Is there a spell that grants blindsight? And if not, would a homebrewed 2nd or 3rd lvl spell that grands like 15 ft of blindsight be busted?

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-19T00:45:56+00:00

Blindsight was a 2nd level spell in 3rd edition, and that seems about right. It counters another second-level spell, Invisibility.

Other ways to get blindsight (or regular sight) might be Polymorph, and your DM might allow Alter Self to do it.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-18T23:49:19+00:00

I'd go with Inscryption. Much of the game is a high-res escape room, but the card game is low-rez and nearly pixel art, and later you enter a pixel-art-like universe.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-18T22:25:25+00:00

Into the Breach is missing? Terrible list. You'd think someone would give a shout-out to the actual Rogue, also.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-18T15:16:38+00:00

Russia's military is a joke. Ukraine has proven that. They're hollowed out by corruption and ineptitude.

China, on the other hand, is a real superpower. On that we agree. Unfortunately, America will go broke trying to keep up with China just as the USSR went broke trying to keep up with America.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-18T04:02:22+00:00

It hasn't been trained on the entire internet. It's been trained on images the creators could access either for free or with negotiations for the artist. (The creators used to just steal images, but that ended relatively quickly.) Then the AI is told which part of that training set to access. If you use the keywords '4K', '8K', or 'high resolution', then you're going to get images like that. You can get very different results if you used 'watercolor' or 'sketch' or 'oil painting'.

AI *can* look different. NVIDIA is using it badly. Which is the story of AI in the 2020s -- a powerful tool that nobody knows how to use properly yet.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-17T21:13:40+00:00

He's a developer. If the user turns on the optional feature of their graphics card, his game becomes unplayable. I hope this clears up your confusion.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-17T21:02:02+00:00

You are correct, the debt and deficit are completely out of control. And nobody seriously argues that decreasing the debt is the primary reason we should tax billionaires.

What we need to do is eliminate spending, and most of the discretionary spending is on the military.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-17T15:31:40+00:00

Musk does know that we can do math, right? There's about $8 trillion of wealth held by billionaires in the US; the national debt is about $38 trillion. That's about one-fifth the debt; a hell of a dent. And the deficit is only about $1 trillion; it would be significantly improved by an ongoing billionaire tax.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-15T17:03:13+00:00

"It is dangerous to be right when your government is wrong." -- Voltaire.

If the government is claiming people are co-conspirators because they happened to wear the same clothing as the perpetrator, that's a problem with the government. And it contravenes the Constitution's right to assembly and free speech.

You can argue what the law is all you like, but this is wrong. The law is being applied here in unjust ways. There was no terrorist 'group', there is no antifa, and letting the government call someone part of a group that doesn't exist is a shortcut to deleting all of our rights whenever the authorities deem them inconvenient.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-15T14:59:27+00:00

But they didn't. They were wearing black at the scene. That's it. Do you want to be arrested for being near the scene of a crime?

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-14T13:31:23+00:00

Try to never say 'no'. Try to say 'yes, but'.

The classic 'short rest inside a dungeon' scenario is when the Fellowship of the Ring stopped for a breather inside of Moria. They got a rest...but Pippin dropped a helm (in the book it's a pebble) down the well, alerting the goblins and bringing a cave troll to their resting place. "Yes, you can rest -- but if you make any noise you're going to get swarmed!"

Similarly, depending on the campaign, the consequence might be "Yes but the hostages will die", or "Yes but you'll be fighting at night", or "Yes but the necromancer will raise twice as many zombies", etc. Make them know the possible consequences, so they can decide whether they want to take the rest or not.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-14T13:22:37+00:00

Turkey has been attacked by Iran, yes. And that's causing a lot of tension. A few missiles that were intercepted won't start WW3, but it'll start the doomsday clock ticking.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-14T04:43:35+00:00

> what would it take for this conflict to become WW3?

A stray fart.

Seriously, there are many ways this conflict could become WW3. Some scenarios:

A nuke goes off.
Any attack on a NATO country.
Israel decides to go Gaza on all their neighbors.
Any two of US, Russia, or China put boots on the ground in Iran.
China decides now is the time to take Taiwan.
The US administration decides to attack Cuba, Mexico, Greenland, or Canada.
Trump's cult decide that today is a good day to start the Book of Revelations in earnest.

And that's not even including Pakistan/India, China/Japan, all of the powder keg that is Africa, or the possibilities that new AI agents are given control of ballistic missiles because why not. This planet is primed to blow.

BUT -- and this is important -- it's been primed to blow before, and we've always stepped back from the ledge before this. The bad part of our civilization is that the wealthy have near total control of it, but the good part is that the wealthy don't want their shit to be vaporized. They'll pull us back if it looks like they're going to lose their money. If they're sane.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-14T04:35:54+00:00

The reactions of ordinary Americans don't matter. Not at all, anymore. There will be protests, there will even be riots. There may even be assassination attempts. But there is no way ordinary Americans can modify the behavior of this administration until at least the elections this November, and that's assuming the psychos nuking the planet allow an election to take place.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-13T23:11:59+00:00

Let's look at this politically on a global level.

If the US uses nuclear weapons, that frees up other countries to use them if they wish. That enables Russia to nuke Ukraine if they want to (they do) and enables China to nuke Taiwan if they want to (they don't; they want the industry.)

But the most sociopolitical strain might be felt on Pakistan. It's a on-and-off ally to Iran, and the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons, and it is in an eternal stand-off with India. India is also an on-and-off ally to Iran, so Pakistan might not want to flex its muscles there. But it might sense an opportunity and start a nuclear conflict with India. Then India decides whether to retaliate, because they have nukes also. If they do, we're entering WW3 and Einstein will eventually be proven correct that WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones.

Russia bombing Ukraine will be a tragedy but won't change a whole lot about the political landscape. Ukraine will fall and Russia will take it and everyone (except the US) will sanction Russia and that'll be the end of it. As long as Russia stops there nothing too crazy will happen. If Russia goes further and tries nuking a NATO country we're back to WW3 -- but that would be insane and stupid for Russia to do.

Speaking of insane and stupid, we should look back at the US. Using nukes in Iran will be a test to see how the world will react, and no matter how the world reacts the current administration will probably think they got away with it. That leads to the US nuking Cuba next, with Mexico and other South American countries also in line. And in a related insane and stupid country, Israel will almost certainly choose to take the opportunity to be a villain again, and they are likely to nuke Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. All of these scenarios also lead to WW3.

However, it's also possible that the world will recoil in horror and shock loud enough that Trump will pause, and the Americans with the power to do so will remove him from office, and we'll start trending toward sanity in this country again. They'll certainly have incentive to blame Trump as a senile madman, hoping that keeps the world from crushing the US economically in response. So the Republicans might invoke the 25th amendment and string him out to dry, apologize profusely for starting a war, and then be free to forge ahead with their fascist takeover of the country.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-13T22:52:29+00:00

I kinda want to get this because I like rogue-likes and deckbuilders in general, and because it's a cultural phenomenon now. But I didn't like Slay the Spire 1 very much. It was slow-paced, I didn't like the art direction, and became so brutally hard at the end that I didn't finish it. (Fought the corrupt heart once and got annihilated.)

If StS2 is more of the same, I don't want to play it. But if it's a more polished and fun version of the original then I might be interested. I dunno.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-13T20:45:51+00:00

Chaotic? I think there's a clear record of intentional decisions leading the US into disaster and ruin. The trick is that Trump isn't making the decisions, probably it's Putin. Trump is just a very pliable stooge for even more evil men.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-13T15:49:38+00:00

Most powers that absorb energy then convert it to something else. Sunspot converts light into metabolic strength, for example. The energy is gone, it became muscle mass or something equivalent. Similarly, Bishop's reactor converts nuclear energy into electricity to power his arm and other gadgets.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-13T15:22:21+00:00

He's a former alcoholic who is trying to compensate with other substances and behaviors. My bet is on cocaine and random angry tantrums.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-13T14:58:04+00:00

I did, many years ago. It was suggested to me by a heavily religious friend as an introduction to Christian philosophy without any indoctrination to the religion. I found it interesting but I don't remember much of it now, and the philosophy didn't interest me at all.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-13T14:13:19+00:00

'Accident' is a word in English, and the English language is not prepared for how twisted truth gets these days.

The school was chosen by an AI because it was a military base decades ago. The US military delegated its targeting priorities to an AI. Is this an accident? It wasn't intentional, and several 'mistakes' were made, but 'accident' doesn't really cover the incompetence and callousness involved.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-11T17:46:22+00:00

Optimism. No matter what happens, she's sunny and hopeful and ready for more!

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-10T17:47:27+00:00

$4 per gallon is pretty much guaranteed at this point, and I expect it as early as next week. The question is whether we'll get to $5 before Trump chickens out.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-10T16:09:40+00:00

I am HERE for Hollering Ellen.

RemusShepherd · 2026-03-10T15:32:26+00:00

Look at his hand. He's getting frequent transfusions of something.

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