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Shadowrun 3 tripack (return, dragonfall, honk kong) on GOG as freebie. Dragonfall is an interesting tactical crpg. The other two had less magic in my opinnion, or just miss the combination of freshness and refinement.

The Shadowrun Trilogy is currently free on GOG.

Black Geyser is finally up on Steam. Hope several of you will wishlist it to boost attention to it. It is going into EA. Expand the EA section on the store page and read it. There are great details there about what the devs intend for the game before final release in Q1 2022. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374930/Black_Geyser_Couriers_of_Darkness/

The last Argentine exocet also went to the wrong spot, due to a good bit of British disinformation, so it was never even in a position to be used. The latter ships sunk were all done by dumb bombs (all iirc from ancient, even then, A4 Skyhawks). Probably would have been fewer ships sunk if the BBC hadn't mentioned that the bombs' fusing was wonky, so the Argentines fixed it. You'd have thought the Royal Navy might have learnt from that not to have BBC journos on board in case they said something they didn't like but it seems not, given recent events in the Black Sea.

I know I'll never get around to it, but I wanted to design four subclasses. -------------- Rogue - Thief: Gains bonuses to Rogue skills (Mechanics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth) on start and at PL intervals. Disadvantage: Lower Fortitude or Will; receives a small incoming damage increase (5 percent?). Because of Sleight of Hand (needless skill), it's tough to evenly assign abilities that would suit a Rogue. This would help bridge the gap. The biggest bonuses would come at PLs 7 and 9 to encourage single classing it. The disadvantages would be minor and easy for the player to manage. ---------------- Rogue - Bounty Hunter: Gains PL bonuses to Explosives and Mechanics (+3 each seems fair since they're both lousy by default) on start and learns free abilities at PLs. These abilities would focus on ensnaring enemies, disruption, and traps. Stuff like: Lasso: A ranged pull effect; same as Lurkers' vine snare. Bolas: Ranged knockdown that deals Crush damage with an Immobilized follow-up. Fragmentation Grenade: AoE that deals best of Slash/Crush damage, has same effect as Expose Vulnerabilities. (-2 AR, -10 Deflection) Hallucination Grenade: Aoe that inflicts Confusion, Flanked, and Shaken for a modest duration; deals small amount of Raw damage. Black Powder Mine: Seal ability that deals Burn damage, Hobbles and Blinds enemies. Affliction duration and damage are low but the effect pulses. Pitfall Trap: Seal ability that triggers a pulsing knockdown effect similar to Slicken but with added Piercing damage (and a shorter duration and AoE). It would be interesting if the traps and bombs could have additional scaling from Explosives and Mechanics but I'm not sure if this is possible. Disadvantage: Lose access to all Rogue Invisibility abilities; -15% Stride. The Bounty Hunter is always equipped with noisy, cumbersome gadgets and doo-dads. Lay down a trap and a Seal during Stealth, then pull a vulnerable enemy into the stacks; or use group ambush tactics to set up battlefield control. --------------- Wizard - Arcanist: Gains +1 Wizard spell cast per PL. At PLs 7, 8, and 9, respectively gain an additional spell cast for Wizard spell levels 1, 2, and 3. +2 Arcana Disadvantages: Cannot use Grimoires. Pretend Rekvu's gear and Blood Mages don't exist. This is basically the D&D Sorcerer brought to Deadfire: an arcane caster naturally attuned to magic that lacks formal training: a hedge wizard. The PL bonuses would work as auto-passives per PL, so the extra casts would be granted after reaching a new PL (meaning it would get two casts at PL9 single classed, PL7 multi). Sadly, you wouldn't get to use unique spells from Grimoires so the Arcana boost is there to add scrolls into the mix. --------------- Barbarian - Outlier: Shout abilities gain effects used to destroy the essence of magic. Gains "Magebane Strike" at PL2. Upgrades to "Magebane Collapse" or "Magebane Ambush" at PL 5. Disadvantages: Loses access to Carnage and abilities that inflict or modify Carnage (Barbaric Blow, Accurate Carnage). Frenzy loses Fit inspiration. Cannot use scrolls. All shouts gain a brief (4s base, scales with PL) beneficial suspension effect ala Arcane Dampener. The base duration is low, but I thought it ok since shouts are cheap to cast. PL 5 Shout upgrades gain a lesser Concussive Tranquilizer effect (-20 seconds to beneficial duration); PL9 upgrades enhance this to -30 seconds and apply an additional interrupt after three seconds. Magebane Strike: Full melee attack, Interrupt on Hit, Veil Piercing, +25% damage, +10 Accuracy. Costs 2 Rage. Replaces Barbaric Blow. Upgrades to Magebane Collapse: Full melee attack, now interrupts on Graze and removes enemy Concentration. +1 PEN. Replaces Crushing Blow. Or Magebane Ambush: Full attack (melee or ranged), lowers duration of (flanked) enemy beneficial effects by 30. +1 PEN. Replaces Barbaric Smash. The idea was a revamp of the Mage Slayer, which was a meme on launch and remains to this day (Eric Galad's awesome mod makes it better). Instead of strictly slaying mages, the Outlier goes after the essence of magic itself and works as a tear down class: something reserved for Wizards and Rangers in Deadfire. ----------- Other than those, some odds and ends like merging Arcane Archer with Ghost Heart (Checoden's mod did the same with Sharpshooter) or smaller difficulty tweaks that are easy to implement.

UFO/UAP report released today and summarized below

Sure, I suppose I can fire up hairbrained pixelated classic RPG for $1.49, certainly no harm in that! Let's see if I can actually beat one this time, without amphetamines electrifying my brain.

AoT s4 (the final season): time skips and more child soldiers, still the same show. I'm looking forward to being done with it. Next up for me is LoGH and then I don't know what else. A big ball that makes the area hot and shoots fireballs at some guys crossing the desert on camels after their trip to Egypt got disrupted several times.

Noticed that Notepad++ got a dark mode, so that has made my day.

I have managed to get pretty much everything working (Preview video under the spoiler) with the mod I posted about, but have been hung up for several months now on an inconsistent audio issue with a couple of the lines. The following video contains spoilers for a scripted interaction that leads into the final act of Deadfire, as well as mention of one of the end game decisions of Pillars of Eternity 1! As mentioned in my last post the mod works by changing the SpeakerID for specific Narrator lines in the .conversationbundle of a scripted interaction. It is indeed possible for the game to actually use audio files based on the Player Character's currently selected voice set. This is done simply by replacing the "SpeakerGuid" for the lines with the unique GUID that corresponds to the Watcher ("b1a8e901-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"). This means if the Watcher is using a custom voice set that has those audio files the (Spoiler) can actually sound like the Watcher during the interaction. Additionally since no audio files are actually replaced, if the mod is disabled the audio will revert back to Ashley Johnson's narration (or silence in the case of the No Narrator mod). The plan once I have worked out the aforementioned issues would be to add the audio files as an optional extra to my pre-existing custom voice mod, and release the modified .conversationbundle as a separate mod. That way it is easy to toggle in the options menu mod manager, and open to others to use if they want to do the same for their own custom voice mod! 😄

You can think about the possibility to add the split screen from the same console or pc to play the adventures of the Grounded. I think it would be an interesting feature to add and not just the possibility to play online with our friends. What do you think about this idea? Greetings.

Episode 4 of Love Live! School Idol Project was a bit weird, because the fanservice just crept into the character stuff. At least I really see no other reason for that girl fight over the shy one who wants to join the group but is too, uhm, shy to do that. They're kind of fighting with each other over who of the two gets to drag the shy girl to the band to sign up. The composer of the song is called Maki, the shy girl is Hanayo and her childhood friend is called Rin. So Rin and Maki drag Hanayo to sign up and join as well. There's some weak justification for the fight over Hanayo, she talked to Maki earlier and Rin seems a bit jealous, but eh... that's... nope, that's just there for the viewers to see two girls squabble over a third one. Beats the other scene where Honoka's sister, wearing only a towel, was pleading with her breasts to grow a little. *headscratch* You know what's the worst part about all of this? So, @Bartimaeus, once you're done with the original CCS and maybe want to check out Clear Card regardless of me finding it to be disappointing, let it rest for a while. Like, long enough for nostalgia to kick in.

Go ahead, I'm not trying to discourage you and I think I've stanned JoJo enough for it to be clear I love it. If you like it you may just want to skip the JoJo anime until Diamond is Unbreakable (s3). That part is almost entirely like the filler stuff you liked about Sailor Moon, and the main villain is David Bowie with a weird fetish. Speedwagon, Baron Zephelli Von Stroheim, Smokey, the Pillar Men, and half the stands are missing from the OVA. But at least Jotaro still throws a dog at a disabled man.

I like to think that liberty is a love of freedom balanced by a dose of mature responsibility. Just because one was vaccinated and has been careful to follow quarantine procedures does not mean one hates freedom.

just in case it wasn't on top of mind (didn't see it mentioned here) - deleterious alacrity is an insane survival spell for wizards if you can micromanage. sure it gives you action speed which is nice, but swift = doubled movement and can't be engaged (even if the game erroneously shows a red line indicating you are engaged, there's no consequence ot you moving out of melee range). if you manage to step away from a melee enemy just as they are winding up an attack (e.g. their action circle is filling up, they're not in recovery), you can make their attack miss (in combat log it is "(out of range)"), and then you can just step back in for your own attack. because you can't be engaged there's no way for enemies to punish you for doing this. if you have gear/abilities with riposte functionality, this is also a easy way to proc riposte a lot. (rannig's wrath doesn't have a riposte, but has a very similar effect that you could trigger like this). edit - forcing a melee enemy to miss like this may even trigger the small shield's binding block modal!

The main places that will be really concerned about it are places without endemic covid, like here. 'Reopening to the world' has largely been sold here on the basis of 95% effectiveness of the vaccine giving herd immunity, if it's 80% against a significantly more spreadable viral variant that 80% may not actually be enough for herd immunity.

Sounds like you hate freedom.

Compare it with the flu vaccine, that's only ~40% effective at stopping infection, but it also reduces the incidence of severe infection even in the 60% that gets through, and that's enough to be worthwhile. You're still ~8x less likely to get covid when vaccinated than not going by the Israeli figures, and that isn't even taking lowered severity into account.

To me: yes.

Woohoo. no release date but still woohoo

It's still very much JoJo, so Kon's involvement may not be a game changer for you.

Mockingly said. Basically meant to imply "people who might know these things better than me, but also possibly complete idiots", .

Q. Reddit scientists? 🤓

Since you wanted to build a good Rapier user in the first place I wouldn't spend many points on spells. Instead I would make a collection of useful grimoires so that I can cast most spells I want from those books and only pick a few spells that aren't covered by the grimoires - or which I want to always have access to. Then I'd put most points into passives and some fighter actives. If you wanted to stack crit chances you missed Disciplined Strikes' 25% hit to crit conversion (you took Tactical Barrage). DS would stack with Merciless Gaze and One-Handed Style (not additively but still very nice) and you can get Smart by using Infuse with Vital Essence instead (no +1 PL from Acute though). I personally would def. go with a small shield and pick weapon & shield style. The good thing about Battlemage is the ability to stack very high deflection numbers and since deflection has increasing returns you should substitute that with a shield. Also kind of stacks with the "no flanking malus" from Squid's Grasp. The +12 ACC from one handed usage and -style are nice - but later in the game not as impactful as the added deflection. And you'll have plenty of conversion from Disciplined Strikes and Merciless Gaze anyway. Good fighter abilites that I would never skip as a Battlemage are Armored Grace (with Devil of Caroc Breastplate and a pet like Abraham you'll kind of have no recovery penalty but good AR and also +2 Discipline. Also looks rad on a fencer imo), Unbending, Refreshing Defense (it stacks with most of the Wizard's deflection buffs except Llengrath's Safeguard), Superior Deflection (if going for high deflection to start with) and such. Especially with Wall of Draining having Refreshing Defense and Unbending makes you almost unkillable (except one-shots) which is very powerful.

No deleterious alacrity? i personally think some mobility will help, dependin gyour difficulty (enemies may make it hard to get into position for some of your offensive spells). bounding boots, the 4th tier teleportation spell [can't remember name], or charge for fighter would help. there's also a unique spell in zandethus's spellbook (spindle man in delver's row has it) that's worth keeping an eye on for a melee build, because it provides two different 15% lashes and terrifies enemies that hit you.

Stats are ok. Personally I would go with lower resolve and higher int/per. For a melee monk Enduring Dance isn't worth investing because it won't last very long and doesn't stack with Exalted Focus. I would pick also Enervating Blows in order to keep my target afflicted and be able to drain health. Uncanny Luck is pretty worthless, it's better to pick Tough to compensate the low Con. Rooting Pain is free AoE damage and since you will generate wounds like crazy you should also pick it. Inspired Defenses doesn't help if you aren't a tank. Scion of Flame is good only if you pick Sacred Immolation and Brand Enemy (which are by the way very good choices for a monk/paladin since the monk can remove the self damage from Sacred Immolation using Clarity of Agony).

Home for Windows 10 is like, the free edition. You can't even use Group Policy Editor on Home. You get what you pay for. ...On the other hand, this is undoubtedly just further pushing Windows to eventually drop local accounts outside of specialized business editions (e.g. LTSC) at some point altogether, so I guess I shouldn't be so blase about it.

I gave it a try, but noticed just now that there is a headspace in the convo portrait. Sorry. Maybe you can adjust the image size and crop it to get rid of the headspace, but that would lower its resolution a little bit (I didn't save the original edit. I am just starting to tinker with these watercolor portraits. My mistake.)

Needing an MS account is irksome.

A few details about the Zircon missile... range around 1000km, speed mach 9, payload approx 300-400kg conventional or nuclear warhead. Depending on how it's deployed, leaving defending ships as little as 20 seconds from detection to impact (the window they have to do detect, evaluate threat and destroy it)

Dr Crusher is killing it

Just to re-ignite gun control discussions..

Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, Syndicate Plus, and Syndicate War are going to disappear from GOG on June, 28th. If you have already purchased them, they will remain in your library. Otherwise this is your last chance to get them if you want them. This isn't GOG's decision, the publisher demands it.

I'm playing the Steam Sale Forge Your Fate choose your own adventure game. It's better than Anthem.

I bought Andromeda for 7,99€ or something like that. Thinking, "it can't be _that_ bad...". We'll see.

math is hard

If I can't make a character that looks EXACTLY like Private Vasquez then this game is an automatic fail. They have her bandana, which is a good start, but it sucks that they are holding it hostage as a pre-order bonus.

They have the legs for it.

EU: Socialist China: Communist US:....sinking ship? xD