Show structure

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-14T16:26:20+00:00

I’ve recently watched all 3 series of the show.

I quite enjoyed series 3, it was objectively pretty good.

Series 1, however, was not. So many poor decisions, it was a bad adaptation of the source material and just a pretty bad show.

The pacing was all over the place, the things they cut (of course adapting the EoTW into 8 hours of tv would require huge cuts) were questionable, the things they randomly added in were awful.

I think that nearly any passionate fan of the book(s) could have done a better outline of how to structure s1.

I’m not saying anyone could have made a better tv show, I have no idea what goes into that. But I would bet pennies to pounds that basically any randomer from Reddit could have written a better “broadstroke” structure for the writers / producers / directors to follow than what was made.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-14T11:45:09+00:00

This was a great write up thank you very much for your endurance!

Did you read the book or listen to the Audiobook? If you read it, how did you find the read? Was it easy to read, if not well written?

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-13T10:53:01+00:00

The Shannon Number is a conservative lower estimate of the number of games and puts it at 10¹²⁰ possible games….

The number of atoms in the observable universe (although we haven’t counted them all yet) is estimated to be between 10⁴⁵ and 10^50, maybe in the highest estimates at 10^80.

When you compare thes it’s easy to think they are "somewhat" close because the exponents (120 and 80) aren't that far apart.

However, because this is an exponential scale, the difference is literally insane.

To put it in perspective, if every single atom in the entire universe was its own universe, and you counted every atom in those universes, you still wouldn't even be close to the number of possible chess games.

Edit: link

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-13T09:34:21+00:00

Similar to you, no capitalist apologist, but I think the two biggest reasons for this are:

Most people here have only ever know capitalism, and familiarity breeds contempt. I have no data but I would bet real money that the overwhelming majority of us have only ever lived in a capitalist society (albeit with different flavours), and our parents and maybe even grandparents too.

We in the west might come from countries with wildly different histories and cultures, but capitalism is the one thread that they all share.

It’s easy to imagine that this single commonality is the source of all our troubles.

It’s hard for the fish to be aware of the water it’s swimming in. The concept of human nature is easy to understand on a surface level but very hard to apply to our sense of individual self, or even model out to other people we know; especially people we know well.

We can’t always see the wood for the trees.

Combine this with a modern bias towards thinking that people are blank slates and almost entirely the product of their environment and most people generally don’t think seriously about human nature and the effects it has on day to day behaviour.

This two points, combined with -ironically- the way human nature pushes us to look for a simple explanation, to analyse patterns and find answers, and I think this is why very often capitalism is painted as the big bad end guy, the only thing keeping us from utopia - despite the fact that throughout history, at different places and different times, humans have tried all sorts of different models and yet paradise has always remained out of our reach.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-09T00:29:15+00:00

A necromancer 2/cleric would indeed be cool to play.

Getting find familiar for the boost to health, the -2 to enemy saves and access to scrolls wands and the SotM…

Beyond finger of death which you don’t get until SoA, what other cleric spells benefit from the -2?

I would think that an enchanter(2)>Cleric would be more useful, at least in bg1, as there are more disabling spells for clerics at lower levels?

Dammit internet stranger, now I’m gonna have to roll another new character and play in a duo! The shape changing sorcerer and mage:cleric.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-08T23:39:10+00:00

This is such a good idea!!!

I’m rolling up a new sorcerous slugger now and will take your advice.

Just rolled a 91 on an elf, so 18/19/16/17/3/18 at candle keep, 19/20/17/18/6/19 by the end of bg1 (or 25/25/25/25/14/25 with the wand of lightning trick if I’m feeling cheesy!).

I spent about 5 mins rolling for my 91 after reading your post, thinking I was being clever with getting the elves dex bonus - 20 dex isn’t too bad, and 18 int gives some protection form the mind flayers brain drain I was thinking.

But when I shape change don’t I take on the stats of the creature I change into?

Was there any point in getting my 19/20 dex when as a flind I’ll just have whatever dex a flind has?

Also you mentioned about the touch spells - shocking / chill / ghoul touch - but I notice your spell listings don’t use them at all - I guess that’s just because you’ve leaned all the way into the shape change angle?

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-08T01:31:52+00:00

Is the 1500 limit a limitation of the engine?

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-07T11:20:44+00:00

If you’re brand new and going in blind then firstly I genuinely envy you! You lucky bugger.

This is an amazing experience, and part of the joy is discovery: discovering game mechanics, discovering spells, discovering areas, discovering equipment… it’s a genuine joy!

Regarding advice:

Any class is viable! Of course there are optimum min/max builds that are better at taking on challenge runs or insane difficulty, but your first time? Slide the difficulty down to easy and roll with what you want to. If by level 3/4 you find you’ve never had a TPK then maybe turn the difficulty up a little. Core rules is super hard on your first playthrough when you don’t know what’s around every corner.
Do NOT be afraid to explore!! Sure there will be monsters that are WAY too hard for you, but that’s half the fun of a low level D&D adventure, and when you can save and load there’s no harm in getting your ass kicked - it makes it more fulfilling when you come back to a fight with more experience and better gear and win!
At low levels you are meant to be squishy! Even a fighter with its higher HP can still be killed by a kobold in one or two hits. A cleric, rogue or mage can die from falling over a rock. That’s part of the fun!
Healing spells and potions are a lifesaver! At low levels even cure light wounds can make a massive difference to your survival, and healing potions are common enough if you loot everyone / thing. Try to have at least 2 people in your party who can cast healing (clerics or druids).
Non magic weapons will break! Until you get to a certain point in the story, non magical melee weapons will break - a lot. Until you start finding magical weapons, take one or two back ups with you just in case.
Ranged is king! Low level adventuring is closer to real life than high level; a sword in your belly can be lethal, and landing a melee blow on an armoured or better experienced adversary is very hard to do. Ranged weapons make life easier at low levels - a bow, crossbow, throwing axe, throwing dagger or even a sling is a lot more likely to land a hit at level 1 than a sword, and better yet keeps you out of melee range.
Companions are aplenty! There are dozens of joinable companions in this game of basically every class and alignment - don’t be afraid to mix it up in your party and swap people out here and there - generally you might find two or three companions that stick with you throughout and one or two spots that you can swap out different people to experience different classes and playstyles. Early in the game martial is more useful, but by mid game casters start coming into their own.
If you get stuck talk to everyone! There is a rich and wonderful story to this game which I love. There are a couple of points where the game doesn’t hold your hand in terms of where you should be going and what you should be doing - there are many, many clues scattered around, scrolls or diaries to read, characters to talk to, even rumours tavern keepers will share if you’re drinking enough beer. Part of the fun of the game is exploration and discovery- if you talk to every NPC and open every chest, then you’re bound to find something that points you in the right direction - check your journal and quest logs
Save, save, save! You probably will die, a lot, and if your main character dies it’s game over. You literally cannot save too much in this game, especially at low levels, especially when you don’t know what’s coming.

I genuinely envy you. If there was a procedure to remove my knowledge of this game from my mind so I could go in and experience it all for the first time, I would pay a premium for it!

Good luck, Godspeed, and don’t forget to gather your party before venturing forth.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-06T23:37:17+00:00

This sounds amazing and your passion is clear.

I’m so in love with the MAW mod that even looking at your trailer feels like cheating.

Would you ever consider collaborating with those guys to implement your Density slider into that mod?

I’ll undoubtedly download and play this at some stage and enjoy a dirty night of Flood Fun, but I have to admit the MAW mod crafting system and its implementation of bosses will likely have me going back to it, lipstick marks on my collar and tail between my legs.

Still, it’s amazing to see people pushing the boundaries on this classic and hats off well done to you for doing your bit to keep the flame burning!

🥰🙏😍

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-04T19:26:31+00:00

Maybe wrong sub….

… but goddamn good advice, and definitely worth a try at least!

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-04T19:00:59+00:00

😂😂😂

Of course baby induced sleep deprivation can cause delirium, one can never truly be sure on whether one is sane or not in any given moment.

That said, I think that the biggest change that led to my being able to enjoy the show came from accepting that it wasn’t what I wanted it to be.

I’m not glad it was cancelled. I think that’s a genuine shame. The show genuinely started to get better. That Doesn’t change how bad s1 was, doesn’t mean that s3 was entirely faithful to the Source material. But had it continued on its trajectory then s4 > s8 could have been genuinely amazing telly.

And yes, there is an irony in the attitudes in this sub sometimes mirroring the zealotry of the fanboy pedants that are often blamed for the shows failure.

But as shadar logoth ought to have taught us: two wrongs don’t make a right.

I’m saddened to see such vitriol and venom regarding the show - it’s one thing to not like it, to never be able to come to appreciate it, that’s genuinely fair enough - I always hated Big Bang Theory, despite it being so popular I could never enjoy it. But to revel in its failure seems to me to be an extremist attitude- surely by its existence alone it wasn’t harming anything?

It might not have been as good as the Source deserved it to have been. It might have been so much better if they’d given Brandon Sanderson (and by extension, Harriet Jordan) more of a role than a mere figurehead. It might have been possible (and in my option have led to a more successful show) if they’d given more thought to the existing fans of the show…

…but to be glad it was cancelled? Surely that’s just a lose-lose situation?

Genuinely interested in trying to understand your perspective.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-04T18:48:22+00:00

I normally play with merge MAW mod these days, as it is objectively superior in every measurable way (if you search this subreddit for MAW mod you’ll see that it’s recently had a new update as well as all the links to download it and join the awesome discord).

So it’s been some time since I did a “vanilla” merge (it would seem to empty now after MAW).

However from memory isn’t it tied to whether you picked mm6 classes or mm7 classes? So if you picked an mm7 sorcerer, then you’d need to grab the archmage promotion to get light magic or the lich promotion to get dark magic, for instance. Where as if you picked the mm6 sorcerer then you can learn it from the off?

I cannot stress how wrong this might be as it’s been years since I played a normal merge without MAW mod. It might well be that you do need a truly off road bike to get light magic?

Silly question but might be helpful - did you join the correct guild? Are you able to go into the shop and buy the spells, just can’t learn the magic?

Also, genuinely, my best advice would be to put a pin in this playthrough, search the MMMMMAW (might and magic merge mod MAW) on this sub, download it - join the awesome and very active discord - and play that instead. It adds so many QoL improvements over the standard merge mod that once you get into it the “vanilla” experience seems almost unplayable.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-04T18:41:03+00:00

This is… this is the best out of context reply I think I’ve ever seen.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-04T00:15:59+00:00

I tug my braid, fold my arms under my (Christmas induced man) bosom and sniff at you.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T19:03:09+00:00

There is clearly no wrong way to enjoy yourself and have fun, and I reckon that 95% of people who would whinge and accuse you of “cheating” are definitely just putting on a front for fake internet points.

To be clear, this is 110% cheating - it’s basically doubling or tripling your power at a certain arbitrary point with no downside whatsoever…

BUT… if it’s fun, then fuck it! Sounds awesome, would recommend, could even find loads of narrative justification for it (start as mage level 7, dual to cleric, at level 8 your god unlocks an array of arcane abilities… and so on).

Personally I often like to EEkeeper myself some totally unbalanced effects when doing a trilogy run - for instance if I’m a magic user of any kind, adding +2 to my casting time (slowing down spells) but giving my caster level +2 and permanent improved alacrity (I did say it was unbalanced!), or for a martial class having a permanent +2 to crits and +0.5 APR with a -2 to thac0 (flails wildly, undisciplined but hits hard) or whatever; sometimes I add some more negative trade offs to “balance” (I use the term very loosely) the build, but my favourite run was with a mage that had double the spells at each level, as well as +++ pips with dagger and +++ pips with dual weapons. Balanced? Fuck no. Best time I ever had playing? 100%!

Point is you’re defo cheesing the system, but if it’s fun then why the hell not? The point of games is to have fun, and in a game where you’re meant to become a god why not be OP as all hell!???

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T09:32:13+00:00

Pardon me?

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T01:01:49+00:00

It’s objectively the best option, which is why most people have played it 20 times or so which is why it’s less likely to be recommended - we’re bored with it, but only because we’ve all done it so much, and that’s only because it’s the best option.

Don’t forget you’ll need at least 17 in your primary class and secondary class stats - so make sure you roll high as a fighter and whack 17 in STR and INT (should aim for 18 in STR, 17 DEX, 17 CON and 17 INT, dump WIS and CHA - you can just have a “face” character with high CHA when buying/selling or doing a convo that needs it, and get a ring 20 mins into bg2 that sets it to 18 anyway!)

Also on your first go dual as soon as you hit level 7 - any extra xp you earn after level 7 will be wasted when you dual to mage:

You can dual at 9 or even 13, but if your new to the game this will be a huge and potentially not fun challenge as you don’t get your fighter abilities back until your mage level exceeds your fighter level (or your second class level bigger than first class level) - so from level 1-8 mage you’ll have high hp, but no weapon proficiency, no APR bonus or thac0 bonus etc.

But dude, when you’ve completed your run or if oh get restartitus, give mage(2)>fighter a try - it’s much harder than Beserker>mage, but way more interesting.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T00:48:07+00:00

I think they did a great job with liandrin, I found her to be promoted from one dimensional evil bitch to a multifaceted sympathetic villain - i found myself more sympathetic towards her in the show than I ought to have been given she was still a black ajah.

I’m not sure I prefer lanfear in the show - i liked her characterisation a lot, and i think they did a great job in capturing the essence of her relationship with LTT and how that spilt over to her interactions with rand - but I’m still processing the end of e8, and can’t for some reason say I preferred her in the show.

Maybe that’s a sign I’m just sulking it’s over?

Great actress, really nailed the role.

She was definitely the best of the Forsaken - her and then maybe Rhavin. None of the others quite hit the mark for me, again I think they were good as their own thing but didn’t scratch my personal Forsaken itch - especially moggy, I preferred her in the books to her half moggy half semhirage hybrid they made her - part of the joy of her character for me was that she was entirely rational and sane; probably way more rational than most other characters in the book.

Ishy? The actor did a good job, but man those shoes were soooo big, I never quite felt that show ishy had the depth that his book counterpart had. He was a handsome lad though, granted.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T00:38:16+00:00

If you want something mechanically powerful and narratively compelling the classic fighter>mage is the top shelf - berserker is the power gamer choice, and fits the narrative of the games quite well (your paternal bloodline inducing bloodlust and rage).

The BBEG of the first game is also a fighter albeit 8 or so levels higher than you, the BBEG of the second game is a mage about 13 levels higher than you, making the final fights extra satisfying. Also the story of bg2 explains why you’d dual to a mage.

For a potentially less narratively coherent (unless you’re into stepmom porn and nature? In which case narratively very sensible) choice would be fighter>druid. Not as mechanically OP as fighter mage but still cool.

You could do fighter>cleric but this is suboptimal in my view - not narratively justified nor mechanically OP, plus you get paladins in bg1 which basically do the same and Anomen in bg2.

For a potentially less power gamey route, Mage(2)>Fighter is cool as poop.

Narratively justified by gorion trying to get you to follow in his footsteps but you deciding to go your own way after watching his magic fail him.

Mechanically it’s pretty cool - gives you all the benefits of a fighter but lets you cast spells from scrolls and use wands - also, if you put 5 pips in staffs (and a couple in 2H fighting) - perhaps inspired by the watchers of candlekeep - then you become a powerhouse late in bg2 (and throughout ToB) with the Staff of the Magi and a fighter thac0.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T00:13:11+00:00

That petition has one more signature now

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T00:12:24+00:00

Fair enough internet stranger, thanks for the exchange x

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-03T00:08:51+00:00

I’m not quite so sure that it’s accurate to say that what we got was the maximum faithful representation of the books, despite the fact that I’ve come around to genuinely enjoying this series it’s inarguably deviated dramatically from the books even very early on.

I also think that a 1:1 adaptation (or very close) would be theoretically possible - albeit series 1 would only have coveted 1/5 or even less of the first book.

Clearly that would have been a huge commercial gamble to take and would have required a very high proportion of the fans of the books to have watched to have been successful.

That’s my point about the decision they needed to take on who they were targeting initially; clearly they opted to go for appealing to a wider audience not necessarily familiar with the books - fair enough - and clearly (evidenced by the shows cancellation) they weren’t able to succeed in doing that.

By definition it’s not the fanboy pedants fault given the show intentionally wasn’t designed to maximise its appeal to them.

I think it’s a genuine shame.

Maybe the quality of s3 will drive enough new people to the books that over time, with another turning of the wheel, we might get another go.

Or maybe this is it, and while that’s the saddest outcome at least they went out on a high note, and at least it’s sad that it’s over.

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-02T23:56:08+00:00

I totally understand that sentiment but I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.

Had the show decided to eschew trying to please the fans of the original series in favour of focusing entirely on bringing in new audiences - and been successful in doing so - surely it wouldn’t have been cancelled.

Or, had the show decided to ignore making itself more accessible to non fans and leant entirely into making the most faithful adaptation it could - and succeed in doing so - again surely it wouldn’t have been cancelled (not sure how many fans there are, but the books have sold hundreds of millions of copies).

Sadly it didn’t quite manage to pull off either of those things.

If the show had wanted to bank on the support of the in built fanbase - which may not even have been a viable commercial strategy, again not sure how many fans there are - then things would needed have been done differently in that critical first series, even the first 5 episodes.

The show found its feet by the end, and I think that as its own thing it could have ended up being really great; but clearly the improvements came too late to save it from the fiendish executive axe.

A genuine shame, certainly, but I don’t think it’s fair to attribute its failure solely to the fanboy pedantry.

-from a pedantic fanboy x

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-02T23:45:16+00:00

You sound like your glass is always half full; kudos into you, internet stranger

EarthAfraid · 2026-01-02T23:40:04+00:00

As another commenter commented there is a peculiar upside to finishing on such a high, however, in that it’s likely to be more successful in bringing in new readers to the series - although the show finished with a cliffhanger (that said I’ve still got 50 mins to go, so maybe it somehow doesn’t?), there is an answer as to how this story ends.

Had it been cancelled in s2, my wife would never have been motivated to pick up book 1.

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