melkathi

Well, what spoiler free thing do you want us to tell you? So far the spoiler free verdict is: It can't be all bad, because the only thing melkathi has found to complain about so far, is the mechanic for adepts.

You get ambushed from the world map, so can't do or use anything before the fireball hits. I have given up on the game and am unlikely to return (this year). It is little things like this that kill the magic for me. Tried giving Age of Wonders 4 another chance. Absolutely like it even less than before. Biggest disappointment since Evil Genius 2.

You may not have done all the Forge quests. That fireball is impossible to avoid or counter. Even passing the Dex save, it deals at least 20 damage to an NPC with 10hp. The consensus online seems to be you need to specialise your wizard to court wizard to have a chance to keep the NPC alive. The best thing to do is just not take any of them along. I did that wizards quest incidentally. He actually tries to kill you.

We believe in you.

I quit my Solasta Lost Valley run. The low level NPC you can't dismiss is just supposed to get killed eventually and there is no way to keep them alive, because eventually you will run into a scripted ambush where your whole party gets hit with a fireball. Screw this. Devs should know better than to put players in a situation where they will challenge themselves to keep an NPC alive. If devs actually played games they would know how part of their playerbase is wired.

I am not finished with Solasta Lost Valley but I feel I should be relatively far along. I am progressing all factions at the same pace, though I guess I will be forced to choose who to side with eventually. There are far harder encounters than in the base game, I feel. Or it is a bit less linear and you run into encounters you aren't supposed to be able to beat at the time you can first find them. It isn't necessarily bad, but some encounters definitely could have used some tweaking. The campaign likes giving you NPC's to tag along until you complete their quest. So I beat one encounter by having double the party size, with a higher level wizard and barbarian than my own characters tagging along. The problem with NPCs in your party is that they gain no xp. But right at the start of the campaign you get the option to hire one of three NPCs to help you, and they never level up and you can't dismiss them. So I have a rogue with 10hp following me around - every combat I try to run her away so she doesn't die... If I were to restart, I would not take an NPC along.

Democrats are hemorrhaging votes over this, so he has to

My priorities are: 1) People not getting killed right now 2) People not getting killed in the future. So a fluff piece about making this seem like a liberation where Jews are finally allowed to pray again is offensive to my moral compass.

Slowly playing through the Lost Valley in Solasta. I am not feeling as connected to the new party. Annie the rogue had developed quite the personality through the main campaign and dlc, which nobody in the new party is reaching yet. Only Chrisophage, the impatient and constantly annoyed dragonkin paladin is standing out so far. It is interesting though that with just a simple system they got me to compare personalities in a player created party. It is a bit refreshing that I haven't encountered any Soraks (yet).

The important news out of Gaza according to Google Discover: https://m.jpost.com/judaism/article-772218 Just to get this discussion on track again. You all have lost sight of what truly matters.

There is punctuation in the announcement that he has no rights to zero punctuation. Makes sense.

I randomly read the first book this summer. The aes sedai lady (can't remember any names of any characters (goes to show how much I enjoyed it)) explains to the young women that basically the whole village healer / midwife role helped the old healer before them control her magic, and guide them to control theirs in turn. I guess quite a few female wilders would fall into similar roles in other villages - becoming the wise-woman without anyone, not even themselves, realizing that this role and all that comes with it, provides the structure they need.

They managed to discredit themselves completely now. The US sends a nuclear sub to prevent further escalation? How many people will read that as "If you try to stop genocide, we'll nuke you" ? But extremely scary is also what this means about anti-semitism. Netanyahu and his ilk managed to make it extremely hard to explain antisemitism: Jews kill babies? A Zionist conspiracy controls the world? How do you explain to people that is racism when they can point at the thousands of Palestinian children killed or at that Yale professor keeping a list of what companies didn't side with Israel, the watchdog groups demanding people get fired for being pro-Palestine (mind you, the Apple employee did sound like a Nazi)? Anti-Semites can rejoice: they seemingly get all their hate justified, and a lot of good Jewish people around the world will pay the price for a long time. For the first time since I am in tourism did I have Israeli guests ask what restaurants in the neighbourhood were safe for them to eat in. And I am back out of this discussion. Just had to vent somewhere. P.S. With the US stepping up military funding of Taiwan, let's hope we don't get a discussion going about a war there soon. Seems right up Biden's agenda...

So it is good? I just noticed Verena wrote this one. Which is interesting as I thought Jonas wrote the first one and they are married. Kinda makes me want to overcome my dislike for the type of game and play through them to compare the styles.

I can try: You have very reasonable, good, quality doubts. You are not alone in your doubts. Your doubts are shared by others, even in this community. Your doubts do not make you a bad person. You may try mantras like these to help you accept your doubts: These are my doubts, There are many like them, But these ones are mine. I am at one with my doubts, That are with me on this adventure. This is me breathing.

For some reason the game always chooses these two to have the banter:

Finished Solasta: Palace of Ice It was fun with a few more enemies, some choices that matter, and a superfluous cold mechanic. The story was fun. I enjoyed it. Also, as Annie the rogue would put it: Because there are choices, the ending also changes a bit based on those (mainly who rules the Snow Alliance at the end). There are a couple obviously wrong choice (at least one anyway). But some choices I would have expected to show up in the ending slides but didn't.

Freelancer?

At least it was someone who's name starts with M. So it may have been an act of username-first-letter-solidarity (or UFLS).

@BruceVC Neocore said I should tell you the King Arthur turn based tactics game is 40% off. They said "tell friends and loved ones". To which I replied "don't have those". To which they replied "well what ya got?" To which I replied "dunno? A Bruce on the obsidian forum?" To which they replied "That'll do. Tell him."* *Discussion may not have happened like this.** ** or at all

And it's silly easy to do. All you need to do is have the conversation grab a random character name from the party, similar to how NPCs use player names in other interactions. Mind, I'll be very disappointed if there is an NPC I forgot and they were referring to her.

I had a discussion with two NPCs in Solasta, about soraks, ancient ruins, fireballs, the usual. A few times during the discussion, with my sorcerer taking the lead, the NPCs referred to someone named Annie, who had told them about my party's exploits and about soraks etc. I hadn't played in a while... So I said "I need to check who Annie is" said I. Sorted my inventory, who would carry which magic item - the usual. Hadn't played in a while, as I said. Suddenly realise that Annie is the name of my rogue (the one who insists on separate beds at the inn). Turns out my rogue talks to the npcs on her own before the party goes to talk to them as a group. No wonder she keeps quiet during discussions and skulks in the background