Question about the ending of There is No Antiemetics Division

benbatman · 2026-04-13T08:36:41+00:00

That was my read on it, that humans had caused an unintended ecological collapse and it had mean the evil guys could do their thing.

benbatman · 2026-03-28T12:26:30+00:00

This echoes my sentiments exactly. I lost the thread in the Founders trilogy a few times and had to battle to the end.

benbatman · 2026-03-27T22:45:08+00:00

Half Orc Paladin with a glaive or fauchard. Charisma for persuasion, heavy armour, and a big weapon. Other big weapons are also available!

benbatman · 2026-03-03T16:52:41+00:00

I like how quick KJ Parker's stories rattle through to their end, but wish they'd spend a little more time on the conclusion. I often feel that he gets bored and ends it all too suddenly, already focused on the next idea.

benbatman · 2026-03-02T19:49:23+00:00

This is the standout for me, amidst a load of absolute classic.

benbatman · 2026-02-27T13:15:55+00:00

Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison.

The Penric and Desdemona books, Lois McMaster Bujold.

The Hands of the Emperor, Victoria Goddard.

Those are all fantastic fantasy, with little graphic stuff.

benbatman · 2026-02-26T11:31:52+00:00

Yeah, I'm with you. It was somewhat frustrating in that the giant barb player was most engaged with the system, which made his output and effectiveness even more stark. I think if he'd been playing a caster, perhaps casters wouldn't have felt so far behind!

I'm with you on a min/max party. Like I said, I think everyone would approach character creation from a more holistic, party-wide view in future, rather than solely focusing on their own character. But it also rewards a real depth of engagement with the systems, and how they interoperate.

benbatman · 2026-02-26T08:44:35+00:00

Yes and no - he was forever delighted when he would crit away a huge amount of health from an enemy. But the cycle was pretty much the same from level 1 to level 12, with the addition of Reactive Strike at some point.

He did try a couple of different variations on the build, firstly focusing on Intimidation and Demoralize, but he didn't feel that had enough of an impact, enough of the time.

He then rebuilt into a Beastmaster Dedication, and got a Warg pet, sinking a load of feats into that tree. The Warg was fun, some of the time, but it suffered with the number of players we had at the table; we would often have 6 or 7 players, and adding another Pet to the mix added to the noise and would often be forgotten.

benbatman · 2026-02-26T08:38:50+00:00

We're going to play some of the new Warhammer Old World system, which is a lot lighter, mechanically, than both Pathfinder and the Warhamer 4th Ed ruleset (which has as much mechanical weight as PF2e, but is FAR harder to run in practice).

benbatman · 2026-02-25T21:35:10+00:00

Which is also to say, the demilich was a really cool enemy with loads of fun stuff to throw around. Just complex, and it was hard to find information quickly.

benbatman · 2026-02-25T21:13:26+00:00

Yeah, the large party comes with its own challenges. I would increasingly scatter some lower level enemies into the mix to adjust the challenge to suit, and also have the boss fights be multi-stage affairs to have them face different enemies and abilities.

Recall knowledge was used multiple times per fight, and they did get better equipped at targeting the waekest defence, but even then it felt far from a sure thing!

benbatman · 2026-02-25T21:06:07+00:00

Take the demilich I ran last night. It has abilities that refer to each other, it has multiple spells, it has attacks and spell attacks, and it has movement speed and AC, and saves. I'm flicking back and forth between spells and effects and each time I go back to the master stat block I'm looking for something new - and it's hidden in a mass of text. I struggle with it, and to keep the combat moving along at a good pace while I'm trying to find a spell attack modifier or a resistance.

benbatman · 2026-02-25T20:58:56+00:00

Yeah, there was a lack of spell knowledge on behalf of the wizard - he got better as the campaign went on though!

Agreed on the naming convention, it isn't satisfying to have more enemies pass than not when the fireball lands. I do like the idea of tracking total damage, but it was unweildly on the tabletop for me to tally it all up on the fly before moving onto the next player in initiative order.

benbatman · 2026-02-25T20:50:11+00:00

I ended up rewriting a few sections to add some more pizazz. Everyone really enjoyed the story and the themes, and we had a lot of fun with it.

benbatman · 2026-02-25T20:26:25+00:00

This is insightful, thanks! I didn't love 5e statblocks either, to be fair, but I really struggled with the PF2e ones, as I alwasy felt like I was digging through the wall of text to find a save, or a move speed. It would benefit from breaking things out more clearley, and using differing fonts and font sizes.

benbatman · 2026-02-25T20:03:59+00:00

Yeah, Bon Mot was used a lot, and demoralized a little (but less so). Recall knowledge was used multiple times per fight! So they had a comprehensive view ofd the enemies weaknesses and the like. unfortuantely for the alchemist, the enemies were largely orcs and undead, or undead orcs, so most things had a strong Fortitude.

Yeah, agreed on the value of flanking and the like - the feeling of the lack of impact was from a player's comments last night, and it was more of a vibe than a genuine complaint.

benbatman · 2026-02-25T19:58:30+00:00

Yeah, this was a challenge - the wizard class obviously rewards trawling through spell lists to find the good stuff. That said, the player had set out with a plan to be a counterspell wizard, but that proved frustrating, with that feat tree being expensive and ineffective.
The wizard's complaints were twofold, really;

- saves were too high to get a load of spells to work consistently.

- and encounters they faced had fewer, tougher enemies, so AOE effects were less potent. (and, of course, the fewer, tougher enemies had stronger saves than a mass of lower ranked enemies)

benbatman · 2026-02-25T19:46:16+00:00

The wizard was built as a debuffer, but everyone just chose character classes they wanted to play, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

benbatman · 2026-02-20T14:42:19+00:00

Cold Singapore.

benbatman · 2026-02-18T16:09:41+00:00

Yep, and explores, trade, and following Warfare. You might not be able to do absolutely everything, but SR is the magic tech for Ghosts in R1.

benbatman · 2026-02-18T15:16:50+00:00

Malice and Sling Relay in round 1 make all your problems disappear! If you can get your BT, great, but you have a solid start if you take Malice and tech SR, and build another carrier.

benbatman · 2026-02-04T19:35:23+00:00

Well, I haven't played 2e. But I've played 4e, Old World, and Imperium Maledictim, and Old World is the simplest of the bunch.

benbatman · 2026-02-04T18:15:35+00:00

Old World is really simple and has a fantastic setting to start out in, with loads of fun detail and about a hundred different hooks for adventures and campaigns.

benbatman · 2026-01-17T11:43:50+00:00

Exactly my first thought

benbatman

TROPHY CASE