LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Training PhD Students to be Fat Newts (Part 2)” by alkjash


Listen Later

[Thanks Inkhaven for hosting me! This is my fourth and last post and I'm already exhausted from writing. Wordpress.com!]

Last time, I introduced the concept of the “Fat Newt” (fatigue neutral) build, a way of skilling up characters in Battle Brothers that aims to be extremely economical with the fatigue resource, relying entirely on each brother's base 15 fatigue regeneration per turn. This choice frees up stat and skill points to distribute evenly among offense, defense and utility. To illustrate, let's compare two possible ways to build a bro.

The first brother is a Nimbleforged Cleaver Duelist, who wields the weighty and brutish one-handed Orc Cleaver. To successfully attack multiple times a turn, this brother needs sky-high base stats - attack, defense, HP, fatigue, and resolve - and a continuous investment of stat points to reach around 70 maximum fatigue. Furthermore, this build requires a specific suite of offensive and fatigue-recovery perks to function, such as Berserk, Killing Frenzy, Duelist, Cleaver Mastery, and Recover. Only the most seasoned of Hedge Knights and Sellswords can pull this build off consistently.

This brother also needs to stay alive in the thick of battle, so optimally he wears “Nimbleforged” armor, famed medium [...]

---

First published:

November 26th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ptd6XuKZbEDqwr63N/training-phd-students-to-be-fat-newts-part-2

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,332 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,452 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

8,579 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,183 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

93 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Your Undivided Attention

1,598 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,932 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

95 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

501 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,518 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,938 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

546 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

131 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

93 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

467 Listeners