Author Archives: tony

D&D 4th Edition first two encounters

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We ran through a couple of encounters last night in our new roleplaying campaign.  First time we’ve used the 4th edition rules in anger, so all of us were a little slow and spent time referring to stuff in the rulebook.

I have to say, I was surprised it ran as smoothly as it did, the positional issues didn’t affect us as much as I feared, and provided a decent tactical element.  The use of powers instead of basic attacks is the real difference, and it certainly gave my character (straight forward fighter) more options during the fight, without having to rely on feats.  For example, my fighter has two ‘at will’ powers which are essentially regular attacks.  One (Cleave) allows him to hit a second target for a small amount of damage if he hits the first target, and the second causes minor damage to a single target even if the swing misses.  So depending on how many targets are adjacent to him, he gets to pick which makes more sense.

Also, we had a Warlord in the group, who has a power which provides additional damage to basic attacks so during one combat round I used a base attack to benefit from that.

All-in-all the combat seems ok, we’ll see how it ramps up.  At the moment, I still feel bereft without haste, multiple attacks, dual wield and stat increasing spells (Bull’s Strength!) which were such a strong feature of 3rd edition, but I’m sure we’ll get used to them not being there.

The two major things I learned yesterday about 4th edition,

  1. You don’t roll saving throws any more, they work like AC (i.e. they have a static value which the attacker has to beat).  This is going to take some getting used to.  You do still make some saving throw rolls, but they’re a straight d20 and succeed on 10-20 (I think), they’re used when you’re under the effects of spells (for example, sleep).
  2. Everything about combat has bigger damage numbers, and everyone has more hitpoints.  It’s going to take some getting used to.  In earlier editions not being hit was key early on, but in 4th edition everyone has far more hitpoints at first level, including the bad guys.

Oh, and being able to Shift in combat makes much more sense, it may only allow you to move 1-square at a time, but at least you can shift through the enemy without incurring opportunity attacks if you need to.

Kevin Smith in our Letterbox

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Clerks, Clerks II, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back arrived this morning, Dogma and Mallrats were posted yesterday so I expect those Tuesday next week.

Will let you know how they work out.

Rambling update

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Made it through to Friday, pretty tired today generally.  Lovely weather outside, bright sunshine, crisp.  Bubbles is out there somewhere baking herself in what are probably the last few days of warm enough sunshine.  She’s got conjunctivitis the poor bugger.  We’ve got some ointment to put on twice a day, she’s been pretty good about it despite the whinging.

Watched Fright Night last night after recording it on Sky+.  Classic movie, how on earth did we find those special effects ((special in the loose sense)) scary?  Not even sure why it’s an 18, I guess some of the more fleshy scenes are the cause of that.  Evan watching stuff like that the experienced is improved with the surround sound, we’re still really pleased with it.

I got sick of paying for a Sky Movies subscription and not watching anything.  It’s because we don’t sit in front of the TV these days unless we’re doing so to watch something we recorded, so I went through the entire week ahead and set 4 movies to record (Clerks II, Fright Night, Deja Vu, American Gangster) and I’m going to try and do that every few days and record anything I’ve not seen or not seen for a while.  Pan’s Labyrinth was on a week or so ago too, so recorded that and not watched it yet, and Hairspray was on Sky Anytime so I’ve ‘recorded’ that for Grete.

Still pleased with the 5.7% HbA1c result.  Found this nice little chart in case you wanted to know more about the test,

HbA1c
Normal/abnormal
Average blood glucose
4-6.5% Normal for those without diabetes 3-8mmol/L
6.5-7.5% Target range for those with diabetes 8-10mmol/L
8-9.5% High 11-14mmol/L
Greater than 9.5% Very high 15 and above

I bought a Marathon bar ((yes, yes I know, but I like living in the 80’s)) on Wednesday to eat after I got the results, either as a celebration or a commiseration depending on how the results went.  Celebration was a good option.  I never ate a lot of chocolate or sweet stuff before being diagnosed, but I did enjoy a Snickers bar every now and then.  Almost amusingly, they don’t have a totally terrible effect on my blood sugar because of the high fat content, but as you can imagine I’ve had about three since I was diagnosed.

Roleplaying tonight, 4th edition D&D, first time we’ve played (rolled characters up last week), so should be interesting.  Always takes a while to get ‘into’ any campaign, never mind one with a new ruleset so I’m expecting tonight to be pretty slow.

My good friend Simes blogged about some TV he’s been watching.  It certainly feels like the TV schedule has picked up, mostly stuffed with American TV.  The Fringe pilot was cool, the Burn Notice pilot was also interesting and we’ll be watching that to see where it goes.  We’ve got quite a wait for the new series of Criminal Minds sadly, but Bones is back on and is as good as ever (I think).

And I’ll leave you with this,

And I think Pirates would kick both their asses.

Clerks II

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This is a deeply religious movie with strong moral overtones and an solid core of existential theory running through it.  Our heroes must come to terms with their place in the world and learn how to stretch their own minds to release their inner sanctity.  Once accomplished, only then will they realise the true nature of the universe and achieve everlasting happiness.

Or, it’s a rather amusing comedy from Kevin Smith about a couple of guys pushing burgers who discover friendship is stronger than a small fire, and that you should look at that which you take for granted for the love you so dearly need.

Funny, light-hearted, good natured and surreal in a Blues Brothers way, Clerks II was worth watching and has given me an appetite to check out Mr Smith’s other films.

Edit: I know right, you’re thinking omfg how can he NOT have seen any Kevin Smith movies? I know, so sue me.  I’m fixing that right now, it was like, I knew they were there, but I just felt, I dunno, ok? right? is that clear?

Pain! Voltarol to the rescue

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Today I have thumb pain (again).  I have obviously been sitting with my hands in stressful positions when typing recently.  The day before yesterday my left hand ached, around the base of my thumb, and then yesterday my right hand started up (left hand was ok), got worse toward the end of the night and today it’s killing me.  The pad at the base of my thumb hurts, and the tendons feel stretched again.  So I’m slathering Voltarol on and hoping it helps. The fumes the stuff gives off may certainly help.

Just looking at how I hold my hands when using this laptop, I suspect it may be at the root of the issue if I don’t concentrate I tend to hold my hands above the keyboard but rest my right hand against the base of my thumb and then stretch my thumb/fingers around to hit keys and use the mouse-nipple-thingy.

Anyway, yay me.

Empire’s top 500 movies of all time

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Empire magazine (online) has published a 500 greatest movies of all time, as voted on by 10,000 readers, 150 random hollywood folk and 50 film critics.

The format is a bit annoying (it means you have to click through lots of pages to see everything), but it makes for an interesting top 500.

You can probably guess #1 without much effort, but there was some surprises in the list (although with 500 movies, that’s a lot of variation in opinion and not much between them).