Buffering made the challenge much easier this year. I had time to prepare three or four posts before April 1, and while I never got that far ahead again, it was enough that I was able to stay on time. I think almost always I had at least one post for the day up by 9:00 PM the night before (Pacific time; midnight Eastern time). This was mostly because I get up early and wanted to make sure they were live before I went to bed.

Not that I often get to bed by 9:00 PM, but that was the thought.

Slightly more posts than previous years (34 this year, 28 last year and 32 the year before). About 36,583 words, a little lower than a couple years ago (about 38,000), somewhat more than last year.

The most common topic in this challenge was ‘graded items’, magic items with multiple powers assigned at different grades (measures of power). I suspect that after review and revision the topic will form the core of another book. Like Polyhedral Pantheons there’s a good chance a small part of the book will explain the processes and much more of the book will be spent on gameable examples. Somewhat to my surprise I didn’t actually create many such examples during the challenge — they’re quick and easy, but I had bigger thoughts to write about.

Another major topic this time around was some cartography techniques regarding how to draw mountains. Rounding the list out were a few posts about encounter design and development, and the data capture and encoding process I use in creating the Echelon Reference Series (and how I think I’ll be doing it over, better… again).

A pretty satisfying run this year. Buffering made a huge difference, even being a single day ahead gave me some grace when I was pressed for time. Having two evenings a week consumed by judo makes this pretty important.

Okay, enough A-Z Challenge for this year, time to get back to work.

Date	Letter	Words	Title
2016-04-30	Z	552	Z-A Challenge 2016 Index
2016-04-29	Y	1,153	Yet More Reorganization Notes
	Y	1,288	Yet Another Grand Reorganization
2016-04-28	X	680	Exotic… No, Esoteric Draconic Bloodlines
	X	389	XML Workflow, A New Direction
2016-04-27	W	2,133	Weapons and Armor made of ‘Special Materials’
2016-04-26	V	1,099	Variation: Graded Item Sets
2016-04-25	U	1,100	Umbral Mail
	U	963	Unchained Skill Unlocks for Echelon
2016-04-24
2016-04-23	T	1,333	Touching up the Mountain Colors
	T	348	Thinking Again About the Price of Graded Spell Trigger Items
2016-04-22	S	1,120	Several Mountain Ranges Together
2016-04-21	R	1,195	Revisiting the Mountain Tutorial, Drawing the Initial Landform
2016-04-20	Q	1,396	Quirk, Flaw, Curse: What’s the Difference?
2016-04-19	P	1,159	Pushing Your Luck: Enchantment Gone Wrong
2016-04-18			posted midday Sunday because it was part of a conversation online
2016-04-17	O	3,002	On Mapping Mountains, Using a Few Simple Tricks
2016-04-16	N	841	New Uses for Unchained Item Qualities
2016-04-15	M	296	Metamagic Feats in Graded Wands and Staves
	M	296	Midpoint Check-In
2016-04-14	L	457	Legendary/Spontaneous Graded Items, Made Simpler
	L	2,096	Legendary/Spontaneous Graded Items
2016-04-13	K	767	“Kill Everything”: Making That Plan B
2016-04-12	J	2,416	JRPG-Inspired Encounter Design
2016-04-11	I	2,055	Improving Encounter Economy and Design
2016-04-10
2016-04-09	H	1,157	Hammer Time! Polyhedral Graded Weapons and Armor
2016-04-08	G	940	Graded Weapons and Armor
2016-04-07	F	1,317	Forging Graded Items
	F	62	Fey Bloodlines
2016-04-06	E	1,789	Exploring Multiple Charge Casting for Graded Items
2016-04-05	D	845	Determining Market Price of Graded Staves and Wands
2016-04-04	C	907	Crafting Graded Staves
	C	718	Crafted Graded Wands
2016-04-03
2016-04-02	B	198	Blood of Dragons? In My Veins? It’s More Common Than You Think
2016-04-01	A	466	Assigning Graded Abilities
Total		36,583