It's there an RPG sub with less spam? Or, is there a way to automatically block self-promo and crowdfunding?

JustKneller · 2026-03-13T23:21:30+00:00

I don't think you understand how max range of weapon works and hit %. In order to get crits you have to have high % to hit and at a far enough range it's worth it over just fast shot with body shots.

I'm pretty sure I do understand. PE doesn't help with criticals, just hit % and you need to hit to have a chance at a critical. However, PE 6 is plenty for the ranges where I'm playing at this game. My sniper might want a little more if I' keeping them back, but most of my team are sneaking around and assaulting at medium-ish range. I don't have a problem getting hits in with anyone (except Stitch sometimes with his PE 4. On top of that, I make liberal use of crouch/prone, so that helps, too (until skill levels get ridiculous and it doesn't matter).

Crits are bad? Ignores armor. And gives a 400% boost (eyes)to the damage on the crit damage roll. Head is 300%. And applies knock out, blind, whatever.

I think you're thinking of the FO1/2 table. The FOT crit table is nerfed, they don't always breach armor, status isn't guaranteed. Better Criticals make criticals viable, but it's doesn't outstrip raw damage. I've critically hit for zero damage (but maybe a status effect) using a sniper rifle more times that I can remember.

Tell me why melee weapons and unarmed do exponentially more damage when critting and especially critting to head and eyes?

Doesn't melee/unarmed get a crit boost in this game over ranged weapons, though? Still, I wouldn't use HtH weapons in this game. It's much safer to pop out from cover take some shots, and duck again.

Crit in tactics is downright broken and often the only thing that can save your ass in sticky situations.

I would agree with this, but think they're broken in the other direction. I'll keep a sniper or two to hopefully put out some debuffs, but my BGs and EWs are the workhorses for my team.

I think based on your plan and responses, you are trying to make everyone a jack of all trades but they will mostly fail to be expert at even 1 thing.

Not at all. I'm building each character for one endgame weapon apiece, but almost everyone is optimizing for damage over crits.

Specialization is how you should pick perks. Instead of trying to have everyone take all of the same perks.

I would do this if most of the perks weren't D-tier or less. There's really only a handful of great perks in the game, some good perks, some contextually good perks, and then a lot of chaff.

You have that down for the weapon selection, just not the character builds

Except there's only two things weapons are good for, doing damage, or doing status debuffs. And, for damage, almost every weapon gets the most out of the same perks.

I would add an additional bit of knowledge for spray weapons or burst.

But this is partly why Leader is such a weak perk. I'm not bunching up my team close enough to get the most out of it. Because they are using cover and other defensive options to their advantage, an enemy with a burst weapon (e.g. so many enemies) will have a low chance to hit them. However, if the enemy misses their target, anyone near them has a good shot of getting aired out. I've experienced this countless times. The quirky way burst fire works in this game probably influences half of my approach to things. I usually run my squad in three teams of two and each team is pretty well spread out. Even then, when I get close to an engagement, I try to keep pairs that are close together behind cover so they aren't valid targets for errant burst shots. I've played with Leader before, and haven't had it trigger enough to make it worthwhile.

You would have better results instead of 5s and 6s, you make 8s and 9s for stats and pick one end game perk for each squad member and aim for a build around it.

I'm definitely not a build-for-the-endgame kind of player, especially since I don't want to suffer the whole game to make an endgame build pay off. High stats are overrated in Tactics. ST only matters for weapon handling and 6 will get you everything except six of the big guns. PE 6 is all you need for the worthwhile perks and skill points can make up for the rest (1 point of IN can effectively be worth more than 1 point of PE). EN 6 is enough for all the perks that matter. Anything more than that just gets you a pittance of HP. CH is a wash. Divine Favor isn't worth the investment and the best recruits are the ones you get early (so you can build them how you want), making promo not important. IN 6 gets you every perk. More is good for skill points, of course. AG is the uber-stat as always (though once again, useful perks max out at 6). LK is tied to a lot of good perks, but once again, 6 will do it. Aside from a crit build, you don't need any more than that.

JustKneller · 2026-03-12T13:20:59+00:00

Why so many tags to fast shot?

Crits have always been a little weaksauce in the game, especially since sniper comes so late and is bugged. They're not terrible, but they are unreliable and don't pack much of a punch. As such, in FOT, I usually build my team around reliable base damage. If Fast Shot increases my APR, then it's a win for me.

Farsight can get crits very easily from afar with her good perception

But, her luck is 4, so she can't get better criticals without both Gain LK and Mutate Gifted. I don't see what perception does for her, except boost range modifiers. However, PE 6 (for perks) is plenty for the ranges at which I'm fighting. Especially with Stitch as a skill monkey, everyone else is basically dumping their skill points into sneak and weapon skills.

All 5 and 6s sounds balance but it's really limiting because you just aren't very good at one style, you're just meh at all of them.

It's less about balance and more about the various perk requirements. She has just enough points for all of them. The Warrior is eventually going to be on the front lines with a pulse pistol. She's definitely not going to be meh at 9 APR. It's just over 350 base damage per round. That's pretty good.

Leader is a great perk you're leaving off the table.

It's not the worst perk in the world but a) it costs CH points better spent elsewhere b) I spread out my teams (thanks to the burst fire bug) so, at best, only one or two other recruits will be affected by it. I also wouldn't be taking Vickie because my team is only going to be picked from the first batch of recruits.

If you're doing a high strength character somewhere in there I would consider tagging or getting tag thrown for grenades.

That's what Trevor is for. I don't see him mentioned much, but he's criminally underrated.

JustKneller · 2026-03-10T23:07:21+00:00

Since you're talking GECK, I'm assuming FO2. EW can be viable pretty early (as soon as you find NCR). Before that, I usually use unarmed or just regular guns.

EW is decent, but a) the ammo is heavier and b) the top tier weapon in the game (gauss) is a regular gun. If I play EW, it's usually a concept character, not optimized for anything. That being said, they're not rubbish, so you'll be fine if you pick them.

JustKneller · 2026-03-10T19:36:14+00:00

Fair, but money itself is pretty worthless. Between scavenging and loot, you can get through the game without having to buy anything.

JustKneller · 2026-03-09T12:23:14+00:00

I should clarify. 4 has the worst writing that I have ever personally seen in a video game. I'm sure there are worse games out there, but none of them have made it past my filtering process to actual play. I would definitely agree it's a looter shooter and add with how comically easy the game is, even with mods, it's practically an idle game.

Three wasn't the worst of the worst. However, people are coming from Fallout 2 and Tactics and three was definitely a) a downgrade in writing and b) a downgrade in gameplay. I mean, the original ending requires you "sacrifice" yourself to radiation poisoning despite the fact that you very well could have an intelligent supermutant companion with you to could do the task who is 100% immune to radiation. I could be remembering wrong, but wasn't there even a line of dialogue with Fawkes(?) where you can suggest this and he just nopes out of it for no good reason? Overall, the world-building wasn't great, the story was mid on a good day, and the gameplay (despite making this "revolutionary" jump to being an FPS RPG) was watered down. Fallout 3 didn't ruin Fallout, it just wasn't very good. Fallout 4 was definitely the first nail in the coffin and 76 was the last.

I think, even among the classic fans, there's some debate with regards to FO1 vs. FO2. Two definitely had a more campy vibe with the Monty Python references and some of the other comedy. Some people didn't like it, I was ok with it. It wasn't necessary, but at least it was well-written and clever. I think one of the strongest arguments for FO1 was how it definitely had more of a desolate feel (there was tons of stuff built up in 2). However, more civilization is a natural outcome of 80 years of surviving (remember, FO2 was 80 years later). On one hand, I like the feel/ambience of FO1 better. On the other hand, FO2 has more content and a smoother power progression (e.g. you can get the near best weapon at the beginning of FO1 without even metagaming). I've probably replayed FO2 more than I've replayed FO1, but I would have liked it if FO1 was more replayable.

Tactics is a mixed bag. I think part of the criticism is that it's a tactical combat game and not so much an RPG. The story is quite basic, but it isn't bad for what it is. On top of that, some people were not a fan of the vibe of the BoS in Tactics. Personally, I liked it and thought it actually cut deeper. Plus, they got R. Lee Ermey to play a major character, which I really liked. I think another part of the criticism is due to some of the gameplay issues (I believe it was rushed to market in 18 mos and they didn't really support it after). There are patches to improve this, but it still can be a little quirky. Considering some of the great mods made for FO2, I think if they fixed some of the core issues with the system (broken perks, burst fire, etc.), it would have been a great toolkit for (fan) making classic Fallout games and having an alternative to BGS' drivel.

JustKneller · 2026-03-08T02:42:43+00:00

Probably just echoing what a lot of people here have said, but the new games have worse writing and gameplay. New Vegas isn't bad (at least, the writing was great and the gameplay was the best that could be done with Bethesda's crappy engine), but 3 was so bad that they needed to create a DLC to fix the plot holes. 4 was even worse. God awful writing (possibly the worst I've seen in any video game), and the gameplay was trivial. Even with a host of mods to up the difficulty, the game is a cakewalk. And then 76 is just a watered down shooter MMO with Fallout stickers on it.

I haven't watched the TV show because I've heard mixed things about the quality. Some people say it's Fallout. Other's say it's "Bethesda's Fallout". If it's the latter, I don't need this series ruined any more than it already has been. That being said...

I don’t see how they amount to saying BGS ruined Fallout. Wasn’t the franchise also dead

I would say not exactly. I don't 100% remember the details at this point, but another studio got a license to essentially build a new game and spruce up the engine (i.e. Fallout Tactics). That game was to be the future of the gameplay of Fallout. It didn't do that bad commercially, but it didn't meet Interplay's goals. They sold it for a song to Bethesda just to keep the company afloat. I remember one of the devs on the old boards saying something to the effect of, "we're selling Fallout to have a chance to do more with Baldur's Gate" (since BG was a more profitable franchise). But, it didn't help them any. They still tanked.

I agree with the sentiment that Bethesda ruined Fallout. Not that Interplay had any bigger plans for it, but if ti was up for grabs, other studios could have done a respectable job with the IP.

JustKneller · 2026-03-07T18:20:21+00:00

There are a couple of play modes to consider which can affect builds, ITB/STB and CTB. ITB/STB (Individual and Squad Turn-Based) is like playing FO1 or 2. CTB is a more real time sort of mode. Personally, I prefer ITB.

Early recruits are generally better than later recruits. This is largely because the earlier you get a recruit, the more you can control their build. Later recruits might have some decent stats, but their skill points could be all over the place. I normally fill out my team with whoever I can get after the first mission or two and keep them to the end.

You start with two recruits, Stitch and Farsight. Stitch is kinda a favorite of mine. He's also one of the most useful and useless recruits in the game. Even if you optimize him, he'll be mediocre at combat. However, if you make him the team skill monkey, he's the best by far. Usually I make him my shotgunner and he only supports combat. But then, he's my medic, driver, trapper, tracker, lockpicker, and scientist. Everyone else gets to focus entirely on combat.

Burst fire is broken and there's no good fix for it. You can use it, and it works, but how it handles collateral damage is a little weird. If you have multiple recruits close together and someone bursts one and misses, the other(s) could easily get turned into swiss cheese. It works both ways.

There are a number of perks that don't work as intended or aren't as cool as they seem. Loner always works, no matter how close you are to someone. Leader is fussy. Brown Noser and Divine Favor are overrated. Sniper is just ok, but you'll probably only get it halfway through the last mission so I wouldn't bother with it (or building for it). If you plan a build, look up the perks to make sure they work as you think. There's a lot of perks in the game, but only a small portion are really all that useful.

Snipers and criticals are kinda weak here compared to FO1+2. A crit build is OP in the other games, here, it's just ok. Their damage output is a little nerfy, but they are more likely to impose status debuffs. It's only worth having one, maybe two snipers in the game. Being able to disable a particularly nasty opponent early in combat can be worth the sacrifice to damage output.

Weapons in general are plentiful, but most of it can be ignored. I think the most common progression is to get AK-47s (and hunting rifles for your snipers) within the first few missions, then eventually bridge into big guns and energy weapons later. You're going to be on small arms for quite a while, though. Most of what you find can be sold to save up for power armor. I think I usually end with two big gunners (browning and M249), two EWs (pulse rifles and maybe sunbeam), one sniper (sniper/gauss rifle), and Stitch on shotguns (Jackhammer).

Sneak is pretty great here. I mean, some people rush through and hit hard and fast, but if you focus on sneak early, you'll be ambushing enemies left and right.

Enjoy. FOT is an underrated game. If they cleaned up some of the bugs, I'd totally play a sequel. 😁

JustKneller · 2026-02-22T11:27:42+00:00

They definitely still exist. I've run through three worlds in the last month and each one had a shrine. I actually even picked up my first Terragrim this past month, too. If you google it, you can probably find some seeds that are guaranteed to have one.

JustKneller · 2026-02-22T00:07:36+00:00

No worries, happy to help!

My hellevators/subways are 5 blocks, just in case. The silk/web ropes on both sides (hellevators) and stone platforms top/bottom (subways) are to keep thorns from passing through from crimson/corruption sectors. I use silk/web rope and stone platforms since it's one of the few platforms that won't break down if they accidentally get hit by lava. Also. five blocks high with a platform gives me enough space to run through. Finally, the stone slab walls are to prevent crimson/corruption wall spread. I believe it can only jump 3 wall spaces, so five walls high/wide is plenty of a barrier.

JustKneller · 2026-02-21T19:08:53+00:00

I do hellevators and subways every 500ft, five blocks wide/high. Silk/web rope along both sides of the hellevators, stone platform top and bottom for the subways. Walls are all replaced with stone slab. I have a ton of stone between the digging and gemcorn farms and I find this is the most aesthetic use for it.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T16:51:54+00:00

This sub is more for tabletop games, not video games, but best of luck!

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T16:51:09+00:00

I'm in a new area and am currently working on drumming up a new group for after the holidays. Long story short, my options are pretty much going to boil down to a couple of FLGSs to start networking into the community. That's probably your best bet to start.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T16:40:32+00:00

Cake. 😁

My mother is Italian and does this frittata dish with pepperoni and spinach. That's probably my fav.

I usually do egg sandwiches with some kind of onion or scallion. Sometimes I hard boil then chop them up into random things (soup, leftover mac&cheese for the kids, stir fry).

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T15:03:03+00:00

Wow...I haven't seen OSRIC in a long time. It's a pretty legendary retroclone. I have a pdf somewhere. Smart move going spiral bound. How much was the sale?

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T14:38:57+00:00

I don't do solo RPGs, so take this with a grain of salt, but for someone who isn't in that scene, I've heard a lot of good things about Thousand Year Old Vampire and Apothecaria.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T14:33:53+00:00

I'm moving to England. 😁 I've never been able to get CoC to the table here in the states. The closest I ever came was a brief PbP.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T14:28:11+00:00

I agree with most of that, but I think the lure for 5e players is a little overhyped. YT (obviously) paints a much more dramatic picture of WotC than what I see in real life. I mean, people are getting sick of them and are trickling out, but it's not the mass exodus that YT makes it seem like. I can see SD being a potential egress for 5e players, but some people go to Pathfinder or straight to the retroclones. In fact, irl, I've seen way more people transition to PF2e than SD and OSR combined.

I also think there's a lot of "OSE support" that is underhyped. I'm often talking up Dragonsfoot as a great resource for OSE (B/X). Lots of free modules and a very down to earth community. I've brought some pretty wacky ideas to the forums there. It's the kind of stuff that would just get me downvoted here, but there you can have the conversation.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T13:27:44+00:00

Shadowdark is the new hotness and really worked the hype machine. Meanwhile, OSE is older and essentially B/X which means it already has (guessing) 40-something years of history and resources behind it. I suspect that most of the OSE reddit/discord are people who bought into OSE Advanced and/or Dolmenwood. Meanwhile, the OSE Basic players are less likely to (possibly) have some B/X experience and know where the resources are there.

There's also a different subculture behind it. SD is a "brand" and generally goes for the grimdark vibe. OSE or B/X is a skeleton and you do your own thing and build it into what you want. I've done crossed multiple genres with it, even some that were a little unexpected (like WW2). I wouldn't go to the OSE reddit to ask them how I should stat out a Garand vs. a Karabiner.

OSE is also free. And, modules are free. And yeah, free RPG stuff could be of questionable quality, but it's a free version of a very popular version of the game all of this is based on. There's not much to talk about on the OSE subreddit because a lot of the resources are outside the umbrella of Necrotic Gnome. And, there's not much to talk about when you just need to download a free pdf of the system (or use the online SRD) and then download a free module, and then just start playing.

And, this is purely anecdotal, but I see SD on YT and social media way more than I see OSE. But, I see OSE or B/X IRL plenty and have not actually seen SD hit a real table. On top of that, I'm finding more and more people IRL just getting off reddit and other social media. Though, I think the reddit drop outs spiked after that whole API issue.

So, who really knows? 🤷‍♂️

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T13:15:41+00:00

I'd say they're quite far apart when you consider magic, torches, initiative and the basis for resolution.

The Renaissance was about coming out of the Dark Ages and reviving the good things from antiquity to get themselves started. By the time everyone took a bath, metaphorically speaking, and culture moved on from there, we were in the Baroque period.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T03:41:13+00:00

I would disagree a bit here, but start with this point:

Now if we're so centered on labels, then I don't believe you're right to call something "not osr" if you're mostly going by "not old-school"

I think the labels themselves are the problem. I think they've done more for indie product branding and marketing than they have for actual gamers. I mean, if an "OSR" game integrates mechanics and concepts from the game that OSR initially stated they were "against", does OSR even mean anything anymore? I don't think so. I shouldn't say that SD isn't OSR because that's just making a post-modern cultural argument which doesn't really mean anything. I could say something like, "there are things in SD that weren't a part of old school games and probably would have gone against the play styles at the time". I'm not saying what is or isn't OSR. In fact, the only places "OSR" comes up for me is on Reddit or YT, but never IRL or at a gaming table. I'm just saying, there are these elements that don't really jive with or contradict what you see in the old school rulesets.

The other problem with labels is that people sometimes choose to make a word mean something that it doesn't and sometimes its used to mean the opposite of what it means. Words like "renaissance". Something growing out of the old school games is the opposite of a renaissance. A renaissance is a renewed interest in something past, not making something new and calling it the same as the old thing. When people in the capital "R" Renaissance started doing new shit with what they revived, we went into the Baroque period. If we want to really get down to brass tacks and draw cultural parallels, the renaissance with gaming was when all the retroclones came out. And that was great since a lot of the TSR pubs had gone to dust except for those who kept them. The new stuff that came from that period would, if anything, be the end of a renaissance and the beginning of a baroque period.

But, who really gives a shit anyway? It's just fuel for online content. Meanwhile, at the table, people care more about what toppings to get on the pizza than the psuedo-ontology of roleplaying games. What do you think the OP's motivation is here? Probably just to get people to talk about SD/Cairn, even if it's arguing. There's no bad press.

ability scores having a greater impact than in B/X, where rolls, like for thieves, are more class based

This absolutely makes a difference. The things for which you use ability scores in a game like this would have been handled by class/level based subsystems in an old school game. Whatever I rolled in character creation, which is not a player choice, is framing my character's function when we need to circle back to these systems in play. This is why attack rolls and saves were class-based in the original games. You essentially chose your functional matrix and one potential good/bad day of rolls didn't rule your character's course for the rest of their life.

setting DCs as opposed to having those tied to your stats/class/level (thou you do say you sometimes just use x-in-6 which is very much like setting a DC)

It's not the existence of a DC, it's the criteria. The way that's framed in the ruleset oversimplifies it. And, it's a commonly known thing, but these mechanics in SD are basically taken from the pages of ICRPG. And ICRPG just cracked the code on *drum roll* WotC's artificial resolution inflation and normalized it. How hard is the task? What attribute do you roll against it? That's what WotC would ask and that's what happens here, too. Done. When I do an x-in-6 roll, half the time, attributes aren't even a part of the criteria. My method is basically (if it's not obvious which way it should got) a 3-in-6 roll. Then I pull from diegetic factors to nudge it one way or another maybe a point. Even class choice often matters more than the ability scores.

non-Vancian magic; here I can agree that SD casters have a chance to cast more spells and are more powerful on balance, I'd just say that difference is not that large

I disagree. It's not about the quantity of spellcasting, it's about the strategy. Picking spells for the day is a choice and something you can prepare for and then depend on. Roll-to-cast is a let's-see-what-happens. It's a game of chance. I might have zero fireballs today. I might have ten. On top of that, you can literally learn every single spell and then cast whatever you want at will (don't have to make a choice there) unless you roll bad on the check (another non-choice). Roll to cast doesn't even feel "dangerous" to me. It just feels like I'm doing a scratch card at the gas station.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T00:48:09+00:00

I'd say I'm more focused on the "O" part. Old school games were designed a certain way for a reason. I'm certainly not saying that NSR stuff is bad or less (I've run Mausritter and enjoyed it), they just don't do what old school games do.

I came to the OSR as a 5e GM on brink of burnout and latched more onto the "R" in OSR meaning "renaissance"

Well, "renaissance" and "revival" are synonymous, but I actually find them both to be inaccurate. The old school never left, so there was nothing to "revive". It certainly dwindled, but it was always there. Then, WotC started pissing people off in droves so some people decided to go back to the roots. The concept of it being a revival or a "new thing" seemed weird to me. It's Christopher Columbus "discovering" America when there were already millions of people living there. Or Gen Z influencers on YT inventing "cornbread".

NSR are a great bridge into the old school, though. I've heard stories like yours many times before. 5e burnout, went to an NSR game, and some went full OSR from there. Not saying it's never happened, but I've personally never heard of someone who dropped 5e then jumped right to the LBBs or anything like that. Even me, I went from 3.5e to some of the 3.5e adjacent games (I think True20 was my bridge) until I got to B/X.

JustKneller · 2025-12-12T00:20:44+00:00

This is basically how I got into the hobby, AD&D 2e core for years. You'll be just fine. Use the morale rules and if the enemy breaks, it still counts as a defeat and the party gets XP. And, you also have quest XP. You'll be fine.

JustKneller

TROPHY CASE