j_rod624

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:01:17 GMT

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13:19 @tenieldjo Congrats and welcome to the world of steady income. #
14:08 @MatthewOden I am up for avatar. Also I has ityrant shirts for people when I see you guys next #
15:05 @MatthewOden yeah I am definetly game for that. #

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Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:04:10 GMT

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18:48 Lol the rifftrax people made all of the pre-movie slides and music. It is awesome #
21:58 Christmas riff trax were awesome. Hopefully they will be downloadable at somepoint. #

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Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:02:46 GMT

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19:32 Just got first batch of ityrant shirts and they r awesome #

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Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:10:36 GMT

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01:27 @MatthewOden Yep. right through the xbox and on to the projector. Just the way Law and Order SVU was meant to be watched. #

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Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:02:35 GMT

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14:33 Just got netflix subscription. It's freakin sweet #

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The End: Part 1

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:46:48 GMT

Finshed my current material for my game here in Rolla last night. They had 2 climatic battles, the first being the fight where they free their imprisoned Barbian friend (the reason why they descended to the drow place in to begin with) and second a boss battle with an emissary of a greater organization which was driving the drow. The first battle was appropriately challenging, while the second was horribly difficult.

It would have been a total party wipe if I were not so merciful a DM. The vreature they were fighting: a Beholder Death Tyrant. My group was level 13, so a level 15 solo should be chellenging, but very possible. Do to a mix of bad luck with the melee chars rolling low inits and having bad saving throws, by the 4th turn the tank and leader were petrified, and the melee striker had just then closed into melee range and was bloodied. At this point the beholder had taken 200 damage toward its 740 HP. So I switched to using the rays on each of its turns randomly (rather than just the rays from the aura being random). I also allowed the petrified chars to make saving throws vs. petrified at a -5 so they felt like they still had a chance. They both only got one attack in on the beholder the entire combat.

The wizard was the star of the fight however. he mass resisted everyone to necrotic (which nullified eye attacks except the fear and petrify ones for the most part) and used icy rays to immobilize and action point to grasp of the grave to daze the beholder, which prevented it from using its central eye to negate the necrotic resist he gave everyone. The wizard then used sleep the following turn to prevent it from leaving the GotG area, which hit. The beholders next turn it rolled a 1 on its saving throw making it unconscious, at which point the avenger went nuts on it. XO

If I didn't switch to the random eye rays, I'm not sure if the others would have been able to finish the fight. with the necrotic resist and daze, all the beholder could really do is petrify more people, and it takes 2 turns of failed saving throws for that to work, so it could have changed nothing, or it could have wiped them. Guess I will never know.

P.S. - Blake, if you make us fight one of these in your game, I will cry

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:02:29 GMT

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23:54 O WotC quality control. Mentioning Pelor in a forgotten realms game (scepter tower of spellguard) when he isn't in the FR pantheon. #

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Rifftrax in Theatres!!!!!!!!!

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:10:02 GMT

Go here for the details

http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Comedy/RiffTrax_Xmas.aspx?utm_source=RiffTrax_RTxmas&utm_medium=HomepageLink&utm_campaign=RTxmas_Fathom%2BPage

It looks cool and I think some of my roommates and I will be going to the showing in chesterfield on the 17th. Also that day should be the start of my winter vacation, though some people are trying to guilt me back to Rolla for graduation. Anyhow let me know if you guys are interested in going. I will warn that the tickets are expensive (12 ish).

Also I am going to try to place a shirt order for eye tyrant shirts on Wednesday when my parents get back in town. If you want one tell Matt or me shirt size and color (red, orange, green, blue, and black) and if you want a woman's style (though womans style has limited colors). My goal is to get this first batch done and shirts to the Rolla people for Christmas.

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:03:38 GMT

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10:23 Just got done teaching a senior design class. That superior feeling of teaching people my age or older never gets old. #
21:33 Heard best one sentence summary of the plot of new moon : one woman's choice between beastiality and necrophilia #

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Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:02:32 GMT

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16:26 Just saw ninja assassin. Apparently live action Japanese people have blood proportional to their anime counterparts #

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Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:03:54 GMT

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14:55 Chelsea " ... and when I say Chinese dragon, I don't mean a dragon with squinty eyes." #

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Saw this Gem on SNL tonight

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:12:21 GMT

Don't worry, they explain why Keenan is playing Reba

Who wants to kill more good people?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:37:52 GMT

Just a reminder that I will be back in Saint Chuck tomorrow and will have materials to keep running my game, which we should be able to do considering the Demoball schedule. Make sure to have your guy at 14th level and have any items you found chosen (Blake).

Also Matt, did you see that they changed the Monk class in this months update for Character builder. If we ever play blakes again you might have some changes to make.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:04:04 GMT

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14:14 Just got dragon age. Let the awesomeness commence #

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Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:03:42 GMT

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10:50 "no 25 miles per hour is too fast for a parking lot. It must be lower" twitgoo.com/532pi #

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Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:02:49 GMT

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12:56 Touring Andrew jacksons estate and tomb. Man he was a dirty slave owner who hated Indians Ann banks #
13:47 Hell yeah sushi buffet #

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Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:03:09 GMT

tweets from the previous 24 hours

12:15 I am eating at an aquarium restaurant. Nuff said twitgoo.com/51eop #
12:17 Seriously one of the fish here could free a third world country #
21:59 Wtf not a good thing to have at a bar. Will freak out drunks twitgoo.com/51lhz #

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"Oh my God, They killed everyone! Come quick!!!"

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:33:29 GMT

I will be retruning to Saint Chuck this weekend, and schedules permitting we can play some of my D&D game Friday night. Saturday night won't really work because early Sunday I leave with other members of my lab group for our week long conference in Nashville. Also The Men Who Stare at Goats opens this weekend if I am not mistaken, so that may be fun to see as well. Just let me know what you guys are up to and we can plan everything. Also I leave you with this:

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:02:22 GMT

tweets from the previous 24 hours

11:47 Woo office Halloween party! I decided to be a zombie this year. twitgoo.com/4kwn8 #
20:08 @MatthewOden well maybe if more than one other person in my lab would get the joke...and cigarettes weren't so damn expensive #

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Balhannoth, try BalhanNOT

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:21:10 GMT

So my Rolla group had its first encounter with a Balhannoth last night and I was a little disappointed. To set the stage the encounter happened in a large (about 15 square diameter) somewhat circular cavern. The side of the cavern opposite the PCs entrance is a 50 foot cliff that drops into a boiling hot spring. the cliff has a DC 25 athletics check to climb up (very smooth and slippery) and the hot spring does 3d6 damage to anyone ending their turn in it. In additon to the Balhannoth were 6 grimlock minions and a grimlock berserker. Now here is the round by round play.

Round 1
Balhannoth goes first. telports to bottleneck entry and does burst attack on all 5 PCs. Hits and crits Lilith (the Tiefling Warlord) and moves her out to the middle of the cavern, then it goes invisible. The Aramil (the Elf Ranger) went next and with his ridiculus perception was able to locate the square the Balhannoth was in, but missed with his attacks. Vaelis( the eladrin wizard) is next and drops a winters wrath on a minion and the balhannoth, Critting the Balhannoth! Lilith attacks invisble Balhannoth and misses. Oris (the Deva Avenger) hits the Balhannoth for a respectable amount of damage and Grim (the Dragonborn Fighter) misses. Now the Grimlocks go and all attack the one PC they can get to: Lilith. She is hit by the berserker and 3 minions and is now at a fairly pitiful HP.

Round 2
Balhannoth does burst hitting Lilith, Oris, and Aramil and drags them into the cluster of grimlocks. then teleports (dazing Lilith and Grim) to appear behind the grimlocks and attacks again with an action point. Only hits Lilith and she goes down (giggidy). Then Balahnnoth Invisble. Again Aramil is able to track it down, but he attacks the berserker. He also uses one of his secondary healing powers to revive Lilith. Vaelis uses bloodpulse which pretty much eliminates the minions, but misses the 2 non-minions. Lilith heals herself some more. Oris strategically shifts and uses dervish strike on the Balhannoth, doing good damage (bloodying it) and pushing it 5. Since it failed its saving throw, it fell of the cliff. Grim charges berserker, and berserker attacks Lilith.

Round 3
Balhannoth Teleports back up and bursts hitting Grim, who fails his saving throw tossing him off the cliff into the springs. Then goes invisible. Oris is able to track down Balhannoth and hit again for good damage while the other 3 PCs up top decide to try and finish off the berserker but fail.

Round 4
Balhannoth attacks, hits Lilith who is in bad shape again, turns invisible and teleports. PCs unable to track it down this time and just finish off berserker. Grim is still trying to climb the slippery slope.

Final Round
Balhannoth teleports, bursts a few, hits a few, invisible. Aramil and Vaeils ready actions for when it is visible next. Lilith who really doen't feel like waiting tracks it down and crits it, taking away its last 2 HP. Grim is subsequently rescued from pit.

Analysis
the Balhannoth is actually a pretty balanced elite at level. While it has some good abilities, it is definietly managable. It does pretty respectable damage when it has combat advantage, and can attack multiple people every round however its defenses and attack bouns
are about 2 lower than what I would expect from an elite of its level, and its HP is about two-thirds that of most other level 13 elites. Also with allies on its side and a larger area it is harder for it to end up in a place where it can constantly daze PCs.

Now I just need to get on the monster creator and make a level 14 solo version of it for their return trip.

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:04:13 GMT

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19:14 Yay road trip to columbia for Ludo concert followed by kegger!!! #

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Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:04:51 GMT

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23:59 New season of venture bros started last night #

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Holy Crap! Did that just happen?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:54:23 GMT

Sorry again about cancelling D&D yesterday. I woke up way later than planned, so if I did come I might get one encounter done before i needed to go back so I could prepare stuff for my game back in Rolla. I decided to not chance it, since my Rolla group was going to be finishing Trollhaunt Warrens last night.

This leads me to an interesting thing that happened in my game last night. Originally the final battle involved Vard, king of trolls (a bad-ass troll elite), 4 ghost trolls, and the stone cauldron (a hazard) for an EL 16 for my 5 lvl 12 PCs. I have been trying to speed them through the last half of the campaign, skipping half of the encounters (most of which is fighting the same old monsters) so they could go up to level 13 after the boss battle.

One of the encounters I skipped right before the boss battle was one that featured 3 ghost troll (nothing special ability -wise) and a Displacer Beast Packlord. I really want them to fight that so I ended up substituting 2 of the ghost trolls in the boss battle with the beast (same xp). The beast is a great elite (258 HP, 27,28,26,24 defenses, 3 square threatening reach, good damage) and has an awesome displacement ability as shown below:

Displacement Illusion
All melee and ranged attacks have a 50% chance to miss the displacer beast packlord. The effect ends when the displacer beast is hit by an attack, but it recharges as soon as the packlord moves 2 or more squares on its turn. Critical hits ignore displacement.

So I find it hard to believe that my Rolla group killed the beast before it ever had a chance to displace. they did just get lucky on their displacement rolls and hit everytime, I never got to roll the 50% miss chance. How did this happen? Well it starts with the Avenger walking up and critting it and then the Ranger/Twilight Enforcer PP restraining it. Then the Wizard/Bloodmage cast 2 winters wraths on it and since it used an action point it got blood action which deals 10 ongoing. Add in Lasting Frost and the poor ~~displacer~~ beast took 30 damage when it started its turn.

Needless to say it was pretty awesome for the group to utterly slay the ~~Displacer~~ Beast with out it ever displacing on them. The rest of the battle was challenging, but not to overly exerting for them. Too bad they don't know that a Balhannoth is wating for them in their next encounter. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:03:27 GMT

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13:52 O sinus headache, how you make the whole day go by in hazy slow motion :-( #

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Twice the weekend. half the calories

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:46:21 GMT

My dentist and eye doctor only had appointment openings this Thursday so I'll be coming back to St. Chuck Wednesday night. This makes 4 possible nights for me to continue my D&D game with you guys, though by the current demoball schedule at least one person is working everynight. If we can get 2 more 3 encounter nights in, you guys might actually finish the dungeon. Just let me know what day(s) you guys are up for playing. I could also start some games late after demoball closes, though Thursday morning I have a dentist appointment so probably not too late that night.

Also for some reason Chelsea and some of her MSU friends who will be in town for their fall break may be planning a trip to demoball, so make sure to harass her as much as possible if she shows up.