Bor prevents the game

I had to cancel the game this Sunday.  First, storm water started to leak into the bathroom downstairs in the game room.   It wasn't catastrophic, but from past experience, I knew that the basement was going to be a bit less than useful for game time.   It turns out things got even worse, about an hour before game time would have started, the power went out and we were in the dark for a few hours.

Everything's dry and re-lit now, and we'll try again in two weeks.

Almost went

I almost went to see the new Conan movie today.   But, finally chickened out when I read this quote in a review  "the audience I saw it with didn't so much leave the theatre as recoil from the theatre."

Deadly Disease for Druids

Last session people were freaking out about druids not being able to cure the tick disease.  I guess everyone at the table was completely blind, because Cure Disease is a 3rd level Druid spell, right there under Call Lightning.

Shopping Trip

I ordered the various volumes of the Hackmaster monster books that I don't have.  I guess waiting till now, I saved a whole bunch of money, since I paid about half the cover price, even including shipping.  All hail amazon.

Behind the Screen, Session 18

General Notes
I think that the feats went pretty well.  It makes fighters much more interesting.  Got ot see "Little Bastard" in action, that was fun.   Still, the guys really needed a wizard when taking on the orc horde.
What's with the inability to hit with a stupid javelin three times?

I was kind of disappointed that we didn't finish the dungeon this week.  I extremely enjoyed myself the session before when they were exploring level 2.  A giant set piece is fun now and again, but I like getting a whole bunch of encounters and pokings and proddings in.  Although, the guys missed two big treasure hauls that week in the dungeon level.

Below 0
The orc battle was a really narrow victory for the PCs.  There was a serious beat down of PC's-1 mortal wound and 1 killed.  Luckily they had the resources to reverse both results.  I must say that I'm really satisfied with the rules for falling below 0 hit points we've been using.   I want that delicate balance between instant-death and never-dead.  

The base rules for D&D was 0 hit points equals dead, but that's just a bit too rough, and doesn't model life or literature very well, there's no chance of having a wounded dude who needs to be carried or rescued.  It comes from miniature war games where you just want to know if a figure is on the field or not.

The alternative that evolved in the main rules was the slow bleed to -10 hit points, but I've found that most of the time this made it nearly impossible for anyone to get killed in combat. 

I like how since there's about a 1 in 3 chance of dying once you hit 0, it is very scary to do so, but it allows most to survive it.  It especially helps mercenaries and henchmen survive, while keeping everyone on their toes.   I think 50/50 would be too much, maybe 1 in 4 would be okay.

Literary Notes

I read a pretty good set of historical novels recently.  It was called "The Conquest Trilogy", consisting of three novels:  Mercenaries, Warriors and Conquest all written by Jack Ludlow.  They deal with the story of the sons of Tancred deHauteville, a minor Norman noble in the generation before William the Conquerer.   The sons, most importantly William "Iron Arm", Robert "Guiscard", and Roger made their way to Southern Italy as mercenaries but eventually conquerered all of Southern Italy and Sicily.  It's a true story and a rather incredible one.   Some of their children will go on to be major leaders of the first crusade as well.    I'd give the series a big positive reccommendation.

I've started watching the SyFy series "Haven", and noticed that it says it is based on the Steven King novel "The Colorado Kid", so I read the novel to see how it hooked up.   Man,  they were using the words "based on" in the most general sort of sense. None of the weird supernatural stuff in the series has anything to do with the book.  The town in the book isn't even called Haven.  None of the major characters of the series are in the book.  I think two minor series characters are based on the 2 main guys from the book, but they really don't do much.  I don't know why they bothered trying to link the two.

If you feel like reading the bible from cover to cover some time, I'd suggest that you can probably skip the book of Leviticus.   It's all descriptions of how to perform various sorts of burnt offerings, a little bit of law, and no action.

News from London

Here's an interesting and important game-related story out of the London riots:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/looters-return-stuff-to-games-workshop-201108124191/