Tali'Thread vas Clan Zorah nar BSN 6.0

[Mazder]

So I got a box of bits/sprues for £5.80 _$8.02/6.79 Euro)off ebay recently.


And from that I got quite a few good things to kitbash from them.



A great find for some random crap, lol.
But will be useful and is better than just buying actual sets like a moron!

[Alienmorph]

I see a bunch 'nids bits, some Chaos and some Tau, correct? Tau smaller power suits and drones are such a good source of generic sci-fi greebles.

[Mazder]

I see a bunch 'nids bits, some Chaos and some Tau, correct? Tau smaller power suits and drones are such a good source of generic sci-fi greebles.

Actually the bag in the upper left is a lot of human bits.
Armour pieces for mech's and shit.

Definitely got a bunch of 'nid arms.
Some Ork arms/weapons.
IIRC some shields and stuff that look kinda vampiric. Will have to get the proper camera out sometime next week and take some proper pics.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr_7BwQH6DA

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu_4XMujHNE

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

https://metroid.nintendo.com/news/metro ... ort-vol-3/

[Dragaros]

Ok, so I just read some spoilers for the third book in 40k's Dark Imperium trilogy, Godblight, and holy shit, those were some nuclear bomb tier plot developments! I need to hurry up and finish my Siege of Terra reading and get this ASAP. I gotta see this for myself.

► Show Spoiler

The Emperor is coming back! He's gonna get off the Golden Throne and bestride the galaxy once again. And its pretty much confirmed that Big E is a God now, a God in the same league as the Chaos Gods; he has indeed been feeding on the emotions and beliefs of the quadrillions of humans for the past 10000 years, plus all he all souls he noms on, but what's more more, the formation of the Great Rift also has been a massive boon for the God Emperor; with Warp energies saturating the galaxy, and humans' psychic potential growing fast and strengthening the echoes they leave in the Warp, Emps has had an enormous boost in might, and finds it much easier to work his power in the physical universe, explaining the dramatic increase in miracles and living saints recently. (But before the Imperium should celebrate, the Eldar are warning that becoming a God changes a person, changes their nature as they are shaped by the very belief and emotion they feed on, so what leaves the Throne room won't be the same being that went in, and a God, no matter how well-intentioned, can be a horrific, terrifying thing. God-E could possibly end up being just as bad for humanity and monstrous as any of the Ruinous Powers.)

We finally get a detailed flashback to Guilliman's talk with Emps, and it depicts the Emperor as having a fragmented mind, speaking in a legion of voices, each saying different words and different meanings. Guilliman is still of the opinion that his father doesn't love him and just sees him as a useful tool, and is disturbed more than ever over the question of whether his dad is a god or not as the miracles keep piling up. He's even more disturbed when he realizes he could possibly end up becoming a God someday if enough people worshipped him. Guilliman agrees that his father is more than human, but doesn't want to call him a god.

Bringing back Guilliman was step 1 of the Emperor's secret plan, for he needs Guilliman to do something for him before can return. We don't know what he needs to do, but the Emperor won't let him die until he does it; Guilliman has divine protection plot armor until he completes his objective: If he dies, Big E just resurrects him. It's implied that after the Horus Heresy, the Chaos Gods had considered the game won and had mostly moved on, giving most of their attention and focus to other realities and realms to corrupt and conquer, explaining why they were so caught off guard by the Emperor's scheme. It's also implied that the Emperor did not want to become a God, but now has no choice given the events and aftermath of the Horus Heresy. Plan A failed, so Plan B will have to suffice.

Guilliman and Mortarion have their final duel, and Morty wins. To make him suffer an agonizing death, Morty infects him with the Primarch-killing Godblight virus, murdering him. But then Morty senses an enormous being moving through the Warp, which brings Guilliman back to life and possesses him. Morty is scared shitless and can't even move as the being is the Emperor, and his power is, in Morty's estimation, at least as great as Nurgle's is while in the heart of his domain where he's strongest. The Emperor is wrathful and calls Morty a traitor, but strangely enough also implies he could possibly one day be saved (Redemption for Daemon Primarchs possible?), but not today because the monster he choose to serve calls him back, and Morty is whisked away by Nurgle. The Emperor sets Nurgle's garden on fire and deals Nurgle a serious wound --some people online are even saying its permanent!-- a wound that all of Nurgle's daemons can feel like a burning flame searing their very essence. Big E tells the Chaos Gods that the opening of the Great Rift altered the balance and they should know that in the Warp, the only thing that's real is will and his will is unmatched. The Warp retreats from the planet. Guilliman wakes up, back to normal as the Emperor leaves his body. While this was happening, the priest that's been following Guilliman around these past couple books that started out reasonable but had grown more zealous over time starts working miracles, gets a vision from Big E, becomes a living saint himself, and leads a crusade of his own into the part of the planet that's being engulfed directly into Nurgle's Garden, ultimately resulting in him being a conduit for Big E, who summons an avatar --a golden giant wielding a fiery sword-- that destroys one of Nurgle's plague cauldrons. The priest dies in the process, but is kept alive by the Emperor's power long enough to speak some final words to Guilliman, telling him what Emps spoke to him in his vision, that he has a task to perform before the Emperor can "wake up" and leave the Throne.

Guilliman is shaken having been a vessel for Emps' overwhelming power and his charge to help his dad return and talks to the Cawl Inferior (The real Cawl is busy studying the Pharos device) about it, who warns him that in his estimation gods, no matter how good or evil they might be, are blights on reality and dangerous to people, so he needs to tread carefully.

One of Nurgle's daemons orchestrates things so that a book detailing the "Imperium Secondus" incident during the Horus Heresy that had long been lost is discovered in a library in the Ultramar system, which could possibly lead to a civil war erupting in the Imperium as some might think this makes Guilliman a traitor if the account is taken out of context.

[Vol]

40K:

► Show Spoiler

One point I took away from the detailed look at Rowboat talking to Big E was that, despite the insane, fractured, uber powerful spirit, the Emperor as we know him was able to briefly wrangle that massive, roaring consciousness. I forget the phrasing, but it was "him" as he "was," asserting control over the, ironically, chaotic entirety of what he's become. So the fedora-tipping, idealistic "man" is still in there, albeit only able to very briefly run the show.

I'm curious where they're doing with this. My idea for a long was has been that they should advance all the factions to their end game events...and then that puts them in a new stalemate, so new endgames are invented to theorize about for decades.

The whole "what is a god?" thing is still weird. It's a setting where souls are objectively real, but they're just part of a natural "ocean," and it's all such a jumble of philosophies, that having people wax poetic about if one arbitrarily powerful ex-mortal is a god or if overgrown emotional parasites are gods is hard to get a handle on. It all has the feel of the people writing it not quite understanding the implication of what they're doing, but running off what they've heard second hand.

Best part was the description of Nurgle's mansion, and how the doors and windows _never_ open...until one window opens ever so slightly, and Mortarian shits his pants. That kind of symbolism is just great fun.

[Vol]

Know what always seemed like bullshit? The idea that children are innately better at learning languages than adults for biological reasons, because something something special brain function we lose as we age, something.

Adults learn complicated subjects all the time, voluntarily, including languages. Children have the advantage of being utterly immersed in their native tongue, a mind lacking existing knowledge, and nothing but time and focus to passively absorb what they hear. It seems to be more that when we're young, we're in the optimal situation for learning our mother tongue in the fullest possible way, and then with additional languages, the process is retarded by all the mental baggage/duties we carry with us.

[Ragabul]

Know what always seemed like bullshit? The idea that children are innately better at learning languages than adults for biological reasons, because something something special brain function we lose as we age, something.

Adults learn complicated subjects all the time, voluntarily, including languages. Children have the advantage of being utterly immersed in their native tongue, a mind lacking existing knowledge, and nothing but time and focus to passively absorb what they hear. It seems to be more that when we're young, we're in the optimal situation for learning our mother tongue in the fullest possible way, and then with additional languages, the process is retarded by all the mental baggage/duties we carry with us.

Would be interesting to see some kind of actual study done comparing a 2 year learning vs an adult who was dumped into place X with native speakers and absolutely no tools other than a commitment of the people there to help him learn and see who did better.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jEeHrnzYBs

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYlSmiG5FWI

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXr0u_dOiUk

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrqtkpizV5g

[Dragaros]

[[ "Valve has announced Steam Deck, an all-in-one portable PC games hardware. It will launch in December 2021 in three versions starting at $399.

The following three versions will be available:

64GB ($399)
64GB eMMC internal storage
Carrying case

256GB ($529)
256GB NVMe SSD internal storage
Faster storage
Carrying case
Exclusive Steam Community profile bundle

512GB ($649)
512GB NVMe SSD internal storage
Fastest storage
Premium anti-glare etched glass
Exclusive carrying case." ]]

Steam Deck: First Hands-On With Valve’s Handheld Gaming PC

Steam Deck FAQ: 31 Big Questions Answered

Gabe Newell: Hitting Steam Deck Price Was 'Painful' but ‘Critical’

[Dragaros]

40K:

► Show Spoiler

One point I took away from the detailed look at Rowboat talking to Big E was that, despite the insane, fractured, uber powerful spirit, the Emperor as we know him was able to briefly wrangle that massive, roaring consciousness. I forget the phrasing, but it was "him" as he "was," asserting control over the, ironically, chaotic entirety of what he's become. So the fedora-tipping, idealistic "man" is still in there, albeit only able to very briefly run the show.

I'm curious where they're doing with this. My idea for a long was has been that they should advance all the factions to their end game events...and then that puts them in a new stalemate, so new endgames are invented to theorize about for decades.

The whole "what is a god?" thing is still weird. It's a setting where souls are objectively real, but they're just part of a natural "ocean," and it's all such a jumble of philosophies, that having people wax poetic about if one arbitrarily powerful ex-mortal is a god or if overgrown emotional parasites are gods is hard to get a handle on. It all has the feel of the people writing it not quite understanding the implication of what they're doing, but running off what they've heard second hand.

Best part was the description of Nurgle's mansion, and how the doors and windows _never_ open...until one window opens ever so slightly, and Mortarian shits his pants. That kind of symbolism is just great fun.

► Show Spoiler

It seems like the Emperor was either was forced to fragment his mind into pieces because it was necessary if he was to watch over the vast whole of the Imperium and deal with the horrific agony of his condition, or/and has developed new aspects to himself because each planet and each culture interprets and worships the Emperor differently, and being a god, his divine nature has to reflect all these widely differing views, but his core, original personality is still there, it just takes a massive amount of effort to bring harmony and focus to the raging tempest that is his mind now. If he's the Chaos God of Order, that would be fitting. And it's a shoutout/easter egg to a super-old story where an Inquisitor sneaked into the Imperial Palace and had a conversation with the Emperor and he spoke in a similar fashion. (It was the one that had an Inquisitor fall in love with a Callidus Assassin who was so good with shapeshifting, she could turn into a Genestealer, and there was a plot about the Sensei and the Star Child. It's no longer canon; it was changed to be a Tzeentch scheme to destroy the Imperium that got stopped by the Custodes, but some older fans still remember it.) Plus, the Eldar apparently mention that there's two types of Gods: ones directly born from the Warp like the Ruinous Powers, and those that started out as mortal and ascended, and the second method is a lot messier than the first apparently, so it makes sense that Emps is a little fragmented during the transition.

Agreed with the "what is a god" thing. It does get weird. Warhammer 40k is a setting where you can literally work miracles and create gods with the power of belief, souls are proven to be real, you can see for yourself where your soul will go when your body dies, you can break the laws of reality with certain words and rituals, and immortal creatures born from mankind's darkest nightmares can be summoned with offerings and sacrifices. Dressing these things up in scientific terminology doesn't change the essence of what they are. It pops up a lot in the Siege of Terra novels too, as various characters discuss on whether or not Big E is a god or the Chaos Gods are gods. But it seems like the characters are all using very strict, arbitrary definitions of what a god is. One Emp worshipper who converted early on in the HH loses his faith during the Siege in the most recent book because he sees that Big E isn't all-powerful or all-knowing, and doesn't consider him a god anymore because of it. Well, who says a god has to be those things? Not even Lorgar, the guy who started the whole "the Emperor is a god" thing before he turned traitor, claimed his father was omnipotent and omniscient. One character denies the godhood of the Chaos Gods because in his eyes, a god should be so benevolent and worthy of loyalty that one falls in worship of it intrinsically, and as the Ruinous Powers inspire only horror and disgust to any sane mind, don't qualify. But who says a god has to be good, or even sane? One character argues that because the Chaos Gods are slaves to their natures they are not really sentient, and being non-sentient, are not gods. But who says a god has to be sentient? What arbiter of truth and fact has set these terms in stone? What definition are we working with here? Give me something to work with if that's the stance you're going to take. By the standards of humans who believed Ra, Zeus, or Odin were real, Big E would certainly qualify as a god. I fail to see how just because a god is an asshole, or can't see all futures and possibilities, or is killable, or can't change who or what they are, makes them not a god by default. Gods not being perfect is not a new thing. Mythology and folklore is overflowing with gods who are dicks, get tricked, are lacking in knowledge and power, get slain, or are trapped by their own natures or the chains of fate and destiny. Hell, Kratos from the God of War series embodies all these things in that franchise's narrative at multiple points.

Know what always seemed like bullshit? The idea that children are innately better at learning languages than adults for biological reasons, because something something special brain function we lose as we age, something.

Isn't there actual science that supports that idea though? That a kid's still-developing brain is able to absorb new languages easier or faster than an adult's already developed brain on average? I could have sworn there was.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWaibpJjFw0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl69eLbe33I

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C9B7v8wWWo

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

"I will not grow old, feeble, limping around a crumbling inheritance. I have an oath to keep, there are beasts left to slay. Listen but closely brothers. There shall come a time far from now when the Chapter itself is dying, and our foes shall gather to destroy us. Then my sons, I shall listen for your call, in whatever realm of death holds me, and come I shall, no matter what the laws of life and death forbid. At the end I will be there. For the final battle. For the Wolftime."

[Ragabul]

So quibbling about what to play next I fiddled with BG3 Early Access and my game crashed 3 times inside of half an hour so I took that as a sign from the gods to move along. It also had consistent and horrible framerate issues even when I tanked my settings and framerate has to be *bad* before I really care about it much.

I knew Pathfinder: Kingmaker was using D&D rules but I know 0 about Pathfinder and I've heard the game has horrible balance problems so I was sort of avoiding it. But BG3 put me in a very D&D mood so I figured I'd try to rough it out. I start it up and this game is pause and play! I was thinking it was turned based for some reason. So yay! Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I've only been playing about an hour and probably 3/4 of that was spent on a character generation screen as such things go.

[magnuskn]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker isn't unbalanced, it just doesn't hold your hand all the way. Saving often is recommended, because you can totally stumble into an encounter area where the game expects you to come back levels later to clean out the nasty monster(s) living in an isolated cave in the wilderness.

Since I just finished my second full run through the game a few weeks ago (and got the secret best ending), I can give some general tips:

- First off, get the Call of the Wild mod, it adds a ton of classes and archetypes to the game. I'm really sad that I only found that mod when I was 90% done with my second run.
- Also recommended is a mod call Respec, where you can redo your companions to be the classes you actually want them to be. Highly recommended if you want to fiddle with optimization.
- Thirdly, I'll repeat: Save often. The kingdom management can really take a dive if you ignore some key events.
- Try to get a good class combination, i.e. at least one arcane caster, one divine caster for healing and one skill monkey for disabling traps and Perception. Fill up the rest of the party with martials to hit monsters with sticks and stand in the way of the bad guys eating your casters. Also, maximise Perception on one character, which you plan to always have in your party. This way, you'll almost always find hidden treasure caches, some of which have really good magic items, like the Devourer of Metal composite longbow. Although they are pretty unsexy feats, Skill Focus: Perception and Alertness are good feats to have on your spotter.
- On that note, when you get Ekundayo, you probably will want to always have him in your party. He's a fucking buzz saw.
- Some neat stuff you can get through kingdom management later: When you hit Arcane 40 (a stat of your kingdom) you can place teleportation circles in your villages and will probably want to build a mage tower in your capital. If you spaced out your villages/towns well, this can save you a ton of walking time to get to the far reaches of your kingdom.
- Also, when you've ranked up your advisors stats 40 times, you unlock a project which halves the time (from 14 to 7 days) of those rank-ups and certain other projects. Really something to strive for.
- And a last tip: The curse research is not very helpful for most of the game, but in the endgame it can open a path you wouldn't otherwise get.

If you got any particular questions, just ask, I can probably answer them. Also, general Pathfinder rule questions, I've gamemastered tabletop Pathfinder for more than a decade now, one or more sessions per week.

[Ragabul]

How do you convert prepared priest/druid spells to healing or summon nature's ally or whatever? The interface is not making that obvious. NVm. I figured out there's a tiny little icon you have to click at the top of the portrait for them.

[Ragabul]

One more potentially dumb question: How do you summon familiar?

[magnuskn]

One more potentially dumb question: How do you summon familiar?

Check in the class abilities tab (the middle one), summoning your familiar should be there. You click the icon once to turn off the summoning effect (green rectangle around the icon).

[Ragabul]

I had 0 idea what the plot was and decided to do a gnomish wizard only to find out the initial antagonist is also a gnomish wizard. So epic square off of the gnomes it is.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEVrdwZ9bEk

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAfo5eeEAJs

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK5Bhf_JLh0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mym0uD73d0Q

[Vol]

It occurs to me that it's very likely I'll never attend a white tie event in my life (Watching clips of stuff). Or see one in person. It's a bit sad, isn't it? An entire area of western culture, the most formal of formal. You lads ever worn the tailcoats?

I'm sitting here in a cheap tanktop, cheap basketball shorts, with a fan blowing in my face as I drink cheap gin and eat cheap boxed doughnuts. That's not a problem, it's a reasonable situation for my income. But it's nice, the very rare times I need to wear my suit. But never a tuxedo, much less a tailcoat ensemble.

Though _getting_ any formal clothing to actually fit me well would be ridiculously expensive, so maybe it's for the best.

Would be interesting to see some kind of actual study done comparing a 2 year learning vs an adult who was dumped into place X with native speakers and absolutely no tools other than a commitment of the people there to help him learn and see who did better.

My gut tells me that the adult would very quickly acquire a "working" knowledge of a pidgin language within a week. Then within months, a functional knowledge. Then within the year, fluent within their sphere of needs. By the time the child has a grasp of it, the adult would be totally fluent. But the child would pick up on subtle, unspoken nuance that the adult would not without direct instruction, if ever.

Incidentally, I highly recommend "Shogun," by James Clavell, because the language issue is handled wonderfully.

Isn't there actual science that supports that idea though? That a kid's still-developing brain is able to absorb new languages easier or faster than an adult's already developed brain on average? I could have sworn there was.

That's the theory, but as I've learned, neuroscience is in its infancy. Most anything related to brain is coached in terms of "associated with" rather than "does." To say nothing of the problem of mind. But yes, children certainly learn language more _fully_ than adults, but speed and depth is not apparent.

For example, I had a hard time in English class, past the basics of grammar, it became a blur. But as you guys have seen, I can write at a roughly inoffensive, amateur level. Not because i know what I'm doing, but because I know what "sounds right." It's a fundamentally different process, your mother tongue.

[magnuskn]

I had 0 idea what the plot was and decided to do a gnomish wizard only to find out the initial antagonist is also a gnomish wizard. So epic square off of the gnomes it is.

Wizard is good. I'd recommend a Sorcerer over that (especially a Sylvan Sorcerer archetype, for getting a full-power animal companion), but that's my strong preference for spontaneous casting over prepared casting. You do you, Wizard is a fine class.

It occurs to me that it's very likely I'll never attend a white tie event in my life (Watching clips of stuff). Or see one in person. It's a bit sad, isn't it? An entire area of western culture, the most formal of formal. You lads ever worn the tailcoats?

I'm sitting here in a cheap tanktop, cheap basketball shorts, with a fan blowing in my face as I drink cheap gin and eat cheap boxed doughnuts. That's not a problem, it's a reasonable situation for my income. But it's nice, the very rare times I need to wear my suit. But never a tuxedo, much less a tailcoat ensemble.

Though _getting_ any formal clothing to actually fit me well would be ridiculously expensive, so maybe it's for the best.

Nah, only suits, never a tailcoat. Last time I wore a suit was for job interviews, before that the graduation ceremony where I got the magisters certificate from my university. Luckily my boss at the place I am working at is okay with me wearing t-shirts and jeans to work.

[Mazder]

It occurs to me that it's very likely I'll never attend a white tie event in my life (Watching clips of stuff). Or see one in person. It's a bit sad, isn't it? An entire area of western culture, the most formal of formal. You lads ever worn the tailcoats?

I'm sitting here in a cheap tanktop, cheap basketball shorts, with a fan blowing in my face as I drink cheap gin and eat cheap boxed doughnuts. That's not a problem, it's a reasonable situation for my income. But it's nice, the very rare times I need to wear my suit. But never a tuxedo, much less a tailcoat ensemble.

Though _getting_ any formal clothing to actually fit me well would be ridiculously expensive, so maybe it's for the best.

Meh I am fine with it going the way of the dogs TBH.
It always was just a stupidly stiff "entertainment" event that just had the veneer of so supposed class by those that call themselves an upper crust/better, but were the worst of the bunch.

Worn a tailtcoat once for my mum's 2nd wedding when I was a kid.
I can honestly say fuck it, it's not worth it. Honestly no clothing you're afraid to get dirty is ever worth it. It's all cloth covering flesh, no matter if it's parker or petticoat.

[Ragabul]

Wizard is good. I'd recommend a Sorcerer over that (especially a Sylvan Sorcerer archetype, for getting a full-power animal companion), but that's my strong preference for spontaneous casting over prepared casting. You do you, Wizard is a fine class.

I've always preferred the versatility of being able to change out my spell loadout when I want. My preferred D&D class is usually druid and I intentionally didn't pick that to mix it up some.

I played it most of yesterday and I have no major complaints so far. I'm playing on Normal which is what I play most things on. I wish one of the difficulty toggles allowed you to get rid of rolls on healing so that healing items just healed you the maximum amount possible like in the old Infinity Engine games. Failing a check and then having to come back later once leveled to perform it again is also not something that translates very well from pen and paper to video game. I think it should be something like "your base state has changed" as in I cast a buff on myself or drank a potion or something and now I can try again for things that it makes sense to try again. If I failed the perception check while walking by the stash hidden in the tree stump, whatever, I failed it. If my ranger cut their fingers trying to pick berries from the thorny bush because they rolled badly and suffered a minor injury. Okay, fine, heal them and try again. As is, I'm pretty sure 98% of people just avoid this with save scumming and thus it makes more sense for it to also be a toggle for the diehard who really want that.

I could also seriously do without the quest timers and it's the one thing I'm considering modding out. I'm playing it vanilla for the moment just to see how bad they are or aren't. It pressures you to proceed with the main quest potentially at a rate where you end up being under-leveled and then waste more time going back for side content than you would have wasted if you had just done the side content in the first place. I think knowing what speed to move at is really down to lucky guessing and/or having played the game before.

Other than that, I might just be being lucky or my baseline of knowing D&D 3.5 decently is carrying over enough for me to avoid the worst stuff so far. I guess we'll find out.

*Edit* Yep, officially modding the shit out of this timer. The straw that broke the camel's back:

I'm gonna do the exact opposite of rest scumming. I'm gonna go until we are about to drop and rest only when I absolutely need it. We've exhausted all our spells after going through 3 large maps, various people down to half health or so. Time to rest. Oh wait, you already used all your healing spells so resting basically does nothing but replenish these spells and you have to manually cast them anyway after wasting 15 hours because the hunting mechanic took forever. Also, you keep rolling badly on healing so you used half your spells on healing and you are still not at full health. Time to rest another 15 hours. But oh wait your character had a nightmare last night so now she's in a fatigued state despite us having just rested for 30 hours. Better rest again. Yeah...no. I'm not wasting 2 days every time I have bad rolls.

[Ragabul]

One more update. Apparently you don't need to use the hunt mechanic. I had previously removed the hunter because I had like 15 rations and thus had no need to hunt but when I removed them, it wouldn't let you actually rest but only skip time. I interpreted this as "nope sorry hunting is mandatory." The issue is that you have to manually assign rations to use if you don't have a hunter assigned. Which just seems...duh? Of course I would want to use rations. What good is standing around not resting? Whatever. Gonna still try it with the timer for now since this drastically reduces the times wasted while camping.

[magnuskn]

Using rations still makes people go forage when in the wild, but it takes waaaay less time in my experience than going hunting. So, yeah, as soon as you can afford a lesser bag of holding, make use of that extra weight to take some 20 rations with you.

Timers can be a pain, but it's possible to work with them. The ideal solution, as soon as you got your kingdom, really is to do the main quest ASAP and then the side stuff and build-up of your kingdom after that.

[Ragabul]

I finished most of Act 1 over the weekend other than 1 fight which was giving me troubles which I experimented with and confirmed you can still do in Act 2.

Two main complaints so far that aren't nitpicks: There's a severe lack of ways to add spells to your spellbook. There are scrolls but they tend to be repeats of the same sort of "eh" level spells (4 thousand different varieties of low level spells that do X elemental damage) or scrolls for spells I already have. This is mostly a problem from the point of view of crowd control. I have 0 way to predict what particular monsters the game is going to throw at me or how hard they are going to be in whatever form they appear. They might happen to be things with crap will saves. They might happen to be things with crap reflex saves. As is you just sort of have to make an educated guess at level up about which of these you think will be useful and fill in your spellbook with other stuff as you go along. But that "other stuff" just isn't showing up and so far there is no merchant who sells any arcane scrolls. Only priest scrolls. My current situation is that I would give my kingdom for a freaking grease spell because apparently frog monsters have the will saving throws of demigods. I found a wand of grease but it's not a long term solution. I had a similar situation earlier with glitterdust. God damn it, those wererats. So solvable with glitterdust. Glitterdust nowhere to be found. I managed with faerie fire and using one party member with resist energy as an alchemist bomb sponge but it was...inelegant.

The other complaint is not so much "balance" as the game does a not very great job at communicating to you the difference between "this is optional and not something you need to worry about because it's designed to be horrible for people who love horrible" vs "you are just underleveled for this and you can come back any time you like to finish it once you are stronger" vs "this is hard but you really need to do this now because if you don't you can't come back and/or you will be under-leveled for something you *really* need to do." Namely, the 2 hardest encounters in Act 1 are not the boss. He was a chump. They are a couple of encounters of generic monsters in utterly optional caves that aren't even part of a marked quest. There's also no particular reason to suspect I'll be able to finish them in Act 2 if I don't complete them by the end of Act 1. It's unclear if they are *supposed* to be hard and utterly optional because they are hard, if they are indicative of what the boss is going to be like and thus if you can't do these you are seriously wasting your time on trying him yet, or if they really are something a non-diehard is not supposed to be messing with in Ac1 at all. Near as I can tell, the actual answer is #3 (non diehards come back later). Great, fine, whatever. I'm not here to prove my gamer cred or whatever. Problem is there is 0 indication given in the game that I could come back later and I spent like an hour running an experiment to see if I could. Of course, I'd also argue that the issues with these two fights (wererats and boggard champion to be specific) come down to me having a not ideal spell loadout for them and not really being able to do anything about it. I haven't tried item/potion spam on the boggards but I really hate item/potion spam as a "strategy" in general. There should be ways around that. I'm gonna try my wand of grease I just found before I stopped last night on them today and see if helps. I've also left Octavia/Regongar rotting at Oleg's because I don't much like them and I could level them up with some other stuff and bring them but I'd rather not have to bring in a spare mage I specifically keep under-leveled so I can build them in particular ways every time something like this happens.

Overall, I'm enjoying it at like B levels so far. The writing is fine but not amazing but I also haven't gotten to all the political intrigue stuff yet. The kingdom building mechanic looks to be the most interesting, unique aspect of the game but I *just* got there after running my hour long experiment to see if I could go back to the boggards in Act 2 and I then reloaded.

[magnuskn]

Actually you should get at least one vendor in your city for arcane scrolls. And, yeah, as I said, the game does expect you to figure some of the stuff out by yourself. As for the Stag Lord, there were enough people who got reamed by the guy (check the forums), so if you found him easy on your first try, you are one f the gamers who is a cut above the average. ^^

You'll get enough companions that you can put together a party to your liking. If all else fails, you can always hire mercenaries. ^^

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU4BCq07XVo

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGtAU2WVnms

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13RvcoSZV6o

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzRbbgaqAvo

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjwOAK53oaY

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHg-49la9w0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeKu8xxr3lY

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHWlJlMkTcg