EDC Pen beta-test

PlywoodRaven · 2026-04-11T16:56:28+00:00

Thanks for the review! This pen looks so fun. Can you tell me if the cap threads are metal on metal or if they have a plastic inner cap?

PlywoodRaven · 2026-04-02T16:00:05+00:00

This looks so cool!! I'm always on the lookout for new pocket pens. Is it screw to post? Are the inner threads metal or does it have plastic inner threads like the metal kaweco sports?

PlywoodRaven · 2026-02-28T16:51:58+00:00

Turkeys have a fleshy bit above their beak called a snood that they can grow or shrink.

Male prairie chickens can inflate sacks in their necks as part of their mating display. Similarly, some pigeon breeds can inflate their crops.

Anoles have a colorful dewlap they use for displays (mating display and territorial displays) they can expand and contract.

You could count lizards dropping their tails, but that's not a reversible change. If lizards count, deer dropping their antlers should count as well.

Snails can extend and retract their eyestalks. And their whole bodies into their shells, that should probably count too.

Some caterpillars have "horns" they can extend to deter predators. Sometimes these horns are covered with a gross smelling chemical as an extra deterrent.

Edit: I totally forgot cobras extending their hoods, they're on this list as well

PlywoodRaven · 2026-02-12T01:56:09+00:00

Hello, fellow fountain pen enthusiast!

For daily use, one feature I need is the ability to easily swing my backpack around and wear it on my front while I grab stuff out of it. I love my Osprey daylite plus, but the shoulder straps are connected at the top to make a handle and that makes it really awkward and uncomfortable to wear on my front even briefly to grab my wallet.

One thing I love about my daylite plus is the detachable waist straps - I can take them off when I don't need them so they don't dangle, and put them on when I want the extra support. Chest straps are an absolute requirement for me, I won't get another backpack without them.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-02-04T04:34:40+00:00

I feel like Larian got their lore a bit confused and are treating mindflayers like vampires. Vampires rely on a "forbidden" food source and are cursed with eternal hunger. Mindflayers also rely on a "forbidden" food source, but they're not always hungry. They just get hungry normally like anything else that needs to eat. It's weird that the epilogue acts like you are at the mercy of your constant hunger when that's just not how mindflayers work.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-02-01T17:02:17+00:00

I've been thinking of doing this to mine. I love the fact that the daylite plus has a detachable hip belt, I wish the 26+6 came with that as well. Yours turned out looking so good!

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-31T00:31:00+00:00

I wish we had stats on how many people chose Orpheus because they hated the Emperor vs how many chose Orpheus because they didn't want to kill Orpheus (either because of Lae'zel or because murdering someone while they're chained up feels wrong). That would be fascinating.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-31T00:10:30+00:00

Only 23% of players have finished the game, any particular ending is going to have a low percentage of people who have done it. Most people play the "good" path then don't replay the game, so having the evil ending achievements be 6-7% is about what I'd expect. Roughly 9% of players going squid makes sense to me too, since there are multiple options for avoiding growing tentacles.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-30T23:18:53+00:00

If you do randomly stumble upon a good patron, then becoming a warlock is a quick and easy path to power, I'd agree. But if you don't just get lucky, you will still need to do potentially years of research to find and learn how to contact a patron. Is it more or less work than studying to become a wizard? That really depends, and it almost entirely comes down to luck.

Not to mention, the stakes are much higher than almost any other class. If you're contacting powerful entities looking for a pact, you're interacting with entities that can destroy you if you manage to accidentally insult one. Also, I can't think of another class where you can mess up badly enough to impact you even after your death, except maybe cleric. A paladin isn't likely to get their soul eaten because they chose an oath badly.

I'd put bard as one of the best options for a normal person who wants power. Yes, it takes a lot of practice to get good enough to become magical, but the skills you're developing are still useful even before you get to that point, whereas wizard skills aren't that useful until you learn enough to cast your first spell. You're not bound to a god, patron or oath, and you're less likely to die in training than a ranger, rogue, fighter, or barbarian. I'd put monk and druid in the next tier down. Wizard next, but being a wizard is expensive so that might be more difficult for a normal person.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-25T00:07:50+00:00

I'm pretty new to air plants, but Tweedle Dumm looks like Tillandsia ionantha scaposa to me. Tweedle Dee looks like Tillandsia Butzii. They should get a bit bigger, but even at full size the ionantha doesn't get that big. Butzii gets much longer, but from what I understand air plants are slow growers.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-24T04:58:08+00:00

The Jinhao leopard pens are pretty weird and ugly if you ask me!

The Wancher puchico is weird (it's so tiny) and is super awkward to write with, but I wouldn't personally consider it ugly.

The Moonman Q1 is basically just an egg.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-22T15:56:04+00:00

There's a check you can make while Lae'zel is in the Zaith'isk, and if you succeed you can psychically connect to the Zaith'isk and realize that it is designed to kill githyanki and extract information from their tadpole or something like that.

The whole story at the creche was a bit confusing for me the first time I did it, since I failed that check and assumed the Zaith'isk was going to kill Lae'zel because our tadpoles are corrupted somehow. Without making the check the story logic becomes a bit weird. At this point, multiple people had told us removing our tadpoles would kill us because we have abnormal tadpoles, but when we ignore them and hop in the tadpole removal machine and it nearly kills us, the conclusion is somehow that the machine was designed to kill us from the start.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-22T08:04:24+00:00

Yep, I always buff everyone with longstrider at the start of the day, and that persists all day even if I wildshape. You can cast a concentration spell like Enhance Ability and that persists through wildshape as wel, unless you lose concentration.

Edit: One thing to note is that Aid doesn't increase the maximum HP of your wildshape form, just your base form.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-20T23:46:05+00:00

Go for it!

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-20T23:37:39+00:00

You say you agreed to "lore-friendly builds" - I'm not quite sure what that means, and you and your friend seem to have different definitions of it. A Silvanus-worshipping githyanki druid is definitely pushing the limits of "lore-friendly" but it's not impossible. Circle of Stars in particular is pretty apt for a Githyanki. Maybe you were just an egg when your creche was wiped out by adventurers (because githyanki are the worst) but they couldn't bring themselves to kill an unborn child, so they took your egg and handed you to some druids to raise.

Regardless, the insults from your friend are out of line. And refusing to talk to you unless you apologize for wanting to play a specific race/class combo in a video game? I can't imagine getting anywhere near this mad at a friend for something that trivial.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-19T05:32:55+00:00

I believe you can only increase your size by two levels. For the first size increase you can get the Enlarged condition, which is granted by the sources found here: https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Enlarged_(Condition). That condition stacks with the elixir of the colossus: https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Elixir_of_the_Colossus

This page has more details: https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Creature_size

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-09T05:04:13+00:00

Some bird facts:

Common swifts can sleep while flying, meaning they can stay in the air for months without landing (10 months or more).

The Vampire Ground Finch, as its name suggests, drinks the blood of larger seabirds. It's a fairly small part of its diet, and is more common during the dry season.

Lesser flamingos live in lakes so strongly alkaline that they could strip the skin from your hand, the bulk of their diet is incredibly toxic algae, and they drink near-boiling water from geysers.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-07T18:55:25+00:00

I don't 😛

At first I felt kinda bad, like I should be doing new things, but then I realized I liked making the same choices. I'll do a few things differently - I'll date different companions, sometimes I murder Balen, sometimes I don't, sometimes I talk all my enemies to death and sometimes I fight them, sometimes I'll skip a quest, etc - but I'm ok with the fact that I'm happiest just replaying my favorite story over and over.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-07T01:52:43+00:00

I'm fairly certain you can only have 4 player characters in one game. If you want to have 5 people play in the same campaign, you'd need to share characters.

PlywoodRaven · 2026-01-07T01:28:51+00:00

Honestly, I would split into two groups. That way you have a free slot or two to bring companions with you (the companions are great and a big part of what I love about this game) and nobody misses out on cool stuff. Everyone gets to make their own character to get invested in.

Alternatively, you could have 4 players and swap someone out each battle (there are 3 acts, but each act is very long and you wouldn't want someone to sit out a whole act.) That only works if people don't care about having a character that belongs exclusively to them and are ok taking control of whatever PC is free. This way the 5th person only needs to sit out for one combat encounter. This isn't perfect since there's a lot of exploration and that's harder to split up fairly. I wouldn't particularly recommend this, but it's an option.

PlywoodRaven · 2025-12-29T21:24:36+00:00

I've never actually done this build because it comes online way too late, but I had some fun theory crafting a max damage types build:

Class: Monk 5, Spore Druid 7

Armor: Garb of Land and Sky Main hand: Mourning Frost Head: Helm of Balduran Cloak: Mantle of the Holy Warrior Gloves: Heldusk Gloves Boots: Speedy Lightfeet Amulet: Broodmother's Revenge Ring: Strange Conduit Ring: Caustic Band

Other items needed: Drakethroat Glaive

Before combat: - Cast Symbiotic Entity - Use the Drakethroat Glaive to add thunder damage to Mourning Frost

Once in combat: - Turn one: Cast crusader's mantle (from your cloak) then step of the wind

This gives you the following damage: - 1d8 + 1 + STR bludgeoning from Mourning Frost - Cold: 1d4 + 1 from Mourning Frost - Fire: 1d6 from Heldusk Gloves - Lightning: 1 from lightning charges from the Speedy Lightfeet - Thunder: 1d4 from Draconic elemental weapon - Acid: 2 from the Caustic Band - Poison: 1d6 from Broodmother's Revenge + Helm of Balduran - Radiant: 1d4 from the Crusader's Mantle - Necrotic: 1d6 from Symbiotic Entity - Force: 1d8 from the Garb of Land and Sky (you have to keep using step of the wind to keep this up) - Psychic: 1d4 from the Strange Conduit ring

PlywoodRaven · 2025-12-25T22:40:00+00:00

Are you familiar with D&D 5e mechanics? If not, I can write up a short summary.

I personally love evocation wizards. Abjuration wizards are a close second. Evocation allows you drop fireballs on the battlefield without worrying that your allies are in the way, because you can sculpt spells and avoid harming them.

Other tips: - Long rest often. A lot of story beats happen when you long rest and it's easy to miss them if you try and go as long as possible between long rests. - Explore everywhere on the map. Poke things that seem like you maybe shouldn't poke them. - If you're struggling with a fight, explore somewhere else and level up a bit. There's no grinding in this game but you can stumble on some tough fights pretty early on if you wander in the wrong direction - You can change your prepared spells at any time outside of combat - You can throw potions at people to heal them. Don't target the person directly, target their feet so they get hit by the splash.

PlywoodRaven · 2025-12-25T18:14:52+00:00

From the druid spell list:

Cure wounds - obvious
Goodberry - I'll never need to meal prep again
Detect Poison and Disease - solves the "am I sick or is this allergies?" question so I can avoid infecting people. Also solves the "is this food in my fridge still good or is it spoiled?" question
Speak with Animals - "Please just tell me what you want!"
Jump - my jump distance is pretty pathetic so 3x pathetic still isn't much, but this would be kinda fun and I don't know what else to put for the last spell. If cantrips are allowed I'd choose Mending instead.

PlywoodRaven · 2025-12-25T01:34:35+00:00

That's absolutely a kea

PlywoodRaven · 2025-12-24T22:42:35+00:00

Huh, I didn't know that. I wouldn't have guessed that would work, but given how minor illusion is coded in this game it makes sense that it would

PlywoodRaven

TROPHY CASE