Kinda Sticky Friday
May. 16th, 2025 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickA rather hot and humid day today -- though while getting gas on the way home, I felt a distinctly chill breeze that I think was the first herald of the thunderstorms that are supposed to roll through tomorrow. *grumbles* I have shit to do on Saturday, weather -- I don't need lightning keeping me off the computer! Ah well, not much I can do about it other than hope the nonsense misses us...in the meantime, here's the usual daily write-up --
Work – A slightly-busier end to the work week this Friday, with me doing the GL; going through the failed credit cards and seeing who needed contacting (only one person, which was nice); taking a handful of credit card calls (updating cards and doing a few gifts); and working on some roster maintenance. *shrug* Nothing incredibly taxing, though my coworkers were QUITE annoying behind me once or twice. *grumbles* But the ride home was nice and quick, even with me needing to stop for gas, so that was good. Hooray for it being the weekend!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike this week, pedaling my way through two more Baldur’s Gate III videos –
A) “All Hidden Pets in Baldur’s Gate 3 (And How to Get Them)” by Toyhouze! A guide to picking up a bunch of minions and summons, temporary and permanent, across the game! Did you know that in addition to the obvious ones of Us the intellect devourer, Scratch the dog, and Shovel the cheeky quasit (a demon), you can also pick up a temporary pack of four small spider babies (they’re not summons, they just follow you around after you split open their egg until they die helping you fight something); Quothe the Raven (summonable from a special pair of gloves that you get as a quest reward in Act II); various spore-reanimated zombie monstrosities (if you can drag their corpses back to Glut in the Underdark to have him reanimate them); a mind-controlled zombie drider (a half-man half-spider person – involves tricking him into becoming a shadow-possessed corpse and then using “Control Undead” on him); and four zombie minions (if your character successfully manages to read the “Necromancy of Thay” book, then gets the additional codex in the magic shop in Act III)? Among others? It was a pretty interesting list, though I don’t like how they split up Us and the Thay zombies into two separate sections (for when you first free Us/find the book, then when you find Us in the cage/actually get the ability to summon the zombies) – they should have just had one section each, even if getting them is a two-part process. Also, I don’t like how they have no intro or close – their videos always start and end VERY abruptly. *frowns* I’m not sure I’m gonna watch anything else of theirs – I think I can find the same info elsewhere in better videos!
B) “Baldur's Gate 3 Guide to Combat Mechanics - How to Miss Less, and Win More!” by Fextralife! A guide to figuring how to get through combat without being utterly destroyed by your enemies, including such things as explaining how actually scoring a hit on an enemy works (there’s a die roll going on in the background, and you have to meet or beat the enemy’s armor class – the trick here is to stack the deck in your favor with all the modifiers you can); what weapons use what stats (if it’s ranged, it’s Dexterity; if it’s melee, it’s generally Strength, though “finesse” weapons that use the Dex modifier exist too); what things can give you Advantage or Disadvantage on a particular attack (don’t stand close to your target if you’re trying a ranged attack!); and how the action economy in a fight works (always check to see if something you’re trying to do is your main action or bonus action). What I mainly took away from it is “ranged people should always be reasonably far away from their target and up high to take advantage of high ground; many spells count as ranged attacks; KEEP SMILER AWAY FROM THE FRONT LINES unless they have a close-range spell or need to stab with their dagger.” XD But it WAS good to have a lot of the mechanics and how you get modifiers and such explained – maybe next time I go into that crypt, my party won’t be put through the wringer by the team exploring it! We’ll see. :P
2. Continue outlining “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – got to it later than I wanted again, this time thanks to Family Game Night (my parents picked up Life from an antique/consignment place, so we played that tonight – I actually ended up winning because I got a TON of LIFE tiles and thus ended up with many lucrative accomplishments, such as discovering a new planet and swimming the English Channel) and me deciding to watch my YouTube video a bit early (see below). But I did get some more of the great Van Dort Vault Heist rolled up, I’m pleased to say, with the gang –
A) Making it past Slugs, the Hull that guards the vault with a pair of slugger rifles, via Victor commanding it to stand down and let him and his friends through (after a little coaching from Alice, and a lot of pushing himself – dude doesn’t actually have any dots in Command, after all, so he needed the help! Worth, though, as he rolled a 6)
B) Finding the second tripwire that would sound the alarm (with Victor managing to stop Kasimir setting off a smoke bomb under the logic of “it might help us find the wire, and if it doesn’t, it’ll make us harder to find when the guards rush in”) – took longer than they wanted, though, because it was a “success with a complication,” so I filled in more of the “Discovered By The Van Dorts” clock
C) Getting through the locked door into the vault itself with the help of Smiler’s lockpicks – which, thanks to another “success with a complication,” also took a while and filled in another chunk of the clock
D) Being briefly gobsmacked by the fact that the Van Dorts have actual physical Coins up on their wall in the vault (remember, a Coin in Blades In The Dark money represents a week’s wages for most people), before getting to the important business of robbing the place – which featured me making a fortune roll for Victor to see how well he remembered the combination to the big safe; getting another “success with a complication;” and thus filling in yet another segment on the clock as, in the story, he accidentally transposed two of the numbers on his first attempt to open it, meaning cracking it took a bit longer than it should have. (Which, it occurs to me that maybe that shouldn’t be a consequence of a FORTUNE roll, as that’s a little different than an action roll...but I do like everyone getting increasingly nervous as the time ticks away and they get more and more sure someone will notice something wrong...might let it stand, we’ll see how I feel tomorrow.) But he DID get it open, and a bunch of Coin was stolen! I ended up having Victor, Alice, and Smiler personally take four Coin (to go with the one Coin of Bumby profits Alice took from Houndsditch) – I felt like this is a good amount that will cover all their upcoming expenses (bribing Nessa of the Gray Cloaks to let them stay in Six Towers unmolested; Victor buying Alice a real-life Vorpal Blade and Smiler a traveling chemistry kit and some Leech-approved bandoliers) and still leave them a little left over.
So yeah – main portion of the heist done! Now they just have to get out of the house before they’re discovered…we’ll get through that, the post-score XP wrap-up, and downtime activities tomorrow! :) And then I can actually start WRITING THE STORY yay. :P
(Oh, and real quick, I added one more thing to the “must-happen moments” section – Barnaby’s coat getting ruined. XD What, it’s a tradition! So far I just have Victor bumping into him and making him slosh his drink on his clothes, but if I can find something better to really muck it up, I am going for it. :p)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – just the one video from GrayStillPlays today: “I opened the emergency door on an airplane,” aka Gray plays Cabin Crew Life Simulator! This is a janky simulator game all about being a flight attendant on a terrible airline on the verge of bankruptcy, flying all over the world and doing things like giving passengers their free water and napkins, making sure all the emergency supplies are in place, and pulling live cobras out of the overhead bins with the snake stick and putting them in the trash. XD And, if you’re Gray, it also involves trying to go to work in just a hat, neckerchief, underwear, dirty socks, and high heels; breaking the game by writing the world’s longest sentence as your name in the “enter name” field on the nametag and getting it stuck on the screen (though it didn’t actually object to the words, just the spaces, as we discovered later when Gray had to show the badge to security after getting the game working again); running through all the passengers as none of them had proper collision; breaking the game AGAIN by daring to access the main menu screen while doing the pre-flight checks of the emergency equipment (which froze him in place and forced him to restart – still holding the random drawer he’d grabbed); closing the door on the entering passengers (causing them to glitch together into a terrible multi-being); OPENING the main door during take-off (and then discovering it couldn’t be closed again); jumping out of the plane (which got him an achievement!); and accidentally glitching the snake through the floor while trying to dispose of it (fortunately he was able to grab it again). All actions which got him fined so severely he made no money working that particular flight. XD Ah, we do love to see Gray play a janky simulator game. They really are the jankiest. :P
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – I didn’t have anything to do over on Valice Multiverse, and I didn’t really have time to try to do anything on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). We’ll see if I have time to work on any drafts tomorrow!
And there you have it! And now I really have to go to bed, as I am very tired. Plans for tomorrow include working on some of my drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (like "How Write Smiler" and the "help Smiler needs to be a Warlock as their base class now in BG3" drafts); play Sims 4 and see if I can finish off the Polyheart OT3 House; finish outlining "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and keep up with my YouTube Subs and hopefully watch some of the videos in my Watch Later too. Of course, all of this is subject to when the thunderstorms roll in tomorrow...meh. *sigh* We'll see what happens -- night all!
Work – A slightly-busier end to the work week this Friday, with me doing the GL; going through the failed credit cards and seeing who needed contacting (only one person, which was nice); taking a handful of credit card calls (updating cards and doing a few gifts); and working on some roster maintenance. *shrug* Nothing incredibly taxing, though my coworkers were QUITE annoying behind me once or twice. *grumbles* But the ride home was nice and quick, even with me needing to stop for gas, so that was good. Hooray for it being the weekend!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike this week, pedaling my way through two more Baldur’s Gate III videos –
A) “All Hidden Pets in Baldur’s Gate 3 (And How to Get Them)” by Toyhouze! A guide to picking up a bunch of minions and summons, temporary and permanent, across the game! Did you know that in addition to the obvious ones of Us the intellect devourer, Scratch the dog, and Shovel the cheeky quasit (a demon), you can also pick up a temporary pack of four small spider babies (they’re not summons, they just follow you around after you split open their egg until they die helping you fight something); Quothe the Raven (summonable from a special pair of gloves that you get as a quest reward in Act II); various spore-reanimated zombie monstrosities (if you can drag their corpses back to Glut in the Underdark to have him reanimate them); a mind-controlled zombie drider (a half-man half-spider person – involves tricking him into becoming a shadow-possessed corpse and then using “Control Undead” on him); and four zombie minions (if your character successfully manages to read the “Necromancy of Thay” book, then gets the additional codex in the magic shop in Act III)? Among others? It was a pretty interesting list, though I don’t like how they split up Us and the Thay zombies into two separate sections (for when you first free Us/find the book, then when you find Us in the cage/actually get the ability to summon the zombies) – they should have just had one section each, even if getting them is a two-part process. Also, I don’t like how they have no intro or close – their videos always start and end VERY abruptly. *frowns* I’m not sure I’m gonna watch anything else of theirs – I think I can find the same info elsewhere in better videos!
B) “Baldur's Gate 3 Guide to Combat Mechanics - How to Miss Less, and Win More!” by Fextralife! A guide to figuring how to get through combat without being utterly destroyed by your enemies, including such things as explaining how actually scoring a hit on an enemy works (there’s a die roll going on in the background, and you have to meet or beat the enemy’s armor class – the trick here is to stack the deck in your favor with all the modifiers you can); what weapons use what stats (if it’s ranged, it’s Dexterity; if it’s melee, it’s generally Strength, though “finesse” weapons that use the Dex modifier exist too); what things can give you Advantage or Disadvantage on a particular attack (don’t stand close to your target if you’re trying a ranged attack!); and how the action economy in a fight works (always check to see if something you’re trying to do is your main action or bonus action). What I mainly took away from it is “ranged people should always be reasonably far away from their target and up high to take advantage of high ground; many spells count as ranged attacks; KEEP SMILER AWAY FROM THE FRONT LINES unless they have a close-range spell or need to stab with their dagger.” XD But it WAS good to have a lot of the mechanics and how you get modifiers and such explained – maybe next time I go into that crypt, my party won’t be put through the wringer by the team exploring it! We’ll see. :P
2. Continue outlining “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – got to it later than I wanted again, this time thanks to Family Game Night (my parents picked up Life from an antique/consignment place, so we played that tonight – I actually ended up winning because I got a TON of LIFE tiles and thus ended up with many lucrative accomplishments, such as discovering a new planet and swimming the English Channel) and me deciding to watch my YouTube video a bit early (see below). But I did get some more of the great Van Dort Vault Heist rolled up, I’m pleased to say, with the gang –
A) Making it past Slugs, the Hull that guards the vault with a pair of slugger rifles, via Victor commanding it to stand down and let him and his friends through (after a little coaching from Alice, and a lot of pushing himself – dude doesn’t actually have any dots in Command, after all, so he needed the help! Worth, though, as he rolled a 6)
B) Finding the second tripwire that would sound the alarm (with Victor managing to stop Kasimir setting off a smoke bomb under the logic of “it might help us find the wire, and if it doesn’t, it’ll make us harder to find when the guards rush in”) – took longer than they wanted, though, because it was a “success with a complication,” so I filled in more of the “Discovered By The Van Dorts” clock
C) Getting through the locked door into the vault itself with the help of Smiler’s lockpicks – which, thanks to another “success with a complication,” also took a while and filled in another chunk of the clock
D) Being briefly gobsmacked by the fact that the Van Dorts have actual physical Coins up on their wall in the vault (remember, a Coin in Blades In The Dark money represents a week’s wages for most people), before getting to the important business of robbing the place – which featured me making a fortune roll for Victor to see how well he remembered the combination to the big safe; getting another “success with a complication;” and thus filling in yet another segment on the clock as, in the story, he accidentally transposed two of the numbers on his first attempt to open it, meaning cracking it took a bit longer than it should have. (Which, it occurs to me that maybe that shouldn’t be a consequence of a FORTUNE roll, as that’s a little different than an action roll...but I do like everyone getting increasingly nervous as the time ticks away and they get more and more sure someone will notice something wrong...might let it stand, we’ll see how I feel tomorrow.) But he DID get it open, and a bunch of Coin was stolen! I ended up having Victor, Alice, and Smiler personally take four Coin (to go with the one Coin of Bumby profits Alice took from Houndsditch) – I felt like this is a good amount that will cover all their upcoming expenses (bribing Nessa of the Gray Cloaks to let them stay in Six Towers unmolested; Victor buying Alice a real-life Vorpal Blade and Smiler a traveling chemistry kit and some Leech-approved bandoliers) and still leave them a little left over.
So yeah – main portion of the heist done! Now they just have to get out of the house before they’re discovered…we’ll get through that, the post-score XP wrap-up, and downtime activities tomorrow! :) And then I can actually start WRITING THE STORY yay. :P
(Oh, and real quick, I added one more thing to the “must-happen moments” section – Barnaby’s coat getting ruined. XD What, it’s a tradition! So far I just have Victor bumping into him and making him slosh his drink on his clothes, but if I can find something better to really muck it up, I am going for it. :p)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – just the one video from GrayStillPlays today: “I opened the emergency door on an airplane,” aka Gray plays Cabin Crew Life Simulator! This is a janky simulator game all about being a flight attendant on a terrible airline on the verge of bankruptcy, flying all over the world and doing things like giving passengers their free water and napkins, making sure all the emergency supplies are in place, and pulling live cobras out of the overhead bins with the snake stick and putting them in the trash. XD And, if you’re Gray, it also involves trying to go to work in just a hat, neckerchief, underwear, dirty socks, and high heels; breaking the game by writing the world’s longest sentence as your name in the “enter name” field on the nametag and getting it stuck on the screen (though it didn’t actually object to the words, just the spaces, as we discovered later when Gray had to show the badge to security after getting the game working again); running through all the passengers as none of them had proper collision; breaking the game AGAIN by daring to access the main menu screen while doing the pre-flight checks of the emergency equipment (which froze him in place and forced him to restart – still holding the random drawer he’d grabbed); closing the door on the entering passengers (causing them to glitch together into a terrible multi-being); OPENING the main door during take-off (and then discovering it couldn’t be closed again); jumping out of the plane (which got him an achievement!); and accidentally glitching the snake through the floor while trying to dispose of it (fortunately he was able to grab it again). All actions which got him fined so severely he made no money working that particular flight. XD Ah, we do love to see Gray play a janky simulator game. They really are the jankiest. :P
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A – I didn’t have anything to do over on Valice Multiverse, and I didn’t really have time to try to do anything on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler). We’ll see if I have time to work on any drafts tomorrow!
And there you have it! And now I really have to go to bed, as I am very tired. Plans for tomorrow include working on some of my drafts on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) (like "How Write Smiler" and the "help Smiler needs to be a Warlock as their base class now in BG3" drafts); play Sims 4 and see if I can finish off the Polyheart OT3 House; finish outlining "The Van Dort Vacancy;" and keep up with my YouTube Subs and hopefully watch some of the videos in my Watch Later too. Of course, all of this is subject to when the thunderstorms roll in tomorrow...meh. *sigh* We'll see what happens -- night all!
