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The striker role in 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons is the master of damage. Whether it is up close and personal with an avenger or ranger, or from a distance with a sorcerer or warlock; strikers are there for one reason and one reason only – damage. Players of defenders, controllers and leaders often sigh wistfully when they hear the damage being dealt by a striker but getting all that damage out there isn’t as easy as it seems.

While playing a striker may not require as much tactical thought as playing one of the other roles, strikers do require a lot more planning to be effective damage dealers. Feats, equipment and power choices are very important for strikers. Not only do they need to eke out every last bit of damage from their powers, they need to ensure that they hit every time to do that damage.

Melee strikers are more focused on feats and equipment. Bigger weapons often mean bigger damage. Feats allow them to hit more often and survive going toe to toe with monsters. Feats like Weapon Focus and Powerful Charge enhance your ability to hit and deal damage. But, defences also play an important role. As the old World of Warcraft adage goes, “Dead DPS does no DPS.” The same applies here. A dead striker is not striking anything. Defensive Mobility and Toughness help keep you going until the defender can get the creature off of you.

Ranged strikers, especially spellcasters, need to pay careful attention to their feats and power selection. Feats that increase the damage type you are dealing are a must. Every little bit counts. Some players try to specialise in a damage type and while this can work it is a bit of a gamble. Against creatures with a resistance or immunity to your damage type you are seriously handicapped and probably forced to fall back on at-will powers or basic attacks to deal damage. It is better to branch off into damage types that are rarely, if ever, encountered together. Fire and psychic or lightning and acid, for example.

The feats that provide damage bonuses to type attacks give you an idea of what type combinations are usually found together. Radiant and fire resistance are often found together and the same applies to thunder and lightning resistances. Always ensure that you have equal amounts of powers of different damage types to cover all your bases.

As with melee strikers it is important to make sure you can always hit your opponents. While you are usually aiming at the weaker defences like Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower, some creatures have surprisingly high defences in these areas. Your own defences are also important but since you tend to hang back, focus rather on the defences targets by enemy spellcasters.

Most players think playing a striker doesn’t require any real effort but a badly built striker is about as useful as a sword made of cheese. Feat and power selection is very important and you need to be thinking several levels ahead if you want your striker to have a chance at making a mark on the hit point totals of epic level creatures.

No one ever said you couldn’t have fun while improving your brainpower. There are plenty of online resources to help improve brain fitness. Here are five that you might enjoy.

1. Strimko

This is a numbers logic puzzle, based on a well-known idea about Latin squares, first considered by the famous Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler back in the 18th century. All challenges presented to a game player can be solved using logic and no special knowledge of anything else is needed. These are very simple puzzles possessing only three basic elements that include rows, columns and strength. Each of the game elements has an equal number of cells and the goal is to make each cell contains a whole set of specified numbers.

2. Speed Match

This is a game that is designed to train your brain to process information in a quick fashion and respond to it in an ever-decreasing time allotment. Game players are challenged to focus on improving brain processing speed which is often considered the obstacle for people using other cognitive abilities. Game players are going to develop skills for thinking faster as well as reacting to information presented to them in a quicker fashion.

3. Word Crunch

Game players are challenged to use a group of presented letters to create as many words as possible. All recognized words that are between 3 to 6 letters in length can score points. Bonus points will be awarded if a game player can cover all the different sets of words that are possibly available. Players develop memory and concentration skills along with associative reasoning powers.

4. Lost in Migration

This is one of the brain games that helps a player improve both concentration skills while developing increased brain fitness. Players will develop a greater degree of paying attention as well as deeper concentration and focus. Players learn to suppress any automatic responses to stimuli while putting into play cognitive skills to discern how to react to the stimuli in a planned fashion. Game goals include helping players avoid distraction while increasing concentration creating greater productivity.

5. Grow Cube

By initiating different relationships and combinations, players actually create a society of strange little people. Players add items that affect how other items react depending upon what order is used to introduce these into the game. Players come across hidden surprises and when the correct pieces are placed together, points are rewarded. A player must select items in the correct order so these items interact in the right manner growing to each item’s maximum to score more points. It helps players develop greater memory and concentration skills as well as using stored information to make creative problem solving decisions.

Brain Games Online Improving Brain Fitness

These are only five of the many online resources one can find and put to task helping increase brain fitness. Like any other physical exercise that helps improve muscle power, brain exercises go a long way toward improving brain fitness and function. Access these brain games though simple search in your favourite search engine such as Google or Yahoo.

If you have played the older Lucas Arts games like Full Throttle, Maniac Mansion, Sam and Max, and others, you know these are great games for their time and even today. If you are running a Linux system, these games on their own will not work. They were made for Windows while you are running Linux meaning that they are not compatible. Despite this you can play these games on a Linux system.

WineHQ will not work with these games even though they are Windows software. What you actually need to use is an emulator that will run these games on your system. The one you need is called ScummVM. If you are using Windows or a Mac, this same emulator will work on those and run these games as well.

If you are using something like Ubuntu, ScummVM is in the repositories. If you are using a different distribution, you might have to go to the website and download the Linux version and install it by yourself which is a bit harder.

In order to get these games to run, the easiest way is to copy the entire CD contents to your hard drive. Put it into a folder and name it the name of the game so that you know what it is.

Open up the emulator and go to the section to add the game. Find the folder that you have all the game contents in and select that one. You can then run the game from that folder and it should work flawlessly just like it used to on your old Windows machine.

Role playing games have never been more popular. Big titles of the genre includes Final Fantasy, Oblivion, Star Ocean and Mass Effect, games you’ve heard of unless you’ve lived under a rock for the last decade. In which case I’m so sorry and congratulations for finding this article. I don’t know how you managed to read this today but I love serving you with the following knowledge. Knowledge on how to succeed in role playing games, or in short, RPGs.

Haste is bad

Games in this genre have the tendency to be really long and big. It’s one huge adventure. But truth is that these games can usually be finished rather quickly. One of the biggest role playing games of the last few years has to be Oblivion. A game that allows you to walk freely in a big world. While the game has enough to entertain for 100+ hours, the main story can actually be completed in under 10 hours. But with the side stories and extras your character can become stronger and in the progress the main story becomes easier. That’s the thing in RPGs you shouldn’t want to complete it quickly, instead take your time to train your character and find new rare items. It will make your experience a whole lot easier!

Understand the battle system

Every game has a different approach to the fighting mechanics. Older Final Fantasy games for example were turn based, meaning time wasn’t of the essence. But Oblivion and Final Fantasy 12 (last released ps2 version) are very much time sensitive meaning that it matters how long it takes you to find items or magic spells. Bottom line is that you must know the way fighting works in and out to succeed in these games. If you don’t know how it works read the user manual or search the internet for the required knowledge.

Exploit weaknesses

Like in real life every character and monsters in this case have weaknesses and strengths. For example your main character might have extremely strong spells but lack of physical strength. In this case use magic to win your battles. Same goes for the enemies you’re fighting. Find out what their weaknesses are and the battle will go your way no doubt.

Items

It’s essential that you use the items and strengths you’ve at your disposal. Understand how to cure curtain curses like poison or blind. And use the necessary items. No one has ever won an RPG without using items like potions or ethers.

And that’s all there is to it. With these pointers you can beat every RPG on the market. Good luck and I hope you experience a great adventure at the comfort of your own living room.

The World of Darkness role-playing game focuses on mortals that become inexorably caught up in the shadows of the supernatural in a darker reflection of the real world. Sometimes these mortals poke a little bit too far and they end up being drawn into the shadows themselves. With Changeling: The Lost mortals are not just drawn into the shadows but bodily removed and taken away to be slaves in the distant realm of Arcadia.

Changing your chronicle from mortals to changelings is possible, and quite easy, within the new World of Darkness rules. All it requires is adding the supernatural template and the character is ready to go – from a purely technical side. From the dramatic side there is a much greater shift that needs to be taken into account. Taking your troupe and turning them all into changelings requires a bit of effort and will definitely change the tenor and mood of your chronicle in ways you may not expect.

When the Gentry kidnap a mortal and drag him or her through the Hedge to a life of servitude they undergo an experience that is quite unlike any of the other supernatural lines. The Embrace, while harrowing, is quick. The First Change was just waiting to happen. Awakening brings wonderment and confusion but rarely distress. The Durance experienced by changelings, however, is a physical and emotional turmoil that can last for what feels like decades. The character doesn’t change because they want to or because of some inherited gift; their bodies changes in an effort to survive or through the cruel magic of their Keeper.

And after all this it is only those with enough of their humanity left that manages to escape back through the Hedge to the world they once knew. Changelings come back to earth battered, bruised and abused. Even if they hope to just pick up their lives where they left off it might not be possible. Time has moved on, a fetch might have replaced them or they may have aged but she escaped at the same time they left. From a dramatic perspective this is very important.

How do the characters react to their new existence? There is no way character can return from their Durance the same as they were before they left. Sure some measure of their personality remains but their time in Arcadia should have changed them in fundamental ways.

The once intimidating bruiser may have found himself treated to the same abuse he once visited on others. Does he gain sympathy for the people he once tortured or did his Durance make him even more callous? The handsome jock once had all the girls at his feet until a Lady of Arcadia stole him away and kept him as a beautiful prize that she used as she desired. Does he still cherish his good looks that got him noticed or does he rather try to keep a low profile in case she comes back? These are just some examples of how a character can change and these are questions the storyteller has to ask the players.

As this is an important part of the character’s new existence it is a good idea to run personal sessions with each of the characters. In these sessions you can detail the escape, meeting up with old friends and joining one of the seasonal courts. If the troupe escaped as one then run it with all the players. Just be careful not to run personal character stories with the other players present. Depending on the player these stories could take some time and there is nothing worse than waiting idly by while one character relives his entire Durance.

While these details are important they shouldn’t be favoured above the actual chronicle. Some players don’t care too much about how they escaped and how they joined their court. Others like taking their characters through this process. Don’t bore action-focused players with dramatic details, but don’t gloss over the details for characters that like the melodrama.

Generally learning contracts, meeting other changelings and getting to know the local freehold should be glossed over in downtime unless these are important to the chronicle arc. It is easier to assume that the characters went to the trouble of getting to know their neighbours than sitting for hours role-playing every little meeting the characters have with a new face.

The transition from mortal to changeling is a profound one. Players should realise that their characters have undergone a fundamental transformation and that the mortal self has been left behind. With a transition to changeling it is important to highlight the changes but also the wonderment of their new existence. Don’t harp on too much on the suffering – after all, that is one thing all changelings are trying to forget.

We all know that video games are very popular today. But do you know what the theory is behind these games? Games reflect the characteristics of the real life situation especially when it comes to competition or cooperative situations. Games can suggest various strategies on how people should deal in different situations in life. When watching or playing video games, you will be able to understand and predict the strategy of the game. The same thing is indeed obviously true in our world. You can predict the how people behave in different situations.

These kinds of games are generally competitive. The main goal is to win over the other party. However, there are games that promote violence. But game analysts even commend the creators of these games. They even find it very appropriate for a game and it is more exciting because there are violence which is really happening in reality.

There are five elements that stimulate game in the situation in real life.

1. The players – they decide and make the fate of their team. In reality, it is you who decide what is best for yourself.

2. The strategies – each player possess this characteristic. These are the approach that you followed to reach your goals and settle disputes.

3. The rules – this governs the behavior of the players. There are also rules in the real world. There are even dos and dont’s that you stipulate for yourself.

4. The outcomes – these are the result of the choices made by the players. These are usually the effect of the decision people make in any given situation.

5. The payoffs – accumulated by the players as the effect of every outcome.

There are also games that will enhance your knowledge and skills. In the end you achieve one of the most profitable upshots in the situation you are in. So it is not true that video games are bad influences for the young kids. It only needs proper guidance from the parents and proper monitoring.

Dan is the leader of the Battle Brawlers. He is a street smart 12 year old, and he gets frustrated very easily. Dan’s ambition is to be the number one Battle Brawler in in the world, and he has a rivalry going with Shun, with whom he has competed for top spot in Bakugan ratings. Dan is a Pyrus Brawler, and his guardian Bakugan is Dragonoid (nicknamed Drago).

Marucho is a wealthy and generous boy. He is 10 years old, and he is considered to be the brain of the group. He used to be very obedient to his parents, but that changed when he met the Brawlers. His guardian Bakugan is Preyas.

Runo is a tomboy. She is 12 years old, and she often gets in the way of the other Bakugan players. She has a secret crush on Dan, although she would never admit it, and she always argues him. Her guardian Bakugan is Tigrerra.

Shun and Dan have been best friends since childhood, and together they invented the game of Bakugan. Shun is 13 years old. He is an aspiring ninja who gets his training from his grandfather. He is a loner, yet he will help his friends at all cost. His guardian Bakugan is Skyress.

Julie can be described as a scatterbrained cutie. She is 12 years old and she adores Dan. Even if she can seem a bit vacant in conversations, she can compete with the best of them at Bakugan. Her guardian Bakugan is Gorem.

Alice is seen as the most mature in the group. She is 13 years old, and her closest friend is Runo. Alice was born and raised in Moscow, and she used to live alone until her grandfather, Michael Gehabich, came for her. Alice has always been a bit reluctant to play Bakugan, and instead she gives advice and strategy to the other members of the group. Sometimes she plays because she has the evil darkus in her control, and she knows almost everything about it.

National game Testers are those people who test a game before it is launched. They analyze the games to look for any kind of software defects. It is a part of the quality control process from the game manufacturing company’s side. The games that are tested here include all kinds of video games. It is a dream career option for every gaming enthusiast. However, it is not just about playing a game. It requires thorough technical knowledge on the part of the testers. The testers must be analytically competent, thick skinned and be able to endure long durations of working hours.

The gaming industry puts this job under the ‘Quality Assurance’ category. But it is unlike the usual software quality assurance. Instead, it is much less technical. Most game testers are not very educated. They are just high school pass-outs with almost negligible professional technical degree or diploma. This is usually a full time job but most companies do hire temporary employees.

In most companies, when these testers are working under the publishers, they are outsourced to the game developer’s site and are not deployed at the office of their employer. Many students work as part time testers. Companies generally hire during late summer or early autumn. These are the times when it is a kind of crunch period for games to be completed and shipped before the holiday season begins.

Times are however changing and companies are hiring more and more professional testers. There is a misconception that game testing is a kind of stress test where the testers play a game and report about all the bugs they come across while playing it. Actually, the job of testers is to find bugs not just by simply playing but by using many complicated technologies. A tester plays many portions of the same game repeatedly for long hours. Some also suffer from burnouts as a result of this.

Despite all the risks associated with this job and the work hours it requires, it does not pay much. In fact, the wages are generally paid on an hourly basis. Since the employees are generally hired on temporary basis, they are not entitled for benefits or even holidays. Most testers treat this job as a stop-gap arrangement after which they can get a better job in the gaming industry.

People who finally want to work in the gaming industry can use it as a stepping stone.

The game of shuffleboard used to be played on the floor where players would push their puck with a broom or a stick to score points. Now, the most popular version is table shuffleboard and there are many tournaments in sports bars and family fun centers. Many players want a shuffleboard table for their home because of the popularity and it is something that many players absolutely love. High quality wood tables can be an investment, but they are a must have for those that love the game.

When playing table shuffleboard with two players, the game starts with both players standing at one end of the table and a coin toss determines who will shoot first and what color of weights they will get. Shooting last offers an advantage. Player one slides their weight towards the far end of the board or the scoring end. The second player slides their weight, trying to knock off the first player’s weight or to go a further distance. This continues through to the eight weights are alternately shuffled and the winner of the round is the one that lies the furthest down the board.

Players start the next round by switching to the other end of the table and continue playing rounds until one player has scored 15 or 21 wins. The score is tallied for the winner by adding the values of all leading weights that lay ahead of the opponents leading weight. The only person that gets a score is the winner. Any weights that are cut off or lie behind the other side’s weights aren’t scored. If none of the opponent’s weights are remaining on the board, then all of the winner’s weights are scored.

The value of the weights is scored based on the zones where they end up. The three primary zones are Trey, Deuce and One, with Four points given for any weights that are overhanging on the scoring end. Any weights that have passed the first foul line but touch the Deuce line are still in the one point zone. The next zone for two points are those that cross the Deuce line but don’t go over the Trey line. Those weights that are passed the Trey line and between the end of the board but don’t overhang the far edge get Three points. The Four point bonus is given for the weights that extend over the far edge of the board.

If there are not any weights left on the board at the end of the round, then nobody wins or gets any points, but the next round starts by alternating the last shot privilege. To be scored, all weights must make it over the foul line closest to the shooters. To determine whether it is on the foul line or not, the legal determination is made by looking down directly over the top of the weight from the scoring end of the board. If a weight bounces back into the foul zone, it is considered illegal, even though it originally passed the line.

The fine wood tables that are like miniature bowling alleys used in bars and restaurants are the high quality tables that can cost $10,000. If you love table shuffleboard, you might be disappointed, if you don’t make the same investment for your home table.