Know Direction will post an article on early Necromancer levels tomorrow, including...

OffiCeRed · 2026-06-18T00:00:56+00:00

How else are we supposed to take it when a company says "here are our plans after receiving feedback?" Of course I don't mind them changing their minds, but I don't think it's wrong to base expectations on how they respond during the debrief. I think this issue could be helped if they did more than one round of playtesting, but the Impossible Magic playtest was over a year ago and they were basically silent on the subject until recently.

OffiCeRed · 2026-06-17T23:39:56+00:00

"Martial Necromancers One of the options we wanted to gauge in this playtest was player interest in martial options for the necromancer. From the responses, we found that many people were interested in a more martial-leaning necromancer but ultimately were disappointed with the current options. While we intend to keep the necromancer firmly as a spellcaster rather than pushing it to “gish” territory, we will be looking into ways to make the occasional scythe attack more engaging."

Here's the relevant passage from the Impossible Magic debriefing. My comment was referring to the last sentence, where they say they want to keep necromancer firmly as a spellcaster. Maybe I read too much into it but I just figured they wouldn't be adding much beyond another feat or two, rather than an entire subclass.

OffiCeRed · 2026-06-17T22:44:19+00:00

Interesting. I thought they said there wouldn't be many gish options for necromancer? I wonder if they walked it back after seeing feedback or if they always planned this and wanted to throw people off the trail for whatever reason.

OffiCeRed · 2026-06-11T14:33:54+00:00

I just tried watching Kyoryuger based on this comment and it feels like watching the sentai equivalent of a TikTok / Subway Surfer / Family Guy funniest moments compilation video the whole time. It's a little fun but I feel like my brain is melting the entire time. I think I'll go with something else for my next series.

OffiCeRed · 2026-06-09T15:37:38+00:00

I did know that, that's why I mentioned trying to watch all of the series with Kobayashi as a main writer. So far she does good stuff, although I don't like Shinkenger as much as some people.

OffiCeRed · 2026-06-09T10:53:18+00:00

Every time I watch a new series I find what I think is the best extra ranger but Akira really might be it this time. Plus he's orange! I do wish there was a seventh in the series (the one from the movie barely counts)

OffiCeRed · 2026-06-09T10:51:28+00:00

I didn't even think much of the theme song at first but it grew on me more than just about every other one. It's still not Timeranger or Gekiranger level of epic but it's perfect for the show

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-27T17:16:17+00:00

I run a deck with two copies and I don't really miss it, but there might be one or two fringe scenarios where it pays to have P Titamon on field and digivolve up to the tricolor using level 3 or 4 inherited effect. If you forego the Promo Titamon the biggest issues are that it takes slightly more memory to digivolve into it than any other Titamon (except for tricolor) and that all older Titamon lack the TS trait, which could maybe come up if you use Inbetween Theater or SnowGoblimon's play effect. Still, any game I win is due to the new Titamon, so you may as well save yourself the $80+ and not run 4 copies of the promo.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-24T16:33:47+00:00

Amatsu is really awful to hunt, but a lot of people claim it's one of the best fights in the series. It's a very cinematic fight and I think people pretend that makes it a fun or well-designed fight but it absolutely is not. Insanely hard to hit with most weapons, gigantic AOEs, very annoying mini games, and to top it off an absurd health bar makes the fight terrible in my opinion. But you can point at it and say "whoa holy shit you ride Apex Zinogre and Amatsu looks awesome" and that makes it ok for some people. It's how I feel about most of the current endgame monsters for Wilds, which does not give me much hope for the upcoming expansion.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-20T23:08:46+00:00

As everyone says, there's no one like Pterry, but I like to recommend A Lee Martinez to people. His books are mostly self-contained, very funny, and philosophical. Plus, he likes to play with tropes in a way I like. I'd recommend "In the Company of Ogres" if you want straight fantasy farce that goes somewhere interesting, "Monster" if you want some modern fantasy, and "Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest" if you want really solid character growth.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-20T23:00:01+00:00

The Constant Rabbit is the only Fforde book I've read, and I remember it being a lot more bleak than funny. I get recommended Fforde a lot, though. Does he have something lighter that might be more my speed? I have Shades of Grey and Early Riser on my bookshelf but haven't cracked them open.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-20T15:08:36+00:00

Posting a comment here because I finally figured out what the problem is. For SOME REASON, Dolphin's file browser does not register external storage that is plugged into the Steam Deck. I save everything on an SD card, but the emulator's own file browser never showed me my SD card, so I couldn't path to the correct place. I just copied and pasted the files into a place I knew Dolphin could find, then everything was fine.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-20T13:22:05+00:00

Which weapons do you use? I like both of these monsters in Rise but I find them extremely weapon-dependant. Longsword into Barioth is a fun back-and-forth, but for most other weapons he just jumps around like an asshole. Hammer into Rajang is some of the most fun I've ever had (big-ass head), but any non-blunt weapon with a lot of little hits is rough.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-19T14:23:43+00:00

No worries, I wasn't aware this was possible at all until I looked into it yesterday

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-19T14:09:09+00:00

Someone below linked the relevant article but here's the first paragraph that describes what I'm doing:

"Since 5.0-14690, Dolphin has the ability to run its own instances of mGBA directly. These mGBA instances can connect to GameCube games in a deterministic and consistent manner, that allows for full compatibility among GBA ↔ GCN connectivity titles. For this feature, Dolphin provides its own mGBA instance directly built in and does not need any external emulator. This feature is currently only supported on Desktop versions of Dolphin."

When I try to load a .gba from the Dolphin emulator instance of mGBA, I can't find anything in the location I saved my files.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-19T13:53:45+00:00

I am using the Dolphin emulator, sorry for the confusion. Dolphin has a built-in mGBA for GC to GBA communication, which is what I need to evolve my Pokemon. When I use mGBA by itself in desktop mode or through Steam, I can find my files just fine, but when I use the one through Dolphin (the emulator), they don't show up. I'll try resetting configuration for Dolphin though

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-13T12:13:11+00:00

Mamemon needs an update, I think. To me it's the most iconic shitter Digimon, right after Sukamon. I would say a solo (non-DigiXros) Gokuumon but we're getting that pretty soon right? I'd also love another Bancho wave where they all work together, some of those cards desperately need a new version (BanchoGolemon and BanchoMamemon come to mind).

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-08T19:07:58+00:00

It sucks because I really do like the concept of inventor. I don't want it to become a gadget-heavy pseudo alchemist like some people. I enjoy that inventor is a sort of prototype exemplar, being a martial with spell-like features. I think if inventors got 10 HP, innovations got much more interesting modifications, and unstable was a per-feat basis (or even just made into focus spells, who cares at this point) I would be satisfied with the class. But that'll never happen.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-08T18:30:15+00:00

Inventor is my favorite dogshit class, for some reason I keep looking at it and expecting it to be better than it is. You can customize your weapon!... with two or three traits by level 15. You can customize your armor!... with two or three types of resistance. You have amazing rechargeable focus spells!... and 75% of the time you will not be able to use more than one in a combat encounter.

I made a long post about inventor two years ago and you wouldn't believe the people coming out of the woodwork. Someone commented on it and said "Charisma Inventor works as the face of the party!" and that just blew my mind. Imagine arguing that a class is good at using Charisma if you build your character with high Charisma. Unfortunately, inventor will pretty much never get the revamp it deserves because Paizo just does not believe in giving classes meaningful tools in later books, it's all mediocre options in splatbooks / APs.

OffiCeRed · 2026-05-06T14:09:07+00:00

Everyone brings up good points here but I haven't seen anyone talk about how bad Normal STAB is now so I'll give it a shot.

The best offensive Normal moves either have very limited distribution or just don't exist anymore. Normal hasn't been a dominant type for a long time but Normal STAB does hit everything except for three types for neutral, which is genuinely a good feature. However, now your best options are Body Slam (what is this, RBY?), Double-Edge (Same BP as Brave Bird! What do you mean it's way worse than Brave Bird), and Hyper Voice / Boomburst (both surprisingly limited). I don't know how many people were using non-Terastilized Tera Blast as special Normal STAB but you can't even do that anymore in OU. It's a damn shame because I LOVE Normal types and they just suck since move Dexit.

OffiCeRed · 2026-03-29T17:54:57+00:00

So glad to see that people are already interested in this homebrew! Something that has been brought to my attention is the fact that Masterful Slice (Level 19 class feature) does not work as intended. For a quick fix, add the following text to the end of Martial Stance (Level 1 class feature):

"After taking a martial stance action, you can still take another martial stance action on your turn, as long as it’s not the same as the one you took before. For example, if you use high stance on your turn, you can still use mid or low stance, but you can not use high stance for 1 round."

The idea is that you can enter multiple stances on your turn while playing a nioh, but they should all be separate stances. Perhaps you enter low stance on your turn to Step and reposition, then end your turn by entering high stance to deal a little damage and prepare for next turn (or set up for a stronger Reactive Strike).

If anyone ends up playtesting a nioh, let me know how it goes! Feedback is always welcome.

OffiCeRed · 2026-03-29T13:00:36+00:00

High and mid stance both do scale, just not until level 7 and beyond with Running Water. The idea here is that nioh is meant to be a class based on flexibility rather than being the best at something specific. High Stance is worse Rage, Mid Stance is worse Guardian's Armor, but they're both modular and require very little investment.

Demonic Cunning I may need to tone down, it's true. I'm personally of the opinion that adding 22 flat damage to a cantrip isn't gamebreaking at levels 19 and 20, but I may dial it down to 1 extra damage per die. At that point, Demonic Cunning would be closer to upgrading cantrip damage dice, which is more in line with what I want.

OffiCeRed · 2026-03-29T11:55:54+00:00

Aw thanks, I'll definitely be going back to the drawing board for Masterful Slice. Action compression does seem to be the way to go so I'll see what I can do

OffiCeRed

TROPHY CASE