Twilight Dirac

Its been around 15 years since I have played 2nd edition, but off the top of my head a telepathy based psionicist can cause all sorts of problems because non-psionic opponents were virtually defenseless in psionic combat, and I vaguely remember an undead hunter kit/class thing being a problem. A lot of the non-standard races such as pixies were also kind of ridiculous if you used them. More to the point though, have you ever actually played any of these editions, or are you just reading about all the weird stuff people come up with on some internet forums, because it sounds like you are reacting to a bunch of topics you have read on a dnd character optimization forum and not to how the actual game plays. I browse several dnd based forums and in my decade and a half of playing 3e, 3.5e and pathfinder I have never actually encountered the more over the top stuff people come up with on these forms. Even the most power gaming among us usually just get somewhat higher ACs, spell DCs and have a better spell selection; nobody goes around using metamagic rods to stack three metamagic feats on a single spell (which requires a high level caster in any case) or anything of that sort. There is a huge difference between the way the game is described in these kinds of theorycrafting threads and the way it is actually played. Case in point would be the feats you keep on calling broken. Ever play Fallout, either the old isometric ones of the new FPS based ones? Do you like the perks feature in those games, because that is exactly what feats are in dnd. Just extra little touches to help round out your character and further separate him from other characters of the same class. They do things like grant a free attack if you kill an opponent in melee (cleave) or allow you to fire into melee safely (precise shot). Useful but hardly broken. But it's not obvious. It would be obvious if save vs. wands was triggered by wands, save vs. spells was triggered by spells, and save vs. death was triggered by something that causes death. But all sorts of things that are not wands to force a save vs. wands, same with save vs. spells and save vs. death. For instance, often a spell will force a save vs. death or a save vs. petrification. And why would wands be a separate save from spells anyway, a wand is just an item that fires spells. The problem is not starting weak and becoming strong. Everybody starts weak and becomes strong in every edition, including 5e. The problem is the variation in relative power in between classes. In 2e, a level 1 wizard is dead weight while the level 1 fighter does all the heavy lifting. At level 20, the fighter is dead weight as the wizard is rewriting the rules of reality. It is perhaps fitting narratively that a high level wizard completely outclasses as a fighter given the bending the laws or reality is going to beat stabbing something with a sword, but from a cooperative team based gameplay perspective it is counter productive. All the player characters should be able to contribute in at least approximately equal fashion across all levels, otherwise you end up leaving some of the players out of the game. Third edition addressed low levels to some extent by giving wizards the ability to wield crossbows and a couple of other additional weapons, introducing bonus spells (so a level 1 wizard could now cast a grand total of two level 1 spells) and adding cantrips. Pathfinder went further by making cantrips at will, although neither address the high level dominance of casters. 5e addressed both ends of the spectrum, making the wizards useful at level 1 and the fighters useful at level 20. 3.5e, pathfinder and 5e actually all have more "numbers" than 2e. The classes all have a wider range of skills, abilities and statistics than in 2e. The difference is in the way the statistics are used. Everything the player needs know about his character save the descriptions of spells, feats and special abilities are on his character sheet. When the player needs to make a skill check, ability check, or any other sort of statistical check, he need only consult the correct number on his sheet, roll a d20, and add that number, with the difficulty of said check being determined by the monster they are fighting or the campaign (known to the GM). The player never needs to consult tables or sift through rule books. So it is not like anything has been taken away, on the contrary much has been added, but it is organized so much more efficiently that the game actually runs faster despite these considerations. Its like having all the contents of your room that which were originally dumped into one huge pile sorted into drawers and cabinets in a logical fashion. Nothing has been removed from your room, you just know where to find it all now.

Incidentally, 3e, 3.5e and Pathfinder a pretty much interchangeable. Pathfinder is basically in third party distributed version of 3rd Edition Dnd, and came about because WOTC unwisely dropped support from 3.5e assuming everybody would adopt 4e to fill that gap in the market. If you like Pathfinder, you would like 3.5e, it is pretty much the same system minus some additional polish that Paizo added. And I will agree that either 3.5e or Pathfinder are ultimately the most complex and detailed versions out there, yet still easier to play then 2e due to much clearer and better consolidated underlying rule mechanics. 5th edition was created more for speed in play in mind than detail. It sacrifices some of the detail found in 3.5e and Pathfinder make the game play faster. Generally the trade offs are pretty favorable, you don't really lose that much in terms of details for the gains in play speed. Pathfinder, 3.5e and 5e are all really good systems, and I still play games using all three because each has different merits. Incidentally, I have seen Spoony's review. I used to be a close follower of the Spoony Experiment and watched most of his videos until he switched over to mostly recapping professional wrestling stuff, something I have no interest in and not even he can make interesting. I can understand some of his objections, most related to things like art style, but not most of those related to game mechanics. He was getting nostalgic for things such as not having max HP at first level and having 1 hp characters that died if they took any damage at all, and organic character creation. As much as I like Spoony, those are absolutely terrible rules that were rightly confined to the dustbin. But there is no actual benefit to running the game like this. You actually have more flexible and customization with 3rd edition when running a unified mechanic along with easier and more transparent play. In most cases the statistics of looking something up on a table and rolling can be replicated with a d20 plus modifier that fits on ones character sheet, accelerating play and giving the player a clearer idea of what he is doing without actually altering game mechanics. A lot of the mechanics in 2nd edition are just needlessly obfuscated. And this isn't even getting into the weirder stuff, such as saving throws. It is fairly intuitive what the fortitude, reflex and will saves represent in 3e and on wards. But what the heck is a 2e save vs. wands? Why would a certain spell result in a save vs. wands instead of a save vs. spell? Why would a particular creature be vulnerable to save vs. wands? When would I want to force a save vs. wands over a save vs. spell or a save vs. death? It is this kind of obtuseness that makes me never want to go back to 2e. But most people don't change the rules, only some. I know the idea of having unlimited cantrips (first introduced in Pathfinder actually, but nothing I would really consider an effective combat spell in that system, only the utility stuff was worth taking) can be weird when you are used to having first level wizards throw their one spell and then be borderline useless as they are forced to fight with darts or a quarterstaff, but this really improves the game. The wizard player is allowed to contribute in a much more meaningful way at low levels, where the cantrips are the most helpful. As a tradeoff, high level casting has been reduced in power. It is an attempt to get rid of the linear warrior / quadratic wizard problem, and keep everybody more or less functional throughout the game. Because there are enough holdouts who do not want to play anything past 2e. But I honestly think this is more along the line of a misplaced sense of nostalgia than anything else. Between 3.5e, Pathfinder and 5e you have all your dnd bases covered, I see no reason to go back to this system for any kind of campaign I would run or play in. This is really more or an artistic complaint than a game mechanics complaint. Other than the large halfling heads in the 5e books and the 3e iconic wizard's clothing, nothing in the books particularly bother me, and I buy dnd books for game mechanics first and art second. And even if I did buy the books for the art, I would still play whatever system had the best rules, I could always buy the 2e books to appreciate the art even while playing 5e rules if I was so inclined.

All the editions are rehashes of a high fantasy game. By this same logic I could say why even bother with AD&D 2nd edition, it is obviously a rehash of AD&D 1st edition. The new editions make the game easier to play, more transparent, and give the players more options in terms of character building and the various actions they can take in the game world. Progressive improvements that have been enjoyed by a great many people who are more than willing to pay for the rules updates (which is peanuts compared to WH40k). And THAC0 is the least of 2e's problems. If THAC0 based calculations were used for everything, the transition from 2e to 3e would have been less dramatic. But in 2e you were using THAC0 for attack rolls, consulting the save vs. wands on a table for a saving through, consulting the bend bars table for one strength check and using a strength based ability check for a different strength check, and this wears its welcome very fast. 3e is a system where you use THAC0 like checks for all these cases, only the check is additive instead of subtractive to make the arithmetic that much easier. And at the end of the day that is what many of these rule changes were, something to make the players life that much easier without taking anything away from the game. And I really don't get where your going with your statistics log. It sounds like you are arguing that the rerolls will produce more average results, which is a mistaken application of statistics. The rerolls will on average produce higher die roll results, almost doubling the chance that a 20 is rolled and reducing the chance a 1 is rolled by a factor of 20. It is true you can't stack advantage, but advantage is still powerful enough on its own to warrant applying tactics to obtain it. I reversal on one minor rule, in this case to improve game speed (a major focus of 5th) is hardly a reversal on the massive overhaul that occurred when they came out with 3rd edition. Call me when they start making me save vs. death instead of making fort saves and I will start considering it a serious reversal. I think these people are still stuck in the old mindset where a first level wizard got one spell and then spent the rest of the day being worthless. The cantrips are far from over powered, they simply allow a wizard to provide the party with a small amount of magical assistance without having to expend spell slots, which are on the whole fewer but more flexible than before. Its a nice move away from Vancian spellcasting, which needed to happen. I have no doubt they exist. I have seen broken characters in every edition, including the sacrosanct second, and I have also seen broken builds in many non-dnd games (see WH40k again). It is hardly a reason to go back to the archaic second edition.

I will never understand the reverence shown for 2nd edition. It was the first version of dnd I played, and I did get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but the fact of the matter is AD&D 2nd edition was and is a complete mess. It seemed to be half a dozen almost unrelated systems stitched together. d20 rolls for some checks, percentile rolls for others, roll under this score, roll over that score, consult this table. 3rd edition unified everything under a single intuitive system in such a way that you barely realize the elegance of the underlying mechanics unless you look back at older systems. Roll a d20, add a number, see if it exceeds another, done. Works for attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, SR, you name it. It is just so much easier. And that is not getting into the obtuse saving throw system, arbitrary race class level limitations, bizarre dual classing system and numerous other problems this system had. As much as I enjoyed 2e at the time, I could never go back to this mess of a gaming system. What precisely is wrong with continuously improving your product? It is not like TSR released a single perfect version of dnd, AD&D 2e was the last of several editions made by TSR, and it was nowhere close to being perfect. 3rd edition was probably the best thing to happen to dnd, 3.5 added small but welcome improvements to 3rd edition. 4th edition was admittedly crap, but 5e has made up for that, it being truly amazing. I have never had this problem ever come up in over a decade of playing the game. I suppose with all the splatbooks it is possible to come up with truly destructive feat combination, but in all honesty spellcasting has always been the most potent game mechanic in the hands of the players, regardless of the edition.

Most Tyranid players I know haven't been happy with their army since 4th edition. Actually, I wasn't very happy with the direction they to Tau in the last codex, it made the army stronger by it also kind of Flanderized them, all the battlesuits are stand out units as are the kroot but a large chunk of the army feels lackluster now, especially a lot of the vehicles and the aircraft.

I say stick with Windows 7 or perhaps wait for Windows 10 to come out. If you're not using a touch screen, I fail to see the point in using Windows 8. I got stuck with this system when it came preloaded on a laptop. Put up with it for a year before formatting. The problems are hard to elucidate, but it felt like I was constantly fighting the OS when I tried to do anything. The tile based start menu is the living definition of useless for keyboard and mouse users. A lot of files that would open in the titular windows now will kick you out of desktop mode, switch you to the tile mode, and automatically open up full screen which is maddening when you are trying to multitask. And a lot of programs just didn't seem to run well. My browsers were always lagging and crashing, I would BSOD when changing resolution while using an ICCD camera, and many other numerous problems kept up cropping up that I could never pin down. Once I switched to Windows 7, all these problems went away. Windows 8 just seems like form over function, a worthless peace of garbage more interested in being pretty than actually functioning. Stick with Windows 7 or the resulting frustration might result in you suffering a stroke.

DLC doesn't really bother me. Stuff can be obtained for so cheaply off of Steam if you are patient and wait for either sales or for the price to come down over time that I am actually spending far less on individuals games than I used to. There are some awful practices out there when it comes to DLC, but if you think you are getting ripped off don't purchase it. The market it so over-saturated with content right now there simply isn't any reason to purchase overpriced DLC or in some cases even deal with some of the more exploitative distributors. I have actually stopped purchasing Ubisoft games almost altogether because I cannot stand how they treat their customers.

And what precisely is wrong with this? Its a fun movie that everybody can sit back and enjoy for a couple hours and forget about there troubles. Its not the deepest movie in the world, buts its well written, well directed and an absolute blast to watch. Not every movie needs to be a world altering experience. That hardly excuses the blatant hypocrisy of accusing Hollywood of having no artistic soul after he has spent over a decade turning out absolute garbage for a profit. Do movies like Interstellar or The Theory of Everything not count? Not every movie is going to be a timeless work of art, but that doesn't mean Hollywood has ceased to make them in its entirety.

Why all the hate for Hollywood? Not everybody can make real "art" such as BloodRayne: The Third Reich and House of the Dead. This guy is something else, he flips cheaply purchased video game IP into garbage action/horror flicks that make Sci-Fi Original Movies look good in comparison and then accuses Hollywood of lacking artistic integrity because they make movies like Avengers. How dare Hollywood make movies that are actually good! Real artistic movies are confusing messes that make you question what the heck you were even watching afterward, apparently.

Your computer could be generating a Blue Screen of Death. By default, Windows 7 will automatically restart instead of displaying an error message, this being typical Microsoft thinking. Go to my computer, right click, select properties, select advanced system settings, click on the settings under startup and recovery and disable automatic restart. If the problem does turn out to be blue screens, download whocrashed which can then attempt to diagnose the cause.

I despise the forced romantic subplot that seems to get shoehorned into every.. single.. movie. Stop wasting everybody's time with romances nobody cares about and get back to the plot! Poor communication kills is another dreadful trope that makes me cringe every time it is used. Don't writers have anything better to do?

There is a series on I Hate Everything called Search for the Worst that reviews exclusively these sorts of movies. Currently Birdemic 2 is the worst of the worst although I think he is going to review a hundred of these in total (this is quite ambitious).

Star Trek really isn't a movie series though. Its a good television series that has spawned a series of movies that are either mediocre or terrible with only a few exceptions. The TNG movies are notoriously bad. It seems the film writers were afraid to write actual Star Trek plots for the TNG movies, and instead we got the cast from TNG acting out plots to horribly contrived and executed action movies. The best Star Trek material includes many of the episodes from TNG and Deep Space Nine, in addition to the much older movies Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country. The only TNG movie worth your time is First Contact and the new Abrams movies are competently filmed but otherwise unremarkable.

This is a fun game. I had the opportunity to become a zombie lord one game and had all the other players devoured by my army of zombies.

I have been in table top gaming for decades, and currently I play: Dnd 3.5e and 5e Pathfinder Warhammer 40k (Tau and Eldar) Warhammer Fantasy (Empire) X-Wing Miniatures Axis and Allies Settlers of Catan Eclipse Firefly Twilight Imperium and a whole bunch of other games. Hard to find both the players and the time to get together though.

I think most people like Minecraft. Its like virtual legos and everybody likes legos.

I purchased Battlefront II several years ago and simply was not impressed with it. It played like a poor man's version of Battlefield 2. Currently, there is a massive amount of competition in play for the battlefield style MMOFPS. If they drop the ball, try a competitor. I recommend Planetside 2.

I honestly don't see this happening. I think MLP was a sort of a perfect storm, and you just can't replicate that kind of thing. This vaguely reminds me of Firefly, an amazing science fiction show that got canceled after 1 season. About a decade or so later that brought back the old cast and created a movie, but despite being written by the same people and acted by the same people it didn't measure up to the serious. This stuff just isn't repeatable.

In Blizzard's defense, Diablo was never really played for its story. It has always been a hack, slash, loot game from the very first installment, with something that barely passes as a story tacked on afterward to justify the mass slaughter done at the hands of the PCs. Diablo 3 does exactly what is required of such a game, and it does it very well. The adventure mode wasn't even originally part of the game, it was only added after the expansion.

I have actually been sinking enormous amounts of time into Divinity Original Sin, Stardrive 2 and Cities Skylines and I plan to pick up Kerbal Space Program (just got out of beta) and Pillars of Eternity in the near future, and maybe even try out Elite: Dangerous now that I got my Stardrive fix. These games are amazing, granted they are not all triple A games, but so what, that is what dirt cheap digital distribution is for. And there is supposed to be a new Deus Ex game in the work. Things are definitely looking up.

I would hardly call these the top five worst game. Top 5 most disappointing games maybe, or top 5 most overrated games perhaps? But worst, no, these games are all more or less functional and can be enjoyed. If you want to about the worst games, you need to look at things like Pumpkinhead, Bayou Billy or that Atari E.T. game that was so awful it crashed the video games market. I grew up with the NES and rented more than one broken mess of a game that was nearly impossible to play. Halo is a masterpiece compared to these sorts of games.

Inertia isn't a force. Inertia is simply something that must be overcome by force. Sometimes the forces associated with overcoming inertia are called inertial forces, but as the name suggest, they are forces. You keep saying that, but you have provided zero evidence to that effect. We have the experiment in the video you posted that clearly shows a frame independent outward force, and to quote the old empiricist axiom "the measurement is the truth" then if you disagree with the experiment, it is the experiment that is correct. Then there are all the examples I can provide, that outward force can stretch a spring outward, it can accelerate another object outward, you could replace the merry-go-round with another pendulum and form a bola for which the so called reaction force of one pendulum propagates through the string to become the centripetal force of the other. Heck, just bolt a force meter to the bloody merry-go-round to take the measurement, or even suspend it above the merry-go round through a pulley system to keep the meter in an inertial frame, you will measure an outward force. Then there is the small fact these forces are required to exist by Newton's third law. That outward force satisfies every physics based definition for a force and you can't get rid of it through reference frame transformations, so I am not certain what else you want from it before you will accept it as a real force. Perhaps if I pointed out how a fictitious force can arise through adopting a rotating reference frame you would better understand what is going on here. Instead of starting with circular motion, start with mass moving with a fixed linear velocity, then switch to rotating frame of motion. In the rotating frame of motion, that same mass will be undergoing curved motion and therefore accelerating. We can then use Newton's Second Law to associate a force with that acceleration. Here is your fictitious centrifugal force! Notice how when we switch back to an inertial frame, both the curved motion and the force vanish entirely, and there is no evidence of an outward force in play at all. No strings under tension that could pull springs outward or anything else like that, it is just gone. Perhaps this is what is causing the confusion. But those reactive centrifugal forces are the same ones shown in my diagram that you keep on insisting are fictitious.

Semantics I will give you, this I will not. Every force in that picture is as real as any force gets. They exist in all frames of reference, are capable of doing work, deforming materials, accelerating objects, anything that a force can do those forces can do (although you might have to be clever as to your physical arrangements). They are there and they are quite real.