2018-11-19 Rooms, Pathfinder Hacks, and Tech Support Woes

With a herculean effort, I managed to get 90% of the room swap between
my youngest child and the office done. My spouse was busy preparing
food for the week (yay for homemade soup!) so I was left to do most of
the moves myself. We have a lot of books so getting that organized
took forever. It is done now and most things are in place. The office
stuff is set up and the bookcases are too. The reading nook for the
kids needs a bit more work but that can be done over the next
week. I'm so pleased that I was able to finish it. It's just a real
relief.

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I've been watching Dungeon Craft (https://is.gd/WLyNZQ) on YouTube and
have found a couple ideas I'd like to implement with my Pathfinder
group. First, is getting rid of initiative (DungeonCraft #6: No More
Initiative! https://youtu.be/y_mxYKzEjms)) by basically getting both
the PCs and the monsters to go at the same time. Everyone gets two
minutes to plan the round and then GO! Second is giving the action of
casting a spell a Difficulty Challenge (DC) roll (DungeonCraft #37:
How to Handle Magic in D&D & Pathfinder
(https://youtu.be/RV_RwUFETdI)) instead of it always working. I'm
figuring on using something along the lines of a Concentration Check
(https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/#TOC-Concentration) when a spellcaster
attempts to cast a spell. As a corollary of adding a DC roll, you get
rid of spell slots for a wizard. They can cast as many spells as they
want but they always run a risk of rolling a "1" and critically
failing. Every time you roll for your spell, there's a small chance of
failing spectacularly. I would probably limit the use of this house
rule to combat situations where the PCs are potentially fighting for
their lives rather than times when the party is at rest and there's no
pressure to perform. I think both ideas (no initiative and
spellcasting DC rolls) will help increase the tension around the table
during combat. I have a large group of eight players and combat can get
really slow. I hope these ideas will help.

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I spent most of last week dealing with Rogers, one of two local big
ISPs, trying to get my home internet back online. It was a real comedy
of errors. First, after I reported the issue on Wednesday, the soonest
they could send a technician was Friday evening. When the guy showed
up, he basically told me that a temporary line from the street had to
be run and that he couldn't do it. Then, he just left without telling
what the next steps were. I had to call Rogers again. After being
disconnected twice I finally confirmed a $50 credit and that another
technician was scheduled to come on Saturday morning. Fortunately,
this tech was much more helpful and was able to run a temporary line
from my next-door neighbour's house, restoring our connectivity. It's
such a hassle dealing with these ISPs and you literally have little to
no other choice. You end up dealing with the devil you know. :(

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That's all I have time to talk about for now. Happy Monday! :D