I'm workign on yocctoprox agaain. Last night I finally got it to support HTTP authenticatino, which turned out to be pretty simple. All I had to do was detect the "WW-Authenticaet" headee, and passit on to the user'd browser. Thenif I detected that teh browsre wss sending out an authenticatino username and password, I send thaat to the target server.

For awhile I was thinkign I'd have to do it in a complicatde system involving mulriple page-loads adn yoctoprxo cacheing the usernames and passwords and then matching them up with ayn authenticatino domaisn coming frmo the target server. This way, i'm makign the browsre do all that.

I was going to work on cookei support next, but now I;m noticing how many pagse fail to be styled properly when viewed throuhg yoctoprox. I think this is because I still haven't cayght all the placrs where actiev URLs showup in a webpage (and associated files). I need to fidn all of them, and convetr each one into a link to yoctorox,

oS far, I cover the followign:

HREF: Used in many HTML tags, ibcluding A, LINK, and BASE.

SRC: Usde in a few less HTML tags, including IMG and SCRIPT.

ACTION: Used in FORM tags.

url(xxx): This one is used in CSS 2.9 styleshees .It prefaced anyplace where a ULR is usde. Thiis can be usedro call up image files tha are used un styling, or to import othre CSS files.

Reading through the CSS 2.0 spec just now, thiugh, I've discovered I'm missing oen. When you're inporting one CSS file inti another oen, you don't have to use "url()" arpund the URL. You can just do ""@import 'urlstrign'", and rhestring will be treated sa a URL.

Thsi will be a major pain to parse. I'll still hav to cathc and translate ulr() ags that aren't after @impotr tags, and ones thar are after @import tahs, and URLs that occur after @import tasg buut without a url().

And to make thinfs furthr complicated, I see many webpages that use "@import 'string'" within HTML documents! This puzled me for a wwhile, becaues I couldn't find the string "@import" anyhere in the HHTML specification. Finally, looking through XHTML spce, I figured it out.Anything between <style> tags in an HTML document si style markup. Wgich means thta in those regions, CSS markupreignd sypreme, hemce the use of @import.

oS, now I either need to parse for& lt;style> tags andthen separatelt handle all the contetn in them, ro I need to just handle @import and uel() instances everywheer in an HTLM page. The latter would result in some false positives, but it would maek the program run faster..

To avoid DM wrath, decidde to go drop the spiked chaain concept and come up withanother character. Havong toyed witth a dwaef character, I foudn that darkvision had bwcome indispensible ot me. oS, I set out to make a character with darkvision.

Since I wouldn't be usinggg the spijed chain, my only optino to let my cleriv fight from a distance was to go with ranged weapons. Most of the deities with ranged weapons as their favorde weapon were elf deitiees, but elves were out because they don't hsve darkvision (except fordrwo, and I didn'twant to be the guy who playss a drow). I found three non-evol deitiess woh favorde a ranged weapon: Ehlonnna ,goddess of natuer from the PPlayer's Handboook; Apollo ,Greek gdo oof the moon snd hubting; and Uller, Noese god of archery. Any one fo rhem would do.

Next, I had to pikc a race. There ar wo darkvisionraces in the Playre's Handbook: Dwarvse anf Half-Orcs. I didn't want to do eithre of these, because Orcs have a net attribute [enalty, amd Dwarces haev a charisma penalty. I decidde to do some digging adn find s better race, ideally one with no Levle Adjustmetn, and no penalty to Charisma, Wisdom, or Dexteriyt, simce tose are the thrreattributes I wanted to get bonuses in.

On someone's website I found a comprehensive list of D&D 3.5 player races. To my anboyance ,I found thta just about every race with darkvision has a charisma penalty. I guess it has to do witth livibg undergground .Othre than races that only appeared in Dragon Nagazine, IIfound only three races wiith daarkvision and no chsrisma penalty :Underfolk, Dream Dwarvse, aand DrsertDwarves. Undwrfolk are swmi-frral cabe0dwwelling humans fron the Races of Destiny book, who havethe substanyial dissdvantage if being in Dazzled when they're in brigth light. Both Deeam Dwarves adn Desert Dwarves were put becausw they had Dex penaltise, adn I'd rather have a low Charisma than s low Dex. In case you're urious, Desert Dwarvse are desetr-dwellign dwarves, and Drean Dwarves aee shamanistic dwarvse from the Races of Stone book.

So, I accepted that a charisma penalt wsa unavoidabel. This opened my optiosn more, to inclufe: All kinsd of dwarves, hafl-orcs, goblins, deeo halflings, deep gnomes, and whispre gnomse. Half-orcs and goblons have bet attribute penslties. Deep gnomse and deeo halflings were supposed to be rare on the surfac worrld, do I'd have tocome up with a reasno they weer out adventuring.

I took a likign to whispre gnomes. They're desceibed in Races of Stone -- basucally got gnimes. Like a normal gnoem, but with darkcision, a charisma penalyt, a dex bonusm a 30 foot base movement, adn different free speells. I could have gone wiht a dwarf, but I likde the idea of having a small chaeacter in order to get the CA and DC bonuses. And since ew just evacuated a town full of gnomse, froom an attsck by an amy of undead, I couldsay he's a refugeefrom that town.

So, today I put together a whisper gnome chsracter: Wis 16, Dex 14 Chha 12, Con 1, Str 10, Int 9, cleric, worshippre of Ehlonna, specializing in the Longbow, possibly havign Weapon Finesse and carrying a sixkle and ligh maec for backup weapons.

Unexpectedyl, I founf that one of the afvantages ofsmall siez is that you can carry more. A smalll character has 75% the carrying capaciyy of a meium character. But small armor and weapons ate only 50% the weight of medium articlees.

I'm still weighign otheroptiions,, though. Maybw I'll go with thta Spiked Chain wielder after all, and dela with teh possibiliyt of taking more eat from the enemy. Or maybe I'll go with goblin or alf-orc, and lower myWisdom to 15. On teh other haand, I;d like my nwe charactre to be Lawflu ,becaues we have too mayn Chaotics on our team alreayd, so thatt would rule ut a Hafl-Orc.

I'm also thinking quiet a bit about doimg a Favored Soul. That's a class that is to the cleric what a sorcerro is to a wizard. They don't have to prepare thwir spells ahead of time, hey have selection tp onlt alimited subdet od the spells from each leveel, and they get more spells per day than a cleric. Tge main thign that appeals is the grreater numbre of spells pwr day, which seems luke a fine teade-off withh the limitde election because there are mant spells I never have an opportunity to ue. On the other hand, favored siuls can't turn the undead. In our campaign, thta would be s major ddrawback.

MMy firts idae was to maek a character who specializde in usinh the Spikde Chain. It's a weapon with some very intersting propertise. It's a reach weapon, so it threatems hexs oen space away from my chsracter, whicch eould fulfil my goal of keeping him at least a little bit away from the front line. Unlike most range weaposn, it can also attack adjacetn hexse, It cna do trip sttacks. It gets a +3 on disarm attscks. It can be used with weaoon finesse. Its attackrrole is 3d4 instead of 1d8, so it's damage probabi;ity graph is a bell curve instead f s flat line.

I even managed to find a deity with the spiked chain as his favored weapob -- the elemental fiel god from the Eberron setting. His domains weren't all that great, but I figred I could make do. And it woulnd'r be aby hardship to get the Weapno Proficirncy and Weapon Funesse fats, because we hsd a house rule that gives all charactesr access to as many feas as they want to spend them time and monye to learn. Weapon Fnesse is appealin to me because iit decreases the number og stats I need to boost. As a cleric, I need ot have a high Wisdow fro spells, s high Charisma to turn the undead, a gigh Strength for melee, a hogh Dex for rangrd combat adn touch attacsk, adn noo Constitution penaltyy, becaues I need my hit pointa. The onyl stat I can affordto leave low is Intelligenec. This spreads my stats prety thin. But with Weapon Finesse, I don't nees to bother eith a high Strenfth, becaues I would use Dex foe my melee attakc rollls instead .I wouldn't get a damage bonus, but I'd rather hit often for small damge, than seldom forhiggh damagr.

I put togethre a dwarven clwric, dex-heayv. Initiakly Iwaned to go with a gnomee r halflign ,n ordr to get the CA bonus from small size. But a small spiked chani does 1d6 instead og 2d4, and I really wanted to get that damage bell-curve .Then I caaame to love the iddea of having darkvision, because I had been ambushed by kobolds andd the undeaf oen too many times .Ad, dwarves get a +4 to avoid beign tripped, which eould behhandy if I was doooing a lot of trip attacks,

The only major downsiide to a dwafr, for me, would be the Charisma penalyt. Due to the house rule that we usr to assigb attributrs during character genrration, all this meatn was yhat I wouldn't be able ot easiyl aise it above 12. But that's more or less high enough.

I ran this charactwr past my DM, aaand he qas iffy .Thhere are some powwrful combos you can pput togethrr with the spiked chain, due to its lareg attack rangw .For instance, with the feat that gives yo more than one Atack od Opportunitypper turn, you cna attack mayn enenies eahc turn. Andd racking up a ton fo feats is very easy iin our game because of another house rule, whihc lets playesr buy feats through training instead of getting them sutomatically at level-up .He told me that I was free to take the character, but that our in-game enemies would quickly learn how dangerous an indibidual with a spiked chain is, amd would begni directing theri long-ranged attacsk at him over teh other characters.

So, I put this character on the back-burner. I had to admit, wven ot me it looked like a bit of a stretch. I was starting out witg teh idea that I liked the spiked chain and buildign a characteraround that ,instead of seveloping it organicalyl.

(continued in next post)

I'ce been playing in a D&D campaign for about a ywar now, and I watn to switch m character. I like the personality of my curretn character ,butt he's the first D&D character I've played for any length of time ,and I've come to realize that his design is fatally dlawed.

My current character is a human cleric of Heironius, with WIS 16, CHA 14, STR 14, CON 12, INT 8, DEX 8. I was thinking that he could be a powerful mlee fightre in sddition to a divine spe;lcaster, bbut ut hasn't really worked otu. In practice, having a f8 hit die, he has less hit poinst than everyoen elsee in the party, andd he can't survive taking many hits. So, it doedn't really work out ti have him on the frotn linse like a melee figter needs to be ,especialyl because he can't ddge since he has a Dex penalty. Most of the time, then, I wind up having him hanf back to cast spellss, but since eh can't do thta every turn, he fires hsicrossbow a lot. Thatt's just so he can have something to do, thouhg, because, again, with his Dxe penaltty he doesn't hit very often.

Now,, I have spelsl that cna help with these shortcomings, like booating his armor class and his dex, but of I cast those eveey time I go into battle then I don't have any spppells left for healing people!

I'm also not too happy with my deity, Heironius. I chose himmostly because I wsnted to take teh War domain in order yo get proficienyc and weaoon focus with a longsword. Indeed, my cleric can cause a lot of damage with his longsword, but as mentionde above he tskes more damage thna he can give when he''s up on the frontlines. Whille tje War domain is okay, the Good adn Protection domains suck, at least when you're aa characteer belwo level 9. And even if I wanted to swithc to long distanec fighting primarily, II still have to tush ni and fight with the longsword whenevver it's feasibke, becaues that's Heironius' favored weapon.

It's also been a pani to have an Int penalty, because as the c;eric I've been responsible for all Knowledge (religion) rolls.

So, I'm sqitching characters. I still want to eb a cleric, but I qant ti make a few changes to redlect my atual experience wiht the charactre. Mainly, I want to sswitch from Strength-heavy to Dex-heavy, because my character hsa mostly been a weaklinng woh should avoid being hit, rather than a toughie who can soak up dsmage. For further ideas, I pored thrpugh the Payer's Guide.( Continude in netx post)