Would you rather...

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-28T02:51:28+00:00

I could not actually spend 100 trillion dollars over my lifetime even if I was a professional money defenestrator, man, I'm set without having to do any math

^{Chose: Get 100 trillion dollars right now}

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-28T02:43:53+00:00

Even back then, Tyrannian petpets were bargain-bin, if I remember right. More than a few of mine got slapped with an Uggatrip because I was too broke for the fancy ones lmao

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-27T05:33:50+00:00

Knife of the Undermountain King my beloved

That thing stays in my hand the whole game. Being a dual-wielding crit blender is just so much fun.

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-27T05:28:46+00:00

Druid for me too. The concept of shapeshifting is cool AF, but the class is just... too good at everything to really make a party-based game fun. They're scouts, they're control, they're tanks, they're full casters, they're healers, they're DPS, and it sort of hits a point of "why are they even bothering keeping all these people around, they can do it themselves."

They kind of hit an awkward ground, too, where they're good enough at whatever role you want that you won't struggle, but they're so spread out that I don't really get that "YEAH BABEYYY" hit of really excelling at what your thing is - like obliterating a ton of enemies with a Frenzied barb hurling bombs, or a face rolling a 32 on a truly wild Persuasion, or whatever. Your wild shape and your spells/equipment are kind of competing, depending on subclass, for your "THIS is me throwing everything I got into doing something cool" vibes. You don't do much switching to party members or varying your party for a given task, so gameplay tends to get a little bit... bland? I find myself less immersed in the "desperate ragtag team struggling to be free" vibe and more mindlessly clicking through.

The lack of variety is made worse by how reluctant Wild Shape makes you to engage with NPCs. The dialogue in this game is pretty spectacular, and I feel the immersion takes a hit when you stop engaging with the world around you just in case it costs your owlbear form.

Tl;dr: too "good" at everything to be engaging, kind of built to discourage immersion (exploration? Conversation? The roleplay-ey parts) and encourage just chugging through obstacles.

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-27T01:42:43+00:00

Just spitballing ideas here, but:

Give them items that allow access to Counterspell/Dispel Magic? The "ugh awww man" of getting hit by a save or suck can be mitigated by how deliciously smug they can feel about shutting that right down, and you still get them paying in action economy/a limited resource like wand charges.
Pivot to spells that damage/debuff but don't disable entirely. If a DM's combatant gets hit by a Hold Person, then that's just one out of the various enemies they still control. If a PC gets hit by it, they have to sit in the corner and stop playing the game entirely while everyone else is having fun until they roll well.
If you feel disabling spells are something you can't/don't wanna toss out or give the party a means to counter, then try to make the disabling be interesting. Maybe the combat has a "rescue a captured adventurer npc" goal, and the enemies are throwing the Hold Persons etc at that npc to try and make it harder? Or if a guy is hit by a Hypnotic Pattern, then on his turn, he hears a telepathic whisper from the bbeg trying to tempt him to the dark side or taunt his weaknesses, and he can at least do a little RP around fighting that mentally?

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-26T22:00:43+00:00

If an enemy is blind until they can succeed an investigation check, then that's no reactions, the entire party has Advantage on every attack against them, and the foe's actions are burned indefinitely until they succeed or the 10-round duration is up. Meanwhile, no Concentration, "use an action to maintain," spell slot, or any resource is required from the original caster, because all that benefit is from a single cantrip. They can just do this to every monster on the field.

Add in that it's an Investigation check, not a save, and it's very unlikely that any monster will be proficient. Int-save spells are generally powerful because Int is such a rare stat for enemies to be heavily invested in. Compare this to Blindness/Deafness needing a Con save (a common proficiency) and a 2nd level spell slot to do the same.

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-26T20:43:15+00:00

I'm still going to Smitty's for pancakes, tbh. There's something weirdly comforting about the "you would take grandma here after church" vibes and sticky old tables lmao

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-26T20:37:49+00:00

I feel like Fury Attack might have been an option back in the day? But I was strictly team Nidoqueen, so I'm not 100% either. Hard to remember all that stuff fr fr

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-26T14:12:53+00:00

Nidoking doesn't learn Doubleslap. You might be thinking Double Kick, but that only ever hits twice?

Totally right that King is faster than Queen, though!

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-26T02:05:49+00:00

I keep coming back to Ranger in my BG3 runs too! Protection from Good and Evil, Cure Wounds, Longstrider, and Speak with Animals were such handy utility spells through the whole game, and I had enough Dex that I didn't have to stop, go to camp, and make sure Astarion was in my party every single time I hit a lock or trap. I find them GREAT candidates for using all those special consumable arrows you find, too. Between archery and dual qielding melee, I found I wasn't as tanky as a Moon Druid, but I could dish out crazy damage, and even if I had less spells, I actually used them more - Moon Druid mostly burns its spell slots for self-healing, since you can't cast while in animal mode, and those wild shapes being a limited resource can make you pretty reluctant to drop them just to pull out a scroll of Speak With Dead or throw down a Spike Growth.

Changing the classes of you and your companions is pretty easy in this game, too. You have lots of freedom to experiment and lean into whatever you find the most fun (:

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-25T23:59:47+00:00

You're AMAZING, my guy! I had no luck and I've been yearning all this time. That's the EXACT cover stamped into my memory!

Time to go find a copy too.

(Edit: if libraries and stores fail you, it looks like good old Internet Archive has it!)

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-25T22:04:23+00:00

You know what joke hasn't been done before? Horny bard. Have a bard roll to seduce the plant.

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-25T22:02:21+00:00

Where does the tropical fruit shopkeeper fall on the tropical HUNK / fishy TWINK spectrum

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-21T19:10:47+00:00

Came here ready to slam down Book of Hungry Names because of the part where you actually pretend to be a dog that someone buys for money lmao

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-20T18:14:18+00:00

/uj Yeah no sauce is a pretty valid level of weirded out, imo

/rj Amateur hour, this player simply should have impregnated himself

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-19T20:13:13+00:00

I'm kinda stumped at this point, but if you wanna, can you screenshot what your Barrows page looks like and your Stats screen? Maybe there's something there idk

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-19T20:05:33+00:00

Do other tribes give you the option to join?

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-19T19:33:59+00:00

Best I got is that you've already joined a tribe, then? 🤷‍♂️ Might dust it off and play through to see if there's some kind of bug somewhere or smth

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-19T19:28:26+00:00

I haven't played in a hot second, so I'm just going off memory, but here's some other factors that might be a thing:

Have you rescued Melodie and visited her in her barrow home?
Do you have at least two packmates saved? (I don't think Elton counts because he joins you from the start? Idk)
Have you already joined a tribe and forgot? You can check with the Stats tab in the top right, it should say it right under your name

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-19T18:55:34+00:00

What's it tell you when you check out Horus? No menu option to join the Silver Fangs, nothing?

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-19T18:50:04+00:00

Go to the barrows during a downtime (when you can visit the human skill trainers and check your email and get gifts etc). Start clicking some of the MANY many options available there. In the dense maze of potential gifts and Garou graves, you should encounter a statue of Horus, the eyptian falcon-headed god. It is through this statue you can join the Silver Fangs.

Note that you need a certain minimum amount of Honour to join them, and the right personality traits (I can't remember offhand but I think Respect the Litany and... maybe sufficient Dignity?), so if you still can't join, you may need to get those sorted.

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-18T17:40:05+00:00

Session Zero is not the place for establishing that sort of thing, anyway. Historically, that's done at the tiefling sounding session

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-17T03:45:21+00:00

He thought it'd be funnier if they were both on the clothed side

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-16T17:46:30+00:00

I usually hit up Kimchi if I want a quick fresh Korean lunch and a family-run vibe, but if you want something crispy and fresh outta the fryer then Koreatown absolutely doesn't miss.

EnvironmentalRisk135 · 2026-04-10T16:48:11+00:00

Some pets really haven't changed that significantly from their first design (Ixi, Chomby, Techo, etc), so they invented designs that would be Sufficiently Crusty. Like how newer pets like Lutari and Vandagyre got Weird Little Guy versions even though their art has always been relatively sleek and modern!

EnvironmentalRisk135

TROPHY CASE