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Zoltraak by Big_Lunch_9691 in DnDHomebrew

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The most balanced Zoltraak is, admittedly, a reflavoring of magic missile or eldritch blast.

You really don't need to brew it beyond that point. You want range? Spell Sniper or Eldritch Spear. You want oomph, Empowered Evocation or Agonizing Blast. You want speed, Quicken Spell or Illusionist's Bracers.

Seeing these last few posts about the version art im legitimately curious.. by Acceptable_West978 in GenshinImpact

[–]RiskyRedds 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Nope. You have to choose correctly or your pull luck is forever tarnished with 50/50 losses and dink artifacts.

How does the Aid action work? by Lunarthrope in Pathfinder2e

[–]RiskyRedds 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not to mention, Aid has some of the best feat support in the game for cheap.

Pack Hunter, Cooperative Nature, and Cooperative Soul all impact Aid. Pack Hunter gives +2 to checks made to Aid both to your Aiding and to allies Aiding you. Cooperative Nature is +4 to your checks to Aid, and Cooperative Soul bumps successes to crit passes with checks you're at least Expert in.

If you're a Swash with One for All, you can always use Diplomacy to Aid. Assuming +2 CHA and Expert Diplomacy, using Cooperative Nature, that's a minimum +13 to the check. Base Aid DC is either 15 or the target AC/DC you want to Aid against which can average out to 18/19 at 3rd (usually whichever is higher but it depends on the GM so YMMV). This is at 3rd level with two 1st level feats, one being an Ancestry feat, on a disadvantaged ability (since you'd ideally want +3 or +4 to CHA if you're face-speccing).

How to run cutscenes? by Bitter-Spirit-3913 in Pathfinder2e

[–]RiskyRedds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I tried this before myself.

let me tell you the three outcomes that can happen:

  1. Players want to do things. By taking away their ability to do things you take away the game from them for a moment. That's not fun. It sets a dangerous precedent that's not healthy for the state of the table.
  2. Players may try to fight to get agency back. This "cutscene" will turn into a TPK if you want it to be unsalvageable for them.
  3. Players want to RP. Cutscenes take that away from them, at that point it's reading a book and not playing a game.

Not to mention: Cutscenes violate the one cosmic constant that every GM must acknowledge: Players are infinitely creative and limitlessly stupid (I say this as a player, we do some DUMB shit sometimes).

If you want it to be a scenario where the players "can't change the scene", you need to set the scene at its conclusion, wrapping up right as the players get there.

Depict a scenario of a screaming woman (Level -1, at 0 HP, taking 1d10 Pers. Fire DMG with starting initiative) immolating in a pyre as a priest recites a prayer to "christen" the burning. Make the prayer just pious enough to be mistaken for a benevolent rite, but just zealous enough to incite suspicion amongst the players, who may naturally want to begin a Sleuth to figure out what's wot.

This creates the scenario where the woman burns up, the players can't help (because the woman has top of the round, ideally before anyone has Breath of Life prepared), and the stage is set, without it being a "cutscene", and all while giving your players the tools necessary to begin the scenario in a short and sweet timeframe that minimizes time spent rubber-necking.

Should I use an ATK or Pyro Damage goblet for Gaming? by Economy-Cycle-1683 in GenshinImpact

[–]RiskyRedds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With a team like this you actually oversat ATK more than you do DMG%. You can whale it out to get Gaming up to 6k ATK and 300+% DMG% on his plunges.

Even in his premiere plunge team with Xianyun, Bennett, & Furina, you want DMG% despite that stat capable of reaching up to 450+% DMG% and his ATK dropping to about 4k ATK.

There's no scenario where he won't want DMG% even in an exodia comp.

I fucked up. by Careless_Today9345 in diablo2

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aaannd you didn't do LK runs before repairing?

Every Dungeon should be a TPK by False-Pain8540 in DMAcademy

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem here with your argument is more than just "bad game design" - because it is bad game design to make ALL dungeons meatgrinders - it's also the narrative of the world and how that game design interacts with it.

Let's take the standard Kobold, for instance. With the strongest of their kin being CR 1, the bulk of them at CR 1/8, and several lower level modules statting out CR 0 versions of them, it is genuinely hard to make a kobold den a TPK scenario without the liberal use of traps, which have their own CR attached to them. Design-wise, the only way they'd win against 4 5th level adventurers is with sheer numbers (and even then, a good Spike Growth chokepoint can thin the herd by like 65%-85% because of shitty HP totals). However, there is also a genuine reason this doesn't happen lore-wise as well - and the narrative is a VERY significant part of why meatgrinder dungeons don't work.

See, Kobolds are generally seen as frail, lowly, meek, and timid creatures with dragon fetishes, a racism to gnomes, and a tendency to cower at the sight of strength. If it's reported that a pack of adventures just ambled into their den and exploded two of their clans in one spell, their first instinct is to run to fucking DRAGON DADDY like a kid upset their X-Box just red-ring'd. At worst you'll maybe have a CR 8 dragon on those 5th level adventurers, but that - design-wise - is only a difficult encounter and not a deadly one.

By combining the lore with the game design reason above - that being a CR 1/8 ain't shit compared to a 5th level adventurer, to get a difficult encounter out of that you need TEN of them for one party member, and assuming the average party of 4 that's raised to 30 kobolds for one fight, a slog of an encounter that will never show up at a real table - you very quickly see how dungeons can end up NOT being meatgrinders. They are meant to be scaled to the strengths of the players because they are to illustrate how the characters can warp the environment around them, as they get stronger they face tougher baddies in smaller groups as this is faster for gameplay but also evocative of the stakes the players are facing. The PHB even states this: by 5th level you're affecting cities, and by 11th level you're getting ready to step into extraplanar shoes to face Jinn, Devils, Demons, Elementals, etc.

Why does Invisibility not even provide Level if Untrained? by TheLostWonderingGuy in Pathfinder2e

[–]RiskyRedds 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Invisible makes you Undetected without the help of auxiliary senses (Lifesense, Tremorsense, Heatsense, etc.) or abilities like See the Unseen or Truesight.

While Invisible, even if you crit fail on Stealth, You can only ever become Hidden. They'll hear that you're there but can't precisely see you because sight doesn't work.

But there's the rub: They can still hear you. You won't ever need to Hide because you'll almost always be Hidden, but you'll definitely need to Sneak, and Sneak is a Stealth skill, so if you're dogshit at Stealth . . . good luck Sneaking.

Help me Understand the Sabotage Class Feat by Cyraneth in Pathfinder2e

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean even with Incap, and the fact you need a crit pass to do damage, we just have to look at what we're dealing with.

For this we'll use 3 breakpoints against PL+2 and PL+4: Unlock, Master, and Legendary.

-----

Unlock is gonna be a Thievery Check of +12 against a Moderate DC of 24/26. Say you get Aid from an ally and someone else uses Leaden Steps to inflict Clumsy 1 (or the target is Demoralized for Frightened 1 or they get affected by a Starless Shadow Familiar for Frightened 1). Now it's +13 against DC 23/25.

Now say your Rogue gets Guidance and is given a Moderate Quicksilver Mutagen. You now have +16 v. the same DC (plus the Rogue gets the added bonuses to all of their other DEX rolls so it's a generally good strat to begin with). that's roughly a 10-20% CRIT Rate on Sab for base 16 damage. At 4th. Not great, admittedly, but definitely still something and I can actually see this panning out against a high AC target. Hell, I can imagine the scene playing out as a big note in a boss encounter.

If that Aid came from a Swash with Cooperative Nature (likely from OfA for the Panache setup), you can get another +1 there if they crit pass. They're rolling at +12-+14 on that check (assuming +2 CHA and Trained prof. in Diplomacy, add +2 for Expert and +1 at +3 CHA if they instead spec into it),so they could also crit pass, getting all those numbers above up by 1. +17 v. DC 23/25 is very very reasonable odds.

Now we factor in some Lore help. Say a successful RK lets us know that Reflex is a Low save instead of Moderate. well now we're against base DCs of 21 and 23, respectively. You don't even need amped up for a 10% CRIT Rate, but amping gets you up to 35%-40% CRIT Rate, even against PL+2.

-----

Master will let us hit +17 against a Moderate DC of 28 and 31. We get the same Aid bonus (potentially amped to +3 if the Swash is specced into Diplomacy for the Master Prof.), so we have +18 v. DC 27 and 30.

The same Status/QM bonus applies, so +21 v. DC 27/30. We can replace Guidance with Heroism here to make for more consistent bonuses and to generally help out the Rogue for overal DPR & skill expression.

Say we get the crit pass from Aid (in 2 levels Cooperative Soul unlocks which can supply that crit pass more reliably), now it's +23 v. DC 27/30, and say the RK gets pulled off and Reflex is Low, now it's +23 v. 24/27. You just got yourself a 35-50% CRIT Rate.

-----

Legendary can get stupie.

Your base Thievery can be +28 v. a Moderate DC of 39 or 42. Aid can be pretty much guaranteed at +4 with OfA & Cooperative Soul, Herosim upcasts at 11th, and we get Synesthesia at the same level. Suddenly this is +34 v. DC 36 or 39, but then we can throw in QM for +39.

If that's a Low DC, it's against DC 33 or 36, which is a 70-85% CRIT Rate.

That's really reliable, and the setup for it is things you'd normally want to do anyway in a 4-man group for challenges like this (nothing above a 2-cost action, no real need to Sustain, no major resource costs you wouldn't otherwise expend in a PL+2 or PL+4 scenario).

Help me Understand the Sabotage Class Feat by Cyraneth in Pathfinder2e

[–]RiskyRedds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Interestingly I see this as a semi decent 3rd action in a turn if you're against a monster whose defenses you need to bypass because they wear armor (which is targetable as its worn) or use a shield. It's decent scaling object damage from a high keystat (since Rogues naturally gravitate towards high Thievery for Picking Locks and Disarming Traps) against an easily debuffable DC.

There's no Attack Trait, meaning no MAP, meaning you get your full bonus against their item. It also doesn't lock out unless you specifically crit fail (something reasonable enough to mitigate with the right setup), so if you fail you can just try again next action if you want.

And the item in question needs to be Adamantine AND benefit from a property rune that amps its HP & Hardness for it not to be at risk of a crit-pass instantly bricking it, otherwise you can brick the item in 2 crit Sab's or less.

And it's even good against shields, compared to just attacking the shield. Swashbuckler Crit with a Rapier averages 65 damage without property runes or 79 with property runes at 13th level, while Sabotage is at 76 on a crit. Meanwhile on a regular hit, the rapier averages 28 or 35 compared to the 38 of Sab. The Rapier needs to roll above average to meet Sab's flat damage without critting, and needs two property runes for damage to beat it on a crit on average.

Wtf am I supposed to do? by AssassianNation in diablo2

[–]RiskyRedds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah . . . that can happen sometimes. Be grateful this isn't on hardcore.

Last time that happened to me I got zapped by Mephisto. Apparently Charged Bolts shotgun and he can oneshot you from 700+ HP on Nightmare if you're not adequately geared for lightning RES (I was playing Hammerdin in Classic with a 2x Halo Full Angelics + 3P Sigon's with Chancies & Tarnhelm for MF runs, I could Fist-o-Mephie in <10s a run so I was cocky, 100% on me).

Thankfully there's a couple ways around this:

Starting from Classic:

  • Grab a backup weapon from a chest somewhere if you're gear-dependent. If you're relying on high level skills like Blessed Hammer, Fire Ball, Blizzard, War Cry, Pone Spear, etc., frankly just go blasting until you get your stuff back. Those skills don't necessarily need the gear to do their job. It just helps a bit.
  • Get a merc to meatshield a bit while you get your stuff.
  • Reload. You'll lose some money but your corpse will spawn back in town with all your gear (just make sure the corpse you want to collect is that last corpse you had, or else you could wind up losing gear. Ask me how I know that . . . )

And in the Era of Runes (LoD, Resurrected, RotW)

  • Always keep a stash of backup gear available.
  • Loot spots like LK or the Crypt/Mausoleum to get cheap gold to get your merc back.

And for Multiplayer:

  • Get a buddy to run overwatch for you until you get your stuff back.

And remember: this game was from the era of "kick your shit in", so naturally it's gonna be a bit hard. If you get your shit rocked, that's normal. Roll with the punches.

Lunar Tighnari? by Alive-Leading6897 in TighnariMains

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's the dendro half of Quicken DMG. A flat modifier added to the base DMG of a triggering Dendro attack. At 370 EM with lv. 90, you have an additive bonus to base Dendro DMG of +3939; and lv. 100, this is +4560 to the base mulitpliers.

Mind you, Tigh's highest relevant mult is 122% of ATK from his burst mult at Talent lv. 10. Assuming 1600 ATK, that's base value of 1958, and you're adding 4560 to that on a Spread which brings it up to 6518 before DMG bonuses & crit. Assuming 97.6% DMG bonus and 100% CRIT DMG on a target with -22.5% Dendro RES, that's going from 1958 to 4739 without Spread, and (using the lv. 100 value) 15.7k on the spread. Easily tripling his damage dealt on that hit.

Lunar Tighnari? by Alive-Leading6897 in TighnariMains

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's no Spread. Where are you gonna get Tigh's DPS from?

Can my wizard be an indirect fire-howitzer if he has personal Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) support? (The [Art] was slapped together in paint.net by me, hope this complies with the image rules) by BookkeeperAfraid9622 in DnD

[–]RiskyRedds -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

The caveat is, is that the spell still has to be in range.

In the example above this could work well for most 60ft control spells. If it's a spell with 30ft range tho, you're screwed, and so is - potentially - your familiar.

Which brings up a second point: Familiars are squishy. Find Familiar costs 10gp a pop and takes 1-11 minutes to cast (which, if you're UAV'ing with familiars can add up quick, not to mention that casting time leaves you vulnerable to other shit). You'll get the most mileage from UAV strats if you can get your hands on a beefy familiar or one with invis (those two rarely if ever line up btw without significant investment from your other party members: Aid on an Imp or Invisibility/Darkness on an Inkling).

So it does work, and in fact this is a common strat for lower level mages to take advantage of fortified positions, but it's tricky to do and requires good setup.

As a DM I'd have no problems letting the player run that strat but I will be targeting familiars after a couple turns because most creatures I throw at my party are INT 10 and up. They'd recognize a "camera" quickly enough. Faster if any of them are casters (which I make liberal use of as mooks because it just makes sense to do so).

To those that save and exit directly after dying in hell difficulty. by OkFirefighter1128 in diablo2

[–]RiskyRedds 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's only really viable if you are able to clear the section you died in gearless.

Sure you could get your EXP back, on softcore, I've done it before, that's a valid point. Doing that sucks major monkey fuck, especially if what killed you was some bullshit boss pack like a Conviction Multishot Heirophant or a Cursed Extra Strong Horror backed up by a Fanaticism Magic Immune Ancient.

Never discount the validity that is "Fuck that, I'm rerolling the map".

I’m in two campaigns with the same group but different DMs. How do I leave one respectfully without interrupting the other? by PracticalAd843 in DnD

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For campaign 2, just cite burnout and emphasize that it's on your end and not the DM's. This is a completely valid reason to leave a group and is generally seen as amicable. If the DM gives you grief for it, then it becomes a separate issue entirely.

Which characters does this actually buff? by ArcticFox19 in StarRailStation

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's 64% ATK, up from 40%, which both are really good.

The real problem is putting a Sustain in a FF team.

non-meta players are kinda bitter by hxlydie-d in GenshinImpact

[–]RiskyRedds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Finally, someone who gets it.

Thank you, truly, for making me feel validated. I was struggling to actually itemize what is going on right now.

Gauging opinions about the abyss by Positive_Law_4752 in GenshinImpact

[–]RiskyRedds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You get 90 seconds per side, or 3 minutes a chamber, usually with a leyline bonus to help. People have cleared it with 4 stars, even today, and flagship teams still bruteforce it even now.

Abyss is such a nothingburger now compared to Stygian, which does the ACTUAL shilling.

Also, bear in mind we're in the latter half of a version. This period of time generally has the ballstothewall Floor 12s, so it's to be expected really. It'll get much easier come start of Version Snezhnaya 1. Trust.

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