u/calculuschild

I purchased a lifetime plan way back at the beginning in 2018 via the Lingodeer Website. I've used it on and off just fine for years, then took a hiatus around 2023.

Opened the app again last week and my account was still in place. Able to access everything.

I noticed that shortly after Google Play downloaded an update. I think it had been "archived" or something on my phone all these years until I opened it.

Then yesterday I went back in to actually start practicing again, and there are banners everywhere to buy Premium. To my horror, my account is also listed as "Free" now. Same account as I've always used. My streak history is still there showing activity accessing premium content from 2018 to 2023.

Tried the usual sign out/sign in, reinstall app, etc.

I emailed support hoping this would be a quick fix, but they are asking me for bank statements/PayPal receipts from 8 years ago. I have checked, and none of those accounts retain transaction history back that far. This is also before I started budgeting myself so my own history doesn't reach back either. I also delete most emails after 5 years, so I can't find any email receipt if they ever sent one.

Did something happen in the last 3 years that Lingodeer is purging old Lifetime accounts? Any advice?

IT Company near me selling off some old merchandise. They have a handful of Seagate Barracuda 3TB st3000dm001 drives for $40 a piece. Passing SMART tests and full 0 write (waiting to see SMART details still).

Aside from being old, I just found out there was a notorious problem where a whole bunch of these failed at Backblaze.

Am I asking for trouble picking a few of these up? Plan is to just slot them into a DAS and run RAID1 mostly to work as the first full backup of my working computer, but potentially attaching to an old laptop and using to serve plex/immich locally.

Otherwise I'm probably just sticking with backing up only my most important files in an external WD drive I have lying around until prices come down to a more reasonable point.

IT Company near me selling off some old merchandise. They have a handful of Seagate Barracuda 3TB st3000dm001 drives for $40 a piece. Passing SMART tests and full 0 write (waiting to see SMART details still).

Aside from being old, I just found out there was a notorious problem where a whole bunch of these failed at Backblaze.

Am I asking for trouble picking a few of these up? Plan is to just slot them into a DAS and run RAID1 mostly to work as a first backup of my working computer, but potentially attaching to an old laptop and using to serve plex/immich locally.

Otherwise I'm probably just sticking with backing up only my most important files in an external WD drive I have lying around until prices come down to a more reasonable point.

Edit: Asked if they at any others. They have some Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 (HDS723030ALA640) 0F12450 3TB. Seems like these ones have a much better track record.

Just about to enter part 2 of Delian Tomb. I am writing out the list of events happening after X number of respites, but pretty sure I missed one.

Can anybody help me with a list of all the time-sensitive plot points so I can track the different developments?

Edit: Answer has been provided. Thanks for helping me double-check!

It's been a while since I read this, and my wife finished it more recently.

Today she was asking me "hey, would you love me if I was a monkey woman like in The Children of Time?", referring to Lain.

Somehow she got the impression that thr passengers of the Gilgsmesh were an evolved post-human monkey-like species, as there are some comments from Kern that she doesn't recognize them and they are monkeys. I don't remember having that impression at all. Rather I thought it was simply that she considers herself above all the other humans so she calls them monkeys in a belittling manner.

Can anyone who read this more recently settle this?

Do Armament cores do anything after T11 is unlocked? Trying to decide how hard I should go in the Black Market or focus on other items.

Hey folks! After several great sessions in the Delian Tomb using the pregen character sheets, a couple of my players are looking to make some changes to their characters now that they have the rules under their belt. I pointed them toward ForgeSteel, which works great for picking all the options. But the PDF output turns a Level-1 character that used to fit in 2 pages into a 5 page behemoth with skills and features and abilities and powers spread all over and sometimes duplicated, which makes it really unwieldy at the table.

Is there a form-fillable version of the more condensed character sheet style that the DT pregens use? Or some hidden option to rearrange/remove parts of the Forge Steel PDF? For example, it's really nice to have all your skills in a little line right next to the attributes where they will always be used together, rather than a half-page table on a whole separate sheet.

Maybe this is just "Director decides". If a player throws a goblin 6 squares into the perimeter wall of a stone dungeon room, is the intent that the 5-ft square of wall becomes rubble, making a "crater" in the wall (unless Director says otherwise)?

Then, expanding this, can you progressively "tunnel" through a thick obstacle over multiple goblin throws as long as each forced movement breaks a full unit of a block?

It seems to be a common question about how exactly out-of-combat abilities are supposed to work. I have my own opinions, but I'm curious what the rest of you would do? A lot of posts seem to swing one way or another, so I have a poll with some different arguments I have seen.

Imagine this scenario:

"The heroes come to a raging river, and it's too wide and deep to cross safely. Then one player says 'I'm going to freeze the river so we can walk across!'"

Does your director allow this? Pick the first answer that most closely matches your playstyle. (Directors please vote as well)

(This specific scenario hasn't come up for me, but I have seen it used as an example a couple times with people arguing both extremes.)

View Poll

Say my players want to spend several days adventuring without taking a respite. Is there any rule for how sleep/camping is handled outside of a respite? I assume it would just come down to "it's getting dark, and you need to find a place to camp" and just have a narrative moment to signal a day has passed but no benefits/recoveries are awarded. Is there anything else to it?

I guess specifically I'm curious about time tracking. Some adventures mention to track number of respites for purposes of an in-game timer for certain events or villain progress. But if my players are just out in the woods for 3, 6, 20 encounters, it seems time should still pass in some way. When do I tell the players to camp and advance the timer, even if they aren't getting the benefit of a respite?

The rules state that heroes should generally be able to find materials at their echelon or lower. Is the intent that as long as the director deems the material is reasonably accessible, that it is just "free"? Do project rolls inherently include the step of "tracking down materials"?

For example, in Delian Tomb, heroes receive costmary leaves as a reward. Do I treat this as a "bonus 10 project points toward the next healing potion" because the players don't have to track down the materials? Or is implied that in addition to 45 points of progress, I should have my players spend a separate respite activity just getting the materials? I also understand that highly "rare" or higher echelon materials might deserve a whole sidequest, but my question is more about the low-echelon materials.

At some level I know the director can kind of handwave things, but I am curious what the intent is, or what others have found to work well.

This is going to be a really dumb question.

I'm reading through the Delian tomb in preparation for our first game, and there's the hallway D2 Fresco Hall. In the hallway is a scythe trap. There are rules here for how to detect, disarm, or dodge the trap.

Now, my question is not so much about the rules, but maybe DM advice? How do I actually go about presenting this "exploration" part without tipping off the players that there is a trap here? I'm asking for general advice not specific to just this hallway.

"So you enter the hallway, and there are these frescoes on the wall, and a dead goblin with his head cut off. The hallway continues further into the tomb...." smiles awkwardly at the players.

"So... we go down the hall I guess".

"OH THERE WAS A TRAP. TAKE 7 DAMAGE. YOU SHOULD HAVE CHECKED FOR TRAPS."

"Right."

That seems like a weird "gotcha" that wouldn't be fun for new players. But at the same time, the fact that the director is pausing here in the hallway until the players figure out the secret feels weird and forced, so now every time I point out a tapestry on the wall they are going to spend 20 minutes looking for a secret that isn't there.

It seems like Draw Steel doesn't have any particular "dungeon exploration" rules other than montage tests. Am I meant to do a montage here about this hallway? Do I just straight up ask everyone to investigate? Do I awkwardly wait for the players to walk into the trap? u/IGAldaris below summarized it very well: I don't want to break immersion by making it feel like "The director is putting on training wheels for us" every time there is a secret nearby.

This is something I never really figured out in D&D either (a lot of "...The DM stopped here so there is definitely a secret here. Time to play "'guess what the DM wants us to click on.'"), but I know some older systems use a more open "15 minute turn" kind of thing that sounded interesting.

Wonderful people. I have just completed Rivendell, which was amazing. The *only* issue I had is the dwarf minis seem to have beard pieces that don't fit, and collide with the helmets.

Now I see this is a common issue from some other posts. Then my question is, if there is a good way to get just the beard pieces, or a brand that sells known good alternative dwarf minis that match the Rivendell aesthetic? Not looking for any particular shop, but maybe advice or experience from others who might have already done the same thing.

Lego doesn't have stock of these beards individually, and yourwobb doesn't seem to either.