u/SlightlyTwistedGames

Long time lurker, first time poster. I have an issue in need of advice.

I have a colleague who is technically above me in the office hierarchy, though I do not report to them. We work together on various projects and have an excellent working relationship. I would consider them a work friend as well. For context, I am tech and this person is comms.

I have increasingly found myself running a bit more cover for this person than I am used to - or really need to - with anyone else. Here are a few examples:

1. This person drafted a widely-distributed externally-facing email that contained a line: "If you have any questions, please respond to <insert email address>." The email went out, but that email address was incorrect (it did not exist), so I quietly created it so we would receive the email responses (which we did). I have had to do this twice and now have two "dummy" emails that have no purpose other than what they were created for (to fix an error). One of these emails is a misspelling of our office name.
2. A very obvious grammatical error was included in another widely-distributed externally-facing email. I quietly corrected it before the email was sent, but now I'm worried I have to check this person's work going forward... which I'm not excited about because, as I mentioned, this person is above me in office hierarchy. This is not my job, but I try to be a good colleague.
3. This person has a growing habit of being slow to respond or unresponsive to inter-office email which causes a domino effect of delaying tasks. This results in an unnecessary last-minute scramble to meet deadlines. I believe that "scramble time" tends to be where errors and mistakes happen, so their increasing regularity makes me anxious.

I have a number of conflicting thoughts...

These things feel small... even petty... to bring to my own manager (this person's co-equal), but they are becoming troublesome.

I worry that an error or deadline will slip through and I will be blamed for the error or missed deadline, and my only defense will be to "finger-point" at this higher-up who actually is responsible.

My office have some politics that I try to stay out of. However, I am "out" of these dynamics while this person is "in" and therefore I feel more vulnerable as a scapegoat for issues that cone up. My manager is great, and would defend me, but I don't want to put my manager in that position if I can help it. I also don't think this person would scapegoat me (as I said, we have a good working relationship and are office friends), but other "in" people of the office might scapegoat me to cover for this person's error(s).

I hate feeling like a tattle-tale, but I'm not sure how else to proceed.

In a recent session my PCs fought some large-size spiders. During the fight, one of the spiders climbed up on the ceiling above the PCs. This had no real mechanical purpose other than the spider needed room to fight with its friends on the walls and ground. The PCs could still reach the horse-size spider and vice versa.

This ceiling spider was finished off by a critical hit, and narratively slopped spider guts all over the PCs (who were grouped up beneath it), then fell and splattered more guts everywhere.

And it dawned on me that my PCs have probably never bathed... or have they?

In a setting where water is rationed for drinking, how do you clean yourself? What kind of hygiene routine do desert-dwelling people have?

In social situations are people just like "Yep, that dude is covered in blood from a battle they had a week ago and that is normal and I am therefore fine with it."?

My game group still feel like we have a lot of game left to enjoy with the base TI4. The only areas we wish were a bit more robust are the map and objectives.

If we JUST added the objectives and hex map pieces (not a bigger map, just wider variety of hexes from which to build it) from PoK without anything else, would we break anything?

What about the factions?

I guess im asking if it’s all or nothing.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: Thank you for your input. One (very minor) consideration is my base game is painted and I will not have time to paint the expansion before our next game.

Secondary question, is PoK out of print? I can't find it anywhere in stock. Does anyone have an idea if/when it will be reprinted

My partner's sibling has decided to get married to their partner after about 20 years. My partner learned about the small courthouse ceremony and party about a week ago. The event is scheduled for July 3rd.

Our family, with two young children, has had an extended family vacation scheduled for several months from June 30th through July 4th. We will be bringing our two small dogs. This vacation is at my parent's home on a lake and will include my sibling and their four teenage children, who my children adore.

My partner is strongly considering flying to this wedding and then flying back the next day.

I have expressed my understanding that the wedding is an important event, but that it would be extremely inconsiderate of my partner to take this bite out of our vacation. With normal notice, I would be more than happy to drive the entire family to the wedding, but because of the conflict, I am unhappy about my partner's intentions to go.

1. If my partner flies to the wedding it will require a 90-minute drive to the airport and back on Friday morning and again on Saturday. This seems like a big bite out of our vacation. Saturday was the day we were leaving anyways, so it would seem logical that I pack up the kids and just leave the family vacation when it was time to pick my partner up from the airport.
2. I am entirely capable of caring for two small children and two dogs by myself for a single night. However, being on a lake and around boats, I feel spread thin watching two children who cannot swim and two dogs who roam.
3. I do not want to short my children time with their cousins, who will have fewer and fewer opportunities to see them as the cousins head off to college.
4. I am generally a very easy going person with an adaptable nature. However, I have communicated my lack of flexibility on this issue. I believe that because I am generally so accommodating, it is a surprise to my partner that I am unhappy with their intention to take this trip.

My partner has consulted with friends who believe that the wedding is more important than the vacation. I disagree. I believe that, with proper notice we could have scheduled around the wedding and worked with my sibling to schedule the extended family vacation.

Am I the asshole for not supporting my partner leaving our family vacation to attend their sibling's short-notice wedding?

Happy surprise yesterday during my honor run.

I had been preparing for the Balthazar fight in the Shadowfell and finally thought I was ready. My team was level 9 and I was running my TAV (Gloomstalker), Shadowheart (I always insta-respec her into paladin), Wyll (Warlock), and Gayle (Necomrancer). I rolled in with 2 air elementals (one Wyll one Gayle), 2 ice mephits (Gayle), and 2 skeleton archers (Gayle).

My plan was for the summons to tank and fight mobs while my team burned down Balthazar. So I group-snuck before jumping down to Balthazar's platform and moved my team of 10 into mostly elevated position with Wyll and Shadowheart on the same level as Balthazar so Wyll can chat and Shadowheart could be present for the dialogue.

As I'm sneaking, of course I see all these piles of bones all over the place, and I realize that these are the undead mobs that Balthazar will summon for the battle and I - as one is never supposed to do - decided to try something new.

While Shadowheart was sneaking, I used her "throw" action to hurl a pile of bones off the floating platform and into oblivion. My thought was that I might be able to just do this with every pile of bones and fight Balthazar alone, and if it doesn't work, oh well, I'm already in position to fight him.

That didn't happen. When I executed the throw action Shadowheart immediately broke stealth and Balthazar reacted... BUT instead of the normal dialogue, it was the generic "You did something bad and must now face the consequences" that initiates an immediate fight.

Balthazar goes to cast his Legendary "animate dead" spell (I can't recall it's name) and a countrspell reaction from Wyll appears.

I think to myself, "why yes, I would love to counter this spell, but I don't think it will work on a legendary power. Oh well, I suppose it's worth a 5th level Warlock spell slot because, if it DOES work, I'm gonna roll this guy."

But it DID work and there were no undead mobs to fight. I burned down Balthazar in three turns of focus fire while he cried in a corner. Bummer I missed the Shadowheart "You can't take her, my god wants to kill her!" dialogue, but small sacrifice for a big swing.

My PCs will be encountering a Worthy Sacrifices hazard.

One of the countermeasures is a complexity 1 Nature/Religion skill challenge. My question is, what does engaging in that countermeasure look like from a narrative perspective?

Put simply, what is the PC actually doing by engaging their nature and/or religion skill to disable the hazard?

Thank you!

Edit: Link to Worthy Sacrifices hazard https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=trap515