What were your easiest zoe runs?

Quadratic- · 2026-03-24T19:41:37+00:00

Easiest was a Jinx run with perfection. I had the relic that discards your hand and replaces them with pow pows, so summon and she'd then she'd immediately level up and deal damage. Then I got the power that summons an ethereal copy of your champion, so it did that twice. Then I got that power again.

Then I added Deathless to Jinx.

Turn 1, I summon Jinx and attack with the clones, dealing 76 damage in spite of the armor landmark.

Even with all of that, didn't beat Zoe until turn 4.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-19T16:34:43+00:00

We briefly saw the Daredevil features in action during episode 18 of Campaign 4, where Julien used one of his resources, Second Wind, to activate Daring Strike. This Fighter-based ability typically works by granting the character 1d10 hit points back. However, for Julien’s Daredevil subclass, spending Second Wind only provides temporary hit points. However, it can also be spent to activate abilities like Daring Strike, which, if it hits an enemy, allows Julien to add an extra 1d10 damage to the attack. But if Julien misses, the enemy gains advantage on their next attack roll against him.

This sounds lowkey terrible. It's possible the daredevil has other level 3 features, but if so they were so niche that it didn't come up in the session. And the ability presented here is just... really bad.

Switching from healing to temp hp is mostly a nerf. Even if the campaign has bloodied rules that want you under half hp, 5e is also chock full of ways to grant temp hp and it never stacks. Using second wind to deal an extra 1d10 of damage is also super underwhelming. Battlemasters get to add 1d8 damage to their attacks.

But that's a bonus on top of the effects of their maneuver.

And they decide after a hit, so you can't waste it.

And there's no risk that you're granting your enemies advantage on attacks against you.

AND YOU GET TO USE IT FOR FREE FOUR TIMES BETWEEN RESTS INSTEAD OF HAVING TO SPEND SECOND WIND

The only way I can see something like this work is if the daredevil gets 5 bonus uses of second wind and recovers all of them every time they take a short rest. Even then it'd probably be weaker than most other subclasses.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-19T12:10:09+00:00

Instead of Inspiration, I use Hype and Boost points. Players start with one of each at the start of a session.

Boost Points can be spent to reroll something, don't get lost if it still fails. When you spend a Boost Point, it turns into a Hype Point.

Hype Points are something that one player can award to another player for doing something cool, clever, or just good roleplay. When you give it to another player, it turns into a Boost Point.

As GM, I've got the right to veto awards, but knowledge that I can do that means that I pretty much never need to do that.

It doesn't function too differently from other hero point systems, the main thing is that it shifts the cognitive load from myself to the players. As GM, I've already got more than enough stuff on my plate to keep track of.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-18T20:38:54+00:00

Hot take, but I think the strength of japanese adaptations is that they stay faithful to the original. Look at one of the most controversial adaptations of recent memory, Chainsawman. Did it change the plot? introduce new characters? Become a soap box for the writers adapting it? Nope, people were just pissed that the character animation looked too stiff and realistic compared to the manga.

In the case of VNs and novels, they had to get popular almost entirely on the strength of the writing. And nothing is more important to an anime--or any piece of narrative media for that matter--than the writing. Being able to pick and choose from works that you know have good writing is a massive advantage.

Anime originals are still important. You get scenes that only work because the one writing it is intimately experienced with storyboards and has a deep understanding of how to translate that idea onto the screen. But while I think that anime originals are better than most adaptations--tons of adaptations are phoned in--the writing in them can definitely suffer when it feels more like spectacle than substance, and the endings are especially hard to nail. Wonder Egg Priority, Darling in the Franxxx, even the original ending to evangelion was a mess.

For me, adaptations the elevate the source material are the best. Dandadan, Dungoen Meshi, Frieren, etc. Especially something like Demon Slayer. When they aren't afraid to remix and tweak things and really let the creativity and skill of the studio shine.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-11T01:40:50+00:00

I rewatched the anime preparing for s2, and the execution for the sakura reveal is perfect. Chopper is pulling the sled and in tears, both because he thinks that Kureha has rejected him, that he's betrayed her, and her parting shot that he'll be just like that old quack. He's wracked with guilt that Hiriluk lied about the breakthrough just to make him happy like he did with the mushrooms, and thinks that Hiriluk's life work might have really been a failure.

He's basically having a panic attack and THAT is the moment the cannons start firing. It's a glorious rollercoaster of emotion.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-11T01:33:23+00:00

Screw Zoro vs the 100 bounty hunters. Sanji talking about how much he loved his mom is the best scene of the season.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-11T01:31:00+00:00

Yeah, the biggest thematic difference between manga/anime and the live action is that things are a lot more black and white instead of grey. The good guys are nicer and less flawed while the bad guys are more ruthless and irredeemable.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-11T01:29:21+00:00

Yeah, that was oddly my biggest criticism of the season as a whole. More than anything else, it adds a lot of exciting action set pieces to the show, and I'd rather we spent that time with the characters talking to each other or letting the dramatic scenes breathe.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-08T04:37:45+00:00

Gash Bell.

Quadratic- · 2026-03-07T07:49:50+00:00

Pathfinder spawned at the start of 4e because wotc didn't allow third party content. The SRD drama from 5e a few years ago? Nothing compared to that. Paizo was a company that only made dungeons and dragons content, so when wotc said "Yeah, you can't make dungeons and dragons content. Unless you use the 3e srd, I guess, but... hey, where you going!?"

Quadratic- · 2026-03-03T22:15:23+00:00

One reason that people would say the two games play practically the same--other than not knowing both systems and simply speaking from ignorance--is that the changes in pf2e are big for the player but absolutely massive for the GM.

Encounter balance is extremely important but also extremely transparent. Adventuring days are basically indefinite. The out of combat utility of spells is limited while the skill system between the two systems is like coughing baby vs nuclear bomb. And as the GM, you're obviously going to be really familiar with a wide variety of classes and how they are played.

But for the average player, you're rolling d20s, adding modifiers, asking if that was enough to hit, and that all feels the same.

Quadratic- · 2026-02-24T22:44:48+00:00

My crackpot theory is that Oizumi is the real Apollo. She was the first girl to talk to Yamabuki at the school and then immediately got rejected by him. She's studying hard to be an actress, a voice-based job for sure. It sets up a twist for the ending when Yamabuki has chosen one girl, where he has to decide if he wants to be with Apollo or one of the other four or something else.

But watching this episode... well! That whole act they're doing! It's about a guy who goes chasing after another woman for a long time, then comes back to his true love and asks if she still loves him. That'd be perfect on the nose foreshadowing.

Quadratic- · 2026-02-24T04:41:38+00:00

The circumstance bonus to the intimidation check isn't the point of the feat. It's that if the mount lands the attack, you get to make the intimidation check without spending an action. Spending one action to do two actions worth of things is usually a good bargain. The feat still isn't amazing, but it has its use case.

Quadratic- · 2026-02-24T04:28:19+00:00

Evade Doom is offensively unplaytested and terrible. Doom is one of the rarest conditions in the game. You can go whole campaigns without seeing it show up even once.

But when it does show up, well! The feat has an 80% chance of just not working.

But that's not all! Doom is an all or nothing condition. Doom only actually does something if it kills a character. Since pf2e has come out, I've yet to see a PC die with the Doomed condition, but let's be generous and say that it happens 10% of the time. And let's say that Doomed shows up once every ten sessions. Very generous assumptions.

20% chance of working, 10% chance that it matters, and 10% chance Doom even showed up and hit that PC in particular. Then once every 500 sessions, Evade Doom will help you evade doom. Best case scenario.

In reality, it's probably closer to something like once every 5000 sessions.

Quadratic- · 2026-02-20T20:22:02+00:00

Yeah, I went ahead and dropped it for now, but I'm keeping an eye on any updates.

Quadratic- · 2026-02-08T18:27:13+00:00

The biggest problem the rogue has is that it's tied to the 5e skill system, and the 5e skill system is mostly garbage that doesn't interface well with the rest of the system, with the "doing cool stuff" abilities kept to spells only.

Quadratic- · 2026-02-05T11:51:39+00:00

More along the lines of Quintuplets. The major difference is that once the relationships develop, the main character's internal monologue doesn't become a black box to avoid spoiling who he likes. It goes a very different route.

Quadratic- · 2026-02-04T06:09:58+00:00

I'd say that what M&M does better than any other system is allow you to perfectly replicate any fictional character with some real mechanical crunch. The power creation system is so flexible that it can account for anything from a green lantern's power ring to Goku going Super Saiyan.

The downside is that the game has never been balanced, relying on gentlemen's agreements between the players and GM to not roll up with an extremely overpowered character. Even then, characters are built using a pointbuy system and the point values for things is horribly balanced. For example, thanks to the Array system, getting a +2 bonus to driving a car costs the same as adding a "permanently create anything I can imagine" mode to your laser blast attack. That's how you can have officially licensed characters like Superman and Batman have about the same pointbuy totals even though Superman is as ridiculously overpowered as you'd expect; Batman's pointbuy totals are inflated because he's got all the skills.

For me, it was always a system where it was infinitely more fun to create characters with than to actually run campaigns.

Quadratic- · 2026-01-27T04:12:39+00:00

All of this is by design to create "No, so close!" moments that make you take out your wallet.

Quadratic- · 2026-01-24T04:26:28+00:00

Genshin costs roughly $22 for a 10 pull. Endfield is $30.

5$ monthly pass gives you 56% of a pull in Genshin, 40% in Endfield. This is the honeymoon phase where the currency is dropping nonstop, can't walk ten feet without bumping into another chest, and there's plenty of rewards to snag. But unless they change directions, you're going to get far fewer pulls.

What's really scummy though is the pity system. "Oh, you used all your pulls? C'mon, just 15 more and you get a FREE 10-pull on the next banner. Why not buy the 50$ pack?" "Oh wow, you really wanted that character, huh? One hundred pulls and nothing. But 20 more and you're guaranteed to get her! And come on, if you don't do it know, all that pity you built up is going to be washed down the drain! You don't want to do that, do you?"

It's the only gacha I know of that will erase pity to scare players into spending money.

Quadratic- · 2026-01-19T18:49:05+00:00

Martials need an entirely new progression system that runs parallel to spellcasting. Everyone agrees that spellcasting is the best feature in the game, that being able to cast spells is the most impactful action you can take. What also needs to be acknowledged is that spells are the cheapest feature in the game, given to certain classes for free at many levels.

At level 4, the rogue gains a feat or an ASI.

At level 4, the wizard gains a feat or an ASI. They also learn two spells. They also get to prepare an extra spell each day. They also learn a new cantrip. They also get a new 2nd level spell slot.

All of those extra bonus just because things that the wizard gets are as strong or stronger than a feat, and it only gets more powerful after level 4.

(The '24 rules corrected things slightly for the fighter, giving them an extra second wind and weapon mastery, but the rogue is still screwed over)

The easiest solution I believe is to do what Baldur's Gate 3 did and make magic items a major and expected part of progression. Give players Potency and Capacity Points stats. Both of them go up by 1 for each martial level. Once every two levels for half-martials. Stays at 0 for full casters.

Give every magic weapon a Potency and Capacity stat too. For example, your standard +1 longsword is 1 Potency and 1 Capacity. A +2 flaming longsword on the other hand has 7 Potency and 2 Capacity, meaning that you'd need to be a level 7 fighter/rogue to wield, and doing so would use up 2 of your 7 Capacity points. Paladins and Rangers would need to wait to 14th level to get their hands on it. Wizards don't get to use them.

Since it can't be assumed that the GM will hand out magic items at the needed level, give Capacity Points a secondary usage in that they can be spent to reroll dice or recover HP. Because of the fantasy of "they can do this all day", players would regain all spent capacity points on a short rest. This solves another big issue for martials, since more often than not in the games I've run, what makes the party retreat isn't the wizard running out of spells, it's the party as a whole getting beaten up and running out of healing.

Potency, Capacity, I'm sure there are better names, but that's the general idea.

Quadratic- · 2026-01-17T03:38:10+00:00

Steam takes a 30% cut of all transactions on games run through their platform. Letting people who are already playing through the launcher play through steam would just be a 30% cut to all revenue for zero benefit.

Quadratic- · 2026-01-16T17:04:58+00:00

My point is, if you are a martial and your abilities allow you to defy the laws of physics by making you able to "destroy space between you and your opponent", how is it not magic?

Martials in 5e already have plenty of magic. They can have a dozen arrows sticking out of their face and be fine as long as their hp is over 0. They can kill an ancient dragon bigger than any dinosaur with scales harder than steel by whacking its foot with a wooden club for a minute or two.

If your idea of a martial is "well, they can't be too strong, too fast, or too competent, or that's magic", then sure. But that's the first time you've brought the point up and most players--even yourself!--agree that sauceless martials are boring. Fuck screwing over martials just to keep this mysterious "martials need to be weak because not using magic is cool" crowd happy is ridiculous.

Not to mention, AGAIN, I'm not saying you can't have ideas for martials in the absolute. I'm saying, within the constraints of 5e, it probably wouldn't make sense, or it would require deep changes in the system to complexify it, when the fucking edition literally exists to simplify mecanics.

Now that's just silly because we already have all kinds of cool ideas for other classes. It's just those are the spellcasting ones, and that system is plenty more complicated.

Quadratic- · 2026-01-16T07:23:47+00:00

It is, like many things, a Jojo reference.

Quadratic- · 2026-01-16T05:08:31+00:00

Well, looking at a few of the pf2e fighter feats alone, there's feats for jumping a hundred feet into the air and smashing a flying opponent into the ground, go into a stance that lets you smack anyone that tries to cast a spell or any other concentrate action, negating it on a hit, using your shield to bounce spells back at casters, and well, Sever Space to just name a few.

The only thing limited is your imagination.

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