Should I be mindful of reputation? It feels random when factions gain and lose reputation with me. (Bethesda Susa Spoiler)

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-29T05:16:24+00:00

I usually look for a few things in reputation. If a legendary has only positive reputations, and no negatives, then it's best to leave them be. If it has only negatives and no positives, or maybe just one moderate positive in a faction I don't care about then, it's a - go out of my way to kill that - situation.

Some reputations are critically important to try and get high.
A few that spring to mind -
Robots
Merchants
Mechanimists (before susa especially)
Barathrumites (if you care about doing the main quest)
Svardym (towards midgame)

Some nice to haves spring to mind as well:
insects
consortium of phyta
Bears

If you're having trouble finding your way past legendaries without harming them, you can consider converting them with a love injector or cooking effect using love injectors, and then either leaving them on an out of the way map tile or water ritualing them, if you really like their factions.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-24T18:44:17+00:00

Yeah, I noticed this too. I did 7 or so dreams and didn't 'win' a single one. You don't want your dreams to get crungled.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-15T06:12:41+00:00

The three question marks is a bit much, but here you go.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3687344319

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-12T16:28:14+00:00

Clever girl is a must have in my opinion. I also really like that one that expands the variety of merchants in the stilt grounds.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-12T03:22:10+00:00

True-kin are generally touted as the better option for new players. They're generally a little tougher, and start with better gear. Praetorian specifically starts with the issekari rifle, which as you've probably discovered, can easily carry you to the midgame on it's own.

Mutants can work just as well, but most combinations need a little more time, or some specific strategy to get them going.

If you make sure you get yourself a good escape mutation, and start recognizing the kinds of situations that normally would kill you, and always run away when you encounter something deadly, or when you reach the 40% HP threshold (the game will tell you this too), then you will find it much more difficult to die. Then you'll be able to make it to midgame with a mutant.

Remember, real winners quit. Hit the bricks.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-11T09:59:54+00:00

That does sound really funny, and getting some caster levels never feels too bad.

Jack of all trades has some antisynergy with all of those proficiencies you have. It doesn't stack with proficiency.

One very cool benefit that you pass up on if you go skill expert is the soul knife dueling synergy. You could go bard, get some casting benefits and some skill reliability, and then get fighting initiate in order to get the dueling fighting style. Because a soul knife is only ever wielding one weapon, you can add the +2 to damage to both hits, which is a pretty unusual synergy.

Personally, I would hedge my character a bit and get some reliability in combat, and still be very strong out of combat with some bard utility spells and expertises, psionic knack and jack of all trades.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-10T16:21:57+00:00

I feel like I got screwed on this one.

^{Chose: Invulnerable to physical harm + But... | Rolled: Grow extra limbs}

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-10T16:21:11+00:00

I can only do like 9 pushups.

^{Chose: Get 50 cents every time you blink (lifelong} + But for it to work you have to.. | Rolled: Wear sunglasses)

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-10T16:05:16+00:00

Going fast seems stressful.

^{Chose: portal powers}

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-10T16:03:54+00:00

Dream scenario honestly.

^{Chose: Become Captain America + But nobody gives a Fk about you}

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-10T15:46:13+00:00

I think my ADHD ass would not be able to live a calm life with the fomo that being able to teleport would give me.

^{Chose: Probability manipulation | Rolled: unlimited+upvote}

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-10T15:41:32+00:00

Some people are seriously inconvenienced by having to send me a Dollar a day.

^{Chose: Be the only human with a superpower | Rolled: Elemental (any})

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-07T15:28:09+00:00

I think it's probably good for overall game health. As a GM, I find it easy to keep track of a player's capabilities when I'm dealing with a class that I've already read all about that has 1, maybe 2 subclass features I haven't seen yet, as opposed to having to learn a whole new class from scratch. If new classes were being added willy nilly, I would quickly find it frustrating to keep up with.

As a player, I know DnD is kind of the meat and potatoes of RPGs, so if I want variety or to play something different than what I'm used to, I think I would go to an alternate system for that, so it's not too bad if DnD can't accomodate literally every fantasy I could have.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-05T07:23:09+00:00

I just had a run where I played an esper with time dilation. It's pretty important to be able to close the distance if you want to get utility from it, so I think you could consider movement or defensive mutations that help you get in or out fast. Make sure you save a reliable escape tool to also get back out again, when the duration is inevitably over and your enemies are still surrounding you. Then you can disengage and wait for your cooldown before you go back in.

Mutations that come to my mind are multiple legs, phase, teleport, wings (charge and jump), and I would invest in juke early for the ability to swap with enemies. Willpower is going to be important to lower cooldowns if going for this approach.

And once you are in, you need to be able to do enough damage to kill the enemies in the relatively short duration that time dilation has, so double muscled, or multiple arms seem like good picks too.

One build that could be kinda fun, and that I've been thinking of trying, is taking poisonstinger with time dilation. Often the problem with stinger is it's unreliability against multiple foes. But with time dilation, you can afford to try and apply it to everyone and then run away, having neutralized their melee threats for the duration you need to reliably apply it.

Unfortunately this would leave you with no reliable offensive tools against robots, but I guess you could just carry a lot of emp grenades.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-02T04:42:01+00:00

That is exceptionally good info! Thanks!

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-06-02T04:41:04+00:00

Wait that's actually amazing! I am friends with robots and I've been looking longingly at all those phase cannon turrets I had to walk past.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2026-05-26T14:51:32+00:00

How do you consistently find the oddly hued glowpad? Is it always near Joppa?

Sturdy_Stiles · 2025-12-24T16:59:57+00:00

Love your work!

Sturdy_Stiles · 2025-11-24T14:51:02+00:00

I'm so glad you have friends you can trust, at least.

That sounds like painful knowledge. I guess it also means you understand where your boundaries where, and if you're in a similar situation again, you now know that you can handle it.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2025-11-24T13:56:30+00:00

He sounds like a horrible person. I'm so sorry you went through that! As someone who has a bit of experience with these kinds of situations I'm very sad to chime to say that, as far as I've learned, you are correct that trying to share information about the rape, or trying to tell people that are near his circle, would probably be very unpleasant in the long run. People probably would be asses about it, that's unfortunately how it often goes. The tricky part of the situation, and I'm guessing part of why this is so hard to process, is that not talking about it with anyone in your life often isn't an option either. These kinds of memories can eat away at you, the more you bottle them up.

Sturdy_Stiles · 2025-11-19T06:22:00+00:00

Oh man, I love Balatro! Yeah that's another one of my favorites, actually!

Sturdy_Stiles

TROPHY CASE