TRPG General Chat

8:00 AM

@SimonGill I haven't heard of any of these games, so it's very interesting to watch. The best I could think of was Don't Rest Your Head, which is in some ways exactly right but mostly exactly wrong.

BESW

8:13 AM

@SimonGill It's second-hand for me, I should look it up some time.

Simon Gill

@BESW It still sounds cool, regardless of whether or not it's true.

BESW

@SimonGill I am quite sure that there's at least one version where they're from the future.

Simon Gill

@BESW I like the version presented in Planescape:Torment via Mitch Pileggi's excellent voice acting.

@BESW Well, there's a version where they are aliens (SpellJammer! I wish I could find some of that to read).

BESW

@SimonGill I think at least once they were aliens from the future.

Greedy bastards using up all the plots.

Simon Gill

@BESW They could be post-nanotech... they are kinda like grey-goo.

okeefe

8:26 AM

@BESW I also thought of DRYH, but it's more about not-sleeping.

BESW

@SimonGill I like them as Far Realmy.

@okeefe Yeah... exactly not-right, despite having a lot of the dreamy atmosphere/mechanics.

Simon Gill

@BESW And that's the beauty of them - they have a core theme (psychic brain slugs with tentacles) and they can be tweaked to ahve the right source to match the rest of the game.

BESW

@SimonGill Hellooooo, Dark City.

Simon Gill

They were the secretive overlords of a fuedal japanese drow society in one one shot I ran.

BESW

If Buffy has any dream rules, they might be fun. Whedon does good dreamscapes.

@SimonGill I prefer yuan-ti for my secret masterminds and overlords.

Simon Gill

8:35 AM

@BESW I've never found the snakes to be all that engaging.

BESW

@SimonGill I think for me what is most interesting is the way they can infiltrate society so cleanly, so imperceptibly.

If you've seen the New Who episode Vampires of Venice, you've seen how I use yuan-ti.

Simon Gill

@BESW Yeah, I didn't think that was one of the good ones :P

BESW

@SimonGill It was silly. But only in execution: the high concept was sound.

I had an entire campaign built around the idea that a single surviving yuan-ti was trying to rebuild his empire by alchemically converting humans into new yuan-ti.

Two of his major conversion centers were a boarding school for noble-born girls and an orphanage.

The first level of conversion is almost imperceptible, and the second level is almost as hard to spot. So he'd have spies and allies in all the work forces and all the noble houses.

Simon Gill

@BESW To be honest though, I don't like using monstrous races as antagonists. I much prefer the idea of "there but for the grace of x go I" making the protagonists aware that they could easily be the bad guys.

Martin Sojka

8:50 AM

@SimonGill Humans are the most monstrous of them all? :)

BESW

@MartinSojka I like making monsters human, myself.

The yuan-ti mastermind was very tragic; he was actually a Worm that Walks, which means his convictions of the racial of yuan-ti no longer included himself.

It's a long story and the campaign fell apart before I got to it.

Martin Sojka

@BESW I just use humans. :)

BESW

9:30 AM

@MartinSojka I actually do my best to not use humans very much at all. It's a common DM shortcut to have every random person be a human, and does a disservice to the worldbuilding.

Rob

Morning all

BESW

@Rob Good <insert time here>!

Martin Sojka

@BESW Replace "human" with "whoever makes up the majority of the ruling class or population of the area", then.

BESW

@MartinSojka Mmm. I use common humanoids for a lot of things, but sometimes you need a good old monster.

Especially if it's an Ancient Evil from Beyond Living Memory.

Martin Sojka

@BESW Wrath, Greed, Lust, Pride and Envy? :)

BESW

9:38 AM

As I've said before, there's a lich or lich variant in some capacity in every game I've ever run. Most of them are not racially unusual aside from their lichdom.

Martin Sojka

(It's hard to imagine either Sloth or Gluttony to make for good villains ...)

BESW

@MartinSojka Actually!

Ever seen/read Dune?

Simon Gill

@MartinSojka They work well as helpers to the main villains. They work great in the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime.

BESW

The Baron Harkonnen features most of the deadly sins, but Gluttony is probably his most obvious one.

Martin Sojka

@BESW The most obvious one, but I don't think it's the one which drives him primarily (that would be greed or envy). I'll give you sloth for Feyd-Rautha, though. :)

Rob

9:41 AM

@Martin Or the demons in Dragon Age

BESW

There's a canon Bael Turathi noble who is kind of a Harkonnen tribute, but with even more emphasis on the gluttony.

Baron Kahlir is a tiefling vampire who has an entire R&D department dedicated to the extraction of blood.

There are stories that he could drain you dry with a glance at a hundred paces.

And technically a lot of poorly-developed modern businessman type villains are embodiments of gluttony: their goal is acquisition and consumption.

Simon Gill

@BESW Isn't gluttony => consumption and greed => acquisition

BESW

@SimonGill How Catholic are we being? [grin]

Simon Gill

@BESW As far as the model stays useful for describing behavior.

BESW

In terms of the Seven Deadly Sins, Gluttony is the act of over-indulgence. Greed is the excessive desire and pursuit of material possession.

Greed can be used to fuel Gluttony. For example, a businessman who makes morally bankrupt choices to make money is Greedy, regardless of how he uses the money. A businessman who uses his money to seven homes, five yachts, and a hover-palace, is Gluttonous regardless of how honestly he came into his money.

For some villains, Greed is a motive in itself. Unless they're shown to have some kind of hoarding problem I consider them very poorly developed characters. See: Captain Planet villains.

As for Sloth, it's technically "failure to do the things one should (morally) do."

Simon Gill

9:54 AM

@BESW Really? That got mutated a lot over the years then.

BESW

Acedia vs subcordia is the historical drift.

The Bible says a lot about laziness, but that's a much narrower definition than Sloth is theologically intended to mean.

It has more to do with not taking your rightful place as a contributing member of the community, and with failing to endeavor to advance one's spiritual nature.

[Catholic high school powers, activate!]

To get back on topic, I do often use themes like that and it's very helpful in storytelling.

Only used the Sins once, for levels in a dungeon. I've also used the Whore of Babylon and all the imagery around her, the maiden/mother/crone triad, that kind of thing.

Simon Gill

@BESW The Bible is a great source of interesting stories... so long as you don't trip up over offending people. One of the nice things about anime is that they do often take bizarre versions of christianity and play with them in ways that the western world just wouldn't. So at once it feels familiar and unfamiliar.

BESW

@SimonGill The West does much worse with Eastern faiths. Japanese culture seems to use Christianity for its imagery more than its messages.

Simon Gill

@BESW That's what I mean - Neon Genesis Evangelion is a good example of taking a thin layer of familiar imagery and making something wholly new out of it.

BESW

One of the bands I enjoy does something similar with language: by not having English as a first language, they can hear how it sounds rather than what it means. Their lyrics are grammatically solid, but idiomatically bizarre --and the syllables work.

@SimonGill I am not familiar enough with anime to really be able to say anything about it.

I've seen a few Miyazaki films, read the first several Death Note novels, and that's about the extent of my forays into Japanese pop culture.

I've osmosized a good bit, but first-hand experience is limited.

Simon Gill

10:10 AM

@BESW They are solid choices. I can highly recommend Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex too. That series has fantastic storytelling and a great analysis of identity.

BESW

@SimonGill I'll probably look it up some day.

Martin Sojka

@BESW I think the seven sins are also good as antagonists. In a literal sense too: Help the good king fight his wrath so that the kingdom may prosper, or deal with the problems caused by the lust of the youngest princess ...

BESW

Although communication in all its forms fascinates me, I'm a linguist at the core, and that imposes a bit of a barrier for me to overcome in really sinking my teeth into foreign-language works. It's hard to forget that I'm not getting the originally intended linguistic interaction.

Martin Sojka

Learn the language? I prefer to enjoy works in their original language anyway. :)

BESW

@MartinSojka I've tried learning three or four different languages. Without immersion I can't do it.

There's not even enough people fluent in the native language here. It's officially dying.

Simon Gill

10:24 AM

@BESW Sounds like Welsh Gaelic... they're trying, but they can't keep it going.

Martin Sojka

@BESW Aw, that sucks for you. We try our best to make sure the next generation grows up immersed in at least two, possibly three languages at the same time to make sure they don't have such problems.

BESW

@MartinSojka I'm sure that if I really dedicated myself to it I could manage, but it's definitely not a talent of mine.

A lot of people here are multilingual. As much harassment as they get from the didactic English education system, I envy them.

Martin Sojka

That's why we talk to the young ones (starting from birth, really) in many different languages at once. They not only learn all of them, studies show that they have it easy to pick up more languages later in life too.

3

BESW

Yup.

Simon Gill

@MartinSojka Best way to do it - helps so much in so many areas of life.

BESW

10:31 AM

That's what happens here for many people; we get a lot of families moving here from the 'outer islands' (a mildly offensive term, but I'll use it for simplicity and its descriptive nature) so their kids can get American education, or for better jobs. We also get people from around the Pacific Rim. Large Korean and Japanese communities, for example.

Even with the dying local language, most kids can't speak it but --in my generation at least-- understand it well enough that their nanas can tell them to go buy milk in Chamorro.

Martin Sojka

Now I wish RPG designers would pay more attention to languages and how we learn them. Everybody speaking "Common" is such a lazy way out. :/

BESW

@MartinSojka Yeah, but I've tried it other ways. It usually gets firmly in the way of doing anything.

It's a game, and concessions must be made.

Martin Sojka

But then we lose many of the abilities which define linguists, merchants, spies, ship captains and so on.

... and I like playing linguists and merchants. :)

BESW

My last college campaign was a grand two-semester affair I spent all summer planning, and its conceit was that as the magic faded from a typical D&D setting, a new magic-rich land was discovered across the sea. It drew many parallels to Europe discovering the Americas.

So few of the locals in the New World spoke Common; they had their own languages. I actually had a player whose PC started out as a linguist, and he was pleased as punch.

doppelgreener

@MartinSojka At least in 4e there is a reason there's a "common" language.

BESW

10:40 AM

But really, what happened was that I would say what language they were speaking, and the linguist would say "I tell them what they say," and that was it.

@JonathanHobbs Wait, there is?

doppelgreener

Nerath

Simon Gill

@BESW It only really starts mattering when the linguists get sneaky and start changing the message between parties they are translating for.

Martin Sojka

@BESW Bad player. The GM should start by giving him a stack of word cards, then pointing out which words in what order he recognises, and the player can then try to puzzle out the meaning. As the play progresses, the cards get more numerous and the errors in recognition fewer, until he can use the language skill good enough that simple sentences are told to him directly.

BESW

I frequently have NPCs speak broken or simple Common, but be fluent in their own languages.

@MartinSojka Wow. That would bring the game to a halt while everyone else watched him flip through cards.

doppelgreener

All the "common" races joined together in Nerath. The world is currently interconnected and the heart of the business world is in the West, so a tremendous number of places have at least some people who speak English. 4e has very few places which had to learn Common.

BESW

10:43 AM

@JonathanHobbs Ahah! ....where did you find this?

doppelgreener

I didn't, I am extrapolating this based on common sense

I actually don't know if the races spoke common before Nerath. :)

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Ahah! again. I shall steal this.

doppelgreener

Haha, you're welcome to it :)

Martin Sojka

@BESW Add pictures and icons to the cards to find them quickly, and only use them for sentences, not single or double word commands and expressions ("Hello", "Halt", "Who's there?", "Goodbye", ...).

doppelgreener

This also explains why almost none of the non-common races speak common, and don't have a common of their own. They never united. They just speak the same languages as the other races they're highly interconnected with.

BESW

10:45 AM

@MartinSojka It's a cool idea, but not one I would add to most tables. It's like being the only rogue in a party and going on stealth missions while everyone watches, but without anything exciting happening.

doppelgreener

Yes, it is super neat, but you'd have every line of dialog take up a minute of time or so.

Martin Sojka

In practice, it worked ok for us. I got the words "invitation", "feast", "all-of-you" and translated into "We're invited to a feast ... as guests, I think."

Simon Gill

That sounds like a very niche game :P Would be a good one for language learning though.

In fact, there's a Korean Harry Potter-like RPG which does something similar with basic words and grammar used for spell casting. Can't remember the name off the top of my head.

doppelgreener

What would otherwise be a five minute conversation could last an entire session.

Simon Gill

@BESW Also like old-style netrunning in Cyberpunk and Shadowrun.

BESW

10:48 AM

It was a running gag in that campaign that the cleric of the god of knowledge travelled the world gathering lore, but his fighter bodyguard was the linguist who had to negotiate with the locals to get access to the lore.

(In 3.5 fighters not only have no reason to take Int over 13, tops; they also have the fewest resources of any PC class in the game to devote to learning languages, and those resources are much better spent elsewhere.)

doppelgreener

Dang. I want to build a kinda-intelligent barbarian for a pathfinder campaign.

BESW

Barbarians get more skill points than fighters.

doppelgreener

(they might be an Urban Barbarian but I really really do not want to make the trade-offs for that, even though it makes super amounts of sense)

BESW

They're expected to put them into wilderness skills, not languages, though.

At least, in 3.5 this is the case.

doppelgreener

This pathfinder campaign will not be a very typical one

BESW

10:52 AM

I always wanted to build a reluctantly existential barbarian.

Philosopher who hates existentialism, but it's the philosophy that makes the most sense to him. This makes him angry.

doppelgreener

The DM has more than 5 people in different time zones, and she's going to run not one session at once, but sessions with groups of us. I could be partied up with some people one week, then my barbarian goes off on their own to do something and I'm on my own the next week, and the week after that I'll meet up with a different group and be with them. Etc.

Ha! I like that.

BESW

"RAAAARGH! OUR CHOICES ARE MEANINGLESS BEYOND OUR CHOOSING TO MAKE THEM!"

@JonathanHobbs That... sounds like a nightmare for the GM.

doppelgreener

Yes... well... it's her call to run it that way! She's pretty dang experienced DMing and playing, so I trust she can handle it somehow.

Hahaha. And this is the source of his rage?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Yes. I have a lot of frivolous PC concepts like that.

@JonathanHobbs More power to her, she is a better GM than I.

I always wanted to run a shulassakar paladin.

doppelgreener

@BESW Oh. Also, by "more than 5 people in different time zones", I mean she has more than 5 people, and also there are different time zones in that group. She might have, like, 7 people and I am the only one not in America, or something. I'm not sure what the scale of it is yet.

BESW

11:03 AM

@JonathanHobbs That... might be better...

I ran a game with one player on Skype and an online chat/dice roller; my camera pointed at the map. But he was in the same time zone.

doppelgreener

So there may be like 2 or 3 sessions at a time tops.

BESW

It worked well because he'd played with the group in person for years before he left and had to do it remotely.

Rob

Google hangouts has worked very well for our online gaming ness

BESW

I also was a player in a game that was exclusively online in a proto-roll20 type of program, with people in at least three time zones. That fell apart pretty fast.

doppelgreener

Dang.

BESW

11:06 AM

Someday I shall run a starpact warlock who just thinks she's the best astrologer ever.

@JonathanHobbs I may have had something to do with it; I type twice as fast as any of the other players.

...and the DM specifically asked me to play a bard...

Protip: never ask me to play a bard. I will be a battle skald and I will declaim extemporaneously.

...Um. My computer is doing terrible things. back later.

(am on old laptop)

So, PF barbarian?

@Rob Is it possible to use a hangout without attracting the Ravaging Hoards of Social Media?

BESW

11:35 AM

Hmm.

A while back I was talking about how it makes sense that a D&D world would have at least as many non-mechanical superstitions and rituals as ours does.

Simon Gill

@BESW Have you had any new thoughts on that subject?

BESW

Well, I'm doing boring copypasta work on this book about the local culture.

Simon Gill

@BESW That's a good time for thinking.

BESW

Most Chamorros believe in taotaomo'na -- ancestral spirits who watch over the people and land. Taotao means "people" and mo'na' means "preceding," so taotaomo'na means "the people who came before."

Taotaomo'na are said to roam freely but reside in natural places, especially the nunu (banyan) tree. They can be invisible or take the forms of people or animals. Some would say that an unusually large hilitai, a sudden and unexplainable strong smell, and an ayuyu one catches and secures well, but that disappears the next morning, all signify the presence of taotaomo'na.

Simon Gill

@BESW Actually, I think I remember years and years ago (possibly even back when Dragon was second ed) a suggestion of how to make local gods that follow a similar model.

BESW

11:42 AM

Taotaomo'na are not evil; if you live humbly and responsibly they will stay out of your way or even help you. If you behave disrespectfully, though, they might give you a painful bruise or even an illness. In such cases, a suruhana or suruhanu can help you to make amends.

There's a lot of lore and ritual around these spirits. Before you enter the forest --and especially before you relieve yourself in the forest-- there's a special request for permission that must be recited.

I have an American friend who would get "good pinches" from them every time she visited the island: unexplained bruises that were not at all painful.

It meant they liked her and were happy to see her, and would watch over her. If the bruises had been painful, it would have meant she had seriously displeased them in some way.

Simon Gill

@BESW That's cool :)

BESW

We also have duendes, which are basically mischievous imps that play practical jokes but don't always understand human needs and tolerances.

Kinda leprechauny.

They often curse children to misbehave or be unable to speak or the like, and the cure is a spanking with an old female relative's belt.

(As opposed to the illnesses imposed by an angry taotaomo'na, which must be healed through foul herbs, prayers, and sincere apologies.)

Simon Gill

@BESW Well, that's one way to explain away badly behaved kids.

doppelgreener

I was looking through the Fey and Star warlock powers (and a couple of infernal)

BESW

@SimonGill I only know one person who has seen duendes, but taotaomo'na are everywhere and pretty universally accepted.

doppelgreener

11:50 AM

Accursed Shroud is pretty good! :)

BESW

Heck, I don't believe the souls of the dead can do us harm, and I believe science is a great thing, but I'm quite sure something is out there in the forests.

doppelgreener

Level 12 daily: you curse the target, and for the duration of the curse (i.e. for the next and final minute of their life), they have to reroll on any successful d20 roll and use the second result.

(well, on attacks specifically)

BESW

@JonathanHobbs There are some lovely lock curses.

doppelgreener

So, Fey warlocks damage and control the opponent (and teleport around); Star warlocks damage and debuff the opponent; Infernal warlocks seem to just do insane amounts of damage all the time.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Our feylock didn't do much damage, but my goodness could he lock down a target but good.

We called him our trolltank.

Specialized in debuffs that reduced control or handed over control.

doppelgreener

11:53 AM

Your eyebite + divine challenge one? :)

BESW

Yeah.

There's a level 1 daily burst, I think it's Decree of Khirad.

yeah, close blast 3. Targets each enemy in the blast.

First, slide each of them 2 squares.

Second, attack vs Will.

if you miss, they take psychic damage.

Rob

@BESW Re: Hangouts - good question; not sure I'm afraid!

BESW

On a hit, they make an MBA against a creature of your choice.

doppelgreener

@BESW Where's that from?

BESW

If their MBA misses, they take psychic damage.

Arcane Power 74.

It's a tide-turner.

I've seen it used to destroy an elite and his flock of minions.

doppelgreener

11:57 AM

Wow.

Really? How?

Oh wait. Oh my god. Each enemy in blast 3.

plus prime shot since you'll be up close.

BESW

First, slide them so they're all in range of the elite.

Now, all minions that got hit attack the elite. If they miss, they die.

doppelgreener

Oh my god. :D

BESW

Then the elite, if he's still alive, takes out at least one still-standing minion.

If the elite goes down, instead the remaining minions attack each other.

doppelgreener

Holy shit.

BESW

"Dance, my puppets! Dance!"

Also, consider adding Divine Challenge to the elite beforehand.

[cackles manically]

Simon Gill

12:00 PM

@BESW Now I have Bowie and muppets in my head. Thank you very much :P

BESW

I'm thinking bloodbending, myself.

Simon Gill

youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=ViftZTfRSt8

Was more the dance magic dance thing

BESW

@SimonGill yeah, the Goblin King, his magical junk, and the Muppets.

Simon Gill

I think I need to treat my nieces to this movie very soon :)

BESW

Labyrinth, starring David Bowie's junk.

doppelgreener

12:03 PM

Also featuring, David Bowie.

(in a support role)

Simon Gill

@BESW Yeah, I won't mention that bit :P

BESW

...and other Muppets.

@SimonGill What, you think they won't notice?

Simon Gill

And Jennifer Connolly ;)

BESW

I've heard first-hand accounts of that movie sparking sexual awakening in both boys and girls.

Simon Gill

@BESW They're only 4/5... I don't remember noticing when I was around age.

BESW

12:04 PM

Fair enough... I didn't see it until much later.

Simon Gill

@BESW Yeah, if you watch it after 10 it's probably much more noticable.

BESW

Speaking of which, do you guys find that it's a good idea, or maybe even necessary, to put rating restrictions on your games?

Simon Gill

@BESW Nope. But then I was reading graphic descriptions of sex at 12, so I'm a bit skewed as to what's age-appropriate.

doppelgreener

@BESW Our RPG games? Or are we talking about a broader context for "games"?

BESW

@SimonGill I had to put the kibosh on the rape-minotaur PC because it was offending several other players, including but not limited to myself.

Simon Gill

12:09 PM

@BESW Makes sense... there's being aware of your players as individuals and subscribing to the notion that all people of certain ages can't handle certain things.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs RPGs.

There's certain stuff I just don't want in my games regardless of who's at the table, and for a while it didn't occur to me that maybe I should be upfront about it. Kinda figured it would be assumed.

I've also on occasion had to Have Words On The Side with players about showing up intoxicated.

doppelgreener

I play with three friends, and we've known each other for a while so we're on the same wavelength. If I were playing with strangers, I'd probably tell them what's game and what isn't, but I wouldn't do it with like a rating system rating, because those things aren't really clear and useful (for instance: in America, M allows sex but not violence. In Australia, M allows violence but not sex.)

M doesn't mean much.

BESW

"Yes, I'm sure you can hold your beer. a) I don't care, you stink, and b) it sets a precedent and do you really want that guy over there to come in drunk?"

Simon Gill

@JonathanHobbs yeah, took me aaaaaages to work out what the letter codes on the rating sticker actually meant.

doppelgreener

I would be entirely happy to run a game with sexual content, though I would have to find individuals perfectly comfortable with that sort of thing, and perfectly comfortable with doing that sort of thing with each other, which makes my odds of running such a game limited.

BESW

12:13 PM

@JonathanHobbs Heh. Heh. Hem. very first session i ever ran ogod

doppelgreener

@BESW What do you mean by that? You had a game with sexual content in your first RPG game?

roleplaying game game

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Very first session, one player decided his monk was going to get a hooker.

do you have any idea the shape my face made

Then there was the time my doppelwhatever had indescribably kinky sex with the Formian Queen (lawful neutral ant people). But it was indescribable and so we didn't.

doppelgreener

@BESW Was it that one

BESW

I think only Kermit can make the face I tried to make.

Simon Gill

@BESW I really need to force myself not star this message.

doppelgreener

12:20 PM

I starred it

Ha, ha

BESW

You sick man.

doppelgreener

You're the one that said it. c(:

BESW

At any rate, the monk and the hooker got RPed up to walking up the stairs to get a room, and I hastily drew the curtain on the scene.

But not before thoroughly freaking out the monk's player with how much I was willing to actually RP the hooker, and it didn't happen again.

Simon Gill

@BESW Now that's operant conditioning in action. Good work.

BESW

It helps if you actually have the hair to flip. [grin]

doppelgreener

12:22 PM

@BESW Good man.

Mind games. I like your tactics.

BESW

Heh.

A man deeply concerned with being seen as heterosexual should have known better than to play the RPG version of gay chicken with a guy who's merely amused by being regularly mistaken for a woman.

@JonathanHobbs He brought the mind games on himself.

Simon Gill

psst, @BESW there's a stealth and concealment in 4e question if you want to get some cheap rep ;)

doppelgreener

I'm interested in the answer too. A friend of mine has used stealth like it made the stealthers invisible until they revealed themselves, and they could walk around in plain sight.

BESW

Oh, no. I know that map.

That's the "kobolds hide on the wrong side of the bushes" opening fight in the Keep on the Shadowfell..

The party is supposed to come in from the left.

Simon Gill

ahhhhhh

doppelgreener

12:33 PM

Hahahaha you mean the kobolds were waiting in ambush, but they were expecting the players to come in from the other direction?

BESW

....yes.

And yet, the encounter is written as if the party is going to be ambushed.

doppelgreener

So... the encounter is actually written in a way that is broken a bit?

BESW

Well, the bushes don't grant total concealment anyway so by the rules only the kobolds next to rocks can hide at all.

Answered. rpg.stackexchange.com/a/19497/4398

Personally, I was happy to play it as "those dumb kobolds."

doppelgreener

12:52 PM

Hahaha. It'd be great to play it that way.

BESW

Heh. Broke 1.5k.

It's the sort of mistake you'd expect the "revised" edition to catch. But noooooo.

@SimonGill Thanks for throwing that one my way. I actually felt qualified to answer it with both RAW and XP.

Mostly I'm coasting on RAW for answers; my XP doesn't usually apply to the kinds of questions people ask here.

(Also, that's a massive map.)

Our fight took place in about 1/4 of it.

@JonathanHobbs I've seen one way to get perma-invisibility through Stealth.

Warlock Shadow Walk: On your turn, if you move at least 3 squares away from where you started your turn, you gain concealment until the end of your next turn.

That's all you need to stay hidden, assuming you had total concealment or superior cover to make the first Stealth check and you don't do anything like attack that automatically breaks the hidden condition.

(It does impose a -5 penalty to Stealth because you're moving more than 2 squares, but there are feats to fix that.)

There's a monk PP that does something similar to Shadow Walk, too.

doppelgreener

1:07 PM

... whoa wait fuck. You can hide using Shadow Walk?

BESW

No.

You can stay hidden using Shadow Walk.

doppelgreener

So... I can duck behind a pillar, and hide, and then enter Shadow Walk and remain hidden.

BESW

Yes, provided you spend the first three squares of movement still behind the wall, because Shadow Walk won't activate until then.

doppelgreener

I'm going to look up the stealth rules nice and thoroughly.

BESW

You make a Stealth check for every movement action you take, and if it's more than 2 squares you take a -5 to the check. So it's not perfect, but perfectable via feats!

Isn't that the third time I've popped your brain today?

doppelgreener

1:11 PM

Yes

My next feylock will be a stealthlock

BESW

There must be illithids salivating at your windows.

@JonathanHobbs With Divine Challenge?

doppelgreener

Maybe. :)

Is there any way to attack and maintain stealth?

BESW

I'll check.

Shadow of the Wild
Heroic Tier
Prerequisite: Trained in Nature and Stealth
Benefit: If you are hidden outdoors and you make an attack, you can make a Stealth check with a -5 penalty to remain hidden.

There are some feats that let you do it with specific encounter powers, but I'm assuming you want something more spammable.

I'm pretty sure I know what you need, but I'm working my way to it methodically.

Simon Gill

@BESW You're welcome :) Ifigured you were a good choice to answr it.

doppelgreener

4e doesn't have Hidden status and other stuff, so it appears 3.5e's Hidden Club rules don't apply here!

And Stealth doesn't say I can't attack. Hm.

BESW

1:16 PM

Actually.

doppelgreener

There isn't a mention of Hidden or Hiding in the index.

BESW

hidden
When a creature is hidden from an enemy, the creature is silent and invisible to that enemy. A creature normally uses the Stealth skill to become hidden. See also invisible.

Compendium glossary.

Gloaming Cut
From the shadows you strike, and into the shadows you flee.
At-Will Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a crossbow, a light blade, or a sling.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] damage.
Level 21: 2[W] damage.
Effect: You shift a number of squares equal to your Intelligence modifier, and you can make a Stealth check to become hidden.

There are some amusing movement powers too.

doppelgreener

@BESW Where is this mentioned? I'm hunting for a decent description of how Hiding works in the PHB and can't find one.

BESW

Published in Monster Manual 2, page(s) 217, Player's Handbook 3, page(s) 221, Rules Compendium, page(s) 312, Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, page(s) 123.

(The Compendium cites its sources.)

doppelgreener

Ok, so, so far I have found 0 statements along the lines of "Attacking an enemy means you are no longer hidden from them"

BESW

1:20 PM

As you can see, using the books to find a ruling is like looking for a needle--or maybe a toothpick or a darning needle, you're not sure--in any of several haystacks.

doppelgreener

Fock. Arse.

BESW

Rules Compendium 153, I'll see if I can find if it says it in a different book too.

@JonathanHobbs Feague!

PHB2 p222

Martial Power p57

So, everywhere except the PHB1.

doppelgreener

Wow.

BESW

Okay, Wizards. Show me on the doll where logic touched you.

4

doppelgreener

Ok. PHB p222 completely updated the Stealth skill and seems to have what I'm after.

One thing I miss is 3.5e's exhaustive indices.

BESW

1:26 PM

Compendium!

doppelgreener

I don't have a rules compendium :(

Oh.

The online compendium.

BESW

Yar. I don't like the Assumption of Privilege that it has, but it is pretty shiny.

Everything that is an actual rule is in the Compendium, and fully searchable (although not with Booleans).

(That's why I made such a big deal about the three paragraphs of Mounted Combat in the DMG; they aren't rules so aren't in the Compendium, so the majority of the people looking to answer would just quote the Compendium to me.)

doppelgreener

Dang. @_@

@BESW So this is the only generic attack one? :(

I would love to remain hidden + fire eldritch bolts from the shadows.

BESW

Give me some time, I'm working on a few things. [grin]

doppelgreener

:D

Also doesn't being invisible let you enter being Hidden?

BESW

1:37 PM

That's circular.

doppelgreener

Is it?

BESW

If a creature is invisible, it has total concealment against them.

doppelgreener

Ok. It just doesn't say that in the rules.

BESW

A creature can make a Stealth check against a target only if the creature has superior cover or total concealment against that target or if the creature is outside the target’s line of sight.

[Stealth check] Success: The creature becomes hidden from the target. Being hidden means being silent and invisible (see “Invisibility").

There's a lot of stuff that lets you stay hidden if you miss

Simon Gill

@BESW So, in theory, being hidden doesn't mean that people aren't aware of you?

@BESW And therefore are still fully justified in walking up to you and trying to attack?

doppelgreener

1:42 PM

So... if there's a single enemy, could I use eyebite to become invisible, then enter shadow walk and thus maintain being hidden?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Yes.

doppelgreener

Yay

BESW

@SimonGill Well, they have to figure out which square you're in... trying to find that clause.

But even if they can figure out which square you're in,

If a creature is invisible, it has several advantages against creatures that can’t see it: It has total concealment against them, it doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks from them, and they grant combat advantage to it.

Total Concealment (-5 Penalty to Attack Rolls): An attacker takes a -5 penalty to melee and ranged attack rolls against a target that has total concealment.

@JonathanHobbs You could do this with multiple enemies, to become hidden from one enemy, but 4e says that you can use your speech-as-a-free-action to tell your friends where someone is that you can see and they can't, and then it's as if they automatically succeeded on Perception against him.

So it might work against zombies?

doppelgreener

@BESW Rats. I was trying to find out whether that was the case, because if it wasn't I could become steadily hidden to each enemy via eyebite.

One by one!

With no cover at all.

I need something that could give me concealment on the spot.

BESW

@SimonGill Okay. Targeting what you can't see

doppelgreener

1:47 PM

Like a smoke grenade.

BESW

Invisible Creatures and Stealth: If an invisible creature is hidden from the attacker (see “Stealth"), the attacker can neither hear nor see it, and it has to guess the creature’s position. If the invisible creature is not hidden from the attacker, the attacker can hear it or sense some other sign of its presence and therefore knows where it is, although it still can’t see the creature.

Make a Perception Check: On its turn, the attacker can make a Perception check as a minor action to try to determine the location of an invisible creature that is hidden from it.

Pick a Square and Attack: The attacker chooses a square to attack, using whatever information it has gleaned about the enemy’s location. It makes the attack roll normally (taking the -5 penalty for attacking a target that has total concealment). If the attacker picks the wrong square, that attack automatically misses, but only the DM knows whether the attacker guessed wrong or simply rolled too low to hit.

Close or Area Attacks: An attacker can make a close attack or an area attack that includes the square it thinks (or knows) an invisible creature is in. The attack roll doesn’t take a penalty from the target’s concealment.

So he has to make a Perception check to try to find you, pick a square and cross his fingers, or use a burst/blast to just saturate the area.

C. Ross

Morning all

BESW

@C.Ross Hi!

doppelgreener

Mire the Mind (Warlock encounter attack 7) would at least give me a stealth bonus. Pity it just makes everyone invisible to one guy, not me invisible to everyone.

Hi @C.Ross

BESW

@JonathanHobbs What are you looking for, specifically?

doppelgreener

1:51 PM

@BESW Enter stealth. Remain in stealth. Never be seen. Attack everyone.

A sniper who is right there.

That might be too much to ask for though.

BESW

Hm. I'd probably start looking into assassin/warlock combos.

doppelgreener

A Fey Warlock's main defence is that nobody should be able to reach them, but I want to also be a stealthlock somehow.