Sullivan is so cool. He's spent half of his posts today talking about how hot and hip all the GOPers (especially the men!) are in between talking about Elizabeth Hasselbeck's ass.

Then drops a typically indepth analytical post which says, "Blair for Kerry?" Yeah, sure Sully, keep hoping. Some cabinet member of Tony Blair meets Kerry's staff and all of a sudden that constitutes an endorsement.

We know Sully is going to vote for Kerry, but I am steamed that he keeps thinking he is making the "conservative" choice. I have never seen a more perfect example of circular reasoning in my life. "Hi, I'm Andrew Sullivan and I am conservative. I think George Bush shouldn't be president and I think John Kerry should. That means that the conservative choice in this election is...John Kerry!" Geeze, talk about poseur...

Poser. There are no critical hits in D&D. What, did you play some mutant wanna-be version like Warhammer? That kind of slip would have earned you some serious slapdown in MY high school D&D club.

Why I don't read Sullivan - he's an idiot.

Since when does Bush follow every point of the fundie agenda? Unless my memory has completely failed, the fundies aren't best pleased with Bush.

See-Dubya --

Clearly Ace had a few misspent hours delving into Rolemaster books.

Sullivan is truly off the deep end. The grapevine has it that the Democrats are all but hemmoraging over how successful this convention has been so far, yet Sully dismisses it as incoherent. Giuliani, Ah-nuld, and McCain are apparently living in terror of death squads in the wings who'll execute them with gas-tipped bullets should they do anything other than toe the pro-Bush line. Bill Frist is "cadaverous" and would scare small children. And under it all is the sneering conviction that the Swift Vets constitute nothing more than a "typical" Bush dirty trick.

I can't slog through his page anymore, no matter how I try to force myself. Ace deserves a medal for his efforts.

yeah, I never saw the attraction of Sully anyway. At his best, as I said a few days ago, and if Ace can recycle material I can recycle comments when topical, it was like suffering through hand-wringing Anne McCaffrey books when the internet is full of free and meaty Fritz Leiber and Robert Howard stories.

I gave Ace a hard time there but he has ably cornered the vast market on conservative D&D-based humor, (which apparently consists of about eight regular posters here).

Wizards of the Coast web site defines a "Critical Hit" as follows:

"A hit that strikes a vital area and therefore deals double damage or more. To score a critical hit (crit), an attacker must first score a threat (usually a natural 20 on an attack roll) and then succeed on a critical roll (just like another attack roll). Critical hit damage is usually double damage, which means rolling damage twice, just as if the attacker had actually hit the defender two times. (Any extra damage dice, such as from a rogue's sneak attack, are not rolled multiple times, but are added to the total at the end of the calculation.)"

That's from the Player's Handbook.

Now, my AD&D books are stored in my garage, so I can't confirm whether this is a 3e rule or one of the classics, but I have to take Ace's side on this one. The term "critical hit" speaks to me, technical discrepancies (if any) notwithstanding.

I'll destroy what chance I ever had with the ladies by saying that it's a 3e thing, George. 1st and 2nd edition said nothing about them, although the "double damage on a natural 20" was probably the single most common house rule in existence.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put a bullet through my head.

George--

(Sniffs like Teresa-Heinz Kerry at Hardee's) A "rogue"? That's not in my old Players' Handbook, the one with the big orange idol on the front, which I committed to memory in the brief gaps between the many dates I obviously went on in high school. It's a thief! Thief! Sounds like a third-edition addition to me. Along with (sniffs like Andrew Sullivan at Hooters) critical hits, spell points and crap.

that said, I think we might have used the "natural 20=double damage" rule a few times for fun, just like the "pot of money that you collect when you land on Free Parking" made-up rule in Monopoly.

But I will give Ace the benefit of the doubt--not knowing his age he may have been in high school in a third generation D&D world. Me, I'll keep kickin' it old skool.

Thanks for getting my flank there, SparcVark.

Okay, I'm going to go home to my beautiful wife now. Take heart, SparcVark!

George,

Thanks for correcting the record. I almost did myself, but I didn't want to admit I knew all that.

I try to pretend my D&D knowledge is 20 or more years dated.

Geekbait.

Wizards of the Coast doing Dungeons and Dragons? That's like the Who without Keith Moon. I've seen the books and all the rules; not pretty. If it's not 2nd Edition, it's not D&D.

Sullivan. Had me fooled for a while — no longer. The anecdote that bugs me is his adoration for Ronald Reagan who, bless his departed soul, put up with deficits far larger than Bush's. Yet Bush is a spendthrift. Ace said it; the guy feels emotion and turns it into a unifying theory. Add invective, stir, and pour.

You are all quite correct -- the "rogue's sneak attack" should have been a dead give-away. It is a thief, of course, and a thief does not "sneak attack." He backstabs. Always did, always will.

Any self-respecting halfling thief with psionic clairvoyance and invisibility and Boots of Elvenkind should have known that.

Of course, the d20 system is pretty rockin' (not that I know anything about it, of course ...)

Ace--

Dude! Get back on duty! Holy effing shite, Zell Miller just earned the "Born Again Crusader of Ass-Kicking Justice" award tonight.

Chris Matthews head split open, like in "Scanners," only slowly enough for Andrea Mitchell to crawl back inside for warmth.

This time tomorrow, the conventional wisdom will be that Zell Miller's the reincarnation of wacko Republican Buchanan, '92, only without Pitchfork Pat's great IHOP line.

Oh, and he's technically a Democrat.

Oh, and Miller's *right*.

But yeah, this time tomorrow, we won't need a colonoscope to see Katie Couric's innards, they'll have spilled out on the floor in her apoplexy.

Bet on it!

Cheers,
Dave
Arlington, Virginia

All I'm saying Ace, is that there better be a good Zell Miller Top 10 list coming down the pike soon. Not to make upfront demands or anything.

But it's gonna be a multiple-refresh day for Ace-Of-Spades at work tomorrow.

HamletWatch: Sully has just used Miller's speech as an excuse to acknowledge he could never be a Republican. *snort* I await the fisking -- from Ace or someone -- with bated breath.

An what's up with Sully's gratuitous diss to the South?

God, Sullivan sounds pissy and whiny in reaction to tonight's speeches. Not surprising for someone who obviously feels like he has to justify himself.

And whenever someone says "I'm not easily offended, but..." get ready to hear from someone who's very easily offended.

You know Sullivan is fully a man of the Left. He used--used--to respond to issues with facts and argument (see his articles just after September 11th).

Now he states that something is a lie, a strawman or some such and leaves it at that, as though his proclamation of it being so makes it so. He calls Miller a liar and does not go the next step of, you know, telling us what that lie is. This is a hallmark of a Leftist.

"You lie!"
"About what?"
"...everything."
"I see. Could you be more vague?"
"You racist fascist!"

Look what Sullivan did today. He did not even attempt to counter anything within Miller's speech; he attacked Miller. Is ad hominem not the First rule of warfare used by the Left? He calls Miller a racist because of purported issues from over 40 years ago. So, Miller is a racist because of something from 40 years ago but Kerry, who was the leading spokesman of a Communist front-group that smeared Veterans 35 years ago, is a completely different man worthy of his vote? I see.