Gromnir

let us be fair. 4e will inevitably have frost giants, but the 4e monster manual will not. is leaving out such iconic d&d stuff as metallic dragons and frost giants from 4e monster manual kinda lame? yes. no doubt is simply a way to force folks to buy monster manual II. even so, is not as if d&d is abandoning frost giants altogether in favor o' death giants. is dozens o' legit reasons to be brassed off 'bout 4e... no need to create stuff. HA! Good Fun!

princess mononoke... not so much. japanese preoccupation with godzilla irritates us to no end. 'cause if you mistreat nature, eventually she will spit forth monsters to chastise you for your arrogance and your sins. didn't so much like the characters neither. spirited away, on the other hand, were fantastic. a bit obscure at times, but beautifully animated. a wonderful tale peopled by intriguing characters. sure, we still gets the near ubiquitous Nature themes, but those were secondary. didn't feel as if we had seen spirited away dozens o' times before, with ever so slight and meaningless variations in plot and character. HA! Good Fun!

It's impossible not to like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Feckin' impossible. hmmm. this is one o' those anime shows that were recommended to Gromnir. people always recommend anime to us 'cause they knows how much we loathe most anime. is some episodes o' cowboy bebop exceptions to Gromnir's no-anime rule? yeah, and sadly that is why some folks keep recommending their fave new anime to Gromnir... am like the life cereal "Mikey" kid, but for anime. is a kinda game for some people to find anime that Gromnir won't hate.

squares has one advantage: make it easier to draw very straight dungeoun hallways and make perfectly rectangular or square-shaped rooms. never underestimate sloth factor. 'course given the growing importance o' movement in 4e, one wonders why hex ain't utilized. in any event you can usually convert w/ only small difficulty if you got ruler and compass. HA! Good Fun!

there is no point in arguing. is no plausible or reasonable excuse for the theft or piracy o' a LUXURY good or service... ever. HA! Good Fun!

"Gromnir's reaction is typical of the Monarchy hating American whom see's such things as tyranny" you is kidding, right? we think the monarchy stuff is a joke; a very expensive joke. the aforementioned Restoration happened 'cause english were so damned attached to the Idea of a monarch. the monarchy, given how your govt. actually works, is some symbolic gesture with a big price tag. have the queen turn over a shovel full o' dirt at tart o' some big civil works project makes all the little brits in attendance feel better 'bout themselves. the rest o' nightshade's observation ain't really applicable, relevant or accurate. the english monarchy would be a quaint anachronism if you folks weren't so passionate 'bout it. HA! Good Fun!

point for josh... and harry. HA! Good Fun!

ps please keep in mind that Gromnir ain't being critical o' harry. is not his fault that he were born a royal and gets special attention. am thinking that it is great that harry wants to share in the troops situation. got nothing bad to say 'bout harry. is the folks who make the story into something... more. those is the folks we is disappointed with. if the only thing that makes this noteworthy is the aberration factor, then here you go: http://www.gigglesugar.com/242232 far more entertaining and unique. HA! Good Fun!

"But Harry's service is more notable specifically because it is something that tens of thousands of regular folks do." of course aberrations is notable. is the reason it is notable that bothers Gromnir. the guy is english royalty... which means what? distant related to william the conquerer? so what? doesn't make the service more impressive or honorable or courageous. means only that it is more rare... an aberration worthy o' note, but not o' any special consideration. "oh, he is so courageous." no more than any other soldier in a combat unit... and his story is less genuine courageous than the guys who agonize over leaving home 'cause they can't support both family and country. as to the notion that American elite avoid service... now josh is being disingenuous maybe... or maybe not. simple ignorance? heck, even now a military career is a big plus for political hopefuls. maybe josh would be surprised by just how many sons o' Congressmen actually has military service. sure, some has bush kinda nonsense, but to lump all in bush category is equal unfair. the thing is, every time a Congressman or fed Judge's child joins the military it not make the news, does it? is not noteworthy enough. only does we hear 'bout the son's service once that son Does something of worth, like become a public official, or if his service is particular noteworthy. mere joining o' a combat unit is not making national news... and for good reason. as we said already. good for harry... but bad on those who see something particularly honorable or noteworthy 'bout harry compared to the tens o' thousands. HA! Good Fun!

new crimes needed to be added 'cause when originally envisioned it were not possible to steal use of pure info... and you is getting sentencing guidelines confused with threshold question regarding whether or not a crime were committed by a defendant. is judge having opportunity to tailor punishment? sure, but often there is min and max set... and for good reason. again, threshold question o' whether or not crime were committed does not look to the suffering o' the injured party. is a non-factor. btw, the laws for stealing info is generally stiffer with harsher punishment than simply steal goods. 'course there is exceptions, 'specially the anachronistic laws in some jurisdictions regarding particular types o' produce and livestock. HA! Good Fun!

"When you pirate a game you're stealing the lisence and that's a vastly different concept from stealing somthing physical." this is nuts. is not different from pov of the law... nor should it be. is wrong not 'cause you deprive somebody else of use, but because it Doesn't Belong to You. you is stealing stealing bread to feed your kids 'cause they is starving IS different... is still stealing, but raises a possible defense. heck, why is steal from a fed insured/protected bank wrong? the money is insured by the fed, so nobody lose anything. steal at night when nobody is around, and it ain't even a genuine crime, right? bah. is kookie to claim that there is some special category 'o theft for information and use. is wrong 'cause you take that which you do not own and you did not pay. there is a reason we separate tort from criminal. with criminal larceny the degree to which the injured party suffers is not relevant when determining if there were a crime committed. is simply free rider problem for a new generation, but on a vastly different scale than peoples using public transportation for free. HA! Good Fun!

and now come the stoopid rationalizations. stealing info is different than stealing a thing, right? only to the thief is it different. HA! Good Fun!

"caricatured a bit but still a grain of truth in it" an infinitesimal small grain perhaps. btw, bush, for all his perceived and actual flaws, still had to be elected. you no doubt don't see the significance. "I know that when I was volunteering the fact that my girlfriend was very much against it, along with my parents, made quitting seem almost the only sane thing to do." but they didn't do no news story 'bout you, did they? why not? HA! Good Fun!

how exactly does the money you has spent on games excuse the theft of still more games? am not seeing the point? what a novel approach to be trying in court... "look, i have spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on cars over the past 15 years. so i stole a car. big whoop. what are you going to do, throw me in prison for stealing a car? heck, with all the money i have already spent on cars, audi should have given me that s8 for free." ... give it a try. HA! Good Fun!

"Which is more noteworthy: being the son of an aristocratic family and voluntarily going to war, or being the son of an aristocratic family and using your family's influence to get out of going to war?" so what? lower the bar for children who come from substance... get some special pat on back for doing something that literal tens of thousands o' people do? *chuckle* go easy on the stuffing pummeling. fact that there is cruddy aristos out there not makes harry's actions more impressive that leroy from philadelphia. " Given the historical tendency toward the latter in the U.S., I don't think it's so strange to look upon what Harry's doing as refreshing... all things considered." as a history major, no doubt josh can name literally hundreds of US children o' privilege who took on the burden o' military service. wanna start the list, or should Gromnir? fact that you can name folks who has dodged military service with help o' daddy in no way ennobles (pun intended) some aristocrat neither. is it swell that harry took up military service? sure. is more noteworthy than the tens of thousands of others current serving? why? 'cause he is royalty? bah. is not as if he has done something special to earn respect neither. story is noteworthy simply 'cause harry is born o' privilege... which is a crap reason. have some big story every time some corporate ceo's or US senator's son goes to war? makes front page news when leroy or bob or john or many other people you never met or don't know take up military service? maybe if harry had earned privilege we would be more impressed. maybe if story had harry ,the fullbright scholar (or the english equivalent) who were forgoing the opportunity to study abroad and instead joined military 'cause of his personal convictions, we could get impressed or interested in the story, but that ain't it is it? harry's story is only a story 'cause in 1689 parliament decided that not having a king/queen were more trouble than having a catholic king... or perhaps you wanna go back further and say that 'cause william invaded in 1066, Gromnir should give a damn 'bout who is harry? harry ain't news to Gromnir 'til he does something more noteworthy than being related remotely and tangentially to a famous conquerer who died back in 'round 1088 (date looks wrong... can never remember the death dates o' these english monarchs.) HA! Good Fun!

their copy protection scheme were flawed and exacerbated the piracy problem, but given the Scope o' the piracy problem... +70% US. 90% in europe. +90% in asia. those numbers is staggering to Gromnir. free rider problem is covered in pretty much any basic economics course in high school and college, but we ain't never recalled examples wherein +75% o' total consumers for a given service or product is free riding... get over some certain % and almost always does such a service or good end up being wholly or partially subsidized by govt... or it simply disappears if it ain't deemed to be necessary. too inefficient. sure, if you can still make big profit in spite of free riding, then some developers will continue to make pc games and make money doing so, but technology has made piracy more problematic in recent years

why on earth does they keep the ridiculous even-number nonsense for ability scores... or any kinda ability scores that not simply match modifiers? all this talk 'bout streamline and simplification and the most obvious and easiest steps towards accomplishing seems to be... missing. oh well. HA! Good Fun!

had no notion that pc software piracy were that bad a problem. +70%? sure, hang out at codex and see many folks telling us that piracy is not bad a bad thing, but even there it not seem like 70% o' people is supporting such notions. shows how wrong Gromnir were. we were thinking that this were a very small % in US and slightly worse (but not real bad) in europe. our impression were that only in asia were software piracy a pervasive kinda thing. oh well. if things is that bad, then maybe it were best killed quick... move to consoles and improve the PCness o' those devices and applications rather than prolonging the death throes. HA! Good Fun!

what an odd pov. in this country we ain't forced to endure the children o' Presidents once those Presidents is no longer in office, and those children need not necessarily become President one day. john quincy adams were the son of a former US President, but only the current US prez is a similar example. neither does we force or expect the children of political powerful peoples to follow in their parent's footsteps, 'cause simple blood ties not necessarily confer the requisite ability or desire. the fact that some snotty brat's great-great-great-great-whatever did something noteworthy should mean something to Gromnir? paternalism is bad 'nuff in this country w/o some ridiculous form o' state sanctioned bs to reinforce the antiquated notion. is loads o' folks fighting in afghanastan and iraq and other places. means nothing to Gromnir that some product o' generations o' questionable breeding is also one o' those people fighting. leroy jones, a kid from philadelphia whose momma has cancer and whose sister is still in middle school, had to go off and fight overseas... is making momma proud and sending pretty much all his pay home. more or less noteworthy than harry? more. is not that we dislike harry, but the whole notion o

or you can do like you and newc and either whack on strawman or make nonsense responses... is all the same. 1) the only reason why some folks feel previous editions were less combat focused were 'cause o' nostalgia. 2) am not concerned 'bout notion of combat v. combat focus or other such silliness. really, am not sure why some folks think 1e were less 'bout combat. the rules is invariably there for combat. not need rules to tell folks how to pretend to be a wizard. is when while pretending to be a wizard you claim to have turned somebody into a frog or eluded their sword swing or some other such CONFLICT resolution situation in which a clear objective answer is needed. as to combat applicable v. combat focused... why would eldar want to argue? the spells mentioned above are clearly very useful combat spells. is there others that is less useful? probably, even so, is arguable that pretty much any spell is gonna have some combat application, so why argue degrees... 'specially when your degree conclusion is gonna invariably be different than somebody else? gonna argue what were the original intent o' the developers? good luck with that one. is rarely one such controlling person in d&d rules development, and am not certain they matter anyway. is intent of player that matters more, no? focus v. applicable? is no clear answer... no right answer, so why bother fighting that battle... save to make some sorta point. HA! Good Fun! ps it were 1e the screwed d&d alignment. alignment gots no reason to be subject to rules... but because it is... detect evil and any spell that does different damage based 'pon alignment o' and a bunch o' other crap that shouldn't be part o' d&d, but is 'cause d&d starts as a combat game. horrible. has been following d&d for decades.

can hope... otherwise we start calling josh by a different name: jonah. HA! Good Fun!

you know, the sad thing is that iwd were probably the best game josh has been part of as a developer & contributor. the streamlined and quick development o

hmm, he described nystul's magic aura as a 'combat spell'. to most reasonable users of the english language, that suggests a spell primarily intended for use in combat - whether directly or indirectly. but if you're buying what Gromnir's selling here, there's also a bridge on the Thames i can give you a good deal on. the spell has a very useful combat application. am not caring if its primary use for newc is combat or not. for many people nystul's primary use IS combat related. in point o' fact, at higher levels pretty much the ONLY time the spell is used is in combat related situations. am not gonna make a judgement call as to whether or not newc's or sand's or some other yutz's use is the right one. if a spell has useful combat application, then Gromnir is quite willing to accept that it is a combat spell. again, just as you were wrong 'bout divinations, so too is you wrong 'bout such spells that would serve to mislead those divinations. w/o the combat aspects, there really wouldn't be a need for specific dc based rules 'n such. HA! Good Fun!

really? no doubt your aunt is a very unique woman. if you not like how we phrased then we could simply note that you were complete wrong 'bout nystul's use as a combat spelll AND Gromnir pvp. not need pvp or nazi dms. most typical use we seen of nystuls is to disguise magic gear... which is a combat application (either immediate or remote.) 'course we thought we would respond nicer since we is just a big ol' softy. HA! Good Fun!

mostly Gromnir is the nazi dm. at mid to high levels, d&d 3e character is defined more by his equipment than by his stats. Gomnir spends considerable time and effort to set up an encounter... only to have players ruin the challenge and surprise through use o' peeper spells? no freaking way. d&d has always been pvp, if you include dm in the equation. regarding 3e at level 1-4 a dm works hard to keep players alive. beyond level 12, a dm works hard to keep sessions challenging... necessarily become almost adversarial with players. if players know rules, then the dm must often come up with counter tactics, or players manage to destroy their own fun... effectively pits dm 'gainst players. sure, a dm can simply claim that players failed in their chosen rule exploit, but dm does that too often and players lose faith. use rules to maintain integrity of game is always the best option. HA! Good Fun!