The Slackers team on Sun night seems to have had little trouble making its way through the game so far. I originally intended to make the team variant version of this tough, but not too tough, and I think it has succeeded in that regard. However, back in 1.09 I played a slacker-esque variant that was much more restritive -- almost insanely so. I played a hardcore trappassin with base stats, no gear other than some charms she found herself, no more than 1 point per skill, and no mercenary. She managed to defeat Diablo on Normal diff before I gave up on her. The reason? Too darn tedious to keep going. She had no mana ball to speak of, and so was 100% reliant on mana potions to be able to do anything... but in 1.09, you couldn't buy mana potions. She would have to farm easier areas where she could punch her way through the game to find enough mana potions to tackle the harder areas where punching was just too dangerous. It took an entire day of gaming to get from the Pandemonium Fortress to the City of the Damned waypoint.

The Slackers Sunday night team was in part inspired by this earlier character, and in part formulated at the end of 1.09 with the intention that the characters could be molded in 1.10 into whatever we wanted to play once the patch came around. Well, migration to the ladder nixed the latter part of the idea, but the team game proved to be popular nonetheless. Still, with 1.10 adding the ability to buy mana potions back into the game, I decided I wanted to try something closer to the original concept again. Hence was born AssIsGrass, my suicidally slacking assassin. This time I chose to make a couple of changes to the formula, the biggest one of which is that the character is Softcore, not Hardcore, of which I got enough with FoS.

So here's a draft of my proposed Slacker variant. I want to make this variant very tough, but not outright impossible. I'm not aiming quite at an Infirm Irene level of challenge here, but I don't want to be too far off that mark either. I would like to solicit suggestions in this regard, especially from others with experience playing heavily restricted characters. Two factors to consider are the ability to do enough damage to break monster regen, and one-hit-kill potential. The former is a significant factor, given the possibilities for substantial +skills or granted skills from twinked gear, which I don't want to expressly disallow -- part of the fun of collecting gear is making use of it for unusual builds, and I don't want to shut that option out. At the same time, I want to structure the variant in such a way that twinking specific gear is not required for the character to progress, with the caveat that some slacker characters will of course be more gear-dependent than others.

Note that according to these rules, the Slackers of the Sun night team variant are over-acheivers as Slackers go. Please post your thoughts and comments!


----------------------------------------------------------------

Slacker Variant v1.01:

Go down to the beach some day, and you'll see lots of full-grown Slackers wandering around with nothing much in particular to do. Where do they come from? Why do they look so relaxed? Well, adult Slackers come from baby Slackers, of course, and they look so relaxed because they've already bested the worst Diablo and his buddies could throw at them!

There are 3 versions of the Slacker presented here. None of these subclasses are very much given to studying or exercise, and approach life in a very laid back manner. If they run into trouble that proves to be too tough to handle, they simply say 'Whatever', pick themselves up, and continue on their way. The Geek Slacker is the default version, which tends toward having some nifty toys and can pick up some skills intuitively, but is pretty wimpy physically. The Nudist Slacker eschews all forms of visible gear, but is relatively buff as she must have some stuff to show off. The Stoner Slacker is also relatively buff physically and has access to a variety of nifty toys, mainly stolen from her Geek peers, but years of abuse of The Weed have left their toll, and she tends to be slow to pick up even the most rudimentary skills. A growing Slacker can "grow out" of one subclass and change to a different subclass, providing that they can still meet all the criteria of the new subclass for the relevant age bracket.

Slackers tend to prefer the company of other Slackers, or similarly challenged folk. They prefer not to associate with anyone that can show them up by blazing through Diablo's minions faster than they can.

Here's the Slacker life cycle:

A. Slacker Infant
Goal: Defeat at least one Act Boss of your choice. The further you can get, the better!

• Complete Nudity (including jewellry & charms)
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Stoner: You are allowed non-visible gear, but may not allocate skill points at all.
  

• Visibly Nude (no visible gear incl. weapon/shield), with no exceptional/elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Stoner: You are allowed any gear you can equip, but may not allocate skill points.
  

• Gear allowed, but no exceptional/elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may not allocate skill points.
  

• Gear allowed, but no elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except two skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may not have more than 1 point in any skill
  

• Gear allowed, but no elite items
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except three skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may only have one skill that is up to slvl 10
  

• Gear allowed
  
• No stat points allocated
  
• No more than 1 skill point per skill, except four skills which may be up to slvl 10
  
• No mercenary
  
• Must complete all act quests before advancing to subsequent acts
  
• Nudist: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you must remain visibly nude
  
• Stoner: At any point you may have allocated up to 1/2 the stat points you have ever received, but you may only have two skills that are up to slvl 10
  

Hey--

Last I checked, this one was not updated for D2X. There are now class specific helms (i.e., jawbone caps) that are white (normal) or grey (socketed), but may have +BAR skills on them, similar to staffs, scepters, and wands in D2.

My gut tells me that a true BAR would not wear any cap that pluses up his skills via some juju, but I'd like to hear from some of the folks who started and have played the variant.

Second question--another one that is more significant with D2X. What is the rule on mercs? Do Barbarians have a weakness for rogues?

Thanks for the help

BamBam(BAR), Slayer of Griswold

Hi guys,

I am sorry for missing last night's game, but it really wasn't my fault - our online service went on the blink two days ago, and was out entirely yesterday. It finally got restored late last night, but, alas! Too late for the ET team...

Hubby tried to console me by taking me to see "Troy" -- with only middling success. An average movie at best, I am sorry to say!

I expect to get online later this week, so I may see some of you there.

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

So here's a baby squirrel



(link to full-size image)

Jaffa

Hi.

After picking up D2 late in the game, and playing solo with v1.06 off and on for the last several months, I decided to grab the expansion and try a game or two in on b.net.

What chaos...the games I was able to string together some sort of cooperative play were extremely harried and not exactly to my taste (granted, I am used to soloing and full clearing, with lots of trips to town to sell and gamble).

Does RB still have any presence in coop games on b.net other than slackers and other specific variant coops?

I would love to game with folks more to my suiting, noting that I am basically starting from scratch as of last night. Not looking for leveling or trading--just some no bs shared risk, shared reward games with folks I trust.

Are there other opportunities for good coop gaming as well? Sorry for the newb type questions, but I have been VERY slow to pick up the expansion, based on good advice from folks around here. I am loving the heck out of the game, and did greatly enjoy multi-play--or at least I now have an appreciation for it. BTW--I have US-EAST and US-WEST accounts, but my only character of note is a somewhat slacking martial arts assassin with between 8-10 points unassigned at clvl 18 or so (I don't remember exactly, since I stayed up WAY too late fooling around ). She is in Act II with no quests completed.

Thanks in advance,

Bam-Bam

I read this in a newsletter and it made me smile. (I am very careful to try not to laugh.)

Potential QoTM material.

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount." However, in government, education, and in corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse's performance.
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory/decision making position

Let the beating of the dead horse begin!

Players have until Monday night (their local time) to complete this event. Reports are due by the end of Tuesday night. Please post your game summary, or report, or a link to your report, in this thread. Reports or additional information to supplement game summaries are welcome any time, but at least a summary must be posted on time to be scored for this event. See the Imperium Two page for scoring details.

Let the comparisons and discussions begin!


- Sirian
Event Sponsor

If anyone else has wondered how much tech you need to put Reserve Tanks on a colony ship or an Ion Cannon on a small, I've put together a spreadsheet. Everything works under Gnumeric and should work with proprietary software (but I'd be happy for someone to find out for sure).

Ship design spreadsheet

Selentine

This story from todays news hase me horrified. I knew that our northern native communities faced some built in problems in health care due to their remote locations. But I just cannot imagine what series of events would conspire to let this happen.

I cannot imagine what that mother must be feeling right now, let alone when she received that box.


C B C . C A N e w s - F u l l S t o r y :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Family wants answers after fetus returned in cardboard box
Last Updated Thu, 20 May 2004 7:07:55


THUNDER BAY, ONT. - A Northern Ontario First Nations community says it wants a full investigation into how a hospital allegedly mailed the remains of a miscarried fetus back to the family in a cardboard box.


"I was appalled and upset and disappointed of what had happened to this fetus," North Caribou Lake First Nation Chief Zeb Kenequanash told CBC News Online.

"The mother went hysterical after she found out the unborn child came through the mail."

Kenequanash is calling for a full police investigation and a coroner's inquest into the incident. The family, who live in North Caribou Lake, a remote community hundreds of kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay has also retained a lawyer.

In March, the woman was medevaced to Sioux Lookout hospital, said Kimberly Whetung a senior policy adviser with the Chiefs of Ontario, which represents 134 First Nations across Ontario.

The woman had completed her first trimester but miscarried at the hospital. Because the hospital did not have a pathologist on staff, the baby was sent to Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, Whetung said.

The family requested the baby be returned to the community. The mother was told that the baby would be taken from the hospital to a funeral home.

Instead, the remains were sent by Purolator in a cardboard box to the wrong address – a post office in Pickle Lake, a community about 300 kilometres from North Caribou Lake. It was labelled "diagnostic specimen" and "room temperature."

Whetung said the box had been stamped with two addresses, the Pickle Lake address and the family address in North Caribou Lake. The box eventually made its way to the North Caribou Lake post office where it sat for six days.

On May 10, nearly 40 days after the miscarriage, the mother picked up the box.

The box was battered, partially opened and with only one piece of tape around it, Kenequanash said.

Kenequanash said the mother did not know what was in the box when she opened it. He said the fetus was wrapped in plastic in the box and badly decomposed.

Ontario's Health Minister George Smitherman pledged to investigate the incident.

"My immediate reaction was shock and dismay and disgust," Smitherman said.

Smitherman said it his understanding that this is the established protocol for transporting remains because of the transportation challenges in the remote area. But Smitherman said he did not condone the practice.

"I am not expressing confidence that those protocols are appropriate," he said.

Kenequanash said he had never heard of any similar incident like this before.


National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, said in a statement he was "appalled that such an inhumane action can take place in this day and age."

"I pray this will never happen again to any family, anywhere in Canada."

Late Wednesday night the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre issued a news release offering its condolences to the family. It said that since the identity of the family has been released it will now be possible to investigate the situation.



Written by CBC News Online staff



Copyright © 2004 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved

There was only enough listed interest for a single team, but if more people are interested we could start a second game. Speak up quickly though!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88378

Parameters:
Map size: Medium
Difficulty: Impossible
Race: Klackons

Roster:

Justus_II
Erick the Red
Patroclus
Selentine
JMB
Zed