Shadow On The Land

I've been avoiding the news as much as possible, but more and more I am coming to believe that John Kerry will lose, or at least that the election will be close enough to allow Bush to easily steal it.

And I really believe that this means the end of democracy in America; for all that it sounds hokey, we are entering a period of classical fascism with meaningless democratic trimmings.

Soon we will be living under the shadow, and I have to wonder just when I should take my family and get the hell out of the burning, crumbling house that was once America.

I'll always love the idea of America, but that makes me loathe the hideous perversion that we are becoming all the more.

Shadow On The Land

I've been avoiding the news as much as possible, but more and more I am coming to believe that John Kerry will lose, or at least that the election will be close enough to allow Bush to easily steal it.

And I really believe that this means the end of democracy in America; for all that it sounds hokey, we are entering a period of classical fascism with meaningless democratic trimmings.

Soon we will be living under the shadow, and I have to wonder just when I should take my family and get the hell out of the burning, crumbling house that was once America.

I'll always love the idea of America, but that makes me loathe the hideous perversion that we are becoming all the more.

Fighter?

Tonight's the first Tuesday-night session of the D&D game. I don't expect to level up tonight (there's almost no way, mathematically), but it's coming closer - assuming, as always, that I don't die first.

I got a lot of great advice and a surprisingly warm welcome from people in the D&D newsgroup on Usenet. One of them brought up an interesting idea: taking a level of the Fighter class, rather than taking a twelfth level of Barbarian. He said that it would give me two feats rather than one. I'm not 100% sure that that's true; you get a bonus feat as a 1st level fighter, but do you also get a "starting" feat? I'll need to check.

But I'd gain literacy and the ability to wear heavy armor automatically, and if I took a second level in Fighter later I'd get yet another feat. I could take Improved Critical and start filling in the Weapon Focus/Specialization tracks, which in English means that in the short term I could get a +1 to hit with my greatsword (instantly convertible to +2 points of damage with Power Attack, at my option) in addition to Improved Critical. And filling in the entire feat track would give me +2 to hit and +4 damage, convertible overall into +8 damage...which is no mean feat, if you'll pardon the pun.

The drawback in the short term would be the loss of two skill points that I would otherwise get. And I'll have to roll 1d10 for hit points instead of 1d12. An acceptable trade.

Another drawback is that it would take that much longer to reach higher Barbarian levels. But the best stuff doesn't kick in for a while, and there's no knowing if the campaign will even last that long.

Fighter?

Tonight's the first Tuesday-night session of the D&D game. I don't expect to level up tonight (there's almost no way, mathematically), but it's coming closer - assuming, as always, that I don't die first.

I got a lot of great advice and a surprisingly warm welcome from people in the D&D newsgroup on Usenet. One of them brought up an interesting idea: taking a level of the Fighter class, rather than taking a twelfth level of Barbarian. He said that it would give me two feats rather than one. I'm not 100% sure that that's true; you get a bonus feat as a 1st level fighter, but do you also get a "starting" feat? I'll need to check.

But I'd gain literacy and the ability to wear heavy armor automatically, and if I took a second level in Fighter later I'd get yet another feat. I could take Improved Critical and start filling in the Weapon Focus/Specialization tracks, which in English means that in the short term I could get a +1 to hit with my greatsword (instantly convertible to +2 points of damage with Power Attack, at my option) in addition to Improved Critical. And filling in the entire feat track would give me +2 to hit and +4 damage, convertible overall into +8 damage...which is no mean feat, if you'll pardon the pun.

The drawback in the short term would be the loss of two skill points that I would otherwise get. And I'll have to roll 1d10 for hit points instead of 1d12. An acceptable trade.

Another drawback is that it would take that much longer to reach higher Barbarian levels. But the best stuff doesn't kick in for a while, and there's no knowing if the campaign will even last that long.