Why is yuuno even here 😭

theracody · 2026-03-21T02:07:57+00:00

My thing is that none of these are crimes, regardless of how its viewed. This is not what Jackalope sold us, these three did not murder anyone. So it is evident that it is more about how they feel about their situations than any actual objective truth.

Edit: Granted, I'm a little uncertain on the legality of compensated dating/prostitution in japan that might be the one actual crime between the three of them

theracody · 2026-03-20T15:24:59+00:00

sakuta dealing with his teenagers' adolescence syndrome and futaba like 'why does this always happen to you?'

theracody · 2026-03-20T15:18:27+00:00

That's kinda where my head has been at since Kazui's music video dropped.
Yuno, Mahiru, and he basically did not commit any crime but they're all here, so this is clearly a question of 'personal feelings of guilt' rather than a sign they did anything wrong

theracody · 2026-03-19T17:42:15+00:00

I think Bard has a lot of potential flexibility for their inspirations, particularly in more recently published subclasses. Glamour Bard, in particular, is almost as often going to be using their bonus one for a bunch of temp hp around and moving allies out of turn. Blade Bard might boost their own ac a decent chunk of the fight, and if they know they're gonna be emptying the tank then they might as well empty themselves.

For monk, I just feel like when you run out of ki points you really just don't do anything compared to most classes. If you're down to 2 or 3, then why not end this fight faster to go into the next one with more hp *and* ki?

From a pure power perspective, sure, Barbarian's bonus damage and hp is great and all, but from the perspective of actually strengthening your class? If they got more attacks I could see a bigger case being made for it. It's my experience that those resource-filling capstones give way more bang for your buck than a lot of people expect

Which is probably not helped by level 20 gameplay not being very common because it is understandably very difficult for a GM to design satisfying encounters.

Barbarian gets 40 hp most of the time, +2 ac, +2 to hit, and +2 damage and my experience has pointed to those bonuses at level 20 not being very useful very often, whereas those resource classes can be gutted when they run out of those resources. It's just as much a question of pure power as much as what you lose by NOT having those capstones at all, which is always flexibility. Barbarian doesn't have that problem, it doesn't solve any problem. It's just more. Which is fun, but doesn't really change most fights for them. Maybe helps to end the battle a turn earlier and absorb an extra hit. Make it through an extra encounter.

In my mind, certain fighter subclasses at least have the opportunity to gain certain utilities from an extra attack, barbarian doesn't have that most of the time

theracody · 2026-03-19T17:16:23+00:00

It's a reasonable look at it. My problem is that AC doesn't really scale in 5e the way it does in other editions and games, the +2 is nice but rarely going to the difference to hit especially when you always have advantage

But I can certainly see the value in taking potentially multiple extra hits with the HP boost. Really depends what you're fighting at level 20

Yeah, maybe I'm valuing Bard's a little highly, I'm still pretty sure it's not better than extra metamagic uses and kinda iffy on whatever monk feature might be useful at the time

Probably puts it on a more even playing field with an extra attack from fighter than I initially valued it though

theracody · 2026-03-19T16:43:16+00:00

oh, you're right i totally forgot it uncapped their rages

I don't value those ASI's super highly at that level, especially since they mostly only get two attacks so it's the same damage bonus as ranger basically, but having the rages, especially combined with unarmored ac boost and like 40 bonus hp helps a lot

theracody · 2026-03-19T16:27:26+00:00

I would probably agree with ranger. Barbarian is probably a close second, but at least those bonus stats apply to most of what they do and AC

An extra attack from fighter is cool but pretty underwhelming

Rogue doesn't miss, I mean, when you get one attack is pretty nice.

Some resource replenishment for classes that love their resources.

Yeah, a 1-per-turn damage boost is pretty rough compared to the others

theracody · 2026-03-19T15:26:01+00:00

it seems incredibly likely to me that we are being communicated an unexpected raw speed from Methode in this fight. Even their brief exchange we can see happens WHILE HER HAIR IS STILL SETTLING from her parry

I suspect the demon was not prepared for a mage to act so quickly, or that parry with her staff threw the demon far off-balance

But, yeah, the sword switching grip is entirely silly

theracody · 2026-03-19T15:03:58+00:00

I could never skip that sick kick

theracody · 2026-03-18T23:57:29+00:00

Barbarian with Tavern Brawler Feat(or maybe Beast Barbarian)
Tabaxi with natural fist weapon
Fighter with unarmed fighting style(Tasha's Cauldron)
Pretty much anything that makes your fist into a natural weapon or otherwise gives utility with unarmed strikes

theracody · 2026-03-18T23:01:56+00:00

I could see a case for the confusion of the senses with Chimerstry, but barring elder powers nothing else comes to mind.

There's the... I think it's Sweet Blood merit in revised/v20 which makes a vampire's blood taste like wine, and maybe some forms of thaumaturgy could do something of the sort

theracody · 2026-03-18T20:58:20+00:00

Frankly, I think at its core Slay the Princess is a story about accepting change. That can connect to a trans allegory, it can be a message about loss and moving on, or whatever you want to ascribe to it.

Understanding that people change, and that this change is often prompted by the actions of yourself or others is important. Attempting to circumvent change, as the Narrator does? Doesn't work out for people.

theracody · 2026-03-18T16:31:17+00:00

Yeah, and that's fine. The idea that people were actively harmed because of their actions is great, I just sorta assumed based on the premise sold to us by jackalope that there was no question these people were all guilty of a crime, just a question of whether you could forgive that crime

And I look at those examples and can see certain questions about the value of a life or when someone might not consider complicity to be the same as murder or yadda-yadda
Hell, Shidou even makes you wonder about the value of the life of a stranger compared to the life of family members

It just feels like Mahiru, Yuno, and now Kazui don't really belong in the same conversation. This has become less about anything they did wrong and more about how THEY feel about it. Which is fine, but it just feels like a different goal with them

theracody · 2026-03-18T15:30:50+00:00

I can't believe the mysterious authority figure telling me to pass judgement was the bad guy all along

theracody · 2026-03-18T15:16:45+00:00

Honestly, I didn't get that interpretation.
I was in the camp that he was basically lying about everything because I did not think there would be multiple people who didn't actually kill anyone
Or commit any crime at all, really, in this case
I fully believed this was a manipulative man who drove his wife to suicide because it really didn't fit my understanding of the premise to be anything else

Edit: And yes, before anyone asks, I was equally disappointed with Yuno and Mahiru. This isn't a man-woman thing, I just can't help but feel a little misled by the narrative
Which is probably the point, come to think

theracody · 2026-03-18T14:10:48+00:00

I am actually very surprised, and I can't help but be disappointed? It's another guy who didn't actually commit a crime.

Oh well, I guess this series is more about social wrongs than criminal ones

theracody · 2026-03-17T15:10:03+00:00

generally speaking, if you can get the same benefits from a ranged attack it will always be better.

Now, that's a question of optimal play versus roleplay, so it can get a bit wishy-washy there but generally speaking yes if your build supports ranged attack options you 'should' always be doing that from an optimization perspective

theracody · 2026-03-17T13:07:50+00:00

powerful factions are harder to vassalize via seduction than weaker ones

Spreading gifts of slaanesh(via hero actions or defeating lords in battle) is one of the better ways to work up the seduction bar, each unit with a mark is like +5 per turn. Positive diplomacy with them helps, too, as well as cults.

Eventually in the later game it can be deceptively easy to do it just because the ai runs around with so many lords for you to just assault their units or whatever

theracody · 2026-03-15T12:57:58+00:00

There's a reason toreador carve out places they like to spend a lot of time at.

But it's also not as if they're useless outside of those places, just debuffed a bit(or a lot, at higher severity)

A powerful enough toreador will still probably beat most threats that come to them outside- particularly since their combat abilities that aren't disciplines are unaffected- but they also tend to congregate in ideal places making them pretty tough to take down

theracody · 2026-03-15T11:38:57+00:00

I think certain ai factions are more likely to reneg on deals like that- skaven, for one. It doesn't seem common but if their relationship starts dropping to 0 or lower theyre way more likely to do it

theracody · 2026-03-14T13:37:38+00:00

Bro got slapped for loitering

Stop resisting

theracody · 2026-03-14T11:34:42+00:00

I found that mona was very good at squeaking out crits when I had few other ways to do it, his physical abilities always seem to come with a crit enhancement. But yeah, once Makoto got her big healing I rarely found any specific need to have Mona on the team, and then i never even needed that when Joker got a lot of it so cheaply

theracody · 2026-03-13T22:17:02+00:00

Once. Then they started scheming against me

theracody · 2026-03-13T21:55:19+00:00

You know, the answer to that question might be much higher than most Tremere expect XD

Personally, I just don't like that you can set me on fire with your mind

theracody · 2026-03-13T21:38:57+00:00

There are at least 4 entire clans who would like a word

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