melchar

So one of the play-throughs I am doing as I play 'Baldur's Gate 3' is a 'Oath of the Ancients' paladin. I know there is an option to play as a 'fallen paladin', but I am trying to keep my fellow on the straight & narrow, which means no oath-breaking or lying. So yes, I AM save-scumming.

This brought me to trying to free Lae'zel from the cage that 2 tieflings have her in. The options are to avoid the situation & not rescue her. Or lie to the tieflings to get her out. Or persuade them that you are going to help them kill her & lie by siding with Lae'zel. Or just attack the tieflings out-right. Or help the tieflings & kill Lae'zel.

I also did try just shooting the bottom out of the cage to free Lae'zel, but getting close enough to shoot triggered the dialogue with the tieflings scene.

With my guy there, the only way I kept his oath was protecting them by helping them kill Lae'zel. Since I didn't want that result, I tried to find some way to get the OTHER NPCs to free her. I broke the party & sent my pally waaaaaaay off, then had Gale talk to the tieflings.

As soon as the dialogue started - *poof* - my pally was there, doing the talking. There was no option to leave my main character 'back in camp' or take him actually out of the party.

The only solution I [eventually] found was to separate the 3 NPCs from my lad and then have him jump repeatedly off a cliff, doing damage to himself until he died. The separation HAD to be done so that the NPCs did not immediately revivify him.

So, with him 'temporarily dead for tax purposes', I then had Gale / Shadowheart / Astarion talk to the tieflings & play 'persuade, then attack the tieflings' by helping Lae'zel. [BTW, I did try using Deception with Astarion & the dice roller FAILED the roll 4x in a row, with him having +5 to the roll & just needing a rolled '10' result, so was unable to get the tieflings to run off & survive.]

A brief fight later & Lae'zel was out of the cage, but she wouldn't talk to the NPCs. I had Shadowheart run off to my dead pally, raise him from the dead - and he then went back & was able to invite Lae'zel into the group AND to not break the paladin oath.

I learned that - not only can you have multiple characters - but that the save files for each are kept neatly separated. So .... off to make more alts, since I plan to try different romance options - specifically with Astarion, Shadowheart & Gale [since the NPCs are sadly not poly], so I'm planning to have my bard, rogue & sorcerer aim for different NPCs.

Without a doubt, IMO the 4 most important skills to have in-game - since they are used most often - are persuasion, perception, sleight of hand [for lockpicking, trap disarming, pickpocketing] & stealth - since you can sneak around with the full group & the game uses the best stealther's skill to test the group with.

Make sure to not double up a class batch of skills with your background 2 skills. There are few enough skills to take as it is. If after that, the character gets a couple more skills - other very useful skills are investigation, arcana and either acrobatics or athletics are good choices.

As for class to pick, one of the sites I checked [to make sure I picked an effective class], rates the classes as:
S-tier = Cleric & Bard
A-tier = Warlock & Paladin & Sorcerer & Wizard & Monk
B-tier = Barbarian & Fighter & Druid & Rogue
C-tier = Ranger

As someone who loves libraries, this article is frankly terrifying:

https://karawynn.substack.com/p/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries

4 days [well, with my schedule NIGHTS] of work on the new desktop and I have everything moved over from Riff [old computer] to Lysinda [the new] - with the exception of Final Fantasy XIV, which won't install due to Square Enix reasons.

Remarkably easy to do most of the work, once I had it unpacked. I was a bit thrown by New Egg's packaging - which had an inserted packaging material on the inside of the case that needed to be removed. Thankfully, the packing material was odd, but not difficult to remove.

A new keyboard, external wifi device & mouse were included with the desktop & all worked well. I made sure all the interior plugs were secure, sealed it up again - started to connect it & learned that a monitor I bought in 2017 -& never got around to using for my old desktop- has a VGA connector, while the new desktop connects with hdmi.

There was mild difficulty: got an adaptor for $7 & the Acer did not play well with Lysinda. So I got a NEW monitor for $70 & it did play well. SO MANY downloads & installation of programs on the new desktop. Currently, everything except FFXIV is working now, so am guardedly happy.

Only question now is wondering if anyone could use an 18" Acer monitor with a vga connector from 2015 = pristine & back in its box, but it seems like a shame to just discard it.

I'm looking at today thru the filter of a not-quite ocular-migraine. Head is all poundy & eyes a bit wonky, mild nausea - but otherwise coping.

Basically = today was 3 hours of sleep & then off to CostCo. 90% of why we got a CostCo membership a couple years ago is because medical costs for vision stuff from Kaiser would be MORE than $600 a year [[plus more cost for appointments & my last glasses thru them cost more than $400 for 1 pair]].

Meanwhile a family CostCo membership for us is $120 a year & the eye appointments for both of us was $120/e today. The =2= pair of glasses I bought today were $220 -total-. So it costs way much less to join CostCo.

Just ... damn.

SO.... other than sleep lack => the eye exam shone blinding bright light in each eye for SO effing long that my eyes have spazzed out. My head hurts PLUS it's suddenly 92 degrees today =hottest day, a degree less forecast for tomorrow= - and bracketed by temperatures in the high 80's on either side 🙄 ... so not feeling fantastic today.

More dental stuff. 2 weeks ago got the 6-month check-up & -since a watch had been placed on several teeth- extra time scheduled for the appointment. Got an upper molar drilled -n- filled. Dentist said that I can officially tell people that I don't have a big mouth, since mine is small & difficult to work in.

Today went in for dental work#2. Face now hurting after a lower molar -which had a bit of it fall off sometime in the last 6-months- got drilled out & given a temporary crown & paying $1200 for the first half of it. 3 weeks & the permanent will be installed for the OTHER half.

Then I have 2 frigging more that still need crowns. All 4 have been molars & awkwardly-placed ... along with the small mouth problem, the dentist can only do one at a time so I can keep chewing. Since with my teeth it's either crowns or extractions [root canals just don't work] - here's hoping the crowns all work. Getting dental implants cost in excess of $6k - even with the discount he gives us for cash [since we have no dental insurance].

But damn, it's hurting: not the tooth per se, but the jaw muscles from being held open, plus where all the needles went - and that all the teeth NOT number got sore from the drill's vibrations.

2022 was a terrible year for lots of reasons - mainly due to people dying. But it was good that neither Trey nor myself caught Covid, mostly due to fully vax-ing & masking-up.

The shining joys of the year were gaming.

First & foremost, I've ref'd live table-gaming this year. I GM my 2nd edition AD&D game [Gaea - same world, since 1973] on Saturdays & my homebrew game [Agris, ref'd since 1980] on Sundays. I've managed to do this at least twice a month all year. The players have been sneaky, inventive and successful.

Getting to play in a Pathfinder game Friday nights was also overall fun.

Then there was computer gaming: Elder Scrolls Online, Star Wars the Old Republic, Final Fantasy XIV & even World of Warcraft were fun. Other highlights of computer games were Shin Megami Tensei Dx2, SMT Nocturne & Wrath of the Righteous also get high marks for fun.

This is pretty amusing = http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-the-origin-2/

It's been a heck of a week. Our downstairs neighbor - each of us always helping & there for the other - died 4 days ago. My Mom died Saturday. One death was disturbing. Both together are just hard to wrap my brain around. It doesn't help that the heat has been energy-and-thought-sapping, with today being possibly the coolest day for the next 7-10 days. 2022 just keeps getting worse.

Recap: a month ago we lost power for a couple hours due to a power transformer blowing up. The =*boom*= also broke a TV, required repairs on my laptop, broke our wifi & fried the cable box. A week to fix the laptop, a friend gave us an old TV, the wifi was fixed in less than 2 days & it took 3 fricking weeks before Comcast/Xfinity finally replaced our cable box - because they insisted it was an outage = nope; then that it could be reset = NOPE - then they lost the 1st tech appointment I made; took another week to finally get a tech out. 3 weeks. The tech was here on June 28 & DID replace the broken cable box. He -also- asked - 'did we know the complex was cancelling the cable for everyone on June 30'.

So I did get in touch with Xfinity/Comcast & arranged for the new cable+internet package & mobile phone. The new internet & cable are already working & doing that well. The mobile phone on its way to me, foreign as owning one seems. I also spent a very long time on the phone to AT&T to get the dsl we now have disconnected. A 'day full of incidents' as the saying goes.