The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I don’t know if you heard, but part of the revamp of the Cube quest was that you got, gasp, a permanent sidekick! Which was really damn cool! It doesn’t do anything worthwhile for someone who is farming and has like… a million clockwork ants, but once we get into a retcon or ascension kind of environment? I know I’m going to use the thing like crazy!

In any case, that change hit in the middle of April, and then, in may, we had the equivalent of Twilight Heroes’ first “familiar,” the highly implausible script. It teaches your understudy a new role, that of the grumpy old smuggler. This role is basically a combination of the Flea Market Trader and the Jujitsu Expert roles that your understudy can learn at the Firebird College at Philbin, but with a much higher level cap, and it does both roles at once, and it’s significantly more entertaining.

Basically, I am completely down for all those things. Item Find is never, ever going to be unwelcome, even if I’m the non-optimal sort who doesn’t always use it, and I much like Potato variants over in KoL, so I can totally see me being quite behind blocking attacks once I am lower level again and, you know, attacks could hit me. (Or this supposed very high level content comes out and I’m fighting enemies that can hurt.) From a usability standpoint, the grumpy old smuggler is a hit.

And, of course, it’s pretty darn funny from a comedy standpoint, too. It’s obviously full of Star Wars references, but the long, boring, old man stories my understudy tells that get Star Wars totally wrong and totally right make me grin. I only wish there was more of them. Although I never really thought of Han Solo as a grumpy old man…

But yeah, this IoTM is basically a complete win. Part of it, I’m sure, is that there aren’t any other IoTM-strength options for permanent sidekicks in the game. Once, perhaps, additional scripts get out there, the smuggler’s benefits may be significantly reduced, and less worth your time. I don’t know. But for the cheap that want to farm and for the future, the script is completely worth picking up, in my book. Yep. Completely.

Yep.

Do I end a lot of blog posts with yep?
Yep.

This weekend is Free TF2 Weekend! Not that I care, because I own the game. But it also marks the release of the Sniper vs Spy content pack! This includes new equipment and achievements for these classes but, more importantly, it marks a huge-ass change in how these weapons are unlocked, via a tiny little comment in the update:

You now find new and old items as you play, instead of through achievements.

This is HUGE! This is exactly what I’ve been wanting! The last thing I wanted to do was to grind out achievements just to play with the new toys. I’ve been waiting for this for a long while.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work quite as I had hoped. I don’t know if it’s a bug, like this suggests, or what, but it is insanely random and unsatisfying to get these weapons. I would have preferred some sort of experience system, or something where I knew every moment of play I put in was earning me stuff. But it certainly didn’t feel that way. Valve has finally put forth an official statement about it, which suggests that, yes, it is tied into how much you play, and that they are going to tweak it. We’ll see.

Still, I played TF2 ALL DAY. For the first, oh, 4 hours, I got nothing. (which is why I also think it’s a bit bugged) Then, shockingly, I got the Dead Ringer. I knew the moment I got it that this was lost on me. I’m bad enough at the Spy normally. But goodness, the Dead Ringer COMPLETELY changes how you play. Only being able to cloak when damaged completely negates a lot of what I had figured out that worked with the Spy, like cloaking to mislead people that you went down one path, and then going the other. I have no idea if the Dead Ringer is going to be optimal or not. I’d say not. But it is fun to try out.
Soon after that, I was granted The Axtinguisher. This weapon, too, is completely wasted on me! It’s effective, no doubt, and I could see someone who was skilled with the Pyro putting it to great use. But damn, I can’t even think of a time when I would switch to the Axe with the Pyro. If I was out of flamethrower fuel, I guess? But the Flamethrower is such a Melee weapon, and I’m so uncoordinated that switching to the axe as soon as I ignite someone just isn’t going to happen. Still, it looks completely bad-ass when you wield it. So it’s got that going for it.
Then, I got another Dead Ringer. Thanks, Valve! That’s… useful. Still, if that blog post up there is to be believed, eventually I can give it to someone. I appreciate such Heart-y abilities. And I will totally give it to someone.
The last thing I unlocked was probably the item that will get the most use from me: The Sandvich! I Om Nomed on that thing quite a bit. Granted, never in a situation where it actually helped. But, you know… there’s an achievement for eating a lot of Sandviches! So I had to chow down, you understand! I had no choice!

Overall, though I got annoyed at the drop system (though not anywhere near as much as the hardcore players. They were used to achievement grinding for a few hours and then enjoying their toys, and were pissed that they weren’t getting the new stuff) I had a lot of fun playing it solid for so long. The main reason was Arena mode. Apparently this got added with the Heavy update or something? But it’s basically TF2’s take on Team Deathmatch, and man, it is PERFECT. The sides are always balanced. Rounds rarely last more than 2 minutes. Whoever draws first blood gets a crit bonus. It is a ton of fun, and I can’t really see me going back to more traditional TF2, in all honesty. It’s all I’ve played since I found it. It even gave me an added appreciation for the Pyro. Once I was unhooked from looking just at capture points, suddenly I “got” how the Pyro worked. I even had a completely badass moment where I ran into a huge group of five guys and Critted them all. It was so sweet.

But yeah, hopefully they get the drop system tweaked. I’m glad they went away from the achievement method, but this isn’t what they should have either. Still, Valve are experts. They can handle this shit.

So apparently May is now “Wacky KoL Experiment May.” Or so it’s been said. The last one got generally bad reviews for being much, much too restricted! But this one, this one is going to be good, right? Maybe?

Well, it certainly was new.

There were actually two IoTMs this month. One was the Clan VIP Lounge Invitation, and the other was a piece of furniture for said lounge, a Pool Table.

There are some issues.

One, paying a Mr. Accessory for the Lounge Key seems like a decent investment. You automagically get access to a hot tub which does crazy HP healing 5 times a day, as well as a brand new Mr. Klaw machine which, while dispensing a bunch of silly, fun things, also can dispense a new familiar as well as a piece of gear that, if gotten on day one, would be extremely relevant. But that’s just it. It’s being put forth as an investment. You’re getting this with the promise that there will be more furniture for you to use and get benefits from. But on the radio show, Jick was talking about how it would kind of kill their revenue to actually make another piece of IoTM furniture, looking at the current numbers. Will it happen? I don’t know. Still, the healing in Hardcore is relevant enough for anyone wanting to be serious to pony up for that.

Two is the pool table itself. It costs 3 Mr. A’s, which is a huge expense if you’re on your own. It’s obviously not meant to be gotten that way, of course, as it’s for the clan, and is meant to be used by multiple people constantly. I pitched in a Mr. A for ours. But, of course, then there’s the issue of the Clans. Mr. Store stuff can’t disappear, right? But an empty clan does disappear, and clan-hopping is very important if you’re going to do a lot of Hobopolis runs. I haven’t heard confirmation that your clan would stick around, and hell, nobody is going to test that kind of thing with this expensive of an IoTM. I also feel like there should be a more straightforward way for multiple people to chip in for the table, if that’s the idea. I mean, I have no problem giving a Mr. A to Cris or Val and having them buy it, and I’m not in it for the glory. At the same time, it seems kinda silly that it commemorates who placed the table in the clan when that person probably didn’t pay for all of it, and perhaps not even for most of it. There’s something not optimal to how that works.
As far as the pool table itself goes, I’m pretty happy with it as something I paid 1 Mr. A for. Basically, it gives you some useful buffs 3 times a day, and you can choose which ones you get. Speedsters are going to love Hustin’, and I’m going to probably enjoy Mental A-cue-ity once I get back into normal things. There’s also a metagame where you play pool against people and rack up winning streaks, which goes on a leaderboard. There’s some talk about it being a rock-paper-scissors game, based on the buffs you pick, to beat people, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure yet. Either way, that kind of interaction with other players is something I’m for, though I would have preferred something a bit more interactive. It also would have been nice to have more detailed record-keeping of your own playing. I’d like to see my horrible win/loss record against Val or whatever, instead of just what my longest streak was and how it matches up with my clannies.

Either way, both seem worth getting yourself access to, since they do give tangible benefits and aren’t taking up a slot that could be filled by something else, since it’s an entirely new mechanic. Will it be expanded farther? I don’t know. We’ll see. There’s certainly a lot of potential in clan furniture, but I think there’s a lot of things that could stand to be worked out or stated clearly. Still, I’m not too unhappy with my 2 Mr. A’s of investment this month. Yep.

I keep going on about how bad of a game Legends of Zork is. “There’s art, sure, but there’s no interesting text. It has absolutely nothing to do with Zork. It’s just a grind-fest with very little strategy available to use, where you get bothered in PvP over and over and…”

Still, I play it religiously, even more often than games I flat-out love, like KoL and Twilight Heroes, and certainly a lot more than games that deserve my time and money, like ForumWarz. I’m excited to play my turns every day, and glad that they go so quickly.
It’s actually almost frustrating that I like it so much.

The key is that I can only play for about 10 minutes a day, and can easily play while doing other things. People might say that the almost extreme level of automation makes it un-fun, but in practice, it just seems to keep me from obsessing over it. I’m not worried about what I’m doing wrong when I fail, because I am doing nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong to do. I’m just not high enough in level, so I need to adjust the difficulty of the area I am in or adventure somewhere else or come back later. Numbers go up, and I get more powerful. It’s all the fun of a lewt-fest without all the tedium.

But then I ask myself, why not just play motherfucking PROGRESS QUEST if I like this non-interaction so much. Well, because… there is some interaction. I have to adjust my equipment. I have to choose what to upgrade next. I have more investment in my character than I do in Progress Quest. Apparently it’s enough to keep me going.

So gods, I don’t know. I can’t explain it well, but I am completely hooked. I thought I’d play it for a week, maybe, but I’ve been playing it CONSTANTLY since it opened. And it doesn’t look to be dying down any time soon. Help me, other games! Let me finish up my Hamster runs, let Ryme put in some new content, let a new ForumWarz episode be released! Something unhook me from this obsession!
Or maybe I’ll just revel in it and keep playing. Who knows.

Whelp, I ended my college career with a 4.0 year.

That’s… definitely something! I’m kind of proud of myself for sticking to it and making that happen. I was stressed out, but I worked hard, and I suppose this is my reward.

Was it worth it? Eh, not really, but whatever. It basically just highlights how fucked up my college path was. I could have, easily, been getting 4.0s the entire time. But I let depression fuck me over, and I ran from things that stressed me out to help me recover, and all kinds of stupid shit happened. Yay for me.
It is kind of a shame, though. There was a twinge of guilt when I saw everyone at the commencement who graduated with honors, and I was not among them, due to said fuck-ups. Still, the guilt was more for my parents. I was worried they would be pissed at me for not getting it. But I think they were just happy that I finally got to that point. Hell, I know I was.

In the end, I know the grade doesn’t really matter. Hell, it’s not like what I got wasn’t decent. I ALMOST graduated Cum Laude. It’s the diploma that counts. And hell, I got that. Or, you know… I will when they send them out in a few weeks in the mail. Heh.

But yeah, everything has past. Does my life feel different, now that I graduated? Nope. Not in the least. I’m still playing the same video games, talking to the same people… it’s going to hit me when people start moving away, which will happen. That’ll be sad times. But life moves on, and I have to move on if I want to be happy.
Have to move on and make things happen.
Have to.

Yeah.

On the other side of the Tower Defense genre comes Pop Cap’s Plants Vs Zombies. First off, don’t buy the game from that page. It’s only 10 dollars on Steam, and it’s not like Steam is having a sale. This originally seems a bit weird, but I actually think that it’s kind of genius on Pop Cap’s part. The people who buy Pop Cap games from Pop Cap are casual gamers. Moms and such. They’re used to paying 20 dollars for a casual game, and they don’t even know that Steam exists. Meanwhile, over on Steam are all hardcore gamers who are very, very willing to come out and tell you that your game is overpriced. This way, Pop Cap has its cake and eats it too: they get the added revenue from the casuals who would spend more for a new Pop Cap game, and they also get more revenue from the hardcore, whom this game is clearly aimed a little more towards, even if it’s accessible to anyone.

That out of the way, Plants Vs Zombies is totally worth your time.

I had just bought Defense Grid, and was playing it, and having a good time. But Twitter, that damnable twitter, was going on and on about Plants vs Zombies, so I decided I should try it out. I downloaded the demo, which is timed for an hour. The hour went by like THAT. I found myself very unhappy that the demo had ended. I dropped my 10 bucks right there. It was even nice enough to still have my save file when I got the full thing.

Whereas Defense Grid is as classic a Tower Defense game as you could make and still have a full-featured game, Plants Vs Zombies is almost tower defense in name only. All of the tropes of such games are basically gone. There are five rows on your front yard. Zombies pick one of these rows and walk straight down them. If they get to the end, then they walk inside and eat your brains! Which is bad, of course. So you have to plant plants to stop them. The vast majority of plants only affect things on their row, so you have to basically keep up the fight on five fronts. You can only take a limited number of seed types into any one level (It starts at 6, and goes up as you play until you get to 9, the max) and depending on what you pick, you can really vary your strategy. Will you set up lots of walls to slow them down, and have a minimal number of attackers? Will you hide mines and other such traps all over the place? Will you attempt to slow or debuff the zombies to lead you to victory? There are 49 different plants in the game, I believe. There is a lot of variety, although you’ll likely be using Peashooter variants for a lot of levels. Also, a lot of plants are only useful during night levels, or during the levels when you’re defending the pool in your back yard, etc, so you don’t always have a full arsenal.
One plant you always have to bring, though, is the Sunflower, (Or Sun-Shroom, during the night) which gives you sunlight to power your army. Most Tower Defense games give you resources for defeating enemies, but in this one, you must farm them with Sunflowers. This means you’re devoting valuable space on your lawn to these sunflowers where you could be planting attack plants, so you have to strike a good balance. You also have to actually click on resources to pick them up, which can help make the game additionally hectic.

The real stars of the show, though, are the Zombies. There are a ton of different Zombie types. You get to see the basic spread of zombies before you start a level so you can pick your seeds correctly, and you really do need to choose wisely. Are there a lot of Zomboni drivers? You’re probably going to want to bring the Spikeweed plant that stops them in their tracks. Zombie Dancers? It would be a good idea to bring a Cherry Bomb to take out the hordes of backup dancers they summon. They’re all playing off of simplistic jokes that anyone can enjoy, but they still have plenty of personality, and the game is good at throwing completely off-putting mixes of zombies just when you develop strategies to take out certain types. I often found myself going “I have to take care of BOTH of those?” and having to rethink my strategy. I liked that.

This game is no Peggle, though. As I mentioned earlier, this game gets really hectic really fast, and can get really difficult. Peggle is accessible to everyone, no matter what the difficulty. It is always fun, even when you’re failing, and you can take it at whatever pace you wish. While Plants vs Zombies does a really great job training you to understand what you need to do and how you need to do it, starting you off nice and slow, there’s no question that the fast pace and real-time nature of the game are going to make the more casual gamer fail more often than perhaps they think they should.
Still, if you’re reading my silly blog, you’ve probably played a game or two in your lifetime, and if so, you can probably handle and love Plants vs Zombies. It’s just an amazingly solid game all around. I used to look down on Pop Cap, like many did, for just repackaging expensive versions of common casual games. But I think that after Bookworm Adventures, Peggle, and now this, they are proving that not only can they appeal to a casual audience, but they can also make some awesome games. They’re pretty well sold me on checking out whatever they come up with next. I’m extremely happy with my 10 dollar purchase of Plants vs Zombies. If you’re at all interested, please download and try the demo. But, fair warning: You will probably get hooked.

A long time ago, I tried the demo for Defense Grid: The Awakening. The game was right, but the price was not. I would drop 10 dollars on that easy, but 20? Nah, I said. I could wait.
The wait paid off. Soon it was on sale for 5 bucks on Steam, and I snatched it up.

There is nothing particularly unique about Defense Grid. It’s a tower defense game to its very core. There’s nothing particularly new or exciting about it. It looks nice enough. The controls, the first time you boot up the game, seem a little weird with how the camera follows your cursor around and you select things with the mouse wheel, but after you get used to it, it works really well. But it’s nothing you haven’t seen before if you’ve played a Tower Defense game. They try to make it more interesting by having this computer AI who talks to you, and who delivers a “story” of sorts, and while that’s a great idea, he’s lacking just enough personality and variety of things to say to really make him shine. Still, he’s not annoying either, so I can’t complain too much. But this attempt at making the game something other than “generic tower defense” game falls flat.

Still, this is almost the definitive version of Tower Defense. The levels in the game run the gamut of Tower Defense variants, from the one set path, to large mazing endeavors, to two streams of enemies and everything in between. The levels have a good amount of difficulty. They’re very hard to perfect, but if you just want to play through them and beat them, you shouldn’t have too much trouble, even if you’re only a casual tower defense fan like myself. I’m nearly through the “story” mode, and I’ve only gotten stuck on two levels, and I beat those on the second or third try. If you’re a fan of challenge, though, many challenge levels unlock as you beat things. There are challenges that limit the amount of towers you can build, that keep you from upgrading your towers, and many others. If you want difficulty, you can find it.
The towers themselves mostly fill standard roles. You have the tower that slows but doesn’t deal damage, the generic, cheap tower that doesn’t deal much damage but hits ground and air, a slow-firing cannon that hits both ground and air, missiles that only take down air, a flamethrower tower that hits groups up close, etc. The most unique towers, and ones I haven’t seen before, are the laser tower, the concussion tower, and the command tower. The laser tower deals constant damage to enemies that pass it on the ground, but also inflicts a DoT on them, keeping them taking damage for awhile even when they’re out of rage. The concussion tower basically sets up an area of pain. It’s constantly attacking for minimal damage and hitting every enemy in its range. The command tower is really odd, and I have no idea how you’re supposed to use it well, but basically, it increases the money you get from creatures that die in its range and reveals cloaked enemies.
Speaking of enemies, they also have a bit of variety. You actually have two damage types from your towers, ballistics and heat. Slug-throwers like guns and cannons deal ballistics damage, and are best against creatures with shields, as they take less damage from heat. Flamethrowers and lasers and the like deal heat damage, and are best against quicker enemies and so on. Resistances to different damage types is something I can’t remember seeing before. I remember seeing enemies resistant to ALL damage, but not this. It works pretty well. I soon learned my early reliance on laser towers wasn’t going to work, and I needed to mix it up.
The final piece of the puzzle is the orbital laser. You get this during the story mode, and it’s mostly what keeps the game from being balls hard at points. Basically, by holding down the L key, you fire a laser that blows up all enemies under your cursor. The laser then slowly recharges. This is basically your panic button, which you can use to take out enemies about to leave with your cores (read: lives) so you can survive long enough to figure out why they’re getting past. Enemies you destroy with the laser don’t give you money, though, and the laser recharges slow so you can’t just fire it constantly. Still, it does keep the game from being frustrating, and I appreciate it.

So yeah, this is a pretty solid piece of tower defense fun. The game has like a million Steam achievements, and has obscene stat tracking. You can look at anyone’s Steam profile who has the game and see complete stats on how many towers they built, of what types, and how many enemies they’ve killed, etc. It is completely worth the 5 bucks I paid, and probably worth 10. It’s a well-made vidjeo game. I still think it’s a hard sell at 20, though, unless you are really jonesing for some Tower Defense goodness. But when you can get Plants vs Zombies (which I’ll talk about tomorrow) for 10 dollars, it is a hard sell.

“Hey poetfox! I bet you just got a lot of really cool games!”
Yeah, I did! Look, here’s the new Shin Megami Tensei game! I always love those! Ooh, and look, here’s some awesome Tower Defense games… and I got some Co-op action in Killing Floor and GRAW to play…
“Then what the fuck are you doing? You aren’t playing those.”

You’re right. I’m playing MOTHERFUCKING FREEREALMS.

I decided to boot up FreeRealms, You know, just to try it. It was free! I already had an SOE account. I could just give it a try. Maybe see what the card game was all about… And I tried it, and I went “Woah, okay, this is pretty good. It’s target audience is going to love this. That Demolition Derby is pretty cool, and the combat is MMOesque but accessible… the card game isn’t half bad. Yeah, that’s cool.” I closed it.

But then I went back to it.
And again.
And again.

Soon, I had maxed out the Card Duelist job by literally doing every single card quest that existed in the game. The starter deck they give you is quite effective. In the paws of someone who knows card games, like myself, I had little trouble beating the in-game challenges with it. “Oh well, that was fun.” I said. “Well, I’m sure that now that I have no more card games to play, I’ll put this down…” Then I started leveling Chef… and Brawler…

The game is just really well designed. You can play just one part, like I did with the cards, or you can do a little of everything. In every town, there is always something additional to do, and even if there isn’t, you can teleport to any other town instantly. There are tons of mini-games, including puzzlers and a decent tower defense clone. The combat is just another mini-game. You find an enemy, click on him and say you want to engage, and then you go to an instanced mini-game map where you have a little combat mini-game. If you just want to play Cooking Mama and be a chef, then you never have to fight anyone. You just run right past it. Everything gets you experience in your job, and likely some equipment for that job. For Card Duelist, it’s mostly cosmetic, giving you gear like a cap with your favorite element on it or whatever, but they have stat bonuses for relevant classes, like Brawler.

I both hate and love its business model as well. You can buy “Station Cash” which is 100 points per dollar, and buy things in game. Some, like healing potions, just seem stupid to buy. Some are pets, which you can use for the Pet Trainer job and can show off to your friends. They range from 2 to 4 dollars. You can buy virtual card packs for the card game, which gives you like 12 cards for 4 dollars. You can also “upgrade” and subscribe for a reasonable 5 dollars per month, which gives you access to more interesting combat jobs and more quests and, and this is key for me, gives you one free card booster a month. So if you’re going to buy one pack? You might as well subscribe for a month for the extra dollar.

Anyway, I’m kind of shockingly charmed by FreeRealms. I honestly don’t know why anyone would, say, party up, as it doesn’t seem at all necessary, though I suppose the combat would be as fun in a group as alone, and playing the kart racer and demolition derby games with friends would be fun. But yeah, this is the real deal. It’s obviously interesting enough to entertain me, but it’s still simple enough that a kid would enjoy it which, combined with the cheap subscription price and free nature generally, would make this a perfect game for a parent to play with their kid. I think I’ve told someone that FreeRealms is the real deal. It is. There is plenty to do without paying, and the price for paying is mostly right. I hope it’s successful. This is how free-to-play games should be.

Holy shit.

I have a college degree.

So, on Tuesday, we got to finally play more Dungeons and the Dragons! Huzzah! It had been awhile, but I’m glad it didn’t peter out. I’ve been having too much fun at it. So we all sat down, tried desperately to remember where we were, and set off into the desert.

Our first order of business was to cut down a palm tree for no reason. Ledeinshaft (also known as Guy de Purplopolis in some circles) fucking criticaled that tree! Then all the boys went on ahead while Canadia and I had some girl talk. Then people started to get eaten by burrowing sand alligators. I told them to stop dicking around, we didn’t have room for pets on the Astral Skiff, but noooo, they just kept getting eaten anyway!
The battle itself was fairly straightforward. I didn’t do much, as usual! Cause I can’t hit the broad side of a barn, it seems. We also didn’t pay attention and realize there was a gimmick about the place, but we crushed those lizards anyway. They were bastards.
The battle ended with the last lizard eating me, and Lord Captain Allouishous slicing off his head with me still inside. I had to climb out through disgusting alligator guts! I complained. “But we got eaten too!” they said! “Well, you just got thrown up nice and easy, I had to climb out! Stop playing with lizards!”

We soon ended up in an impressive set piece of a temple. There were tons of guarding spirits about that I could see with my Shamanvision (TM) but they were all untalkative dicks. I told them as such. We headed into the temple of Ioun, where, after wandering about a bit and a equally untalkative spirit helping me to find a secret passage, we managed, in our infinite wisdom, to turn on some robots.
It was then that something odd happened. We attempted to employ strategy. Talk around the table became about how to lead these robots through the passage to pick them off one at a time. I didn’t much like the plan, mostly because Sehanine doesn’t seem like the planning sort of goddess, and she’s MY goddess. But whatever, they enacted the plan. It didn’t work perfectly. The line was broken. But it was shockingly effective. The main enemy got bonuses for being around its minions, so our strategy managed to neutralize that pretty well, after he pushed through our ranks and we worked to hold the rest behind our line. I also managed to, GASP, deal damage! I got a crit with pretty well my heaviest hitter, Spirit Tide. That dealt 25 damage to the target, and 10 damage to all enemies within 5 squares… which was everyone. It was a shocking feeling, actually doing damage. Man, is this the rush Spaeth gets every time he attacks, I thought? But eh, such is the life of the healer.

In any case, we schooled that encounter too, much to Jonathan’s surprise, and we leveled up to level 12. I gained… a not very impressive utility power! I can teleport anyone to switch places with my spirit companion once an encounter now. Useful, but not really exciting. I also get a feat, but I have no idea which one that is. I might just take Paragon Defenses, I dunno.

Still, I hope it’s not another three week or whatever gap before we can play again. Dungeons and Dragons be fun times. I know this may come as a shocker, but it’s true.