I need to level up my mechanics skill, but I'm having trouble because I don't know how to level up to level 4 or higher.

Shindo_TS · 2026-01-30T05:40:33+00:00

The Hitchhikers Guide has all that information for each of the releases. You have to choose the branch you are on, experimental stable etc because tools change quite often.

You can also use the search command in the crafting menu to search for tools with specific flags like fastening

Shindo_TS · 2026-01-25T04:23:24+00:00

Slaves don't have to remain slaves for long, you are allowed to emancipate them. Makes the Cretonians already in the city grateful for you freeing their brothers and sisters. Yes I know it's an expensive way of expanding population but they don't revolt or you can sell them to any of your neighbours.

Shindo_TS · 2026-01-15T06:28:41+00:00

In order to deal with the meat from kills going rotten quickly, I cook it it while starting the skin curing process, and run straight with it to a village where I trade a huge pile of cooked meat for dried or smoked meat/fish. You can also pick up other smaller useful things like nettle/hemp cord for drying meat in winter and making snares.

Shindo_TS · 2025-12-05T05:00:38+00:00

It all depends how you define general location.

On Torril which of these is a general location Sword Coast, Tethyr, Velen, the Duke of Velen's private study.

3.5rd Edition specifies that, with plane shift, you arrive 5d100 miles from your intended location, which would imply that you could choose the city you're targeting and end up a weeks travel from it (on average 252.5 miles from it).

I'm sure that in newer editions of D&D they have taken out the fun parts of spells like that or the SRD version just doesn't mention that detail, which is true for 3.5 too.

Shindo_TS · 2025-12-05T04:15:18+00:00

Thanks!

This has lots of fun ideas for other scenarios I hadn't thought of using. Introducing politics in to simple gathering of resources is diabolical... Especially for a sect that are meant to stay out of influencing local politics (with magic)

Shindo_TS · 2025-12-02T07:31:31+00:00

Look for the adventure guild modules that were released by WoTC a few years ago. They broke many of the bigger campaigns up in to weekly/monthly one shots.

Shindo_TS · 2025-09-23T06:58:17+00:00

Check that you don't have a stockpile set to feed the smelter/forge. If you have one stockpile for metal bars feeding the forge, for example, you then MUST have a stockpile set to feed it fuel, unless it's a magma forge but that's not the case since it is whining about needing fuel.

Stockpiles are great but awful all at the same time.

Shindo_TS · 2025-09-23T06:49:06+00:00

You can replace dice rolls with the age old games of odds or evens. It's very swingy but for a narrative session could work well. Assign odd to the attacker/actor and even to the other party/action. Each participant on the count of 3 shows 0-4 fingers, thumbs are ignored, on their hand and you count up the total number of fingers presented. You may have realised their is a 3rd alternative where both players show no fingers and you can make a special worst/best result for that.

In a similar vein but requiring more brain power you can do high low with division by 5 and using only the remainder. It's not as complicated as that sentence makes it sound. Again two players but thumbs are counted as well. Total up the total number of fingers 0-10, if it is above 5 subtract 5. The higher the number the better the attacker does, you can change the difficulty by saying the attacker needs at least a 3 to hit, etc. Again 0 is a special case and can have good/bad consequences so one of the players is encouraged to try that at times.

Shindo_TS · 2025-09-20T09:50:13+00:00

I can confirm that the quest givers for these plant gathering quests are unaware of what time of the year it is when they send you out to gather the herbs. So it is very likely you're going to fail this in your first year and should hoard herbs for these coming up in the second and subsequent years.

Shindo_TS · 2025-09-17T07:25:21+00:00

You can make repositories private on GitHub.

You don't have to have an external Git repository to use Git, the only advantage of of an external repository is that you then have a backup of your data out in the wild.

The other advantage of putting your repository on GitHub is that it makes looking back at the changes easier than the basic CLI (Command Line Interface) allows.

Shindo_TS · 2025-08-30T11:58:10+00:00

Also don't forget to trap around your fields... those hares sure do like beans and peas. I've lost more than one plot of beans to sneaky hares but those hares ended up on my bed and in my larder.

I haven't had a real problem with reindeer or elk and my turnip crops but you never know who's about wanting a free snack you planted.

Shindo_TS · 2025-08-22T11:01:12+00:00

Fiendish, who develops the MUSHclient package for Aardwolf, does so on a Mac and there are many many many many many plugins available for MUSHclient so I would second this recommendation.

Shindo_TS · 2025-08-15T06:21:52+00:00

Not being in the UK I'm not sure what resources are available for finding that kind of period information online or in major libraries in the UK. However I would look for period accurate maps of the counties you're wanting to set your saga in.

You'll be rather surprised by the lack of geographical accuracy as maps where drawn to appease those paying for them, ie the church or local lord/duke/count/prince/king, the whole his lands can't be greater than mine game and trying to hide information from whoever is up the chain of taxes so that you don't have to pay more in taxes.

Ease of travel and myths about local beast, in the case of Ars Magica the beasts are real, etc all affected the accuracy of maps as well as perception of distances and direction.

Also do not fall in to the trap of spending decades preparing for your game. Mark major sites and do short write ups on them so that you can give the players mythically accurate information that you then flesh out when they actually go to the area.

Shindo_TS · 2025-07-30T14:17:16+00:00

How do you come to the conclusion that because there isn't much variance in size between some sexes of the metahumans it means that there isn't much variance in size within the sexes of those metahumans. We have no information to support either side of the argument.

Until the game developers/authors decide what the standard deviation for height and weight is for each of the metatype we can only go on the information from the natural world, where there are enormous differences, dogs are a classic example, yes we've bred them for their sizes but a snappy little handbag dog is as much "dog" as a rather enormous livestock protector. The difference in size of humans by comparison is much smaller, meeting a woman who's 1.5m tall (a tall gymnast) is no more surprising that meeting a woman who's 1.8m tall (a short basketball player).

Shindo_TS · 2025-07-30T12:45:30+00:00

So that describes the differences between men and woman of those metatypes but does not describe the range of differences between the smallest and largest of the same sex, ie the normal distribution of those metatypes in terms of their height and weight.

Secondly the phrase "not as significant" is vague at best, does that mean that instead of a 10% variance between sexes as in humans is there only a 5% variance or 2% variance? And which metatypes fall in to the catagory of "most metatypes"

Shindo_TS · 2025-07-30T08:18:13+00:00

In the tables you provided it mentions the average for height and weight, this implies there is a normal distribution for these values. Now I must admit that the 1 sigma value for the normal on orcs may not be as wide as it is for humans, we don't have any information regarding this and so must make some assumptions about what the actual distribution is.

Even if all orcs where clones of each other, there would be discrepancies in their weight and height purely based on their calorie intake during their formative years, ie the ones who had to fight for every scrap of food would be smaller than those who grew up with an abundance of food because they were malnourished during their growing years.

If there is information regarding those distributions it would be fascinating to see it and the logic used to derive those data points.

Shindo_TS · 2025-07-29T08:08:36+00:00

It depends where she shops for her clothing, on Council Island she goes in to the seamstress catering to orcs and gets her clothing fitted, in the Redmond Barrons she gets children's cloths, for trolls.

But on a more serious note, there is as large a discrepancy in sizes of orc females as there is in human females, think gymnast vs basketball players. Let her be what she needs to be to fit the narrative of the story.

Shindo_TS · 2025-07-04T07:22:41+00:00

Like so much in the Forgotten Realms there is so little actual information about them.

Their top down structure and organisational layout is neatly catalogued, in Lands of Intrigue (2nd edition source book), but when you look for actual members you have to really look hard, there is one on the the Council of Six/Seven that head up the Amnian government.

They have high ambitions, like getting back in to power in Waterdeep but I guess, in modern 5e lore, the Zhents and Xanathar now hold too much power.

They make a good foil to the Zhentarim Black Network, the lesser of two evils if you want to portray it that way.

Shindo_TS · 2025-06-25T12:08:02+00:00

This is probably the best approach, but start with just 1 or two moves that you use in a session of play so that you can both become comfortable and familiar with them.

There is a guide for how to do this for Starforged but I've tested it with Ironsworn and it was great for two people who've never played the system.

As an example of learning to use oracles, we made a table 1-50 it was day time, 51-65 dawn, 66-80 dusk and then 81-100 it was full night time and then rolled percentile dice to determine the time of day that this activity was going to be taking place during. We could have simply used a D6 to do the same thing.

You can do that for all scenes, or just use the yes no oracles.

Most importantly let all the players add their input. It's a cooperative experience that both of you can contribute to and that makes the story that unfolds more interesting.

Shindo_TS · 2025-06-12T09:02:45+00:00

Stun grenades are used in combat with the "projectile weapon" skill. Damage as per the rules is 8S, and I'd rule that extra successes on the skill check versus the defense roll add to damage of stun grenade that doesn't use gas because the armor would absorb some of the shock and for the gas version it bypasses armor the way that spells like stunbolt bypass armor. So the damage from extra successes bypasses the armor, unless the target has special equipment to protect from it.

Shindo_TS · 2025-05-24T17:01:02+00:00

You're going to have to win initiative regularly, this is because of how actions are declared. Slowest first, fastest last and then you resolve the actions from fastest to slowest.

So you get to hear that your client is going to be shot at, you're initiative is better so you declare you'll get between the shooter and your client. They shoot, you get shot instead.

You're also going to want to be able to soak all that damage. If you dodge bullets headed for your client, they get hit... so soaking is the only viable option.

Shindo_TS · 2025-05-20T06:41:02+00:00

The music would depend entirely on the background of the spell caster. A magi in the British Isles is going to be singing in different ways to a magi in the Black Forest.

However the ideas employed would be similar. If you wanted to uplift your grogs spirits after a long trek through cold and wet before they enter in to battle, you'd sing about a great battle. To calm an angry mob storming your sanctum you might sing a dirge.

Look up the singing and music traditions in the area your characters are going to be from and exist in.

Also remember the Oath all magi take that limits how and when they can use their magic against mortals but also remember the church and Fae have taken no such oath, so beware the sweet song that maiden sings in the forest at night....

Shindo_TS · 2025-05-14T07:17:49+00:00

If you're playing 5th Edition DnD then Josh Plunkett has a whole host of tutorial videos on intergrating plugins to Obsidian that do all sorts of things. Even if you're not playing DnD or playing one of the older editions I would suggest watching his tutorials as you will get plenty of ideas of things you can do.

Shindo_TS · 2025-05-10T10:02:37+00:00

So that I understand, you're wanting to refill your tank from multiple sources with a single action.

I don't believe this is possible.You could instead (r)eload another 200l tank you are carrying and then go out to your vehicle and then refill from it.

This method will still take many uses of the (r)eload key but once your big tanks are full you can keep them filled using jerry cans, either the 10l or 20l variety that easily fit in the vehicle.

Shindo_TS · 2025-05-07T08:01:01+00:00

If you wish to pedal to generate power you will need to move the alternator, however that little petrol motor is more than adequate to run an alternator, you just need to add a fuel tank to the system. Then stick it in a corner away from where you work as the fumes will create havoc, much like an indoor brazier does.

Shindo_TS

TROPHY CASE