Wizards Have No Social Skills

I have been thinking for a while about the Wizard class in Dungeons and Dragons. There had been something about the class that just didn’t feel right to me. I figured it might be their skill options. I went and put together a table cross-referencing class skills with the various classes and then I realized – Wizards are the only class without any Charisma based skills.

There are eight Charisma based skills in the Systems Resource Document: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform and Use Magic Device. Every class except wizard has at least one Charisma based skill:

Class        # Of Charisma Skills
Barbarian           2
Bard                6
Cleric              1
Druid               2
Fighter             2
Monk                2
Paladin             2
Ranger              1
Rogue               7
Sorcerer            1
Wizard              0

This just seems wrong to me…in much of fantasy literature wizards are wise counseleors and diplomats as much as they are spellcasters. If there is a heavy emphasis on role-playing in a campaign, I think the fact that Wizards lack Charisma-based skills is a serious handicap.

In my campaign, at least, I am adding Diplomacy to the Wizard class skill list.

If you are interested, I have placed the skill breadown on the D&D section of my website, in OpenOffice.org spreadsheet format and and in PDF format.

Updated Campaign Log

I have updated the campaign log for last Saturday’s game session.

Posted Wednesday’s Chat Transcript

I have posted the transcript for last night’s Succubus Club IRC chat.

Multiple Header Rows In OpenOffice.org Writer Tables

I was working on formatting the 3.5 Magic Items SRD yesterday in OpenOffice.org Writer. There are several tables in the document that span more than one page, so I wanted to set them up so that the multiple header rows would repeat on following pages. This is very easy to do in Microsoft Word.

While OpenOffice.org allows repeating of table header rows on multi-page tables, the only row it considers a “header” row is the first row of a table. That makes it technically impossible to have multi-row headers repeat.

Fortunately, I came across a partial work-around. One can split the cells in a header row horizontally, so it looks like there are two or more rows. Apparently OpenOffice.org considers these split cells still part of the first/header row and they will repeat on following pages when “Repeat Heading” is checked.

This works fine when there are the same number of cells in each row, example:

-------------------------
|           |           |  Header Pseudo-Row 1
-------------------------
|           |           |  Header Pseudo-Row 2
-------------------------

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a way to have multiple rows repeat and have the rows have different number of cells. OpenOffice.org won’t allow the cells to merged – it gives a “Selected table cells are too complex to merge” message.

-------------------------
|                       | Header Pseudo-Row 1
-------------------------
|           |           | Header Pseudo-Row 2 
-------------------------

Posted Latest Chat Transcript

Yesterday’s Succubus Club IRC Chat transcript has been posted.

Update Succubus Club Chat Transcripts

I have posted the chat transcripts for the November 17, 2004 and November 24, 2004 Succubus Club IRC chats.

Updated Campaign Log and Some Thoughts On D&D

I have updated the Cormarian campaign log with the results of the fourth game session.

I have come to a couple of conclusions about DMing D&D 3.5:

1. When using a scale of 10′ per square for my map and 5′ per square on my battlemat, my battlemat is too small for running battles. This leads me to two conclusions – running battles suck and I need a to get much larger battlemat.
2. Whenever the party turns undead in an area in which they can run away, the party will inevitably give chase, turning the encounter into a running battle. Turn Undead sucks ;-).
3. It is much more difficult stocking dungeons in 3.5, as opposed to version 2. Monster stat blocks are longer and more complex. They also aren’t included in the System Resource Document, which means I need to create my own.

Three Web Comic Recommendations

I have been poking around the web and came across a couple of webcomics I’d like to recommend:

Alpha Shade is an alternate universe war comic. The drawings are just gorgeous and the plot so far is very interesting.

Casey and Andy is a hilarious comic about two D&D-playing, mad scientist geeks who are best friends/mortal enemies.

Technically, I didn’t just discover Nodwick – I have been following it for several years. I just figured I’d just toss it in here… Nodwick is probably the best RPG/D&D based comic I have ever seen. Very, very funny, especially for anyone who has been into roleplaying games a while.

Kid Radd

What happens when an 8-bit video-game character becomes self-aware? The wonderful web-comic, Kid Radd, answers this question.

While a little slow in the beginning, it quickly picks up pace and becomes quite funny and though-provoking. Highly recommended.

Latest Succubus Club Chat Transcript

I have posted the transcript to the November 10, 2004 Succubus Club IRC chat.