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Why don't the women who are scared of rape and murder simply declare themselves to be transgender men? Problem solved.

Andrea Dworkin might have been onto something when she said the right wing conservatives (men and women alike) define womanhood through the ability to whelp. Since trans women are by definition unable to do so, they're basically a threat to the definition of womanhood, and through that, women - wich means for the conservative men that they threatened their women, who no one else is allowed to threaten their women but themselves. That's a bit like why conservative Christians dislike Muslims even though they basically want the same thing: for the womanfolk to stay at home to cook, whelp and rear their children. Since they cannot deal with the cognitive dissonance, they don't even notice or double down on their viewpoints. Hilariously exemplified in one of the interviews I saw with an avid MAGA cultist who stated, on camera, that he's with President Trump on the Muslim ban, because Muslims don't respect American women. All the while wearing a t-shirt with Hillary Clinton's likeness on it, reading: TRUMP THAT BITCH. Meanwhile anti-trans thought also finds purchase in feminist circles because they're seen as men threatening what they fought for. This is history repeating itself insofar as feminists originally tried to exclude lesbians because they were seen as a bunch of butch dykes and feminists did not want women who look and behave more like men than women to be part of their group. Ultimately, even modern feminists still struggle to define womanhood outside of what tradition dictates. Sure, the more radical elements have their girl bosses, which are basically women who adopted toxic masculinity, which is an incredibly self-defeating solution for a movement of a gender suffering immensely from toxic masculinity, hence the rise of various counter-definitions (including the tradwife, which loops neatly back to traditional role models). Then you have, of course, the elements who chafe under homophobia no longer being acceptable in modern society and simply supplanted theirs with transphobia. That is why you get exactly the same arguments against transgenders as there were against homosexuals (and lesbians). Verbatim, even, at times. They make all our children gay when they're allowed to teach. They pollute the children's minds, making them want to transition. Now that we have accepted homosexuality, there's suddenly so many of them. Now that transgenderism gains acceptance, people identifying transgender suddenly tripled. Now you might want to say: but, but, but @majestic, you only talked about trans women, what about the trans men? Yeah, what about them. They get caught in all the negativity and anti-trans legislation, but let's be real, it's the trans women who are the targets. They tickle fears of being trapped in conservative men, they are visible reminders of the self-loathing of conservative men who wank to shemale porn and are ashamed of it, they're seen as a threat for women and they're the targets of feminists who see them as encroaching on what little they can agree on that defines a woman, and by extension, that also garners the attention of the moderates. I mean, honestly, if a lot of well known women like J.K. Rowling think that trans women are just men wanting access to women's toilets and locker rooms to rape them, there just might be something to it, no? Meanwhile the trans men, they're seen as what? Taking the girl boss a little too far? At worst, they're targets of more radical feminists who see them as traitors to their gender.

once i finish out my first run this is high on my list of things to test out. i've been operating under the assumption that it's like New Vegas, with DR first followed by absolute reduction, which is what Sawyer actively worked on and was a deliberate reversal from Fallout 1/2 (absolute reduction followed by DR).

Hey @Boeroer, I'm not sure your availability as of this message, but I was wondering if the forums were still chugging for you right now or if they happen to be stable. I noticed my phone getting alerts between 12:30 and 12:45 showing the forums going up and down multiple times, so it looks like it was pretty unstable around the time of your post (maybe a tad before). I'm curious if the forums struggling then happened to be the culprit. Otherwise, we have been trying to help boost the server allotment to help accommodate the large influx of new users and unregistered guests as we were reaching nearly 2k concurrent users which with 60k queries per minute at times which was stressing the server. We've also been deleting some bad actor IPs we suspect of attacking the forums to leave room for all you good actors to do your thing It's currently looking like we have about half as many users right now as compared to the 2k peak, so I'm hoping the forums are a bit more stable for you now (as they are for me at the moment) than they were earlier, but I'd still be curious to know. As for the reacting to posts failing @Chilloutman and Boeroer, is that a consistent issue you are noticing or is it seemingly random? Thanks a bunch for the reports and for helping us to make the forums a more enjoyable experience!

Just to continued a conversation from a blog post... @kanisatha Thanks for the heads up. Sadly, I only have two of my old boxes of Avalon Hill games that survived more than two decades of constant relocation left, being "Flat Top" and "Wooden Ships & Iron Men". I always hoped those would some day get good computer game adaptations. The former being especially "taxing" by the sheer amount of literal paperwork involved. For some good free PC games designed by Gary Grigsby, the current IP owner (Matrix Games) have made "Pacific War" and "War in Russia" (WWII games) available for download for free. Even if designed in the Dos era of PC's, they ran on Windows 11 last time I played them. Took a moment to mentally separate SGS from an old favourite of mine, SSG (Strategic Studies Group), who made the first 4X game I played in the mid 80's, "Reach for The Stars". Sadly Microprose is no longer what it once was. They made some great strategy games besides flight sims, going back to the early Commodore 64 days and up to the PC era. Edit: Being part of my gaming experience on both C64, Amiga & PC Today I play a few older Paradox titles, like Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 3 and Hearts of Iron, as well as a few of Matrix Games titles, "Gary Grigsby's War in the East" and "Gary Grigsby's War in the West". I will check up on the SGS games though edit2: Something I didn't mention is, I still play a lot of the old C64 and Amiga games on emulators. Mostly a few SSI games on the C64 and an Amiga version of the Battlemech board game (yes, turn based on a hex pattern map, doesn't get better than that!)

I'm at the point where I'm supposed to bring Yatzli to Ryngrim's Domain. I can't get her to use the Dispel Illusion Command to progress. The option is just not available no matter what angle I try to hit the target. Please help.

So numbercrunchers and theorycrafters. Let's get this forum rolling. The amour reduction. Is it absolute numbers first, then percentage reduction? Or vice versa? I'm to lazy to test myself

You know, the sign on the bathroom door is the only thing that keeps us safe from rape and murder.

Having the same Issue, exactly. Ive sent in a ticket to Obsidian. Its a shame, was having a blast but refuse to load an old save just to try and maybe fix this.

This is strange. As long as you won't force the game to display an item tooltip the quality of such item isn't determined. I went for the purple chest from treasure map near the river and didn't even look at the shield nearby, I went back there later and picked excellent unique shield. Also I didn't point any chest with unique items before I was ready to pick them up. Maybe loot is determined in the moment you "look", I mean - point at the chest, close enough to saw opening interaction popup. Maybe even if you didn't open the chest, game already determined what's in the container. When exploiting scaling of unique items I didn't find any Item with lesser upgrade. Every item was at +0/3. So Stelgaer's Pride with +2/3 looks odd.

My assumption given by the fact that it says "+10% beneficial effects duration": I intend it as all effects, also the current ones. Anyway, if you "clean" all effects after a combat, the problem doesn't arise

Hey @SChin, did a little testing, loading up a bunch of threads in multiple tabs and so on and also using the phone - and now the forums work fine again for me. The reaction thing with the posts can happen from time to time, but it only happens very rarely for me - except for the last two weeks or so where it happended more frequently. But today I didn't encouter that problem yet.

The fix is in! ... ...let me rephrase that...

Well, I won't expect anything then I reported the bugs in the official patch thread, both here and on Steam, I hope Obsidian sees it as with some bugs reported in this last patch and at least put solution to the bugs I could consider more serious, the DoT related ones at least.

@PK htiw klaw eriF https://sabukaru.online/articles/sabukaru-meets-the-berserk-team

I moved this topic to the new "Character Builds" forum as it seemed more on topic there. If that's not correct let me know and I'll move back to general.

Judging by official patch notes, none of the fixes from UpMod were included. I haven't played PoE1 for few years, and haven't tried the last version of the game with CommunityPatch mod. It will either load and work fine, or will crash instantly or soon enough. I am not sure yet if I'll have the time for that. If it will be enough to recompile - then maybe. But no promises

Hi MaxQ, this patch of yours, is it still relevant with the current beta patch? i think some of the problems are still unsolved, but some of them have been fixed in the current patch? or can it be used safely? in fact, it will work for the current version of the game? i think the beta patch has changed the version too, and i think that's precisely what makes the patch not working, a couple of comments just above me confirm that it doesn't work currently, could you fix it if possible? it would be a shame to lose a patch that fixes several bugs.

I recommend that all players who are experiencing this bug, send a support ticket to Obsidian.

I made it a bit further than this point and mine eventually bugged where I cannot progress either.

Experiencing the same bug. Used shadowing beyond to sneak behind skeleton and now Yatzli can't dispel :(

I am experiencing the same bug. I was able to load a previous save, but I lost 4 hours. I am going to wait for a patch and put the game on hold. I hope they fix this issue soon. Been having a great time playing Avowed. Drak

I am also facing the same issue. Cant use Dispell Illusion to pass, and the quest is saying that I need to talk to Yatzli. Cutscene was interrupted due to skeleton attack.

If it matters, I was trying to sneak up on the skeleton for a stealth kill and it went into a cutscene. After the cut scene, I killed the skeletons. Since I couldn't get in, I figured maybe there were side quests that needed to be completed before I could proceed, so I went ahead and knocked all of those out and it still doesn't work.

FYI, for anyone else experiencing this issue. I was able to resolve it by updating to the latest AMD Adrenaline drivers. https://www.amd.com/en/support/downloads/drivers.html/processors/ryzen/ryzen-7000-series/amd-ryzen-9-7940hs.html I installed the 25.2.1 drivers, but it's possible the 24.12.1 drivers would have done the job. This may not help everyone, but it seems like most on the thread are AMD at least.

Nope. Still unfixed, unfortunately. I'm stuck out of the game because of this. I wanted to start a new game a while ago, and I wasn't able to because my collector OCD wouldn't let me play without the bonus items. The issue is both on Steam and GOG, as I own the game in both platforms. Latest news I got was, the devs knew about the issue and were going to fix it with their next patch - which they didn't know when would be out. Turns out, it's been seven months and still nothing. And my hype to start a new game just vanished. Oh well.

======== Alistair ======== ~the Trickster Prince~ -------------------------- Class and Specialization -------------------------- MindStalker: Cipher (Beguiler) + Rogue (Trickster) Wood Elf: Resistance to Dexterity afflictions Origin: Old Vailia Background: Aristocrat -------------------- Stats: M/C/D/P/I/R -------------------- 16/10/15/15/17+1/04 Notes: ----- I prefer Beguiler since I'm more concerned with casting Control skills than with dishing out damage. Rogue on its own provides most of the damage needed and Arterial Strike (Crippling Strike upgrade) and then Killing Blow does most of the work damaging an opponent while the damage bonus from Trickster Sneak Attack (+20%, later Deathblows +50%) and Beguiler Soul Whip (+20%, +10% under Sneak Attack conditions) makes this unit's AA powerful enough on its own. The Rogue skill-tree exists primarily for its passives--'Persistent Distraction' is powerful in melee (-10 Deflection, +1 Engagement, no defense check) and the Trickster's class spells augment the Beguiler's power and flavor quiite nicely. I am aware that Beguiler is an unpopular pick at the moment, but I will make the distinction that, compared to the other three classes, Beguiler is useful and powerful as a function of volume rather than strength. Bear with me as I explain. For this purpose, I'd like to make a comparison between Ascended and Beguiler. Unlike Ascendant, Soulblade and especially Psion, Beguiler benefits not just from a better Soul Whip (+50% although it is locked behind a Sneak Attack condition), but also from being able to frontload its spells whereas the others have their power backloaded. Unlike Ascendant which needs to build up its focus painstakingly and with a massive disadvantage, the relative DPS of a Beguiler is much more consistent and with about 10~ focus resotred on Hit per Hit at level 15-20, it's easy to get enough Focus per cast in order to cast high-level spells consistently. The only time when Ascended does take over would be during through the Ascended buff and even then not by much. They get the full Soul Whip bonus and a +3 to power level but the amount of time to get there is much slower unless when taking advantage of AoE attacks. Trickster, on the other hand, is chosen both for the utility gained from their bonus spells and the offensive power of both the Rogue abilities and the bonus from Sneak Attack. With this last, the build gains at least (1 + 2.10)x damage to its Auto-attack from the collective benefit from Rogue's Sneak Attack + Deathblows (20% + 50% +x% from PL scaling), and the bonus from Biting Whip and the Bonus from Sneak Attack to Soul Whip (20% + 10%) not including any bonuses from items. Sadly, these bonuses only apply to auto-attacks and weapon-based attacks. I am unsure if the bonus from Soul Whip applies to the Rogue's Full attacks but it should not be too much of a problem considering the above par margin on damage these abilities gain simply from a combination of Sneak Attack and Dual Wield. On the utility side, the build gains bonuses not just from its free spells but also a plethora of other utility skills from Rogue Cipher such as Persistent Distraction, Hammering Thoughts, Gouging Strike, Cipher Afflictions, etc. These range from the extremely useful Llengrath's Displacement, to the powerful but niche Ryngrim's Visage. Alternatives: ------- Some of the better alternatives to this build involve exchanging Trickster either with (1) Assassin or (2) Debonaire, the first to take advantage of any invisibility the build might obtain through its abilities while the latter is best paired with double Blunderbusses in order to take advantage of the party-unfriendly modal available to the Blunderbusses ========= Synergies ========= The usual opener I'd suggest would be (Secret Horrors) + (Phantom Foes -or- EyeStrike) Blind is one of the most powerful afflictions in the game since it not only reduces a two defenses but reduces the enemy's max range and accuracy. Frightened does two things, the first is that it reduces the Will defense and lengthens the duration of Afflictions and similar status ailments. Since the Beguiler bonus works with Body and Mind Afflictions, Casting Secret Horrors first and then EyeStrike should net the Cipher a good bit of Focus for future casts. When going melee, the following is recommended (Llengrath's or Mirror Image) with Wael's Sceptre + (Borrowed Instinct) Based on this, https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/104896-the-big-post-of-stacking-rules/ it should be possible to stack the above for a total of +30 Deflection and +30% Hit to Graze conversion from both abilities. If one's defenses are sufficiently high, Mirror Images would be a better pick clocking in at +50 Deflection add in (Body Attunement) + (Tactical Meld) if Accuracy or Armor is insufficient. Body Attunement alone is pretty useful even when ranged while Tactical Meld is useful for engagement. That said, (Tactical Meld) + (Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage) + (Persistent Distraction) is a good way of getting free Disengagement Attacks for bonus damage if surrounded. It should be noted that I get almost no damage skills, but a few could be useful. Amplified wave should be easy to cast consistently with the Beguiler bonus and barring that, casting the lower level spells like Ectopsychic Echo and Mind Blades should be easy. There are others but these, I think are the best. ========== Equipment ========== --------- Weapons --------- Set 1: Rannig's Wrath + Tuotilo's Palm -or- The Best Defense Set 2: Watershaper's Rod -or- (Fire-in-the-Hole + Hand Mortar) -or- (Wael's Sceptre + The Best Defense) Set 3: Whispers of the Endless Paths Armor: Honor Guard Breastplate -or- Caroc's Breastplate -or- Miscreant's Leathers Notes: ----- (1) Weapon swap is recommended when using the Trickster spells--which, incidentally, is probably the most annoying aspect of this setup. The melee weapons are the main source of DPS; Hand Mortar has AoE for Focus generation and AoE distraction; Wael's Sceptre grants +2 Illusions Power Level and 10% chance to become invisible on crit (backstabs); Current's rush has y% Crit guarantee ramp and z% Crush dmg on crit. (2) The build can make for a very good off-tank since the Cipher spell 'Borrowed Instinct' (+20 ACC, +20 all defenses) and the Trickster access to Mirror Image (+30 DEF) and Llengrath's Displacement (+10 DEF +20 REF, 20% Hit to Graze) [these two spells don't stack] makes for a very durable off-tank. (3) There's an interesting interaction between Wael and Current.Current makes it so that both Sceptres trigger their on-crit effects. Try to get Backstab from Rogue to make the most of the free invisibility. Otherwise replace Hand-Mortar with Eager Blade (4) One important thing to note is that the Rogue afflictions will transfer using AoE weapons. This is where the double Blunderbusses come in. Using these Blunderbusses, you can transfer Gouging Strike to a large number of units so that they will suffer from AoE bleed. This usually helps clear out waves of enemies especially in PotD since Gouging Strike lasts until the end of battle. (5) Caroc's Breastplate would be the best armor to use on most occasions but I prefer Honor Guard just for looks. ------------- Accessories ------------- HGr: Heaven's Cacophony (+2 INT) Amt: Bauble of the Fin (+1 INT, +1 CON, +3% Damage Aura) Clk: Giftbearer's Cloth Blt: Sash of Judgment (+10% Damage above 50% Health) Bts: Footprints of Ahu Taka (+2 DEX) Glv: Aegor's Swift Touch (+1 DEX, +5% Action Speed) -or- Hylea's Talons Rn1: Chameleon's Touch (+1 INT, +1 PER) Rn2: Entonia Signet Ring -or- RIng of Clenched Muscle (random afflictions and random inspirations on hit) Notes: ----- These Accessories focus on giving additional Hit damage and utility instead of direct stats. The rest focus on improving defenses or Damage. =============== Level Progression =============== This section has a tier-system to facilitate the creation of a list of recommendations for the build. Recommendations are ranked according to priority starting from a rank of (1) onwards with (1) being the highest priority. Cipher is marked as (C) while Rogue is marked as (R). So a first priority skill from a Cipher will be indicated (C) while a second-priority skill from the same class would be indicated (C2). (1) Eyestrike (C), Crippling Strike (R) (2) Soul Shock (R) (3) Penetrating Visions (C) (4) Draining Whip (C), Two-Weapon Style (G) (5) Phantom Foes (C) (6) Blinding Strike (C) (7) Secret Horrors (C), Gouging Strike (R) (8) Hammering Thoughts (C) (9) Recall Agony (C), Weapon and Shield Style (esp. when using "Tuotilo's Palm" or "The Best Defense" as shields) (G2) (10) Body Attunement (C), Persistent Distraction (R), Riposte (R2) (11) Withering Strike (R) (12) Silent Scream (C) (13) Ringleader (C), Deep Wounds (R) (14) Borrowed Instinct (C) (15) Tactical Meld (C) (16) The Empty Soul (C), Toxic Strike (R) (17) Amplified Wave (C) (18) Improved Critical (R) (19) Ancestor's Memory (C) Deathblows (R) (20) Stasis Shell (C) Notes: ----- As can be seen from the distribution, there is an emphasis on getting important Crowd Control spells from the Cipher tree as opposed to the usual damage spells. Due to the benefits to resource-volume from Beguiler, Amplified Wave is sufficient in its role as main DPS source and combined with Sneak Attack and Deathblows by Rogue (+70% Sneak Attack damage to Spells) one would need little in the way of DPS in terms of spells. Feel free to take DPS spells along the way. Stats can always be re-specced so its no real burden on the build. One thing to look out for is the fact that this build specializes in single-target damage. AoE Damage is best delivered through weapons since these benefit from the bonus ailments and conditions made possible by Rogue. Otherwise, the build still performs well as an AA build with the combined effect of Deathblows, Biting Whip, Persistent Distraction and Borrowed Instinct. Take note that I don't take the lower level Charm spells. First, one can take them at lower levels then spec out of them upon reaching higher levels. Second, consider that Ringleader does most of the work of those spells only better and that you can opt out of any earlier build by paying the innkeep. Third, while those lower level spells are fun to spam and undoubtedly powerful (charm is powerful in general), one can easily do without them. There's the not-so-good reason that it would be a waste of a Charm spell if it stands in the way of your AoEs but by far the best reason is that there's already a higher level spell that does most of the lifting. Ringleader does for AoE what the others can only hope to achieve and with better range.

I have, uh, on occasion, posted strange music videos in this thread, but what YouTube suggested to me right now is, and this isn't the usual @majestic hyperbole, I would say, like, probably, totally, like... I mean, there's no way around this, this is worse than anything Scooter made. Excuse me while I'm trying to stem the blood flowing out my ears and gouge my eyes out.