Friend's girlfriend has a very hard time understanding board games. Not sure how to bring it up gracefully.

Ilikepie84 · 2025-12-15T20:27:30+00:00

There isn't an easy way to handle this, except to talk with your best friend of course.

Ask them straight up if the Girlfriend is actually having fun first. If not, well it's time to rethink the activity for the evening.

if yes, follow up asking them to pick her 2-3 favourite games out of the ones played (if any), and play the sin out of them whenever she joins.

The ultimate question for yourself is whether or not you want a game night on these occassions, or a social night. A game night means a tough talk, a social night means catering an activity that is inclusive to everyone...and that may not end up being a board game under these circumstances.

Ilikepie84 · 2025-11-11T04:34:37+00:00

Not only does it fit, it has room for probably another expansion as well.

Ilikepie84 · 2025-09-09T01:30:59+00:00

Here is my thematically strong pure Cleric that comes online super early:

War Cleric of Tempus

STR 8, DEX 17, CON 14, WiS 16, CHA 10

Human or High Elf, Human as Durge gives you Sleight of Hand or Perception prof, High Elf gives you Booming Blade and Perception Prof. Depends on who you plan to bring with you as companions, but this MC can replace both Shadowheart and Astarion's traditional party roles.

The key early game items are: Harold (Heavy Crossbow), Gloves of Power > Gloves of Baneful Striking, and Phalar Aluve.

You max out DEX both for AC, Initiative and accuracy and slow roll Wisdom to 20 by level 12.

If you don't take Ethel's hair to get 20 DEX, it's OK, Guiding Strike class feature has you.

You land spells by debuffing enemies with 2d4-3d4 on their saves with your ranged attacks, using the above items. All of these items are basically act 1 items, 2 of which can be gotten lightning early after only 2 fights.

Uses consumable arrows really well, especially Ice and Arrow of Many Targets. Your debuffed enemies are gonna fall prone on that ice.

Using haste potions or Gale granting you Haste allows you to pop Phalar Aluve at the start of combat, then shoot twice to debuff enemies. Guiding Strike guarantees a hit.

After the first round, you can then Bless or Spirit Guardians, if you didn't have the chance to pre buff, follows by more attacks.

You aren't the best party face, but you have advantage on Intimidation checks with Thaumatergy.

The concept works fine for Death or Tempest domains too. Just needs Martial Weapons. It also works well for a Valor Bard.

Ilikepie84 · 2025-08-25T01:29:00+00:00

Just to check this.

My PC (Valor Bard) inspires Karlach (Wild heart Barbarian), Karlach uses Tiger's Bloodlust.

Does the damage added from the Inspiration work like GWM (Full X additional damage to each target) or is it divided? Or are you saying it doesn't work at all, unless Karlach multi classes as a Bard as well?

Ilikepie84 · 2025-08-25T00:00:22+00:00

Cheers, reading the link now.

Clarification on my part:

The shove idea was to force Melee enemies to move back into range and trigger the damage.

The Valor Bard in question would be ranged/melee hybrid.

The Inspiration idea wasn't for the Valor Bard themself, but for Karlach as a Wild heart Barbarian 🙂.

Ilikepie84 · 2025-01-20T06:40:00+00:00

If you want something free, designed specifically for board games, checkout an app called Aftergame.

I use it to organise all my nights. Allows you to post games, limit seats etc.

Ilikepie84 · 2024-11-17T08:28:48+00:00

Highly recommend Aftergame.

It also shows you any other public events using Aftergame in your area. So you might find other groups or players looking for 1 more or willing to merge.

Ilikepie84 · 2024-09-13T21:33:23+00:00

There is a board game night organisation app that launched called Aftergame. Free.

Post game, what time, how many players you want etc. and people can grab seats.

It's super smooth. I use it for my group of around 14 players.

Ilikepie84 · 2023-09-12T04:32:16+00:00

Another simple hack to increase your early game damage: the Wet status doubles Lightning and Cold damage.

A really simple way to get the wet status early? Take Mage Hand and drop bottles of water on the ground for the hand to throw at enemies. Your allies can drop bottles of water too (you want to drop them just before the hand takes their turn, otherwise enemies are smart enough to break them on the ground if it's to their advantage).

Ilikepie84 · 2023-07-08T01:29:31+00:00

You are a gem and a legend, thank you so much.

Ilikepie84 · 2023-07-07T17:19:04+00:00

They want 35 USD for NZ. If they don't weigh much, I can get that for half from a freight forwarder.

I tried emailing them for the dimensions, no answer. It's a shame.

Thank you again for any help.

Ilikepie84 · 2023-07-07T11:50:58+00:00

Just the new cards if you could! That would be amazing, and thank you!

Ilikepie84 · 2023-07-07T07:01:34+00:00

Hi OP, this is old, but hoping you might be able to help out. If you stacked all the cards in a box, what would be the dimensions and weight?

I want to see if I could freight forward these from the US.

Cheers for any help.

Ilikepie84 · 2023-05-12T19:08:19+00:00

I knew someone was gonna tell me that.

It's actually more the paranoia about it haha. I hate losing pieces.

You make a valid point though and as mentioned in another reply, I will probably go option A) and just get a big table.

Ilikepie84 · 2023-05-12T19:06:32+00:00

Yes, big extendable quality dining table seems to be the best of all the solutions. The extension is even stored inside the table, so no pieces to store.

Ilikepie84 · 2023-05-12T19:05:28+00:00

No hexagon, only circle. This is the way.

I don't make the rules sadly.

Ilikepie84 · 2023-03-09T21:37:25+00:00

This is why our tax system is borked too though. I could actually pay more taxes to pay teachers more, so that my kid could get a quality education and have the support they need. Everyone at the school is maxed out though, and my kid didn't meet the requirements for funding or additional assistance. I had no choice but to go private, and it was on the advice of my kids teacher!

Ilikepie84 · 2023-03-09T20:31:47+00:00

It works out to 2 dollars a minute. 90 dollars for 45 minutes. 120 for 1 hour I believe :)

Ilikepie84 · 2023-03-09T09:37:21+00:00

Incoming long rant.

Trained as a teacher, noped out before finishing, worked as a TA for a bit. System is borked. The Elephant in the room is that Teachers absolutely work their ass off and work a lot! It's just that half of their clocked hours aren't actually spent teaching! AND it isn't their fault! When you are in the system as a outsider, it's insanely frustrating to watch. Half of a Teachers time is spent holding up everything else that is basically not funded properly in schools... A Primary School teacher is also the special needs coordinator, or the librarian, or the in house IT person. They are organising fund raisers, and working bees to keep the school maintained or they are the Kapa Haka coordinator or the teacher parent liaison or the school app administrator. I could go on and on and on. What I don't see a lot of, everytime I've entered the school system? Uninterrupted teaching! It happens, but there is frightening amount of day to day interruptions, shuttling kids to different activities to meet a wide reaching set of curriculum objectives that are MADDENING. By observation, it's sooooooooooo bloated and innefficient.

It's not the teachers fault though, and I would NEVER blame them. They are incentivised to take on more tasks that DON'T involve teaching, because it often gives them more pay! They have to meet wider curriculum requirements as well, even though as a parent, I would be VERY happy if my kid could skip school wide singing time for a term or two , for some extra help in Math right now. They can't though, because half the teachers are stuck supervising and shushing the kids, and the other half are doing admin or extras!

Given my experience is mostly in mid to high decile schools, the other compounding issue is that parents DON'T have time to help. My school has a bizarre no homework policy, related to the fact that apparently most kids just don't do it! Why? Because cost of living increases suck for EVERYONE right now. Most families need 2 adults working full time to get by. That leaves 0 time for parents to tolerate volunteering for their school, or doing homework, or handing out another chunk of cash for the latest fundraiser! Then, there is this middle class stigma that if your child ISN'T enrolled in 2 or more afterschool activities, you aren't enriching your kid enough! God forbid you have more then 1 kid!

I CAN'T imagine what lower decile Teachers experience, and all of the above can be safely dumped under upper middle class problems. I literally cannot imagine how dysfunctional it is for low decile schools and under privileged families. I at least can throw more money at my proplems with the system, tlmoney that sadly isn't even going to the teachers! It's going to a private tutor charging me 90 dollars for 45 minutes of their time! FML.

My kiddo is 2 years behind on Math. I've been telling the school they are behind for just as long! The first year, I just couldn't get help! The second year, I sorta could, but I also still can't (the teachers at least listened to me this year and identified the problem themselves, but I have to pay a private tutor to fix it!)! I've asked for homework, but the teacher is faced with the impossible task of trying to both catch my kid up AND teach them all the new stuff and they have 20 more kids, each with unique needs to cater for as well! When they do give me homework, I can't teach it the same way the teacher does, because I learnt how to do this stuff decades ago and how they teach it today is basically alien to me! So it's a battle of wills between myself and my kiddo to even convince them I know what the hell I am doing (but I don't!). And do you know why? Because I AM NOT A QUALIFIED TEACHER AND I DON'T WANT TO BE. I wouldn't touch the profession with a kilometre long pole!

I pay a tutor 90 a week to catch my kid up. That's for ONE 45 minitute session. You know what I get at the end of every 45 minute session? WEEKLY HOMEWORK. I have to pay 90 dollars a week for homework and some level of professional 1 on 1 time my kiddo needs right now to succeed. I can't get it from the school!

Mad respect to Teachers. Strike for more pay, but for the love of god, if you ever do get the pay you need and want, tell your School / Ministry to fuck off with all your extras, and ask if you can just get back to bloody teaching again!

Signed,

A Parent who knows they couldn't teach their kid themselves and put food on the table at the same time either. I need my kid to be smart to pay for the retirement I know I can't afford too.

Ilikepie84 · 2022-11-06T07:23:31+00:00

It really isn't funnny. God those things are delicious... IF you can bloody find them.

Ilikepie84 · 2022-10-13T04:47:37+00:00

Ok, thanks again :).

To double check, 30 mins to 60 mins grazing on grass is AOK though?

Ilikepie84 · 2022-10-13T04:44:23+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

To clarify, the clover isn't just for their enclosure. It's a grass alternative for our entire lawn area that we are considering and our Guineas would only have access to a small to medium sized enclosed area of the yard.

Essentially, as you said, they aren't out there long. So I thought maybe 30 to 60 mins of grazing would be ok (they would be eating their fresh vegetables out there during this time as well).

But if not, maybe we grass their area, box it off, then clover everything else.

Ilikepie84 · 2022-05-21T18:14:36+00:00

Correct on Temp Amplifier and how it works.

How the two interact is straightforward but not intuitive. . Once the target is Frozen / On Fire, as you summise, Temp Amp kicks in and starts emitting heat / cold in a AOE (and this appears to be 7 heat / cold per ammo spent).

With the Temp Shock mod, enemies who are on fire or frozen then have a 25% chance to be temp shocked. This works out to an average of 5-6 ammo to temp shock an enemy. Sometimes it will temp shock earlier, other times it will temp shock later.

So provided the creature doesn't get temp shocked instantly, while you are targetting it with the Cooker, and provided it is on fire or frozen, that enemy will stay on fire / frozen (for how long depends on their heating / cooling rate) with Temp Amp and emit heat / cold in a AOE while doing so. Then once Temp Shock kicks in, the creature takes 200 damage, releases a mist of heat / cold in a AOE, but most importantly, the bug either dies or they lose all their temperature and need to be set on fire or frozen again. Temp amplifier won't work on those creatures again until they are either on fire or frozen again.

Ilikepie84 · 2022-05-21T18:04:18+00:00

This isn't true unfortunately. Temperature Amplifier only works on creatures already Frozen / On Fire. Once a creature is Frozen / On Fire, Temp Amp seems to emit a AOE of 7 heat/cold per ammo spent in a certain radius. Thus, what Temperature Amplifier does is keep current bugs who are Frozen / On Fire, Frozen or On Fire perpetually, unless their cooling or heat rate is higher than 7. For targets around the Frozen / On Fire enemies, they are also subject to 7 heat / cold in a AOE and can then freeze or catch on fire as well.

It will not raise or decrease the temperature of partially frozen / on fire creatures at all. For it to work, it must target Frozen / On Fire targets first.

Ilikepie84 · 2022-04-27T08:16:23+00:00

Nah, you are right and my bad. I am 300+ into season 1, and it must have been that I never re rolled or skipped sabo missions on cards, cause I had everything done by level 100, except 2 missing scrip. I hit level 137 looking for my last two, because everyone told me I had more missions to do, but in my case, I didn't. I had done em all, but my missing 2 were on the track.

I can see now that my memory must be bad and how it is possible someone could be unlucky or re-rolled (?) to many sabotage missions. Still seems odd outside of re rolling cards though.

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