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Gromnir

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Everything posted by Gromnir

  1. well then, do not underestimate the value of charge for seelah, and the capacity for your party to initiate almost any combat. might be a bit exploitive, but start combat rt and have all melee party members charge simultaneous to begin combat... and Then turn on tb when the charge is complete. is possible for all melee combatants to simultaneous charge a single foe in rt, wrecking most non-boss foes in the process. is worth considering up until you have the levels to keep seelah perpetual hastened, and possibly enlarged. aside, there remains a few tb combat hiccups. most such problems may be dismissed with a momentary switch to rt. if that do not work, you are able to create a save during combat by creating a bug report save: alt +b. complete exit the game after creating the bug report save and then reload will exorcise most tb bugs not fixed by a brief toggle to rt, but not all. and yes, the capacity to save during combat is potential exploitive. HA! Good Fun!
  2. "limitless rage" is the obvious first choice for a barbarian, or any other class which relies on rage powhaz... and as kp so indelicate put it, brutality incarnate is linked to the use o' natural weapons such as claws and bite; even if you go the full beast totem route, (which is a good idea for an instinctual warrior/mutation warrior kinda barbarian) we typical wouldn't choose brutality incarnate at any point. on normal difficulty you ain't doomed by taking brutality incarnate, but if you do not respec, then make certain you choose all the beast totem rage powers in addition to animal fury. other mythic powahz we might unsolicited suggest for a great sword wielding barbarian at some point earlyisih is ever ready, myhtic charge, thundering blows, and if you don't go the azata route with life bonding friendship, then last stand is great for mitigating mistakes or if you are playing on higher difficulties. as is @Gorthfirst time playing, mistakes is gonna happen 'cause you do not possess a wealth o' meta-knowledge. seeing as you already took guarded stance and bit of fun, you might also inspect the archmage armour power, 'cause use o' those plentiful potions o' mage armour trigger the archmage armour mythic just as does casting the spell. archmage armour scales nice. early mythic feats which is kinda impossible to ignore for a greatsword haver is power attack (mythic) and improved critical (mythic.) seelah is extreme fast when mounted on a horse. the automatic choice for paladin is weapon bond, and is a perfect acceptable option, but it does mean seelah, particular in tb mode, will be the last invitee arriving at any combat party just so long as you got her in medium or heavy armour... which is likely. side note: fatigue, diseased and cursed is excellent choices for paladin mercies. feel free to ignore any and all Gromnir suggestions, but owlcat and pathfinder make it extreme ez to choose wrong even when something sounds right/good. HA! Good Fun!
  3. regarding celestial velociraptor: don't overlook the UMD skill. of course animal companions should not be able to use scrolls, but with charisma boosting gear, your celestial raptor will be able to use any and all o' those personal-only spells which transform clerics and wizards into combat dynamos or make 'em functional invulnerable. HA! Good Fun! ps lead blades also applies to natural "hand" weapons, so your legendary proportion celestial velociraptor's claws and talon attacks is base 3d6 damage if you use the scroll. add a skald to the party with beast totem rage powers and the potential damage output for the raptor becomes kinda stoopid.
  4. won't spoil story aspects too much, but is a short span during which you lose mythic and have not yet gained your legend powhaz... functional get dropped to mythic level 3. you will keep your first three mythic levels even as a legend. next you are tasked with a legendary quest which is more or less complex depending on choices you made throughout the game. you are gonna be relative underpowered at this point as you lost many mythic powhaz and you have gained no legend benefits. upon completion o' the legend quest you immediate gain enough xp to reach overall level 35. as such the stuff 'bout gaining xp at an accelerated rate is misleading-- true but misleading. you will reach level 40 with a fair amount o' gameplay to spare, but your increased rate o' level acquisition is not as dramatic as you might s'pose. illustration: when our companions final hit level 20, our legend had just reached overall level 38. so, in all honesty, after becoming legendary we gained three levels in the span our companions acquired two. the real kicker is the insta-boost from 18 to 35. as such, is good to have a relative complete leveling plan in mind as you are doing the legend quest. HA! Good Fun!
  5. gonna admit we only created a second general much later in the game. until act v, we only had 1 general and that were adequate and likely better as we level'd up the single general a bit faster as 'posed to spreading the xp. setsuna shay (fire. lots of fire.) baroness gaunther/gunther (sp?) (maybe better for an angel character as she gets bonuses to divine spells) hate to say this but the wotr campaign stuff is not well balanced. the mage generals is objective better, though you ain't doomed if you go a different route. choose one o' the aforementioned generals and then maybe pick up the other in act 5 would be our recommendation. archery units are strongk. marksmen remain powerful but they used to be op. hellknights are solid early available army units choices as is clerics. HA! Good Fun!
  6. our personal strategy is not grease dependent. that said, grease and glitterdust is arguable two o' the most effective spells in the game and both is low level. grease does help for tavern defense but is not essential. ember may spam slumber, so she is worthy o' consideration for tavern defense, but typical we got at least three party members with animal companions which allows us to be in more hot spots at once and am able to quick kill the bomb throwing meanines. do not hesitate to kill the enemy alchemists as failure to kill 'em all is what is gonna have your turn-based efforts stretch out interminable. we have lann kill enemy archers. animal companions, particular animal companions capable o' trip, make a big difference for the tavern defense. 'course if you do not have animal companions... reposting for no particular reason the smite ability for the divine hunter's animal companion is NOT once per day. spammable. for inexplicable reasons, the velociraptor has a charisma o' 14. smillodon has 10. the rest o' the critters get 'tween 4 and 7 for charisma. your velociraptor, once lann reaches divine hunter level 3 and the velociraptor may be designated celestial or fiendish, becomes an absolute murder machine with perpetual capacity to overcome dr plus added ab and damage versus evil foes... and most wotr foes is evil. is so many different ways to build characters and defeat difficult encounters. in spite o' insistence by many pundits that certain classes and companions is terrible, am gonna suggest such is mostly hogwash. the problem with pathfinder and wotr in particular is that in spite o' the many possible win options for building characters and companions, there is far too many bad options which initial look good on paper. is also counter-intuitive bad tactics for beating tough encounters. let the bad guys come to you for tavern defense? makes sense. bad tactics. HA! Good Fun! ps as we already mentioned grease and glitterdust, the main reason why both spells remain useful all game is 'cause they ignore spell resistance. use heighten metamagic to increase the effective spell level o' grease and glitterdust (thus increasing their dc) and both will remain staples from first hours o' the game until the end. (edit: selective spell metamagic, particular in the case o' grease, is also useful) is a couple curious examples o' enemy demons with wings which may nevertheless be knocked prone. go figure.
  7. keep in mind when you switch to legend, you are granted an immediate +4 to all attributes. there is also an intelligence boosting tome you will be able to find a bit earlier as an angel, but nevertheless before endgame if you choose a different mythic. as a legend you are leveling up 20 more times-- plenty o' attribute points. you need 16 int to cast all vivisectionist spells and none o' your spell choices is gonna be dc dependent. if you hit level 16 vivisectionist at overall level 40, then assuming you started with a 10 int, you may drop your final attribute gain into int and you are golden, yes? with mythics, is no corner to be painted into insofar as demon or angel. however, the triggers for the tavern defense advancement are not always obvious. HA! Good Fun!
  8. read at your own risk: HA! Good Fun! ps @Gorthone o' the most op builds involves barbarian (instinctual warrior)/fighter (mutation warrior) 16/4. go trickster for serious op. however, is complete unnecessary to indulge such silliness. am not a fan o' armoured hulk or beastkin berserker, but all the other archetypes has significant upside and is hardly as if armoured hulk and beastkin berserker is too weak to handle a hard run o' wotr. unsolicited observation: many barbarian builds finish with four levels o' fighter, but again, such is hardly required.
  9. am hesitating to mention, but trickster is a viable option for a cn barbarian, though we likely wouldn't recommend for your first run. requires serious metagamey silliness to get the most o' trickster... both in terms o' mechanics and a few quests. trickster includes such cheese as a full wizard spell book so as long as your intelligence is 12, and you could possible have a critical range o' 11-20 and x5 damage on your main weapon(s)... not to mention being able to insta-paralyze all foes at the start o' combat. is serious over-the-top. legend has more than a few interesting aspects. a decent second class for a barbarian legend worth considering is sixteen levels ' o' vivisectionist... which provides you four levels to play 'round with and do whatever. get vivisectionist grand mutagen, infusions, sneak attack damage and numerous useful medical discoveries such as wings. is not too many bad ways to do legend but you do miss out on a few story aspects. also, while is more cheesy metagame nonsense, the best cloak in the game is available to the aeon mythic path, so start aeon and switch to legend (or devil) is a decent pragmatic choice, but maybe not so good for a cn barbarian. HA! Good Fun! ps azata is also an obvious choice for a not-evil barbarian. the incredible might sooper power as well as life bonding friendship should provide serious benefits.
  10. yes, but the Constitutional issue is not settled. doesn't make much sense for Congress to be able to limit an executive powhar unless is a power Congress granted to the executive branch. SCOTUS could very well decide, and with more than a little justification, that the President may indeed wave a magic wand and declassify documents at any time and on a whim. trump, over and over and over again showed how in spite o' behaviours being unthinkable and even arguable illegal, as the head o' the executive branch, including the department o' justice, the only meaningful limit on the President is impeachment. trump pulls out a ****tail napkin dated january 19, 2020 or has some kroney back up the silliness that trump declassified anything and everything which were being packed and sent to mar-a-lago might sound ridiculous, but is not a ludicrous legal argument to be making. the thing is, there is no need for the doj to counter the blanket classification defense. the identified statutes in the search warrant do not mention classified documents. am thinking that were not an oversight on the part o' merrick garland. make 18 U.S. Code § 1924 the basis for warrant and assuming probable cause as a necessary prerequisite for the search would be undermined if the Court decided the President had indeed declassified everything. is not clear regardless o' how stoopid it feels and in spite o' how many lawyers has said a President can't declassify on a whim... 'cause the opposite might very well be the case. HA! Good Fun!
  11. ... so, she is on the PUP list? regardless, am hopeful she just needs deal with a bit o' a limp and perhaps a severe diminished frisbee/ball catch radius. good luck. HA! Good Fun!
  12. the classified/declassified part is a bit of a red herring. those documents the national achieves has been attempting to retrieve since 2021 aren't trump's property regardless if they are classified or not. the security risk presented by having such documents stored at a hotel exists whether they are technically classified or not. the most obvious legal problem for trump, and this only came to light recently, is that the national archives attempted to retrieve those documents which do not belong to trump and trump's people assured the feds that all relevant documents had already been returned. the criminal liability hurdle is that trump needs to have some provable intent to 1) hurt the US or 2) share the intelligence with foreign powers if you are trying to criminalize the x-President under the espionage act for possession o' intelligence documents. having the documents at mar-a-lago, while not good, is unlikely gonna be what leads to a criminal charge, 'cause seems improbable one will be able to prove trump took and retained US intelligence resources 'cause he were trying to burn the US. show trump is a petty narcissist and he didn't wanna give up his toys? sure. prove he were intending to screw the US or had plans to sell or share secrets with foreign powers is not same. the thing is, willful concealing or destruction o' such intelligence documents may also be criminalized. after the warrant were executed, has become increasing apparent trump and his people were very much aware they had documents which were rightful the property o' the US and trump were not returning those documents voluntarily. trump brought up declassification as an excuse/defense and most persons in the media, and even a few lawyers, made the mistake o' responding as if the classification status could be meaningful. don't get distracted. classification status should not be meaningful. knowledge of trump and those in his orbit that there were documents which properly belongs to the US and trump and his people did willful retain such documents in spite o' multiple attempts by the national archives to retrieve is gonna be where trump is most vulnerable... if the doj wants to take it so far. perhaps the main point o' the search warrant were to finally retrieve the remaining documents, which in our mind is already a win, but trump turned the situation into a political p00p storm. is ironic but perhaps the political furor trump ignited might lead to charges which previous coulda' been considered a secondary concern for doj. no matter what, the intelligence needed to be required, particular (assuming nyt and washington post reporting is accurate) once mar-a-lago security footage showed multiple persons accessing the s'posed secure documents. is possible doj woulda' been happy to let the issue go quiet as long as they felt confident no more state secrets were in trump's tiny hands. am not sure if the 8/26 situation allows for a quiet resolution. HA! Good Fun!
  13. scholarships should be awarded through the kurgan method kidding... mostly. HA! Good Fun!
  14. am recalling john hamm doing comedy on 30 rock so am kinda optimistic 'bout this. HA! Good Fun!
  15. best professor and best class we had in pursuit o' our bs in physics from berkeley were a community college american history class we took during the summer so we could graduate on-time (early). HA! Good Fun!
  16. we would like for our carpenters and plumbers to recognize how much o' what is happening today is reminiscent o' the early decades o' 20th century USA, with increasing violent rhetoric supporting nativism and a widening gap in income disparity leading to widespread anger. ignorance at the time made americans easily manipulated by the worst political elements. democracy don't work particular well w/o an educated electorate. Gromnir worked ranch jobs and roofing for much o' our youth and university years. we learned useful skills, but more important we recognized how the folks working backbreaking jobs for little pay ain't stoopid and it were circumstances more than intellect which led our coworkers fixing barb wire fences in blizzard conditions instead o' being seated in lecture hall classrooms being taught how commodity based economies o' africa and elsewhere where doomed by systemic forces to be almost perpetual excluded from the ranks o' capital producers and service-based economies. am thinking it would be useful education for university folks to actual spend months/years doing physical demanding work if for no other reason than to disabuse 'em o' the notion education is somehow making a person insightful or special. just our opinion. HA! Good Fun!
  17. am suspecting is gonna depend on what you mean by "effectively." with fencing grace and her shaman battle abilities and spells, a camellia with maxed dex is gonna be having high attack bonus with a high crit weapon, doing admirable damage even before factoring in no-brainer elemental barrage damage. camellia may also cast genie kind to further exploit elemental barrage. given she is most likely being used to tank, the damage output is impressive. insofar as hexes, metal curse requires taking a second spirit, but is worth the effort. metal curse is a no save and no spell resistance debuff o' foe ac. along with the madness domain power, the metal curse is one o' the top debuffs in the entire game. protective luck and fortune is useful but may be exploited to increase duration to extreme periods o' time resulting in cheese level benefits. shaman has most all the desirable party buffs including the resist/protection energy communals, delay poison, true seeing, stoneskin, and all the attribute boosts. am not personal finding necessary, but take the greater enduring spells mythic and have camellia cast all the best buffs which will then last 24 hours. creeping doom and crusader's edge. ... sure, we may build a better merc or player character than camellia, but am having a hard time dismissing her usefulness and keep in mind we active dislike her writing so is not as if am affected by some kinda desire to over-inflate her contributions. in all Gromnir runs, camellia is permanent kicked to the curb after the start o' lost chapel, but is not 'cause she is ineffectual. HA! Good Fun!
  18. have always liked billy joel. not top ten or anything, but we rare dislike a billy joel tune. another song from k-tel's 1980 rock album, one o' our favorite 8-tracks. HA! Good Fun!
  19. if we had to choose top three most useful wotr companions we would select camellia along with seelah and sosiel, and camellia makes the best pure tank, though as already stated by mid-late game a true tank becomes increasing less necessary. crazycakes eventual gets access to creeping doom, one o' the best spells for overcoming a few o' those improbable boss battles, and she potential may take a second spirit to acquire the metal curse, which provides a scaling no-save debuff to enemy ac... -6 at level 16? serious? even so, we invariably stop using camellia in our party after act i and some limited act ii content. am s'posing one could argue camellia has over-the-top appeal, but is nothing particular subtle or clever in the writing o' her character. "would the owlcat writers go that far?" yes. yes they would, and so what? yeah, am able to see the edgelord appeal o' camellia but we don't share it. but again, camellia has the potential to be the best companion tank, as well as your most useful hexer and she has access to creeping doom. camellia is a spirit hunter, an excellent class with full spell progression capable of casting many o' the best party-wide buffs available. camellia is useful early, mid and late in the game. is many practical reasons to keep camellia around. @majestic mentioned how much he enjoyed firebirds in a different thread. we would rather watch firebirds on an endless loop than keep camellia in a wotr party a moment longer than necessary. HA! Good Fun!
  20. hmmm we found seelah, spec'd sword and board, perfect capable o' tanking most encounters up to hard difficulty. however, for a few boss fights, the paladin were not a viable tank... and the boss fights are kinda the chokepoint for those who might not wanna min-max. seelah, particularly if you made her a mounted combatant (we used wolf most often, but for full tanky seelah, boar is a decent choice... though admitted to do non-horse you gotta multi with oracle or something else,) is gonna be an excellent tank for +90% o' all wotr encounters on difficulties short o' unfair, but is not as if you are able to ignore boss battles which effective undermine her tank worthyness. so the question is why would you build seelah as a tank in the first place? crazycakes camellia is arguable the most effective pure tank 'mongst the companions as is typical better to use a dex build for ac than to try and stack armour bonuses. y'know, the main reason we keep seelah sword and board in all our wotr runs is 'cause there is a holy avenger in the game and 'cause somebody in our party is gonna be equipping the undying love of the hopebringer. more freaking metagamey nonsense, eh? the shield is too useful for most o' our dc and fear-exploitation parties not to have the shield figure into our strategies, so somebody needs equip it and seelah is an obvious candidate. in our estimation, your best wotr tank is a summons or an animal companion. sure, you may build an angel oracle to be nigh invulnerable, but why bother? build a party to max dc and damage output is typical our strategy 'cause an overwhelming offense in wotr is the best defense-- you don't need stellar ac if you kill everything in one or two rounds... which is admitted cheesy. ... pathfinder is subject to munchkiny exploits, and owlcat took a hands-off approach to pathfinder balance... and then they added their own epic silliness which frequent complete breaks the game. this is a problem for casual gamers 'cause to make wotr challenging enough for a game with reload as well as hardcore fans who will make insane powerful trickster, demon and angle builds, owlcat resorted to bloat. well that is fine for the hardcore players who will grumble 'bout bloat as they roll-stomp through the game on any difficulty short o' unfair, but what about the casual player? wotr is designed so hardcore munchkins may nevertheless enjoy the game experience, but such design necessarily is gonna frustrate the casual and sane player who doesn't know every unique wotr exploit and stacking opportunity. nevertheless, if @Gorthis having any difficulties with battles on normal difficulty, we will offer advice, but he should be reassured to hear playing every companion straight vanilla as offered is viable. it is 'course all too ez to choose wrong feats and multi-class options so as to make your party ineffectual. is also disturbing ez to build a party which is highly effective for the first 2/3 o' the game but useless near the end. regardless, is not too difficult to fix any "wrong" choices, so don't hesitate to express frustration and ask for solutions. HA! Good Fun!
  21. Trump Tells His Lawyers: Get ‘My’ Top Secret Documents Back “The motion he already filed is so absolutely terrible, that it’s hard to contemplate him filing something even more aggressive and even more unlikely to succeed,” says Ken White, a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. “However,” White added, Trump is “basically trying to litigate the ultimate issue in the case, which is whether he had the right to possess and keep those things, even after he was asked to return them. It’s very unlikely that the court would accept that invitation to litigate that…He would have to prove that those things were illegally taken, and — based on what we know — that is going to be very difficult to prove…He’s going to have to make some very unusual legal arguments, which, if they’re anything like the motion that was just filed, is going to be a very uphill climb.” mr. white's description o' the rule 41(g) motion is, if anything, understating the fumbduckery displayed by trump's lawyers. and then we get the john solomon production o' parts o' a NARA letter. Biden signed off on FBI review of Trump records, National Archives letter reveals ... the gaslighting is astounding. somehow the aforementioned damning letter which reveals just how uncooperative and aware were trump regarding sensitive documents being held at a hotel in florida, is proof that "brandon lied again," according to more than a few fox viewers/readers. what? somehow a letter from may 10 in which it states the President did defer to nara and doj as to whether the fbi should review, is proof Biden lied when the wh announced the President did not have personal knowledge o' or approve the recent search warrant o' mar-a-lago? wait, what? the washington post first reported in february how the national archives were attempting to retrieve documents from trump, so discovering the wh were made aware and consulted in april is news? what does such have to do with approving search warrants or initiating investigations? have witnessed more than once the capacity o' people to read selective and ignore inconvenient facts, but the maga crowd and republican leadership reflexive need to defend any trump stoopidity is nevertheless curiously baffling while also no surprise whatsoever. one one level this document kerfuffle is no different than a parade o' similar improbable dating back to at least 2015, so it should shock nobody. right-leaning and government fearing independents will see the present stoopid as proof they is all bad. the increasing radicalized gop sees the mar-a-lago search as proof the libs are a threat to democracy. wtf? on the positive side, @Gorth videos allow us to indulge a kinda schadenfreude as we recognize endemic and willful electorate obtuseness is hardly a uniquely american quality. HA! Good Fun!
  22. trader joes has popular cheesecake, but in sacramento, am recommending corti brothers. even if corti brothers is a bit distant, am suggesting making the trip at least once as they have a fantastic deli, excellent meats (if you don't have a favorite butcher) as well as numerous specialty items. HA! Good Fun! ps is worth reading the la times article at the linked page. as an aside, when asked where one might find the best deli sandwiches in town, corti brothers gets frequent mentions, so consider stopping by during less than peak hours and ordering a sandwich or two.
  23. maybe you are getting distracted by the typical trappings and elements o' american westerns, which is reasonable 'cause when you look at definitions o' an american western you is gonna see reference to the setting and most people think o' the shootouts and the common themes and the cliché bad guys. tokyo godfathers is a good example o' how perhaps what many persons believe is integral to how american westerns influenced movie-making in general might be missing the mark, yes? while tokyo godfathers is inspired by an american western, it don't have any o' those aspects you think o' when you reflect 'pon what is a western, yes? kubrick were influenced much by john huston's the treasure o' the sierra madre, but is not gonna be a kubrick western found in his catalog... though were a close miss with one film. scorsese is hardly an outlier when he describes the influence o' the searchers on his efforts, and is probable not the stuff you consider when you think o' westerns which were most meaningful to a young martin watching the searchers for the first time. warning: watch only if you never intend o seeing the searchers. now admitted, the searchers were kinda unique in a number o' ways and it don't represent all or even most westerns, but what american westerns brought to film weren't just film techniques and cowboys v. indians; the influence they had were were more far-reaching than you might expect. am willing to bet that most o' the writers and directors o' the films you like best were heavily influenced by american westerns and if not directly, then by their admiration for guys like scorsese and kubrick who were direct influenced by westerns. HA! Good Fun!
  24. obvious entries which leap forward is tokyo godfathers, shrek, crusher joe, nausicaä of the valley of the wind, ghost in the shell and mulan. am not even a hardcore film historian, so am suspecting others is gonna recognize more. am thinking is ez to confuse trappings o' westerns with what were fundamental elements. mulan may be based on a traditional chinese story, but the storytelling is far more reliant on american western traditions. just one element, but is no way eddie murphy character is in mulan w/o american westerns. and tokyo godfathers were just too ez to identify. do a search on influences for tokyo godfathers if you are confused. HA! Good Fun!
  25. a few o' our all-time favorite movies is westerns. would include: the searchers, the treasure of the sierra madre, red river, the wild bunch. searchers is invariably top-ten for us and the other two are not far behind. a half dozen or more other westerns is vying for recognition and we have a hard time explaining why high noon, the ox-bow incident, the gun fighter and others ain't included with our top four. the thing is, many films and shows you perhaps don't think o' as westers is, or were at least western homage/influenced. kurosawa were heavily influenced by american westerns, as well as film noir and shakespeare. have mentioned previous how outland were effective high noon in space. if you like the mandalorian... etc. is also not the same thing, but if you like tarantino, then sergio leone is obvious a huge influence. HA! Good Fun!
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