Bored!

[bobquasit]

I'm bored silly. Really, really, really, really, really bored.

So I'm going to jabber away.

Health

I just got back from having a routine blood test. I still don't like them, although nowhere near as much as I used to.

My blood pressure is 130/80. Not bad, huh?

D&D

The D&D game last night went well; I had fun. We fought a two-headed ettin and a minotaur. I didn't do well against the ettin; kept rolling low and missing, and towards the end of the combat he did 43 points of damage to me. Since I only have 34 hit points, that meant I was within one point of death. Fortunately the monk killed the ettin that round, and the cleric was able to cast a Cure Light Wounds on me.

I did better against the minotaur. For one thing, I used my Smite ability. Since I'm new to playing a paladin, I hadn't been using my abilities to their fullest; I'd clean forgotten about Smite.

Incidentally, I have an interesting combination of feats for the paladin. Perhaps they're pretty standard; I don't know. But I've found that they offer a lot of flexibility. I'd almost like to see some of the concepts incorporated into RQ!

Yes, you heard me right - I'm saying that some D&D concepts should be incorporated into RQ. That's certainly the first time I've ever said or thought that, believe me!

The feats are Power Attack and Expertise (I also have Mounted Combat, which is of remarkably little use but necessary for some better feats down the road). Power Attack lets me trade off the chance to hit for more damage. And Expertise lets me trade off the chance to hit for more defense. This gives me a lot of choices in combat, since the two can actually be combined; I have a 5 base attack, and I can allot some or all of those five points to either feat at will.

Of course the feat concept itself is lame, lame, lame. But the idea of trading off the chance to hit for extra damage or defense is actually pretty neat, and seems to make sense from a reality-based standpoint.

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

In this case what D&D is calling Feats for your paladin is what Hero has had for over a decade as combat maneuvers. The idea has also been used in GURPS to a lesser degree.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Oh, and in hero they are related to skills, and have nothing to do with class structures since hero has none.... nor with levels...

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

I just remember Hero has being too complicated and not intuitive. I have a copy somewhere, although I'm sure it's way out of date by now; I should dig it up, assuming that it hasn't been eaten by mice or something. :(

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Hero is complicated... it's base book is probably the largest rulebook on the market at this point, but that's because it's a toolbox system designed for a wide range of genres (and originally designed for superhero as the Champions rules).

What hero doesn't do well is low-level/realistic-Gritty. It's really meant to be cinematic to superheroic in character design, and is just too grainy at the bottom end to play 'normal' people.

The martial arts system is intensive, and designed to cover EVERY style of hth and hand weapon martial arts.

And that's it's other problem - it's a combat system, and it really is designed to do combat in detail rather than abstract. D&D is also just as complex, it just pretends not to be so by not dumping all the rules at you at the start but limiting what you can choose from at each stage of character growth. Hero assumes you don't want to spend years to get around to have the character you envision develop from some raw numbers but that you want to play that character now, not years from now. The big difference between a design at start vs develop in play (that and with most develop in plays when you finally get a character up to what you envisioned them to be you usually have to retire them, while in Hero you start there and play onwards).

[lubedpumpkin.livejournal.com]

Good job on the BP. I went to the DR the other day and it was 140/110! I think it's because I was particularly antsy, though, and tend to have a bit of white coat syndrome.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

I have "white coat hypertension" too, but I was told last year that it's no longer considered an acceptable reason to ignore high blood pressure results. If you manifest a higher blood pressure in the presence of doctors, they figure you manifest it at other times too - everybody's under pressure these days - and they treat it.

My BP was never over 160/96 at the highest, and they still put me on medication. But it's working really well.

Lo! And the Earth begins to Quake!

[stairflight.livejournal.com]

Surely the Second Coming is at hand!

Yes, you heard me right - I'm saying that some D&D concepts should be incorporated into RQ. That's certainly the first time I've ever said or thought that, believe me!