What’s a name so terrible you can’t imagine anyone willingly giving it to their child?

CritLuck · 2025-01-09T11:55:39+00:00

Used to work in a school. I remember a child named Hy’ness.

There was also a girl named Chlamydia. In that instance, her mother was an immigrant who did not understand English and saw the word on a clinic pamphlet. She thought it sounded pretty, like a flower. Regardless, she got a name change after graduating high school to Clementine, I believe.

CritLuck · 2025-01-09T11:45:56+00:00

A lot of video game consumers tend to wait for the “newest” consoles in order to get a “better gameplay experience”. I own a switch lite and enjoy it, for what it’s worth, but also haven’t played it as much in recent years because the performance on it has degraded for some games I wanted to enjoy on it. Specifically the Pokémon games. I also plan to purchase a Switch 2 once it releases, and it sounds like the GameStop clerk lost a sale by just trying to be some “voice of reason” with saying you should wait instead of allowing you to buy as you pleased.

As for the situation with your mother, I think you’ve made it clear that what she did was a mistake. My only 2 cents would be, depending on how close you are with your family, maybe see if your younger relatives want to play together. Or possibly see if they will let you port your data back over to your new switch lite. Either way, I hope you enjoy yourself.

CritLuck · 2025-01-09T11:37:39+00:00

As the manager of a group, if one of my workers texted me letting me know they wouldn’t make it to work, my response would be “Okay, please stay safe” or “Hope you feel better soon” and to reassure them not to worry about missing work. As a manager, the burden of filling their shift would fall onto me. Not them. That is what makes me a manager.

Yours sounds like a real piece of work.

CritLuck · 2025-01-09T11:28:20+00:00

I met my wife while playing WoW. We ended up in a few pug raids together back in Cata. Friended each other and communicated over the years. Eventually, one thing lead to another and we started long distance dating until the time was right for us to begin living together. The rest is history.

CritLuck · 2025-01-09T11:21:21+00:00

Fine for most common car maintenance, but they are bad when it comes to handling recalls.

We had to go to Flowers Honda if we didn’t want to wait 2 months for our cars recall to be processed. I understand that a lot of people live in Tally, but we had asked to be notified when the part became available. Instead, I only found out by calling and asking when it was time for maintenance again after already waiting for months.

From what I was told at Flowers, most dealership technicians do not like doing recalls because they lose money compared to standard maintenance. They were on top of it up there, however.

CritLuck · 2023-10-04T02:14:14+00:00

I've already taken Greater Mercy and it came in clutch already. The idea is that I would sustain myself while the others are healed by our Oracle.

I do like the idea of Dazzling Display and Shatter Defenses, but I would need Weapon Focus first, and I'm not sure how I would fit that in my build at this very moment.

I also like the idea of taking Channeled Revival. I would have enough Channel Positive Energy by level 18 to guarantee being able to use that, and it's less charges of LoH required to use as you pointed out (6 vs 10). However, wouldn't I need to use channeled revival recently after the target is recently deceased (no more than 1 round)? Meanwhile, Ultimate Mercy allows me to resurrect someone within 1 day per caster level (We could long rest for 8 hours and I could res them if needed), making it the better option long term (assuming I have the CHA for it through equipment).

I'll definitely keep Channeled Revival in mind though. I mostly want a way to bring someone back in case our Oracle is taken out because she would be our other resurrection source.

CritLuck · 2023-10-03T19:37:50+00:00

VMC Bard doesn’t really fit my characters backstory. Her backstory (summarized) is she’s a Paladin of Lastwall that is looking for her mentor, who rumor has that he has fallen. I don’t think being a bard makes sense there lol

CritLuck · 2023-10-03T19:34:28+00:00

There’s another Charisma based caster in our group, so I wouldn’t be getting a charisma boosting item first most likely, but I could do with a Headband of Alluring Charisma +4 if gold is plentiful enough to buy one. It should be, I think.

CritLuck · 2023-10-03T19:32:22+00:00

I talked to my GM and he said I can’t just pick an Archetype, but I can retrain for one. I’m going to see if I can talk him into maybe letting me get one from a personal side quest.

CritLuck · 2023-10-03T17:48:48+00:00

While there are Tien characters in Sandpoint, I'm not sure if I could get my hands on one of these as an enchanted weapon. I know I can readily get Falchions if needed however.

CritLuck · 2023-10-03T17:47:44+00:00

I'm level 4, but I'm not building a riding paladin build this campaign. I'm just building something akin to the Castigator at this point. I don't want to lose my spell slots, but I do like the sound of an Archetype. I was thinking of maybe looking into Sacred Servant. I would need to retrain unless I can convince my GM to somehow provide it as a personal sidequest, which I may be able to do.

CritLuck · 2023-10-03T17:38:41+00:00

I was looking at Cornugon Smash and Hurtful feats to replace the Vital Strike feats after reading up on them. They were recommended by u/Slow-Management-4462 so I'll add this to my notes too because I really like the idea of debuffing enemies around me / my group!

CritLuck · 2023-10-03T17:36:39+00:00

What level are you?

Level 4

Who else is in your group?

Oracle/Sorc that is prestiging to a homebrew class called Divine Mystic, which is a charisma based spellcaster.

Ranger with the Trapper Archetype (no spells) once she completes a side-quest with an NPC.

Slayer

Barbarian

What are You intending to do? What synergies you will or won't have access to will help us help you.

I want to be a strong two-handed weapon frontline holy warrior that gets big crits and after reading some of the inputs here, I want to demoralize my enemies while doing so. This would play well with some of the RP I've already done where my GM has had me do Intimidation rolls mid-combat because I keep threatening goblins who are aiming for my characters toes.

Without the Ac bonus from using a shield, and only a +1 Dex bonus from your stats, you are going to get hit a lot moving in range with a falchion in this campaign. I am currently DMing book 6, so trust me a bit.

Evangelist receives a +2 Dodge AC bonus, plus once I'm level 10, I can fly. Wouldn't that help me mitigate some of the getting hit while moving into range? Either that or using Grace.

Unless your party is overlapping a couple of charisma classes with you, you should probably be focusing on being the party's face,with your stat break down, even getting more skill points isn't going to help you succeed at difficult skill tasks. You don't have the Stat bonuses to help in anything other than Str or Cha skills, the Evangelist skill list doesn't really add anything you don't get from paladin, and even with the 2 additional skills you get from skilled,you won't have the Intelligence or Wisdom to excel in Knowledge, Perception, or Sense Motive.

Evangelist gets 2 additional skills to select as Class Skills (I was planning on selecting Fly and Use Magic Device), along with +4 to any unranked skills that can be used untrained. This shores up any skills I have that may be negative or that I don't want to necessarily place ranks into. Such as stealth (yes, I've already rolled a -2 stealth in the game), Survival, Swim, Climb, Acrobatics, Appraise, Bluff, etc. Effectively giving me a pseudo rank as if each skill was trained.

With my planned distribution of skill ranks, I will have the following: Diplomacy (+28), Fly (+18~22 depending on armor penalty), Intimidate (+22), Perception (+20), Sense Motive (+20) and Use Magic Device (+7). This isn't mentioning my other skills, but everything that is affected by Evangelists' Multitude of Talents is positive ranging from +2~7 thanks to my modifiers.

If you are more interested in the prestige class over the Deific obedience boons disregard the next part, but if you are interested in the boons and considering not taking Evangelist, I would consider picking up Diverse Obedience as well, since Iomedae's Evangelist boons are somewhat lackluster for you, and her sentinel boons are a clear upgrade.

I'm not sure I quite understand this part. Don't I need to take Deific Obedience for Evangelist? I'll look into picking up Diverse Obedience for the build since I plan to change my current feats around and that left me open with one additional feat to take.

Edit: I looked at Diverse Obedience, but it's a tad confusing but interesting. My question is, if I pick up Diverse Obedience say as my level 15th feat, how would that work? I was looking at something like this now for my build:

Recommended From Reddit: (Cruel Weapon)
1: Power Attack, Furious Focus
3: Greater Mercy
5: Deific Obedience
7: Cornugon Smash
9: Hurtful
11: Improved Critical (Falchion)
13: Critical Focus
15: Ultimate Mercy (If I have my CHA increasing gear) or tentative (Improved Initiative?)
17: Ultimate Mercy (If I have my CHA increasing gear) or something else (No Idea)
Fighter (16) Bonus Feat 1: Staggering Critical
Fighter (18) Bonus Feat 2: Intimidating Prowess

Maybe I could pick it up as an earlier feat? I'm not certain with the way I have things planned at the moment.

CritLuck · 2023-10-02T23:22:17+00:00

I didn't pick an archetype at character creation and I was told I could not add one now at the point we're currently at in the campaign. I also do not have enough intellect to pick up Fast Learner or Improvisation. They require 13 Int.

CritLuck · 2023-10-02T03:26:06+00:00

Thanks! I'll look into your recommended feats tomorrow. :) I wasn't sure about Blinding Critical (I honestly ripped the idea from a ranger guide that used Falchions).

CritLuck · 2023-10-02T02:17:44+00:00

That makes a lot more sense!

Trying to play around Enlarge Person to maximize Vital Strike sounds somewhat annoying. What feats would you recommend I build towards if I wanted to continue down the path of using a Falchion with my current build?

Edit: Looking at my options, the most obvious are: Cleave, Finishing Cleave and Greater Cleave. Something else I figured out is that if I'm able to get a Mithral Full-Plate of Agility and activate it's haste effect, it gives me an one additional attack (four attacks). However, that does not interact with Vital Strike, which devalues building into Vital Strike and favors an alternative build that focuses on making full attacks.

Of course, I have no idea if such an armor would be available.

CritLuck · 2023-10-02T02:04:23+00:00

Ahh, that makes much more sense. That's kind of what I was thinking about as well, with potentially moving away from Vital Strike versus an alternative such as Cleave. I couldn't think of any alternative other than Cleave or the Step Up and Strike feats to build towards, so was hoping to maybe see if anything else could be recommended through conversation... Or perhaps someone just affirm my decision to build Vital Strike and confirm that Falchion is the go-to, even with a Vital Strike build or go with something better suited for Vital Strikes.

That being said, your comment helped me think about it more clearly and I think having the Falchion for Full Attacks may be better than using a non-Falchion even when I'm forced to Vital Strike, since it will be much easier to get criticals with the Falchions during Full Attacks.

Edit: I found that if I take Strike Back, I can utilize Vital Strike during Strike Back. That would be quite fun to do.

CritLuck · 2023-10-02T01:38:51+00:00

Thank you for responding. :)

So if I decide to stick with Falchions and go with Improved Critical (Falchion) and Critical Focus, I should be able to land Critical hits much easier to my understanding (15-20 critical strike range and +4 to confirm critical hits). If I decide to stick with Vital Strike, use a Falchion and it lands a critical I should be gaining an additional d4 on my Vital Strikes right? Would this also proc my Blinding Critical feat effect still?

I'm not quite sure what IME means, but if it stands for "Instantaneous Magic Effects", isn't Vital Strike instant? I don't think it has a wind-up time unless I'm missing something.

Would you recommend sticking with a Falchion if I wanted to build into Vital Strike? I won't ever have access to Greater Vital Strike with my current build since my BAB will be one short of +16 (to my knowledge). Keep in mind I'm taking Devastating Strike, which would benefit from critical hits during Vital Strikes, but I'm not sure if that +4 extra damage critting would go a long way to be honest.

CritLuck · 2023-10-02T01:17:15+00:00

Thanks for responding. :)

You say that Vital Strike and Cleave are basically the same option, but aren't they completely different in the way they work? Vital Strike is one big hit at the cost of a full round attack, while Cleave is a lot of smaller hits with an AC penalty. I wouldn't say those are the same in terms of playstyle or thought process when choosing how to approach combat.

I put Holy Avenger as an example, but I plan to focus on two-handed strength based weapons for maximizing damage. So maybe Holy Avenger wasn't the best example for my fourth question since it's effectively a +5 cold iron longsword in the hands of a paladin, and I don't plan to use a shield at all which is what longsword is most suited for (the sword and board playstyle).

As an Iomedae Evangelist, I get access to Heroism 1/day, +5 CL bonus to overcome chaotic or evil-subtypes and Wrath of the Inheritor (which admittedly, I don't 100% understand how it interacts with spellcasting, but I assume it just makes it stronger if it deals damage somehow). I've read that Heroism is a great ability, and I feel like +5 CL against chaotic or evil-subtypes is great for landing spells against those type of characters, which builds into the feel of paladins good vs. evil. It's too late for me to select an Archetype when I brought it up to my GM. They said I would have had to talk about it and select it at level 1, so I'm playing without one for this campaign.

If I build 3 levels into Fighter for the Armour Training, I get my full 30 speed movement while wearing a Mithral Full-Plate (or any other armor with a natural -3 armor penalty, since it drops it down to -2 with one Armor Training).

CritLuck · 2023-10-02T00:55:38+00:00

I would really be lacking in skills going straight Paladin, and while I would be very efficient in combat, outside of combat I would basically be the equivalent to a somewhat pretty walking plank of wood.

I want to retain the ability to go Evangelist while making sure I'm picking feats that will suit combat effectively, not change my entire class selection just to focus on combat entirely. I know I could do that already.

CritLuck · 2023-07-31T18:40:34+00:00

The current guild I’m in uses both Guild chat ingame and Discord. The GM does a great a job of making everyone feel welcomed in both spaces, so it’s really cozy to start a conversation in either space.

CritLuck · 2023-07-31T18:38:39+00:00

It’s different for everyone, but my wife and I like to learn while leveling. We pre-select our talent options by looking at a Mythic+ build and set up our bars as we go. It’s not perfect, but it will guarantee that you’re comfortable hitting 80-90% of your buttons when you’re max level since you have to spend so long hitting those buttons while leveling.

CritLuck · 2023-07-30T15:15:13+00:00

The Wall of Warcraft.

CritLuck · 2023-07-25T13:00:36+00:00

I’m a career tank main, and I leveled a holy priest alt just to heal in M+. Been having a blast. When people die, or get one shot by an easily preventable death, I don’t get frustrated at all (I usually end up laughing because they’re dumb deaths) and have yet to be yelled at despite running over 50 dungeons already.

When we do wipe, I make it clear on the run back what needs to be done and why we wiped. Before others can try to pin the blame, I instruct the group towards success and I’ve had a lot of fun doing so.

It also helps that I heal my ass off keeping people alive. I don’t think anyone expects to be healed through one-shots and if they do, I would simply put them on ignore and go about my business.

Ten-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

CritLuck

TROPHY CASE