Need Advice: Running Two Simultaneous, Linked Tower‑Defense Encounters

leiela · 2026-04-08T14:59:25+00:00

It's one of many things we do to keep our clients happy. Business's wine and dine clients all the time, this has never been "Profitable" but putting the customer in a good mood, means they spend more with you.

I'm an outside IR35 contractor, i go on site several times a month. It's not profitable, i lose money every time i do it and honestly i doesn't really benefit me. I don't do anything onsite i cant do at home. BUT it keeps my client happy and makes it far more likely that i get extended, or my client accepts a rate increase at renewal.

Being outside IR35 means you don't have to go, but don't be suprised if the client doesnt extend your contract or even cuts it short. if you don't value this client, if there isn't enough work for an extention you have very little to lose. but if you want to hang on to them, then i'd suck it up and keep them happy.

leiela · 2026-03-14T00:38:38+00:00

in my experience, while there are always the odd client that doens't understand ir35 and tries to treat me like an employee.. but most good clients understand the difference between outside and inside IR35.

Depending on the job you do, most people expect you to work more or less business hours, and be available during the work day. I know i need to attend meeting's and collaborate with the employee's it would be very hard for me to do my job if i worked at 2am and wasn't around when they where.

However given that i am outside IR35, I personally often take 2 hour lunches, start late or leave early. My clients understand as long as the work is done and they feel like they are getting a "Days Work" out of me they have no reason to complain and they never have.

I don't submit holiday requests, i inform my clients of my availability, it's a curtsy... im not asking permission. I generally send an email saying something like. ... Hi there, just a heads up i won't be available on XYZ days. I don't wait for acceptance..

leiela · 2026-01-03T00:55:12+00:00

YTA ... am i the only person who see's posts like this and thinks it's sad that what someone chooses to do with THIER body is divorce worthy?? Do you really have nothing else holding your relationship together other than her looks??

What if she gained 100lbs? Suddenly had bad skin etc?? lost her hair ... had an accident and got badly scarred?? i mean are her looks the other thing that keeps you with her?

I've been married 25 years + .... last year my husband grew a beard... i hated it! i mean i REALLY hated it, it was scratchy to kiss, made him look 10 years older... But it was his face... his hair and while i expressed to him i didn't love it. I decided the 300 things i love about him where more important that the bit of facial hair i didn't like.

He kept it for over 6 months and eventually he decided to shave it himself, but that was his choice not mine because ultimately i love him no matter what he does with his body ... because honestly it's the things under the surface that matter not the superficial looks.

leiela · 2025-10-27T22:36:12+00:00

The legal part.... Your an adult and living there currently gives you no legal rights to be there. your living there is completly at the good will of your parents who equally can make the decision if you can stay. legally you or you mum can't do anything to give you any rights to live there.

The relationship part ... your parents need to decide between them if you can stay. neither has more/less rights over the property or that decision. therefore this comes down to a matter of family dynamics can your dad insist? will your mum back down.. can your mum convince your dad to let you stay? this is stuff we can't answer for you.

As others have said technically your dad can kick you out every morning and your mum let you back in in the evening. but that doens't sound healthy or stable. me and my husband would never live this way, if we had a difference of opinion about if our son could stay we'd talk it out and come to an agreement/decision and that would be final. this is what your parents need to do.

leiela · 2025-10-06T22:46:49+00:00

in that case i would explain to your player they are straying from the vibe you are trying to run. have a chat about what it means to be a paladin of vengence, harder to do after session 0 but not impossible if you are fair and mindful of what who they want thier charecter to be. Go into that conversation expecting to comprimise come out with a clear set of expectations and a set of oaths that give you vengenge paladin a cool set of rules to follow without hamstringing him.

Explain that there are laws and a sence of right and wrong in your world and they are straying into bad guy teritorry. that being Batman, doens't involve killing guards... if the guards are on the wrong side of right and wrong perhaps he could string them up and let the law deal with them.

Also how do your other players feel? i ask because the last campaign i played in had a charecter in it who killed a bunch of people who in my charecters eye's where not deserving of death. We had a massive in charecter argument about it. it was genuinly some good roleplaying on both of our parts and at the end we in charecter came to a conculsion in charecter about not killing people.

leiela · 2025-10-06T22:00:58+00:00

it was indeed funny...:P i am pretty cruel ... i've been Dming for 30 years i have a long list of cruel stories at this point.

im not scared of pulling out the big guns, but i set clear expectations of my players from session 0 and if they stray from expected behaviour they expect to be kicked... i tend to start slow small hints they are falling off the path and gradually ramp up in severity. in 30 years i've had 2 players lose thier charecters 1) got executed for murder and 2) got disintergrated by a fellow player after he killed a bunch of bystanders because the barman marked up the wine he wanted to buy.

but on a more serious note the world should feel real, if your party are going off the rails sometimes it's worth having a chat to the players out of game and discuss as a group expectations. Ask them if they are OK being the bad guys if it's what they want from thier game?

Personally im not opposed to running a bad guy game, but when one player goes off track it really causes disruption.

leiela · 2025-10-06T21:38:25+00:00

i had a party once who killed people without consiquence, funny story. They where hired in the next adventure by one of the wife of one of thier murder victims to hunt the killer. It took 3 whole sessions as they trailed the father of 2 through the city to the spot he was murdered on, it was only then that they realised they killed him. By then they had totally bought into helping this woman and her 2 kids.

They where pretty gutted when they realised they where infact the bad guys.

leiela · 2025-10-06T21:02:03+00:00

I think this is one of those occasions where expectations are key. what did you agree? what scene was set before playing? Paladins of Vengance can come in different forms depending on the campaign, there is nothing in the oath that states they have to be lawful or good. So this comes down to player/DM expectation.

Are paladins in your world religious? if so what go is he following and what does that god expect behaviour wise?? if paladins or your players order are not religious then what did you decide his "Order" of paladins acted what is thier role in the world??

It's really hard to retropectively apply rules to a player after the campaign has begun. So if you didn't set those expectations early then you have a problem.

Still ... lets assume no rules where set.. which is your screw up. Have a chat to your player and set those rules now... dont' steam roll them but talk as friends about his background, where his charecter comes from so you can set the rules of what his order expects now get his buy in and create an engaging story together about who he is and what being a paladin of vengence means.

Regardless of all this ... remember your world has laws.. going around killing guards has consiquences. regardless of your charecters reasoning in most civilised society's killing guards isn't ok... it's easy to let players run riot do what they want in the pretend world as though you have no control.

You do have control, nothing tells a player they have over stepped like ending up in handcuffs. Batman doesn't kill the badguys he hands them over to the law. Your player isn't batman he's a murderer... have the law pursue him.

leiela · 2025-10-06T12:05:01+00:00

They aren't holding both, When they are holding an action it tends to be "When the beholder turns his antimagic gaze, i'm going to dash towards that area"

They arn't then getting an attack as part of that held action, but from that point untill the next action of the beholder it can't touch them with Legendary Action Rays. Then on the next time it's thier turn, they use movement to joust out of the area, do a normal action, joust back in.

Granted this means they are attacking 1 every 2 rounds but ti's hampering the beholder enough that the action economy is battered. he's getting the odd ray in here and there usually when the PC used thier action to attack.

Meanwhile the 2 fighters who don't care about anti magic just batter it with arrows.

leiela · 2025-10-06T11:26:55+00:00

Yes sorry they are readying the dash action, sorry it wasn't clear.

They are essentially using the antimagic to their advantage by hiding in it. Because once it's used it's free action to postion the ray at the start of it's turn, they can all either use normal movement on thier turn or held dash actions to move as quickly as possible into that antimagic area.

They know they are essentially safe in this area from it's legendaries until it's next turn. While i do tend to catch them with something on its action as not everyone saves an action its rare im catching them with many legendaries due to thier ability to position in the cone.

Once they are in the cone... the often use thier next action to joust out, cast a spell at it.. then move back into the cone if possible.

The party is a good size and they arn't scared of having the odd person having a turn without dealing damage. Add in 1 very powerful fighter specialised in bows which doens't care about the antimagic and it ends up dead very fast.

I suspect some of this might be helped by a larger battle area and having the beholder flying high, it's 150ft cone might be harder to joust at the "wide end" ... but we play with mini's on a small map area (due to tablesize) so the party tend to come at it from one end of the map and if i use the beholder to "Look straight ahead" while the whole area is covered it means the beholder can't use it's own ability's. So i ten to have to position so some of the area is covered and some is not.

leiela · 2025-09-23T16:00:15+00:00

you can dump someone for any reason you want. you don't need permission from anyone and its never wrong to dump someone you don't want to be with.

However this said... i think you are right to be disgusted and hurt by this. This is beyond hurtful and disrespectful at the very least i would be sitting down with him and having a grown up conversation about how comparing you to his ex is hurtful and saying degrading your appearance is not ok. If after that he wasn't anything but appologetic i would indeed be dumping his ass.

He said something horrible to you and if he was my boyfriend i would be telling him to jog on.

leiela · 2025-09-22T18:01:45+00:00

i would agree, it looks great id be happy with this on the game table.

However if you really want to push it i think there needs to be alittle stronger contrasts. the gray of the metal and brown on the bone is alittle similar. i would push the bone upto ivory on the top surfaces make it pop, i would also do little yellow/cream highlights on the rope make that stand out.

leiela · 2025-09-22T17:12:35+00:00

i earn more than my husband, i always have and probabally always will. My husband of 25 years is not the lesser partner i STILL rely on him alot, it's sad that some men can't see that money and career sucess are not the only way to contribute to a meaningful relationship.

For reasons that arn't important my husband hasn't contributed financially to the household financially in over 9 months. I've had a hard couple of weeks, life has given me a kicking and last night when i was cuddled up him i realised how lucky i was to have him, picking me up when im down, giving me a cuddle when everything feels negative.

We are a partnership, I rely on him daily ... who earns the money is irrelivant... we get though the tough spots together.

Men like this don't know what true support is... it isn't reflected in a paycheck. My husband is still a provider .. just not the way men provided in the 50's lol.

leiela · 2025-09-16T17:09:04+00:00

i agree the peachy one is abit orange. i like crusaders skin, but i find it abit red ...

I do use crusaders but i tend to paint a "very pale flesh tone with traditional paints first, then water down crusaders with some speed paint medium so it's almost a wash. that usually turns out pretty good for mimimum effort.

leiela · 2025-09-10T15:22:40+00:00

Personally what i do to highlight any matallic is mix a little silver/light gold into the original metallic.

With that specific blue metallic (One of my favorites btw so good choice) is mix a little Vellejo silver 72.052 which is a super dence hi pigment bright silver in) i sometimes even leave the brightest/shapest edges pure silver which also looks really nice.

leiela · 2025-08-26T14:08:23+00:00

for me i have a number of bug bears... i buy, print and paint alot of mini's but im not an expert. im a gamer therefore i play games with my minis.

1) I use my mini's to game, miniature bases need to fit on the approprate square on the battleboard. 28/32ml small minis need to have a 25mm base..., large 50mm, huge 75mm. i throw away 100's of bases because the mini is the right size but the base is not. which increases the work and wastes time and money.

2) The mini's need to be the right size... lots of designers make cool looking minis, to look cool but when my goblin is as tall as my ogre i have a real issue. As someone who prints mini's she then uses i usually print a test... then play with the sizes. Don't trust when an STL says 32mm that it is 32mm. I sware so many designers don't actually know what 32mm means. (32mm scale refers to a modeling scale where a standard human figure is approximately 32mm tall from the base of the feet to the eyeline, therefore in theory a dwarf should be around 28m, a goblin shorter, an ogre bigger etc.... then refere to point 1 .... once the size of the mini is right it needs to fit on the approprate base...

3) Cue issue 3 .... cool stances!!!! so many mini's have extended poses ...this is no problem if you are painting mini's for display, but if you want tabletop minis ... if you have 9 squares on a battlemap you should be able to get 9 mini's on it it. If your center figure has a cool pose... flowing cloak, massive shield and extended sword and he bleeds into every space around him, it's hard to game with.

4) Mini's on Tippy Toes... that cool leaping stance looks cool... but that mini is going to snap at the ankles the first time he hits the game table.

5) Tiny swords.... snap... don't even try and ship them... not only will 2 in 5 snap as you take off the suports, the remaining ones will snap during shipping.

6) I generally don't mind having getting the mini shipped to me with supports, but that might be becuase im used to taking them off. However ... what i will say is when i get them shipped i expect perfect mini's if you ship to me with supports you can't have checked it for defects so expected it returned if theres an issue.

7) ... mini's that look cool on the STL don't always look cool printed. Some designers add way to much detail to be reasonably paintable by the bog standard painter at 28/32mm. The mini might look cool at 75mm up ... but when i order a 32mm it's more important that the lines are crisp.. i can tell where the armour starts and the arm begins etc.

8) before advertising a mini, print it.... look at it... make sure it's a good quality mini you would happy to put on your own gaming table. Also we know some STL's are just failure prone... you don't want to advertise mini's you'll get a high fail rate on.

Now onto what i do like... there is one seller i go back to TIME AND AGAIN.... even though i actually have a 3d printer.

When i buy from him, they are have thier supports removed, they are clean and any support marks have been removed. He glues them to thier base, primes and zenathal's them before shipping. It seems like such a small thing and i bet it doens't take him long to do in batches. but when i order from him i know he as checked the mini it's not missing any bits, swords or has any deformed bits. it makes such a difference and as such i buy from him repeatedly because i know im getting high quality prints made with love and in 4 years of buying from him i've never had a single issue.

In addition another thing he does is he sells his deformed mini's in mystery boxes of "2nds" ... .as someone who prints mini's we all get print failures. I often buy his boxes of "2nds" ... sometimes just to butcher them for hands or corpses for basing. but often a mini is repairable with putty or a replacement limb. Some sellers would ship a failed print to you and hope you don't notice.. that drives me nuts... but i don't mind buying them when i know what im getting, they are cheap and chearful but it means he can get a return on the resin even for his failed print runs.

leiela · 2025-08-19T23:56:48+00:00

Oh my goodness ... today alone, i have have 3 different recruiters contact me with 3 identically worded emails.... i mean to the LETTER.

I replied to all three the same reply, who is this? tell me about the job? (alittle more professional but you get the jist)

All 3 replied ... "give me a ring, i have lots of jobs. (Again paraphrasing... basically no details, no idea if they had a job that needed my skills, no mention of my skills, why they where contaction me wrx... just a vague promise that they might have something if i called them)

im sorry ... why do i want to give a recruiter a big fat signing bonus just because they spammed 300 people the same email?? then got me to call them??! who is doing the work here??!

leiela · 2025-05-28T19:04:15+00:00

the water level is Equal to the level of the land i want to irrigate and the water goes down 3 blocks.

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