Spyke

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*Permanently Deleted*

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I’d disagree. I keep up with both MtG and YGO (MtG as a game I like and YGO as a horrified observer), and the two games are not even close to equivalent here.

In YGO’s one official format, the oft-quoted statistic is that games don’t usually last more than 3 turns - those 3 turns being half the length of how MtG usually measures turns - Starting Player, Non-Starting Player, Starting Player, game. The interaction relies on your opponent having the right disruptive tool to slow down your combo.

For MtG, the only formats that are really like that are Legacy and Vintage, formats that are generally incredibly expensive to play in paper and definitely not where new players are gonna start. Even Modern, the next oldest and thus powerful format, has games that typically last at absolute least 3 turns for each player (twice the YGO standard) and most of the time last much longer. Then Standard, where new players are expected to start, has so much less combo “I win the game now” potential specifically because it’s a bad feeling for new players and the creators don’t want the format to be that fast. I can’t find a great source on it, but winning a Standard game anytime before turn 5 is notable, and usually means your opponent didn’t do anything.

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Payday 2 has three times the Payday 3 players right now

As someone who dipped their toe into Payday 2 and is beginning to swim in Payday 3, I’m not shocked. Payday 3 is missing a lot of quality of life features that Payday 2 has, and has a lot less content. Plus, Payday 2 has been around forever and Payday 3 is fundamentally different enough that a fair fraction of folks probably just won’t ever feel any need to switch.

That said, I think Payday 3 has a better skeleton that Payday 2, especially for new players like me, and I’m excited to see it grow (and become something more than the minimum shippable product) over time.

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Pornhub Sues Texas Over Age Verification Law

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In theory you’d be right - and in fact PornHub itself wants better age verification. This is more if a “this ain’t it, chief” from them. On top of privacy and reliability issues, the Texas one requires them to have a bunch of pseudoscience about porn on their landing page.

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25 States Agree To Quadruple Number Of Heat Pumps In America

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Right - in fact, from my knowledge, heat pumps only see use over direct electrical heating because they are effectively more than 100% efficient. They move more heat energy from outside to inside than they use in the transmission.

The breakdown between gas and electric heating isn’t necessarily a matter of how efficiently the energy is used once it gets to the home, it’s how expensive it is to get it there in the first place. In a lot, if not a majority, of places, it’s much cheaper to get gas piped in than it would be to pay for the same amount of heating via direct electric resistance. Heat pumps change the equation because they can make electric heating in places that don’t get outrageously cold economically competitive with gas.

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quatre-vingts

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For any other language? The people who speak it decide. For specifically French? They decided 90 should be “four times twenty and ten” and thereby forfeited their linguistic rights.

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*chuckles* I'm in danger!

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When the DM is largely responsible for giving the party magic items (as is the case with 5e), it is absolutely the fault of the DM for throwing something against them that multiple members of the party are fully useless against, especially at a low level.

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The spell which gave me my grudge against 5e

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Oh this is exactly one of the reasons my group is switching to PF2e. I got introduced to TTRPGs via 5e but there’s so much about it that irks me. The caster/martial gap, the “big 3” saves that you just have to take Resilient to make work at higher levels, that AC just doesn’t scale properly, balancing combats (especially at high levels), Rogue having a huge gap in subclass features, classes having dead levels, etc.

My group was a little trepidatious about Pathfinder 2e but Foundry automating a lot of the math has been super helpful. We’ll be starting a proper Spelljammer-inspired interplanar campaign once the remaster releases.

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This game has some pretty sublime humor at times.

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There are two places you can go to trigger Act 2, either by going into the elevator in Grymforge or continuing into the Mountain Pass after meeting/fighting the Githyanki.

There’s a popup in each area to be sure you’ve finished what you want to, as moving to either area progresses the story and quests, and some stuff you don’t do is left undone.

There’s a similar popup between Acts 2 and 3, though there’s only one way to go for that and once you do, you can’t fast travel back to anywhere in Acts 1 or 2.

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Staff Nexus questions...

I'm not incredibly experienced, but for the first question, AoN cites Core Rulebook pg. 592 as:

If a staff contains a cantrip, you can cast that cantrip using the staff without expending any charges. The cantrip’s level is heightened to the same level as cantrips you cast. So I don't believe a cantrip requires charges to cast, even from a Staff Nexus staff.

And I'm also not seeing any contrary guidance on the unchangeability of the Staff Nexus spells, which quite frankly is a little odd to me, given the rest of the system's more flexible approach.

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The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion

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I finished the game once, have 2 co-op games running with friends, and just started a modded playthrough where the whole party is Artificers. I highly recommend giving some of the mods a try once you’ve played through vanilla. They’re super easy to install and add so much fun an variety.