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None of the IE games had this as a baked-in feature but, indeed, a number of mods included a component for keybinds to cast buffs by script. Unlike mods like the one linked by @PK htiw klaw eriF those mods were outright cheats as you didn't even need to have the spells prepared. You may be thinking of the Sequencer and Contingency spells in BG2, but those were very limited -so much so that enemies often ran illegal combinations by script- and best used to rapidly fire offensive spells with no casting time rather than buffing.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Fundamentally, if you want to have good combinations of choices, others need to be bad. That adds flavor and makes it interesting. I like that. However I like being given an option to correct my mistakes other than throwing 50h+ worth of play in the trash because it's where my build belongs and I cannot respec. The game does have a large number of single choices that, by themselves, are bad. And when combined are downright terrible and will completely gimp your build. That's not so interesting to me and looks more like clutter. I don't think this is Owlcat's fault, though. It has been a long-standing problem -or feature, depending on who you ask- with D&D, but the tabletop experience is quite different.

I played Firaxis' XCOM for like 3h before I threw it out. Tried XCOM2, a bit better, but still fundamentally the same game. Expansion made it better, though that was not hard. Long War (of the Chosen) is a different story. It made the game genuinely good in my eyes. They really nailed the cat-and-mouse feeling of running a guerilla campaign against an overwhelming alien occupier, and there is now an actual strategic layer to the game. Mind, it still is not a "proper" remake of OG X-Com. That niche is meant to be filled by Xenonauts. How about Aliens: Dark Descent?

I may be mistaken, but I think companion bonuses sometimes apply even in KC's dreams. The implications are... interesting.

But my internet cred! Yeah, similar experience. I've tried to get into PoE a couple of times over the years and I've always dropped it after a couple hours. And yet I'm loving to hate WotR? Something's wrong here.

ima just leave this here Politico - Rust belt on the Rhine MEFO when?

...you're not wrong. I was aware of the different buffbot mods. And the fact that they are so popular highlight an issue with the game itself, in my opinion (and Sawyer's, I guess?). But I get the feeling that they functionally take the game down to "Casual" difficulty. So then why would I not just play on casual from the start and save time? I have probably clocked thousands of hours combined on the likes of BEx 3025, LWotC, Xenonauts... but I just can't stand how shallow the combat feels in this game once you get past all the trap choices, useless spells and mandatory buffing. I'm not sure I'd dare call it bad design, but it does mean that a significant share of the "gameplay" is in the character sheet. I'm not a fan. It's funny because I'm already thinking of what path I want to try next playthrough. Heh, maybe I really should give PoE a second chance.

Sigh. I think I'm just going to turn the difficulty down to story and plow through what's left of the game to see the rest of the story. Can't be ****ed to deal with the combat. Already had a feeling that "tactics" mostly all boiled down to buffing to the gills and AoOing my way to victory when I was forced to do exactly that with Playful Darkness. KC is a Greater Dispel specialist spell master so if it's dispellable, kiss it bye-bye. Act 4 is more of the same, but somehow worse. Pathetic quasit? The azata path fight? Meh. Could go for Greater Enduring Spells so I get 24h short duration buffs and autopilot through the rest of the game, but I'd still have to go through the mind-numbing prebuffing ritual after every other rest, and I do enough drudge work 9-5. Obviously the gameplay is amazing if one enjoys theorycrafting (or copying stupid broken builds from youtube...), but that's not my cup of tea. This game has really, really made me appreciate DOS(2) combat. I should have done my research better and found out why this is called mathfinder before starting a Core run.

I just checked, you are right. Guess I mostly have myself to blame for the annoying trash then. Still believe the stat bloat is unjustified on anything below Hard, but I tend to lean more toward thematical builds than uber munchkin-ism (i.e. I might go for a rogue dip with Seelah, but I can't explain Crane monk with Camellia). Mildly disappointing to verify that in a post-SCS world, CRPG AI is still dumb as a bag of hammers, and cranking stats up to 11 is still the bread and butter of 'challenge'.

Game knowledge as opposed to general rules knowledge. It's funny because I was just upgrading that relic... it just wasn't ready by the time I did Ivory Sanctum. Perhaps it would be better if they simply relabelled the difficulty levels and Core was called something else, given the general consensus about stat bloat. A bit counter intuitive, but I don't remember what the default suggested mode is.

Fair enough. I guess I should just accept that I enjoy the idea of playing D&D-based computer games more than I enjoy actually playing them, given the focus on logistics rather than tactics, and the utter paranoia-inducing dice dynamics. I get your point about boss fights, I've had the same experience when going in with a full stack of short duration buffs and the understanding that I don't need to save anything for later. I've self imposed the restriction to only cast short duration buffs after combat starts. I play turn-based and more often than not start with a charge -affording a surprise round- so I'm not handicapping myself too much, I think. As for the crusade mode, I haven't played Kingmaker so I can't speak to how much better it is than whatever that one had. Not being "as bad as" is hardly glowing praise, though.

Really struggling to find a reason to play this game on anything above story, or without ToyBox murderhobo mode on. Random spiders with 45 AC and 20-50% undispellable concealment? Incorporeal minotaurs whose only weak spot is a +15 fort save but it doesn't really matter because they are undead so immune to 99% of effects that call a fort save anyway? 300hp "outsiders" that you can't dismiss and heal back to full after going down (effectively doubling their HP)? None of this is really hard -- I can spam hellfire rays with Ember or heightened disintegrate with KC to deal with the minotaurs for example, but I'd have to rest frequently, which is penalized by the corruption nonsense, which in turn forces me to go back to Drezen or buy sanctuaries in nearby forts... etc. It's a slog and much like the whole HoMM-lite mode, feels like it's fundamentally intended to waste my time. It's funny because boss fights are generally fun. It's some of the regular dungeon trash that I'm finding almost unsurmountably boring to get through. But in spite of the excessive timesink design, the game is fantastic and I'm loving it. Top notch soundtrack too. Just wish they didn't balance it for the solo unfair youtuber crowd or something.

RIP. Ol' Musky at it again, eh? As good reason as any to fully move to Telegram.

Didn't see a France thread. Guess everyone's tired of seeing her burn every other year? Heh. Being able to do more reps with a given weight generally translates to a better 1RM, and it will build endurance you won't get by doing the typical 3-5 rep sets while aiming for the biggest possible bench. As for the suggestion of targeting 2x BW, sure... if competition is the goal. For reference, 2x BW bench puts one in the elite category of lifters which is like the top 5%. Non-insignificant risk of a pec tear, where heavy bench pressing is overrepresented as a cause, also casts doubt on whether that's a "wiser and better use" of one's time.

Yes, it was a Newsweek piece, and similarly quoted a US official speaking on condition of anonymity. I suppose the main difference between that and this one is that the former wasn't officially disavowed by the intelligence community: After this story was published, the National Security Council sent Newsweek a statement attributable to NSC Spokesperson Adrienne Watson: "Reports that any such intelligence community assessments exist or that they have been briefed to the president are not true." Again, whether Putin is going to kick the bucket isn't the most critical question -- at some point he will and these predictions will finally come true. It's what will happen when he does. There's remarkably little reading material on that.