Happy Days

So, it appears it was just being refurbished. :/
That said, there was no notification or anything. Just pewwrecked. Then an email to say it was opening tomorrow :/

It begins

So, tomorrow is the first of many exams. I should really have done more work and procrastinated less, but procrastination is sooo much more fun. Ah well. Just have to do the best I can, I suppose.

St Georges day.

So, today was St Georges day, the day of our Englands Patron Saint, and as I said on saint Patricks day, I estimated a very small amount of people out. I was not wrong.
It was criminal how few people there out. we went on the Wiven-run(basically a pub crawl through all the pubs in Wivenhoe) First pub had basically just regulars in it, but not a sign it was St. Georges day, not a flag or anything in sight.
2nd pub was pretty much teh same, and the third pub was definatly the best, it had live music and actual St. Georges decorations! it actually felt like a pub, too, which was nice. So yeah, as you can tell by the fact we went to like 3 pubs out of about 8, our pub run kinda failed due to several reasons. Still good though.
I've already ranted about how annoyed I am that people celebrate other countries patron saints but not our own, so I shall not repeat myself. /Rage
So yeah, ENGLAND NEEDS TO LERN2PATRIOTISM.

Monday Tuesday Happy days... No more.

Happy Days is no more.

So, what was Happy Days, you ask?
Happy days was a burger chain sorta shop on campus, doing nice portions of relativly good quality food at student prices till late at night. Perfect for half drunk snacks when afraid you might the whole flat on fire, or when just too damn lazy to cook for yourself. So in other words a nice plaic.
Which is why I was so :O :'( when I came back from holidays to find a gutted shop interior instead of happy days. Also we have no clue why it is gone :/

We will remember you, Happy Days *holds 2 minutes of silence*

Back at Uni!

So, after a good three weeks(in both the time and enjoyment definition) at home, I am back at uni!
Got back and realised I hadn't cleared up as well as I thought I had.. half packet of biscuits left open, and I hope my huge jar of marmite is okay :/
Also, stupid campus shop is closing at 6 on weekdays and 3 on weekends because of the holiday(its still technically the holiday, I'm just back to get ready and have revision and stuff). Suxtastic.
Still, my room was locked( I had this random paranoid thought that I had left it open all the way on teh trip back to home, even though I always lock my door when I leave the flat) and everything was okay(the cleaners even left my sprouting onion in my cuboard!11!!!11one!
First thing I did when I got back was connect to the internet(I'm not addicted, I'm not! I'-okay I am :/) and play a match of Starcraft with Confuz, which was funfaic.

Being home again was.. nice. Always nice to spend time with parents and brother, specially when you have been living away, and the food was even more lovely than I remembered ^_^.
So yeah. Now for shit tons of exams :'(

And then it tore the roof off.

So my guy was some kinda tour guide and we were in hippy californya and the bank got held up by some guys in bike suits and then they shot us and time stopped and we were stuck and some giant horuskinda thing opened the doorway and the police negotiator managed to get it to attack us and I sat there unarmed as they killed it. And then we went to my guys house and he picked up shit tons of survival gear and a shotgun because nothing stops bears attacking like a ten gauge to the head.
And everything was dust
Really
Really
Really dust
Kinda like OSHIT EVEN MR MUSCLE WON'T CLEAR THIS SHIT.
So, we went to the police station via the grocery store and the Irish guy knocked over a cat and it was all gooey then we went into the general store and picked up alcohol and stuff and then there was a catgirl and it attacked and lazor'd the Irish guy and he was on minus hitpoint(pretty much all the wounds he took were due to his own silly) then I shot it in the face witha shotgun and it was all wat, then I shot it again and it was all fuuuufleee.(oh, and the cat goo and catgirl were related)
Then we went to the police station and was all FIRST AID HERE. Then we discussed and I did my most RP ever and we were all WE NEED AN RADIO HERE. And we went to the museam and fought knights on horses(where the Irish guy decided to pick up the radio without thinking and set off the alarm and we were all NUUUUHHHHRRR) and we were all EAT SHOTGUN BICHES and they were all fuuuuuudie. and then we went to the local broadcasting booth and it was all blue and we woke up in some god wannabees place(I called him the polite Gentleman) and we got given powers.
And then it was cool and I went to look around and there was some huge snake thing(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080808015446/megamitensei/images/a/a5/QuetzalcoatlSMT2.jpg) and we were all FUUUUUU and we were all "We should be safe here"


And then it tore the roof off.

And we were all fuuurunaway, and we ended up in an alley and were cornered and our weapons THEY DID NOTHING.
And then we were all HHHNNNNNNGGGGGG and we got powers and we were all *insertmagicstuffhere* and it was all nuuuu and it was afraid of us and it was cool and yeah.
We won!
It was fun! ^_^

The Attic

Yesterday I undertook a expedition to that most dangerous and forsaken place.. the attic.
That land where the dust lies a metre thick, and strange containers holding mystic treasures await discovery. I scaled teh ladder fearlessly, holding the tools of the attic goer(duster, scissors and parcel tape) as I searched for a box marked "General-to be sorted" I opened it up with great trepidation.. what wonders lay within? And there was stuff. And I took some of said stuff down because it was my brothers, and the rest I left behind as I resealed it, leaving it for another generation to find. Then I went looking for my real objective, the box marked "J's games", I slowly opened it up, revealing the stash of games, a multitudinous amount of amaze.. okay, more like half a dozen games, but even so..
I gingerly removed a few games, the game "Starcraft" and the trilogy of "Neverwinter Nights"
My mission here was done, I hastily resealed the containers, and fled down the ladder, sealing that forsaken place off again for another thousand years. I then tidied up and spent the rest of the day sneezing and coughing due to all the dust I had inhaled :/

Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay

As you can tell from the title, I found out what WFRP stands for :P DAMN ACRONYMZ.

So uh, basically I was a male elf(though the gender hardly matters with elves, with the most manly elves being pretty damn effeminate) who was an archer, as is rather generic, and I shot people and rolled rather low damage. But still fun.
We rescued a brothel,
And one of the party punched a guy in the gonads, and rolled a critical, and the location of the critical was the gonad, he then hit again and took the guy down to half health. This was the boss XD

So, the WFRP system is a d100 system, using d10 for damage and some other checks, although perhaps it is better to call it a die percentile system, as the majority of actions are accomplished by rolling under the ability score, so for instance my elf had a 58% to hit(which is good, btw), I have to roll anything under or equal to that value. The exception to this seems to be magic checks when trying to cast spells, where it seems to be a simple highest = best.

The background and world in this is the world of Warhammer fantasy(the miniatures game, which I used to play) which is a very gritty world, and that kinda reflects through the gameplay and enemies, the gameplay is very harsh, with wounds being very few compared to attack, for instance, I do a d10+3, I have 11 Wounds and..I think a toughness of 4(might be three though) which means I remove 4 damage from every attack, which means I could almost kill myself with a single blow, and this doesn't really change at later levels, since most of the careers seem to give you the chance to get two extra wounds, which isn't really much compared to damage ramping, which is quite different to DnD, where as you get stronger it become less and less likely you will get one hitted. that said, it is impossible to die in WFRP except on a critical, though when you are down on the ground with 0 wounds I think they get auto criticals or summat(bit shaky on the intricacies of the system, though due to the critical effects you might often be as good as dead, with chances to be paralysed, lose limbs, etc.
The character system in WFRP is.. strange, it consists of tons and tons of careers, such as boatman, hunter, soldier, burgher, peasent, messenger, etc etc(it is a large amount..and that's just the starting classes) in fact someone said that by the time your character was maxed out they would have 5 careers.
The way careers work is that when you get a certain amount of XP you get to raise attributes(such as weapon skill, agility, intelligence) by a certain amount per career class, so for instance the Kithband class I went to(I think that's it) allowed me to increase my WS(weapon skill) BS(ballistic skill) and my agility, int and willpower I think. Also it let me increase my wounds by two total our of my secondary attributes.
The other things you can buy are skills and talents, which are done similarly, you just buy the skill, there are no ranks, you buy it so you can use it, and you roll the value of the stat that pertains to that skill.
The final ability is talents, which are bought, and roughly compare to feats in traditional DnD, giving you stat bonuses and stuff.

I cannot really comment on the magic in this system as I only saw someone use it, looked pretty good when I glanced through, with a fair few disorientating and utility spells as well as flat out damaging spells, which is always a good sign. not as wide a choice as DnD(though really, half those spells are useless) and certainly a more useful looking spell list than Anima.
So, how did this system play? Pretty well I'd say, it was very easy to grasp the concepts, looks simple to 'level' up the characters, nice combat system that really lets you know when you get better, rather than so many where the higher your character level goes, the more it seems just the same as before, albeit with some nifty abilities.

So, did I enjoy playing this system? Well, yes, yes I did. Would I recommend it? Definitely. It may just be my fanboy self speaking(Warhammer was pretty much the first gaming system I started), but I have always enjoyed the Warhammer setting, and this RPG is definitely a good addition to it.
And I really cannot believe these are the same people who made Anima :/

PS. I just noticed I am using my Warhammer fantasy book as my mouse-mat :P Wharra coincidence

Pub time!

So last night I got a phonecall from my friend, and was expecting times for D&D today, but instead got invited down teh pub. So I accepted, of course!
And it was cool and we nerded it up while drinking alcomaholz and playing pool and I somehow won!
Leik as in I didn't lose a game :P I also proved that I play better drunk, as I missed nearly every shot after one beer, and hardly any after two pints and a JD&coke. Its a varient of the Drunken Master class you know.
Drunken Pool Masters unite!
(admittedly a few of those wins was the opponent accidentallying the whole black. BUT IT STILL COUNTS DAMMIT.
So yeah.. it was fun. got a game today, some system called WFRP or somesuch. Not a clue what its about. I don't even the whole everything. See how it goes though, expect a blog.

SURPRISE DND

AND WE WERE ALL BLAH.. AND uh.. we sat there,.
and we talked
and uh
someone snuck into a castle to capture a princess
and uh
we waited outside.
and uh
There was no combat.
and uh.
Wasn't actually that bad a session of anima actually, though no combat, I finally levelled up, too.

The prior warning to this session was about an hour, and I had to go help my mum put up the vent thingies on her greenhouse, so I went straight from there to the DND(luckily within walking distance) though it was hot :/
I had my sheet for the anima on teh interwebs, which was lucky though :)

And then we played Starwars RPG and someone tried to pick pocket me and I was all *grabs wrist* "Thats not a very good idea, you know" And I was a jedi and it was cool! and I was some kinda alien who was dextrous and wise but weak of constitution!(+2Dex, +2Wis, -2CON) and I have some kinda mask because oxygen is poisonous to me or summat.
I also hit someone and was all VRRRRMMMM and stuff.

The Staarwars RPG system seems quite good actually. Not that different to 3.5, though supposedly its also like 4.0 a bit. Havn't really read the rules. Plays well though. Good fun. You get to shoot stuff and hit stuff with things. And uh. FORCEPOWAS YOU CAN DO STUFF WITH THE FORCE AND ITS ALL HNNNNG!
So yeah, not much of a review on this system. Maybe when I read the rulebook more. But it seems really similar to 3.5, so may not bother.

Anima

So my guy was all HNNGG and he fell over then we went into a room and he was all AAARRGGGH and was shot and almost died then he was healed by the Russian bear wrestler, and then we went to a walkway and he was all BOOM and critical fireballed people, then we went to another room and he made someones head melt! and he had a crippled leg so cannot make any successful physical checks!
oh, and then some douchebag plot device villain who we couldn't beat was all HNNNNGG and stuff then failed and everything went black and stuff.
Also we were on an airship.

And that was the Tabletop RPG game we played today [well, it was today when I started this post :P ]( Not really proper to call it D&D, since its a different system)
So basically, this game was played using the Anima game system, which is a d100(for those who don't know, d100's are not actually 100 sided dice usually, you just use a d10 for the units and a nother d10 for the 10's) system, which basically means you get big numbers when making checks.
One of my gripes about this game is the large amount of tables, when making attack rolls(which are opposed by block and dodge rolls by the opponent) you take the amount you beat it by and look at a table.. when making a skill check you look at a table, which can bog the game down a little, though thats lessened if you have a sheet with all the tables on, or the DM screen.

The rounds in Anima are 3 seconds long, as opposed to the 6 second rounds of traditional D&D, although what with all the table consulting and the having to add up shiz with calculators it actually ends up taking a lot longer to play a round of Anima than of D&D, which is kinda ironic, as your Anima characters will kill the enemy in less time than your D&D characters (and my group take quite a while per encounter, because we are quite slow, usually because we get distracted and stuff) , but it will take longer to do that encounter in Anima. :/
We've played Anima a fair few times now, too, so its not just us being new to it, although we certainly are more experienced at D&D.

Theres kinda a mixed reactions to my friends about Anima, I'm kinda Meh, and someone else just doesn't like it, and the rest like it to varying degrees. Supposedly its more flexible, though I don't really see that, especially with magic which is a lot more restricted in terms of choice, though a lot more open in terms of spells you can cast. though Zeon (Mana basically) takes stupid long to return and you kinda have to ration your spells or you risk having none left next session, which is a bit :/
It seems fairly balanced, with no one class being amazing, and the way it does special actions, such as a called shot is quite good, with different penalties that can be decreased by weapons and advantages, but the classes don't really feel that unique or different from in any other RPG,
There certainly seems less to do to make a character, with almost no special abilities as far as I can see, which seems a bit weird for supposedly flexible system, it seems a simple hack and slash type of game, which gets a bit boring, on the plus side, it is quite easy to make a character, though the only real things to distinguish characters is the weapons you use and the advantages and disadvantages, although I suppose that's true of most systems.

Its got a few innovative features, like the Elan system, which is basically a way to record a deities favour, and you get points for doing things specific to your deity, which can get annoying if there isn't really much chance to do that thing in the game, so it can become just another thing the DM has to deal with. There are different Elan levels that can give different powers, its not that bad an idea, but it doesn't really feel amazingly awesome.

So basically, do I like this system, or recommend it? Not really, no, its okay for a change every now and again, but I find it neither more flexible nor quicker or in any way more fun than standard D&D 3.5, though there is only a few source-books, much less than 3.5
So basically, far from "Anima:Beyond Fantasy" I'd say its more "Anima:yet another generic RPG"
Not that Impressed. Anyway. Back to procrastinating on the internet and reading the rules for Pathfinder (Aka D&D 3.75) Expect a blogpost if we ever get round to playing it

Dragon Shamans.

We got caught by cultists!
I was all BLARGH!
AND I FLAMED PEOPLE!
And then I got hit in the arm and was all ARRRGGGH
And then the cleric healed it and I BLAARRGGH'd some more
Then I hit people
Then we won!
Then we rode off into the sunset!

And uh, that was my D&D session today in 5 seconds
Basically It was leik, last minute, made my Dragon Shaman character last night, started D&D at 2PM(got told it was happening at half 1, don't you just love forward planning?)
I quite like the character class, actually, very interesting, with an good blend of attacking and buffing abilities, they basically have a good Hit Die, average base attack and two good saves, breath weapon, which is good, though in no way comparable to other blasters, for instance the Warlocks eldritch blast.
The basic premise of a Dragon Shaman is that they are guiz who adopt the viewpoint of a dragon, almost worshipping a totem dragon, to the degree they gain some of the dragons powers(because you know, MAGIC!) The powers and skills you gain are variable, depending on the type of dragon you choose.
The other main ability is their auras, which are basically some neat buffs, such as DR, extra damage, energy resistance to a certain element and other such stuff.
So basically, they are quite versatile, a second line combatant, like the cleric, though far more buff focused than the cleric, they can be a much better fighter, though their healing abilities are comparable to the paladin(that is to say, pretty crap)
Overall they are a pretty damn cool class to play, very fun if you do them right, able to hold their own in a fight(I had the most HP of the party) while providing some nice team play aspects, and with a little thought the auras you have active can change the way the campaign pans out quite dramatically. This is one of the four new classes introduced in teh Players Handbook 2, The one main problem I have with the Players handbook 2 classes it the lack of class specific feats(or even feats that would provide general bonuses), basically the PHB2 feats are just more feats for PHB1 classes, and it makes me sadfaic :/

So overall, would I recommend this class? Well, if you like characters that can be both supporting and good combatants, this is a great class, that average base attack coupled with a few buffs and stuff will make you quite nasty in combat, especially since you can use your breath attack without provoking Attacks of Opportunity, while you buff you and your allies with your auras.
Also known as YES.

One of the things I noticed was that the auras are set as a free action, allowing you to change the aura to resistance{which provides a +aura bonus*10 resistance to totem dragon element} use your breathweapon, with your allies only taking a few points of damage if you roll highly, which can be quite useful to weaken enemies as you all charge in.
The Aura of Vigour can be used to keep your allies alive longer in combat, and to reduce the amount of healing your cleric has to do, while the senses aura is good to keep on while travelling, to give you that bonus at spot or listen, the better to avoid ambushes with.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to trawling this CD full of D&D books for some brilliantly broken feats I can apply to my character.