king of nowhere

Well, his whole government system was pretty much founded on the idea that he was there and he was able to squash any rebellion if needed. The lord ruler acknowledged that kelsier's rebellion is nothing new, there was one of them every century. and coonstant unrest in the periphereal areas. So, saying that kelsier outsmarted him is a big overstatement. tlr was never in any danger from kelsier, nor was he inconvenienced by it. he even said it si good to change the nobles with a house war every once in a while. In the end the only real mistake tlr made was to not use iron to grab his atium metalmind back. he had no way of knowing that vin could burn the mist and push his bracers. he could have recovered them (or, if vin pushed harder than him, his be flung to them) but, when that happened, he already lost all his other metalminds, stripped away by vin's push. so he couldn't zinc compound then. In fact, that was probably partial to his undoing. He was used to be functionally immortal and to have all the time in the world to think about stuff, now suddenly he was going to die in minutes, probably in pain, and he could not slow down time anymore.

hey, some of my cats liked to sleep over people. but with an ironmind, I could do the opposite: I could sleep over a cat! I'd need to find a way to make the cat bigger than it is so I can use its belly as a pillow... II wonder if stamping the cat so it had a strange genetic defect that made it grow until it was as big as a lion could work...

Well, that roll20 was an intersting idea. but if the playing is made in real time via skype, count me out. I am fluent in english (I've been using it to work abroad for four years), and I have spoken it with people from all over the world, but I have huge troubles with the american accent, and most people in this board are american. I visited USA and found out that I can barely understand it most of the time. Add in that it will be over skype, and on skype I often have troubles understanding my own parents. I don't think I can manage it. Plus, issues with the different timeline would make it really difficult to find good times to play.

Huh, that's more advanced stuff than I ever had to deal with. Let's try to answer some What level do your campaigns typically take place at? I only ran one campaign bringing the party from level 1 to 6 (was pretty hard already; none of my friends were intersted in roleplaying, but I found some of them were into Heroquest, so I conducted a campaign of it and used it as an excuse to introduce them to D&D). I never had to deal with the ridiculously unbalanced stuff that exist at the higher levels. Also, my players were quite inexperienced, so I could not hit too hard. casters are difficult to play effectively without a lot of knowledge. Do you allow ranged AOOs? No one in the party was an archer, so i never considered it. and enemy archers generally tried to hit from afar. But, just thinking off the top of my hat, I think I would not allow that normally: after all, that would require nocking arrows faster, and it would be difficult to justify someone doing that just because someone is casting a spell nearby. but I could allow an archer the option to use one of his ranged attacks as an attack of opportunity; like "I have three ranged attacks per round, I will make two of them in my turn, and keep the third arrow nocked and ready to use it on whoever may provoke an attack of opportunity" Do you still limit AOOs to 1/round without combat reflexes? Yes. Did you also keep the standard rule that you can only AOO if you're not flat-footed? Yes, makes sense. Although I could allow exceptions for specific situations if it seems to make sense in context. What items would a typical martial character have to deal with a flying invisible spellcaster and by what level would they get them? By the level the party got invisibility, enemy adventuring parties started to pack a few potions of see invisibility with them. Adventurers above level 6-7 would generally keep a few fly potions on them just in case. For higher levels there are plenty of magical items available that grants the capability to fly or see invisibility forever or a certain number of times per day. The party never reached that high so I didn't have to come up with specifics most of the times. Actually I remember letting them found one such item in the form of attacheable wings; however, it was malfunctioning for having been exposed to wild magic, so it had the drawback that whenever activated it covered the user in tar and feathers. they sold it for a fair price. Here you see they were inexperienced; a hardcore players would have kept it and found a way to sell the tar thus produced for a profit. That of course applied only to opponents that had access to magical resources. It was a point of worldbuilding that the orcish tribes in the north weren't dangerous to civilization because they lacked arcane caster. their "great horde" consisted of nothing but warriors without magic items and low will saves, plus a few clerics who mostly limited themselves to healing, and was utterly ridiculed by a few dozens high level mages flying and dominating people. My main concern for my group would be that web is as good as ever, so even if they can move and take AOOs, web will prevent that if a spellcaster can get it off if they win initiative (which they will, thanks to nerveskitter, unless you carefully restrict supplements?). Unless I misremember, web allows a saving throw, so that's ok. I didn't have much of supplement material, so again I don't know much about them. I don't even know what nerveskittter do. But yes, I think I would have carefully restriced or nerfed supplements if they had been brought into it. As a genral rule, I envision the fight between a mage and a fighter as the figher running to the mage as fast as he can, the mage getting one or two spells in that time, if he can stop the fighter the mage win, but if the fighter makes the saving throws and closes in, the squishy wizard is in trouble. So, I try to balance thing to keep that mechanic. a wizard has dozens of ways to keep himself out of danger, but each one of them must have a saving throw or a way around. If some spell would prevent a fighter from harming a wizard, I'd not allow it or nerf it to make some counterplay possible. The key concept is counterplay; there must be a realistic way the fighter can get close to the wizard if he is reasonably prepared and get lucky with the dice. You fly, I can fly with a cheap enough magic item. You go invisible, I can drink the potion and see you. You cast stoneskin, I can power attack and still hurt you enough that you may fail your concentration. (oh, yeah, the items giving +30 to concentration - and other skill checks -, that's another thing I removed). You dominate person, I get a saving throw. You cast all your defensive spells before teleporting to kill me, you can't because I'm in a nondescript room and even if you're scrying on me you have no idea where it is. I think wizards being stronger is ok, I would feel something is wrong if the guy who could reshape matter with his thought was no stronger than the guy who swings a pointy stick. All I try to enforce is that the guy with the pointy stick has a credible chance.

I've been a DM with 3.0 and 3.5, and hopefully I will again in the future. However, I have no idea how one could play on the internet. I mean, there are dices to be rolled and somesuch. However, if you explain me how and you convince me it's feasible, I may join in. (EDIT: now that I think about it, the most difficult part would be having a dialogue with an npc; how could you do that if you have to wait a day for an answer?) I don't know anything about 5e. I know very little about 4e, and from what I know I would not like it, even if it is the most balanced. I care a lot about worldbuilding and consistency, and 4e doesn't seem to be focused on it (in the immortal words of roy greenhilt, "you can persuade yourself so well that you retroactively alter the past, but you cannot swing a sword in the same way twice?"). For balancing the casters, I did not allow defensive casting. I mean, also from a realism point of view it makes little sense. you start chanting and gesticulating, I attack you. I don't see how you can do that "defensively". also I covered the "step back, then cast a spell avoiding attacks of opportunity" : if one does that, his enemies can step forward and attack of opportunity. casters are still very powerful, but that way if a melee manages to close in he has a good chance. I also nerfed a bit the dominate person spell by taking a wide approach to what kind of actions would allow a second saving throw. asking a dominated person to attack his allies, or to betray some important secret, certainly does. Some nerfing also to scry and teleport effects, in that I required some stricter "connection" to make them work. To scry on someone you must be able to identify him very well (so just a passing knowledge of his face won't be enough, and neither will just knowing a name, unless it is an absolutely unique one), and to teleport to a place you must know where it is well enough that you would be able to go there by flying. that mostly prevents scry-and-die tactics: you won't be able to scry on him if you don't know him enough to identify him among the whole world population, and even if you do, once you see him walking down the street, you won't be able to teleport there because that street could be anywhere in the world and you don't know where it is (EDIT: even if you knew which city it was, you wouldn't be able to tell a random alley from another. unless you could read the street's name, or you saw something peculiar that would let you identify it). I'm pretty sure I did some other minor nerfing here and there that I cannot think about right now. Last but not least, while not a real nerf, everyone in my campaign world knew exactly how dangerous a spellcaster is, so every adventurer would sink good money on buffing his saving throws and making sure they can deal with a flying or invisible foe, and everyone would focus the wizard first with everything they've got. Many combats resolved with the party sorceress doing nothing but running for her life while the rest of the party killed the enemies that were set on chasing her.

well, I suppose the point of the choices of mass effect 3 was the result of the choices you made in the 2 and 1. for example, how you affected the confict between the quarians and the geths, how the older members of the party will react to you, what happens to the krogan, all this kind of stuff. I felt that ME had lots of choices in that regard, but you have to play the whole trilogy importing the saves to really appreciate it. If you play the 3 as a standalone, you probably won't appreciate it as much. The ending, however, I felt it was a bit contrieved and silly. "You arrived all the way here, and while I tried so hard to stop you all the way, now I will just let you do whatever you please." Yeah, that made sense. And the "synthesis" option made absolutely no sense whatsoever from a scientific point of view. I would like to point that out to that guy who said "fantasy is dumb because magic does whatever it pleases, sci fi is good because it is consistent". Yeah, really. As a scientist I prefer fantasy, because even the lamest "a wizard did it" is still much better than seeing the laws of physics raped by some author who had clearly no idea what he was talking about to justify something plainly impossible. Yeah, sorry for the rant. I'm sure there are tons of good sci fi books out there that do not fall under that. I refer mostly to videogames, as that is my main source of sci-fi. EDIT: anyway, a game like mass effect for roshar or scadrial would work pretty fine for me, if it was well made

Why would you want to do that? it's the final empire we're talking about. if they rebel, just send for the nearest koloss garrison. Unless you are trying to play as elend...

I'm pretty sure the marbleminds will go; a leecher would burn all the metal the target is capable of burning, i suppose. no idea for the earrings, on the other hand, but i doon't think they will just burn, or an inquisitor would be killed by a leecher instantly. maybe they burn more slowly, or something. As for the rate at which metals are consumed in a nicroburst/similar effect, I also raised the question of how fast it actually is. the rate of burned metal cannot be infinite, but it could be one gram per second or one kilogram per second.

the probem with an awakening game is that awakening offers almost unlimited choices, but in a viideogame those choices would be strictly limited. you'd have a limited number of tricks, and that's all. would probably be no different from playing baldur's gate with a wizard.

When you realize you feel inconsciously trusting towards your prime minister because he's using the leadership style of raoden. And once you recognize that you wish you could read a chapter from his pow to see if he's sincere or faking.

I really don't see the problems with his skill coming from both talent, practice, and the bond. One does not exclude the others, and in fact assuming all three explains things better. Although, if we had to drop one, I'd drop the bond. skill and talent are enough to justify what kaladin does. the first time he picks up that quarterstaff, he does nothing so special. he hit a hand, that's all. almost everyone can swing a staff and hit a hand-sized target. he is good at thinking under pressure, and that certainly helps him and his part of what makes him a natural and explains how he managed to come up with decent moves despite having no practice. everything he did there was withing the possibility of someone thinking with a cool head. then there is the fact that his instructor was amazed at his skill "from the first time he picked up a spear". maybe that's not to be taken literally. maybe it means that after one hour of training he was already as good as he was supposed to be after one day, and his instructor was amazed by it. performing a kata after one year without practice is, as others said, not the same thing as competing at high level, and the kind of thing one may remember. I am a competitive chessplayer, and if I went one year without seeing a chessboard, I'll certainly lose much capability for fast and advanced calculation, but I'd still remember how to play the most common openings, or how to perform certain endgame manuevers. As for "losing his skill", well, without stormlight he manages to hold his own with a chasmfiend with only a blade (something that was dangerous to three full shardbearers combined, two of which were dalinar and adolin) and took down two men while barely standing; ok, by surprise, but you try that while hemorraging. that's a strange idea of "losing his skill". If he hadn't, I wonder what he would have done. maybe slain that chasmfiend blindfolded. I'm with thebrian on the kata. he was doing it poorly because he was distracted more than anything else. So, that justifies kaladin's prowess without calling into account the bond. It's a bit stretched at times, and it works better if we also assume the bond helps kaladin. but, if we were quantifying the contribution of the bond on kaladin's skill (if it was possible to quantify such a thing) I'd say it is no more than 20%, 30% tops. most of his skill is real and comes from himself. I'd trust syl when she said she's party responsible for it.

i believe "strength of the squires" refer to the fact that his squires also get to fight better than they should. think about it. every member of bridge 4 is now an elite fighter, despite the fact that each one of them was judged unworthy by society to start with. they also had much less training than regular soldiers. and he also did it in amaram's army, taking under his protection the smallest, weakest spearmen and consistently making them the best in the army. as we say in italy, one can't get blood out of a turnip. while kaladin is good at inspiring and leading people, it is possible some of that comes from the radiant power. it is possible that his power consists in getting blood out of a turnip.

ah, i missed the "only ship to united states" under the 20 and 100 dollars option. sad, but I'm not really going to spend 120 $ on a set of dice. Ok, thanks.

Ok, sorry because it's probably been explained somewhere, but I can't find it. it is written that in the price of the set there is shipping included. but then it is implied that it is only for US backers, not internationals. what would be the price for international shipping? what would I have to do to get a set of dice in finland or italy? from the answer I will decide whether to back it or not. thanks.

WoR spoiler Also, I didn't put spoilers in the title because I avoided mentioning anything specific about other books. what a nalthian worldhopper can do on roshar doesn't tell whether there is such a worldhopper or not, much less identify him. Well, except that we are using wor spoilers, so it is clear that at least a nalthian worldhopper is in the book, but it still doesn't say much. But I put an edit since you thought I should

go at a brandon book release, be the first to grab the book, then go to the toilet and activate a bendalloy bubble. for greater effect you can have an accomplice in the room using a cadium bubble too. Return from the toilet having read all the book, then start asking brandon for questions that spoils the ending. try to keep an innocent face through all of it. it is recommended to be steel or gold feruchemists too to try this, so you can either run away from the angry mob, or get up from the beating they will give you EDIT: another option to have the smae result would be to use illusion to pretend you're peter, then talk with brandon about the plot of the last book so you can spoil it for everyone

EDIT: this argument can touch the subject of nalthians worldhopper in other series. stuff about them should be kept under spoiler. breath does not just give awakening and heightenings, but also the ccapability to feel the presence of others around you. That last power is seldom spoken about, and is commonly accepted by nalthians to be about feeling people. yet drabs are not felt with this power, and people with more breaths are felt more. brandon said that a drab is less than a regular person from another planet, implying the one breath every nalthian has is not something others don'tt have, it's something that everyone has and that they can give away. it strongly implies that it is their innate investiture to me. therefore I believe what they call "life sense" is actually a capability to sense the presence of investiture in living beings. dead beings are much more difficult to feell and require a high heightening instead. I don't have that many proofs because life sense is not spoken about much and is mostly taken for granted, but it makes sense given how the cosmere works, and is certainly supported by the available information. So, what does that imply? - an awakener would be able to feel someone from another planet because of their innate investiture. they would register as having one breath per their innate investiture. maybe one of the new feruchemical powers, the one that stores investiture, can mask that by storing one's innate investiture in a metalmind. - an awakener is capable of recognizing someone using magics even if it is not apparent to the senses, like an allomancer burning tin or shallan using an illusion; in particular someone holding stormlight would shine like a beacon to an awakener - as it is possible, with the right knowledge, to use one magical system to fuel another, any worldhopper can learn that trick and feel investiture around him. the more investiture they hold, the more they can feel in others. that last point give us - if they are a cooperative group, most members of the 17th shard should have a life sense - hoid, with the incredible amount of investiture he has, should be able to walk around the warcamps and tell you exactly how many people are in there and what they are doing. anyway, he is impossible to startle. and he can probably reach the 10th heightening even without 50k breaths, by virtue of the other investiture he has.

both possibilities have been speculated, but we have no solid facts either way for the moment. we'll have to wait the book.

You know, know that you mention it, and I think about it, it's actually true. However, I've become much more picky about plots in those years. My taste for better plots has advanced more than the movie industry. As I've said in many other places, I blame jordan and sanderson for doing this to me. After all, when you said that a plot is good or bad, you are comparing it to some internal standard. If we'd never read a good story, we'd enjoy the bad ones and never think they could be better. It''s true for everything. and that's why we're rarely satisfied with what we have.

other people correctly pointed out the real conversion between ages, just another thought that came to my mind: since on roshar there is less gravity, the earth makes less effort to push the blood all the way up, and the bones (especially the vertebrae) deteriorate less. loss of muscle in old age is not as disabling, at least to someone who excerciced all his life (a sedentary guy will have his muscles adapted for the reduced gravity, an active guy will just run longer). So old age is probably less crippling on the organism, allowing dalinar and sadeas to be in better shape than they really have a right to for their age.

See, there is this cool magic system, where have this sort of essence, it works a bit like mana, they call it "money" in that world, and you can gather it and then use it to magically compel other people to do what you say; but that same compulsion drains your mana and replenishes that of the compelled guy, so what goes around comes around. Except when you have really a lot of this "money" thing, than you can access to some really broken mechanics that goes under the general name "financial speculation" where your magic just multiply itself without you doing much. It had the premise to be a great story, but it ended up quite badly. there were too many shades of grey around so that you could never tell who was the hero and who was the villain, and a gazjillion characters (over 7 billions, say those who counted them) and most of them did hardly anything intersting...

so much discussion about what boils down to semantics. if you want, you can consider alloy of law to be a prequel to the second trilogy. And speaking of trilogies, the original plan was for three trilogies (one in the ashworld, one with contemporary era technology, and one in the future), alloy of law sparked another trilogy, so now there will be 4 mistborn trilogies, one of which has 4 books. And who knows what else brandon will happen to randomly write as an excercise or while sleepwalking. it's going to rival the wheel of time in length, and it's not even brandon's main work.

You're no real sanderfan. If you were one, you'd have all those books already (or preordered and waiting for them in the worst case)

everytime I take an airplane I wish I was shorter. same goes for long bus trips, especially on early morning. and it seems every time I have one of those there is a petite girl in the company who can just nestle herself in the seats and sleep peacefully while I'm too big to try the same and I feel like I'm in some medieval torture device.

once a mafia boss tried to blackmail sanderson for protection money. their dialogue went like that. "if you don't pay us a percentage of your profit, you may fall victim of some accident" "if I have some accident, I won't be able to write hoid backstory" Then the mafia boss sent two thugs to sanderson. to be his bodyguards until all the cosmere books are done. He also gave his raket-extorted money to a charity so that he could give his name to a minor character in a book.