TRPG General Chat

Miniman

12:02 AM

@doppelgreener Thanks for that!

doppelgreener

@Miniman no worries; i suggest you go on a comment flagging spree for the obsolete comments ;)

or just the one nuke request, whichever

Joshua Aslan Smith

I was so jazzed to get the boba fett helmet for getting a bounty last year

SO JAZZED

I wonder if I can wear those old hats

doppelgreener

@JoshuaAslanSmith nope :'(

unless the same ones return in WB2014 in their own right as hats you re-earn

Joshua Aslan Smith

TEH SADNESS

doppelgreener

e.g. I think they had the same mask for the Necromancer hat in winterbash '12 and '13, but I had to re-earn it in 2013.

and that was the same hat!

BESW

12:25 AM

@Tijnkwan Hi!

Tijnkwan

Hi

i was checking the transcript to find madmaxjr ideas for a christmas campaign

Miniman

@Tijnkwan Rudolf the Fiendish Dire Half-Dragon Reindeer had a very shiny nose.

4

Tijnkwan

i posted a question for a christmas campaign some time ago and I am thinking to make one myself

well he had these ideas, and I might use some

PCs battling the hordes of Christmas, to push them back out of October and November, and back into the realm of December.
Santa wants to take over the holidays and your Players can play characters based on the other holiday creatures/people.
But it was too late. As you enter the chamber, the deformed mass of muscular tissue, eyes, and teeth, adorned with tattered red rags and white faux fur tufts is already feasting on the remains of Sir Lord Turkington. Thanksgiving is lost, but perhaps there is still time to save Halloween.

i just copied all what he said and might use some ideas to begin writing the campaign

Miniman

@Tijnkwan What is this "Thanksgiving" you speak of?

BESW

Heheh.

You might also look up Rare Exports Inc.

Tijnkwan

12:34 AM

so for characters I have these: Frosty
Santa
Elves
Ghost of Christmas Past
Ghost of Christmas Present
Ghost of Christmas Future
and now Rudolf the Fiendish Dire Half-Dragon Reindeer :P

Rare exports inc?

AgentPaper

Thanksgiving is an old Indian holiday, from what I hear. It roughly translates to "Before Christmas" and is traditionally celebrated by the ritual sacrifice of turkeys in preparation for Black Friday.

Tijnkwan

ah it's a movie

Miniman

@Tijnkwan Could consider making Scrooge a powerful force for good

Tijnkwan

yeah and he is plagued by ghosts

! quest marker above head

BESW

@Tijnkwan It is also a pair of short films in a related but distinctly separate universe.

The movie is probably best for Big Epic Horror Campaign Ideas, but the short features are good for quietly unsettling character pieces.

Tijnkwan

12:39 AM

alright i might give it a go

so you guys got any more charaters chat i need for a christmas session?

characters*

wax eagle

Frosty?

BESW

(I highly recommend all three Rare Exports features on general principle as well as for campaign fodder.)

wax eagle

also the bergermeister

Tijnkwan

frosty is 1st on the list

BESW

Krampus.

wax eagle

12:40 AM

@Tijnkwan ah, sorry missed that on the first line there

Tijnkwan

yeah i thought so

maybe a town with 3 wise village elders and a newly born child?

BESW

John McClane, of course.

wax eagle

the abominable snowman

BESW

Can't have a Christmas pop culture homage mashup without McClane.

2

Adeptus

Went to Supanova "pop culture" convention on the weekend (ie, like Comic Con). Got some books signed by Robin Hobb & Sean Williams. Didn't get any celebrity autographs or photos this time, they're getting too expensive. $50 auto/$60 photo for Alan Tudyk & other big stars, $20/$30 for voice actors

wax eagle

12:42 AM

@BESW so very true

Miniman

@Adeptus Apparently Robin Hobb is visiting Canberra soon.

Tijnkwan

...so how do I work John McClane in an campaign about christmas xD just an badass npc shouting Jippee Ki yay motherf*cker

BESW

That depends entirely on the nature of the campaign.

Maybe he's trapped in the enemy's base and becomes an ally of the PCs when they break in.

Tijnkwan

hehe, and i just remembered the grinch, how could i forget him

doppelgreener

I once plotted a game about Christmas.

Santa was a Frostrager (from Frostburn, this being a 3.5e game).

He was insane, and his "Ho, ho, ho!" was to be a psychic attack during his fight.

Tijnkwan

12:48 AM

@doppelgreener you still got some campaign notes laying around?

doppelgreener

Let's see if I do.

Adeptus

@Miniman Yep she's doing a signing tour for her new book

Miniman

@Adeptus Yeah, I haven't actually read that one yet. I'm waiting for my sister to be finished with it, and she's taking her time about it.

Adeptus

@Miniman I'm still a couple of trilogies behind :P

Miniman

@Adeptus Well if one of them is the Soldier Son trilogy, I'd strongly recommend staying behind.

doppelgreener

12:52 AM

@Tijnkwan Apparently not! I did not actually manage to get into the campaign, though - my players did not enjoy 3.5e, and I decided to go for a different plot when we moved to 4e. :)

I might have some files at home describing it.

Tijnkwan

@doppelgreener ahh to bad, well i am going to make this for 5e

Miniman

@Tijnkwan Holy crap I just realised.

doppelgreener

I could also just summarise the basic points here. It was to be a sort of railroaded story, which is part of why I abandoned it in moving to 4e - for that game I went more for just creating a situation the players had free reign in, where three factions were on the brink of war (and one would actually assure its presence), and the PCs were placed in a position of power to influence how the events would unfold.

Tijnkwan

I have a Lan-party from 20-24 dec and we are going to play a few sessions and I thought it would be cool to play a chistmas session

Miniman

Santa's flying reindeer are perytons!

Tijnkwan

12:55 AM

@Miniman hehehe yeah that would make sense

Miniman

@Tijnkwan I'm not just talking about your campaign here...

BESW

Dec 22 '12 at 15:51, by Jonathan Hobbs

Personally, my best story creations have had almost no resemblance to their starting point. I'm designing a campaign with a human empire and elven empire that originally started out as a christmas campaign to save christmas and bring down santa and free the christmas elves.

doppelgreener

@BESW Hooray! You found it.

BESW

Not much, though.

doppelgreener

... Yeah. Nuts.

Tijnkwan

12:57 AM

well so far i have 6 pages with ideas xD. i am going to bed and i will think about it for a while

doppelgreener

Oh hey yeah. That's just a remark that my 4e campaign sprung from the loose story threads of the Christmas campaign that never was. Which... I had actually totally forgotten.

Tijnkwan

thx for the ideas guys

BESW

Let's see.

doppelgreener

@Tijnkwan Goodnight!

BESW

Mar 5 '13 at 12:16, by Jonathan Hobbs

I've had this campaign and the Christmas campaign, and both started off with the first fight involving something big coming along and crushing somebody with a club-arm.

Aug 1 '13 at 13:21, by Jonathan Hobbs

@Johnny I once ran a Christmas Campaign for my friends. Just some elves and yetis and other typical fantasy stuff. The characters had been summoned to this distant wintery realm to save christmas. The players found it hard to connect to the setting, because not only were they in a fantasy world, their characters were in their characters' version of a fantasy world.

doppelgreener

12:58 AM

Might be easier for me to summarise unless I actually explained the plot somewhere.

Miniman

Time to go ~~consume the the souls of the damned and grow stronger and more powerful~~ have lunch.

doppelgreener

@Miniman i can see how the crossed out bit would work too

Miniman

@doppelgreener Not sure what to say to that...thanks?

BESW

1:59 AM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Ummm. I had to read that question three times to figure out what you were asking, and I know I'm more aligned with your brain than the average user.

Less reliance on quotes as primary explanation would be good; use quotes to back up your question, not to pose it.

Grubermensch

Seconded. Also, if I'm understanding correctly, this question is a bit in the vein of "I know this is the answer, but tell me how to do it," rather than "How do I achieve this goal?". Less likely to get responses to the former.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:19 AM

editing.

AgentPaper

Yeah, I read that and have no idea what you're talking about. I wouldn't even know it had anything to do with 3.5 if not for the tag.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

better?

BESW

Much better.

AgentPaper

What is an audit trail?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

... ah.

BESW

2:23 AM

@AgentPaper The ability for a third party to analyse events after the fact.

AgentPaper

Ah, so evidence then

BESW

Are you explicitly removing non-magical options from answers?

Miniman

I think it's worth pointing out that the question in the title is a bit of a different one to the question in the body.

BESW

@AgentPaper Collected, sorted evidence.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Miniman er...

edits appreciated then, since it doesn't seem that way to me

AgentPaper

2:24 AM

So, basically your question is, "Is there a way, magical or otherwise, to use a door without leaving physical evidence of your passing?"

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@AgentPaper no

the opposite of that

What mechanisms exist to Create after the fact evidence of passage

Grubermensch

This reminds me of math theory classes at school. Needs loosening of the language.

AgentPaper

So then, a way to know, magically or otherwise, that a door has been opened?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@AgentPaper to record

specifically, to record in an incrementing counter

BESW

He wants someone to be able to go look at a log of all door useage.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:25 AM

@Grubermensch nope. If "you can't do it this way" is the answer, that's the answer

AgentPaper

Ah, so basically you need a magical computer, of sorts

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@AgentPaper nope

That word is meaningless in context.

I need a magical sensor linked to some way of recording the state of that sensor.

BESW

At its simplest: a bowl into which drops a pebble every time a door is opened in the building.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

It is likely that this will be used as part of computations, as referenced in my previous answer, but is not a useful word in this context.

AgentPaper

Well, you need something to read and write data.

Grubermensch

2:26 AM

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I don't mean loosening of the constraints, I mean your words sound like a theory textbook.

Miniman

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Sorry, I parsed it wrong.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@AgentPaper write only

@Grubermensch ::smiles happily::

AgentPaper

Well, take input and write data, I guess.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@AgentPaper yes.

BESW

@BrianBallsun-Stanton If you can unpack "audit trail," I'd happily upvote.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:27 AM

The problem is that mechanical traps are (likely) out, as they can be bypassed with a halfway comptetent rogue

Grubermensch

@BrianBallsun-Stanton That's only true if the trap is accessible from the outside of the door.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW better?

@Grubermensch not in context of 3.5, unless you can demonstrate how making a dsiable device resistant trap can operate in this case, which makes for an excellent answer

AgentPaper

Seems like the only real way to do what you want is some form of Contingency.

BESW

I want to say the best answer is security through obscurity, and get a druid to train a colony of ordinary (mindless) ants.

Grubermensch

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I don't know nearly enough 3.5 to do this;.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

2:30 AM

@BESW Yeah...it'd be interesting to explore that route

@AgentPaper remember, scale.

AgentPaper

Oh, I guess you could animate the door, and then just ask it how many times it was opened later on.

BESW

Again, scale.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@AgentPaper I'd be fascinated to see your full answer.

BESW

@AgentPaper You don't want to have to ask every door in the dungeon individually.

AgentPaper

what about scale?

And I couldn't make a full answer since I'm not familiar enough with DnD 3.5. Perhaps someone else could run with that though.

BESW

2:32 AM

Now... mimic doors...

...with rings of hivemind...

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW Words of darkness?

AgentPaper

Ah. Well, then you'd need to animate a box to serve as a monitor, then telepathically link it to the doors somehow.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Turn the doors into a sorcerer hivemind?

AgentPaper

Or that.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Anyways, is the question clear now?

BESW

2:33 AM

"Bob's not answering! Bob! COME IN, BOB!"

Grubermensch

Ooooh has idea

you need to broaden the definition of door

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

(I do rather need to get back to work)

BESW

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Yes, thanks!

AgentPaper

While you're at it, may as well turn the whole place into a sentient magical hivemind to observe and even attack intruders.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Grubermensch I look forward to your answer.

Grubermensch

2:33 AM

Can't promise it makes 3.5 sense

AgentPaper

Though, there's something to be said for a system that doesn't alert anyone to it's presence, as well.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW remove comment then?

cheers all.

BESW

Just did.

Miniman

Your surveillance state runs on necrotic cysts planted in all the citizens, right?

Oops, he's gone.

Grubermensch

I am pretty sure I could design this system in real life, but I don't know if 3.5 cares....

BESW

2:40 AM

Thing is, stuff that's totally uncrackable IRL goes splooey in 3.5, and vice versa.

Grubermensch

Yeah I think that's why there's no point in my answer.

Any mechanical device is just reduced to a number.

And we all know players are excellent at overcoming numbers.

Tangetially: Shouldn't step number one of creating a magical surveillance state be to make magic illegal? This reduces the problem space somewhat.

Miniman

@Grubermensch Yeah, but it's impossible to enforce.

wax eagle

@Grubermensch heard back from Jeremy Crawford and updated my answer. He basically said about what I thought he would. The only sure way to conceal position is hidden, it's up to DM discretion after that

Grubermensch

@waxeagle That is very disappointing. I think this factor may push me off of running 5e games.

@Miniman Of course, but now you have a different thing to audit.

Now you set up a panopticon to record all uses of magic at all times.

Then you can audit the doors with devices that might be compromised by magic.

wax eagle

@Grubermensch given the way 5e works, and it's attempt at slightly more realism, I may adjust how it works, in our game. Particularly re: ranged attacks. I'm thinking inside of 30' you can make them accurately (you can hear well enough), over that and you have a 1 in 3 chance of choosing the right square.

Miniman

2:50 AM

@Grubermensch If there's a way to do this, that would probably make a good answer to the question.

Grubermensch

@Miniman Tragically out of my wheelhouse.

Miniman

@Grubermensch Me too. I can't help but feel like the answer to this question might boil down to "A very carefully phrased Wish." Which, let's face it, can answer almost any 3.5 question.

Grubermensch

@waxeagle I really think this rule has been characterized by a complete lack of understanding how difficult it is to fight a battle by sound alone. Apparently everybody in 5e is Daredevil.

At the very least, it should be nigh impossible to distinguish targets.

BESW

"Marco!"
"Don't hit me!"

Grubermensch

"Now I know who to hit. My friends are all PCs. PCs never fear death!"

Miniman

3:02 AM

I'd hit a guy named Marco.

Grubermensch

Alright, time to go quest for dinner before I starve myself to death.

Miniman

Nah, you can survive 4 days without eating.

Assuming your Constitution is average, obviously.

Pixie

@Miniman Maybe this is the fourth!

Miniman

@Pixie Ah, good point. Also hi.

Pixie

Hey!

Miniman

3:09 AM

I love when you're testing something and you can mess with it however you want.

Pixie

Marco... reminds me of the Marcovich scenes from Daily Lives of High School Boys. LARPing at its finest.

@Miniman Oh? What are you testing?

Miniman

@Pixie Potential options for a database backup plan that might use less disk space.

Pixie

Ahh, I see.

Miniman

I just trashed a bunch of tables and replaced them with "Miniman's Awesome Schema"

Shalvenay

3:44 AM

hrm...in D&D, is there anything that says vampires require humanoid blood for nourishment?

if not -- why would a vampire go to all the work of hunting humans, when blood from the day's livestock slaughter would be readily accessible in most towns etal, and far cheaper and easier to get to boot?

Adeptus

re Brian's door question... modern doors have hinges on one side & door jamb on the other. If the trigger for the counting mechanism (or a trap) was hidden behind the jamb, would it be immune to detection & disabling?

Miniman

@Adeptus Not in D&D.

Shalvenay

I, personally, would route wiring inside the door and make the door itself into a switch with an electrical current running through it

the advantage of that is that there's nothing to tip the eye about what's going on

the rogue can stare at the situation all he wants, but unless he has a DMM, he'll have to tear the door apart to figure it out

Adeptus

@Miniman What would the DC be, to find/disable a button that is held down by the hinge, and triggered by the hinge opening?

doppelgreener

The very same Brian has an alternative method to dealing with trapped doors:

May 10 '13 at 14:29, by Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Novian Adamantine Pickaxe. Essential D&D adventuring gear for me.

May 10 '13 at 14:29, by Brian Ballsun-Stanton

I tend to , as a player, be allergic to doors.

So he makes his own. Through the wall that is beside the door.

Shalvenay

3:54 AM

Adeptus: DC 5 perception with the door open -- a switch in the hinge-side jamb (which is what you're talking about) isn't that hard to spot

maybe DC 10 or 15 if it's hidden in the jamb well

Adeptus

@Shalvenay Yes, but by that stage it's too late. If it triggers on opening, and you have to open it to detect it...

Shalvenay

@Adeptus: in the context of a counter -- pushing the button 20 or 100 times to confuse everybody's the best route anyway :P

Adeptus

@Shalvenay If you know it's a counter. It could be a poison gas trap that failed to work. Or an alarm to summon the guards.

Shalvenay

I'd say it'd be possible but harder with the door shut due to the switch plunger blocking the door-frame gap

you'd almost want a thin something-or-the-other to slide along the door edges

Adeptus

Found a diagram to illustrate what I'm talking about...

The part labelled "door stop" would conceal anything hidden behind it, and stop it from being messed with, even if you somehow knew it was there.

Shalvenay

4:00 AM

aaah

and the hinge'd block it from the other side

in that config, at least

Adeptus

(I don't know whether medieval/renaissance doors had that feature, but it seems logical, for strength as well as security & stopping drafts)

Shalvenay

yeah, most single-hung doors would basically have to be that way

doppelgreener

@Tijnkwan Here's a summary of the important bits of the setting and plot: The Campaign to Rescue Christmas.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Right now, my best answer on the door question stems from how the star trek sets actually managed doors. The problem is that I can't figure out if 1hd creatures have a "caster level" for purposes of animating undead squirrels.

Because it's so much more fun to think about this rather than "oh goodie, our permissions on our wiki are broken again."

Hey @doppelgreener Since you seem to have actually read my answer there. Any other fixes indicated?

Magician

4:16 AM

Brian: "The problem is that I can't figure out if 1hd creatures have a "caster level" for purposes of animating undead squirrels." #dndworldproblems

5

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Magician .... yes.

But at least it continues my tradition of asking incredibly tricky and obscure questions.... so that's a thing?

doppelgreener

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I'm only around a third to half of the way through; I'll leave comments if I spot more stuff when I finish. (And probably leave a message here or something to say I finished if I don't find anything, to give you some peace of mind on that.)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@doppelgreener cheers.

I can definitely tell that my "academic writing" buffer is starting to fill up, if papers-as-answers are starting to emerge unbidden...

Shalvenay

@BrianBallsun-Stanton: threw my "door with wire inside as switch" idea out there for you to trash :p

Grubermensch

4:32 AM

@Shalvenay The problem is essentially that trap avoidance in 3.5 just works, and so all you can do is set a higher DC. Similarly, traps are boring.

I can think of several designs that would be very difficult to circumvent in the real world, but in 3.5 none of the trap's actual design makes any difference.

Shalvenay

yuck -- RAW is broken, then?

Miniman

@Shalvenay Not in this area - it's just not meant to support the kind of thing you're talking about.

Grubermensch

Arguably it's not actually broken. It's just that D&D 3.5's skill system is boring.

Shalvenay

or can you make a trap DC100 or something absurd to model "this trap is going to be an absolute @$(@$ to figure out"?

Miniman

(It's broken in a lot of other areas obviously.)

@Shalvenay Yep, you can. But it can be beaten fairly trivially.

Grubermensch

4:40 AM

@Shalvenay Yes, but there's no gameplay difference.

Miniman

@吕祥钊 Hi!

Grubermensch

Rogue rolls to detect traps. If success, rolls to disable trap. If success, success. Otherwise failure.

Utterly boring

Shalvenay

@Grubermensch: not even that -- can you make it so that the rogue's roll to detect traps is impossible or very nearly so?

(for this specific trap that is)

Miniman

@Shalvenay Even if you could; spellcaster casts a single Divination spell.

Grubermensch

@Shalvenay I mean, sure, inasmuch as that's ever possible in D&D. But fundamentally, it is in all cases unnecessary to describe the trap.

Shalvenay

4:44 AM

@Miniman: so basically -- Divination can detect any trap, regardless of how undetectable it is otherwise?

Magician

Oh, look, another mismatch of play paradigms...

Miniman

@Shalvenay With the right spell, Divination can detect basically anything.

If all else fails you can say "Hey God, is there a trap on this door?" and get an answer.

Shalvenay

yuck

I suspect the answer to Brian's question might just be "that's impossible, bro, Divination says no"

Miniman

@Magician Yeah, this has been cropping up a lot lately.

@Shalvenay Not necessarily. As with most 3.5 questions, there's always "A really specific and carefully worded Wish."

Shalvenay

and yeah -- tell me about it @Magician: it's an extremely frustrating thing to have a rare play paradigm such as mine (I'm a chronic detail abuser)

Grubermensch

4:48 AM

I think the actual problem is that in 3.5-land it is always possible to perfectly disable a trap.

Shalvenay

@Grubermensch: exactly -- once it's pointed out to the rogue, they can disable it, no further questions asked

irrespective of how many anti-tamper features the thing has

BESW

The response, thus, is to make the audit not a trap.

Shalvenay

also -- I'm trying to take some RL topography (shape/geodatabase files) and turn it into a map for part of a campaign I'm running

Miniman

@BESW That's why I'm heading towards Wish, a researched original spell, or an Epic Spell as being the way to do this.

BESW

This is the basic workaround for any "I want it to not fail" concept in d20: make something which doesn't correspond to d20 mechanics.

Shalvenay

4:51 AM

yeah

BESW

It's the old "pump the dungeon full of CO2" trick.

Grubermensch

@BESW My (admittedly limited) understanding was that all triggered effects in 3.5 are modeled as traps.

Shalvenay

that'll do it, basically every time

but I'm thinking along the lines of @Grubermensch -- trap in D&D RAW is "any and all triggered effects"

BESW

Actually, to the best of my knowledge 3.5 doesn't define traps.

They say "Traps have X characteristics."

They do not say "Things with X characteristics are traps."

Miniman

"I Wish every door and window in this city would add a stroke to a tally in the correct position for the standard tally system every time it was opened or closed."

BESW

4:54 AM

It's fiddly RAW stuff, but that's the level we're working on at this point.

Magician

@Miniman The tally is recorded on your soul, each stroke being a negative level, enjoy your wish.

Miniman

"I Wish every door and window in this city would add a stroke to a tally kept in a book with the number corresponding to that door in my map of the city written on the cover in the correct position for the standard tally system every time it was opened or closed."

Shalvenay

@Miniman: perhaps -- wouldn't that be divineable though?

Miniman

I realised it had problems, I'm working on it.

Grubermensch

Some days I wish WotC would just hire a bunch of software engineers to implement D&D as an automaton.

Shalvenay

4:55 AM

LOL

BESW

@Shalvenay Divineable is not an issue.

Shalvenay

it's been done before @Grubermensch...

Miniman

@Shalvenay They could Detect that there was some sort of magic on the door

BESW

So long as it can't be messed with, knowing it exists is actually a feature.

Shalvenay

true

Miniman

4:55 AM

Even what school it was, but that's as far as it goes

Shalvenay

well, to a point @BESW: because as soon as your Rogue starts arguing that it should be treated as a trap

Miniman

However, Disjunction, another Wish, going through the wall, going through the door without opening it...

Shalvenay

zoinks :p

Miniman

There really isn't any way to make this un-bypass-able.

BESW

Right.

Shalvenay

4:56 AM

yeah. doors aren't quite the chokepoints Brian wants 'em to be

BESW

But un-by-passable isn't really the goal.

Miniman

@BESW I meant the counter system, not the door

BESW

The goal is to make it un-by-passable without the bypass creating at least as much indication of the individual's presence.

Grubermensch

And so I think we're back to my earlier suggestion of a Detect Magic panopticon.

Miniman

@BESW Right! But we're also in a game of Walls and Ladders (cf Raymond Chen)

Grubermensch

4:58 AM

If you can make the system strong enough that it can only be bypassed with magic, and then have a robust magic-detection infrastructure, you can compare notes.

BESW

I'm still in favour of multiple redundant and sentient detection systems.

Grubermensch

I'm almost wondering if there is a better way to achieve BBS' actual goal than counting door movements.

Miniman

@Grubermensch Still Walls and Ladders though. "I Wish for every spell I cast to be undetectable by any means while still having its full effect."

BESW

Trained ant colonies, hiveminded mimic doors...

Grubermensch

@BESW Otherwise known as guards.

Shalvenay

5:00 AM

@Miniman: yes!

BESW

@Grubermensch That's the first layer.

Security through obscurity and obfuscation means you need multiple increasingly unnoticeable sentry systems.

Grubermensch

@Miniman See, that's not really how reality should ever be allowed to work.

BESW

Wait, reality?! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?

Adeptus

Well, my answer is being downvoted. Probably because it breaks the "traps are always findable & disarmable" paradigm. Although, it depends on your definition of trap... If the result is a marble dropping down a chute, and no threat of harm, is it still a trap?

Miniman

@Grubermensch Oh, I agree. But in a game where you can create logical paradoxes on a whim, it unfortunately is exactly how reality works.

"I Wish to create an immovable object." "I Wish to create an unstoppable force on a collision course with any immovable objects in the universe that I currently occupy."

What happens next? Philosophers have not yet found an answer, since they can't experimentally test their conundrums.

Grubermensch

5:03 AM

Aren't there limits on Wish?

At least of some kind, I thought.

Miniman

@Grubermensch There are, but they basically consist of whatever method the DM can find to twist your words into something the complete opposite of that which you intended.

Grubermensch

It specifically says "partial fulfillment"

Adeptus

@Grubermensch If it copies an existing spell of 9th level or below, it works as intended. If it doesn't, the DM may twist your words.

Miniman

@Grubermensch I haven't looked at 3.5 Wish in a while, wanna post up the text and prove me horribly wrong?

Grubermensch

d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm

> The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.

I by no means would read Wish to allow you to perform contradictions.

BESW

5:08 AM

I wouldn't allow wish to create absolutes.

Grubermensch

Actually

BESW

(Unless they were hilarious.)

Grubermensch

By the Principle of Explosion, if a Wish ever places the state of the universe into a contradiction, everything becomes possible. Including violating said Wish.

Adeptus

@Grubermensch literal but undesirable. So maybe not the complete opposite, but probably the worst possible interpretation of your words. eg, swap the words raise and raze...

Grubermensch

I love the Principle of Explosion. It's so colorful.

It's also quite possible that if the Wish would grant you contradictory powers, it just kills you instead.

[brushes hands] Problem. Solved.

Since "you" don't exist anymore, all statements about "you" are vacuously true.

Shalvenay

5:23 AM

@Adeptus -- probably part of the problem with my answer as well

also -- how would you magically limit a weapon to prevent it from being used to kill someone?

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