88-98 c1500 rear end swap
Home rule swapping seats
2023.06.02 11:30 ReMarkable91 Home rule swapping seats
I am looking for some feedback on a house rule I made up recently. Every Tuesday I play boardgames with a big group in the city for over a year. I sometimes bring my Catan set but it never gets picked. They all played it before but claim it's purely luck or if you place 4th on some board your chance of winning is close to 0. I only managed to play it a few times and in a recent game something interesting happened.
Some guy with a strong road set up complained most of the game and was just building random roads without settling. I had a strong ows set up but no roads. It was actually early in the game I had a city and port settlement so was on 4. The other was on 2 vp still and build 5 roads (not connecting) already. Was cut off on his original route and wanted to go through the coast to connect. He had no sheep but a really good 5 sheep spot available to settle without needing to build extra roads. He was saying okay I'll build 2 roads here but I stopped him.
I suggested I know you need sheep to settle. How about you trade me a wood/brick for my sheep. With ows it was obviously also good for me. But I was just before him in turn order and I claimed the deal was way better for him then me. He said he didn't want to kingmake me as his game was already over anyway.
I suggested him a really strange deal where we would swap spots. I would get his hand/colo position and he would get mine. Of course after the other players agreed and we also did the discussed trade.
I ended up winning with a fair bit of luck (bought 2 devs, first a mono (which gave me a city) and a VP. Then with road and settlements the rest. But it still felt really rewarding as it was proofing to not give up and just keep making the best decisions for you.
Some time later we played again and tried to turn it into a fun house rule. I just had some basics for it.
I made one big mistake and let them make their own (bad) initial placements.
A player ended up settling on a 12 brick and 2 wheat spot. On a board those are low already and with high wood. He claimed he did it so he has all 5 resources. Sometimes have none of something is better than a 2. And early in the game swapping with me. I still did oké by requesting the wood and porting it with an early 3:1 port. Ended on 8 vp with a really small chance to win still proofing decision and tactics during the game do matter.
But I am looking for some placement rules which doesn't result in me basically deciding everyone's placement.
What I had in mind is a veto. If someone is placing his initial settlement somewhere I really think is stupid I can veto it with 3 rules.
Another weird thing is trading right away with my previous position like in the first game. I think it should be allowed even if I potentially now know more about both hands then others.
Open to any suggestions or feedback regarding this somewhat weird home rule which is mostly there to boost my ego.
submitted by ReMarkable91 to Catan [link] [comments]
Some guy with a strong road set up complained most of the game and was just building random roads without settling. I had a strong ows set up but no roads. It was actually early in the game I had a city and port settlement so was on 4. The other was on 2 vp still and build 5 roads (not connecting) already. Was cut off on his original route and wanted to go through the coast to connect. He had no sheep but a really good 5 sheep spot available to settle without needing to build extra roads. He was saying okay I'll build 2 roads here but I stopped him.
I suggested I know you need sheep to settle. How about you trade me a wood/brick for my sheep. With ows it was obviously also good for me. But I was just before him in turn order and I claimed the deal was way better for him then me. He said he didn't want to kingmake me as his game was already over anyway.
I suggested him a really strange deal where we would swap spots. I would get his hand/colo position and he would get mine. Of course after the other players agreed and we also did the discussed trade.
I ended up winning with a fair bit of luck (bought 2 devs, first a mono (which gave me a city) and a VP. Then with road and settlements the rest. But it still felt really rewarding as it was proofing to not give up and just keep making the best decisions for you.
Some time later we played again and tried to turn it into a fun house rule. I just had some basics for it.
- Each player can only request it to me once a game so use it wisely.
- You need at least half of my current visible vp each hidden dev I counted as like 0.5 vp. (So don't wait too long)
- I cannot be 2 personal turns from winning (even if really lucky with 6-8 perfect rolls).
I made one big mistake and let them make their own (bad) initial placements.
A player ended up settling on a 12 brick and 2 wheat spot. On a board those are low already and with high wood. He claimed he did it so he has all 5 resources. Sometimes have none of something is better than a 2. And early in the game swapping with me. I still did oké by requesting the wood and porting it with an early 3:1 port. Ended on 8 vp with a really small chance to win still proofing decision and tactics during the game do matter.
But I am looking for some placement rules which doesn't result in me basically deciding everyone's placement.
What I had in mind is a veto. If someone is placing his initial settlement somewhere I really think is stupid I can veto it with 3 rules.
- They can still settle there but then be banned from swapping with me.
- They can place where ever I suggest.
- We swap positions right there and then.
Another weird thing is trading right away with my previous position like in the first game. I think it should be allowed even if I potentially now know more about both hands then others.
Open to any suggestions or feedback regarding this somewhat weird home rule which is mostly there to boost my ego.
2023.06.02 11:21 Xlympias Quitting. Done with anything EA
I can't seem to catch a break... I traded well, grinded hard, and all year my biggest pull had been Ruben Dias gold, aside from my atrocious casino SBC packs and Guaranteed packs.
Next best was Donarumma... anything of worth I had to trade my rear end off for, or sell club stocked golds when they inflate....
If anyone wants 4m before EA tax and player cost, I'm happy to sell it cheap. Sadly I did spend 14m total easily but everything has just plummeted ad it does at the end of the year.
submitted by Xlympias to fut [link] [comments]
Next best was Donarumma... anything of worth I had to trade my rear end off for, or sell club stocked golds when they inflate....
If anyone wants 4m before EA tax and player cost, I'm happy to sell it cheap. Sadly I did spend 14m total easily but everything has just plummeted ad it does at the end of the year.
2023.06.02 11:16 mooniphany switch to maintenance or stay at deficit?
hello! i’m 149cm 22F 45-46kg (fluctuates and also haven’t weighed myself in the last month for mental health reasons lmao).
i train 4-5 days a week at the gym. 3 strength training (i’d say relatively intense - as in shaking by the end) and cardio - walking burning about 330cal per cardio session. i also try to do 30mins of cardio after each strength training session. on average eating about 1300.
though i’ve been training for a year now it’s really over the past few months that i’ve noticed i’ve lost weight (not on the scale, but visually) and i think it’s because i’ve been strict with my calorie counting. however, i’m sick of eating at a deficit and i feel like i can’t train effectively or eat enough protein to tone this way. also, the last couple of weeks i’ve been eating over my calorie deficit and not training as much bc i was sick and i didn’t notice any changes in weight.
i’d like to be lean and toned so i’m wondering if eating at maintenance and training as I currently am would be better (thinking might swap one cardio session to strength?). i’ve still definitely got body fat (especially on my tummy) so i’m kind of scared to move away from a deficit.
should i switch to maintenance and if so how long should i trial it for?
submitted by mooniphany to PetiteFitness [link] [comments]
i train 4-5 days a week at the gym. 3 strength training (i’d say relatively intense - as in shaking by the end) and cardio - walking burning about 330cal per cardio session. i also try to do 30mins of cardio after each strength training session. on average eating about 1300.
though i’ve been training for a year now it’s really over the past few months that i’ve noticed i’ve lost weight (not on the scale, but visually) and i think it’s because i’ve been strict with my calorie counting. however, i’m sick of eating at a deficit and i feel like i can’t train effectively or eat enough protein to tone this way. also, the last couple of weeks i’ve been eating over my calorie deficit and not training as much bc i was sick and i didn’t notice any changes in weight.
i’d like to be lean and toned so i’m wondering if eating at maintenance and training as I currently am would be better (thinking might swap one cardio session to strength?). i’ve still definitely got body fat (especially on my tummy) so i’m kind of scared to move away from a deficit.
should i switch to maintenance and if so how long should i trial it for?
2023.06.02 11:11 Sarik704 Are yall scared of Cocaine Bear? Try this.
People are scared of Cocaine Bear, and it's offensive set can be oppressive, but there are real defensive counters to it. If it's a defensive Ursaluna there's even more defensive counters.
This Adamant Ursaluna has 252 HP and 252 Attack. It's running Flame Orb and Guts, and it's already burned and switched in. I'm assuming everything below is cold switching into a Facade, Close Combat, or Headlong Rush. (which ever is strongest) The fourth move has been Avalanche, Fire Punch, or Crunch in my experience so your mileage may vary.
Garchomp; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garchomp: 297-349 (70.7 - 83%) -- guaranteed 2HKO, but Garchomp can force Ursaluna out with dragon tail, and it probably took some rough skin + rocky helmet damage too. Pretty good option, and it's good against many other mons too. Avalanche is a possible fourth move so watch out for that.
Landorus; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus: 306-361 (80.1 - 94.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Landourus can hit back with Hammer Arm (only 46.9 - 55.3%) which might be enough to revenge kill it, or it can go for a U-Turn I suppose. Not a good option, but it might do in a pinch. Still you can bring it in on a close combat or headlong rush and either take no damage or about ~25%. Get your prediction right and you can kill. Again, like with Garchomp watch out for Avalanche.
Forretress; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Headlong Rush vs. 172 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 195-229 (58.3 - 68.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. In turn Forretress can take it's other 84 evs into Speed, and outspeed Ursaluna, and then shut him down with Body Press. Surprisingly good option for how passive Forretress normally is. It's a 3HKO from Facade or Close Combat, and a well placed fire punch could kill forretress here, but in my experience fire punch is the least common fourth move.
Orthworm; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Orthworm: 252-298 (73.2 - 86.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. If for some reason your not eating a 38% facade, or better yet free health from a headlong rush, then close combat is what you watch out for. Body Press from the Orthworm is dealing around 50% here at it's highest, but again any rocks, rocky helmet, revenge kill, or burn chip might make this a good option. I also like this set because you could tera fairy or poison and maybe live the next Close Combat because they likely won't click facade thinking it might not kill after leftovers. Very good choice in my opinion. I'm running this right now at around 1500 OU. Fire punch would normally be a worry for most steel types, but Close Combat hits harder.
Chesnaught; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 249-294 (65.5 - 77.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery. I've also run this and it's pretty good, but the grass typing is pretty frail in OU overall. Spiky Shield, Drain punch, and leftovers can stall out Ursaluna here. Facade is it's darn best option, and it just barely clears 75% HP. Spiky shield + leftovers + Drain Punch keeps Chesnaught going. As an added benefit packing Leech Seed makes a great defensive counter to Garganacl too as long as it isn't tera grass. Fire punch could shut you down however.
Corviknight; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 198-234 (49.5 - 58.5%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO. It might just be the best defensive counter to the bear. Immune to Headlong Rush. and it loses less than 50% HP from both Facade and Close Combat. In Turn Corviknight can kill with Body Press on top of the burn damage. I like to equip my bird with rocky helmet and that for sure ends the bear. Again the bear could be running fire punch and that would suck, but corv is so crazy tanky theres a 2% it might be a 3HKO! Holy Hell.
I also want to mention that no Attack investment or a non Adamant nature Ursaluna turns some of these examples from possible 2HKOs into possible 3HKOs or even 4HKOs! Other options for taking down the bear include Red Card on anything mentioned above. Ghost and Flying Types, as well as Levitate users, all have a chance to get in eat a whiff, and punish. This is hardly a defensive counter however, but sometimes offense is best. Mons like Mismagius, any Rotom, Bronzong, the Lake Trio, Cresselia, H-Braviary, Ting Lu, Hippowdon, Houndstone, Walking Wake, & Chien Pao are much more risky as many can still be OHKO'd by something but have options for their team like Destiny Bond (RIP), Skill Swap (works really nice here, but very niche), Whirlwind or Roar (buh-bye) or in some cases outright kill as an offensive option on the right sets. Defensive bear certainly has less bite than offensive but either way there are many defensive counters here and it only gets better with prediction on those ground attacks and normal attacks. Finally having Stealth Rocks, Spikes, and especially Toxic Spikes set up can cripple the bear. If he is poisoned or toxic he can't become burned and thus his attack is much more manageable.
Defensive Ursaluna has tons more offensive counters that can switch in on tons of it's movesets and kill with a special attack. Maybe Assault Vest Ursaluna will become more popular than it's Guts variant. So far I haven't really seen any AV Bears.
submitted by Sarik704 to stunfisk [link] [comments]
This Adamant Ursaluna has 252 HP and 252 Attack. It's running Flame Orb and Guts, and it's already burned and switched in. I'm assuming everything below is cold switching into a Facade, Close Combat, or Headlong Rush. (which ever is strongest) The fourth move has been Avalanche, Fire Punch, or Crunch in my experience so your mileage may vary.
Garchomp; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garchomp: 297-349 (70.7 - 83%) -- guaranteed 2HKO, but Garchomp can force Ursaluna out with dragon tail, and it probably took some rough skin + rocky helmet damage too. Pretty good option, and it's good against many other mons too. Avalanche is a possible fourth move so watch out for that.
Landorus; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus: 306-361 (80.1 - 94.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. Landourus can hit back with Hammer Arm (only 46.9 - 55.3%) which might be enough to revenge kill it, or it can go for a U-Turn I suppose. Not a good option, but it might do in a pinch. Still you can bring it in on a close combat or headlong rush and either take no damage or about ~25%. Get your prediction right and you can kill. Again, like with Garchomp watch out for Avalanche.
Forretress; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Headlong Rush vs. 172 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 195-229 (58.3 - 68.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. In turn Forretress can take it's other 84 evs into Speed, and outspeed Ursaluna, and then shut him down with Body Press. Surprisingly good option for how passive Forretress normally is. It's a 3HKO from Facade or Close Combat, and a well placed fire punch could kill forretress here, but in my experience fire punch is the least common fourth move.
Orthworm; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Orthworm: 252-298 (73.2 - 86.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. If for some reason your not eating a 38% facade, or better yet free health from a headlong rush, then close combat is what you watch out for. Body Press from the Orthworm is dealing around 50% here at it's highest, but again any rocks, rocky helmet, revenge kill, or burn chip might make this a good option. I also like this set because you could tera fairy or poison and maybe live the next Close Combat because they likely won't click facade thinking it might not kill after leftovers. Very good choice in my opinion. I'm running this right now at around 1500 OU. Fire punch would normally be a worry for most steel types, but Close Combat hits harder.
Chesnaught; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 249-294 (65.5 - 77.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery. I've also run this and it's pretty good, but the grass typing is pretty frail in OU overall. Spiky Shield, Drain punch, and leftovers can stall out Ursaluna here. Facade is it's darn best option, and it just barely clears 75% HP. Spiky shield + leftovers + Drain Punch keeps Chesnaught going. As an added benefit packing Leech Seed makes a great defensive counter to Garganacl too as long as it isn't tera grass. Fire punch could shut you down however.
Corviknight; 252+ Atk Guts Ursaluna Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 198-234 (49.5 - 58.5%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO. It might just be the best defensive counter to the bear. Immune to Headlong Rush. and it loses less than 50% HP from both Facade and Close Combat. In Turn Corviknight can kill with Body Press on top of the burn damage. I like to equip my bird with rocky helmet and that for sure ends the bear. Again the bear could be running fire punch and that would suck, but corv is so crazy tanky theres a 2% it might be a 3HKO! Holy Hell.
I also want to mention that no Attack investment or a non Adamant nature Ursaluna turns some of these examples from possible 2HKOs into possible 3HKOs or even 4HKOs! Other options for taking down the bear include Red Card on anything mentioned above. Ghost and Flying Types, as well as Levitate users, all have a chance to get in eat a whiff, and punish. This is hardly a defensive counter however, but sometimes offense is best. Mons like Mismagius, any Rotom, Bronzong, the Lake Trio, Cresselia, H-Braviary, Ting Lu, Hippowdon, Houndstone, Walking Wake, & Chien Pao are much more risky as many can still be OHKO'd by something but have options for their team like Destiny Bond (RIP), Skill Swap (works really nice here, but very niche), Whirlwind or Roar (buh-bye) or in some cases outright kill as an offensive option on the right sets. Defensive bear certainly has less bite than offensive but either way there are many defensive counters here and it only gets better with prediction on those ground attacks and normal attacks. Finally having Stealth Rocks, Spikes, and especially Toxic Spikes set up can cripple the bear. If he is poisoned or toxic he can't become burned and thus his attack is much more manageable.
Defensive Ursaluna has tons more offensive counters that can switch in on tons of it's movesets and kill with a special attack. Maybe Assault Vest Ursaluna will become more popular than it's Guts variant. So far I haven't really seen any AV Bears.
2023.06.02 11:11 Commander_PonyShep Two questions about Final Fantasy XV and XVI
- Wouldn't Ignis and Prompto's weapons be swapped with each other? Like, Ignis was the genius of the four main heroes of Final Fantasy XV, while Prompto was more of the comedic free spirit. Which means Ignis could have specialized in guns and mechanical devices to reflect his genius intellect, while Prompto specialized more in daggers and spears to reflect his more free, open-ended nature.
- Does anyone consider Final Fantasy XVI's Eikons to be, in any way, an alternative to traditional party-members? Like, there are eight Dominants, and all seven of them could have made for potential party-members for Clive, the Dominant of Ifrit. Instead, Clive just solos his entire journey, and instead of collecting party-members, he's just collecting each Dominant's Eikon as his only other alternative. Like how we got Mega Man stealing each robot master's weapon and using them against other robot masters weakest to these weapons.
2023.06.02 10:48 yu_jaa Diminished Value Claim in California
I got my car rear-ended on the highway and the repair cost was around 20K+ (replaced entire rear bumper and trunk, hopefully no structural damage.) The other driver was at fault 100% based on the evidence and police report, and their insurance agreed to pay 100%.
My car has around 9.5K miles and it’s 2022 Tesla Model 3 long range produced on June.
If anyone had gone through the DVC, how was your experience? What’d be the good number I should call to at-fault driver’s insurance?
submitted by yu_jaa to Insurance [link] [comments]
My car has around 9.5K miles and it’s 2022 Tesla Model 3 long range produced on June.
If anyone had gone through the DVC, how was your experience? What’d be the good number I should call to at-fault driver’s insurance?
2023.06.02 10:43 Antique-Boss-3920 Lancer 2016 RTA paper
 | Guys i m seeing one car to purchase. Please see this remarks. Does that the mean the car has been in accident? submitted by Antique-Boss-3920 to DubaiPetrolHeads [link] [comments] |
2023.06.02 10:41 bubba_169 [H] Steam Games [W] Any Working Steam Key For a Quick Game Swap
The giveaway where you also give back! I'm offering a quick trade for any valid steam key. If there's something on the list you want, make me a sensible offer and it will most likely be accepted. The list keeps on cycling so check back at any point as there may be something you like added later on!
I'm not after lists to look through, I want you to offer me your unwanted steam keys for games from this list of a similar value. Think of it like a book swap - take one and leave one. You get a game you want and the one you leave might be the one somebody else wants.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the nature of the quick swap, most of these keys are from previous trades and donations and I have no way to verify them or check for region locks. Even with the best intentions from all sides, mistakes will be made and some of these keys may not work. I'll always send the key first and ask you to redeem before sending me anything to make sure they work for you.
As a general rule I will usually accept any game in the same tier as a fair trade. I've also accepted trades with games at the top end of a lower tier for games at the bottom end of the next tier. We can trade multiples to even out values but they don’t need to be exact as long as the trade is reasonable. If I already have a surplus of a game you're offering, I may turn you down until the existing copies have been traded.
If anyone just wants to donate any keys that are no good to them to the list then I’m always grateful to receive them. Just DM me and I’ll add them. A huge thank you to those that have already donated keys to this project.
Even though re-trading is nothing new, removing personal interest and accepting a trade for any game makes trading much more accessible to others - especially those with only a few spare keys. The idea was popular and it gained momentum. I also received some generous donations and the list grew into what you see above. Even though I don't get much from it myself (I do keep the occasional game that catches my eye) I am happy that I can help others get games they can play in exchange for keys they have no use for. The community has really come through with honesty, helping to grow this into something worthwhile.
Thanks everyone!
My IGSRep Page.
submitted by bubba_169 to indiegameswap [link] [comments]
I'm not after lists to look through, I want you to offer me your unwanted steam keys for games from this list of a similar value. Think of it like a book swap - take one and leave one. You get a game you want and the one you leave might be the one somebody else wants.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the nature of the quick swap, most of these keys are from previous trades and donations and I have no way to verify them or check for region locks. Even with the best intentions from all sides, mistakes will be made and some of these keys may not work. I'll always send the key first and ask you to redeem before sending me anything to make sure they work for you.
How it works
- You offer me any steam game(s) of a similar value to any of those in this list in the comments. Please comment first, don't just DM me.
- I say yes if the games you want are still available and we trade. I'll DM you the keys first for you to redeem then you send me yours once you're happy they worked. Please also let me know of any region locks when we trade.
- The keys you give me go back on the list ready to trade with someone else and the cycle starts again.
Games Available:
Always let me send you the key first so you can check it worksTier 1 (Key value of £1 or less)
- 12 is better than 6
- Alcatraz Builder
- Alien Spidy
- Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy (x3)
- Anomaly Korea
- Aura: Fate of the Ages
- Automatic War
- Aveyond 3-1: Lord of Twilight
- Bad Rats
- Bionic Commando: Rearmed (x2)
- Black Moon Chronicles
- Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines
- Commandos 2: Men of Courage
- Commandos 3: Destination Berlin
- Control Craft 2
- Crash Time 3
- Curse: The Eye of Isis (x3)
- Deadly 30 (x2)
- Deponia
- DESOLATE
- DOOM 64
- Dub Dash
- Ecchi Jack (NSFW)
- El Matador (x2)
- Explodemon
- Flashback (Classic)
- Garfield Kart (x3)
- Grav Blazer Squared
- Greed: Black Border
- Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes (x2)
- Hacker Evolution Source Code (x2)
- Hidden Shapes Animals - Jigsaw Puzzle Game
- Hotshot Racing
- Hue (x2)
- Idle Champions - Celeste Starter Pack (DLC)
- Imperial Glory
- Konung 2 (x2)
- Leisure Suit Larry 7 - Love for Sail (x3)
- Manual Samuel
- Mata Hari
- Megarace 1 (x5)
- Megarace 2 (x3)
- Memories of a Vagabond
- Men of War
- Men of War: Assault Squad - Game of the Year Edition
- Miner Wars 2081
- Mini Words: Top Movies
- NOT the Hero
- Occultus - Mediterranean Cabal
- Onikira: Demon Killer
- Overcast: Walden and the Werewolf
- Overcooked 2: Surf 'n' Turf Pack (DLC)
- Paradox Soul
- Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic (x3)
- Pumped BMX Pro
- Puzzle Kingdoms (x2)
- Red Risk
- Safety First!
- Save the Dodos
- Slain: Back From Hell
- Smoke and Sacrifice (NA Region Locked)
- Soulcraft
- Space Empires V
- Stacking
- Still Life
- Survivalist (x2)
- S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
- Syberia
- Syberia II (x2)
- The Next Door
- Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 (x2)
- Time Lock VR 1
- UFO: Afterlight
- Unstable Portal
- Vault Cracker
- Voyage: Journey to the Moon (x2)
- Warrior Kings
Tier 2 (Key value of £1 - £2)
- Autonauts (x2)
- Autonauts vs Piratebots
- Beat Hazard (x3)
- Blacksad: Under the Skin
- Crazy Machines: Golden Gears
- Darwinia (x3)
- Darwinia Soundtrack
- Game Dev Studio
- King's Bounty: Armored Princess
- Multiwinia
- Narcos: Rise of the Cartels
- 🧠 OUT OF THE BOX
- Silver Chains
- Time Loader
Tier 3 (Key value of £2 or more)
- Bomber Crew Deluxe Edition (x2)
- Comedy Night
- Golfing in Aether
- Horror Story: Hallowseed
- Mysteries of the Past: Shadow of the Daemon (Delisted)
- Snooker 19
- Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Valuing Trades
We'll use gg.deals UK key shops price as a way to compare the value of games. If a key shop price isn't available we'll use best judgement based on retail price and recent bundles. Key values change daily so if you notice something is in the wrong tier please let me know. To keep things accessible we'll cap key value at £2.As a general rule I will usually accept any game in the same tier as a fair trade. I've also accepted trades with games at the top end of a lower tier for games at the bottom end of the next tier. We can trade multiples to even out values but they don’t need to be exact as long as the trade is reasonable. If I already have a surplus of a game you're offering, I may turn you down until the existing copies have been traded.
If anyone just wants to donate any keys that are no good to them to the list then I’m always grateful to receive them. Just DM me and I’ll add them. A huge thank you to those that have already donated keys to this project.
Region Locks
Any region locks I know about with be noted next to the affected games. I have no way to check so there may be others. I'll always go first in a trade so you can make sure the key works for you before sending me any of yours.Why?
A short while ago I had some spare keys from bundles that I couldn't find a trade for. The traders with the games I wanted already owned the games I had and the traders who wanted the games I had didn't have anything I'd want in return. I was thinking of giving up and giving away my keys but then I had an idea - If I was willing to accept any game in return, I could trade with those that wanted my games and break the trading deadlocks for the more common, lower value games. I could add the games I didn't want myself back onto the list and if I ended up with a load of rubbish that nobody wanted then I'd only lost what I was willing to give away anyway.Even though re-trading is nothing new, removing personal interest and accepting a trade for any game makes trading much more accessible to others - especially those with only a few spare keys. The idea was popular and it gained momentum. I also received some generous donations and the list grew into what you see above. Even though I don't get much from it myself (I do keep the occasional game that catches my eye) I am happy that I can help others get games they can play in exchange for keys they have no use for. The community has really come through with honesty, helping to grow this into something worthwhile.
Thanks everyone!
My IGSRep Page.
2023.06.02 10:33 PushoverMediaCritic Watch-Through, Episodes 34-42 (over two days)
Glus was handled pretty well, though me and my friend had a brief moment joking about him just being a human named Gus, so that kinda killed the tension a bit.
This Theagan filler was better than the last one, the plot wasn't annoying and tedious. Theagan did not deserve a happy ending, though.
Tora was very well-realized, and Fardeep's voice acting was great. The riddles revealing his name as Endon were annoying, though, since they pass by on screen so fast there's no way the viewer can solve them.
My friend was absolutely convinced that Doom was a Level 4 Ol, so she was a bit disappointed when he passed through the Tora barrier with little trouble. Also, during the final episode, she wanted to look up what Endon looked like just to check his eye color, and I had to really scramble to insist that I look him up in order to avoid spoiling her on the big Endon-Jarred swap twist.
submitted by PushoverMediaCritic to DeltoraQuest [link] [comments]
This Theagan filler was better than the last one, the plot wasn't annoying and tedious. Theagan did not deserve a happy ending, though.
Tora was very well-realized, and Fardeep's voice acting was great. The riddles revealing his name as Endon were annoying, though, since they pass by on screen so fast there's no way the viewer can solve them.
My friend was absolutely convinced that Doom was a Level 4 Ol, so she was a bit disappointed when he passed through the Tora barrier with little trouble. Also, during the final episode, she wanted to look up what Endon looked like just to check his eye color, and I had to really scramble to insist that I look him up in order to avoid spoiling her on the big Endon-Jarred swap twist.
2023.06.02 10:27 Kindly-Brother9897 Lodging a case small court claim
Hey guys, I have been rear ended a few weeks ago until now it has not been resolved, the person who read ended sent me a letter with a (without prejudice) and they will pay only $900 out of their pocket as they don't want to engage their insurance. They are claiming that the damage was not caused by them ( cracked and paint imperfections on my rear bar ). I have a video inside my cabin that you can see the impact however the person's car is not in the video. I am almost completing a claim on my local court through online. is there anything that I have to keep in my before lodging the claim?
submitted by Kindly-Brother9897 to AusLegal [link] [comments]
2023.06.02 10:27 TAc20220920 Will you negotiate a price cut for these? If so how much or will you just pull out?
Summary of Survey report needing essential remedial works (Repair Rating: 1; based on SCSI Type 2 standard report) or issues that require further investigation/action:
➢Unblock the Living room wall vent.
➢ We noted tile cracking at the threshold of the sliding door. The floor slab appears to have settled slightly overtime. We also noted a loose tile towards the centre of the Dining area. Further appraisal by a specialist pyrite engineer is advised. Pyrite testing is advised given the risk profile of the property.
➢ Service the windows.
➢ The front, right Bedroom window sashes do not provide for escape or rescue in the event of fire and should be replaced. The rear Bedroom sash hinges should be swapped out from units that provide a greater clear opening with.
➢ Treat mould accumulations on the ceiling above the vent in the front, right Bedroom.
➢ We noted heavy creosote accumulations on the Living Room smoke chamber and lower flue, the cause of which will need to be confirmed, particularly as the fireplace does not appear to have been used as an open fire.
➢ Address water weep from connector below the automatic air release valve in the Hot Press as soon as possible.
➢ The window board in the rear Bedroom is too high above ground level, 1140 mm compared to the maximum height required by the Building Regulations of 1100 mm. Install a step below the window to overcome this.
➢ A humidity regulated mechanical extractor fan should be installed in the Bathroom.
➢ Insulate the light shaft illuminating the first-floor landing and remove the cover.
➢ Screw-fix the first-floor landing and rear Bedroom floors.
➢ Roof Space: Improve insulation coverage.
➢ Roof Space: Remove all bird nesting material, disinfect the roof, repair the felt and replace any damaged tiles.
➢ Roof Space: Cover the water storage cistern with a correctly fitting lid and insulate.
➢ Roof Space: Close the gap in the party wall in the front, right-hand corner of the roof.
➢ Repair the rear door lock.
➢ Properly complete the boiler flue opening and finish to match surrounding wall surfaces.
➢ Double the number of soffit vents.
➢ Replace the rear wing fencing that is in poor condition with the cooperation of your neighbour.
➢ The boiler condensate drains directly onto the ground. Construct a small soakaway.
➢ Install a new exterior light.
➢ Replace the missing service box covers.
➢ Replace the damaged doorbell.
➢ Replace the damaged Porch felt underlay.
submitted by TAc20220920 to irishpersonalfinance [link] [comments]
➢Unblock the Living room wall vent.
➢ We noted tile cracking at the threshold of the sliding door. The floor slab appears to have settled slightly overtime. We also noted a loose tile towards the centre of the Dining area. Further appraisal by a specialist pyrite engineer is advised. Pyrite testing is advised given the risk profile of the property.
➢ Service the windows.
➢ The front, right Bedroom window sashes do not provide for escape or rescue in the event of fire and should be replaced. The rear Bedroom sash hinges should be swapped out from units that provide a greater clear opening with.
➢ Treat mould accumulations on the ceiling above the vent in the front, right Bedroom.
➢ We noted heavy creosote accumulations on the Living Room smoke chamber and lower flue, the cause of which will need to be confirmed, particularly as the fireplace does not appear to have been used as an open fire.
➢ Address water weep from connector below the automatic air release valve in the Hot Press as soon as possible.
➢ The window board in the rear Bedroom is too high above ground level, 1140 mm compared to the maximum height required by the Building Regulations of 1100 mm. Install a step below the window to overcome this.
➢ A humidity regulated mechanical extractor fan should be installed in the Bathroom.
➢ Insulate the light shaft illuminating the first-floor landing and remove the cover.
➢ Screw-fix the first-floor landing and rear Bedroom floors.
➢ Roof Space: Improve insulation coverage.
➢ Roof Space: Remove all bird nesting material, disinfect the roof, repair the felt and replace any damaged tiles.
➢ Roof Space: Cover the water storage cistern with a correctly fitting lid and insulate.
➢ Roof Space: Close the gap in the party wall in the front, right-hand corner of the roof.
➢ Repair the rear door lock.
➢ Properly complete the boiler flue opening and finish to match surrounding wall surfaces.
➢ Double the number of soffit vents.
➢ Replace the rear wing fencing that is in poor condition with the cooperation of your neighbour.
➢ The boiler condensate drains directly onto the ground. Construct a small soakaway.
➢ Install a new exterior light.
➢ Replace the missing service box covers.
➢ Replace the damaged doorbell.
➢ Replace the damaged Porch felt underlay.
2023.06.02 10:19 YamiJanp April/May - Double the months, double the games [20/25]
I somehow forgot to post an update for April and when I realized my mistake, it was already almost the end of May, so I decided to lump the two together. These two months were mostly the months of Pathfinder. I spent whole April and most of the May playing Kingmaker and brainstorming my character for Wrath of the Righteous. I think my friends, who decided to play alongside me helped that a lot. And we even started talking about trying Pathfinder tabletop game just few hours ago, which I'll DM for. It's nice when videogames have this kind of effect on people. Other than that, I finished Hero's Hour and while I had fun with it as Heroes clone, it was lacking some depth that would hook me on it. I also played forgotten adventure A Vampyre Story, which I wish got a sequel. I finally finished Heidi: The Game. Took me like an hour in total. It was mindless 2D platformer and I still don't regret playing it. Then in May, I opened Itch.io and a small game called Fridge Floppers caught my attention. It was fun in-and-out action to complete during my break. I also finally got around to play Frog Detective 3 and it was magnificent ending to the whole trilogy. I played Five Dates, which is well-made interactive movie about dating in the time of corona. And I also played the Mafia: Definitive Edition, a remake of my childhood game. At the end of the month, I started playing Total War: Three Kingdoms. Last Total War game I played was Napoleon, so it has been a while. It's fun so far. On Switch, I made some progress in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but I'm close to just dropping it. I'm not feeling it. On the other hand, I bought Fire Emblem: Engage and I'm having fun with it so far. I also played LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which is really boring and doesn't live up to the original LEGO games. I'm currently at Episode VIII, so I think I'll just quickly get past the story mode and end it there. So, let's talk about these games. This will be long update. And as always, beware of spoilers...
Hero's Hour
Well, this journey finally ended. I had to make it my secondary go-for game to break a gameplay stereotype a little bit, but I think I'm finally done with it.
I appreciate what the devs decided to do. A Heroes clone that combines stuff from 3rd and 4th entry sounds crazy, but it works. I felt like at home right from the start. The inspiration is sometimes way too obvious, for example there are structures with 1:1 design taken straight from Heroes. I don't mind it that much, I took it as a nod to the legendary series. I would say the inspiration helped me get "in" the game and understand some of the deeper mechanics faster.
The fractions in this game are a combination of Heroes 3 and 4 fractions mixed with something new. Each fraction had its own gimmick that made it unique. For example undead fraction could rise dead enemies, the barbarians could only level up their units by combat, sea fraction could dig up pearls and trade them for more units, lovecraftian fraction had powerful heroes, who could be on multiple places at once, but had to sacrifice some cultists to be able to recruit stronger units and so on... I've played about a half of maps with random fraction to try them all, but later rotated between 3-4 fractions based on my current mood. I think my favourites were undeads and seafolks.
Each fractions had multiple heroes, each one with unique skill tree. But some skills were shared by multiple characters. And with it comes one of my biggest gripes with the game. These skill trees are so unbalanced. There is OP skill that let's you fill a bar after each battle and when you fill it up, it will spawn a Red Dragon on your team. Red Dragon is one of the strongest units in the game. And that is not all. When level up, this skill also let's you upgrade Red Dragons into Black Dragons, who are even more broken than their Heroes 4 counterpart. And some characters can get this skill as early as level 2. Meaning that you can get extreme push in power within first few turns of the game and can completely steamroll your opponents. But it's not the only skill that is unbalanced. While heroes take active part in the battle, their damage is minimal and there are barely any skills that would make them better. Meaning that heroes' main purpose is to cast spells. And the problem is that some heroes only get spell skills at the top of their skill tree. While there are some good pasive skills, the ability to completely wreck your enemies with spells is just better. I mean there are spells that will basically take your opponent's units and make them yours. And once again, some characters can get these spells super early in the game or even start with them.
Which slowly brings me to battles. I had love-hate relationship with them throughout the whole game. Your units move and attack on their own and your only interaction with the battlefield are your heroes' spells. Well, you can also tell your units to retreat or move somewhere else, but it usually had no effect on the battle. So your only way to affect the battle stands on the ability of your hero to cast spells. And having enough mana to do so. As I said, some spells were crazy. There were multiple times, when I got in the battle with just my hero and small army of troops against huge army. And I won just because my hero could cast overpowered spells the whole time. Be it summoning spells or spells that make some of your opponent's unit instantly disappear or change the team or just good old meteorite rain. On the other hand, when my hero had no spells or couldn't cast them, I had to sit through multiple minutes of automatic battle, which got boring pretty fast, because each unit has one animation for movement and one for attack. Because the battlemaps were flat with nothing interesting on them, I also could strategize in any meaningful way. And it was the worst during battles I knew I'll win, just based on power and numbers of my units, but still had to sit through them. Also in most games, there was usually one huge clash with each opponent, after which my opponent could never get enough momentum again to be any threat.
Final point I would to gather my thoughts on are maps themselves. There is no campaign, only few skirmishes. Well, there are over 40 of them. Each map is randomly generated, but you always see the general skeleton the map will follow. It will show you if you and your enemies are connected by land or sea and if there are any neutral towns. But while each map was randomly generated, most of them felt the same. All of them was divided into same areas. Your starting area, where you could get the starting resources. This area was locked away from the neutral area and your opponents by either a guarded tunnel or guarded fortress. This made most of the maps look the same. I was also missing some better motivation than just "beat all of your enemies." I think a campaign would be fun.
Overall, it was unbalanced fun. It was nice watching my army completely wrecks my opponent. But I wish there was more to it. It felt a little bit shallow. 6.5/10.
A Vampyre Story
It's crazy and a little bit eerie, how many games, good games, get forgotten so quickly. Especially today, when we get hundreds upon hundreds of games daily. It's sad that there isn't enough time to play every interesting title. Or that some cool series never really sees an ending. It wouldn't happen to games I play, right? There is no way. I'm denying any possibility that this could happen to me.
Which is exactly what happened to A Vampyre Story. This P&C adventure game was planned as a whole trilogy. And they really wanted to make you want it. So you can imagine my surprise, when the game just suddenly ended with a cliffhanger. And when I wanted to get the closure the game owned me, I found out the sequel never came out. There is a prequel, but I want to know what happened to Mona! I need to know! It's my right to know! That makes me angry!
I just spent 4 hours getting to know all the characters. I wish I could do anything to experience at least a bit of what happens next. There is even a trailer for a sequel still available on YouTube. Maybe we could bargain a deal?
Is there even a point in playing games anymore? If all we get is uncertainty after enjoying a good game, isn't it depressing that there will never be a sequel?
Bur it's all gone, isn't it? I'll never meet A Vampyre Story's characters again. They will forever be locked in a cycle of escaping that cursed castle again and again. They will always end up on their way to a crazy scientist. Poor Mona. It's depressing.
But you know what? I had fun with it. I loved its art style and humour. I enjoyed exploring the castle and the town and solving the puzzles. I liked that you could use your bat companion as an item, which meant you could combine him with other items. In the end, nothing can take my enjoyment back. So, I think the only thing to do is to accept that this was one-off experience and move on.
Overall, I hope you enjoyed my [s]stages of grief[/s] review of A Vampyre Story. 8/10.
Heidi: The Game
It's strange. I got this game alongside my Game Boy Micro and bunch of other (and arguably better) games, but this one stayed in my mind and from time to time, I noticed I'm thinking about it. So it's only natural for me to pick it up again and play it.
It's a game based on a children book. I remember I read the book in primary school during classes. And I was lucky to be familiar with the story, because the game barely tell you anything about it. It don't even bother to be consistent. For example Heidi mentions Klara once out of nowhere at the end of the game, while completely ignoring her existence up until that point. Other characters are pretty much non-existing, only one of them has dialogue and that's only at the start of the game.
The gameplay is simple. It's 2D platformer, where you go from left to right. And about 70 % of the levels really felt like I was just holding a forward button and just beat the level by jumping at the right time to avoid pits and enemies. The rest had me sometimes going up or down and very rarely (in like 2 levels), I actually had to navigate through a complex layout. It's a game for small kids, I get it, but some levels could be finished in under a minute with minimal input.
Overall, for a game that lasted me for about an hour, it was fun and quick, but didn't really leave an impression. It would be cool flash game. Nothing more, nothing less. 6/10.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
"It takes 500 hours to complete, " that was an ad for a game I was a little bit interested in. Up until that moment. After I read this ad, I moved the game to the "probably will never play" category. "An epic adventure that will take you 100s of hours to finish, " says another ad for another game. But it fails to address that that game has enough content for about 20 hours and the rest is just a boring filler.
One view, when it comes to value of games is how long it is. And it's honestly something I can't really understand. Time spent in the game is weird variable to measure the value of the game with. For example, when I finally decided to play The Witcher 3 (as someone, who played previous entries on launch, I was turned down by the switch to more traditional open-world and the promise of 100s of hours of content), I spent over 100 hours in it on one playthrougth. But, and also because of this, I think it's mediocre game with great dialogues and cinematography. I experienced everything the game has to offer in about 20 hours. But the game never built up on that, so the final 80 hours of my gameplay were really bland and boring and felt like a filler for most parts. I really only kept up playing because the general consensus about it is that it's one of the best RPG of all time and I just didn't get to the good parts yet. Which is a lot weirder, since it isn't really a RPG, but that's probably a topic for another time. On the other hand, Smile For Me is a game I've finished in one sitting one evening. It knew exactly what it wants to do, executed it perfectly and ended right when it was suppose to. And it's a game I still fondly remember to this day. The art of ending the game at the right time is really hard to master and it doesn't always apply that longer games don't know when to end. For example, Divinity: Original Sin 2, that I've played last month is long game. But it's exactly as long as it needs to be. It barely has any filler in it and leaves me wanting more. On the other side, SUPERHOT is about 2 hours long, but even that is way too much and feels like a slog and just doesn't know when to end.
Which slowly gets me to Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Kingmaker puts you in a shoes of a (future) monarch. As you progress the game, you gain the ability to manage your kingdom. And with it comes the biggest problem. The game has awful pacing. It starts good. Kill a bandit king and claim good lands. You have few days to do it. But then, you quickly get another, more personal quest. And suddenly, you have to choose. Which one will your pursue first. Will you take out your competitor and risk that the only trail you have to the bandit king will go cold? It adds so much to the game and you question whatever you've done the right thing.
But as the game goes on and you get your kingdom, these choices slowly disappear and all you're left with is "you have X days to finish this quest," which the game sometimes doesn't even tell you and then will just say you failed the objective after some time. While this adds to the overall feeling of alive world, it also introduces few more problems.
But let's talk about the kingdom management for now. You get special quests that can be resolved by you or your advisors and take some time. You basically just click, who will solve which quest and then wait. Some of the quests will lock-in your character for few in-game days. Which means if you don't finish all your personal quests first, you risk failing them. It's really a weird design choice, especially since you still can use you companions normally, while they are solving a kingdom quest, just not your main character.
Then, there is the pacing issue. When you finish a chapter, you have some time to manage your kingdom and explore. Exploring is, like in many exploring-focused games, useful only at the start. After that, you'll encounter the same looking maps, same enemies and same loot. The loot was so weirdly distributed that I've used some weapons all the way from the first dungeon to the end of the game, because there just weren't better weapons of that kind for my characters. After a while, I didn't even bother with exploring everything, because what I got during the main game was enough. So, that's one part of the game that I don't really want to participate in during this time. The second is kingdom management. As I said before, there isn't really much substance to it too. You just click and wait. Sometimes, you don't have anything to click on. So you'll have to click "Skip a day" button. Yeah, there is a button that will skip one in-game day. That's just an atrocious idea. Instead of giving you any meaningful activities to spend your time in, the game let's you click one button until it allows you to continue. And it really is an issue. In one instance, I had to skip over 400 days until the game let me continue with the main story. For the final two chapters, I had to turn kingdom management on auto, because I would have to spend another in-game year clicking skipping button.
It's really a shame, because I think the story was fun. Not something world breaking, but nice little tabletop adventure. Same goes for characters, which I enjoyed quite a lot. I even managed to swap my party members a lot, not really having a set team of 6. I was afraid some of them will be annoying, like overly optimistic Linzi or her polar opposite Jaethal. But even them managed to convince me to like them. My favourites are Harrim, Valerie and Nok-Nok. Harrim had nice twist on the typical dwarf character, Nok-Nok was fun comedic relief and Valerie was one of the best Lawful Neutral character I've ever seen. The final dungeon forced me to shuffle the party one more time, so there was no time for stereotype to settle in. I've played as Wizard, an illusionist, and it worked fairly well. Illusionists are usually RP-heavy characters and doesn't work well in these linear environments, but I had fun with it. Especially illusions on higher levels were something I never tried before.
Which brings me to the pacing issue #2. The battle system. I hate the real-time-with-pause system of cRPGs. Who's idea was it? Who likes to watch two parties missing each other for 10 minutes, while they as player has 0 input in the game? It's not how battles in tabletop RPGs work. Luckily, I was able to switch to turn-based system and it was a little bit better, but I still encountered moment, where no hit would land for 10+ rounds. And especially by the end of the game, it was tiresome to fight low-level enemies in this mode, so I kept switching in and out of it. I'm the end, it was the best idea. I let the game solve easy fights for me, while I kept the harder fights and bossfights for myself. And it was great. I enjoyed most of the chapters and their respective bosses. The final bosses were a little bit predictable, but I don't think the game was aiming at some big shocking revelation, when it comes to them.
Overall, this game has a lot of good ideas and mechanics. But it will shove them down your throat to the point that you'll actively avoid them. When I turned down/ignored all side activities, I had a lot of fun with the game. Which is weird, but it's the result of your 25 hours long game taking 70 hours to finish. 8/10.
Fridge Floppers
Fridge Floppers is a 15 minutes physics-based game made in 48 hours. Which is impressive. The main goal is to move a fridge to a van, while controlling two movers carrying it. You can move them both at the same time or let one of them jump. But the fridge can't fall off.
There were about 5 levels of varying difficulty, just scratching the edge of all the possibilities. You barely get to experience the pain of climbing up and down a set of stairs before the game ends.
And there isn't really anything else to say. The art style is simple, yet nice and feels like a good fit for this game. The controls are easy to understand and hard(-ish) to master.
Overall, I wish there were more levels added to the game, because as I already said, I love the concept. 8/10.
Frog Detective 3
You might remember me excitingly talking about the previous two entries in this series. Ever since then, I was eagerly waiting for the final part of the trilogy. Only to completely miss the release. I only recently learned about it, while browsing Itch.io. I have no idea how could I miss it, but made sure to play it as soon as possible.
Frog Detective is the worthy finale of the series. It picks up exactly where the previous entry ended, but you're also served quick recap of previous games. The game plays exactly like the previous two games. You're let loose in a small area and have to solve a crime. This time, you're in Wild West-themed town and you're trying to find everyone's stolen hats. You're aided by Lobster Cop, who is supposedly #1 detective in this world. But is he really? The story is extremely silly and full of plot twists and surprises. I would never expect this game to surprise with its story.
The gameplay is simple and follows the same structure as the previous games. You talk with characters, find out what they need and what can they offer and then you start exchanging items with them until you get what you need. It's always clear what to do and especially after you talk with all characters, you're just following a linear path.
Overall, this is great way to end the series. I'll be looking forward next game from these devs. 9/10.
Mafia: Definitive Edition
While I've played the original Mafia (and its sequel) when I was younger, I never really joined in the cult that worship this game and its creator as second coming of christ. It was a great game, but the fanbase and its creator are a little bit crazy. And I think that's what turned me off the series for so long. I think the last time I've played Mafia was 10 years ago and it took me so long to get to this remake. Now, while I'm writing this, I know I had some kind of point to make in this paragraph, but I forgot what it was...
So, let's move on to the actual remake. I think it does a lot of things right. I like the re-imagining of the cutscenes, the added details and dialogues. The city looks amazing. It looks like it did in my imagination back in 2002. But it also introduced some not so great changes. It completely kills "Just for Relaxation" mission. It was one of the best mission in the original game, which let you tackle the problem your own way. It also made sense from narrative perspective and was grounded in reality like the rest of the game. Now, it's stupid boring forced linear stealth mission, that betrays Salieri's character and just makes everyone so unlikable and makes them act out of character. Plus, for some reason, there is still dialogue from the original that doesn't make sense in this new scenario. Luckily it's almost final mission of the game and it has no consequences on the rest of the missions.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as the original, only tweaked a little bit to match the modern standard. I like it. The original had more opened areas and let you handle missions your own way, but I didn't mind the more linear approach. It was annoying few times, because I was so used to completing certain mission certain way, but nothing to be mad about. Unlike the mission I talked above.
Overall, I think this remake is nice alternative to the original, but scratches completely different itches, so I don't think it's something to replace the original. 7.5/10.
Five Dates
Five Dates is interactive movie about dating during the time of corona.
And to be honest, there isn't really much to talk about. The gameplay is simple. You watch a movie and sometimes pick, where to take the story. There are 5 woman to date and each of them has really captivating personality and story. They didn't feel one-dimensional at all. I didn't expect it, but the game had great writing and was full of surprises. I decided to first tackle Saffron's storyline and when the credits started to roll, I was left with my mouth opened. I had to take few minutes to really grasp what just happened in the last few minutes. It was fun and it left me wanting more, so I returned and finish all storylines. The acting was enjoyable and I'll make sure to check more games from this studio. I've actually played their Late Shift back in 2017 and it's amazing how much they improved since then. I think it was from them.
And... that's pretty much it. It was cool short game, the acting was great, the dialogues, the characters and writing was fun, there was really big attention to details, despite each shot being just a character standing/sitting in front of webcam. 8/10.
For June, I'm playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I couldn't get enough of Kingmaker, despite it sometimes feeling really dragged out. But I know what settings to turn off or on to make the game more fun. The full version of HROT, Czech Boomer Shooter, was released, so I hope to get around to play it. And I hope to finish Total War: Three Kingdoms. And maybe make some progress with my Switch games. And I'll also try to put Call of the Sea somewhere in between them.
submitted by YamiJanp to 12in12 [link] [comments]
Hero's Hour
Well, this journey finally ended. I had to make it my secondary go-for game to break a gameplay stereotype a little bit, but I think I'm finally done with it.
I appreciate what the devs decided to do. A Heroes clone that combines stuff from 3rd and 4th entry sounds crazy, but it works. I felt like at home right from the start. The inspiration is sometimes way too obvious, for example there are structures with 1:1 design taken straight from Heroes. I don't mind it that much, I took it as a nod to the legendary series. I would say the inspiration helped me get "in" the game and understand some of the deeper mechanics faster.
The fractions in this game are a combination of Heroes 3 and 4 fractions mixed with something new. Each fraction had its own gimmick that made it unique. For example undead fraction could rise dead enemies, the barbarians could only level up their units by combat, sea fraction could dig up pearls and trade them for more units, lovecraftian fraction had powerful heroes, who could be on multiple places at once, but had to sacrifice some cultists to be able to recruit stronger units and so on... I've played about a half of maps with random fraction to try them all, but later rotated between 3-4 fractions based on my current mood. I think my favourites were undeads and seafolks.
Each fractions had multiple heroes, each one with unique skill tree. But some skills were shared by multiple characters. And with it comes one of my biggest gripes with the game. These skill trees are so unbalanced. There is OP skill that let's you fill a bar after each battle and when you fill it up, it will spawn a Red Dragon on your team. Red Dragon is one of the strongest units in the game. And that is not all. When level up, this skill also let's you upgrade Red Dragons into Black Dragons, who are even more broken than their Heroes 4 counterpart. And some characters can get this skill as early as level 2. Meaning that you can get extreme push in power within first few turns of the game and can completely steamroll your opponents. But it's not the only skill that is unbalanced. While heroes take active part in the battle, their damage is minimal and there are barely any skills that would make them better. Meaning that heroes' main purpose is to cast spells. And the problem is that some heroes only get spell skills at the top of their skill tree. While there are some good pasive skills, the ability to completely wreck your enemies with spells is just better. I mean there are spells that will basically take your opponent's units and make them yours. And once again, some characters can get these spells super early in the game or even start with them.
Which slowly brings me to battles. I had love-hate relationship with them throughout the whole game. Your units move and attack on their own and your only interaction with the battlefield are your heroes' spells. Well, you can also tell your units to retreat or move somewhere else, but it usually had no effect on the battle. So your only way to affect the battle stands on the ability of your hero to cast spells. And having enough mana to do so. As I said, some spells were crazy. There were multiple times, when I got in the battle with just my hero and small army of troops against huge army. And I won just because my hero could cast overpowered spells the whole time. Be it summoning spells or spells that make some of your opponent's unit instantly disappear or change the team or just good old meteorite rain. On the other hand, when my hero had no spells or couldn't cast them, I had to sit through multiple minutes of automatic battle, which got boring pretty fast, because each unit has one animation for movement and one for attack. Because the battlemaps were flat with nothing interesting on them, I also could strategize in any meaningful way. And it was the worst during battles I knew I'll win, just based on power and numbers of my units, but still had to sit through them. Also in most games, there was usually one huge clash with each opponent, after which my opponent could never get enough momentum again to be any threat.
Final point I would to gather my thoughts on are maps themselves. There is no campaign, only few skirmishes. Well, there are over 40 of them. Each map is randomly generated, but you always see the general skeleton the map will follow. It will show you if you and your enemies are connected by land or sea and if there are any neutral towns. But while each map was randomly generated, most of them felt the same. All of them was divided into same areas. Your starting area, where you could get the starting resources. This area was locked away from the neutral area and your opponents by either a guarded tunnel or guarded fortress. This made most of the maps look the same. I was also missing some better motivation than just "beat all of your enemies." I think a campaign would be fun.
Overall, it was unbalanced fun. It was nice watching my army completely wrecks my opponent. But I wish there was more to it. It felt a little bit shallow. 6.5/10.
A Vampyre Story
It's crazy and a little bit eerie, how many games, good games, get forgotten so quickly. Especially today, when we get hundreds upon hundreds of games daily. It's sad that there isn't enough time to play every interesting title. Or that some cool series never really sees an ending. It wouldn't happen to games I play, right? There is no way. I'm denying any possibility that this could happen to me.
Which is exactly what happened to A Vampyre Story. This P&C adventure game was planned as a whole trilogy. And they really wanted to make you want it. So you can imagine my surprise, when the game just suddenly ended with a cliffhanger. And when I wanted to get the closure the game owned me, I found out the sequel never came out. There is a prequel, but I want to know what happened to Mona! I need to know! It's my right to know! That makes me angry!
I just spent 4 hours getting to know all the characters. I wish I could do anything to experience at least a bit of what happens next. There is even a trailer for a sequel still available on YouTube. Maybe we could bargain a deal?
Is there even a point in playing games anymore? If all we get is uncertainty after enjoying a good game, isn't it depressing that there will never be a sequel?
Bur it's all gone, isn't it? I'll never meet A Vampyre Story's characters again. They will forever be locked in a cycle of escaping that cursed castle again and again. They will always end up on their way to a crazy scientist. Poor Mona. It's depressing.
But you know what? I had fun with it. I loved its art style and humour. I enjoyed exploring the castle and the town and solving the puzzles. I liked that you could use your bat companion as an item, which meant you could combine him with other items. In the end, nothing can take my enjoyment back. So, I think the only thing to do is to accept that this was one-off experience and move on.
Overall, I hope you enjoyed my [s]stages of grief[/s] review of A Vampyre Story. 8/10.
Heidi: The Game
It's strange. I got this game alongside my Game Boy Micro and bunch of other (and arguably better) games, but this one stayed in my mind and from time to time, I noticed I'm thinking about it. So it's only natural for me to pick it up again and play it.
It's a game based on a children book. I remember I read the book in primary school during classes. And I was lucky to be familiar with the story, because the game barely tell you anything about it. It don't even bother to be consistent. For example Heidi mentions Klara once out of nowhere at the end of the game, while completely ignoring her existence up until that point. Other characters are pretty much non-existing, only one of them has dialogue and that's only at the start of the game.
The gameplay is simple. It's 2D platformer, where you go from left to right. And about 70 % of the levels really felt like I was just holding a forward button and just beat the level by jumping at the right time to avoid pits and enemies. The rest had me sometimes going up or down and very rarely (in like 2 levels), I actually had to navigate through a complex layout. It's a game for small kids, I get it, but some levels could be finished in under a minute with minimal input.
Overall, for a game that lasted me for about an hour, it was fun and quick, but didn't really leave an impression. It would be cool flash game. Nothing more, nothing less. 6/10.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
"It takes 500 hours to complete, " that was an ad for a game I was a little bit interested in. Up until that moment. After I read this ad, I moved the game to the "probably will never play" category. "An epic adventure that will take you 100s of hours to finish, " says another ad for another game. But it fails to address that that game has enough content for about 20 hours and the rest is just a boring filler.
One view, when it comes to value of games is how long it is. And it's honestly something I can't really understand. Time spent in the game is weird variable to measure the value of the game with. For example, when I finally decided to play The Witcher 3 (as someone, who played previous entries on launch, I was turned down by the switch to more traditional open-world and the promise of 100s of hours of content), I spent over 100 hours in it on one playthrougth. But, and also because of this, I think it's mediocre game with great dialogues and cinematography. I experienced everything the game has to offer in about 20 hours. But the game never built up on that, so the final 80 hours of my gameplay were really bland and boring and felt like a filler for most parts. I really only kept up playing because the general consensus about it is that it's one of the best RPG of all time and I just didn't get to the good parts yet. Which is a lot weirder, since it isn't really a RPG, but that's probably a topic for another time. On the other hand, Smile For Me is a game I've finished in one sitting one evening. It knew exactly what it wants to do, executed it perfectly and ended right when it was suppose to. And it's a game I still fondly remember to this day. The art of ending the game at the right time is really hard to master and it doesn't always apply that longer games don't know when to end. For example, Divinity: Original Sin 2, that I've played last month is long game. But it's exactly as long as it needs to be. It barely has any filler in it and leaves me wanting more. On the other side, SUPERHOT is about 2 hours long, but even that is way too much and feels like a slog and just doesn't know when to end.
Which slowly gets me to Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Kingmaker puts you in a shoes of a (future) monarch. As you progress the game, you gain the ability to manage your kingdom. And with it comes the biggest problem. The game has awful pacing. It starts good. Kill a bandit king and claim good lands. You have few days to do it. But then, you quickly get another, more personal quest. And suddenly, you have to choose. Which one will your pursue first. Will you take out your competitor and risk that the only trail you have to the bandit king will go cold? It adds so much to the game and you question whatever you've done the right thing.
But as the game goes on and you get your kingdom, these choices slowly disappear and all you're left with is "you have X days to finish this quest," which the game sometimes doesn't even tell you and then will just say you failed the objective after some time. While this adds to the overall feeling of alive world, it also introduces few more problems.
But let's talk about the kingdom management for now. You get special quests that can be resolved by you or your advisors and take some time. You basically just click, who will solve which quest and then wait. Some of the quests will lock-in your character for few in-game days. Which means if you don't finish all your personal quests first, you risk failing them. It's really a weird design choice, especially since you still can use you companions normally, while they are solving a kingdom quest, just not your main character.
Then, there is the pacing issue. When you finish a chapter, you have some time to manage your kingdom and explore. Exploring is, like in many exploring-focused games, useful only at the start. After that, you'll encounter the same looking maps, same enemies and same loot. The loot was so weirdly distributed that I've used some weapons all the way from the first dungeon to the end of the game, because there just weren't better weapons of that kind for my characters. After a while, I didn't even bother with exploring everything, because what I got during the main game was enough. So, that's one part of the game that I don't really want to participate in during this time. The second is kingdom management. As I said before, there isn't really much substance to it too. You just click and wait. Sometimes, you don't have anything to click on. So you'll have to click "Skip a day" button. Yeah, there is a button that will skip one in-game day. That's just an atrocious idea. Instead of giving you any meaningful activities to spend your time in, the game let's you click one button until it allows you to continue. And it really is an issue. In one instance, I had to skip over 400 days until the game let me continue with the main story. For the final two chapters, I had to turn kingdom management on auto, because I would have to spend another in-game year clicking skipping button.
It's really a shame, because I think the story was fun. Not something world breaking, but nice little tabletop adventure. Same goes for characters, which I enjoyed quite a lot. I even managed to swap my party members a lot, not really having a set team of 6. I was afraid some of them will be annoying, like overly optimistic Linzi or her polar opposite Jaethal. But even them managed to convince me to like them. My favourites are Harrim, Valerie and Nok-Nok. Harrim had nice twist on the typical dwarf character, Nok-Nok was fun comedic relief and Valerie was one of the best Lawful Neutral character I've ever seen. The final dungeon forced me to shuffle the party one more time, so there was no time for stereotype to settle in. I've played as Wizard, an illusionist, and it worked fairly well. Illusionists are usually RP-heavy characters and doesn't work well in these linear environments, but I had fun with it. Especially illusions on higher levels were something I never tried before.
Which brings me to the pacing issue #2. The battle system. I hate the real-time-with-pause system of cRPGs. Who's idea was it? Who likes to watch two parties missing each other for 10 minutes, while they as player has 0 input in the game? It's not how battles in tabletop RPGs work. Luckily, I was able to switch to turn-based system and it was a little bit better, but I still encountered moment, where no hit would land for 10+ rounds. And especially by the end of the game, it was tiresome to fight low-level enemies in this mode, so I kept switching in and out of it. I'm the end, it was the best idea. I let the game solve easy fights for me, while I kept the harder fights and bossfights for myself. And it was great. I enjoyed most of the chapters and their respective bosses. The final bosses were a little bit predictable, but I don't think the game was aiming at some big shocking revelation, when it comes to them.
Overall, this game has a lot of good ideas and mechanics. But it will shove them down your throat to the point that you'll actively avoid them. When I turned down/ignored all side activities, I had a lot of fun with the game. Which is weird, but it's the result of your 25 hours long game taking 70 hours to finish. 8/10.
Fridge Floppers
Fridge Floppers is a 15 minutes physics-based game made in 48 hours. Which is impressive. The main goal is to move a fridge to a van, while controlling two movers carrying it. You can move them both at the same time or let one of them jump. But the fridge can't fall off.
There were about 5 levels of varying difficulty, just scratching the edge of all the possibilities. You barely get to experience the pain of climbing up and down a set of stairs before the game ends.
And there isn't really anything else to say. The art style is simple, yet nice and feels like a good fit for this game. The controls are easy to understand and hard(-ish) to master.
Overall, I wish there were more levels added to the game, because as I already said, I love the concept. 8/10.
Frog Detective 3
You might remember me excitingly talking about the previous two entries in this series. Ever since then, I was eagerly waiting for the final part of the trilogy. Only to completely miss the release. I only recently learned about it, while browsing Itch.io. I have no idea how could I miss it, but made sure to play it as soon as possible.
Frog Detective is the worthy finale of the series. It picks up exactly where the previous entry ended, but you're also served quick recap of previous games. The game plays exactly like the previous two games. You're let loose in a small area and have to solve a crime. This time, you're in Wild West-themed town and you're trying to find everyone's stolen hats. You're aided by Lobster Cop, who is supposedly #1 detective in this world. But is he really? The story is extremely silly and full of plot twists and surprises. I would never expect this game to surprise with its story.
The gameplay is simple and follows the same structure as the previous games. You talk with characters, find out what they need and what can they offer and then you start exchanging items with them until you get what you need. It's always clear what to do and especially after you talk with all characters, you're just following a linear path.
Overall, this is great way to end the series. I'll be looking forward next game from these devs. 9/10.
Mafia: Definitive Edition
While I've played the original Mafia (and its sequel) when I was younger, I never really joined in the cult that worship this game and its creator as second coming of christ. It was a great game, but the fanbase and its creator are a little bit crazy. And I think that's what turned me off the series for so long. I think the last time I've played Mafia was 10 years ago and it took me so long to get to this remake. Now, while I'm writing this, I know I had some kind of point to make in this paragraph, but I forgot what it was...
So, let's move on to the actual remake. I think it does a lot of things right. I like the re-imagining of the cutscenes, the added details and dialogues. The city looks amazing. It looks like it did in my imagination back in 2002. But it also introduced some not so great changes. It completely kills "Just for Relaxation" mission. It was one of the best mission in the original game, which let you tackle the problem your own way. It also made sense from narrative perspective and was grounded in reality like the rest of the game. Now, it's stupid boring forced linear stealth mission, that betrays Salieri's character and just makes everyone so unlikable and makes them act out of character. Plus, for some reason, there is still dialogue from the original that doesn't make sense in this new scenario. Luckily it's almost final mission of the game and it has no consequences on the rest of the missions.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as the original, only tweaked a little bit to match the modern standard. I like it. The original had more opened areas and let you handle missions your own way, but I didn't mind the more linear approach. It was annoying few times, because I was so used to completing certain mission certain way, but nothing to be mad about. Unlike the mission I talked above.
Overall, I think this remake is nice alternative to the original, but scratches completely different itches, so I don't think it's something to replace the original. 7.5/10.
Five Dates
Five Dates is interactive movie about dating during the time of corona.
And to be honest, there isn't really much to talk about. The gameplay is simple. You watch a movie and sometimes pick, where to take the story. There are 5 woman to date and each of them has really captivating personality and story. They didn't feel one-dimensional at all. I didn't expect it, but the game had great writing and was full of surprises. I decided to first tackle Saffron's storyline and when the credits started to roll, I was left with my mouth opened. I had to take few minutes to really grasp what just happened in the last few minutes. It was fun and it left me wanting more, so I returned and finish all storylines. The acting was enjoyable and I'll make sure to check more games from this studio. I've actually played their Late Shift back in 2017 and it's amazing how much they improved since then. I think it was from them.
And... that's pretty much it. It was cool short game, the acting was great, the dialogues, the characters and writing was fun, there was really big attention to details, despite each shot being just a character standing/sitting in front of webcam. 8/10.
For June, I'm playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I couldn't get enough of Kingmaker, despite it sometimes feeling really dragged out. But I know what settings to turn off or on to make the game more fun. The full version of HROT, Czech Boomer Shooter, was released, so I hope to get around to play it. And I hope to finish Total War: Three Kingdoms. And maybe make some progress with my Switch games. And I'll also try to put Call of the Sea somewhere in between them.
2023.06.02 09:44 Cotangente Pro tip: Don’t kill a blazing champion vampire bat beside the shopkeeper.
 | If a ran to the door he would’ve burn my rear end off. submitted by Cotangente to PixelDungeon [link] [comments] |
2023.06.02 09:10 Bitter-Flamingo8944 low blow.
Yea, I used to be at playmore plan at 80 bucks for 4 years while in military service+discount.
I found out 1 month ago that visible is offering the same shit for 30 bucks.
so verizon essentially scammed me 50 usd*12month*4years=2,400 usd over course of 4 years
I tried to swap my phone for a "free" upgrade (they charged me 100 for a service fee at store location), then swap to visible.
Turns out the phone was "covered" over the course of the months of payment as I am billed.
So, when I ended the contract, the phone was not free, they charged me 500 later from my bank the cost of the "free" phone.
Essentially I paid 563.59 for phone+100 for service fee for a galaxy A54, when I could've gotten it for 400 from Amazon.
Verizon, nice job stealing from service members. I'm just 1, I could only imagine the 200,000 service members at minimum*2,400 over the 4 years of service.
submitted by Bitter-Flamingo8944 to verizon [link] [comments]
I found out 1 month ago that visible is offering the same shit for 30 bucks.
so verizon essentially scammed me 50 usd*12month*4years=2,400 usd over course of 4 years
I tried to swap my phone for a "free" upgrade (they charged me 100 for a service fee at store location), then swap to visible.
Turns out the phone was "covered" over the course of the months of payment as I am billed.
So, when I ended the contract, the phone was not free, they charged me 500 later from my bank the cost of the "free" phone.
Essentially I paid 563.59 for phone+100 for service fee for a galaxy A54, when I could've gotten it for 400 from Amazon.
Verizon, nice job stealing from service members. I'm just 1, I could only imagine the 200,000 service members at minimum*2,400 over the 4 years of service.
2023.06.02 07:26 trullss 2004 Ford Ranger; 150k miles, seller wants 8k; what do the experts think>
 | submitted by trullss to fordranger [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/c1r2plf2hj3b1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31d3be6592e73b42d367b0bd3ec03e121bc3e633 https://preview.redd.it/2dlub2o3hj3b1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f795245ac651d6699c84be49e4e84fcb8571a32c https://preview.redd.it/1btv01g4hj3b1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9b25ad117921c8127cc0f178b3a48cefee74a2d5 2004 Ford Ranger, 150k miles, seller asking 8k. Been looking at this one for a while now for a daily driver. Been on the market for quite some time, price seems fair from what I can tell. Had some questions for you guys though. The badging is throwing me off, as it says Ranger XLT on the second picture but then FX4 on the third. I know the FX4 was based on the XLT, but are they badged differently? Also, how would I tell if this thing has the rear swinging doors just from the pics? Not a deal-breaker, but I'd like to know before I head out and check it out in person. As far as a daily driver goes, how solid are these? I know rangers have an extremely solid reputation for being bulletproof, but does that ring true for these 3rd gen ones or are these the bad apples so to speak? I'm planning on going to look at it in person. Is there anything apart from the basics I should pay extra attention to? Frame, diffs, exhaust, transfer case etc. but anything else? I'd like to make it mine if I do end up owning it. Nothing crazy, but a few tasteful aftermarket parts. Smaller lift, rims and tires, maybe go for lights and minor trim pieces for accents. I can't seem to find much compatibility under the FX4 trim though, and a lot of websites don't even have FX4 as a trim option. Again, is this just because it's practically the same as an XLT? So, what do the experts say? Worth checking out? Any advice is appreciated! Thanks! |
2023.06.02 07:21 DerpyRedditDood Hex's Secondary Effect
I know a lot of people only focus on the additional 1d6 Necrotic damage this spell gives to attacks, but why don't people focus more on the secondary effect, which many of yall probably forgotten about?
Pairing this part of Hex alongside a subtle spell or casting with Psionic Sorcery just seems incredible for roleplaying. Need to lie to someone? Disadvantage on Wisdom checks. Having a friendly arm wrestling match? Disadvantage on Strength checks and win easily. Street performer doing his thing and you wanna be an asshole? Disadvantage on Dexterity Checks. So on and so forth with any kind of situation you wanna cause some mischief that could even remotely be in need of a skill. The best part? The affected creature has no idea that the spell has been cast upon it.
I know this doesn't automatically make the spell a be-all-end-all of RP based spells, but I think this spell with a sorcerer and subtle spell makes it way more interesting, in my eyes at least.
submitted by DerpyRedditDood to dndnext [link] [comments]
Also, choose one ability when you cast the spell. The target has disadvantage on ability checks made with the chosen ability.Initially, this sounds like something that could be incredibly useful for RP scenario or for the stray Grapple check in combat here in there, if there weren't somatic or verbal components. However, this spell alongside the Aberrant Mind Sorcerer is actually one of my favorite picks for swapping out Arms of Hadar in Psionic Spells.
Pairing this part of Hex alongside a subtle spell or casting with Psionic Sorcery just seems incredible for roleplaying. Need to lie to someone? Disadvantage on Wisdom checks. Having a friendly arm wrestling match? Disadvantage on Strength checks and win easily. Street performer doing his thing and you wanna be an asshole? Disadvantage on Dexterity Checks. So on and so forth with any kind of situation you wanna cause some mischief that could even remotely be in need of a skill. The best part? The affected creature has no idea that the spell has been cast upon it.
I know this doesn't automatically make the spell a be-all-end-all of RP based spells, but I think this spell with a sorcerer and subtle spell makes it way more interesting, in my eyes at least.
2023.06.02 07:18 ArmyofSpies Cardano Rumor Rundown June 02, 2023
Hey Everyone!
Let’s go….
Newly Covered Today:
submitted by ArmyofSpies to cardano [link] [comments]
Let’s go….
Newly Covered Today:
- Interesting news about the currency in one of Cardano’s biggest metaverse projects. https://twitter.com/Pavia_io/status/1664240389610704896
- Messari has released an article on operational decentralization in proof-of-stake crypto. https://messari.io/report/evaluating-validator-decentralization-geographic-and-infrastructure-distribution-in-proof-of-stake-networks
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics has MASSIVELY revised their figures on Q4 of 2022. No surprise, the numbers were much worse than they told us. https://twitter.com/FrogNews/status/1664253845399130113
- Looks like DAOs are getting a little hesitant about fee switches due to possible legal/tax implications. https://twitter.com/FrogNews/status/1664253845399130113
- We even have Arctic block production. https://twitter.com/Laponia_pool/status/1664226409466740737
- Questions are being raised regarding the blockspace consumption of dApps still on Plutus v1. https://twitter.com/matiwinnetou/status/1664385383122051073
- IOG wants you to know about the advantages of native tokens on Cardano. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1654077799697727488
- Cardano Movies! https://twitter.com/coc_space/status/1653862307439542275
- We really need to primary some members of the U.S. Congress. https://twitter.com/BradSherman/status/1653928972026093569
- Wow! Not surprised at what’s being said here back in November. Just surprised it’s being said publicly. https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1654239504574853120
- Here’s the longer video of that FDIC meeting for context. http://fdic.windrosemedia.com/index.php?category=Systemic+Resolution+Advisory+Committee
- Looks like Western Alliance is up next. https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1654133106037739522
- The weekly development update from IOG is out. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1655248376194105347
- It’s not hard to make a meme coin on Cardano. https://twitter.com/nmkr_io/status/1654923697885532160
- Still a crazy amount of mark-to-market losses that haven’t been absorbed by the system. https://twitter.com/BillyM2k/status/1655207860572422144
- Warren Buffet gives a not too comforting answer to a question about the status of the dollar: “America…we’ve got everything going for us…but…you can’t print money indefinitely as debt.” https://twitter.com/GRDectestatus/1655203348033810439
- …and then everyone remembered what fee markets look like in busy times. https://twitter.com/CryptoStylesUSA/status/1654711146673479680
- …same for Bitcoin. https://twitter.com/MatthewPlomin/status/1655320093084057600
- Cardano hit 94% load. https://twitter.com/SebastienGllmt/status/1655624561789112321
- he MEV game is getting out of control over on Cardano’s biggest competitor chain. Convince me this shouldn’t just be called “theft” or “fraud”. https://twitter.com/0xNox_eth/status/1655615309695586306
- Cardano Native Assets are vastly superior to BRC20 and ERC20 tokens. https://twitter.com/TheOCcryptobro/status/1655673557710692352
- Rumor: SEC is going to make a move against Binance. Will the DOJ also? https://twitter.com/AP_Abacus/status/1655546961968103425
- At the end of Q3 of last year, 722 banks reported unrealized losses greater than 50% of capital. https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/files/board-briefing-on-impact-of-rising-interest-rates-and-supervisory-approach-20230214.pdf
- Wyoming is inching closer to a state stablecoin. IOG’s significant presence there may turn out to be a huge advantage. https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/05/09/wyoming-stable-token-a-multibillion-dollar-opportunity-as-officials-wrestle-with-how-to-make-it-happen/
- Paypal disclosed almost $1 billion in customer crypto in its latest 10-Q. https://blockworks.co/news/paypal-discloses-1b-crypto
- MiCA is shifting the balance of crypto investment to Europe. https://twitter.com/paddi_hansen/status/1655883224726241281
- Today (May 10) will be a joint hearing of the Agriculture and Financial Services Committees on Crypto. The CLO of Kraken will testify. https://financialservices.house.gov/
- This is a legit point about centralized L2s: the best ones are called Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance. https://twitter.com/el33th4xostatus/1655845787593502720
- There’s already a new version of Lace Wallet out. https://twitter.com/lace_io/status/1656347737355608066
- A nice thread on the many strengths of Cardano. https://twitter.com/TobiasIlskov/status/1656388178369212416
- Remember, lobster traps are a thing. https://twitter.com/TheCardanoTimes/status/1656064744225120257
- Today (May 11 at 1pm EST) there will be a Messari Cardano Analyst call with Charles & Frederik. https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1656272372452954112
- I think we all love it when they start making our case for us. https://twitter.com/WatcherGuru/status/1656379837823561730
- Ethereum is lamenting many of its poor design choices that Cardano already fixed. https://twitter.com/moo9000/status/1656215016016683008
- Drunkenmiller says this is the broadest asset bubble he’s ever even studied let alone seen firsthand and we’ve only had a few soft landings since 1950. https://twitter.com/Stephen_Geigestatus/1656416819312222219
- Live footage of meme coin investors accepting their ROI. https://twitter.com/KaylerSmithTV/status/1656130092966264834
- Here’s the Messari call from today with both Fred & Chaz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouUhWwF74MM
- People really seem to be enjoying the CF’s Blockchain Education Alpha Program. https://twitter.com/andreassosilo/status/1644263843743293451
- The US Chamber of Commerce brief in the Coinbase case is calling out the SEC for acting “unlawfully”. https://twitter.com/MetaLawMan/status/1656737447756038177
- About that whole self-custody thing we’ve discussed… https://twitter.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1656706653801136132
- The SPO poll on K and minFee starts today (May 15)! You should redelegate if your stake pool doesn’t vote the way you would vote! https://cardanofoundation.org/en/news/entering-voltaire-poll-experiment-live-on-mainnet/
- There are also a series of forum topics for discussion of the various options in the Cardano.org forums. https://twitter.com/Lovecoach_nic/status/1657700010148896770
- Coinbase spotlights Empowa! May be the first time they’ve ever given such a spotlight to a Cardano project. Tides are turning. https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1657081243518005254
- Wow. Leaked “Key Messages” document for the joint committee meeting in the US House last week. Best part: they basically complain about separation of powers in point three. https://twitter.com/EleanorTerrett/status/1656362002577772544
- Dr. Vanishree Rao on ZK-Rollups. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1657778843854274560
- Here’s a new Decentralized Identity article from IOG. https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2023/05/11/atala-prism-pioneering-digital-identity-with-decentralized-solutions/
- There are reasons we’re in a hard capped cryptocurrency like Cardano. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/business/argentina-interest-rates-inflation/index.html
- What is a dRep? This video is for you. There will be additional categories of default dReps that vote abstain or no confidence on every vote. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1658034085401337857
- The US Dept. of Justice is officially saying they are targeting exchanges. Great. Great. https://www.ft.com/content/5aac457e-cc80-44ae-ac40-9b51d9b601a3
- Wow! Ledger just made what is possibly the greatest PR blunder in the history of crypto. Trezor will be poppin’ bottles tonight. https://twitter.com/Ledgestatus/1658458714771169282
- People are claiming that the hysteria is a misunderstanding of cryptography. But, that’s not what’s going on here if Ledger plus one of the other two shard custodians can reconstruct your private key without having to use your private key. https://twitter.com/nimuepool/status/1658517533836574720
- The Ledger Recover FAQ seems to support this understanding as it suggests you use a brand new device for recovery. https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/9579368109597
- Wow. Unfortunate timing for this. https://twitter.com/Ledgestatus/1658095051375800321
- Ken Kodama will be doing a Japanese language interview on CardanoSpot on May 18. https://twitter.com/Emurgo_Ken/status/1658838077136162828
- The stake pool operator poll on network parameters of K and minPoolCost is live. See the results here. The re-delegation phase will begin on May 25th. https://adastat.net/polls/96861fe7da8d45ba5db95071ed3889ed1412929f33610636c072a4b5ab550211
- Cornucopias dropped some new in-game footage. As expected, Solace is beautiful. https://youtu.be/j5iwNsQVMDQ?t=1846
- Wow….the Ledger shards are encrypted with “a master key that is contained in all devices”. Wut? https://twitter.com/P3b7_/status/1658809445965606913
- Sadly, the Ledger CEO seemed to be denying exactly the above just a day ago. https://twitter.com/_pgauthiestatus/1658508082941403144
- Here’s why 340 ADA minPoolCost promotes multi-pools. https://twitter.com/ArmySpies/status/1659387255537176581
- Numbers are emerging on the benefits of K=1000 over K=500. https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1659398551917727744
- Here’s the latest on the Stake Pool Operator poll. https://adastat.net/polls/96861fe7da8d45ba5db95071ed3889ed1412929f33610636c072a4b5ab550211
- Rep. Tom Emmer is trying to help crypto by cutting crypto assets out of the definition of a “security”. He creates a new non-security asset category called “investment contract asset”. https://twitter.com/GOPMajorityWhip/status/1659291641281146886
- Prof. Wadler (co-inventor of Cardano’s Plutus) has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society joining the likes of Einstein, Darwin, Hawking, and Isaac Newton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLOm-dWje-M
- Huge amount of voting for economic self-interest by multi-poolers in the SPO poll. Earlier today (May 21), 84.73% by stake of the vote for K=500, Min Cost 340 ₳ was multi-poolers. Only 15.6% of the vote for K=1000, Min Cost 170 ₳ was multi-poolers. https://adastat.net/polls/96861fe7da8d45ba5db95071ed3889ed1412929f33610636c072a4b5ab550211
- Large pools also voted heavily for economic self-interest with the K parameter. 70.02% by stake of the vote for K=500, Min Cost 170 ₳ was pools with delegation over 35 million. Only 30.57% of the vote for K=1000, Min Cost 170 ₳ was pools over 35 million. https://adastat.net/polls/96861fe7da8d45ba5db95071ed3889ed1412929f33610636c072a4b5ab550211
- Apparently Cardano has its own wiki now! Probably better given our previous treatment by the big wiki group. https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1660383700243329024
- Rep. Tom Emmer is getting some reactions on the bill he sponsored with Rep. Soto. https://twitter.com/GOPMajorityWhip/status/1660329932495486977
- You’re really gonna hold up a debt ceiling deal because you hate crypto so bad? https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/status/1660248530135515138
- Looks like a few big multi-poolers have voted in the poll since yesterday. Pretty easy to predict what they didn’t vote for. https://adastat.net/polls/96861fe7da8d45ba5db95071ed3889ed1412929f33610636c072a4b5ab550211
- Reports coming in that DCG has defaulted on the payment owed to Genesis. https://twitter.com/AP_Abacus/status/1660671386388504577
- Ledger Recover would allow governments to confiscate crypto assets by subpoena? Called “not a real concern in the end.” Really? https://twitter.com/TheBTCTherapist/status/1660677064700178436
- Frederik Gregaard on DeFi and regulation. https://twitter.com/F_Gregaard/status/1660655806709211137
- Don’t Forget, the May Cardano 360 will be on May 25th. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1660621805017608194
- Here’s the daily check-in on the status of the SPO Poll. We have surpassed 590 pools voting (as of May 23). https://adastat.net/polls/96861fe7da8d45ba5db95071ed3889ed1412929f33610636c072a4b5ab550211
- The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong has decided to get our hopes up with a proposed regulatory framework for crypto exchanges that could mean more trading for coins like Cardano. https://apps.sfc.hk/edistributionWeb/gateway/EN/news-and-announcements/news/doc?refNo=23PR53
- Here’s an IOG thread on the latest out of Atala Prism and Self-Sovereign Identity. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1660904360925188097
- Here’s an IOG article on Cardano native tokens. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1660975383997448193
- The difference in decentralization between Cardano and Bitcoin is still…laughable. https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1660979639907500033
- Ledger is finally caving (a little) to the backlash. It’s reported that they will focus on open sourcing parts of their code and only release the “Recover” firmware after that open sourcing is finished. https://twitter.com/NFTherdestatus/1661026174779420672
- Looks like the Hong Kong announcement yesterday might have been a hint of what’s coming. https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1661391542504902664
- The Cardano Layerverse is coming to life. https://twitter.com/TobiasIlskov/status/1660697833115385856
- Wow! Incredible! Thank you for voting in favor of decentralization, 1PCT! https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1661460222203002880
- Federal Reserve report debunks claim that crypto is not useful to people in the US. https://twitter.com/SebVentures/status/1661063483369177108
- The SPO phase of the poll is over. Nearly 800 pools voted. Now it’s your turn to see how your pool voted and re-delegate if you think they voted against decentralization and for their own pocketbook. https://adastat.net/polls/96861fe7da8d45ba5db95071ed3889ed1412929f33610636c072a4b5ab550211
- The May Cardano 360 is out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_bCa_xCoxA
- Charles dropped an update today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfL2U2hAGWw
- Sen. Cynthia Lummis declares her opposition to the 30% tax on bitcoin mining. https://twitter.com/SenLummis/status/1661803569341759495
- Lots of volume being transacted on Cardano recently! https://twitter.com/cwpaulm/status/1662929296329981952
- Recent subpoenas to the Python Package Index don’t bode well for those hoping to store seed phrases with third-party custodians. https://twitter.com/_jonasschnelli_/status/1662531840606093312
- Transaction volume is looking very interesting right now. https://messari.io/charts/cardano/txn-vol
- JPG Store has now launched Android and IOS apps. https://twitter.com/jpgstoreNFT/status/1663281982262919170
- It’s true. Cardano is straight killing it on the security leg of the trilemma.https://twitter.com/cardano_whale/status/1662987243655684096
- Just checked. Yep. The centralization in ETH is still staggering. https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1663222056870350848
- There’s a documentary about a 2022 Plutus hackathon in Argentina. https://twitter.com/LarsBrunjes/status/1663111319732535297
- Pavia is testing NFT gating. This could get very interesting. https://twitter.com/Pavia_io/status/1663153213988823040
- Marlowe is on mainnet! You can now code Cardano smart contracts in javascript or blockly via Marlowe! This is an amazing leap forward. https://twitter.com/marlowe_io/status/1663480828016435200
- Don’t forget! We are still in the re-delegation phase of the CF Poll. See how your stake pool voted! If they were voting for their pocketbook instead of decentralization, you should re-delegate! https://twitter.com/Cardano_CF/status/1663564854572244994
- Wow! Cardano projects are doing big things these days! https://twitter.com/CardanoCrocClub/status/1663468916843114498
- The CCP has dropped a white paper on how it will develop Web 3 including NFTs and the metaverse. https://twitter.com/milestones_nft/status/1663458500922712064
- Lace is now open source! https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1663953642045714433
- Binance is back and apparently they don’t care if someone had that ticker first. https://twitter.com/pool_pm/status/1663809731603906560
- Summon is now allowing for multichain swaps of ADA & ERG. https://twitter.com/N8iveToEarth/status/1664038846563225600
- Charles did a Twitter Space with World Mobile. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1663984094252810283
- Here’s an easy infographic on CIP-1694 Voltaire governance from IOG. https://twitter.com/Hornan7/status/1664007623799185409
- Apparently, Cardano sushi is a thing! https://twitter.com/Allison_Fromm/status/1663841386074976257
- This kind of sums up the problems with central bank behavior over the last 20 years. https://twitter.com/JeffWenigestatus/1664012650781585409
2023.06.02 07:17 Key-Blacksmith9109 Rearended on the freeway - Any help would be great
Hi I was rear-ended on the freeway on the 13th of May by a drunk driver. I had to wait for the police report as I was unable to exchange information with the individual. I recently got the police report which I've gone ahead and sent to my insurance and to the other person's insurance. Unfortunately I didn't cover a policy in my insurance if I wasn't at fault. So now I'm forced to go through the other person's insurance. He has answered his phone and keeps assuring me he will talk to his insurance but every time I call his insurance and talk with the assigned case person from Triple AAA he says he has to wait for his insured to actually call him before were able to get my car repaired by their adjustor and start the repair process. I don't know what to do, but I have to have my car to get to work and have been getting rides from a friend. That friend can no longer take me now. I have no idea what to do to make this process go faster as the other person is being unresponsive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
submitted by Key-Blacksmith9109 to legaladvice [link] [comments]
2023.06.02 06:57 Tamh93 Careless & Prohibited Driving Ticket
Last Friday, I picked up my dog up from daycare in my 2020 Toyota Tacoma, and then traveled 6-7 hours to visit my family for the weekend and Memorial Day holiday.
Before I started my trip, though, I got in my first ever accident (I’m 30 years old, nothing on my record). As we were leaving the daycare (my dog was in the passenger seat), I looked both ways to ensure no cars were coming toward me, and I turned left out of the entrance/exit. I began driving forward and a few seconds later I noticed a car that I believe came from behind in my lane and began driving next to me on the right side against the curb. I was shocked and slowed down, but he kept going and his rear driver side ended up hitting my passenger front side/bumper, creating a dent, broken plastic, and scratches on my paint. By the end of it, he was in front of me.
We both pulled over, I looked at my damage, we talked, and I suggested we call the police. He had minor paint damage, but nothing in comparison to me. He even stated his car was old and he cared nothing about it really, and it just gets him where he needs to go (basically, he didn’t seem to be bothered by the accident).
The policeman arrived, and eventually he questioned us each separately as to our testimony of the incident. I felt nervous as I was upset about the damage and it being my first accident, so I’m not exactly sure I remember all I said in the moment, but I know I started from the beginning and mentioned the turn, then I immediately felt like he was laser focused on that and he asked “Which way? Left or right?”, to which I responded, but he really didn’t give me much time to explain the whole story and basically from what the other diver claimed, they’re trying to say that I didn’t “yield to oncoming traffic,” or that I just pulled out and hit the back of his car while he was driving past. This is also insinuated in the police report from his paraphrasing of what he believes my testimony was.
This is not how it happened at all, and I’ve stated that multiple times to my insurance, but the only evidence they have to go off of is the report, and I’ve been in touch with the same officer since, and he just keeps on saying for me to go to court and he’s not willing or he “can’t” change what was written, as it’s too late.
I’ve paid for a lawyer through an app called “Off The Record,” and I explained all the details to him, but my case is still under review and I’ve not heard back yet (it’s only been a day at this point, so maybe I’ll still receive something soon).
Does anyone have any advice, though? Do you think I have a chance to get it dismissed or keep my record clean? Based on the report and location of damages, they truly think I’m at fault when I’m honestly not. I’ve tried seeing if I can get camera footage of the nearby area, too, but it doesn’t seem like there is any.
submitted by Tamh93 to legaladvice [link] [comments]
Before I started my trip, though, I got in my first ever accident (I’m 30 years old, nothing on my record). As we were leaving the daycare (my dog was in the passenger seat), I looked both ways to ensure no cars were coming toward me, and I turned left out of the entrance/exit. I began driving forward and a few seconds later I noticed a car that I believe came from behind in my lane and began driving next to me on the right side against the curb. I was shocked and slowed down, but he kept going and his rear driver side ended up hitting my passenger front side/bumper, creating a dent, broken plastic, and scratches on my paint. By the end of it, he was in front of me.
We both pulled over, I looked at my damage, we talked, and I suggested we call the police. He had minor paint damage, but nothing in comparison to me. He even stated his car was old and he cared nothing about it really, and it just gets him where he needs to go (basically, he didn’t seem to be bothered by the accident).
The policeman arrived, and eventually he questioned us each separately as to our testimony of the incident. I felt nervous as I was upset about the damage and it being my first accident, so I’m not exactly sure I remember all I said in the moment, but I know I started from the beginning and mentioned the turn, then I immediately felt like he was laser focused on that and he asked “Which way? Left or right?”, to which I responded, but he really didn’t give me much time to explain the whole story and basically from what the other diver claimed, they’re trying to say that I didn’t “yield to oncoming traffic,” or that I just pulled out and hit the back of his car while he was driving past. This is also insinuated in the police report from his paraphrasing of what he believes my testimony was.
This is not how it happened at all, and I’ve stated that multiple times to my insurance, but the only evidence they have to go off of is the report, and I’ve been in touch with the same officer since, and he just keeps on saying for me to go to court and he’s not willing or he “can’t” change what was written, as it’s too late.
I’ve paid for a lawyer through an app called “Off The Record,” and I explained all the details to him, but my case is still under review and I’ve not heard back yet (it’s only been a day at this point, so maybe I’ll still receive something soon).
Does anyone have any advice, though? Do you think I have a chance to get it dismissed or keep my record clean? Based on the report and location of damages, they truly think I’m at fault when I’m honestly not. I’ve tried seeing if I can get camera footage of the nearby area, too, but it doesn’t seem like there is any.
2023.06.02 06:46 PablosViewfinder E36 steering rack swap requires E30 tie rod ends or E36 tie rod ends?
submitted by PablosViewfinder to E30 [link] [comments]
2023.06.02 06:32 deej628 Swapped the shoes
 | Met a new buddy in the area with an mk7 gti with some mods. Said he dug my hypergrams and wanted to change things up. By the end of the day we swapped setups. I’m diggin the change, how about you? submitted by deej628 to Golf_R [link] [comments] |
2023.06.02 06:14 zartes Convergence Manifesto - I've run most of it. I have notes
at the start of the year, I decided I wanted to run a campaign for some friends, and to save myself some effort, I thought I would run a pre-written game. I looked up Eberron adventures, and the convergence manifesto looked like it would suit the quick, very-slightly-casual-ish campaign I wished to run. While I haven't finished the campaign yet, I want to write out some thoughts about it.
WHAT FOLLOWS WILL SPOIL THE CONVERGENCE MANIFESTO CAMPAIGN. DON'T READ IF YOU INTEND TO PLAY IT.
ALSO, PARTS OF THIS MIGHT NOT MAKE SENSE IF YOU HAVEN'T READ OR RUN THE ADVENTURES BECAUSE I'M BAD AT EXPLAINING THINGS.
To start with, I'd like to say that some of my criticisms of the campaign are probably problems with me. I have focus issues, and I'm a picky perfectionist, and to be fair to all the writers involved, they have done better jobs than I would in their shoes.
A note on my group: our party consisted of a human wild magic sorcerer (ex-skycoach driver), human wizard (aundairian expatriot), a gargoyle barbarian (used the rules for a Hadozee), an eladrin eloquence bard, and a goblin rogue (retired Conquerer champion looking for something new to do)
The Campaign As a Whole:
The premise of the Convergence manifesto is that Nigel Faurious, Provost of Morgrave university, wants a bunch of relics that are each attuned to one of Eberron's planes. Each adventure is a mission to some location on Khorvaire to retrieve or create such an item.
Each of the adventures is written by a different author, and as a result I think they vary pretty wildly in quality.
Adventure 1: Fired and Forgotten.
Synopsis: PCs go through hazing ritual to join adventuring guild in Sharn, get sent to pick up bespoke Fernia-linked magic item from a forge in the Cogs, discover forge has been shuttered due to warforged workers protesting - they have to convince the owner to be less of an ass. Then Daask show up.
This one was good! A strong start. Everybody enjoyed the hazing ritual, and I decided to use the optional NPC with the aberrant dragonmark manifesting (for reasons I'll explain further down). The warforged union situation was a very good introduction to what is special and different about the Eberron setting. This might be an issue with me as GM, but I found that the PCs dealt with the non-combat parts of the adventure VERY easily through use of skills and illusions, never thought about leaving the immediate vicinity of the forge (and thus missed some content), and I felt kind of bad having the forge owner not immediately cooperate in the face of 20+ results on Persuasion and Intimidate.
The daask Ettin bruiser being toned down for a bunch of level 1s was a very nice touch, but throwing that at the players right after the fight with the mephits made that bit rough.
Adventure 2: Live Another Day
Synopsis: PCs get air-dropped into Droaam so they can find a hidden valley with an Irian manifest zone, so they can charge up a crystal. On the way they may encounter some ogres, have to navigate a hidden set of tunnels, and then on arriving discover a clan of harpies is living in the valley, as they are persona-non-grata in Droaam. When Droaam monsters follow the PCs into the valley, they have to fight them off before the harpies will let them complete their mission
So, slight issue with this one, probably unique to my party - the adventure calls for a lot of Survival rolls for the overland travel and nobody in my party had survival. They were a bunch of city-slickers. Seemed a little odd the adventuring guild picking the party to do this.
While the adventure was somewhat rail-roady, it at least makes sense in that the PCs are following in the footsteps of a prior explorer. My main issue was the last portion - once the PCs get to the valley, there will ALWAYS be Droaamite monsters on their heels. Firstly, this discounts the possibility that the party had been religiously using Pass Without Trace or doing other things to make them untrackable. My party didn't, but a party with a ranger and/or druid might have. Secondly, the fight as written is a bit boring. It's two Gnolls. Two gnolls shouldn't be a threat to a clan of harpies. Once the gnolls are dead, three goblins show up. After that, two half-ogres show up. You can optionally add some more scenes fighting gnolls and chasing anything trying to get away. I revamped the fight a bit by making all of these fight scenes one long drawn-out battle with reinforcements arriving, and I re-contextualized the Harpies wanting the PCs to fight the monsters without their help - the Harpies could probably run rings around the ground-based humanoids, but the Harpies both thought this was the PCs fault they were here, and didn't want to show themselves in case any stragglers got away to report on the Harpies' presence.
Weird thing my party did: when they encountered the ogres at the start of the adventure, the group came up with a plan to pretend to be fellow Droaamite monsters if they failed to sneak past - they then snuck past the ogres without any issue, and were disappointed that they couldn't use their disguises... so they used them when the encountered the harpies, not knowing the harpies were enemies of Droaam. This very nearly turned into a combat situation, but the bard managed to talk everybody down and explain why they had been lying.
Adventure 3: Rime or Reason
Synopsis: Nigel sends PCs to Icewhite island to get a Risia macguffin after another expedition failed to return. They have to contend with a blizzard, find a tower of ice in the middle, and defeat ice monsters, a puzzle/trap, the possibly backstabby survivors of the failed expedition, and then deal with the tower collapsing once they find the item.
Some parts of this one were good - my party really seemed to enjoy trying to find a solution to get through the blizzard despite their lack of survival skill proficiency. Two of the casters were constantly casting prestidigitation to keep the Constitution 8 rogue from succumbing to hypothermia, and even then it was a bit touch and go.
Now, I had some issues with the ice tower as presented. First, the adventure says it's an ancient dwarven ruin, dating back to when the dwarves came down from the Frostfell. Personally, that didn't make great sense to me - why would you willingly make a building in a risian manifest zone? The whole of Icewhite island is freezing cold, and the manifest zone is worse.
Second problem - there is door, with a puzzle. The puzzle is so easy that I worked out the answer the instant I looked at the handout at the back of the adventure, before even reading the description - there are four columns of symbols (a book, scroll, wand, potion - again, not terribly dwarf-y?), and each symbol rotates a certain number of octagonal faces from one row to the next, and you just have to make the last row match the pattern. If you mess it up, it will spring a trap that will potentially either tickle the PCs a little, or cause a TPK if they're messed up from any prior fights because anybody reduced to 0 HP by the trap is frozen solid until freed by greater restoration, which no PC at this level of adventure will have.
Third problem - the tower is only four storeys tall. As described, it more cube-shaped than tower shaped. Also, as described, a PC with misty step standing on the shoulders of another PC of above average height could potentially teleport to the top of the tower and avoid 50% of the adventure content.
Fourth problem - the top of the tower is described as a garden made of icy plants... which doesn't make sense with Risia's canonical loathing of life.
my fixes: I changed the backstory of the tower, rather than being a dwarven relic, it was an Aundairian Magical Congress research facility, set up during the war to try to draw weaponizable power out of the Risian manifest zone - a wizard tower felt more right than a dwarven one. I then changed the solution to the puzzle - the symbols still had to be rotated, but what columns they were in had to be swapped, to represent the Congress sharing magical knowledge. I had the other expedition that was there explain they had tried the obvious solution and it hadn't worked. I also made the tower taller, mostly as an aesthetic thing, and so that the stand-on-shoulders-and-teleport trick only got the party Eladrin up to a balcony, rather than the roof. I kept the set-piece of the tower collapsing, saying that the magic the Aundairians had been trying had kept the manifest zone coterminous and removing the macguffin broke the spell holding the ice tower together.
Adventure 4: Living Legend
Synopsis: the party goes to Darguun, hunting a legendary hobgoblin hero. They get to see the fact that bugbears take slaves, follow a guide to a Thelanis manifest zone, and undertake several trials to prove they are worthy of claiming the hero's weapon to bring back.
So... the premise is cool. The execution is anything but
Even setting aside the fact that some parties might get entirely side-tracked by fighting slavers, the issue I had was that the trials in the adventure didn't seem to really key into the fact that Eberron goblinoids are supposed to have some different and interesting cultural mores.
The trials aren't bad, per se, but they don't feel goblin-y at all.
Worst of all, though, there is a Hobgoblin you encounter during the trials who is one of the Dhakaani fallout-vault people who is set on passing the trials to claim the weapon herself. As written, she is quite easy to befriend, will readily tell the PCs that she is from a hidden vault of survivors of the goblinoid empire, and if they DO befriend her, doesn't leave the room she's in despite the fact she's here for the same cultural relic the PCs are. WHICH FEELS INSANE. Every bit of canon and kanon lore I've encountered about the Dhakaani suggest that they distrust non-Dhankaani at best, and outright loath them at worst, and are trying to keep their presence secret. She should be either fighting to the death or keeping her origin secret then betraying the PCs, or not here at all.
Between the un-goblin-ish trials, and the insanely cooperative yet unhelpful NPC, this one needed the most fixing to satisfy my tastes. As I didn't have the time and brain juice to do that before the session, I decided to skip this adventure, and have the PCs collect a Thelanis macguffin as part of the later adventurer where they go to a Feyspire (adventure 12: Lost in Dreams).
Adventure 5: Perfect Timing
Synopsis: PCs get on a lighting rail intending to jump off it as it goes over a bridge, so they can appear in Daanvi to acquire the macguffin. twist: there's emerald claw terrorists on the train, and one of them has stolen the thing the PCs need to get into Daanvi, intending to go himself. Once in Daanvi, it's a race against the Emerald Claw guy to fill out all the paperwork to get the macguffin first
So, over-all, this one is really good. The premise is good. Situation is hilarious. It's very Eberron
Minor issues: the train has SO MANY COMBAT ENCOUNTERS. the PCs start at one end, and have to fight their way to the other, with one fight in every single train car, one of which is purely due to a misunderstanding. It took two sessions to get through the train half of the adventure, and that is with me having skipped two of the fights. In hindsight, I would have maybe also varied the stats of the enemies a bit more.
Also, while I comprehend the drama of having the thief jump out of train with his accomplices during a fight, this presumes the PCs don't kill every single one of his accomplices. I had to pull some shady DM shenanigans to get the guy out of the train in one piece, and give him new allies to help in the final battle at the end of the paperwork race.
My players enjoyed this one a heap, but one did comment that he thought it should have come later in the campaign, as it was such a departure from the others.
Adventure 6: Night's Gambit
Synopsis: PCs have to infiltrate Fort Bones in Karrnath and steal a mabaran macguffin from under the nose of the military there.
Another really good one, although not without it's issues. The adventure presents interesting characters in the form of the fort's up-tight commander and relatively chill head necromancer, a timeline of what they will be up to at various times of day, and has options of all kinds of approaches: sneaking in, joining up with what is basically the Karrnathi Foreign Legion, or acting as bodyguards for a visiting inspector. I loved that it gave all these options.
my only complaints were that the timeline was a little hard to make sense of as presented, and the map of the fort seemed... a bit too small and simple for the facility as it's described. I feel like you'd expect one of Karrnath's most important border forts to be at least a two-storey building (I fixed that by describing the fort's upper levels as being still under construction after the last time it was sacked).
How my party handled it: so, my group aren't terribly sneaky on the whole. They also do not look like adventurers - to glance at, they are a Gargoyle, the hottest and floweryest elf you've ever seen, a depressed cab driver, the least magical aundairan wizard ever, and a goblin grandmother. So they couldn't really sneak in, wouldn't blend in as recruits, and I felt wouldn't really be the kind of people the inspector would hire as bodyguards....
...so they decided to BE the inspector. Eladrin lady was the inspector herself, gargoyle got dressed up as weird undead bodyguard, aundairian wizard was silent note-keeper, grandmother was a servant, and cabbie became the coach-driver. The group arrived a day early ("surprise inspection"), and were given a tour of the fortress. They executed everything perfectly. In the end, the only fight they had was an ambush on the necromancer in his own bedroom at 3am, wherein they beat him senseless, put him to sleep with a spell, and healed him back to full HP, so when he woke up in the morning he had no physical proof that anything had happened and was questioning his own sanity. They even fashioned a replica of the macguffin (it's a conqueror piece - the goblin rogue had her own set, which the wizard imbued with some necromantic energy), so the alarm wasn't raised for several hours after the PCs had left the fort.
Adventure 7: The Silvered Edge of Twilight
Synopsis: PCs go to Thaliost to pick up a Lammanian macguffin from a silver flame priest - when they get there, it's been stolen. They do some investigating, track the theives to the railway station, and chase them down to the Eldeen reaches where they fight Ashbound druids and lycanthropes.
Kind of middling adventure - nice premise, but very railroady. For starters, there's an NPC (who I edited out) who gets sent with the PCs for all of the investigation portion who basically seems to exist to keep them on track and/or provide lore about Thaliost and also to force them into a fight they might otherwise be able to avoid. Even outside of that, the investigation seemed a bit being-led-by-the-nose, although maybe that came down to how I was running it.
The issue, for my run at least, was once they were on the train. As written, the PCs need to track down the missing item on the train - it's written with there being a few red herrings as to who might be the thief, but it's a magic item. I have never seen a group of PCs who didn't have access to detect magic, so my PCs just bypassed all the red herrings with a single spell.
Next, there is supposed to be a set-piece fight where the were-tiger with the item jumps off the train, and leaves here were-rat minions to fight the PCs. I can't really criticise the adventure writer for not forseeing what my PCs did: the eladrin bard walked scootched up to the were-tiger, went "hey, I gather you're a nature-themed terrorist? I am too! I hate civilization. Can I tag along and then borrow your item when you're done with it? Also are you single?" and then rolled a 27 for persuasion.
The PCs came along and jumped the lycanthropes a day later. To be fair, the adventure never explained how the were-tiger was supposed to get to the final battle before the PCs as she jumped off a moving train and is slower than it is.
Adventure 8: The March of Madness
Synopsis: PCs go to an ancient dungeon in the Shadow Marches, go on a vision quest before being allowed inside by the druid guardian, and then have to contend with/repair the wards inside the dungeon before they can get their Xoriat macguffin. Depending on how it plays out, they may or may not end up accidentally killing an ancient orcish guardian inside the dungeon, and may or may not be betrayed by an insane warlock.
The adventure is very solid, great even. The map that comes with it is... very uninspiring, so I re-mapped the dungeon and added a bit of extra flavour to one room (there's a weird trap that doesn't make much sense, so I made it a weird manigest zone effect rather than a deliberate thing), but that is basically the only changes I made. 4.5 stars!
Adventure 9: Weathering the Storm
Synopsis: PCs get sent to the Lazaar principalities to receive a Kythri macguffin that is being imported. Ship doesn't arrive, investigation leads to sky pirates, which in turn leads to an attack on a skyship.
So, again, really nice premise. Some issues with the execution, though - see, the synopsis in the adventure itself makes reference to the Chaos Fleet, a concept introduced in 4th edition, where there was a pirate fleet in the principalities that were basically Davy Jones' crew from Pirates of the Carribean, if they went all elemental-y rather than all fish-y.
Except, the Chaos Fleet never actually show up in the adventure at any point. All the opposition in the adventure is Wind Whisperer pirates. ALL of it. Literally, it's only the one statblock for everybody except the final boss.
my fixes: when the PCs are inspecting the wreck of the vessel that had their macguffin on it, rather than Wind Whisperers returning to the scene of the crime, I had a Chaos fleet ship turn up chasing the scent of the macguffin that they were lusting after - I used weirds from the Ravnica book, and some mephits. After that, I fed the PCs info of sightings of Chaos Fleet ships chasing after a skyship in the heart of a storm - the Chaos guys I described as not usually a threat because they're terminally incapable of cooperating with each other, but this was concerning because the Wind Whisperers seemed to be trying to use the macguffin to draw all of them into their wake and then force them into Regalport.
In the adventure as written, then PCs are airdropped onto the macguffin-holding skyship with some friendly Regalport sailors to help them (and to keep the fight against the Wind Whisperers manageable). I gave the wind whisperers some more variance in statblocks (scounts, thugs, deck wizards from ghosts of saltmarsh), and had the ship under attack by elementals at the same time, rather than give the PCs allies.
I also had the aberrant dragonmarked NPC from adventure 1 show up in Regalport, saying she had been given a grant by Nigel to continue her studies somewhere other than Sharn.
Adventure 10: At Death's Door
Synopsis: PCs sneak into the upper level of the Lair of the Keeper to get a Dolurrh macguffin while the (alleged) Keeper is out having a meeting with some minions. It's a dungeon crawl.
This is the best one. Almost every encounter can be fought or talked through (with varying difficulty). The Rakshasa is great. The demon and the bodak are great. The Orcs are great. I loved it. No fixes. No notes. 5/5 stars.
Further Adventures:
This is as far as we've gotten at time of writing. I'm currently gearing up to run A Heart in Mourning, and am running into some of the same issues as Rime or Reason - the adventure site feels too small, the approach to it a bit too rail-roady due to being a tower, combined with the fact it doesn't really feel like it's Shavarath-ish enough. Also, ending with a collapsing tower seems repetitive at this point.
I need to read Lost in Dreams in more detail. It looks complex, so I'll report back on that one.
As for the last adventure - a read-through revealed some really neat set-piece fights and the stupidest twist I've ever \***ing heard of*. As written, the adventure reveals that Nigel Faurious has secretly been... a gnome woman from zilargo who the PCs have never heard of and who wants revenge on Sharn for her sons dying in the War.
...What???
I at least have a fix for that: Nigel Faurious is... actually Nigel Faurious. Nothing secret going on there. He came to Morgrave university in his 20s in hopes of studying to help his fiancé - the fiancé had an aberrant dragonmark that meant they would create spontaneous manifest zones temporarily. One day they had a bad flare-up, and got killed by a mob, just like the NPC nearly is in adventure 1. After that Nigel as spent the last 20 years trying to reverse-engineer the manifest-zone creation effect with the intention of destroying the city that killed the love of his life.
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Thanks for reading all this way, I know this has been a really long post. I appreciate the effort.
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WHAT FOLLOWS WILL SPOIL THE CONVERGENCE MANIFESTO CAMPAIGN. DON'T READ IF YOU INTEND TO PLAY IT.
ALSO, PARTS OF THIS MIGHT NOT MAKE SENSE IF YOU HAVEN'T READ OR RUN THE ADVENTURES BECAUSE I'M BAD AT EXPLAINING THINGS.
To start with, I'd like to say that some of my criticisms of the campaign are probably problems with me. I have focus issues, and I'm a picky perfectionist, and to be fair to all the writers involved, they have done better jobs than I would in their shoes.
A note on my group: our party consisted of a human wild magic sorcerer (ex-skycoach driver), human wizard (aundairian expatriot), a gargoyle barbarian (used the rules for a Hadozee), an eladrin eloquence bard, and a goblin rogue (retired Conquerer champion looking for something new to do)
The Campaign As a Whole:
The premise of the Convergence manifesto is that Nigel Faurious, Provost of Morgrave university, wants a bunch of relics that are each attuned to one of Eberron's planes. Each adventure is a mission to some location on Khorvaire to retrieve or create such an item.
Each of the adventures is written by a different author, and as a result I think they vary pretty wildly in quality.
Adventure 1: Fired and Forgotten.
Synopsis: PCs go through hazing ritual to join adventuring guild in Sharn, get sent to pick up bespoke Fernia-linked magic item from a forge in the Cogs, discover forge has been shuttered due to warforged workers protesting - they have to convince the owner to be less of an ass. Then Daask show up.
This one was good! A strong start. Everybody enjoyed the hazing ritual, and I decided to use the optional NPC with the aberrant dragonmark manifesting (for reasons I'll explain further down). The warforged union situation was a very good introduction to what is special and different about the Eberron setting. This might be an issue with me as GM, but I found that the PCs dealt with the non-combat parts of the adventure VERY easily through use of skills and illusions, never thought about leaving the immediate vicinity of the forge (and thus missed some content), and I felt kind of bad having the forge owner not immediately cooperate in the face of 20+ results on Persuasion and Intimidate.
The daask Ettin bruiser being toned down for a bunch of level 1s was a very nice touch, but throwing that at the players right after the fight with the mephits made that bit rough.
Adventure 2: Live Another Day
Synopsis: PCs get air-dropped into Droaam so they can find a hidden valley with an Irian manifest zone, so they can charge up a crystal. On the way they may encounter some ogres, have to navigate a hidden set of tunnels, and then on arriving discover a clan of harpies is living in the valley, as they are persona-non-grata in Droaam. When Droaam monsters follow the PCs into the valley, they have to fight them off before the harpies will let them complete their mission
So, slight issue with this one, probably unique to my party - the adventure calls for a lot of Survival rolls for the overland travel and nobody in my party had survival. They were a bunch of city-slickers. Seemed a little odd the adventuring guild picking the party to do this.
While the adventure was somewhat rail-roady, it at least makes sense in that the PCs are following in the footsteps of a prior explorer. My main issue was the last portion - once the PCs get to the valley, there will ALWAYS be Droaamite monsters on their heels. Firstly, this discounts the possibility that the party had been religiously using Pass Without Trace or doing other things to make them untrackable. My party didn't, but a party with a ranger and/or druid might have. Secondly, the fight as written is a bit boring. It's two Gnolls. Two gnolls shouldn't be a threat to a clan of harpies. Once the gnolls are dead, three goblins show up. After that, two half-ogres show up. You can optionally add some more scenes fighting gnolls and chasing anything trying to get away. I revamped the fight a bit by making all of these fight scenes one long drawn-out battle with reinforcements arriving, and I re-contextualized the Harpies wanting the PCs to fight the monsters without their help - the Harpies could probably run rings around the ground-based humanoids, but the Harpies both thought this was the PCs fault they were here, and didn't want to show themselves in case any stragglers got away to report on the Harpies' presence.
Weird thing my party did: when they encountered the ogres at the start of the adventure, the group came up with a plan to pretend to be fellow Droaamite monsters if they failed to sneak past - they then snuck past the ogres without any issue, and were disappointed that they couldn't use their disguises... so they used them when the encountered the harpies, not knowing the harpies were enemies of Droaam. This very nearly turned into a combat situation, but the bard managed to talk everybody down and explain why they had been lying.
Adventure 3: Rime or Reason
Synopsis: Nigel sends PCs to Icewhite island to get a Risia macguffin after another expedition failed to return. They have to contend with a blizzard, find a tower of ice in the middle, and defeat ice monsters, a puzzle/trap, the possibly backstabby survivors of the failed expedition, and then deal with the tower collapsing once they find the item.
Some parts of this one were good - my party really seemed to enjoy trying to find a solution to get through the blizzard despite their lack of survival skill proficiency. Two of the casters were constantly casting prestidigitation to keep the Constitution 8 rogue from succumbing to hypothermia, and even then it was a bit touch and go.
Now, I had some issues with the ice tower as presented. First, the adventure says it's an ancient dwarven ruin, dating back to when the dwarves came down from the Frostfell. Personally, that didn't make great sense to me - why would you willingly make a building in a risian manifest zone? The whole of Icewhite island is freezing cold, and the manifest zone is worse.
Second problem - there is door, with a puzzle. The puzzle is so easy that I worked out the answer the instant I looked at the handout at the back of the adventure, before even reading the description - there are four columns of symbols (a book, scroll, wand, potion - again, not terribly dwarf-y?), and each symbol rotates a certain number of octagonal faces from one row to the next, and you just have to make the last row match the pattern. If you mess it up, it will spring a trap that will potentially either tickle the PCs a little, or cause a TPK if they're messed up from any prior fights because anybody reduced to 0 HP by the trap is frozen solid until freed by greater restoration, which no PC at this level of adventure will have.
Third problem - the tower is only four storeys tall. As described, it more cube-shaped than tower shaped. Also, as described, a PC with misty step standing on the shoulders of another PC of above average height could potentially teleport to the top of the tower and avoid 50% of the adventure content.
Fourth problem - the top of the tower is described as a garden made of icy plants... which doesn't make sense with Risia's canonical loathing of life.
my fixes: I changed the backstory of the tower, rather than being a dwarven relic, it was an Aundairian Magical Congress research facility, set up during the war to try to draw weaponizable power out of the Risian manifest zone - a wizard tower felt more right than a dwarven one. I then changed the solution to the puzzle - the symbols still had to be rotated, but what columns they were in had to be swapped, to represent the Congress sharing magical knowledge. I had the other expedition that was there explain they had tried the obvious solution and it hadn't worked. I also made the tower taller, mostly as an aesthetic thing, and so that the stand-on-shoulders-and-teleport trick only got the party Eladrin up to a balcony, rather than the roof. I kept the set-piece of the tower collapsing, saying that the magic the Aundairians had been trying had kept the manifest zone coterminous and removing the macguffin broke the spell holding the ice tower together.
Adventure 4: Living Legend
Synopsis: the party goes to Darguun, hunting a legendary hobgoblin hero. They get to see the fact that bugbears take slaves, follow a guide to a Thelanis manifest zone, and undertake several trials to prove they are worthy of claiming the hero's weapon to bring back.
So... the premise is cool. The execution is anything but
Even setting aside the fact that some parties might get entirely side-tracked by fighting slavers, the issue I had was that the trials in the adventure didn't seem to really key into the fact that Eberron goblinoids are supposed to have some different and interesting cultural mores.
The trials aren't bad, per se, but they don't feel goblin-y at all.
Worst of all, though, there is a Hobgoblin you encounter during the trials who is one of the Dhakaani fallout-vault people who is set on passing the trials to claim the weapon herself. As written, she is quite easy to befriend, will readily tell the PCs that she is from a hidden vault of survivors of the goblinoid empire, and if they DO befriend her, doesn't leave the room she's in despite the fact she's here for the same cultural relic the PCs are. WHICH FEELS INSANE. Every bit of canon and kanon lore I've encountered about the Dhakaani suggest that they distrust non-Dhankaani at best, and outright loath them at worst, and are trying to keep their presence secret. She should be either fighting to the death or keeping her origin secret then betraying the PCs, or not here at all.
Between the un-goblin-ish trials, and the insanely cooperative yet unhelpful NPC, this one needed the most fixing to satisfy my tastes. As I didn't have the time and brain juice to do that before the session, I decided to skip this adventure, and have the PCs collect a Thelanis macguffin as part of the later adventurer where they go to a Feyspire (adventure 12: Lost in Dreams).
Adventure 5: Perfect Timing
Synopsis: PCs get on a lighting rail intending to jump off it as it goes over a bridge, so they can appear in Daanvi to acquire the macguffin. twist: there's emerald claw terrorists on the train, and one of them has stolen the thing the PCs need to get into Daanvi, intending to go himself. Once in Daanvi, it's a race against the Emerald Claw guy to fill out all the paperwork to get the macguffin first
So, over-all, this one is really good. The premise is good. Situation is hilarious. It's very Eberron
Minor issues: the train has SO MANY COMBAT ENCOUNTERS. the PCs start at one end, and have to fight their way to the other, with one fight in every single train car, one of which is purely due to a misunderstanding. It took two sessions to get through the train half of the adventure, and that is with me having skipped two of the fights. In hindsight, I would have maybe also varied the stats of the enemies a bit more.
Also, while I comprehend the drama of having the thief jump out of train with his accomplices during a fight, this presumes the PCs don't kill every single one of his accomplices. I had to pull some shady DM shenanigans to get the guy out of the train in one piece, and give him new allies to help in the final battle at the end of the paperwork race.
My players enjoyed this one a heap, but one did comment that he thought it should have come later in the campaign, as it was such a departure from the others.
Adventure 6: Night's Gambit
Synopsis: PCs have to infiltrate Fort Bones in Karrnath and steal a mabaran macguffin from under the nose of the military there.
Another really good one, although not without it's issues. The adventure presents interesting characters in the form of the fort's up-tight commander and relatively chill head necromancer, a timeline of what they will be up to at various times of day, and has options of all kinds of approaches: sneaking in, joining up with what is basically the Karrnathi Foreign Legion, or acting as bodyguards for a visiting inspector. I loved that it gave all these options.
my only complaints were that the timeline was a little hard to make sense of as presented, and the map of the fort seemed... a bit too small and simple for the facility as it's described. I feel like you'd expect one of Karrnath's most important border forts to be at least a two-storey building (I fixed that by describing the fort's upper levels as being still under construction after the last time it was sacked).
How my party handled it: so, my group aren't terribly sneaky on the whole. They also do not look like adventurers - to glance at, they are a Gargoyle, the hottest and floweryest elf you've ever seen, a depressed cab driver, the least magical aundairan wizard ever, and a goblin grandmother. So they couldn't really sneak in, wouldn't blend in as recruits, and I felt wouldn't really be the kind of people the inspector would hire as bodyguards....
...so they decided to BE the inspector. Eladrin lady was the inspector herself, gargoyle got dressed up as weird undead bodyguard, aundairian wizard was silent note-keeper, grandmother was a servant, and cabbie became the coach-driver. The group arrived a day early ("surprise inspection"), and were given a tour of the fortress. They executed everything perfectly. In the end, the only fight they had was an ambush on the necromancer in his own bedroom at 3am, wherein they beat him senseless, put him to sleep with a spell, and healed him back to full HP, so when he woke up in the morning he had no physical proof that anything had happened and was questioning his own sanity. They even fashioned a replica of the macguffin (it's a conqueror piece - the goblin rogue had her own set, which the wizard imbued with some necromantic energy), so the alarm wasn't raised for several hours after the PCs had left the fort.
Adventure 7: The Silvered Edge of Twilight
Synopsis: PCs go to Thaliost to pick up a Lammanian macguffin from a silver flame priest - when they get there, it's been stolen. They do some investigating, track the theives to the railway station, and chase them down to the Eldeen reaches where they fight Ashbound druids and lycanthropes.
Kind of middling adventure - nice premise, but very railroady. For starters, there's an NPC (who I edited out) who gets sent with the PCs for all of the investigation portion who basically seems to exist to keep them on track and/or provide lore about Thaliost and also to force them into a fight they might otherwise be able to avoid. Even outside of that, the investigation seemed a bit being-led-by-the-nose, although maybe that came down to how I was running it.
The issue, for my run at least, was once they were on the train. As written, the PCs need to track down the missing item on the train - it's written with there being a few red herrings as to who might be the thief, but it's a magic item. I have never seen a group of PCs who didn't have access to detect magic, so my PCs just bypassed all the red herrings with a single spell.
Next, there is supposed to be a set-piece fight where the were-tiger with the item jumps off the train, and leaves here were-rat minions to fight the PCs. I can't really criticise the adventure writer for not forseeing what my PCs did: the eladrin bard walked scootched up to the were-tiger, went "hey, I gather you're a nature-themed terrorist? I am too! I hate civilization. Can I tag along and then borrow your item when you're done with it? Also are you single?" and then rolled a 27 for persuasion.
The PCs came along and jumped the lycanthropes a day later. To be fair, the adventure never explained how the were-tiger was supposed to get to the final battle before the PCs as she jumped off a moving train and is slower than it is.
Adventure 8: The March of Madness
Synopsis: PCs go to an ancient dungeon in the Shadow Marches, go on a vision quest before being allowed inside by the druid guardian, and then have to contend with/repair the wards inside the dungeon before they can get their Xoriat macguffin. Depending on how it plays out, they may or may not end up accidentally killing an ancient orcish guardian inside the dungeon, and may or may not be betrayed by an insane warlock.
The adventure is very solid, great even. The map that comes with it is... very uninspiring, so I re-mapped the dungeon and added a bit of extra flavour to one room (there's a weird trap that doesn't make much sense, so I made it a weird manigest zone effect rather than a deliberate thing), but that is basically the only changes I made. 4.5 stars!
Adventure 9: Weathering the Storm
Synopsis: PCs get sent to the Lazaar principalities to receive a Kythri macguffin that is being imported. Ship doesn't arrive, investigation leads to sky pirates, which in turn leads to an attack on a skyship.
So, again, really nice premise. Some issues with the execution, though - see, the synopsis in the adventure itself makes reference to the Chaos Fleet, a concept introduced in 4th edition, where there was a pirate fleet in the principalities that were basically Davy Jones' crew from Pirates of the Carribean, if they went all elemental-y rather than all fish-y.
Except, the Chaos Fleet never actually show up in the adventure at any point. All the opposition in the adventure is Wind Whisperer pirates. ALL of it. Literally, it's only the one statblock for everybody except the final boss.
my fixes: when the PCs are inspecting the wreck of the vessel that had their macguffin on it, rather than Wind Whisperers returning to the scene of the crime, I had a Chaos fleet ship turn up chasing the scent of the macguffin that they were lusting after - I used weirds from the Ravnica book, and some mephits. After that, I fed the PCs info of sightings of Chaos Fleet ships chasing after a skyship in the heart of a storm - the Chaos guys I described as not usually a threat because they're terminally incapable of cooperating with each other, but this was concerning because the Wind Whisperers seemed to be trying to use the macguffin to draw all of them into their wake and then force them into Regalport.
In the adventure as written, then PCs are airdropped onto the macguffin-holding skyship with some friendly Regalport sailors to help them (and to keep the fight against the Wind Whisperers manageable). I gave the wind whisperers some more variance in statblocks (scounts, thugs, deck wizards from ghosts of saltmarsh), and had the ship under attack by elementals at the same time, rather than give the PCs allies.
I also had the aberrant dragonmarked NPC from adventure 1 show up in Regalport, saying she had been given a grant by Nigel to continue her studies somewhere other than Sharn.
Adventure 10: At Death's Door
Synopsis: PCs sneak into the upper level of the Lair of the Keeper to get a Dolurrh macguffin while the (alleged) Keeper is out having a meeting with some minions. It's a dungeon crawl.
This is the best one. Almost every encounter can be fought or talked through (with varying difficulty). The Rakshasa is great. The demon and the bodak are great. The Orcs are great. I loved it. No fixes. No notes. 5/5 stars.
Further Adventures:
This is as far as we've gotten at time of writing. I'm currently gearing up to run A Heart in Mourning, and am running into some of the same issues as Rime or Reason - the adventure site feels too small, the approach to it a bit too rail-roady due to being a tower, combined with the fact it doesn't really feel like it's Shavarath-ish enough. Also, ending with a collapsing tower seems repetitive at this point.
I need to read Lost in Dreams in more detail. It looks complex, so I'll report back on that one.
As for the last adventure - a read-through revealed some really neat set-piece fights and the stupidest twist I've ever \***ing heard of*. As written, the adventure reveals that Nigel Faurious has secretly been... a gnome woman from zilargo who the PCs have never heard of and who wants revenge on Sharn for her sons dying in the War.
...What???
I at least have a fix for that: Nigel Faurious is... actually Nigel Faurious. Nothing secret going on there. He came to Morgrave university in his 20s in hopes of studying to help his fiancé - the fiancé had an aberrant dragonmark that meant they would create spontaneous manifest zones temporarily. One day they had a bad flare-up, and got killed by a mob, just like the NPC nearly is in adventure 1. After that Nigel as spent the last 20 years trying to reverse-engineer the manifest-zone creation effect with the intention of destroying the city that killed the love of his life.
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Thanks for reading all this way, I know this has been a really long post. I appreciate the effort.