Gromnir

for folks with only a right-brain, we suspect it is an endorsement. visceral and brief is positives for your friend, yes? HA! Good Fun!

magic is problematic if you have spell progression similar to the ie games. by the end of poe, our spell casters will have access to up-to six levels o' spells. each spell caster class will have access to many spells. many is always difficult from a balance pov. it is likely that most spells our druid or mage or cipher have access to will be useful, but there is gonna be some spells that is over-powered and more than a few spells that is situationally over-kill. you want dozens or hundreds o' spells to choose from? well then, you is gonna make casters powerful, 'cause the more complex you make a system, the more opportunities you create for potential breakage. not only is the individual spells potential broken, but their synergy with other spells and abilities from other classes creates opportunities for exploitation. our rogue will focus on a single weapon and will have a limited number o' abilities and talents that make us better with that weapon. compare the total number o' abilities a rogue will have access to by level 11 or 12 compared to the spell catalog o' a similar level'd druid or wizard. HA! Good Fun!

now you know how Gromnir feels when confronted by your "simple questions" for which you want an affirmative (or negative) response. was renoir better than pollock, yes or no? ... wait, what? HA! Good Fun!

perhaps some folks don't see the question as simple. perhaps there is aspects o' dragon age: origins combat that folks found appealing, but others they disliked... greatly. the question is framed wrong if you genuine want a simple answer from Gromnir. "1 Is PoE combat better than Dragon Age Origins combat?" is no simple answer for Gromnir. change "1 Do you like PoE combat more than Dragon Age: Origins combat?" now that is a simple question and we can give a simple (meaningless) answer too. do you like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla ice cream? do you care if leferd or Gromnir prefers chocolate or vanilla? why? *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

poe combat on difficulty o' hard or more is hobbesian: "Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." HA! Good Fun! ps is a big mistake to imply that bg1 and bg2 combat were the same.

regarding conan, we suggest that d&d 3.5 or even pathfinder is a far better game system for achieving a plausible conan than poe. with d20 multiclassing and far more robust skill and feats (talents) systems, we can get a d&d or pathfinder character that looks much more like our idealized conan than anything we can current do in poe. we personal avoid d&d/pathfinder prestige classes, but such stuff does allow further customization to be achieving a conan-like character. 'course, we expect the poe mechanics to have greater depth in subsequent iterations, so perhaps poe is able to eventual match the kinda flexibility o' pathfinder or d&d 3.5, but for the moment... HA! Good Fun! ps the eponymous conan rpg from mongoose is also d20 and has/had a few decent conan builds... though we believe they lost their license to conan at some point. regardless, at its heart, mongoose were using a d20 rules system.

yeah, people keep getting hung-up on names-- we observed this problem in another thread. we watched josh do one o' his gameplays o' the beta, and more than once he observed that for his party build he really shoulda' given his stealthy character, his scout character, a higher mechanics skill. is a couple times we saw him disarm traps via the old non political correct pnp PMD method. so, we is still likely gonna want a stealthy character who can disarm traps-- whether we make such a party member with a rogue or a cipher is hardly noteworthy. *shrug* in iwd2 we frequent had no rogue or a character with a single level o' rogue. there is also any number o' crpgs that is complete classless and have no rogue character. stun mentioned a few crpgs that also not rely on rogue or thiefy inclusion for sucess. for folks new to crpgs, wasteland 2 is an example o' a classless system with no rogue class. so, regarding the genesis poster's observation, poe is not representing any kinda sea-change for crpgs ... and as we noted in another thread, the developers o' poe, inexplicably, still has inherent skill bonuses tied to classes. wth? HA! Good Fun!

... uh, sure. is not as if folks who played bg literal spent hours re-rolling to get UBER attribute scores or other such nonsense. and there were many folks who played diviner mages... you know, for role-play reasons. how many folks played a dual-class bg character? dual-class were kinda the ultimate min-max nonsense possible in d&d... other than maybe old ad&d bard. etc. HA! Good Fun!

am recognizing that poe is not a game on rails, but if the beta is any indication, currently one must needs max a skill with an inherent bonus from either class and/or background to have a chance at successful overcoming the more/most difficult skill checks one encounters in areas where the combat challenges is level appropriate. for example, the bb rogue were needing to either max stealth OR mechanics to reasonable overcome the chosen check on all beta release maps. we could have our bb rogue choose to be stealthy or good at picking locks and disarming traps, but there were no perfect calculus that allowed us to be successful at both skills. we do understand that there will be skill boosting items in the game, so perhaps such gear will make a 2-skill character viable, but at the moment, Gromnir does feel at least partial limited by our class selection in regards to determining our skill choices. by providing numerous classes, the developers is necessarily limiting the combat role o' each class. fine. we get that offering us unique classes require some definition o' role that limits player customization. we don't expect that our priest should be able to tank as good as a fighter, or that the fighter should deal damage on par with a rogue. each class gots a combat role and the more unique (appealing?) the developers make each class, the more they must needs define the role. more definition = less customization. ... defined combat role need not be a limit on skills. one aspect that coulda'/shoulda' been left more open to player choice and customization is our limited ability to choose backgrounds and skills. why limit customization more than absolute necessary? limit combat roles makes perfect sense when creating a multitude o' unique classes, but we see no rationale for imposing a similar limit on skill choice. developers shoulda' removed skill bonus from classes and made backgrounds more significant cause that woulda' increased player customization o' their character... which is a good thing in a crpg, no? HA! Good Fun! ps we recognize that the options to improve this aspect o' the game will be limited as the background choices have impact on dialogues, and those dialogues will not be altered at this late date to accommodate major changes. am suspecting we is stuck with the backgrounds we has already seen and the only changes possible is adjusting the bonuses those backgrounds provide. even so, regardless o' the 11th hour nature o' this issue, we would prefer if the class inherent skill bonuses were reduced to 0 and the backgrounds were retooled to be more diverse and significant.

our preference would be to complete void the skill bonuses for class choice and to expand the importance and breadth o' background selections. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/02/27/389589676/leonard-nimoys-advice-to-a-biracial-girl-in-1968 for those of you looking to order a "monkee sweat shift" for a mere $5... postage-paid. oh, and there is some kinda letter from mr. nimoy to a troubled girl. HA! Good Fun!

disagree. the problem for some folks is not so much that there is no paladin concept, but rather that the poe paladin concept is too different from the d&d/ie game paladin concept. for folks who play pathfinder, the poe paladin has more in common with the pathfinder cavalier than it does with keldorn from bg2. the pathfinder cavalier has a clear concept: a martial character whose "true power comes from the conviction of his ideals." the cavalier gets extra teamwork feats and can buff his party members who is within range o' his banner. the pathfinder cavalier joins an order and the order chosen may have less than honorable ideals. etc. pathfinder cavalier is having a clear concept, and it kinda sounds familiar, no? unfortunately, the paladin label appears to be the insurmountable obstacle for folks rather than the class concept. for example, because o' the paladin name, folks demanded a silly 'smite' ability to make the poe play more like a d&d paladin. so, developers tacked on a smite ability to poe paladin in spite o' the fact that such a thing is a bit incongruous. instead o' embracing the poe paladin concept, some folks is trying to makes the poe paladin play more like a d&d paladin. is funny and sad, but many o' the complaints we has seen for poe paladins, rogues, fighters and barbarians would disappear if those classes did not share a name with a d&d class. HA! Good Fun!

one can only hope that this is one of those goldilocks scenarios, yes? at first, the animal companions were too tough, particularly the bear. 'course then the animal companions became not only too weak, but they transmitted their weakness to the ranger. perhaps with the release, the developers will make it so that rangers and animal companions is "just right." HA! Good Fun!

speaking of live bands, we got to see when bruce hornsby and bela fleck were touring together... that is victor wooten on bass. is rare you get to see so many virtuoso musicians on stage at one time in small venue settings... other than in blues (and jazz *sigh*) bars in new orleans and chicago. HA! Good Fun!

the MTV age were... peculiar. we suspect that folks who listened to the hooters in college bars in philly had a hard time recognizing what they saw in videos. peter, paul and mary does background vocals on the linked song. am not a huge hooters fan, but we saw 'em (a couple times) and we were impressed with 'em as a live band after largely having discounted them based on mtv videos and radio play. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/24/most-popular-store-state_n_6736916.html?cps=gravity_2377_-8184544915665230297 am not certain what to make o' the aforementioned article. somehow we cannot help but feel a little sympathy/pity for nevada, but mostly we wonder why anybody would bother to do the research necessary to write the article we linked... then, of course, we wondered why we read the article and bothered to link it. while banal and surreal strike us as antagonistic concepts, somehow we feel as if both apply in the present context. ... http://boston.cbslocal.com/2015/02/26/nearly-frozen-waves-captured-on-camera-by-nantucket-photographer/ woulda' liked to have seen video with decent sound. HA! Good Fun!

darkpriest's point is well taken. enormous stained-glass windows is more a gothic cathedral trapping than a gothic fortification staple. that being said, large stained-glass windows look better than a more practical fortification window that would be so narrow that a fart would have difficulty escaping. in any event, am thinking that a certain amount o' artistic license is acceptable/necessary to alleviate the monotony o' what would be more realistic or functional. after all, some folks were complaining 'bout the somewhat drab beta maps, yes? ... didn't we have one o' these realism/reality threads already? HA! Good Fun!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/world/europe/boris-nemtsov-russian-opposition-leader-is-shot-dead.html?_r=0 we were made aware that not everyvody is a nytimes subscriber. who knew? "In recent years, Mr. Nemtsov’s star had been eclipsed by Aleksei A. Navalny, the anticorruption blogger who played a leading role in the 2011 protests. But Mr. Nemtsov remained active and was a leading organizer of this weekend’s planned rally. "Mr. Nemtsov was organizing the rally in part because Mr. Navalny is currently serving a two-week jail sentence for handing out leaflets on the subway. The rally was also noteworthy because it was the first political action inside Russia specifically endorsed by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the exiled former political prisoner, who had signed the petition for a parade permit. "The investigative committee of the prosecutor’s office said gunmen shot Mr. Nemtsov four times in the back as he walked over the bridge, and by accident or design theatrically placed his body on the wet asphalt with the Kremlin visible behind. No suspects have been reported to be in custody." is not the whole article. oh well. Natalia Estemirova, and Aleksandr V. Litvinenko and now Boris Nemstov? terrible. alternative source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/27/389598306/putin-critic-boris-nemtsov-shot-dead

not even trying to discuss the topic anymore, eh? oh well, we like junai quotables. and yeah, mesh sarcasm clear went over your head. if you want retroactive, we can review the posts again. sure mesh disagreed with us, but he were going over-the-top purposeful and you responded as if he were serious. "People who are willfully stupid are powerless, Grommie. "Willful stoopid" is a symptom, and you strengthen the disease the more you mock." good stuff. keep it coming. is particularly amusing that you find labeling counterproductive. no doubt you has forgotten what you wrote in your previous posts, which is understandable considering that folks such as aluminiumtrioxid and others has expressed confusion regarding your meaning-- am suspecting you don't know any more than do they. regardless, if the intent is to entertain, you is proving successful. however, we do feel compelled to offer some advice, mere because it would be intellectual dishonest to allow you to continue to make same error ad nauseum w/o offering you way out o' your predicament. *shrug* our advice is simple: say what you mean. some folks thinks they got a gift for dressing up an argument so that what it lacks in insight it makes up for the dearth o' substance with literary frills. perhaps this is a language barrier issue, but if it is, that is all the more reason you should keep your responses simple and straightforward. whatever you believe you is trying to say, you is largely failing to do so because your attempts at erudition is... humorous. ... am realizing that while our advice to junai is excellent, you will be less likely to accept it because Gromnir is the one offering it. we has given similar advice to zor and val regarding their attempts to use legal relevant concepts or vocabulary. neither has paid us much heed. we don't expect you to be better than they are, but our advice is, as hard as it is to believe or accept, genuine. keep your arguments and language plain and simple. william faulkner once criticized hemingway by observing that mr. hemingway, "had never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary." faulkner were a brilliant author, but am thinking hemingway clear got the best o' the exchange when he replied with the following: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use." am suspecting junai knows the meanings o' individual words well enough, but when you string 'em together, you genuine mess'em up something fierce... and this advice is coming from a guy who purposeful posts in a ridiculous persona. personally, we don't believe that junai has anything to say that is worth listening to, but if you take our advice, at least you will sound less like a cartoon character. if we thought your goal were to play the role o' The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, we would applaud you. sadly, is clear to us that you wanna be taken serious. that ain't gonna happen if you keep posting as you is currently doing... and has done so, we suspect, for "twenty years." HA! Good Fun!

what does it sound like when doves cry? HA! Good Fun!

"I find this post offensive on the behalf of people i do not know and whose sensibilities that i cannot possibly feel" ok, that shoulda' clued our resident seal-clubber into the mirth, but if it went over his head, your condemnation o' our "zoophobia" shoulda' erased any lingering doubts. he took serious even so. *shrug* HA! Good Fun! Oh please. Just because I turned up the heat a bit doesn't mean I missed Meshugger's satire. Actually I didn't find it all that funny, because I suspect Meshugger really does want to disagree with you. Or maybe that's just my projection on it. Not going to speculate. Someone needs to take a jab at you once in a while though. I'm tired of seeing the board barrister and his fanboys circle jerk and stroke each other's ego. Gromnir's been baiting "snails" for months now. He's bored and looking for something to whip. For once I decided to jump in, because I think the snail-lable fits Gromnir better. He does point out one important thing however. Most conspiracy theorists makes asses of themselves and ruin the game for the serious contenders. But who is to say what's willfully stupid? Snails are dead quiet when buildings collapse, not because they're shocked, but because they're afraid to speak their minds until the tee-vee has established what's politically correct. When a raped 12 year old girl speaks up and she's referred to as a troublemaker, is she willfully stupid? When the family-members of 9/11 victims point out that the investigation was a sham, were they stupid? When Oliver Stone made JFK, was he stupid? Someone needs to shake snails out of their apathy. J. clearly you did miss the satire, and retroactive is embarrassed. also, we hope you keep posting... we need more o' your highlight material. "Sometimes "willful stoopid" is required to break the stranglehold of polical correctness and shake people out of their bourgeois apathy." we couldn't make that nonsense up if we tried. sure, we called some o' you bat-crap crazy, but we didn't think you would help us illustrate quite so clear and immediate. HA! Good Fun!

am recalling a game against the raiders back in the mid 80s in which dan fouts were sacked ~six times and were eventual removed from the game. perhaps such games is the reason that in spite o' the fact that mr. fouts is still living and breathing, his disembodied spirit is able to reach out and make contact with you. maybe after the aforementioned game, some portion o' mr. fouts' soul were knocked loose and never made it back to his body. HA! Good Fun!

seems that willpower v. weight gain is no longer the issue, eh? we will make one observation, 'cause it were seeming too ridiculous to let slide. we saw anecdote wherein a person stated that they didn't take pain killers to avoid cognitive impairment. from personal perspective, and from what little scholarly work we has seen, few things impair judgment and cognition as much as does pain. we has seen more than a few folks die, and a too many o' them suffered significant pain in the months, weeks, days and hours leading up to their death. as an observer, am not certain we can choose between pain and fear as to which we believe is more debilitating on the mind and spirit o' the afflicted. am aware that nimh and other organizations has published studies on pain and cognition, but we clear have little expertise in the field, and we wish to God we had less experience. oh sure, clear there is potential impairment o' cognition from a variety o' painkillers, but am thinking that it should be obvious that pain also impairs cognition and judgement. am not suggesting that anybody in pain should have decisions taken out o' their metaphorical hands 'cause o' impaired judgement, so let's not pretend we made such a claim. regardless, it would be foolhardy to suggest that pain, particular chronic pain suffered over a considerable amount o' time, does not impair cognition and judgement. the folks who avoid any and all painkillers to escape mental impairment are likely working at cross-purposes from what they intended. HA! Good Fun!

That's about how hard I laughed reading that. btw, the exit line o' The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight were as follows: "You'll never prove a thing, copper, I'm just a part time electrician…bad is good, baby! Down with government!" is funny. is cartoony. is like so many o' our resident conspiracy nutters from whom we hear frequent enough that the indiscretions o' _________ can't be proved (though it takes willful ignorance to fail your perception check) and those folks who likes to tell us that government ___________ is bad regardless o' the circumstances. "Oh, that's just uh, Boom Baby Boom! I'm the Evil Midnight Bomber what Bombs at Midnight!" is a cartoon character, and just like junai, so many o' our resident boardies don't get the joke. HA! Good Fun!

As an aside, I don't even know what "bourgeois apathy" is supposed to mean in this context. the context is the "willful stoopid" he mentions immediate before that bit o' vacuous nonsense. "And so he says to me, you want to be a bad guy? and I say Yeah Baby! I want to be bad! I says Churchill space ponies I'm making gravy without the lumps! Ah ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!!!" -- The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight let him string together random bits o' stoopid, but don't try and explain. "Uh, i was just messing around with Gromnir with the same lingo as Anita K. & co uses, then things happened apparantly." we got it. portions we highlighted to point out the ha-ha to junai: "I find this post offensive on the behalf of people i do not know and whose sensibilities that i cannot possibly feel" ok, that shoulda' clued our resident seal-clubber into the mirth, but if it went over his head, your condemnation o' our "zoophobia" shoulda' erased any lingering doubts. he took serious even so. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!