Put in my place?

Well, I don't actually know how to feel. I should have expected something like this, but I was hoping for a bit of discourse as well. You see, I have taken an interest in pretty much all things D&D before 4e over the last couple years.

Today, Alexis over at Tao of D&D put up an entry A View To Turning Undead. I, in all my exuberance, wrote up what I thought was a decent idea(with my ignorance of a lot of D&D baked in, but acknowledged). You can see the comment I wrote up over there. Alexis comes back with his thoughts on my idea, so I post again, hoping to have him point out a lot more of the flaws in what I proposed. He shuts me down. Cold. Oh well. I know he is a busy man, and I understand how he can be from reading his blog. Still gonna continue reading, might restrain myself from commenting a little more in the future. Probably just killed all my chances of being a player in his online campaign. Nuts, I was kinda looking forward to that.


On second thought, I am going to post my proposed system here. Just so I have it myself and I can find it again. If anyone wants to critique the proposed undead turning rules below, go ahead. This has a good chance to become a house rule if I ever start playing the part of a DM.
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*Disclaimer: I have very little d&d experience. I also don't have a rule book in front of me, so the appropriate dice/rules may not be properly referenced.


From the way that I have seen other d&d bloggers describe turning undead, it seems that Turning Undead is an act of the caster to channel their god(s) will against un-life, thereby making them run away or cower. Failure of conviction in their god(s) causes total/partial failure.

Would an opposed roll against the undead present in combat work? It could either be done as total group turning for simplicity, with HD added up, or single target turning. In the case of whole group turning, there should be no total failure unless a very low number is rolled. There is bound to be a small percentage that always will be affected.
Modifiers could be (Caster Level*2HD) - total Monster HD. +1/difference rounded down for d20, 5% * difference for d100. Obviously this can go negative modifiers as well if it is a really big HD monster(Dracula, Lich, etc)

Example:
Group encounters 8 undead of 1/2 HD each. So 4 total HD. Cleric is level 3. Under Alexis' rules, he has the ability to turn up to 6HD worth of undead. So his total bonus to turning the group would be 2 on a d20, or 5%*2 = 10% on a d100 with what I have proposed.

Now here is the divergence. More or less work for the DM, depending on group or individual rolls. Or it can be a lot of work for both, as straight up opposed rolls are done with a modifier that decreases after each turning attempt, by the HD of the undead. This means recalculation of the modifier each time.

Whole Group turning: DM & Cleric Roll, add bonuses, 79 and 53+10=63 respectively. We can say that the whole group is not turned, but only the difference in the rolls. So, 16% of the Undead would be affected. Well its hard to affect a partial, so we will say rounded down. So,8*16% = 1 undead is turned. EDIT: I am actually going to change this to be all but 1 undead is turned. The caster had enough faith to affect all but one undead, so the rest cower/flee for an as yet to be determined amount of time.

Group individual: We will give the Cleric the same attempt roll, 53, but the bonus is bigger, as it is being applied individually as a negative modifier to each undead. Some random rolls on a d100 later, we have 43, 44, 59, 68, 83, 18 ,82, 58. All of these rolls would be modified by Floor(6-1/2)*5% = 25%. So after the fact they are 18, 19, 34, 43 , 58, -7, 57, 33. So in this application, all but 2 undead are turned.

Is your Diablo 3 client downloader slow?

The question: Why is my Diablo 3 client downloader so slow?

The answer? A setting in Internet Explorer. This is exactly what I did to go from having my downloads languishing at 500 KB/s, and no data getting downloaded (strange, I know), to maxing out my connection.

Open up Internet Explorer, if you are not reading this from it, and go to tools->internet options->connections->lan settings.
Once there, uncheck the box that says "Automatically detect settings". Boom, instant super speedy download.

I hope that this has helped you in some way, and all my thanks goes to mrpudgy for pointing out this solution!

September 2011 Facebook update

Or how to put it back to the way it was at the beginning of the month, temporarily.

Easy fix, no idea how long it will last. Simply go to the bottom of your facebook page, and click on the language setting link (mine was set to English (US)), and change it to something else. Most english speaking people will more than likely want to use English (UK), which is what I set mine to. And Voila, back to the facebook we all know and love :)

To all the Rioting douchetards, who made my country look like shit....

http://riot2011frontlines.tumblr.com/post/6682186192/a-e-r-nurses-thoughts-on-an-instigators-apology


This lady gets it. She does her job. She is the complete anti-thesis of you. She actually does something that makes a difference. You, you cost people time and money.

Time, because there were several platoons of caring citizens who went and cleaned up the mess you made, all over a hockey game. If you want to riot, go riot about some of the injustices that are being done in our country.

Money, well that one is a bit more self explanatory... You busted up innocent businesses, you took said businesses stock, without paying for it, and you burned cars... Police cars, no less, which your taxes helped pay for at some point.

So next time you feel like rioting and looting, look over your shoulder before you go to bed, because I, or someone like me, might be coming up behind you with a clue-by-four to knock a bit of sense into you, and send you legitimately to the ER.

/rant

An itch I have started to scratch

Well, after wanting something to fill the time when I am at home, and need something to do(other than work on my new house). I have come upon a new idea for a mobile application. It has something to do with a relatively new hobby of mine, tabletop gaming. More specifically, Dungeons and Dragons, 3.5 Edition.

This is my first real foray into Java programming in some years. I have been C# and .Net programming pretty much since I got out of university. This is also the first real Android project I am committing to, with plans at a later date to port it over to iPhone/Pad and Windows Mobile 7... Blackberry can go screw themselves, as I do not see them as worthy of my attention. Who really buys those anyways, except stuffed shirts?

But back to the project... I see it as a bit of a massive undertaking, as there is a lot of material to go through. But hey, I figure I have to try. This guy, Torsten Wiederkehr, created this awesome d20 character sheet app, and I love it. It is what has inspired me. So, Mr. Wiederkehr, I salute you, and thank you. I am in for a lot of pain, but I will get this done.

Happiness!

Yay, my RMA'd board is back... the power/wireless bracket is a little bit bent, but I can deal with that... The Maniacal laughter and abonination construction continues tonight, perhaps for a few hours...

Testing will be done to ensure that this thing starts up... Windows may even get put on a spare harddrive, just so that I can start getting it setup.

A minor setback

Well, I encountered a minor setback last week... Fired up the motherboard, and it would not post at all... So I submitted an RMA for it, and it was approved ridiculously, the next day after I submitted it. Guess I should get on sending it in.

Wootloops

My 4gigs of G.Skill Ram came in today. Thank you NCIX.

Will be appropriating a dvd rom from somewhere and installing a custom windows7 on the box within the next couple days. RT7 Lite makes this possible. Thank you internet.

I like to DIY

As the title suggests, if I can make it myself, I DIY it. So thats what I did when I wanted a wired remote for my DSLR camera, a Pentax K110D. This remote, incidentally, will work with most camera's that take a 2.5mm mini jack for the trigger. It was not that hard at all to fab up, considering I had a nice little case I could put it in. Namely, an old remote control car one that I had laying around. More on that in a bit.

First off, here's the basic wiring schematic of whats going on. The basic principle behind how this works is that you have to complete the circuit from ground to one of the stereo poles, for it to either perform a half click, or full click. The tip of the plug will be your shutter, the ring will be your half press, and the sleeve will be your common ground. I used 2 momentary switches that I bought at The Source / Radioshack, and a toggle switch as well for continuous shooting, like when you go and do star trails.

For my wire, i just used some junk cat5 cable that I had, and it seems to do the trick just nicely. For tools, all I needed was my soldering iron, some solder, my drill and some drill bits to make the correct sized hold in the casing.

This is the final product. Red takes a picture, black focus', and the the toggle in the center is constant shooting.

And so it begins...

The almighty original Microsoft Xbox. The original media box for your tv, if you were fortunate enough to have one. I, unfortunatly, was not one of those people who was lucky enough to have one at that time. Nor am I lucky enough to own a 360 at the moment. Oh well, I have more fun playing with my Wii (rofl) and my PC.

This is the shell that I purchased last summer for like $10, when I originally wanted to start this project. I had a mini ATX board that I was gonna use, until I measured it out, and found that it was too big... Oh well, project shelved until I could find something that would fit properly. That is until I found the board that you can see lurking on the right hand side. A Zotac IONITX-A. It fits perfectly... But more on that later.

First order of business was to figure out where the board was gonna sit. Whats that Jim-Bob?? Back right corner, you say?? Git-r-done! So I set about lining it up where it should go, and getting rid all the stuff that was in the way. Like the little stand off that is visible on the right. Took all of those out, and I had a fairly good spot for planning.


The next step was to find a bunch of brass stand offs that the board would be secured to. Good thing I am a geek, and keep all kinds of non-sense computer hardware around the house. Actually found all the screws and stand offs that I currently needed in my current computer cases extra supply box(rocking an Antec P180, such a nice case, but heavy >.<). Anyways, put those on the Zotac, then proceeded to mark out where the back plate was going to be. Next up, sharp tools /evil.

This is the results of me playing with power tools, and about a 1/2 hour or so of using a hand saw, I have the resulting hole:

Thats the exact size of the back plate, and the perfect height for the standoffs. Go me.

After that, it was a matter of putting the back plate in, and do a test fit of the board without the EM shield in. Looks good so far. I am pleased. Almost sacrificing a virgin pleased... Wait, what am I saying!?!? A sacrificed virgin is a wasted virgin. Yea, thats better. I don't know what I was thinking there for a second. I should punish myself for that blasphemous thought with a beer when I get home from work tonight.

Anyways, onto doing the same thing to the EM shield that was originally in the XBox case. The basic Idea behind doing this was to throw it back in the box, then trace the hole, and cut it out with a pair of something that will cut metal. Sidecutters, I CHOOSE YOU!! /throws pokeball.

Also in this picture, you can see the tool I used to cut the hole in the case with. And my portable work table. Love that thing... going to serve me well in the future, methinks.

And here is the board, in the box with the EM Shield, and secured at this point, I think... Did I mention its been about a month since I took these pictures? Anyways, all I did to actually secure it was to take some 2 part epoxy, mix it together, then proceed to goober it all over the stand offs while the board was in place. Then I waited till it was mostly drive, 5 or so minutes later, then took the board off, and goobered some more on there for good measure.

Along the right hand side, you see that empty space? That is where I am going to put the 2.5" solid state drive I am eventually going to purchase. Along with a DVD / Blu-ray drive. An old Floppy / 5.25 drive cage in some configuration will work well there.

And thats all for now. Maybe I will work on it some more this weekend. Wait, I need some supplies for that... like an old PC case that I can butcher. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those lying around anymore, as the last one I had went into the garbage when I switched apartments last year. I am sure someone has one that they want to get rid of. Time to mooch one if possible.
I am also missing some RAM for this project. DDR2. About 4 gigs of it. Preferably in G.Skill flavour. F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ.