Jarric

weirdly I've encountered the Swolebold in one of @jonfirestar's campaigns. Starting to think I actually should write this one-shot now. Call it 'legally distinct Gaols & Drakes' or something. To be fair, with the current OGL stuff it feels like everyone else is doing that anyway...

That sounds amazing - I love a stupid cinematic moment

Thanks! It's going well so far! budget monsters would be a great premise for a one-shot. Or a good plotline for that RPG where you play the monsters setting up to defend your dungeon...

Monday - week 4 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing was squats - hit 95kg (209#) x 3 x 5. Getting back to where I want to be on these now. Followed that with a 6 minute workout - first 2 minutes max cals airbike, next 2 minutes max reps wall balls, final 2 minutes max cals row. I didn't go too mental on it, because it was about -2*C in the gym and I really like being able to breathe. Scored 74 cals+balls+cals in the end. Work was ok; I was out most of the day at a meeting and lunch with a client, so my office time was just trying to not leave things too difficult for tomorrow. I did hit my boundary times for starting and finishing though. In the evening I tidied away a box of shoes that's been sat in our bedroom since we moved in almost 2 years ago (we bought some under-bed storage boxes at the weekend, which was the main thing holding me back). I hoovered in the bedroom too, so that's a tick for the cleaning goal. The I cooked dinner, and in an effort to use up some random items I made roast turkey and pineapple curry. It was bloody lovely, if I do say so myself, though the curry spice was almost completely lost in the mix. I was knackered by that point, so we watched Lego Masters Australia and went to bed by 10. Food, calories, languages, and time all done, but studying missed, so 4/5 dailies. 1/5 weeklies ticked off with the cleaning. Week 4 plan It's going to be a busy week, so I need a plan: Tuesday run, work, study at work, hangboarding in the evening because it's my only evening to do it, Tesco shop because only free evening for that, change bedding and put away clean stuff Wednesday crossfit, study on lunch break, work team thing including drinks after work, home by 8pm, oven pizza dinner, drunk drawing Thursday run, study at work, D&D prep in lunch break, into town for supplier party straight from work Friday Crossfit (assuming I get to bed early enough on Thursday), study on lunch break, snack straight after work then out for formal industry dinner Saturday bouldering, try and fit in a bit of studying, out with Hopalong in the day, home around 8pm, need an easy dinner Sunday run, D&D, prep for next D&D session, study, roast dinner, prep breakfast for next week As you may be able to tell, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are all drinking events. So the plan for that is eat lots of food, drink plenty of water, and try to relax and have fun with it all. Calories may go somewhat out the window, because I must not under eat to fit in the beer - I will track all calories and that's the main thing this week.

Week 3 update So I've dropped off updating for a few days now, but here's some things for Wednesday - Sunday. Crossfit has been good. Wednesday was a 7 round E2MOM of bar muscle ups, power snatch, and burpees over bar, and I got all 7 single bar muscle ups! I think I've had about 1-2 ugly BMUs in my life before that, so getting 7 in one workout was incredibly pleasing. Friday was squats, and I hit 100kg (220#) for 3 reps, 90kg x 5 and 80kg x7. My 5RM is 105kg, but that was a long time ago, and this is probably the heaviest I've squatted in at least a year. Running has been good too; 3.5 miles on Thursday and 4 miles on Saturday, and both felt solid. Knee and hip are a bit achy, but nothing a bit of foam rolling won't fix. I also signed up to 2 laps (14km/8.75 miles) of Nuts Challenge in March, and rejigged my running plan to accommodate the first race of the season. Calories were on track all week - I worked hard to eat enough and finished at 21,616kcal against a weekly target of 21,504kcal. I forgot to weight in this morning unfortunately, so we'll keep that goal where it is for now. I only managed to study twice last week, so I need to push that harder this week, and I didn't meet my work timekeeping goal once. Languages and teeth were both 100% though, and I did at least 3 foam rolling/stretching/yoga sessions. I also hangboarded on Wednesday evening, which might be my new go-to time as it fitted really well with the week. Cleaning I just about managed a bit of tidying on Sunday, which I'm going to count. I didn't manage to draw once - Dungeon 23 isn't going well (or, in fact, at all) right now. I've had a few evenings where I've been really shattered and had to go to bed early - not sure why as I'm alright in the day, and I'm not short on time in bed. On Sunday I ran D&D. The party were exploring some sewers, and started the session having run into... let's call it an 'eye monster', about the size of a grapefruit with a massive central eye and 4 stubby little eye stalks. It was a fun little fight, but they killed it fairly easily, and found their way to the bad guys' hideout. To my surprise they had a bit of trouble with the goblins guarding the entrance, but to my greater surprise they absolutely annihilated a duergar before he managed to land a hit, and followed it up by wiping out a grey ooze that was hiding in the lavatory. Then the party entered a central chamber, and discovered the man they've been looking for being threatened by a half-orc wizard. At the far end of the room, clutching a human brain on legs, was a truly inhuman creature. Milky white eyes protruded from it's rubbery, purple skin, and four tentacles dangled around it's alien mouth... The mindflayer headed off into the next room, leaving the brain and the wizard to take care of the party. The wizard went down to a well timed sleep spell from Thea, the bard, but I genuinely thought that the brain was going to claim the first PC of the campaign. A successful dissonant whispers from @jonfirestar's sorcerer, Bilgur, managed to cut it down to size however, and as it tried to flee Hammarfist, @WhiteGhost's barbarian, took an attack of opportunity for the killing blow. With the wizard just sleeping though, the ranger unconscious, and the mind flayer a room away, they're not out of the woods yet.

I'm prepared to better that you're already a better DM than you think you are Good news about the physio, I'm really glad it's fixable! Just be patient and trust the process (or you can use my strategy from last year, and keep pushing to hard and re-injuring it every couple of months). Sorry to hear about your nan. I don't think it makes you sound callous though; reality is that you're always likely to feel more worried about people you have a close emotional connection to that about other people. And a close emotional connection is not defined by how close someone sits in your family tree.

Good on you for getting stuff done in the morning. I am too often tempted to think 'I'll do it later' only for events to conspire against me and for me to run out of time. Also, just catching up, I'd say shaman is a druid/witch (or druid/warlock) hybrid. Pathfinder disagrees with me, they say oracle/witch: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/shaman/

If you're in the UK I'm more than happy to ask the others if you can join mate, absolutely. to be fair, it's a Tuesday night, and I have to drive there, so it's not quite as lucrative for the pub as you might imagine. 100%

Very true You'd fit right in in this campaign Thank you, it's a lot of fun! Pubs just seem to work for us; where gaming cafés would change for a table, pubs are happy to let us reserve a space just so they know they have people in buying drinks. And the main gaming place here is a big, echo-y room full of people playing war games, so it's actually louder than the pub. We don't get a lot of stuff done, but we have a lot of fun doing it.

Yeah, the pencils and paycheques portion of the game is less than exciting. Can you take that bit away and do it on your own time? Once you know the broad strokes species/class/class options/feats the rest is just admin, which you could do chilling at home (or stick into an online character sheet creator after the fact). On the information side, don't think of it as asking for help, think of it as outsourcing. You're obviously capable of looking up the information for yourself, but why spend your precious time doing that when someone else can give you the answer more quickly? I love this game, it's so beautiful!

Hey Deffy, how's it going? Still busy with work?

Yeah, I'm getting a load of broken picture links on my phone - I thought it was me. What is it you don't like about it, out of interest? I like character and group creation, but it can be awkward if not coordinated well. I don't know why, but I find tracking this goal like this really funny . I like it.

Tuesday - week 3 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. Went for my run first thing, and comfortably hit the planned 3.5 miles. I had then planned to do some hangboarding and/or yoga, but didn't have time for either when I got in so I just did a little foam rolling and stretching. Work was ok, but I missed my goal start time by a couple of minutes again. I did get some study in though. In the evening we went to the new pub we've found to play Pathfinder. We decided to try the food, and they serve a Thai menu, so I had an excellent jackfruit yellow curry (probably the first vegan meal I've ever bought ) and WW had chow mein. In game, we're currently exploring a fortress which was once home to a cult of Aphrodite Areia. Different factions in the cult seem to be represented by different flowers, and the floor we're currently on seems to mostly represent hellebore and aster. We called it the hellefloor. We went through a marked door (the helledoor) to find some bedrooms that were magically kept clean, and then through another opposite to find a medical ward with the same magical protections. Unfortunately it was also full of bleeding skeletons, which gave an odd image as the floor was constantly covered in their blood and then magically cleaned. We dispatched them handily, and our sorcerer got some new shoulder pads. We then had an argument about a scroll. The wizard refused to use it because it's an illusion spell, and he says illusion is unethical. As a cleric I couldn't use it, because it's not a divine spell. The sorcerer doesn't believe that magic can be contained in writing, despite the fact he travels with a wizard. In the end we fed it to Lucy, the goose who's been following us around for most of the campaign, and who is most definitely not Zeus transformed into animal form so he can fuck with us. We got back late and I realised I was well under calories, so I had a slab of chocolate cake before bed whilst practising Dutch. 4/5 dailies, 1/4 weeklies.

Monday - week 3 day 1 Monday was a good day. Crossfit was bench day, and I managed to hit 67.5kg (149#) x 3 x 5. I didn't think that was very high as I had in my head I'd done 72.5kg ages ago, but I've just checked and 72.5 was my 1RM, so 5 at 67.5 is pretty good! The WOD was 12->1 reps for time of pushups, ring rows, and sit ups. I always find pushups hard and was tempted to scale to 10->1 instead, but I stuck with it Rx and finished all 78 reps of each movement dead last in 12'52". I missed my getting to work goal by about a minute, but work was ok. In the evening I decided to do some yoga, and then procrastinated for bloody ages before making a huge chilli with leftover roast pork. I went about 350 calories into my buffer with a puff pastry mince pie that clearly needed eating up. Teeth and languages done before bed, no studying. 3/5 dailies, 1/4 weeklies

Week 2 wrap-up Dailies: The muscle - 0/7 - went way over my calorie budget on the first couple of days, and then stopped tracking later in the week. I don't really know why, but once I'd missed a day I lost enthusiasm for the rest of the week. I maintained weight last week, which suggests I didn't end up too far over target, and I'll be keeping the same target this week The documancer - 3/7 - not a great show on studying, but ideas are slowly starting to form. The face - 6/7 - missed brushing my teeth Saturday night after the pub crawl, otherwise all good. The translator - 5/7 - no energy for this on Friday and Saturday, but I got back on my bullshit from Sunday The chronologist - 0/2 - only 2 days of work last week, for one I missed my start goal (though at least hit my contracted start time), for the other I stayed late chatting and then had to finish up work after. It was nice and social at least. Weeklies: The cartographer - 3/1 - only got 3 days of Dungeon 23 rather than the prescribed 7, but it's more than enough for this goal. The camp-maker - 1/1 - I actually feel like my allergies have been better this week having done some hoovering. More tidying needed though. The field medic - 3/1 - missed a few sessions on the 30 day yoga challenge, but it's still more than sufficient for this goal. The second storey specialist - 0/1 - I didn't get to this. I have to do it by Thursday, because I climb on Saturdays and I don't want to hangboard on an adjacent day. The initial plan was Tuesday or Thursday mornings after I run, but I'm starting to think that Wednesday evenings might be a better option... A bit of an unusual week last week, woth 3 days of jury service and no working from home. The next couple of weeks are a bit disrupted, but less so, so hopefully I'll get back on stuff now.

I'll admit, I was pretty surprised myself . Combat at level 1 is pretty swingy though - a couple of rolls going the other way would have made a big difference.

Well, looks like I've missed a couple of updates... Thursday was a good day. Running first thing, then back at work after jury service, Didn't get to work within my goal time, but I did some studying in the afternoon, and did my languages. Friday was a good day. Crossfit was good; overhead press, then some handwalking practice. The workout was a fun one, the options were, for time: 100ft handwalking or 50 palm raises, 2 cal erg at the end for every time you stop 200ft handwalking or 100 palm raises, 4 cal erg at the end for every time you stop 300ft handwalk, 6 cal erg for every time you stop I opted for the middle option, with palm raises, and ended up doing about 48 cals on the air bike. Finished within the 15 minute time cap, though not by much. I stayed at work late, not because I was working so much as that I was chatting to people, but still failed on that goal. In the evening I was knackered, so I did nothing. Saturday was a good day. Bouldering first thing was great, and then I chilled out for a chunk of the day and did some D&D prep. In the evening WW and I went on a pub crawl with out Pathfinder group - the pub we play at has closed (we hope temporarily), so our mission was to find another pub to play at for the time being. We wandered into random a pub we weren't expecting to go to, and that ended up being the winner, so that went well. More importantly, we had a really lovely night. Sunday was a good day. Had a bit of a hangover, having got in about half midnight from the pub crawl, but I got out for my run. In the afternoon I ran D&D. The party went to investigate a warehouse as they search for a missing person, and after exploring upstairs were surprised by a group of kenku downstairs. I was rolling like I've never rolled, and very soon WW's bard, Thea, was unconscious. Then, on her first death save, she rolled a natural 1. As Thea is (sort of) the only healer, this was bad, and with the party diverting their attention to trying to save her the kenku piled in to attack. @jonfirestar's sorcerer, Bilgur, dropped next, along with the dragonborn ranger, Gjeraldd. With only @WhiteGhost's barbarian, Hammafist, still fighting away, and the elf rogue, Creed, dragging Thea's unconscious body out the door, they were very lucky when the city guard rolled high on their initiative, stormed the building, and arrested everyone. At this point Bilgur remembered that he was an aasimar, and could have used healing hands to bring Thea back up for her healing spells. The party managed to talk their way out of the situation, not hurt by a surviving witness who confirmed the kenku were with the kidnappers, and they learned that the missing person they were looking for had been taken into the sewers. Following the trail into the sewers (having stocked up quite considerably on healing supplies), they came across a floating creature. About the size of a grapefruit, it had a single large eye in the middle of its face, and 4 eyestalks protruding from the top of its form. As it bared its teeth and went into attack... we ended the session. In the afternoon I went to see my parents for a bit, then came home to a lovely roast pork dinner. I boiled some eggs for my week's breakfast, and got to bed at a sensible time. Speaking of going to bed, it's that time, so I'll finish wrapping up week 2 tomorrow!

Yeah, what the leaked OGL would have really affected according to this opinion is things like VTT. Roll20 reproduces the entire SRD verbatim, so they would be really stuffed without the OGL or a separate commercial arrangement with WotC. Because you're a ranger, and you take the path less travelled. ?‍♂️ Oo, this is very exciting.

That's great news about your chapter! Well done on persevering until you were able to find the angle - writing your way through to find it is really frustrating.

Just catching up, and my phone has put these quotes out of order, so have some disordered thoughts! Personally I'd sack them off. Using a solicitor is probably not a bad idea; running through the claim yourself might take a lot of energy so it might be worth you outsourcing that work. But if you shop around a bit you might get someone who will accept a lower percentage, and even if you don't you want to work with someone who gives you some respect rather than just chasing you for their cash. You've got plenty of time to rehab this injury properly, don't worry. Anyway, Willy would be proud of you for showing up and doing the thing, even if you can't run it all. Well that seems like a huge overreaction. Do you get the sense he wanted to make these changes anyway, and if using the OGL stuff as an excuse to do so? I don't remember you struggling more than anyone else - learning a new system takes time. On the other hand, if you have the time and energy to invest, learning new stuff is fun.

Wednesday - week 2 day 3 Yesterday was a good day. I didn't sleep very well, and I woke up absolutely knackered, so I took it light at Crossfit. Squats at 80kg x 3 x 5. Then, for time, 30 calorie air bike, 40 wall balls, 50 walking lunges. With a 7kg wall ball and two 15kg dumbbells I finished in 8'53". Yesterday was my last day of jury service (which I can say now that it's over). It was the longest day, including all of the speeches from the advocates and 3 hours of deliberation. I'm not sure if it was that or the bad night's sleep, or the sheets of rain I had to walk home in, but by the time I got back I was totally exhausted. I gave up on the idea of yoga or essay writing, and went for a nap. In the evening I met WW, my mum, and WW's mum for dinner. We had tapas, which was excellent, and then went home to watch Lego Masters and get an early night. Teeth and languages done, so 2/4 for dailies. No weeklies done.

I know, it's crazy money! The fries are excellent though... Awesome, we'll go for February (I've got 2 weeks off in the February challenge so it actually works rather well). I'll set up a thread and post something in the guildhall/tavern/whatever we call general chat when I get a mo. Thank you mate!

Tuesday - week 2 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. Had time to get up and go for a run and do yoga before I headed out. I finished the last run of couch to 5k! I don't feel totally broken from it, so looking forward to upping the mileage now. Also looking forward to the mornings getting lighter and warmer; running the whole thing with headphones, cap, waterproof jacket, and a head torch was not the most comfortable. I managed to get home early too, which gave me time to spend almost an hour on essay writing. I'm still very much making this one up as I go along, but I've got more faith that it will come together now. My MIL is coming over to stay today, so I also made some time to do some tidying and hoovering, which handily ticks off the camp-maker goal. Did Dungeon 23 in the evening for the drawing goal (though I did a lot more writing than drawing), and teeth and languages were done. The only thing I really failed on again was calories. I got myself a massive bacon, chicken, and avocado sandwich for lunch, which was great, and also went for a big slab of carrot cake. That would have been fine, except I'd forgotten that WW made a chocolate cake at the weekend. Well, at least I definitely won't be under calories this week 3/4 dailies, 3/4 weeklies

I know, it's crazy! That was their standard cheeseburger, and regular fries! Glad I didn't go for a large... Yeah, to be fair I like both of those things too. The whole session was really fun, I just need to maybe have less fast food beforehand. Yeah, this reminded me why I don't seek it out more often. Definitely small fries next time, or share them. And you're welcome! That reminds me, I need to do some prep for next weekend's session. Indeed it is. And thank you!

Monday - week 2 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. Had to be out early, so I wasn't able to go to the gym. The plan was to run and then do yoga instead. Then I laid in bed a bit longer, and the plan became to just do yoga. Then I stayed in bed some more, and couldn't fit the yoga video from the 30 day challenge, but I did manage a very short video before getting ready and going out. It ended up being quite a chilled day, and I got out early, so I was able to do the yoga when I got home and hit an evening session at the gym. Before all that I decided to treat myself to Five Guys for lunch. It was lovely, but I forgot how massive everything there is! I had a cheeseburger and regular fries, and it cost a bomb and came in at 1,800 calories! That's 3 times what I would usually eat for a meal. Crossfit was deadlifts, build to a heavy 5-10 reps. I managed the full 10 at 130kg (286#), so potentially I should have gone a bit heavier, but I was worried my Five Guys might make a reappearance if I pushed any harder. We then had a cool workout: In 2 minutes: - 50ft sandbag carry - 50ft sandbag drag - max reps kettlebell clean and press I went with the 75kg (165#) sandbag, though I was done inaide 30 seconds so maybe I should have gone for 100kg (220#). Used a pair of 20kg (44#) kettlebells, and managed 10 reps. Most importantly, I did not vomit. When I got home WW cooked a beautiful feta, spinach and pomegranate filo pie. It was amazing, but at 1,000kcal I definitely blew my calories for the day. When I was done typing up last week's update (whilst watching Lego Masters Australia), I figured that having the laptop on my lap meant I could do a tiny bit of essay writing. I only managed about 10-15 minutes of editing, but it counts for the goal. Then I drew my first room for Dungeon 23, which hits the cartographer goal, did my languages, brushed my teeth and went to bed. 3/4 dailies done, 2/4 weeklies