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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/26/20 in all areas
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Sunny & I are going up to our property on Indian Creek this weekend for camping, fishing , and communing with nature.7 points
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My wife laughed so hard when I showed her this. That was her biggest complaint about Janeway and one of her main complaints about the entire show.5 points
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Well, that generated far more conversation that it deserved. My advice to Debbie is to mind your own business.4 points
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I sing happy birthday to my dog. I don't know when her birthday is or how old she is. But I found her on 7/12/2014 so on that day she gets a special meal and a treat from Woofgang Puck4 points
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Spending the day helping my mom with her plants. It's tedious crap but honestly more enjoyable than work.3 points
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I've been pondering doing that myself. I need to learn proper farming and survival skills over the next couple years. By then, hopefully, I've got a house in the mountains of North Carolina or Tennessee (same mountains, different sides) and I'll just cut the cord and disappear. Maybe not full on Jeremiah Johnson, but basically make 1 trip a month into town for supplies and straight up hermit style beyond that. Civilization can go ahead and destroy itself, **** em. I'll be off on my own plot of fairly secluded land, living as much as I can off my own crops, with a shotgun, a rifle, and a pistol.3 points
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Bloodmage/assassin is very strong because at high level you can have unlimited invisibility. Losing health to restore your invisibility spell isn't a big problem because you can use infinite vampiric touch to backstab and heal back (on top of regen/heal on kill items you can have). But until then you can play like a regular assassin/mage.3 points
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^ Thanks. I must say that your link has inspired me to go down the rabbit hole a little bit, and uh... I mean, just what on Earth is going on in this video:2 points
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If the weather holds, a fire, single malt and a cigar are in order ...2 points
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I'm surprised you guys are still all up for grabbing that sweet bait when it's laid out so plainly.2 points
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Privlidge is posting ****ty opinions on facebook and acting like a martyr when you get called out. "The car hadn’t hit the kid. The kid had hit the car." The article as a whole describes some terrible ****, but this level of denial really sticks out to me.2 points
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It's actually somewhat notable the way she lists out a bunch of racist dog-whistles without ever actually mentioning the race of the targets. I guess if one is really naive, it's possible to assume she is just disparaging poor people but, of course, that isn't exactly a positive take on its own either.2 points
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It's explained in more detail here: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/179141719626/poe1-the-wheel-is-a-naturalmetaphysical2 points
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Hi Rimiu IMO Bloodmage is a good pick. He looses out on Empower, which can be very potent, game changing even - but once per fight and several times per rest only. Granted he also looses access to the ability to spend this Empower to renew half of Assassin Guile resources - therefore more stealthiness. However a Bloodmage has access, in practice unlimited, to best spells to deal with each situation and that is invaluable. Also at low spell levels can stack all meaningful buffs AND STILL be able to use other spells from these levels - repeatedly so -> particularly in early game (which is the most difficult part), this is game-changing. And Corrosive Siphon is an awesome low level health drain, so healing really isn't a huge concern for a Blood Mage when there are several enemies to affect them with. Good synergies... well, first of all, Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights spell from level 1 is very nice for such a character. Cast it from stealth near the enemies to attract their attention and cluster together in a tight group waiting for aoe bombardment - but watch out not to hit any enemies with the Lights, or combat will start and you will be revealed! Then certainly try to get Ninagauth's Teachings grimoire - its unique level 4 spell, Ninagauth's Shadowflame, is perfect as an opener after Dazzling Lights. Not only does it similar damage to a fireball (actually a bit higher) but cold-based, BUT ALSO Paralyzes enemies on hit. With the Assassinate +25 Accuracy bonus, this usually hits! So now you start combat with all/most enemies in a tight cluster and unable to move or act... AND subject to an additional 25% Hit-to-Crit conversion. Also in Turn Based mode Ninagauth's Death Ray, another exclusive from this grimoire is very good for such a build, as it ticks 3 times, deals high unresistable damage in a line aoe, if enemies don't have you in their sight cones, you actually remain stealthed after the first hit for a second Assassinate tick! Nice to have someone with Morningstar modal to lower enemy Fortitude, though. Significantly worse in real time, as it has 11 far weaker ticks (1 per second), most of which wouldn't benefit from Assassinate. Still might be useful to crack enemies with extreme Armor Rating due to unresistable Raw damage type. Next Deltro's Cage helm. You need to either steal it or kill an influential figure for it. It's a MAJOR force multiplier for such a build. When hit with lightning, it stores its energy and for a short time provides a % damage lash equal to the number of hit points you lost when lightning struck you. Meaning if you target your stealthy Assassinate Chain Lightning on YOURSELF and manage a 150 damage critical (doable... usually when you're low on HP... or when doublecast from Vithrack Slippers triggers :P), your attack, including spells, will now do 250% of their original damage! Sometimes its only 30-40 damage / % lash (on Graze), often ~60-80 / % lash (on Hit). But if you stack Critical chance (and avoid raising Reflex defenses), 110-140 Assassinate crits / % lash are also fairly common. What's interesting that the follow-up bounces of this initial Chain Lightning (which strike the enemy now), will already also carry this % lash.... Before Chain Lightning you can use the early Shocking Grasp for a much weaker, but still quite noticeable lash. For longer fights you'll be able to extend this (and other helpful) effects indefinitely with Wall of Draining. Would be nice to use Devil of Caroc's Breastplate, as for a large part of the game it will allow +1 use of stealth (trough Shadowing Beyond) per encounter. And that's valuable. So make sure you import/configure a background history that accommodates its availability. There are other ways to become invisible (including a unique spell from some exclusive grimoires), but they usually involve a Recovery period, so are not as nice to act fast and furious. Could be great for solo-play, though. Assassin Slippers can be nice 1/combat, but in Turn Based mode at least, their effect often went to waste. Be a Human with Fighting Spirit and maxed Con. As a Bloodmage you can self-sacrifice to ensure you're always under 50% hitpoints and Fighting Spirit is permanently active (and the bonus is real good: +7 Accuracy, +15% damage). I also like high Per for Accuracy and Int for aoe sizes and effect durations. However in real time Dex shouldn't be neglected either. Might can be left around base (it also increases the damage you self-inflict), while Res dumped. Other great spells include Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar (almost impossible to use while remaining stealthy due to loudness, but still offers very high damage over time) and Minoletta's Piercing Burst - I was using this 80% of the time after I got it (15% probably went to Death Ray for unresistable damage and 3 ticks) - high damage, party friendly aoe, high Penetration. Before that the Blightheart arquebus is nice for its 10% corrosive lash that applies to spells. Of course, stack Critical damage and chance as much as possible: Dirty Fighting 10%, Ring of Prosperity's Fortune up to 15%, Merciless Gaze 15% Uncanny Luck 5% (or 10% with Community Patch - its maybe not worth it without this mod), The Third Eye 10%. After early game, try to always use Crusted Swordfish food when resting, it will help a lot. It can be crafted or bought in Periki's Overlook in Neketaka. Crowd Control spells can also work very well with the Assassinate bonus (+25 Accuracy!). But since it's such a limited commodity, I used homicide as the ultimate form of CC. Oh and don't worry about seemingly short duration on some spells, (particularly buffs like Merciless Gaze). With Power Level bonuses and Int stacking they will have a very respectable duration before long. Note that Ray spells and Walls have a fixed duration, though. Kinda late game, but I enjoyed using Engoliero de Espirs estoc with this build. It triggers its Ghost Blades cone aoe attack on kill - regardless of kill method. These get boosted by the various Assassin bonuses and ranged bonuses (sneak attacks, Deathblows, pet with +10% damage to ranged attacks and other) and can be enchanted to return as much health as they deal damage. This can lead to nasty kill cascades on damaged afflicted enemies and a lot of healing for you. Something like this can happen:2 points
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as is typical, the failures is in your perception and comprehension as 'posed to any shortcoming on our part. no surprise. HA! Good Fun!2 points
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Whenever you go with friends to a restaurant just have one of them tell the waiters that it's your birthday.2 points
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Adding to what Boeroer said, it doesn't help the confusion about the lack of a guardian because of how accidental it can be to skip the fight, since it was related to a seemingly unrelated decision in a distant quest. Also, if you have dug around the developer notes a bit, they actually consciously made Ukaizo thin and easily skippable because of how many players complained about the final part of Pillars of Eternity 1 after you jumped down into the pit. I think it's fair to say that most people agree they overcorrected. Even ignoring how easily you could skip the guardian fight altogether, originally the guardian was extremely easy and not even really a "boss" per se. (Most of my criticisms of the ending--mechanically--are gone now that there are high-level DLCs and the guardian gets boosted up as you kill megabosses, but at release it was incredibly anticlimactic to be able to kill the guardian on PotD without breaking a sweat at like level 12-14, despite the fact that all the gods seem to be speaking about the guardian in hushed tones). I think it's definitely possible to have a good, engaging story where the protagonist is ultimately powerless. Raiders of the Lost Ark is my canonical example - Indiana Jones is absolutely worthless in that movie - the Nazis end up getting the Ark of the Covenant, and then God (?) destroys all the Nazis. If Indiana had just stayed at his university teaching classes and grading papers the narrative would've gone the same way. But it was and is still a blast of a movie and story to watch. I think there's a lot in the game post-release they did (like the Woedica book, some of the tie-ins with DLCs) where they tried to fix it up and improve the overall ending narrative, but similarly I think it's fair to say that maybe they cut things too aggressively or didn't quite get the factions to tie in well enough.2 points
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I think they could do both: not delving in superepic godslayer powerfantasy AND come up with a story where the protagonist feels more in control of what happens with the main plotline. I personally don't have problems with the storyline of Deadfire, but I'm old(er) and have had my fair share of "peasant boy becomes uberman" stories - don't need anymore of those. But I remember I liked those when I was younger, too. Some sort of (substantial) influence would still be nice though.2 points
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Worked, ofcourse - no corona vacation for me. We had a small thunderstorm roll on in at about 5pm. It was equal amounts of nice and awful, I was wading through 10-15cms of water on the yard, and thunder was striking all around us; it'd been atleast 30C the entire day, or atleast what it felt like, so it was welcome to get some cooling - downside; massive amounts of rain, I could barely see ten metres. I kept on working despite the thunder and lightning weather, so I was in a state of extreme stress whilst my coworkers was chilling and waiting for the rain to stop. So I was soaking wet and to kept on working after the 15 or so minutes of intense rainfall, so I every piece of clothing I had was soaked through. And whilst being a yard jockey might sound like a nice lax job, it's actually more intense and physical than one might think, and working in soaked through clothes and underwear(underpants, pants, bra, t-shirt, socks and shoes) was extremely unpleasant and chafing is massive all over. It's ****ing ludirous how much skin I'm missing. Especially at the feet, that water I was wading through was full of diesel, rubber, different oils and whatnot and it shows at my feet that has developed red spots all over and I wish I could dunk them in acid or something. Came home, my sister (Incase you've missed it; We mix about as awell as oil and water) is moving in tomorrow in the house next to mine. So me and my mother chilled on the porch with booze, wine, beer and talk for a couple of hours. I drank about 60 cl of disgusting cognac (because "systembolaget" (Google for details) won't ship any proper booze) so I'm getting a bit tipsy from being dehydrated, my mother matched it so I have to give kudos to her; We were "celebrating" one of the last nights of peace and quite before my sister and her kids move in. It was nice, loads of chatting, filled my mother in on some medical details (She's a former nurse, psychiatric mainly, but also early on "normal"/General practicioner nurse) on some of my medical history, and apparently it had passed her completely by things that I've got fricking breasts and had a mammography, even though I told her about it, and she was... well, mocking, which was expected, but still that's as close as sympathetic she will get. It was nice chatting for a while, and just relaxing. Got to mock her back for her belief in Astrology, correcting her ofcourse as I'm likely to do when bull**** hits my face about history of astrology and things like precessesion of the equinoxes and similar. Now I'm feeling the booze hit hard, probably a bit dehydrated so going to binge water for a while but **** if it hasn't been a decent day anyway. Well, except the chafing. Dear god, I'm getting to feel really drunk now. Niiiiiiiice. It'll be interesting to see how much sense this post makes tomorrow!1 point
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Holy ****, this is actually happening. My favorite book series of all time, narrowly edging out The Dark Tower. I do wonder how Asimov will translate to the screen. His books tend to be quite slow at times, especially when he goes into 3 to 4 page long, meticulously detailed descriptions of technologies or theories. I imagine they'll mostly just skip or gloss over those parts. Please don't **** this up. It's arguably the greatest sci-fi epic ever written. Are they going to do the original trilogy, or are they doing the prequels and sequels as well? There's a definite drop off in quality to the sequels (still good, just not amazing like the trilogy) and an even steeper drop off to the prequels.1 point
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i think it's worth pointing out that there are "steady states" in nature that are locally optimal but not globally optimal; they don't completely weed out for being suboptimal, so it's not that there has to be an "oppositional" force of nature. An over-simplified example I can give to clarify this is sickle-cell anemia and malaria. Concerning the gene that produces sickle-cell anemia, if you get one healthy one and one mutated one from your parents, you end up not having sickle-cell anemia at all and instead become resistent to malaria (a plus!). If on the other hand, you get two mutated ones, you get sickle-cell anemia (very bad!). Because of the way genetics works, one could easily reason that people with one healthy and one mutated gene have an advantage in malaria-prone areas of the world, but this necessarily means that you will always have people born with sickle-cell anemia (with a simple punnet square you would see two malaria-resistent parents have a 25% chance of producing a sickle-cell kid), which otherwise should be weeded out rather quickly. And in fact a perfectly healthy parent with a sickle-cell parent (if they managed to live long enough without modern medicine) would you get you children with that malaria resistance at 100% rate. So there doesn't need to be an "opposing force" per se the way you put it. In the world of Eora, "nature" has developed some sort of reincarnation process, and it only developed just enough to get it to work barely good enough, and the way it works is just well enough that it's not going to improve any further because it's stuck in a local maximum. You need some outside intervention (the Wheel) to get it kicked out of its local max and into a more globally optimal state.1 point
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That is not what they look like! They look like this: D&D jumped the shark after 2nd ed! BTW I finished Bolton's book. There were a few surprises and it's fair to say some things were better than they looked. Most were even worse than you'd think though. I know Bolton's track record and I found pretty much everything he said to be completely credible. Which is.... not good. Don't blame me, I didn't vote for him.1 point
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Okay, I can see where you're coming from, but for me it's a matter of context and perspective. You have to imagine what it would be like to be one of the first human spaceship captains going out there into deep space following first contact with alien civilizations. Don't know about you but I can tell you if it were me I would literally be the proverbial kid in a candy store, totally giddy and slap-happy with delight every single minute. I think that's what you see with Archer, and I can relate to that.1 point
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we read the transcript from the interview and then imagine trump takes one o' those silly what d&d class would you be quizzes/surveys. impossible occurs and trump result is: btw, the gibbering mouther in chief had a few competent and qualified people in the administration, but he fired 'em or they resigned. bolton were hired 'cause h.r. mcmaster were no longer national security advisor. hardly a singular example. Richard Spencer: I was fired as Navy secretary. Here’s what I’ve learned because of it. who followed richard spencer? thomas modly others? HA! Good Fun!1 point
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I agree on the theme song becauseI like cheesy rock ballads, and while every Star Trek captain in the history of Trek has an episode or two of being strange, weird, a moron, or out of character (unless you're Janeway, then being out of character means 50% of your episodes) Archer's is particularily bad. Just... bad. Boy. A Night In Sickbay is a strong contender for being the worst episode in all of Star Trek, and that includes both Picard and Discovery. Yes, in season three. But first it gets worse. A lot. Then it gets interesting, even becomes really good at times - and everything is followed up by the worst Trek final in the history of ever. Discovery might have a chance to top it perhaps. edit: Also do yourself a favor and skip "A Night In Sickbay" until you've watched the entire show. Otherwise you might stop there and leave it for good. Some of the later episodes are really worth watching.1 point
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nature screws up all the time. a natural real life analogue would be infant mortality rates (and maternal mortality rates during childbirth) before the advent of more modern medicine and science. all "nature" cares about is doing just enough to propagate the genetic material of a species. nothing more. our bodies are filled with tons of "useless" genetic material that does god knows what. our feet are anti-ergonomic adaptations of primate hands that are extremely prone to injury. imagine that instead of "hollowborn" or "weak souls" and the engwithans creating the wheel and the gods, it was "cancer" or "alzheimer's" and cure for cancer/alzheimer's/hereditary illnesses and the engwithan perspective makes a ton of sense.1 point
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Thanks. The start up costs are a little steep and it is a LOT of work. But, in the long run it saves money and you do become reasonably self sufficient. I could live off the land here indefinitely if I absolutely had to.1 point
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This is worth a read: My Family Saw a Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween. Then I Learned How NYPD Impunity Works.1 point
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I will make this a separate Post so it is better organized. There is no 3x Dark + Animancer path cause the Animancer Option in itself is a Light Side Choice. So this Internet info is boggus. The Rest: 3x Dark then asking to Release will result in Keeping the Souls + Trashing Aura 3x Dark then asking to Keeping will result in Keeping the Souls + Trashing Aura 2x Dark + With Animancers then asking to Release will result in Keeping the Souls + Trashing Aura 2x Dark + With Animancers then asking to Keeping will result in Releasing the Souls + Light Aura 2x Dark + "God" Path (either) has the same Results as the Animancer ones. There are no Dialog Options that alter this process. I tried "all" combinations and it was always the same result just different "flavor". Hope this will help people in the future. tl/dr: Keeping / Releasing the Souls sets the Lantern Aura nothing more. Unless for RP or PotD Reason the trashing Aura inst worth it.1 point
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If Woedeca is to be believed, she states in your hot book chats that the wheel was real sloppy and that hollowborn were common. I'm assuming this and potentially other shortcomings of the previous reincarnation process that was naturally in place inspired the Engwithians to 'find a better way'. You bring up an interesting point as well. Some of the dialogue surrounding the fact that memories are lost and/or eaten by the gods during passage through the wheel suggests it might not have been that way before. While this could at first be seen as an advantage, don't forget that reincarnation rarely maintains itself as a Kith > Kith process. You could come back as an animal, a bug, a tree...or even a blade of grass. Or you could have likewise been any of those before being a Kith. I'd be willing to bet if memories were passed on between lives, there could be very traumatizing effects. I mean an awakened individual is very often considered mentally Ill with even one soul's worth of memories. It's almost insulting, though, to suggest any natural cycle would have such a broken mechanism or two involved. Nature doesn't really screw up the way science/magic tends to. Nature takes it's time and evolves slowly with progress towards survival. Seems incredibly far-fetched that there would be a natural reincarnation cycle that had things like common hollowborn births and maybe even past life memory mucking things up. That is, unless it wasn't natural at all. If you take a single line from the confrontation before the fight at the end of Forgotten Sanctum. It is said there were others before the Engwithians. I want to say even other gods that the Engwithian gods defeated? Can't recall for sure. I'd say that it's not so far fetched to think that there was once a different reincarnation cycle that wasn't so bad, and a race of Kith that predates even Engwithians meddled with it and created a very poor system in which they could gorge themselves on souls in a less efficient manner. If this is true though, it's further evidence that Eothas' plan is/was childish and misguided, and we really should have had SOME method to stop him (not by fighting him, obviously). The system currently in place is probably better than anything Kith stand a chance of making in a two generation time crunch.1 point
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I pick one grimoire basing on the most common spells I will use (mostly Ninagauth's Teachings for nuking, maybe Llengrath's Martial Masteries for a gish Wizzie/fighter multiclass) and/or its special ability (basically Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry with Rekvu's Scorched Casque for lots of extra spells) and pick spells that I want to use but are absent in my grimoire of choice. For example on a nuker assassin I've used Ninagauth's Teachings exclusively and generally only picked self-buffs, which are absent in this grimoire... also lightning spells to power up the Deltro's Cage helmet for the sick lightning lash.1 point
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I have the same "problem" with every Wizard multiclass: I want to only use Grimoires to spare points for the non-spell abilities - and it works. But I still end up picking some spells I know I will use in every fight - because it's more convenient. Grimoire switching isn't a big deal but sometimes it's just annoying. Also you really have to manage which grimoires to buy/find/steal and then equip them accordingly. Once you find unique grimoires and equip them because the spells in them are cool your whole grimoire-portolio gets toppled over. Tl;dr: The most ability-efficient way is to use Grimoires only but I allow myself a few spells here and there out of convenience.1 point
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Something's gotta be said about a gender-bended Salvor Hardin packing a long gun. Kinda hot. Last refuge of the incompetent, indeed.1 point
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Are reptilians and rectal probes for nanochip implanting confirmed to be in the game?1 point
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I see what you did there Obsidian team! I didn't see anyone else mentioning the Tossball cards as Obsidian members. After inspecting the cards, I noticed that they looked very 'life like' so to say, so I pulled up a recent Obsidian team photo, and see if I could match any Tossball card players with the Obsidian team. Sure enough, there they were! Really dig that you guys put you yourself in here! Keep it up! Regards MJ1 point