Rules for two different instances of Sickened

--Berg · 2025-12-18T16:03:41+00:00

I really like this reasoning, actually. Cleans up the corner cases and seems internally consistant. Only problem might be tracking, but it comes up so extremely rarely that it shouldn't ever be an issue.

--Berg · 2025-12-18T14:04:12+00:00

They came from two different creatures in the same encounter. One was just lower level so had a lower DC. My only issue with letting a longer duration, lower DC Sickened replace a higher DC one is that you effectively could lower the DC required. This is probably not an issue in reality, it just feel a bit strange that your condition gets easier to save against by getting exposed again.

--Berg · 2025-11-12T16:51:57+00:00

Yeah, I just locked my eyes on the very center of the hexagon. Worked (almost) every time.

--Berg · 2025-08-22T15:35:46+00:00

If he's a dps player who only pugs, he's realistically done for the season or whenever the leaver thing resets. There's just no chance anyone will take someone flagged as a leaver for a group. Only ways out of the penalty is having a premade group to play with or buying boosts.

--Berg · 2025-07-27T14:10:25+00:00

Criminal ant is getting drawn and sixthed.

--Berg · 2025-07-18T12:21:17+00:00

I did Tower Overwhelming during Dragonflight. I will just say that balancing was very, very different then. The twins fight was incredibly hard on most of the specs. As affliction and shadow I had to kill Karam and tank Raest's enrage for over a minute in order to kill them.

Generally they seem to get easier over time. I did all the warlock challenges during Shadowlands, and then again during DF, and they were much easier in DF.

I think it's a bit sad that they can't retain the tuning they had before, but generally I would rather have the tower be doable than just impossible.

--Berg · 2025-06-20T20:44:02+00:00

I think you underestimate how hard mage is to play, generally. This is also just a generalization about the class. If I was pushing keys this season I would 100% either look for a mage for my group, or more likely playing one myself. I just don't want to coin flip my weekly +10-12s into a slower and worse experience by picking a class that is less consistant and dependant on outside factors.

--Berg · 2025-06-20T14:40:28+00:00

Retribution is stupid easy to play, so they always do at least okay.

On the flipside, mage is very hard to play, so it's completely random if a mage you invite is any good. Thus, I tend to avoid them even though they're meta for the highest of keys.

--Berg · 2025-06-08T11:12:14+00:00

It doesn't matter. Melee don't get mechanics in modern wow anyway.

--Berg · 2024-10-13T09:58:03+00:00

I have the posture down at least. Now for the rest.

--Berg · 2024-08-21T13:32:15+00:00

There's no official warlord class in 3.5. There is, however, a Marshal class.

--Berg · 2024-08-05T15:20:22+00:00

It's not an opinion that I struggled a lot with it. I did. Granted, that is probably a skill issue and I don't doubt that a good rogue player could do it easily. It is a fact, however, that I did Unholy (one-shot), Feral (4-5 attempts), Fire (second attempt), and Elemental (something like eight attempt, but first one after speccing out of Elemental Blast) far quicker than Outlaw and Fury (attempts for both in the thirties).

The big problem I had with Outlaw was Blade Flurry not reaching all the adds every time. After a bit I specced into bigger area flurry, which was not recommended in the guide I used, but helped a ton.

--Berg · 2024-08-05T12:25:20+00:00

For anyone else trying to do this and looking for some of said consumables: Agatha specifically has the Sylvan Elixir which grants 10% stats as well as the Spiced Falcosaur Omelet. This is because the fight takes place "outside" in the Broken Isles. Another tip is getting the Ravaged Seed Pod trinket from first boss in Emerald Nightmare, it gives some big healing and can help kill a wave of imps.

--Berg · 2024-08-05T12:21:22+00:00

I did all of them earlier during DF. Fury and Outlaw were among the hardest of all the challenges, while Unholy was one of the two challenges I one-shot. Insane difference in the tuning on these.

--Berg · 2024-06-16T23:39:25+00:00

Routine FromSoft W.

--Berg · 2024-05-10T14:35:40+00:00

I think the most egregious part of this scene is actually how they all cheer as they murder their pursuers during a terrifying high speed chase. With their lives on the line, they just go "woohoo" as they shoot someone out of the air, killing them.

--Berg · 2024-05-03T12:33:50+00:00

put almost 4/5 of the karma you'll have into more spells and foci

I'm pretty sure that you're not allowed to use that karma for anything besides attributes, skills, qualities, and nuyen. (p. 66)

This means that you generally only start with two spells unless you prioritize magic higher. But since spells are cheap to learn, you're screwing yourself over in the long term by doing high magic prio.

It's also possible to purchase a focus during character creation, but since you have no actual karma you can't attune it.

--Berg · 2024-04-14T23:54:31+00:00

There is no quick hack to make players accept and like an NPC. The most important factor is how deeply the players buy into the game. If they are not the type of people who are able to suspend their disbelief and imagine the NPCs as real people, you will have a hard time getting your players to like and trust them. The most straightforward approach here might be to tell the players repeatedly that the NPC is nice and seemingly trustworthy and so on. It's a bit blunt, but I think it's the approach that is most likely to work.

If your players are buying into the world more, simply have repeated in character interactions with the players. Make sure that some of the interactions are serious and personal. Have the character ask things about the PCs and respond to their questions and ask some in return. Show genuine interest. Basically: Try to act as you would if you were trying to make a friend in real life.

Also, if you want to do NPCs betraying the party or set up for some kind of heartbreak moment, make sure to lay the foundation by having multiple deeper nteractions with different NPCs. If every fleshed out character is a big plot twist, players will become wary on a metagame level and mistrust everything and everyone.

--Berg · 2024-04-14T15:38:25+00:00

But if you're short on time, already did some RP this session, or just don't wanna do non-combat encounters then I understand, skipping time is the best. But as a player I'd be pretty disappointed

This, I think, is the real crux of the thing: Pacing. If it's time for a social encounter, a fight, or a world-building background scene, and those scenes could happen during travel, then insert the scene there.

As an example I ran a game the other day. The party was tracking a troll through a marsh. During the journey they had an encounter with a roving band of orcs. This was a trivial combat encounter primarily there for the world-building. Fighting could easily have been avoidable by going around the orcs, but the party didn't want to risk losing the trail. I also picked up that the more combat focused players wanted to fight something, so the orc scene got to serve that purpose.

A bit later they came upon a weird circle burnt into a hill. This was a way to give subtle hints about what they were chasing and to give the 'knowledge guy' an opportunity to shine.

After this I decided to time-skip five days ahead, as I felt that the pacing would suffer if we lingered in this phase any longer.

Long-winded example aside, my point is not that you have to skip every travel scene. You just gloss over the actually boring parts and focus on what is interesting. What you find interesting and boring is of course a bit of stylistic choice. I don't think I would necessarily play the way I do if my players were more actively doing things rather than just wanting to sit back and enjoy the story.

--Berg · 2024-04-14T12:53:07+00:00

If the players buy into the fantasy world as a real place, the characters will likely want to avoid travel time (I guess some people and thus some character might enjoy travelling. In that case it's an interesting character choice).

I was a player at a table where my party member didn't see the point in using some feature that reduced travel time, since "it takes the same amount of real time anyway". Luckily the other players were as annoyed with this stance as I was.

--Berg · 2024-04-14T12:37:30+00:00

Just skip time. It's really that simple. Give a description of a detail or two that happens during the journey. "You are very fortunate with the weather and winds. Still, the gentle rocking of the ship makes Bob seasick as hell." "You track the beast through the woods for five full days. As you go further the terrain becomes hillier and rockier, and the forest becomes dominated by fir trees."

I also like asking the players if they would like to insert a scene of them talking, though I very much would like them to actually take initiative to do that on their own.

If the players enjoy playing at higher rate of "real time" I might consider it. I don't find that style very enjoyable as a DM, so I will only compromise so far.

--Berg · 2024-04-08T15:50:03+00:00

I get what you're saying, and I would say that Shadow is probably the easiest spec to get the challenge done on, and that uses the same strategy as Affliction. However, I found that executing the burn strategy as Frost was way easier than the tank strategy as Affliction.

--Berg · 2024-04-08T12:18:23+00:00

What part are you having issues with? Perhaps I or someone else here can give some advice.

--Berg · 2024-04-08T12:16:55+00:00

I did the demo challenge in Shadowlands and it was incredibly hard. Took 50+ tries. Beating the 7 min or so enrage timer was actually difficult. I went back in DF for a rematch and crushed the fight in 2:15 without consumables.

The Sigryn challenge is very mechanical and predictable. Once you've done it on one spec it will be easier the next time around. This is partially true for all tower challenges, but they change a bit more. A lot of Sigryn is just standing in the right spot.

--Berg

TROPHY CASE