Gromnir

is three days a year am ok with neighbors setting off fireworks w/o any kinda notice given until 12:30am: new years, chinese new year, fourth (fifth) of july. keep in mind we got a dog who is terrified by fireworks... and thunder, large planes, and even heavy wind/rain. terrified is understating. even so, am understanding 'bout fireworks for three days outta the year. we figure just 'cause our dog has issues or 'cause we need for sleep before work there is nevertheless an unspoken compact 'tween neighbors which implicit requires us to put up with some stuff we don't like if only 'cause there is a chance one day we will do something our neighbors don't appreciate and a bit o' reciprocal understanding would be welcome at such times. converse, fireworks a week before and after the 4th? fireworks at 2am? am an easygoing person, but there needs be limits. HA! Good Fun!

crazycakes is 99% good enough to disarm traps and open locks. few wotr traps is genuine lethal regardless. is also maybe a couple chests where your main character will be solo, thus the 99%. if you are genuine concerned, put one point in traps and with skill and dex boosts you should be able to overcome those exceeding rare obstacles. however, spotting traps and hidden stuff is the other aspect o' the thief skills. perception is also a useful dialogue skill. ideally your main character should have high perception, but most perception checks is gonna be overcome by your party. wotr offers multiple party npcs who may achieve high perception, but if you got them positioned at the rear o' your party, they may be poor situated to spot traps before your vanguard stumbles across 'em. regardless, we would say if you are willing to suffer camellia for the entire game, she should be satisfactory at handling "rogue stuff." HA! Good Fun!

depends on your chosen stimulant/depressant: alcohol: cayden cailean psychedelics: desna coke: gorum meth: lamashtu weed: gozreh caffeine-- to stay awake in anticipation o' fighting undead during the hour of the wolf: pharasma all of the above: rovagug HA! Good Fun! ps elf + coke and psychedelics: calistria

happy 4th. HA! Good Fun!

too bad, but this is one thing owlcat got right. the reality is, you identify a pathfinder problem which owlcat translated accurate. go to the paizo forums and look for complaints about sword-and-board v. dex tanks, particularly on levels past twelve or so. pathfinder tanks is so not like mmorpg tanks which is designed to facetank bosses, and sword-and-board is arguable the worst tank option. especial with wotr and epic opponents, a pnp sword-and-board tank is gonna get hit more often and have less party utility than a dex tank. is not a bloat issue or even an owlcat implementation issue 'bout which you rail. is a whole lotta stuff owlcat does wrong with wotr and their pathfinder implementation, but the diminishing value o' sword-and-board tanks were a paizo problem long before owlcat began breaking things. HA! Good Fun!

stat bloat is not necessarily the problem. pnp pathfinder is designed for four person parties and there is no reload, so even if owlcat made some effort to balance the game, bloat would be a likely fix to the advantages a Crpg player enjoys. also, the "general consensus" is not what you assume. the owlcat forums get little traffic nowadays, but during the beta and immediate following the release o' the game there were some activity in spite o' the complete absence o' developer feedback. again, stat bloat isn't the real issue 'cause is not all encounters which is problematic. if were all, then you would simple drop the difficulty slider a bit and everything would be swell. the problem is the difficulty spikes related to specific encounters, and not all such encounters is predictable boss fights. even so, at the owlcat forums, the "general consensus" were that if you saw a problem with playful darkness, blackwater or baphomet, then you were playing the wrong game and maybe you should try mario kart or something similar instead. and keep in mind that the game is easier today than it were at release, particularly if you have the additional dlc loaded which results in your party being overlevel'd and over geared compared to original release parties. of the handful o' balance fixes owlcat bothered to implement, most have later game impact when you are likely roll-stomping regardless. example: aivu were nerfed, but you only get aivu at mythic three and the changes didn't have much impact until she hit mythic six or so. the stat bloat was a crude way for owlcat to deal with player power and for most encounters that ain't a problem, but 'cause the game appears designed to scale down from unfair, numerous encounters on more reasonable difficulty tiers are prohibitive challenging for players who has not invested hundreds o' hours in the system 'cause the normal encounters nevertheless require exploitive behaviour. sure, on core or normal you don't need all the exploits, but you are gonna need a few to overcome playful darkness. nevertheless, we understand the owlcat approach 'cause a simple numerical approach to adjusting difficulty is not resource challenging. the owlcat approach is rational and reasonable even if it punishes casual players. what is curious is the indifference and even applause from the fanbase as 'posed to a general consensus o' complaint. HA! Good Fun!

which is better: cake or pie? HA! Good Fun!

observation: the battle with jeslyn is also more difficult if you do not have the aid o' the inquisitors. HA! Good Fun!

#1 complaint o' all the ie games were regarding difficulty... some folks said too ez and others too hard, but difficulty were always the most common issue. #2 (or #3) complaint o' bg were all the emptyish maps with endless mowing to find brief and pointless hobgoblin/wolf/whatever encounters. wasted hours. (not immediate relevant, but #3 or #2 complaint for bg were the underdeveloped joinable npcs, which were also obvious addressed in bg2) durlag's tower from totsc were kinda the first expression o' bioware's solution to the complaints 'bout bg monotony, and most fans responded positive to durlag's tower maps and encounter density/types. the walking speed of parties was not increased until bg2, but durlag's represented a serious improvement based on the preponderance o' boardie feedback #1 complaint for bg2 was difficulty. #2 complaint for bg2 were the lack of bg-style exploration. no win. HA! Good Fun! ps (edit) am gonna observe how the first time you played wotr, chances are you didn't know which encounters were critical. yeah, jeslyn (grey garrison) swarm lady had a key you required, but you didn't know she had the key until you killed her, yes? we didn't know playful darkness were optional, not the first time we encountered it. the midnight fane in pnp were much different, so we had no useful guides.

the woman with the scythe who summons the swarms luckily has not great initiative, and thanks to the ritual which functional perma hastes your party at the start o' your grey garrison attack, it is relative easy to rush her before she can do anything save buff herself. we always have at least one dog, wolf or leopard in a party, so chances are she is tripped and then subsequently eliminated before she can do any damage to us whatsoever. on the other hand, othirubu, the alchemist, is the grey garrison encounter which gave/gives us the most trouble. those blinding bombs are no joke. even after multiple replays we need be extra careful with the alchemist encounter. particular at the lower wotr levels, depending on your party composition and typical strategies, difficulty is gonna be subjective. we literal have only two different winning approaches to the unfair water elemental encounter from the shield maze. one option requires a leopard animal companion and the other depends on kiting and a whole lotta luck. HA! Good Fun!

xp cap for bg were 89,000. totsc raised it to 161,000. so your vanilla bg fighter could reach level seven, and eight with totsc. and bg were pretty freaking long, much longer than it is today. people don't recall how the walking speed outta combat were increased with ee and mods. HA! Good Fun!

good ideas frequent run up against player expectations. for example, the poe wilderness encounters you mention were original intended to provide 0 xp 'cause the whole point were the implementation o' quest/objective xp as 'posed to per kill or per action xp avoiding predictable degenerative gameplay. 'course people complained so obsidian provided small xp for kills up to X number o' lions, xaurip priests or whatever. no xp meant there were no point in killing and you could simple avoid most such filler combats. 'course people also demanded xp for exploration, so players nevertheless reflexive scoured every inch o' every map and years o' learned crpg behaviour taught players to kill all monsters 'cause you never knew when that pack o' wolves might be right next to a rando rock with a hidden magical doohickey. instead o' avoiding the pointless filler combat in poe, people went ahead and engaged mass slaughter mode regardless o' the absence o' a meaningful payoff for such an approach and then complained at being insufficient rewarded. sure, not all poe filler combat were avoidable, particular in the expansions and the hastily cobbled together endless paths, but the game provides a great example o' how player expectations derail a good developer idea. remove 2/3 o' wotr combat and more than a few maps become barren wastelands, which means you likely make maps smaller further reducing gameplay hours 'cause less o' the exploration is needed. anybody doubt a pathfinder game where you reach level 20 and mythic rank 9 or 10 after a couple dozen hours would enrage the hardcore fans? that's not how it were done in baldur's gate. HA! Good Fun!

were abnormal cool and wet in san diego this winter, but is generally one o' our favorite towns in california. is also one o' the better destinations for dining in california, although is tough to beat the bay area for food options. furthermore, usd and point loma nazarene college is two o' the most gorgeous campuses we has ever visited... though point loma calls self a university as 'posed to college these days. we never turned down opportunities to visit either destination. HA! Good Fun!

been down this road more than once. optimization is not needed, which is why @majestic and Gromnir disagree on arue builds and likely have very different end game parties. in fact, am not sure we ever genuine optimize. however, there are a handful o' exploits, items, abilities and whatnot which is so disproportionate effective you are likely to see builds which include such at higher difficulties. how many people doing unfair skip having a character with high wisdom and the community domain? you don't need a character in the party capable of casting mark of justice, but am suspecting most do. you don't need camellia or ember to do hexes, but... similar, Gromnir almost always has sosiel in our party and he is either taking one level o' thug ('cause as far back as we can recall, in pathfinder there were a running joke 'bout being able to fear lock asmodeus and similar entities with intimidation, y'know, 'cause da rulez,) or crossblood sorc to cast ice spells... neither o' which is gonna be considered optimal builds by most folks, but we breeze through the game on hard difficulties and am able to do all boss battles on unfair. an optimized enchanter capable o' taking advantage of the best joke exploit is not gonna be starting with a skald, but we had great success going that route. we like hand axes for dual wielding... 'cause. we never drop intelligence to seven with a human character. etc. optimization is so not necessary even on unfair, but there are exploits, items, schemes and abilities which is so effective in wotr, you is far more likely to see 'em in an unfair party than not. is also nothing which prevents a player from having seelah take oracle and scaled fist to end up with comical ac far surpassing a horse mount, but most people ain't gonna do that... and is probable a waste to try and focus on maximizing seelah ac 'cause a tank becomes less important as the game progresses and seelah's best potential party contributions ain't her tankiness anyway. also while it is true that with items, spells, and abilities from multiclassing and proper feat choices you may increase seelah's tankiness to impressive levels, she is nowhere near as effective as a leopard animal companion at low levels, and low level wotr on high difficulties is where wotr is the most challenging. HA! Good Fun!

the terrible reality is it isn't fair for a significant number o' players. wotr is not genuine balanced in any meaningful way as everything busted and broken from pnp were simple ported into owlcat's version o' the pathfinder rules (garbage no living gm would ever allow) plus the even more busted owlcat original mythic content were glomped on to make the situation more complex, creating even more outrageous avenues for exploitation. the game is not balanced, but it does seem to be designed with unfair as the starting point. unfair battles, not surprising, require a player to utilize numerous exploits to survive boss battles, and the most challenging encounters on unfair is either at the lowest levels (where the player has the fewest character development options) or ambushes which preclude prebuffing. have seen time and again when boardies complain 'bout the stat bloat of bosses and use unfair as the measure, but the players who know owlcat's version of pathfinder, and all the item and spell exploits, is maybe a bit challenged by unfair boss battles. check out the innumerable unfair boss fight battle videos available online if you are criminally bored. baphomet, deskari, inevitable darkness and near any boss you care to name may be dispatched within a couple rounds on unfair by players who do not even bother with min-maxing, just so long as they understand what stacks and what exploits exist. example: the spectral minotaur guardian you mention is a declawed **** cat for a party which includes a skald capable o' providing massive partywide ab bonuses as well as the bane of spirit ring. 'course why would a casual player know how op is bane of spirit or how to use skalds to roll stomp through melee? the game were designed for the people who wanna beat unfair, and the game is only a smidge o' a challenge for those people 'cause the game suffers from ridiculous effective exploits. additionally, wotr and kingmaker enjoy some kinda "hardcore" reputation and the fanbase actual defends the bassackwards scaling implemented in the pathfinder titles. if battles are too tough, then you just didn't bother to learn the nuances of the system and that is on you... says teh rehul fans. the problem is the challenges is scaled down from unfair. playful darkness and demon lords present the exact same challenges and have the same powers on unfair as core, but core reduces hp, saves and attribute scores. a player facing core playful darkness is therefore needing embrace many o' the same exploits as the player facing an unfair playful darkness. wotr unnecessarily punishes casual players. wotr difficulty scaling is not necessary, but the approach is undeniably simple to implement and as wotr fans actual defend the curious approach as a feature rather than a flaw, owlcat has zero motivation to change their approach. am not saying the game is devoid o' fun. given the number o' hours we have invested in the title, such a position would be bordering on the insane. nevertheless, the title has multiple serious narrative and mechanics flaws in addition to the fact the difficulty scaling is the result o' lazy design which unnecessarily punishes many owlcat customers. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir's three unbreakables: thou shalt not engage in time travel other than mundane, linear and unidirectional. thou shalt not make bargains with your soul as consideration. thou shalt not accept boons granted by magical entities or items. admitted, have only had the opportunity to apply one o' the aforementioned, but our resolve is firm insofar as all three. ordinarily we try and hold to the unbreakables even in games. HA! Good Fun!

made french onion dip. the thing is, as we collected ingredients, we discovered we only had half of a good yellow onion due to a bad spot as well as a bunch o' red onions. figured the taste o' the reduced onion slurry wouldn't be much different with red onion as opposed to yellow, but did have concerns regarding the eventual color o' the dip. we will not be using red onion in the future to substitute when making french onion dip. the onions took on a bilious shade o' purple as 'posed to dark golden brown. is nothing wrong with the taste, but am suspecting when the mixture cools and we add mayo, sour cream, garlic powder and white pepper to finish, the hue o' the dip will be... disconcerting. oh well. live and learn. edit: ok, we didn't expect that outcome. once we added sour cream, mayo, garlic powder and white pepper, the fugly purple-yellow disappeared almost complete. looks fine. tastes great. will be better tomorrow. HA! Good Fun!

am mindful o' the fact that just 'cause a person is almost entire wrong, they could still have a point... might even be right. what we mean is that while the gen z women who shared the tiktok vid had bogus numbers leading to fundamental flawed conclusions, she were at least partly correct that recent college grads is facing new and difficult challenges. yeah, am so not getting the intransigence o' many gen z college grads to take jobs which they deem to be offering insulting remuneration. wtf is that about? even so, the aforementioned student loan issues coupled with housing costs which have outstripped inflation by a significant degree (just to name a couple o' the many problems faced by gen z) means that in spite o' the fact new grads is making more money in inflation adjusted dollars than did gen x or boomers, youngsters like the tiktok poster is having future prospects significant diminished from previous generations. am understanding the frustration o' gen z. yeah, immigrants to the US from india, taiwan and nigeria are no doubt baffled by the woe-is-me tales o' gen z. 'course gen x woe-is-me stories were equal confusing to russian and mexican immigrants. some things never change. when maga cultists, entitled gen z brats, or new england patriot fans spout off and is objective wrong 'bout facts it becomes ez to dismiss 'em. at such times we need remind self that while the gen z and maga folks is preternatural wrong, their frustration is real and the anger they feel is not gonna disappear 'cause they were fact checked. 'course on the obsidian message board we ain't genuine trying to achieve dialectic in most cases and we have zero empathy for patriots fans. we never claimed to be a saint. HA! Good Fun!

less funny but similar. were a tiktok video which went viral for five minutes earlier this year https://scoop.upworthy.com/college-student-explains-why-it-is-so-hard-for-young-graduates-to-find-jobs 'course gen x had to show up and be gen x. were dozens o' folks who actual lived during the 80s explaining that karen's reality take o' the 80s weren't... real. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_381.asp adjusted for inflation starting income for college grads has actual increased since the 80s, and the suggestion entry-level bank tellers were making $36k per year in 1980 were derided by more than a few old people who chose to respond to the creator o' the tik tok. is not to say things were more difficult for college grads in the 80s. student debt, for example, were a far different beast when parachute pants was a thing than it is today. am also sympathetic to the painful realization for too many that their 2023 communications degree from csu chico is not gonna open many doors, much less $80k per year jobs. young people were sold a fantasy 'bout the benefits o' a college degree which were never complete true but is far less true today than were the case in the 80s. regardless, while the tiktok video itself were not particular interesting, we were genuine fascinated (not surprised) by how different gen x, millennials and gen z audiences responded to the vid. HA! Good Fun!

solution from +6 months previous to today: it is possible to rest at threshold. so, rest for the needed months at threshold. your crusade morale will drop for failure to take new forts, but w/o reentering the world map you won't suffer additional army attacks. functionally there is no penalty for low morale if you never leave threshold while advancing the calendar. HA! Good Fun!

as am getting older, am aware o' our advancing decrepitude, but 8ish pushups for a s'posed fit 69 year-old man is not particular impressive. is within presumptive average range and nowhere near newsworthy. https://steelsupplements.com/blogs/steel-blog/how-many-push-ups-should-you-be-able-to-do am also pretty sure rfk jr. has already had hip or knee replacement surgery... which is so utter beside the point when a s'posed Presidential candidate is promoting the theory that chemicals in our water is turning kids trans. for chrissakes, how is that kinda thing (and hardly a solitary example o' lunacy from rfk jr.) not an obvious disqualifier for voters? post covid US is a scary place. edit: after all the major SCOTUS rulings is known, we will offer thoughts: moore v. harper (elections), counterman v. colorado (first amendment), US v. TX (immigration/deportation), haaland v. brackeen (indigenous people adoptions), sackett v. epa (clean water), allen v. milligan (redistricting and race), students for fair admission v. harvard v unc (affirmative action), biden v. nebraska (student loans),creative llc v. elanis (gay wedding website/first amendment), groff v dejoy (employer duty to provide time off for sabbath). bold = waiting on decision. HA! Good Fun!

maybe he is like cable from the x-men, but instead o' suffering from a teachno organic virus, rfk jr. is bat crap crazy. RFK Jr.’s reign of error: Correcting the record about yet another false claim he just made https://scottlilienfeld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/bowes2020.pdf In conclusion, our findings paint a multifaceted, albeit still hazy, portrait of the modal conspiracy-prone individual. A mixture of narcissism and undue intellectual certainty, on the one hand, conjoined with poor impulse control, angst, interpersonal alienation, and reduced inquisitiveness, on the other hand, may provide a personological recipe for a tendency to | BOWES et al. 13 impetuously latch on to spurious but confidently held causal narratives that account for one’s distress and resentment. To the persons fitting this portrait, positing a world populated by malevolent actors hatching secret plots may be comforting, as it may afford at least a partial explanation for their otherwise inexplicable negative emotions. From the standpoint of cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1962), it may be psychologically easier to invoke an external attribution, in this case, a conspiratorial worldview, to account for one’s dissatisfaction than to posit an internal attribution. Such individuals may not see a compelling reason to double-check their intuitions because they are certain that they are correct. additives in the drinking water turning kids trans? wifi is melting your brain? the guy is a walking, talking cry for help but some have decided he is a reasonable political alternative? okie dokie. anywho, perhaps rfk jr. works out not to increase pushup count but to keep his demons from dragging him deeper into the abyss. you and Gromnir cannot see the infernal beasts which is forever howling in his ears and worming through his brain. we see a guy not able to manage ten pushups, but that is 'cause is impossible for us to perceive yog-sothoth pressing down on rfk jr. HA! Good Fun!

jeff beck were a big fan o' stevie wonder and writes superstition with stevie in mind, but beck were s'posed to release his version first. record label has different ideas and decides stevie wonder version is first. the rest is history. so, technical, stevie wonder's version is the cover. another song from a previous post, but the following might not be recognized... unless you listen to at least 2:10 ... one more from jamerson, 'cause it ain't possible to have too much jamerson HA! Good Fun!

'cause in our head, everything has a 1960s or 70s movie soundtrack accompaniment. HA! Good Fun!

am not gonna claim we heard the ghost o' james jamerson, but that were fun and there were groovy bass. edit: might as well add another cover edit 2: we can't tease jamerson w/o adding at least one song HA! Good Fun!