unclevlad

Normally, no; the attack will typically interact with the wall first. However, some attacks don't...attacks with Indirect that allows the attacker to alter the point of origin of the power would be an example. Look at the section discussing LOS attacks on 6E1 148, under Mental Powers.

Ahhh....there's no way that the legal system can process cases fast enough to get *5* convictions this year...

The private courses won't be hit first...the public courses will be. Why not both? Shutting down the public courses is strictly municipal policy. There are no direct businesses being shut down...indirect, yes. There is no direct loss of property value. If you shut down a private club, both happen, and the private club has plenty of justification to demand why. Muni courses may be...who knows, 7-10 years away from being shut down, as things are going? Private courses might be only 5-7 years behind that...but that's because shutting down the muni courses will already show the severity of the problem. I also wonder if the Bellagio fountains will be restricted at first. Checking...M-F, its every 30 minutes between 3 and 8 PM, then every 15 minutes between 8 and midnight. Perhaps shorten that to...4:30-midnight, every half hour? Weekends it's every half hour between noon and 8, with the same evening schedule. Maybe noon, 1, 2, 3, 4, then every half hour. There's definitely evaporation losses to consider...you can absolutely feel the moisture in the air around the show. But they're worst in the bright sun and highest heat of midday. Again: it's much more likely at first to reduce it, since it's a major Vegas draw, and reduce it when it'll do the most good, than shut it down.

Since Ohtani is the ONLY pitcher who's hit...other than desperation pinch hitters...they won't award a Silver Slugger, I think. Did he win one last year? 300 strikeouts in a season is rare but not quite impossible...Cole and Verlander in '19, Scherzer in '18, Sale in '17. But they're extremely rare...and rarely repeatable. Also note that Verlander and Scherzer are almost transitional...they're still somewhat tied to older-school thinking...they're built to go longer. Another good comment from the game tonight: every *pitch* is "got to win this pitch." EXTREME short-term thinking...by pitchers, by hitters, by runners. The point was focused on how hitters get pigeonholed...they can't hit lefties (say) and few organizations think past each separate encounter, and give their kiddies a chance to learn to hit lefties. The most obvious case was before the 3-batter-minimum rule for relievers...managers would exhaust their bullpens sometimes within 7 innings, and if it goes extras???? Someone may have to take one for the team.

So MLB Network is doing a Clubhouse Edition game...Stephen Nelson host, CC Sabathia as principal guest, ex-players coming and going somewhat...guys just sitting around talking the game. Current guest is Tom Glavine, so they're talking career numbers...Glavine has the record for Silver Sluggers for pitchers, that's a record that now can't be broken. CC brought up a point about pitchers now...that pitchers are more likely to reach 3000 strikeouts than 150 wins. Not even 200...just 150. I'm not sure I buy that; I would agree with 200, but 150 feels achievable. And note, I think he was thinking of the newest generation...starting in the last decade or so. Because thats when Velo, Velo, Velo's exploded. Here's some numbers...career active innings pitched leaders. Stripped names, they're not useful. First column is # of years, second is IP, third is average AP per year. The 6 and 7 year numbers are probably a bit distorted due to the Covid season but that should be less significant for longer careers. 6 785.1 130.9 6 762 127.0 7 953.1 136.2 7 918 131.1 8 1261.2 157.7 8 1150 143.8 9 1312.2 145.8 9 1155.2 128.4 10 1568.2 156.8 10 1489.2 148.9 11 1655.1 150.5 11 1625.2 147.7 12 1678 139.8 12 1600 133.3 13 1507.2 115.9 13 1470 113.1 14 2138.1 152.7 14 2127 151.9 15 2611.2 174.1 15 2530.2 168.7 16 1958.1 122.4 16 1867.1 116.7 17 3104.1 182.6 17 2492 146.6 18 1205.1 67.0 19 3187.2 167.7 20 1465.2 73.3 That's just the top 2 for each career length. Note how few have managed even 150 innings per year. Some of these are more old-school...exceptional...pitchers. (The 182/year is Verlander.) What it's saying is, even the top pitchers are likely losing a lot of time due to injury...Kershaw's back, Verlander had, IIRC, Tommy John, etc. It's hard to get more than 10-12 wins or so, I'd think, if you're only getting 150 innings...so CC might not be overly conservative here.

Ehh...this is a drop in the bucket. Think Duke Energy's stunt in California...hard to believe that was 20 years ago, but it was. Or the Texas utilities, and the events in February 2021. A big culprit was failure to winterize...cost-cutting, there. Then, of course, exorbitant price gouging because they could.

Every rider is in the GC. The team competition is stage-by-stage; the team score for a stage is the combined time for its first 3 riders. The label of "GC rider" simply means "the rider the lackeys help" who is expected to place high. That's as opposed to domestiques, who are the lackeys who sacrifice their energy to keep the GC guys in good position. Yeah, J-V just put it into cruise control, finishing WELL back...almost a minute. Side by side finish, in 76th-80th. Safely in their own little pocket. EDIT: another aspect of the story. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/23/tour-de-france-heat-wave-climate-change/ Story mentions one rider was treated for heatstroke after one of the Alps stages; another one, on a Pyrenees stage, finished and was *seriously* overtaxed. He had medical people watching him; his breathing was hard and fast for too long. The people with him were clearly worried. I don't recall who it was, but I was thinking heat exhaustion with him. And heat-related issues are no joke; it's called heat *stroke* for a reason. Yes, it's absolutely life-threatening.

Joey Cora's days may well be numbered. Boston had another fiasco. 3 more errors today, and a couple more bonehead moves (infield dribbler, pitcher fails footwork and is never close to tagging the bag...the first baseman's throw was fine, the pitcher messed up). 45-35 after winning on the 4th of July, 3-13 since, 1-9 in their last 10. It feels like a classic "you can't fire the team..." situation. And the boo-birds were singing loud and often this weekend.

The most disturbing aspect of this, for me, isn't that it was happening. Corporate managers may do just about anything they think they can get away with. The ongoing safety violations say a lot. No, what bothers me more is the response. Local cops don't have jurisdiction; I get that, it's a state and federal law issue. But when they kick it up the chain? It's lost. Alabama AG refuses to comment; Alabama labor department may not have been notified. It's somewhat similar to the Uvalde breakdown, where chain of command was a mess. There's a big question in my mind whether the state AG was reticent to do anything because the plant has massive economic, and therefore political, clout. Numerous people need to be in jail; quite a few others deserve to be terminated at least, for failure to oversee...assuming they didn't know. If they knew, then it's also criminal.

Weather: severe!!! cold snap, massive blizzard or ice storm, possibly pea-soup fog (but that might be closer to a civil, transportation disaster in the making) Geological: volcano, tsunami (they're triggered by earthquakes) Natural: a massive, deadly red tide (algae bloom) Industrial: nuclear plant incident civil: ship running aground in the Suez Canal Filling it out more might be more a matter of identifying various types. Equipment failure...could be power, could be something like water treatment. Spills...hazardous chemicals (liquid or vapor), blown well head --> oil spill (or Exxon Valdez). Wind and water under weather are pretty nebulous.

What about...leave killing damage is it is, where 1d6 is 15 points. Do a fixed stun multiplier, or perhaps a VERY narrow one. The bigger change is that the STUN is only reduced by resistant defenses, NOT by normal defenses. When this game to mind, I started thinking the stun mult might be a flat 2. Then 3d6 killing would be 10 BODY, 20 STUN average. If you want some variation, then roll a d6: 1-2, 1.5x STUN; 3-4, 2x STUN; 5-6, 2.5x STUN. Or perhaps 1.5x STUN is 1 only, 2.5x STUN is 6 only, everything else is a 2. This is just off the top of my head right now. Even with 2.5x STUN, the max STUN on a 9 DC attack is 45, but that's very unlikely. Conversely, tho, a decent amount of STUN will get through much of the time. It feels like it helps both damage negation and damage reduction, as long as they're resistant, because now the cost comparison is much more strongly tied to resistant defenses rather than normal defenses.

Apparently, Vegas started as a railroad stop between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. The major impetus for its growth was the construction of Hoover Dam. Yeah, I suspect lots of people won't like the Vegas GP on the streets. With the last stage of the Tour right now, I've been thinking off and on, that really, this would be an awful day to be in Paris. The Bolder Boulder bike race ran at least one year I was there, and I remember how it made the Mall area a confused mess. Las Vegas Boulevard is *packed* most of the time, and they have to shut down the very busy cross-streets too, for a race. Yeah, it'd be a right mess, guv'na.

The last major hurdle's been crossed at the Tour. All the leaders have started...no one tested positive. That's not empty, because 2 other riders did test positive and were pulled out.

The criticism about the CF wasn't losing the ball; sure, as you say, that happens. The problem is he stood there twiddling his thumbs, and didn't even react when he had to see the LF charging over. The claim post-game was that he thought it was out, but...well, we know what happens when you assume. Plus, a couple innings later, there was the moonball pop-up that dropped, untoucned, halfway between the plate and the mound, with the 3rd baseman, catcher, and pitcher all too afraid to actually try to catch it. Nats have apparently set their expectation for trading Soto...4-5 top prospects or major leaguers with limited service time. Translation: young, cheap, and promising to good.

If we required players to know how to play defense, we'd have to do that with a good quarter of them. Could be worse; if we insisted on them knowing how to run the bases properly (especially situationally)...it'd be at least half. A notable question is, the trade deadline is imminent; it's a week from Tuesday. Sox have had a disastrous July...5-13, mostly against the division. But they're only 3 back for the last WC slot, so...buy, hold, or sell? I wouldn't try buying, personally; they're nowhere near close enough to doing something significant in October. Selling...could depend on who else moves. Soto will devour the trade options for one team. Some are pushing for the Angels to trade Ohtani...which I don't think will happen, as he's too interwoven with the team and fan base. Oh, and Sox haters? Jays are up 3-1 after 3 right now.

I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Vingegaard finishes 2nd, too... 6th stage win for J-V. They've crushed every other team this tour.

Got a quick burst of rain about 40 minutes later. Didn't last more than a minute or two...at least at levels loud enough to be heard through a closed window.

It actually does work better in a couple ways: notably less likely to completely fizzle at the low end, somewhat less likely to get the massive STUN. It still allows massive stun, tho.

Very early AM here. Had an inspiration, working through it, when I hear rumbling outside. Huh...yeah, it's thunder. Look out the front door, to the west and north...stars. Overhead...stars. More thunder...flash of lightning. Oh, it's from the east.... Yep. Cloud bank, kind of hard to see because the contrast is bad, given the low light. Stars to the NE, stars to the south. And cloud-to-cloud lightning to the SE. Mostly...I saw one cloud-to-ground, but cloud-to-cloud several times.

Sure it was just a hangover?

They've been talking Soto quite a bit, and where he might end up, on MLB Tonight. Plesak was figuring...given what you might have to trade to get him, you'd have to plan on signing him to an extension. I can see trading Ohtani too. In the "how bad can you look"...we have a new record. Red Sox have been turned into road pizza tonight. Outfield pop-up gets lost...turning into an inside the park grand slam. Later on, with 2 outs, couple runners on, the Toronto hitter sends one straight up the chute. Pitcher moves off to the side...third baseman and catcher watch each other. It falls. Halfway between the plate and the mound. Toronto has already set the record for most runs scored by a visiting team at Fenway Park. It's the 6th inning. It's 27-4. The modern day record for runs for one team is 30...Rangers vs. Orioles. (Modern is since 1900 here.) The all-time is 36, from 1897. THAT could fall...Boston hasn't started putting position players out there as pitchers yet.

OK, but the thread's been considering the options/impact of different approaches to doing KA damage, both BODY and STUN, so it's apples to apples in that sense. The game mechanics are clearly built around normal damage without the use of hit locations, so it's still legitimate to see how any of these compare to what the fundamental baseline is. I will say it's good to bring it up. It helps to recognize that hit locations severely distort the cost of attacks versus defenses, and probably the relative values of PD/ED/Armor versus damage negation versus damage reduction. Brings up a point we haven't really mentioned yet. The core volatility of killing attack dice, for the BODY, has a significant impact on defenses. If KAs are a concern, and if they're allowed comparable maximum DCs, then you have to buy *substantial* rDef. 12d6 normal, you'll see more than 15 BODY *rarely*. And it won't be much over 15. OTOH, facing 4d6 K, 19+ BODY happens 10% of the time. So if you're thinking average defense...14...is enough...you're risking pretty significant damage. Not fatal on its own, but substantial.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but even more...I'd hate to use hit locations with normal attacks, for supers. Hand, arm, leg, foot...attack effectively misses, as it's half STUN and half BODY. That's 56 out of 216, or 1/4. Head and Vitals is 2x BODY, that's 31 / 216 or 1/7. 1.5x STUN adds Stomach, so 1.5x or 2x STUN is also 56 / 216...again basically 1/4. 'course I'm not a fan of hit locations period, but this just inserts a MASSIVE amount of volatility, in huge chunks.

Oh, BTW: for those who like to look at these things... anydice.com has a nice, simple graphical display for simple dice math. They show the exact probability of getting each value, as a percentage. But you can pretty easily read the head or tail sections for things like "how often would I exceed 40 damage on 9d6?" I'm sure there's others out there, I was happy with this. It doesn't work for the killing damage STUN probabilities, tho, of course.