ryven

I mean, it depends on the edition. In AD&D the damage of fireball increases faster than your HP: you deal 1d6 damage per level and you gain 1d4 HP per level (and you don't get an automatic max roll at first level), so on average a fifth level caster has 12.5 max hp and deals 17.5 damage on a failed save.

Nowadays with higher hit dice and higher average Constitution scores and potentially larger Constitution-based hp bonuses, it's more survivable for sure. It also doesn't expand to fill its nominal volume if cast indoors, so it's a lot easier to find space to cast it in dungeons without frying yourself.

Edit: This is ignoring the fact that not all mages are equally likely to survive to fifth level; rolling higher HP makes you way more likely to survive to the next level, so I suspect if we surveyed players of fifth level mages the actual average HP would be somewhat higher, with the low rollers having been filtered out by dart traps, lucky kobolds, etc.

It's been a long time, but it's supposed to be coming out this year.

I guess the video games probably aren't canon, but I think it was The Force Unleashed that "revealed" that Vader intentionally planted the seeds of the Rebellion to create an opportunity to overthrow Palpatine, which makes all the times he or his troopers "fail" to stop the heroes make more sense.

Inspire allies to perform better or push their limits, bolster them against mental damage and heal mental damage they've sustained, raise the morale of a group (especially if that group shares my religion). Bonuses to public speaking, negotiation, religious knowledge, etc.

If I belong to a more fire-and-brimstone type religion, perhaps I can intimidate sinners, make my allies more effective against heretics, etc.

Yes, I think we should abolish the police and dismantle the army. That's, like, the whole point. They're responsible for most of the violence!

“If you're a masochist who enjoys being punished for little to no reward, this game is for you,” reads another negative review.

Hot damn, they made this update just for me? I was holding off checking out POE2 but I guess I should.

I feel like this list has some games that are too new to put on a "most influential" list. Let's give it at least a few years to see how Baldur's Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 influence the industry.

On the other end, how is Rogue not on the list? The number of games calling themselves "roguelikes" or "roguelites" has been ballooning every year for the better part of a decade now, and some of its ideas have found their way into other genres, especially the use of procedurally generated level layouts.

Edit: Ohhhhh the poll methodology was to ask people to pick one game, and then they sorted them by popularity. So even though I think Rogue is definitely a top-20-most-influential game, it's harder to argue for it being top 1. But... that makes it even crazier that KCD2 is on the list. A significant number of people voted for KCD2 as "THE most influential game of all time"? It just came out!

So did they not commit suicide, or was Jobst just wrong about the exact circumstances leading up to it?

Ahhh that's the part I forgot or didn't catch, thanks!

So this isn't the main point of the article, but near the end they mention the fan game Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. I don't know if I'm forgetting the plot of Gaiden or what, but they say it mixes the original game with the plot of Space Jam which... is not how I'd describe it? My recollection is that it takes place in the post-apocalypse and centers around the power of Barkley's devastating Chaos Dunk, a dunk so sick that it can nuke an entire city.

What does she mean there was a "generational shift" that led to people burning CDs? Back in the floppy disk days, everyone was copying floppies—I remember when my grandfather bought a Mac to use at home, and immediately his friends at work loaded him up with copied disks. Which generation is she thinking of that wasn't pirating a ton of software?

Visit Granddad.