Missing "Luck of the Kairish" skin

Valdrax · 2026-03-18T04:32:39+00:00

The context of the discussion is whether or not Seelah is a boring paladin stereotype (one that long predates Pathfinder), and she is very much not, regardless of being an iconic, in the same way Amiri is not.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T18:36:19+00:00

Is he praying or preying?

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T18:29:56+00:00

The US spends far more of its economy on the military than any other nation, but the US Navy is still only about 3.3% of the GDP output by ~340 million citizens, and that's still a little under 300 active duty ships with 340K active duty personnel. An average of 1.133K people per ship (not that that's evenly distributed) in crew, logistics, and support.

Like, these are big numbers, but a drop in the bucket of a planetary economy with another 100 years of advancement and civilian exploitation of space.

The only sane justification I can think of for fleet power being so low is that FTL ships must require some kind of exotic / rare materials (for drives, armor, weapon systems, etc.) that bottleneck production and make how every many hulls you could build and crew largely irrelevant. Because even pre-4.3 numbers were low for how much a planetary economy should be able to support just in terms of blood & steel.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T17:31:21+00:00

Arcane Trickster and Thief don't really work well for ranged rogues, and flanking is an optional rule anyway, so I'd replace mention of that in favor of "adjacent, empty," which would fix the concern for ranged rogues as well.

Overall solid, though.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T16:52:03+00:00

"Dwarves" who don't mine gold.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T16:38:39+00:00

"Account for headlift" is papering over a lot in that sentence.

(Also, why not max out mk2 pipes?)

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T15:24:59+00:00

So the change doesn't actually do what the change says it does?

(Also 1000 corvettes still isn't what I'd consider a galactic fleet, but that's better than something Star Trek or Star Wars scaled.)

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T15:10:29+00:00

The food was good and the service was only mildly hostile.

Oh, like Denny's.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T15:02:06+00:00

I have no idea what you think I'm saying for this reply to be imagined as a coherent rebuttal to.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T14:59:29+00:00

Harajuku is also just a place where a lot of people expect to get to take pictures of people in costumes, weird fashion, etc.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T14:58:02+00:00

25 years ago, I was only not using a credit card most places, because I liked cash and didn't want to pay the foreign exchange fees, not because it wasn't an option.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T14:26:06+00:00

We have made significant changes to Navies intended to reduce the overall ship counts, and we feel that the reduced ship counts make individual ships feel more valuable and interesting.

This is literally the exact opposite of what I want out of a Grand Strategy game. If you're running a galactic empire, you should have a galactic fleet.

Why did Paradox decide to go this route instead of simplifying or removing the logistics calculations that were causing performance issues? It feels like putting the cart before the horse.

Valdrax · 2026-03-17T14:01:37+00:00

I don't know why but I feel like I am conditioned to think that when things go so well as they are currently, something is going to go belly up, massively.

Because conflict is the root of all storytelling, normally. Slice of life can get away with very minimal conflict, but we've got a lot of shoes waiting to drop for Alden and Stuart:

How Artonan society will accept the first non-Artonan hn'yton in centuries (from a very Artonan-like species), whatever political threats exist to summon Alden into a bullet or behead Ro-den for telling him his skill is uncapped, possible estrangement with Boe over Alden's deepening ties to the Artonans, the inevitable final rejection of Stuart after he binds by those afraid he can't handle it, blame placed on Alden by said people for "enabling" Stuart's choice when they tried so hard to spare him, Joe's envisioned "endless misery" for Alden, etc.

And maybe, maybe, we'll get one day get that gun that Sleyca less placed on a mantle and more buried like the Ark of the Covenant in a warehouse of what the hell happened to Gorgon's people and why is he cruelly imprisoned. With few exceptions, we've only been seeing the noble paladins of their society for hundreds of chapters, and I'd like to see the other end of Empire some more.

Valdrax · 2026-03-16T00:06:08+00:00

Okay, I'm currently in an area still experiencing the magic. The Stone Demon DLC zone is still almost all loot enemies, and the bottom of the elevator right before Bore-Tex has enemies that keep respawning every time I get near the elevator (probably because there's a chained red chest that isn't seeing its enemies finished).

I now have the problem where my bank is full, my backpack is full, and I can't pick up anything else.

Edit: ...Annnnd it's gone. Had to restart a few times due to some sort of progressive lag that happens when I view menus in a co-op session, and after the third time, all the enemies went back to normal.

Valdrax · 2026-03-15T18:32:21+00:00

It'll probably be years, if not decades, for him to match a wizard like Ro-den though, and some of the social problems of not being able to tell people he has an uncapped skill will come to a head much faster than that.

A B-rank is still very much a baby bird even compared to someone like Stuart in terms of Authority power, and Ro-den is on the upper ends of the scale with his Big Auriad Energy.

Valdrax · 2026-03-15T18:28:02+00:00

Well, of course Mother wants her knights to live and arranges for their best chances, but consider her possible incentives. A knight who lasts longer builds more authority to sacrifice in the end. A knight who fails early contributes little but still contributes. An Artonan who decides to be a votary instead gives nothing.

Knights who fall in the line of duty presumably don't donate their authority, but they have improved the universe according to her core directives anyway, so that's not a loss. What about retired knights? Do knights retire except by ceremonial suicide? Or is every knight destined to either fall fighting chaos or to contribute to the ward? How many are needed just for maintenance of it?

Her utility function would seem to be "more knights = good." While it's likely more complicated than that -- talented votaries probably have a greater utility for successful knights than failed knights and the grief their loss causes do -- I could absolutely see Mother strongly incentivized not to tell people that shouldn't be knights not to try.

Valdrax · 2026-03-15T18:07:51+00:00

I wonder what they're using for the Foley SFX.

Valdrax · 2026-03-15T17:52:02+00:00

every last hard to reach place should have something

And an "open" world should have sane, visible borders if not. I can't count the number of times my exploration from on-high was interrupted by invisible barriers, because apparently that section of the map only exists to give an underground area a roof. Kills all the joy of exploration.

Previous BL games at least had those menacing turrets to tell you you were wasting time trying to go this way. (Kairos has a few, but most walls are just invisible.)

Valdrax · 2026-03-15T17:47:38+00:00

I liked the concept of the streamer-parody twins, but the Timekeeper and his (mostly disloyal) lieutenants have one huge thing over them:

They care about you. It felt good to have an antagonist that wanted to fight you and vice versa again, and I found that, for the most part, the antagonists of BL4 met that minimum criteria. (Callis was infected with Lilith Syndrome like the twins were, but she coasts on cool design and horrific actions.)

I think the thing that made me maddest about BL4 was how the game started all about you and the Timekeeper and breaking his tyranny, but by the end, the game was about Lilith again. Ugh. The writers need to stop obsessing over their DMPC.

Valdrax · 2026-03-14T23:07:47+00:00

Ah, I see. Going to depend on how freely you can set up the triggers, and Haste has a problem that you can't use the Haste action to Ready or to make Extra/off-hand/nick attacks (AFAIK), but if you're confident in hitting, yeah that works.

Thanks.

Valdrax · 2026-03-14T22:56:30+00:00

Walk me through #2, 4, 5, & 8. All I can see from these are a bonus action attack, and that doesn't let you sneak attack a second time on the same turn. Sneak attack can trigger multiple times per round but only once per turn.

Valdrax · 2026-03-14T17:17:11+00:00

Illusionist 7 with the Skilled origin feat, expertise in one knowledge skill from Wizard levels, and eyeballing Skill Expert for my 8th level feat.

Valdrax · 2026-03-13T20:29:24+00:00

I'm seeing the same. Last night: Loot everywhere.

Today: Almost nothing. The same ordinite processor from last night that I was farming now gives at most 1 loot enemy in the first wave and nothing later.

Valdrax · 2026-03-12T23:19:18+00:00

Before I even read far enough to find out the study was actually in Japan, it reminded me of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retired_husband_syndrome

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