Vaeliorin

The beta. I've had the doorway bug during turn-based combat, but this wasn't in combat. I just couldn't go through the doorway, and trying to dimension door past it, it wouldn't let me target anywhere past the door. I couldn't cast any spells past it (I tried to fireball through the door to aggro the enemies, and it wouldn't let me.) I actually tried Toybox's kill all enemies button, and nothing died, so I don't know that the enemies were even there (I've never used it before, so I have no idea how it works.) I just cheated in the piece of a holy symbol and continued on. Just finished the Gray Garrison (where I had another bug where it didn't properly transition back to my party after showing the Areelu cutscene, so it was just my party and the wardstone in a gray void...fortunately reloading fixed that) and about to leave camp for the first time. Hopefully the future will be more bug free.

Bleh, I didn't realize that. Validating files, if that doesn't fix it, I guess I'll just cheat it in...it's not like it isn't a fight I could win pretty easily at this point.

So I found an actual, honest to goodness playing the game not just messing around with builds bug. In the market square, there's that house that has a Brimorak and some other demons in it, and I can't get past the doorway. I can get into the house, but there's a doorway just inside, and I can't move past it. I cheated in an item that gave me dimension door, and I couldn't even dimension door past it. It's like the area has no walk mesh or something. Not a huge deal, it's only a little bit of xp, but I kinda wanted the sword that you get there. Anyway, just finished the tavern defense...was pretty easy (grease is really good), but took a while. Ended on turn 34. I kept waiting for the big minotaur thing to show up, and it seemed like it took forever. Just a couple things to finish up in Kenabres (Just Woljif's quest and there one other area that's on the part of the map...the PItaxian Wine Cellar?) before storming the Garrison.

Yeah, I was more referring to the extra spells that the various classes get that could fill in holes in the Shaman spellbook. Also, in my testing, the gold dragon die size increase doesn't work. I was messing around with an Eldritch Scion Gold Dragon, and her shocking grasp was stilling doing d6's. But maybe a mod or something was interfering with it (or maybe it actually requires you to do the quests? I was just testing with toybox.)

Man, I keep finding weird bugs. In the interest of seeing if maybe angel would be better for my shaman, I was messing around with it, and somehow managed to end up with spell levels in my spellbook that only had angel spells and no shaman spells. If it had been consistent, that would have been one thing, but it was different levels of spells various times. Though, come to think of it, I remember hearing about that one before, I think...solved on a reload, maybe? Regardless, I honestly think gold dragon is better than angel for the build I'm messing with. The extra 10 base attack is pretty huge, as are the stat boosts (especially since the character is using intimidate as well...+8 Str and +8 Cha is a pretty substantial boost.) Azata and Aeon's attack boosts might compete, but loosing out on the extra power attack damage and save buffs would hurt. Yeah, gold dragon doesn't have a spellbook, but angel is the only spellbook that would really give significant boosts from what I can tell. I should really continue my current run instead of playing with builds...

My major issue with making Ember an arcane trickster/blaster is that she doesn't have any good cantrips to use, so she'd be spending most fights twiddling her thumbs once she got the various hexes/cackle going, since I hate casting spells unless I absolutely have to. Also, I'm making Woljif an arcane trickster, so it'd be doubling up. But I figured out what I want to do with her. She's on hexes/buffs/heals/dispel duty. I turned her into a Cauldron Witch (an archetype that's apparently in the game but wasn't activated), so she's able to hand out alchemical stat boosts to everyone (for class level minutes, 3 + Int mod times per day), which is nice. She's also better at using potions, so...yay? I haven't gotten myself in a situation yet where all the hexes are up and I'm just using cackle to keep them running, so I'm not sure what she'll be doing once I encounter that, but I guess she'll be blasting sometimes as well. As to the shaman spellbook bit...I think it's mostly a playstyle thing. I like characters that are useful without needing to constantly burn spells (the fact that arcane trickster makes cantrips useful in the only reason I can stand a caster-ish wizard), and the buffs available to shamans are...mediocre at best. I feel like I'd be better off with a druid or a cleric. I guess part of my problem with shaman is trying to turn them into a melee, and feeling like a turn spent on a hex is a turn that isn't killing something. I had the same problem with a shaman I played in Kingmaker, in that I didn't really ever use the hexes, I just took the ones like Iceplant and Battle Master. Oh, and looking at it again, one of the things that really kills it for me is the lack of the Fluid Magic hex (it lets you use your spirit spells in any of your spell slots.) It doesn't help that the Wildland Shaman (which I thought was the most interesting) isn't allowed to take Second Spirit. Although playing around with it more, Shadow Shaman with Stone and Nature spirits would get me improved trip and aspect of the wolf along with 6d6 sneak dice, which is an appealing combo. Especially since I could theoretically Metal Curse ->Aspect of the Wolf Trip->AoO and get another AoO when they stand up. Might have to take extend so I can memorize more than one Aspect of the Wolf...but I like it. Not sure what mythic to go pre-Gold Dragon, but that sounds pretty interesting, assuming late game stuff isn't all immune to tripping.

I think I found a weird bug, but I don't know if it's mod related, so if someone with a vanilla version of the game could check I'd appreciate it (I'd pull my mods and try it myself, but I don't have a save that's late enough game to try it.) I was messing around with a nature mage (arcanist archetype) eldritch knight trickster (I though having full druid/wizard spellbooks both based on int would be interesting to play around with), but when I started taking eldritch knight levels...it started me over with level 1 spells and I ended up with 2 arcanist spellbooks. So if somebody has a vanilla late game save where they could try it with a merc and see if the same thing happens, I'd appreciate it (I'd report it as a bug, but my game is modded, so...) Technically it's 2 arcane enforcer (slayer) 8 nature mage (arcanist) 10 eldritch knight. I don't know if the arcane enforcer matters, but...best to be thorough. I've been playing around with builds (I've got a oracle/angel run going and I haven't for the life of me been able to figure out what to do with Ember...I like hexes, but have no use for a non-arcane trickster blaster) and I rather like the idea of a trickster sword saint. Getting all the crazy crit feats plus a full wizard spellbook to back you up seems like it could be pretty good. With mythic spell combat (from tabletop tweaks) you can even use the wizard (and trickster) spellbooks for spell combat. Sadly, spell combat with wands doesn't seem to work (at least it didn't seem to in my tests) because a wand of shocking grasp to use every round would be pretty sweet. Trying to figure out something that would really benefit from gold dragon as well. I kind of think shaman (a melee shaman needs 4 stats, Str/Dex/Wis/Cha so the instant 18 to all stats would be really useful) but I hate the shaman spellbook. Had we favored class bonuses that I could use to grab some cleric spells for a shaman (as I did in Kingmaker) I actually rather like them, but without that the shaman spellbook I find rather lackluster.

Delaying the DLC is understandable (though only telling us a day before is...meh) but I was hoping 1.2 would come out today. I wanted to start a new run, but I was hoping to do so with the patch, and I don't know if it's being delayed until March 3 as well, or what. I'm not wiling to wait that long to start a new run, but I'm not sure how stable the beta patch is, or if I should just start without.

I will never understand the love that game gets. I played it at release. It was trash, and the entire game was just a damn sidequest.

Put me on the list of people with nothing they're looking forward to. If Midnight Suns didn't have RNG card garbage, I might have been slightly interested, but as it is, if I ever play it it'll be when I can pick up the game and all it's DLC for less than $10.

The people who complain about Christmas on a religious basis always amuse me, seeing as it's been a federal holiday for a long time (apparently since June 28, 1870, according to Wikipedia, however accurate that may be.) Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it.

Yeah, Wizardry 7 is one of my favorite games of all time, but I don't think I ever got close to finishing it. I always got lost in the forest area, and since it didn't have a map (until Wizardry Gold) I just ended up giving up. I can't tell you how many times I started that game over (I was crushed when we got a better computer and the game just wouldn't run because apparently it didn't play nice with the new CPU somehow...) and I think it's the only game I've ever bought 3 times (the original version, the Gold version and I've got Wizardry 6-8 on Steam.)

I am, admittedly, anti-timer in games, but I really liked the "timers" in Wizardry 7. For those unfamiliar, the game revolved around finding pieces of a map that were scattered across a planet, and if you didn't make it to the various map pieces in time, instead of failing, they'd been found by members of the various factions in the game, and then you had to get them from the factions (for money or you could just kill them.) The first time I got to a chest with a map piece and it was actually there, I was stunned, because I didn't realize it was possible (I started that game over an absurd number of times.) I always thought that was really awesome, and I can't recall any game doing something similar since.

I wouldn't say that I liked it, but I found it to be a non-issue (other than the alignment change stuff...seemed basically impossible not to end up lawful good or whatever the alignment shift for eating regular people was.)

It was pretty much mostly the traps. I really liked the traps.

I do think TW2 had the best combat. I really missed traps in TW3. I thought they were fun.

Out of curiosity, is that one going to be free as well? Dandylion really spoils us with all the free content, when I'd be happy to pay for more DLC to ensure their financial future.

Most of it. Depending on how pedantic I wanted to be, I could go on a pages long rant, including architectural errors. Granted, I've read the first book at least 14 times (and probably more like 20) since I reread the whole series every time a new book came out. It's not like I would be asking for a scene for scene copy of the books, but they could have at least kept the feel (the raucousness of the Winespring inn in the show was completely wrong) and the significant plot points from the books (such as Rand/Mat/etc. seeing the Myrdraal before the attack.)

I got halfway through the first episode and had to pause it, and when I got back, I just couldn't turn it back on. Halfway through the first episode and every single thing was wrong. How? Just...how?

You know, the show does kind of look like it's going to be terrible, but I'd forgive them almost anything if they did the right thing and wrote Faile (most appropriate name in history) out of the story.

As a Browns fan, I was going to compare Mayfield to Vinny Testaverde (for some reason I thought he won a Super Bowl with the Ravens, but it looks like I was wrong) but Trent Dilfer is also an accurate comparison. I really hated when the Browns drafted Mayfield as I felt he was too immature to be a franchise quarterback but he seems to have grown up quite a bit. I don't think he's ever going to be great, but he's likely to be serviceable (which would be an improvement for the Browns.) Injuries have been a decent part of the Browns problem, but Mayfield hasn't played very well this year (admittedly, he's injured and I honestly think the Browns should tell him to get the surgery he apparently needs and look at this as a lost year.) The defense seems to have fallen apart the last couple of weeks as well. Truth be told, I think the Browns actually really over performed last year. They might barely be good enough to make the playoffs when they play up to their talent level, but I don't think they have a good enough team to actually win. The defense isn't good enough, and the receiving core just doesn't seem to be as good in actual games as they are on paper.

Considering when I was younger, I wanted to be excommunicated from the Catholic church (I thought it would be an interesting icebreaker), I'll take it.

Exactly. I really enjoy survival crafting games assuming they let me build bases (I have spent far too many hours playing 7 Days To Die), but I'm just not a fan of open world games. At least part of it for me is being a completionist, so back in the old days it was a need to hunt and peck for every single hidden thing that drove me away, and with modern games that have everything marked on the map, it's a need to complete every single marker, even the level 3 bandit camp when you're level 20+ (at which point I get bored, because fighting trivial enemies is boring...not that most open world games have what I consider enjoyable combat. Horizon: Zero Dawn I thought the combat was pretty fun, but the enemy variety was lacking as far as I was concerned.)

This will probably get me excommunicated from these forums, but I've never played New Vegas. I bought Fallout 3 GOTY and New Vegas + all DLC 6 or 7 years ago, played Fallout 3 for apparently 10.6 hours (according to Steam) and hated the mechanics so much (I've never been a fan of 1st person games, and back then the only 1st person stuff I'd really played was Wizardry and similar) that I never played New Vegas. I've played enough 1st person stuff now that I could probably deal with it (I tried third person and it was just..bad) and I've occasionally thought of trying it, but I haven't worked up the desire to figure out what mods I'd need to install to make it run/play decently. I keep telling myself I'm done buying Bethesda games. I've bought Morrowind (hated the mechanics), Oblivion (spent more time modding it than actually playing), Fallout 3, and Skyrim (which I actually played for about 200 hours apparently, but never really progressed very far), all because I wanted to figure out why people liked them so much. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure I just don't like open world games, though I've never played one with mechanics of which I was a fan (are there party-based, preferably turn-based open world games?) Still...there's a decent chance I'll end up picking up Starfield or Elder Scrolls VI on the cheap several years after they're released.

As far as I'm concerned, the Cowboys are always the heel. I just hate the whole "America's Team" BS. I never had a problem with the Patriots, but I've always been a Brady fan, since he went to Michigan. Anyway, looks like the Browns are sinking back to their natural level of being terrible (not that I think they're terrible this year, just kinda mediocre). Not really a surprise to me, even if all the "experts" thought they were going to be contenders this year.