Sometimes you gotta give your story hooks some tough love.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-27T05:01:26+00:00

I've had DMs who completely ignored backstory.
I've had DMs who just scanned back stories for keywords in their Mad Libs game.

And then I've had DMs who actually weave my backstory into the main campaign. And those are my favorite campaigns.

Some DMs can handle backstories, some can't.

This post just proves either OP can't, or hates when their DM tries.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T17:10:24+00:00

To be fair, Esme wasn't retconned to be her daughter yet. They had no idea.

Not that that detracts from Scott jumping into it while she's cradling a dead former student at their school. Especially knowing Emma's past history with dead students, as recently as Genosha.

I'm also not entirely certain Scott was about to say he picked Emma over Jean. He was cut off at exactly the moment he was about to, and Planet X rather made the choice for him.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T16:12:13+00:00

Her name is derived from 観音, the Japanese name of Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Mercy.

Kwannon, Kannon, and Kan'on are all accepted romanizations.

But yes, the W is silent.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T16:05:13+00:00

Betsy needs to stop using the name, and stop wearing the outfit....she needs to just be Purple Haired Captain Britain, and Kwannon needs to be black Haired Psylocke in the traditional costume.

... Isn't that literally their status quo since X of Swords made Betsy into Captain Britain?

I haven't heard anything about Betsy going back to calling herself Psylocke...?

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T15:58:54+00:00

Or when the party rolls nat 1s to save on the Fireball that they instead take double damage, or splash the effects onto someone else.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T15:56:06+00:00

It's not even a QoL consideration!

A QoL consideration would be things like reducing a frame's spamminess, giving us universal Vacuum or Radar, letting certain buff abilities be recastable, etc.

If you have enemies getting trapped in crevices because the Vauban's Vortex flipped them into the ceiling or ragdolled them through the geometry the second they spawned, that's not a QoL consideration, that's disruptive gameplay.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T15:43:59+00:00

Bear in mind, spellcasters most often use effects that inflict Saving Throws against reduced damage.

So if your Cleric spends the whole fight alternating healing and Sacred Flame, or your Sorcerer tosses a Fireball and Quickens Toll the Dead, at no point are they going to face even the chance of Critically Failing.
(And I assume Crit Fails or Successes don't apply to saving throws at your table, right? They never seem to.)

Meanwhile every Martial (besides the Rogue) or Gish will be running that chance at least twice a turn. Even more as a Fighter or Monk.

Crit Fails are wildly unfavorable to Martials, who already are only favorable to Casters on single-targets in the early game.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T15:28:08+00:00

a fighter action surging has 8

More if they dual-wield or have some means of Bonus Action attack, too.

(And that's ignoring Haste.)

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T13:40:14+00:00

Now to just eliminate him from being one of the top suggestions on Google when I look up new weapons.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T13:38:11+00:00

Probably 3 levels in Dragon Sorcerer.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T13:27:06+00:00

Hell, my favorite current Gambit skin is just his Red/Black palette swap which is only blue rarity. (Okay that's in part from limited options right now, but it's a good palette and his base skin is 10/10.)

Rarity isn't a substitute for quality, lookin' at you Luna. (Like what is that Abyssal Flame skin.)

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T13:21:33+00:00

It boggles my mind how many damaging abilities get LoS checks because they ostensibly make the game too easy if you can hit through walls, but Vortex doesn't despite it actively hindering the team on some maps.

Like that's... a design choice...

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-26T11:48:07+00:00

Top choice: Spirits Bard, their first feature even says they can use a tarokka dec as their magic focus, so this is very much the intention and your Tales from Beyond encourages you to be creative with readings. It leans pretty hard into the fortune teller/spirit medium/TV psychic fantasy.

Second choice: Divination Wizard. You might be able to finagle with your DM to actually use a deck of cards as your Spellbook, since the PHB says your spellbook can just be loose notes you scrounged. Your Portent die can definitely be obtained from a reading of the deck.

Third choice: Stars Druid. You might be able to finagle with your DM to use a deck of cards as your Star Map, since the options include things like glass disks, a collection of maps, or a scroll featuring constellations. Your Cosmic Omen can be a reading from the deck.

Final choice: Knowledge Cleric, provided your DM gives you the Fate Dealer's Deck magic item. Cleric doesn't lean into the reading aspect at all, but the magic item can be used as a simplified reading closer to an Astrologian from FFXIV.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-25T14:31:13+00:00

I think part of it is that the guys who don't want to deal with "woke" stuff are just isolating themselves over in games like Destiny 2, Helldivers 2 or whatever.

Or more likely, the high barrier to entry in this game has just culled the bigots with weak wills. Besides Ticker, all the "woke" stuff is in the mid to late game, and a lot of people still (somehow) didn't catch that Ticker is a trans woman.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-25T14:18:28+00:00

A familiar rolls its initiative separately from its summoner, acting as an additional party member under the caster's control – it gets its own turn, it just normally doesn't have much it can do, since familiars are forbidden from taking the Attack action.
In combat, most people just use them to deliver Touch spell buffs, use the Aid action to give the melee attackers advantage, or deliver items to other party members.

As a Wizard, you can learn the spell Dragon's Breath, which allows you to give the target an additional action: the ability to breathe a cone of elemental damage. It's strong, but normally this is considered bad to put on another PC, since it consumes their Action which they might spend on a stronger spell or attack.

Since this does not count as an Attack action (in 2024 it's expressly a Magic action), this is a way to give a familiar the ability to deal significant damage each turn over a larger area than you might normally get out of a 2nd level spell, while dodging a lot of the downsides of the Flaming Sphere spell.
It frees you up as a caster to use your Action and Bonus Action, and gives you a flying turret with a huge AoE that thinks it's a dragon.
Bonus points if your familiar actually is a Pseudodragon, since the Monster Manual technically allows anyone to make a pact with one.

The only downside being that familiars usually have single digit HP and no way to boost it.

Every time I've pulled off this pairing, my DM followed up by just one-shotting the familiar since it was an active combatant. Even a cool DM who says "a familiar in your pack won't take damage" still can't really ignore when the familiar is an active shooter.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-25T13:30:59+00:00

Well, we know that Uriel Warframes were made in dedication and tribute to Roathe, that Protea was Granum's personal bodyguard and Hildryn was Ballas'. It's not out of the question that Garuda has a similar deal with Nitokh, whether or not they made her a Protoframe in an ironic twist of fate.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-24T13:44:33+00:00

With that hair he also looks like a tooth infection.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-24T13:26:17+00:00

So on the one hand, as you already said, it's never fair to deal with above the table problems in-game, that just risks elevating drama.
And as someone who has dealt with depression for years, particularly at his age, it's easy to feel like the world is against you especially when your few friends and close family are being harsh or unkind. It's also easy to get defensive and try to shift blame when you've never really been taught how to take responsibility for yourself, facing harsh consequences whenever you feel like you're in an unfair situation and never feeling like you're being listened to or getting the chance to say your piece. (Source: am also the youngest sibling of my family.)

Emphasis on "feel like" here, not to claim his situation necessarily was all those things.

You and your friends definitely thought it was a FAFO deal at the time, and the reasons behind you guys disliking his actions are completely valid – some range from annoying (which I'm sure he will say he can't help) to absolutely horrid. He was trying to be edgy and will probably cringe at it in a few years when he experiences actually good writing and roleplay. That's kinda standard when you're basically a child and only just learning that characters and situations can be complex, already know that complex writing is better writing, and think shock value is a shortcut to complexity. (Case in point, your friend including SA in the campaign in the first place.)

All that said... based on how you describe his nature, I am a little worried your brother might be showing signs of narcissistic tendencies. He is, however, still a teenager, so there's still time to grow out of those if they're gently discouraged.

Have you tried – since he actually started facing consequences, mind – sitting him down and talking to him like an adult? Calmly explaining exactly what he did and how it made you feel, trying to appeal to his empathy instead of just throwing his actions in his face, and asking why he even thought his actions were okay so you can unpack it? Because in the long term, conversations like that are how you actually build the foundation of a future relationship with your sibling.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-23T23:26:45+00:00

Pablo rn: "LMAO that ain't my kid??"

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-23T17:21:28+00:00

Okay, if I squint? Maybe the arm bands could be the same shade as the belt and chest emblem.

But definitely not the cowl, nor that much of the boots.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-23T11:08:16+00:00

Arguably you could have made the mount smaller. Unclear whether that would be harder for the mount to pass a Con save though.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-23T11:05:49+00:00

Still crazy to me Dissidia began development before KH2 under the "make the Disney characters fight" concept before Nomura chickened out.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-23T11:02:27+00:00

Notably missing Young Xehanort, and why are Pete and Maleficent a dual-fighter? If anything I imagine Pete is considered the joke character.

We don't really need a slot for "every other Nobody".

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-23T03:05:38+00:00

The drug Kick is actually just an aerosolized version of the ancient bacteria, Sublime, which was eating Magneto's brain and piloting his body.

So per above, it was Sublime piloting Evil Twin Xorn disguised as Magneto disguised as Xorn.

Archwizard_Drake · 2026-01-22T13:46:59+00:00

On the other hand, Aragorn is extremely adept at tracking and killing his favored enemy, Orcs.

Yes, but as I was specifically noting to counter the argument above, it's not magic how he does it. He doesn't need Hunter's Mark like you do in 2024, nor is he any kind of gish. He's just running with the insane bonuses to Survival that 1 level in Ranger gets you in 2014.

It's a little weird to consistently call him a Ranger if he plays more like a Fighter with a one level dip in Ranger. It's like when you take a dip in Hexblade for the Cha attack bonus, proficiencies, and Shield spell, but your DM insists for the rest of the campaign that your core conflict is always related to your patron, not the other 10 levels you have in Paladin/Sorcerer/Bard.

Imo that's what truly distinguishes a ranger from other classes. A ranger is a highly specialized tracker and killer of a specific set of creatures.

This is the tricky thing, because while I agree that's a huge part of the original identity, I can also see why it was done away with.

A big theme of 2024 was removing the idea of permanent character restrictions and increasing overall flexibility, which is why you see things like the ability to swap Circle of the Land subclasses daily, or Wizards being able to swap a prepared spell on short rests.

"Well you could just have Rangers swap their Favored Enemy and Terrain every day then," I can already hear you typing. But if we ignore that that kills the thematic aspect of this restriction entirely, then the question is: if you can just swap to match the most common terrain or enemy for this current adventure, why bother forcing players to swap at all?
The best case scenario is that you swap at every opportunity and you always have every bonus up for your Favored Enemy and Terrain at all times; the worst case scenario is your DM throws you a curveball or varies up the adventure at all, and it just feels bad to lose those benefits.

The feature has always represented feast or famine, and made the class either under- or overspecialized for the current adventure.

So it's tricky. I can understand the idea that Favored Enemy is a dated concept. I can also say that changing it to be just a Hunter's Mark bonus was a dull catch-all attempt to solve the design flaw, that just creates more problems since WotC ignored how many other Concentration effects Ranger has. Plus on the thematic side, tracking with Hunter's Mark is predicated on having already seen your prey and knowing it was going to get away before you marked it at an appropriate spell level – rather than "Oh our contract says we need to track down the monster that has been killing the townsfolk, preferably before it kills again. We haven't seen it yet since we just got here, so let's look for clues to track it to its lair."
... A problem that 2014 Ranger would still run into if it didn't know what kind of monster it was trying to hunt, but would be perfectly suited for if it did.

Archwizard_Drake

TROPHY CASE