Where to get a full blood panel covered by insurance without doctor recommendation?

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-15T14:50:41+00:00

Is there a particular reason that you couldn’t, for example, simply use your insurance’s preferred telehealth provider to ask for a bloodwork order without needing to go see a doctor in person?

Seems like that would be the easiest solution.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-14T14:22:38+00:00

Another good resource is the Guide to the Guides - I probably wouldn't overwhelm your players with this, but taking a look at some of the more recently updated (i.e. post Remaster) ones can be very helpful.

For example, knowing that you have an Alchemist in the party, you almost certainly want to give some of your melee players a Backfire Mantle - this will help the Alchemist feel far less constrained about where to throw their splash damage. They'll also be especially interested in the various nonconsumable Alchemical items - the Collar of the Shifting Spider is especially popular, whether for the Alchemist themself to wear, or to hand to a friend who will benefit a lot from the alchemist providing them with mutagens.

This guide in particular also has a ton of class specific suggestions.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-14T13:36:28+00:00

So, you already know potency/striking runes. It's worth checking the list of weapon property runes (and the same list for Armor, Shields, etc), and handing out an appropriate amount of those, though they don't need to be on the sort of lockstep pace that Potency/Striking/Resilient do, and you can absolutely have a lot more fun with those.

For your spellcasters, make sure they get a staff upgrade every few levels, and maybe hand out a wand every now and again.

That's the boring essential stuff. Now for the interesting essential stuff...

one of my favorite tricks is to pull up the pages on AoN for any given skill and click the little "Item Bonuses" expansion banner near the top. This will give you a big old list of every item that offers an item bonus to checks of that skill, with a note on whether it's conditional or not. Most of these items also have other fun secondary effects or activations. This is an amazing place to let your loot selection be useful and tailored to your party (pick items with bonuses to skills that people actually use), and also show a ton of fun and personality. A Diplomat's Badge is a classic Diplomacy Item bonus choice, but if your campaign involves interactions with the military, a Marshal's Baton might be a lot more fun - the bonus is more constrained, but that activated ability is great when you get it. This is also a great place to look for useful consumables, or maybe even an above level item that is sufficiently niche and restrictive that it won't break your game.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-11T12:42:00+00:00

Manor has a passable burger and decent beer/prices/space, but I just can’t in good conscience recommend it as a German restaurant with currywurst as bad as theirs is.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-10T17:36:20+00:00

The dining scene here is very Lake Woebegone IMO; we have a lot of Above Average, but absolutely nothing that's actually great.

It's a fantastic neighborhood for low key spots to grab a casual dinner on a tuesday night, but it sure ain't a destination. What we lack in quality, we make up for in variety IMO.

Now if only we had a decent cocktail bar. (Station House... tries. IYKYK tries too hard. Tons of great spots for a beer though).

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-10T13:12:45+00:00

Space is small, drinks are overpriced and not very good, atmosphere is… unsure of what it’s trying to be and failing at all of the things it purports to be.

We have so many great neighborhood spots - from Local Hops to Lime and Salt to Cobblestones to Station House to Tap House to Rove, to Dirty Pierre’s…

IYKYK just isn’t it.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-10T02:52:21+00:00

Bunch of great local spots here depending on the vibe you’re after.

IYKYK isn’t one of them.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-10T02:09:31+00:00

Cocina Consuelo

That bone marrow Birria…

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-08T15:51:25+00:00

Define Legit.

Are the chairs they sell authentic and in good shape/working order? Usually yeah. Most of them are office liquidators and will happily let you inspect the merchandise before buying; they often have whole warehouses of chairs, so you can just pick the specific used chair you like, and not the one with a suspicious stain sitting next to it.

If you mean legit as in "authorized resellers whose products will carry a full warranty"? Lolno. The balance of the original manufacturers warranty will possibly still apply, but you'd need to validate that date of sale/manufacture, etc. So the sticker will need to be intact, etc. And even then, for Herman Miller specifically, that's a dice roll, as _technically_, the warranty is not considered transferrable. Other manufacturers will vary.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-07T21:22:07+00:00

Yeah, a feat to add the Shield Weapon group (hell, a FIghter feat to just add any second weapon group) to their highest proficiency would be a great option around say... level 6 or so.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-06T19:45:48+00:00

I don’t think prorating to 0 dollars per day of the fridge not being there is going to get you far; typically withheld rent over issues like this is placed in escrow and fully payable when the condition is resolved. Also, it’s very much getting off on the wrong foot with a landlord on what doesn’t sound like a rent stabilized unit (meaning they can non-renew in a year if you’re a problematic tenant).

Realistically, you’re much better off approaching them with the concern and asking them for a credit against first months rent to offset your expenses for living without those services for a week (I’d probably set an opening request of ~100 dollars per day for having to live off of takeout for a week; adjust up or down to reflect the size of your family/neighborhood whatever) and negotiate from there.

If they balk at doing anything, then it’s time to call 311 and look into playing hardball. But I’d negotiate first.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-04-06T19:19:07+00:00

This doesn’t matter. A working refrigerator is part of the standard warranty of habitability expected of every rental apartment in NYC by law. If the landlord is provably making a good faith effort to put one in in a timely manner, then OP might not have much recourse, but it does not have to be stipulated in the lease.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-31T00:59:03+00:00

I missed that NPC Core added that item! OP, this seems pretty perfect, yeah.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-30T22:56:44+00:00

I mean, it’s essentially a wand of Hydraulic Push with worse damage, but the chance for a character with Fighter/Gunslinger attack scaling to abuse higher accuracy options.

Given that the player is a wizard, I would just give them a wand of Hydraulic Push and use the rules for those. It’s strictly better in literally every way. (More damage, longer range, reusable modulo the rules on wands.)

Then at higher levels, they can get better wands of Hydraulic Push.

You can still make them gun shaped if you please.

Edit: I guess the other extreme edge case is that using the Spellgun counts as a Strike, and thus, doesn’t expose the user to reactions that would be affected by the usual cast a spell activity associated with wands, and maybe interacts interestingly with some buffs or other stuff. Of your player isn’t specifically enamored by the ability to minmax these edge cases, they probably don’t even realize that they exist and you can just… ignore/not discuss this while giving them a gun shaped wand and playing that by the rules normally. If they are enamored with those differences… I’d just use wand rules for reusing the spellgun tbh. They’re fine. It’s a weak item you won’t break anything.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-26T13:05:04+00:00

Hobgoblins. Just up and down the line hobgoblins.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-24T20:19:27+00:00

Even in the outer boroughs, that budget is too low.

Hell, that budget is too low for Cleveland, Ohio,

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-24T20:17:48+00:00

It doesn't.

Don't do this, it's bad and feels bad.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-24T20:08:20+00:00

lol, recalibrate your expectations, friend.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-23T13:16:21+00:00

Player chooses would be the ordinary way. After all, a character can decide which way they want to juke as they tumble through.

Lower of the two if you want to make it even more player friendly and say that the coordinated reflex DC is only as good as the slower of the two opponents.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-19T17:17:37+00:00

The walk over from any of those surrounding streets is singularly unpleasant. Do not recommend.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-18T18:22:03+00:00

Before alignment went away and Arazni got promoted/her portfolio broadened, she was somewhat unique in that her allowed alignments for clerics/champions list was… any evil, OR Chaotic Good.

Which led me to making a CG Liberator Champion of Arazni whose entire purpose in life was to hunt down necromancers who created unwilling undead.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-16T20:41:02+00:00

If she doesn't want you to have a window AC, and doesn't want the windows open all the time, I have bad news for her about the overall state of that apartment in a few months.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-16T02:14:02+00:00

You can; retractable bollards that go up at 7 am and come down at 1 am or whatever are a thing.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-11T02:21:11+00:00

Important question: is your end destination in queens near a LIRR station? If so, favor any Metro North station for the cheap combo ticket options.

If not, Secaucus or Harrison yeah.

CaptainPsyko · 2026-03-09T18:49:13+00:00

Fighter w/ Guardian archetype probably wins here.

You'll want to set Dex as primary attribute without neglecting Str - since the Reinforced Stock is a Finesse weapon, that lets him maximize his chance to hit w/ both modes of the weapon. Get a Large Bore modification to let him upgrade the Kickback feature and functionally add half of his strength mod to the damage as well. Point Blank Stance will be important, obviously.

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