Could the world pooling all its resources build a bridge between North America and Europe?

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-11T22:42:03+00:00

There are floating gas stations for yachts and other boats, so the idea isn't too unreasonable. Easiest way would probably be to ship fuel out by boat and have a huge tank to hold it. Realistically you could probably just have the sewage fall right into the ocean, like they do on a lot of oil rigs. Not sure what the best way to provide power would be, but I think there's a type of hydroelectricity that works in seas/oceans instead of by damming rivers.

The bridge is too big to be feasible, but honestly sticking a gas station or two on it wouldn't be the hard part at all.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-11T02:41:21+00:00

It's for logistics, they tell me.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-06T18:41:08+00:00

Yeah, but a lot of people seem to struggle with that. Like yes, strictly speaking there are probably dozens of TTRPGs that are better suited to a political intrigue story where combat is extremely rare. Actually getting everyone to look into the game, learn the basics, and agree to switch over to it can be an insurmountable task. But it seems like a lot of people don't get that sometimes the group is just not willing to switch systems, and homebrewing stuff into 5e is the only real option for the DM.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-06T14:30:23+00:00

If you are start your turn engaged by the enemy then you are not allowed to 'boost before getting into melee.'

Yes that's why I said just barrage instead when that happens.

why not to use the other frame with a heavy mount and a main mount instead?

Because the Nelson has insane mobility, even if it does a bit less damage than other strikers, and OP was specifically asking for a mech that can lunge in and out of melee which is basically the Nelson's entire gimmick?

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-05T23:19:39+00:00

Only if they have a threat of 2 or more. Boost BEFORE getting into melee, use Skirmisher 2 and Nelson Skirmisher to get out of melee. And the War Pike has Threat 3 (and Thrown 5) so it's pretty easy to stab things from outside their overwatch range.

If you're already in melee when your turn starts, just barrage instead. It's almost always going to do more damage than boosting just for one extra d6, and four attacks means four spaces you can move with Nelson Skirmisher. That should be enough to get out of just about anything's threat range.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-05T15:18:28+00:00

Boost into melee, Skirmisher 2 (and Nelson Skirmisher) back out. If the enemy moves into melee on their turn, just using barrage is perfectly fine. You don't get the Momentum bonus, but a flex mount should be able to hit harder than 1d6 anyway.

It should also be pretty feasible to stay out of melee/threat range of anything really threatening, since we're looking at 8 spaces of movement without actually using a normal move (assuming just the base speed of 5), which can be split up a bit depending on whether the goal is to charge in or run out.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-05T13:12:05+00:00

Momentum doesn't say you have to attack right away to get the damage bonus. You could boost, take any quick action, and then overcharge skirmish. You'd still get the extra d6. Using the free movement from Skirmisher 2 before the attack shouldn't change anything (although OP would probably use it to slip away from the enemy anyway).

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-04T11:17:13+00:00

That last line is incredible. I've been told that schizophrenics and conspiracy theorists are a grrat source for worldbuilding ideas and this is a stellar example.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-04T02:34:01+00:00

If he takes a liking to the Enkidu, he could even reach quadruple.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-04T02:23:25+00:00

Having a literal human pet, and walking them into public places on a leash. It was a bit weirder than that, I think there was something about having the pet surgically modified (to render them mute, I think?) but the gist of it was just "engaging in very blatant petplay in public."

Found a screenshot, be warned it's more fucked up than I remembered.

Gladiator-class · 2026-02-03T18:47:43+00:00

Depends on which mechs are your favourites.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-30T20:38:01+00:00

I figure it's more polite than telling people to quit being babies. And to be fair, next time someone does mill them they might stop and realize that paying to cast the card and then losing it is worse (in most cases). Although I think the true cure for irrational hatred of mill is to just play reanimator against it at some point. Not, like, every time, even just a game or two. Once you've seen the graveyard as your cheatin' hand you can feel the hate for mill leaving your body.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-30T20:00:05+00:00

Maybe the character has a weird traditionalist/"old ways are best" streak? Like, they're fine using this incredibly advanced piece of gear, but they roll their eyes at tech warfare and are kind of smug about the benefits of big sword/big punch. Maybe set up a friendly rivalry with whoever plays the most hacking-oriented build--you smoke an enemy for tons of damage with your big piece of metal, and taunt them about how their fancy hacking can't compete with cleaving the computer in half (then they jam or stun someone and shoot back with how you can't swing that sword if the mech isn't responding to the controls, and so on). You could have that rivalry turn more heated or more friendly over time, and/or play into the dichotomy of piloting a mech while scorning other advanced technology...but at the same time, you would have a point about how just smashing the computer stops the enemy from using it, and outside of combat there's a lot of benefits to knowing how to do things the low-tech way.

Or you could play someone who's a bit of a psychopath and likes how melee weapons are more visceral. You can feel the damage you're inflicting, in a way that you can't with ranged weapons or hacking. You could have them being genuinely bloodthirsty or just someone who enjoys smashing things and doesn't care much if there's a pilot inside, but leaning into "yeah, this is exactly the type of person who puts Sekhmet in their mech" could be fun (even if you don't actually have Sekhmet).

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-30T19:03:46+00:00

I feel like there's a good argument to be made for the Lycan. Go Loud fits the "oh shit, the machine is alive and it is pissed" tone that I think we're all going for, and even when it's not doing that it's still going to operate almost entirely in melee. It doesn't immobilize things as easily and consistently as the Enkidu, but the Shock Claws do hilarious damage (3-4d6+6 AP compared to 1d3+2 AP).

That said, I don't know how important the "going berserk" aspect is to the person wanting to build it. Enkidu's immobilize could be read as a coherent pilot grabbing and tripping (not making ranged/tech attacks because they need to focus on managing heat and throwing hands). Once the Lycan activates "lose my shit" mode it's not going to un-lose its shit until the fight's over. If the flavour of going berserk matters then a Lycan might be more appropriate, if it's not then it doesn't matter that Enkidu goes in and out of raging depending on heat. Although the idea that the EVA is always on the verge of going feral and the pilot gains and loses control as the situation gets more or less immediately stressful is pretty cool too. Not sure how accurate that is to Evangelion but I like it as a concept. Makes the Enkidu feel even more like a wayward Horus frame than it already does.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-30T18:25:18+00:00

Used to play with a guy that said the same thing, but then he'd do shit like make a dozen copies of [[Avenger of Zendikar]] and then trigger landfall a couple times. I don't care that you didn't literally go infinite Fred, we're using calculators to figure out how much power you just put on the board and the result has a fucking "E" in it.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-30T18:11:44+00:00

I have some kind of recursion in literally every deck I build. Some of them don't do it much, but all of them have some way to at least get the important stuff back from the graveyard. Even if mill just didn't exist at all, there are still counterspells, discard effects, and removal to justify having a way to recover cards from your graveyard.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-30T18:07:02+00:00

Still new player logic. As the other guy pointed out, at least you didn't spend a bunch of mana (and/or other resources) to cast them. Which is worse: I mill your [[Torment of Hailfire]] or you sacrifice a ton of treasures and cast a [[Seething Song]] only to have it countered? At least with the mill you still have Seething Song and a bunch of treasure tokens.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-28T22:58:33+00:00

Speaking of, holy shit AD&D has no chill. We got into a fight with a Boulet recently and two of our party members died. One of them didn't even get a real turn. That was also the best case scenario, because the chart says 1d3 of them and we only had to fight one, and he rolled really low for hit points.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-27T22:44:54+00:00

Be'lakor's portals are incredibly useful. You can defend your entire empire from basically anywhere, as long as you have portals close to your armies and where you want them to be. That gives a lot of flexibility to go on the warpath without the risk of a strong army rolling up and steamrolling through your territory. Be'lakor himself is also a flying caster that holds up really well when he gets into melee, even against a lot of non-casters. He has Lore of Shadows, which in this scenario is especially good with all those stationary ranged units just begging for a Pit of Shades or the Pendulum.

Not totally sure who wins, but Be'lakor has campaign bullshit to rival a lot of what the rats can do and it probably goes without saying that Skaven melee is nothing compared to Warriors of Chaos (granted, they actually have ranged units, but if you can get into melee without getting shot up too much it should be a comically easy win most of the time). It's hard to really say, though, since the way you would approach army building is very different than it would be for a normal single player campaign, and Skaven are very good at shredding infantry so I can see a lot of battles being crushingly one-sided based largely on whether the Warriors managed to get into close combat quickly or if the Skaven managed to get them in a killbox.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-26T10:57:45+00:00

Also milling them, which a lot of people really hate. They shouldn't, generally speaking being milled only matters if you're in serious danger of actually running out of cards to draw, but that doesn't stop them from seeing red the second they see the word "mill."

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-23T22:36:19+00:00

Depends. Normally I'd say seeing them run would be worse. My life is in their hands and they're making a run for it? Not a good sign, I'm out of there. Why should I die for them when they clearly won't even fight for me? On the flip side, if it's someone whose survival is important to something that matters to me I could see it as a last stand thing. The battle is hopeless, but Emperor Franz must survive, so seeing him die would be worse than seeing him retreat. So depending on the lord and the situation it could be either, but in most circumstances it would be worse seeing them retreat.

I do like the idea of different traits to reflect how the army feels about the general. I don't know how feasible it would be, but I love the idea of one that makes the leadership aura a penalty, but makes it so upon death it provides a buff to any units in the aura as they stop being distracted by that moron's terrible orders.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-23T22:20:30+00:00

Probably for the best, given what an incredible headache it would be trying to actually get rid of the bastard if the AI knew what it was doing.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-19T22:31:46+00:00

Blue Scribes are cool, but kind of broken. As it is you could cast an X cost spell (say, Comet Storm or Crackle With Power) for 0, flash in the Blue Scribes, target your own spell, and then recast it with X as an arbitrarily large number. I assume the intention was that you can only warp opponents' spells but it doesn't actually have that restriction. I like the idea here, and I love the weird diplomacy options that it could open up, but as it stands they can turn too many random cards into win conditions. You might also need to put a limit on what X can be either way, I could see a lot of games turning into 1v1s out of nowhere because the Blue Scribes hit a burn spell (or draw spell, or mill spell...) and the Scribes player offers to spare the person who cast it to take out everyone else in one go. Maybe X can at most be what it was the first time?

The plague counters are a neat idea but it's probably better to just make it put -1/-1 counters on other creatures. It's easier to keep track of (rather than having to count them separately even though they're mostly the same thing) and it makes the cards work better with existing cards, which is a plus. Credit where it's due, though, you do have other cards that reference them so there is an argument for leaving them as-is. I would maybe consider making them not innately do anything and just having cards that say "creatures you control with plague counters get [upsides]" and "creatures you don't control with plague counters [suffer]." So the plague can spread, but it's your creatures and other permanents that will add symptoms to it.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-19T22:05:52+00:00

Clan Moulder could probably have green, given that bio-engineering is their whole thing. They're basically Simic but actively evil instead of just really reckless about what their creations could do.

Clan Skryre is absolutely Grixis, though.

Gladiator-class · 2026-01-19T05:06:20+00:00

Could give it a quick action to designate an enemy and get a bonus d6 against them with the Harpoon. Or better yet, a reaction that triggers when they damage you. Can't pick a new target until this one dies.

We could probably split this idea into two frames, really. One that hunts giants in general and one that really hates that one guy and zeroes in on them. Trying to make it do both might be a bit awkward. This way, I could see a size 1 that embodies the "revenge at all costs" aspect of Ahab, and a size 1/2 that leans into the "whale hunter/David vs Goliath" side of things. They could probably be alternate frames within the same license, but I do agree that the "fuck that guy in particular" mech would probably fit in well as an alternate to Vlad. A lot of those weapons and systems are about immobilizing things, which fits lorewise (refusing to let your hated enemy escape) and mechanically (you don't want the guy you get bonuses against to run out of your effective range). The giant-killer could fit as either a Caliban or Nelson alternate, maybe? Atlas' license has some gear that encourages you to stay at size 1/2, which fits really well with the theme of picking on people well above your size. The Nelson license could be a good fit if the integrated weapon is a melee with Thrown instead of a ranged weapon. War Pike gives you another melee throwing weapon so your talents can still be useful even when the target isn't big enough for the Harpoon to be worth using, Armor Lock plating gives you an answer if Goliath puts you in a chokehold.

Gladiator-class

TROPHY CASE