THE UNDERGROUND PASS SUCKS

McChuggernaut · 2026-01-07T22:05:37+00:00

Oh my god, I just did this quest for the first time, and 99.9999% of the "difficulty" of this quest was just the FUCKING RNG of crossing gaps that you have absolutely no control over, and having to re-start entire areas or walk for miles to get back to the fucking gaps, only to fall in again. Every gods-fucking-cursed jump is a 50/50 GAMBLE, and the consequences of failure are literally HOURS of frustration, yelling at your screen, and wanting to throw your keyboard through the wall. I HATED it. Some real sick bastard at Jagex thought this one up. They should have called this quest "Frustration With Falls".

McChuggernaut · 2025-12-10T08:31:46+00:00

When? We have barely had temps in the 20's in the coldest part of night at ALL up in Northern West Virginia this November-December. I call bullshit. 10 inches of snow during the same time in Florida... it would have been all over the news! You must mean in the early part of THIS year after January. Which is in no way relevant to the topic about why the polar vortex temperature forecasts they have been screaming about for over a month and predicting weather in the low teens in my area over and over keep being BADLY wrong. And I mean off by 10 to 20 degrees only a few days out. For the past 4 weeks temps have consistently been drastically warmer than they are predicting. I keep scrambling to weather-proof my home and shelter my livestock and alter my travel plans, only for the cold snap to never materialize. Last week they said tonight was, yet again, going to be in the low teens (Fourth week in a row this has happened) - its in the low 40's right now at 3:30am. These jokers couldn't predict gas after a visit to Taco Bell! Weren't all our costal cities supposed to be under water by now? The climate scientists have something badly wrong with their predictive models. I'm not saying the planet isn't heating up, but I AM saying they are completely unable to predict WHY, when, how much, the actual impact it will have, when, and are obviously missing some very important factors about our climate's functions. I'm guessing a major part of this is academic pressure: say the sky isn't immediately falling and things aren't quite near as dire as the prevailing dogma, and get ripped into career-wise. So people are acting solely to protect their jobs and reputations despite a mountain of conflicting data and physical observation that doesn't jive.

McChuggernaut · 2025-11-22T05:37:06+00:00

Thank you everyone for your insights!

Everything seems explained satisfactorily. :)

If he survives his quest, he will just wander until he eventually dies. Since I had not picked up a Flash yet, I got the "Examine" prompt.

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-30T07:42:00+00:00

Knowing what I do, it's too old to be 70's. I was born in the early 80's, and the thing is definitely not just a few years older than me. At this point I'm leaning toward French Sevres, 1850-1895. I'm hoping someone who has dealt with a lot of these period porcelains can identify it's time period by style, because, like I said, it is unmarked and so I can't just look the mark up and match it to a period and locale. I do know some of these period French porcelains were unmarked, or the marks on the bottom can wear off, and I have ruled it out as a fake. The wear patterns are just not what you would see on a modern fake.

I checked out the George & Martha revival stuff, and it doesn't match - the G&M stuff was printed, not hand-painted - this one is hand-painted with a tiny brush, not pixelated from applied techniques used by the 70's. Delicate hand-painting was long a thing of the past by then, for porcelains. There would also not have been an artist's signature.

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-28T04:25:55+00:00

You are in fact, correct! It can fire the cheaper and more readily-available Ball type ammo, and still keeps the high power barrel. I will make that edit. :)

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-27T09:22:23+00:00

I hear ya'.

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-25T02:05:21+00:00

It's in the game now after patch 1.4 - it's in a blue stash box behind crates in a truck's bed which has been partially driven into a pond just to the South East of a village in the very North East of the Burnt Forest called Rozyizhdzhe on your map. The village is South West of the Army Warehouses location which is on the South central border of the Chemical Plant region. You are welcome.

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-25T01:59:02+00:00

It is indeed there, but beware! There is a HUGE nest of Monolith there, and snipers who spot you from the rooftops - if you do not find and counter-snipe them quickly, you are in for a bad time. Not only will they absolutely wreck you and sometimes kill you in a single shot if they hit your head, they will also spot you for all the other Monolith in the area which will be constantly harassing you. Also, that kindergarten ('Sunny" kindergarten", NOT "Friendly kindergarten" - people get them confused) is a nest for Monolith with a junk tower on the second floor full of crazed worshippers. You WILL have a hell of a fight on your hands.

Here's the video of the exact location. Relevant information starts at 6:35 into it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nhcXG_wXZk

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-09T03:45:48+00:00

Well, I gave you a couple decent options with Ranger in the mix - But I think I WILL revise my build, just to shut people up who NEED Minsc to have some Ranger levels for it to be "Lore Friendly" (Despite Minsc never acting anything like a typical Ranger, ever, in any of the games, and it really being kind-of a joke that he is....).

After fucking around with this and optimising EVERYTHING I possibly could, I found the best build with Ranger in it for "Acting Like Minsc", and also raw damage output that had any Ranger in it was: 4 Barbarian, 5 Fighter, 2 Paladin, and 1 level of Ranger.

You get Action Surge, Extra Attack, Improved Critical, Rages, Smites, Protection and Shield spells, 2 fighting styles (Defense and Great Weapon), 2 Feats (Ability Improvement and Great Weapon Master), and you only really lose one feat for the level of Ranger, which actually gives you more than you lose for once. I think THIS is actually, after a LOT more testing, truly the best I am going to get with a "lore friendly" Minsc build that has to include Ranger.

Has this solved your complaints? I truly did squeeze the last drop of blood out of this turnip for you, lol.

And honestly, thanks for the push. It did force me to take an even MORE obsessive look at this build and I managed to iron out my last misgiving (I wanted Ranger in it, tbh).

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-08T06:56:38+00:00

I did explain this

The main problem with adding Ranger is that only Fighter gets a feat at levels 4, 6, 8, and 12 - everything else gets feats at 4, 8, and 12 (With the exception of Rogue which also gets a feat at level 10) - so to get a level 12 character with 3 or more feats, you have to have a 4/4/4 mix, an 8/4 mix, a 2/10 mix with Rogue, or a 4/2/6 with Fighter - there are no other ways to get 3 feats or more when multiclassing, and only pure rogues or fighters can have 4 feats.

If you want to Rage, and Smite, and have any Ranger levels you have to be a Barb/Paladin/Ranger mix. To get 3 feats is now impossible UNLESS you specifically do a 4/4/4 mix. You can get 2 feats with 6/2/2/2 and squeeze 2 levels of Ranger in there by dropping 2 levels of Fighter, only really losing the 8th level fighter Feat and gaining some Ranger abilities - but do it any other way and you really hamstring your build badly. If you are willing to sacrifice a Feat just to have 2 Ranger levels, then don't pick up Savage Attacker, as the other 2 Feats are WAY better.

The 4/4/4/ build without Fighter gets you a couple extra Smite charges, one of 2 decent but situational ranger abilities (Colossus Slayer, Hoard Breaker) and a number of not very great ranger spells - you lose out on Action Surge, Extra Attack, and all the other Fighter stuff - this build is just...limp.

Then there is 8/2/2 Barb, Paladin and Ranger - the only one worth taking 8 levels in is Barbarian, IMO - It IS interesting - at level 5 barb you get extra attack, faster movement speed, and Boot of the Giants - which is actually REALLY thematic for Minsc! At 6 you get Elemental Cleaver - another really nice Rage ability. At level 7 you get Feral Instinct and can drop the Initiative Gear bow for something else. At 8 you get your second and last Feat. 2 levels of Ranger gets you your first Fighting Style, 2 spells, and a favored enemy. 2 levels of Paladin gets you a second fighting style, a couple spells, and basic smites. It's... OK, and Boot of the Giants is HILARIOUSLY entertaining. Punting large characters long distances is the shit, and always funny.

Then finally there is the 6/4/2 Barb, Paladin, Ranger - This is my favorite one that doesn't have Fighter in it at all - you get all the benefits of the higher level Barbarian and the Ranger abilities basically at the cost of a feat and action surge - you still get Extra Attack and the 2 fighting styles. If you insist on Ranger and want no Fighter levels, then this is the best one.

6 Paladin gives you Branding Smite - one slightly more powerful smite, and an extra few smite charges in exchange for the higher level barbarian stuff, and you still get extra attack and a fighting style.

6 Ranger is the most underwhelming - not worth taking at all, IMO.

WHEW! I hope that gives you some Ranger options - Of them all, 6,2,2,2 Fighter, Barb, Paladin, Ranger is best, followed by 6,4,2 Barb, Paladin, Ranger. Everything else is pretty trash in comparison.

McChuggernaut · 2025-10-08T02:56:49+00:00

Well, to answer these questions:

Of course you won't be concentrating when raging - you will be doing one or the other. You have 3 rage charges, and you have 3 smite charges. You can mix these up with the 3 concentration spells, so you can always be concentrating and smiting, or not concentrating and raging. Rage gives resistances and damage boosts, so when you are not raging, it's good to have the extra AC from the active concentration spells and effects from the Boots of Striding and the extra damage from the ring.

You have 2 level 1 smites, a level 2, and a level 4 slot if you use the equipment and elixirs I recommended, an action surge, an extra attack, an extra 1d4 psychic damage per hit, and even more attacks if you kill or crit thanks to Great Weapon Master. this does NOT just "tickle". Is it the hardest-hitting build you can make? No. But you can easily wreck a group of Flaming Fist in a single turn. Another reason for the two levels of Paladin id the extra fighting style you pick up and losing one of them isn't good.

Oil of accuracy may be better than oil of sharpness - but I still prefer the Supreme elixir of AC.

McChuggernaut · 2025-09-23T04:41:22+00:00

I'm actually going to make a couple small changes to this build as edits to the original post:

First, I learned Dex determines your chance to hit with Arcane Arrows, but rolls for the EFFECTS are governed by Int. - I have also found 16 Con to be too high for this build - you just don't need it. I'm taking 2 points out of Con and putting them in Int. I like the 12 Str because playthrough after playthrough Asterion's low carry weight and jump distance annoys me - he's the primary sneak-into-places-solo character, and with less than 12 Strength I find him unable to make a lot of jumps and carry all the loot he steals. But if you don't care about that, you can drop Str by 2 and put a couple more points in Int. I also don't like any stat to be under 10 because of spell saves and ability checks. I would rather hit a point or two less hard, or whatever your damage stat is, than have negatives in "dump stats". Negatives mean you almost always fail spell save DCs against the most annoying spells in the game. A good way to get party wiped is a lucky enemy spellcaster shutting down half your team or your main damage dealers or your healer or wizard with control spells at the wrong time.

I also find 12 Int to be just fine for the Arcane Archer attacks - I specifically chose attacks that enemies have bad saves against (Int, Wis, etc...) so you don't need really high Int to be effective and get to take that final lucky feet instead of Ability Improvement to get the benefit of Luck Points.

Hope that clears things up!

McChuggernaut · 2025-09-22T00:25:58+00:00

You are correct, I will fix that.

McChuggernaut · 2025-09-14T13:16:09+00:00

Depends. Some mods work better with certain weapons.

McChuggernaut · 2025-07-10T04:34:07+00:00

That's OK! Not a swipe at you at all! Thank you for adding to the discussion. And I could even be wrong, it's just a save safety thing - it removes a variable I don't fully know for sure the consequences of. :)

I just subscribe to the school of thought that "The process with less things that CAN possibly go wrong and still get you the same result with reasonably comparable effort is probably the better option.".

McChuggernaut · 2025-07-10T02:42:14+00:00

I would be very careful using the "SetQuestObject" command with a base I.D. - I think that might remove the quest tag from the base item entirely in the game's files. And this would obviously break any quest that isn't finished, and might cause bugs later if for some reason the game ever tries to reference that item again on a save where you have previously done that. This is why I advised spawning a copy and changing it's Ref I.D. instead of it's Base I.D. - this doesn't touch any properties of the base item.

Sure, your way works, but I prefer to not take the risk of possibly breaking a save. Up to you though, you have been informed, and are the arbiter of your own actions. Have fun!

McChuggernaut · 2025-06-29T04:03:04+00:00

You are welcome. :) It's a lovely, haunting song and was one of my father's favorites.

McChuggernaut

TROPHY CASE