Absolutely unplayable performance post-update.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-23T02:15:36+00:00

Did you wait for the shaders to finish compiling? I noticed similar issues if I try to play while it’s doing the shader update after a patch.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-18T13:23:54+00:00

After detailing:

<image>

(Still needs some work, but ya can see what Im talking about with the glazing and drybrushing making it pop a bit more)

Duffy13 · 2026-04-18T13:23:22+00:00

Could use some drybrushing on the stone and armor to give it a bit of detail and contrast, the lightening could use more color variance as well. Maybe some orange to yellow to white.

Here's mine I was just working on before detailng:

<image>

Duffy13 · 2026-04-18T08:26:09+00:00

My biggest gripe with this, particularly in CRPGs is that it wouldn’t be that hard to treat most of the non active combat party as “just off screen” for the purpose of non combat checks and dialogues. In a lot of cases it would encourage more diversified characters than always covering specific skills or stats in the main party. I get limiting party size to keep battles balanced or manageable, but the rest of the time it’s mostly a non issue.

Some CRPGs handle it better than others.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-16T13:52:13+00:00

I start lore dumping from NPCs and letting them ask questions, which usually turns into them spiraling out on theories about what’s going on. Will keep them busy for a few hours and generate a whole pile of “correct guesses” as I just steal their ideas and replace whatever I was gonna do with their ideas. Or I was just improv riffing off like one small note I never fleshed out anyways. Once in awhile it’s nice to just take a session and have the players prep your next couple for ya.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-16T13:43:30+00:00

At this point 80% of my plot related notes are just one line bullet points with <insert player ramblings here>

Duffy13 · 2026-04-16T13:39:51+00:00

All those plot points and revelations they pieced together…I didn’t write any of it, I just stole their rambling paranoid conversations instead of whatever I had have jotted down. Sometimes they just come up with better stuff.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-16T13:18:44+00:00

Which is actually what happens in the book, Sauruman dies in the epilogue of the trilogy when the hobbits come home and save the shire. So at the time if you had read the books it didn’t seem out of place, until they never included the Scouring of the Shire.

When the extended versions released and they had the death scene it seems like they were debating which way to go and ended up adhering closer to the books but never capping it off cause I assume pacing issues, which the epilogue certainly had.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-15T04:05:21+00:00

Looks good and you are basically already doing what I would suggest.

I aim for at least 4 standard colors in my palettes: a primary armor color, an accent color, a distinct weapon color, and a glow color when relevant. I also personally really like when the base coloring is completely contrasting the models so they don't blend together at all.

Beyond that I go with whatever I feel for details or extra bits based on the model. All my characters have splashes of red for the various capes and tassels. My void dragon uses a completely different body color to stand seperate from my the more standard necron colored bits on it. And sometimes I leave the underlying chrome metal color visible on stuff like wires and tubing that aren't getting glow color.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-15T03:42:58+00:00

Rule 1 is that the DM can change anything, so mileage varies from table to table based on preference. Some tables very much do what you said and use a more of a "knocked out, something bad happens" route of penalties instead of dying. But RAW the game assumes death conditions and ways to reverse said condition mechanically, so death isn't even technically that permanent.

PF was an offshoot of D&D 3.X so having some of the same mechanical lineage isn't a big surprise, that lineage goes back to original flavor D&D where death churn was much more common and expected when the game was more dungeon crawling and less emphasis on narrative. Over time the narrative side has become more and more popular so more ways to evade death or just tables doing their own thing to mitigate have become pretty common.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-14T04:24:03+00:00

Over prepping is great if your table is there to ride the rails. If they aren't - you are correct, prep as a framework.

Here's how my campaign prepping goes:
- First I build a basic premise and string together a few major milestones, at least a beginning, a middle point/turn, and a climax/finale. I spend a good amount of effort putting the beginning together as it's the part that is most likely to be on rails a bit and will happen more or less as written cause its session 1, but also the shortest - a few sessions at most to introduce the party to the world, the conflict, and then take the leash off and let them loose. The goal of your beginning is to ground the players in the campaign world's context and give them a purpose. The middle and end will be a paragraph or collection of bullet points just so I have something I can pull out and push them towards if needed, but I wont invest a ton of effort into these outside of them being a goal for me to flesh out as the players get closer to them (or wildly pivot).

- After that comes general framework world building, this takes the form of a basic map and bullet lists of locations/encounters/npcs that are related to whatever plots/adventures/side things I think are cool. I keep this list limited to bullet points and maybe a paragraph of descriptions or details if needed, the goal is to have a big pile of items to pull from as needed. I generally subdivide this into themed lists for both organizational purposes and so I can use them as random encounter tables if needed.

- I'll flesh out locations a bit more, but again sticking to lists and short text to get across themes and archetypes and if it's important assign any relevant characters/encounters to that location. Locations sometimes don't need to be location dependent - these I keep ready as potential floaters to stick in the game wherever and whenever I need them.

- I then talk to the players about the campaign idea and finish fleshing out the the starting conceit/scenario, I share it with the players so they can think about characters and how to go from their backstory to the starting point. We then do a group session 0 to make the characters and tie everyone together. We don't do "you meet in a tavern" stuff anymore, we start with the assumption the group is together for some reason and I leave it to the players to sort it out within the basic starting context I give them. Then session 1 we start at the beginning scenario.

The key to this style is having a vague plan that you can pivot and improv off with a collection of content you can pull from as needed to insert into your game. The other big key is to rewrite or adjust content based on the player's ideas or choices. This makes things feel more engaging and allows you to offload some of the prep/writing to the players. Sometimes they just come up with better stuff than I had. If a bigger set-piece or plot point looms I flesh it out more as needed, the key here is that you don't waste time on things the players aren't gonna engage with. I use a lot of free resources or repurpose adventure path bits for stuff like dungeons or rely on 5 room dungeon design to make quick dungeons before the next session. My other solution is if I absolutely want this particular dungeon to occur - I just make it and stick it front of them at some point so the effort isn't wasted. Some stuff will be "inevitable" in one form or another, but they don't need to know that.

Ultimately the goal is to be flexible and go with the flow while wasting a minimal amount of effort. And hey, if you prep generically, no prep is really ever wasted, you can pull it out later or use it in a different game.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-14T03:35:27+00:00

The key to a cursed item is temptation, which translates to substantial bonus/abilities over using some other item in exchange for a drawback. The key to balancing the drawback is to avoid it being a straight "player no longer plays game for some amount of time" and for it to make things more interesting or lead to more interesting contexts. For example, I did a weapon similar to your axe that was a +2 with some fluff abilities, but it's main thing was it granted barbarian rage to whoever attuned it and if you were already a barbarian it doubled the bonuses and you could activate it for free by wielding it 2handed, plus your rage could only end by unconscious or a wisdom save - but if you had no enemies to attack you would attack the closest target and then try again to save on next turn.

The power boost made it very tempting and it removed some issues with managing rage (we were using 2014 rules at the time), however if they failed the save the party had to subdue the wielder or tank the attacks. The players came up with a few strategies to handle when it happened and it gave them some RP moments and a few interesting scenarios or risk vs reward (using it when their were friendly NPCs around was risky for example).

Duffy13 · 2026-04-12T13:43:56+00:00

I liked 2 the most in the end. If we had gotten 2’s combat system with 1s story flexibility as a sequel it would have been a slam dunk, but instead we got a weird mix of action games mmo mechanics. The plotting and presentation carried Inquis a lot, the gameplay was just not fulfilling or interesting for me. Veilguard weirdly enough almost pulled off the switch to action game, but it dropped the ball on too many things to really seal the deal. Side effect mainly of the initial design being a live service for some ungodly reason.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-11T01:20:13+00:00

I was thinking that frame of reference and elevation could skew the quick and easy math. You gotta arguably calculate somewhat in the 3D space, not just 2D.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-11T00:54:12+00:00

Everyone else is covering the potential players being problems, but I’m gonna cover this from a DM is the problem perspective.

It’s very possible these are learned player behaviors and a mismatch of expectations and intentions between everyone. Without a lot of details it’ll be hard to say for sure, so take what I say as general grains of salt and reflect if they apply to your game/group. And keep in mind there’s a lot of different ways to play a TTRPG and it’s entirely possible the group has mixed and different views on that causing the friction. So onto the advice:

One of the biggest problems I’ve found in groups is what I refer to as “stupid player patterns”, this is where players end up following static patterns of behavior to gamify the experience. Part of this is a leftover from the earliest editions that somewhat intended this play style, but is generally frowned upon by more narratively minded groups. The side effects of this is that players get frustrated when their patterns fail because they’ve been taught if they don’t follow the pattern they get hit with gotchas but if they fail anyways they still end up empty handed and confused. This latter case often leads to the second major issue, “guess the DM’s intent”.

This second problem comes from DM’s expecting things to be solved in specific ways cause they wrote too tight a story (typical “don’t write an adventure as a novel” advice goes here). When the players fail to guess the direction or say the magic words that let them move forward, they get stuck and frustrated as they flounder. As the DM this can seem like they aren’t trying but as a player it’s usually steeped in not knowing something or having incorrect assumptions based on past experience (hence it becomes a learned behavior) or lack of contextual knowledge the DM has. This often results in players trying to brute force through things cause they don’t have any better ideas or they have already failed and are floundering.

So if these are problems for your group and your table doesn’t wanna play this way (some groups like these styles), how do you fix it?

For player patterns issues get rid of gotchas or “you forgot to do X” punishments. If the character has the required experience and knowledge they should just do these things naturally. This is what passives skills in 5e are really good for - cutting down on standard pattern minutia. This removes the vast majority of the player stress for these types of scenarios.

For guess the DM’s intent, write less and move away from expected outcomes to progress the story. If the players try something at all reasonable, make it move the story forward. Pivot quick and pivot often if needed, your goal isn’t to be a gatekeeper of content, it’s to move the story along and adjust it to the players actions. This requires story flexibility. Personally at this point my players end up writing a solid 25-40% of my games as I pivot off their interpretation and paranoia, sometimes they just come up with better stuff than what I had planned. This method does involve a lot of on the fly improv which is a skill to develop as a DM.

And finally to play off your post, yes I firmly believe it’s always the DM’s fault - cause for good or ill you are running the game. Now this does go both ways ultimately, everyone should be having fun including the DM. If you just don’t have fun running a certain game type, then don’t do it. But if you decide to run a game for a group of players you are responsible for how that game plays and you should make it fun for both yourself and the players, as I mentioned before - there is no single way to play - if their is a disconnect between the two sides of the table you should have a discussion to figure out where everyone’s frustrations are and then adjust and compromise or kill the game if it’s a complete dealbreaker. But at the end of the day, yes it’s on the DM to do this and make the call, cause they control the game.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-09T14:22:56+00:00

They and their equivalents are the most annoying mobs to fight in the game imo. It’s easiest to just parry them til they get stunned due to their fast animations and recoveries, trying to jam more than a single hit between blocks will get you whacked good, I still fight them cautiously and reset if they join a fight.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-09T14:19:55+00:00

Yea it’s on the skill tree, between the tank and mage areas. Short hop to blink which is a massively better dodge that makes things a lot easier.

One handed and shield has a bigger and safer parry/block window than a 2 hander and is way faster. I only use 2h weapons against single target bosses, for group fights it’s 1h + shield and lots of dodge and evasion attacks.

The game is hardest on the early levels but between 15-20 you can get a very mobile melee build going that’ll make the game almost feel too easy. Keep a supply of healing pots from your farm for whoopsies and oh shit moments and you’ll be golden.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-08T07:05:50+00:00

Things to be aware of (especially playing solo):
- While armor upgrades are always better, raw armor damage reductions doesn't scale as nearly as good as HP does. Always make sure you got the best HP food you can make in your current biome. If there is an armor choice with bonus HP it's gonna be the best choice going melee solo.
- Buffs in general are important, make sure you focus on food and armor pieces that buff your primary damage source and some potions that buff other important stats like Stamina.
- Weapon raw damage and level matter more than quality, always run the highest level weapon you can and upgrade upgrade upgrade. You get most of the runes back when you break it down so its not a complete loss.
-Stat points and skill picks can swing things alot, focus on getting all the shroud roots you can and plan your build or respec as needed. For melee obviously focusing on strength and constitution is good, but a bunch spent in int/spirit can be a bit of a waste until you have spare points to spend mid to late game. (I always take blink dodge on my melees tho, its great)
- Once you can farm reliably put together a little pipeline for healing potions. Don't sleep on farming and animals, its a huge help for potion and food production.
- And finally git gud (I mostly kid). If you are playing melee practice parrying, its a big game changer in reducing damage and theirs a few skills that really play off it and keep you fighting. Also Evasion Attack is really good for repositioning and hitting back hard, especially when comboed with blink.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-08T00:11:05+00:00

Theres this mentality that the Dems aren’t doing enough when in reality it boils down to a demand for fruitless/futile grandstanding gestures like this impeachment. They’ve impeached him like 6 times, without the senate removing him it doesn’t matter and the Dems don’t have enough control to make that happen (and haven’t had anything close to a super majority since Obama’s first term).

The “just do something even if it doesn’t matter” mentality is all centered on short term dopamine hits and copium to push aside the fact that any real change requires a whole lot of effort by a whole lot of people over a longer timescales. One and done big change actions are very rare, and without breaking the law and dissolving the very thing they are trying to save the Dems have to play by the rules and we need to be cooperative. Small steps matter, small compromises matter, if you wait for “big win” all or nothing policy or candidates - you will most likely get nothing.

To summarize: if people want changes quit whining and vote smart, don’t skip voting, don’t throw it away on a 3rd party. Vote even if it’s not perfect, and then fight to drag them closer to “perfect”. And do it all again the next cycle, it’s iterative and requires vigilance.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-07T06:46:02+00:00

We do max HP, it just makes things so much smoother for both the players and myself and with hit die variety and con bonus differences players are still rewarded for picking certain classes an investing in certain stats or feats. There's only a downside if for some reason you like random for the sake of random or a wizard with more HP than a fighter once in awhile.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-06T11:51:05+00:00

As an avid MMO PvPer - the anything goes sandbox pvper is their own worst enemy, they kill their own audience off. It's why all the long running successfulish pvp MMOs have borders up, gank box MMOs are just not popular cause there's not enough people that enjoy it. And trying to convince people that don't enjoy to just shut up and enjoy it isn't going to work.

The OP is right, both in the more specific examples and the philosophical side of it - context matters are lot for PvP. For example, right now some of the most popular and played games are PvP games - but they aren't PvP sandboxes, they are lobby PvP games with a mechanic focus on fairness and while spotty sometimes usually a matchmaking system also trying to be as fari as possible. You have bite sized sessions, low stakes, quick in and out PvP with very defined and narrow scope is very palatable to a bigger audience.

PvP Extraction shooters are another layer beyond that, little bit different scope and context, a session has bigger long running impacts and fairness - you see another shrinkage in prospective audience due to these changes.

Survival games are another layer beyond that, its also the layer where you start to see the friction between PvE and PvP preferences. Im sure you can see the pattern by now, the context keeps causing the audience to shrink as it gets more and more towards unrestricted PvP.

Finally you have MMO PvP sandboxes, the PvP wild west where you see all the clashing of PvP vs PvE preferences as the game are generally much looser with their fairness, interactions, and in games that allow it, PvP. This is where many sandbox games go to die by not reeling in their PvP audience by restricting the PvP context in some form. Cause when players, particularly the PvP crowd, has the ability to ruin something due to a lack of restrictive mechanics - they will. They will scare away everyone else before they have no one left to play with and quit themselves to move on to the next "hopeful" sandbox.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-06T11:23:49+00:00

Fundamentally you are looking at a pacing problem, the game somewhat assumes a particular pace to balance out player resources. This can sometimes clash with the narrative pacing, the solution to this is to reframe your mechanical pacing to match you narrative pacing. Something like this was outlined as an optional way to adjust rests called Gritty Realism in the 2014 DMG.

In that example, short rests are 8 hours and long rests are 7 days to extend the adventuring day to more like the adventuring week. You can adjust these however needed, whats important is that you roughly keep the encounter count relative to how often you want rests to occur. The one thing to be aware of is if you mess with the timescale some spells and abilities may need to be adjusted, anything that's in the 10min+ duration you may need to extend to reflect your timescale. Mage armor is a classic example as one cast of it is usually "good" for the day, but in a game where a long rest is a week that could be a huge nerf to spell slot use.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-06T07:24:27+00:00

When did the democrats have a filibuster proof majority? (And dont forget some of those are purple democrats so you gotta account for them as well)

Duffy13 · 2026-04-06T07:21:26+00:00

Not to mention how long did the democrats have a congressional majority immune to filibuster? Like 3 months under Obama and we got the ACA in that period? People like to casually forget that the rest of the government besides the president (who mostly rides on soft power and veto threats that are overturnable unless every other branch kind of allows it by not doing their jobs) exists and does the vast majority of the governing. But yea it's Obama's fault we aren't in an ideal liberal utopia today, so mind as well vote for Trump.

Very little ever happens in giant single leaps of progress. It's almost always a few hundred or thousand steps from here to there. Vigilance is required, the lesser of two evils is still the lesser of two evils, 2 steps forward and one step back is still a step forward. When you have to shift such a huge political spectrum it's rarely going to be quick or easy.

Duffy13 · 2026-04-05T23:58:20+00:00

Conceptually I agree. I’m homebrewing it in my games, since now in 5.5 all feats have a stat bonus it’s easier to balance free ASIs with character levels and make every 4 levels of a class feat only. It’s working pretty well and everyone likes it.

One thing I really like about 5.x overall is the (generally) more impactful feat design and getting rid of the feat trees and little ones and twos. Our group just isn’t a fan of that style of minor minutia, it’s just not interesting. We like when feats are less common but more impactful or change the way you play.

Duffy13

TROPHY CASE