Min/Max Boards

I just bought a new laptop (replacing my old one, of 8 years....), and I'm curious as to the fastest/best way to transfer my stuff from old to new.  Currently using Google drive to upload all my D&D stuff including all the homebrews so I have access to those anywhere (overdue, yeah), but the other stuff needs to just move over.  So...just a hard drive?  Or is there a better way?  I'll have to dig out my mom's HD wherever it is if I choose that route, that's probably the fastest external HD option we have.

I'm looking to upgrade my desktop a bit, by upgrading the processor.  However, as I have rapidly found out, my motherboard is so old I may need to upgrade that too (because it will be cheaper, and more powerful to do so).  I am by no means a computer expert, so I'm asking the boards for some guidance in choosing the right pair.  Price range is absolutely less than 500, but I want to shoot for 400 or less.  To that end, I've been trying to scale back price from this pair, without scaling back power much:


Now, I don't even know for sure if they'd work, because I'm again, not a computer expert....

My graphics card and RAM are fine right now, with DDR3 dual 6 gig RAM and a 2 gig old one that I don't care too much about, and graphics is nvidia zotac geforce gt 640 lp, also fairly new.

So I guess my major question is...what should I be looking for?  I'm not entirely sure what I should be looking for in this.  My goal is running heavily modded Minecraft and modestly modded Kerbal Space Program well, while streaming on Twitch.  The first is heavy on the RAM, the second is heavy on the processor.  And how do I make sure my current graphics card and ram can work on the new motherboard?

Not scarred.  Scared.  Scarred too.

Prefacing this post, our internet is not the best, nor the most stable.  However, this whole issue I'm going to discuss does NOT seem to be affected by our home internet.

A couple days ago, I went to google to do a google and the google didn't want to google.  In other words, it took more than 5 minutes for google search to load.  I immediately look at our router (I was in the kitchen and can see it from there) and lights are all fine, but that doesn't guarantee good connection.  I load up gmail, loads instantly.  Go to some other site, loads instantly.  Go back to google search....nothing.  Go to youtube, slow, but loads.  Load a video, nothing.  Load a /different/ video, instant.  Has anyone else noticed this?  Or is it my computer?  I've got malwarebytes as my antimalware and it's on constant run mode (and I did run it recently, nothing caught), but no sign of malware.  The only sites that seem to have issues are google run sites.  Everything else I go to (be it news, comics, this site, Cracked, media heavy, media light, doesn't matter) loads fine, but specific google run/owned places have issues.

I'm looking for something that can be sort of a "home forest" for a future druid in a campaign of mine.  Basically, I know about magical locations, but those are about visiting and taking a bonus with you.  I'm looking for something that gives a specific character a bonus when in a specific area.  Sort of like a sanctuary.  Any ideas/books to start in?

I know, right?  Default browsers should be easy to set.  But for some freaking reason, ever since my computer...briefly died, and I had to re-install Chrome, Google Talk insists on opening all links in IE, not Chrome.  I have meticulously searched all of the possible settings, and it all points to Chrome being my default browser, and logically should have things open in it, not IE.  Googling the answer has not yielded results.  Anyone know how to fix this?

So I'm using Excel for lab reports, and it's great and all, but the most annoying thing about it is that it will auto-kill zeroes after decimals, and that's not good for science stuff.  Or money really, but I'm concerned about science.  Right now I have to format each cell (mostly anyways, I can always block format but it's usually different for each column).  What I want to have happen is what I type to just stay in.  I'm okay with auto-correcting text and stuff, but if it's a numbers cell (Excel can tell the difference) I want what I type to be what shows up.  Anyone know how to do that of if it's even possible?

I disagree with you on the base classes thing.  I think that all base classes should be tht 20+levels (20, then epic), but what needs to change is the design.  They should all be viable at all levels, and there needs to be less overlap and specialization in base classes.  PrCs should be the limited level ones.  And in fact, I don't think any PrC should have epic levels.  Basically, a PrC will modify some aspect of your character, and then when you finish the PrC you will remain modified and not need to take any more levels for the modifications to remain relevant.  If that makes sense.

In my long, long road to fixing the whole game, it is now time to work out weapons!  More specifically, damage.  So to that end, I am proposing a simple alternative to the complex damage calculations.  All damages will be listed for the medium sized weapon, unless already stated that the adjustment has been made, such as in monster entries.  There is one track of weapon damage, rather than a bunch of different potential paths for damage increase.  So when creating a weapon, the damage it uses will fall one one part of the damage increase, rather than needing a new entry.  I will post a table this weekend sometime, a table of new damage values for every weapon....every single weapon in the game.....yeah.....not this weekend, but sometime soon....but for now, enjoy the new weapon damage progression.  Every weapon will have a damage listed on this table, and will not deviate, aside from special abilities and such.  It is intended to give a relatively smooth, slow pseudo-quadratic increase.

1/1d2/1d3/1d4/1d6/1d8/1d10/2d6/2d8/2d10/4d6/4d8/4d10/6d8/8d8/12d8/16d8/22d8/28d8/36d8/44d8/54d8/64d8  And so on.

Observant members will note that I'm using the progression that I originally created for use with my record-setting monk damage.  You can easily use the other progression, I just chose this one because I liked how it had a flatter progression towards the end.

In fact, here's the other progression, starting at the 2d10:

2d10/4d6/4d8/4d10/6d8/8d8/12d8/16d8/24d8/32d8/48d8/64d8/96d8/128d8

So how does this look for a replacement to the damage system as is?

So I'm thinking about skills for a moment, and I realize.....wait, how come you either can see people, or you will never be able to find them?  What i'm saying is that I'm not really sure if I like the fact that those with skill points invested in sneak skills will just be able to screw over anyone who hasn't put equal investment into perception skills.  This isn't a sneak/perceive problem exclusively, but it mostly illustrates my point nicely.  So I had a seed of an idea off of that point: what if instead of skill points per level being like they are now, you had drastically reduced resources to devote to skills, and everyone gains ranks in all (class?) skills over time, just not enough to make them awesome.

So basically the idea works somewhat like this:

Every so often, you will gain a rank in every skill (or class skill? or both......you gain +1 skill point in every skill at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 or something, and then in classes at levels 1, 5, 9, 13, and 17?).  Your class (ability? race?  I like race+ability for this.....) grants you a very small number of skill points that you can use to help customize, but won't allow you to go over, say 10-15 ranks in a single skill?  The primary benefit of this I can see is early access to feats that help augment skills in ways to make them even more awesome.  The DCs for skills will remain mostly unchanged, but they will grow slower than they do now in most cases.  Combine with a re-working of the skills themselves, so things like Hide/Move Silently are now Stealth, the DCs scale better, and they accomplish things that they should (Jump lets you effectively fly if you have enough ranks, for instance, around level 15 maybe?).

Ideally this will create less of an immediate discrepancy between those who take skills and those who don't.  I don't think any other aspect of the system is so black and white like this, by level 5 any stealth character will just outright annihilate any non-focused perception character in the opposed check.  So, anyone have thoughts?  Ideas to implement on this front?