I really hope we can soon partake again in your campaign, Spoony. It is one of the highlights of my week.

Pathfinder, the way 4th ed should have been.

To my Nephew,Spoony
Oy! What a genius! But what’s with all the D&D? What is that? Is that a brand of powder from the old country? And why the Shikza? Your own people not good enough? You never spend your time at home any longer. Your make your mama she cry all night long. She eats pork now just to forget.
Signed,
Your Uncle,
Forky Goldberg

Hey Spoony, I’m local. How about joining my D&D group? Although we are moving away from 4E and towards Pathfinder.

The one thing spoony didn’t go into was the random character generation. Would be super interested what he thinks of the possibly of getting a radioactive yeti completely by accident…

I think the Skill Challenges work best when they are not social. Tracking a guy through a bazaar, tracking someone through a swampy marsh, surviving harsh terrain.

If you want to do social, then it should not be against the same person. Maybe if you’re talking to a bunch of different people, like you’re convincing 3 different barons to send troops to help fight the orcs.

It’s not impossible to do social. My friend ran a 4E adapted Birthright campaign, where we were trying to convince the court that our recent annexing of The Sword Mage’s territory was lawful. It was divided into two parts: we had to drum up a bunch of support beforehand, then we would do the court. We would roleplay out our dealings with the various nobles (not needing too many checks for each but when dealing with 3-4 characters to speed things up it still took a large chunk of the overall skill challenge). Then in the court we would use our History checks to drum up precedence or establish our opponent wasn’t using the correct procedure to undermine his position.

In another skill challenge, we were trying to convince the enemy duke’s cannon fodder minions to defect to us. We were doing opposed diplomacy and bluff vs the opponent’s intimidate. I had an awesome moment where the enemy leader told his army that the cannon fodder minions could either attack and potentially die, or not attack and definitely die when his archers shot them in the backs. I had used my summoned army I got with my Realm Points to drop them right amid the archery line.

Skill challenges should award automatic successes if your player thinks of something clever and should be allowed to be bypassed entirely if the player does something really clever, but you need to design them well or they just become really artificial. I would not recommend a seat of the pants social encounter except maybe an interrogation (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Insight), and even that I wouldn’t make it more than a level 2 encounter, and even then that’s pushing it.

Booster, edit:”player made decks”, pack as one big advantage, it allows player to build there players around a theme. So let’s say I only put in mutation that can be manifestations of speed.

awww man more D&D. After I turned 21 I stopped playing games that didn’t let me win money or end in women taking off their clothes.

Suffer from a similar condition myself, sorry to hear you do to, tho mine is sleep paralysis rather than passing out entirely. Not sure which would be preferable. At least I get to see the people freak out around me when it happens. Coping strategies to avoid hitting the triggers can work, gone eight months without one myself, and only had one because a chest infection sapped all my reserve energy.

The post-TSR AD&D still hasn’t grabbed me. But that’s almost entirely because I just have too much nostalgia invested in 2nd ed. That and not having really done pen and paper RPGs since that era. Perhaps I should look around for a local gaming group to try getting back into it. At least it’s cheaper than WoW.

Regarding the D&D character builder + Essentials:

It’s not in. The D&D boards are full of angry nerds complaining about Wizards’ lack of support to the character builder. Hell, the Dark Sun stuff still isn’t in the builder and that was released in AUGUST. They keep saying they’re committed to getting their shit together on this, but here’s a useful tip for you (or anyone else who is frustrated about this)

Wizards IS granting refunds by request for DDI subscriptions for the month of October in light of failure to provide complete service. I know this because I read about it on the forums and requested a refund myself which was given to me within 3 business days. The process was actually quite painless and they were very polite. I hope this helps!

Hopefully they get their shit together because I think D&D Insider has the potential to be a GREAT source of the information for those of us who run games (especially online campaigns like the one I run) and use their services to assist. Right now.. it’s kinda just.. alright. It gets the job done, but never shows up on time, you know? We’ll see how it goes.

Thanks for the videos, Spoony.

Good luck on the third, dude.
Seriously though, you have heart problems and you’re drinking the Dew? STOP DRINKNING THE DEW!

I’ve only played a VERY little D&D with some friends. It was fun (though I wasn’t very good at it), but I really love listening to people talk about their experiences with it. It’s just interesting. Hell if I know why, though.

I liked your quick look at Gamma world, it sounded really interesting, and really cool.
Looks like something I could really get into, if I had a group to play with that is.
Hope you can play and give a review of it sometime, very curious to learn more.
Hope your tests go well, get better Spoony, I love you man.

Passing out when exerting yourself? The list of causes for that is nearly a mile long. Fortunately, most of them are easy to fix. Here’s a few:

-Hyper exertion of nerve X: the vagus nerve. [This is the usual cause of fainting]
-Too much cholesterol. [This happened to my brother because his liver was too efficient. He's on a low cholesterol diet, now]
-Syncope: too low blood pressure.
- Weak or leaky valves.

Most of these problems are easy to fix. Actually, the earlier you can discover the cause, the better off you are. Good thing you’re going now!

Man every time I see something like this it makes me really want to play D&D. Unfortunately none of my friends are interested. Anywho, good luck at the doctor man.

D&D character builder, by my experience does lag behind. WOTC does have realy crappy web and programming staff.
I’m not a great beliver of 3.5 edittion. I either run 3rd or 4th (allways homerewed).
I preffer 3dr edittion artwork design to 4th edittion.
I did like the 4th edtion Warior choices. I never got to do anything with my warior except “I swing my sword at it” in 3rd edittion. Sure you had all these options like Bull rush and grapple, trip and dissarm etc. But you never used it. They all required at least 5 steps to resolve and all of them provoked atacks of opurtuny. Thats why I liked 4th edittion that ratained those options in adittion to powers that did same kind of things without atacks of opurtunity. With a warrior you all of the sudden a choice of for example luring an enemy into your starting square when you made the atack while yourself mowing somwhere else by 1 square. Or you could push your enemy by one square on to a trap or stairs the mage just froze. Or you could swing your axe at it really hard. Core 4th edittion wariors were based on defender not striker role, thats why it was diffirent to what a lot of players were used to (martial powers book rectified that), I personaly whenever I got stuck in plate wearer role I allways play(ed) it as a plate shield not as damage dealer. Admittedly such wide range of abilities do tend to take a lot of class identity away from well classes.
Almost forgot: Skill challenges – while every skill check that doesen’t allow retry is kind of a skill chalenge, I have found that they don’t work in ussual or mundaine situations. The have their use. In unsuual magic situations. Kind off. It’s still metagame when you have to anounce it. Last time i’ve seen it used it was on 4th edittion PHB3 launch event intro games, and as such had prepublished short adventures (you have no I dea how hard we had to work with our oficcialy WOTC sanctioned DM to get the stuff on time-ish). That adventure had a really good use if skill chalenge. I think it was some kind of twisted teleport that sent us thru a nightmareish dimension and ilussions full of dangers. As a group we had to make N succeses before we had accumulated M failiures. The trick was DM called out what had to be done to succesfully navigate to the other end of “teleport”. There were times where we could decide what who does one of the possible checks, sometimes DM called who had to do a certain check or even called a whole group to make certain check or save (if say 3 people failed the check that counted as 3 failures).
When it comes to comunication skills skill check I allways make players roleplay. Althou it the player talking had his talikng kills somewhere in the basement that alone wouldn’t make a succes. In adittion they still had to make a dice roll. If someone wouldn’t roleplay when makeing a skill check i’d just apply a huge penalty.

Ok Skill Challenges. Now i play Dark Heresy where the skill challenges are used and designed as a “over a period of time”. Using it in an immediate encounter is not necessary the best idea. Image your trying to investigate a group within an entire city. The group use their skills to achieve this goal, say one person starts inquiring around town, another start getting a bit of divination magic going on etc etc. Your combination of the success or failure will change the situation, if your group fails badly, they’ve alerted the group they are after them, if they succeed, they may get themselves to sneak into a group meeting or something.

Basiclly, skill checks are useful for long term goals but not for short interactions

Spoony, you should take it easy on the junk food and soda. Try eating food with more iodine and vitamins.

Spoony I compatise (is that a word?) I have a kind of same thing as you that I pass out after getting up quick or exerting myself, I hope you get to fix it.

Good review, you are our God… well rather our jesus, so go suffer for our sins and do another ffx review :3

No.

I hate Paranoia with a passion. I hope it has a child so that it can be hit by a truck full of mutant Nazi bunnies.

Skill checks work well if you mix the roll and their ability to roleplay. That way if they roll a one half the time like me they can still roleplay their way out of the mess.

The page numbers on the sides of the Gamma World manual, Spoony. I had the same problem when helping my group building

I read the assassin essentials a couple months ago and was blown away too, I figured you’d enjoy that, Spoon. The essentials seems like a good merging of 4.0 abilities and rules with 3.5 and earlier’s classes who actually change with passive upgrades every few levels.

Time to commentate then, as I watch.

-At first with the anniversary I was suspecting some nice Spoon for Spoony, then I was like D: No whoop whoop for an erratic heart. Seriously though man, we all wish you the best. Good luck at the cardiologist.

-I was going to send you an email next year pertaining to 4E, now I don’t have to!

-Yeah, I still have no idea what the essentials is…

-WoW is much less about the roleplaying; during battles you just can’t roleplay because there are scripted mechanics that if you don’t follow, you will die. RP fights can be interesting though. Oh, but I ramble.

-Well, aren’t assassins the masters of slow killing? I agree the shadow thing sounds kinda stupid, but making them bleed is a good idea for what I envision as a light attacker.

-Wish I could help you with that group Spoony. I too know the pains of trying to gather like minded individuals to play something deemed “immature” or “taboo”.

-I really hate DnD art styles, period. They’re so drawn to try and be real but stay in the deepest pits of the uncanny valley.

-I can’t draw either Spoony! But we can both be visually artistic. /snob

-Haha…. Skill challenges can shove it when you can just roleplay. I love making actual scenarios.

-Why are you concerned about updates? I thought you loved AD&D and hate what they’re doing with 4th edition.

-I got BG on GOG, but I just can’t sit myself down to play it. It’s so archaic and I keep dying when I’m just trying to get through the story. I need to force myself through though, because after I play that I get to go play Planescape: Torment which you recommended.

-Mmm…. Walking apocalypse.

-EMBRACING THE MADNESS!

-Never worry about anything showing on camera Noah. Your camera is beyond godly.

-That does sound intriguing… An ever changing character. Could make for some nice roleplaying situations.

-The dreaded curse of trading card collections…. I have like $400 dollars worth of cards, just at retail price, just shoved in my bedside counter thingy.

-A 5 foot mutated badger? I’d expect some…. -sunglasses- …Heavy badgering. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

-You should play a Turl named Turl who acts like your Turl and can accurately tell you the elevation of any point on the planet.

-Awesome sounding campaign, but it just seems for fit to a video game. That way you can really pound home the humor. I never had this conception that really funny settings are meant to be for “heroes” to tread. Really love your explanation though: “Everything happened!”

Thanks a ton for the time Spoony. Remember, any time you need a rant, we’re here.

Get well soon Spoony, mate. All the best

so whats up with paranoia? not into rpg paper games, but love hearing the stories, and about them.

I want that shirt….

Feel better, Spoony.

I had never even heard of Gamma world before, but I think you sold me on it. I would guess, and by the time they come out it may be more prevalent in gaming stores, so they wouldn’t be impossible to get, That there would be “Starter Decks” for each of the types, that would likely be pretty balanced, and I could see using that, in order to create heroes specialized in the different types.

Hope you get well soon Spoony. Perhaps woking so hard and creating all of those self-imposed deadlines could be detrimental to your health, so try taking it easy for a while.

“Create a mutant hero in minutes! JUST ADD WATER!”

I don’t remember Rick Flair using a lot of crossbows, I guess I should of watched more pay-per-views.

Seems to me that gamma world would be good with drafted player decks or no player decks period. As a gm I’m a tyrannt but I like to think I’m fair, to the pit if you think otherwise.

If ya don’t mind I shall use the term “hyper-time buttfuck reality” when asked what the setting is.

It’s like Dragon Dice :D

Jeebus, Spoony, sorry to hear about that upcoming appointment you got. I have chronic seizures so I know how scary it can get, and I have an unsettling doctors visit coming up myself in a couple weeks. Best of luck to you, man.

I played Baldur’s Gate back in the day! I was EXTREMELY happy when I finally beat the game. I killed the true final boss, but his sorcerer assistant was still alive, but hey, once you kill the real final boss, the game promptly ends. Good thing, too, as I was down to my main character, and he was a thief!

I’m stoked to play some table top now. It’s been ages since I last did, too bad I live on the other side of town because I would be down to play a session in person. Hope you get well Noah, take care… Great Vlogs!

You made Gamma World sound so awesome, but I don’t know if I want to deal with the card aspect of it. I mean, I had to quit Magic because it was just a big waste of my money.

That’s the same screen that they sold on it’s own but all flimsy, not cardboard.

I bought the 2nd edition of gamma world back in 1983 and never played it. :( Now I’m nostalgic for table top gaming.

When you mentally prepare yourself and really believe you will have an episode, your body makes it a reality, i.e. placebo is a complicated thing but my advice is just don’t fear because once you let fear get to you it won’t make anything better.

You know Spoony, if Rabbit Nazis are your thing, the Skaven from Warhammer Fantasy are Nazi Rats.
…
Why are Nazis associated with fast-breeding animals so often?

You know Spoony, if Rabbit Nazis are your thing, the Skaven from Warhammer Fantasy are Nazi Rats.
…
Why are Nazis associated with fast-breeding animals so often?

If you just need a color laser printer instead of a copier/scanner/printer combo you probably can find a good used/refurbished one for around $200.

Happy aniversary you two! And btw, when you do get a game of Gamma World together you should set the camera up, loved the footage of your Battlestar Galactica game.

Aw Spoony, dude, feel better. Take time off if you need to, we the fans really appreciate all of what you do to keep us entertained.

Seriously, good luck! hope you feel better soon.

Know that your fans are here for you and happy anniversary to you and Scarlet!

Shame they didn’t go with the old school ink art, I know of which you speak and adore it. Hopefully the name Erol Otus evokes such memories in those of my era.

Know what else works well for a player aid; HEROSCAPE! Seriously, my group has a stockpile of about 8 master sets (thank you Wal Mart clearence) worth of hexes just for the more important battle layouts. We gave all the figure copies away to little kids (but kept one copy, just in case).

Hey Spoony Happy Anniversary and you seriously should chill man. We can go without videos for awhile! I hope everything goes alright and yeah I know how hard anxiety can hit just try and keep your mind off it and do something fun! Anyway these were fun videos which make me want to play D&D all the more. I personally like the 4th ed artwork but yes I agree the set up does need tweaking a bit but then again what game doesn’t? Also learned a lot about games I have never even heard of and Gamma World looks very interesting though seriously the booster pack bs im all with you on that! Oh I know this isnt a tabletop rpg but you should check out Infinite City! It is very fun and quick to play actually nicknamed it Tile Fucker with my friends XD goal is pretty much to control most of the city and get the most points and the tiles each have special abilities when you lay them down which can fuck the other people over so badly. Anyway take care ok? I hope everything goes well and if you need a break do not over think it just rest and relax I am sure we do not want our favorite reviewer in such bad shape.

I got an Inkjet Laser printer/Scanner combo at walmart for around a hundred. Doesn’t do bad, runs out of ink rather fast though even though we barely have to use it. Have to say, you got me right back in the mood to play D&D… I’ve only played a little 3.5 and 4th. I remember in my last game, we all rolled monster chars. I ended up being a stupid gnoll warrior, got everyone screwed over more often than not. Roleplaying chaos that won’t be forgotten anytime soon. Too fun.

I really wanna pick up essentials if it goes back to the origin classes, because I never had a chance to play the original versions and I really wanna know what that was like. Gamma world also sounds like fun… The way I’d handle the booster decks is probably by marking initials on the cards and tossing them into a deck with everyone else’s, so everyone gets the same chance to draw the new cards… and I’d still be able to lay claim to them when all was said and done. I’d probably leave them with the DM, if we went into multiple long sessions. Still, I’m totally with you on that. Four bucks for eight cards?! For a few pieces of cardboard with pretty pictures and text?! Maybe twenty five to thirty pieces of cardboard at best, but not eight. o_O

Also, Have a happy aniversary, a good doc visit, a happy halloween… and if you still don’t feel well, take some time off from the site and rest. We’ll be here whenever you get back. Health/life always comes first. ;)

Oh shit man at 28:18, Spoony gone badass (more than usual) ;)

The thing about skill challenges when done right is that they don’t just hinge the resolution of an encounter on a single person. Instead of one person doing all the talking while the rest listen passively (if everyone joins in people tend to just talk over each other), they split the RP among everyone. Are you a charismatic thief? Well then, here’s your chance to charm someone with your best roleplaying to help the team. Okay, now on to the ranger, how would your character’s knowledge of terrain and beasts help? Go wild, show off how awesome your character is at what he does.
When actually role played skill challenges can be a lot of fun. I’ll admit to having my doubts when we first started doing them, but if the players get into them as a chance to play their characters, rather than just cheesing their stats, they can be a lot of fun.

But you are right, the main challenge for the DM comes from designing them so that every party member has something to do, give them hints if they really feel stuck as to what they can do (like having a related NPC coming around and being told that, hey, you suspect that perhaps not everyone at this court is in agreement with the ruler, and this guy certainly looks unhappy enough to fit) and rewarding them when they come up with something new and unexpected.
If all else fails, they can always assist another player to give them extra dice. So sure, you’re the silent type and not all that threatening, but standing next to your huge axe-wielding gnoll and flashing your own weapon will certainly add to the overall intimidation effect.

Hey spoony! Good luck with your cardiologist hope everything goes well! :D Also I was on your amazon recently and I would so totally get you something but I live in the Uk maybe I should buy from Amazon.co.uk then have it shipped off to you? :D

Oh man. Gamma World sounded interesting until you mentioned the cards.
I already know where this is going too…as an Ex/Casual Magic player, I know that Wizards of the Coast knows about the power of Twink cards. They know how to rape your wallet with the cardboard crack.

In the most current competitive format of Magic (Standard, for the initiated), there are cards that sell for upwards of 50 bucks EACH just due to their scarcity and usefulness. That’s beyond madness, that’s evil.

Wizards claims that they don’t make decisions based on the secondary market, but that’s a total lie. They have designed their last two years worth of blocks specifically to sell more packs by making the only noteworthy competitive cards rare or higher.

In fact, they invented a new rarity specifically to artificially inflate the effective price of packs without actually raising the price per pack. It’s genius and evil.

The worst part? Wizards keeps promoting the game as one to be played based on execution.
If that were the case, then they would have to cut the useless chaff that populates 95% of their sets and sell the cards in box sets to be played.
But that isn’t nearly as profitable as putting nothing but total garbage at the common and uncommon rarities, and then filling over half of the rare slots with overcosted trash anyway.

Current packs are 14 cards plus one useless land or token for about 4 bucks (3.50 if you’re lucky) each.
Fairly painful if you don’t have plenty of disposable income, seeing how the vast majority of the cards you will pull are completely worthless (they exist for the Draft and Sealed formats…which are seldom played competitively, usually only at Pre-Releases and Release games).

So when I look at Gamma World, and see 8 cards for 4 bucks, I’m looking at a scam.
It’s bad for gameplay balance purposes,and it rewards the player who spent the most money, which sort of defeats the role-playing nature of the game.

Oh man. Gamma World sounded interesting until you mentioned the cards.
I already know where this is going too…as an Ex/Casual Magic player, I know that Wizards of the Coast knows about the power of Twink cards. They know how to rape your wallet with the cardboard crack.

In the most current competitive format of Magic (Standard, for the initiated), there are cards that sell for upwards of 50 bucks EACH just due to their scarcity and usefulness. That’s beyond madness, that’s evil.

Wizards claims that they don’t make decisions based on the secondary market, but that’s a total lie. They have designed their last two years worth of blocks specifically to sell more packs by making the only noteworthy competitive cards rare or higher.

In fact, they invented a new rarity specifically to artificially inflate the effective price of packs without actually raising the price per pack. It’s genius and evil.

The worst part? Wizards keeps promoting the game as one to be played based on execution.
If that were the case, then they would have to cut the useless chaff that populates 95% of their sets and sell the cards in box sets to be played.
But that isn’t nearly as profitable as putting nothing but total garbage at the common and uncommon rarities, and then filling over half of the rare slots with overcosted trash anyway.

Current packs are 14 cards plus one useless land or token for about 4 bucks (3.50 if you’re lucky) each.
Fairly painful if you don’t have plenty of disposable income, seeing how the vast majority of the cards you will pull are completely worthless (they exist for the Draft and Sealed formats…which are seldom played competitively, usually only at Pre-Releases and Release games).

So when I look at Gamma World, and see 8 cards for 4 bucks, I’m looking at a scam.
It’s bad for gameplay balance purposes,and it rewards the player who spent the most money, which sort of defeats the role-playing nature of the game.

Good luck, Spoony! I passed out so many times back in high school, so I totally get what you mean. Hope everything goes well!

Good luck, Spoony! I passed out so many times back in high school, so I totally get what you mean. Hope everything goes well!

I would love it if you made a video of you playing D&D with your “team” like you did with Battlestar Galactica: The Boardgame It actualy made me want to try that game, and I did. I need help being a better DM

Those crows? are carrying Ebola, or at least another Filovirus.

I love that shirt, wish I could find one.
Nazi Rabbits… that just sounds awesome.

If you read on you get some powers from your origin. Also the page number is in the middle of the edge of the page :)

Dude i have a doctors Appointment on the 3rd. for 4 days straight i’ve been having nightmares.

$2.99 for magic boosters? Shit! In Britain we’d pay £4!!!

As someone who played DnD 10 years ago and now wants to get back into the game and play it with a number of people who have never played DnD. Would it be better to get the DM Essential Kit or that Red Box essential DnD kit they are selling?

I’d love to learn how to play D&D I’d love to play also, but its a matter of the nearest store that sells the red books, which are cool, is 50 miles away from my current location and I don’t have the money to spend on getting a guide and not being able to play but once a week or so. I’d love to play online with you spoony I’m just not sure it’s possible.

STOP DRINKING THE SODA PLS I LUV U SPOONY

Don’t worry, man, I’m sure everything’s going to be ok, cardiologists know what they are doing, that’s the same thing they do with people that has suffered a heart attack, so it’s ok. I hope they find a nice treatment and you get better soon, man, cheer up!

Hey Spoony!

As someone who’s an active follower of tabletop games, it’s really interesting to see your reaction to Essentials. My impression is that you’re exactly who it’s meant for – you like 4e, but you’ve also played older editions, and you have your own expectations for how things should work. The essentials builds seem like they’re really designed with that in mind – the Fighter swings his sword, the Thief backstabs, and the Wizard memorizes spells.

I think it’s great, personally. I mean, 4e is probably my favorite RPG right now, and I actually like the power setup because it lets me play a Warrior who isn’t just rolling the same attack every round while the Spellcaster has a huge arsenal of spells. But you know, they set out to make it as balanced as possible, and I think they did a great job, so now that the system is a little more mature they’re starting to play around with the strict formula that the earlier classes followed, so you get a Fighter who is more simple to play, who doesn’t have the daily abilities, but who’s still equal to any of the other characters. It really is very cool.

Syncope brought on by exercise… AORTIC STENOSIS RESULTING IN SLOW-RISING CAROTID PULSE! I CALLED IT!!!

… *cough cough* sorry. Ingrained reflex from way too many case-based tutorials with a lot of yelling and shouting. Aortic stenosis just sounds like the most likely problem from the little I’ve heard (but I’m still a student so the chance that I’m completely wrong is very high).

In any case, it’s not really my concern. Here’s hoping that it’s not too serious and it doesn’t get any worse, and mostly hoping that you’re feeling better soon. (Btw, If it IS a valvular disease, then there are a lot of different pathophysiological origins that change how the treatment is handled, but cardiologists are really good at this kind of thing and there are HEAPS of treatment options out there.)

Anyway, please don’t push yourself too hard. And if you get light-headed or get black-spots in your vision LIE DOWN. Seriously, do NOT keep standing up. And I may be pointing out the obvious here, but don’t handle sharp objects if you’re feeling a bit out of it. … No, really.

Syncope brought on by exercise… AORTIC STENOSIS RESULTING IN SLOW-RISING CAROTID PULSE! I CALLED IT!!!

… *cough cough* sorry. Ingrained reflex from way too many case-based tutorials with a lot of yelling and shouting. Aortic stenosis just sounds like the most likely problem from the little I’ve heard (but I’m still a student so the chance that I’m completely wrong is very high).

In any case, it’s not really my concern. Here’s hoping that it’s not too serious and it doesn’t get any worse, and mostly hoping that you’re feeling better soon. (Btw, If it IS a valvular disease, then there are a lot of different pathophysiological origins that change how the treatment is handled, but cardiologists are really good at this kind of thing and there are HEAPS of treatment options out there.)

Anyway, please don’t push yourself too hard. And if you get light-headed or get black-spots in your vision LIE DOWN. Seriously, do NOT keep standing up. And I may be pointing out the obvious here, but don’t handle sharp objects if you’re feeling a bit out of it. … No, really.

health first, Spoony One, really hope your tests go all right and they can give you some answers

good thoughts to you, take care!

Wow, good luck on the medical tests hope you get better. On a side note, when you get a bunch of people together to play gamma world you should record it. I’ve never played an rpg and this one seems like it’d be a good starter, so it’d be nice to see how it plays out.

I have to disagree on that every Slayer will be the same, and that every Rogue will be the same, etc… The reason are the feats at least for martial strikers, after messing with feats from past sources (that WotC already said you can use) a player can create a very unique and functional kind of slayer, a good example will be a great-spear slayer, with the right feats, you can have a slayer that charge from target to target every turn like like a crazy grasshopper on Heroic Tier. It will play and feel different from heavy blade or axe a player is guided on the book. Funny is that it makes some not as attractive options from feats and paragon a lot more attractive, because melee basics attacks matter now (you only saw melee basic on standard from triggering effects) and you can end with some very damaging combos (some say power strike from slayer is very underpowered compared to having encounters and dailies , but with certain combo of paragon and feats, you can make it hit harder than a daily in total and it require you to have a versatile 1 handed axe). The really good advantage of essential beside making classes more fun to play (at least slayer, thief, assassin…before the Nerf) and make them more unique to them self, is that is a lot easier to build and harder to mess up a character creation.

BTW, i heard that the almost perfect assassins from the beta were destroyed now that they are live, i can’t confirm it because i could not longer afford to pay DDI (bad times). But i have read a few of the changes on some forums and so far everybody hate it.

man! i wish i could see that new assassin build..

i would like to start playing D&D what should i start with?

While I personally don’t care for 4th edition (Essentials or otherwise). I do have to say that I enjoy hearing about it immensely.

 I have to thank you Spoony; it was you who got me into Deadlands when you mentioned it in in the Gamma World unboxing. I now run a weekly Deadlands campaign with a group of friends. So yeah; thanks for the recommendation! 

Nazi Bunnies @_@?!

I’ve never played this game (gammaworld) but it sounds kinda cool how you can have your own personalized deck. I think that it would help to create a more unique identity for your character by giving him more direction with what powers he or she can get. Perhaps it should be limited to a totally unique deck (max 1 of each card) but I think you shouldn’t immediately dump on the personal deck thing. Surely as a DM you would be well within your right to check out each personal deck and have your say in what can and cannot be in there with regard to a characters background.

Skill challenges are weird. The idea is cool, get the whole party involved in non-combat encounters. But the way they’re presented in the game itself is confused and wrong. Mike Mearls did a series of posts about how he uses them in his own game–I think they’re only on his blog, though–that people definitely need to read if they still have problems with skill challenges. He should have written the skill challenges section of the DMG. He explains it much clearer.