Diary of the mad dragon

At this point...

clockwerkdragon — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:00:29 GMT

I've gone friends only. If you want access, feel free to comment here. Thanks!

clockwerkdragon — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:01:52 GMT

12:01 Hey @americanexpress I want to be with Coco in Chicago. Pick me! #amexConan. #

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clockwerkdragon — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:01:57 GMT

12:05 @lusciousluka those are my sisters sites. I'm doing some experiments with google analytics. #
20:30 Well, when we zap this, it gets better. So keep zappin it! : news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8573127.stm #

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clockwerkdragon — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:02:09 GMT

19:04 Living in Toronto? Looking for something to build your kids confidence? Check out www.mjko.ca #
19:05 Living in Canada? Need a mortgage broker that will work with you? Try www.simplicitywithmiranda.com! #
19:17 @pkh I know, I know, bad twitter user, but I'm running an experiment with the google and the twitter. #
19:29 @pkh I appreciate it, I rather know then send my friends off to poison sites or something. #

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clockwerkdragon — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:03:37 GMT

16:34 Hot on the heels of my last tech post - Taste the picture: www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/15/blind-soldier-tongue-sight #

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clockwerkdragon — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:03:01 GMT

08:45 Somewhere, there is a little firm in need of an IT superhero, I just need to figure out how to get them my spotlight... #
23:57 We taste it, but snakes see it: www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/wasabi-vision/ #

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clockwerkdragon — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:01:15 GMT

20:53 Don't forget your clocks spring forward tonight! #

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clockwerkdragon — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:01:38 GMT

06:57 This is some interesting stuff: artofmanliness.com/ #
07:00 ...not that I agree with all of it, but I rarely agree 100% with anything. #
20:57 Why doesn't my bank have the authenticator tool that WoW has? Or my credit card? Or my Loan company? #

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Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer - reposted from JNG

clockwerkdragon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:31:28 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFicqklGuB0

It's a tour du force.

clockwerkdragon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:01:29 GMT

06:45 Ear Infections Could Cause Long-Term Lazy Ear ; shar.es/mbCK5
It's not that I'm not listening, I had a lot ear problems as a kid. #
09:08 My childhood, renamed: mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/10/20/mgk-versus-his-adolescent-reading-habits/ #
15:16 @lusciousluka Lemon soak and a light breading? #

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Huh

clockwerkdragon — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:35:09 GMT

I just got this from Blizzard:

Account Action: 72 Hour Suspension
Reason for Action: Terms of Use Violation -- Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy

Which is rather weird, given my account is actually deactivated at the moment, and has been for at least the last 6 months.

I've changed my password and added an authenticator....I've also sent a note off to Blizzard support asking what's up with my account. Not sure what hackers could have done with a dead account....They didn't change any of my data or anything...so I have no idea what's up with it.

Anyone hear anything like this?

*Edit: They didn't ask for any account activity and linked to legit FAQ pages. I still went the long way to get into Battle.net all the same.

clockwerkdragon — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:02:22 GMT

16:47 @jng2058 Really? That's a darn shame. How is it playing? Fun? #

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JNG's response to my 4e vs Pathfinder post.

clockwerkdragon — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:51:10 GMT

http://jng2058.livejournal.com/141171.html

clockwerkdragon — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:03:47 GMT

20:06 I don't want to reward something that is IMO bad advertising. But this is nuts: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWZ6xtVLmzA #

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4E vs Pathfinder

clockwerkdragon — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:57:29 GMT

So I’ve been playing both 4E and Pathfinder for over a year now and I think I can sum up my feelings about both of them.

Let me first off say that I’m not a power gamer in the sense that I’m only about winning fights, as opposed to developing characters. That said, I am a firm believer that I’ve got a job in my party and I’m not doing right by my party unless I build a character who’s the very best at the role I’m supposed to be covering. My skill monkeys are know-it-alls, my tanks are walking mountains and my strikers are Swedish murder machines. And if I have to cover multiple bases I do. My characters are the best at what they do, but what they do ain’t pretty (unless they are supposed to be pretty then they are f’in gorgeous).

I tell this so you understand that when I say I build a character, I know what I’m doing and I do so with a firm understanding of the rules in mind. So without anymore to do, on to my thoughts!

3.5
I enjoyed 3.5 - I felt that the skill system really helped round out what a character could do, far better then vague (slightly broken) proficiency system of earlier versions. I also enjoyed the various flavors of classes and races it introduced. Changes to THACO made things easier on newbies, and over all I felt it was an excellent improvement to earlier versions.

But it propagated what I felt were two major problems:
1) Fighters, Rogues, Clerics (to a less degree) could do their role from day one, where as Wizards couldn’t do anything of value till about 5th level. Until then, they were using range weapons poorly and not offering much to the fight.

2) Your party adventured only about as long as your cleric/wizard’s spells lasted. As soon as they were done, you had to put up camp or backtrack somewhere you could. Alternatively you could press forward, and have the specifically useless wizard watching the rest of the party fight (a negative play experience for the wizard’s player).

It also suffered horribly from what is known as the “splat book” effect. New books were being printed left and center and each book created more and more powerful races/classes (obsolescing older classes)….which created arms races on the table.

From here, two new games were spawned: Pathfinder and Forth Edition (4e)

Forth Edition
When forth popped I was overjoyed, as the system quickly corrected the first two major problems with 3.5: Spell casters could effectively cast spells all day and the party generally only had to stop and rest because of sleep requirements.

It also allowed for the first time flexibility in character growth, as you could retrain powers and feats as you leveled, removing items that no longer made sense or had any use to your character. Prestige classes only have class a entry restrictions, not ability scores or skill ranks, so there is less of a need to metagame out your character advances.

Unfortunately the honeymoon ended rather quickly. With this version they’ve added an incredibly large amount of status effects that come on and off fairly rapidly on the table. This creates a situation of floating math and changing values that quickly overwhelms newbies and puts a hell of a lot of pressure on the DM to maintain.

Additionally, it moved the concept of “dailys” (an ability you could only do once before your character needed to rest) from wizards to everyone. All classes now have one shot tricks. The fluff does a poor job of explaining why your character could only do this effect once, and the limitation feels more then a little artificial.

On the matter of fluff, it’s very inconsistent and the abilities begin to just blend together. Everyone seems to be doing the same thing, just with the theme type slapped on to it. Characters become generic quickly, and the combat focus skill system does little to correct this.

The magic item system is a nightmare for GMs to manage, as the economy is totally trashed as a mechanic. I wish I could find something positive to say about it, but I’m hard pressed to say anything nice about it. It’s super hard to grow your gear organically, and GMs are often forced to simply just let players pick all new gear at every level.

Finally it’s already suffering from splat book syndrome, with abilities and feats of each new book eclipsing that of the last.

It plays more like a Warhammer style strategy game then a role playing game, particularly at higher levels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for certain groups of gamers out there, but if you’re looking for a ROLE playing game you might have to look elsewhere.

Pathfinder
Pathfinder has taken all the base classes you know in 3.5 and revamped them, making them more distinct and better defined in their chosen roles. They increased the number of feats you get and abilities a class gets so you always seem to be getting something new to play with at each level.

The character classes also seem well balanced, at least at later levels. Unfortunately it still suffers from both of the core problems I listed above with 3.5. Wizards are only awesome for 2 or 3 fights a day (after 5th level) and spend the rest of the time watching. They’ve tried to mitigate this by giving you “orisons, abilities you have unlimited use of. Orisons however deal very little damage, and it’s still often better for a wizard to bust out his crossbow….which still strikes me as lame. They’ve also given clerics a new “burst” ability which helps clerics use their actual spell slots for healing, but it’s not enough healing to press through more then 3 or 4 fights a day.

They’ve already started to introduce some new character classes, and I’m happy to say that they are new, not better. Each of the new classes bring their own distinct feel and play style to the table and bring a fresh change of pace to the game.

Sadly despite all the bonus feats, I still feel like decision made at first level will haunt me forever if my party needs me to take on a different role, or help cover a missing role. Once set on a path, you’re still pretty much stuck following it and metagame planning your levels/feats if you want to make sure to get into a particular prestige class or ability.

Magic items/item creation is still being defined, so I can’t really say much on it other then they seemed to have dropped the XP requirements for crafting…so the wizard won’t get stupider by making a magic cloak.

So if you loved 3.5, odds are very high you’ll really love Pathfinder. I’m still put off by what I see are my previously mentioned core flaws, but I can also understand that other players might not feel the same way.

Final Thoughts
All in all, if I had my way, I’d take Pathfinder and find a way to fix spell casters to make them more effective from level one and find them a use their powers more often. Maybe a test system?

Last Week o gaming.

clockwerkdragon — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:11:24 GMT

Last week was a great week for gaming:
Tuesday was the 4E game, where JNG and I continue to twist 4E to its limits.

Thursday my Pathfinder group restarted with a new member, and we had a really fun opening session. Never under estimate a man and his lamp.

Saturday BRA ran a little Rogue Trader game which proved the old adage that any problem can be solved with the use of explosives.

Sunday a large group of friends all headed out for some head to head lasertag. It turned out to be a super-deluxe-#1-awesome-goodtime as one of our games was our group vs another group.

+10 movement

clockwerkdragon — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:55:37 GMT

www.toothpastefordinner.com

clockwerkdragon — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:02:21 GMT

11:26 Things I'd do with a time machine #19: Beat the bejesus out of the guy who started servers singing happy b-day at restuarants. #

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clockwerkdragon — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:02:12 GMT

10:55 Buh...wah? twurl.nl/4jidci #
19:15 About to see "Up in the air". #
21:32 So...this movie wasn't such a great choice for me. #

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clockwerkdragon — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:04:24 GMT

17:42 Because we need this sort of data....:twurl.nl/vpd46f #

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clockwerkdragon — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:00:35 GMT

08:12 I assume most of you already know about this but this is a super handy web widget: www.addthis.com/ #

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Huh.....

clockwerkdragon — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:52:00 GMT

SMBC Theater

clockwerkdragon — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:00:51 GMT

06:17 I hope this tech scales properly, this could be seriously awesome stuff: twurl.nl/5mcsmb #
16:01 Kudos for Michael and Michelle who gave me knock your sox off service at Target, avoiding a mojo melt down. #

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Worlds collide...and bump uglies.

clockwerkdragon — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:33:50 GMT

clockwerkdragon — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:05:25 GMT

16:08 @pkh That at a stink! That's old school cologne. #

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