Deathknell: Yes, I got a beholder

That is one sweet looking figure.

Just bought my first six boosters. Unfortunately, only three of the rares are ones I wanted: Beholder, Boneclaw, and Thaskor. And none of those were really on my "really want" list, though I'm definitely keeping the Beholder. Which is apparently worth $40+ if you buy it individually on-line! (At FRPGames, at least; I recommend them, though, as I've had good luck with them in the past...just ain't worth spending that kind of money on a rare fig!).

The rares I didn't want are the Spectre (looks like a statue to me), the Dwarf Samurai, and the Valorous Prince. I'll probably try to trade those away, though I may keep the Spectre.

Legendary Fiendish Ti-Khana Advanced Behir

Why? Well, why not?

Three templates applied to an advanced critter from the Monster Manual. Mainly to justify using the Behir miniature when I got it in a Giants of Legend box but the party was far higher than level 8 or whatever CR the standard Behir has.

Legendary Fiendish Ti-Khana Advanced Behir

Huge Outsider (Augmented, Native)

Hit Dice: 13d10+130 (201 hp)

Initiative: +8

Speed: 70 ft. (14 squares), climb 45 ft.

Armor Class: 28 (–2 size, +3 Dex, +16 natural, +1 haste), touch 12, flat-footed 24

Base Attack/Grapple: +13/+34

Attack: Bite +25 melee (3d8+19)

Full Attack: Bite +25 melee (3d8+19)

Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft.

Special Attacks: Breath weapon, constrict 2d8+8, improved grab, rake 1d4+4, smite good, swallow whole

Special Qualities: Can’t be tripped, darkvision 60 ft., DR 10/magic, electric blood, immunity to electricity, low-light vision, resistance to cold 10 and fire 10, scent, SR 18

Saves: Fort +21 (+8 base, +10 Con, +3 MoL)

Ref +16 (+8 base, +4 Dex, +3 MoL, +1 haste)

Will +14 (+8 base, +3 Wis, +3 MoL)

Abilities: Str 36, Dex 19, Con 31, Int 9, Wis 16, Cha 16

Skills: Climb +16, Hide +5, Listen +8, Spot +4, Survival +2

Feats: Alertness, Cleave, Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Attack (bite), Multiattack, Power Attack, Track

Environment: Warm hills

Organization: Solitary or pair

Challenge Rating: 13

Treasure: Standard

Alignment: Often neutral

Advancement: 10–13 HD (Huge); 14–27 HD (Gargantuan)

Level Adjustment: —

The behir is a serpentine monster that can slither like a snake or use its dozen legs to move with considerable speed. A behir is about 40 feet long and weighs about 4,000 pounds. It can fold its limbs close to its long, narrow body and slither in snake fashion if it desires. The coloration of behirs ranges from ultramarine to deep blue with bands of gray-brown. The belly is pale blue. The two large horns curving back over the head look dangerous but are actually used for preening the creature’s scales, not for fighting.

Behirs speak Common.

COMBAT

A behir usually bites and grabs its prey first, then either swallows or constricts the opponent. It can employ its claws only against foes caught in its coils. If beset by a large number of foes, it uses its breath weapon.

Breath Weapon (Su): 20-foot line, once every 10 rounds, damage 7d6 electricity, Reflex DC 26 half. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Constrict (Ex): A behir deals 2d10+13 points of damage with a successful grapple check. It can make six rake attacks against a grappled foe as well.

Electric Blood (Su): Each time the behir is damaged with a piercing or slashing attack, its blood sprays out in a 15-foot cone of electrical energy, doing 1d4 to everyone in range (no save).

Greater Damage (Ex): The behir’s damage dice are increased.

Haste (Su): The behir is effected as if by the haste spell (may make an extra attack during a full attack; +1 bonus to attacks, AC, and Reflex saves; +30 feet to speed)

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a behir must hit a creature of any size with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity.

If it wins the grapple check, it it establishes a hold and can attempt to constrict the opponent or swallow the opponent in the following round.

Rake (Ex): Six claws, attack bonus +25 melee, damage 2d6+6.

Smite Good (Su): Once per day the behir can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to 20 points against a good foe.

Swallow Whole (Ex): A behir can try to swallow a grabbed Medium or smaller opponent by making a successful grapple check.

A behir that swallows an opponent can use its Cleave feat to bite and grab another opponent.

A swallowed creature takes 2d10+13 points of bludgeoning damage and 8 points of acid damage per round from the behir’s gizzard. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 15). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out.

A behir’s gizzard can hold 2 Medium, 8 Small, 32 Tiny, or 128 Diminutive or smaller opponents.

Skills: Behirs have a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks and can always choose to take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened.

DriveThruRPG; Binding PDFs

I've complained about the somewhat PITA DRM mechanism they started using, but now they are doing watermarks. We don't need to deal with registering or MS Passport or anything like that.

Doubtless it won't be perfect for preventing PDF piracy, but protection schemes rarely stop the determined pirates anyway. But according to DTRPG, they were trying to stop the "casual" pirating of passing a file onto someone's buddies. Watermarking still works against this but doesn't inconvenience the legitimate consumer, so credit to DTRPG.

As an aside, I took advantage of their 20% sale for "GM's Day" last weekend and bought Fields of Blood, the Eden book for realm management and mass combat (d20). I'd been thinking about it in the past and for $12 I couldn't pass it up. I also picked up a "personal binder" this weekend (the GBC CombBind 50) since I've been printing out a lot of PDFs and such lately. I think I may end up buying more stuff in PDF format (as opposed to print) and printing/binding it myself since that whole "lays flat" thing is very useful. Of course, my binder only handles up to 90 sheets (which equates to books up to 180 pages), so this won't be an option for, say, the next WotC hardcover I want. But for smaller stuff it'll be nice. I would have gotten a higher-capacity binder but those things aren't cheap - the one I bought was around $60 and they only go up from there.

The Future of Dragon

From Erik Mona (editor of Dragon) in an ENWorld discussion:

To see where the magazine is headed, pay less attention to issues 323 and 324 and more attention to issues 329 and 330.

I don't have issue #330 yet, but I do have #329 and I have to say that was probably one of the best issues I've seen in a long time. Good contents, interesting articles, a great cover...

If this is the future of the magazine, there's good stuff in store for Dragon.

Perdido Street Station: First Impressions

Since it's supposed to be so good, I finally picked up Perdido Street Station recently and started reading it. I'm on Chapter 9 at the moment and...I'm afraid I'm missing something here. Quite frankly, I'm finding this book to be quite boring.

I have no problem with Miéville's writing style. It's just that I don't really find the protagonists that interesting so far - the main character (Isaac) is a "renegade eccentric scientist", but despite this book being so "different" from the norm, Isaac is simply a cliché. His half-insect/half-human "forbidden love" (Lin) is somewhat interesting but so far nothing about her really stands out - other than being partially insectoid. I'm also not seeing much of a storyline. So far Miéville is spending so much time on describing the setting (the steampunk city of New Crobuzon) that the characterization and plot development are being neglected. There is a storyline, but it's plodding along so slowly to make way for more descriptions of the grimness and oppressiveness of the city that I'm rapidly losing interest.

Of course, the sophisticates reading this (if there are any...) have no doubt dismissed me as a literary savage with a short attention span at this point. I didn't even mention that I far more enjoyed the first two books of the Black Company series that I read prior to this. But with all due respect to them, as well as two other fans of the book whose opinions I actually respect - Neil Gaiman and Michael Moorcock - I'm just not getting it. In some ways it reminds me of Lord of the Rings, where Tolkien goes into great depth describing countrysides and what hobbits eat for lunch and relegates narration of epic events (such the ents destroying Isengard or the battle betwen Eowyn and the Witch-King) to a single paragraph or a disinterested third-person re-telling.

I realize that I may be judging the book prematurely, but my attitude is similar to my wife's (who is about ten times more well-read than I'll ever be). Her philosophy is that if a book doesn't grab her attention in the first 50 pages, it's not worth continuing when there are so many other books she wants to read (her interests include fantasy and sci-fi as well as history, politics, economics, religion, and a host of other topics - I'll be damned surprised if our kids aren't frickin' genuises).

I think I'm going to give it a bit more of a chance, though. This review from Amazon helps:

I almost faltered with this book. Initially I was wading through the prose and seeminly [sic] not getting anywhere, but once the principal protagonists took the stage ( along with the Weaver ), this became a page turner.

On the other hand, this one seems to match my feeling so far:

Though China Mieville displays a great deal of potential in "Perdido Street Station", it could really have done with a ferocious editor, relentlessly hacking away the unnecessary prose - and probably halving the book's size by doing so.

The world of New Crobuzon is somewhat interesting but is very much dominant, it may be the author's intention to treat it as the protagonist. On the downside, there's not a lot of meat in the story. One gets the feeling of style over substance (not always bad, but it is overbearing here).

There's also the fact that too many people seem like this book because it's different. But "different" does not automatically mean "good". I'll take a book set in a standard Middle-Earth/Forgotten Realms setting with good characterization and good storyline over one set in a different, unique, interesting world but with crappy characters and a bland plot.

There are far more positive reviews than negative for the book on Amazon, but the negative reviews are echoing my initial sentiments - and seem to indicate that things only get worse the farther into the book I get. Sure, there are lots more positive reviews, but then there are also lots of people who read the execrable D&D novels published by WotC (yeah, I know there are some good ones - and lots of bad ones).

Hmm...here's another one (can you tell I'm going back-and-forth between Amazon and Blogger?):

Some of you Mieville-lovers may hate me, but I write the truth. This book is for a certain type of person: one who appreciates a novel's aesthetics and symbolism more than it's meat, it's plot, it's characterization.

I may or may not continue. Part of me says I owe Miéville a chance since I actually read the entirety of The Kingless Land, and despite my misgivings about PSS it's about 100 times better than Greenwood's steaming pile (WotC never published anything that bad). But the big thing comes down to this: a good book is one where I continue to read because I want to see what comes next. With PSS (and Kingless Land, and some others), I'm continuing to read because I'm hoping that it will get better.

Of course, that's no guarantee that you won't be disappointed in the end. I quite enjoyed Philip José Farmer's Dungeon series, until the last book in which the author completely and utterly destroyed the entire story. That terrible book ruined the enjoyment of the other five.

Cool Site of the Week: Zombie Infection Simulation

Zombie Infection Simulation

This site has a Java app that simulates how a zombie infestation would spread in a randomly-generated city. It's a very cool little toy.

Of course, the coming Zombie Apocalypse is no laughing matter. This simulator shows just how quickly we could be overrun. The lesson here is: Be prepared. There is time. We can survive the inevitable zombie plagues. But only if we start planning and training now.

Sundry Bits Again

Actually "Sundry Bits" could be the name of a weblog. Not found of that, though, so I'll just use it as a post title. Feel free to use it for your own blog if you want.

World of Warcraft: My biggest timesink right now. Little consolation that the same holds true for most of the people I play with right now! The problem isn't the game itself but that I'm spending too much time on it, though I can't really say I'm spending more time playing WoW than I did, say, Morrowind or Knights of the Old Republic. Still, though, it's a fun game. And addictive. The most important thing, though, is that my Undead Warlock is almost level 34.

Deathknell: Looking to be pretty nice (and I'm not talking about the starting town for the Undead in WoW). Lots of people didn't care for the Aberrations series, and I'd have to agree that it wasn't one of the better sets. But what I've seen previewed on the Web so far for Deathknell looks good. And more monks! Up until now, I didn't have many at all...

Mythosa Chronicle: Number 9 is being proofread and should go up in the next few days.

That's about it for tonight. Back to Warcr- Well, maybe something else and then bed...