Leaderboard

this brought back unfortunate memories. for reasons am not gonna get into, we were not raised by our parents, but we visited 'em during the summers and eventual went to live with 'em for high school years. our mother's mother owned a beauty shop and were a hairdresser. ... we learned "hairdresser" is not some kinda genetic quality passed on with dominant genes from one generation to the next. after a few bad summer haircuts from mom during our youth, we let our hair grow long. more than anything, our long hair were a defense against our mother attempting cut our hair 'cause she were the daughter o' a hairdresser who knew what she were doing. unfortunate, in high school we got our extreme long hair brutal yanked during a football game and we saw stars and jesus and and ineffable colors and shapes as our head and neck snapped most unpleasant. so we got another haircut and mom insisted on doing the job. sophomore picture day were most embarrassing. HA! Good Fun!

Amusing, and beautiful in its own weird way...

Just finished Phoenix Point Year One Edition, liked it a ton, reminded me of the game Warlords for some reason - but pretty sure I never need to be brutalized by it again. Messing around with Solasta Early Access too. And @melkathi just picked up Troubleshooters, your posts convinced me.

I seriously got no idea what you're talking about. Edit: China is not led by a communist regime, it's a totalitarian nationalist regime. Australia's PM is the Aussie version of Trump, but without the the military might to back his stupidity. So he's neither a right wing strongman nor a "leftist". His only skills were in marketing, i.e. he's good at lying and bull****ting and little else.

I didn't even enjoy The Expendables, and I can appreciate schlock. I mean, Commando is in my Ahnuld top 5 and that's a terrible movie by a standard definition, but it's super fun schlock. "Remember when I said I'd kill you last?" "Yeah?" "I lied."

That depends on what you would call good. If you mean seriously good, not schlock* that's fun to watch like The Expendables then that probably really was True Lies. Escape Plan got trashed by critics but I liked it well enough, it didn't feel like I've wasted two hours of my life. Unlike, say, watching Terminator Genisys or Last Stand. * I'd say The 6th Day and Eraser were fun schlock too, but what do I know about film. edit: You're also not alone with your love affair with True Lies. Way back at that age, at the time, I could have watched Jamie Lee Curtis in anything and liked it. But even without that the film still really fun mix of comedy, action and silly one lines. Perfect entertainment in my book. You're fired.

Just to say ... I don't really have a "bucket list" but if I did it would be to visit that cat island at least once. I hear they've spayed/neutered most of the cats there now so in another 10-20 years it won't be as over-run. If hubby dies unexpectedly, I wonder if they'd mind if I lugged 500lbs of cat food over there and moved into an abandoned house. Just retire/die there. No cats in my tiny hut (allergies), but just go outside, play with cats all day, go inside/shower, sleep, wake up, repeat. I wouldn't even need video games.

I find power level to be extremely confusing. (Frankly, before doing in-game research and learning more about how it worked I thought it was a systems blunder by Obsidian due to how obtuse and confusing it is.) I'm posting this share my research but also gather comments on power level, because I can't find an updated recent thread that isn't locked to talk about it. I only have incomplete information from staring at combat logs and a limited set of spells/abilities, so others feel free to chime in. Power level scaling: affects all active abilities (including consumables). Weapon-based martial abilities get minimal and special power-level scaling (including special treatment by Empower, see end of post). Because weapon-based martial abilities are so special, this post will mostly focus on scaling done to other abilities. Note: this wasn't clear to me before, but adding this here -> all damage/duration bonuses you get from power level scaling are multiplicative with any other modifiers: they are applied first, and then all other modifiers are applied. What it does: for every power level you have that is greater than the native[1] power level of the spell, you get scaling bonuses. There are general rules about how spells should scale that I've found, though there appear to be exceptions. But what you see here should suffice for the vast majority of cases. [1] some classes get spells from other classes' skill trees. For example, if you have Xoti train as a priest or priest/monk, at PL3 she gets a bonus spell: "Vile Thorns." Vile Thorns is natively from the druid skill tree, and so it is treated as PL1 in terms of power level scaling. So that means at PL3 you get access to Vile Thorns and it already has some bonus damage, even though you don't have a power level higher than the power level Vile Thorns is on, because natively it is a PL1 spell, not a PL3 spell. General guidelines: First of all, tool-tip accuracy is inaccurate and inconsistent. The one you see when you right-click on an ability ignores ability and power level scaling. The one you see when you hover over the ability in your HUD ignores power level scaling, but counts ability level scaling. Anyway, regardless of power level, there is a scaling ability level accuracy bonus, which is equal to 2 * (power_level - 1) of the spell. So a PL3 spell will inherently have a +4 ability level accuracy bonus, whereas a PL1 spell will have none. There is also a scaling ability level penetration bonus, which is equal to +.5 per ability level. Second of all, the general way scaling appears to happen is, first, take the difference between your current power level and the spell's native power level. For simplicity's sake, let's just call this the "PL". (So casting a PL1 spell at PL4 you would have a PL of 3 for scaling purposes.) A. if a spell bounces or has projectiles, it gets an additional bounce or projectile every other PL. Spells used to have variable projectile scaling but it looks like that got nerfed at some point and they appear to get .5 projectile per PL. B. if a spell does damage/healing, it gets +5% per PL. Non-bounce, non-projectile damage/heals used to get up to 10%, but looks like that was nerfed at some point. C. if the spell has duration effects, it gets a longer duration of +5% per PL. D. if the spell has penetration, it gets an additional +.25 penetration per PL (rounds up to the nearest tenth). E1. if the spell has an accuracy roll, it gets +1 accuracy per PL. E2. if the spell primarily only has that accuracy roll (no damage/healing, no duration effect), it instead gets a +2 accuracy per PL. I'm not actually sure how many of these types of spells exist, but I noticed this while playing with Repulsing Seal (which only does a prone). Slicken is another example of a prone-only thing (though it also has a hazard duration, a hazard duration must not prevent a spell from getting +2 accuracy per PL). Empowering a spell gets you +5 PL to that spell when you cast it. Because some spells have multiple components to it that may touch on A, B, C, D, E some spells disproportionately benefit from power level scaling than others. Anecdotally, empowering a Minoletta's Concussive Missiles can be extremely powerful, because it is almost getting a boost in everything: damage, projectiles, accuracy, penetration. On the other hand, empowering a different PL4 spell like Form of the Delemgan will certainly give me a longer-lasting buff, but is not going to single-handedly swing a fight like empowering concussive missiles. Martial abilities: Non-weapon based seem to roughly follow the spell rules, but weapon-based (primary attack or full attack) abilities follow a special set of scaling, being only affected by B and secretly get an adjustment to their damage in A, but applied as a direct adjustment to the base damage roll, making it effectively a secret multiplicative damage boost. Because it is secretly applied, it's kind of hard to suss out what the bonus is, but my best guess from lots of force-attacking Eder is +5% to your roll per PL. Interestingly, doing an Empower-ed weapon ability manually adds a special damage, accuracy, and penetration bonus: +25% damage (additively combined with any inherent PL scaling), +10 accuracy and +2.5 penetration. I call this a special bonus because in the combat log, this accuracy/penetration bonus isn't attributed to power level scaling at all, it's attributed to the ability itself. And like normal power-level scaling, the Empowered damage bonus isn't actually listed on the tooltips at all, it is secretly added into the "roll" used for damage numbers. But it's there and works on weapon-based martial abilities that don't look like they have much power scaling whatsoever (i.e. Knock Down or Force of Anguish). Note that the way the base damage works means that the damage bonus is effectively a multiplicative bonus, making it more impactful than any other damage bonus in the game. Scrolls: function exactly like spells with one critical difference: instead of using your power level, it substitutes half your Arcana skill for it. Regardless of the spell on the scroll, the spell is treated as PL0. If you have a bonus to your power level (from items, potions, or whatnot), those also boost scroll power 1:1. Might, intellect, and perception have no effect on scrolls. (Note: I suspect it uses half your Arcana skill because scroll strength is already tied to arcana based on the minimum required to use one, so Obsidian didn't want you to get further insane scaling from a scroll of maelstrom, for example.) Potions/drugs: are influenced by your Alchemy skill. Like scrolls, if you have any bonus to your power level (from items, potions, or whatnot), those also boost potion/drug power level. Nalpazca monks effectively have +10 PL for drugs, which generally means +50% duration with drugs. Pre-1.2, all potions/drugs got their effect boosted by your alchemy skill, but this scaling has been removed with 1.2. (So no more broken uses of Potion of Impediment.) Might, intellect, and perception have no effect on potions. Explosives: are influenced by your Explosives skill. Bombs used to have a hidden native power level, but as of 1.2 they all have PL0 and have been rebalanced so that they scale appropriately from there. Like with other consumables, if you have any bonus to your power level (from items, potions, etc.) they also boost your explosives skill 1:1. Might, intellect, and perception have no effect on explosives. Reverse pickpocketing: from stealth, you can reverse pickpocket an explosive (can't be in your quick item slot). It gets a special version of "empower" when it detonates, which grants it +100 accuracy (all but guaranteeing a crit), and +100% to the base damage (multiplicative with other damage bonuses).' Traps: are weird~! They do their own thing when it comes to PL scaling. First, each point of Mechanics gives a +3 accuracy bonus to traps when they trigger. However, for each of your character levels, it gets a bonus PL, except this PL scaling does not affect damage, they only affect penetration, accuracy, and duration (this may be related to an issue where spells that create "hazard" effects do not do correct damage that scales with stats/abilities). Interestingly, trap duration is not affected by intellect, but trap accuracy is affected by perception. So a level 12 character with 10 mechanics would get a +30 accuracy bonus from mechanics, then another +12 accuracy from PL scaling (listed as an "ability level" bonus in the combat log). Then, if it's a trap with a duration, it gets +60% to duration, and if it's a trap with a penetration value, it gets +3.25 (rounds to 3.3 in display). Anyhoo, this effectively means that for people who keep using traps late game, they will primarily be useful for their debuffs (sorry, caltrops trap). Monastic Unarmed Training: is also weird! I did my research in a separate thread dedicated to fists. Additions welcome! I'll edit this post and add in corrections or extra details.

Yes, I can see a lot of combos that would be fun.

Bilestomper was ultimately designed to be able to shower himself (and the enemy of course) with poison/disease/corrosion spells. The Mountain Dwarf passive helped a lot - but in Deadfire the Mountain Dwarf gets a completely different racial ability. In Deadfire a similar approach would be to use Rekvu's Scorched Cloak and shower yourself with fire spells I guess. Addendum: Neckless of Fireballs has the keywords Fire and Evocation. It scales with universal Power Level but also fire Power Levels but NOT Evocation Power Levels (for whatever reason). So a Helwalker with Sun & Moon + Magran's Favor + Otto Starcat, Prestige and Thunderous Blows does >100 fire damage per target with the necklace easily at lvl 20 due to the 60%+ PL bonus combined with the insane MIG. Unfortunately you can't stack the same amount of power levels for the Missile Gloves (only keyword is evocation and that doesn't work for some reason as I said above). Universal PLs like from Lance of the Midwood Stag do work though.

How about a Votary using Magran's Favor, Sungrazer and the necklace of fireballs? The addition of 8 fireballs/encounter would help make Voltron's old Burn Baby Burn! build viable again.

Russian girl's tips to pro-Navalny protesters on how to pretend to be confused American tourists when cops show up - 9GAG edit: audio on different browsers is a bit... curious. HA! Good Fun!

Indeed, your idea opens up a lot of possibilities - a key thing to keep it fun IMHO is to avoid creating a one-trick pony, which is hard when crafting this kind of very specialized builds. I like the SC Paladin idea, there hasn't been a lot of builds based on it. A lot of synergy and RP potential there, for example wielding Magran's Favor and Magran's Blessing. Your comment about your old Engineer build reminded me that I tried at some point to emulate your PoE1 Bilestomper build (adorable ) in PoE2: my idea was to create a low DEX/RES, high CON/STR Wizard that stacked the thickest armor and AR buffs while killing enemies with powerful retaliation effects like Piercing Sigil, Cloak of Death, Flame Shield and staying alive by avoiding PEN/OVERPEN, having a big health pool, high FORT saves... It worked well up to a certain point but was boring, plus I would have needed more AR for end-game survivability at least on PotD. Could have multiclassed with something like Unbroken but most of my offense were Wizard PL8+ spells. Didn't work out in the end!

Most powerful or effective would be spamming summons from figurines or some of the DLC trinkets maybe? Didn't really analyze that. I never used that export/import "trick" for an actual playthrough - except for a partial one with a Barbarian I build around Vengeful Defeat (with items such as Effort and other items that trigger AoE stuff on knockout). In PoE you could turn off kockout injuries so such a suicidal Barb could be fun enough to play. In Deadfire you can't opt out of injuries - it would be possible to use Vengeful Defeat up to three times per encounter - but you'd want to rest after each fight and that's kinda lame. So I exported/imported the Ring of Reset to be able to use the same approach but with no injuries after the encounter (and no need to cast a reviving spell of course). So basically it spared me the rest-spamming. I didn't consider that to be superpowerful - just a lot more convenient. So I can see how this little glitch may enable you to play some cool character ideas - like a fireball-slinging SC Helwalker or an all-fire themed SC Paladin who can still sling some spells then. Basically you could add a (tiny) subset of wizard spells to a single class or multiclass char. Like adding half a class on top. Something like my old Engineer build from PoE times who was a Fighter who used elecricity and missile spellbindings. This could be done with a Fighter/Skald for the shock stuff and the whisp summons and then add Missile Gloves. Stuff like that. Not necessarily OP but just something different that is still viable and more importantly fun.

Thanks Boeroer, indeed I had read your detailed thread on the topic . This reminds me of how in Infinity Engine games you could replenish depleted charged items by selling/buying them back from vendors, enabling you to exploit powerful consumables like the Rod of Resurrection. Anyway, wrong game... Regarding the char export/import trick, I can see how it would be highly convenient with one of the builds that (ab)use Heaven's Cacophony. Stack two of those and cast Avenging Storm in every fight. Although, I'm with you and others on this forum that Avenging Storm is a class-defining ability that shouldn't be "democratized" via items or scrolls. But it is ridiculously strong on blunderbuss Monks and the likes as many have demonstrated before. I'm wondering with this trick, what do you think would be the most powerful/useful item to abuse the charges? The Ring of Reset? EDIT: After looking into this a bit more, I think that provided you have a build that can use it well and you are OK using it, Heaven's Cacophony is the strongest item to basically make per-encounter instead of per-rest. Even better if you also stack Stone of Power. Ah, if only you could also stack PoE1 Rings of Searing Flame...

Quick update: reinstalling the game seemed to have fixed the issue. Time now goes by regularly (5 min talking with an NPC and only one hour ingame passed). Incidentally, I also found a mod that makes the cycle longer and that I might try out if the issue appears again: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/71

Speaking of Necklace of Fireballs: In case you guys didn't know: if you have at least two Necklaces of Fireball you can unleash 8 Fireballs per encounter "for free". Just keep one charged necklace in the stash (NOT the character's inventory) and wear the other necklace. After a fight where you used charges of FIreballs just stack them in the stash, then reequip and *tadaa*: necklaces refilled to 8 charges. This works with all items that have per-rest uses or charged uses IF you can find at least two of them. Necklace of Fireballs, Missile Gloves and Stone of Power are the ones that most people find two or more of, at least if you use the Berath's Blessings vendor. You can also export a character with items such as Ring of Reset and then hire that guy with items in your actual playthrough to just take those items. That way you can turn all per-rest/charged items into per-encounter items.

I did nothing of the sort my dude. "Simply by the numbers being white is a better predictor of Trump support than either education or income" is not treating white voters as monolithic. This claim is supported by the pew research poll you linked, which not only shows Trump polling better with white people as a group than people with "some college" or "HS or less" as groups, but specifically shows that white people with no college degree favored Trump more than people without a degree in general by about 10%. ...did you read the link in "'Q' shares messages — or clues — to followers on the anonymous social media platform 8kun" in the Washington Post article you linked? If you didn't, "8chan, the anonymous message board known for propelling white-supremacist and extremist content, is up and running after being knocked offline in August. The site, rebranded as 8kun, claims anything deemed illegal in the United States will be removed." are the two first sentences.

That's not what I was doing, I was pointing out that the joke Hoon Ding made about not needing an education was misleading because the subject (Congresswoman Green) had in fact received an education. In fact I think societal education is beneficial, even if implementations of it are not good. While I doubt there's any hard data on Qanon demographics, I don't think it would be much of a reach to say it's very similar to the demographics of Trump's hardline supporters. If this is the case, then I'd argue that being white is a better indicator of being a Qanon (or whatever we're calling the group members) than education or income. While education is a massive factor among white people (a degree cuts at least 20% of Trump support away), it doesn't seem to have the same effect with people of color (who generally dislike Trump across education level). With this in mind, any attempt at combating the prevalence of right wing conspiracy theories or the embrace of "Trumpism" that doesn't take into account how whiteness is a factor in adoption is going to come up short.

I have ended up sinking way too many hours into Empyrion just doodling around in the creative area experimenting with building starships....

I don’t want to wear out my welcome here, and this may be the last thing I post to this thread. There are a lot of reasons this build is a great one to play solo, that Not So Clever Hound hasn’t mentioned. First off, the minute you hit Neketaka after launching your ship, you are level 5 or 6, and you have money from Berath’s Blessings, you can buy the two main items that make this build work: the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry and Rekvu’s Fractured Casque. (If you spent points on the Unique Merchant, “Well-Traveled Supplier,” you got some other items at 50% off in Port Maje; do get a Necklace of Fireballs, they help you through level 8 at least.) Second, even if some of the full build doesn’t come until late in the game (buffs from Outcast’s Respite, the Giftbearer’s Cloth from Fampyr’s Crypt, etc), this build is plenty sturdy and the best part, it’s “‘very forgiving.’” Once you get to level 14 or so, which doesn’t take long in solo play, you can make some of the mistakes I made, and still mop the decks with your foes if they are not way above your level: (1) explore dungeons with a torch, and forget to change back to sword and shield when the fight starts (didn’t notice the difference); (2) go into battle with your thieving gear still on (Burglar’s Gloves, Boots of Stealth, Mirrorback Cape or the later one) and never know it until the fight is over; (3) buff your skills with a Luminous Adra Potion and forget to re-injure yourself, then board Oheiro to fight about 3 wizards, a couple of priests, some rogues and chanters and fighters, realize that you were interrupting yourself with the Vaporous grimoire, and you still annihilated about 18 tough Rauatai defenders (after your crew was knocked out in the first 20 seconds). Maybe like me you’ve played a solo monk with all the monk gear, a solo wizard with Sun & Moon and Ninagauth’s Teachings, and you’ve done all kinds of party play — give this one a try, and you won’t regret it.

Is this how QAnon got started? Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.

I'm not sure it's about education. The trend I see is that the Republican party has spent a couple of decades indoctrinating its followers into distrusting the mainstream media. Lacking any other sources of reliable information, they naturally migrate toward (mostly unproveable) conspiracy theories that are easy to package and popularize. Perhaps QAnon was inevitable? I wonder if the fix could be to create reliable information sources that lack procedural bias; just relate the facts for both sides? Maybe we need an AI political bias detector?

birx is taking a considerable amount o' heat for not quitting. am thinking that is a red herring. peter navarro once admitted it were his job to come up with factual arguments to support trump's intuition. the trump administration wanted all their experts to follow peter navarro's path. while fauci were effective marginalized early in the pandemic 'cause he disagreed public with the administration, birx continued to relevant to the covid-19 taskforce. am not sure if birx saved any lives by staying within earshot of pence and meadows, but no doubt that were part o' her calculus. in the month previous to the election she were tireless traveling and coordinating with state leadership. she were trying to make a difference and perhaps she was. unfortunate for her, given how hyper polarized and partisan is american politics at the moment (relative speaking,) she made the mistake of appearing to choose the wrong side. no doubt birx saw herself as choosing to help the american people, but for too many, the failure to correct the disinformation were seen as equal complicit as providing bad information. am kinda ambivalent about birx. is unfortunate, but given a lifetime o' service to country, when am reflecting on birx, we inevitable see her squirming silent as trump blathers on 'bout disinfectant and uv light. took birx decades to create an unimpeachable reputation. reality is it required less than a minute o' inaction to gut her credibility. yeah, in the following days after corporal bone spurs opined 'bout the wonderful possibilities o' injecting disinfectant into the human body, birx maybe coulda' fixed what were broken, but she didn't. dunno. am not suggesting birx deserves better from the public or the biden admin, but am disappointed by the waste o' such a valuable resource during a time o' crisis.

I would be happy about snails, perhaps a few under the hedge and which ones that crawl up on the branches and which ones that crawl freely around the world. You could fight the snails before they crawl into the house. And when she is in the house you would have to break the house with a hammer to get her out of the house and then continue fighting her. Snails could then drop snail slime for glue traps and fragments from the snail shell for armor or a weapon.

Well, been playing it a bit on my GTX970 and it runs just fine. Not great, but fine (~30-40fps, depending on area). At least on whatever it picked as default settings for my system. Probably of note that while my GPU is old, the rest of the system is not, as I recently upgraded to a Ryzen 5900x and the game is on a rather fast NVMe SSD. GPU prices, however, are a bit too rich for my tastes right now so the GTX970 will have to hang in there a while longer. Game definitely has issues (I'm sure this surprises many people), had a bunch of CTDs already, always when taking screenshots though. So quicksave -> screenshot it is Alt-tabbing is also a bad idea as it messes things up in weird ways (eg. some controls stop working, notably had it with the sprint button, or the game starts to feel like slow motion while FPS is still fine. Stuff like that) Other than that the only bug I ran into was when there's random shoot-outs between cops and a gang, and you help the cops, they go hostile once they find one of the gangers corpses. Rather annoying but I'm just ignoring those events for now. Haven't seen anything else really weird though, aside from an NPC spawning right in my face, which, while not exactly helping immersion, probably isn't a bug either.

Ive read that one of Sputnik 5 side effects is +5 resistance to vodka. So if thats your drink you might want to choose an alternative.

HA! Good Fun!

A Giddy Anthony Fauci Says It’s “Liberating” Not to Work for an Ignorant Moron Who Lies About Everything All the Time HA! Good Fun!

The most important random video game news you will read today:

HA! Good Fun!

does bg3 include raygun wielding gnome ceremorphs? am gonna hold off on a purchase until game is released and reviewed full by folks we trust, unless it includes gnome ceremorphs. insta purchase if includes d&d version o' marvin the martian? can't lose. HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!