Captain Battletoad's page

Second comment....

"How can I get women to join my campaign? " ... wow.

"How can I get _______ to join my campaign? "

feels like we are playing "Pathfinders Against Humanity"...

Some interesting choices are...

"Men"
"Real Men"
"Short People"
"Persons of Color"
"Pasty White Geek Guys"
"Hindus"
"Dog Lovers"
"Hippies"
"Jocks"
"Cowboys Fans"...

As someone who lives 20 minutes away from AT&T stadium, I have no problem discriminating against Cowboys fans. They'll only pay attention when things are going well anyway.

What "trend"?

He's trying to get women to play based on assumptions on how he think they'll play.

...or how he's observed them play. Like I said, it at the very least happens in my group. I don't have to make assumptions on how I think the women in my group will play, because they each have their tendencies. It just so happens that of the people in my group that focus on character development and intra-party relations, the women of the group do it more often than the men per capita.

I'm laughing because he makes a sexist generalization about women, then men and then calls himself a feminist all in one sentence.

I think that thinking tasking women with trying to balance murder-hoboism would be in anyway an attractive prospect for said women is also quite funny.

Noticing trends and thinking people deserve equality are not mutually exclusive concepts. Also, assuming the trend is accurate for his group (again, it is for mine but I can't speak for his) then seeking out people who tend to play the desired playstyle is called balancing, not tasking. If someone asked me to play in a game because there was a demand for mechanical min-maxing (my main focus when playing), I fail to see how that's in any way a negative.

ColbyMunro wrote:

I would really enjoy the diversity of gender because I think generally women tend to be more focused on character development and interparty politics which would be a good counterweight to the more masculine murder-hoboism method of playing (although I'm a feminist and recognize that women too can be murder hobos.)

Lol. so many lol.

I mean, he's not inherently entirely wrong. It's obviously not true of all or necessarily even most groups. But at least in my group, the above mentioned trend holds roughly true (since it's a trend and not a universal truth, there are obviously outliers). Just because it's not a trend in your groups doesn't mean it isn't in others.

Based on the previous release, I would expect the resale price on ebay to top $3k within a week. Though it is interesting that they are including Star Fox 2 as one of the titles.

*goes back to playing Secret of Mana on Retropi*

As someone with a RetroPi build, I also have a hard time getting excited about trying to spend $80 on a retro console that only comes with 21 games... if you're lucky enough to get one.

My vision is augmented.

I was already planning on having my first ever SF character be inspired by Deus Ex, so this only makes me more optimistic about the game.

Captain Battletoad wrote:

And 30% of the best Tex-Mex? Idk man, San Antonio and Austin may take the cake on that.

I left them 70%...

That's a low-ball estimate, in my opinion. But then again Tex-Mex may be considered off topic for this thread, no matter how educational it can be.

I highly, highly recommend the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. It's basically Avatar: The Last Airbender meets ancient Rome, but with way more involved and interesting elemental mechanics.

Well, I know where North Korea is, but Iowa would be a stab in the dark. Colour me ignorant.

That's ok, most Americans can't point to Iowa either. In our defense, Iowa is significantly less interesting than best Korea.

Guy Humual wrote:

CBDunkerson wrote:

The message I take away from that is... the Democrats do not really need to change much at all. Clinton should have won... and thus, if everything else stayed exactly the same then even just the 'desire for change' factor should be enough flip things back to the Democrats while Trump is in office.

That is the sadist thing I've read in a long time. No matter who you vote for the American people lose.

No, reading about the 15 y/o kid who was killed by police a few days ago was much sadder.

Or the murder-suicide that just happened at a community college 3 minutes from my current location.

If we're talking about the same incident (Seattle Social Security birthday party), he didn't give up the microphone; it was taken away from him and then he gave up as the scene further degenerated.

I think it was later that same day that he unveiled the first draft of his racial justice program that Comrade Seas linked a couple of pages ago, so I assume his team was already working it after the Netroots Nation disruption.

Still, though, imho, he handled it much better than the Clintons who alternately responded to BLM demonstrators with condescension ("Why don't you go run for something, then?") and abuse (Bill flipping out when Hillary's use of the "super predator" term came up).

Yeah, that's the one. I lump giving up after having the mic taken away in with giving up the mic in general, but I get your point. Regarding the Clintons, while I only begrudgingly voted for Hillary, I will say that I don't really get all of the animosity towards the "Why don't you go run for something" comment. I guess it's mostly because I don't automatically assume that she was intending it to be condescending and (given that I share the philosophy) took it more as a, "be the change you want to see in the world" kind of thing.

RP feels incredibly awkward to me (both when I'm doing it and when I'm just an observer) and is one of the reasons why I derive a majority of my Pathfinder enjoyment from mechanical sources (theorycrafting, seeing the numbers pile up in combat, etc.).

It's also exactly why I DO dump WIS. Who needs a will when you can just go with the flow?

Granted!

All rain on the planet has stopped. Most vegetation is dead before the year's end and oxygen production has basically come to a halt. I hope you don't like breathing.

I wish my group would play Wrath of the Righteous.

All that computer science talk is gibberish to me, but thought some might get a kick out of this. Or maybe not. Computer science talk is all gibberish to me.

The Internet’s Anonymous Nazis Have Realized They Played Themselves Now That Trump Plans to Kill Internet Privacy

Despite me having posted about it previously, and having been decently in favor of the FCC regulations (which never actually went into effect since that wasn't scheduled until December of this year IIRC), this isn't as big of a deal as most people are making it out to be. Virtually all ISPs allow their users to opt-out of data sharing for both phone and data service usage. Most also don't share any personally identifiable data in the first place, and instead share (again only if you consent and choose to not opt-out) only aggregate, anonymous data from their users (EX: AT&T notices that a lot of their users in a particular zip code use their phones around movie theaters more frequently than other venues, so they then start tailoring their advertisements in that area towards things that movie-goers would like). The only thing that really concerns me about this is that it prevents the FCC from imposing future regulations similar to the one that this bill rolls back unless that gets overturned (which I assume would be done through congress, but I can't say for certain).

My most immediate concern with this is the idea of job marketing sites (Careerbuilder, Monster, Indeed, etc.) starting to provide a service to employers where they acquire from ISPs and provide the browsing history of employment candidates, or similar applications.

In other news:

Senate votes to let ISPs sell your Web browsing history to advertisers

Privacy is good for me, but not for thee.

Fergie wrote:

It was that voters know politics is a sleazy business, but maybe Trump might use his sleaze in a way that benefited the average guy.

When has he ever done that?

You're misunderstanding. Fergie isn't saying that the perceptions of Trump's supporters are true, he's just pointing out what many of those perceptions were/are.

If the argument is that the Democrats failed to turn out their base...well, I think Mr. Trump has already solved that problem for them.

That remains to be seen. I'm generally a pessimist so my vision may be tinted, but I generally don't have high confidence in people's ability to stay passionate about anything for very long.

I see we're still arguing about whether the Democratic party not being progressive enough led to the victory of the EVEN LESS PROGRESSIVE Republican party. And how is that going? :P

They're making... progress.

For those who dropped out of French class:

Laicité
French secularity (French: laïcité, [la.isite]) is a French concept of secularism.

It encourages the absence of religious involvement in government affairs, especially the prohibition of religious influence in the determination of state policies; it is also the absence of government involvement in religious affairs, especially the prohibition of government influence in the determination of religion.

Hmm, I guess the US isn't the only country wrasslin with freedom from/for religion.

I passed all 4 years of my French classes, thank you very much! I don't remember 99% of the material, but I definitely passed.

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

Tomorrow is the Anti-President's Day Black History Month event that I organized in honor of Ona Judge, runaway slave of George Washington's that ended up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Yesterday, the woman who runs Black Lives Matter NH (and wife of one of my ex-players) discovered (although I had already told her in advance) that the featured speaker was from the still-running Occupy Seacoast group, mostly liberal and progressive Democrats with whom BLM NH doesn't get along because the former had issued a "words we suggest you don't use on your Women's March signs" and one of them was "intersectionality," which they defined as "You-have-to-agree-with-me-on-everything feminism."

That's it! BLM Don't take crap from The Man!... or in this case The Woman!??

Actually I think in this case it's a strong, independent woman who don't need no strong, independent women. I'm not sure which group is supposed to be outraged here. The rule book is unclear.

I originally created this thread to talk about the movie "The Great Wall". Please take the cultural debate elsewhere? Please?

I go to movies to be entertained, as an escape. Guess what? I was very entertained while watching this movie. So, IMO, it is a success.

Even in that regard, it failed gloriously to me. The dialogue was mind-numbingly stupid, the action seemed straight out of a high-schooler's anime fanfic, the plot made absolutely no sense (even after including my very generous suspension of disbelief), and Matt Damon gave the worst performance I've ever seen from him. The only upsides were: the visuals were cool (lots of color contrasts), Pedro Pascal is an entertaining actor, and Commander Lin.

Well, I just got back from seeing the movie. I can confidently say that the "westerner saves X people" trope is the least of this movie's problems. There was one redeeming quality though. Commander Lin is the new best girl.

There's also long been a fairly big difference between libertarianism and the Libertarian Party (which tends to have a more AnCap than libertarian base). As someone who also tends to lean libertarian (little "L"), I do NOT support the current Republican or Libertarian parties. I also tend to not support the Democrat Party much except when necessary (like in the last election, very begrudgingly and with LOTS of alcohol).

I live in North Texas. What is this "snow" you're talking about? Is it a Lovecraft reference?

Captain,

Should a Hamas apologist also be allowed access to universities? Should a member of NAMBLA?

Yes, so long as what they're doing is not illegal, just as people should be allowed to protest their speeches so long as what they're doing remains non-violent and legal.

To those who last responded to me, I think you misunderstand my position (I assume theJeff's and Paul Watson's posts immediately after my last are in response to me). I fully support the protests against Milo 100% for as long as they remain peaceful. What I question is: 1) the use of violence against him and his listeners (and the police trying to maintain order in this case), and 2) whether or not it is legal/reasonable to disallow Milo (and similarly protested speakers such as Ben Shapiro) from speaking on public college campuses. Questioning those things is not in any way the same as saying "oh,we ll, not my problem", nor does it imply that I think Milo is not guilty of any wrongdoing. It means that I don't hold doxxing to be equivalent to throwing molotov cocktails and rocks at people who posed no immediate threat.

Oh don't misunderstand, I'm fully aware that Milo is a dirtbag who makes his living off of being a bully, but I'm failing to see how that's the same as actually going out and physically assaulting people and vandalizing public and private property.

Also while I'm in no way a fan of Trump or those he chooses to include in his administration, I have serious doubts that hate speech laws are what prevent similar politicians from rising to power in other countries. For example, the UK has hate speech laws and after Brexit and the successes of those behind it (Farage and the gang), it's more likely that other countries' populations simply have different priorities rather than their laws dictating whether or not nicer people are in office.

People like that just take, and take, and take, and take, and take. They've completely exploited others' acting in good faith, and have dragged us all to where we are now because of it.

I've reached the conclusion that if someone's bedrock ideology advocates violently silencing and marginalizing others, then it's entirely fair to do the same to them (what's more, looking at Canada with its hate speech laws and Germany with its zero-tolerance policy of neo-Nazis, it looks to me like that works, and what we do here in America doesn't).

Maybe it's hypocritical...but guess what? There are far worse things. Somewhere along the way, we all bought into this insidious dogma that NOTHING, NOTHING!!! is worse than being a hypocrite, and we've seen what's come of slavish adherence to that. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds (to say nothing of the fact that this actually is consistent, just along the lines of "achieving specific desired results to remedy a finite problem" rather than the lines of "following rules for following rules' sake").

1) There's a very big difference between advocating violence (which I don't think I've even since Milo do) and actually being violent (which I know I haven't seen Milo do). So it's not really fair to respond to one with the other.

2) In what way can you say that the hate speech laws worked? What metric are you using to determine that had a positive effect (and since this is all based on subjective morals, what do you define as positive in this situation)?

Also I think you're confusing being intellectually consistent with "following rules for following rules' sake". There's a very good reason to be intellectually consistent and that's to set a precedent as a safeguard for when your group isn't in the majority or in power. If you go around saying "well we're going to do this because it's better" but then not apply the same standards of fairness to other groups, it inclines those same groups to act that way towards you when suddenly they get voted in to power... kind of like how it is now.

So in the aftermath of the protests (both peaceful and otherwise) at UC Berkeley over Milo Yiannopoulos' planned speech as part of his US college speaking tour, I wanted to get the opinion of the OTD forum users in regards to this story, as well as the overall topic of protests pertaining to speaking on public college campuses. For me, it's a tricky issue that pulls me in multiple directions. For starters, I'm a staunch supporter of allowing for competing (often ridiculous) ideas to have their chances at being presented so that not only can people make decisions for themselves, but also so that they can learn from being exposed to both good and bad ideas. On another hand, while free speech generally protects you from the government punishing you for trying to publicly promote your ideas, I'm not sure that it necessarily extends to guaranteeing your use of public facilities to do so (I say I'm not sure because I don't know if that's ever legally been decided before, and being sick makes lots of online research a somewhat undesirable prospect at the moment). So I can both see and not see why the protesters feel the need to oppose speakers like Yiannopoulos and Shapiro (who was probably the biggest individual disappointment of 2016 for me) to the point of wanting them to (most commonly) banned from holding campus-hosted speeches. When in doubt, I tend to lean towards the "let them do it" side, so that's where I'm currently at on this issue. Thoughts?

Guy St-Amant wrote:

Trump winning is due to so many different things that saying the DEM merely need a few adjustments is idiotic, they need to be rebuild from the groud up.

No, it's not. Not, they don't. And that wouldn't help them.

Each little thing that helped trump was a tiny +1 here +1 there (yay, mathfinder). He still LOST, he just wins on a rule technicality. That's how close the race was.

Take away any of those teeny tiny +1s and he loses, by a lot.
Rebuild from the ground up an... the exact same factors that cause the democratic party to be the democratic party are goingt o still be there.

While I 100% agree with the overall sentiment of your post, I want to comment on the "he still LOST, he just wins on a rule technicality" part. Saying he won on a technicality makes it sound like it was some obscure or little-known rule that gave him the presidency rather than the primary objective of the entire game. It's like saying that the Packers beat the Falcons because they have more fans supporting them, but the Falcons get to go to the Super Bowl on the technicality that they scored the most points.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

That rebuilding will have to take the form of adjustments over the next few years. Primaries. Chair elections. Our only hope is if the people stand up and take the Democratic Party back.

Then it won't work. Temporary adjustments might help, but the fact would remain that its foundations need to be replaced, or more accurately, changed back to what they are supposed to be.

He didn't say "temporary adjustments", he said adjustments over time. Those two are not synonymous.

The two topics should (in general) not be equated in terms of fact vs. opinion, however I do agree that the march is definitely political. Don't misunderstand, I fully support the march, but RDN is correct in describing it as a march meant to influence political policy and discourse. That's a good thing, in my opinion, but it's absolutely political.

How easy will it be to make a Deus Ex style cyborg?

It is definitely frustrating, knowing that only one side must cling to social niceties, while the other is free to fire away.

Makes having a polite and friendly debate/ conversation very difficult.

It would be, if that were an accurate description of political discourse on this site, but it's not. Even within the election threads, there was more self-regulation (users chastising other users for rudeness) than there was any kind of partisan censorship.

Because liberals have so many websites where we don't get harassed.

Well... they do. It's just that there are also a ton of sites where conservatives are the majority and have their own "safe space". So when people go from one to another, it can feel like being in hostile territory is somehow abnormal.

Sundakan wrote:

People of all beliefs were allowed to participate in the discussions before, I see no reason why that would change. But the politics of this site do lean a certain way, in general. The people who are opposed or come slant-wise on those majority beliefs are, naturally going to come into conflict.

I'm not sure where you get idea of an echo chamber from by allowing people to post. You'd be as free to disagree as ever.

Did you not see the election thread before it got nuked? Insults and name-calling were routine, but when it came from the pro-Hillary camp, it was allowed to stand unchallenged. It didn't take long for the whole thread to devolve into a "Hillary or GTFO" dumpster fire.

Yes, I am technically allowed to post, but when I know it means I will be subject to insults and abuse that is implicitly approved by the mods, why would I want to?

I was in that thread, so I can say with relative confidence that you're exaggerating more than a little. That being said, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Part of political discussion is wading through garbage. If you're not able or willing to do that, you're not going to have a very productive experience no matter where you go.

I think by definition any political discussion is a "marketing tool" for the ideology any of the speakers on any side endorse.

People of all beliefs were allowed to participate in the discussions before, I see no reason why that would change. But the politics of this site do lean a certain way, in general. The people who are opposed or come slant-wise on those majority beliefs are, naturally going to come into conflict.

I'm not sure where you get idea of an echo chamber from by allowing people to post. You'd be as free to disagree as ever.

Honestly, I don't see the POINT of political discussion without dissenting views. It's how you get better at stating your case and refine your viewpoint.

As someone who would (wildly inaccurate, ballpark estimate) disagree probably 40-50% of the time with the general political consensus of the site, I completely agree with this. With few exceptions, I saw no real presence of an echo chamber element to the site in the previous political threads, and have so far enjoyed most of the discussion here with people with whom I disagree.

My position is that Paizo provides the Messageboards and moderate them for "free". So they can do what they want.

Nobody in this thread is saying otherwise. Arguing in favor of something != arguing that the group in question doesn't have the final say in the matter.

Captain Battletoad wrote:

WormysQueue wrote:

Captain Battletoad wrote:

The LBTQ Gamer Community thread doesn't actually discuss gaming all that much, but rather day-to-day LGBTQ life (and copious amounts of hugging). There's nothing wrong with that, but thejeff's point is that for the most part, the thread is game-themed in name only. So to say that the thread isn't comparable to the examples given is (hypocritically) intellectually dishonest.

The thing is that this thread, no matter what's discussed in it, by it's very nature is highly political and will stay political as long as he is needed. I absolutely support them for taking a stand on that topic, but to allow for such threads to exist while simultaneously to disallow discussion of other political topics may be hard to explain for a lot of people.

So I'd rather have them to find a solution to allow for political topics than to alienate part of their fanbase for not being consequent with a ban. Especially as I've never found those topics here to be as vitriolic as I'm used from other boards.

It would be hard to explain because it would be pretty inconsistent. Saying "we don't want political threads" but then not only allowing, but also being personally engaged in, a thread which is itself often politically charged is borderline hypocritical. I have no issue with Paizo staff getting involved personally in the discussions within such threads (in fact, I kind of like it), but I do have an issue with them doing that, and then turning around and disallowing threads that are equally political.

OTOH, it's the same kind of line between having a community space for LGBTQ folk and not allowing others to trash it with homophobic attacks posing as discussion.

Which might not make sense in some ideologically pure free speech sense, but makes perfect sense in a building community kind of way.

That would be perfectly fine if Paizo made that their stance saying, "We don't want political discussion, with the exception of X-issue because we want this site to accommodate the people to which it pertains". Then it would be intellectually consistent and I'd have no issue with it (mostly, though I'd still miss the general political talk). What I take issue with is the "no political threads" stance when that's not actually true.

thejeff wrote:

So if I started a "Democrat Gamer Community" thread, that should be fine, because it's gamers?

I do think it's not an entirely fair comparison, but I find it surprisingly hard to justify why I think that.

Aaaaand I'm out. You've gone from an intellectually dishonest comparison to full-blown non sequitur.

It's actually a pretty fair comparison. The LBTQ Gamer Community thread doesn't actually discuss gaming all that much, but rather day-to-day LGBTQ life (and copious amounts of hugging). There's nothing wrong with that, but thejeff's point is that for the most part, the thread is game-themed in name only. So to say that the thread isn't comparable to the examples given is (hypocritically) intellectually dishonest.

I tried to make a fifteen point buy, was not a fan. the extra five points really help to not make your character Johnny McBland. :-)

You can make non-bland characters on a 15-point buy (I've never actually been able to use any other PB), you just have to use the dreaded dump stat.

...and why is it Charisma? I know that most people go to CHA when they need a dump stat, but to me it will always be (for weak and entirely opinion-based reasons) my favorite stat in the game. You can use it with so many different things and it's an integral part of what is probably the most GM-discretionary aspect of the game: Diplomacy/Intimidate/Bluff checks.

As some famous guy probably said one time, "the best fight is one you can avoid". While there is more than one way to avoid a fight in PF, I find none to be quite as satisfying as talking your way around an entire encounter, defeating a whole group of bandits wielding nothing but a silver tongue (and dashing good looks). Adding on to that is its malleability, being able to be used in place of other stats for knowledge checks (Lore Oracles or Bards), AC (Lore Oracles again), saves (a bunch of classes), and even to-hit/to-damage (Desna's Shooting Star feat), among a host of other crap.

tl;dr: CHA > INT = DEX > CON > WIS > STR

I won't say that a Cleric will necessarily be great offensively throughout the entire campaign, but you'd always be useful for heals, buffs, and general survival. I'd recommend playing a Cleric of Sarenrae with the Sun and Good domains, using a scimitar so you can go Dex to hit/damage with Finesse and Dervish Dance. Stat allocation should be:

STR - 10
DEX - 16
CON - 13
INT - 10
WIS - 18
CHA - 15

This way you have strong (and plentiful) spellcasting and channeling, but you are also decently reliable in those cases where you're not fighting undead or things that are otherwise affected by your spells.

Always split the party and just assume that someone else will take care of healing.

Ok, so after toying around with it for a bit, I came up with the following build to level 9:

15-point buy stats:
STR - 7
DEX - 16
CON - 11
INT - 16
WIS - 12
CHA - 7

After adjusting for the Android racials and other bonuses you'll be getting by level 9 (class features, level 4/8/12/16/20 stat bonuses, etc.) your stats will look like this:
STR - 7
DEX - 20
CON - 12
INT - 19
WIS - 12
CHA - 5

Class levels:
Battle Host (Transmutation school) 1/Spellslinger 5/Trench Fighter and Eldritch Guardian 3

Feats:
With our 3 fighter levels and 5 wizard levels, we should have a total of 8 feats (wizard gets a bonus at 4, and fighter gets bonuses at 1 and 2) to spend (keeping in mind that the two fighter bonus feats have to be combat feats) and for the level breakdowns, I'm assuming a progression of Battle Host 1/Spellslinger 5/Trench Fighter and Eldritch Guardian 3.

Level 1 - Point-Blank Shot
Level 3 - Precise Shot
Level 5 - Deadly Aim
Level 5 - Rapid Reload (taking this earlier might be good at the expense of taking Precise Shot later
Level 7 - Focused Spell (this would be a good level for taking your metamagic or crafting feat of choice, so it's up to you)
Level 7 - Arcane Strike
Level 8 - Dodge
Level 9 - Mobility (Riving Strike or Amateur Gunslinger would also be decent)
At level 11 (or 10 if you take another level in Fighter) you'll definitely want to pick up Vital Strike regardless of further class choices, since it's compatible with the Double-Barrel Shotgun's double shot ability.

So disregarding gear (except for your masterwork double-barrel shotgun which you get for free from Battle Host), spell choices, etc. and going only off of what I written here, you should have the following:
:1 Masterwork Double-Barrel Shotgun
:A familiar
:Strong saves across the board
:A ranged touch attack roll of 11 normally, or 7 when using double shot, or 12 and 8 respectively when within 30 feet
:+8 to damage from Arcane Strike, DEX, and Point-Blank Shot
:The ability to add a +1 enhancement bonus to your gun for 4 min/day
:...or the ability to add Bane to it if it's already +1
:Level 3 Wizard spells
:1 Transmutation Occultist cantrip
:1 Level 1 Transmutation Occultist spell
:Some other stuff I'm forgetting

So this obviously isn't a hyper-optimized build given that I don't know your goals, point-buy, play-style, etc. (particularly since I've only been half paying attention while making it) but it should at least give you some ideas for your build.

The Medium's claim to fame is in his versatility. He's pretty solid as a frontline fighter, a damage-dealing or debuffing arcane caster, a healer, or a buffer, he's just not all of those at once. The Medium really comes into his own when the party knows about a problem ahead of time, or if they found a problem and have time (a day or more) to solve it. It's pretty convenient having someone in you party that can go, "Man it would be nice if we had X class here", and then become that class the next day.

We were talking about live action actors, not voice acting.

So what? The point I was emphasizing is that name recognition is important. Referencing Hollywood's tendency to cast recognizable names despite their faces not appearing is extremely relevant.