Lucentile

I still don't know why we have a weird echo. I'm convinced my sound is just cursed. Also: This new take on Jaheira as a moronic, blood thirsty murderer sucks. This Jaheira would have killed Gorian's Ward. Still, the Cursed Lands is pretty cool. I wonder how going through the Mountain Pass goes -- you have to start so much further away from the Last Light Inn. The Harper rescue and raven flight were actually pretty fun. All-in-all, I enjoyed everything here except how stupid Jaheira is now. I guess when you get old, you get dumb. And cranky. I do like the cat, and Raphael is proving more interesting than he was originally. Still... Jaheira really is a huge downer on this Act. 00:00:00 Weird Echo: Starts 00:02:40 A Rest: With Some Gith Fun 00:15:07 Post Rest Exploration: To the Cursed Lands 00:35:00 Arrival at the Cursed Lands 00:54:19 Save the Harpers: Part 1 01:08:00 Post Harper Exploration 01:13:02 Raven Time 01:16:27 Night Orchids and Exploration 01:20:14 Stupid Jaheira 01:25:38 Exploring the Last Light Inn 01:51:48 Surprise Monsters In the Basement and Exploration 02:19:45 Dammon and Oxen 02:34:12 Into the Inn: Talking to More People

This video is about how bad NBC's reporting was about Yahya Sinwar, calling him a "hostage" despite him being a convicted murderer and using the same term ("hostage") for the people kidnapped from Israel in the recent terror attacks. I also didn't want to use a goofy AI thumbnail for this story, or any of the screengrabs from the videos of the attack or NBC news piece since this is a serious video. NBC News Original Piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II3MZSOlgxw Wikipedia About Sinwar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Sinwar

Sea Otter Appreciation Week: https://kmph.com/news/local/santa-cruz-native-celebrates-sea-otter-awareness-week-with-playful-photos-of-renowned-otter-841-santa-cruz-california-sea-otter-surfing-water-ocean-beach-swimming-in-the-ocean The sound is so much better now! Aren't you proud of my not sucking at technology? I hope you are. You can tell how far back these videos are. I should really, at some point, just dump them all to catch up. Sea otters are adorable. Here, we fight the undead on the Mountain Pass. Their blood making Stinking Clouds is a terrible implementation by Larian and makes the fight way more annoying than it needs to be. Astarion's disappointment that Gale might blow up the cult is amusing, but I feel like Elminster just being dropped on us is as disappointing as Drizzt in Sword Coast Legends. Just leave these cameos out of the games, I think. 00:00:00 Sea Otters Being Adorable 00:02:00 BG3: Honkai Star Rail Edition 00:17:18 Escape the Creche 00:39:02 Post Creche Crash (Leveling Others and Testing) 01:24:10 Karlach Naps 01:37:27 Undead Battle! 01:56:30 Post Fight Looting and Reviving and Exploration 02:08:40 Let's Meet Elminster 02:22:40 Close Out

Our scaling is fixed in OBS, even though I didn't do anything. I enjoyed exploring the monastery; it was definitely a more interesting area than the Arcane Tower. It was less frustrating to navigate. The kobold fight is fun. If you let the summon go off in the eagle fight, there's a lot of resources get wasted. I definitely needed to blitz the mom to resolve things. I don't think the stained glass puzzle is good using warhammer, mace, cudgel interchangeably. They should have used four more distinct weapons. The spiritual guardian fight is neat because you can just ranged attack it to death. Having Laezel hop in the machine really hurts her Ability Scores, and I think it's great you only know that if you go to her stat screen afterwards. The doctor gith fight is fun; overall, the creche is really one of my favorite spots so far. 00:00:00 KAIrlach and Prep for Monastery Exploration 00:03:15 Kobold Fight 00:19:36 Post Fight Exploration 00:26:30 Bird Politics 00:42:00 Post Bird Exploration 00:53:30 Puppies! 01:02:05 Post Puppies Exploration 01:21:15 Stained Glass Puzzle 01:42:58 To the Creche 01:53:17 Doctor Gith and The Machine of Brain Rot 02:03:28 Doctor Gith Fight

New, at the time, One D&D Playtest Material: https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/ua/ph-playtest7/tsgOb3llF22AL0nU/UA2023-PH-Playtest7.pdf?icid_source=house-ads&icid_medium=crosspromo&icid_campaign=playtest7 I like that the Duregar aren't fooled by us trying to have a peaceful talk when we have a Myconid in our team. Still, Glut is a bit too cartoonishly evil, and we'll miss the big dumb mushroom. The Grymforge exploration involves making a guy's spiders leave him, messing with an evil eye, saving slaves and finding explosives. There's a lot going on in Grymforge. The fight with the duregar is a bit long and frustrating, but we clear it eventually. I also have grown to dislike not knowing which rolls are individual rolls and which ones the party gets a single united attempt at. Overall, Grymforge showcases what Larian does alright, well and terribly. We'll actually descend to the forge next time; trust me, it felt longer trying to figure out how the LoS/Line of Effect worked at that fight. 00:00:00 New Playtest Material 00:10:00 Loading Game, KAIrlach 00:12:40 Duregar Raiders, Glut and Exploration 00:37:20 Puttin' on the Underdark Ritz 00:52:37 Arrival at the Grymforge -- Learning How Nere's Timer Works 02:07:28 Woops, Hellboars -- Exploration 02:35:25 Finding Explosives, Explorations and Mimics 03:04:15 The Start of Duregar Fight Failing 04:35:30 The Successful Attempt 05:06:40 Nere, Gnomes, Looting and Exploration 05:44:59 Hellboars: Round 2 05:52:02 Long Rest: Astarion a Bear and a Dream Visitor

This is the finale, where we push as far forward as we can without a Devout. We get pretty far -- all the way to the last three bosses (dragon, ahriman and Cloud of Darkness.) Bard is really good, but the raw healing output needed for the last bosses pretty much demands a Devout. You need to chug out around 1k-1.5k healing/turn to not die to double Meteors; a single Bard can sing you up about 500 HP. Even with us trying to maximize HP, we can't reliably survive double AoE spells. So, there we are. The end of FF3. Overall, of the three NES Final Fantasies, I think this is my favorite. Still, the limitation of the early RPG combat system shows with the requirement on massive healing. It probably has aged the best out of the three, even if Jonus is lame and will never finish FF2. 00:00:00 Cave of Division 00:29:10 Heca... Fang of Earth Boss 00:31:19 Back to Doga 00:56:52 Doga and Unei 01:03:15 Off to Sidequests: Odin and Leviathan 01:18:00 Off to Sidequests: Bahamut 01:38:16 To the Finale: Ancients' Maze and Titan 02:17:15 Crystal Tower: Eureka Bosses 03:23:45 Xande! 03:31:56 Four Crystal Bosses 04:42:28 Cloud of Darkness

I Want to Believe, but this isn't helping: https://science.nasa.gov/science-pink/s3fs-public/atoms/files/UAP%20Independent%20Study%20Team%20-%20Final%20Report_0.pdf The Gut fight is interesting, but the real winner are the other two. The best thing about Minthara's fight is learning that she toggles to Non-Lethal Damage with the rest of the party. Probably because she's a potential party member. I did knock her out in case that makes her available later, but the journal says she's dead, so who knows. We've got a lot of stuff to do before we head back to the Grove and Halsin, but I feel like we learned a lot on how to deal with big fights coming up. Excitement abounds! 00:00:00 NASA UAP Final Report, AI Karlach and Set Up 00:08:00 Returning to the Goblin Base 00:16:12 Priestess Gut: A Bad Choice 00:33:57 Looting Gut's Room and Exploration 00:58:05 Minthara: Knocking Her Out 01:12:56 Post Minthara Fight 01:29:42 Detour! Nightsong/Underdark Exploration 01:55:37 Dror Ragzlin: Early Attempts 02:26:40 Final Attempt for Dror Ragzlin 02:32:25 Resurrections and Level 5s 02:53:20 Looting and Goblin Clearing 03:29:39 Setting Up for Resting, Opening Treasure, Etc.

As usual, we get distracted easily. This time, because I want to see what happens if Shadowheart talks to a wolf. We've also since coming down there learned we can read items without it counting as stealing, so we get started on investigating Kargha. Sadly, nothing comes of Shadowheart's fear. Here, Karlach can play music so even Kargha the monster who would kill children will tip us. This gives Lae'zel a chance to get the hint to the next part of this quest. Once we get back to fight the Shadow Druids, the friendly druids are... not exactly wise when it comes to not walking into friendly Moonbeams. It's like they want to die. The fight at Risen Road is a pain; that Fake Paladin and the trader are Level 5, packing what looked like Fireball and two attacks. Still, the best part is Shadowheart pushing the Paladin back into her Cloak of Daggers for the kill. The basement exploration is a fun little bit of roguery, even if the trick to open the door is a bit obvious. Overall, we did a whole lot here. All that's left is saving Halsin, defeating the goblins, finding the githyanki, and rescuing Duke Ravenguard. Oh, and jumping down the pit beneath the Blighted Village. 00:00:00 Shadowheart is Afraid of Wolves 00:04:00 Talk to Wolf, Explore Grove Basement 00:16:43 Searching for Swamp Tree -- Mephit/Woad Fight 00:38:55 Lae'zel Is Inspired! Searching Swamp 00:45:30 Selunite Prayer, Shadowheart's Secret, Goblins Killed Owlbear! 01:00:50 Return to Grove, Showdown with Shadow Druids 01:13:45 Success! Return to Zevlor 01:32:40 Return to Risen Road, Exploration and Failure 01:43:22 Winning Attempt 01:54:10 Raising the Dead 01:56:56 Exploring the Risen Road Toll House

Mysterious Golden Orb: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-is-this-mysterious-golden-orb-scientists-found-on-the-ocean-floor-180982872/ We start on our way to deal with hyenas, which I'm proud of because we managed to actually do what we wanted to do without distraction. The hyena fight is pretty easy, until at the end everyone repositions behind Karlach, triggering the following gnoll fight. Let's talk about the horrible experience that the rescue at Waukeen's Rest is. The camera angles are bad. You can trigger things through doors; broken doors that should not have built up pressure or smoke, because they're broken, so that should escape, still trigger explosions. It's unclear, due to the bad cameras, what areas are inside or outside; spiders can't climb walls. It's all in all, a bad experience for what should be a tense double rescue mission. At least it forwards the plot, tells us who Wyll's dad is, and gets us to learn that sometimes Create Water won't douse fire. The fight with Flind is just straight up fun. Nothing to really comment on there. 00:00:00 Opening Story and AI Bardlach 00:06:10 Hyena Fight 00:10:54 Gnoll Fight 00:17:28 Clean Up (Blow Up!) 00:29:07 Waukeen's Rest -- Arrival 00:33:20 Boot the Door -- Exploring Burning Inn, Accidental Explosion, Actually, That's a Wall 00:43:10 Waukeen's Rest: The Long, Slow Rescue 01:03:11 The Weirdest Jump -- Rescue Continues 01:08:25 Rescue Complete; Looting and Selling; Talking to Wyll 01:45:15 Flind the Gnoll, First Attempts 02:04:13 Flind Defeated 02:21:50 Wyll Lays Down the Law 02:28:00 Exploration and Chest Pick Up 02:48:43 Risen Road Toll Exterior, Underneath Bridge Exploration and Clean Up

We're going to try again against the masks and hag, because frankly, I hate how finnicky the enter combat gimmick is with relative time travel for people in combat vs. those outside of it. It reminds me of abusing interlock animations in The Matrix Online. But first, here's an ancient cat-sized koala: https://www.popsci.com/environment/lumakoala-blackae-koala-australia/ I kind of thought koalas were already vaguely cat sized, but then I realized maybe I don't really know how big a koala is. Or a cat. Look, size is hard, alright? Moving on. I really don't understand how people keep getting tricked by devils, hags and other fey/fiendish creatures in fantasy stories. Blind Elf Lady Corpse, what did you think the hag was going to do when you said you never wanted to see someone or something again? At least make the hag work for her twisted punishment. As a fun fact, Astarion can't persuade the door -- only intimidate it. Another fun fact, if you break the hag's mirror, you suffer Bane. Watch the sneaking section and see how sometimes enemies can see through walls with the red line of sight, or see on top of things that they shouldn't be able to see. Also, when you put someone to sleep, they forever know where you are. No sneaking after that! The noxious fumes also sometimes disappear when getting caught sneaking. Just more Larian sloppiness. 00:00:00 Koalas and Karlachs (K&K) 00:01:45 Hag's Lair Part 1: Meet the Prisoners 00:18:30 Hag's Lair Part 2: Meet the Masks and Looking for a Second Entrance 00:25:40 Hag's Lair Part 3: Sneak Mode Activated 00:37:17 Hag's Lair Part 4: If Only We Prepared Feather Fall 00:50:20 Hag's Lair Part 5: Looting and Fairy Circles 01:00:23 Hag's Lair Part 6: Anti-Climax 01:03:50 Hag's Lair Part 7: Talking to Masks, Maryina, Prisoners and Frog 01:39:00 Return to Grove 01:51:45 Return to Blighted Village (Selling Loot) 02:20:07 Beneath the Blacksmith 02:32:00 Karlach Finds a Secret Path 02:36:33 Dynamic Entry! Ettercaps and Phase Spiders 03:00:04 Turning in Infernal Iron 03:16:18 End the Day (Long Rest 2): Wyll Joins 03:21:16 Talking to Wyll and Changing His Class 03:34:44 Puppy!

Links for our animals on the loose news stories: * Otter 841: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230905-what-we-can-learn-from-californias-surfing-sea-otter * Bear Thief: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/three-legged-bear-tripod-takes-white-claw-family-back-yard/ * Emu on the Loose: https://www.abc6.com/evading-capture-emu-remains-on-the-loose-in-lakeville/ The goblin fight is easy if you can actually get the micro done right. Astarion's training in Sleight of Hand will continue to be useful, even as a Warlock/Druid. Once we're done there, it's back to the Grove for more exploration. They're not even trying to hide Astarion's vampirism, are they? We end up on a detour to save an old lady, which turns into realizing maybe we shouldn't be here quite yet. I like the monster hunter further doing a good job at not even trying to hide what Astarion is. The unexpected whimsy from Shadowheart in approving us baaing back at the redcaps was a nice touch. The redcap fight is a giant mess, but we end up redoing it off stream by coming in the back and starting the fight on the perch in the tea house, which allows us a round of shooting. Off stream I did several attempts at the hag area, learning how to better micro manage stealth movement in turn based mode, etc. The controls are finnicky and, in general, annoying to do single player. Overall, just another example where I think BG3 is still a great game, but anyone giving it a 10/10 is overlooking a lot of errors and sloppy design. 00:00:00 Animal Stories! 00:03:30 Swapping Party, Meeting Goblins... VIOLENTLY 00:14:25 Trying That Again With Better Micro 00:23:40 Exploring Guardian Statue Area 00:36:00 Kids and Tieflings and Tiefling Kids 00:53:30 Totally Not Suspicious Dead Boar and a Goblin Raided Town 00:59:43 Distracted By Old Lady Auntie Ethel 01:03:40 Exploring Ethel's Illusion... And Saying Baa 01:27:55 Astarion Not Acting Suspicious 01:37:37 Surprise Murder Frog 01:43:07 Tea Party

We start with a review of features you might not have noticed in the options menu andtalking to some ox. The issues with the druids and tieflings are already pretty high, and the issue with Arabella is pretty easy to resolve. Still, it's clear things are getting ready to go wrong. Nettie is unhelpful, but everyone is pointing us towards Halsin. There's a lot going on in the Grove, and I kind of like it. You CAN remove the paralysis from the tiefling the rat brings you to, but you'll need second level divine spells (or I suppose a scroll/potion with the same effect.) So, we'll come back later when Astarion gets Druid 3. After exploring the Grove, we do some more external exploration. It feels like not a lot happened in this adventure, but a lot of these conversations and explorations matter, I think. If not, at least we made a puppy friend. 00:00:00 Getting Started and Showing Off AI Art 00:01:00 Options That Make Your Life Easier 00:04:50 Leaving Camp: Ox Talking, Tiefling Kids 00:18:44 Volo, Druids and Arabella 00:50:20 Nettie 01:04:39 Grove: Githyanki Directions, Karlach's Infernal Engine, More Tieflings 01:21:13 Auntie Ethel, Adventurers, Rat and Random Tieflings 01:33:51 Learning Persuasion Rolls (Goblin and Rat) 01:54:33 Bartha and Kid 01:57:42 Zevlor, Lakrissa and Crash Site Exploration 02:06:19 Harper Geocache 02:14:06 Deal: REJECTED 02:24:40 An Absolute Mistake: Edwin and Company 02:36:45 Owlbear Cave 03:00:34 Puppy! Travel to Underground Passage

Everyone in the world is doing this, and so am I. This is the start of an origin playthrough I've dubbed "Karlach is a Bleeping Disney Princess." She's going to split levels between Barbarian and Bard, taking Lore Bard and Wildheart Barbarian to sing and talk to the animals. The rest of our team is also Disney themed. Astarion takes Warlock 2/Druid the rest of the way to be Beauty and the Beast, Gale sticks as a Wizard going Transmutation to be a Fairy Godmother (and so we can have Giant Karlach). Laezel embodies the trickster heroes like Peter Pan, Robin Hood and the Huntsman going HunterRanger/Thief Rogue. Shadowheart will be full on Maleficent as a Draconic Sorcerer, and Wyll is obviously Prince Charming as an Oath of Ancients Paladin. This first video's audio is a bit low, for some reason. All the later videos have the same settings, but don't have this issue. Either way, we're on tactician. I still don't know what a Dream Guardian is for, so I just hit randomize. What's fun is Barbarians can just get mad at the pod Shadowheart is stuck in and rip the lid off. Shadowheart is the worst cleric ever, passing on Bless and other good spells for a weird assortment at Level 1. We do re-do the bridge fight because I trigger the Cambion spawn too early so they can reach the rest of the party. That's fine; re-attempting means we can give Shadowheart good spells to grab the commander's weapon. Karlach falling goofily is also kind of funny; I have also decided Shadowheart's artifact is her weird, creepy d20. The lack of a Dodge and Ready action after playing Solasta with @jonusfalcon really grates on me, as many times I'm finding myself in the perfect position to use these actions. I'll casually point out that Astarion, who is very close to the Intellect Devourers, remains unhunted by them. Is it because he's dumb or because of his deep dark secret that IS IN NO WAY TELEGRAPHED every time he opens his mouth and you can see his teeth? Knowing his secret, or at least educatedly guessing at it, does make his "Of course it will turn me into a monster" comment more interesting. Origin Characters also get a bunch of interesting little tidbits, like Karlach warning Gale about being burned when she pulls him free. When we get to the looter room, we do defeat them in piecemeal by closing the door behind them as they walk in. Kind of silly, but effective. I also hate that the Scrolls of Revivify look different than every other scroll, which causes me to not realize we have any. BG3 is a good game, but there's so much sloppy design (UI, ground effects, clarity of what can/can't be looted, which items you can pick up when right clicking to open a context menu vs. left clicking to auto-pick up, etc., etc.) that I'm not sure how it is getting 10/10 scores. It is a solid 8 or 9 game, one of the better ones, but it is not perfect, and the glaring flaws present even in just this opening that will carry through the rest of the game turn a fun experience into one punctuated by tedium and frustration. The trap room can be solved in a few ways -- disabling the trap, or triggering it in Turn Based Mode and running out before they trigger, then never going that way again. Also, apparently, if you look at Shadowheart's character sheet, she is inexplicably afraid of wolves. 00:00:00 Opening, Karlach's Stats and Dream Guardian 00:12:15 A Nautiloid in Hell 00:34:15 Connect The Things, Fight the Devils! 00:52:00 Shadowheart Breaks Things 00:55:08 Karlach Arrives, Meets Shadowheart, Adventures 01:08:17 Intellect Devourers and Astarion 01:20:27 Level 2, Wounded Illithid; Finding Our Fairy Godmother 01:36:25 Looter Fight, Topside and Failing at the Door 01:54:04 Looter Fight, Underground, Try 1 02:06:06 Looter Fight, Underground, Try 2 02:22:15 Clean Up and First Rest 02:45:35 Karlach First Night Narration 02:49:30 Back to Adventuring: Ruins Trap Room, Karlach and Soul Coins 03:03:34 Open Book, Fight Undead, Meet Withers 03:27:39 Rescue Lae'zel and the Gate Fight 03:43:46 Exploring The Grove: Part 1 of Many 03:54:19 Bugbear Assassin, Level 3, Dragon! 04:05:20 Squirrel, Zevlor and Solving Tiefling Problems 04:14:45 Wyll Won't Be Our Friend; Rage! 04:20:16 Disneyfying Astarion, Laezel and Shadowheart

Poul Anderson's "The Star Fox" has very little to do with barrel rolls, but I liked it. I think the book is pretty neat; it's old school sci-fi, and very fitting for Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace. I approve of it, and I also approve of Days of Knights back in Delaware. I don't know why my headset microphone is so much better than my desk microphone, but here we are. The link I used to get my Spelljammer game running is on Steam here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2350550/discussions/0/3806156528941628171/ I did have to use the GoG version instead of Steam for some reason, but it seems like other people got it working just fine with Steam. Not sure what my problem was. This adventure takes us through a pirate ship and to Clive's Garden. He is not an octopus. This is actually a statement that must be made in relation to Realmspace and gardens. One thing I dislike about this game is set backs are so costly; we reload because of the unresponsive ship commands leading to us ramming for 40 Hull damage. That's about 40,000 gold we'd need to raise -- which is multiple missions of ferrying things back and forth, which is eaten in to with taxes, including cargo taxes when I have no cargo. There are a lot of re-loads both here and in later videos just because "this set back is essentially a game over." It's a problem early D&D games have, especially later when we learn 50k gold isn't enough to restore one lost level, so who knows how much Raise Dead costs. If you're going to make your game so difficult to recover from, just add Fail States to crippling issues... or make recovery easier. This was the norm in 1992, because if you bought this, this was the game you'd play for a few months. I also miss modern conveniences like choosing how to deploy my team. Black Bart is the fight where Eva permanently loses a point of STR, a setback there is no way to fix in the game I could find. Poor Eva. Also, Umber Hulks and Neogis are just a "ha ha, reload," when it comes to melee. I'm not sure how you're supposed to defeat them. Later fights I hit Umber Hulk stacks for 80+ damage with lightning bolt, and nothing. So the Illithid Slaver fight basically required us to reset until we got rid of Umber Hulks. Then we learned how to deal with paralysis and control our own crew to beat them. Crew of the Rocking Bear: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ziAt9_Noe9byBaGWpJr9vSYhc3MyxazK/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=110736438441790234073&rtpof=true&sd=true This Google Drive ZIP contains our crew's AI generated portraits; it's AI generated, so use as you need: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DK7XHunepuJDMGL498-QMgKXM1MwTGoB/view?usp=drive_link 00:00 Explaining We've Got Things Working and Star Fox 02:00 The Adventure Re-Begins 03:15 Black Bart! 12:45 Black Bart, Take Two! 31:50 "How're the Kids?" -- Spelljamming for Fun and Profit 01:01:00 Meeting Clive's Representative 01:13:00 Don't Do That To Gun Hippos! 01:34:25 Clive's Garden 01:41:00 Defeating Slavers! 01:47:15 Different Slavers! 02:18:20 Slavers, Traffic Jam Try 2! 02:39:40 More Crew, More Problems 03:03:00 The Moment We Learn We Can Control Crew 03:06:40 Slavers, With Control! 03:30:45 Victory! 03:37:02 "4 Crew Gained A Level" --- Whatever That Means 03:41:05 Exploring and Finishing Up For the Session

Our thumbnail is AI art of Letitia Lendloft, our heroic ranger first mate who has all the good stats. She wins the day with her heroic stats, powerful magic sword and the fact she's great. What makes a Ranger different from a Fighter in Realmspace? They do extra damage against giant creatures. I'm sure that will come in handy against Umber Hulks. This video is only about an hour, because a lot of it is troubleshooting the evil undead pirates. Really, the only reason I uploaded this is so that you can follow along the frustration of crashing and because the Count Eldacar scene triggers here, which kicks off the entire plot. There's not much to see with all the crashing at the end, but it does set up me learning how to fix it for video 004! This link should take you to a word doc with a link to some ways to get the game working and the crew of the Rocking Bear; you'll need to download it to get it to look right as the Google Reader screws up everything: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ziAt9_Noe9byBaGWpJr9vSYhc3MyxazK/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=110736438441790234073&rtpof=true&sd=true This Google Drive ZIP contains our crew's AI generated portraits; it's AI generated, so use as you need: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DK7XHunepuJDMGL498-QMgKXM1MwTGoB/view?usp=drive_link Timestamps 00:00 Meet the Crew 02:30 Spelljammin'! 08:00 Count Eldacar Speaks 10:00 Hunting Black Bart -- The Troubleshooting 22:40 The Crashing Begins

Our thumbnail is AI art of Captain Christayn! We've got a nice sheet of our base crew here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ziAt9_Noe9byBaGWpJr9vSYhc3MyxazK/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=110736438441790234073&rtpof=true&sd=true I won't update that any more, because I hate uploading files and re-linking, etc., etc. But that should let you see where our starting-ish point was. We do have a goal: Get good stuff. I'm really enjoying this game. The music is charming; the spelljamming is great. The quest text is pretty simple, but I like that we're doing things like shipping carpets and not just high adventure. The first 30 minutes or so are just preparation. Lots of shopping, and then an enemy ship attacks! We shoot it out of Realmspace, and I learn that our captain is the only character that gains XP. Thief is the worst choice; I should have been a caster. The boarding combat reminds me of Ultima, which is a good memory for me. This Google Drive ZIP contains our crew's AI generated portraits; it's AI generated, so use as you need: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DK7XHunepuJDMGL498-QMgKXM1MwTGoB/view?usp=drive_link 00:00 Preparations and Delivery to Coliar 04:00 Level 6 for the Captain, Shopping and Shipping 27:40 Next Job: To Umberguard 29:30 A Ship Attacks! 33:00 Docking at Umberguard 36:50 Dread Pirate Quest 41:13 Dread Pirate Combat (Failure) 44:08 Dread Pirate Boarding! 59:00 Man'o'War Acquired 01:19:45 Crew Update

A fun thing that you'll notice is our crew's gender is entirely matched to our captain's gender. The crew doesn't gain XP, which means that Thief, the class I chose, is the absolute worst. That's fine. Christayn will persevere. Our crew has some odd ducks on it, like the low INT and WIS casters, and Eva Dulac, the Fighter with no stat above 13. This is part of the joy of AD&D though -- she made it to Level 5, so she can save Realmspace with us! Spelljammer is one of my favorite settings. This is a 1992 attempt to bring Spelljammer to the masses, and it's a beautiful mess. It crashes a lot. That doesn't show up much here or the next video, but video three brings it to a screeching halt. Video four is shaping up to be: How to make Spelljammer: Pirates of Realmspace actually run. This link should take you to a word doc with a link to some ways to get the game working and the crew of the Rocking Bear; you'll need to download it to get it to look right as the Google Reader screws up everything: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ziAt9_Noe9byBaGWpJr9vSYhc3MyxazK/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=110736438441790234073&rtpof=true&sd=true This Google Drive ZIP contains the JPEG versions of our crew's AI generated portraits; it's AI generated, so use as you need: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DK7XHunepuJDMGL498-QMgKXM1MwTGoB/view?usp=drive_link 00:00 Otters in Space 01:00 Manual Review 13:30 Creating Captain Christayn 17:20 Opening Scroll and Meeting the Crew 38:20 Visiting Waterdeep and Starting Adventures 54:40 Spelljamming! 01:14:30 The First Crash 01:17:35 Adventures Continue

The Burial Isles are kind of a disappointment, difficulty wise. Hiravias's quest is a fun ending. I like closing out with Eder, Aloth, Grieving Mother, Hiravias and Durance. It felt like a proper closing to the game. Our thoughts start after the ending slides. I think my review is pretty clear if you've been following along: solid, good, but the combat is the weakest part. Pillars Manual: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/291650/manuals/pe-game-manual.pdf 00:00 Rest Bonus and Off We Go 02:55 Burial Isle Arrival and Exploration 06:50 Hiravias Quest Ending 11:00 Continued Exploration 20:25 Leap of Faith: Act 4 25:42 Exploration Below 39:04 Iovara 55:20 Next Area of Exploration and Talking to Our Friends 01:06:15 Wael 01:14:45 Memory Lane 01:17:50 Encountering Thaos 01:34:40 Thaos Defeated, Talking to Skaen and Friends 01:52:15 Finale Slides 02:08:40 "Alright" -- Credits and Thoughts

I adore the AI generated Baby Otter art. It feels like a kid's show that would show up on Netflix to make parents feel like "oh, this is safe screentime." I like the Sky Dragon; I feel like the conflict is a bit awkward. Everyone seems... just OK with the Sky Dragon living there now. Hylea says the Sky Dragon is going to destroy a bunch of stuff, but it doesn't seem that. It's weird Grieving Mother doesn't have anything to say to Hylea's people, but whatever. Northweald feels pretty lame; it just doesn't scale up enough to account for White March, like most of Act 3. All the god quests drag things out, and I just don't really like any of them, except maybe Hylea, so I only did them because it seems like letting the frost go was going to damage or destroy Twin Elms, and the druid lady realized that she was cheating death was a bad thing. Same with Galawain's quest -- resolving the infighting at the Maw was probably a good thing. I liked having those last few bounties to bring our hirelings on one last hurrah before the end game. Our end party is Eder, Grieving Mother, Aloth, Hiravias and Durance -- everyone who has a personal bone to pick with Thaos or Woedica. And Hiravias, who has a quest on the Burial Islands, and I'm not going and coming back. We're going to the end next time. 00:00 Otter AI Art, Learning About Sky Dragon and Old Song 18:40 Talking to Hylea 25:30 Northweald: Resolving Mercenaries vs Fangs 47:00 Northweald: The Hunt and More 50:00 Tunnel to Sky Dragon 51:45 Sagani's Quest 01:01:00 Finding the Site of the Hunt 01:04:30 Northweald Bounty 01:11:15 Sky Dragon Peace Talks 01:17:50 Return to Twin Elms, Arthwn 01:19:15 Hylea and Bird Paladin 01:23:45 The Trials of Durance 01:30:30 The Other Gods 01:39:40 Fixing the Frost 01:57:05 Bear or Lion 02:19:55 Hunt and Merchant Dispute and Only Half of Berath's Quest 02:34:00 Talk to the Gods, Again 02:52:00 Final Bounties: Hirelings Last Hurrah 3:14:30 Final Party and Prep

Clouded Leopard Kitten: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-cloud-leopard-kitten-born-at-the-oklahoma-city-zoo-180982782/ Benedict Arnold Dog: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dog-who-served-on-both-sides-of-the-american-revolution-180982781 We skipped some conversation points with the Eyeless, so we redid that. Then we went back to Twin Elms to pick up some sidequests, track down Thaos and save a baby. The Eyeless ending having a third option if you talk through every option feels like a nice option. I feel good I went back to read through this. Twin Elms is a huge drag for Act 3. I'm not sure what's so great about the area; there are several good sidequests. Still, I don't like this. The Baby Quest in particular has super limiting options for completion. I really just think that it was an interesting quest cut short. I'm still a fan, but Twin Elms feels like a step down from White March. Next session we actually get to Northweald and Oldsong, which does pick things up. Maybe I just should not have tried to find different solutions than what was initially presented to us, which is the opposite of what you can do with the Eyeless. I'm not sure why I feel this way about Twin Elms, but it just feels like a speedbump on the way to the finale rather than building anything up -- at least until the next video when we talk to the gods. Time stamps; 00:00 Eyeless Resolution 09:45 Return to Stalwart and Alpine Dragon Rest 35:06 Return to Twin Elms 44:24 Talking to the Elder (Also Bird Paladin) 58:02 Cat and Exploration 01:02:25 Elms' Reach Exploration; Sidha and Rienwen 01:18:24 Hiravias Reads Pillars and More Exploration 01:40:20 Baby Quest

Baby Seals: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/a-baby-seals-first-solo-venture-into-the-water/ We Stan For Otter 841: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YL3sS5T4HY This video is so far in the past, I forgot what the links are. We get to the end of White March 2 and stop the Eyeless -- but you'll see the end repeated at the start of the next video. I realized we skipped some conversation, so I figured we should loop back around and review it. The Eyeless Assault is really good; the ending is probably the best part of Pillars so far. The game really needed better combat and UI, and I think it may have been even better received than it appears to have been. It's a shame so much neat world building and interesting stories are lost behind a bad system and writing that, to be honest, is wordy for the sake of being loquacious. We do respec Hiravias here away from caster druid to smasher druid. It's great. 00:00 Let's Go 04:00 Heading to Abbey of the Fallen Moon 11:00 Exploring the Abbey 18:00 They Think We Belong -- Exploring the Main Building 50:00 Talk With the High Priest 57:00 Maneha's Quest 01:01:00 The Recitation 01:07:04 Exploring the Lower Tides 01:55:35 Angering Ondra's Loyalists 02:02:06 Fighting the High Priest 02:25:30 Confronting Ondra 02:41:45 White Forge Preparations 03:00:35 Lair of the Eyeless Exterior 03:44:25 Lair of the Eyeless Interior 03:56:55 Kraken Fight! 04:07:11 Finale and Realizing We Need to Do It Again

Otter Memes: https://phys.org/news/2023-08-memes-animal-resistance-shouldnt-rebellious.html If you actually go read the article, it's a bit weirder than I thought. This session is bookended by wizards. One is evil... one is maybe evil, but the game does a weird job of explaining it. Concelhaut is easily a wizard we should stomp out of existence. The swamp is a pretty easy area, and I'm still not sure I did the right thing with Llengrath. I think that it was fine to let her and the dragons go, since we all just wanted Concelhaut to stop being a dick. The sidequest here (free the guy from the trap) feels like another easy answer. Obviously, we don't let ghosts magically overwrite his personality, no matter how big of a jerk he might be. I wish we could ask him what he wants -- maybe he wants to be a better person but just can't be. Still, we can't, so we're not going to overwrite that personality. 00:00 Otter Memes 01:45 Reading Notes and Opening Door 05:00 Concelhaut Conflict! 37:50 Return to Stalwart and Talking to a Ghost 45:10 Exploring Mowrghek Ien (The Swamp) 01:14:08 Meeting the Guy Stuck in the Swamp 01:31:45 Defeating Some Cultists 01:53:30 Freeing the Guy 02:01:30 Llengrath Encounter 02:22:20 Returning to Stalwart

Muted! That's the theme for this video, because I didn't realize the microphone stopped working. I find these otters sieging a fort AI art super adorable. Breaking into the Iron Flail fortress should have felt more rewarding, like the commander should have been more understanding of us wanting to avoid bloodshed. Or something. It felt like it saved us lots and lots of tedious copy and paste spam fighting. Though I am very curious what the Icetreader Paladins do. I'm muted through a lot of the early Cragholdt stuff. What did I say... Interested by the commander at the northwest. Annoyed by the idea of fire undead. Surprised by the ogre. The apprentices all feel terrible except for the one with the animated weapons, and she's probably terrible too. Also, despite what I say at the end -- pretty sure the wizard is evil. Also, hey. If you've watched 43 some videos of me playing Pillars of Eternity, why don't you subscribe to see the last however many there are? Thanks. 00:00 Super Adorable Otters; Off to the Iron Flail 03:00 Iron Flail Assault 15:15 Lovers! 18:50 The Front Gates 22:20 Trying to Sneak In 27:00 Re-spec Grieving Mother for Stealth and Gear Swapping 39:45 Sneaking In to the Commander 46:15 Confront the Commander 52:50 Freeing the Delegates 59:55 Battling the Eyeless 01:07:28 Maneha's Quest Update, Looting the Camp 01:15:30 Return to Stalwart, Prep for Cragholdt 01:28:00 Otter Interlude 01:30:20 Return and Prep for Cragholdt 01:34:45 Cragholdt Ogre Fight 01:46:15 Mercenary Commander Showdown 01:57:30 Cleaning Up the Torn Bannermen 02:23:45 Mysterious Cave Set Up 02:32:00 Undead Cave Fight! 02:43:20 Clearing the Path to the Tower 02:50:15 An Actual Chokepoint! 03:02:20 Sound Fixed, Basement Exploration 03:06:15 A Door That Acts Differently... Re-starting Exploration 03:12:25 First Apprentice Fight 03:21:15 Gathering Notes and Keys 03:40:15 Preparing for the Wizard With the Phylactery

So... this is super embarassing. I forgot to swap my microphone when recording until pretty far into the video. You can go to @jonusfalcon to hear the audio whenever he gets it uploaded. I suck. This is sad that I still suck this much. But, whatever, let's keep going. Hein is way, way easier than I remember. I prepped for this by getting some job levels on a White Mage, Scholar and Ranger... and then he didn't cast twice like I was expecting. Goldor is a steamroll as well. The weird thing about Garuda is that Dragoons do extra damage with Jump from the Front Row. After defeating Hein and Garuda, we will never use Scholars or Dragoons again. We'll need to prep for the mini dungeon, but that's pretty good. 00:00 Starting Without Sound, Listen to Jonus 02:30 Fighting Hein 07:45 Exploring the Floating Continent/Castle Argus 27:05 To the Flooded Continent 30:30 Water Temple 38:51 Kraken 42:00 To Levingrass Shoes 58:22 To Goldor... Goldar... Zords! 01:14:30 Fighting Goldor and Returning to Town 01:21:00 Flooded Continent Exploration 01:31:10 Saronia Arrival 01:33:00 Fixing My Audion, Saronia Exploration 01:45:15 Garuda, Looting Saronia, Getting Nautilus 02:00:25 To Doga

This is intriguing and gross... or *ingrossing.* https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-germanys-spaghetti-ice-cream-came-to-be-180982461/ I don't know what happened at the Miami Seaquarium, but something went wrong. Whether it was an unavoidable wrong or an avoidable one, we don't know. At least, I didn't know when I made this, and I'm probably not going to remember to double check before making this public. https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/lolita-beloved-killer-whale-who-had-been-in-captivity-has-died-miami-seaquarium-says/ Ok, we have to finish saving the cannons. This was a fun dungeon; I don't really know how badly the elevator can go. I imagine it can go drastically wrong, but who would do things like stick a torch in the lever or just not repair things. Our wizard cannon otters cheered us on. Also: Why won't they test fire the cannons? Yeah, they might damage things... but what if they don't work? Isn't that a concern too? I think Zahua's quest text should also pop up easier. I'm not sure how I missed some text buried in his branching text. But I did, and it was annoying. 00:00 Intro Websites and Getting Ready 00:30 Solasta and BG3 Talk 05:30 Cannon Dungeon Fights 24:00 Born in a Barn... Door Problems 35:15 An Alternative Path 37:00 Disease Pudding 41:10 Resting and Elevator Sequence 45:25 Taking the Cannons 54:22 Eyeless Vision and Turn In 01:03:00 Cannon Otter Interlude... 01:09:10 Finding Zahua's Quest 01:27:00 A Lion Vision Quest! 01:58:00 The End of Zahua's Visions 02:01:37 Clean Up, Leveling, and Preparing for the Iron Flail