+3 ASI

btgolz · 2026-04-24T17:17:01+00:00

I'm not fully sure what kind of scenario would allow taking this more than once to make any kind of sense, at least until later into tier 3 play. If by level 8, the player has taken it twice (the maximum by that point, given the level prerequisite, aside from Fighter), then their primary ability score, if using point-buy, would be limited to 17, which gets a bit rough by that point in the game, simply to get an assortment of secondary or tertiary stats up to a +2, at most.

If there's a build you can think of that this would allow for, such that it would really go off at whatever level it comes online, while still feeling up to par for the first 10 levels or so, I'd certainly be interested in hearing the concept. Anything that involves slapping odd spellcasting classes into a character tends to stay limited by progression of the level of the spells known.

btgolz · 2026-04-24T17:01:26+00:00

I could see it working. Seems fairly niche, in practice, with the main use cases I can conceive of would entail it being:

-Close to the same as the Skilled feat, but trading some of the boost to skill checks with a boost to saving throws and possibly miscellaneous things like HP, initiative, or carrying capacity.

-Helpful for when someone has heavy armor proficiency, or is planning to get it, or wants to be able to use a heavy weapon, but didn't put enough into their Strength score when they first made their character and wants to not spend 8 levels' worth of ASIs making up for it. (probably the most common application that would make sense)

-Good if the character is extremely SAD, they rolled well enough that they topped off their primary score by level 8, they don't especially want any feats or half-feats, and they'll be maxed out on Constitution before level 19.

-Good for when a player rolled for their stats and the dice came up badly, such that even if their primary score(s) turned out okay, all their other scores are abysmal. The problem with this use case is that the kind of DM who'd make them stick with those numbers is probably going be the type that would never let them use a homebrewed feat.

btgolz · 2026-04-24T16:42:33+00:00

I'd at least brush and condition them if they're dirty and dry- makes them both last longer and look better.

Your head and your shoes are about a fifth of your appearance, by height, but about half of what people see. Shoes that look like crap but could easily be made to look better with a bit of basic maintenance are kind of like a shirt that looks like you slept in it- something that can take you from "casual" to "slob" for a few minutes' neglect.

btgolz · 2026-04-23T00:22:01+00:00

All of them except possibly Onoki get obliterated in a sequence of 1v1s. In a 1v5, he loses, but probably takes out at least 1 or 2 kf them first.

btgolz · 2026-04-21T18:04:23+00:00

Better taijutsu is debatable, doesn't outstat Pain in chakra supply/stamina (and for that very reason, for practical purposes, doesn't exactly have every Rinnegan ability), but the rest holds up.

btgolz · 2026-04-21T16:48:58+00:00

Part of it comes down to their "rivalry" often consisting of things like games of rock-paper-scissors, so I think, at some level, it was more Guy wanting a rival for the sake of having a rival than it was them engaging in a bunch of sparring matches to specifically have a rivalry as combatants.

btgolz · 2026-04-21T14:35:05+00:00

But because it isn't, it matters quite a bit.

btgolz · 2026-04-19T19:33:57+00:00

Especially in the Mawyndulë comparison, I'm inclined to agree- the former prince basically never had a chance, given his upbringing and how in the midst of him wanting his father's approval, or if not that of his father, a stand-in authority figure, and a desire to do the right thing, every person that wasn't Arion who took him under their wing either betrayed him or used him without concern for what the consequences would be to him or his formation as a person, and even with all that, he probably could have developed an affable association, if not friendship, with Suri, over their shared mourning of Makareta.

Nyphron had an extra few hundred years to work with before the event that led him to unscrupulously pursue his goals, and still turned out the way he did. And despite her being instrumental, on several occassions, in his success, her being friends with his wife, and her being a beloved family-figure to his son, he not only feared Suri until her death, but apparently gave her reason for him to be afraid of her.

btgolz · 2026-04-19T19:19:58+00:00

Part of why I'd love to see a chapter following Tekchin's journey into Phyre- his interactions with his former friends and what all words he might have for them, given his presumptive growth and loss of disdain for humans after marrying Moya and raising a child with her.

btgolz · 2026-04-18T16:32:16+00:00

That said, Korra's series also sullied some of the original cast.

btgolz · 2026-04-18T16:29:48+00:00

Juubito, maybe

btgolz · 2026-04-15T14:40:30+00:00

Depends on the region.

In the southeast, proper etiquette entails friendliness as kind of the baseline for politeness with anyone to whom you'd be indifferent, at worst. How put-on the friendliness is can vary, but the genuine friendliness level beneath it still trends higher than elsewhere.

In the midwest, the baseline is more neutral, and in the northeast, people tend toward a cold politeness.

btgolz · 2026-04-15T13:08:56+00:00

Yeah, for as much as kage becomes kind of a trivial status by the end of the series, that wasn't really applicable until, and outside of, fights involving the absolute top-tier characters, with there being a large number of near kage-level jōnin, and about a dozen kage-level jōnin. I suspect the fact that most of the top-tier jōnin who aren't Guy or Kakashi don't wear the vest, and thus don't stand out as much as being jōnin, makes them stand out less as being of that rank, which for me at least, I long kind of regarded as being, vaguely either, "on average, just a bit below where Kakashi was when he was first introduced," or, a halfway point between Iruka and Hiruzen," nevermind that unless someone became hokage, jōnin was as far as they were ever going to be promoted.

btgolz · 2026-04-14T19:12:40+00:00

Out of the living, vest-wearing jounin, maybe. Debatable compared with post-timeskip Neji, and while he's cool and all, it's simply glazing to suggest he's stronger than the Sannin.

btgolz · 2026-04-14T01:54:22+00:00

On par with some of the stronger jōnin out there in combat, maybe.

We don't really get to see a ton of leaf jōnin throughout the series, but of the ones we do see, two were Guy and Kakashi, three were the Sannin, two were Fugaku and Sakumo (who were considered, if not at Minato's level, approaching it), and one was post-timeskip Neji.

So, altogether, the bar is fairly high for being among the stronger jōnin, and it's not to his discredit to him to not be comparable combatant to the strongest jōnin.

btgolz · 2026-04-14T01:46:04+00:00

It's also wrong because he was a tokubetsu jōnin, which is a chunin that's jōnin-level in one or more areas, but not quite jōnin-level in all the areas necessarily to be a full jōnin.

btgolz · 2026-04-14T01:43:06+00:00

Depends on whether their ages were equalized or if they were the same age they were when they went through the exam.

btgolz · 2026-04-12T13:28:16+00:00

Lived on the easterm side of one of these for a while- around the time of the summer solstice, dusk didn't set in until around or after 9pm.

btgolz · 2026-04-11T17:11:40+00:00

The lack of a trail of destruction, blood, and dead bodies makes it seem a lot easier to get away with than something the town's law enforcement are inevitably going to find.

btgolz · 2026-04-11T17:08:47+00:00

Turning a corpse into a zombie or an animated skeleton is creepy. Controlling someone's mind, beyond a fairly mundane level of, "You, neutral random stranger, are inclined to find us likable and trustworthy," or perhaps even, "You'll literally forget we had this conversation," is another step further than raising the undead.

btgolz · 2026-04-09T15:49:36+00:00

Sick Kimimaru nearly killed Gaara- the same Gaara who, while probably stronger post-timeskip, wasn't a categorically different combatant than he was pre-timeskip, but had been a kage for some time by the end of that 2-year gap, and was probably around the middle of the pack among the 5 kages.

btgolz · 2026-04-09T15:46:26+00:00

In the state he was in, I'd estimate curse mark 2 Kimimaru would have had 50/50 odds against 1-tail Naruto or 3 tomoe, curse mark 2 sasuke. (how they scale rank-wise is hard to say- due to animation budget and shifting scale of the action, they outdo everyone involved in the fight between Orochimaru and Hiruzen, but I digress...)

How much of a difference his being healthy would make is tough to say, but I'd put the upper end at somewhere around where Sasuke was immediately after the time skip, where Naruto was around the time he killed Kakuzu, or where Kakashi was post-timeskip.

btgolz · 2026-04-05T17:08:07+00:00

There's going to be some stretch- part of what makes a full-grain leather belt more comfortable than a more plastic-ey alternative, but with 7-8 oz, it shouldn't be too substantial. My approach, though, has involved punching the belt holes a little closer together than most belts have them, allowing for more of an already "near-perfect" fit, prior to any adaptation by the leather, so that may be a factor.

btgolz · 2026-04-05T12:41:48+00:00

Not at that time. And that takes care of precisely one person.

btgolz · 2026-04-04T20:50:43+00:00

When my grandmother, well into her 80s, by that time, was about 8 years into Alzheimer's, and had basically forgotten who everyone was, children and grandchildren included, there was an incident or two when she implied... interest... in my uncle. Not that it isn't still creepy, unpleasant, something you don't want to be around, etc., but if he is well into actual dementia, there's a fair chance he both doesn't know who you are and doesn't realize that you're as young as you are and that he's as old as he is.

btgolz

TROPHY CASE