u/ddeads

Feeling cute, might delete this later.

TL;DR I found what I feel like is a good deal but I don't trust myself and am looking for input. Original sticker on this 2025 was $95k and they're offering it to me for $72k. Has 6k miles on it, and one owner. Totally clean except for a small dent on the front bumper. I have hangups about spending money on cars, but I feel like this is a lot of car for what I'd be getting. Help, friends.

---

Edit: Still mentally working through this but I want to thank everyone who took the time to read and reply.

---

I've always driven older vehicles and kept them for a very long time while buying nicer safer cars for my wife. My current truck is getting on in years (14 years old), but doesn't have too many miles (~105k), and I'm confident I can still keep doing what I do (which is drive the car and enjoy no payment).

My mentality has always been that vehicles are for getting places and once it's paid off you hold onto it and ride that wave. Not a bad idea for sure. However, I've been stalking Ineos since Doug Demuro's video March 2024 and have fantasized about owning one ever since. I've never owned something nice.

Right now I am in a different financial space than I was with the last vehicle I bought for myself 13 years ago. Combined with a little down plus trading in my truck and my payments on this would be about $1200 a month. This is totally within my budget and I will not be car poor.

However, seeing the number $1200 on the paper makes me break into a cold sweat. I've run through my family budget a million times and it is well within our range, but it's still nerve wracking for a guy who 20 years ago had trouble paying half that for rent.

My wife and I don't have kids, and my budget accounts for our necessities (of course) and prioritizes saving for retirement *before* we add in luxuries like this. It even accounts for luxuries for my wife first (I'm not henpecked but giving for others is one of my love languages), like her car lease (she likes new car every few years), and other things. Sure, car payments are a necessity, but not car payments like this. At this point it's luxury money, but luxury money we can manage.

Long story short, I can financially swing this but it still makes me nervous. I think of all of things around house we could beautify with that money, or the other things we could get instead, and I feel awfully guilty for spending money on me. And yet... I test drove it today and fucking love it. I walked away without signing to cool off but I'm not sure I'm cooling off; rather, I'm worried I'm just sitting here overthinking it.

I'm going on vacation next week and figure I cool off while I'm gone, but I'm worried this might jump off the lot. Don't know if I should pull the trigger or roll the dice, and if it's gone try to find something when I get back.

Completed Hard Siege wave 15 two separate times and no credit. No Accolades and no credit in the Ordeals, either.

Why is every single patch a buggy mess?

I'm currently creating a Pathfinder 2e (remastered) conversion of Curse of Strahd using Curse of Strahd Reloaded as the narrative basis. The campaign is running levels 2–12, and I'm already planning to use Automatic Bonus Progression (CoS has notoriously sparse treasure) and Free Archetype (I just like it) as variant rules.

I'm now considering whether to also add Proficiency Without Level, and I'd love input from people who have used it, especially in horror or gritty campaigns.

My thinking so far:

Reasons it might suit CoS:

• Barovia should feel dangerous at any level. Standard PF2e math means zombie shamblers become irrelevant by level 8 or 9, which undermines the horror tone. PwL keeps lower-level threats credible in numbers.
• The compression of outcomes feels appropriate for survival horror (there is less reliance on dramatic crits and its more of a war of attrition).
• The GM Core itself explicitly mentions PwL in the context of "gritty, low-magic, survival-horror" games, which is almost a direct description of CoS.

My concerns:

• I've done some stat block conversion work already through the first Arc of CoS Reloaded. PwL would require recalculating all of these. It's not a big deal, but I'd rather not do it if the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
• I'm concerned that encounter building becomes less reliable as the level-gap heuristics PF2e uses changes.
• I've read it's unpopular in the community and I want to understand why before committing.
• My players are coming from 5e. I'm currently running them through Troubles in Otari, so they will have some PF2e experience before we do this campaign, but they won't be veterans. I'm wondering if PwL makes character building decisions punishing for players still internalizing the system.

Specific questions:

1. Have you used PwL in a horror or gritty campaign? Did it achieve the intended tone or did it create more problems than it solved?
2. How much does it affect encounter building in practice? Is it a manageable adjustment or does it genuinely make the XP budget system unreliable?
3. Does it feel like a meaningful change at the table or mostly a behind-the-scenes math adjustment that players barely notice?
4. Combined with ABP and Free Archetype, does PwL create unexpected interactions or does each variant stay reasonably self-contained?
5. For players transitioning from 5e who are still learning PF2e, is PwL an additional burden or does it actually make the system feel more familiar coming from 5e's flatter math?

I'd be happy to share more about the conversion if the context is helpful. I'm also hoping to share the conversion once I've finished if anyone is interested. I'm looking for some honest takes from both players and GMs.