Min/Max Boards

Hello all,

What's up? I haven't been online for years now, any news you'd like to share with me?

Best regards,
Dimitris

So I have created a page that enables you to sort the forms that you can acquire using wild shape based on different attributes.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20183245/site/druid/animal.html

What you see

A list of all available wild shape forms (it's incomplete - but it's useful for this testing phase). I've built an sqlite database that contains the forms and turns them into html boxes.

Each of those boxes represents a form. A form has a list of all those abilities and a total score, which is calculated based on the abilities that the form has.

score = size + speed + special + rating + attacks + str + dex + con + natural armor

size = (1 if diminutive ... 7 if gargantuan)
speed = (total ft * weight, weight = 0.9 if swim, 1.1 if burrow, 1.2 if fly, 1 otherwise)
special = 1 per special ability

Because the result of speed is somewhere in the hundreds and natural armor rarely is higher than 10, all scores are normalized before they are added to the total score, according to the popular formula:

normalized = (value - min)/(max - min)
Initially, the forms are ordered by total score.

Additionally, the set [min score, max score] is broken up into four segments; the items that belong to each segment are then assigned a color code - red, black, blue and navy (the color coding that I traditionally use).

What you can do

1. Filter forms according to their color or book. These can be combined - you may want to select only those forms that fall into the blue category from MMII for instance; to do this you just click on a blue header and then click on the 'monster manual II' book (or in reverse order - that works, too).
2. Reset a specific filter. If you want to see all the available options from monster manual II, regardless of their color code, you'll have to reset the color filter. To do this just control + click on the blue header. The same works for books.
3. Ban. If you shift + click on a color or a book then the boxes that belong to that category will be hidden. There is no reset for this kind of filter unless you refresh the page. This is useful if your DM bans a specific book, but doesn't make much sense for colors.
4. Change the order of the forms. Just click on an attribute and the forms will be automatically sorted based on that attribute. You can combine orders - e.g. order them first by speed and then by natural armor. The active order will color the appropriate attribute(s) with a grey background, so that you know which ordering is currently active.
5. Vote for a specific form by pressing the tick symbol on the top left of the box. Your vote will be kept and it will mildly influence the rating of a specific form. If the vote was successfully taken, then the tick sign will change color to black.

What I want input on

1. Is this thing useful? I'm planning to extend this to animal companions, summons and spells.
2. If anyone has problems using the page with his browser, please notify me.
3. I'm not much of a designer - do you find the design attractive? Anything that could be improved?

Finally, if anyone could help me out with data entry, as it's a slow and painful process (and my free time is limited), please send me a message.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20183245/encounterBootstrap.html

Check it out!

So, now that 5th edition is out, I decided to expand my book selection a bit.

Does anyone know any bookstore in Europe that sells rpg books? (even if they're second hand, I don't really mind) I've found a few ones online, but they're mostly located in the USA, which means that the cost to transport the books is too damn high for me.

An ancient empire rises and falls.

Cavemen at the dawn of time found the first civilization.

Mankind leaves the sick Earth behind and spreads out to the stars.

The current topic is "the big picture". We need to brainstorm and pick something big that will define our "world" within one or two short sentences, like the previous quotes.

Post away!

P.S. The most important rule is: don't share your ideas with other players! Let's take it step by step.

This is an attempt to reboot the attempt that we've started a couple of years ago. The idea is to use the microscope rpg to create our own campaign world for d&d.

If everything goes well, we could go further and flesh out a whole campaign (using the game's rules) and transform it in a ready-to-play adventure for other people.

Anyone interested?

I've played a fair share of V:tM and I quite like the theme/backstory of the game. However, I don't like the system that much and my party agrees on that, especially on the rolling mechanism with successes and botches. This has led us to play mostly diceless, with the DM enforcing rolls when something is extremely out of the ordinary or he wants to create random effects or it's something critical to the story, like leading to the death of a central character.

Is there any rpg system that fits the 'rules light, story-driven' that V:tM could be converted to in order to fit our needs, but still have some kind of support for backgrounds, morality and disciplines?

sqlite> select distinct sourcebook from dndcritters;
SRD
Fiend Folio
Monster Manual 3
Libris Mortis
StormWrack
Monster Manual
SandStorm
FrostBurn
Monster Manual 2
Monster Manual 4
sqlite> select count(*) from dndcritters;
1470
I'm now working with html5sql.js to make it run client-side, in order to be accessible to all, without needing a host.

Anyone that interested in statistics, just let me know and I'll run some queries to retrieve them.
Anyone's interested in populating the database with creatures from other books?

So far my list is:

Power Attack
Combat Reflexes
Karmic Strike
Robilar's Gambit
Standstill
EWP(Spiked Chain)
Improved Trip
Knockback
Boomerang Daze
Woodland Archer
Combat Brute
Shock Trooper
High Sword Low Axe
Defensive Sweep
Battle Jump

There are many things people say when discussing optimized builds (generally, not necessarily about D&D); however, the thing that bugs me the most is calling their build a "tank".

Most people, when saying that they're a 'tank', they mean that they have lots of defenses, with a focus on hit points and armor class; this is what I call a passive tank and assuming that the enemies have half a brain (or the DM doesn't make intelligent enemies stupid on purpose), they are actually bad for their team, because the monsters will just go and eliminate his allies, ignoring the passive tank.

An obvious improvement to the passive tank is having abilities that enable him to get enemies to attack him; abilities such as 'Goad', the tripping maneuver, 'Standstill', or abilities that enhance your attacks of opportunity by giving the additional provocation conditions, are all ways to transform the passive tank to an active tank.  However, while active tanks are not a liability to your team per se, they are many situations that they are simply not optimal.

My position is this: there's no 'tank' archetype, just because, all members of the party must do everything in their power in order to improve their defenses, i.e. be 'tanks'. This is the reason why constitution is so important and some people despise races that lose con, such as most elves. Having a single party member with awesome AC & hit points, doesn't mean that all other members are covered.

P.S. Even though this isn't true for most builds (e.g. Crusaders are the most notable out-of-can exception), 'tanks' do not focus on damage output. Which is also a thing that bugs me even further - their namesakes usually feature high-caliber main guns, turrets and machine guns.

Discuss!