Subnautica legitimately made me stop and stare at my screen with mouth agape at the wonder and terror of a glowing undersea behemoth. I’ve never had a game provoke pure awe like it does.

“Watch the Irishman Suffer” is practically it’s own genre of Star Trek episode. Chief O’Brien needs a break, he’s just a regular dude who has witnessed his own death too many times.

Hello from Spokane, where we were literally off the chart yesterday! (AQI of 511 out of 500!) I went outside for five minutes to water the garden and my eyes were stinging and teary for a while afterwards.

But nobody gives a shit unless it’s the east coast, because this has happened nearly every year for the past 5 years. At least I can see the sky today.

The sweating means I’m enjoying it. I don’t want a curry unless it makes my nose start running.

I’m a Pathfinder fan with vague disdain for 5e as a ruleset and active loathing for Forgotten Realms as a setting. I love this game.

My life has been replaced with Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m partially into Act 2 but keep having to take breaks because the spooky atmosphere and crippling decision anxiety are stressing me out too much to continue playing long stretches.

Why is everyone acting like Dragon Age: Origins is the only fantasy RPG that ever existed? Baldur’s Gate 3 is the next step in a long legacy of genre defining games.

Practice makes perfect!

I’d say the most important thing is knowing who your NPCs are and what they want. That’s what you should prepare outside of sessions. Once you have that, it’s a lot easier to deal with players throwing curveballs.

A constrained scope helps as well. Give the group a prompt like “make characters who want revenge on the Lich Queen” or “make characters who care about the city of Korvosa.”

You can’t actually get the true ending on your first playthrough. You have to do the neutral ending first.

It is a wonderful little game!

Don’t tell my friends, but I actually like GMing more than playing now. It’s fun to have the galaxy-brain “always on” feeling and multitask information. (And it’s always your turn in combat!)

I am putting my money on Mystra. Even though she only exists in Forgotten Realms, she has to die on every edition change, right?

My life has been completely subsumed by Baldur’s Gate 3. I spend all day at work thinking about it.

My husband called it a “tactical combat dating sim” and that cracked me up.

My players spent a good portion of last night’s session in a magic hot tub.

Wolfheart seems like a nice guy, he’s put out tons of great content leading up to release.

I’ve only played a couple hours so far but I’m enjoying the game a lot! It seems like every conversation has at least one unique dialogue option based on your race or class picks, which is awesome. The companions I’ve met so far seem fairly interesting.

Darksteely Dan, clearly.

I’m very pleased to see Grab and Knockdown are no longer auto-successes for monsters.

It has the most complex action economy, but once you know how Act Together works it is really not too bad. Just a lot of options on the table at any given turn.

Here’s my ranking, in rough order. Starting with simplest and going to most complex.

I’d say that Alchemist, Summoner and Magus are the only truly complex classes, though.

• Fighter
• Rogue
• Ranger
• Champion
• Barbarian
• Gunslinger
• Monk
• Inventor
• Sorcerer
• Cleric
• Bard
• Investigator
• Swashbuckler
• Thaumaturge
• Psychic
• Oracle
• Druid
• Witch
• Wizard
• Alchemist
• Magus
• Summoner

Pathfinder is ultimately a game about killing things and taking their stuff, so no matter what you do, you’re going to need something to do in combat.

Now, can you play a “technical pacifist” who never rolls a single attack? Probably! A bard or another spellcaster (or maybe another build with the Marshal archetype?) could focus on buffs and debuffs, Demoralize actions, Recall Knowledge, etc.

If they have something to hide behind, sure! Keep in mind that if they’re adjacent to an enemy, they’ll probably have to Take Cover, Hide, Strike. Or if they’re not adjacent: Hide, Sneak, Strike.