rjshae

The comment about a young Max von Sidow seems spot on.

Is it hidden behind the Spoilers?

With Josh out of the picture, I'm almost expecting the isometric troupe-style fantasy crown to pass to another game company. Possibly Owl Cat Games or Ceres Games.

I'd like for the higher level abilities to be so rare that you need to complete difficult, possibly extrapalanar quests to track them down, or else obtain the favor of a deity or a powerful entity.

Awesome job Mehico...

This match (P v. S) will be tough to top.

Your math seems squirrely to me. In both cases the damage is reduced by 25%.

What's a Cuckropan?

*COUGH*No spoilers*COUGH*

I hope their priority is patching bugs.

A person who finds the whole patching/refinement cycle unbearable can always just wait. There's plenty of other fine games out there to enjoy.

I don't see many appealing matches in the Group stage. The best look to be Portugal v. Spain (6/15) and England v. Belgium (6/28). But perhaps there will be a surprise or two? Maybe Mexico v. Germany or Costa Rica v. Serbia?

In fairness, that letter written by Sawyer is framed in a very biased and inaccurate manner. For example, he statement " Which set of changes do you think I heard more feedback about? If you guessed the marginal drop in proc rate on the soulbound item that had only worked properly for two weeks, you’d be right." is...intellectually dishonest. The dagger in question had it's proc rate dropped from 10% to 3%; that's not "marginal", that's 2/3rds of it's bonus proc percentage. But acknowledging that doesn't hep the narrative Sawyer is trying to frame, so he implies that it's a smaller change than it actually is. The whole thing is full of stuff like that; it's not an honest discussion of why Sawyer believes these things so much as it is a justification for his view of game systems. I have to disagree, and you prove Josh's point about feeling losses more than gains nicely in a way. In cognitive psychology there's a concept called loss aversion that fits this behavior in a fairly nice way.

Particularly freakish party members would require a lot more reactivity for proper immersion, which would likewise raise development costs. It's probably better just to leave them as potential crew members.

I suppose they could implement a dynamic zoom-in that starts you at the same zoom as outside, then adjusts (zooms-in) to the room dimensions. Would that preserve the immersion?

Spoiler warning?

Do you suppose developers add "cut content" easter eggs just to befuddle the inquiring mind?

And not just D&D, but the rather constrained AD&D version of the system used in Baldur's Gate.

Selection bias: the barbarians and rogues you encounter possess these abilities. That's not a random sample.

My understanding is that this only applies to beings whose souls are not "fractured". For most of the population, these powers are beyond them as fracturing is a cumulative process during the recycling of souls. Hence, you and your party are (supposedly) relatively uncommon in possessing these abilities. This makes it akin to possessing superpowers in a heroes campaign.