Know the Plan

Yeah, it’s been a long time since Gamer Bling has updated his website. But at least when he failed to keep his New Year’s resolution, it was a Critical Failure, and not a limp noodle failure of the everyday kind.

Between trying to put together an Internet business; laying out a catalog; editing, proofing, and laying out a book; working on some novel proposals; prepping for and attending a tradeshow in Dallas; beginning playtesting on a new game he has designed; and several other projects including a couple of redecoration projects mandated by The Gamer Bling Official Companion, there was no room left for this wonderful blog.

Which is doubly pathetic because Gamer Bling has a bit of a backlog of stuff to review.

But not everything goes according to plan, no matter how carefully you plan it.

And none of this stuff was unexpected, but Gamer Bling did not make enough allowance, which goes back to prove that an incompetent friend (or self) is more dangerous than a competent enemy.

Consider, for example, one of Gamer Bling’s gaming buddies.

In our most recent adventure, we, a pathetic group of misfits that passes for an adventuring party in most Eberron campaigns, came face to face with a small fortified group of drow.

Well, face to wall. Because they were behind a wall. Because they were fortified. And they had roofs on their towers, because they were drow.

So how to penetrate the defenses?

Well, we could have Larz, the self-described “bad-ass” go and whack the reinforced wooden gate with his massive sledgehammer with a 7-foot handle (apparently Larz has to compensate for other, um, shortcomings) until pointy little arrows and spells made him look like an ineffective damage sponge and we all had to go save him and we got in a big fracas and somehow we got through it.

Or we could have a plan.

And Gamer Bling came up with one. And we all worked it out and went over it twice while hiding in the security of the nearby woods.

Gamer Bling, being the masochistic suicidal fun-loving mentally unbalanced player that he is, has a halfling conjuror. And he had one use of benign transposition, and one open spell slot of that same level, which he also assigned to that spell.

So the plan was this: the artificer enchants his own armor with concealment or something, which makes him all but undetectable until he attacks. Gamer Bling casts spider climb on him, and he quickly scales the wall and hides under one of the towers.

Gamer Bling’s crafty halfling conjuror, who, it should be noted, is one level shy of being an elemental savant, then benignly transposes himself with the artificer, and then does so again with Larz the half-bad shifter pincushion. The artificer returns quickly, and then climbs the ladder into the tower undetectably. He attacks, and Larz the huge shifter who’s as stealthy as a Mack truck and as durable as a 1970s Ford Pinto, follows quickly. They dispatch the guards, perhaps with a little ranged-attack help from the rogue and conjuror.

Overall, not a bad plan.

Except that, right before Gamer Bling’s conjuror transposed with Larz the Unsubtle, our partner party member box of Band-Aids soon-to-be-not-at-all-our-BFF cleric cast flaming weapon on Larz’s warhammer.

Cue collective facepalm from everyone in the group.

Worse yet, he used a spell slot in such a manner that it increased our collective need for healing, which, since he used said slot, he has less of.

And that’s where the action paused. Larz, alone, at the bottom of a ladder with a 7-foot-long sledge with a flaming head and some drow somewhere in the fort yelling, “Hey!”

We’ll see what happens next.

Like maybe a new review?

Nah.

Better Late than Never

As Gamer Bling’s most loyal Gnights of the Realm may recall, a while back Q-Workshop, that batch of self-stylized crazy Poles making capitalist dice for the proletarian masses, ran a dice-design contest. Gamer Bling’s original post is here; the rules are here.

Gamer Bling was asked to assist in the judging, which he did. He even wrote  a long, rambling diatribe about it which, he has surmised, never saw the light of day the dark interior of the Intertubes. His opinion is given below; and one of Gamer Bling’s selections did indeed win.

Thus Gamer Bling presents you with this priceless priceful worthless curious piece of history.

Gamer Bling Sits in Judgment upon Mortal Dice Designers

As Gamer Bling exercises fiat over the finalists for Q Workshop’s dice design contest, he is struck by several realizations.

First is that although he’d been certain that he could arrange things so that he’d win, he probably should first have placed an entry into the contest. Think, then cheat. Think, then cheat! It’s not such a hard concept, is it?

Second is that he still has some recourse: as one who has pledged prizes to the winner, he must use his evil influence to ensure that postage is as low as possible. Thus all entries from Tasmania and Sri Lanka must be immediately rejected.

Third is that although his pronouncements are crassly late, he may well still be the first judge to turn them in. Such is the price of volunteer work.

Fourth is that he really needs to update the Q Workshop review page.

With these pyrite nuggets of wisdom thus passed like gallstones, Gamer Bling shall flay the finalists alive adjudicate this contest in a tasteful and reprehensible responsible manner. And the finalists shall be considered in the order the folders appear in the virus-infested e-mail I got from Q Workshop. (Just kidding guys; Gamer Bling knows there were no viruses in your zip file. Although the instructions for the Storm BotNet were very interesting.)

Gamer Bling of course needs to decide on a scoring method, and, to be fair, it must be decided upon prior to judging the entries. Thus he chooses five categories, each of which will be rated on a score of 0-2. These categories are important to all dice design, and the scoring method allows for scores from 0-10.

• Originality: How unique is it? Includes an automatic deduction for depicting another over-endowed barbarian chick in a chainmail bikini, as well as for emulating an extant Q Workshop design.
• Artistic Merit: Does it look cool? It is well presented? Includes an automatic bonus for depicting another over-endowed barbarian chick in a chainmail bikini.
• Simplicity: Gamer Bling strongly believes that in the arena of dice design, less is more.
• Proper d4 Alignment: Do they read like caltrops? Is the number at the top and upside right?
• Legibility: Can Gamer Bling’s two-score-and-five-year-old eyes read them? Are they in another numeric system?
• Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: This is a bonus point awarded if someone goes out of their way to kowtow to yours truly. Thus someone who plays to the judges—well, this judge at least—can score an 11.

Good luck to all contestants, and enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame. Such as they are.

Finalist #1: Adam Janiszewski

Adam has apparently been playing a lot of Fallout as he chose a rustic rusty radiation icon for his theme. The execution is nice, with a good post-apocalyptic look. Sadly, he does not apparently read Gamer Bling, as his d4 numbers are all wrong, and some of his numerals look as beat up as the radiation symbol.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 1
Artistic Merit: 2
Simplicity: 2
Proper d4 Alignment: 0
Legibility: 1
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #2: Alvin Helms

The talking chipmunk pet of former senator Jesse Helms, Alvin Helms has come a long way from a miserable kids movie. He chose a Piratical theme, complete with a Jolly Roger on the money side of every die but the d4 (Gamer Bling still can’t understand why someone who’s had the skin flayed from his skull can be so jolly). With parchment-y borders and antiquish numerals, this one scores high. Although putting a Jolly Roger on the d00 doesn’t strike Gamer Bling as too smart, so Alvin loses a point on artistic merit.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 1
Artistic Merit: 1
Simplicity: 2
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 2
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #3: John Blackthorne

Aside from being a character suspiciously similar to the protagonist of Shogun, John Blackthorne is also a detailed die designer. He included alternate versions of his dice, as well as a FUDGE die and an explanation of what the heck the alternate dice were. His Celtic design had nothing to do with the Boston basketball team, but his dice didn’t sell out an arena, either. His d6 were gorgeous, but would have to be large to be truly appreciated.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 1
Artistic Merit: 2
Simplicity: 1
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 1
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #4: Karol Kujawa

Did anyone other than Gamer Bling notice that Karol’s name spelled backwards is Ajawuk Lorak? Probably not. And there’s nothing more to say about that, other than if you see a fantasy author use this name for a minor character in an upcoming novel, you know that that author reads Gamer Bling. Karol chose a strong motif with stripes and chevrons as well as Roman numerals. Unfortunately, the two elements clash. Also, one must remember that the chevrons point down in order not to confuse XI and IX, which have no other factor keeping them from being read upside down. A similar problem arises with XIX and… um… never mind. This set would look best with two different colors, one for the stripes and one for the numbers.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 2
Artistic Merit: 2
Simplicity: 1
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 0
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #5: Kathy Lauritzen

Kathy has the initials KL, which sound suspiciously like “kale,” a type of cabbage; or “kill” when being drawled by a backwoods Southern boy on whose property you have inadvertently set foot and who is now commanding his dawgs to remove you forthwith. Kathy chose an interesting undersea theme. Her set had different imaging on each die, which when gathered together made a cohesive whole. Sort of like how a die has different numbers on each side, yet they all mysteriously hang together through the miracle of plastic. Unfortunately, in many cases the art left little room for numerals that Gamer Bling could read in the dank cell in which he is allowed to game.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 2
Artistic Merit: 1
Simplicity: 0
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 0
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #6: Lisa Farris

In what can only be described as nepotism, Lisa Fairies Farris made an entire set of Farris Fairy dice. On the other hand, dice featuring naked chicks with long air are always good in Gamer Bling’s book. As with certain other entries, though, the art took the majority of the space, leaving little for the numerals. And being outlined, the numerals are even tougher to read. Though in this case, Gamer Bling does not mind taking a closer look.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 2
Artistic Merit: 2
Simplicity: 1
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 0
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #7: Maciej Tyrala

Names like this make Gamer Bling wonder if indeed the zip file he received from Q Workshop was, after all, infested with a virus. There’s just no way for normal people to create a name like this. It’s like Maciej has irritable vowel syndrome. Really, doesn’t “maciej” looks like a list of missed guesses in Hangman? This entry is a post-apocalyptic set featuring LED numerals, radiation symbols, and Phillips-head machine screws. So perhaps Maciej is a common name in the grim future of gaming.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 2
Artistic Merit: 2
Simplicity: 2
Proper d4 Alignment: 0
Legibility: 2
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #8: Shannon Couture 1

“Couture,” as well all should know, is French for “culture,” as in “haute couture.” Or, if your translation software is bad, is also means “yogurt.” “Shannon,” of course, is a nickname for Ireland. So basically, what we have here is someone whose name means Irish Culture. Which, although it’s not as bad as haggis and bagpipes, nonetheless has not quite managed to reach the pinnacles of, say, Plato’s Greece. Rather, they content themselves with Plates of Grease. To their credit, they invented the Irish Pub, so all is not lost, and Shannon now owes Gamer Bling a beer.

Shannon submitted three entries, all of which made it into the finals based on their strength (which has been likened to someone’s breath after a dinner of Guinness and haggis).

The first is an imp motif. Now Gamer Bling just isn’t that keen on demonic shtuff, especially since they’re as overdone as chainmail-bikini barbarians are underclad, but this design features nifty barbed tails that flow off one side of the die to intertwine with other tails on a different side. Sort of like fiendish opossums maybe. It’s a new shtick that Gamer Bling hasn’t seen elsewhere, and even if Shannon doesn’t win, you know Q Workshop will find a way to employ this technique.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 1
Artistic Merit: 2
Simplicity: 1
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 1
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #9: Shannon Couture 2

The second design is a steampunk design of the sort that might be used by the Clockwork King, for those of you who play City of Heroes. Think H.G. Wells and Jules Verne: gears, machine screws, pipework, and things like that make this a fun set. The d6 might be a little overdone, but strong numerals are visible throughout.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 1
Artistic Merit: 2
Simplicity: 1
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 2
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

Finalist #10: Shannon Couture 3

The third entry hearkens back to the good old days when Viking Raiders placed their axes and hammers in all sort of things that would these days be considered inappropriate receptacles. Like people’s skulls. With dark, textured backgrounds and the aforementioned axes and hammers, this is an old-fashioned set. Unfortunately, Gamer Bling has concerns about the numerals, which are made to look like crudely carved runes, and read just as easy, especially since in the d00 they overlap.

The Bottom Line
Originality: 2
Artistic Merit: 1
Simplicity: 1
Proper d4 Alignment: 2
Legibility: 1
Gamer Bling Fawn Factor: 0

And the Winner Is…

Well, no one did any brownnosing to Gamer Bling. Other than Q Workshop to get him to volunteer for this. So in a sense everyone loses. Especially Gamer Bling. Because the glass is half empty and we need a federal bail-out.

The points scored are tabulated as follows:

Finalist #1: Adam Janiszewski – 6
Finalist #2: Alvin Helms – 8
Finalist #3: John Blackthorne – 7
Finalist #4: Karol Kujawa – 7
Finalist #5: Kathy Lauritzen – 5
Finalist #6: Lisa Farris – 7
Finalist #7: Maciej Tyrala – 8
Finalist #8: Shannon Couture 1 – 7
Finalist #9: Shannon Couture 2 – 8
Finalist #10: Shannon Couture 3 – 7

So, in the end, it comes down to Alvin Helms’ Piratey Thing, Maciej Tyrala’s Post-Apocalypso, and Shannon Couture’s Steampunk Espresso.

So Gamer Bling applies the acid test: would he actually buy these dice? The answer in each case is yes.

And, since Gamer Bling is in favor of crass conspicuous consumption, he awards all three sets gold ribbons.

Your mileage may vary.

4th Time’s the Charm

So Gamer Bling has railed against the systematic 3e and 3.5e abuse of arcane spellcasters. In doing so, he has managed to avoid posting any actual reviews for several weeks, which is, in fact, part of his master plan, because the Gamer Bling Official Companion and he are busily trying to launch a business, which takes a lot of time, and railing against an RPG system takes less time than creating a detailed review.

This trend continues this week, but will hopefully stop next week, as Gamer Bling works toward finishing a review. It would also help if Paizo would get Critical Hits decks back in stock, since he wanted to review them and the Critical Misses decks together, thus he is left with a half-finished, half-filled, half-funny review that he might post anyway.

In any event, after a couple weeks of denigrating 3e, Gamer Bling thought he should explain why 4e gets magic right.

First, as previously mentioned, magic is an inherent attribute of a 4e wizard. They can cast mage hand and light at will, and generally do magical things whenever they want. In other words, they can actually practice magic the way the PHB describes it.

Additionally, because their magic is treated as inherent and not as mystic ammunition, they can use their magic throughout combat instead of firing off a spell or two and then resorting to missile weapons that have little chance of damaging armored opponents, especially since you’re probably firing into melee.

Gandalf didn’t carry a crossbow.

“Wait!” some may say at this point, which, if they do so out loud, may alert their boss to the fact that they’re surfing the net instead of working. “What about 4e Encounter spells? Wizards can’t use them all the time!”

To which Gamer Bling replies thusly: What’s the difference between a 4e wizard using an encounter spell, and a 3e wizard firing off his sole high-level spell in combat? About eight hours’ sleep. 

However, the best thing that 4e did, both in terms of making the game flow and in terms of creating a magical feeling, was to divorce utility spells from combat spell by use of rituals.

One of the great decisions facing all 3e spellcasters was whether to take survival spells or utility spells.

Go into a dungeon with nothing but combat spells, and you can get stymied by a door. Then you sleep, awaken, memorize knock, open the door, sleep again, rememorize the combat spell, and continue on your way. Assuming you can get eight hours’ rest in a dungeon, let alone sixteen back to back.

Go into a dungeon with lots of utility spells, and you can do lots of things… except provide any help when a pack of heavily armored gnolls attacks the party. Then the other players all look at you and wonder what the heck you were thinking when you chose to memorize tongues instead of fireball. (Answer: “So I can say ‘I surrender’ after all of you guys die.”)

The 3e solution for this is for wizards to create scrolls of utility spells. Since they’re not needed in combat, you can take your time to pull out the scroll and read it. But this requires a chunk of cash and (even more offensively) XP.

That’s right, folks, to improve your utility and do what you should be able to do inherently, you must spend money and retrograde your advancement.

Why is the XP cost even in there? Arguably it is because of Tolkein, who pioneered the “pour your soul into your magic items” concept. But Sauron made One Ring, and poured half his soul into it. He didn’t linger in Middle Earth because he’d spread his smidgeons of his essence like grape jelly across the pages of ten thousand scrolls.

For that matter, name another magical item in Middle Earth that had the essence of the maker. Did Elrond suffer for reforging Anduril? Nope.

So from a design standpoint, why is the XP cost there?

If the cost is supposed to be onerous, that’s just cruel. Make enough magic items, and you’ll lag behind the others in the party. Are magic items powerful to justify that? Not with the frequency that they can be found or purchased. On the other hand, if the cost is supposed to be inconsequential, then take it out!

Think of it: by making a magic item, you are effectively converting XP into gold (either by selling it, or by not paying as much to buy it). Is that a fair trade? Would anyone do that voluntarily? Yet wouldn’t everyone get on the bandwagon to convert gold into XP? You betcha!

In fact, NPC spellcasters that make scrolls for hire are actively putting themselves out of business by degrading their own abilities as they make stuff. Once they run out of XP, they can’t make any more scrolls. Then what? “I’ll make the scroll you ask for, noble hero, but first you must capture a rabid sheep and a couple rats and let them loose in my house so I can kill them. Only then shall I be able to scribe the magic.”

Ritual books allow wizards to do large utility spells. Yet the time they require, and the fact that the wizard must refer to said book, prevents them from being of any use in a frantic situation. Or, in rare occasions, makes the frantic situation even more frantic, wherein the players have to hold off the monster for ten full minutes while the wizard works his magic.

Ritual scrolls allow anyone to complete a magic ritual, although anyone who’s read enough Lovecraft should know better.  

And, as an aside, the 4e spellbook holds 128 pages. This is both a 28% improvement over 3e spellbooks, and also more realistic besides. See, bookmakers do not bind individual pages into a book; they take large sheets of paper and fold them over and over, then bind the folded part into the book and trim the edges to create the pages. That’s why the page count of books is typically a multiple of 16 (when you count actual pages, not numbered pages). This is why you can often find RPG sourcebooks with several blank pages at the end labeled “Notes.”

As an aside to an aside, Gamer Bling has a book published in 1873 in which some of the sheets were misfolded, being enough asymmetric that they escaped being trimmed. Thus the pages were still attached at the flyleaf. Kind of funny.

And finally, wizards use implements. Staves, wands, crystal balls, and presumably more to come all enhance the imagery of using magic in an RPG.

Well, Gamer Bling’s wrath is spent. This should be the last of it on this particular subject. While Gamer Bling prepares for next week, he has a simple question for all his loyal readers:

What products would you like Gamer Bling to review next?

Two URLs, One Class

Gamer Bling is clearly not above hijacking an Internet meme to get more readers. In fact, Gamer Bling is not above much of anything, except all his arcane spellcaster characters, the sum total of whom are pushing up daisies. Except, of course, for the one that was swallowed whole by a cave lizard and had his alchemical potions detonate whilst he was still trapped inside… that character is pushing up phosphorescent cave lichen.

To put this all in perspective, Gamer Bling once had an elf archer character in RuneQuest (revised edition). Said character had a Constitution score of four. FOUR! Plus a small size, which diminished said character’s hit points even further. A small 1d6 wolf trap was a serious threat to longevity.

Gamer Bling managed to play that character for three years or so of real time, rising from petty elf with a bow to pretty freakin’ powerful archer and achieving the dual titles of Wood Priest and Wood Lord. Said character fired three times a round, had a 27% chance of striking for double damage, and was an all-around butt-kicker.

And, because Gamer Bling likes to do things the hard way (unlike certain people who do not commiserate with Gamer Bling over the death of Gleek, but rather openly mock Your Humble Reviewer on his very own blog, causing big drops of mucus-thickened tears to spatter on the keyboard and further degrade Gamer Bling’s inability to type), Gamer Bling achieved this feat without once ever raising this character’s constitution above 4!

But that is all water under the bridge, or blood down the bottomless pit, or arcane spellcasters under the ground.

Today Gamer Bling will rant on how 3e fails to deliver on the implicit promise of users of magic.

(Oh, and the two URLs mention above? They are this and this, which are two reviews that have new illustrations in them. Yes, that’s a cheap marketing ploy. But so is the promise of magic versus its execution in 3e, so the two URLs actually tie in to the subject after all.)

When we think about wizards, we think of Gandalf, or Harry Potter, or Jared the Goblin King, or Jeremy Irons chewing the scenery in the D&D movie. We think of magical effects swirling around them with sparkly SFX, we think of magic staves or magic wands or crystal balls or other baubles. Shapeshifting, flight (with or without brooms), and telekinesis to absent-mindedly grab a needed ingredient from a distant shelf. We think The Force, but with pointy hats instead of padawan braids.

What we don’t think of is wizards having to utter an arcane incantation every time they gesture a small bottle to their hand. They just do it.

What we definitely don’t think of is Hermione the Ineffably Cute saying, “I’ve already memorized five phrases in latinus piggus. My brain can’t hold any more, because I’m only a first-year student.” (Although Ron might say such a thing.)

What we REALLY don’t think of is Gandalf saying, “Sorry, I’ve used up all my powerful spells. All I can do is create some caltrops, but they probably won’t work against that balrog. Let’s camp so I can sleep eight hours and read my book again.”

Magic is supposed to permeate the wizard like an aura. They live it and breathe it. Let’s take a look at what the 3.5e rulebook says about wizards, shall we? It says that they “practice minor magics whenever they can” (p.55). We even see this in D&D licensed materials. For example, in Baldur’s Gate, we have an NPC wizard drawing glowing sigils in the air just as a matter of course. A cool image, but not one that PCs can do without burning off a spell slot.

So how does one “practice minor magics”?

Presumably by burning off minor cantrips like prestidigitation. Which means that even a 20th-level specialist wizard can only practice his prestidigitation for 30 seconds a day (unless you count sitting around while the spell’s duration wears off as “practice”). Four cantrips plus one for being a specialist is five spells, each requiring six seconds.

Wow. Can you imagine Gandalf finishing up that fast? Can you imagine if he hadn’t prepared enough slots of pyrotechnics on the day of Bilbo’s party? 

3e is so dead-set against perpetual magic that the only way to cast a marginally meaningful spell at will is to burn a feat AND permanently sacrifice a spell slot eight levels higher. So if you want to be able to have an unseen servant grab the bleach for you whenever you spill your special expensive wizard’s ink on your AC-less robes, you lose one use a day of, for example, time stop.

Sorry, the power represented by having a perpetual unseen servant is not equal to the power represented by being able to stop time.

Yes, 3.5e relented a bit and allowed spellcasters to have a handful of cantrips castable more often, though again by use of a feat. Pathfinder has pushed the envelope even further by allowing all cantrips to be at will. This is a good step.

And suddenly Gamer Bling is struck by a thought (proof that there is, in fact, a first for everything): First-level wizards can only read magic for, at most, and hour a day. That means an hour of study, and seven hours (or more) cleaning and otherwise being a servant to the master. That explains why so many wizards are so old. Imagine how old you’d be if you could only study for college for one hour a day.

But how do people reach level one in the first place? Read magic cannot be cast on another, and before you’re a level 1 wizard, it’s duration is zero minutes. How do you cast it from a scroll if you can’t read it, and how can you read it if you can’t cast read magic?

Obviously, there’s a way to bootstrap yourself over that hump, but apparently that trick never works past level 1 because it can’t ever be used again.

And as for masterwork anything, Gamer Bling is surprised that a masterwork nonmagical wooden wand has never appeared in a sourcebook that he has seen. Hey, a +1 to hit on rays! How handy! Especially since wizards can’t hit the broad side of a barn even at higher levels!

Computer games began breaking the Vance mold. Not Baldur’s Gate, of course—Gamer Bling literally had his party camp after adventuring for less than an hour of game time, the wizard’s spells having all been burned off during a rough fight. And how does a wizard roll over and go to sleep again after having been awake for only an hour or two? Wacky.

But Gamer Bling speaks of MMOs. Currently he plays both City of Heroes and Guild Wars. And in both cases, he has users of magic who have abilities that they can use more or less at will (exhaustion and recharge being the only factors… well, them and the existence of legal targets). This is the promise. It feels like it should feel. Magic users who can create and maintain a magical force field around them, and who can launch magical effects repeatedly without running the well utterly dry for the day.

And this is what 4e has also delivered: a magic user who can use magic whenever he wants. A spellcaster who never runs out of tricks, who is never actively working toward making himself useless, who isn’t totally screwed in hit points, who can cast mage hand and prestidigitation at will, who doesn’t have to stand around with a dagger held in one limpid hand wishing he had the nerve to enter melee because his fellow party members are getting whupped and all he has left is a use of open/close because he thought it might be useful to open a trapped door from a safe distance.

Better still, 4e has segregated melee spells from out-of-combat spells. That’s always been a tough choice in 3e: Be weaker in combat situations because you memorized utility spells, memorize no utility spells and risk stalling the adventure while you sleep in a dungeon and everyone else plays spin the bottle (and when you wake up, you default back to being weaker in combat because you have to fire off some spells slots for utility purposes), or burn gold and precious XP scribing scrolls. In 4e, this is no longer a problem.

And, as a special bonus, WotC has replaced musty books with the staples of fantasy literature: crystals and staves and wands (oh my!).

And best of all, since magic spells are no longer fire-and-forget (in the bad way), balancing them against the ever-swinging fighter is much easier.

Unfortunately, the others in Gamer Bling’s gaming group are not so forward-thinking. They’ve spent money on 3e, and by gum, they’re going to stick to 3e! Well, Gamer Bling spent money on the original white box D&D long before it was called the original white-box D&D. Eldritch Wizardry was the first bit of pron Gamer Bling ever owned. But Gamer Bling abandoned the all-weapons-do-1d6 mentality and moved on to better things like the aforementioned RuneQuest, which also allowed magic at will subject to exhaustion.

He moved back to 3e when it was the best. And, as soon as he can pry his fellow gamers’ hands off the obsolescence of 3e, he’ll move to 4e.

So go ahead and share: what’s your experience with wizards and the like in 4e?

Rants on Vance

Gamer Bling remains busy trying to launch an actual paying business, hence no review this week.

Instead, Gamer Bling will rail against 3e and 3.5e, not only writing woefully late in the promised day of Wednesday updates, but also being woefully late to the party of bile-slinging 3e/4e partisan judgmentalism, which is American politics meets hobby RPG rules lawyers and self-proclaimed brand watchdogs. So GB is very late, but still full of insight. Or at least vague attempts at humor.

Underlying all this is the fact that Gamer Bling has a thing for playing arcane spellcasters. The Good Lord only knows why Gamer Bling is such a masochist. Nonetheless, Gamer Bling believes wholeheartedly in Hope and Change, that being that he hopes that someday his arcane spellcasters will change into viable PCs.

This hasn’t happened yet. Typically either Gamer Bling’s wizard or the campaign implodes before the wizard gets to a decent level.

In a curious little bit of synchronicity, one of Gamer Bling’s favorite online comics today posted a strip that had this quote regarding a wizard: “What would happen if we turned the magic off? … You cease to be a mighty wizard and become a fragile pointy-eared monkey.”

This is, of course, true. And therein lies the problem. 

The source of the Nile in this case is Jack Vance, who wrote  a series of books collectively called The Dying Earth, which postulated a peculiar form of magic. Magic spells acted like living entities, and as a wizard flipped through his book of spells, they tried to get off the page and crawl into his brain. They actively wanted to be memorized. They carried their own power. Then he’d cast them and their power would be spent.

You can see how this formed the basis of magic for D&D. A wizard could only hold so many spells in his brain without losing his grip on them, and once cast, they were gone.

So how does such a cool magic concept become a problem for a role-playing game? Because wizards are continually turning their own magic off.

Think about it: Every spell shot is one less option the wizard has. Every spell cast is another 30-degree turn in the dimmer switch of magical power inevitably leading to the wizard turning his own magic off.

As the PHB says, “A few unintelligible words and fleeting gestures carry more power than a battleaxe.” Sadly, the accent is on fleeting. Don’t believe your humble reviewer? Let’s compare.

Under 3e, how long can a fighter swing his axe? All day long. Each chop takes nothing away from the fighter’s potential until the DM fiats an endurance check.

Under 3e, how long can a wizard practice magic? For a stock 16-Int 1st-level specialist wizard casting combat spells, this can be as short as 42 seconds.

Yeah, that’s right. 42 seconds and the wizard has shot his bolt. 42 seconds, and the wizard has gone from someone with Ultimate Cosmic Power to someone who can’t give the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. And over half of that time is spent casting cantrips! Cantrips!

42 seconds. Hmph. Rabbits last longer than that.

Okay, they don’t; Gamer Bling knows this because he used to raise them, but still, his point is made.

According to the 3.5 PHB, page 55, “The wizard’s strength is her spells. Everything else is secondary.” This includes attack bonus, armor class, hit points, fortitude saves, skill points, and survivability in a toe-to-toe confrontation.

Gamer Bling knows.

Gleek died because he was—thanks to a few levels of wimpy d4 hit dice—just a few hit points shy of surviving a trap. He needed those points because he had blown his save, thanks in part to a few levels of negligible reflex save pumps. If Gamer Bling had been smart and kept Gleek a pure rogue, the psychotic little kobold would still be alive today.

In last week’s installment, Gamer Bling’s halfling wizard had shot his bolt of magic and was thereafter useless. Yes, as a dextrous halfling, he had a good chance to hit, but his damage was a mere d3 with a sling, and the extraplanar creature had 5 points of damage reduction. So on a confirmed critical and a double 3 damage, Gamer Bling’s mighty wizard would inflict a plinky 1 damage, which would get regenerated away without so much as an “Oh, bother.”

So, while the PHB says on page 21 that a wizard is “A potent spellcaster schooled in the arcane arts,” we’ve all misread this statement for a long time. What is means is this: Wizards get schooled for having practiced arcane arts.

More to come. In the meantime, give Gamer Bling your worst pathetic-arcane-spellcaster-getting-killed-or-otherwise-tooled sob story. Let others share in your grief. You’ll be glad you did.

3.5e Torment

Gamer Bling’s gaming group has been, shall we say, irregular of late, which does not mean they need Pepto Bismol, although that might in places help out. It does mean that since one of us got a job as a restaurant manager and another got a job that requires getting up at 3 a.m. that arranging a game night has been hard. This was only worsened during the holiday season.

The last time we played was in early September. Yes, that long ago. And we were at that time stuck for the second consecutive session in a horrid trap. So come a week or so ago, we got to play again, which meant a third installment of suffering in this dungeon of dooooom!

Let us review the party: The meat sponge fighter with his two-handed sword of close combat; the druid of self-impalement and voluntary drowning (see this review); the warforged artificer of dysfunctional personality; and the warforged archer/rogue of nonexistent personality. There was also one other PC being played by Yours Truly, who, being apparently a masochist, chose ONCE AGAIN to play an arcane spellcaster.

On the other side: one creature. Gamer Bling does not jest. Three sessions to get one creature. Well, two and a half sessions.

See, we were in a dungeon, and the exit had been magically sealed behind us. Due to some actual role-playing, the wizard did not have his spellbook, nor did the archer have his bow. That left, for the sum total of ranged attackage: the memorized spells of Yours Truly. Good thing Gamer Bling chose to hold some spells unassigned, in reserve to be memorized as the need arose. Yum. Good choice, that. Sort of like leaving your money at home so you won’t lose it in a robbery, then finding yourself in the worst part of town with no way to pay the taxi fare. Which is a closer allegory than Gamer Bling originally thought.

We found one thing standing between us and a presumed exit to the dungeon. (As an aside, Gamer Bling notes that we could have been wrong and spent three sessions killing a single creature only to find that we were still permanently trapped below ground. But that would have been really mean. Three sessions on one creature was only partially mean.)

Why is this creature such a problem? Because we’re talking about an outsider with damage reduction, regeneration, flight, invisibility at will, and hanging out in a vault with a 25-foot-high ceiling. Ooh, we hit the beast? It goes invisible and flies near the ceiling until it’s whole again.

It was going to take some serious thinking to figure out how to wound this beast, let alone defeat it.

Did Gamer Bling mention it had a poisoned throwing dagger of returning, so it didn’t even have to leave the ceiling to attack? Did Gamer Bling mention our archer had left his bow at home?

Session 1 involved us cleaning out the dungeon and fighting our first disastrous battle against the evil thing. We broke for the evening and regrouped. Session 2 involved lot of trying to beat it and lots of failing. Gamer Bling’s wizard fired off all his spells, one by one, to no effect, because the thing had a seriously high AC, and we were only third level against an invisible regenerating flying ranged-attacking regenerating poisonous beast with a high ceiling underground. Gleek would have been jealous.

At one point, Gamer Bling managed to wrangle the tides of battle in our favor. He had one trick left: benign transposition, a spell that instantly switches the locations of two willing subjects. Gamer Bling managed to get the creature to attack him in a small side room. Not terribly bright, considering how long most of Gamer Bling’s arcane PCs last, but hey, necessity is the mother of desperation.

The creature took the bait, and Gamer Bling jaunted ten feet to block the doorway (alternate wizard class feature), then cast benign transposition. Successfully, one must note, having rolled a concentration check when the beast made its attack of opportunity. Gamer Bling swapped places with the up-to-that-point-useless, melee-only, can’t-hit-a-flying-thing-without-rocket-boots fighter.

Whose player made the mistake of being noticeably surprised by Gamer Bling’s actions. See, our DM is a hard-core DM, and Gamer Bling wasn’t going to leak his plan publicly, lest the DM prevent the beast from falling into the trap.

Since the player looked surprised, the DM ruled that he only got a partial attack, not a full one. Lame, we agree.

And the fighter whiffed. But that was okay, because he still blocked the door, hulking shifter that he is. Makes a better wall than door, and a better door than warrior.

Why does Gamer Bling say this? Because the beast used its inherent fear attack (oh, so sorry, did Gamer Bling neglect to mention that, too?), the player boffed the roll and feral shifter became fearful splitter.

Thus ended the sum total of Gamer Bling’s arcane goodness for the day (other than a caltrops spell that served no useful purpose). Gamer Bling says “day” because yes, this whole event took more than one day, requiring roughly week’s worth of game time, and thank goodness we had the druicidal maniac to make food and water, or we would all have perished of thirst.

In session 3, the druicide hotline realized that he had a grappling hook, and started using it to try to snare the beast and bring it down. Not a bad idea. Up until the point when he decided that it might work better if he flung a magical mithral chainmail hauberk at her instead. While she was fluttering over a gateway to another dimension. And he muffed his attack roll (duh), because a chainmail hauberk is more or less the definition of an improvised ranged grappling weapon (Gamer Bling leaves it as an exercise for the reader to dteermine if there are any actual ranged grappling weapons that one can take proficiency in), and the beast was involved in melee combat with us giving him an additional -4 to hit. And then he totally fumbled his “Hope it doesn’t fall through the gateway into another dimension” roll. And thus we never did find out exactly how magical it was. And our self-sealing bucket o’ blood was left to make do without improving his armor class yet again. Which is okay, because if out fighter weren’t lying on the floor coughing up blood, we might not recognize him.

Pulling our hair as we read through our notes of three months ago, we discovered we had a scroll with a single see invisibility spell. So we placed it on our fighter. Because it’s always smart to place such a spell on a guy who can reach out and touch someone, as long as that someone is within melee range, and not, say, comfortably hovering 25 feet off the floor. Duh. Gamer Bling felt kinda dumb. Not quite dumb enough to throw relics into The Pit, but pretty dumb. Especially when the beast cast shatter and blew away the fighter’s one and only weapon. At which point he discovered what it felt like to have no spellbook.

In the end, we did manage to destroy it, although it took a lot of doing and figuring out what the creature’s one and only weakness was, which was that it went berserk when you fiddled with the dimension gate. It was a denouement had that funky smell of gamemaster fiat or poor adventure plotting, and Gamer Bling suspects the latter. Because our DM is not one for fiat like that. Gamer Bling knows this because of how little information we got from studying the runes around the portal, even with pretty good rolls.

Gamer Bling can see it now…

Writer storms into the editor’s office. “Hey, I want the climactic NPC to be a invisible regenerating flying ranged-attacking regenerating poisonous fear-inspiring magic-using beast in a high-ceilinged underground chamber!”

Wiping spittle spray from his face, the editor asks, “Um, how can the PCs win?”

“It’ll get really stupid if they mess with the magic relic that’s too powerful for them to control!”

The editor begins scratching his nose. “Fine by me.”

All of this brings Gamer Bling to what will inevitably be the subject of several of the next blogs: 3.5e vs. 4th Edition.

Yes, he knows his opinion is behind the times. But better late than never. And better Gamer Bling than pretty much anyone else.

In the meantime, no reviews this week, as the Gamer Bling Official Companion decided that today would be a good day to swap all the computers around and switch over to wireless.

But stuff is in the works.

Lame Excuse

Well, it’s week 2, and Gamer Bling had a lot on his plate. He had a review all set up ready to go, but come Thursday morning, he finds he forgot to put it up the night before.

The more Internets-savvy LOLcats out there are snickering in your furry little paws saying, “GB should set up the review to post automatically.” And Yours Truly had thought of that, but being somewhat of a perfectionist, Gamer Bling knows he must also fix links on his index pages when a new review goes live, which is something he cannot do with an automatic update.

But now that it is Thursday morning, Gamer Bling realizes that having a new review on Wednesday without index links is better than having a new review Thursday morning.

So henceforth he will do so. In the meantime, enjoy this review of a keen miniatures carrying case.

Week 1, Promise Kept

Yes, one week of 2009 has passed, and Gamer Bling has managed to keep his “update every Wednesday” promise.

Better yet, Gamer Bling has managed to insinuate himself into the RPG Blogger’s Network as of last night at around 9:14 p.m. EST. Welcome to all you who follow the network. May you find a feast of information, diatribes, and wandering thought in these pages.

Best of all, it looks like the D&D group will meet once more at long last! But that will be included in later posts.

What incisive (if not exactly terse) review does Gamer Bling have for you today?

Well, back about five months ago, Gamer Bling was privileged enough to sit down for lunch with Michael Webb of Alliance Distributors. Gamer Bling says “sit down for lunch” rather than “had lunch” because, in this case, it is much for accurate; thanks to the fact that Michael Webb is one of the coolest men in gaming, his schedule was booked and he could spare no more than ten minutes before his next important sales meeting with Bambi at Club le Thong some important retailer or corporate executive, whichever is more believable.

Loyal fans may remember Michael Webb as the man creative force outright genius behind The Ultimate DM Screen of Dooooom! Well, at the aforementioned lunch, he showed Gamer Bling a retailer bennie that made Gamer Bling gasp with avarice, and probably several other of the seven deadly sins.

It has at last arrived in Gamer Bling’s mailbox.

You may read about it here.

And Gamer Bling expects to be able to post a new review next week, as well.

New Year’s Revolution

Good day, folks. And this post was intended to be written yesterday, but Gamer Bling spent the day with the Official Companion and the Expansions in what is fast becomeing a Southern holiday family tradition: hiking. Specifically, we were out hiking at Pilot Mountain State Park, which supplies driving directions every bit as comprehensible as the rulebooks to the original white-box D&D. And by the time we got back to our Monthly Access Fee, the tubes of the Internets were all plugged and Gamer Bling went through online withdrawal symptoms which include dizziness and going to bed earlier than otherwise.

In any event, Gamer Bling must make a New Year’s Resolution, which is to devote more time to this blog. Which should make everyone but the Gamer Bling Official Companion happy. Because the Gamer Bling Official Companion wants Gamer Bling to spend more time with her. Which he might if time around her didn’t always involve house projects.

Gamer Bling will endeavor to publish something each and every Wednesday. It may not be much, and “endeavor” should be read with the same sober resolve as “campaign promise,” but hey, it’s a start. And it’s better than the occasional two-month gaps that have sometimes appeared between updates.

This is also the year that Gamer Bling, on the advice of the top… men at AvatarArt, will start his first annual push for an ENnie award.

And other neat stuff is coming. Gamer Bling is happy to have you here to be a part of it.

So happy new year!

What Has Gamer Bling Done for You Lately?

Not much, frankly, because Gamer Bling has been down at Operation: Christmas Child helping get shoeboxes full of gifts prepared for shipping to a variety of Third-World countries. That took up a huge chunk of time and precluded Gamer Bling from doing much with this site.

That will be remedied, because Gamer Bling has many reviews to get out, the first of which is this new one on behalf of AvatarArt. And many more to come.

Apologies for the delay.