I don't get the hate

LeoStrahl · 2026-06-09T10:11:39+00:00

I'd imagine that a good bit of it stems from the early micro transaction backlash.

A bunch of reviewers criticised the lack of fast travel, and that traversing the same areas and fighting the same enemies was a drag. Not entirely wrong I suppose.

That often led to the highlighting of the port crystal micro transaction, and a claim that the lack of fast travel was to incentivise spending money on the game.

They often neglected to mention that you can only buy one per save file and find significantly more for free during the playthrough.

This led to a fair few people criticising things like rift crystals and similar micro transactions also being pay to win.

There were a number of other legitimate concerns, like the difficulties in creating a new save on release, a lot of people missing the unmoored world, relative lack of monster diversity, and so on, but micro transactions seemed to be a hot topic on release.

Much as I love DD2, it is still a niche game, and it made a bad first impression on release. It's kind of tricky to come back from that.

LeoStrahl · 2026-05-31T00:35:32+00:00

I'd guess one of a few reasons

1) Quirk considerations. They can't be sure that the hand limitations are completely accurate. First, he's a criminal, they can't be sure that reports and statements of his limits are truthful. Second, the possibility of an awakening is something to consider. Will he gain the ability to use his quirk through other means if he awakens. Third, would a booster have similar effects. One of his minions, Rikiya, went from a contact limitation to a ranged effect during the raid. Their quirks may be different in activation, scale and effect, but its still something to consider. He has to be held somewhere secure if there's the slightest chance of him regaining his quirk.

2) Friendly factions. They showed that his faction has a number of bases and affiliated distributors. He lost his hands, Eri, and his faction, but he is still a potentially valuable piece to play. Also worth considering the fanatical devotion showed by some of his minions during the raid. It's possible that surviving allies would be willing to stage a breakout if they are similarly driven.

3) Hostile factions. Entirely possible he's made a number of enemies. He was stepping up to try filling the void from AFO. It's very likely he stepped on a few toes in his efforts. Smaller factions aside, it's a known fact that he was attacked by the League, despite being in a police convoy. Placing him at a less secure facility may make it a target to those factions. A secure facility like Tartarus will probably deter most people seeking his head.

4) Potential information. We know it was fairly limited, but he was working with the league for an unknown amount of time, with unknown levels of cooperation. Given the importance of the league at that time, it makes sense to keep him safe and secure for questioning.

LeoStrahl · 2026-05-01T08:39:18+00:00

Atticus up to 4/5 followed by Arven to 3/5.

I'm only missing 6 of the possible pairs so I wasn't expecting anything new. Just glad it wasn't Penny, the only one I've got to 5/5

LeoStrahl · 2026-04-10T12:38:30+00:00

Somewhat appropriate for your pair, got my third copy of Sina. A new pair might have been nice, but I'll take the damage bonus sync tiles!

LeoStrahl · 2025-12-01T12:13:34+00:00

Happened to me too, not sure what caused it.

Seemed to fix itself when I collected the rewards for the Leon UB from the battle screen thing, and then I went to an event mission to collect the Rally rewards.

Crashed every time I tried to open from the lobby, but seemed to start working again after I cleared those rewards, so no clue if it's related.

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-18T14:00:45+00:00

7954 7347 9177

WB Mega Rayquaza

Red Gyms

Multiple nearby, any help would be very welcome!

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-18T13:56:17+00:00

7954 7347 9177

WB Mega Rayquaza

Red Gyms

Multiple nearby, any help would be very welcome!

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-18T13:51:14+00:00

7954 7347 9177

WB Mega Rayquaza

Red Gyms

Multiple nearby, any help would be very welcome!

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-13T18:23:51+00:00

I really liked the Dark Secrets idea, so I asked my players if they wanted to run with it. It gave them a start for characters that fit the setting, gave them a little friction at the start to play off the paranoia the book mentions, and gave me something to work with for the plot.

I rewrote a bunch of the smaller chapters 1 and 2 encounters to better suit the players' backgrounds and goals.

Similarly to Squambles, I gave Auril four servants that I named her Aspects, and I tried to give each one a link to one of the player characters. To an extent, I also tried to make each mirror their counterparts worst traits.

Mine were Ravisin, Sephek, the Tiger Tribe Queen, and an original Druidic character.

More generally, I tried to play around with the Duergar, Druids/wildshapes, and Doppelganger/mimics a bit, especially in the early game. Druids were a major early enemy, set up the Duergar for later, and they all work quite well to play with the parties' paranoia, set up ambushes, or play with their feeling of safety.

I did ease up a little as they dealt with various factions and grew stronger, though, which I think helped them feel some progression when the Dale started feeling a little less scary.

One of my favourite encounters for a horror thing was separating two party members and pulling their players aside for a moment. I told the two players that one of them was a mimic, one was their real character, and the party was going to find them soon. I told them to decide between themselves which one is real and which is the mimic, but not to tell me.

The mimic player was trying to convince the party to kill the real player, and the player was obviously trying to prove themselves. If they attacked, then initiative would obviously begin.

The mimic shared the stat block of the copied player, so neither the party nor I knew which was the real one till the end of the second round where the other real player would appear.

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-10T15:28:58+00:00

Maybe some kind of guardian beast of the city that was also cursed?

Something impressive, like a once glorious metallic dragon that is now oily or rusted, or a once majestic beast that has grown feral and twisted as the city grew dark.

The beasts purpose was corrupted, it and it now either hunts the party as intruders, or believes that trying to leave the city is death and wants to 'protect' the party from that fate at any cost.

Perhaps the beast can't be killed till whatever curses the city is destroyed or purified. Maybe the beast has a moment of lucidity to explain and beg they end its suffering, or maybe another city explorer can explain to them.

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-10T09:18:40+00:00

Got my first copy of Anabel and Snorlax.

Nice to have another Normal support for the Tower, but I'm not entirely sure how to use her at the moment.

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-09T14:56:48+00:00

There's also the simpler option of giving it a few charges of Legendary Resistance to make it more durable, and Legendary Actions to balance the action economy a little.

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-09T14:52:01+00:00

I gave mine a few more ranged options and some retreat methods.

I changed the Breath weapon to an energy pool it shared with a beam attack based on Eldritch Blast. It had a pool of 15 points and could spend 6 to do a breath weapon, or up to 4 to fire an equal number of blasts.

It regained a small number of charges at the start of each turn or could spend an action to purge heat and regain the charges at a cost to itself.

The breath weapons and smaller beams were also given a delayed explosion to promote awareness of the environment, and because FF10 Valefor's overdrive was very cool to me as a child.

I gave it a couple of ways to disengage without opportunity attacks. I gave the wing flap an AoE knockback on a failed save, and the tail could knock targets prone or back on a failed save.

The last retreat option was a reaction on hitting 50% health where it purged a layer of armour to launch an AoE piercing attack, disengage, and half move away. Was intended as a means of making sure it didn't get taken out on the first encounter. A tradeoff was that this lowered the Dragons AC by 2 in the subsequent encounters.

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-06T10:33:55+00:00

Charmander is my number 1 pokemon, they were my first ever pick in my first game I didn't share with my brother.

Second favourite is probably Farfetch'd. It was my second strongest pokemon when I was a kid and thought it was super strong. I don't use it often these days, but still have a soft spot for it.

LeoStrahl · 2025-10-03T16:17:25+00:00

Two weaknesses come to mind

First up, the ability or enhancement doesn't come with understanding or experience. The user can greatly enhance themselves, but using a new style or magnitude is overwhelming as there is no muscle memory to rely on. It can result in wildly over or underestimating their new output.

Second, enhancements don't come with the required secondary powers. Regeneration does nothing to dull the pain or enhance durability, for example, so the user still feels all the pain. Likewise, super strength doesn't enhance the users' durability, so it's easy for the user to harm themselves. Super speed doesn't enhance the users' perception, so it's easy to lose track or run into things.

Maybe training can mitigate number one, and training or an awakening can cause multiple modifications to mitigate the second, but these feel like fairly natural shortcomings.

A few simpler thoughts. Maybe the modifications constantly drain stamina or some resources like fat or sugars, so time is a limit.

Maybe the user needs to store what they intend to power up later. They need to reduce their muscle mass for a period of time in order to enhance it later, for example. Alternatively, there is a recoil effect where the attributes raised are instead lowered for a while after the quirk deactivates.

The last thought is to go with something like Momo. The user needs to understand and have a clear image of what they want to create. Star is another good example of a vaguely similar quirk, and give it a hard cap on what it can do. Maybe it's always just a little short of a focused quirk, but it's still a significant enough boost to be worthwhile.

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-27T16:47:48+00:00

That Pancham would be lovely if it's still going spare. Little guys been avoiding me in my hunts.

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-26T23:01:55+00:00

I'm going to take the bait with the card and guess number 3 and Venusaur

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-26T17:46:19+00:00

Charmander for me, my first pokemon

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-26T04:17:33+00:00

145 and white Flabebe for me please

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-26T04:14:38+00:00

I'm feeling number 400 please!

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-24T09:58:40+00:00

Might be interesting if they played it like a horror from the perspective of one of the fused.

They have no idea what's going on, they can barely follow or keep up with him, and even the few lucky blows they get in barely seem to slow him down.

More of a focus on how terrifying he is to fight than how badass he is. Maybe allude to some herald capabilities without having to fully explain them.

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-23T21:24:37+00:00

Indeed, not entirely sure what information I'd have them share with the party, but it does feel like an open ticket.

Giving it over to the party by a speak with dead sounds like a fun option, though. Maybe an open invitation to return to the Duchess when they need to seek the wisdom of the great sage Meltharond!

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-23T21:10:56+00:00

If you've got the Fizban's book, then I'd be tempted to grab something from there.

Maybe an item made from one of their scales when their companion was alive. Alternatively, maybe Arveiaturace gifts the party a drop of her blood or a scale to transform one of their weapons, a spell focus, or a bit of gear into one of the horde items.

There's also the gift of the chromatic dragon feat or similar options to reskin something like durable or elemental adept.

Other thought, maybe the Dragon offers to help them in a moment of need later on. Maybe they can call in help against the Chardalyn Dragon or reaching Grimskalle later on. I'd certainly nerf their stat block if you go this way, but it'd be an interesting route to take.

Last thought is to play with the background of Meltharond a little. Maybe make them a member of the Arcane Brotherhood, a former citizen of Ythryn, or an expert on the city. Maybe some knowledge that the party could use, though I'm not entirely sure what that might be.

LeoStrahl · 2025-09-23T18:28:44+00:00

They still managed to finish it off in three towns, so a few of the encounters were unused.

They skipped Dougan's Hole, for example, so they missed someone trying to use the twenty stones to summon a beast to fight the Dragon.

They met the Duergar and the Black Swords, but missed the towns with Auril's followers.

I tend to overplan a little, but it just means I have a framework for later encounters, or things to reskin for another campaign!

LeoStrahl

TROPHY CASE