The new Premium Reprints of the AD&D 2e core books (PHB, MM, DMG) aren't technically out for a couple more days (May 21st, officially), but many outlets are reporting having them for sale, and a few folks in the community report having purchased them.


http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Catalog.aspx
To be honest, the price tag on these, coupled with the fact that I already own multiple copies of the originals, leads me to think I won't be picking them up until the price comes down or I find them in a used book/game store.

So, why post this? Well, to me [...]

Originally, I stated that wrestling and unarmed combat wouldn't be included, but as I go along, I've realized that the basics of those styles are quite easily adapted to the basic combat system, so I've included the fundamental techniques among the WP options, many of them as "free" combat maneuvers. If you want a more detailed approach to either type of combat though, you may want to refer to PO:C&T and use the rules presented there.

Continuing on with the optional WPs and attack maneuvers from PO:C&T:

Knockout (Free, NA, NA, Proficiency or better in the weapon or [...]

Frogshackle brings us this skinny sleestak.  No much going on over here.  Enjoy your Sunday. 

Issues of identity arise in all sorts of contexts. Let's say I'm playing a Star Wars game and my PCs are piloting an old YT-2400 light freighter. After the first session, the hyperdrive's shot, and they have to replace it. Then, in the next session, the shield generators go. Session after session parts of their ship break until, by the end of the game, every single part of their ship is different from what they started with -- that is, each piece of equipment on board has been replaced with something newer and shinier. Is the PCs' ship the same [...]

So again the League was subjected to the abuse of FLAILSNAILING PCs.

Characters: Etan (Fighter 5?, ran by Kyrinn) and her goon, Arlana the Preacher (Caster 1, ran by Lisa), Valentine the Clearly Not A Black Mage Why Do you Ask (Caster 3, ran by Chris).

.

So, the party groups up in LakeEnd and decides to head up to the location of the last session’s massacre, an tower in a cavern by a river under a mountain (yes, exactly). So they follow again the road east (their path is highlighted in bright pink on the map) and, while camping for the night [...]

Here are another couple of quick scribbles of a Green Grabber. I thought I'd redo the overall shape so that it's more like a bladderwort:

 I've also had a go at depicting the 'Sleepflower' stage of the plant:

I'm not sure that both designs still sit 100% right in my mind - the Sleepflower may be a tad too 'Little Shop of Horrors', perhaps. Anyway, it's always fun drawing Stirges!

1. An electrum candlestick, engraved with a gecko-like shape (150 gp).
2. A belt made of zanella (400 gp).
3. A drinking horn made of (120 gp).
4. A large well-done wool tapestry depicting a fountain made of Common Honeylocust wood (600 gp).
5. A natural animal (stag) figurine made of aluminium (30 gp).
6. A bombazine tapestry depicting a ship made of (40 gp).
7. A mandolin made of (100 gp).
8. A scene embroidered on brilliantine depicting a castle in a Red Mulberry -wood frame made of (100 gp).
9. An electrum buckle, set with 2 hematites (30 gp).
10. A mandolin made of Tulip Tree wood (700 gp).

Related articles

• 10 jewerly items (enneadgames.com)

 

+Jon Couts messaged me the other day about a question regarding The Last Gasp.

Turns out he's running an arena combat with the rules, and he allowed me to link to it.

Click the picture to go to the play-by-post arena combat!


Thanks to Jon for giving the rules a try.

I might suggest he try Delayed Gratification (Setup Attacks) instead of the existing Feint rules in a future combat and see what he and his players think . . .

The important thing to me is that AP allowed the spearman to exhaust her foe, and drove some decisions on the part of the knight that he'd rather not have made. Good HT to aid recovery and shake off the impact of injury for AP reduction was a big deal. At times, skill drove the battle; at other times, fitness. A nice mix, I think. Jon also notes that by the end of the fight, Sir Mander's ST was low enough that he was getting an extra -1 to use his axe because he didn't meet it's Min ST. The Last Gasp gives a small bonus to low min ST weapons in that way. If he'd been using a small axe he'd have been fine.

Last week I wandered over to my mailbox as I do about three times a month (I don’t get flyers and I get very little mail) – and found a card-sized letter from none other than Simon Forster, that hoopy frood behind The Sky Full of Dust.

Within was the awesome.

An awesome hand-made module in a craft-paper greeting card format with a single card insert. In all it contains three pages of material (including a chunk of new magic items) and three gorgeous hand-drawn maps.

Not only was I amazed, but it inspired my girlfriend to put pen to paper and work on her own first adventure.

I’ll post a map she made soon (or better, she’ll set up her account on here and post it!)

I played online with a new group last night. The game: D&D IV.

Here are a couple of things I noticed (as well as some things I need to work on).

1. They aren't used to being self-motivated: One of my favorite techniques is to let the players decide where they're going based on their characters' motivations, as well as their personal preferences. If they want to seek out a death-filled crypt, then that's cool, or if they want to find work with the town guard, that's neat too. But, none of them knew. The thief wanted [...]

Yeah, this picture is a bit disturbing. The codpiece is the skull of Simon’s wizard that died in Devilmount on Friday; this may well be a portrait of his killer.

Thank Jack Shear for the idea of putting hog men in Devilmount!

Over on Tor.com, they are reporting the 2012 Nebula Award Winners.  Read more here!

This isGaming Notes, the weeklynews-magazineabout all kinds of games and the home ofSpace Gaming News,Designer Spotlight, andBlog Watch.This week's special guest isKyrinn S. Eis, the designer of Porphyry.

—

Space Gaming News:

Star Fleet Universe (ADB) The latest update on upcoming releases — “Origins is looming. It’s only 29 days away as I write this, and none of the new products are ready. Captain’s Log #47 is the highest priority, and that (at least) will get done….It remains to be seen if the rules problems in ACTASF and the production problems with the 2500s have fatally wounded those product lines. We’re basically going [...]

Bram Stoker's Dracula
by Wojciech Kilar

Among the many soundtracks that I own, I must confess that for a long time, this was one which I practically constantly used during my World of Darkness games and not just for Vampire the Masquerade nor Vampire the Dark Ages, mind you.

The soundtrack contains lots of interesting pieces which I found useful in my games.  While I will readily admit to it being very vampire-centric in the mood, given today's uhm... wider stance on what's considered an acceptable Vampire concept, I can see why this soundtrack might be seen [...]

This isGaming Notes, the weeklynews-magazineabout all kinds of games and the home ofSpace Gaming News,Designer Spotlight, andBlog Watch.This week's special guest isKyrinn S. Eis, the designer of Porphyry.

—

Space Gaming News:

Star Fleet Universe (ADB) The latest update on upcoming releases — “Origins is looming. It’s only 29 days away as I write this, and none of the new products are ready. Captain’s Log #47 is the highest priority, and that (at least) will get done….It remains to be seen if the rules problems in ACTASF and the production problems with the 2500s have fatally wounded those product lines. We’re basically going [...]

Fans of the Harry Potter series know he is referred to as "The Boy Who Lived."  According to Linoge, I have a similar cognomen: The Girl Who Says Things.  That I am flattered to be named thus is an understatement, to be sure, because if I had to pick the one person responsible for my involvement with the gunblog community, it would be him.

Put briefly, the chronology of events would look something like this:

2009:

• Became interested in prepping; started reading Survivalblog. 
• Noticed many links to Tamara's blog; started reading that too. 
• Noticed many recurring commenters, like [...]

I said I'd mention it again if Squeaky needed more financial help for her procedures. She will likely need a hysterectomy. Go, read, and donate if you can.

Picture courtesy of Eden Photos. 


Name:  Rasoob
Symbol: a Statue, often broken or neglected
(formerly a sword)
Alignment: Neutral






Pity the fallen god Rasoob.

For centuries, he reigned supreme as a god of warfare, as everything -- weapons, shields, armor, even chariots -- was made from bronze. From the lowliest knife to the finest sword, if you wanted a metal tool, it was made from bronze.

Bronze meant war. Bronze meant agriculture. Bronze meant tools. Bronze even meant health, for not only were its users able to feed and [...]

“There’s some kind of weird six armed statue on the dais. It’s about four feet tall and it looks like it’s made out of some kind of metal.” This was it. The epic climax of my adventure. Half the party had died to make it this far, and a trail of bodies was strewn across three levels.

“How heavy is it? Can we carry it?” That would be Ogbar the dwarf’s player– only interested in one thing.

“You can’t tell how heavy it is just by looking at it,” I said… perhaps a bit too smugly. “I dunno, though… if it was [...]

For me, the character creation rules are often the window I use for getting a good understanding of how an RPG is intended to be interpreted and implemented. This section tends to be my first, best source of first impressions. Digging into my Pre-Release copy of The Morrow Project, I was quickly given the sense … Read more

This is a four-minute fan-made trailer for a non-existant film of the one of the all-time great graphic novels: Kingdom Come.

It has to be said that unless you've read the graphic novel (or the original comics) this trailer won't make much sense (and I'm pretty sure there aren't so many fights in a sports field in the book), but it does a superb job of showing what can be done with these iconic characters even on a shoestring, crowdsourced budget.

More can be found out about the making of this short at the film's Facebook page.

Ah, the JLA. Like the avengers some versions are great some, not so much. The difference here is that DCs biggest heroes are the core of the JLA, while the Avengers (until the movies) were more stand alone from their most popular characters. with the new 52 the JLA were relaunched, going back to the […]

This looks like something you'd find deep in a dungeon...



Image Source: Monastery by By Iaki Matilla

So, how do these "And" and "But" dice work?

Let's say your regular dice are red...your "And" dice are white, and your "But" dice are black.

A standard action test rolls one of each.
Using a skill, a piece of equipment or a situation to your advantage adds an extra red die (each).
Taking a risk adds an extra white die and an extra black (so you have a better chance of something awesome happening, but also a better chance of catastrophe)
Helping someone adds a red die (which contribute an extra success) and a white die
Hindering [...]

Dejan Delic. Der Knstler nimmt vorweg, worauf eingeweihte Fans der FernsehserieGame of Thrones warten. Bei den Sieben, wo bleibt Oberyn Martell, The Red Viper?

“Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.”
- A Song of Ice and Fire: The words of House Martell

Game of Thrones: Oberyn Martell (Dejan Delic 2012, All Rights Reserved.)

Weitere Interpretationen gibt es seiner Facebook-Seite.

"...and for an instant Prince Oberyn had wings. The snake has vaulted over the Mountain."
- A Storm of Swords

Game of Thrones: The Red Viper vs The Mountain: "...and for an instant Prince Oberyn had wings. The snake has vaulted over the Mountain." ASOS (Dejan Delic 2013, All [...]

Hello Matt,

First off, thanks for taking the time to install and create the Vorpal Games wiki.

Second, thanks for including a Forgotten Realms section.

Third, MediaWiki shares much in commonwith Wikipedia, including some automation.
For example, if you enclose three or more words in "==" on a page, the software will automatically create a table of contents for you at the top of the page listing each of those words, and sub-sections below that TOC on your page for those words. (See my Cormyr page for an example.)
Fourth, the automated features don't appear to [...]

Taking a break from the Evil Overlord List to talk about something near and dear to our hearts---keeping those blasted protagonists out of our hair. Sometimes, we just need to stall the living daylights out of them. We know we probably can’t kill them, or at least not all of them; we know that we can’t just keep them away, so the best thing to do is to keep them occupied with something else long enough for us to do what needs to be done---run them into a wall they’ll just keep bashing and bashing.

Let’s operate on the assumption that [...]

Another character with multiple characts to take the name, but i’m going to use the most iconic, and the current Flash, Barry Allen. I’m not much of a Flash Fan despite enjoying the old TV show. I like the character, but somehow he seems to always be underpowered. I mean, he’s super fast right, but […]

Aquaman is always preseneted as a bit of a joke which seems a bit unfair. He is very powerful, commands a massive nation, yet because he has some water associated powers people constantly make jokes about how he is useless. Guess his old green and orange didn’t help. Aquaman (Arthur Curry, King Orin) Solo d10, […]

Loading That ShipA look at why so many resource books for different games vary so much when reporting on how many tons can be kept in the cargo holds of the ships.  It's a rather specific little article but still an interesting read for those wanting to learn a little more about ships.
Sea Dogs, Buccaneers, and PiratesA Game Master muses on historical piracy and privateering as he tries to figure out what would be the right era for his own game of piracy.
Everything You Know About The Map Is Wrong and More Reasons Why You Shouldn't Believe MapsThis is mostly [...]

(Disclaimer: Jonathan Sherlock was both a beta tester and a kickstart backer.)

Traveller 5th Edition (T5) is an ambitious reconstruction of Traveller. The central mechanic, the task system, combines the traditional "roll under a characteristic" of Classic Traveller with the universal tasks of later versions of Traveller, especially T4.

The core of T5 also details basic assumptions about range, time, and money. All of these benchmarks are used repeatedly throughout the T5 core rules, making the game system both consistent and flexible.

Character Generation

The Traveller tradition of characters who are generated with some life history continues. But careers have been consolidated into 13 [...]

What are you doing right now, folks? Wouldn't you rather be gaming?
Make it happen.
So, there's this guy, +Jason Hobbs. More than anyone I've ever met, Jason wants to game all the damn time. It's pretty awesome. He wants to run games, he wants me to run games, he wants everyone to run games. And that's pretty damn awesome. And inspiring. 
Lately, my "gaming to thinking-about-gaming" quotient is way to far on the "thinking-about-gaming" side. That's not a cool thing. I skipped out on my EotE game two weeks in a row not because I had something else going on but [...]

Matt Smith and David Tennant chatting behind-the-scenes on the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special (coming on November 23).

Until I watched this I hadn't quite realised how much I miss David's Doctor. No disrespect to Matt - who I think is great as well, just has generally shoddy material to work with - but there really was something rather special about Tennant's joie de vivre.

I'll also stick to something I said at the time that I felt weighed enormously in his favour: he's a massive Doctor Who geek himself and that helped him bring extra character to the role.

I've been thinking of the Dragon Die in the Dragon Age RPG.

You roll a bunch of dice and determine the total, but if the dragon die matches one of the other dice you gain bonus points for manoeuvres that change the way the action plays out.

How about a system with two dice like this?

An "And" die...

...and a "But" die.

If the "And" die matches one of the others in the test, then regardless of the success or failure of the action something beneficial occurs.


If the "But" die matches one [...]

Even back in the very earliest days of my RPGing career, it never made all that much sense to me that the only sorts of magic items that could be intelligent were swords. Perhaps the most famous intelligent magic item in fantasy literature, The One Ring, bucked that particular restriction:
__________

The One Ring

Forged by the Dark Lord Sauron many centuries ago, the One Ring is filled with a portion of his malignant will. It has an INT of 17, an Ego of 17, and an alignment of Lawful Evil. It will make its wearer invisible whenever [...]

I've noticed something about my gaming groups since getting back into it after 2000 or so.  Back in high school my players and I didn't talk about "playing D&D", but instead called it "adventuring".  They'd ask "are we adventuring this Sunday?", not "are we playing D&D".  Now all the games seem to be defined by which set of rules they use.  It's "When are we playing your Pathfinder game again?", or "When are we playing Bill's Mutants & Masterminds game again?"  It sort of saddens me because it makes it sound as though the sessions are all about experiencing the [...]

I am a very sorry Warden.

To anyone who attended CanGames over the weekend and planned on checking out Killshot, I want to offer my sincere apology for canceling at the last hour and bailing on the con. Which brings us to today's topic. 
For the past couple of years, I've been mentioning some of the difficulties inflicted by the accident, but never went into details or hid behind the ongoing legal action to avoid getting into details. I think it was a way for me to avoid confronting these disabilities directly or admitting to weaknesses that have turned [...]

I keep coming back to them.

Angels and Time Travel.

Weeping Angels from Doctor Who...no, but that might be something to consider further down the track.

But Doctor Who (the current series) has certainly informed some of the concepts I'm considering.

I'm thinking of a game with fixed immutable events in the timestream.

Our angels are more akin to troubleshooters from the game Paranoia.

Something has twisted the timestream to give a huge advantage to a power that opposes our troubleshooters/angels/immortals/bodhisattvas.

A segment of the timestream is ripped out so they can go [...]

Greetings all!

As you may have heard our next release, The Free City of Eskadia, generated enough interest to product as a hardcover book: $4000.00! Thank you all for participating. But  we've  thrown a little fuel on the fire and suggested that everyone who pledged receive a 20% off coupon for their next in store purchase if we hit $4500!

We stand at $4090.00. That's only 9 more people the burglar level, so spread the word and everyone gets a discount! Order now only 36 more hours to go!

And remember this is all a prelude to [...]

I have installed a Wiki capability for the community. You can find it at the top along the navigation bar, or you can bookmark this page: http://www.loremaster.org/wiki

I need to brush up on Wiki content management, but feel free to have at it and make it great. We'll have some growing pains along the way, but it will be an invaluable tool for us all. You are required to create an account in order to create or modify entries.

[Warning if you haven't seen the recent Doctor Who finale, do not read what follows]

This is a bit of an unusual entry for the blog, but I made a wager with Morrus of EN World (EN WORLD FORUM) that Clara in the current season of Doctor Who would turn out to be CAL from Silence in the Library. I was wrong and Morrus was right, she is not CAL.

Johandra, meaning "strength of men", is the mannish and burly mother of two strong sons, Jhorn and Jhan (both pronounced with Ys).

Johandra is a simple dairy maid, but she is known far and wide for her great size and fearlessness. The story goes that she was helping a cow birth an extremely difficult calf and the herd's bull would not stop harassing the mother. Every time she'd lie down, the bull would circle, pestering and prodding her to get back up and move. After 3 times of this, Johandra became angry with the bull and pummeled him with [...]

The SpriteStitch sampler stitch-a-long might be officially over, but I fell behind quickly due to real life. I’m still plugging away, though. I finally (!) finished the second band of the sampler today, the arrows from DDR:

After that photo, I also started on band 3, kuja.girl’s excellent Journey band. I still haven’t picked my fourth band yet, but frankly, I can’t go wrong no matter what I pick. They’re all excellent. The real trouble is going to come when I have to figure out the borders.

I’m also planning to participate in this month’s challenge, A Black Mage Holiday. blackmageheart, the [...]

Art By Matt BulahaoThunder Bird


Hit Dice: 10 (45HP)
Armor Class: 2 [17]
Attacks: (3) 2 claw (1d8) and 1 Bite (2d6) or Special
Saving Throw: 9
Special: Can breath Lightning 1/day for 8d6 damage (save for half) as per Lighting Bolt spell. Immune to electrical damage.
Move: 6 / 24 (in air)
Alignment: Neutral
Number Encountered: 1-2
Challenge Level/XP: 11 / 1700

A large (8' from tail to beak) carnivorous bird, Thunder Birds hunt either solo or in pairs. They hunt for food, not for thrill, and will often seek out lone (scouting) individuals. If they are brought down [...]

When I posted yesterday about the new release of Dungeon! I had more than a few unkind words to say about WotC's re-release of the classic board game. I need to retract a few of those words.

First off, regarding construction: I was incorrect earlier when I said the cards of the new game were smaller and flimsier than those of the original. A side-by-side comparison shows they are exactly the same size, and the thickness extremely comparable (it's difficult to tell for sure because of the slick/laminated surface of the new cards...but slickness does not automatically equal [...]

One of the things I really like about Savage Worlds is how customizable the characters are. In both character creation and when advancing from experience point gain there are a range of options for you to choose form. But sometimes the sheer number ofavailableoptions can be difficult for new players. Characters can end up lacking focus and I've seen some players request to make changes to