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I find myself unable to really watch anything in the youtube style of video for more than a few minutes. I realize this makes me a cantankerous old man now.

The tables have turned! I look forward to getting my first reprimand from you some day, numbers

How does NASA organize a party? They planet.

Original Mad Max is very different from The Road Warrior as society hasn't collapsed completely and Max is a cop on an increasingly brutal police force facing crooks who are becoming increasingly brutal and anarchic. Its a different kind of film, although if you didn't like The Road Warrior I'm not convinced you'd think Mad Max is any better. Also Beyond Thunderdome began life as a script without Mad Max in it; he was added later. Death Wish (the novel, 1972) had a sequel, Death Sentence (1975), that came out before Death Wish II (1982), the film sequel to Death Wish (1974). So its a bit like the Red Dragon/Manhunter - Silence of the Lambs/Silence of the Lambs situation. Death Sentence was written specifically because Brian Garfield was disappointed in the film version of Death Wish, though and this novel eventually received an adaption as a stand alone film in 2007 with Kevin Bacon and directed by James Wan. Death Wish II only took a small amount of inspiration from the sequel novel. Die Hard was based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever which was a sequel to an earlier novel, The Detective, both by Roderick Thorpe and featuring the character of John Leland. Similar to the use of On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers to make Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the sequel Die Hard 2 is based on the 1987 novel 58 Minutes by Walter Wager.

inventor o' the foam is an iranian woman. the tech were original meant for biomedical applications-- stronger implant replacements which wouldn't suffer rejection as do most metal devices. lucky we got a "muslim ban" (albeit watered-down) to protect us from all those nogoodniks coming into the US from terrorist nations, eh? HA! Good Fun!

What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: & what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure. -- thomas jefferson more than a couple bad folks has quoted portions o' the 'bove to legitimize acts unconscionable and vile. nevertheless, am thinking is unsurprising a founder o' a revolutionary government would be sympathetic towards those outsiders and disenfranchised who would seek to not only subvert the dominant paradigm, but to execute defiance most savage in an effort to render the system shattered and irreparable. is 2019 and going green is all the rage. even Gromnir is doing his part, watering the trees, from time to time. HA! Good Fun! ps but this is a mod welcome thread, so... will need see if the numbers add up, but good luck regardless.

The only way to destroy the system....is from within.

We need a begrudgingly chuckling emoji.

Thanks all! I look forward to... not screwing the pooch excessively.

No word on houses and apartments, but you will own a spaceship that will act as your base of operations.

Hm, and Rosamund Pike is set to play Moiraine in the WoT adaption... Variety - Rosamund Pike - Wheel of TIme Amazon series

In-laws arrive tonight to meet their grandson This is going to be interesting as they are a lot more free with their opinions than the family that was here last week. I'll be fine (thanks to thick skin, alcohol, and the language barrier) but I worry for my wife's sanity or what's left of it anyway. Happy Juneteenth!

for those unaware juneteenth we typical make it to berkeley (were held june 16th this year) as we got acquaintances who help organize the annual berkeley juneteenth festival. unfortunate, this year we had a local appointment which were three months in the making, so missed for first time since 2008... which weren't actual a miss. bulk o' local capital city observance happens during the upcoming weekend with park festivals including entertainments and food. HA! Good Fun!

That is cool stuff... I didn't know most of this

Since Duality is an active buff (modals are considered actives and the ability itself sits ion the left side of the ability tree) but the Helwalker's subclass ability is a passive (sits on the right side) it works as intended. Might be a little confusing for beginners who don't read the stacking rules about actives/passives, but it isn't a bug. For a future-future-future version of the patch one could think about introducing a general, more promiment ingame description of the stacking rules and also some symbols for stacking that can be added to the description of abilities. For example one yould add the following symbol if an ability (e.g. Vigorous Defense) stacks with other deflection buffs: Or maybe add a section named "Stacking:" to every ability description which just says something like "does not stack with other active INT buffs" and so on... Maybe this could be done autimatically if every ability gets tagged with a certain new "stacking-keyword". For example a keyword like "stacks_with_all", "stacks_with_deflection_only", "stacks_with_fortitude_only", "stacks_with_reflex_only", "stacks_with_will_only", "stacks_with_inspiration" and whatnot...

Welcome to the squad!

I like the editing style where every sentence gets a cut, a shade better than the style where they somehow expound on one point for 12 minutes. At least Youtube is recommending me less "angry geek rages against $anything" videos these days.

A persons's faith and relationship to the man upstairs (or lack thereof) is entirely their own business. But I am suspicious of displays of faith from political leaders. Not all of them. Bush and Obama were both regular church attendees prior to being elected so I was 100% willing to accept theirs are genuine. But when Trump or Clinton did it it strikes me as a tad exploitative. Just politicians being politicians. That does not mean they were not religious. No one knows what's in another persons mind. I'm a very religious man and except for weddings and funerals have not set foot in a church in decades. I'm just put off by disingenuous gestures done for appearances.

I understand what you're getting at, and to a certain extent I absolutely agree with you (I have essentially no experience with D2, so my only comment on that game is that it didn't interest me; I can't say anything about the items). My main point is that in balancing the game system to such an extent, Obsidian have also removed some of the edge from the game. All items work, all builds are feasible, and so much of everything is interchangeable. There is no question that a mythic item is significantly better than a fine one, but as you progress in the game, you will find plenty of first fine and eventually superb items which will easily allow you to compete with just about anything. I haven't found anything that made me go wow and think that this is something I'm going to hold on to. I realized the other day that it had been a while since I'd gone through my loot and checked whether anything was interesting. I had just picked everything up and then forgotten about it. There are so frigging many items, even unique items, that after a while they cease to matter -- I suppose I have never even tried 80 per cent of the unique items I've found. They're just something you carry around. Now, I absolutely agree that you can check everything out and optimize your party. But you don't have to. It doesn't really matter whether you do that or not. You'll do just fine in any case. (Again, I am happy to accept that things are different on PotD with all the challenges on, but I'm not interested in that, although I do agree that it's a viable way to go. I would also accept that you probably need optimization to deal with the mega bosses, but again, I am not interested. I think it's great that they're there, it's a nice idea, but I'm also happy that they're entirely optional.) Now, I understand that this is a perfectly logical result of the way the game is designed, and as such, it's somewhat unavoidable. But it still takes something out of the game, at least in my view. The problem was already there in PoE: the only two items that I really liked were Tidefall and Persistence, everything else was something you could use but could just as easily do without. There is a big difference when you compare the game to something like BG2 where some items keep you excited for quite some time (and yes, I agree that some items are overpowered, which is a different problem).

Give them hell!

Well, it's shorter than the actual movie and at the end of it you basically know everything about it, which means you won't have to watch it anymore. Kinda a win-win situation if you are curious about it, but not that curious.

Congrats! And I, for one, welcome our new mod overlord!

Demonic networks are aligned against Trump: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/449226-trump-spiritual-adviser-a-demonic-network-aligned-itself-against-the Pretty bad when even the demons want to see you lose! What network is that I wonder? Must be one DirectTV doesn't carry.

I stand corrected again. Thanks for posting that as well.

Going back to the Game Informer interviews, and statements by Mikey after the initial announcement, TOW will not ship with official mod support. The developers further clarified that they will not prevent players from creating mods, but games developed in Unreal Engine 4 are extraordinarily hard to alter in meaningful ways without an official framework. Expect the usual assortment of cheats and binary hacks, but don't bet on TOW having a mod scene like New Vegas anytime soon. I appears that DLC is already in the works, though no official announcements have been made. Observant fans have spotted LinkedIn pages or personal Twitters/Instagrams where devs casually mentioned their involvement in unnamed TOW DLCs. Though, no word about season passes as of yet.

It seems like it will have multiple endings, just don't know how many. https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/06/11/the-outer-worlds-will-have-multiple-endings-e3-2019

Trust me, no one is more surprised than me. But I'm hoping it's less forumcop and more caretaker. And you know the saying. If you can't beat 'em...

As Gfted1 commented: I feel I haven't been reaching my desired levels of insufferability since the boards update, and clearly this is the cause. I can barely tell when someone wants to emphasize something (but not too much)! In addition, I'm not sure if/how importing quotes from other threads is supposed to work anymore. Used to be that the format went: [quote name='user' date='date' post='post#']text[/quote] And that would be interpreted into the appropriate quote box with the corresponding link to the original post. Now it just creates a plain quote box without any info. So another vote for BBCode mode.

I mean, some tentacle play would surely attract the weeb market, right?

Congratulations on the upgrade 213347U!

Of all people to become forumcop the numbersman is the last I would have expected. Hope the stress doesn't cause him to go crazier than you already have to be to post on a niche videogame forum. KTCHONG for mod.

Who knew that PoE was a secret prequel to Jade Empire all along.

What do you call a person with no nose and no body? no body nose.

Ok, now Priest trinkets. THey will be switchable like grimoires so you are not stuck with one during combat, you can use the trinket slot + Quick Item slots. Here are some ideas that I wrote down. Some of those spells are copies of other classes' spells, but they'd get their own icons and names and sometimes even altered effects. The intention is to make it less "cheap" to "steal" spells from other classes. But we have to widen the spell choice a little bit. Else you could only do 3 or so trinkets since the original spell choices of a Priest are not that numerous. Anyway here is what I came up with. Feel free to comment and post your own ideas: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Dyrwoodan Prayerbook Why: Widen spell portfolio. Promote the use of the prayer spells which most Priests don't pick at level-up. Description: This small book contains simple and catchy prayers and litanies. Variants of those are used in most churches throughout the Dyrwood. Although the different churches all have their own interpretations they mostly have the same effect on the common believer. Contained spells: 1. - (maybe Blessing?) 2. Prayer for the Body 3. Prayer for the Spirit 4. Litany for the Body 5. Litany for the Spirit 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Additional effects: • +1 PL with Inspiration spells --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Sermon of Punishment and Redemption Why: Eothas-themed (because the whole game is about Eothas). Widen spell portfolio. Promote punishment spells for priestly DD builds Description: Saint Rumbalt was among the first of the Eothasian pilgrims to take up the Emperor's offer of resettlement in the distant territory of Readceras. A dedicated priest of the Shining God, Rumbalt was regarded as a leader in his community, known both for his unwavering dedication to his congregation and his stern vigilance against lapses in doctrine. What survives of his sermons reflects this duality, for he emphasized the redemptive power of the faith even as he warned against the dire punishments awaiting those who rejected Eothas' beneficence. Contained spells: 1. Barbs of Condemnation 2. Pillar of Faith 3. Divine Mark 4. Shining Beacon 5. Searing Seal 6. Pillar of Holy Fire 7. Storm of Holy Fire 8. Symbol of Eothas 9. Light of Eothas Effects: • +1 PL to all Punishment spells --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Building on Solid Foundations Why: PoE Nostalgia. This trinket brings back the Priest talents from PoE with which you could buff your Holy Radiance and Interdiction abilities. Implementation can be done differently (e.g. as different trinkets or as passive effects that get unlocked at the fitting PL). Also widens spell portfolio quite a bit (with this implementation). Description: This essay refers to the well known book „Daily Affirmations of Focus and Efficiency“ that is very popular among followers of Abydon. It describes certain excercises and techniques that allow a priest to improve and refine some of their basic abilites. Contained spells/effects: 1. Interdiction 2. Inspiring Radiance (+10 ACC AoE buff) 3. Empowered Interdiction (+10 ACC) 4. Aggrandizing Radiance (+2 to stats) 5. Painful Interdiction (weaken) 6. Brilliant Radiance (burn damage) 7. Intimidating Interdiction (frighten) 8. Reviving Radiance (revive like Revive the Fallen, but AoE) 9. Anathema (disoriented) Effects: • none --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Amber Star Why: themed on the Dawnstars - since they play a role in Deadfire. Widen spell portfolio. Lot of non-priest spells now "priestified". Enables to build a party healer as Priest (not Druid). Description: The six-pointed star is carved from amber. Numerous small pieces of violet crystal are entrapped within it. Contained spells/effects: 1. Restore 2. Light of the Dawnstars (The Moon‘s Light, Restoration) 3. Consecrated Ground 4. Aurora (Moonwell, Restoration, Protection) 5. Rays of the Morning Sun (...And Evil turned away from the Sun, Restoration, Protection) 6. Sunlance (Punishment) 7. Storm of Holy Fire 8. Hand of Weal and Woe 9. Light of the Midday Sun (Light of Pure Zeal, Punishment, Restoration) Effects: • Favor of the Dawnstars: +10% healing done --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Sentry Figurine Why: Widen spell portfolio. Promote the use of the unloved seal spells, make something for "tank priests". Description: This small figurine of an armor clad sentry is made of soapstone. A miniscule engraving on its back says „The guardian of our faith will let no heathen pass“. Contained spells/effects: 1. Halt 2. Repulsing Seal 3. Warding Seal 4. Wall of Flame (Punishment, Fire) 5. Searing Seal 6. Spiritual Ally 7. Shields for the Faithful 8. Sigil of Ardent Faith (Minoletta‘s Piercing Sigil, Punishment, Condemnation) 9. Incarnate Effects: • +1 Engagement --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Feathered Monstrance Why: Widen spell portfolio mostly. If you get this trinket you don't need to pick those spells at level up which makes room for more circumstancial spells or for more passives. Hylea-themed because not much else is in this game. Focus on support. Description: This monstrance is made from colorful feathers and displays a central, opalescent tail feather of an unknown bird. Every time you look at it you feel uplifted. Contained spells/effects: 10. Holy Power 11. Holy Meditation 12. Holy Sh!t Dire Blessing 13. Devotions for the Faithful 14. Champion‘s Boon 15. Salvation of Time 16. Shields for the Faithful 17. Crowns for the Faithful 18. Soaring of Hylea (Light of Eoaths, but Swift for 30 secs instead of +50 health, Inspiration) Effects: • +1 to Inspiration Power Level --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finger of Death Appearance: a skeletal finger Why: Because you want to play a Deathguard, duh? Description: A remnant of Lord Raedric VI, the thayn of Gilded Vale and devoted follower of Berath. During your rule in Caed Nua, a peasant brought you this piece of finger bone and insisted that it's the finger of Raedric who turned into a Deathguard after his death and was finally slewn. Contained spells: 1. Death‘s Cold Grasp (PL1, Kalakoth‘s Sunless Grasp, keywords: Freeze, Punishment, Condemnation) 2. - 3. Necrotic Lance (PL 3, keywords: Acid, Punishment) 4. - 5. Death Ring (PL 5, keywords: Acid, Punishment) 6. - 7. Touch of Death (PL 7, keywords: Punishment) 8. - 9. Cloak of Death (PL9, keywords: Punishment, Condemnation) Effects: • Apparent Deathguard: -5 CON, +3 RES • Champion of Berath: gives the wearer the passive ability "Come Sweet Winds of Death" (aura, 2.5 m radius, no phrase counting, no scaling)  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Cadegund‘s Powder Horn Why: PoE Nostalgia. Brings back the arquebus as a chosen weapon. The scaling makes sure it's best with Magrinites, but other priests can also use it. Also brings back the special ability every priests got with that weapon talent in PoE. Description: Not much is known about Cadegund, a battlefield Priestess of Magran. Her name is engraved on the side of this battle-worn powder horn which she used to reload her trusted arquebus with. Sometimes you hear a faint crackling sound from inside of it. Contained spells: 1. Inspired Flame (Lesser Burst of Summer Flame, less base dmg: 14-22, keywords: Fire, Punishment) 2. Spiritual Weapon Arquebus (burning lash scales up with Aggressive/Clever and down with Passionate/Diplomatic dispositions; model: Arquebus_Superb) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Additional effects: • Magran‘s Drill: -20% reload speed with firearms (note that this will not stack additively with Maia's armor or Sure Handed Ila. So -20% and -20% --> NOT -40%) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sabhan‘s Rat Skull Why: PoE Nostalgia. Brings daggers as a chosen Skaen weapon. I tried shackles (Ball and Chain ingame model without the Ball) but it is not possible. Skean already got stiletto and club like in PoE, So I had to come up with something else and daggers seems to be a good fit. The scaling makes sure they are best with Skaenites, but other priests can also use them. Also brings back the special ability every priests got with that weapon talent in PoE (in this case Lesser Sneak Attack). Description: This skull of a rat is white and polished and has eyes made from blackstone. You have the impression that it squeaks in your backpack from time to time. Better to put it near you, that poor thing. Contained spells: 1. Insinuation of Rebellion (PL1, Whipers of Treason, Keywords: Condemnation) 2. Spiritual Daggers (dual, corrosive lash scales up with Cruel/Deceptive and down with Aggressive/Benevolent; model: Dagger_CRE_Animat ) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Effects: • Prey on the Weak (Lesser Sneak Attack: +10% dmg, scales up with Cruel/Deceptive and down with Aggressive/Benevolent - note that this will stack with other additive dmg bonuses, e.g. when multiclassed with Rogue or Fighter and so on). Debateable if a Skaen/Rogue with perfect dispositions would be too good. Maybe remove the scaling? Or maybe it would just be like a Single Class Rogue's Sneak Attack. Also depends on the intensity of scaling of course. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: The Golden Bulla Why: PoE Nostalgia. Brings Morning Star as a chosen weapon for Eothas. The scaling makes sure it's best with Eothasians or Gaunites, but other priests can also use them. Also brings back the special ability every priests got with that weapon talent in PoE (in this case Hope Eternal - but adopted to Deadfire). Description: A gilded and sealed bulla. There are ornamental suns all over its surface and no visible weatherin marks. No matter how hard you try you can‘t open it. Yet when you touch it, you feel encouraged. Contained spells: 1. Soothing Warmth (PL1, like Lesser Lay on item Hands_Healing_Hands but with PL scaling) 2. Spiritual Morning Star (burning lash, scales up with Benevolent/Honest and down with Cruel/Deceptive; model: Morning_Star_Superb) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Effects: • Hope Eternal: Resistance against Resolve afflictions (passive) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ivory Key Description: A key made from the tusk of an unknown mammal. The head is carved into the form of a human skull. Once you hold it all those distracting emotions get damped down a bit. Why: PoE Nostalgia. Brings Macer as a chosen weapon for Berath. The scaling makes sure it's best with Berathians, but other priests can also use it Also brings back the special ability every priests got with that weapon talent in PoE (in this case the Pallid Hand). Contains spells: 1. The Pallid Hand (PL1, lesser Concelhaut‘s Corrosive Siphon, 5 base dmg instead of 8, keywords Acid, Punishment, Restoration) 2. Spiritual Mace (corrosive lash, scales up with Stoic/Rational and down with Cruel/Passionate, only main hand; model: Mace_Exceptional) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Effects: • Undying Gatekeeper: melee hits drain 10% of the damage dealt as health ---------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Dried Ear of Grain (before you ask, an "ear" is not the thing with which you hear - in this case) Why: Due to the other nostalgia weapons. Couldn't let Xoti down. Description: Despite its fragile apprearance, this ear is surprisingly hard and resilient. It emits a soft warmth when you hold it in your hands. Contains spells: 1. Burning the Stubbles (PL1, lesser Torrent of Flame, foe-only!, 15-25 Burn damage, keywords: Fire, Punishment) 2. Spiritual War Scythe (weapon proficiency Pollaxe, burning lash, scales up with Benevolent/Honest and down with Cruel/Deceptive; model: Lord Darryn‘s Voulge) ◦ OR Spiritual Hayfork (weapon proficiency Pike, same otherwise; model: Lance of the Midwood Stag) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Effects: • Bounteous Harvest: +1 spell use of spell level 1 per kill ---------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Ice Shard Why: Due to the other nostalgia weapons. Couldn't let Vatnir down. Description: An ice shard from the White March which radiates cold. It is said that it was taken from the Russetwood crater. Oddly enough, it doesn‘t melt - even under the hot sun of the Deadfire Archipelago. It‘s really convenient to put it near your food supplies… Contained spells: 1. Glacial Gust (Druid PL1, Winter Wind, keywords: Freeze, Punishment) 2. Spiritual Battle Axe (two handed, freezing lash, scales up with Honest/Rational and down with Benevolent/Diplomatic; model: Beast of Winter "hammer" -which looks like a huge primitive wilder axe, but scaled down to kith size - if possible. Else Amra or Oathbreaker's End model) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Effects: • Enigmatic Cold: while afflicted, Freeze damage heals for 10% instead of dealing damage ----------------------------------------------------------------- Name: The Executioner‘s Hood Why: Due to the other nostalgia weapons. Couldn't let Woedicans down. Description: This torn and burned hood can‘t be worn anymore. But every time you touch it you feel a surge of righteousness. It helps you to make all those hard but just decisions. Contained spells: 1. Guillotine (PL1 like Blessed Harvest) 2. Spiritual Executioner‘s Sword (Geat Sword, raw lash like Woedica‘s Spiritual Fists, scales same; modal: Great_Sword_CRE_Naga) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Effects: • Coup de Grace: +20 health on kill ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Glass Eye Why: PoE Nostalgia. Brings Quarterstaff back as a chosen weapon of Wael. The scaling makes sure it's best with Waelites, but other priests can also use it. Also brings back the special ability every priests got with that weapon talent in PoE (in this case Incomprehensible Revelation adapted to Deadfire). Description: This doesn‘t look like the usual glass eye. Actually it looks like a real eye floating in a glass sphere together with some glitter. And you could swear it winks every time you look away. Contained spells: 1. Sparkling Glitter (PL1, Arkemyr‘s Dazzling Lights, keywords: Condemnation) 2. Spiritual Quarterstaff (like Wael‘s Spiritual Rod, model: Quarterstaff_Superb_Fampyr) 3. - 4. - 5. - 6. - 7. - 8. - 9. - Effects: • Incomprehensible Revelation: gain the Smart inspiration for 10 secs every time you confuse an enemy -------------------------------------------------------------------- That's it for now...

I'm pretty sure I speak for the others as well when I say that nobody thought about Aloth's scepter when redoing keywords. We were more concerned with PL creep than "lore" issues that might pop up. Finishing Blow getting reflected is indeed a tad weird, but on the other hand the alternative would be to remove the Punishment keyword entirely just because of this slightly weird (but not too bad) edge case. But from a lore perspective this keyword fits the ability in general. Those problems you mention are minor (if there are additional ones in the first place) compared to the benefit I think. What I liked about "cross class keywords" is that you could use items that were designed for other classes for your Priest. E.g. you could use Spine of Thicket Green to boost Xoti's Plant spells. But all in all I think the keywords were just a complete mess. I would have liked if devs simply made a copy of the "borrowed" ability but give it proper priest keywords, a new name and a new icon. For example Finishing Blow could have been named "Prey on the Weak", have a slightly altered icon, do the same as Finishing Blow but get the Punishment keyword. I'm trying to do that with the trinkets atm: copying existing druid/chanter/wizard/paladin abilities but rename then and give them another icon - sometimes even altering the values a bit. Just to widen the narrow spell choice a bit. For example I could take The Moon's Light and rename it as "Light of the Dawnstars", give it another icon and description and Restoration+Protection keywords. Makes more sense for me than just giving the priest an unaltered wizard spells with wizard keywords. Then those questions don't even rise up because players assume it's a genuine priest thing and not some cheap copy from another class.

On the positive side, you can be fairly confident that this is honest to goodness genuine gameplay and not a cutscene with someone pretending to "play" it, because no one would make a cutscene with gameplay that incompetent.

I have to say, club music is really disappointing compared to old game

I wasn't a fan, and it's a massive time-sink, probably twice as long as Deadfire overall and largely because of a lot of trash encounters, artificial timers surrounding the kingdom management system, and a much more extensive main story opposite to optional sidequesting and the likes. However, I would recommend giving it a try at least. It has its worthwhile elements and others have loved it so, who knows? As to how it compares specifically with Deadfire, well... I think it doesn't. I started a second playthrough of Deadfire as soon as I was done with Kingmaker and the more I played, the more the problems in Kingmaker became extremely apparent. Kingmaker is a pulpy high fantasy power trip, your goal is essentially to rise from novice adventurer to king of an entire new nation, and amidst it all there's numerous threats to your realm and pretenders to your throne, plenty of big epic stakes and enemies, but it's all very surface-level, it's all there for spectacle and entertainment's sake. Nothing wrong with that of course, it knows what it is. But Deadfire, as most Obsidian games, thrives a lot more on a solid thematic foundation, and even at its pulpiest there's still a sense of purpose to much of the content therein, if only to describe another facet of this world that is so deeply tied with the undelying discourse the game presents. And whereas the writing in Kingmaker frequently comes across as crude or generic, there's a life and character to the particular cadence of the Huana or the Valians that is unique, lively and very underrated when in contrast to the former. From a sidequest or side content perspective, there's no doubt in my mind that Deadfire's the better game - most of the side content in Kingmaker is lacking, the sidequests tend to be very straight-forward and not plentiful, whilst 80% of what is there to discover in the world map amounts to endlessly rehashed small areas that act as little more than "arenas" to trash encounters. And whilst the game does react to the choices you make, these are almost exclusively dialogue or build-based, and often dialogue options are gutted outright by arbitrary barriers like alignment - in comparison the roleplay in Deadfire seems much freer and more plentiful, as quests and area design allow for a player to resolve the same in multiple ways just by choosing to *play* the sequence differently instead of merely choosing a different dialogue branch. The freedom of exploration and liveliness of the world stand out a lot more in Deadfire when directly compared to Kingmaker, which on the other hand feels generic to a fault, if no doubt appealing on a sheer comfort-food level. All this without touching the worst aspect, which to me is the combat. Kingmaker's combat is absolutely woeful, ubiquitous and inescapable. If the first Pillars had a trash encounter problem, this one has it three times over. And all this without taking into account that the game does everything in its power to worsen and exacerbate every flaw in the IE games' combat system as well. This is the kind of game that follows the same balancing principles as a regular combat/strategy mod for Baldur's Gate II in that even in normal difficulties it requires you to have the prescience of knowing what you'll face when and what scrolls and characters to bring alongside you for which area; and since the game is on a timer all throughout, backtreading to acquire X or Y supply or companion is *very* costly. This is essentially a game where prebuffing isn't just a clever and accidental workaround to combat the way it proved to be in the IE games, it becomes a mandatory element through which all encounters are balanced around - and if you happen to forget to prebuff your party for a single trash mob of spiders (which can also occur as a random encounter on the road), then good luck because you'll likely end with two or three characters sporting a massive -8 STR, DEX and CON permanent debuff at the end of it. If you think this is just a single type of creature, or just a couple who can do this, think again, because basically *everything* here is capable of dealing attribute damage or permanent afflictions (see blindness too) to your party - and that's not even touching on several other baffling enemy designs like the AoE paralize auras on the Wild Hunt which themselves become your usual dungeon filler during the end of the game. Other irritating features, as with the IE games, include crowd control conditions and DoT AoE spells alla Wall of Blades, Web or Cloudkill enduring for minutes after combat ends*, rest interrupts and random road encounters consisting of trash mobs are plentiful to the point you could well have four or five of the former and two or three of the latter occur before you finish either action, enemies having a tendency to be dumb and heavy on spamming single moves or attacks (case in point: alchemist enemies tend to bombard you with a seemingly endless and constant barrage of fireball, regardless of whether it's effective against your party or not (say that we've cast communal protection against fire on ourselves for example), despite also wielding a crossbow for example), and these shortcomings in AI tend to be 'balanced' through inflating base stats and abilities to absurd degrees, to the point that even a regular boar in act 1 can have an STR score of 32. It's compared to games like this that you realize just how much great work has gone into redesigning and improving combat in the Pillars series. All of which also leads me to the bottom line which is... Kingmaker is very likely a game served best by playing with cheats and cheat mods on. Movespeed cheats, difficulty down to a bare minimum, even the removal of random road encounters, anything to not have to deal with the relentless, tedious combat in this game and nevertheless allowing you to experience the story and several companions and companion arcs which are all very decent - I'd likely have enjoyed the game way more had I played it this way and not tried foolhardily to beat the game at the difficulty I did. Anyhow, these are my thoughts on the matter, hope they're worth something. *: On the matter of endless Wall of Blades, I watched a stream on Kingmaker by Lorerunner a month or so ago where upon defeating the final villain and casting three Wall of Blades to do so, the prologue proceeded to play on top of the battlefield with the Wall of Blades still active. All across the prologue you could hear the grinding sound of the blades and see their animation blurred out in the back, absolutely non-stop. It was rather hilarious. Here's the video, jump to 3:20:00:

Just when you thought you could not have any less respect for the human race: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/14/us/tennessee-preacher-cop-lgbtq/index.html I prefer the company of animals.