Gromnir

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as a matter o' clarification, am thinking it is misleading to describe dark materials as anti-christian though is arguable some justification in such a position. am understanding how young readers might have difficulty making such a subtle distinction between christianity as a personal belief and a fantasy Church which is most assured pastiche o' real world catholicism and christian sects. organized religion, specific organized Christianity, is a clear target o' pullman criticism. regardless, a fear o' children asking difficult questions is a position we see as untenable, but is admitted a bit arrogant making such judgements w/o having to deal with the real life difficulties o' raising a child. HA! Good Fun!

y'know, am thinking the dark materials books is far more likely to result in a middle school kid asking themselves and their parents tough questions than would be a reading o' atlas shrugged. in that sense, phillip pullman is far more dangerous to Christian dogma than is ayn rand. 'course am not thinking faith has value unless it is resilient in the face o' tough questions, but am also simultaneous not without empathy for the parent afeared for their crumb snatcher's immortal soul and recognizing they just don't have the capacity to answer the questions young bartimaeus is plagued by after reading the subtle knife. am not making excuses for clergy or parents who instead o' discussing challenging topics with kids decide that ignorance is bliss, but am understanding their not unjustified fears. a child who learns to question fundamental "truths" may very well come to conclusions parents and clergy do not recognize as legitimate or right, and then what does momma bartimaeus do? HA! Good Fun!

aside, and admitted spam material from Gromnir, am thinking children's authors is too often overlooked and more than a few writers o' literature and movie fiction would do well to read more kid fiction. is a whole lotta symbolism in stories such as the phantom tollbooth, the chronicles of prydain, coraline, northern lights (the golden compass) and a swiftly tilting planet, but chances are kids miss the symbolism on a conscious level. the capacity to baffle grad students o' literature doesn't confer a level o' inherent worth on a novel. first goal is to make the audience wanna read and finish the work, yes? such an observation should be axiomatic but is nevertheless overlooked too frequent. just one example, but phillip pullman's books is not skimping on symbolism or allegory and is influenced heavily by milton's paradise lost. the character o' lord asriel may paradoxical represent both satan and "son of god" from milton's work. religious themes dominate pullman's novels. is a helluva a lot more going on in pullman's books than is in the typical dickens novel... which if you paid attention to the first part o' this post is so not a criticism o' dickens. complex ≠ better. that said, pullman's books is meant to be enjoyed by kids, who is not sophisticated enough to understand all the author craft... or sleight o' hand if you is annoyed by such pretension. pullman simultaneous challenges the PhD folks while telling a story many young audiences embrace. HA! Good Fun!

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Ki+Arrows at fifth level and beyond, with a shortbow a zen archer is doing monk unarmed damage. (edit: can't link even though we added the ki arrows info moments ago.) At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. The damage dealt by a Medium monk's unarmed strike increases with level: 1d6 at levels 1-3, 1d8 at levels 4-7,1d10 at levels 8-11, 2d6 at levels 12-15, 2d8 at levels 16-19, and 2d10 at level 20. If the monk is Small, his unarmed strike damage increases as follows: 1d4 at levels 1-3, 1d6 at levels 4-7, 1d8 at levels 8-11,1d10 at levels 12-15, 2d6 at levels 16-19, and 2d8 at level 20. If the monk is Large, his unarmed strike damage increases as follows: 1d8 at levels 1-3, 2d6 at levels 4-7, 2d8 at levels 8-11, 3d6 at levels 12-15, 3d8 at levels 16-19, and 4d8 at level 20. 'course as a zen archer you use wisdom as your attack bonus modifier, so chances are you is always gonna be enlarged and then legendary proportions for later game. take a few points o' umd and have hurricane bow scrolls on hand for major battles. HA! Good Fun!

if you did all the previous sosiel conversations regarding trever correct, and is not intuitive what is correct, then you do not strictly speaking need to do the fleshmarkets convo with wirlong and sosiel before the battlebliss confrontation. edit: in our opinion, the most annoying aspect o' trever recruitment is you need make the correct convo choice with sosiel on three(ish) separate occasions in acts two and three to be successful. get one interaction wrong many tens o' hours removed from the battlebliss confrontation and your trever recruitment is a fail w/o you being aware o' the error until long after is reasonable to reload and fix the problem. is particular annoying as the correct dialogue choices is... HA! Good Fun!

symbolism is not mutual exclusive from evocative aspects o' story telling, which is precise why emotions and relationships is not elements o' fiction but is hopeful consequences o' skillful used theme, plot, setting, symbolism character, etc. symbolism, when recognized, should amplify an essential quality o' the narrative. sir gawain and the green knight is a bit more character driven than other early english writings, so it actual has more potential modern appeal than other stories written contemporaneous. nevertheless, it does eschew many modern conventions which attempt to focus on the reader empathizing with characters. the green knight movie is a better than fair adaption o' sir gawain and we found the emotional impact impressive. unlike modern stories, sir gawain don't use character backgrounds and motivations to make the characters relatable. these is s'posed to be larger than life events and personages who perhaps only exist in myth. were not necessarily s'posed to be relatable. is in part the symbolism which brings the story down to a more manageable level for audiences who ain't characters outta myth, though the movie does do a much better job o' humanizing and we already noted sir gawain were much better in that regard than most contemporaneous tales. a few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. he watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. the time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. it was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the bog of allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous shannon waves. it was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where michael furey lay buried. it lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. his soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. you may read joyce w/o recognizing the symbolism positive radiating from every paragraph, but when you see the layers o' theme, setting, and symbolism synergizing, you may appreciate a story like the dead on a different and arguable more profound level. minor characters, through symbolism, gain emotional depth otherwise missed. a crpg example, though not specific symbolism, is the use o' macbeth in bg2. irenicus, particular with david warner reading, is ez to appreciate as little more than the typical mage gone mad with power. once you see all the repeated allusion to macbeth, it becomes extended metaphor fodder and then even minor characters such as kalah who is providing foreshadowing for the entire bg2 narrative and also contributing to the macbeth elements, achieves a new depth and possible a new level o' appreciation when such linkages is recognized. viewed insular, kalah is a throw-away character who contributes little to the bg2 narrative and whose name is almost instant forgotten. the thing is, from a storytelling perspective, kalah is much greater than his seeming limited contribution to the bg2 story and his passing is far more evocative when is seen as part o' something much greater than typical low-level side-quest fodder. writers such as the aforementioned joyce all too often become so obscure with their symbolism and themes and is so invested in creating manufactured depth they forget to make a story compelling for an audience other than the author themself and perhaps a handful o' literary scholars with multiple PhDs. is crap writing from our pov if it only works for a handful. symbolism and other elements may contribute to story telling even if they ain't consciously recognized, and am thinking such is the case for green knight, but when the author's goal is to astound a limited audience with his/her deftness and cleverness as 'posed to reaching a broader audience on an emotional level, then am thinking the work has become self indulgent as 'posed to art. nevertheless, each reader or viewer o' story is gonna have a different threshold for what is author fail and we cannot say any specific audience is wrong, even so, am personal seeing the symbolism o' sir gawain and the green knight, which were translated incomplete but well in the recent movie, were adding to the storytelling and made the film more evocative. regardless, symbolism is not s'posed to be separate from emotional appeal. nobody would give a mouse fart for virginia woolf (edit: butchered the spelling virginia's name) if symbolism were divorced from evocative. HA! Good Fun!

is there some reason you ain't resting? multiple rests in drezen is bad as your abyssal corruption increases unseen, but am personal always having rested at least once. make certain to use resting supplies provided. HA! Good Fun!

no, not better than lann. rare does anybody on these boards go pure archer, but a lann zenn archer with a shortbow is an absolute monster and outpaces pretty much any other ranged companion. however, is a few builds with arueshalae and lan multiclass builds which is arguable superior in terms o' what they add to a party, but while a zen archer is front loaded with many benefits coming in the first three levels, a shortbow wielding lann zen archer gets extra attacks and damage other combos will have difficulty reaching, and chances are they only match vanilla zen archer lann very late in the game. don't feel as if you are any kinda underpowered keeping lann as a vanilla zen archer, but perhaps counter-intuitive, do switch to shortbow if you have chosen longbow. zenn archers do monk unarmed damage with a shortbow and this increases with the various size bonuses you will no doubt enjoy. HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind you may do blightmaw after your mythic powerup. is noting which prevents you from coming back to blightmaw as long as it is before your final act ii drezen confrontation. speaking o' shenanigans, the demonslayer level needs come after levels o' sacred huntsmaster. why? 'cause choosing demonslayer first removes demons from your list o' favored enemies for sacred hunstmaster. 1 level o' demonslayer after sacred huntsmaster means you get +8 v. 1 category o' demons and +4 v. the other two categories. unfortunate, while demonslayer favoured enemy bonus does stack with sacred huntsmaster, it effective halts your sacred huntsmaster favoured enemy demons progress. why? why does taking demonslayer early prevent sacred huntsmaster progression o' favoured enemies? 'cause. HA! Good Fun!

the late 80s were not a time when we were listening to pop music, but we do recall caribbean queen by billy ocean. how many variations did he do? is there also a bolivian queen? maybe an unreleased bootleg ulaanbaatar queen? HA! Good Fun!

there is a wand of dimension door in a hidden spot on the map where you meet the loquacious kobold in act 2. is the only location for the wand as far as am recalling. kinda a bit far back in the game for you to reload, eh? might wanna check the treasure of the midnight isles vendor albeit not for the wand. initially the chaplain carried 99 scrolls o' just 'bout every spell, but then his inventory were trimmed a bit so am not certain if dimension door were removed along with pillars of life and a few other spells. HA! Good Fun!

am not pennsylvania dutch. no dutch or german in our family tree. however, our grandfather's roommate in university were penn dutch or german or some mix and one new years our grandfather shared the family traditions with said roomate. sauerkraut and pork. our grandfather much enjoyed the meal and once he married our grandmother would make sauerkraut and pork every new years. we always eat saurkraut and pork on new years eve. so it goes. HA! Good Fun!

board software is being funky after "strength/level" is s'posed to read as follows: is 20 xp for individual marksmen and if you have 100 marksmen that means your marksmen account for 2000xp. 43 xp for a hellknight and you got 50 of 'em then that is 2150 xp. your army o' 100 marksmen and 50 hellknights would thus be worth a totals o' 4150 xp... and am having no idea what that means insofar as army strength. am not even gonna try and link anything. HA! Good Fun!

experience for marksmen, shield bearers, or vampire ninja pirates (not joking) is a less than transparent method for describing the value o' a single unit at least insofar as your total army strength and relative to other individual units. add up all the xp from all your army individual units and you arrive at army strength/level. 20 xp for individual marksmen. 43 xp for a hellknight. individual units don't gain experience. only generals benefit from xp gains. HA! Good Fun!

condolences go out to george santos who lost his mother (barbara walters) and father (pope benedict) and his other father (pelé) during this holiday season. what a terrible shame they did not live long enough to see george cure childhood lukemia as was announced by his campaign spokesperson this am. HA! Good Fun!

as azata have personal only attacked before the queen's arrival one time as am ordinarily using as much time as appears reasonable to maximize crusade buildings/infrastructure before starting act iv. did the azata pre-queen attack one time just to see what difference were observable and that were many patches in the rear view mirror. HA! Good Fun!

one quibble: is tough to explain the gulf between a 11.5 100m and 14.6. am not sure what jackie joyner kersee based her 11.5 estimate 'pon and obvious her expertise eclipses ours by a huge amount, but the 14.6 is for a run which don't even account for needing to come up out of starting blocks from 0kph. we finished a woeful #16 overall at state finals with a 11.19 and our bestest not wind-aided time were a flat 11. 14.6 is kinda pokey. is very pokey in fact. look at it another way, while is hardly 100% accurate, an 11.5 100 metre time would, based on those espn science bits they do during the nfl draft to explain just how amazing is a few o' the athletes, would translate to something like a 4.75 40. 14.6 translates to approx 6.09... and again, that number were based on his full-tilt speed and doesn't include coming outta blocks from a dead stop start. rich eisen does a 40y run every year to raise money for st. jude children's hospital. check out the numbers if you are curious how x-football players and rando ceo o' major corporations who ponied up big donations for a chance to run with rod woodson and cris carter compare. btw, in 2022 rich eisen wearing a suit, tie and cleats on grass ran a 6.16. point is, 14.6 100m sounds impressive only because most people have no idea what that means. the reality is tom cruise is actual running far slower than he appears to be traveling, which is fine, 'cause he is freaking acting. the genuine impressive takeaway is that as tortoise-like is the speed o' sexagenarian tom cruise, he looks fantastic and fast, which is his freaking job. have never seen somebody so slow look so fast and we never woulda' guessed you could act fast. HA! Good Fun!

probable a mod problem as we play in tb near exclusive and tavern defense is no longer busted and distorted mythic demons is designed to revive and self-heal. the last vestige o' tavern defense tb fumbduckery which were finally exorcised made the tavern defense easier as 'posed to more difficult as the the baddies would become stuck at the gates and so it were ez to pick 'em off at range. as for distorted mythic demons... meh. seeing as how our parties is always taking advantage o' attacks of opportunity, the demon revive is near always an insta-death scenario for the demon as most o' our party is having ever ready, combat reflexes and now lunge as well as outflank. regardless, the revive is a feature and not a bug. there is(was?) one portion o' the upper city alushinyrra map (south near vellexia's mansion) which bugs out a bit in tb combat so we reflexive switch to real time as am uncertain if the problem has been addressed. mounted combat also results in a few tb quirks which has been present since at least the beta. no amount o' bug reports has resulted in fixes to all tb mounted combat bugs. is not, strictly speaking, required. am unable to recall any critical path fodder on rooftops. however, there is more than a few rooftop encounters and a couple o' those provide endgame 1007. the pathetic quasit is also accessible only via dimension door. so while is maybe not required, it does feel unnecessarily obtuse to hide so much content where is inaccessible w/o dimension door. yeah, there is demons who share dialog which suggests you should access rooftops and is a few places where is near impossible to not see rooftop chests and traps, but indeed is too ez to miss and is not a kewl gameplay feature so much as a minor annoyance, so what is the point, eh? full disclosure, am embarrassed to admit we missed the scorcher of souls in the colphyr mines 'cause we didn't dimension door to his little island the firstest time we completed act iv. as such we missed the manual o' gainful exercise +2 and a whole lotta xp. post inevitable excess, scorcher o' souls isle is where you find the flawless headband of mental perfection +8. HA! Good Fun!

act iii and beyond is 30-days for the fort conquest. however, your general and class level suggest that one of your first army battles were taking the vilareth ford fort. unless owlcat addressed the issue, a win at vilareth will activate the fort conquest timer so be aware. the gargoyles is tough and we always face 'em as a level seven party. also, we got a much different pov regarding heighten compared to @majestic am thinking heighten is kinda essential on every caster we got. our nenio, for example, has phantasmal killer occupying multiple levels in her spellbook thanks to heighten. is a whole lotta spells in the game and many/most is useless. there will be spell levels which is relative bad and yeah, heighten means you may upgrade any spell by one or more levels to fill relative spell dead zones. also, if am using ember as an enchanter and blaster, then to get same dcs by raising glitterdust to level seven or eight with heighten, then we need take multiple conjuration boosting feats-- one v. multiple is not a hard choice to make on a feat starved character like ember. also, unlike empower and bolster, heighten applies to every spell, so is more potential uses; yet another situation where more utility is better, yes? btw, there is a whole lotta rods in the game, so is less reason to choose metamagic feats other than heighten, though admitted, selective is gonna be one feat which on higher difficulties you want early in the game and you don't have access to selective rods in act one or two. 'course is a fail to ignore the reality you got multiple party members. if you got nenio in your party, your main character is a caster, or you hire a merc, then whether or not to add selective to ember (or any character) becomes a strategic concern. aside, much o' this reflection should be moot if spells were implemented according to pnp rules. selective is so not supposed to work with spells which last more than an instant; blame owlcat for the exploit o' spells such as grease and scirocco. admitted, the fact it is a busted arse mechanic don't stop us from spamming selective sciroccos late in the game. btw, all the observations 'bout heighten doesn't mean our pov is correct. our unique pov is why we have lann taking divine hunter levels and is the reason we played an enchanter skald in our most recent run. HA! Good Fun!

if there is any quest on a timer in act two, am unaware. however, am personal having never waited all that long to do the couple quests which have narrative if not mechanical urgency. that said, am also unable to recall any such complaints. HA! Good Fun!

sorta. the crusade feature has timers. let the ai do crusade and you have no problems. however, if you lead the crusade, then it is possible to capture a fort too early, 'cause is no other forts to capture and you need capture an enemy fort every thirty days or begin taking a morale penalty. is also possible, though less likely, to beat all enemy armies in act two before you has finished all world map content. gotta beat a new army every four days or you begin losing morale. defeat all enemies too quick and is no way to stave off morale loss. act v, if you choose to do the ascension route, has a particular annoying timer. you functional need to advance the calendar many months to a specific date which may result in a catastrophic hit to your army morale even if you has literal beaten every fixed demon army in your stretch o' the worldwound. annoying? it is an owlcat game, so... HA! Good Fun!

maybe she approves o' gordon-levitt as an actor? convince her to watch brick 'cause of actors and perhaps the quirky noir concept. heck, you don't like drug stuff and am recalling you enjoyed brick, so perhaps that might be enough to sell a rian johnson second chance. no doubt your wife knows just how much you dislike illegal drug trade movies and shows, yes? aside, we preferred knives out, but glass onion was kinda fun and we did smile at a few o' the cameos. tone were a bit lighter than knives out. HA! Good Fun!

fyi as with most melee builds, the gravesinger axe (great, battle or hand) is a no lose option, but there is two weapons which specific enhance paladin efficacy and both are longswords. the holy avenger is known, so is hardly spoiler fare, but there is also... so, metagamey if you go axes or longswords. HA! Good Fun!