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|  Tonight is D&D night over at Joel’s place, so in preparation a couple of days ago, I decided to work on making a few more wire templates (like those at right) for working out the area of effect of spells. Spells in D&D have three basic shapes for area of effect (AoE): lines, cones, and circles. Lines are easy to deal with on a square grid, but, as you can guess, mapping a 5 foot radius circle on a 1 inch square grid (where 1 inch = 5 ft) yields something decidedly non-circular. It gets better the more “pixels” you add, as anyone familiar with the evolution of computer art should realize, but there can still be some funky geometries that are difficult to deal with on the fly.
I had seen some sets of wire templates online for what I considered crazy prices, and I had some used wire (leftover bits from the BatCat wings), so I tried my hand at making my own. They’re crude, wander in and out of the guidelines, and are a bit warped, but the three I made (5’ Radius, 10’ Radius, and 20’ Radius, being the AoEs for the spells I had access to at the time) worked pretty well for figuring what squares on the play mat were being effected. It makes strategizing a spell application a bit easier, and they were even requested at times when I forgot to bring them to game night. I would have preferred actual circles of the correct radius, so I could be freed from registering the templates with the play grid and be more free-form with spells, but that’s not something I’m capable of in my home workshop (I’d only need some proper-diameter tubes and a spot welder, if anyone wants to donate…).
So, since the originals were moderately popular and useful, I thought I’d try my hand at some more, especially the pesky cone AoE. The current definition of the cone AoE is it “shoots away from you in a quarter-circle in the direction you designate.” I seem to remember an older definition of the cone (from I know not what edition; perhaps it was a general rule of thumb?) is that it is as wide at the end of the effect as it is long. In practice the cone is often treated as a fan shape, about 10’–15’ thick, since characters rarely find themselves fighting creatures that don’t fit inside a standard dungeon corridor 9^>. Though my friends and I use that rule of thumb to get the drop on grounded enemies when we are flying. Hover 60’ over a group of enemies and fire down, so you cover a circle 60’ wide. So, a cone with its height equal to its base. That gives an angle of ~53° at the apex; not something easy to model on a square grid. If that half-remembered definition is correct, that could explain the use of the hemisemicircular area in v3.5. One presumes that height-wise the “cone” AoE has a circular cross-section, like a true cone, but the end is rounded, rather than flat like a true cone. Imagine a rather wide single-scoop ice-cream cone. That means that at it’s full central length, the width is reduced from it’s full possible width (L√2̅ ) at a distance of L/√2̅ from the spell caster (L being the length of the effect, or the radius of the hemisemicircle). So we’ve been doing that wrong.
But I digress…
 Wizards of the Coast* was thoughtful enough to include some reduced scale example AoEs in an appendix of the Dungeon Master’s Guide (see right), as well as a couple of full 1-inch scale templates for 30’ cones — which is the first size that starts to get really tricky — that made excellent lay-out areas for bending the wires. I referenced them when making the small templates, so I went back to them as a guide for the new ones. This time I looked at the larger ones more carefully, keeping the cone definition in mind. Something didn’t look right, so I pulled out the trusty compass and drew some arcs. The shapes tended to fall short of their theoretical sizes, especially as the areas grew larger. I also noticed some internal inconsistencies. You’ll notice that each cone AoE actually has two layouts: One for shooting from the corner of the occupied square (the easy one) and one for shooting from a face of the square (not always so easy to visualize). For the 15’ cone, the face-shooting layout starts with one 5’ square in front of the caster, which makes sense, since that’s the first square he’s firing into and is equivalent to the corner-shooting layout. But starting with the 30’ cone, the face-shooting position now starts with two squares in front of the caster, inconsistent with the theoretical shape, the corner-facing layout for 30’, and the 15’ cone (see right). Thoughtful they may have been, but there’s no escaping they are also wrong (which sucks because they are rather standardized). Given this illogical layout and the fact that the given shapes fall short of the theoretical AoE, I decided a revision was in order before I started making more templates.
I pulled out the last of my old graph paper (and I do mean old; this stuff dates back to my middleschool D&D supply. Yeah. That old.), which I thought was fitting, and started drawing me some arcs and circles and filling them in. As a check, I also calculated the proper area of each effect, along with the square-grid area and the old WotC area, where appropriate, for a good comparison. See below for thumbnail links to my efforts.
I added the red shading before scanning to help with contrast; they were fairly busy pictures. I’m not sure I like it. Meh. Also, the light pencil of the compass didn’t scan well, so I added some fancy cgi circles and arcs through the magic of Paint Shop Pro. You’ll notice there are several more small areas than in the WotC picture. Most spells don’t have cone shapes other than 15’, 30’, and 60’, but there are some rare and custom spells that have other lengths. Likewise there are spells and magical items that grant an effect within x feet of the caster/bearer, so that’s another weird AoE. Most importantly, though, notice the increasing discrepancy between the proper area of an effect and the old WotC areas and the magnitude of those discrepancies. In most cases I was better able to approximate the theoretical area without exceeding it, and in the few cases where it was necessary to exceed the proper area, the excess is far less than the dearth that WotC gave us. To achieve this I used the rule of thumb that a square was affected only if the clear majority of it lay within the circle. I also bowed to symmetry. Overall, I think the exercise was fruitful (which is why I’m bothering to share).
Oh. Let’s return to an offhand comment from earlier about the shape of the cone, heightwise. You can see from the corner-shooting cone shapes that treating a cone as a fan in most cases is justified. That cone layout is a cross section of the widest extent of the spell, like what you would see as the caster of the spell. Well the left half anyway. The bottom edge of the picture would be at hand height, so the spell effect would extend over a 5’ height or more in any location within, and that’s enough to call boom on the occupant of the space. The only time you might have a problem is when trying to affect grounded and flying creatures at the same time.
Anyway, enjoy these; Use ‘em or don’t, it’s up to you**. I certainly plan to.
Slaintè,
Q
* Hey, these WotC images are copyrighted, so be nice and don’t distribute them. I include them here under fair use rules only because they grant permission to photocopy them for personal use.
** Permission is granted to reproduce these images for your personal use only. But it’s quite easy to make your own.
 Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| After an hour or so on the phone with Microsoft getting them to issue me another product key so I could re-install, I’m back on the computer. I’m still getting my programs re-installed, which is why this post is actually not so timely.
So, be warned, if you ever need to reinstall Win7 on a new hard drive, you’ll need to talk to customer support about it. They’re nice enough about the issue, and the time involved isn’t for them to hassle you. But, still, it’s a little ridiculous. I don’t have to call GM to approve a brake job.
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| …drop off the face of the earth unexpectedly.
One of the hard drives in my two-drive, RAID 0 setup is having issues. It could fail completely at any moment, rendering my computer just another hunk of rock and plastic. But, a new drive is on the way, and I hope to rectify the problem shortly. The rub is that, as a RAID 0 setup, I can’t just unRAID it without losing the data. boo. So, I’ll have to reinstall everything. All this after the update to Win7 went so well.
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| This past Saturday was made of AWESOME! Hosted at Tom and Maya Kiehl’s house out in Wynantskill, Spielbany was a ten-hour extravaganza of proto-game testing with some of the nicest, most funnest gaming people around. Not only were P.D. Magnus and Doug Hoover there, but I got to meet a bunch of new people and (even though I showed up a good 40 minutes before everyone else), there was none of my usual party anxiety with new people. It was exactly like our biweekly game meeting, but with more people. And spaghetti. And the Kiehl’s three amazing kids.
We tested out several promising games, and ran Igoooorrr! through its new paces. There is good and bad news there. The game was lighter and more fun with the new changes (much laughter was had by all), but it ran way too long for its play style. Suggestions were made, and I hope they help. Perhaps we can try it out this Sunday? We’ll see how far I get on revisions before then. H and I have a bit of a long weekend planned with projects and days off and stuff. So, if not this Sunday, then maybe the next.
So, I look forward to Winter Spielbany (January 16, I believe) and I hope that some of you can attend.
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| I have accomplished naught today.
I’m a bit sad about that, really. Guilty and disappointed with myself. My age old lack of discipline stepping in again.
BUT! I did enjoy wasting my time this morning* catching up on all the YouTube posts of my newest intercrush. Molly Lewis is a young** indie singer/songwriter/ukelelist who, if she remains diligent and doesn’t break under the strain, has the talent and following to perhaps be the next Jonathan Coulton. She has, in fact, played with JoCo, and Paul and Storm, on a couple of recent occasions. So, she has excellent role models to follow.
Here is her latest YouTube video, a cover of a Lady GaGa song, Poker Face. Most of Molly’s ‘Tubes are covers of various artists***, but she also has some originals in there, so you might want to spend a few minutes perusing. Usually, the ‘Tubes are of acoustic, uke-only songs. This is her first multi-instrument offering.
* And, we all know that time you’ve enjoyed wasting isn’t really wasted time.
** And I do mean young. She’s a college Freshman (edit: maybe Sophomore. I’m not really sure), so if the books don’t drag her away, we can look forward to a long life of Molly Lewis offerings.
*** In fact, it was her cover of Tom Cruise Crazy that, when brought to JoCo’s attention, landed her on stage with him when he toured Seattle.
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| It’s Truth or Fail, YouTube’s first video quiz show. The Vlogbrothers pose the questions, and you pick the fact from the pair of answers. Your choice moves you to a new video, a la Choose Your Own Adventure.
Entertaining and perhaps educational, too.
I don’t have the embed code, but here is an HTML link. Enjoy!
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| So, I haven’t yet watched any episodes of Late Night with Craig Ferguson. Late night TV is not for me, and hasn’t been for many years. But, I saw this YouTube clip of Adam and Jamie with Ferguson and thought I would share it. It’s chuckle worthy at the least.
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| From Wikipedia:
Top Secret Drum Corps is a precision drum corps based in Basel, Switzerland. With 25 drummers and colorguard members, the corps became famous for its demanding six-minute routine performed at the Edinburgh Tattoo in 2003. With its invitation to Edinburgh, Top Secret became one of the first non-military, non-British Commonwealth acts to perform on the Esplanade at Edinburgh Castle.
Since its success in 2003, Top Secret was invited to return to Edinburgh in 2006 with a new and improved routine. They were invited a third time in 2009. Under the leadership of Erik Julliard, the band is also responsible for the founding of the Basel Tattoo, a military tattoo show similar to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, now held annually in Basel.
Having been in the school band since 4th grade, I marched my share of football half-times, and I loved every minute of it. While the band as a whole was looked upon well by the student population, the drum section were like unto gods.
I still have a soft spot for the corps…
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| Below is an embed of an excellent video introduction to critical thinking. Brian dunning has released this video under Creative Commons. It’s free to distribute, so you can download the movie here, where you can even get an ISO file, if you want to burn it to a DVD that will play in your home system. Niiiice. I’d mail you the movie, but it’s over a gig.
In summary, Dunning takes us through a list of red flags that should be considered whenever listening to any claim. He even subtly pokes fun at himself throughout the video by exhibiting one or two of the red flags in the shooting of the movie.
What I appreciate about the film is that Dunning isn’t ranting about woo-woo destroying the earth. He doesn’t pick pet coprolites and smash them to bits. His presentation is thoughtful, and level-headed, and I never felt embarrassed for him.
The best part, though, is when his wife rolls over and glares at him. Watch it. It’s a lol moment. I swear.
Slaintè, Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| Well, Windows 7 just finished installing, and so far everything seems to be working well. Looks like the registry was imported correctly and my programs are still all installed. Now to double check…
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| If I drop off the face of the earth for a few days it’s because I’ve temporarily taken leave of my systems senses. I’m about to install Windows 7. (Technically, upgrade to W7 from Vista, which is apparently not the same as a fresh install. )
With the recent trouble I’ve had with Vista, when I saw the Amazon pre-order discount (approx 1/3 of the current retail price) while having Issues, I did the impulse buy thing. So, here we go. Wish me luck.
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| Here is an interesting and short article by Steven Novella on “the” placebo effect. It’s in response to a recent New Scientist article about spinal cord measurements and the analgesic placebo effect.
In summary, there is often confusion among lay people (and scientists, to a lesser extent) about “the” placebo effect. In essence, there are more than one placebo affect in a working definition. When a clinical trial is run, there are often three branches of the trial: the test branch, the control branch, and the placebo branch. The operational definition of placebo effect in such a trial is “any and all measured effects other than a physiological response to the treatment itself”. That can include the most well-known and strongest placebo effect, the analgesic placebo effect (where pain is lessened in response to treatment with placebo, hypothesized to be a natural endorphin release), but it can also include a host of other psychological and psychosomatic factors.
Novella wrote his article because he felt the New Scientist article I mentioned was a little sloppy in its reporting. In the study, scientists made some FMRI scans of patients given a topical placebo analgesic. They found that spinal cord response indicated a cessation or lessening of the pain response. This is great support for the endorphin release hypothesis for the analgesic placebo effect, since such spinal activity is predicted by that hypothesis. But Novella seems to think the NS article gives too much weight to the misconception that because there is a strong analgesic placebo effect there are strong placebo effects for all disorders, which is not the case. I’m not sure I agree the article strengthens that misconception, but it certainly does nothing to quash it.
Anyway, both articles are worth the few minutes of your time it’ll take to read them.
Enjoy!
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| Here is an excellent talk from Lawrence Krauss on the current state of cosmological understanding. It was given at a recent Richard Dawkins Foundation/Atheists Alliance International event. It’s a bit too heavy on religious jokes for general consumption, but he was playing to his audience, obviously. The jokes are still funny, but the best part it the overview of cosmology. Worth your time if you like cosmology even the slightest bit.
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| 
Last night I finished the sixth book in the increasingly misnamed Hitchhiker’s Trilogy. Many of you may not have know there was to be a sixth book, after Adam’s death, but he had apparently been thinking of doing another to try ending on a less bleak note than that of Mostly Harmless. So, Eoin Colfer, of Artemis Fowl fame, was tapped to write the sixth book with a little help from Adams’ notes (I believe). This was, over all, a good choice, IMHO, as Colfer’s writing in the Fowl series often struck me as somewhat Adamsian, both in humor and cadence.
On the whole, as a stand alone novel, And Another Thing… is a pretty strong book; perhaps 3 or 3.5 stars out of 5. The plot isn’t too intricate, and the prose seems forced in many places. As a follow up to Mostly Harmless, though, it is a very good work; 4 out of 5 stars. Colfer (+ Adams’ notes?) does a good job rescuing the main characters from the certain demise left to them in Mostly Harmless in a clever manner wholly consistent with the Hitchhiker mythos. The main problem I found with the book was the prose, as I mentioned. Adams had a knack for stringing together otherwise nonsensical combinations of words into something that made sense, and was funny. Colfer has to work at it, and it shows in several places. But in other places, he fairly nails the Adamsian style, so kudos for that. It must have been a daunting task.
So, my advice is, if you were fence-sitting because you were afraid this book would just be a cheap sell-out, go ahead and read it even if you don’t buy it. If you’ve enjoyed the first five books as much as I have, you will appreciate seeing your old friends, some of whom actually have a bit of a character arc and learn a thing or two. Zaphod, of course, is always Zaphod.
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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| While doing an internet search, I ran across a reply to a forum post in which the poster proudly admits to kidnapping his neighbors’ family members and transporting them to an undisclosed location.
This had my adrenaline so pumped that I had to back away from the computer for about half an hour. It was still bothering me, so I decided a blog post might be cathartic.
What’s saddest about this fellow’s post is that he seemed blissfully unaware of his crime. You see, the family members in question were his neighbors’ cats, which he claimed endangered his garden.
How can people be so callous, so heartless, so self-centered? I get that this guy isn’t an animal lover. That’s cool. But how can he lack the basic empathy to see those cats through his neighbors’ eyes? All he would have had to do is carry the damned coon trap to his neighbor instead of off to who knows where.
It’s people like that who make me feel good about the death penalty.
Q
Originally published at Quentin Hudspeth's Journal. You can comment here or there. | |
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