Min/Max Boards

I've never rolled up a Spirit Shaman before, but Kuro's game beckoned and the concept of a Spirit Shaman/SotMI/WitW was compelling.  We're starting at 7th level, which means - because WitW drops a caster level at 1st - I have ONE 3rd level spell to tide me over until next level.  As you know, "until next level" in a PbP game can be a very long wait indeed, potentially.  Which spell would you recommend?

Feats are: Skill Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Spontaneous Summoner, Heat Endurance, Ashbound, and Improved Heat Endurance.  I took Reckless and Noncombatant to go with an 8 STR, so if you're recommending a spell reliant on melee or touch, I'd appreciate keeping those factors in mind.

Question no longer relevant.  Please delete.

Have you ever had a GM take elements of the backstory for your character and change them as the basis of a plot arc?  Has a GM asked you to rewrite - or simply ignored - parts of a replacement character's background that didn't 'fit' with the general arc of the campaign?  How did you handle it?  If you were the GM (and it was brought to your attention), what explanation did you give, and did anything change?

Examples I've seen include:

• Character envisioned as an only child spontaneously gains long-lost siblings.
• Cosmetic changes to one or more background character, such as making the character's old fencing master into a Half-Elf, when she was written as a Maenad.
• Timeline alterations: The important event that caused the character to find his mentor in the first place was a botched hit on the mentor and his apprentice (your character), who wasn't apprenticed yet.

DMs, have you ever included an item in your loot piñata's inventory 'just for fun?'  Players, have you ever identified a custom magic item and responded with "What the bloody blue hell?  "  That's the basis of this game.

Here's how it works:  One person describes a unique magic item that is neither weapon nor armor/shield, nor explicitly designed to work to augment offense/defense, for the purposes of this game; there's no need to spend too much time handwringing over the precise price or the exact combination of magics to make it work as described.  The next person comes up with a legitimate, in-game use for the item aside from selling it, siphoning off the magic, or otherwise making it someone else's problem.  That person, in turn, describes a new magic item, and so on.  Clear?

First magic item:  This ordinary looking, polished metal mirror has been permanently enchanted with an "always on" Dimension Door effect.  Any living, sentient (INT > 2) creature who touches its surface is instantly transferred to a spot up to 30' away which is capable of supporting that creature's weight, with no saving throw.

When I started DMing my current game, we all agreed on some basic ground rules.

• While nobody is required to be here, repeated absences put a strain on the others in the group and within the game world.  Multiple absences (5 or more) within a six-month span will potentially result in your being asked to find a new game.
• Computers and cell phones at the table are either very useful, or very distracting.  Using the computer for social networking or surfing the 'net for non-game related material indicates you'd rather be doing something other than playing this game.  You're welcome to make that choice, but don't keep stringing the rest of us along if so.
• All of you agree to be responsible for your own character sheets and dice (I asked).  Please don't make a habit of coming unprepared and taking up game time reproducing your character, or begging dice every week.
• Given a small window of time in which to game (4 hours a week), being late is an imposition on all the players' gaming.  Please be on time, or notify someone (preferably the DM) if you know you're going to be late.

Folks consistently had trouble being on time, so we moved the start time back half an hour with the explicit understanding that we didn't want to see this be a moving goalpost; the folks who were late before are now late by the same margin as before, however.  There's no advance notice of this aside from ongoing precedent.

One player has missed 4 weeks in a row, and 7 in the last ninety days.  Another, defending that player, insisted last week that SPEAKING LOUDLY AT ME was not the same thing as SHOUTING when I brought up the player's repeated missed sessions; for my part, I replied that the fact that you can shout louder than you are right now doesn't mean you're not actually shouting at the moment.  The player who was "not shouting" declined to come this week, as did the regularly absent player.  Another player, who has consistently forgotten either dice or sheet, declined to come because I'd reminded that player about the agreement regarding coming prepared.

At least three of the players in the group will consistently bring their laptops, and, if I were to ask, they'll say they're only looking at things related to the game.  A walk around the gaming table tells me they consider Facebook, a flash games site, and Tumblr "related to the game."  When this is brought up, they express bewilderment that the agreement about surfing the 'net should also apply to them, despite having already agreed to it (in at least one case, suggesting it themselves) ahead of time.  Cell phone use is often similarly unfocused, not a work or family-related issue, and disruptive.

Is it time to move past the "don't kick players out of your game" idea for me?  Maybe time for me to be the one to leave?  I don't know.

Prelude: This is just ranting to get it off my chest.  No doubt there were other things I could have done in the situation.

I'm taking a freshman-level class in one of the Earth Sciences at college as I continue the world's slowest march toward an undergraduate degree.  We just got back the most annoying take-home exam I can recall seeing or hearing about.  Highlights include:

1. Professor expresses an expectation of 9 hours plus spent on the exam - over the course of one weekend, for a freshman-level test.  I've had junior-level courses that didn't expect that long an investment of time, over a longer turn-around on the assignment.

2. A literal, pedantic reading of the "academic honesty agreement" we were required to sign means that telling another student, or my parents, or another professor WHAT I GOT ON THE EXAM puts me in violation of terms, and subject to disciplinary action.

3.  Please identify the hardness of this specific mineral which is not listed on any of the allowed sources from which you may draw.  Leaving it blank, saying "unknown" or "Not listed in allowed sources" gets listed as a wrong answer, while giving the right answer gets marked wrong if no source for the information is given.  Giving a source that's not on the allowed list as the origin for your answer both gets marked wrong AND gets you reported to the Dean for academic dishonesty.

4.  Given a scale of [for example] 1: 20000 and a river that takes up [for example] 21 inches in length on the map, how big is the map?

 

Say a gnome druid with water-breathing and a medium-sized water elemental allows herself to be engulfed by that companion, just before an ogre barbarian with an axe swings at "them."  Is it possible to hit the druid?  Does being inside the water elemental provide any cover/concealment/other miss chance or AC?  Does hitting the water elemental do damage to the druid? 

For going on three days now, Yahoo! Messenger has been giving me a "temporary" error that prevents it from signing in.  The Troubleshooting log it offers would seem to indicate "PASSED" at every stage in their log-in process, yet it still refuses to connect/log-in.  Their helpful suggestion to "connect directly" instead of through a proxy merely accelerates the rate at which it fails to connect.  I deleted and re-installed Messenger, to no avail.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Since getting my own subforum for the Brave New World game (thanks Prime32!) I'm not able to see a "reply" option in any of the PbP forums other than my own subforum, or modify my posts within those forums.  I assume this is "bug," not "feature?"

Have a grievance or a concern about a ruling in the game?  Here's where it goes.

Procedure:

1. Post your grievance here within 48 hours of the event, linking the post where the problem arose.  Post page references to support your position.

2. I'll review within 48 hours.  If there's cause and it's not disruptive, I may reverse my ruling retroactively, or I may acknowledge the error with the note that it works as your citations indicate going forward, without changing the ruling already made.  Otherwise, I'll let you know nothing's changing.

3. You may post an additional citation, if you've found one, I haven't changed anything to your benefit, and it's within 48 hours of Step 2's resolution.  I'll review it, and may change how things are ruled going forward.  If I don't see cause to change a ruling by this point, please let it drop.