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Dope practical effect from "Sh! The Octopus" (1937). Apparently achieved with the help of being in black and white - makeup that wouldn't look any different than normal in black and white under a certain light and then you change the lighting mid-scene so that the makeup will show up. (e): lightning -> lighting

Well he reads enough to reference JoJo memes in the titles.

Black and white film allowed for and required some color-trickery too. Look at the set of the original Addam's Family: That's pretty wizard!

I dont know if this is La Palma but it sure is pretty.

In Dark Heresy, we were confronted by a door. We began breaking out the shotguns to breach the door when the DM said "Did you try the handle?"

It's not out of the question. If nothing else, I could always go back to the motherland.

Sadly, it's a problem that is neither exclusive to Britain nor a consequence of Brexit -- though obviously HM's Government's lack of foresight and utter lack of interest in managing Brexit has only made it worse. The best example of this incompetence is the 5k visas they are offering where it's estimated that they need 100k drivers. Money's not terrible either -- ~£30k on average from what I read, for a job with a fairly low entry barrier. Conditions are grueling of course, and there's the risk of the whole thing being automated in the future, rendering drivers obsolete overnight... before 2030. https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-looming-truck-driver-shortage-trucker-haulier-brexit-hgv/

J. Michael Straczynski Explains Babylon 5 CW Reboot (gizmodo.com)

They didn't complain about three pages of autobiographical posts as long as they were mixed with Sailor Moon postings, so eh... Like any good moderator should. I always hated it when mods locked threads or warned people for going off topic, there's a reason why you can split and merge threads. It's called doing your job.

Reminds me of the combat xp grind in kingmaker and then leveling off of skill checks.

Defeating it and then receiving all of 34 XP (or somesuch ridiculous amount) feels like a major post-battle insult, though. Makes no sense at all, that.

Given that JMS is behind it again, I'm okay with him doing it.

Went to the dentist for routine cleaning and check-up (no cavities) then took my car in for service (no cavities there, either).

For me it's neck and neck with TNG. I think TOS had much less frequency of bad episodes (accounting for it being half the size of TNG), but TNG had more episodes that were very memorable and good. DS9 takes the top spot, Voyager hits number four (and is a big drop off from the others), while any other series I don't like enough to watch.

A little nerd humor...

By this time tomorrow I'll be in Wisconsin. See you guys later!

Consider that his phantasmal killer. In hell. That pounce shouldn't be underestimated.

I believe Triumph of the Crusaders gives Strong and +80 health on kill while Champion's Boon gives +3 engagement (and other stuff)? But yes, that would work as well.

Dunno if off tanking while dualwielding melee + aoe mortar can be a thing with riposte/cleave being full attack. Marux amanth (with modal on) + hand Mortar (disorienting cone attack on crit). Pirate vibe. Get a priest for triumph of crusader (+3 engagement & heal on kill).

Keep in mind that in order to get sufficient engagement you either need Guardian Stance (no Cleaving) or stuff like Hold the Line + Persistent Distraction and items (such as Reckless Brigandine and/or Blackened Plate Helmet etc). I often enough settled for the easier Guardian Stance because Cleaves are not great with WotEP in the first place (low base damage). With another Great Sword that might be different (because higher base dmg where the Cleaving becomes more interesting). One can also switch stance + weapon as soon as only few enemies remain.

That sounds really neat. I will go for an Unbroken/Trickster main with Great Swords. Switching to Shield if I feel like I need the bonus engagement slots. Thanks @Boeroer

I wouldn't say that Riposte is better. It's a completely different thing. Besides that Disengagement Attacks have big inherent ACC and damage bonuses that Riposte doesn't have. Those bonuses stack with everything else (Sneak Attack, Deathblows etc.). Unbroken even has absurd +10 PEN on them. With Overbearing Guard they become truly devastating (especially with a Two Hander). You can combine all three. Of course enemies who are terrified won't attack you (so no Riposte) and enemies who attack you in melee won't trigger Disengagement Attacks. But having the ability to deliver Ripostes when enemies attack you while being able to deliver disengagement attacks as soon as they flee is cool. The best imo. One of the few weapons that grants deflection. Offensive Parry and Riposte stack (both can get triggered by the same miss). Offensive Parry works with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming, it generates wounds for a Shattered Pillar (Riposte and Cleaving won't) and also focus for a Cipher (iirc Riposte and Cleaving won't). You need to lean into deflection though. +Defl.-bracers, -armor, -cloak, Entonia Signed, max RES and so on. The more the better. Defenses have increasing returns - you are lacking a shield and must compensate. Unbroken/Trickster with WotEP/Offensive Parry is one of my favorite (off)tank melee builds because it deals god damage while recovering (via Offensive Parry/Riposte), while attacking (obviously) and on Disengagement (trigger terrify as soon as you don't need to keep the mob together or once you get pressed too hard). The auto-daze of Offensive Parry helps a ton with survival. Bloodmage/Steel Garrote also great - but more as a very sturdy casting machine (Offensive Parry leeches health automatically because it dazes - which can be used for Blood Sacrifice all the time). Even Shattered Pillar/Soulblade which gains focus and wounds just by parrying which can be dumped into stuff like Raised Torment and Soul Annihilation all the time - while Offensive Parry triggers Swift Flurry Chains often enough. If you use Nomad's Brigandine (also gives deflection bonus) and enchant it with immunity to Disengagement Attacks you can break engagement deliberately and trigger a 100% miss (immunity just turns all disengagement attacks into misses) which will proc Offensive Parry (and potentially Riposte). That's why it's my preferred armor with most WotEP/Offensive Parry builds.

I would probably disagree that "someone" is turning this into an unnecessary crisis. I would argue, a crisis is never necessary As for reasons, yeah, I did check The Guardian later, who had a few numbers too... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/24/what-is-causing-the-uk-crisis-in-petrol-supplies How bad are the lorry driver shortages? The industry estimates there is a gap of 100,000 lorry drivers partly due to Covid and partly Brexit. About 25,000 HGV drivers from the EU left during 2020 and did not return, and there is a backlog of 40,000 waiting to take their HGV tests. The Road Haulage Association says the government is not taking the problem seriously enough. “The average age of a truck driver in the UK is 57, every day this problem is just getting worse as more and more retire,” said Rod McKenzie, managing director of policy and public affairs at the RHA. Hey, @Keyrock ever fancied moving to Europe???

Disengagement Attack = primary Riposte = full Cleaving Stance = full

Muh Boys are putting the finishing touches on a hellacious asswhooping of the Iggles and the other 2 division rivals both lost yesterday, good times. I figured Philly would be our challenger for the NFC East this year, but after how we just stomped them... Granted, it's early in the season and a lot can change, but week 3 is where I usually start to get a feel for the pecking order in the NFL. I gotta say, I feel pretty good. Our only loss was to the defending champions in a game we could have, maybe should have, won and we got a win against a Chargers team last week that I think is pretty good. Giants are 0-3 and just lost to a Falcons team that I think is in the bottom tier of the league, the Redskins don't look much better, and the Iggles didn't bother showing tonight.

I am just going out on a wild limb and guessing that the HGV companies underpay.

Slight spoiler but you don't lock in your path until the end of the second chapter after you

The UK is feeling various aftereffects of Brexit... besides food shortages and unrest in Northern Ireland, they now also face fuel shortages: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58713770 "If required, the deployment of military personnel will provide the supply chain with additional capacity as a temporary measure to help ease pressures caused by spikes in localised demand for fuel." Tl;dr; The UK is running out of truck/lorry drivers to move the fuel from the fuel terminals to the retailers

I wonder if he'll throw ideas from Crusade in that blender...?

I knew most of them, more or less. The board definitely needs a discussion on Sieverts vs the plethora of other measurements used for radiation measurements.

I played it solo as Not So Clever Hound recommended. It's not exactly a tanky build, but relies more on stealth and smoke cloud when the aggro gets too tough. You could use this build in a party as an off tank, however. As for the trickster/FF shadow dancer, that is much more tanky. The trick here is using both the trickster's defensive abilities and also to have high RES, which you need to keep the FF curse to a very short length. You can also use Magran's Favor in the main hand and tuotilo's palm in the offhand, with both modals on. You'd want the weapon and shield style as well. The idea here is you would rarely auto attack, and instead mainly use the FF attack, which when you crit can proc swift flurry or heartbeat drumming using your mainland weapon.

Yeah, especially when you're just playing on "normal." I'm not even quite half-way through the main story yet I think. But I'm a stubborn jack--- and I am going to get all my fave artes to star-3 or 4 at least, darnit. I spent days and days and days killing that giant damage impervious mech in FFXV so I could have 6+ of the top accessory (on console no less) and this game's grind will not defeat me! Besides, I have the perfect spot for farming skills on mobs over and over. (you don't get much XP btw for repeated farming, purely about lvling those artes...). edit: on the bright side, all the things mobs drops is making me 'rich.'

https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-grew-marketplace-to-1-billion-users-now-scammers-are-using-it-to-target-people-around-the-world

Not sure if this should go into funney or music...

Now it's only 30 years away.

Hey you guys are awesome! Everyone of you. I’d be proud to call any of you a friend.

Not ruling it out but it’s way too early for that! But I’m definitely going back up next week. This time she asked me to stay with her. We’ve spoken almost every day!

I called Gail last night. We spoke on the phone for three hours! Haven't done that in a hell of a long time. Conversation with her is effortless. Just now she texted me good morning. I'd say those are pretty good signs.

It should be the same - you're definitely verifying that you're not just missing (via combat log)? There is a very occasional issue with effects that travel like that, where the AoE that gets drawn when you're aiming doesn't precisely correspond to the reality of the level geography. The most common culprit are elevation changes - the drawn AoE definitely doesn't take into account inclines or elevation changes, but for many traveling effects a slight elevation bump will really change how it goes. A related and less common, but still damning, issue is that obstacles that don't affect the drawn AoE may still affect the actual spell effect. I haven't used twin stones nearly as much as other spells, so there may be bugs unique to it, but the few times I used it, it functioned like PoE1/

I'd probably be forced to join the people who were murdered faction. My weapon would be the stench from my rotting corpse.

Partial Extract of FAQ (Frequently Anticipated Questions) from the README: Q: So why does this mod exist? A: This mod exists because if you piss off each of the factions enough by getting 3 ranks in "Bad" reputation with them, an EXTREMELY high level ship will spawn on the World Map with the express purpose to hunt you down and try to kill you. And some folks want to be able to fight them without having to get the -3 rep with a faction. Q: Okay, but why would I want to fight these folks then? A: Because you like the challenge of fighting a level 17 through 20 ship encounter, but don't want to burn your bridges with a faction to do it? Okay, the REAL reason is that in the case of three of these factions fights (VTC, Huana, Principi), you can get a unique item from those fights, which otherwise is unavailable as even getting a couple of levels of "Good" will lock out these ship battles and their uniques. So if one wants to get these items without completely pissing off a faction, then this mod is for you. Plus, as I said, there are folks who like to have more ships to fight on the World Map. Q: Hey! I'm not always getting a unique item from a fight! What gives? A: During my testing, I found that occasionally I would not get a unique item I was supposed to during a ship fight. Checking the code, it appears that these items are supposed to drop 100% of the time, so it looks to be either a bug on Obsidian's end or there is something else going on that I can't figure out. Since I can't find out what is going on here, I would suggest saving your game before engaging with one of the ships that has a unique item as loot and reload the game BEFORE the ship combat started should you not get the item that one is supposed to. Q: Can I use this mod in a game already started? What versions of the game does this work on? A: Sure can! Though if this mod gets updated at any point, I can't guarantee that all changes will be applied in an ongoing game, as Deadfire can be a bit finicky about some things when it comes to how ships and NPCs operate. As for game version, I started testing this on 1.1.1, so it should work there. I have fully tested this on 1.2, and am releasing it with 1.2 as the current version of the game. Q: So where can I find these ships? A: You can find the ships in the following areas: VTC (Estulario Parfitto): Will be circling Maje Island. Huana (Whenena Eel's Kiss): Will be circling Neketaka Island. Principi (Arterio the Avenger): Will start off at near the island that has a permanent storm next to it, sail to Dunnage before headding through the the Karatapu Channel near the Oathbiner's Sanctum before heading back to Storm Isand to start its route over again.* RDC (Hazanui Yaro): Will sail near Sayuka and then stay there. *NOTE: The Prinicpi ship occasionally seems to stop on the World Map for no apparent reason for a period of time. So it might not be 'on patrol' for some games, but it should be found somewhere roughly in the route described above. If you have already fought any of these ships for any reason they will not spawn should you install this mod after that point in your game. Q: Any plans for the future for this mod? A: Not particularly. One of the reasons why I waited so long to release this is I want to look at most of the angles and only release it when I was fully satisfied with the result. If I can figure out why the ship captains aren't always dropping the unique item they are supposed to in combat and fix it, I'll update to mod to fix that bug. Aside from that, I *MIGHT* look into releasing another version of this mod where folks can pick and choose which faction ships to fight, if I can make sure there aren't any conflicts. Mostly though it'll just be squishing any bugs which might pop up and keeping the mod current with the base version of the game.