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You can throw me in the camp that would be happy to toss money Paizo's way for 1E Hardcover, but that has no interest in 2E.
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Wonderful 3 hours and 2 minutes. Almost perfect film. 20 seconds of groan inducing eye rolling. Pretty sure I know what 20 seconds you're talking about, and I had the exact same reaction. That scene felt so out of place. Did everyone else get lost? Did they fall down the well? Really took me out of what was otherwise an incredible movie and (in particular) an amazing scene / set piece.
Awful. Simply awful. Violence was overtooled for the R-rating, plot was a complete mess, dialogue was choppy, way too many info-dump monologues and flashbacks. There were some fun moments in it (the giant fight) but across the board it was just incredibly choppy. Wish they'd made the third Ron Perlman film.
So, a little bit of reading into wiki's and other resources suggests that (as hinted in the trailer) while the Blackbird is in space they're hit with something fiery (Phoenix force) which gets into Jean. Already off to a better start than the first Phoenix storyline (in that it actually somewhat resembles the Phoenix storyline). That said... once again we have an X-Men movie coming that doesn't have Bryan Singer attached to it and once again it's telling the Phoenix story. I'll admit, I'm pretty leery, especially since it's Simon Kinberg's directorial debut.
It's worth noting Snow, that Gardens of the Moon was written years prior to the earlier books, and does struggle in many of the ways that one would expect for a first novel. Deadhouse Gates is by far superior (and probably my favorite of the series overall). It's also worth noting that while each book does tell a story, very rarely is a character's arc and story explained and resolved in a single book. In Gardens of the Moon the primary themes, many characters, and even central plot threads are never even touched on, and in many ways it functions as an almost prequel to the series as a whole. As for Whiskyjack, well, I'll let the series explain his character more as you dig in further. That said, a lot of the powers thrown around _do_ very intentionally dwarf the more human characters of the series like him. Whiskyjack is not really a character designed so that he'll go toe to toe with Anomander Rake or the Jaghut Tyrant. Glad you're giving Deadhouse Gates a shot.
Red Letter Media Review Dropped.
Combat and exploration in Andromeda was ok, but the dialogue and characters were awful. So much squandered potential that made the game almost unplayable for me. I think "my face is tired" was the killer. Never finished it. I wouldn't mind a sequel, especially with the 'destroy' ending, though it would have to make some tough choices. Overall I just want a return to good writing and interesting characters.
Dialogue is horribleYeah. Never played a BioWare character as uncharismatic as Ryder. Awful. Absolutely awful. And much of the other dialogue isn't much better. None of the characters grabbed me at all and many did exactly the opposite. I couldn't even finish it, and I've probably played through the trilogy to 100% completion four or five times.
Yeah, I'm with Magnuskn on this one. Shattered Star has no firm timeline and progresses as the party wishes to for the most part. I'd planned to stretch my Shattered Star game out over at least 5-10 years of in game time while also adapting pieces of Rise of the Runelords and a few other applicable adventures (the Waking Rune comes to mind, I'd planned to move the reforging stuff from the 1st adventure to Krune's tomb).
Wish is cheating.
Why are wizards considered the most powerful class? Because the forum community is made up of the most outspoken and belligerent gamers that have advanced that position over the life cycle the game by increasingly framing the debate in terms of only rules sourcebooks. If you had _only_ rule books in a void, and had players that were playing the typical immoral anti-social sociopaths that these scenarios tend to postulate, then the wizard (and other casting classes) potentially have more overt options under the game rules at a given level that can resolve matters (assuming they have access to them) most easily or quickly. Honestly, it's a really silly debate that you're better off ignoring. Most of these people are the same people that show up to a table with heavily mechanically twinked characters (spending hours building such a character, researching, combing though rule books for the most powerful combination) then show up on the forums complaining about how said thing is too powerful. Ignore it. As long as you don't have an issue at your table you're better off leaving it that way.
I went in expecting typical Hollywood fair: a resurrected masterpiece whored out with too many action scenes and overt call backs to the original to stand on its own. I was quite wrong. Overall I thought it was the finest film I've seen all year, and maybe the best film I've seen in a long time. Most of Werthead's review is spot on: I won't bother rehashing it. One thing I want to draw particular attention to is the pacing, which many have criticized. The pacing was fantastic as a whole. It was slow, but very intentionally slow. It was indulgent. It lingered on shots and scenes and let them bleed out in a way deeply reminiscent of the original film. It both allowed and forced you to take in the scenes, to take in the visuals, to appreciate everything going on. It let the score breath in each scene. It evoked grandeur. Overall it's a 10/10 for me. The only weakness at all was the chaos of the ending, and even that I was able to excuse as part of the tale as a whole.
Thank you Diego.
As the title says. Please cancel both the order and my subscription to the AP line.
I thought it was pretty garbage, so last year I reworked it into something else. Generally it can make an ok melee combatant, but the idea that MEediums are jacks of all trades or regularly changing their focus in the day is a joke. The entire class is comically conservative in its design, just like most of what Paizo has put out in the last few years.
The site is legit, but modding as a whole can cause unforeseen problems if you don't know what you are doing, especially in Bethesda titles. Make sure you do homework on mods, whether they are in date, how they interact with other mods, and especially if you are installing them properly. Used properly I've never had issues even whem running 150 mods or more on skyrim.
And just as suddenly, the tool seems to have taken my last update, even though it continued to pop up and whip data instead of indicating that it had accepted it. No idea what the issue is or was, but you all might want to take a look at how your payment tool interacts with Chrome.
Suffice it to say, I have questions. It is not an American Express Card. The entire payment tool is not working for me, across multiple computers, though in different ways. On one it will not display the full tool and never asks for CVV. In the other, it consistently resets all data in the field when attempting to apply an address or a CVV. At this point I've spent at least a couple hours across multiple days playing with it, and am about to simply give up on it. Can you have someone contact me or take a look at what the problem may be? It seems to have started when I updated by billing address on a card with my bank.
Getting this popup on a subscription order and I've no idea why. Can someone look into it here or contact me more directly with some expansion on what the problem is?
Playing it. Enjoying it for what it is. I wanted a giant exploration sandbox where I could wander around and see amazing new worlds. That's exactly what I got.
What about cleric and empyreal sorcerer? Empyreal sorcerer used WIS as casting stat.You're talking about a 8th level character with access to 2nd level spells. The problem has never been casting stat. It is and will always be the fact that you are a minimum of 3 levels behind as a caster in all meaningful regards. I know the feeling. I played a wizard that got sorcerer casting at 1/2 her wizard level in exchange for being one level behind as a wizard. Even being one level back sucked, and secondary features were never enough to make up for it, no matter how good.
What about cleric and empyreal sorcerer? Empyreal sorcerer used WIS as casting stat. You're talking about a 8th level character with access to 2nd level spells. The problem has never been casting stat. It is and will always be the fact that you are a minimum of 3 levels behind as a caster in all meaningful regards.
Mystic Theurge is very difficult to make work in any game that goes even so far as practical optimization (e.g. selecting intelligent feats and items, no cheese, no dips, etc). Being 3 levels behind in casting at every level is awful. If there is a full caster in your group you will always play second fiddle with spells two levels behind. If you don't have another caster the group suffers, because you''re missing out on many buffs and abilities the game more or less assumes you are likely to have. Until very high levels you don't have access to more spells at all - for the majority of your career you will have fewer of your highest and second highest level spells than a full caster will have of his 3rd and 4th highest level spells: the claim that MT's are loaded with utility spells and so forth relative to a real caster is immediately proven false with even a casual examination. I suspect that a moderately well built Theurge would even struggle in an unedited Adventure Path, most of which are designed with the assumption that players are very new to the game. Frankly, you give up too much and get too little. I'd never play a theurge again. Alternatives include the Witch (interesting blended list), False Priest Sorcerer archetype (use divine items with sorcerer slots), Shaman (add sorcerer/wizard spells to your list with Lore Spirit), and Ancient Lorekeeper Oracle. Of them, I think the False Priest Sorcerer is the most interesting, especially when combined with a Mnemonic Robe.
I liked CK2, but it can be a very frustrating RNG game. My Norse Pagan Rome World Conquest run almost got derailed at the 11th hour while I was invading the last of India when my Strong Genius 19 year old king dropped dead, then his Strong Genius 17 year old brother dropped dead a year later, then his Genius brother dropped dead a year or two after that, and I ended up finishing the run with a 60 year old genius uncle that was barely able to keep the realm together. EU4 is a bit less RNG focused in many ways (including the every annoying revolts), and I've been focused on that ever since. I did have a lot of fun though sailing around the world attacking and burning down any holding that had a strong or genius woman of child-birthing age though, to continue my eugenics program.
Who is we? And you mean things like dual initiative and bonus standard actions and the like? So, this is sort of long. If you want the short version, this thread probably contains most of the current working rules and such that we've played around with in the last few years, after approximately fifteen years of tinkering with epic / divine stuff. We've come to the conclusion that seeing as most games should never go beyond ~25th level or so (maybe 30 at the top end), and seeing as how gods don't really have a history within D&D of being omni-potent, they work better as gestalted beings in the 20-40 hit dice range with an extra initiative count at their initiative (at -5, -10, and finally -15) for extra strata of power they have (the extra initiative was inspired in part by the gods of Immortals. Longer version: We are what's left of Dicefreaks, now in its sixth or seventh website, which was for years one of the biggest communities (if not the biggest community) for players interested in epic or cosmic content. It really picked up in the 2000s after Deities and Demigods and the ELH, and was focused around players that were unhappy with how those rule-sets were not blended, and how cosmic beings were created relative to gods. It was a weird sort of place where a bunch really talented design minds came together and created some interesting content (much of which has been lost), including revisions to the Divinity Rules, the creation of Cosmic Rules, restatting of a great many gods under revised rules, and the publication of The Gates of Hell, a nine chapter free book dealing with Hell, Dukes of Hell, Archfiends, and the Lords of the Nine. Gates is still available here and won an Ennie as a free supplement (beaten out only, I think, by Paizo on another?). In any case, it was to be the first of many such books detailing each of the planes and their respective powers, but those books never materialized for a variety of reasons. The overall goal was a coherent cosmology between very powerful mortals (capped at 50 hit dice), gods (capped at 70), and outsiders / cosmic beings capped at 100 (though I believe not even Demogorgon was intended to reach this cap, and Asmodeus was 81 hit dice). At some point in the design cycle shortly after Gates was published there were some discussions into what each relative level represented, the difficulties inherent in balancing them, and how the balance of various creations stood against the published ELH monsters and such, and a great deal of time was spent analyzing various metrics (Selah's work, which is a good read on epic level optimization games if you can find it). In any case, as the community began to drift apart through several sites there was some evaluations of alternative options for how to work out gods and other beings so they could appear in people's home games without being as disruptive or requiring unplayable levels like 60 or 70 (I would argue, past 30). This led to a fair bit of examination of the RL mythology behind most gods, especially their fallibility outside of Judeo-Christian beliefs, and in turn a look at them within the context of D&D history, as extremely powerful beings that could still be bested with some regularity by mortals. The binding of Demigods under Castle Greyhawk, the binding of Grazz't by Iggwilv, and the battles against Iuz the Old are all pretty clear evidence that gods were not intended within the D&D ruleset to be omni-potent, as the Deities and Demigods rules presented them. This to say nothing of various gods that often adventured with parties (Murlynd jumps to mind).
Don't. We spent ten years goofing around with stupidly high hit dice cosmic brings on dicefreaks with various tweaks to the deities and demigod rules before scrapping it entirely in favor of significantly lower hit dice, and much changed divine rules. Action economy is a far superior method to blanket immunities to everything, massive numerical bonuses, and stupid SDA options.
Coldwater has the right of it. By ten it is not about avoiding primaries, but rather secondaries or minion attacks. AC is almost never a terrible investment.
You don't fight crys with grenades as a rule early on, you do it with a pair of assaults that get reactionary shots. I don't recall the last time I took ap grenades in any case. HE and cover destruction is much superior. When they run it is annoying, but you are doing yourself no favors and only making it harder by not taking the mission. Long War snowballs, and missing a terror mission this early may be enough already to put the game out of reach. You are saying you are afraid of losing a mission, so you'd rather lose the game. It makes no sense. It's supposed to be hard. The first terror mission is always in month 3. Either have a squad ready or be willing to exhaust your best team. It is arguably the most important mission of the game in Long War. The key is accepting civs will die. Play it slow and careful. No big activations. No risky moves. Methodically work your way across the map. With restarts it is far from impossible to finish one with no casualties. My preferred loadout for urban terror is two or three assaults, two engineers with sapper and HE if possible, a scout, and a sniper. On.more open maps like roadways swap one or both engineers for snipers. My seventh squad is almost always another sniper. Good hunting man.
You cannot pass on terror missions in Long War. It will cost you the game.
As others said, death should not cause you to lose levels. Negative levels can be restored, and making a new character enter at a lower level than others is bad form, though often a carry over from old-time groups from 2e, where being a level or two behind wasn't as big of a deal, and was likely to correct itself.
Can't stand the horrible write out of Patty, just to avoid another Felicity circumstance and set him up with boring Iris.
There are a couple second wave options I feel are essential to having a fun long war, rather than just a frustrating. First, the option to always choose classes. Amazing choice that I felt should have been there from the start. I should decide what to specialize my soldiers in, not RNG. Second, I tend to use the option that makes your interceptors more accurate early. A huge part of Long War is the snowball, and when they aliens start to snowball you in the air it is really hard to recover from it. Both of those not withstanding, and differences in individual preferences not withstanding (I haven't made a medic in... a long time), there are a couple things you seem to be doing to make life more difficult for yourself, key among them pushing up / exploring when you are dealing with contact, especially when you don't have a get out of jail free team (heavy on snipers and / or assaults). Generally speaking, the biggest rule of Longwar is never activate more than one pod if at all possible. You also seem to be taking experienced squads together on early missions. Generally speaking, on shoot-downs and early missions as a whole (first 3 months) I take 1-2 vets and the rest red shirts. It makes those missions punishing, but if you don't get at least ~20 people ranked you end up getting toast bagged. The only exception is terror missions or swarmings, where you need more vets. Good luck man. I'm currently just into Exalt land in my run, and my roster is in pretty good shape. The only exception is scouts, because I've got four or five in the med bay, mostly due to stupid mistakes. I think I've got 2, or maybe 3 total deaths on my roster thus far. It's rough times though, because I'm only starting to get lasers on my interceptors, and I'm really short on alloys. With cinematic shooting though you should still be fine. Just play smart.
The interesting thing with Long War is that you can't just keep one squad. You have to maintain a large rotation, or fatigue spiral Will kill you.
Oracle's and sorcerers are both fine. I wouldn't play any of the occult classes given their more narrow focuses (mesmerist and medium at the bottom of then list for their own reasons). Summoner is also fairly strong. I think those could be my top three picks here.
Also, those crystals that they use to make them... I heard they were really hard to find. Either naturally scarce or the Empire hid/destroyed them to prevent jedi from making new ones. So it's REALLY impractical to outfit entire armies with them. Yeah, no Beckett. Not sure where you're getting your info, but that was thrown out a long time ago, before the yuuzhan vong war even in the EU. I distinctly remember an array of non-force-sensitive individuals using lightsabers in the EU, including drug addicts, to relatively good effect. Force Awakens is pretty far from the first to trample all over the idea that you had to have the force to use one, or make one. The 'bomb' idea is also one that's completely new to me. I'm sure if I dug around in the EU I could find plenty of broken lightsabers, but even a cursory glance at the prequels shows at least three or four of them getting sliced, smashed, or otherwise damaged very casually.
Shipping out Patty seems like a ham-fisted attempt to return to the possibility of romance between Barry and Iris and avoid a Felicity circumstance, which bothers me. Patty and Barry's actors have great chemistry on screen. Iris... not so much.
Mystic theurge without early entry is awful. You might consider an ancient lore keeper Oracle or lore shaman instead. Alternatively, false priest sorcerer can eventually do some interesting things with scrolls.
Suzerain is utterly broken in pc hands, stats and leadership aside. Gm, have you considered how banned leadership interacts with book 2?
For all of the fan talk about Finn and Rey, it looked to me like she gave his comatose body a rather chaste kiss goodbye before flying off to join a pseudo-religious order that doesn't allow its members to have relationships. Yeah, that worked out well. One of the weirdest rules introduced in the prequels. There's a long history in the EU of Jedi having relationships, children, etc. You can go all the way back to (off hand) Nomi Sunrider and all the way forward to Luke and Mara Jade. I felt that was one of the great unexplored subplots of the prequels - in that the Jedi of the day had become twisted into emotionless warrior monks. If I were to go back and rewrite the prequels I'd make the Padme relationship the central conflict for Anakin, rather than being whiny. Have him hiding it and sneaking around. Have fear of being discovered begin to lead him down darker paths. Later have him discovered. Have him in conflict with the order, which puts pressure on him to end it and threatens to throw him out. Set up anger and hatred coming out of it. Anakin coming to believe the Jedi have completely lost their way. Palaptine whispering in his ear that it wasn't always so - that the Jedi used to embrace emotions. Basically, give him a reason to fall into the dark side other than "I WANT TO STOP PEOPLE FROM DYING AND NO ONE RESPECTS ME ENOUGH!"
Don't try to play a cleric or shaman. Oracle if you really want divine casting.
I think people confuse similar set pieces (planet killer weapon, desert planet, droid) with similar plot. Rey, for instance, plays almost no part in the destruction of the base. Her duel with Ren has no parallel in ANH. The initial failed attack on the base after dropping the shield has no similarity. The battle on the forest planet has no parallel in ANH. Finn has no parallel in ANH. Similar set pieces, very different plot.
Simulacrum are more readily compared I think to hirelings or followers than most constructs.
Lets be clear here. What you actually mean is as follows: "Simulacrum, as I choose to interpret it (which does not align with designer interpretations regarding special abilities and SLAs) requires that high intelligence casters with access to the spell not use it with the most ruthless efficiency possible in order to avoid damaging game balance."
Last thought. Am I right in thinking a simple dispel check or an area greater dispel will end a simulacrum? No. It's an instantaneous effect.
What's an appropriate SLA for a 3HD creature Anzyr? Or a 9HD? Or a 12HD? Is there a table that specifies what abilities (SLA and otherwise) a monster of a given level should have? Why do some monsters have some SLAs and others different ones? Why don't orcs have SLAs? It's all subjective, and in this case, subject to the GM's view on what is appropriate.
Anzyr, I'm not going to dance this dance again. Link above to designer post explicitly responding to simulacrum, and specifying that like everything else, SLAs should be reduced as the Gm feels is appropriate (and that gm builds simulacrum, not players). You can argue that such is not how you interpret the RAW, but that is just that, your interpretation in direct opposition to how designers have explained. You see on this very thread that the designers intend on a FAQ on the subject. But by all means, argue snow cone wish machines to your heart's content. Technically you aren't "wrong" or "right" going strictly by RAW. If that is how you want to play the game, by all means, have fun. But please stop insisting it is the way explicitly supported by the rules, because even going only by RAW, with no clarification, it goes both ways.
This is also true as a rule. In all three games I'm in, every week, we post feedback on the game. This can include plans for the future, concerns about past events in the last session (airing of grievances) and so forth. The overall purpose though is remaining on the same page as players and gms. No one likes the guy who shows up at the table to surprise everyone with some new shenanigans, and when you get talking a reasonable accommodation can almost always be reached.
So what's the intended function? That simulacrum copies of creatures be built by the GM. That SLAs be reduced in a manner the GM finds appropriate, along with most other abilities (Ex, Su, etc). Basically, the spell has a built in loophole to prevent people from getting cheesy with their copies of various creatures (e.g. snowcone wish machine). Edit Reference Here
Adding a part of the copied creature as a material component is a awkward balancing measure. I haven't seen it used for simulacrum specifically, but I have for polymorph in D&D 3.0. If the GM has to consider whether the very shape of the enemy is treasure then there's an additional and easily screwed-up level of balance. (Medium-size Fang Dragons, yay!) So awkward that it was part of the spell in 3.5. Simulacrum, unlike polymorphing or invisibility or flight, doesn't need to be in the game. If you want to have a disposable impersonator then illusions, shapeshifters or constructs will do the job. The vast majority of the spells in the game don't need to be there. What I'd prefer is a reason why it shouldn't be there, other than cheese theory craft that explicitly goes against the intended function of the spell as explained by designers on multiple occasions.
A couple people now mentioned a 6th or 7th level Sim of the caster as a possible way to use it. So far nobody has said they'd seen it in game. *Waves* Hi! I actually made use of simulacrum clones of my wizard in a long running game towards the end, though not as combat doubles. Given their poor saves, lack of items, and difficulty in healing, that was asking to get them blown up pretty quickly by the first stray AoE, gaze, aura, etc. Instead I used them as stand-in teachers for the character's apprentices, and to help run her businesses and keep tabs on shady but not particularly threatening NPCs (like former prisoners). Overall it's probably one of my top five favorite spells in the game, because it can be used in many ways very creatively as you move into the late game. I really fell in love with it in the Tales of Wrye, particularly with Shomei the Infernal's use of it. (Incidentially, Tales of Wyre is a fantastic, if slightly dated high level campaign read that really quantifies what I want out of high level play). Doubles of yourself have a variety of uses, none of them "game breaking" in my experience. As an emissary, as a scout, as a bodyguard for an NPC (especially if others can't tell that it isn't actually you), as a crafter, as an adviser to someone, etc. That said, given the price, in practice it's often just as easy to hire someone to do many of these tasks, if you are so inclined. Or to use a follower. Or to bind a creature to do it. In my experience it's an added tool in a toolbox. You want to use it in combat? Feel free, but I'd expect them to die pretty frequently. You want to use it to buff before you teleport in somewhere? Sure, but 'll eventually catch up with you given the weak caster level - and really, at 3,500gp each, couldn't you just buy some scrolls, or hire some people? It's a spell that creates some options, especially for a self-contained character. That's about it. As for wanting designers to explicitly call out the spell with regard to SLAs and such - they've done so. Many times. I've cited at least three or four different designer posts to Anzyr in which the designer explicitly states that SLAs should be rebuild and reevaluated by the GM. |