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I just wrapped a fun BPM & CP Triple Crown playthrough with a custom party, and it's left me hankering to play through again with companions and really try to lean into their unique classes/items. Elric's fixes in BPM for Xoti's Monk Subclass and Serafen's Cipher subclass work great in terms of balancing them with the smallest number of changes. I've found myself with slightly different desires/goals, though, and was hoping to gather some feedback on some proposed solutions. For both Xoti and Serafen, I wanted to not only update their subclasses, but also their weapons and armor, so that they could be used throughout an entire playthrough. Ideally, the changes would make sense as a package, and point to a general playstyle for each that feels thematic and balanced. Xoti Add: Sister of the Reaping Moon gains Reaping Moon Style: while you have a shield equipped, gain bonus accuracy (+15) and damage (+50%) against Near Death enemies. This focuses the playstyle around killing blows and makes sense of the buckler proficiency, starting items, and flavor text (A monastic order of Gaun, the reaping aspect of Eothas, Sisters of the Reaping Moon are most effective against opponents who are already at death's door.) It feels somewhat balanced, in that it's still worse for raw damage compared to any other monk subclass, but makes shield oriented builds more fun. Tuotilo's Palm is already so good, and this is an indirect buff to it, so I'm not 100% sold on this implementation, but I'm stumped on how to encourage the "with shield or with buckler" playstyle without making it better. Change: Resource Gain mechanic: gain +3 wounds on kill > gain +2 wounds, +2 Mortification on kill. The "worse at wounds, but then better if you can get lots of killing blows" playstyle falls flat, in my opinion, while the mortification gain from the lantern was always a unique and interesting flavor when compared to the other subclasses. I'm eager to try this out and see if it breaks anything, and if the balance of always worse at wounds, but better at mortification is fun. I'd love feedback here. Change: Lantern enchants: Holy Radiance: +2 Restoration, Inspiration PL > 4m Aura (include self): +% healing received (scales with religion) The +PL was always a little odd to me, given Xoti's spell list (she get's exactly 1 bonus spell with one those keywords). I'm not locked in on the healing received, but it feels like the safest effect here. I'm open to suggestions, but want to have it be an aura, so that it has more resonance with the quest upgrade enchant. Soulkeeper: Gain +1 of each Monk resource on kill > gain +1 PL until the end of the encounter on kill, stacks twice This effect might be too strong, esp. b/c it applies to the priest side as well, but I never liked the way the item only half-functioned if you were single class. Easy to tune. Could also replace with another stacking buff on kill. Change: Sickle enchants: Soul Reaper: +5% sickle Damage until combat end on scoring Kill (stacks 4 times) (increases with Religion skill) > +5% sickle Damage until combat end on scoring Kill (stacks 4 times) (increases with Religion skill); +1 penetration with sickle attacks. Change: Spiritual Weapon (Gaun): Added Soul Reaper enchant to the summoned weapon. Bit of an oddity to have the lantern enchants carry over, but not the sickle ones. Change: Vestments of Gaun: Made this unique so the quality can be upgraded. Added an enchant to make it more competitive for both priest and monk. Sacred Duty: reduced recovery that scales with religion. -1% per skill point. (I've tinkered with this a little, but I think this is the cleanest) Serafen Add: Wild Temper passive: gain bonus damage and penetration with AoE attacks. Currently this is a scaling bonus to damage (a la Sneak attack) and a flat +1 to pen. It applies to all AoE attacks, making Serafen a good candidate to keep his beloved hand mortars. It also makes Serafen the best companion to pick up Explosives as a skill. I'm not sure what the right amount of bonus is here, so I'd appreciate feedback in terms of relative balance. I really wanted something to incentivize play that caused the maximum number of wild mind procs, while actually offsetting the risk/reward. @thelee has made a strong case multiple times that randomness favors enemies, and that there needs to be a stronger benefit to offset, even if there are "great" outcomes from the random events. I also really like that this pushes an AoE damage niche rather than AoE debuff play that Beguiler. I also like how it synergizes with Barbarian in theme and mechanic, benefitting Carnage and Spirit Tornado in a Witch Build, offering unique benefit. I turned Miscast back to Friendly Fire to balance things, but kept Elric's awesome "always miscast on an empowered cast" feature. That little bit of control feels really great and enables some fun play. I like the idea of dropping Serafen into the enemy backline as a psychic bomb. Sometimes you get some collateral damage. Change: Serafen's Padded Mail: Made this unique so the quality can be upgraded. Changed it to be padded armor (per the description), but added some bonus armor back to it. More fitting for a mid-range caster, and usable for the whole game. Concealed Chain: +1 crush, pierce, slash AR Crow's Nest Comforts: +2 freeze AR, +2 shock AR I'd love any feedback on these from folks who have thought through ways to improve these characters/items in a balanced way. Thanks!

Got some chitlins simmering in a pot on the grill. I'm not allowed to make them inside.

Spent all day fighting with my AI agents, and not in a cool Matrix way. The only bright side is that our jobs are safe for now. Happy New Year!!!!!

That seems to be the consensus from 3 places I checked. Surprised there's 100+ of these novels, though.

The man whose views JD Vance and Peter Thiel subscribe to: To which I say...

The only Battletech author who could write a novel worth reading was Blaine Lee Pardoe, quiaff?

I remember liking those books a lot more but Jade Falcon was my clan back in the day

Finished the Jade Falcon trilogy, was much better than the Blood of Kerensky books and Aidan is written better than Phelan, actually seems to have an arc. The sex stuff in the first book was a bit funny with how much the author mentioned it, heh., considering the issues with it.

usa department of education start to more forcefully collect student debt now remember when the last president have a chance to forgive all student debt but didn't

People have been telling me this for about 30 years, I shall not relent!

Someone should get RATM booked at the Kennedy Center.

Actually, that's very apropos, because this past summer... I'm funny about musicals: either they're they're great and wonderful...or they're the worst thing I've ever seen in my whole life. I do like my musicals to be more on the diegetic side broadly speaking, and Cabaret is one of the very few 100% diegetic musical movies that I know of, which makes its musical numbers quite lovely (albeit completely insane) to me. Combine that with the lead being loosely based off of Louise Brooks and it's difficult not to automatically like it. It's unfortunate that I don't have any of the two or three quotes from her book as a signature that I had for years right now... I might have to bring them back for the occasion. I've seen Louise Brooks' "A Girl in Every Port", "Beggars of Life", "Diary of a Lost Girl", "God's Gift to Women", "It's the Old Army Game", "Miss Europe", "Now We're in the Air", "Pandora's Box", "The Canary Murder Case", "The Show Off", and "Windy Riley Goes Hollywood", and despite the fact that most of them are somewhere between bad and terrible (with the major exceptions of the German Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, and to a much lesser extent the American Beggars of Life and French Miss Europe which are alright and at least kind of interesting), they are not terrible because of Louise Brooks and I would love to uncover more of her lost, forgotten, and probably awful movies. I know there are more out there, but they can unfortunately be quite difficult to get a hold of by way of either legal or illegal means. Not that I'm like...some kind of Louise Brooks turbonerd or superfan or anything... It's always a toss-up whether I want to zoom out and get proper framing of the face with the drawback of being too small...or to just get memey with it. I chose memey this time, but I might change my mind later.

The circle cutoff takes the picture to another level.

the harder your cutting surface, the quicker your knives will become dull. am not aware o' a common cutting board material which will dull your blades faster than titanium. metal cutting boards o' any type are annoyingly loud and the surface also tends to be slick to the point o' being dangerous. regardless, the biggest drawback to titanium is the speed with which they will dull your knives. a thick ( at least 1.5 ") wood board (teak, maple and walnut are all excellent materials... am personal a fan o' teak,) is probable the best all round option, but if you do not like wood, that narrows the field considerable. composite and bamboo or other grass boards is not great in our opinion, but japanese rubber boards are an interesting alternative as they do not suffer from the microplastic issue and will not warp when exposed to the heat of a dishwasher the way some plastic boards do... not that am ever personal using the dishwasher to clean a cutting board. rubber boards is also thinner and lighter than wood boards, although they tend to be a smidge thicker than plastic boards as they are manufactured with a rigid wood or composite core. it is worth noting that japanese boards are better suited for japanese knives as 'posed to western a chef knife style which relies on rocking as much as slicing, but they are a nice compromise if you absolute refuse to go with a wood board. our recollection is that japanese rubber boards tend to be more expensive than wood boards o' the same size, but as an alternative to plastic, they are worth considering. @Bartimaeus louise brooks were a tragic enough figure that am thinking the tibetan death mask is less disconcerting by comparison. curious, whenever we think o' louise brooks, am first recollecting sally bowles from fosse's cabaret am knowing bartimaeus is not a fan o' musicals, but louise brooks were the inspiration for sally bowles. HA! Good Fun!

Its an interesting one, there is a view that arts and sports should be apolitical but people tend to be inconsistent around this type of activism For example in South Africa there is a famous musician called Black Coffee who had a concert in Israel a few years ago and he was heavily criticized by the anti-Israeli groups But those same activists will be fine if he plays in an African country that is a failed stated or autocracy where citizens are repressed I think its up to the artist or sports person and there own moral decision because you cant really separate the optics of politics from the arts and sports and you will get criticised whatever decision you make

I had no idea there was such a variety of pigeons.

good news: scary tibetan death mask bartimaeus is finally gone bad news: back on that louise brooks crap again tangent: i hate circle avatars, they're so much harder to get right compared to square avatars, LC's avatar accurately captures how I feel trying to make circle avatars

I'm make better my Cooling system and increase Power of PC in settings and now i don't have this problem (problem with like a => "fatal error..." and after frozen a Game)

Here's the pitch..... Eugenics.

One Battle After Another (2025). Suppose it's a metaphor for today's America, or at least what they wanted it to be. That being said, it's a great movie.

great honey scam continue wonder how little court would punish them after a decade long lawsuit

Trying Echo of Lilith in D4, yup, not happening, reflexes too slow for the one shot mechanics