Gromnir

didn't bother us much. am getting how with a long speech where you is trying for heartfelt, you don't wanna look like a politician... evoke comparisons to biden or putin. perhaps went too far trying to avoid a static shot? wasn't all that distracting for us personal, but am getting it. admitted our biggest problem with arnold is how he managed to get elected before the whole #metoo movement and has thus avoided much o' the taint which went with all the accusations. to his credit, mr. schwarzenegger apologized regarding his behaviours in general, even if he didn't admit to specific acts o' indiscretion. hardly makes him okie dokie in our book. HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

not wanting to make this a ukraine thing. am more surprised by how our opinion o' arnold has changed in recent years... or at least improved a bit. is a whole lotta reasons not to like arnold. given his treatment o' women, to a few curious political stances, the terminator did not have our support save on a few issues. even so, whether is covid, january 6 or present events, arnold has spoken up against wrongs, wrongs which in the past woulda' been universal derided by those in his party. from our pov, old arnold speaking truth to power, no longer body builder arnold or conan arnold, is looking better than ever... though am still not good with the sexual misconduct stuff. no free passes. HA! Good Fun!

well each runelords ap got you to level twenty, so is kinda an obvious hurdle to combine. no hurdle is insurmountable, but... extinction curse is 2e. the following observation is hardly definitive, but at least twice has the owlcat developers mentioned in streams that they were planning on doing another 1e ap. also, given how the least popular aspect o' kingmaker were kingdom building, the reasonable approach woulda' been to do something w/o a similar mechanic. similar, recognizing the considerable complaints 'bout wotr enigma and puzzles, you mighta' thought the dlc would eschew such. ... might be worth considering that owlcat developers is hopelessly contrarian. speaking o' contrarian, shattered pillar and conjurer, btw, is hardly "traps" in any meaningful sense. in deadfire a shattered pillar can be highly efficacious and it takes effort to build a non viable single class monk, regardless o' subclass. argue there is better monk or wizard options than shattered pillar or conjurer is not identifying a trap unless those subclasses serious undermine viability. am thinking people is knowing using such terms as "trap" in a non traditional sense. HA! Good Fun! ps kinda amusing, but while am personally likely to play helwaker or forbidden fist as a monk, shattered pillar is one o' our recommendations for folks wanting an ez kinda entry-level deadfire character which nevertheless feels powerful. shattered pillar requires less micromanagement than other monks, but particular on normal difficulty, you are gonna have zero difficulty generating wounds so you may spam abilities even with the 5.0 wounds cap.

is also far more people today than in 1918. more human fuel to exhaust also changes the timeline. "excessive lockdowns" is kinda loading it eh? reasonable mitigation efforts may indeed include lockdowns. and china is a bad example w/o comparing to places such as new zealand which had a much different experience with omicron, which am suspecting you is already aware. the chinese vaccine is poor v. omicron and the oldest portion o' at least the hong kong population, where omicron has been particular deadly, is having poor vaccination rates, but is intellectual dishonest to take omicron insular. compare entire pandemic makes more sense, no? overall trend for those who utilized lockdowns judicious and were embracing vaccines and mitigation efforts reveals vast different body counts overall. the thing is, lockdowns today is gonna be different than the past couple years. yeah, if transmissibility is extreme high and lethality is disproportionate low, then in a place such as the US where is functional impossible to get real widespread lockdowns anyways, such efforts is gonna be o' limited efficacy, which is why vaccines and n95s in indoor environments become more important. unfortunate, if you can't get vaccine rates much 'bove 2/3 o' the population and if southerners has declared they is over covid, then mitigation efforts kinda fail before they get started. am genuine wondering how many people have to die for a few individuals to change their mind 'bout covid. HA! Good Fun!

well, let's be honest-- as recent as this previous october, is unlikely that were what you were expecting... sweet summer child that you were. "if you think this is cold, count yourself lucky that you weren't here in the winter of _________." heard that line from locals? well, maybe next year is when you take up ice fishing. we got a bunch o' tip-ups and an auger in the garage we never bothered to get rid of but would slit our own wrists before ever again using as a means o' recreation. HA! Good Fun!

am knowing people hate history, but the spanish flu and the rocky road to recovery once years o' waves trailed off makes for useful reading in these times. anybody shocked by inflation didn't bother to follow the history o' post spanish flu economies. sadly, the mitigation efforts which were effective for combating the pandemic and its resulting economic pain in the early 20th, while chronicled and known, were nevertheless ignored or even derided by all too many 21st century pundits even as we near 1 million US dead and have so recent eclipsed 6 million worldwide covid deaths... which should all by itself reveal just how disproportionate poor the US has handled the pandemic. am s'posing a century, or even as little as a couple decades from today, when is another global pandemic, we will again stare blank at history, having learned nothing save that somehow democrats and/or republicans is to blame for it all... and that the government is using the situation as an excuse to take your guns and bibles. HA! Good Fun!

kp pretends not to have read the "why inversions" part of his link, but the point you make is the one he will similar keep ignoring. heck, he don't get the "why inversions" explains how d20 systems actual result in more complex math than the link offering 'cause d20, d6 and whatever probabilities (not to mention nonsensical armour and stacking maths) is comparatively far less intuitive. the math o' inversions may be confusing to kp, but he gets inverted 'cause the result is actual intuitive with benefits and boons being equivalent, which is the more intuitive result. obsidian didn't set out to make all pillars powhaz and abilities equal, but they did aim for and attain near universal viability. is a whole lotta builds threads for pillars which make it obvious one may still find the margins o' the math to achieve an edge in pillars and pillars ii. is a handful o' disproportionate powerful synergies in pillars which make those triple crown solo achievements possible. one may create a relative powerful pillars character if they know the math and understand the margins o' the rule system. however, you don't need to know the math or the rules to build a strong pillars character and you don't need to understand the math, 'cause if you build a character which in your imagination you envision will be effective, then is almost certain it will be effective in pillars and deadfire. but again, much o' the appeal o' pathfinder and owlcat's mythics is players patting themselves on the back for discovering the best options and avoiding the pitfalls o' d&d legacy systems with which they is comfortable and familiar. kingmaker and wotr players prefer an obtuse system which necessarily leads to stat bloat and increasing numbers o' builds being rendered ineffective. is impossible to fight literal decades o' familiarity and nostalgia and is not actual the job o' players to be reasonable. developers gotta sell folks what they want regardless o' what they is complaining. owlcat, adding their extra munchkiny mythics, archetypes, sooper weapon and stat bloat took accurate measure o' their fanbase. ... mythics popularity does kinda paint owlcat into a corner for future releases as no other 1e ap uses mythic. that said, it wouldn't be too difficult to bootstrap legacy of fire, return of the runelords, strange aeons or tyrant's grasp into mythic viability. converse, owlcat being inextricable tethered to the crusade system makes jade empire, skull and shackles and a couple other options likely successors. assuming owlcat remains viable post ukraine invasion, is difficult to guess which is the next ap choice. will be tough to make more munchkin than wotr, and fans no doubt want at least wotr powha, but so far the only limits we has seen mentioned by owlcat is that they don't want "too weird" (no iron gods,) they is sticking with 1e and as @Agiel observed, reign of winter is a non-starter for uniquely russian legal reasons. HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1184370/view/3133948628978453388 "Aeon Gaze will no longer work on enemies with echolocation, thoughtsense and blindsight, because it is gaze" an odd nerf seeing as how most high level foes have at least one o' the aforementioned. will be curious to see if the all too predictable happens and if party members with blindsight or echolocation is prevented from benefiting from aeon's gaze. as it current stands, aeon party immunity to mind-affecting invalidates a few buffs, so we would be less than surprised if companion blindsight and echolocation undermined aeon's gaze buffs. HA! Good Fun!

you making another funny? stacking is a big exception, and insta-kills, and critical hits where the threat range doubles yielding vast different results from improved critical or keen is gonna confuse, and (etc.) but to describe a d20 system as "addition" is misguided or ignorant... is even worse 'cause we still got d4, d6, d8, d12 as well and you may check the probability curve for those dice if you want to be doing a search. comparative, virtual all math in pillars is percentile based with players receiving actual linear advantages for improvements or penalties and is not threshold based neither resulting in the need to chase ever more elusive dcs and ab numbers. action speed and recovery is a noteworthy pillars exception even though technical remains percentile based as is inextricably linked to animation speed. once again kp focuses on the exception to prove the rule, eh? and again, whether you understand the comparative simple math o' pillars or not, it don't much matter to the uninitiated as is relative few trap options, and unlike owlcat which is stuck with broken pathfinder, obsidian were able to correct balance problems as posed to magnifying issues with mythics... complete indifference to balance so clear led to the bloat you so often criticize. according to pillars 2 telemetry, literal nobody had played a shaman a couple months post deadfire release. 'course this inspired Gromnir to play a pillars ii shaman. even the options pillars players were purposeful avoiding ended up being not only viable but effective. sure, with multiclass it were technical possible to construct self a trap build, but it actual took effort to do so. regardless, don't get the relative simple pillars % math? no worries 'cause you could choose weapons and abilities based on what sounded kewl after reading ability and item descriptions and chances are you would end up with a highly effective build. we do understand the appeal o' owlcat's pathfinder. years o' familiarity with d&d legacy systems is tough to overcome. is a whole lotta nostalgia involved but is also far easier to stick with the old system you know rather than switch to something new even if is more rational and easier for beginners to learn, which is part o' the reason why the US still ain't switched to the metric system. also, part o' the appeal o' the d20/d&d stuff is the opportunity to craft a better build. the thing is, better is not possible unless there is worse. HA! Good Fun!

is unlikely to make you feel better, but even if you are a math savant, you could face considerable consternation. good math for levels up to eight will as often as not result in bad math as you progress. also, to avoid player generation and development pitfalls you need know pathfinder and owlcat quirks. example: erastil is not a popular pnp deity choice 'mongst powergamer 'cause the deity's domain powers and spells his clerics have access to is kinda meh. in fact, the wotr community domain's guarded hearth, which is a near no-brainer choice, is the domain power o' the pnp home subdomain o' community... a subdomain which is considered weaker than community 'cause the cleric o' erastil would be needing give up the unity domain power to avail themselves o' the home sub-domain... and is likely the previous example sounds like gibberish to anybody not over-invested in pathfinder. regardless, know math and know pathfinder ain't enough 'cause owlcat adds their own twist. is a whole lotta ways to play wotr and be effective and even powerful with difficulty set to core and even hard. unfortunate, is also way too many opportunities for a player to ruin a character or party by choosing wrong at level-up. owlcat's approach with stat bloat is rewarding a powergamer approach and punishing the casual gamer who don't know wotr and pathfinder minutiae. curious enough, is a considerable % o' owlcat fans who defend the developer's approach and sales do not appear to have suffered overmuch, so expecting a sea change is not a reasonable gamble. HA! Good Fun!

there is an extreme late game romance option: the game romances and achievements matter little to us, so am not sure what are the requirements, but we did include a link to a possible alternative to crazycakes. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* the downside being there is far too many objective bad class and race choices. converse is more good options than the hardcore 1337 pathfinder/wotr sages will readily admit. HA! Good Fun!

owlcat keeps managing to add new bugs to wotr mounted combat while not removing old ones. we cannot use dazzling display and a few other full-round actions while mounted in tb. is an old bug which recent returned. will need check to see if ranged weapons is working proper in tb mounted combat 'cause is a bug which were addressed at same time the dazzling display problem were fixed and while am not seeing how they could be related, is a number o' old bugs which has reappeared with the recent patch, although none is genuine game breaking for us. quasi-related, animal companions still cannot take the tandem trip teamwork feat w/o the feat disappearing to be replaced by the dreaded question mark on the character tab. as have observed previous, am kinda annoyed by owlcat's notions o' aeon dedication to cosmic law. the whole mirror universe bit o' the aeon enforcing the laws o' the abyss necessarily has the aeon ignore the hypocrisy o' his/her own actions as one smites and smotes agents o' chaos in alushinyrra. how exact does that work? whatever. regardless, from a gameplay pov, the aeon has been kinda surprising for us in that we saw so many on the owlcat boards and elsewhere describe it as underpowered path. those observations is kinda legit as the aeon starts off uninspired compared to other mythics, albeit more than good enough to handle game challenges at any difficulty. however, late game the aeon has been devastating, particular 'gainst the toughest adversaries. pathetic quasit is a good example 'cause what makes it particular tough as an opponent, other then the cheap resurrection mechanic, is all o' its spell buffs, and a melee aeon is gonna erase all such buffs w/i moments. the runemaster? *snort* make sure your aeon has high initiative, and chances are endgame battles, even on higher difficulties, become a bit underwhelming. ... curious, deskari had relative few dispellable buffs. 'course the lord o' locusts still went down like a punk in part 'cause the aeon has a mythic spell which makes an entire party immune to physical damage for multiple rounds, and w/o his scythe doing insta-kill kinda damage on unfair, deskari is less than scary. HA! Good Fun!

your economic observation brought back nightmare recollections (possibly literal... will know tomorrow,) from our time playing football at Cal. ever seen videos o' those walter payton and jerry rice hill workouts? *groan* our high school coaches (football and track) didn't make us run 'cause we would get shin splints so ez. college coaches didn't care. worse, the university coaches wanted us to add +20lbs. think the added muscle made our shin splint situation better or worse? we hated those hills. HA! Good Fun!

had a weird 80s nostalgia moment. *shrug* also, am gonna add spoiler 'cause some folks, particular american southerners, might be triggered by the following: HA! Good Fun!

am an outsider sans kids, but having witnessed the mortification o' more than a few parents due to all too predictable ordinary kid behaviour, am wondering if hurl is being sarcastic or serious. no doubt kids extricate hurl from a few uncomfortable situations, but am suspecting the lifetime ledger does not work in favour o' parents when calculating embarrassing/unpleasant/expensive situations as 'posed to those who has not continued their familial line. that said, am aware is perfect ordinary for parents to have a blind spot regarding their kids. as a teacher, hurl has no doubt been on the other side o' the desk from misguided parents who reflexive defend the indefensible actions o' their kids. such parental unreasonableness is normal. am not expecting any individual parent to be objective 'bout their own kids and am suspecting we would end up with a whole bunch more maladjusted psychopaths if all parents treated their kids with vulcan dispassion. HA! Good Fun!

'cause o' another thread, was recalling the last show we saw at the 55 bar in nyc. almost the same venue size. HA! Good Fun!

roberta's is also brooklyn, if a smidge further from where you are staying. from russ & daughter's, keep going down flushing, then take a left on... am not sure. is not the direction from which we get there, so as good as is our memory, am not 100% certain. regardless is a few blocks north o' flushing ave and east o' bushwick ave. HA! Good Fun! ps roberta's actual were a thing considerable after we original left ny, but they did a fantastic job making great food even if the business model later had problems. is not one o' those +100 year old ny establishments, but we always hit up the bushwick location for pizza when am in ny in spite o' our aversion to trendy &/or hipster.

our ny list is almost entire food and music related. truth to tell our ideal "nyc" trip would likely be to grab a bagel from russ & daughters in the am or early afternoon, then pizza from roberta's in the eve, after which we hit the 55 bar for an evening show. aforementioned itinerary would likely result in us being satiated with a full nyc trip and have us not need return for at least another decade. ignored by a cabbie after dark and verbal abused by a cabbie during broad daylight were achieved w/i first few days o' arriving in nyc our firstest time as an adult... in fact, we acquired the insulting cabbie cheevo across the street from msg as we were trying to get from the penta hotel (no longer exists) to the un for a free speech... speech. after getting in the cab and asking to go to un, the driver began swearing at us. to this day am not certain what set him off, but we decided it would be best to exit the cab. HA! Good Fun!

as somebody who unabashed abuses shakespeare quotes, we got no justification for criticism, but following star trek vi, is impossible for us to have any star trek show or movie quote the bard w/o the over-the-top christopher plummer portrayal o' chang intruding 'pon our recollection. distracting. am s'posing the episode title could be a reference to ibsen's peer gynt, but it doesn't really work as such. would need a harry mudd episode or something similar. HA! Good Fun!

we do have a personal chest bug. we never sell books and we hoard unique items, so our chest is filled with stuff we will never use but we nevertheless refuse to sell. the thing is, the personal chest is not showing all our stuff. everything is still there, but past the first three dozen or so items, the chest inventory is blank and truncated. if we wanna go through our entire personal chest inventory we need transfer to party inventory to actual view. minor annoyance at this point but annoying nevertheless. also, elemental barrage acts peculiar with bonus damage sources such as aeon and inquisitor bane-- peculiar in the sense we is receiving such bonus damages tacked onto the barrage... but not always. am sometimes receiving mythic finesse damage on an elemental barrage "hit"... but not always. not sure what is all the triggers. we got treacherous flame gloves, the dragon familiar and resounding blows working so we are benefitting from considerable additional elemental barrage damage, but am not always understanding the triggers. went hand axes with our dual wielding dex build 'cause we didn't wanna be yet another guy who went with kukris. a strength build is ultimate superior, but we wanted to try dex. for most o' the game we were using greybor's crushing cold as well as the grave singer relic hand axe-- not optimal but more than good enough for unfair battles. in fact. 'cause we wanted to keep the ascension option available for this aeon run, we had to replay the deskari battle in iz three times 'cause in tb mode we were killing the demon lord before our archer (lann) ever got a shot at using a midnight bolt. optimal ain't necessary to roll-stomp, but all too often am admitted confused by the game's math. HA! Good Fun!

the dogs expect to be fed at 5:30. we got a moaner in the pack and he will vocalize his desire to be fed with increasing volume the longer we ignore. this means we wake up at 5:30. this also means a week or so following the end o' daylight saving is a real pain in the arse 'cause the dogs has never learned to read a clock. have tried multiple times to explain little hand and big hand values, but the dogs pretend as if they have no idea what am telling 'em. so, 5:30 it is. HA! Good Fun!

those same pillars of life work against playful darkness, and eight o' 'em will knock playful down to 'bout half hp. pillars offer no saves and no sr. can stack pillars on top of each other, and as the tunnel area ain't particular wide, chances are you are gonna hit playful with all your pillars in one go as soon as he moves to attack your party. is a good chance we lose one animal companion or a summons when fighting playful, but am seeming to recollect we mentioned something 'bout the disproportionate value o' intimidation on higher difficulty levels? on unfair is only slight more difficult to fear lock playful darkness with a companion who took a level o' thug than is to do so core or unfair. arm your heaviest hitter with finnean (ideally as a reach weapon so you may position behind a summons or animal companion... jic) while taking advantage o' mark of justice and guarded hearth and chances are you ain't gonna need rely on crits to hit playful even on unfair. sosiel is your best intimidation option, but is others who is good enough to get the job done. the 96 ac drops precipitous when you bypass armour with finnean and rob playful of it's dexterity modifier. got a bunch o' dogs in your party and chances are one 'o 'em renders playful prone. an azata mc or nenio with enchantment focus (or others) should also have dc kinda high by this point. when coupled with madness domain + fear working to reduce will saves, you have a better than fair shot o' landing a heightened hideous laughter or something similar on playful. am never using the creeping doom approach. is not 'cause is cheese (it is, but unfair kinda demands some level o' exploit/cheese) but we refuse to have camellia in a party after act 1 and we rare have daeran 'round to summon the swarms needed, so we had to find other options... and am not a fan o' the cave fangs exploit. heck, am quite willing to use ember to cackle protective luck and fortune for unfair boss battles, so am obvious not moral opposed to exploits and cheese. HA! Good Fun! ps am in full agreement regarding the lack o' fun o' unfair. we do the boss battles on unfair, just 'cause, but you couldn't pay us to slog through wotr on unfair... well, you would need pay us a whole helluva a bunch o' money. is a handful o' uber abilities and exploits you need indulge to get through unfair battles. doesn't require clever use o' tactics to do unfair. sometimes the rng gods is displeased and you will need reload, but unfair success is 'bout understanding the margin gameplay made possible by pathfinder and wotr loopholes and such necessary sh!te is the kinda thing no real dm/gm would ever allow in pnp. am current playing on hard. core would probable be our difficulty option but for the fact our last couple parties were a bit too strong and prebuffing 'fore battles (again, we don't use mods) were taking more o' our gameplay time than just 'bout anything else.