Foppery

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day is exactly what it sounds like.

It’s December the 8th, so you should prepare. I already celebrated it next year, and it was great.

This is a huge list of Internet memes dating all the way back to 1941.

Seriously.

Wait, I mean SRSLY.

I’m sure that a lot of you have already seen “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog”, but now it’s on the Hulu.

Enjoy this musical epic of a supervillian and his quest to be awesome. Enjoy it, I tell you!

I think I’m in love.

Stupid Youtube! Putting hot nerd girls on the interweb instead of in my apartment!

“Get off of my screen!

(shitty 80’s synth horns)

Get on to my couch!”

Hmmm… that’s not a bad idea. I hope Billy Ocean’s not a suing kind of one-hit wonder…

This makes me feel like I’m living in the future. I mean, clothes that interact with your Iphone? It actually makes me want an Iphone.

Holy crap!

I just saw the trailer for The Watchmen.

Watch it yourself over hyah, or watch it on the big screen when you go see Dark Knight this weekend.

I don’t know what else to say, other than Holy Crap!

Star Trek: The Animated Series plus The Shatner’s cover of Common People equals awesome. Dig deeply in.

This Saturday is Worldwide D&D Game Day. If you’ve never played D&D before, you can head on down to your friendly local gaming store and test drive 4th Edition, which is coming out on the 6th. I played some last week at a preview event, and it’s good times. I think it’s a big improvement over the last edition, while hearkening back to the feel of the game that got me started.

Speaking of Dungeons and Dragons, I found this essay that I’d written a few years ago about things I didn’t like about 3rd edition. I found it a while back, and I wanted to share it with you. The thing that pleases me the most is that based on the changes that were made in 4th edition, a lot of the people who designed it felt the way that I did.

The Classic Party? (11/11/2003)

I’ve been playing D & D since, well, since it was D & D. I remember sticks to snakes, thac0, and the picture of the caryatid columns from the original Monster Manual. A lot has changed since then. But through all the revisions, the one thing that never changed was the classic party.

Everybody knows that when you play D & D, you have to have a Wizard, a Thief, a Fighter, and a Cleric. This archetype grew out of the literary fantasy tradition, but its incorporation into Dungeons and Dragons made it an integral part of the way people perceive RPGs. Games based (even loosely) on the D & D tradition (such as the original Final Fantasy games on the NES) use this same format. You have a tough guy, a fast guy, a guy who casts spells, and a guy who heals the party when it’s all done. This is the way things have always been. At least, until 3.5 came around.

3rd edition simplified a lot of things (no more endless tables of ACs and to-hit numbers, for example), but it changed the mechanics of the game so much that the classic party is no longer an effective playing choice. This informal comparison should highlight the magnitude of these changes.

Here is a typical classic party:

The Wizard

Specialty: Magical artillery

Can usually be seen: throwing lightning bolts, getting the fighter to carry his spellbooks

Typical quote: “But I /had/ to fireball the tavern. That serving wench was coming right at us!”

The Thief

Specialty: Stealth, larceny, killing people when their backs are turned

Can usually be seen: only when it’s too late

Typical quote: “Welcome aboard the painbus! Next stop, Stab City!”

The Fighter

Specialty: Melee combat, meat shield

Can usually be seen: swinging swords, trying to convince girls at the tavern to go back to his keep

Typical quote: “Swords are shiny!”

The Cleric

Specialty: Healer, spellcaster

Can usually be seen: Counseling the rogue on the subject of personal property

Typical quote: “I guess I’ll heal the rogue again. Stupid Hippocratic oath”.

Classic Party Tactics:

The wizard provides firepower in the form of area of effect spells. The fighter closes with the BBEG, and the rogue sneaks around BBEG to backstab. The cleric keeps everyone alive long enough to buy better magic items.

These characters and tactics were fine and dandy for twenty years of D & D, but the advent of 3rd edition has made this iconic group unneccessary.

Let’s meet the new and improved party, shall we?

The Paladin

Specialty: Melee combat, secondary healer, evil smiter, meat shield

Can usually be seen: Smiting evil, “laying on hands”

Typical quote: “I have a horsey!”

The Druid

Specialty: Melee fighter, spellcaster, scout, secondary healer, summoner

Can usually be seen: Skulking around as a bear, not bathing

Typical quote: “Don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”

The Cleric

Specialty: Melee fighter, primary healer, spellcaster, solution to all of your undead problems

Can usually be seen: Praying to his god to make himself more awesome

Typical quote: “Did you need some healing, Mr. Villian? **WHAMMMMMMM!!!** Well, you do /now/!”

The Bard

Specialty: Force multiplier, backup spellcaster, secondary healer, knowledge and skills, face man

Can usually be seen: Telling women he wrote a song “just for them”

Typical quote: “Thanks everybody. You’ve been a great audience. Try the mutton!”

New classic party tactics:

Bard sings, and bonusses everyone. While the effects of his music linger, he uses illusions to funnel bad guys towards the melee fighters. Paladin closes with BBEG, and uses smite evil (and divine favor, etc.) to deal massive damage. Cleric and Druid are a spellcasting/melee tag team. One will drop area of effect spells while the other enters melee combat. The druid’s animal companion can also assist with melee combat, or protect the bard as needed. If more meat shields are required, the druid can summon them.

New party strengths:

This party is almost totally self-sufficient. Every character has the ability to heal or buff themselves. This party also has loads of spells, due to the fact that /every/ character has spellcasting levels. Between the cleric and the druid, there is no shortage of artillery spells (including, but not limited to, flamestrike, call lightning, and ice storm) eliminating the need for a wizard. There is no need for a rogue for three reasons:

(1) The bard can use a wand of knock via Use Magic Device.
(2) /Everyone/ in the party can cast dispel magic (!) and get rid of glyphs and arcane locks this way.
(3) Even if glyphs are not dispelled, the party has excellent saves, as mentioned before.

There is no need for a fighter, as the druid, cleric and paladin will all do more damage per hit than a straight fighter. This party will also have better saves than the classic party. The paladin has divine grace and aura of courage to boost his saves (and those of his allies), the cleric and druid both have strong Fort and Will saves, and the bard can boost saves via the countersong and inspire courage abilities.

To sum up:

Classic epic fantasy: Old and busted

Ridiculous weird non-iconic party: New hotness

Discuss.

Wow. I had forgotten just how awesome “Cartoon Planet” was.

I was absolutely mesmerized by this clip of the so-called “Italian Spiderman”. It’s kind of like what would happen if Sergio Leone decided to direct a Spider-man movie without ever having read any of the comic books.

Click, and bask in its majesty.