Notes all over the place.

[alexandraerin]

Hey, if you're looking for a good cause to give to this holiday season, there are a couple of them linked to in this article about the problems facing women returning home from combat duty overseas. Highlighting this is not meant to diminish the reality that all our armed forces personnel and veterans need support, but so much of the existing infrastructure and good will is directed towards "our boys in uniform". Our boys are not alone, and in the midst of insurgency and guerrilla warfare, there is no "front line" to keep women away from.

I'm tempted to say something about the ETA of me having a working desktop computer again, but I don't want to jinx anything. I've run out of how many times bitten and how many times shy I am at this point. If I don't have a working computer on hand at the end of the week, I'll come up with alternative arrangements for some of the things I've been putting off.

Random note: now is a great time to get into 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons... they're offering a limited release holiday bundle of the first two players' handbooks at $34.95. One of the more common laments from people who thought the new edition looked cool was that several classes that were core under 3rd Edition weren't present at launch. With PHB 1 and 2, you get all the 3E core classes except Monk, plus several nifty original ones.

The next PHB that comes out (I think in March?) is going to be a major game-changer. The test version of the rules it includes for making hybrid character classes are already accessible online and through the character creator. I love the game as it is, but I think this upcoming release is going to really cement its place and bring its full potential into fruition. Buying the bundle now could save you money in the long run if you think you might get into the game eventually... you can avoid having to buy every splatbook that comes out and still get all the various foo for your characters through the character generator, but having the core PHBs actually on hand adds a lot to the experience of learning the game and making characters, in my opinion.

The Q&A is more work than I expected... I didn't expect as many responses, and I didn't realize how many I had when I started compiling them. Don't be fooled by the fact that the first two updates both spanned about three letters... the characters' names and the number of questions per character are far from evenly distributed across the alphabet. The whole thing is actually a little under half done. In case people are curious about why I included the "Dear Amaranth, why do you suck so much?" questions, it's because I felt the character deserved a chance to answer them in her own words. I also had a feeling that posting them would bring her supporters... who often get drowned out in the comments... out of the woodwork.

My day started off very nicely today, despite a lack of sleep the night before: I got a confirmation/reminder email from Priceline.com about my flight to Maryland, which leaves two weeks from today.

Comments

D&D

[lystania.livejournal.com]

My main problems (2) with 4th Ed. are pretty simple:
1) Even the warrior classes have lots of special abilities with (what appears to a beginner to be) complicated rules governing their usage. In previous D&D, there was always a nice easy "starter" melee class - Fighter. All you had to do was focus on learning the basics of movement and combat. No flashy abilities (until later levels at least) and no worries about running out of energy, i.e. spells/day or stuff like that (*cough, cough* /per combat, /per day/ per adventure powers *cough, cough*)
4th Ed. is probably more balanced, but mainly just because all of the classes work very similarly, which while good and simple in some ways, is boring in others.
2) The Open Gaming License (at least on original release) was hugely nerfed from the 3rd and 3.5 edition OGL's, effectively shutting out 3rd-party publishers.

All that being said, there's lots of interesting stuff in 4th, just not enough for me to jump onboard yet.

[point5b.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'd wondered about the Amaranth inquisition.

[mattwolf.livejournal.com]

Cool, I'll make a Fighter/Rogue/Magic-User/Bard/Monk/Ninja/Sage. I'll need someone to roll a Cleric/Druid/Paladin to keep me healed. Any takers?

[unisagi.livejournal.com]

As for D&D, I haven't played it since it was AD&D (1st edition). The face-to-face gaming group I played with fell apart due to people moving off. I haven't even looked at any of the D&D products since then.

Besides, I spend so much of my on-line time IMing with friends that I probably wouldn't have time to play it.

Still, if you recommend it ... that makes it tempting.