind, than awkward silences punctuated by desperate hooks tossed out by the DM to no avail. She was the quietest, meekest, and most awkward high-charisma bard who ever laid plectrum to gut.
I was playing a Ranger and had been asked in to be the one who takes the damage, in a party otherwise fairly low on HP and AC. I was also supposed to be the one to heal. In other words, looking back with the eye of a stalwart WoW campaigner, I was supposed to be the tank and the healer. ummmmm..... What was the DM thinking here? He should have made me be a Fighter or Pally. Or he should have made me a Cleric. One role or the other, not both. If he wanted me to do both he should have made me be a Pally, even though that would have been compromising on heals. A part cannot co forward w/o dedicated heals. Anyway, this meant that I, a ranger, and essentially, in WoW lingo, ranged DPS (I took alot of ranged feats), was in the front line taking most of the damage, and at the same time needed to heal myself. Classic. Physician heal thyself syndrome. It was ridiculous.
Horror stories:
More on character building and party formation of the current party later. For now, I look to pout myself a whiskey, descend into the embrace of a well-worn leather armchair, and ruminate on battles past, won and lost, and the lessons to be learned by them. Why, when I was in India, during the Rebellion...
Recently my guild moved all of its best geared characters to another guild so as to get raid experience. I moved too because, A) I'm fairly well geared and B) it was pretty lonely in the old guild with all the best players elsewhere. Anyway, this new guild is looking to give raid spots to people who will constantly raid with them. Fair enough. I don't want to be a hardcore raider, but I could maybe do 2 a week. But they also schedule their raids between 7 and 7:30, just when I've been making dinner or hanging out with MV. So, because I am not there for raids to start I'm not necessarily "reliable" enough to be included in raids. Most vexing. We shall hope that this changes.
In less annoying news, plans move forward apace for our D&D adventure. It cannot be worse than my first D&D experience. I shall narrate this briefly, just to give a little background. I had no idea about D&D. I was invited to play with a group of people I knew from community college. Players: 2 spinsters in their late-30's, early-40's; 1 lonely female wiccan with designs; 1 overly-idealistic male with romantic and chivalric notions (read me). DM: younger brother of spinster 1, bassist in metal band, and generally cool, if non overly refined, dude.
So both spinsters decided to play misanthropic cutthroats of borderline, if not, evil alignment (can't remember precisely). Both were that annoying stereotype who would rather glare evilly at you than respond to you. They were your typical I'm a member of the party, but I'll kill you if I decide I want to. This is, of course, a great morale booster. It is particularly useful when you meet a camp of men who know about the way ahead and who seem to be important to the plot (why would the DM have put them there if they were of no value?), and these characters decide they are too suspicious of the men to even investigate. Yet it turned out that I offended these damosels for taking the initiative to talk to NPCs rather than scornfully storm away from them. They decided that I had elected myself leader of the party. If by leader they meant the only person in the group who used polysyllabic vocabulary and who thought NPCs were useful vectors of information, then I suppose I did. Silly me.
The wiccan played a bard. Her high charisma scores, though, I fear were forged, as I saw no evidence of charisma in her character. Again, when faced with a camp of men who seemed to be useful, I did all the talking, and not by way of taking advantage. Me talking was better, in my mind, than awkward silences punctuated by desperate hooks tossed out by the DM to no avail. She was the quietest, meekest, and most awkward high-charisma bard who ever laid plectrum to gut.
I was playing a Ranger and had been asked in to be the one who takes the damage, in a party otherwise fairly low on HP and AC. I was also supposed to be the one to heal. In other words, looking back with the eye of a stalwart WoW campaigner, I was supposed to be the tank and the healer. ummmmm..... What was the DM thinking here? He should have made me be a Fighter or Pally. Or he should have made me a Cleric. One role or the other, not both. If he wanted me to do both he should have made me be a Pally, even though that would have been compromising on heals. A part cannot co forward w/o dedicated heals. Anyway, this meant that I, a ranger, and essentially, in WoW lingo, ranged DPS (I took alot of ranged feats), was in the front line taking most of the damage, and at the same time needed to heal myself. Classic. Physician heal thyself syndrome. It was ridiculous.
Horror stories:
- As we were leaving town to go and find the tower of the powerful wizard who had summoned us together, we noted a large mercenary army gathering outside. Being wary of them, as one should be, we wanted to keep an eye on them and make sure they didn't follow us. Being a Ranger, I had an animal companion. I decided that, since we didn't want to split up the party to have someone keep watch, I'd summon a badger to stay behind and watch. This provoked a controversy of at least 15 minutes. The spinsters were collectively (they acted collectively often) worried that the mercenaries would see the badger and be suspicious. I suppose they were playing their paranoid characters to the full. I offered to not cast the badger, but then they worried that we'd have no way of knowing whether the mercs were following us. Upshot? 15-30 minute argument about whether a band of profesional mercenary soldiers would find a badger suspicious and what they would do to it either way.
- One of the spinsters, a Rogue, if I am not much mistaken, got fed up with trying to carefully ascertain what was on the other side of a door and so kicked it in herself and leapt into the room. um.... ok. She's a Rogue. She's a misanthrope. She's Drow. She should like to stay in the shadows, hidden away until she can do the most damage posible and avoiding contact with the lower races as much as possible. Quite apart from this being radically outside of character, she totally flew in the face of her class role. She's supposed to scout, not get tired of scouting and bash doors in. That's the fighter's role, dammit. So after this ridiculous move, I leapt in after her to try and take any damage (my role in the party, mind you) and I took a crossbow bolt. This, I thought was in line with my character and with my class role. Suddenly and without warning she remebered to play her character and was taciturnly disapproving of me for being paternalistic and chauvanistic. She was fairly frustrated that I had presumed to take the damage for her, little remebering that one of the explicit reasons for asking me to play was that the party needed someone to soak up damage.
- I dated the bard... but that's not a story for this blog...
More on character building and party formation of the current party later. For now, I look to pout myself a whiskey, descend into the embrace of a well-worn leather armchair, and ruminate on battles past, won and lost, and the lessons to be learned by them. Why, when I was in India, during the Rebellion...
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
First!
Hello all,
for reasons of employability I shall be writing this under the pseudonym Reginald Peabody. You can call me Reggie, though. The explicit reason for this blog is to waste time talking about the various geeky pastimes with which I fill my life. Perhaps the longest running of these right now is my WoW character, Romana, a rogue. She resides on the Undermine server and is now lvl 80. I am currently trying to gear her up for he more involved Lich King Raids. I include a link to her armory.
Here she is!
My primary alt is a paladin, Modwenna, at only lvl 33, so she's got a long way to go.
In order to immediately dispel any confusion, while my chars are female, I am a dude. This is an undeniable fact and can be verified by my girlfriend, whom I shall call Minver (abbreviated as MV) for the sake of anonymity.
As this is merely a first post, I will leave it there, but look back, as things are likely to speed up in the Summer, at which point MV and I and a few friends will be running a D&D 4e game. Looks to be really fun!
for reasons of employability I shall be writing this under the pseudonym Reginald Peabody. You can call me Reggie, though. The explicit reason for this blog is to waste time talking about the various geeky pastimes with which I fill my life. Perhaps the longest running of these right now is my WoW character, Romana, a rogue. She resides on the Undermine server and is now lvl 80. I am currently trying to gear her up for he more involved Lich King Raids. I include a link to her armory.
Here she is!
My primary alt is a paladin, Modwenna, at only lvl 33, so she's got a long way to go.
In order to immediately dispel any confusion, while my chars are female, I am a dude. This is an undeniable fact and can be verified by my girlfriend, whom I shall call Minver (abbreviated as MV) for the sake of anonymity.
As this is merely a first post, I will leave it there, but look back, as things are likely to speed up in the Summer, at which point MV and I and a few friends will be running a D&D 4e game. Looks to be really fun!
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