T w e n t y S i d e d
Ask any fighter: A hammer is just a really heavy set of lockpicks.
– Shamus, Monday Oct 23, 2006
Yup! And Fire Bolt is just a really fire-y set of lockpicks!
From The Archives:
Fixing Match 3
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
PC Hardware is Toast
This is why shopping for graphics cards is so stupid and miserable.
Skylines of the Future
Cities: Skylines is bound to have a sequel sooner or later. Where can this series go next, and what changes would I like to see?
A Star is Born
Remember the superhero MMO from 2009? Neither does anyone else. It was dumb. So dumb I was compelled to write this.
Chainmail Bikini
A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
I heard a story from a friend once that he knew a barbarian who loved bashing open chests. So he trapped one with a carnivorous plant, and put a major potion of strength and a major potion of vitality in there. Bashing open the chest shattered the potions all over the plant. Carnage.
I had a 5e Barbarian once who heard there was a locked door in the way, charged across the room with axe in hand… Then stopped right in front of the door, popped some lock picks out of a hidden compartment in the axe handle, and delicately opened the lock. 5e made it much easier to pick up lock picking on other classes.
It was my cleric who used the war pick as a lock pick. The war pick was also called “diplomacy”. We solved lots of problems with diplomacy.
“We don’t use Scrolls and Gold don’t burn!”
French translation available here: https://dmoftheringsfr.blogspot.com/2023/05/le-hobbit-et-le-temple-du-boom.html
An adamantine weapon is the best lockpick you can get. It bypasses hardness, so you can easily cut through nonmagical locks… or doors… or walls.
Yeah, the whole “bypass hardness” thing means that an adamantine weapon cuts/breaks through stone and steel as if they were cheese. Literally as easily as cutting cheese.
When you get your hands on something like that, its had *not* to just brute force through every obstacle.
I’ve seen a Warforged with adamantine fists try punching all the architecture in the Tomb of Horrors. It went better than it had any right to.
The Lara-Laura Croft dichotomy is crazy. Lara spelling in England sounds somewhat like Laura spelling in US, and the Lara spelling in US sounds somewhat like Laura in England. And changing a name spelling to more familiar ones seems likely when moving characters across the world, especially given that US media seems to have a history of talking down to its audience (Blade Runner voiceover etc.) in localisations. So no one knows what is going on!
“Lara Croft”
“no it’s not Laura, it’s Lara”
“oh so it’s actually Laura?”
“yes”
“ah I thought I’d seen it spelt as Lara, so it’s actually L-a-u-r-a?”
“no!!! It’s L-a-r-a!”
“so it IS Laura then!!”
Ever played a Star Wars RPG? Let the PCs get a Lightsaber and there’s no such thing as a locked door from then on.
If you’re playing Star Wars, once the players get ahold of a lightsaber, nothing is ever locked again.