The Legion of Robs

Huh.

You know how sometimes you'll come across someone that has the same birthday as you and there's this lull in the conversation where you wonder if you should have some sort of connection with the other person? I just had that, only different.

I just met another Rob Chambers. Sort of.

A few years ago, I got an email from someone named Rob Chambers that wanted to buy my domain name. At the time, I was trying to break into editorial cartooning and needed (I thought) a domain name of my name so as to make myself better known to publishers. I thanked my fellow RC for the interest, but no thank you.

When I told my wife about it, she wondered who it could be. I joked that it might be Robert E. Chambers, Jr., the Preppy Murderer. She told me I was sick. I then said, "Ehh, it's probably a lawyer that wants to hire some 16 year-old to code a webpage for him because he hears it's all the rage these days with the younger people."

Then, out of the blue, I said, "It might be that guy at Microsoft that works on voice-recognition technology." How did I know of him? Well, like a lot of people, I Google my own name every once in a while, and this guy pops up a lot. I was working for a non-profit at the time that did closed-captioning by doing something called Voice writing, using an voice-recognition application called ViaVoice to create caption text files, so it would have been odd if this were that guy.

Turns out, yep, it was that guy. I got an email from him today. Seems like a pretty cool guy. Life's weird. :)

Take care,
~Rob

Indulge my Geekiness, won't you?

Howdy folks. OK, this is going to be a 100% geeky post because I'll be talking about Dungeons and Dragons. If you have an allergy to geeky subject matter, I suggest you take some Benadryl and put a cool cloth on your forehead. As for the rest of you, here we go...

I'm going to assume that if you're still reading this that you have some familiarity with the game, so I won't be explaining concepts and terminology as I go. Like I said, 100% geek. Anyway, recently, Wizards of the Coast (the company that now publishes D&D) came out with D&D 4th Edition. I got my brand-spanking new rulebooks Monday before last and.... hmmm. For the most part, it's a much more streamlined system, but I have a few quibbles with it. Specifically, the abilities many of the traditional classes now have or have lost. Here's my list:

WHAT THE HECK WERE THEY THINKING?

1. Paladins can no longer detect evil, are no longer immune to disease and poison, and don't get the option to have a paladin's warhorse. Also, they can now be of any alignment, which in my mind takes a lot of the RP fun right out of it.
   
2. Rangers no longer get access to nature-oriented divine magic, there is no clear-cut definition for how tracking works, and they no longer have any abilities with animals AT ALL, including an animal companion. Now, they're just snipers or guys that can use two weapons really well (you have to choose one or the other).
   
3. Wizards, even though they got rid of the Vancian magic system, which is good (i.e. you memorize spells and then have to re-memorize them after you use them), the breadth of wizard abilities are limited to variations of "you blow stuff up real good", with only a few utilitarian powers. Also, they can no longer attract familiars. I'm of two opinions about that: its been part of the game since 1st edition (I think) and a familiar adds a certain level of utility and flavor to your wizard. However, I have run wizards and seen other people run wizards where they have forgotten about their familiars until it was brought to their attention ( 'Isn't your owl able to fly up there?' 'Huh? Oh, yeah, my owl. Yeah, he can fly up there').
4. The Warlord class. If the other PCs are the grunts in combat, he/she's the officer barking orders and leading by example. Fine. Could've been made part of the fighter class, but, heh, whatever. One member of the group that I'm going to run 4E for is already planning on making a warlord. I'm going to reserve judgment on this one until I see it "in the field."
5. Many of the signature spells of 3E are either not present or have been so drastically changed that the only thing that stayed the same was the name. Mage Armor? Gone. Wish? Gone. Damn near any illusion or conjuration-based spell? Gone.
6. Very very very limited multiclassing. Gone are the days of taking a few levels of fighter here, 2 levels of rogue here, etc. Now, you multiclass by taking a feat that enables you to exchange one or more of your main class' abilities for an ability from the other class. You stay a fighter, for example, but you are a fighter that might be able to cast magic missile or turn undead. Also, you only get to multiclass into one other class. That's it.
   
7. No prestige classes. They have things called paragon paths and epic destinies, which may sound neat but are pretty weak and inflexible compared to prestige classes. Oh, I forgot to mention, paragon paths and epic destinies ensure that you stay with your main class - again, there is essentially no multiclassing, which sucks, IMHO.
   
8. Many people have argued that the rules have been "dumbed down." Again, I will reserve judgment.
9. Half-orcs are not present and neither are gnomes. True, I know no one who has ever played a gnome, bu I know they have their fans in the RPG community. Half-orcs, on the other hand, have a lot of fans - it's always fun to play the big dumb guy that just blunders through and messes up everything (Leeroy Jenkins, anyone?) Instead, they went ahead and made one brand new race called the Dragonborn (remember the Draconians from Dragonlance? Kind of like those guys, except nicer origin and no wings, but they do get a breath weapon) and reworked two previously existing races: tieflings (half-demonic humans) and eladrin (elves that REALLY love magic versus loving the forest). Also, they made halflings into a people that travel the rivers of the world. I'm sorry, but in my mind, halflings will always be at least city dwellers, if not little people that live in hobbit-holes.
   

Ok, that's all the energy I have for ranting right now. Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think.

Take care,
~Rob

Meatshield strip Number 2!

Yay! Strip #2 done! 2 down, 28 to go till start-up. Click on the image for a larger version.

Take care,
~Rob

A Moment of Genius! Sort of.

I don't know about you, but whenever I take a drink out of a coffee cup that has one of those to-go lids on it, some of that coffee just kinda spurts back up out of the lid at me because of the suction. I mean, there's this little hole on the top of it that supposed to equalize the pressure but that's never poked all the way through because the way it's manufactured.

You know what occurred to me, only about a month ago or so? Take a ball point pen and widen that hole. Now, I'm nearly 40 years old. I've been drinking coffee since I was roughly about 20. Here's the point: it has taken me 20 years to think of this brilliant move.

There are times I wonder how I get by in life. This was one of those :)

Take care,
~Rob

Heh?

I was out walking the girls around our neighborhood and I saw a car with a license plate that said "Sorrow". What the heck is up with that? I wonder what the story is behind that one.

Yep, that's all I've got for you today. Hasta!

Take care,
~Rob