PLaying D&D 5th edition, on a Wreck-Free Sunday

The RPG group has moved into the world of D&D 5th edition from 3.5 (there was no 4th edition, in spite of the books of some other RPG saying they were D&D 4th, and anyone who says otherwise is a tool of the mass misinformation machine). To give the new version the best possible test we all played either the same type of character, or the closest thing to the same kind of character in 5th that we played in 3.5, so I played a warlock, again. We had a druid, a paladin, a barbarian, and my warlock.

Notes on warlock building in 5th. There are 9 variations of the build, with three different sources of power and 3 different paths to that power within the source. There is one source and path that results in a moderately powerful combat magic user, who also has access to healing spells. This seems to be the best-rounded form to kick butt in battle and then fix broken butts after combat has ceased. This is also something I wanted for at least the last couple of years as we have had sessions without a healer, and they don’t end well, so I want to make sure every party I adventure with has a healer of some kind even if I have to be that healer.

All we had with our first session was a first-level party which like any other first-level party was pretty weak. There was some dice karma involved, but basically we liked the play action of 5th edition. Combat was streamlined with the use of “advantage” and “disadvantage” instead of having multiple adjustments to AC based on cover and concealment as in 3.5. So the way that works is when your target is obscured or behind cover you are disadvantaged, and you make two attack rolls with the lowest one counting as your actual attack. If you are working from surprise or a sneak attack then you take the higher of the two attack rolls for your actual attack. Again this works much better than the complicated tables of adjustments to AC for when the person making the attack has advantages over the attacked.

One of the problems we had with our party in yesterday’s session was the person playing our paladin playing “lawful good” as “lawful stupid” and killing the lawful evil NPC who was spying on the target of our mission for several days before we got there and more than happy to show off and tell us everything he had discovered had the paladin not killed him first.

And again tonight I am going to end that public spell to return the intentions of the guy that tried to kill me by focussing a reflection spell with my hat. The guy died back in 2002, so the spell has been just churning out energy to no effect ever since then. I will be starting a new spell by dedicating a new hat to the creation of real, high quality (CROW Manual) bicycle infrastructure here in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Pictures to follow.

We had the hats soaked in lamp oil before placing them on the fire.

A few minutes after placing them on the fire.

After the rest of service was done, energy safely dispersed.

And that’s all I got today.

PSA, Opus the Poet

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The annual Yule fight has begun, on Wreck-Free Sunday

One of the byproducts of the over-commercialization of Christmas has been the pushback of the acceptable decoration dates for both the first and last “acceptable” decorations going up. And as the “last” date moves closer to September the intensity of the annual fight over putting up the Yule decorations in Casa de El Poeta also increases, because my date hasn’t changed from what it has always been (12/20). I have been accused of many things because of this with “Grinch” being one of the kinder things. I’m sorry, but I’m firmly of the opinion that the “specialness” of a holiday gets less so as the dates of the holiday get moved further apart, and for me “Yule” starts 12/21 and ends 1/1 the next year. So, the decorations go up 12/20 and come down 1/2 AFAIAC. If that makes me a Grinch, then I’m a Grinch. Grinch, grinch, grinch, I’m being all grinchy. I still haven’t gotten the hang of being green and covered with fur like Oscar the Grouch, but I am embracing my grinchyness. When does Festivus begin?…

I really should be promoting my new hat some more. Not just because I really like it but because I have come to the realization that the magicks I placed on the first hat need to be stopped. I publicly declared the first hat as a double bird flipped at the guy that hit me and a “return to sender” of his intentions, and within a few months of making this public, the guy was dead by his own hand. Thing is I didn’t know that, so I subconsciously kept the spell going until the hat wore out completely, then bought another one that was almost identical and kept it until it wore out declaring it as “the replacement” for the first hat, which literally transferred the spell to it. So I have this spell working like mad with no target left alive, which is not good. So, very soon I will do a public ceremony where I burn the old hats and declare that spell at an end, and declare a new spell for the public good. The new spell will target the powers-that-be to generate some real (Dutch CROW manual) bicycle infrastructure for the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell.

New hat.

Old hat.

There is a debate (of sorts) on the use of HiViz by cyclists. What do you think? Encouraging high-vis gear I think this is one step removed from victim blaming, but what do you think?

Today is one of those days that I have a concept running around in my head, but no words to attach to that concept. This is one of the facets of aphasia, the worst of them. Most of the time I just have a word or two that I have to track down inside my head and eventually I do that and finish the sentence and then the rest of the blog post. This time I lost the whole shooting match, a whole paragraph or more. And if you don’t think that’s frustrating, then you have never written for a living…

So, to save what is left of my dignity and sanity, I will cut it off right here rather than continue to beat my head against the biggest writer’s block in the world.

PSA, Opus the unkillable badass Poet