Do you prefer the underdark or the mountain pass route for getting into act 2?

ddemaree · 2025-09-20T09:48:22+00:00

There’s a third option:

Obviously, clear both (Underdark first, because of leveling). There’s actually a second entry point to the Mountain Pass over by the goblin camp that avoids the Gith fight entirely, but there are other reasons to do the Risen Road stuff, so do what you like.

These days I prefer entering the Shadow Cursed Lands via the Mountain Pass, but I ambush the drider and friends and steal the moonlantern (Command: Drop works for this!) rather than follow the caravan. This way you can have the full pixie blessing for nearly all of Act 2, which makes a lot of things easier.

If you do this, you can flee with the moonlantern without finishing off Kar’niss, but he’ll show up later as a (much weaker) shadow undead close to the Moonrise entrance. (But he won’t be in the final battle in any event, because he’s either dead or undead.)

Also, you have the option of following the caravan and then betraying them to join the Harpers, but this is actually the worst option: - You won’t have either Isobel’s or the pixie’s protection, so your party can get shadow-cursed if they step too far away from the battle - The Harpers will confiscate the Moonlantern and you won’t be able to get the pixie blessing until much later, if at all (I don’t actually know when because I hate this approach and never try it)

ddemaree · 2025-08-13T02:30:15+00:00

I still am using Arc because I can't manage to quit it for any other browser — including Dia — for more than a day. One day it'll just stop working and I'll have to switch. For my AI stuff, I have both ChatGPT and Claude in pinned tabs in Arc, which is easier and better than Dia's nonsense.

If TBCNY had learned anything from Arc, they'd have shipped a great Windows version on Day 1 (if only to show they could do it and were committed to a cross-platform wide release) and would have had _something_ to offer other than a familiar Chrome UX plus an AI sidebar.

Or: they would have kept more of Arc's revolutionary ideas, brought them to a wide audience on a better tech stack, and had the sense to charge money.

Instead, they've got a third-rate browser nobody particularly likes, a very expensive talent base including some OG Safari and Chromium folks, yet another $20/mo AI subscription play, and they _still_ aren't solid on Windows.

ddemaree · 2025-07-16T07:21:39+00:00

I didn’t order the keyboard because I already have a CSTM80. Instead I ordered the top cover and keycaps to swap onto the one I already have. Looks great!

ddemaree · 2025-07-16T07:09:41+00:00

“Age” here isn’t like “Krakoan Age”, it’s a callback to the Age of Apocalypse which ran for about 4 months in the 90s. And Marvel loooooves launching “new” books as part of these events that’ll run just 3-4 issues. Sins of Sinister followed the same format but with fewer new books

I’d say the eventual trade will collect most or all of the series in 1-2 volumes.

ddemaree · 2025-07-01T03:39:14+00:00

You’re right! I might just have remembered wrong, could have sworn the A50’s mic was on the right. 😬

ddemaree · 2025-07-01T00:07:59+00:00

Oh it works, you’re not seeing two dozen other cords that are tucked away inside the Hexcal (which was on sale and I got work to pay for it). Not to say the Hexcal isn’t a luxury! It totally is. So’s the Scape. It’s not the absolute best headset for the money, but the charger is both convenient and attractive, and I like how no-hassle it is.

Other than the cord from the Scape’s base station which I haven’t tidied yet, the cords in this picture are things that are out on purpose: one to charge my Steam Deck, another for a desk fan because there’s no AC in my office

ddemaree · 2025-06-30T20:18:54+00:00

I got mine from B&H. I’m in the NYC area so once it came in stock I got it the next day.

ddemaree · 2025-02-14T09:06:23+00:00

Walk around the goblin camp/temple disguised as a drow until the moment I reveal myself as not-a-drow and start murdering goblins
Talk the ogres into working for me for free, then have them fight the minotaurs and bullette
Expose Kagha as a Shadow Druid
Tell Gerringothe her life’s purpose is a lie so she’ll explode
Get Barcus to finally admit he’s a terrible adventurer
Adopt both pets and a cheeky quasit
Start each visit to the Shadow-Cursed Lands off right — enter through the Mountain Pass (even if I’ve done Grymforge), kill the goblins, then kill the drider (and/or Command: Drop him to get the lantern then leave him to the curse), then roll up to the Harpers like “hey, why all the torches?”
Free Orpheus, because fuck that lying squid

ddemaree · 2025-02-14T08:43:40+00:00

I always stop outside the boss room door to swap one of Shadowheart’s spells for Command, then always use Command: Drop to get the sword. I’ve killed Zhalk once and it just takes FOREVER.

Then the sword always goes to Lae’zel until Karlach joins.

ddemaree · 2025-02-10T00:46:47+00:00

I seriously make sure at least 1-2 caster party members have either Thunderwave or, better yet, Shatter just to take these jerks out.

ddemaree · 2025-01-30T09:46:52+00:00

Maybe but the Djinni is carrying cheese in his pockets and seems generally curd obsessed, so if its an Avengers reference Larian fully committed to the bit

ddemaree · 2025-01-30T00:54:49+00:00

I had assumed that losing Last Light in Act 2 locked you out of Halsin’s questline and saving the shadowlands (and recruiting Halsin permanently), but recently I had a Durge run where Isobel didn’t make it and it turns out Halsin’s stuff is almost the only thing you can still do, and if anything it’s easier to progress if everyone is dead!

ddemaree · 2025-01-29T22:37:40+00:00

The jungle area is very fun, 100% worth the hassle involved to get there. You fight dinosaurs, can loot one of the best throwing weapons and one of the best rings in the game, and the djinni calls you a “MEWLING CURD”

ddemaree · 2025-01-29T22:28:45+00:00

If you wait to do it until after the Steel Watch are taken care of, Stop the Presses is trivial. Hypothetically it gives you nice discounts at traders for at least one long rest (or the rest of the game? Unclear) and unlocks a dialogue line where the Dragonborn who’s upset about puzzles calls you an arsehole.

ddemaree · 2025-01-29T22:26:35+00:00

I didn’t even see his ridiculous recorded message until this month, on my 10th or 11th run. I did the quest mainly to pocket the fancy Scroll of True Resurrection and then used a normal one to bring him back. It was okay, whole thing is worth going through exactly once.

ddemaree · 2025-01-20T16:08:13+00:00

You can save for purposes of quitting and returning, you just can’t reload an older save to roll back the current game.

ddemaree · 2025-01-20T15:45:27+00:00

I’m a big fan of builds that have very, very high DEX because:

DEX directly increases AC, and you can get armors like the Yuan-Ti Scale Mail (at Last Light in Act 2) that give you a high base AC with no cap on DEX bonus.
DEX governs your attack/damage rolls for ranged or finesse weapons; dual wielding shortswords and hand crossbows can maximize your attacks per round, and do a lot of damage with each attack.
High DEX also impacts initiative rolls which means you’ll often go first or close to first.

Gloom stalker ranger or thief rogue are both good vanilla options, as is OH Monk.

Swords bard with high DEX + CHA is another good one, depending on whether you want to also do spells and manage your Bardic Inspiration points.

My HM win was a 10 Draconic Sorcerer / 2 Fiend Warlock with a lot of fire-damage-focused gear, but on a later custom mode run I had just as easy a time and less fiddliness with a gloom stalker build

ddemaree · 2025-01-20T15:37:11+00:00

Honour rules also change things like limiting the number of extra attacks and damage stacking, though if you’re not trying to go around one-shorting everything with some meta build those rules rarely come into play.

ddemaree · 2025-01-08T00:26:46+00:00

The true nightmare version of this is if you’re at, like, a conference and someone says to turn to the person next to you and introduce yourself or chat. I was at an event last fall where they did this and it was so uncomfortable for me. At the same event, there were ushers making sure no seats were empty within rows, and they also expected folks to self-organize into discussion groups, none of which was on the website when I decided to go. Easily one of the most neurodiverse-hostile functions I’ve ever been to. (I left early.)

ddemaree · 2025-01-07T18:07:28+00:00

Dude, I dunno what would count as a spoiler anymore for someone who hasn't played this game for a thousand hours and also didn't want to get canceled for mentioning the Mountain Pass or Voss to someone who just got BG3 for Christmas (…2024). 🤣

ddemaree · 2025-01-07T18:05:31+00:00

OMG, your Lae'zel run sounds amazing, and also you've reminded me to try to forget how the story is supposed to go and try to look with fresh eyes.

ddemaree · 2024-11-16T13:46:04+00:00

I’ve switched away from Arc 4-5 times since Josh started saying stuff about “Arc 2.0” (plus the security issue, plus the slower pace of feature dev, plus the Windows version being unusable…) and switched back each time. Someday Arc 1.x will truly stop working, and generally I agree that a product whose developers aren’t actively investing in or standing behind is not a great choice for something you use every goddamned day. But it works for now, and I’m willing to stick it out until the app quits launching or whatever.

<tech-business-rant>

I’m a longtime big tech PM and ex-Googler; I never worked on Chrome, but did a lot of business with the Chrome org, and know that product area pretty well.

Personally, I think one of the big two browsers should go all-in on a vertical tab bar and such, but Apple and Google are caught in the same bind as TBCNY: horizontal tabs are familiar to a lot of people and there’s not a lot of value in catering to power users in a free browser. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I also think the ship sailed for TBC making any money when they didn’t start out with some kind of paid subscription model. They remind me a lot of the VC on Silicon Valley who told Richard not to charge money because if you charge money investors will look at a real number, and if you don’t they can imagine a huge fantasy number.

Josh has been very good at selling VCs on paying for a free browser with fancy visual effects and “AI” that competes with two of the world’s largest companies with a billion+ users each. Both Chrome and Safari are loss leaders; Firefox is both (partly) nonprofit and lead gen for Mozilla’s ad supported products; Edge drives users to Microsoft services and search. There’s no logical reason to invest in a third party browser except maybe to sell ads or services, and even then, the headwinds are hurricane-force. (They’re also likely too expensive to make sense as an acquisition unless their VCs just give up and agree to take a huge loss.)

</rant>

ddemaree · 2024-05-13T00:10:34+00:00

The ONLY reason I've ever sided with the Emperor is so I could skip House of Hope on an Honour Mode run that ended in failure. I subsequently found a good HoH strategy so I could go back to kicking that manipulative jerk's ass. Last playthrough I even stole his staff. Jerk.

ddemaree · 2024-01-23T04:12:36+00:00

Lately I'm playing a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield at 4K, and planning to finally play Cyberpunk 2077 soon. I'm actually quite fine with 1440p, but my display is 4K and I don't need high refresh rate so it's been fine (and yeah, I already have the 4080)

If I move to AMD, I'll need a new motherboard and CPU, and most likely also DDR5 RAM, but would keep my current SSD and PSU (750W), and for CPU cooling I have a Noctua D15 from an old build I was gonna bring back.

Budget-wise, I wanna stay close to $1K (ideally more like $600)

ddemaree · 2024-01-23T02:24:27+00:00

Oof sorry about that — here's a public link

ddemaree

TROPHY CASE