MagicShel

@MagicShel@programming.dev

25+ yr Java/JS dev
Linux novice - running Ubuntu (no windows/mac)

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MagicShel,

It set a high bar for everything that followed.

MagicShel,

Reduce exclamation marks!? Great Scott!!! Is there a shortage of punctuation in the future!?

MagicShel,

Bad Batch is really that. Rebels is its own thing, unless you wrap it with Ahsoka. Rebels had a mediocre first season but after that it’s definitely top tier material.

MagicShel,

That MF is also the only one who doesn’t connect tadpoles but he’s all like “hey I was totes on that ship with you!”

Sure you were, motherfucker.

Oh and now you want to eat all my shit? Fuck you, wizards are my last favorite caster anyway.

He ran off and I never found Astarion until my fourth or fifth playthrough.

MagicShel,

I opened two buried chests with fish in them in Kuo-toa land. I don’t care how freshly buried it was, that fish is rancid long before the mound of dirt gets flattened.

MagicShel,

That is stated, but I’m not sure I’d consider the Netherbrain a reliable narrator. I feel like it was an attempt to intimidate the party. The sheer amount of secret knowledge and unlikely events that come together to begin freeing the brain at the end of A1 seems beyond the ability of an elder brain, which is all it would’ve been when it formed the plan.

The whole idea that it would use use an artifact that had only been seen once, very briefly, with no measurement or understanding of its true capabilities, to evolve itself into a being powerful enough to overcome the control it was submitting to as part of its plan… I know elder brains are scary smart, but this seems a ludicrous proposition.

Consider: what part of its plan could it not have achieved simply by tadpoling Gortash and anyone else to begin with?

Now it could be that what the brain says is canonically true and this is just weaker writing, but until I see confirmation I think the brain was trying to demoralize the party into thinking they’d always been dancing to the brain’s tune the whole time and everything they had done had been in service to its plot the whole time, when the truth is it has been (very capably) trying to regain the upper hand since Ketheric’s death.

Ending my honor run in shame

I’m 100+ hours into an honor run and I’ve finally made a decision I apparently can’t live with. I was offered a gift at the end of act 2, and while it was totally out of character for me to accept it, my curiosity got the better of me. I never made it this far before and I wanted to see what would happen. Now I hardly even...

MagicShel,

My first honor run ended when I forgot the hammer was on a different character, so I made bad dialog choices and got dominated by the Absolute for refusing to side with the emperor and kill Lae’zel.

Which was kinda dumb because I was all set to try sending Gale to his doom (gotta just finish once at all costs). I’ve never done that before but I had to be five minutes from the end if it works, and the lack of big O or the form change wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Hell I could - head canon - go back to camp and pop the guy free afterwards. Oh well. I’m back to the point of starting A3 now. These acts are so long… I have a ridiculous number of hours played and only finished the game once.

MagicShel,

You make everyone take the astral worm? You are a monster lol. Lae’zel is one of my core characters and an absolute favorite and I can’t imagine bullying her into taking it. Besides at 22str I think she can jump about 60’ anyway.

I might try it because it sounds fun but oh man. Lae’zel and Karlach have been through enough! I could totally see Gale and Wyll and Halsin, though. It’s just that those three are never in my group except when needed for story reasons.

MagicShel,

With the right gear and cheese there’s a way to make jumping free as well (unless fixed - I’ve never tested it). But your point is well taken.

MagicShel, (edited )

My experience with Lae’zel:

L: Keep that ghaik shit away from me!

Me: [Persuasion] You’d be really powerful.

L: Hand that shit over.

My experience with Astarion:

A: Fuck. No.

Me: [Wisdom] But…

A: 1. Leave

Which sucks because he has all my lockpicking ability and a big chunk of my DPS and now he’s the only one who can’t fly. Maybe Minthara can respec as Gloomstalker and take his place. She was all about that worm. Didn’t even have to roll.

MagicShel,

Those outer ring powers are pretty good, it’s worth saying. There’s a good likelihood I’ll make the same choice because honor run. I want to get the golden die and then I’ll go back to roleplay runs.

Plus it’s good to have things push me out of my comfort zone. I just finished act 2 and Thorm killed Jahira. It’s a bummer to miss out on her storyline stuff, but that’s something I’d never let stand if I could just reload so I’m in uncharted waters. I don’t know what things will be different. I assume I’ll never meet the big guy at a minimum. Maybe some sad dialog I’d never have experienced in A3. Maybe interactions with the Harpers will go differently.

I like the chaos that comes from consequences for impulsive decisions and randomness outside the players control. I’ve never let Isobel be taken - I’m way too good at that fight after like a dozen times - and if the dice went wildly against me I would be in uncharted territory which would be kinda exciting even though I would hate to let all of those individual storylines end on such an unhappy note. But that should just make me hate the Absolute even more, right?

MagicShel, (edited )

Strange Ox: brown with an oozy blood red discharge, very loose, mostly hairy, putrid, extremely rancid

MagicShel,

That ending was great.

MagicShel,

When you are at the brain stem leading to the final fight if you have Gale in your party you can skip the entire final fight. Just send Gale up alone and he will confront the brain by himself leaving everyone else alive. This kills Gale so if he is your husbando you have a tough decision to make.

Tough decisions are for after you’ve gotten the golden d20. My current run though I’m mercenary as hell. I ate all the worms even the astral worm with gusto. I’ll be a mind flayer, murder Isobel, whatever. I might let the hag eat Vanya to have her as an ally in the final fight.

The only things I haven’t done are the ones that relied on dice rolls that I failed. I gave up the hag bonus the first time in favor of keeping Marina alive, but I also couldn’t think of a stat that could really benefit. I almost took it so that my charisma could stay 8 with the smuggler’s ring but ultimately decided that wasn’t worth letting Ethel have her.

I lucked out with the zathisk and book of Thay. Misclicks are the worst. “Hey bro, what’s up? Whoa! I didn’t mean to touch the carrot! [Deception] Oh I already had that on me. [Critical Failure].” A short combat later. “Fuck!”

MagicShel, (edited )

At the Gondian factory. Pick up the plans and two parts, find the table, done. But I made two trips instead of finishing it in one and lost the plans between. Then I also managed to leave the orphic hammer behind and thus ended my honor run because I selected the wrong dialog option.

Thought I had it, but it was on a character I’d swapped out.

MagicShel, (edited )

Moving shit around is awful on the PS5. I’ll just keep my 25 rows of garbage on Tav. Unless I’m playing a Str character, then it’s more like 50 rows. Finding shit you know you have is also awful.

I’ve yet to ever turn in Dribbles because by the time I find all his pieces, I’ve lost one. Hope the reward is garbage.

Lost the plans to the crossbow, but there’s a good chance I sold them because they look like every other scrap of paper I grab to sell. Which reminds me I’m probably still carrying around the other parts. It’s honestly a minor miracle I can complete the gauntlet of Shar.

Edit: I checked. Reward for Dribbles is indeed garbage.

MagicShel,

I have yet to play an origin character other than durge. But it seems like it would make it easier to have everyone around for their bit of story. "Oops going into the magic shop need Gale. Here’s Jahira’s family, better grab her. Dammit, it’s Mizora, have to grab both Karlach and Wyll. Ugh, have to show this cave art to Shart.

Not even counting swapping in Gale when I need Feather Fall or buffing the party with Longstrider or Shart for Feast and Aid. I hate how cumbersome it is to swap characters. I know there are mods, but not on PS5.

MagicShel,

It’s critical to note, as you point out, that until you know what the goal is you can’t say whether they are winning or losing.

MagicShel,

Never underestimate human capacity for self-delusion.

Honor Mode Miss Chance Apophenia

I have growing doubts of the statistical randomness of attacks in honor mode with karmic dice disabled. I’m talking about multi-attack with action surge completely whiffing when the chance to hit is 75% or greater and rogues with advantage that couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. (1/4)^2 is 6.25% so across hundreds of...

MagicShel,

75% chance to hit with advantage (I know percent includes advantage in the calculation) and I wiff three attacks in a row. I check the rolls and I’ve gotten nothing higher than a 4. On 6 separate rolls?? Come on…

MagicShel,

Isn’t that calculated into the percentage, though? Grr.

MagicShel,

The number of times I’ve gotten two or even three critical failures/misses in a row is mind boggling. That said I’ve watched the NPCs do it as well, so there is a semblance of fairness. You’re right that the statistics feel off, but as is always the case, our minds are going to focus on these outliers without recalling all the many times the dice fell right in line with expectations.

I do swear that a 50% chance to hit with a Sacred Flame consistently feels more like a 15% chance.

MagicShel,

Impending? I think the issue is there has been a humanitarian crisis there for decades and no one has done jack shit.

Anyone else having characters not moving their lips during dialog?

Basically title. I decided to start a new honor mode run after the update the other day (haven’t played in a few months) and getting a bug in which character’s face animations don’t work during dialog. Lips don’t move, expressions don’t change. A little googling didn’t turn up any similar reported bugs except for a...

MagicShel,

I’ve been seeing it. Worse since the patch, but it happened every once in a while before. Major desync between the audio and animation; sometimes cutting each other off.

Now I’ve just restarted and it hasn’t been any worse than before, so I feel like maybe the problem had to do with continuing games started before the patch.

PS5.

MagicShel,

I tried knocking Alfira out to protect her in my durge run. But I forgot to turn on non-lethal. So now I’ve murdered two bards…

No one to blame but myself.

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