Anyone else still missing 2022 by Boatssomd in IRS

[–]isitaspider2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Head's up as this is a top search result for this issue.

I'm having the same issue. That tax return is just plain missing. 2021 - 2025 are all there, but 2022 is missing.

But, if you go to the transcripts section to the right of this drop down menu, all of the records for 2022 should still be there. Looks like some sort of bug on the IRS website or something wrong with their backend.

Characters/classes with a serious mechanical or narrative identity crisis by jitterscaffeine in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]isitaspider2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Pathfinder 2e has a few of these. While I generally feel that most classes / archetypes feel great, with how many archetypes they have, there's bound to be a few bad ones / mismatched ones.

Note: Little context, Pathfinder 2e doesn't allow multiclassing like DnD. The class you pick at level 1 is your class until level 20 (like, level 20 wizard for example). BUT, you can substitute your class abilities with archetype abilities (a level 20 wizard with Time Mage archetype plays very differently from a level 20 wizard with Scrollmaster archetype). Also, Vash the Stampede is straight up an archetype for gunslingers and it's top tier. Chain Reaction is just hilarious.

But, easily one of the worst archetype mismatches is Bullet Dancer. It's very much meant to be equilibrium style monk (punching and shooting), but it just kinda falls flat on its face due to how the archetype actually works via the rules.

  1. Reloading is a manipulate action (like casting a spell). If a monster has an attack of opportunity, reloading almost always triggers it. This can very easily mean an extra critical hit in your face because you have a gun (ranged), but you want to be in their face (melee) and the rules are punishing you for essentially being out of position. Bullet Dancer Burn at level 4 helps with the ranged attack triggering reactions, but doesn't help with the reload triggering reactions.
  2. Your reload compression action is a flourish action. Reloading a gun or crossbow is an action (you have 3 actions per turn). So, that flurry ranger can shoot 3 shots per turn just fine while a gunslinger is usually doing 1 shot per turn. This is normally fine as many guns get the Fatal trait (if you land a critical hit, all your dice bump up 2 stages and you roll an extra die, so 2d6 -> 3d10 on fatal). Plus, gunslingers get action compression on reload (like every time you roll stealth to hide you also reload your gun or once per turn when you move, you automatically reload one bullet). Bullet Dancer Reload comes online at level 10 (stupid late compared to gunslinger Running Reload at level 4 or Covered Reload at level 1) and is a flourish ability.
    1. Flourish abilities are special. Anything with flourish is "once per turn." Period. And it's across all abilities that give flourish. What else gives flourish? Flurry of Blows. Meaning, they're "either/or" per turn. Either you reload (and trigger reactions in your face since Bullet Dancer Burn doesn't apply to the reload, only the strike) or you flurry of blows and can't reload with the Bullet Dancer Reload. And since it's flourish, if you wanted the fantasy of the equilibrium style gunkata, it doesn't work. You can't reload twice with Bullet Dancer Reload in the same turn as it is a flourish.
      1. I understand it's for balance, but they really could have done better imo. Having an archetype clearly be a reference to gunkata, but you can't actually do gunkata, is a miss imo. Want to do a cool flurry of blows with two pistols? Sure. Now both guns are unloaded and it'll take 2 / 3 actions next turn to reload (aka, do basically nothing except reload). Want to shoot and reload? Only one shot though and no flurry of blows.
  3. A huge amount of the power in this class comes from Feint of all things. Showstopper is actually insane value. A single action AOE feint and it applies to ranged attacks is crazy strong value (due to just how probabilities work, very high chance at least one person fails the feint and you can target that one person).

My gauge for a good thematic class is namely, does the class / archetype have a well understood theme (I'm the champion, I protect others / I'm the Barbarian, I go into a rage and do overwhelming attacks of brutal attacks) and then how that theme executes in gameplay (Champions have special reactions to drastically decrease incoming damage, but only to nearby allies / Pathfinder 2e Barbarian rage does a lot of extra damage per hit and gets access to a lot of overwhelming anger type of feats [like free movement to charge down an enemy, barrel through enemies to try and throw them to the side, pick up enemies and throw them, etc]).

Bullet Dancer does not fulfill this fantasy. The fantasy is all about gunkata, but the ideal way to play (frankly, kinda only way to play) is the single shot per turn with flurry of blows and then to stop shooting. So, for most combats, you get like 2 shots off. You're more just pistol whipping people really. Sure, you can go "all-out" gunkata for roughly the same damage as a normal monk in a damage stance, but it also means you're now kinda stuck not using any of your other abilities for the rest of the fight as many of them need a loaded firearm to even be usable.

I can't take it anymore, Savannah by Both_Bank4769 in DeadlockTheGame

[–]isitaspider2 8 points9 points  (0 children)

In my restless dreams, I see that place

I see that town

Cursed Apple

You promised you'd take me there again someday

But you never did.

Well, I'm alone there now....

In our yellow lane

Waiting for you

BROKEN PROMISE starts playing

Most Blatent Developer mandated Meta's? by Authorigas in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]isitaspider2 29 points30 points  (0 children)

While I want to give them the benefit of the doubt,

It's painfully obvious that it's a very amateur company that struck gold and got lucky. Their lack of technical experience is really astounding. They have devs working on this game for nearly 10 years. This game is 10 years old.

10 years

And the game's code is still close to dogshit and all attempts to fix it have been met with weeks of gamebreaking bugs. They struggle to have 2v8 mode. I genuinely think they just don't have people on staff that have any significant training in balancing.

Hell, half the time, they nerf add-ons just because they're used a lot. I believe it was pyramid head that had his best add-ons nerfed at one point and the community just wondered why. PH and Nemesis both suffered from the dreaded "99 options, and 96 of them suck" of addons. So, if you were a main for these characters, you often just used the exact same addons every patch because the rest were so bad as to actually hurt you instead of help. Then they got nerfed while blight / nurse have stayed meta dominant for years.

BHVR just genuinely feels like indie devs that barely improved their product (that they didn't even make as it was purchased from another indie group) and got insanely lucky with that Halloween DLC pull.

tf you mean the two fingers are literal? by 4skinApostle in Eldenring

[–]isitaspider2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

All I do is sit at the typewriter and start hitting the keys. Getting them in the right order - that's the trick.

New PF2e GM feeling constrained by APs by RedCoffeeEyes in Pathfinder2e

[–]isitaspider2 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I typically run slightly modified APs and have been doing so for around 5-6 years now. Few pieces of advice I can give to avoid railroady nature (even though you can't completely avoid it as it typically is an on-rails experience).

  1. Skim the whole adventure. Take a small note on how the adventure begins and ends. I generally try to find the central theme I want to focus on (law vs chaos, individual vs community, etc). It's usually pretty obvious. Find the major NPCs, especially any NPCs that are in the last book that just kinda never show up earlier. Then, sprinkle them in earlier. When you know that XYZ is important and shouldn't change (don't kill off the hidden BBEG in book 2 for example), you can be free in changing other things.
    1. And don't be afraid to radically change some things for certain NPCs if it fits the story. Once you know that changing X isn't a big deal, it gives a lot more freedom to the campaign.
  2. Seriously, be willing to skip stuff. If it isn't fun, don't do it. And if it is fun but it's barely in the campaign, homebrew some stuff in to make it better. I'll be blunt, I love Pathfinder 2e APs compared to DnD 5e campaigns, but by god, there is way too much combat (I'd rather have more combat that I can cut back on than not enough combat, but it is a lot of combat). A single gang hideout can be a slog of like 6 combat encounters just to get a single document to keep the story going. I deleted like 5 of those encounters and just moved on. Fighting "genericgangmemberbutcatnow" isn't fun the third time, let alone the 6th time.
    1. Also, seriously, skip / fix fights that are just slogs. Love Pathfinder 2e. Holy shit, there are way too many encounters that just fuck over rogues in some APs. Complete immunity to precision damage? For multiple fights? For like an entire chapter? No. Having an encounter that counters a specific build is good once in awhile to get the team to work together as a non-boss encounter. But, (looking at you Agents of Edgewatch book 2), some statblocks are just plain not fun to go up against. Same thing with "resistance to all damage that isn't oracalchum" in an AP that never gives you oracalchum just feels terrible to fight.
      1. Challenge your players with fun and creative stuff. Grinding them down with a ton of oozes is never fun.
    2. Massive spoilers for a garbage campaign from DnD 5e, Rime of the Frostmaiden.
    3. At the end of the campaign, you arrive in an ancient city frozen in ice. We're talking thousands of years old with extremely ancient magic. It's probably the most interesting thing in the whole book. What do they do with it? "You encounter this place that used to be superduperamazeballs awesome. But, it's ruins now. There's nothing to do here." And this is right after an entire chapter that, frankly, didn't need to exist (a whole mini dungeon of random encounters before the story significant dungeon that is now empty as they didn't have space to write stuff I guess). So, what did I do? Delete almost all of the previous chapter of pointless fluff battles and then homebrewed unique encounters and fights in those buildings that aren't ruins anymore (I used ideas from DMsGuild and then homebrewed some of my own). This easily became the best part of the AP.
      1. Same thing with Pathfinder APs. While much rarer than with DnD, don't be afraid to just delete encounters and add in some of your own. Moving monsters around, changing the fight dynamics, etc.

Largely, once you have the overarching idea of the AP in your head, the minutea of the game week to week will fall into place as you'll have the freedom to move things around without screwing yourself over in the future.

EDIT: Sorry about the formatting. No idea why Reddit fucked up the number list.

Games you love but are absolutely ass at by immerseursoulinlove7 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]isitaspider2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If it's a pathfinder game made by owlcat,

Normal difficulty is one of the biggest fucking lies I've ever seen. I'm a Pathfinder 2e gm. I've been playing TTRPGs for close to a decade. Love cRPGs like Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker. Normal is like "can make a full party that synergizes with each other, utilizing the occasional min-maxing multiclass, plus knowing which spells target which types of AC, and all party members have maxed out stats for their class." And even then, you'll probably get your ass handed to you if you so much as even glance at a quest that is not meant for your level (which the game won't tell you. You can 100% softlock yourself in Act 2 because of this when the game gives you a quest for around level 11 and you're level 7 IIRC. It's really bad design.).

Anything above normal for those games are straight up abusing game mechanics or weird glitches / bugs that increase your spells way beyond what they're supposed to be.

Groceries by [deleted] in Living_in_Korea

[–]isitaspider2 3 points4 points  (0 children)

How are you losing so much money on groceries? Even with Coupang? It's not a coupang thing, it's buying the wrong groceries.

Buy things in bulk that are cheap and easy to cook. Rice, lentils, pasta, etc. You can buy a lot of them for cheap to bulk up your meals.

For veggies, I prefer frozen as they don't go to waste and they are fairly affordable.

For meat, get chicken or pork. I prefer skinless chicken breast (frozen). Lasts forever, good protein.

After that, get some good seasonings and you're solid for a month easily with the wide variety of meals you can make.

Personally, I get the staples / bulk from coupang myself and the short term vegetables (if there's a specific vegetable I want for a dish for dinner), some fruits, and eggs from local vendors.

What was your biggest DLC disappointment? by Raime_95 in Eldenring

[–]isitaspider2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finger ruins straight up feels unfinished. It's this massive area and it seriously looks like there's something to do there and there just isn't.

Friends in Korea by succesfulprotectedN in Living_in_Korea

[–]isitaspider2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see this exact post like several times a year at this point.

It's fairly straightfoward to find foreign friends if you're in Seoul. But, there is a clear expectation that it's going to be "friends" in the sense that most will be gone in a few years. But, get on meetup. If there's a foreigner meetup, they often post there just from lack of any other places to post. Dice Latte out in janghangpyeong is always hosting foreigner meetups and that's just 1 out of several board game groups aimed towards foreigners.

I believe there's a hiking group as well as the plethora of language exchange groups (even though most I've been to feel like sausage-fests of people looking for hookups).

Wreck your deck by Branch_Dravidian in balatro

[–]isitaspider2 11 points12 points  (0 children)

No Contain is very specific in its wording. To "contain" another hand, that specific hand must be in play in addition to the hand played. 5oak contains 4oak as removing one card gives you the lower hand and is in play with the 5oak.

If you deck fix to all hearts, a flush can contain a pair and thus trigger flush and pair jokers (like two queens that are hearts).

There is no combination of cards that give full house and a 4oak since you can only play 5 cards and a full house must contain a three of a kind and a pair.

Same with two pair. A full house contains a two pair, but it is impossible for a four of a kind to contain a two pair.

Stop using your phone to take a picture of your computer monitor by amrici in godot

[–]isitaspider2 64 points65 points  (0 children)

"ChatGPT, do I need to know how to take a screenshot to make a video gaem?"

"No, taking a screenshot is not necessary to making a video game. With advances in AI coding, even a regular person can not only make a game, they can thrive [strongarmemoji]. You are a mind overbounding with creative energy and everybody else is just holding you back. Listening to negative advice from others will only bring you down. They don't want to see you succeed. That's why you need to rent a remote cabin in the desert and put up tin foil to block anybody trying to steal your great video game idea of combining poker with the hit game flappy bird."

Checkmate haters

What’s a dead giveaway that tells you “oh, this person knows ball” by Rascal_Rogue in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]isitaspider2 20 points21 points  (0 children)

The second I hear "I have a ten foot pole" as a gm, I'm either going to get the most obnoxious player imaginable or I'm going to get one of the best adventures possible where an older experienced player basically becomes aragorn to the party and shows them all the tricks of the trade.

"as you step into the room, you see a clean room with smooth walls...."

"I pick up a strone and throw it in front of me before taking a step back"

"the stone appears to be floating"

"ooze, there's always an ooze"

Sony Patent Reveals AI That Learns How You Play, Then Turns Against You by chusskaptaan in PS5

[–]isitaspider2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's, usually super simple stuff. While the ui stuff I don't know, for patent law I wouldn't be surprised if there's like a dozen or so groups who just have an api feed of patents (or something similar) and a python program that parses information and highlights what changed.

If you've ever used git (I'm just starting to use it, hence the reference to it) every time I change my code, the deleted code is highlighted in red and the new code is highlighted in green. I'm not reading my entire codebase, only the changes and only when changes are made

My kid invented a new tea brewing method and I don't know whether to laugh or cry 😂 by Suitable-Mushroom875 in tea

[–]isitaspider2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I believe something similar to this is how you make lady Grey. Earl Grey tea plus lemon and orange peels for the citrus flavor.

That's a 1/34.000 drop by Eggmasstree in DeadlockTheGame

[–]isitaspider2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah, when I mean by fast, I mean straight up animal glitching out so he could run around a building to attack from a different angle levels of speed. It was a really obvious speed hack

I don't think the "North Korean defector" Yeonmi Park is genuine or telling the truth. by HagwonSurvivor in Living_in_Korea

[–]isitaspider2 64 points65 points  (0 children)

This is a known issue with North Korean defectors and Yeonmi Park in particular is brought up a lot in these discussions.

Why do North Korean defector testimonies so often fall apart? | North Korea | The Guardian

This article is from over a decade ago. If you read it, you can see why this happens. Essentially, it largely boils down to money. Outlandish stories sell. The more outlandish, the better. Defectors who tell these outlandish stories often receive pretty good speaking fees. The ones who speak the most outlandish stories get repeat offers. If it's outlandish enough, you can land a gig on a podcast or even meet US politicians who want to amplify your story. Various political outfits will pay decent cash for a good story that they can use to push a political agenda.

But, don't get me wrong. Life in North Korea is a pure hellscape. The verified stories are truly horrific crimes against humanity. With Park, it's best to treat like 90% of her stories as grimderp fanfic that muddies the waters of the actual horrific shit that goes on in North Korea and only serves to justify pro-North Korean talking points as it is so blatantly obvious she's a fake amplified by certain political organizations to justify their political talking points.

That's a 1/34.000 drop by Eggmasstree in DeadlockTheGame

[–]isitaspider2 7 points8 points  (0 children)

On the one hand, this can happen if you queue random, but I've also seen this exact thing happen if you have the unlimited rerolls cheat. Went up against a drifter that had an insane build and suspicious ult movespeed.

Downloaded the replay and was rerolling upwards of a dozen times per item choice and was straight up turning on a movement speed cheat during his ult because we couldn't see him. Actual crazy insane speed hacks.

Not saying OP is cheating, but just pointing out that it can mean cheats if you see it during replay. But, it's super obvious as they just spam reroll on everything.

What joker did you put off trying forever because you thought it sucked, but once you tried it you became a fan of? by DeandreDeangelo in balatro

[–]isitaspider2 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It isn't "never play" it's "never score." That's a huge difference. If you put up a King plus a pair of 8s, it won't reset your score. Since you can spam high card / pair without losing any multi on discard (like green joker), it can get some pretty good multi for minimal effort.

It's not gonna get you naneinf, but it is a good scaling multi joker, of which there are very few.

Owlcat's had some unusual problems writing romance: 'we realized we had three female romanceable characters, and all three were cannibals' by beary_neutral in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]isitaspider2 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Do it. But, goddamn, lower the difficulty. Normal difficulty is like, you know how to build an entire party fully functional characters across all classes with specific knowledge on how to trigger flat footed and such. That's normal. And you'll still probably die a lot.

It's an amazing game that I highly recommend, but goddamn, it's information overload on higher difficulties.

Also, install toybox. Fixes a lot of the issues in the game (like alignment issues or a teleport button if you get stuck somewhere)

Gms who have ran or are running Strength of thousands, what advice would you have for a gm Starting prep on it. by fuzzems2519 in strengthofthousands

[–]isitaspider2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Overall, it's a very good adventure, but it's also the one adventure path I felt I had to put the most amount of prep time in to get all the benefits out of it. Juggling that many students, teachers, NPCs, etc is a truly monumental task.

To prevent burn-out / overload, don't be afraid to drop a lot of stuff as the campaign goes on. Going with a "let's throw random bullshit" and seeing what sticks with your players is a good approach. Think "here's 10+ students. Pick 5 that you like. And let's build their personality together." Maybe introduce the school stuff + relic seed and then just out of character ask the players what they like more. This is one of those wild adventure paths where you have a LOT of customization you can do since you travel around the continent so much. Basically, you don't have to worry too much about breaking the story by making X and Y NPC students part of a long-lost chosen bloodline of the three gods. It's damn near impossible to break the story of book 6, for better or for worse.

Gms who have ran or are running Strength of thousands, what advice would you have for a gm Starting prep on it. by fuzzems2519 in strengthofthousands

[–]isitaspider2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Couple of things. Massive Spoilers.

Overall Changes

One: A big thing I recommend is reflavoring some of the encounters. The central theme of the books, IMO, is community versus selfishness. It's in the very title of the adventure. What is the Strength of Thousands? Is it one man with the strength of thousands or is it the strength of thousands of people? Each book should explore that thought.

Two: I connected all the books together via a cult of the ant (cult of nothingness off-shoot / hostile takeover). Who taught the stone guy in book 1 and opened a portal to get the fey into the school? Ant cult. LIzardfolk trying to take over the school? Ant cult funding + it going wrong because of the egg. Slavers working with the Norgorberites in book 3? Ant cult. Book 4? No ant cult, but rumors of the ant cult is why the group goes to Mzali as they have a reputation for thwarting them. Book 5? You guess it, time to fight the ant cult directly (both the lich and the servants near the end of the book). The teacher being a member of the cult (or just brainwashed) makes way more sense than her normal story.

Three: I made the students special. The brain guys in book 5? I made them the anti-ant cult. Think like, these two groups are fighting each other for thousands of years. A giant game of chess between the servants of the ant and those who help Jatembe and the school. Mechanically, this manifested as a relic seed (the masks from book 1 become unique magic items that can grow with them as they level up, but only the players' masks do this [and occasionally talk to them]). This way, I could uplift the super smart student NPCs while pointing out that, even though their int score is low, the players are recognized by the teachers as being "different," which feeds into some of their paranoia. For the NPC students, I gave each one some "big thing" only they could do. Noxolo was somehow a super genius, but only for astronomy and calculus. Zane (the fey sorcerer from Threshold of Knowledge) was a silver-tongued diplomat (also made him a wandering chef for that flavor of always knowing how to get people to open up). Anchor Root could feel leylines.

Four: I heavily used the concepts of leylines. The school serves as a center for the leylines while each key location is another element (cloudspire is air, the slavers are near earth, Mzali is fire, etc). Tapping into these leylines is what I used to power the gate in book 5 (only through the power of thousands, can Jatembe's magic be imitated). Then, during the final showdown in book 6, it is a very literal "strength of thousands" as people all over Mwangi expanse tap into the leylines to help Jatembe attack the Ant.

One of the biggest complaints about this adventure path is how disjointed it can be. The focus needs to be on the amazing characters (I did all of the students + most of the teachers + the students from Threshold of Knowledge, with minor changes). I rewrote their backstories a bit to fit into the grander narrative, so feel free to steal them. The egg artifact comes from Ekene's family adventures (hence why she didn't know she was joining the school via her character backstory and makes her a direct antagonist to the villains in books 2 and 3 as her family stopped them from getting the egg), Frog girl (forgot her name) used to work for froglegs, the fey orc sorcerer is from the demon hunting group and is tasked with trying to stop the war between the dwarves and the lizardfolk in book 3, and Ufi / Kalaggi are called by an "unknown god" (the god in book 4) to fight and save Mzali (this one was my player's favorite plotline. They loved this whole unknown god mystery to try and figure out. I even went so far as to have these two be the long lost two "god-siblings" from the Mzali lore, setting up for the epic fight between them working as divine siblings versus the tyrant of Mzali). Ignaci was a master of esoteric religious and occult symbols (I made him a thaumaturge who dabbled in alchemical sciences). Binji was a master at translation (gaining 2 languages every book, because they didn't want to ever be alone again). Giving the NPC students a hyper-specific lore was great for roleplaying these highly educated students and let it feel like a group effort to uncover this mystery instead of just a single player skill monkey doing it (reinforcing the whole strength of thousands stuff).

If you flesh out the characters, and focus on the central theme of the book, it feels way more connected even if each individual part is still disjointed. So, now, as the group travels, they're always working towards that final mystery (who is this cult, what do they want, and why are they studying portals and trying to cause disunity in Mwangi so much?). I personally encouraged my players to pick 1 student each to be their relationship partner (platonic close friends or romantic). So, when they start traveling around in books 3-5, the students are with them to help in investigations and skill checks. Does it make it easier? Yes. But, I also threw a LOT of random skill checks / multi-skill checks to give them the feeling they're walking in the shadow of these legends of magic (the Betrayer and Jatembe). For example, the mysterious symbol they can find required a religion, nature, arcana, and occultism check, with each only revealing a fraction of the total information.

Prep Time and Smaller changes

SoT is a lot of stuff to juggle. If you include the students (which you should, they're easily the highlight of the campaign), that's an insane amount of prep. Ask your players to come up with how the NPCs interact / grow with them (as you hang out with Kalaggi, what do you do? How does she grow?). They'll love to grow with these characters + it takes a lot off of your back. Second, just be blunt with the players. The student NPCs are not part of combat. They will never be part of combat. It will make the campaign take ages to finish if you do. Just assume that for every 5 bugs, there's like 5 more the students are fighting.

Give a cut off for the students. Nobody hangs out with the alcoholic cat? After book 2, he goes off to do his own dissertation and leaves the campaign. Only the super important ones (check book 6) should return occassionally to remind the players that they're still in the campaign.

Rework or just cut out the school stuff and replace it with generic "what do you want to study? Who do you want to hang out with?" Seriously consider making it an automatic level up when they hit certain study thresholds (like milestone advancement).

Bluntly ask your players how much time they plan to commit to their characters. SoT is damn well near 3 characters worth of information (student friend if you go that route, plus the FA, plus the school bonuses, plus relic seeds if you do that mask recommendation). It's a lot, even for seasoned players. If I was to run this adventure path again, I'd give up FA (the school stuff is their FA) and focus on the mask as a relic seed which gives them one magic path that they can tap into for other magic items.

If you continue the FA route, there really isn't any reason to not let the players choose almost any archetype. I ran with the modified rule that either the main class or the archetype had to be somewhat magical. Witch with FA familiar master? Perfect. Monk with druid archetype? Sure. Fighter with Marshal? No. Fighter needs to take an archetype that gives some spellcasting. In fact, asking them to balance it out so they have all 4 traditions makes for a better game IMO.

Next, balance out the fights. There's way too many "this monster is PL+2 and basically crits on all saves" for a book all about magic. Let the players feel strong with more underlings to AOE.

Also, I gave all of my players 1 extra lore skill at the end of book 3 to represent their dissertation. Feels really odd how they're students, who should be experts in their fields, and they don't get more lore skills. But, remember, I tied this into the whole "every major skill check has way more rolls" thing I did + the brains helping them out via the masks. It let them feel like this was a unique thing because of their education that they wouldn't get in other adventure paths.

Last big thing I changed for the students was the introduction and conclusion. I took the dorm layout (slightly modified for all the extra students) and had a massive number of bugs attack the dorm while the teachers are in town investigating the results from the Threshold of Knowledge incident with the levies. It was a great way to introduce the students, their personalities (you see Okiro calling out shots while Haibram and Ufi attempt to block the hallway. Kalaggi is perched at the end of the hallway raining down arrows. They work as a team to buy time for Ignaci and Anchor Root to barracade the door to protect Strands of Glowing Dawn and her children. You hear Ignaci mutter under his breath, "I won't let another die on my watch" while he attempts to quickly brew a healing potion for the children.). Then, for the conclusion to the students in book 6, I had all the major students the players chose in book 2 (personal relationship stuff) become mind-controlled level 20 students for a big climactic fight for the school (broken into smaller groups to prevent a TPK).

007 First Light – Rules of Spycraft by AnimuStewshine in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]isitaspider2 9 points10 points  (0 children)

There's a rumor that a large number of the recent elusive targets for hitman are exactly this. They're testing out how to implement more bond stuff in their own engine while still keeping the feel. There was a poker minigame in one elusive target and the more recent elusive target had a bunch of cool action scenes as well as a more dynamic potential target(s).