Welcome! (Huh? What's this "Savagery" thing?)

Rory: I wouldn't spend more than $20 (including shipping) on a headset unless you plan on using it for streaming.

Third: I can commit to either the Monday/Tuesday OR Thursday/Friday schedule but I cannot do both.

I don't plan on streaming or voice recording. I imagine neither of those things is a core component of Ventrilo the way you talk about them, so good quality input is really all I'm going for. If that still applies to your recommendation on price range Gwydo, I'll take that into consideration.

@Gwydo That's fine; I wasn't planning on doing it for more than a single day every week anyway. Good to know the days though, thanks.

I don't mind putting the Medaira campaign on ice while we do this.  The entire point of it was to have a break for people to get more real experience at D&Ding and roleplaying anyways, and Third's campaign satisfies that requirement.  So I suppose count me down for Monday and Tuesday.

Oh, hmm, well, in that case, we could just go for Tuesday if that's okay with everyone. It seems like that's probably the best day for everyone anyway. I could actually do it this Tuesday in fact if that's fine. I was reserving that time for the Medaira campaign since Monday was out this week, but if you want me to I can run - especially if you're just wanting to relax that day after Monday.

Good to know, I'd like to stick with Monday and Tuesday, and if anybody could give me a second opinion on the Dynex USB Microphone model DX-USBMIC13, I'd greatly appreciate it. It's on the Bestbuy website, for some reason I "haven't got the rights to access this page" when I try to post the link in a message.

If you decide to go with a desktop mic, I recommend getting one with an omnidirectional mic. That way you can set it off to the side instead of having to face it all the time.
Other than that, the reviews look fine.

Personally though, I prefer headsets. But that's just me.

I couldn't help you, sorry. Not only I never used a desktop mic.

But for one thing, I know that omnidirectional mics are a poor choice for desktop, as they catch everything around you. I mean it. Unless you are in a controlled environment, those hearing you will get a lot of noise. Cardioid mics are a much better choice, and headsets with a proper directional mic is the cheap but concrete choice.

But hey, that's me, the guy whose setup is earphones, a cheap professional mic and a long mic mount.

Okay guys, I finally got me a working headset, just for you...that is, ehm, yay! Woohoo!

Headphones are on-ear, which is to say not as comfortable as they could be. They feel like they're about to slide off. Unfortunately the mic's position is not adjustable beyond two directions vertically, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. Don't know if it's recording volume, which is at 100, or the playback volume(40/100) is just that powerful, but it's picking up a lot. Sounds pretty crisp to me, so I think the only thing I'll have to deal with is getting it at the right volume.

I guess you'll all be hearing from me pretty soon!

Kind of last-minute, but I just thought to put this out there: if you guys and gals want to roll your own dice for this then go right ahead and roll away. Not that I'm opposed to rolling for anyone if you don't want to or can't, I just want to make sure you know that I'm not requiring that all rolls go through me or anything. I know some who like the tactile feeling of rolling their own streak of 1s so I thought I would grant you the same opportunity.

I don't have a webcam so I can prove to you that my rolls are valid. I know we've all developed some form of trust, but that's just how I look at it for myself. And I don't trust machines when it comes to chance(except when rolling attributes), so roll away.

Snarg of Wildpaw wrote:Mages are known as "witches" as use familiars/fetishes instead of spellbooks. The flavor of that is up to you, but mechanically the class is unchanged.

Okay, so I think I've screwed up majorly. When you say "mechanically", do you mean that "witches" have to prepare their spells after a long rest as normal, assigning spells to slots like regular Mages?

Yes.

Okay, then my last 1st level spell for the day is Burning Hands. It's just appropriate. From here on out I'll be sure to assign spells to spell slots.

wait, fetishes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetishism

Anyway, you know temple charms from japan? Or holy water? Or crosses? Or voodoo charms? All of those are fetishes.

I'm perfectly willing to accept "furry" though.

I have decided that my Orb, made of quartz, will act as an all-purpose fetish, having all the elemental runes carved in "rings" around its circumference; one "ring" around the full circumference, and one each around the polar sides created by the "ring" in the middle.

At both of the polar points, there are four runes of the eight Schools of Magic, and at either side, the runes are appropriately spaced so that the Orb has not just "hemispheres", but also quarter-hemispheres. If one were to divide the Orb, each "quarter" would have one rune designating a School of Magic, a few elements from a ring near the rune(hopefully there are enough elements that the runes of a "ring" can be divided evenly), and a horizontal quarter of the middle ring of elements.

One of the polar "clusters" of runes of the schools of magic is as follows, and designated as the "top" of the Orb: Evocation, Abjuration, Transmutation, Divination. The other is as follows, and designated as the "bottom": Conjuration, Necromancy, Illusion, Enchantment. The order of the runes are Deke's preferred Schools of Magic, most to least preferred in an ABCD(top), EFGH(bottom) format.

The School Runes are placed in order from left to right so that they appear as follows:
AB________
CD         ___________
                          ________
"Arctic" Ring of Elemental Runes____

"Equatorial" Ring of Elemental Runes_________

"Antarctic" Ring of Elemental Runes  _____
                               ________
                 __________
EF___________
GH

*Skewed representaton of a sphere, looks egg-shaped. Because I am so good at this.*

I know this seems complicated, but I didn't want to say "screw it, my Orb is my fetish" and leave it at that. I felt that it needed details, and the placement of those details needed to be specified to make it special, not just "this is my fetish, moving on".

Follow-up question.

Arcane Recovery is a listed Mage class feature, a 1/day ability that allows the Mage to recover expended slots after a short rest. The sum of the spell levels of all the slots chosen to be recovered must be equal or less than the Mage's class level, rounded up. Caster classes can prepare their magic spells whenever they choose, so long as they've recovered empty slots to prepare.

Is this still part of DnD Next, or did they take it out?

As far as I know it's not gone.