so if i do this he gets a +3 bonus to do that

It's a pity that someone walked off with my complete Cardboard Heroes collection. Not only were they good examples of Denis Loubet's work, an artist whose fantasy work I quite like, they would have been incredibly useful playing the new Dungeons & Dragons Minatures Skirmish Game that's just been released. What do you mean it's not a minatures skirmish game? It uses a battleboard throughout. Abilities are precisely defined, as is the actions that may be taken, depending on your position on the battleboard. Of course, choosing those abilities and the correct position to be in is not as simple as it may have been in say, the old Melee/Wizard games. You mean it's a role-playing game? Really. The 4th Edition you say. Well, blow me down with a Spinning Sweep (no saving throw)! Sorry about that. Apparently this is the 4th Edition of the venerable 30-something year old game that I've been playing for far too long (if you want to know for how long, when the pre-release publicity and novel for Star Wars came out we improvised a version of D&D in that setting...). Anyway, it's now been fully converted into a minatures game (and should be readily convertable into an online RPG, massive or otherwise). And in the process I think it's lost something of it's soul. Admittedly the lure of the value-added official minatures market and official massively multiplayer online game market is incredibly attractive is something Hasbro can't ignore, but they probably should have. And the reason I have this sour taste in my mouth is simply – they've put the focus back on maneuvering a figure around on a table, rather than the player being that figure. And this is where the new rules break for me. I don't think I shall invest much in following this edition. Hopefully Paizo's Pathfinder rules will continue the mainstream D&D tradition [tradition?], and Green Ronin is continuing it's True 20 line, so all is not lost. But for me, if I every want to get back into tabletop skirmish fantasy rules, all I need to do is pull out my copies of Advanced Melee, Advanced Wizard, and In The Labyrinth. Although I do need to replace my Cardboard Heroes first!

time to stop writing

I love it when I'm in the mood to write and the ideas flow and connect. Admittedly it usually strikes me at night and I never have enough time to get it all down perfectly, but at least it is usually a solution to the problem I'm considering that will work. However I think I shall stop after finding myself having made this aside (after quite a few pages) in the player campaign notes: Actually, the only known instance of a disciple spending less than 100% of their experience in cult abilities was a Thorstein Grimmbear, a Death Sword (disciple) of Grim Huma, the Orlanthi Sword God (amongst other things), who took up needlepoint after arguing (with his god) that a rapier wasn't a real sword. In answer, Huma granted the embroidery needle the shine that is normally reserved for Humakti swords, thus making that needle a rather ferocious and effective weapon against the undead (in the hands of his disciple at least). Maybe it's just an early morning sense of humour. Or merely the effect of the painkillers. And yes, names have been changed. My house Runequest campaign started diverging from the canonical one very very early on (before Cults of Prax, in fact). Eventually, to avoid confusion for some newbies, I made certain changes to reinforce the fact that it wasn't a canonical campaign. With Heroquest and Mongoose's Runequest the changes are even more pronounced. But I love the feel that a lived-in world has, even if it makes it non-canonical.