and on cue...I can't launch Maptools at the moment...

Edit...found a fix...had to eliminate trying to load jar files with a wildcard...

Pretty interested in this after watching Total Biscuit's video.

Yeah thanks to that video my pocket is a bit lighter, it convinced me to get the $59.99 founders package.

Looking very good, I love the UI customization, such a simple thing but can make a big difference.  I would have loved to see the inventory/equip screens.

Oh boy: I don't know if the long silence since the last game is because the party defeated the legate and we've only got one epilogue session left, or a product of Bilon making a desperate draw from the Deck of Many Things and transforming the world into nothing but shrimp.

-Autistic Angel

Amazingly it is neither.  When we ended, the Ice Witch was down, as was one of the lionguards.  The two remaining lionguards are oh so close to death.  The Githyanki has yet to be damaged, and the Legate and his lion are not bloodied, but damaged.  Things were pretty dire, Jett was nearly torn in two by the lion and legate, but some timely healing by Kriv and Bilon got everyone back on their feet and at the moment we are ok.  There was much debate about pulling a card, but we held off.

[way]

Yeah, I've heard that I can basically expect the first 18 months to be a sleepless blur, but it gets a little better after that.

As for minivans, I'm also in the market.     They all look the same to me, so I'll be curious what recommendations turn up.  I know we have a friend-of-a-friend who thinks the Honda Odyssey is the best thing ever, but I have no idea why.

I've looked at Odyssey's, but they seem to be ridiculously expensive compared to other brands with equivalent features.  Maybe that's just a Honda thing.  I need something used and don't have a ton to spend (looking in the $18-19K range), and Odyssey's have all been way outside the budget unless I want to buy one with 90K+ miles (not a chance).

Granted, this advise has the caveat that my job entails travel so I end up with free rentals, but that said I have found that renting a few different vehicles for a day or so is a great way, and overall not too expensive way, to find out what make/model you will like.

I know I've said this in the past, but the merge of console/pc forums has cut back my time on the forums.  The fact of the matter is I have no interest in wading through console posts to find the PC posts, and honestly I don't have any other hobbies.  I don't watch movies, I listen to christian music which is generally ridiculed on forums so I don't talk about it, and other than that I have my family, and people really don't care to listen to me gush about my children.  As such my visits usually entail a 5 minute stop every now and again to see if there is any new D&D talk, and if anything catches my eye in Off Topic, but the posts are dominated by things I have no interest in (usually movies).

I have financially supported GT considerably in the past, as it has been an internet home for me for a very long time, but I will admit I do not read the front page, essentially because I don't read any gaming articles on any sites, it just isn't my thing.  I haven't read a game review in ages, and I almost never listen to podcasts.  So for me, as my forum usage declines it is essentially just phasing GT out of my browsing cycle.

Going to need to double/triple check, but I believe that 3,000 puts as at level 18.

If possible, this item would be good for Kriv, and even AA and Winnish to get.

Helm of Able Defense
Level 14 Uncommon

Lifelike crystal eyes in the back of this helmet focus your will and bolster your defenses.

Head Slot        21,000 gp
Properties

    You gain a +1 item bonus to Will.
    At the start of each encounter, you gain a +2 bonus to all defenses until you take damage for the first time after the end of your first turn (not including a surprise round).

The LA Kings, not only better on the ice than everyone else, but also better off the ice than anyone else:

@LAKings
As a thank you for fans' patience, #LAKings are donating $1 million back to the LA community.

They have a long way to go to catch up to the Canucks; the Sedin twins alone donated 1 million to the Childrens Hospital here. The rest of the team floats McDonald House (hospice for terminally ill children and their parents) pretty much on their wallets alone.
But good on Willy, Donut, Brown and the rest of the organization for giving back to the community.

The truth of the matter is many teams and players within the hockey world do considerable good work in the communities, I don't think we need to get into a pissing match about who does more, but rather be proud of a sport that does so much to give back.

So I know we have a ton of Residuum, but no clue the exact amount...was thinking perhaps we could make a few items?

More details of the offer can be found here on TSN.

I suppose this just reaffirms why I am not a console gamer anymore...not a single title in that caught my interest.

Thank goodness for indie developers on the PC side of things, and hopefully a few kickstarters will pan out.

AA, sorry to hear about all the issues you had.

To fill you in, we decided to engage the assassins on the battlefield that had the bridge and the frozen river.  The assassins were coming in from the west, so we set up on the eastern side of the frozen river.  Led by the Praetorian that killed Thraco, flanked by Lupo who got away from us when Sa'Relka died, and accompanied by 4 additional assassins and 2 shadow warlocks.  We initiated the combat with Winnish firing off the mortar we had captured, and hitting the 4 nameless assassins, doing excellent damage, and setting them all on fire.  Using the frozen river and the bridge as a chokepoint, Kriv set up on the middle of the bridge, with your monk at my side.  On the Praetorian's first turn, she turned insubstantial/phasing and tried moving right through me to get to the back lines, which provoked an opportunity attack.  Kriv landed the attack, and utilized one of his item daily powers to apply a daze condition, which stopped her in her tracks.  Amazingly, that daze held for the entire combat, at least for as long as she was engaged in the combat (Which was a major penalty for her).  On your first turn, instead of advancing off of the bridge (I controlled your character), you tossed a shuriken at Lupo, who was flanked by two nameless assassins, both of which were hurt and on fire.  The attack was a critical hit, doing modest damage to Lupo, but also splashing damage to the assassins (I used the daily power on your Caustic Gloves).

Before it was all said and done, Winnish managed to get off one more devestating shot of the mortar, Bilon called down some righteous fire that killed off 3 of the assassins in one shot if I recall correctly, and Lupo died, on fire, in the freezing cold river after Jett melted the ice, and then was electrocuted when Jett dropped a storm cage into the water.

Sadly the two Warlocks and the Praetorian got away, at least we think the Praetorian got away, she was badly hurt when she was dropped into the river.  Either she somehow teleported out, or the current swept her downstream.

Now they just need a giant mole and a boy in a jetpack to destroy it.

They really nailed that. Even the characters are recognizable.

Can you enlighten me, since I am clearly in the dark ages and have no clue what this is a reference to?

The party can make one roll on the "Cry for Aid" chart, fire a mortar once, see the cleric join them and take a short rest before the assassins reach them.  Anything more than that will require the forfeiture of the short rest and/or healing surges. 

That sounds like a plan to me, unless anyone has a different thought I say we go with this, and prepare to fight the assassins.

I am sure this is going to sound insane...but if we are able to manage a short rest, and Bilon is able to charge into the fray, I think we need to stay and fight.  If we run, who knows who the assassins may target.  My thought is quick breather to regain encounter powers, then brace ourselves, and use the fire belchers to try and surprise/soften the assassins.  And we would likely need to make use of the call for aid, but we need to keep the assassins from the rest of our troops who would likely be slaughtered quickly.

Very fun session last night...what an intense and daunting start we had to the battle.  Destructor, your use of Mass Charm massively opened up the battlefield, which then led to AA's back to back usage of massive movement/attack powers which really swung the tide of battle.  Thankfully while Kriv doesn't have great range on his heals, he was able to heal for high amounts which meant we lost no one, even Gruhef.

This may backfire for them.  Game makers enjoy being cutting edge...but primarily as a selling point.  Reduce the number of people you can sell to and I'm guessing that community will be slow to incorporate 11.1.

Really?  Most games I play are still written for DX 9 it seems.

So way back when I purchased a founder pack, and just finally got around to trying out the game.  Very fun but I am pretty bad.  I need to figure out a specific role that I can excel at, so far been trying my hand with a medium mech...I die alot.

Well, just got home from running some errands and the system was down with an error that no boot media was found.  I am now trying out swapping the cable between my SSD and primary storage drive, with the way the cables are routed not sure if I can swap with the optical drive.

Just got back from Vegas, and checked the cables, everything felt good and tight.  I went into the BIOS and made my SSD the only bootable drive other than the DVD, so will see if it happens again , but this getting that it found no bootable media.

The cables were brand new when I built the system. I am traveling for work for the next week so it will be a bit before I can test. I will have to make sure the cables are fastened tightly.

So my PC has been up and running without issues for many months now...until last night.  I got home from work and the screen showed a Windows loading screen from Windows Vista (I am running Windows 7, however m 3rd hard drive is the drive from my old PC that has a vista install), but it was hung, so I powered off and back on, and the system proceeded to boot into Vista.  When I went into the BIOS my SSD drive was not showing in the boot order, but I was able to override the boot order and boot to the SSD.  Things seemed ok, so I rebooted and fiddled with the BIOS and was able to get the SSD back as the primary boot device.  I then ran chkdisk, and it found no errors.  Figured it was just a freak occurrence, and I walked away.  About 3 hours later I went to use the PC, and it was the same deal, it was stuck booting in to Vista...at which point it was late and I just shut it off in disgust.

Now I am concerned that perhaps my Crucial M4 SSD is dying, any suggestions?

Is it possible that Jett or Ryla have a ritual that could control the weather a bit?  Such as the "Control Weather, level 17 ritual", to perhaps let mother nature assist us a bit?  Either in putting out the fires, or making visibility from the camp in to the city impossible.

Since we saw no ammo, I can only assume we are being shelled by some sort of magical projectiles, which means they could likely shell us for a very long time.

To lighten the thread...just a few things Stew has told me/said in the last 19 years...while there is a wealth of information swimming in my head, these stand out.

• Whenever someone begins a sentence with "They Say", tell them They Say are a bunch of liars!
• Spoonerisms - At an old, well established Presbyterian church, a new usher was serving his very first Sunday.  The church, being so old, had many assigned pews, so seating the regular members was rather easy.  As the morning rolled along, someone new arrived to the church while the usher was seating someone, and the new person took an assigned seat.  Nervously, the usher approached to ask the new woman to move, but in his nervousness butchered his statement by saying: "Mardon me padam, but this pie is occupewed, may I sew you to a sheet in the chack of the burch, it's a cheautiful burch, many thinkle peep so!"  - As an aside I can say this flawlessly at this point.
• Sitting in a restaurant, a rather large woman walked by..."40 axe handles my ass...maybe if the axe was built for the hands of Paul Bunyon...that woman is bigger than most of the cows we had on our farm!
• Yet again, sitting in a restaurant, and a woman sits down in the booth behind us, wearing a god awful hat..."That hat looks like something she bought at Sears, while Roebuck was out of town!"  - I never did quite understand that one, other than to assume it meant the hat was ugly as sin.

Kriv has been updated on iPlay4e with his new encounter power for level 17.

AA and Winish if you can send me your changes I will do my best to get your characters updated asap.

I certainly do believe that Stew was put in to my life as an answer to prayers, and has blessed me more than I can comprehend...I just hope to be able to do the same someday for someone else and pay it forward.

Way back in 1993, when I was a sophomore in high school, my family was going through incredibly tough times.  My dad had been laid off from the steel mill, and was working for a youth organization that was supposed to be paying him a salary, but in three years had only managed to pay him a total of roughly $13,000.  We were scraping by, just barely and I remember the "horizons/gifted" program was going to take a field trip to the local science center.  I turned in a form saying that I could not go, and let the teacher know that we couldn't afford the $15 fee for the trip.  A week later I was informed that my trip was being paid for by one Mr. Morgan, the schools retired choral director who had worked at the school for over 40 years.  Evidently Mr. Morgan lived by the motto of paying it forward, and was always on the look out for kids he could help.

I vividly remember the field trip, the Carnegie Science Center had just recently brought in a World War 2 submarine as a new permanent exhibit, and Mr. Morgan was ecstatic to go through the tour.  Mr Morgan had served as a chaplain's assistant during World War 2...we spent hours walking through the submarine, and sitting on the benches at the river bank, as Mr. Morgan regaled me with tales of the war.  From that day forward, Mr. Morgan...Daniel Stewart Morgan took me under his wing, calling me his adopted grand son.  In the spring and summer, he would hire me to cut his grass, which amounted to me using one push mower while he used the other, usually paying me $50 for an hours work, which would then turn to a hearty meal at a local restaurant, where he would tell me more of his childhood int he 1920's, and even more about the war.

Stew, as he prefers to be called, took it upon himself to teach me how to drive, often giving me pointers based upon how he would avoid craters in the roads in Germany while driving the chaplain's jeep...the man is the best driver I have ever known.  In 1994, I had to honor of driving from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia with Stew to visit the chaplain, who would die a mere a few days after we visited.

Most times, Stew would take a student under his wing until they graduated, but for me, we had become family.  When I went off to college, while it was local, it was still over an hours drive from home.  Stew would come visit me 3 times a week, and take me to dinner.  He always made sure I had new clothes, and as many school supplies as I needed.  I remember in my junior year of college, not knowing how I would afford my books, let alone room and board...getting a call from the administration office, letting me know that Mr. Morgan had written a check for my room and board, and after thanking him with all I could offer, simply words from the bottom of my heart, he took me to the bookstore and bought every single text book I needed.

In 2000, my wife and I were married, Stew was convinced that I would simply forget about him, after all that is what most people in his life had done...they took his help and then left...but not me.  I owed a debt I knew I could never repay...a debt he would never ask to be repaid.  He shared none of my blood, but he was more family than most...since returning from our honeymoon in June of 2000, either my wife or I have talked with Stew at least once a day, and often would share a meal once a week.

In 2006, Stew made the decision that he would sell his house and move in to a retirement village...as he would say he was getting too old to keep up with a house, and he could die any day, after all he was 86 years old.  Despite the move, we have remained close.  In 2010, his memory started to go...the doctors at the VA took away his license out of fear not that he would hurt someone, but that he would get somewhere and not remember how to get home.

Fast forward to one week ago today, on my birthday, spent away from my family for work, and I get a call that Stew had a mini-stroke and he was in the hospital.  His memory fading even quicker.  This evening he couldn't remember what had happened to him, how long ago it happened, or even remember my name.  My fear is it won't be long now.  My daughters are begging to go see "Papa Stew" as the call him, they don't want him to go see Jesus in heaven, they say.

It is odd, I have lost grandparents in the past, and never shed a tear...yet just typing this I am sobing at the thought of losing Stew...even if mentally I already have.

I'm not really looking for anything, other than to get this off my chest.  It is no lie that he is part of the greatest generation to have ever lived.

Soooo, here I was all excited about my iSkin Aura case arriving, and you know what? I don't like it. 
http://www.iskin.com/iphone5/

The fit seemed a little bit off, and it was awfully difficult to remove. The ballyhooed "integrated volume controls protection" is basically a plastic rocker switch that seems to make it challenging to press the buttons accurately. The marketing makes it seem like a brushed aluminum case when it's actually plastic with a little cheapy chrome panel on the back. And it just barely juts out beyond the screen so I really don't know if it protects it from upside-down placement scratches.

Ugh. Maybe I'll just have to naked. Without a case I mean... 

I am thinking of getting one of the otterbox commuter series cases.  I know they were very good for the 4/4s without adding too much bulk to the phone.

So I don't really have neighbors, I live out in the country.  My wife is at work and I am in California currently for work.  UPS claims to have delivered my phone today with a note that they Met Customer Woman.  I did have my wife fill out a pre-sign for delivery form and put it on our front door...I hope my phone hasn't been stolen...

While they are big and bulky, I am still considering an otterbox.  I had no intention on replacing my iPhone 4, but after having the screen shatter I don't want to have that happen again.

Agreed, let's spend at least two days making the bombs and the sling-throwers.  Also yes, I think we should make some elixers:

Elixir of Dragon BreathLevel 7+ Uncommon
Whether frigid, acidic, or crackling with energy, this liquid grants you a potent blast of dragon breath.
Lvl 7      100 gp      Lvl 27      65,000 gp
Lvl 17      2,600 gp            
Consumable: Potion
Power (Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Poison)  Consumable (Minor Action)
Use this power after your drink the elixir. Until the end of the encounter, you gain an at-will attack power that requires a standard action to use: Close blast 3; +10 vs. Reflex; on a hit, deal 2d6 + Constitution modifier damage of a type determined when the elixir is created: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison.
Level 17: +20 vs. Reflex; 3d6 + Constitution modifier damage.
Level 27: +30 vs. Reflex; 4d6 + Constitution modifier damage.

Lesser Elixir of Dragon BreathLevel 6+ Common
You drink this syrupy elixir, and a surge of energy courses through your body, waiting to be released in an explosion of breath.
Lvl 6      75 gp      Lvl 26      45,000 gp
Lvl 16      1,800 gp            
Consumable: Elixir
Special: When this elixir is created, the crafter chooses acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. The elixir gains that keyword, and all damage dealt by it is of that damage type.
Attack Power (Varies)  Consumable (Minor Action)
Effect: You drink the elixir. Once before the end of the encounter, you can use a minor action to make the following attack.
Attack: Close blast 3 (creatures in the blast); the elixir’s level + 5 vs. Reflex
Hit: 2d6 + 3 damage of the chosen type.
Level 16: 3d8 + 7 damage.
Level 26: 4d6 + 12 damage.

If nothing else, Kriv,AA and Winnish should each get one regular elixer and one lesser elixer.

Should we perhaps look at making some alchemical items, or potions, or equipment...or perhaps building more traps?

And with that we have made level 17.

For AA and Arnir:

After much more discussions and recalling what we know of the Living Gate, we decided in the name of the greater good that we needed to go along with the Shardmind..so Jett gave the location of Cratertown.  The vision Bilon had was actually a stray thought of the Shardmind, as they do in fact have Rangrim imprisoned in crystal.  Rangrim was captured at Tiam-Krey.  Once they found out Rangrim was an ally, which Kriv let slip, they gave us the choice that if we didn't want to go along, they would simply rip the information from Rangrim's mind.

Again, this is an experiment. I'll likely disable this in a few days. Those of you who don't like it can help me better by giving a reason why- distracting is one. Load order is another.

It is disruptive, distracting and obnoxious.  It makes it harder to read the thread, and for me it adds absolutely 0 value.

Not a fan.  They distract from reading the threads.  At least provide a way to disable it.

For the love of God, please do give us a way to disable it..or sad to say I am going to visit Gaming Trend even less than I do now.

Thanks for asking...overall pretty poorly.  My stepmom's health is failing due to stage 4 cancer, her pain is getting to the point of them considering putting her on morphine.  I feel like I am a failure at my job, and my house has more unfinished projects than I care to count.  I tried weight watchers, lost 50 pounds...had a few bad weeks and put it all back on.

I should be thankful for all of the blessings in my life, but in the end I seem to only be able to focus on the negatives.

Bah, I forgot the smiley as my last post was intended as comedy...

My biggest concern is that we are missing some sort of huge "gotcha" in our dealings with the Shardmind.  Would killing the Shardmind in Kraken Hall cripple the Prepotency as much as if we work with him?

And what if the Shardmind is trapping us in some way?  We know he was not being fully forthcoming in what he was telling us...

While the possibility is there, what if he was telling the truth? We absolutely do not stand a chance at all without their help. Period.

But if Rangrim lives, and he is somehow trapped in Kraken Hall...that is our secret weapon...clearly he is the tipping point in the war!

And what if the Shardmind is trapping us in some way?  We know he was not being fully forthcoming in what he was telling us...