Disclaimer: The following discussion and thought process is not planned to ever be implemented into a game of my own. Rather it is simply an observation I have made as both a player, and DM about the Wisdom Stat.
One of the most useful stats in the game, Wisdom can be used by anyone and everyone to varying degrees of strength. For Clerics and Druids it dictates the strength of their connection to their sources of power, while a Rogue might stack Wisdom to excel in plenty of useful skills, and everyone is able to resist Dominate Monster. Easily, Wisdom is the first stat you want that doesn’t directly impact class performance.
So why doesn’t it work?
My problem with Wisdom, as is a lot of players and DMs problem with the stat, is how much Wisdom steps on the toes of other stats, namely Intelligence. Most players wouldn’t pay it any mind as it’s just how it works, and always has worked. But even in passing, it comes up often at least in my circles, how Intelligence and Wisdom skills are often always interchangeable, and how blurry the difference between Investigation and Perception are.
Lets look at the google definition of both stats.
Intelligence “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.”
Wisdom “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.”
The clear connection between both is how experience and knowledge to both. In fact, some might say in order to be Wise, one must be Intelligent, for you cannot have knowledge (wisdom) without being able to gain and use it (intelligence).
It is clear that Wisdom is derivative of Intelligence in almost every way. It would be akin to having an entire attribute stat for Agility when Dexterity exists, and as such, only really serves to take away importance from the latter stat.
What’s the alternative then?
Now I did say this is not a thought I would implement into any of my games, and that is still true. However, that does not mean i did not think this far ahead.
Wisdom would serve it’s purpose much stronger if it was converted into a Willpower stat. What this entail is practically making Willpower the Constitution stat for your mind. Redirect all skills to Intelligence, or Charisma, or remove skills which overlap, and allow Wisdom to stand for the mental fortitude of a character, which it is already effective in as it’s the most prominent save against dangerous magics in the game.
Perception however is a stat that is left stranded. It’s a necessary stat, however it doesnt fit into Intelligence or Charisma. I’d argue, it doesn’t fit Wisdom either! A man who has experienced everything the world has to offer has no better chance at 20/20 vision than the spry 20 year old adventurer. Rather, I opt for perception to be a statless skill, effected by race class and background. A sniper or outlander might get bonuses while a noble wouldnt have any bonus. This allows everyone a fair shot at using the most prominent stat in the game.
What would changing Wisdom in such a manner accomplish?
The biggest benefit would be giving Intelligence it’s humph back, while Willpower still plays an important role in your characters survival. It would lead to less confusion and handwaves over whether to use Nature or Survival, and enhance the flavor of characters with high Intelligence or high Wisdom, rather than needing both stats to effectively play a “smart guy.”
It would also allow classes to gave better defined roles. Cleric and Druid might not be naturally good at everything you need innately, but would still grant their characters enhanced survivability.
At the end of the day, Wisdom can afford to share its many advantages around the rest of the stats while also improving consistency and logical rulings

How did divorce affect you financially after the fact? Spousal Support? Child Support? Etc? Is it easy to start over financially?
How many of you were able to agree on having a non-contested divorce? How did you determine the terms?

Working on a new project, need JST and Molex cables. The frugal person in me is tempted to buy them from amazon, because they're way cheaper than any other site like Adafruit or Digikey. I'm not sure what sites I should be looking at, but it feels a little absurd to spend a ton on wires.

Disclaimer: I’m an orthodox Christian, I hope it’s okay to ask this here but if not please disregard.
I joined my church about 6 months ago and love it. I’ve never attended church before this, but I was baptized as a baby so in a way I feel like I’m home. I’ve made so many friends and truly have a community as well as a deeper relationship with the Lord. I appreciate the spiritual education I’m receiving at church as well.
However, I feel so awkward interacting with my priest and I really don’t know why. By all accounts he seems to be a caring and wise man who is also good humored and friendly to all. Many of my friends have told me how they’ve spoken with him for hours when they first joined the church, and it seems like he knows their whole life stories.
I’ve spoken to my priest a handful of times, and he has helped me in moments of spiritual crisis. But while I appreciate his guidance, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s very short with me or keeping me at arm’s length. I’m sure that he’s a very busy person, and I make every effort to respect that - in fact, I’ve been told I probably don’t reach out to him enough with questions I have. But at one appointment I had with him, he literally kept jumping up from the table to get coffee or tell people in the hallway that he was in a counseling session (they weren’t disturbing us or anything). It makes me feel nervous to approach him at all when I have questions or issues, because I don’t know what I’ve done to be treated differently. I’m sure it could just be my perception, but after 6 months of attending the church I feel like he knows all my sins (he’s my confessor) but he doesn’t know me at all.
Is this normal? I certainly don’t expect a social relationship with him, but it makes it difficult for me to want to approach him at all and I feel very awkward around him in general. I really respect him and just want to understand if maybe I’m missing the mark somehow?

Didn’t cough much during Covid. And 2 weeks after testing negative for Covid, this new cough started and it’s not going away. It’s 2 weeks since it started.
Sometimes it is a wet cough with phlegm, other times it’s a dry cough that starts because of a throat tickle or a choking feeling.
Some days it’s worse. Other days it gets better.
Is it possible for Covid symptoms to develop after testing negative? How long does it take for it to go away completely? Tried many kinds of lozenges and it’s not working.
Coughs can be singular or in fits (similar to choking).
I hope this doesn’t turn into a long haul thing. I now cough more than I coughed during my whole bout of covid. It’s so strange.

TLDR: Girlfriend doesnt acknowledge my needs and feelings. Always brings it back to her. Starting to get exhausted playing too many roles in this relationship.
​
Ive currently been with my girlfriend for 8 months and Im starting to feel myself pull away from her. She is incredibly sweet, loyal, lots in common but Im starting to feel that Im doing more to make her happy then the other way around. Now I truly believe you should always get into a relationship to give but I dont really know what Im getting out of this....
Several times we've spoken about our needs in the relationship. Whenever she has told me about her needs Ive always listened and tried to meet them but unfortunately when I speak about my needs, thoughts, opinions and feelings she always reverts it back to herself and what she wants. I told her at one point I felt we were moving fast and she took it immediately as a hit and questioned if we were gonna break up. I reassured her no and cheered her up but once again I was left in the dark...
When she is upset, angry, or sad about something Ive been there to talk to her, reassure her, and open her up so we talk but I feel she doesnt do the same back to me. Its nice when you can have a partner try and open you up as well and try to understand you back.
One of needs in a relationship is Autonomy. One weekend I was hoping to do something on my own and after I mentioned it she got super upset and said "She didnt feel like a priority. Dont do that again". I felt criticised and once again misunderstood.
In the relationship Im doing about 80% of the date planning and fun ideas, 100% of initiating sex, and whenever were out for dinner or with each other Id say I have to carry the conversation. In fact one time I deliberately went quiet to see if she could bring up any interesting topics and all she said was "So what else is up?"
I understand that a lot of women like it when men are the leaders and make the decisions for them but after a while thats get super old. Im finding myself not only playing the role of the boyfriend, but the best friend, therapist, date planner, and honestly sometimes the baby sitter. She also lives an hour away through transit so its not super easy for us to just pop over to each others place. She also doesnt have too many hobbies and a few friends (not a local to this city).
Personally I believe that you should always try and meet your needs as best as possible on your own and then once your so called "buckets" of needs are filled others can top them off and you can also focus on topping off your partners needs.
She does show her love in other ways like gift giving and acts of service but mine are words are affirmations (she knows this) and I never feel encouraged. Currently I feel myself becoming distant on her and this might sound harsh, but sometimes I dont see her as a woman but as a little girl. And also a big kicker - she also wants marriage and 3 kids in the future where as I dont want marriage and only 1 kid.
If anyone else has had a similar experience please let me know? Sometimes my gut is leading to end things with her.... I know people will say COMMUNICATION but as I stated before I feel its never reciprocated back to me.
​
​

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Playing a modded Bethesda game on the go is pure joy. I put hundreds of hours into Skyrim on a low end shitty PC but when I finally got my Deck and I was able to play on ultra it was amazing. I have Windows on mine so modding is a breeze.
I'm expecting to play on low, 30 fps. Ideally I could do medium at 40 fps but it depends on how it will run. I know there have been many negative comments about the Deck, but I'm used to seeing that. People were convinced Hogwarts Legacy wouldn't run on it either yet it played great for me. Cyberpunk 2077 also ran great.
I'm pumped. A new Bethesda game is like a milestone in the life of a gamer. Nobody crafts an open sandbox world like Bethesda.

Hi every one,
I was having an issue finding a priest to email and figured I'd post these questions here. I love church history and as of late have become intrigued by the Catholic church. I love the history and architecture of church. I come from a Southern Baptist background . I'm gonna keep my questions pretty much in the same form from when I was going to ask a priest.
​

1. What is the structure and/or relationship of ;The parish, the priest ,Bishop?

Or in other words how do you guess interact with each other
​

1. Would a Catholic have to 100% agree with the church on the things it teaches?(Kind of leads to 3)

​

1. If I was to peruse being a Catholic , would I have to accept the Deuterocanonical (Sometimes branded by protestants apocryphal) books of scripture ?

I ask this because on my journey of being a Christian I have had issues with the canonicity of those books.
I wouldn't necessarily fight over them and if I was perusing Catholicism I'd be quite on these views. It's just that I want to do what is right.
​

My sister's co-worker was terminated for stealing stuff. As an act of vengeance, the same co-worker talked to the HR head and revealed all the secrets she knew about her co-workers to bring everyone down with her. Ultimately, my sister was suspended (and will most likely be terminated) after the thief revealed that she circumvented the system to obtain a document she needed to go abroad. I don't condone my sister's action, but a few days later, news began to circulate that the company has job vacancies because some employees were caught stealing. Turns out that someone is spreading the news that my sister was caught stealing. Again, only one was let go for stealing, but because my sister was coincidentally suspended soon after that incident, it appears that her case is related to the former. Someone sent my sister a screenshot of conversation over at Facebook Messenger showing a company employee inviting someone to apply because there are job openings, and when he's asked why, he replied that a number of employees (everybody knows in their circle that my sister is one of them) were let go because "nagnakaw ng pera."
Here are my questions:

1. I have a suspicion that my sister's co-worker is the one spreading the news out of retaliation, but we can't prove it yet. I asked her to ask her circle to give her evidence/screenshots that will point to the principal author of this malicious lie. I volunteered to give a cash reward for whoever can send a screenshot that will prove who is spreading this information. Is this legal?
2. The one who said "nagnakaw ng pera" is outside of their department but he's audacious enough to tell his contacts that all employees who were recently let go because "nagnakaw ng pera." Wala man lang "daw" to prove that he heard it somewhere else. He's spreading it as if it's an established fact already. How culpable is he?

Thank you to whoever will give me a piece of advice.

I did the poll to see how many PSSD suffers weren't on Twitter. It came back with 29.
Thats 29 pssd suffers that could be tweeting out thier experience and rasing awareness about PSSD. That's 29 PSSD suffers that could be spreading awareness about the research funds.
There's psychiatrys and pill praisers on Twitter that are telling us pssd is not true. Theres strength in numbers, the more of us tweeting about pssd the sooner we'll be heard.

The following is my advice for interpreting V. Some of my advice comes fragmented memories of a string of vanishing snapchats I recieived during a Covid fever dream. The messages were signed T.P. Society.
​
I think the “Stencilized” chapters are Pynchon at his absolute best. Readers get frustrated. These are extremely challenging at every level: tough vocabulary, unfamiliar historical settings, obscure references, countless characters, and increasingly confusing entropic plots with little closure. As a reader, you’ll feel like there must be an answer hidden in the complexity and symbolism. Detective stories, you’ll solve with a little research and persistence. You shouldn’t get frustrated.
Remember that the narrator of the difficult “Stencilized” chapters is Herbert Stencil, himself. Stencil, a contemporary of Benny Profane and the whole sick crew, is on an obsessive quest in search of the mysterious “V”. V’s transition throughout the novel loosely parallels Britain’s transition through the industrial revolution into 19th century. Transitioning from a virtuous, Victorian Empire bringing the Christ-powered light of the civilized world to the darkest depths of Africa with unquestioned protestant purpose… to a nation in a crisis of faith… a nation trying to reconcile protestant purpose with technological progress after bearing witness to the mass-produced mechanized death of The Great War.
Stencil’s obsession with “V” began after reading his late father’s journals. His father, Sidney Stencil, was by profession a British spy who journaled his clandestine involvement in diplomatic crises in various international cities over the course of his career. Each of the “Stencilized” chapters are set during one of these historical diplomatic crises. These chapters are a story of a story of a story. Pynchon provides the words. Herbert Stencil provides the voice. Sydney Stencil provides the source material. There are layers to the narrative. It’s complicated.
Chapter 3 is especially complex from a narrative standpoint.
The chapter is divided into eight parts. Each part is told from the perspective of a different person (unspecified in the final 8th part) as imagined by Stencil with clear fabrications influenced from well-known works of literature. The narrator of the eigth and final section is unspecified, as if Stencil is imaging himself watching a movie fabricated in his mind from his father’s journals taking inspiration from books he’s read and biased by outcomes he hopes for. An unreliable narrator delivers a convoluted story from eight perspectives.
Here's my take on the ending of Chapter 3’s “plot”. It’s essential a spy (Porpentine/Goodfellow, British aligned) vs. spy (Lepsius, German/Bongo-Shaftsbury, French aligned) conflict in a British Egypt. Sydney Stencil is involved with the British intelligence team. Earlier in the chapter, it’s hinted that there may be an assassination attempt on a prominent British diplomat prior to the impeding Fashoda conflict.
Through the lens of an unspecified narrator, at the end of Chapter 3 we witness Bongo-Shaftsbury (French spy team) murdering Porpentine (Sydney Stencil’s British spy team) at the Cairo Opera house.
I think it went like this: shortly after Victoria Wren (V.) left the theater with Goodfellow (British spy), Porpentine (British spy) foils the French spy team’s assassination attempt on a British Diplomat. Porpentine subsequently gets involved in struggle with Lepsius and then Bongo-Shaftsbury kills Porpentine.
Pynchon is intentionally making these chapters confusing and difficult. He is making a point, but he doesn’t want it to be obvious. The answer is found in the work of Argentinean author, Jorge Luis Borges.
His short story, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, is likely a major inspiration for Pynchon’s V. It’s extremely helpful for “getting” V. or at least asking the right questions when reading V.
We have a letter from Pynchon documenting his “Borges kick” while writing V. and his debut novel is almost certainly inspired by Borges’ story. I won’t summarize the whole story, but it’s essential pre-reading and re-reading for anyone trying to tackle V.
“Bioy Casares had come to dinner at my (Borges’) that evening, and we had lost all track of time in a vast debate over the way one might go about composing a first-person novel whose narrator would omit or distort things and engage in all sorts of contradictions, so that a few of the book’s readers-a very few-might divine the horrifying or banal truth. Down at that far end of the hallway, the mirror hovered, shadowing us. We discovered (very late at night such a discovery is inevitable) that there is something monstrous about mirrors.” – Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Pynchon through his narrative structure plays with the reader. He gives us unsolvable complex, cryptic plots with mysteries unsolvable. He’s basically fucking with us. I think his main target is a big one: the Christian Church.
With Malta, Pynchon associates Sydney Stencil with Paul (the single person that wrote most of the Bible’s New Testament). Sydney doesn’t record everything (facts left out of source material), Paul likely left things out. Herbert Stencil changes portions of Sydney’s story according to his hopes for how things will be in the future and in a way that provides order to his ideology. Paul’s writings have been translated and re-translated and interpreted and re-interpreted by the Christian Church. There are also references to Gnosticism and other heretical Christian sects that were suppressed by the early Christian Church.
Remember:
“Bioy Casares had come to dinner at my (Borges’) that evening, and we had lost all track of time in a vast debate over the way one might go about composing a first-person novel whose narrator would omit or distort things and engage in all sorts of contradictions, so that a few of the book’s readers-a very few-might divine the horrifying or banal truth. Down at that far end of the hallway, the mirror hovered, shadowing us. We discovered (very late at night such a discovery is inevitable) that there is something monstrous about mirrors.” – Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Is Pynchon’s point that we can’t trust the New Testament like we can’t trust Stencil?
For further thought? Can one man really remain hidden in the modern world?
“It is conjectured that this “brave new world” is the work of a secret society of astronomers, biologists, engineers, metaphysicians, poets, chemists, algebrists, moralists, painters, geometers,…, guided and directed by some shadowy man of genius. There are many men adept in those diverse disciplines, but few capable of imagination-fewer still capable of subordinating imagination to a rigorous and systematic plan. The plan is so vast that the contribution of each writer is infinitesimal.” -Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Is Pynchon a secret society trying to take down the establishment: Christianity in V., CIA and corporations in Gravity’s Rainbow? Did Ginsburg and Burroughs run into Borges during their hallucinogenic journey to South America and come up with Pynchon (a name stolen from Puritan ancestry and Hawthorne’s House of Seven Gables)? Was that note from Pynchon about his “Borges kick” a plant for Pynchon’s world to slowly invade reality. Hronir?
Anyone heard of T.P. Society?

So I have just finished the demo and would like to share my thoughts.
I absolutely loved it. From the atmosphere to the music and sounds around you as you make your way through Krat. I know a lot of people are not enjoying how similar ( and I mean almost copy and paste for a stats menu) this game is too it’s obvious spiritual predecessor bloodborne. I think it’s almost certain we will never get a sequel or more from bloodborne and fromsoftware. Don’t understand but oh well. This game is attempting to do that very thing. It’s almost mind boggling how similar it feels to bloodborne/all souls. Now I think the dodging does feel choppy as many others obviously do as well. But hopefully with our feedback the developers can adjust. I do think we have a gem of a souls like on our hands and hopefully we can all give full support to the developers as they deliver and hopefully continue to update a game that is attempting to create its own niche in a fantastic genre.
I thought the music in the puppet master boss fight was fantastic. The arene was designed great as well and I got that similar feeling when I defeated them as I do in froms games. The Lore of this world sees to be deep and well fleshed out so far as you read the krat times newspapers you find scattered around the map as you explore.
I for one am very excited to see this game arrive in September. Let me know your thoughts below and let’s discuss!

Am I crazy or are you capped at only having 6 skill assignments in total on console? (Xbox: Y, RB, LT, RT, A, X)
I have an extremely hard time believing that a game with so many abilities couldn’t figure out how to do things like “hold LT and then press A, as opposed to just pressing A, to use a different ability”.
This sort of “secondary skills wheel” is VERY common nowadays. Is there a way to do something like this in settings? Am I crazy??
Edit: Everyone is saying it’s capped at 6 for all systems by design. Which I guess I get if it was deliberate. Wonder if they have a “save builds” feature of some kind?

Haven’t seen anyone mention the cheesy and somewhat clever double meaning of michaela telling jared to “just have hope” unless it wasn’t a double meaning at all hahaha. Overall there were so many unanswered questions at the end (what about the world with drea pregnant and eden and olive at home? What about michaela being at the other end of a calling with zeke? Zeke still being a addict in the world they returned to,How will cal battle his cancer when it returns with zeke not there to save him? Will they be able to prevent all the crimes the callings helped them with?, How will they explain the missing 11 passengers and a missing pilot if Daley didn’t return, did he? Is it all just gonna be a never ending loop? Why flight 828? What was the purpose of anything? How is it all connected? Is the man with the dragon tattoo/scar somehow connected to the entire manifest and to Al-Zuras? ). I’m lowkey disappointed.Just gonna rewatch it from the beginning cuz i forgot a lot and then get sucked into the conspiracy theory wormhole now ig 😪

I responded to someone’s comment who asks how I went to -0, so I thought I’ll post it here as well!
yeah I studied for the lsat for 1.5 years and never touched RC till this past March cause I was too scared lol. I actually improved indirectly where during the 2022 midterms I was reading a bunch of articles a day. I got used to it and when I went to do RC again I was improving drastically. To summarize basically:

1. Read, read, read. Start with thing like the New York Times and just read. Don’t just read about politics or the headlines, but read about the arts and sciences. You get used to analyzing it. Move to more complex pieces like The New Yorker and The Economist. If you’re still in college you probably get free subscriptions to these sites. My school gives free NYT till graduation.
   
2. Skip the first question if it tells you to summarize the main point of the passage. Read the passage in about 2.5 minutes and get to the other questions. You will most likely have to refer back. Once your done with the rest of the questions for that passage, then do the main point question. By then you’ll have a comprehensive idea of the passage because you have read it 2-3 times by then!
   
3. Understand what type of question you’re doing. Early on I just answered blindly. RC is similar to LR where the passage helps guide you. One thing that I struggled with was Inference so made sure to recognize question type and approach it in the right manner.
   
4. When you’re asked to refer to a part of the passage, don’t just look at the lines you were told to refer to. Look at the sentences before and after. That is usually where they get you!
   
5. You can use control-F on the test so when it comes to questions where they ask which of the following did they mention in the passage, it is easier to narrow down answers.
   

Hopefully this wasn’t a rant, but i didn’t want to leave you without all the information! Good luck on the lsat and if you’re a person who believes in God pray for me lol!
If anybody else wants to chime in they can!