Gromnir

aeon is a powerful mythic path but the downside is it only becomes relative strongk once you hit mythic six. is our opinion, but wotr is most difficult early. in terms o' early game power, nothing compares with the merged spell book angel or lich. trickster is also relative strong sooner than other mythics. azata casters may be powerful early as either favorable or zippy magic is a serious upgrade for casters and the first superpower comes at mythic 4. aeon, on the other hand, feels a bit underwhelming with meh spells and ok-but-not-great abilities. however, the aeon gazes scale well, the greater dispel from improved aeon's bane is one o' the best abilities in the game, and the level six and seven mythic spells for aeon is busted powerful. oh, and the aeon's cloak is one o' the better items in the game. unfortunate, the problem with being the aeon being one o' the most OP mythics late in the game is every other mythic is capable o' being extreme powerful late in the game. HA! Good Fun!

twitter files? what were revealed in the twitter files hearings were that the proclaimed bias against conservatives didn't actual exist, the reporter who broke the story didn't actual investigate anything, and the only real pressure from government against twitter came from the trump white house. vijaya gadde, james baker, yoel roth, the twitter folks who were grilled at the twitter files hearings, all said there were no pressure from the fbi regarding the laptop story or any other o' the scary lib stories jim jordan and others claimed were censored. however, while it were an embarrassing reveal, we did learn there was pressure from the trump administration which resulted in a change o' twitter policy, which is arguable censorship but so is not what the twitter files and taibbi were trying to sell the conspiracy minded audience. https://www.axios.com/2023/02/08/twitter-executives-house-hearing-hunter-biden-laptop "I am aware of no unlawful collusion with, or direction from, any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation," said Jim Baker, Twitter's former deputy general counsel and a former FBI lawyer, during his testimony Wednesday." every gop censorship boogeyman were dispatched with similar alacrity. serious, just as with the rfk jr hearing link which am doubting 99% o' boardies bothered to watch, the twitter files hearing were a near complete bust for republicans. yeah, the fbi's monitoring o' tweets and making some admitted hairball kinda recommendations at times should be addressed, but the weaponization committee didn't delve into those issues and they didn't even try to get witnesses or experts to make suggestions as to how the FBI should change behaviors. no, the fbi didn't "demand" or "coerce" or "shut down" in regards to the undertaker parody, but am thinking is ridiculous this is the kinda thing somebody at the fbi is monitoring and issuing warnings regarding. even so, the twitter file hearings were useful in showing how as often as not, twitter rejected fbi recommendations. more than 60% o' fbi warnings were rejected by twitter. hard to show coercion when the emails from twitter folks show 'em using eye-roll emojis when internal discussing and dismissing fbi input. and speaking o' taibbi, he routine left out important details such as how when the bidens reached out to twitter to ask for the removal o' tweets, it weren't 'bout the laptop or hunter's burisma connections but rather were limited to the nude photos which clear violated twitter's own terms o' service. taibbi also didn't bother to do anything other than summarize his conclusions regarding the emails 'cause he never even tried to get comments from the twitter folks who were s'posed being bludgeoned into suppression o' speech. the following is a painful to watch taibbi response to twitter files criticisms: as to missouri v. biden, it looks like political theatre as a couple o' state ag is trying to create a cause o' action from an unsupported conspiracy theory, which is why the judge in the case has taken more than a little heat so far. HOWEVER, with the almost zero evidence offered so far, is difficult to say the case is a dud or real. IF the plaintiffs is able to prove government interference on a scale they claim, then their efforts is warranted, but so far this looks a bit similar to the idiotic election fraud cases gop state ag put forward to impress voters knowing there were no chance o' success. at this point the plaintiffs need not prove anything so the fact they hasn't is hardly crippling, but we woulda' expected something for a judge to be granting a preliminary injunction. again, has been no ruling on the merits, and have not seen any real evidence offered thus far, but is too early to be complete dismissive o' missouri and louisiana efforts. as is our habit, we suggest a wait and see approach w/o drawing conclusions from simple fact the case is in the court system. the restrict act is so not what key suggests, but it is vague to the point o' almost certain being an unconstitutional auto fail, even with the current Court. "dubbed the Patriot Act 2.0"? is like trump's "many people say." the act applies to "any foreign government or foreign nongovernment person engaged in a long-term pattern or serious instances of conduct significantly adverse to the national security of the United States or security and safety of United States persons." also, those foreign adversaries need be engaged in activities which "pose undue or unacceptable risk." for the act to be triggered. what constitutes undue or unacceptable risk? "The RESTRICT Act only has the power to mitigate extremely high-risk actions – like sabotaging U.S. tech, catastrophically impacting infrastructure, or interfering in our federal elections." restrict doesn't give the secretary the power to censor just any chinese, north korean, cuban, iranian or venezuelan content. is also no private citizen criminalization function so making the comparison to Patriot Act is based on either ignorance or willful misrepresentation. choose. next. HA! Good Fun!

is why @HoonDing mentions spell focus... and presumably spell specialization. dispel is a modified cl check. on core difficulty the boss in question is an outsider level 39, and owlcat decided that means his caster level is also 39. you need a merged angel/lich with school mastery: abjuration, spell focus: abjuration and spell specialization: greater dispel, as well as a couple bits o' gear which boost caster level, to have a meaningful chance o' dispelling buffs on the boss in question... or you need be a trickster... or aeon. obvious your azata ain't a merged spell book angel/lich. is why we mentioned how on higher difficulties for the late game bosses it isn't worth the effort to dispel. makes more sense to just stack ab/dc and add debuffs. the boss in question also shows up in the aeon mythic, so if you wanna see the battle go a bit different, you may go the aeon route and create character with high initiative and a whole lotta melee attacks. btw, for a considerable amount o' time after release, it were not difficult for an azata party to dispel all buffs o' the azata quest boss 'cause aivu benefited from the same broke maths as the azata mythic boss. aivu's dragon level were her caster level. HA! Good Fun!

we got a suggestion for the next veteran's day. HA! Good Fun!

the poblanos and jalapeños in a pazole is gonna tend towards mildness particular as the peppers gets cooked down a bit. did your daughter leave the seeds in the peppers? that would explain unusual heat from usual tame green pozole. 'course sometimes peppers is unnatural hot, particular if they is homegrown. if you pull the jalapeños off the plant from your backyard, you could end up with heat far beyond expectations. from jacques pépin we learned it is always best to taste a tiny bit o' each jalapeño, serrano or whatever 'cause is not as if peppers have uniform heat. on the positive side, now you got a family story which is more likely to endure. am recalling a family thanksgiving when a turkey took an improbable amount of time to reach correct temp. at the time our mom were kinda mortified waiting on the bird to reach safe internal temp... and she didn't even stuff the turkey which is an ordinary culprit o' prolonged cooking time. guests made jokes as the cooking stretched on and on and on and mom died a little bit every time she checked the bird for doneness. particular for mom the evening were not amusing, but years removed... in any event, sounds like your family enjoyed themselves and the meal, so all's good. HA! Good Fun!

@Sarex mentions the goggles of pure sight, which is a good for one attempt and should be de rigueur for many boss battles. brilliant inspiration, the azata equivalent, as well as the fortune hex and sosiel's luck domain ability will allow you to reroll and take the better result o' rolls including dispel checks, which is also beneficial. there is an exploit involving the fortune hex + cackle which will result in being able to extend the duration of the hex. there is an earthbreaker purchasable in act 4 which allows at will greater dispels at character level, so for a legend it becomes a bit op. woljiff and greyboar, if they ain't multiclassed, can become useful dispellers by taking the rogue dispel talent. the dispel on sneak attacks is not greater dispel but is gonna be per attack and will be based on slayer or rogue level which is why multiclassing impedes. a dual wielding greyboar and woljiff is gonna get a whole lotta attacks. am not sure o' your mythic. merged spell book lich and angel has heightened cl and lich additional gets something called corrupt magic. aeon is dispelling buzz saws... eventually. not surprising, tricksters get a cheaty skill for dispelling. legend with the aforementioned earthbreaker is win, and legend also provides one o' the few options for exceeding cl 20 as you may add mystic theurge prestige class. aside, you will face a couple boss battles in which your party buffs is guaranteed to be dispelled, so... ultimately, based on the wonky manner in which owlcat implemented pathfinder mechanics, dispel is a huge advantage if you are able to pull it off, but on higher difficulties it is a challenge to manage boss dispels unless you are a merged spellbook lich or angel, legend with the earth breaker, trickster or aeon. as such the game obvious ain't designed to make dispel required. wotr mechanics lacks subtlety and for the most part is 'bout stacking your party ab and dc to stratospheric levels and applying as many irresistible debuffs as possible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20VjisjtWv0 HA! Good Fun!

lordy. improbable, but as far as we could tell, there were not a single example of government censorship offered after more than 3.5 hours. we watched the whole thing yesterday. First Amendment applies to government limits. doesn't apply to private publishers or platforms in part 'cause those publishers also have free speech rights. furthermore, the government isn't required to provide a platform to a guy just 'cause his name happens to be kennedy. whiney nepo baby. rfk jr mentions First Amendment, but there were no First Amendment issue found. we also learned that rfk thinks that disagreement with his opinions, by means o' "targeted propaganda" (rfk jr. thinks the use o' direct quotes and uncomfortable facts is targeted propaganda) or labels with which he dislikes equals censorship. at ~4:00 o' rfk jr. opening statement he marvels that he has been called an anti-vaxxer. *gasp* moving on... we also discovered rfk jr has a fundamental misunderstanding o' more english words than "censorship," 'cause he also believes recommendation= mandate. however, am gonna observe we were shocked it took rfk jr more than two minutes (but less than 2:30) to mention his father and jfk. uncharacteristic restraint. rare does it take rfk jr so long to mention bobby or jack. ... washington dc is the one place on earth where clown shows elicit almost no laughs and regular last more than three hours. edit: most o' rfk jr bs "facts" regarding covid and vaccines is stuff he has repeated before. here is a few months remote video for anybody who is curious 'bout a quick fact checking o' claims, many which were repeated during the hearing. rfk jr. knows he is spewing bad data 'cause he has been corrected numerous times but he continues to do so. HA! Good Fun!

arueshalae is the worst kinda anime cliché, but she is highly effective as an archer who covers all your rogue needs. also, if you are struggling to deal with the stat bloat of foes, particular boss foes, the succubus is considerable undervalued and rare built to take advantage o' her most useful ability: hunter's bond. am advising demons o' magic is the category o' ranger foe you wanna keep maxed at every opportunity, and am gonna discourage multiclassing 'cause you want to max the ranger's bond as well as your access to the instant enemy spell. instant enemy transforms your hunter's bond so that it is effective against any foe; this is invaluable. with instant enemy + hunter's bond, the entire party is gonna get a considerable ab boost from arue's hunter's bond, which is also why am suggesting taking the abundant casting mythic. furthermore, the succubus is gonna have incredible initiative due to being a high dex build. improved initiative and mythic improved initiative is worthy considerations. being able to act first is a serious overlooked benefit although such will be more noticeable in tb. other than boss battles, the demon tart is predictable gonna be able to remove one or even two foes from an encounter almost as soon as combat begins. aside, being high dex means it is serious worth considering a crossbow build. am so not saying crossbows is better than longbows for the demon, but there is interesting crossbows in the game and with a full dex build you won't be sacrificing much by avoiding enlarge person, legendary proportions and the like. it is understatement to say am not a fan o' arueshalae from a writing pov, but there is no question she is effective. proof you don't need an animal companion to be useful. HA! Good Fun!

is also kinda scary that people in 2023 are only just now learning about MAD. kennedy increased the SAC commitment from one third aircraft to half and 'course the shortest air routes to the borders o' the soviet union from US air bases in north america would be to fly over north america, even with kanadian air space verboten... so, duh. takes time to get a b52 fueled armed and off the ground. takes prohibitive amounts of time to get squadrons o' b52 off the ground. if most bombers are on the ground during a first strike scenario, then not only are those aircraft useless, but 'ccording to the rational and reasonable insanity o' MAD, the vulnerability o' those b52s on the ground makes a first strike more likely. admitted the policies o' mutual assured destruction were implemented before the term were coined, but the MAD label were embraced for multiple reasons, not least o' which were the paradoxical efforts to implement an insane plan to prevent an insane outcome. in any event, this is all so 1980s. what is being taught in schools these days? @HoonDing quoting an all-time bad movie without adding the quotation marks is 2x bad form. HA! Good Fun!

am doubting an accident by key. the vernacular o' "drop the bomb" in the context of nukes is ingrained idiom at this point. however, and admitted tangential related, we will note a 1980(ish) senate report (hart and goldwater?) identified numerous near catastrophes involving false/mistaken reports of impending nuclear attack. a couple dozen. am not being hyperbolic neither. multiple situations in which somebody were literal a call away from joint chiefs of staff or the President in advising a soviet attack were imminent. eventual actual causes o' the false reports included such stuff as geese and the moon. compared to incidents regarding "lost" nuclear weapons which nevertheless had almost no chance o' immediate starting a global thermal nuclear war, the not insignificant nuclear close calls identified in the bipartisan senate report and numerous academic historical sources in recent years might be enough to cause individuals to pause and reflect on the wisdom o' nuclear deterrence... recognizing it is too late to force the genie back in the bottle. different but similar, am recalling a false missile attack report from a station in hawaii as recent as 2018 which made news. again, the hawaii situation is so not like the almost ww3 moments, but the cause o' the panic were predictable and also the most common source o' the near holocausts o' the cold war: human error. regardless, the reality o' so many near apocalypses during the cold war were hardly shocking for people who grew up during the height o' the MAD madness, an insanity we have never genuine left behind. as such, the fact trump and kennedy advocate a return to a national defense strategy dependent on MAD is genuine unfortunate. edit: am knowing the conspiracy folks love a great it can't be disproven bit, but am thinking is good to keep in mind just how many people would need be in on the secret o' lost nuclear weapons. if is a b52 then likely you got at minimum the five flight crew and am not sure how many ground crew who is gonna notice missing nukes on return o' the aircraft, plus whomever is gonna be in the air traffic control room at the time the no doubt emergency messages were incoming, plus the officers going up the chain o' command and the white house and... is possible to keep secrets in the US military, but for unexpected events in which the circle o' people with knowledge is more than a small handful, am suspicious o' the capacity to maintain a secrecy for long, much less many decades. maybe the usaf or navy keeps a few details unknown indefinite, maybe. HA! Good Fun!

the encounter(s) you reference is a perfect example o' the god-power o' reload. the seven spectres have specific spawn points, so even w/o resorting to an online guide you will eventual know exact where on the map you need prebuff. also while each spectre has a different means o' trying to annihilate your party, those spirits is consistent. for instance, the spectre who unleashes sciroccos always does the scirocco bit. this is also one o' the encounters where the bane of spirit ring is making pain in the arse battles far much more manageable. the bane o' spirit is requiring only a free action, so whomever is wielding may buff the entire party during his/her turn and the ring wielder may also do full move and attack actions during the same round. make certain everybody gets deathward and then add stuff such as protection from fire as needed. HA! Good Fun!

am not a biden fan, or harris for that matter, and am thinking democrats would do better in a general election with almost any other plausible and moderate ticket, but am admitting the following is a clever advert. HA! Good Fun!

am ordinary quick to jump on the bandwagon to criticize owlcat, but some o' the pain you feel is self inflicted, and another portion is the result o' pretending pathfinder pnp and owlcat pathfinder crpg is analogous. only being level six in leper's scar is requiring you to skip over considerable content, which is a perfect ok approach, but is also your choice. if a battle is seeming serious tough but you ain't level'd as much as possible and you skipped over content which likely provides useful power boosting loot, then you do have options to improve your odds, no? also, we wish folks would quit with the pnp level/power comparisons. in pnp the game is balanced for four person parties and not six, so throw out some o' the level math, yes? heck, if you got animal companions the wotr maths is even more broken as you may be mounted on horses capable o' traversing ladders. with reload plus adventurer gear shops aplenty, is no reason to be without scrolls and potions which is gonna serious buff your party, advantages magnified by your perfect clairvoyance which allows you to see all foe buffs and abilities. reload means even if you die once or twice, you may redo knowing exact how the battle is gonna unfold. ignore the numbers. HA! Good Fun!

am knowing many posters have an allergic reaction to any fox story or link, but this one is worth your couple minutes of time. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6331366651112 "ok, i knew this was a bad idea." HA! Good Fun!

could be a misunderstanding, but there is three separate treasure of the midnight isles quests/chains before a final boss encounter. tracking, chase and prey is our recollection o' quest titles. what you reference is likely your second run o' the prey chain o' islands, but if not... HA! Good Fun!

am only a midling fan o' star talk as topics is dumbed down a bit too much, but we always check to see who is the guest 'cause frequent there is win. case in point, am rare turning down a chance to hear michio kaku though you are gonna get better quantum computing feedback than from this video. even so, is always worth a looksee and so we do. we also regular check out berkeley lectures series lunch poems series is worth the time but am admitting we only got an average ear for poetry. in addition to the oppenheimer lectures, we ordinary catch the nimitz speakers. two others: the linus pauling memorial lecture series and for something a bit different edit: in the unlikely event @Amentep @ShadySands or other trek fans have an urge to watch the leonard susskind video, am offering a word o' caution 'cause the stanford professor tangential points out how a few o' the scifi theories which is cornerstones o' trek lore are unsupportable based on current understandings o' quantum mechanics and general relativity. HA! Good Fun!

aside, if you watch the vid in the linked thread where josh speaks about poe health/stamina you might be confused by the wound binding and field triage talents... though is doubtful many recall such board kerfuffles at this point. field triage in particular were almost useless beyond extreme early game. the poe goal o' no bad builds and no trash talents, spells or weapons were a smidge undermined by the existence o' release version field triage and wound binding. 'course is worth recollecting those talents were only added extreme late in development and 'cause so many backers howled 'bout the absence o' health recovery outside o' rest. obsidian threw players a bone and doing so resulted in a couple poe talents which were arguable trash and is doubtful many chose voluntarily. however, am gonna observe how field triage received a serious boost post release, restoring a % o' health as 'posed to a flat 50, which made it so kana were no longer stuck with a useless talent. even so, improving field triage were most assured functional running counter to the thematic rationale for no health heals for poe. for developers, health/stamina fixes were a damned if you do and damned if you don't conundrum which resulted in a thorough unsatisfactory solution which made few happy. cautionary tale. HA! Good Fun!

rare agree with kp, but this observation is valid. pathfinder, and owlcat's particular take on pathfinder, has so much utter trash spells, feats and even classes that it is easy to see why players unfamiliar with pathfinder would/could become frustrated. how many times has people in this thread alone been cautioned that their announced weapon or feat choice were objective bad? more than a couple. nevertheless, when the owlcat boards were still relative active the groupthink reflexive and beyond reason defended the existence o' trash as a feature o' wotr. unlike poe, wotr were not balanced into sterility, or somesuch. as for health/stamina... we personal don't get most complaints other than the fact it were different, but sometimes different is enough to make it unpalatable. so, no, stamina/health were not added just to create a more complex alternative to d&d health... and you not need read very far in the linked thread to see the developers were genuine dismayed that people were confused by stamina/health. were multiple thematic reasons for health/stamina as well as a stated goal to eliminate the perceived need for a healbot in the party. however, it don't matter what were the goals o' the developers if such didn't work with players. for Gromnir, health/stamina didn't go far enough as we were o' the opinion magic casting shoulda' also had a stamina cost which would prevented constitution from being ignored by casters and woulda' helped balance the relative op status o' priests in the original game. converse, most folks just never embraced the notion that health were not ordinarily addressed by magic and mundane rest were the only way to replenish that derived attribute... too different from other crpgs even if it weren't genuine complex. regardless, few were the purchasers o' poe who were happy or even satisfied with health/stamina, so am thinking it is fair to call it a fail even if the reasons it were a fail were different from individual and regardless o' the fact obsidian were not implementing just to punish players with unnecessary complexity. HA! Good Fun!

'bout five days past we made a big batch o' our ez insta pot carnitas as well as a significant portion o' texas red chill. is no more snow peas from the local farm and we just didn't have a hankering for more corn at the moment, so instead we bought a fair amount o' broccoli and spinach from a sooper market figuring we could make a bunch a salads and perhaps steam the broccoli as needed. we also have quarts o' a variety o' frozen soup which could be defrosted at need. given the temperatures this past week (the high today will be 110F and will maybe get down into mid 70s overnight,) we didn't wanna do any cooking other than microwave. nevertheless, am having gone to the fridge a half dozen times today as if expecting something new to appear 'cause we don't want anything we got and we can't bring our self to cook. tired o' salads. everything we wanna do with the remaining carnitas involves additional cooking. the chili mysterious disappeared. gremlins. musta been gremlins who ate enough chili to feed a battalion. etc. we do have an impressive stack o' homemade watermelon popsicles in our freezer. to make we combined, pureed and froze watermelon, lime juice as well as a bit o' sugar and mint 'cause the early season watermelon were kinda meh. as such am functional doing an experiment to see if am able to survive on popsicles for the next two days. ... anybody recall the miniseries, the pacific? HA! Good Fun!

irony? we don't take personal, but you making the accusation is indeed trying to shift away from discussion o' game issues to personal. bad form mate. wanna discuss how wotr or kingmaker, games which is so generic they could be set in greyhawk or forgotten realms with only minor adjustments, is somehow counter examples to the sterility o' eora and its take on zelazny's lord of light + animancy? am admitted baffled by the suggestion d&d/pathfinder repetitive prebuffing ritual, which may literal be eliminated via mods, is also evidence o' poe sterility. kinda bass ackwards, no? how 'bout explaining just what makes eora "towards" low fantasy or low magic? am not sure if there is an objective measure for what makes a magic item interesting, but we will discuss such and the aforementioned all day, even if you don't like when we call out obvious misstatements or obfuscation. however, if all you wanna do is bemoan what a meanie is Gromnir, then... HA! Good Fun!

so why wrap up in vague sterility and swiss watch observations? "towards" low fantasy? *chuckle* serious? is not gonna emasculate you to admit the real issue is the powha gulf... though if this is your roundabout way o' doing so, then good enough. HA! Good Fun!

people will twist selves in knots to avoid saying, i hate how my character feels less powerful. many gamers sneer at the munchkin label, so is understandable folks will go to comical lengths to not admit they want moar powhaz. example: poe is hardly low magic. robert e. howard's conan setting? sure. martin's game o' thrones? yup. poe is low magic compared to d&d forgotten realms, but no reasonable person is gonna list eora as low magic. and how many readers o' the hour of the dragon would ever describe the setting as sterile due to lack o' magic and groovy-kewl items? few? any? funny part is, compared to bg, iwd, and ps:t, the 1007 in poe were having more developed histories and more unique powers, in addition to a crafting system which meant you wouldn't need ditch a nifty item after a few levels 'cause it were no longer powerful enough to be worth equipping. poe were more dynamic by far insofar as magic gear compared to the ie games referenced in the kickstarter... which am gonna repeat again were only bg, iwd and ps:t. speaking o' dynamic, note how those qualities you see as positives in favor o' poe, features meant to exorcise mindless ritual and stoopid rng reloads, is reimagined by sarex as examples o' sterility... which makes perfect sense if you change definition o' sterile to mean that your character feels less powerful. can't prebuff making self immune to near any potential effect as well as raising hit chance/accuracy to levels is impossible to miss. can't reroll a few timez to get the ideal result from a dialogue or skill check. etc. suggestion: reread "sterile" as a condemnation o' the relative poe character weakness compared to expectations one has when playing d&d or pathfinder titles. however, keep in mind we ain't saying there is anything wrong with players wanting to indulge their power fantasies through a crpg avatar. the most broken aspect o' wotr is the mythics, but am hardly surprised when we read or view online critiques o' wotr which opine that the mythics were the best part o' wotr, after all, the mythics make your knight commander a unique ÜBERMENSCH. wotr, ps:t and bg went all-in on making the protagonist unique and powerful... although edwin had serious advantages no bg mage could replicate, which predictable led to complaints. in poe and deadfire, the watcher were unlikely to be noticeable superior (heroic) compared to companions and a few o' the companions could be objective better at certain roles than could a watcher. example: pallegina had arguable the best paladin powha for those wishing to do damage. we read more than one post on the poe/deadfire boards which observed the existence o' pallegina made players not wanna play a paladin. regardless, without prebuffing and various degenerative gameplay exploits, poe characters arguable felt less powerful, particular as the system were new and often opaque which meant poe players didn't realize just how strongk they could be. didn't matter though 'cause for a poe protagonist it were only possible to have a couple buffs on a party and frequent a good outcome against a powerful opponent were reliable grazes... feel weak were the problem. obsidian never claimed poe would be an idealized bg 2.5 or bg3, but such were what many expected. am suspecting for many the "can't quite articulate," dissatisfaction with poe is largely tied to an aspect few would ever wish to admit: player powha... and is nothing wrong with that, but few will admit. instead we get complaints o' sterility and swiss watches. HA! Good Fun!

as we noted earlier in the thread, "most" situations is gonna use party scores to check for skill checks. that ain't always the case. is a few outliers. so spin the wheel to predict which checks is personal v. party. HA! Good Fun!

playful darkness is not immune to fear effects. however, playful darkness does have greater heroism active at the start o' battle. you need to dispel the critter's greater heroism if you wanna intimidate playful darkness. in pnp pathfinder there is actual disagreement as to whether immunity to magical fear effects should provide a defense to intimidation. am suspecting owlcat initial took the "bravery" approach to pathfinder intimidation for wotr, which explains why the wotr vavakia vanguards were functional world beaters in the early release o' the game with only mindless undead and paladins seeming able to resist their intimidation efforts. likewise, playful darkness was not resistant to intimidation for near a year after the initial release o' wotr. unsolicited advice: if you wanna go the intimidation route, which remains highly effective, be sure to look for greater heroism and the like when fighting bosses. being able to see all opponent buffs is a HUGE player advantage in the crpg version o' wotr. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* am pretty certain the first video o' a solo kill o' the adra dragon via path o' the damned were a rogue, so... the problem insofar as s'posed weak poe classes were with a new system people failed to understand that a poe rogue were so not like rogues from d&d or pathfinder. greatest initial outrage during the beta for poe were related to the fighter, which just kinda stood in the middle o' combat and soaked up damage. everybody knows fighters do damage in combat. the poe paladin were having little in common with a bg2 paladin being more o' a support class. most crpgs has weak arcane spellcasters at low levels who then become world beaters mid-to-late game, but that weren't the case for poe as wizards started out middling powerful and kinda stayed at middle of the pack; effective but not overwhelming. if you wanted to play a poe barbarian, your most important attribute were intelligence? what? that can't be right. that doesn't feel right. etc. one o' the obvious mistakes the poe developers made were only obvious after the fact: class nomenclature created false expectations. make a game which is meant to appeal to ie fans, then create poe classes with the same names as ie classes which have attributes and roles extreme different from ie norms ain't gonna work for many fans. also, while poe2 addressed the feedback issue, poe combats were frenetic, confusing and often unsatisfactory. spell effects tended to be overwhelming particular when stacked so it were difficult to see what were happening during fights, and even if you had the game literal pause after every player or enemy action, it were difficult to decipher why a specific combat action were a success or a fail. were a party wipe the result o' rng or were it bad tactics/strategy? poe were a new system and so combat transparency shoulda' been a premium concern for developers. wasn't. note to developers: do not make your audience feel stoopid or impotent. also, as a new ip with no voluminous print history to draw 'pon, the developers were gonna necessarily be offering... less. each monster in poe were new. oh sure, poe ogres were kinda like d&d ogres (but not. we got serious slobberknockered by the ogre druid in the endless paths third level... took more than one try to get past that battle,) but it weren't as if obsidian could just port d20 stats for ogres into their new system. everything in poe were needed having start from scratch. not surprising, the diversity o' spells and monsters and everything else were a bit limited compared to bg2 or even iwd. predictable, poe felt smaller than d&d games o' similar duration. etc. however, sarex complaints is exact what were the problem for obsidian, 'cause while am sure his issues is heartfelt, they is so utter vague and ambiguous there is nothing actionable for the developer. so sarex wanted poe to be more septic and less like rolex and more like... timex? what? as feedback the developers rare got anything more than sarex kinda complaints, or stuff such as we see from kp and shady. which is not a criticism o' sarex, kp or shady. fans don't need articulate exact why they prefer chocolate to vanilla. the non specific complaints o' poe is real and represent obsidian fails to satisfy their customers. even so, not swiss watch and "i can't quite articulate," criticisms is difficult to address. 'course for deadfire the developers did exact opposite o' what the funding response suggested were a likely outcome for deadfire. the fig campaign brought in buckets o' money, but there were far fewer people contributing money for deadfire than were the case o' poe. for deadfire the developers doubled-down on distancing from d20, seeming to choose an appeal to those people who already liked poe as 'posed to trying to grow the hardcore base they had built. fig funding results shoulda' been a huge warning sign for the developers but instead they spent far more money creating a game with necessarily more narrow appeal. doomed from the start. poe was most certain not bg 2.5 or bg3. that were the game's biggest shortcoming. poe did combat different and classes different and it awarded xp different, which mighta' been ok, but fans not only believed they had been sold an ie game "spiritual successor," but the game had all the trappings and even the visuals o' the ie games while it felt to many as if the developers were unabashed crushing player expectations. there were no holy avenger or crom feyr in poe. min/max didn't have anywhere near the same payoff in poe as d&d or pathfinder, so subjective good builds didn't look much different from mediocre builds. there were a couple overpowered abilities and spells in poe, but the obsidian developers kept nerfing such stuff. the nerve. a not d20 approach were fine given the hardcore fanbase obsidian had cultivated, but they needed to tailor their expectations to the reality that as they got further from an idealized bg2 successor, their purchasers would shrink. fig funding showed there were plenty o' interest in obsidian's new ip, but management clear overestimated their capacity to grow purchasers by doubling down on what seemed to cheese off kp, shady, sarex and so many others. is worth noting there is very few o' the hardcore poe fans, people who to this day continue to post on this board, contributing to this thread. obsidan curious didn't realize how with poe they had successful created a hardcore crpg fanbase which nevertheless had little overlap with people who wanted to play games such as kingmaker. obsidian spent far too much on deadfire. HA! Good Fun!