In lieu of WoW, some good old games.

     Since money's gotten tight, I've had to cancel my World of Warcraft subscription for a couple of months. Meanwhile, since I've had a lot of downtime, I've gotten back into some games I've downloaded from the site GoG.com (Good Old Games). Like the name says, it has older PC games without using proof-of-purchase codes (which can sometimes be lost). You add the game you want to your account, then download it whenever you want to. So, they occupy my time as I hunt and peck at them.

     I'm slowly trudging through Icewind Dale 2 (I've been through these stages before, but the computer or something would crash). I'm going to find out how to back up my saved games for if it happens again. It's a pain in the ass having never reached the end of the game. Right now, my party consists of a human fighter, a half-elf ranger, a halfling rogue, an elf druid, a human bard, and a tiefling sorceress. I've gotten them leveled to six thus far.
     I'm also going over Baldur's Gate, having never gotten to the end. I got a bad copy of the game originally, and another computer crashed. My main character is a half-elf fighter/mage. As of right now, I'm trying to figure out what to do to continue. Older games like that aren't as straightforward, with ! and ? over the heads of NPCs to tell me what needs to be done next.
     I started a new Heroes of Might and Magic 3 game. My last one was fighting a losing battle. Ever since being introduced to it in late 2006 by an old friend, I usually play with the Necropolis, but this time, I'm going with the Conflux, which is run by elementalists and planeswalkers.
     Speaking of the planes, I poked around the city of Sigil, on Planescape: Torment. I was first introduced to it by another old friend in mid 2007. I still have the starting characters, the Nameless One and Morte, so I'm not that far into it. I do like the setting, though; however, I've never played a D&D campaign game set in the City of Sigil. However, I'm thinking of adding it to my "Dungeons & Pathfinders" game, as it's Pathfinder rules with the a D&D homebrew setting.
     And I started a new (to me) game. It's called Arcanum, and it's a combination of fantasy and steampunk. Don't know too much about it right now, but I plan on getting more into it over the next few weeks.

     I knew there was a reason I got those games. I guess I have more than enough to keep me occupied. And maybe it will inspire to get back into DMing.

Tira's blade in d20.

  I like the Soulcalibur series. One of my favorite characters is Tira. She's like an even crazier version of Harley Quinn. She has this blade that's really a bladed hula hoop. I posted to a Pathfinder to see if someone could stat this weapon. Someone did, and it seems to check out for me.

Bladed hoop: Exotic 2 handed-weapon
2d6 x2/20  S  Trip, Defensive

A bladed hoop is designed to be operated from the inside. It takes a move action to enter the hoop (can be done as part of drawing the weapon). The wielder gets a +2 to their CMD against disarm attempts against the hoop. However, wielding a hoop in this manner limits movement, and gives the  wielder a -2 armor check penalty.

A hoop can be used without being in the center, at which case it looses these special rules, as well as the defensive quality. The wielder also takes a -1 on attack rolls, and must make a DC 15 reflex save or cut by the blade (as chakram)
A bladed hoop can be used with weapon finesse

Gnomes in Rifts.

     I've been into reading up on the Rifts game for years. It's a table-top role-playing game developed by Kevin Siembieda. It's not as popular as it should be, and there are two main things that people don't like it.
     The first reason is that the books are highly disorganized. It's not divided into chapters like Classes, Equipment, Spells, etc. I actually agree with that reason. I really like the organization of the rulebooks in D&D, Star Wars, and Pathfinder. I miss it when I'm going through the Rifts books.
     The second reason that people don't like it is actually the reason I love it so much. It's science fiction and fantasy combined, and realities are linked through gateways called Rifts. These gateways could lead to other planets, dimensions, or even other fragments of time. Basically, you could be a psychic magic user who wields a laser gun and rides a dinosaur.
     My problem is that not all standard fantasy races are covered. In fact, the core rulebook seems to assume that all players want to play humans. I did find some conversions while playing with character sheets, and I created an elf cyborg assassin. But it didn't have gnomes. So, what I did was create a template for anyone who would want to create a Rifts gnome. Enjoy!

IQ: 4d6 + additional 1d6 for 21, 22, 23, or 24; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6
ME: 2d6 + additional 1d6 for 11 or 12; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6
MA: 3d6 + additional 1d6 for 16, 17, or 18; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6
PS: 2d6 + additional 1d6 for 11 or 12; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6
PP: 3d6 + additional 1d6 for 16, 17, or 18; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6
PE: 3d6 + additional 1d6 for 16, 17, or 18; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6
PB: 3d6 + additional 1d6 for 16, 17, or 18; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6
Spd: 2d6 + additional 1d6 for 11 or 12; if additional roll is a 6, add another 1d6

Obsession skills:
Gnome characters choose 1 Electrical, 1 Mechanical, and 2 Technical skills. The character receives +15% to these skills. However, while using these skills or speaking about them, the character receives -5 to perception, as these skills absorb the character's concentration.

Keen nose:
Gnomes receive +1 to perception when it comes to using their sense of smell.

Illusion familiarity:
+2 Illusion spell strength
+2 save vs. illusions

Small size:
+5% to Camouflage skill
+1 to attack and dodge
Riding on a specially bred riding dog is treated as Horsemanship: General.

Pirate Radio

    While I have GTA5 Online on my mind, I thought I'd mention my own online crew, LosSantosLandPirates. I came up with the idea, since I realized that when you play the game, you're looting and pillaging, just in the streets. And I got to thinking how cool it would be to customize my own radio station. So, I got to wondering, what kind of music would a land pirate listen to? It would definitely be an eclectic mix of aggressive songs.

"A Fine Day to Die" - Emperor
"Antennas" - Rancid
"Driller Killer" - Necromantix
"Drugged and Driving" - Dayglo Abortions
"Dying Breed" - Suicide Commando
"Enjoy The Abuse" - Combichrist
"Forgot About Dr. Dre" - Dr. Dre & Eminem
"How I Could Just Kill A Man" - Cypress Hill
"I'm Mad" - Reverend Horton Heat
"In the Acts of Violence" - Dawn of Ashes
"Los Angeles Is Burning" - Bad Religion
"Lunatic of God's Creation" - Morbid Angel
"Natural Born Killaz" - Dr. Dre & Ice Cube
"Raining Blood" - Slayer
"Thug Waffle" - Flatbush Zombies
"Unleashing the Bloodthirsty" - Cannibal Corpse
"Visceral Holocaust" - Psyclon Nine

Between songs, of course, there would be no commercials and the announcer would talk like they're hacking the air waves.

Grand Theft Auto

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My first druid, and other WoW news.

     Before I went on a WoW hiatus, I started a worgan druid character. He's now level 18, and I've gone through a dungeon for the first time as a healer. I'm doing O.K. I'm getting the hang of alternating between healing and damage when I'm solo adventuring.
     Another thing I've discovered and like about WoW is the glyphs. My death knight summons a greater variety of undead to help him whoop ass. I recently bought a glyph for my druid that allows me to revive allies at full health.
     I've come to realize that level 89 is like the infamous wall in a marathon. I feel like my rogue will never hit 90. I wish I could form raid parties on that server, because many quests in Pandaria seem to need them. Anyone reading this is welcome to join me. My server is Gorefiend.

Dragons.

     After a couple of years of pecking at it, I finally completed "Dragon Age: Origins"! I created a human mage, and took on the Archdemon with Wynne, Alistair (he'd be cute if he weren't animated), and Shale (didn't realize she was female until much later). Admitedly, I did have to scale down the difficulty for some of the bosses, including the Archdemon himself.
     Now, I'm onto playing the expansion, "Awakening." There is a bit of inconsistency in that the main character, the Warden - in this case my mage Arachne, dies when killing the Archdemon, but comes back in "Awakening." Anyway, the expansion, which I think of "Dragon Age: Origins 1.5," looks good so far. I'm going to make Arachne a battlemage. As of late, I've been really into the idea of a warrior who could whoop some ass with a sword, but then again unleash a fireball when numerous troops come.

     I've decided to incorporate more Pathfinder into my D&D game. It will retain most of the updated content, except for the racial descriptions and stats. And the pantheon and cosmology will be from D&D 3.5, also. I prefer to stick with the stories that I know, just with some adjustments to rules.
     Basically, I was going to have Pathfinder enhance my D&D-based game, but have flipped the script and will now have D&D enhance my Pathfinder-based game.
     A lot of the things that aren't featured in Pathfinder, but are featured in D&D 3.X can be easily updated following the pattern seen in other updates of the classes. This would also hold true for the other D20 books, like Sword and Sorcery. Off the top of my head, all classes seem to have a hit die one step higher than it would have in D&D 3.X. As far as prestige classes like cerebremancer - the one who fuses arcane might with psionic power, it's easy to see the pattern of mystic theurge and follow that. Speaking of psionics, the first thing that originally put me off about Pathfinder is that they basically ignored psionics.
     There are two possible players in the local area that might want to play, and Tiffany wants to play via Skype. What I need is a handful of people who have a common reliable day off. That would be our game night.