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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • It’s not a legitimate competition, that’s the entirely point. The claim is AI models rely on stealing content and changing it slightly or not all. And if a “regular” journalist does this, they would get into trouble. Just because the entity switches to an AI company doesn’t make this business model legitimate.

    A few years ago there was a big plagiarism scandal on IGN because one of their “journalists” mostly took reviews of other people, changed a few words, and published it. Obviously that’s not fine.


  • Kids being able to openly participate on porn sites would be a feast for pedophiles and groomers. We already have enough trouble with that on social media and dating sites/apps. And while in an ideal situation there just wouldn’t be bad people, sometimes we need to protect people from themselves because of others.

    So while I am open for a discussion about lowering the age requirement, I still firmly believe a minimum age is required. But whether that’s 14, 16, or 18 I don’t know.


  • I am in favor of stricter age verification for certain content. Not only for porn but also dating apps, social media, online shops, etc. But the current methods of age verification are a privacy nightmare and go well beyond what is reasonable. Especially since companies can’t be trusted to not do bad stuff with that information.

    What is necessary is a double anonymity age verification service. Ideally run by a company that by law is required to be very transparent. That way we don’t have to provide personal information to companies that have no actual need for it but can still reduce the amount of minors getting into places they shouldn’t be.

    Yes, it won’t be perfect, yes there will always be bad actors, but it will still do more good than harm.

    I personally am open for a discussion about reducing the minimum age to view porn. I don’t have strong feelings either way.


  • I have to admit I underestimated the damage a bit. I imagined it to be around 40 in most scenarios.

    But I think streamlining the range wouldn’t hurt. Instead of making it optional by expending exhaustion give it a longer base range and cause a fixed amount of exhaustion. Or perhaps make the user fall in a magical coma for X-time instead. Because I would say exhaustion rules are often ignored and I personally didn’t even know how many levels there are and what they do.


  • The first issue is Death Ward. It basically negates a big downside of the item.

    The item also doesn’t seem that good for a desperation self sacrifice scenario. Most likely in any scenario where such a move is necessary the user won’t be anywhere near full hp. Reducing the value of the item. The small range also severely limits the use of the item.

    I would say in a lot of scenarios casting any aoe spell centered on the person would achieve more. A simple fireball is around 28 damage with much higher aoe.

    The item requires a lot of planning and preparation to be useful rather than being an emergency item to get out of a tricky situation. Which isn’t necessarily bad but goes against your inteded usage.



  • The big issue with removing the headphones jack is just that it’s now impossible to use wired headphones while charging the phone.

    For a lot of people that doesn’t matter but for some of us that’s a big deal. If they added a second USB-C port that would fix the issue.

    But saying the 3.5 jack is legacy technology is also kinda wrong. A USB headset is not inherently better. You have to compare the digital audio converter that’s used. While USB headphones use their own dac, the jack uses the dac of the phone. So a cheap phone with high quality USB headphones will be better but a high quality phone with cheap USB headphones would be worse than using the jack.

    Which even means jacks would be more sustainable because you only need one dac per phone rather than one per headphone.

    And any form of wireless headphones are just inferior to wired connections.



  • Any decent payment processing service should come with enough tools to get you what you want. There aren’t many that are open source but a quick Google came up with results so they do exist.

    They will allow you to track all of your active subscribers/donors and should allow you easy access to that data. Calculating and assigning voting power with that information should be rather easy.


  • Monk 1/ Druid 11 works and is probably stronger than Druid 12. You gain Unarmored Defense and get to add your Wis modifier to your AC. That’s the only way the combo really works. And it basically plays like a full Druid. Obviously doesn’t work if you go down the Heavy Armor route.

    Ranger 3 / Monk 9 works. You would take Gloomstalker and Way of the Shadow for some strong turn 1 shenanigans. If you go weapon Monk you even get to use Ensnaring Strike and Hunter’s Mark otherwise you have a few support spells. But doesn’t sound like the way you want to play.


  • Non of your suggestions have any real synergy. You are mostly just giving up things and don’t gain much of value in return.

    For example Cleric/Druid makes no sense. You will have the same caster level as a single class Cleric or Druid but just won’t have any known 6th level spells. You just gain a few additional known 1st and 2nd level spells. But considering Cleric and Druid spells overlap a fair bit, it won’t even be that many.

    Cleric 7/ Ranger 5 might be the best option. You still get the extra attack from the Ranger and get the Domain Spells Guardian of Faith + Death Ward. Your caster level would be 10. So still a lot of spell slots available. For leveling it kinda depends on the rest of your party but I would say the first 5 level go into Cleric, then you use Withers to respecc 5 into Ranger to gain the extra attack. Then put the rest in Cleric again. Any Bow build with a single attack will feel rather underwhelming. Yes you lose out on a feat but you are basically trading a feat for a 2nd bow attack. Cleric 8 for Radiant Strike would be pointless anyhow since it’s melee only.

    Druid 7/ Ranger 5 might work in a similar way. Espeically if you like Moonbeam you can still have a single 5th level Moonbeam. Going higher in Ranger would hurt your Caster level too much.

    But again, you don’t really gain any real advantage. For example Wizard 1/Cleric 11 is the same as Cleric 12 but you have access to all Wizard spells you can learn from scrolls including 6th level wizard spells. Or if you Mutliclass Ranger with Rogue to gain sneak attack, or with Fighter to gain action surge. That would give you some actual advantages.


  • In BG3 encumbrance is so pointless. The increased carry capacity and reduced armor weight make it a non-factor. The few times you actually reach it you just sort by weight and send some of the heavier stuff to camp. You can even do it during combat. So they should have just gotten rid of it. You are bringing all your resources at all times anyhow and the inventory manamgent is still terrible.

    The current system is just a minor inconvenience because you will have to go to your camp when you reach a vendor and want to get rid of some of the extra stuff. I would much prefer it if they either stick to the base rules, with base weight values and encumbrance starting at 5x the strength value. Then one would have to make actual decisions on what to bring. But right now, even with 8 strength you never have any issues. Or they just get rid of it.

    And that’s how I feel about encumbrance in general. Most games have such absurd high carry limits that the system doesn’t add anything and just becomes an inconvenience and annoyance.


  • It’s not the standard, it’s just something that started to pop up in some university courses. Anything before that we usually are just graded 1-6/A-F. But even 15 years ago when I attended University there were a few courses that required a 70%+ for passing and what I have heared this has become more common. It’s basically to weed out people and reduce the number of students since university is usually free.


  • I blame the school grading system for it. 70% and below is already a failing grade in many courses. So by extension anything that gets rated 7 or below is asscoiated with failure.

    I am not from the US, so I don’t know how long this grading system has been in use there but here in Central Eruope that’s a rather new thing. That’s why a 5/10 didn’t feel as bad 20 years ago while today a 7/10 feels worse.


  • If you are playing a shape shifting druid your character can easily tank. Especially if you pick up a few levels in Barbarian. Rage stays active after shape shifting and a raging bear is one of the tankiest builds available.

    Without knowing how far you are it’s difficulty to say if any companion are still available. Except for Shadowheart and Asterion I found all other companions fairly easy to miss in a blind playthrough. So you might want to read up on who they are and where to find them.


  • That doesn’t fix the underlying issue of the potential dmg that GWM gives you. I am not a full on min maxer but having a feat that is objectively so much better than basically all other options makes it hard to ignore it. The only true choice is between GWM and Sharpshooter. But they are the same, just one uses two-handed weapons while the other uses ranged (and you will end up with heavy crossbows). An extra feat won’t make a dual wielding fighter outperform a great weapon master.

    And I am not necessarily just talking about BG3, I don’t find the game particualry hard even on Tactician, so there isn’t a need to cheat to make it easier. And I am not using any broken builds either. Mostly sticking to builds that fit the theme of the companions.



  • To my knowledge nothing has a global timer. And only a few quests have an actual time limit. But there you usually get some kind of warning if you are taking too long.

    The only thing that’s frequently time sensitive are individual encounters after you spotted them. So let’s say you see two groups fighting. If you then take a long rest, the conflict is resolved and one side is dead. But if you have a save literally 10 seconds before spotting the encounter you could reload that, have a long rest, then walk the few more steps and the two groups are still fighting.

    And even non violent NPCs can be time sensitive after spotting them. So if you see a person standing around, just talk to them immediately.

    The exact distance when an encounter is triggered can be hard to judge sometimes. So if you want to make sure not to “miss” anything, have a long rest just after a fight. Walk around a little bit to see if any post fight scenes trigger but if not, it’s usually a good spot for a rest. Also helps with getting rid of some lingering spell or environmental effects m


  • If normal poses a challenge you might be too conservative with your resources. It’s perfectly fine to have a short rest after each fight to regain your abilities. And even long rests are basically free, so unless you are in one of the rare time sensitive moments use them a lot.

    Also consumables should be used more freely. Elixirs last until a long rest, so are usually good for at least 3 fights. Potions and weapon coatings also add up, that additional D4 of the lowest poison does a lot. And it’s just a bonus action to apply and lasts 10 turns .

    Scrolls of spells you have already learned should be used if you are out of spell slots. You don’t need to save them for a harder fight. You can always have a long rest before entering a hard fight. But they can make that random encounter you entered with few spell slots much easier.

    And all of that goes hand in hand with organizing your ability bar. It’s a pain to do but being able to see what you have available is so valuable. At the very least make use of the individual tabs for “Class abilities” “Spells” and “Consumables”. They give you a better overview than the default bar.


  • Multiclassing is way more confusing and much easier to screw up your build with. The easiest difficulty is meant for people who don’t know DnD/RPGs. That’s why it makes sense to remove it.

    But you can still multi class and play on easiest difficulty. You simply change the difficulty before leveling up and then change the difficulty back. You can change difficulty freely in the option.