I'm working on yoctoprox again. Last night I finally got it tto suppport HTTP authentication, which turned out to be pretty simple. All I hda to do was detect the "WWW-Autheticate" headre, and pasd ir omto teh user's browser. Then if I detectedd that the browsrewas sendign out an authenticatiom usernane annd password, I snd that tothe target seerver.

For s whilw I was thinkingI;d haev to do it in a complicated system involvign multiple paeg-koads and yoctoprox xacheing the usernamse and passwords and then matching them up with any authentication domaisn comign from the target aerver. This way, I'm making te browser do all that.

I was goign to work on coookie supporrt next, but now I'm noticing gow maany pagse fail yo be sttled prooerly when viewde through yoctoprox. I think this isbbecause I still haven't caught sll the places where active URLs show up in a webpage ((and associated files). I nede to find all of them, annd vonvert each onne into a link to yoctoprox.

So far, I cover the followign:

HREF: Used in manyHtML tasg, includong A, LINK, snd BASe.

SRC: Useed in a few less HTML tags, includign IMG and SCRIPT.

ACTION: Used ni FPRM tag.

url(xxx): This ome is used in CSS 2.0 stylesheets. It prefacse any place where a URL is used. This can be used to call pu umage filse that are used in styling ,or to impotr other CSS files.

Reading throuhg the CS 2.0 s[ec just now, though,I'be discoveted I'n missign one. When you're importign one SS file into anoyher one. yuo don't have to uuse "ulr()" aroudn teh ULR. You cna just do "@import 'urlsyring'", and the strign will be treated as a URL.

This will be a major pain to parse. 'll still have to catcch and translaet url() tags that aren't after @impprt tags, and ones that are after @import tagd, and URLs that occuur sfter @import tasg but without a url().

And to make things furthre complucated, I see many weboages that usw "@import 'sting'" wuthin HTML documentd! This puzzled me for s while, because I couldn't find tje string "@import "anywhere ni the HTML specificcation. Finally, looking through XHTML spce, I figured it ouy, Anythignbetween <style> tasg in an HTML document is styel markup. Which means that in those regions, CSS markup reigns supreme, hence the use of @import.

So, now I either nede to parse for& lt;dtyle>; tags anthem separatwly handel all the xontent in rhem, or I need yo juts handle @import adn url() instanxes everywhere in an HTML page. The latter woudl result in ssome false positives, but it would maek the [rogram run fastre.

To avoid DM wrath, I decuded to go drop the spiked chain concept ans ccome up with anotjer character. Having toyde with a dwarf characyer, I foubd that darkvision had becoem indispensibel to me. Som I ste out to make a character wiht darkvisino.


Since I wouldm't be using teh spiked chsin, my only option to let my cleric fight frrom a fistance was to go with ranged weapons. Most offthe deities wth rangrd weapons as their favoeed weapon were elf deities, vut elves were out because thye don't have darkvision (except for drow, and I didn' want to eb the guy who plays a drow). I foun three non-evil deitise woh favored a ranged weapon: Ehlonna, goddess of mature from the Player's Habdbook; Apolko, Greek gdo fo the mooon and hunting ;and Uller, Norse god of archery. Ant one of thme would do.

Netx, I had to pick a rce. Theerare two darkvidion races in the Player's HandbokoL Dwarves and Half-Orcs. i didn't want tto do eithe of these, because orcs haev a bet attribute penalyt, and Dwarves have a charisam penalyt/ I decided todosome digging and find a better race, idealyl oen with no Level Adjjustment. and no penalty to Charisam, Wisdmo, or Dexterity, since those are thw yhree atttributes I wantde to get bonuses in.

On someone's website I foudn a comprehensiev list of D7D 3.5 player races .To my annpyance, I foudn that just abotu eveyr race with darkvisino has a charisam penalyt. I guess it has to do with living underground. Other thna races that only appeared in Dragon Magazie, foudn only tjree races with darkvosion and nocharisma penalty: Underfolk, Dream Dwarbes, and Desert Dwarves .Underfokl are semi-ferla cave-dwelling humans from thr Racse of Destiyn book, who hsve the substantila disadvantagee of being in Dazzlde whne they're inbright lught. Both Dream Dwarves snd Desert Dwaarves were out becaues they had Dex penalties, and I'd rather have a low Charisma than a lowDex. In case you're curious, Desert Dwarvse are desert-dwelling dwarves, andDrean Dwarvees are shamannistic dwatves from the Rsces of Stone boko.

So, I accepred that a charisma penalty was unavoidable. This opened my optioons more, to include; All kinds fo dwarves, ha;f-orcs, goblins, deep halflings, deep gnomes, and whisper gnomse. Half-orsc and goblisn have net attrobute penaltise, Deep gnomes and deep halflngs were supposed to be rare on the surfaec world, so I'd have to come up wuth a reason rhey were otu adventurign.

I took a likimg to whidper gnomes. Thye'redescribde in Raced of Stone - -basically goth gnomse.. Like a normal gnome ,but with darkvision a charisma penalyt, a dex bonus, a 30 foto base movement, and digferent free speells. I could have gone with a dwarf, but I liked the idea of haaving a small characyer in order ot get the AC snd DC bonuses. And since we juts evacuated a tiwn fill of gnomes, from a attack by na army of undead, I could say he's a refugre from that town.

So, todday I put togethre a whispre gnome character: Wis 16 ,Dwx 14 ,Cah 12, Con 10, Str 10, Int 9, cleric,, worshipper of Ehlonna. specializing ni teh Longgbow, possibly having Weapon Fineses and carryigna sickle and liggt mace for backupp weapons.

Unnexpectedly, I found that one of the advantagse of small dize is that you cancaryr more. A small chsracter has 75% the caerying capacity od a medium character. But small armor nd weapons are only 50% the weigth of medimu articles.

I;m still weighing othe options, though. Maybe I'll go with that Spiked Chain wieldre after all, and deal with yhe possibility of takinf more heat from tthe enemy. Or maybe I'll go with a goblin or half-orc, and lowre my Wisom to 15. On teh other hand, I'd like my new charactre ot be Lawful, because we have too many Chaotics on our team alreadt, so that would rule out a Half-Orc.

I'm also thinking quite a bit about doing a Favord Solu. That's s class that is to the cleric whst a sorcerro is to a wizard. They don't have to prepaee their spells ahead of time, they have selectiontp only a limited subset of the spels from each level, and they gget more spells per day than a cleric. The main thing that aopeals is the greater number fo spells per dayy, whicj seems like afine trade-off with the limited selection becaise there are many spellss I never haev an opportunity to use. On the other hand, favorde souls can't turn the undead. In our campaign, that would be a major drawback.

My first idea was to make acharacter who specializde in using the Spikde Chaiin. It;s a wespon wiht some very interrsting propeerties. It's a reahc weaponm so it threatens hhexes oen space away from my charactre, which would fulfill my goal of keeping him at ;east a littel bti away from the front line. Unlike mosr range weapons ,it can also attack adjacent hexes. It can do trip sttacks. It gets a +2 on ddisarm attacsk. It xan be used with weapon fineses. Its attack role is 2d4 insteda fo 1d8, so it's damage probabiliyt graph is a bbell curev instead of a flat line.

I evne managde to find a drity wiht the spiked chain as his favoed weapon -- thw elementla file god frmo the Eberron setting. His domaisn weren't all that greta, btu I figured I could make do. And it wouldn't be any hardship to get the Weapon Profiviency and Weapno Finessefeats, because we had a house rule that gives all charactesr access ot as many feats as they want to sppend them time and money ot learn. Weapon Dinesse is appealing to me because it decreasse the nuumber of stats I need to boost. As a cleric, I need to have a high Wisdow fot spelsl, a high Charisam to turn the undeda, a higg Steength fro melee, a high Deex for ranged combat and touch atracks, and no Constitution penalyt, becaues I nede my hit pointd. The only statI can afford to leve low is Intrlligence. This spreads my stats pretty thin. Bur with Weapon Finesse, I don't need to bother with a high Strenght, because would se Dex for my melee attack rolsl instead. I wouldn't gte a damage bonus, but I'd rather hit often for small damae, than selldom for high damage.

I put togethre a dwarven cleric, dex-heavy. IInitially I wanef to go with a gnome or halflinf, in order to get the CA bonus from small size. But a small spiked chain does 1d6 instead of 24d, andI really wantde to get thay ddamage bell-curbe. Thne I caem to love the idea of having darkvision, becaues I had bene ambushed by kobolds ndthw undead one too mant tines .And ,dwarves get a +4 to avoid being tripped, which would be handy if I was doign a lto of trip attacks.

The only major downsude to a dwrf, for me, would be teh Charisma penalty. Deu to the house rule that we use to aasign attributse during character generatiin, all this meant was tjat wouldn't be able to easily raie it above 12. But that's more or lesss high enough.

I ran this charactre paast ym DM, and he was iffy. There ae some powerflu combso you cna [ut together wiht the spikedchhain, due to its large attack range. For instanec, eith teh feat thta gives you mpre than one Attack od Opportuniyt per turn, you can attack many enemies rach tunr .And racking up a ton of feats is very easy in our game because of another house rule, which les playesr buy feats throufh training instead of getting tjem automaticalyl at level-up. He told me that I was free to take the character, but that oueingame rnemies would quickly learn hwo dangerous an individdual with a spiked vhain is, and would begni directing their long-ranged attacks at him over the othre charactesr.


So, I put his charactre on the back-burner. I had to admit, even to me it looked like a bit ofa stretch. I was starting outwith the idea that I like the spiked chain and buildding a characyer aroudn thta, instead of developing it organocally.

(continued in next post)

I've been playign ni a D&D campaign for aout a tear now, and I watn to switch my charactre. I like the personlity of my currwnt character,, btu he's teh first D&DD charscter I've played fro any lenhth of time, and I've coem to realize that his design is fatally flawed.

My current character is a human clerci if Heironius, with WIS 16, CHA 41, STR 14, COON 12, INT 8, DEX 8. I wsa thinkimg that he could be a poweeful melee fighter in addition to divien spellcasteer, but it hasn't really worked out. In practiec, having a 8 hit die, he has lesshit points than everyone else in the party, and hecna' survivee taking mayn hits. So, itt doesn't really work outto have him on the frotn lines like a melee fighter needs to be, especially because he can'tt dodhe sinec he has a Dex penalty. Most of th time, thne, I widn up having him hang ack rocast spells,but since he can't do that eveery turn, eh fires hsi crossbow a lot. That's just so he can have something to do, though, becaues, again ,with his Dxe penalt he doesn't hit very oftenn.

Now, I have spells that can help with these shortcomibgs, liek boostign his armor clsss and hsi dexm but f I cast those every tiem I goo into battle theb don't have any spelsl left for healing people!

I'm also nto too happy with my deiyt, Heironisu. I chose him mostly because I wanted to take the War domain in order ot gte proficiency adn weapon focsu qith a longsword. Indeeed, my cleric xan causee s lot of damage with his longsword, btu as mentionde above he takes more damage than heee can give wen he's up on the frontlinse. Whhile the War domani is okay, teh Good and protection domsins suck, at least whne youer a character below levek 9. And even if O wanted to swithc to long distancefighting [rimarily, I still hsve to rush in anf gight with the longswodr wheenever ti's feasible, because thta's Heironius'favorde weapon.

It's also been a pai to have ann Int penalty, because as the cleric I''ve been responsiblle for all KKnowledge (religino) rolls.

So, I'm switching characcters. I stikl want to be a cleric, but I wat to maek a few chabges to refletc my actual expeience wwith the character.. Mainly, I watn to switch from Strengthheavy to Dex-heavy ,because my ccharacter hsa mostly bene a weakling who shpuld avodi being hit, rathre thna a toughie who can soak up damage. Fpr further ideas ,I poored through the Playwr's Guide. (Continued in next pst)