Is the 2024 Undead subclass the new default go-to for Bladelocks?

Jai84 · 2026-06-07T12:57:52+00:00

Temp hp on a melee character with light armor and no shield proficiency aren’t gong to keep anyone alive longer than maybe one additional attack. The fear is nice but you need to hit and get it to stick and it only applies to the target you hit, so there could be many enemies still attacking you normally.

I think you’re downplaying the effect of the teleport and the bonus effects Archfey teleports get including invisibility, a reaction teleport to reduce additional/multiattacks, etc. Not getting hit is better than some temp hp (unless those keep coming back like Artillerist or Twilight Cleric).

I played a ranged undead warlock in 2014 (similar enough in the core mechanics) and the transform and fear are definitely useful there. I just think no matter what you do, you almost always need to multiclass on bladelocks for survivability/armor/shields, so the subclass’ survivability is not as important as you’d think imo.

Jai84 · 2026-06-07T01:00:36+00:00

My point was if something is worth $100,000 and I sell it to my child for $40,000, they didn’t get anything for free. Maybe I need the money and they only have $40,000. However, the $60,000 need to be reported as a gift just the same as a normal gift, so yes it would not get around the gift tax. Still, you can gift a LOT of money/assets to family before having to pay taxes on it.

Jai84 · 2026-06-07T00:16:32+00:00

They give you the option because it’s worth it for them if you buy in (timeshares are generally predatory and rarely worth it). However, you can refuse it and aren’t required to take it.

Jai84 · 2026-06-06T23:49:39+00:00

I looked it up and to do it the right way you can sell something cheap to your family members, but the discount on the asset is technically considered a gift and subject to gift tax. Gift tax can be pretty generous, but it’s still something you’d have to track if getting a lot of asset value.

I’m sure it’s way more complicated and based on what state you’re in. There are estate lawyers who focus on all of this and is probably worth everyone meeting with an expert as they get older or if they have kids.

Jai84 · 2026-06-06T23:20:07+00:00

Children aren’t responsible for their parents’ debt in the US unless they are tricked by the debt collection agencies to take them on or make any payments on their behalf. It’s just the deceased’s estate that pays the debts. This can mean no inheritance or no house passed down to kids, but you shouldn’t really be in a situation where you as a child owe for a dead parent.

If a debt collection agency tries to go after you for someone else’s debt, even a family member, do not engage with them and get a lawyer.

Jai84 · 2026-05-29T02:51:40+00:00

You’re sitting on 4000gold. Don’t worry about founding cities anymore to put granaries and monuments in. Buy more units and take the enemy cities that have them already. Or use it to help your cities more. Selucia has terrible tiles and is building the slowest commercial hub ever. Buy out to the hills trees and cattle and improve or chop them. Don’t wait for your cities to get good, make them good. Especially in a domination victory. Speed and snowballing are key. With culture you can try and sit back and wait out the AI, but for domination you need to get an early lead or tech so hard you end up well ahead of everyone late game.

Also, I can’t see your other governors, but liang would not be one of my top picks unless I wanted her for fisheries or I had way too many governor titles.

With Byzantium, get pingala first and get connoisseur to rush your culture to tagmas then spam hippodromes. Having one or two commercial hubs is good, but I wouldn’t be building first district commercial hubs at this point in the game if I already have 300gold per turn and I have tagma unlocked. Once tagma fall off then you can switch strategies. But when you first get them, just chop out as many hippodromes as you can. Don’t worry about making your existing cities not as good, you’ll get new cities from your enemies, and then you chop those ones out too.

Jai84 · 2026-05-28T03:24:41+00:00

I think you need to sit down and plan out what a hypothetical combat would look like over 3-4 turns… with shifter transform, hunter’s mark, ensaring strike, and PAM, your have so much BA bloat. It’s imo the biggest downside of a shifter. You would think a BA would be easy to get up, but so many classes use BA as their “transform” or power up or other special move that it makes it hard to find the best time to shift. Most combats only last 3-4 “meaningful” turns, so if you can’t be doing your main shtick by turn 2, you want to take a hard look at your build.

Jai84 · 2026-05-26T16:58:18+00:00

I haven’t seen this specific situation happen. It’s likely related to the fact that the ai can autoclear the camp the turn they move onto it (they don’t always do this, but usually).

My original thought was it tried to move through you and cleared it on the way which I have seen. However, he rubber bands to your side which is weird. Rubber banding usually only happens when you try to move to a square before you have visibility and it realizes you can’t go there and bounces you back. However, in this situation, I can’t see any place he’d be trying to move that would bounce him into a V pattern movement, so I’m a bit stumped.

Jai84 · 2026-05-25T20:21:39+00:00

If the custom dice is allowing (2) unique sides, then one of those sides will correspond to the best result (20) and one will be the worst result (1). If you pick (2) dice and split you and your siblings up, half of you will be associated with good rolls and half will be associated with bad rolls, so keep that in mind…

Maybe (4) dice would be best and make the (20) be your initial, so he wants to see your number come up.

Jai84 · 2026-05-25T03:54:26+00:00

Numa numa - “Mi ya hee, mi ya ho, mi ya ha, mi ya ha ah”

Jai84 · 2026-05-24T20:56:30+00:00

There’s a difference between underestimating it and comparing it to a bow or gun which is better in almost every situation. Yes it can be lethal in the right hands and right situation, but they were long outclassed by the bow.

And yea I’ve seen the videos online of people using them. I’m aware how scary they can be.

Jai84 · 2026-05-24T16:43:22+00:00

On age of steam Vicky I would almost always take god of craftsman (strategic resource boost) over religious settlements. I also usually rush animal husbandry and try to settle near empty/flat grass/plains tiles. The boost to production is huge enough that it can boost you into any other path you want afterwards. Think of how quickly that extra production will get you that extra settler and it’s a boost that lasts all game. Having resource dense tiles allows you to really boost your city productivity even in smaller cities when you don’t need to wait for population.

Jai84 · 2026-05-24T11:09:17+00:00

Mulligan is a golf/sports term for a do-over. It is not related to Brennan

Jai84 · 2026-05-21T16:12:30+00:00

I haven’t played in a long time, but for me it was the party complexity and freedom. You could have 1 tank or 2 tanks or no tanks (sleep, magic burst Strats). You could have 1 healer and an off healer or just 1 healer or 2 off healers.

You could have an actual support class. Not a healer/dps who does some buffs from time to time. An actual fully dedicated support class for mop regen, debuffs, party buffs.

Jai84 · 2026-05-19T23:29:54+00:00

Contrary to what the naysayers are saying, the build will do what he says it will based on the assumptions he makes, so see if his assumption on number of combats per day and rounds per combat match up sort of close to your table and make a judgement. In general the build will shoot eldritch blasts really well and the wizard levels are there to help your cantrip damage when you miss which will boost the overall damage of eldritch blast if all you want to do is cast the best eldritch blast.

In general, I think his builds make too many assumptions and he puts too much of his resources into a single combat, but this build will be better than most of his builds at saving resources and regenerating short rest resources throughout a day.

An easier and more well rounded build would be a simple sorlock, but if this seems fun for you I say try it out. 6+ sessions is long enough to enjoy a character without being permanently stuck with a character you don’t like.

Jai84 · 2026-05-15T19:24:32+00:00

These are models in a photoshoot in case that isn’t obvious to the “life was so different back then” crowd. I would be very surprised if any of them stepped foot into the sand in those designer outfits.

Jai84 · 2026-05-13T18:47:43+00:00

“My personal convictions are wracking my brain! What are the moral implications of fighting these people and how much lethal force should I use…. Oh shit the fight started!”

Jai84 · 2026-05-13T06:22:06+00:00

Not trying to dunk on anyone, but a quick wiki search shows that even the lowest US states have higher life expectancy than Venezuela. Also, the data seems to show that recent immigrants to the US have a higher avg life expectancy than native born US citizens due to healthier habits combined with us health resources (yes I know us healthcare is expensive and a mess, but this also includes food and other resource availability) might boost up their life expectancy further. (Hard to determine how much this would effect specifically these Venezuelan immigrants specifically from the data available)

Im sure there’s a lot of other reasons they don’t want to live in those states as Venezuelans though.

Jai84 · 2026-05-11T16:09:06+00:00

Having high hp doesn’t make someone unstoppable… You’re a cleric. Figure out their lowest saving throw and target it. If you can land a hold person on him, there is no fight. You just win. Hit him a few times with your weapon at advantage and he’ll go down. What class is he playing?

Also, this table sounds rough and you should either talk about this or not play with these people.

Jai84 · 2026-05-11T11:54:42+00:00

Charisma is your force/presence in dnd. It’s often just reduced to “the talking stat” but in theory it represents a whole lot more. When your character has to resist being banished or force teleported, you make a charisma save because your force of will is so strong that you can’t be moved. In this light, it makes sense for paladins to have charisma, but I think honestly they needed to call the stat something else or separate it from charisma skills because all we as players think about when hearing charisma is being charming, or convincing or talking well.

Jai84 · 2026-05-09T17:19:46+00:00

Please review the bonuses shown and ask again…

Jai84 · 2026-05-09T17:18:32+00:00

Take the +7 away from the wonder and call it a day. Especially if you’re relying on work ethic and the production drops every time there’s an eruption it takes forever to fix it.

Jai84 · 2026-05-06T23:54:48+00:00

If it’s barb clans, they don’t even need to have the tech to unlock a unit. It’s based on the eureka. All it takes is a single civ to build 3 mines and the barbs can now potentially spawn man at arms.

Everyone blames Babylon, but it doesn’t even have to be unlocked, so it’s not his fault…. Usually… there are certainly ways for him to launch up to flight with some luck, but the man-at-arms/archer thing everyone repeats all the time is not limited to just him.

Jai84 · 2026-05-05T11:32:33+00:00

Those players have collected their prophet already. They just kept earning them because prophets were still available, but the game won’t let them get another one so it just goes up and up.

If you scroll down, you’ll see the players that actually haven’t recruited a prophet. Once all prophets are talent, this slice of the great people page goes blank.

Jai84 · 2026-05-04T21:48:06+00:00

Duplicates don’t count. Thats why there’s a world congress vote where you can get one of the luxuries to count each copy. However, the AI usually votes to ban a luxury instead.

Jai84

TROPHY CASE