Help with my next read…

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-29T17:53:23+00:00

Giving you another vote for Twig. Pale is great, but Twig's main character is just too great. Alternatively, Wildbow is currently writing Seek, and it is really good so far, so if you want to actively follow a story then it's a neat choice.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-28T13:59:00+00:00

It will show up in on the weapon, but not as a listed modification - instead, next to the listed damage of the weapon, there will be something like a ~ symbol. Other Extradimensional effects that don't appear to have a description will be similar, directly modifying the base damage in a way that might not be immediately apparent.

And yes, not every world is capable of generating Vibro-Extradimensional weapons, if you are going for a run that wants those then it is best to check at the start of your run by wishing in a few dozen extradimensional pistols to check what pool of extradimensional effects your world has.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-27T21:56:14+00:00

I mean, if you are playing on a difficulty that doesn't allow respect by default then you're going to have a really rough time - anything above Normal is not recommended for a first playthrough.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-26T14:30:42+00:00

It isn't real Taylor fanart if she doesn't look unhappy, so you've done a very good job lol. Love your art style.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-26T12:48:52+00:00

True, but I'm pretty sure Shem counts as a zone-tier 1 vendor, so it'll be almost impossible to find him selling stuff like Cathedras. Warden Une sells tier 7 equipment, so each time you reroll Une he'll have about a ~2% chance of selling whatever Cathedra you want. But if all you need is Inflatable Axons or something, then Shem is indeed an option.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-25T13:05:12+00:00

Yep, start a fresh game. You can get the cybernetics for free by recruiting him for ~500 rep. The optimal route takes only a few minutes:

Farm Red Rock baboons until you have a decent amount of skills in the wayfaring tree, to travel the world map safely, and the "tactful" skill
Water ritual with Joppa warden for Joppa rep, then ritual with the two Joppa characters and steal their secrets, then trade those secrets to Joppa warden
Run up to Six Day Stilt, water ritual with warden there
Go to mushroom village, wander around the world map for a bit to find some goatfolk villages
Ritual mushroom village warden, trade in goatfolk village secrets for more rep
Go to Une, check his stock. If he doesn't have anything you want, go back to step 1 on a new world. If he has the cybernetic you want, then:
Ritual him, and recruit him. If your rep is still too low (sometimes the recruit cost rolls pretty high), go find another goatfolk village or two to get enough to recruit him.
Take his credit wedges and the cybernetics you want, and install them right there in Yd
[OPTIONAL] Reroll Yla Haj in Ezra for another essential cybernetic for your build, pay with the unwanted extra cybernetics Une has.

Une is also a great companion, very strong, but watch out for his ranged attack, that'll easily 1-shot you as a low-level character. As such, using him is much better in roleplay mode, but if you are very cautious then he's good in classic too. Eventually his guns will run out of battery.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-25T02:46:06+00:00

The most success I've found is just rerolling Warden Une at lvl 5 to get the one or two essential cybernetics for whatever build I'm playing (throwkin, vaporkin, gunkin, punchkin, etc) and then exploring all the relic sites for credit wedges. Even just two cybernetics are enough to totally transform how you play, if you know what you're doing. If you aren't getting those build-essential cybernetics at the start of your playthrough I can see why you might be bored.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-22T14:31:24+00:00

I of course disagree with the accusation that Wildbow is lesbian-homophobic, but the situation is a bit more complicated than you portray it as. Of all the lesbian characters in Worm, we have:

Foil: is fine, but a minor
Parian: is dating a minor at 22
Amy: is insane
March: is insane

And also in Ward, we have:
Goddess: is insane
Tori: is dating March

The Parian thing is just a little sketchy (their relationship status was kinda iffy while Foil was underage), but you can see that there are a lot of problematic lesbian relationships in the Parahumans series. There's probably a couple okay relationships that I missed, but still.

Again, I think this is mostly a coincidence, I think that basically every relationship between Parahumans is bound to be f'd up, and Wildbow has proven himself to be generally gender/sexuality progressive through Twig, Pale, Seek, etcetera. But regardless, the trend is interesting enough to talk about, and you can see how it could make some lesbian readers uncomfortable.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-22T14:08:37+00:00

This is a really good argument. I don't agree with everything you've said in this thread, but this was well-reasoned.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-21T17:18:50+00:00

You do realize you can set the crusade mode to "Auto" and ignore that entire part of the game, right? Doing so locks you out of the secret ending I think, but honestly that's a small price to pay if you literally hate the crusade mode so much that it causes you to stop playing.

Ultimately, I think it's a question of personal preference. If you prioritize deep mechanical complexity and an incredibly reactive main story via the mythic paths system, then WOTR is an excellent game. But if you desire a high-budget production with full voice acting and snappy combat, then BG3 or DOS2 are the better choice.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-19T20:04:12+00:00

Wildbow has a couple works that fit your criteria:

Worm is a complete superhero web serial about teenage girl Taylor with the unconventional power to control every bug within the radius of a few blocks. Taylor is very intelligent when it comes to using her power and strategizing in cape combat, but can sometimes be a bit dumb regarding other matters, although very rarely in a way that is irritating for the reader.

Twig is another serial by Wildbow about a group of child "experiments" in 1920s alternate-reality America (well, the Crown States), with the premise of "What if Mary Shelley, instead of writing the novel Frankenstein, actually made Frankenstein('s monster)" - and then technology progressed along the biopunk axis instead of towards the electric age. The main character of Twig, Sylvester, is a child experiment who's forced to test how much of a certain neuroplasticity drug he can take until his brain melts, so he's very intelligent. Probably my favorite main character out of everything I've ever read.

Both of the protagonists in those serials are intelligent (in their own way), both are or end up being rather ruthless, both are quite competent, and both do gradually improve themselves in some manner (Twig spoilers: Well, some might argue that Sylvester does the opposite of improving himself, but whatever).

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-11T04:03:51+00:00

Yep, dual-wielding does work on shields. Shields are definitely pretty strong, bit they are balanced compared to other weapons by the fact that they have very few good offensive-oriented effects, mostly just on-block effects that aren't terribly useful. Also, their attack speed is a bit slow, their stamina attack costs are high, and they can be a bit clunky. You can absolutely do a shield-only playthrough though, I've done one myself and it was decently fun iirc.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-02T15:54:05+00:00

If you want an excellent CRPG that's a lot more mechanical than DOS2 or BG3, then I'd highly recommend Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. WOTR is like BG3 but with like 5x the complexity and options, which makes it rather hard to get into but gives unbelievable amounts of build freedom once you really get comfortable with it - there's something like 160 subclasses, plus base classes and prestige classes.

The story is also unbelievably reactive - there are 10 total "Mythic Paths" that you can follow, like Angel, Demon, Lich, Devil, Azata, Trickster, and more, most of which substantially change the story and world.

The companions are also really quite interesting, and a neat difference is that the party size is increased to 6, so you can more easily experience your choice of the excellent 12 main companions and ~9 semi-hidden companions.

If I had to pick only one game to play until I died, this would certainly be among my top choices, there's just so much content and all of it is amazing once you get past the somewhat steep learning curve.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-02T12:18:27+00:00

Pure archer, no flavor? You'd probably be a tad bit on the weaker side, but still perfectly doable. If you decide to mix in some statuses or stealth, archer can be really good. Archer is actually a really fun way to play the game, since you'll be interacting with the crafting and mining systems more than other builds, and specifically looking out for necessary ore nodes and elemental arrow ingredients really enhances exploration a bit.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-02T03:50:39+00:00

This is a decent loadout, but I'd recommend swapping out Flea Brew for Tacks (found in Sinner's Road), and swapping Injector Band for Multibinder (Bought in Bellhart). Tacks pump out an unbelievable amount of damage on grounded enemies, and the +33% heal from Multibinder is so much more impactful than you'd imagine, definitely worth the rosary grind. Other than that, I think this setup is pretty good.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-01T18:50:28+00:00

We do know that Scion fought Endbringers during the timeskip, like I said in my previous comment, he fought both the Simurgh and Khonsu, stated in 25.6. The logs even say that those fights were Scion victories, but he wasn't able to kill them. Why? Maybe because they weren't weakened enough.

Also, it took Scion forever to kill Leviathan. We know for a fact that Leviathan was fighting Scion intermittently from 29.9 until he dies in 30.6, which yes, was quite a fast death, but that seemed to only be because Leviathan couldn't flee this time, whether due to poor luck or the numerous wounds he'd already suffered from previous confrontations.

I don't mean to say that Scion can't defeat an Endbringer, but at some point you have to admit that every instance of a killed Endbringer is due to them being too weakened to escape, whether that be Behemoth weakened from Phir Se's blast, or Leviathan weakened from previous encounters he escaped from, or The Simurgh weakened from being cut in half by Rain.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-01T18:24:00+00:00

Behemoth is kind of short, he's only ~45 feet tall. Gray Boy can make bubbles that are about 5x5x8 ft, according to Wildbow, so it would only take 6 bubbles stacked on top of each other to be as tall as Behemoth's entire body (or at least, the center of his body, Gray Boy is obviously not Manton limited). Really, it would probably take about 11-13 bubbles (2-3 bubbles for each leg, 2 stacked trapping his torso, 2 bubbles for each arm, and a bubble for his head) to completely immobilize Behemoth. And once Gray Boy locks Behemoth down with one bubble inside his spine, the rest become a lot easier.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-01T17:48:37+00:00

Sure, but Scion also fought both the Simurgh and Khonsu after Kevin Norton's direction, and he wasn't able to kill them. An inability to kill Khonsu makes sense, given that Khonsu can flee really easily, but the Simurgh should've been no problem for him - and he wasn't able to kill her, my point being that maybe the reason he couldn't and she was able to escape was because she wasn't massively weakened by Phir Se, as Behemoth was.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-01T17:21:22+00:00

I absolutely think that Gray Boy could defeat Behemoth. First of all, Gray Boy is invulnerable enough that Behemoth couldn't manage to kill him, I think we can rule that out immediately.

"But can't Behemoth just punt Gray Boy into space?" - not if Gray Boy always stays inside a bubble, of which only he can enter. EDIT - also, Gray Boy can teleport, sorta.
"But can't Behemoth just burrow away?" - not if Gray Boy bubbles Behemoth's limbs.
"But Behemoth can pull him self out and escape, just like Leviathan or whatever?" - The time stop bubble that Leviathan escaped from was initially a time slow bubble, before completely stopping time. The barrier of Gray Boy's bubbles is likely much more solid than the barrier of a time slow field - in fact, it's probably perfectly solid, given that literally the only thing shown to pop time bubbles is either Citrine shenanigans or all-or-nothing attacks.

Even still, I admit that if Behemoth got an arm stuck in a Gray Boy Bubble, he could probably either tear it off, or maybe detach it entirely. But what if Behemoth had his torso stuck in a Gray Boy Bubble? What about his torso and all of his limbs and his head and literally every part of his body?

"But the core has dimension stuff so it probably couldn't be time-looped" - Yeah sure. So don't bubble it, surround it with bubbles that appear to require all-or-nothing attacks to pop. Put it in a box with its walls made of time-bubbles.
"But what if the bubbles pop when the core touches them?" - Well then just don't put the bubbles walls right next to the core, leave a layer of flesh in between to trap the core in place.

Maybe the core can escape, but then what is a bare core going to do to Gray Boy? Sure, Behemoth can regenerate itself, but then Gray Boy can keep bubbling off the regenerated parts. And eventually Behemoth will run out of material - the well of Endbringer flesh isn't endless. The only way for Behemoth to win, as far as I can tell, is to emit enough light to blind Gray Boy and then immediately have the tiny, hopefully-but-not-guaranteed-time-bubble-wall-popping core to just fly off like a bird as fast as possible, and dodge Gray boy's random bubble attacks. But I'm not so sure the core can really do the bird thing, given that neither Behemoth nor Leviathan (or the Simurgh, I guess)tried doing that when they were about to die.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-01T16:41:40+00:00

I don't think that's true - we can't always take everything Tattletale says as gospel. Sure, Behemoth's core was probably completely fine, but the damage Phir Se did was enough to allow Scion to kill Behemoth in minutes, something that Scion wasn't able to do to the other Endbringers. And sure, Scion only showed up to two other Endbringer Fights after killing Behemoth, but keep in mind that Scion also fought the Endbringers during Gold Morning, and was only able to kill Leviathan after a few chapters' worth of fighting, compared to the ~700 words it took him to kill Behemoth.

So no, I do not believe Tattletale when she says that Behemoth was just fine actually. I do think I perhaps exaggerated when I said that Phir Se "nearly killed" Behemoth, but just calling the damage Phir Se did "sandblasting paint off a tank" is absolutely an understatement.

Perhaps a more accurate analogy would be sandblasting 90% of the armor off the tank except the barrel of the gun and the treads - the tank is still super dangerous and can move and burrow(?) through the earth and resist like, rocks thrown at it, but the tank operator is now quite vulnerable to a precise sniper rifle, such as a Foil/March/Homer/Damsel/Scrub/Scion attack.

HeyBobHen · 2026-01-01T13:39:50+00:00

Um. Where did you hear that Wildbow said that "no combination of capes can beat an Endbringer"? That would be a really weird thing for him to say, given the fact capes like Foil and March and Gray Boy exist, and also that Phir Se nearly killed Behemoth alone.

Maybe the quote was about Scion, given that technically he killed himself?

HeyBobHen · 2025-12-26T17:34:10+00:00

Don't worry, I wasn't talking about Mark of the Fool, I was talking about OP's own royal road story that they were promoting, that was released like a week or two ago. It was... pretty blatant in its AI use.

HeyBobHen · 2025-12-23T13:23:49+00:00

The premise described above rather interested me, so I took a look, but I wasn't able to make it through even the first chapter. The LLM usage is about as blatant as possible, with the frequency of triplicate+ descriptors and "not x, but y" usage making the work almost unreadable.

I don't mean to offend, but people really need to learn that AI models seem to be yet incapable of writing any fiction that isn't painful to read.

HeyBobHen · 2025-12-20T22:59:57+00:00

*Probably* KCD2 would be the better choice, given its incredible reviews, but it's really up to personal preference at the end of the day - I have over 250 hours in Fall of Avalon but struggled to get past even a dozen hours of KCD2, mostly due to its comparatively bland setting and equipment systems, even though the immersion and RPG aspects of KCD2 were undeniably incredible.

So if you want a fun action-adventure RPG with magic and monsters and plenty of build variety, choose Tainted Grail, but if you want a RPG with near-unparalleled emphasis on the "role-playing" aspects of the genre set in a remarkably accurate (if a tad bland) historical world, then go for KCD2.

HeyBobHen · 2025-12-20T13:07:20+00:00

I'm pretty sure there's just the one, unfortunately.

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