LaZodiac's Super Turbo Championship Edition Random Banter Thread #242

[DataNinja]

Honestly I think more games should be willing to give casters the freedom and restrictions of the 3.X Warlock.

You can use magic whenever you want! No need to worry about spell slots or points! But in exchange you have to pick from a (theoretically) thematic list of powers, and you only get a small handful of them.

Well, hey, conveniently do I have the D&D edition for you...

[Qwertystop]

I vaguely remember an old handbook on the topic of XP costs for crafting – "XP is a river", or something like that? Pointing out that, with XP per challenge scaling up, an item-crafter could expect to never be more than a level behind, and they end up having a surplus of XP that they can spend on doing even more crafting to stay that one level behind. And also, you know, that 3.5 in general is already well and truly broken in terms of any kind of party balance, and a wizard a level down (with lots of extra gear, some of which they use to lift up the rest of the party) is still going to be able to keep up with a bard or rogue.

If we're talking things we want out of games – I want a video game that lets me set up a party tank the way late-3.5 eventually supported it – large threatened area, attacks of opportunity, tripping. Don't let the player directly mess around with the underlying aggro mechanic to make the enemies attack a target who's not any kind of actual danger, let the player-character make themselves too much of an obstacle to ignore, do crowd-control in melee.

[Rater202]

I have decided to watch a playthrough of Night In The Woods, which is a game that I have read a lot about but never actually played or watched someone play.

For those of you who don't know, the game is a slice of life style game with ghost story elements that touches on some nihilistic and existentialist themes with the message of "everything is going to end someday, but what matters is you're here now" as well as a exploration of how people cope with change and bad things beyond their control happening, including loss, trauma, and mental illness. also it may or may not be a cosmic horror setting.

The art style looks like something out of a children's picture book and all the people are animal people, which clashes amusingly with the subject matter and the fact that the characters curse all the time.

[DataNinja]

If we're talking things we want out of games – I want a video game that lets me set up a party tank the way late-3.5 eventually supported it – large threatened area, attacks of opportunity, tripping. Don't let the player directly mess around with the underlying aggro mechanic to make the enemies attack a target who's not any kind of actual danger, let the player-character make themselves too much of an obstacle to ignore, do crowd-control in melee.

Wildermyth has its warrior class work that way, and it's fun to just see them take out a bunch of enemies off-turn. Doesn't do tripping, but has other mechanics to make foes sad.

[LaZodiac]

I vaguely remember an old handbook on the topic of XP costs for crafting – "XP is a river", or something like that? Pointing out that, with XP per challenge scaling up, an item-crafter could expect to never be more than a level behind, and they end up having a surplus of XP that they can spend on doing even more crafting to stay that one level behind. And also, you know, that 3.5 in general is already well and truly broken in terms of any kind of party balance, and a wizard a level down (with lots of extra gear, some of which they use to lift up the rest of the party) is still going to be able to keep up with a bard or rogue.

If we're talking things we want out of games – I want a video game that lets me set up a party tank the way late-3.5 eventually supported it – large threatened area, attacks of opportunity, tripping. Don't let the player directly mess around with the underlying aggro mechanic to make the enemies attack a target who's not any kind of actual danger, let the player-character make themselves too much of an obstacle to ignore, do crowd-control in melee.

4th Edition DND also did varying levels of this for their tank classes. The Fighter was always the best and has the sort of thing you're talking about; anyone who tried to get past them got sat the heck down, because their opportunity attacks stopped people from moving whether it hit or not.

[Jasdoif]

4th Edition DND also did varying levels of this for their tank classes. The Fighter was always the best and has the sort of thing you're talking about; anyone who tried to get past them got sat the heck down, because their opportunity attacks stopped people from moving whether it hit or not.

13th Age is similar. While anyone can move to intercept off-turn if they aren't already engaged in melee; fighters are harder to get away from and can take an option to be able to intercept even when already engaged, while paladins can take an option so individual targets have a harder time getting away or attacking anyone else.

[Bartmanhomer]

D&D 3.5 has so many flaws but it's still a good game.

[BisectedBrioche]

I find that Pathfinder 1e managed to at least clean a few of the burrs off, and give you the same experience.

That said, going back to PF1 and 2 has made it clear to me how hard it is to get into 3.5e when you don't compulsively spend ages reading lists of feats (not that I don't enjoy that; I just haven't for PF2e yet).

[Peelee]

I have decided to watch a playthrough of Night In The Woods, which is a game that I have read a lot about but never actually played or watched someone play.

For those of you who don't know, the game is a slice of life style game with ghost story elements that touches on some nihilistic and existentialist themes with the message of "everything is going to end someday, but what matters is you're here now" as well as a exploration of how people cope with change and bad things beyond their control happening, including loss, trauma, and mental illness. also it may or may not be a cosmic horror setting.

The art style looks like something out of a children's picture book and all the people are animal people, which clashes amusingly with the subject matter and the fact that the characters curse all the time.

Oh man, my wife really loved that game! I'd actually highly recommend playing it instead of doing a watch through for you specifically, because it's highly choice dependent.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, hey, conveniently do I have the D&D edition for you...

Why does the book say 'Fudge' on it?

D&D 3.5 has so many flaws but it's still a good game.

3.5 is a game I appreciate a lot more than I did five years ago, and have even found a couple of spinoffs of that I like. But I'm not sure I could actually go back to 3.5 itself just to being so tired of the D&D formula, the best I'd be able to do is d20 Modern, Starfinder, or that World of Darkness hack that is surprisingly good.

A lot of the issues I have with D&D is that it just puts the focus where I don't enjoy it anymore. I'd still much rather run Chronicles of Darkness or Unknown Armies than anything D&D related.

[Rater202]

Pepperoni and Colby melt with dijon on this full grain, 12 seed, protein enriched organic crap my mom got two loaves of on sale at the bulk store, fried using real butter.

Good, but I either used too much mustard or not enough cheese. Coly and dijon don't pair well, me thinks. Next time gonna use the cheddar.

[Peelee]

Went out for brunch with my wife. Got my normal smoked salmon Benedict, they have other things that sound great but I'm a sucker for a good eggs Benedict so it's my go-to. They poached the eggs absolutely perfectly today. Better than I've ever had, the yolk was still liquid without being runny. It was delightful.

[DataNinja]

Why does the book say 'Fudge' on it?

Hey, wait, I accidentally gave you my dessert!

[Anonymouswizard]

Hey, wait, I accidentally gave you my dessert!

I deny all knowledge of things which may have once resided in the box!

[DavidSh]

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time deep in the bowels of the Earth exploring the new extension of Grand Central Terminal "Grand Central Madison".

The background is that, early last century, two railroads build terminals in Manhattan. On the west side, the Pennsylvania Railroad built New York Penn Station, which eventually served Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, and the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). On the east side, a bit further north, New York Central built Grand Central Terminal, which came to serve the Metro North commuter lines, running north of the city, and to Connecticut. In recent years, in an effort to give the LIRR commuters more options, and to increase capacity, a new terminal was dug underneath Grand Central Terminal to serve the LIRR, along with the necessary tunnels to connect things. This finally opened about ten days ago, so I went into the city to explore.

It's very shiny and new, and pretty empty. I guess there aren't many commuters coming in on a Saturday. It's also quite deep, with lengthy escalators leading up from the platform levels to the main concourse, which is still a bit below the lower level of the previous Grand Central Terminal. Artwork includes some mosaics of rural Long Island scenes, and quotations from various people praising New York City. No signs of orcs or balrogs yet, but I wouldn't want to be down there in a power failure.

[Bartmanhomer]

3.5 is a game I appreciate a lot more than I did five years ago, and have even found a couple of spinoffs of that I like. But I'm not sure I could actually go back to 3.5 itself just to being so tired of the D&D formula, the best I'd be able to do is d20 Modern, Starfinder, or that World of Darkness hack that is surprisingly good.

A lot of the issues I have with D&D is that it just puts the focus where I don't enjoy it anymore. I'd still much rather run Chronicles of Darkness or Unknown Armies than anything D&D related.

That's true. All the 3.5 games that I play have died down because other players lost interest in playing. Same thing with Pathfinder and other RPGs.

[Rater202]

I remember when Ben 10: Alien Force was airing new that they tied to hype up the tenth Alien in Ben's set with trailers talking about how "Alien X" was so powerful that using it would leave Ben weak.

Just, Repeating that phrase, that concept, over and over again. "An alien so powerful that using it leaves you totally weak" and... Like. At the time all I could think of was that was 1: a very weird way to phrase that and 2: A weird thing to use to hype up the alien.

It doesn't even make sense in context: Alien X's gimmick is that it's virtually omnipotent, but it can't actually use that power because there are two other consciousnesses in there with ben and all three personalities have to be in complete agreement to do literally anything. The form's weakness isn't a consequence of its power.

[Bartmanhomer]

New York City has been very generous to me lately. Yesterday morning, I was going to buy my coffee but a man buy the coffee for me.

[Anonymouswizard]

I remember when Ben 10: Alien Force was airing new that they tied to hype up the tenth Alien in Ben's set with trailers talking about how "Alien X" was so powerful that using it would leave Ben weak.

Just, Repeating that phrase, that concept, over and over again. "An alien so powerful that using it leaves you totally weak" and... Like. At the time all I could think of was that was 1: a very weird way to phrase that and 2: A weird thing to use to hype up the alien.

It doesn't even make sense in context: Alien X's gimmick is that it's virtually omnipotent, but it can't actually use that power because there are two other consciousnesses in there with ben and all three personalities have to be in complete agreement to do literally anything. The form's weakness isn't a consequence of its power.

Eh, 'mega power means mega tired' is a classic trope for magic/superpower systems. Of course the Omnitrix doesn't work like that, IIRC under the limiter the drawbacks are the inability to switch (which might not be a thing), the limited time of transformations, and I think a time-out after transforming back. Without the limiter it's just as many transformations for as long as you want.

So yeah, a massive lie, but one that I could have potentially believed beforehand. Also 'omnipotence' is a really boring power narratively speaking, which limits how much Alien X can turn up to how much drama you can draw out of the personalities arguing. Which will get old fast.


Anyway, I just got to the part of Persona 5 where you can Strengthen Personas, and it's kind of making me want a Persona game where the PC isn't a Wild Card. Like, instead of carrying twelve Personas you'd just have one basic Persona (probably Fool), and power it up via Social Links. Because I now could make Arsene a viable Persona for the mid or late game, but it'll take a really long time. Also to be honest there's an artstyle difference between the Personas designed for the games and the ones that are just MegaTen demons, and with some it can be really noticeable. The Personas are just more stylised, even if they can't all be as cool as Makoto's.

[LaZodiac]

Eh, 'mega power means mega tired' is a classic trope for magic/superpower systems. Of course the Omnitrix doesn't work like that, IIRC under the limiter the drawbacks are the inability to switch (which might not be a thing), the limited time of transformations, and I think a time-out after transforming back. Without the limiter it's just as many transformations for as long as you want.

So yeah, a massive lie, but one that I could have potentially believed beforehand. Also 'omnipotence' is a really boring power narratively speaking, which limits how much Alien X can turn up to how much drama you can draw out of the personalities arguing. Which will get old fast.


Anyway, I just got to the part of Persona 5 where you can Strengthen Personas, and it's kind of making me want a Persona game where the PC isn't a Wild Card. Like, instead of carrying twelve Personas you'd just have one basic Persona (probably Fool), and power it up via Social Links. Because I now could make Arsene a viable Persona for the mid or late game, but it'll take a really long time. Also to be honest there's an artstyle difference between the Personas designed for the games and the ones that are just MegaTen demons, and with some it can be really noticeable. The Personas are just more stylised, even if they can't all be as cool as Makoto's.

It is literally, in my opinion, the worst aspect of Persona that they follow the SMT trend of "you should be constantly shuffling through and upgrading your demons". Persona's are antithetical to this style of gameplay it makes NO SENSE it makes me SO MAD!

Especially since the Persona designs are so good! I don't WANT to get rid of Izanagi, he looks like a ****ing badass!

[Rater202]

There are a couple of Jumpchain's for the Persona series and I'm not gonna do any of them unless I've got a way to get around the limited roster space.

Mostly because the Wildcards tend to get all the good stuff in those Jumps but having to constantly change around and resummon... You can get permanent access to the Velvet Room so you can keep fusing and summoning but that costs extra.

Otherwise, I believe I've said I'd rather be one of the comparatively normal Persona Users. Yeah, my ultimate Persona might not be as Powerful as Izanagi-No-Okami or Satanael but I'd rather my powers evolve based on my character development, not everyone else's.

[Lord Raziere]

When I used a persona 5 jumpchain I just went straight for the Azathoth option complete with a palace of my own to rewrite reality. Maybe its bizarre and edgy, and probably evil to actually use the power, but as long as I'm playing my own personal power fantasy without regards to balance, who cares? and villains always get the cool strange powers anyways, and from the way I see it, it seems to matter more how you use your persona than anything else.

[Rater202]

Otherwise, I believe I've said I'd rather be one of the comparatively normal Persona Users. Yeah, my ultimate Persona might not be as Powerful as Izanagi-No-Okami or Satanael but I'd rather my powers evolve based on my character development, not everyone else's.

....On the other hand, the idea that my Persona is something, a figure or character associated with hunger, or being an amalgamation of other beings, or something along those lines that grows stronger by consuming other Demons and shadows has some appeal.

[Keltest]

There are a couple of Jumpchain's for the Persona series and I'm not gonna do any of them unless I've got a way to get around the limited roster space.

Mostly because the Wildcards tend to get all the good stuff in those Jumps but having to constantly change around and resummon... You can get permanent access to the Velvet Room so you can keep fusing and summoning but that costs extra.

Otherwise, I believe I've said I'd rather be one of the comparatively normal Persona Users. Yeah, my ultimate Persona might not be as Powerful as Izanagi-No-Okami or Satanael but I'd rather my powers evolve based on my character development, not everyone else's.

I admittedly dont know a whole lot about Persona in general, but doesnt Joker evolve from a bit of an antisocial loner into a social nexus with deep emotional bonds with a lot of people?

[LaZodiac]

I admittedly dont know a whole lot about Persona in general, but doesnt Joker evolve from a bit of an antisocial loner into a social nexus with deep emotional bonds with a lot of people?

Honestly his social links are the ones that are the least like... random friendship networky. A lot of his links are people he just gleans info and skills from, helping improve their own lives and fight against their own battles, but not becoming like, close personal friends with.

[Bartmanhomer]

Hey, I have a question to ask everyone. Can you be righteously pissed off and not be evil?

[Rater202]

I admittedly dont know a whole lot about Persona in general, but doesnt Joker evolve from a bit of an antisocial loner into a social nexus with deep emotional bonds with a lot of people?

He's not really Anti-social by choice, he's socially isolated because he has a criminal record and the ******* gym teacher outed him to the school for... Reasons so he doesn't really have a chance to make friends.

His character stays consistent throughout the game, unless you choose to take the Big bad's deal and get the bad end: Joker is someone who will get involved to help other people in need and to hell with the consequences.

Joker's non-party social links are mostly people who he goes to because they can be exploited as resources to help the Phantom Thieves and then it turns out oops, they're in trouble so he helps them out. Like the woman running the small clinic in the back alley who'll sell you medicine under the table if you volunteer for clinical trials on a drug she's been developing for years and just needs a little more data to perfect.

[Lacco]

Hey, I have a question to ask everyone. Can you be righteously pissed off and not be evil?

Righteously pissed off sounds like paladin's smite.

Also, anger does not equal evil.

[Anonymouswizard]

It is literally, in my opinion, the worst aspect of Persona that they follow the SMT trend of "you should be constantly shuffling through and upgrading your demons". Persona's are antithetical to this style of gameplay it makes NO SENSE it makes me SO MAD!

Especially since the Persona designs are so good! I don't WANT to get rid of Izanagi, he looks like a ****ing badass!

For me it's Orpheus, just something about the robot bard look.

And yeah, it doesn't even really work from a gameplay perspective. In the mainline and the first three Personas you'll shift your entire team for boss fights to exploit immunities/weaknesses/specific buffs. Which you can't really do in P3 and P4 without grinding up party members you haven't been using.

I admittedly dont know a whole lot about Persona in general, but doesnt Joker evolve from a bit of an antisocial loner into a social nexus with deep emotional bonds with a lot of people?

Joker literally becomes friends with Ryuji on the first day of school. He's established to be a friendly guy from the outset, but everybody assumes he's a delinquent because of his criminal record. Which, as mentioned, was leaked by the first villain.

Although my personal favourite link is Yoshida/the Sun link. It begins with you helping a washed up politician to learn how to give speeches, and by halfway through he's treating Joker as his protege and giving advice on being an honest politician.

Of the romance links? Tae/Death, for the slight sub/dom elements when the rest of the game is not pro-kink (in fact one of the momentos requests is hard-line against it). Makoto is, of course, in second place.

[Mystic Muse]

Hey, I have a question to ask everyone. Can you be righteously pissed off and not be evil?

...Yes? I would assume that's a given from the descriptor "righteously." Evil doesn't do things "righteously." The definition of righteously literally means that it's morally correct.

I don't think you can be "righteously pissed off" and have it be evil any more than you can have a substance be both a solid and a liquid.