Monday, September 2, 2019

Peninsula of Plenty Regional Map Tabletop Environs

 This is another Worldographer map for my campaign. The central city is named Tabletop and the characters are traveling into the area from the north. Each hex is 6 miles.


Peninsula of Plenty Regional Map, Capital Environs

This Worldographer map is from my current campaign on the Peninsula of Plenty. Each hex is 6 miles and the characters are following the road along to the coastline. 
The Savannah trees were a custom icon created by me using GIMP and the original tree Icon from the 1e set of graphics to make sure the style and colors matched. It was basically a multistep copy and paste, with a few extra lines added.  




Peninsula of Plenty Campaign Map

In an effort to revamp my maps tab, I am reposting as many maps as I can. These maps were created in Worldographer and have 6 mile hexes. The region below is rough the size of Italy. 


Fall Pi Challenge!

I've had a Raspberry Pi sitting in my drawer for over a year. By December, I will be making use of it, using only parts and items I have on hand.

I am a junk accumulator, so if I can't do anything cool with this, I am going to pass it on to someone else who can and will.

Here is my list of things I want it to do.

  1. Work with some sort of joystick, Wii or PS4. Preferably a Wii mote.
  2. It will work like Kiosk. 
  3. The Kiosk will display the weather, date and time. 
  4. The Kiosk will have a theme, like summer, winter, vacation, etc.
  5. The Kiosk will be changeable.   
  6. It will play music from a source. I haven't selected the source.  
  7. It will display pictures, from a source. 
  8. It will display movies, from a source.
That's a pretty good list for now. Time to do some exploration of these topics to see if I can actually do this with code others have created. 

Wish me luck! 

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Oh, No You Don't! Unfettered Magic

All Magic Users (and only magic users) in my campaign have the inherent talent to read and control magic for their own use. Generally, this is limited to the magic user, his own items and knowledge. However, mages also have a darker, more dangerous power which can be used with great care.


Unfettered Magic

Level: 1                                                         Components: V, S, M
Range: 3" (30 feet/30 yards) +1" per level   Casting Time: Instantaneous
Duration: Instantaneous                                Saving Throw: Special
Area of Effect: One Creature

All magic users have the ability to defend themselves from magical forces, by the nature of their studies in their profession. Unfettered Magic is a dangerous defense against hostile magic users. The danger comes in respect to the possible level disparities of the defender and attacker.

A magic user can only cast this spell when they see another magic user begin casting a spell with a Casting Time of one segment or more. It cannot be cast in preparation - I.E. before the other caster begins.

As soon as the last symbol and word for Unfettered Magic is uttered and woven, the other magic user is entitled to a saving throw. If they are successful, the caster of Unfettered Magic also makes a saving throw. What happens next, depends on these rolls.

If the defender makes their roll saving, the caster of Unfettered Magic must make a saving throw to avoid taking 2 points of damage per level of the defender's spell. If they are unsuccessful AND they do not have enough hit points to survive this damage, they are burned to ash and the extra damage explodes in a 1" (10 feet or yards). People in this area must make a save for half damage. The magic user can't be revived to a corporeal form by any means short of wish. Casting resurrection or reincarnation will summon their ghost.

If the defender loses his saving throw verse Unfettered Magic, they immediately lose the spell they are casting and the caster of Unfettered Magic gains this spell, in all ways. They can cast it before the end of the round. If they survive combat, they can scribe this spell into their spell book. If they do not transcribe the spell within 24, they forget it. The magic user is not required to cast this spell at all, they can merely release the energy.

IF both magic users make their save, no damage is taken, but the caster of Unfettered Magic has his position revealed and is now know to be a hostile spell caster. The other caster has the option of targeting them immediately with their current spell instead of casting at their previously selected target. Range and area of effect may preclude this. 

If there is a level disparity, say a 1st level magic user trying to divert a 5th level spell, the user of Unfettered Magic takes one hit point of damage per level of difference. For example, a 1st level magic user gains Magic Jar, they would take 5-1 points of damage, regardless if they used the spell at all. If this reduces their hit points to zero or less, they die. In this case, they can be revived by normal means and there is no explosion as the energy was directed inwards. Note: even if the caster dies, they may direct this spell before the end of the round.

When a magic user uses the Unfettered Magic spell, there is a cool down period where they may not work other magic. The duration of this is based on the level of the spell they attempted to seize. It is one round per level of spell. Redirecting a 7th level spell will result in a 7 round period where the magic user cannot use magic at all. While magic items will continue to function if they function continuously, like a +1 dagger or ring of protection, the magic user cannot use a wand, staff, rod, potion, or cause a miscellaneous item to activate. This limitation occurs on both success and failure.

Unfettered Magic can only be used on actual spells, cast by a magic user. It does not work on clerical, druidic, or illusionist magic, nor can it be used against spell like abilities or magic items, such as a wand of missiles. Non-magic user casters accidentally targeted by this spell will immediately know the location (even if hidden) of the magic user and have a choice to redirect their current spell on to them.

Since most low level magic users have relatively no chance of forcing a higher level mage to fail a saving throw, this is a desperation move, where death is better than not trying. Oft-times, low level magic users will do this when they are within 30 feet of a higher level caster, in the hopes that the explosion will hurt them. Higher level magic users can use this spell with virtual impunity but generally don't because of the cool down.

Saturday, August 31, 2019

The Tek - August 2019 Stats.

August 2019 Downloads via DriveThruRPG:
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 5
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 13
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 41
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9
Swashbucklers Character Class - 54

Webstats:
Blogger Pageviews - 5,638
Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,006
Google Analytics Sessions - 649
Pageviews per Session - 1.55

Amazon Stats:
Seller Central - 1 sale
Amazon Affiliates - 0 clicks, 0 fees, 0 bounties
Audible: 0

I feel great about the Google Analytics numbers despite being less than a fifth of the Blogger numbers. In looking at what I did this month vs. other months, I believe that I have some insight into why the Blogger stats are so high.

I suspect that if something is a clickable element, say an ad or a picture, and someone views a page that contains those things, it will count both the post plus those elements. So one post with an ad and a picture counts as 3 page views.

My behavior this month has radically changed. First, I pulled in posts from 3 other blogs and made them live. There were 70 blog posts this month, an average of 2.25 per day. That is atypical for me and cannot be sustained. Also, I made myself post an image for every post. And finally, I added several new ads to the site. You can see the DriveThruRPG and Amazon ads down the right column, plus the Sponsor Ads tab for Audible and Amazon Prime. (If you can't see them, you have an ad blocker turned on, which is fine.) 5,593 pageviews as measured by Blogger in this context make sense. Analytics is also filtering a lot of garbage out, such as spam views.

So, what do I think I know? I think I can sustain a viewership of 500 sessions and 1.5 pageviews per session, so I think I can hit 750 pagesviews per month. So that is next month's goal.

I am now reviewing Amazon ad data. It might not be worth having any ads outside of DriveThruRPG.

UPDATE: On September 1st, I caught some data which might be enlightening. Analytics told me I had 30 pageviews across 9 different landing pages. Blogger said I had 60 views on ten different posts.

In looking at each post visited, I get the following numbers;
10 posts,
15 images,
38 ads or banners.

That's 63. Too many.

BUT when comparing landing pages to post views, I see that one post was in yesterday's data set according to Analytics. So, 63-4 is 59. But wait. There is one post that is a duplicate of an ad that appears on the right-hand side. +1 for 60!

I am now satisfied that blogger is counting every loadable element as a "pageview", while Analytics is counting the code where it appears, which is the post level. It doesn't add up entirely, but I am sure this is correct.

UPDATE Jan. 12, 2020. I've decided to add some images of my Google Analytics to this post.

August 2019

September 2019