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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 18h

Alternatively, in some settings, sufficiently powerful vampires develop the ability to partially or totally resist the effects of sunlight (Alucard from Hellsing, which is in this list, is one such examples). What does the Sesame Street lore says on the matter?

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 20h

Saudis looking at the Celestial Dragons:

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 20h

Of course, you could solve this with one easy retcon by just making them The Covenant But Utilitarian, but I doubt GW will ever do that.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 20h

It worked for the Pfhor because they were a slaver empire. It worked for the Dominion because the Founders were so paranoid that they only trusted species they had engineered themselves with a built-in fanatical devotion to them. It doesn't work for the T'au, a mostly benevolent utilitarian empire.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 20h

Personally I like it, though it still doesn't solve the core contradiction of the Tau as a faction, which is the lack of importance of the auxiliary races in the empire, or even their auxiliary status in the first place. A lot was lost on the way when GW straight up stole the Pfhor from Bungie.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 1d

I totally get it because I'm the same. For many, me included, the point about playing a class in D&D is to play the fantasy it represents, or at least a character based on said fantasy, while multiclassing very often sacrifices some or even a lot of the fantasy in exchange for a mechanical advantage

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 1d

So here WOTC had two options:

1. Completely overhaul the entire multiclass system.

or

2. Tell people to start at Level 3.

It is not hard to see why they went with option 2 to be perfectly honest.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 1d

Due to the balance problems that would introduce with multiclassing. This was a big problem in Pathfinder 1E for example, where level dips were incredibly common in many builds (the most infamous one being the Scaled Fist Monk, which allowed you to use CHA instead of DEX as your AC modifier).

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 1d

Compounding that problem these days is the "git gud" mentality that judges difficulty based on standards utterly poisoned by the online environment, acting as if min-maxing, grinding and challenge runs are the baseline, not the exception.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 2d

Who do you think is his favorite uma?

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 2d

Oof, my deepest sympathies. I had one a while back and it felt like dying.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 3d

Why are they so on the nose.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 3d

*me and the boys at the Battle of Oslo because they gave the Nobel peace prize to a Venezuelan woman*

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 3d

Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado wins Nobel peace prize

Leader of country’s opposition receives award after scrutiny surrounding committee and comments by Donald Trump * Nobel peace prize – latest Venezuelan opposition politician María Corina Machado has won the Nobel peace prize. The committee commended Machado as a “brave and committed champion of peace” who “keeps the flame of democracy burning during a growing darkness”. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 3d

I've seen people complain about the way Souls-like combat has come to dominate the third person action genre, and while I understand the sentiment, it remains a vast improvement over the hegemony of Arkham-style combat systems, basically rudimentary rhythm games disguised as action gameplay.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 4d

But Real Americans hate the homeless and do not think of them as human, sir.

Or at least, that seems to be what many consultants are telling their Dem clients, by the look of things.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 4d

He's an incredibly popular and extremely stupid dudebro political Twitch streamer who incidentally happen to hold mainly leftist views.

He also happen to be Cenk Uygur's nephew, and as such was brought on the Young Turks straight out of college and had his own show 2 years later i.e he's a nepobaby

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 4d

Hell, it doesn't really have many equivalent in the history of modern society in general. Even the Great Leap Forward at least in theory tried to advance Chinese society, not make it go backward.

Really, the only valid comparison I can think of is the Khmer Rouge, and that's about it.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 4d

A dummymander, i.e a stupid gerrymander. It's a term that's often used to describe gerrymander that backfire on the people implementing them.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 5d

The joke is that Cal Raleigh had already shot 60 home runs this season, with the one this guy caught being the 61st one, hence the "Dump 61 Here" sign on the shirt. The "Dump 62 Here" shirt was in case he didn't catch the 61st one.

Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 5d

This looks like the bedside table of a pretentious upper-middle-class American teenager, yet it belongs to the richest man in the world.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 5d

This picture of Elon's bedside table is to me the most emblematic of this cultural era: a few empty cans of diet coke, a replica of Washington's gun you can order online for one or two hundred bucks, a cheap-looking vajra and a shitty plastic replica of a gun from the more recent Deus Ex games.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 5d

And you're right that the artsy folks don't generally dabble in that kind of stuff. The issue is that the rise of consumerism and mass media has made popular culture more powerful than it ever was, making "copies of copies" culturally dominant.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 5d

It all comes down to the inherently derivative nature of popular culture compared to the transformative nature "higher culture" generally takes—the difference between the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the shitty saintly icons that were sold on the town's market for a few coppers.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 5d

I think the real insight here is that your statement isn't accurate. Reading a lot of modern fantasy doesn't give me the impression the author read Tolkien (it would look very different if it did!), but that they read someone else's take on someone's take on Tolkien.

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Baptiste Lerak @baptistelerak.bsky.social · 5d

Oh of course, don't worry, this absolutely was not directed at you, and I apologize if it gave that impression.

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