(no subject)
Oct. 19th, 2016 09:44 amAbility Scores:
Strength-12
Dexterity-14
Constitution-10
Intelligence-17
Wisdom-18
Charisma-14
Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.
Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.
Primary Class:
Rangers are skilled stalkers and hunters who make their home in the woods. Their martial skill is nearly the equal of the fighter, but they lack the latter's dedication to the craft of fighting. Instead, the ranger focuses his skills and training on a specific enemy a type of creature he bears a vengeful grudge against and hunts above all others. Rangers often accept the role of protector, aiding those who live in or travel through the woods. His skills allow him to move quietly and stick to the shadows, especially in natural settings, and he also has special knowledge of certain types of creatures. Finally, an experienced ranger has such a tie to nature that he can actually draw on natural power to cast divine spells, much as a druid does, and like a druid he is often accompanied by animal companions. A ranger's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.
Secondary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.
Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)
Phligm Phlagm
Oct. 18th, 2016 10:49 pmDon't trust "factcheckers". Maybe it’s just my innate cynicism and a background as a professional sceptic that always makes me doubt someone who claims to be “unbiased” when giving you “the facts”.
Why Truman fired MacArthur. Fascinating account.
Weaker Sterling is (on balance) somewhere between good and very good for the UK economy.
...and another article making a similar argument.
There is no such thing as trickle-down economics.
This is the best explanation of why so many people will vote for Donald Trump that I've seen.
Ched Evans is Not Guilty. Here's ten myths about the case that need to be busted.
Who is winning in Labour and the Liberal Democrats' race to be the most anti-semitic party?
Dennis Byrd didn't deserve to die in a car crash.
Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' slowed down is amazingly good. (Thanks beckyc)
18 Game of Thrones moments improved by quotes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Are we seeing the beginning of a political realignment in the UK? Interesting lecture.
Political map of Europe, year-by-year from 3650BC to 2016AD.
70-year-olds play D&D for the first time.
The third most likely person to become the next President of the United States, and how he would do it. OK, it’s beyond unlikely, but not impossible…
Phligm Phlagm 2
Oct. 9th, 2016 09:16 pmBBC admits Bake Off is catastrophic social experiment
A pretty clever piece of political profiling and surveying from the Social Market Foundation.
Terror attack stopped by heroic activist who established a safe space in local mall.
A blog that examines the use of fonts in science fiction. What a time to be alive.
Typical day at the Labour Party conference.
Brilliant picture of Jeremy Corbyn at his own party conference protesting to bring back the position of Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health. Now, see if you can guess which politician it was who abolished the position of “Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health”…
Amazingly, there is an article on the website of Standard Life all about collecting tabletop games. Pretty good article too, although there are a couple of factual errors. They should have asked me! (One of the people interviewed described H1 Bloodstone Pass as “almost impossible to get hold of”. We had one in stock, although ironically we sold it last week to a bloke in Denmark.)
Epipens are really expensive in the US. Here's why.
Jewish Labour Movement heckled by Corbynistas at the Labour Conference. The speaker (not the heckler thank god) was a friend of mine at Magdalen.
Phligm Phlagm 1
Oct. 9th, 2016 09:00 pmHow 'Big Sugar' bribed Harvard scientists to demonise fat.
Sending the World's Most Important Graph to the Elephants' Graveyard
The strange story of a dead cockroach at Texas A&M University.
The winning images from Astronomy Photographer of The Year 2016. I think I like the one of M94 best.
600 discarded bodyboards collected from three Devon & Cornwall beaches in one month.
We didn't evolve from aquatic apes.
D&D's Most Greatest Weapon - The Peasant Railgun. (To get this, you need to appreciate that in at least some versions of D&D, passing an object from one person to an adjacent person is an action that is treated as almost instantaneous.)
Phligm Phlagm 2
Aug. 21st, 2016 08:41 pmBalls. Lots of little blue balls.
Do you not have enough ambient sounds in your life?
Have the Brexit predictions come true (yet)?
The most amazing D&D map ever created
A very high percentage of male Pashtun Afghans are homosexual paedophiles. (Of course, they don’t consider it to be homosexual, which is forbidden by their religion, “because they aren’t in love with their boys.)
The first 'new England' - the forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the Black Sea coast.
31 Essential Science Fiction Terms and Where They Came From
Quality report on the impact of minimum wages, the 'gender pay gap' and high pay from the IEA.
A very clever analysis (in 59 tweets) of how Donald Trump came to win the Republican nomination.
Fear of angering muslims means electoral fraud will continue
Survival Guide for Conservative, Classically Liberal & Libertarian Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors
Phligm Phlagm 1
Aug. 2nd, 2016 08:33 pmThe French civil servant with only 10% of a brain. (I know that sounds like base political satire, but actually it’s a serious scientific article about a bloke in France who is missing 90% of his brain.)
This couple should get an agent and sell the film rights to Richard Curtis.
Reds Exploiting Blacks: The Roots of Black Lives Matter
One of our local aristocrats has died.
Dear Boris: William Hague's 10-step guide to being Foreign Secretary
Will we be sending Mr Chamberlain?
Vintage gun adverts. (That is, vintage adverts for guns, not modern adverts for vintage guns.)
The far left is trying to rig the Labour leadership election. Again.
Hillary Clinton seems to have been a big fan of the late Robert Byrd. Who’s Robert Byrd? This guy.
Jewel-encrusted catholic martyr skeletons? Or archliches...?
Phligm Phlagm 3
Jul. 17th, 2016 04:41 pmThe Class of '92's Lost Genius
"Actually it was *Advanced* Dungeons and Dragons that I played”, clarifies Gove.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of Uganda.
14 tips for aspiring humanities academics.
To a leftard, "all lives matter" is racist.
Some idiot left the floodlights on all night before the Euro2016 final. Moth-based hilarity ensued. (By half-time, the moth that landed on Cristiana Ronaldo’s face had fifty different accounts on Twitter.)
What did Neanderthals sound like?
Is it just me, or is the new Cabinet very...blonde?
Every review of the new(ish) Ghostbusters film you will read this week.
Philip May might be no SamCam, but he's more stylish than Dennis. (Except for those turn-ups.)
Phligm Phlagm 1
Mar. 5th, 2016 09:50 pmSorry – bit overdue…
Not an item we have in stock at The Shop on the Borderlands. Shame really.
If Facebook was designed by its users
How to talk about Star Wars with your ignorant, Rebellion-backing uncle.
The Appendix N Blog. (Appendix N of the AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Master’s Guide was where Gary Gygax listed all of the literature that influenced him.)
The secret network exposing fake military veterans.
One third of people living in London were born in other countries.
Who the f**k is my D&D character?
FA Cup tie held up after cat wanders onto pitch.
My grandparents used to live in Bridgnorth. Their house wasn't like this.
Phligm Phlagm 4
Dec. 11th, 2015 12:09 amUseful archive of TSR D&D products.
If a political party vows to defend the welfare state against "neo-liberals", to defeat the "dictatorship of the markets", cut the retirement age to 60 and realign "taxation against capital and in favour of workers", it's a left-wing party isn't it? So why do people still call the French Front National a “far right” party?
The architect of the Death Star thinks he's been unfairly criticised.
Phligm Phlagm 3
Dec. 10th, 2015 11:55 pmThe Russian Navy is a LOT smaller than the Soviet Navy.
"We are all Jews here." The US soldier who led a revolt against German prison guards.
Fitness advice: How to Lose Fat.
Reports of 'Giant Rats' in London leads to increased sales of Chainmail and +1 Longswords.
What does the galaxy need most after the destruction of the Second Death Star? A Central Bank. (I would actually love it if this is the plot for Episode VII, but then I liked all the stuff about taxation of trade routes in Episode I…)
McLaren's idea of what F1 cars might look like in the future.
The genius of Tusk. (And isn’t Christine’s hair truly tragic in that photo?)
Phligm Phlagm 3
Nov. 10th, 2015 11:34 pmThe best business schools now recruit people with both experience of industry and teaching ability. (…and so does my university, which is how I’m there. However, since the business school is only in its second year, it might be a while before we catch up with Harvard…)
Japan is more low-tech than you might think.
...and Sony has just finished making Betamax cassettes. (I bet there are still fanboys out there arguing that the picture quality is better than VHS.)
Not for the first time, I thought we'd reached Peak Guardian, but no!
The sad tale of the man who designed the Diamond Jubilee Barge.
Visiting every Toby Carvey in Britain with a blind photographer.
7 Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding (Actually, they’re more things you might like to avoid than really appalling sins, but hey.)
A really nice map of Expert D&D Module X1: The Isle of Dread
'Virtue signalling' is not virtue. Good point. (And I am aware of the irony of linking to this post using social media.)
Phligm Phlagm 2
Nov. 10th, 2015 11:17 pm"Seumas Milne will finish Labour off"
I wonder if the Ugandan league is included in Football Manager...
The D&D monsters based on cheap Chinese toys.
Why We Should Defend The Right To Be Offensive. (I reserve the right to believe that some of the comments on this article were made by idiots.)
Tax credits are complex and expensive. Why not simply a negative income tax?
Good advice for writers, especially of non-fiction. This article grabbed me early on when he took the piss out of Neil ‘my hair will blow ever so attractively in the wind if I stand on this clifftop’ Oliver.
37 brilliant Halloween costumes
Are we seeing the beginnings of a new species in north America?
Paedophiles should be allowed to adopt. (How could that possibly go wrong?)
Phligm Phlagm 3
Oct. 19th, 2015 11:11 pmTips for authors on marketing your book.
Interesting (colour) photographs of rural and small-town America in the early 40s.
“At this year’s NUS Black Students’ Conference, I had sex with someone. The other party later informed me that the sex was not consensual. I failed to properly establish consent before every act. I apologise sincerely and profoundly for my actions." We have a word for “sex that was not consensual”: rape. And I wonder if there is an NUS White Students’ Conference…
Here's a way to improve Harry Potter.
Dummies & Dragons is one of the better RPG webcomics.
One of these images is Jupiter's moon Europa. The rest are frying pans.
Phligm Phlagm 2
Jul. 4th, 2015 10:03 pmNever swallow a porcupine whole.
And the lesson to be learned here is this: make a self-deprecating joke to a conference that could be misinterpreted as politically incorrect if removed from the context in which it was made, then it _will_ be removed from its context, selectively quoted and used by a social media mob to hound you out of your job, no matter how great your previous accomplishments. Richard Dawkins is angry about this, and really so should we all be. This is typical of the condemnatory articles that didn't think to check facts.
Doctor Who Online does look to be defrauding advertisers. They’ve tried this with The Shop on the Borderlands (we sell Doctor Who RPGs), but I was too sceptical. Combine a proprietary analytics system that massively overstates traffic with quite persistent selling, and yes, I think Mr Sandifer is on to something.
Half of households receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. (And that’s before you include the cost of state education, state healthcare, public sector salaries etc…)
Free market lessons from Scandinavia.
The man who invented trainspotting (sort of) has died.
Well Google, this is awkward...
Sir Nicholas Winton, the "British Schindler", has died aged 106.
Did Joss Whedon base Firefly on Traveller? This is a good examination of the evidence.
Holograms that you can touch (sort of). Next step, Holodecks!
This year's ENnie Awards (the RPG and miniatures industry awards) nominees
Nice collection of photos of the British Grand Prix over the years.
I'm amazed that the Forth Bridge isn't already a World Heritage Site.
This time it really is the end of the line for the Avro Vulcan.
Phligm Phlagm Catchup 2
Jun. 11th, 2015 11:09 pmWhat the fuck? Dungeons & Dragons - Deities & Demigods
The key sentence in this story is I feel "That complaint was referred to the police who decided not to prosecute." And we assume, with good reason.
Is the inspiration for Pulp's 'Common People' really married to Greece's hapless finance minister?
Time to give Scotland full fiscal autonomy.
There are now more time lords in Scotland than Labour MPs. Abso-fucking-lutely hilarious.
An American view of the British hard left's reaction to the UK General Election result. (by jordan179)
Phligm Phlagm 2
Apr. 4th, 2015 10:13 pmVladimir Putin's formative German years
The most decade-specific words in Billboard popular song titles, 1890-2014. (A remarkable illustration of the decline of western civilisation…)
The 10 Most Insane Old School Dungeons & Dragons Rules
Why is America so obsessed with STEM education?
This is absolutely the sort of ship that the new series of Thunderbirds should feature.
The 2015 Hugo Nominations are out!
Brad Torgersen has done his job well. Kudos. (Predictably, some people are embarrassing themselves on Twitter right now by complaining about this.)
Phligm Phlagm 2
Nov. 16th, 2014 08:34 pmOne Dutch trawler owns 23% of England's entire fishing quota.
Lewes seems like a cool place to be on Guy Fawkes Night.
This isn't an ad showing girls playing D&D in 1980, it's a magazine article, and cooler for it.
Have you ever been unfaithful to your spouse? I bet you have.
FIFA is insisting that all Women's World Cup matches be played on artificial turf.
'Requires Hate' and the evil of social justice warriors.
Remember this post from a couple of years ago? He's out.
17 Nick and Karren Apprentice Reactions for Awkward Everyday Situations.
Phligm Phlagm 1
Nov. 16th, 2014 08:10 pmReally fecking enormous container ships!
Dungeons & Dragons Saved My Life, in The New Yorker!
Headline of the month: "Mysterious Giant Sharks May Be Everywhere"
Charlie Elphicke. Yet another illiberal politician who doesn't understand what free speech means.
Science fiction film (Interstellar) leads to new scientific discovery.
Sir Nicholas Winton. Makes you proud to be British. (And do watch the embedded video clip.)
"What about a catapult?" mused Boromir...
There's always a bigger fish...
What Blade Runner would look like as an 8-bit / 16-bit computer game.
Phligm Phlagm 2
Oct. 24th, 2014 11:35 amShooting the opening scene of Star Wars Episode IV.
Austrian fanatics ruin it for the rest of us.
How social democracy is destroying Europe.
The perfect holiday destination for the socialist in your life.
How to make a social justice warrior's head explode.
Classic Guardian Logic: Councils providing funerals is evidence of "dwindling state support".
Woman thrown out of Paris opera after cast refused to perform unless she removed her veil.