ramza

Ooops. Seems that the new version of avg anti-virus also tracks spyware. I guess I will stick with that...

Hi guys, I have been using AVG anti-spyware till recently. Unfortunately, the company has stopped providing updates and asks for a monthly fee in order to have the benefits of an anti-spyware program. Is there some other similar programs that I could trust? There's spybot search and destroy, microsoft windows defender and lavasoft's ad-aware. Which one is the best? Should I use two or more at the same time? Just another question since I am here: do I really need a firewall other than the one provided by Windows? I have Commodo firewall installed on my other pc but I don't really see the use of it. I don't download torrents, I don't play online, etc. What do you guys think?

Thanks a lot for your replies. The way of handling critical hits is a welcome addition to my house rules. I will keep you informed if I have any further ideas concerning the other issues. Cheers.

I also have the AD&D Combat & Tactics book. The critical hit system described therein is excellent and I have indeed even used the charts for 3.X edition critical hit effects. The tables are in the book itself, though, so no Word or PDF... Here you go: http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~skempf/AD&D/downloads.html Google is man's best friend...

1) Like in any game, players play to win. They don't to be weak as in real life. That is why in ANY game out there, the main character has some kind of health bar. It's just to avoid that he gets killed too quickly. In any of these games, most injuries dealt to the main character would prove to be fatal in real life. All I want to do is to tone down what has been done to d&d. I have tried various combinations and the one presented in my last post seems to be the most balanced one. For example, I had thought another way of handling HPs: characters get a specific amount of HPs per level + their CON modifier. The range of the base HP gained goes from 1 (wizard) to 5 (barbarian). With 14 Con, a 20th level fighter would have 120 HPs. The problem is that players will be way too weak at the beginning of the game. My point is that there are always possibilities to reduce the vast amount of HPs provided by the current edition of d&d. 2) I really like your way of handling critical hits! This makes them even more dangerous. The truth is that if we reduce d&d to simple numbers and dice rolling, players won't have this feeling of being threatened whenever there is a sneak attack or a critical hit. Do you have any of those tables you mentioned in Word or PDF format? 3) I really have to put more thought on how to handle races. It will be tough, I know... The only way to add variety to to simply give different stat bonuses and penalties depending on the subrace you choose.

Thanks for your reply! You raise some very interesting points. Here are my thoughts: 1) After giving it much thought, I think I will switch back to the way HPs were handled in 2nd edition. In other words, a character gains his base hitdie (I always give max HPs when I Dm) + his CON modifier for the first 10 levels. Afterwards, he only gains HPs equal to his CON modifier. This way, PCs won't have the usual enormous amount of HPs. A fighter with 14 Con will have 140 HPs at level 20, which sounds ok to meI just ask myself if characters won't die too easily on the other hand. Maybe I should try this out to see if it works properly. Do you have any idea about how injuries should be handled? Should I inspire myself from Fallout? 2) Concerning armor, I kinda like the idea I suggested in my first post. Moreover, it's kinda similar to the system used in Fallout. 3) Concerning races, let me just underline the fact that my players do not roll their primary stats during char generation. I use a system similar to NWN with a pool of points that can be used in any fashion the players like. Moreover, there's no point-buy rule in my games. Therefore, the bonuses provided by all the races gain more importance to the eyes of the player. The thing is that I am trying to cover all the primary stats when creating my races. For example, dwarves get+2 to CON, halflings +2 to DEX, gnomes +2 to INT. Half orcs are a special case because they get +2 to STR and CON but -2 to INT and CHA. IMHO, half-elves should get +2 WIS since they share the heritage of 2 different races, but also get a -2 to CHA because they are not easily accepted in the human and elven communities. Concerning elves, the only stat bonus remaining is CHA. However, elves are also known for being dexterous which brings me to the dilemma to give them +2 to DEX as well. What other penalty besides to CON should they get? I am really stuck here... Unless, I present them as good snipers only (a bonus to ranged attacks should do in that case). To balance things, I am also considering giving another stat bonus and stat penalty to the remaining races (to make them more diversified). These bonuses and penalties are pretty obvious for the short races. But what about half-elves? Here again, I am stuck...

This already sounds better...

I have been trying to make d&d more realistic for quite some time. Among many issues, the following three concern me the most: - handling of HPs - handling of armor - handling of races 1) What does HP represent? How realistic is it? I don't like how some classes get enormous amounts of HPs which mean absolutely nothing to me except for being a number that tells me whether my character is still alive or not. I believe there shouldn't be such a high difference between classes for HPs Indeed, even though people can handle more or less well their injuries, they die exactly the same way if they receive a bullet on their forehead or in their heart. There is no "well, a bullet deals 1d4 - insert various modifiers + critical multipliers - damage but I have 80 HPs left"... This problem is even more flagrant when it comes to more damaging attacks like breath weapons. A dragon that spits acid should be equally fatal to a barbarian as to a wizard. I cannot understand why someone who doesn't have some innate resistance to acid should be able to withstand such type of damage more than anyone else... Just because he has more HPs? In the best case, he should lose an arm or a leg. This kind of damage should be taken into account. This brings the question of whether there should be any consequences for being injured. I do have thought of a way to include penalties for being injured. If you get less than 50% of HPs, you should get a cumulative -1 penalty to all rolls per round. I have always liked the way HPs and injury were handled in the Fallout games. Characters started with a relatively big amount of HPs (30 or so) and would gain few Hps with each level up. Moreover, if you got severely injured, you could get various conditions (see link below). The only problem is see is that we applied a similar health and damage system in d&d, we should as well reajust the HPs of all creatures and the damage range of most spells. http://www.gamebanshee.com/fallouttactics/damageeffects.php 2) Armor just serves to raise your AC and sometimes grant you some resistances or immunities. How realistic is this? There was some discussion over RPGCodex on how armor should absorb damage instead of just helping the character evade it. There should be some kind of damage resistance "attached" to armor. For example, light armor reduces piercing damage, medium armor reduces piercing and slashing damage, and heavy armor should reduce all kinds of physical damage. The amount of damage absorbs increases with the type of armor: for example padded armor removes 2 points of piercing damage, while leather armor removes 4 points of piercing damage. I have also noticed that some NWN persistent world servers gave HPs to armor and shields as well. Whenever you receive a critical, one HP is deduced from the remaining total. When the armor HPs reach zero, it is broken. Same goes for shields and weapons... 3) I already created a topic on this a few years ago. I am just trying to make races more balanced. Half-elves completely suck. I believe they should get some ability score bonus and penalty. I don't understand why Dwarves get -2 CHA. Should all races (except for humans) get +2 to 2 different ability scores and -2 to 2 other ability scores so as to better describe the characteristics of each race. For example, depending of their sub-race, some elves are agile and charismatic, while other elves are agile and wise, etc etc etc I am open to all kinds of suggestions and ideas. Feel free to post them here. Cheers.

I just checked paizo's website and downloaded pathfinderRPG's alpha release pdf. They have some neat ideas and have converted quite a few abilities from PrCs into core class abilities. The whole thing is that they let the player pick which ones he wants. However, i do have one problem with it: all the core classes look overpowered to me. They have kept the basic d&d classes and added a whole bunch of new abilities to them. Sure, they have toned down some other aspects, ie: clerics and druids get less spell uses but my concern is nonetheless still valid. I just hope the monsters and enemies will become more challenging just to compensate all these changes.

Thanks for your reply, Sunkeen (and welcome to these boards as well)! I have finally decided to only buy City of the spider queen. The new-encounter format used in WotC's adventures is quite inconvenient and requires A LOT of page shuffling. My decision allows me to save money and maybe to buy a few cheap miniatures that might be useful to my p&p sessions. PS: I will follow your advice of creating adventures on the fly. The thing is that I am mostly good at creating side-quests. That is the reason why I need a core story to keep my players going...

Don't tell me NX2 is The Black Hound???!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Yeah, I bought them too for 7 euros each (except for the first set, for which I had to pay triple price, since it's OOP ). They are pretty useful to me because my PnP sessions are more combat-oriented. The new encounter format used by wizards displays a small map for each battle, map that can be recreated through the use of tiles. Moreover, my players tend to cheat and start arguments about their characters' positions. Using minis and tiles makes life easier for me in order to solve such issues, like spell radius effects.

I already own Return to the temple of the elemental evil, the red hand of doom and expedition to castle ravenloft. I am far from disappointed since these books allow me to run campaigns with a coherent storyline and with tons of details on the combat situations. Whenever I feel like it, I add some extra content to flesh out the story. My main preoccupation was to get a pre-made adventure that would give data about characters, rooms and monsters so that I wouldn't have to sit for hours in order to put all the necessary info together on paper. Our Pnp sessions are a bit similar to NWN in the sense that they are combat-oriented. Sure, we do some rp but my players are more interested in leveling up and fighting loads of monsters. That makes things easier for me... The books explain how each combat should be managed (and the more recent ones even give the monster stats on the same page - it's the new encounter format), which allows me to save some precious time (especially from page shuffling). I don't know if I should buy expedition to undermountain, expedition to the ruins of greyhawk, and expedition to the demonweb pits. All these books got good and bad reviews, and my main concern was that many people said that the story was very confusing (for the two latter). I think about only buying the first one. Does anyone have any suggestions about these? How about the FR trilogy I mentioned (Cormyr, Shadowdale, and Anauroch)? Has anyone tried them?

My mistake then... You have my apologies, friend.

You are doing exactly what they expect you to do: fall for they hype... These comments kinda remind me of how Bestheda works... I am not falling for it! Moreover, I DO NOT WISH to learn new rules! It took me quite some time to learn about the 3E/3.5E mechanics (and I still have much to learn), I won't want to start all over again. The races, the classes, the special abilities given to each class, the skills... I like NONE of the changes. Despite having some obscure parts, 3E rules were pretty much coherent. 4E seems like munchkin fan service to me...

Personally, I am not very thrilled with 4E. Too many unnecessary changes... Add the MMORPG feel to it and you get a munchkin fest. Did you take a look at the D&D Insider software? It's as if you were playing an online game. The only problem is that it's even worse from what we already have. What the heck, even D&D online looks better...

Shouldn't everyone already have 3 or 4 of these at this point of the game?

I don't know about you, guys, but I will stay far away from 4E. Moreover, I don't wish (or even have time) to learn the rules all over again. The fact that they look retarded doesn't help either. No thanks, sir. I will stick to my slightly modified 3.5 edition rules...

I do not totally agree with your claim. If you happen to play on NWN1 PWs, you will notice that many players tend to pick cleric levels. I am just wondering what makes Clerics so strong in NWN. I am repeating myself but many people call them "one-man armies". Such a claim is not insignificant. Upon closer look, clerics can overcome almost any situation in the game. They are good in melee combat (I even wonder if they can get stronger than warrior classes when they are properly buffed). Now, NWN clerics don't have any of the restrictions that PnP games may have (like dogma restrictions, etc) but there has to be something more than that. Is there a flaw in this class' design? Or is it just that there is a strong advantage given to warrior classes, and an even bigger advantage given to classes that combine melee and spellcasting, due to NWN's combat oriented gameplay (there isn't much rp to be frank) ?

Hi all, I just bought Return to the temple of elemental evil for a mere 13 euros and I can't say I am disappointed. The adventure and the maps look pretty neat, and they will allow me to gain precious time as a DM. I like to make my own stories but it's a time-consuming occupation. I have thus decided to buy a few of the adventure modules released by WotC. Some of them are awesome and give many details for a campaign. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have been recommended the following: City of the spider queen, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, Expedition to Undermountain, and the following trilogy: Anauroch: The Empire of Shade, Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land, Cormyr: The tearing of the Weave. I already have the old 3E adventure modules in PDF format (those that would take you from lv 1 to lv20) and I plan to print them anytime soon. I have also ordered the Red hand of doom.

erm, don't tell me those were fixed? Nevertheless, I have been hearing a lot of people complaining despite all the patches and XP1 fixes... (on RPGcodex mostly but even on these boards... it was in some thread but I am too lazy to find it now)

I would really like to see Obsidian integrate all the missing contents in their next expansion (prestige classes, races, etc). I have been waiting for too long for these. No one has ever raised this issue but I expected the patch team to add these things but nothing happened. I hope they will remedy to this, since this is getting really frustrating. Where are the NWN9 magus and NWN9 agent prestige classes (you can see their feats on the "cheats feat list")? Where is my cavalier? Where is my Master of many of forms? Where is my Ghostwise halfling? All of these were initially intended to be included in the main game... Oh, and PLEASE FIX THOSE CAMERA ISSUES!!!!!

Excellent news! Keep up the good work!

still, it depend on how the dogma thing is implemented... It is non-existent in NWN. I liked the 2E rule according to which clerics could only use bludgeoning and blunt weapons (we could also add their deity's favored weapon). I don't understand why such restrictions were removed in 3E when Druids still cannot wear metallic armor and are proficient with a very specific set of weapons. What do you guys think of the changes I have suggested?

I have to disagree with you on a few points: - Wizards have to spend points in DEX, CON and INT while clerics have to only spend points in WIS and CHA. - Clerics have a high progression for two saving throws while most classes only have one favorite save. - Clerics have a non-negligible BAB progression and Hitdie which makes them decent warriors nonetheless. - Clerics have a spell progression that takes them all the way to 9th level and have more spell uses than any other class (except maybe the sorcerer). - And being able to wear full plate mails and carry tower shields doesn't arrange things either... I don't know how clerics work in p&p but they look pretty balanced to me. It may be the way they are designed in NWN that is faulty. I am just trying to find what is wrong here....