TRPG General Chat

12:08 AM

0

Q: I want to write a Q&A: how do I go about doing that?

While I'm rather new to the website, I've picked up quite a bit regarding one particular topic (the Rainbow Servant prestige class for 3.5th edition D&D), and I would like to write this information into a Q&A for other users to read. How do I do that? Just write a series of questions divided into...

Magician

Good morning. Just woke up...

Joshua Aslan Smith

@magician go get the basic rules

everybody's doin it

at least all the cool kids

Magician

Aye aye, cptn

Joshua Aslan Smith

rolls peer pressure

1d20

Dice Service

2

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:11 AM

hahaha

Magician

Eh, screw that, cptn

So is my question valid now? They're saying the Starter Set on the 3rd is for the Chosen people, the rest of the unwashed masses will get it on the 15th.

Joshua Aslan Smith

which question?

and yes supposedly there are the chosen with starter sets on the 3rd today

at preferred/select/whatever term retailers

Magician

This one, "what's 5e good at?"

Which means it'll be scanned and uploaded by tomorrow...

Joshua Aslan Smith

lol

so I honesty dont think basic excells at anything

Magician

shhhhh

It's got to be good for something.

BESW

12:17 AM

I've downloaded it, but I'm experimenting with my new ice shaver so I haven't looked yet.

Joshua Aslan Smith

its good

its better than I thought it would be so far

but I think D&D outside 4e has always never been particularly good at any one thing

like comparing it to dungeon world or fate or 4e or savage worlds or any number of other systems

For the mainstream RPG its innovative

but its aping mechanics made in the indie/small scale rpg market that were done years ago

BESW

Borrowing from the innovators is totally legit, so I can't fault it simply for that.

Magician

Well, 3e excelled (at the time, at least) at the character generation and world systematization. Everything was made up of the same tiny bricks: hit dice, skill points, feats. That was new and exciting! Don't know about AD&D, though.

Joshua Aslan Smith

SO I guess the thing which I think its going to excel at is organized play, supported tools, and supported settings

in order from most certain to least certain in my mind

though I hope it all pans out

@besw right, Im not judging it, IM glad that if they were going to make a retro/more simplistic version of the game that they took inspiration from groundbreaking games

and I think thats good for the mainstream RPG audience

BESW

Indeed. Maybe it'll make moving from D&D to other systems easier.

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:21 AM

Did citizen kane do anything truly original? No, but by combining film and story techniques from other ground breaking movies it became a ground breaking movie in itself

doppelgreener

0

A: Holy Glitch, Batman!

I think I see what you mean - the Morningstar post is reappearing over and over and over again in their RSS feed, right? And that pushes it to our chat's RSS ticker over and over as a result. Let's remove their feed from the chat temporarily. We can take another look at it in a few days, and if...

@BESW Would you be happy to do this?

Joshua Aslan Smith

We knew 5e wasnt going to be bold because 4e was (it did have a bad launch which contributed) and it didnt pan out as well as they wouldve liked and split the hobby

Stack Exchange

BESW has stopped a feed from being posted into this room

BESW

As it was writ, so it now is. — BESW 20 secs ago

Grubermensch

@JoshuaAslanSmith I'm not sure how much effect this will have at mending the split, since it seems like 5e backs away from the things that 3rd and 4th fanatics seem to like in their respective systems.

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:25 AM

SO I think the assumption is that 4e players will just be on board for some reason

and that they are openly courting 3.5 and 2nd players is an accepted fact

I know its not as complex as 3.5

but the sort of simulationist approach it has built into it again is pro 3.5

Grubermensch

That is a curious assumption. As someone who started with homebrewed AD&D/2E I think its a comfortable step from there to 5e, so I don't see problems with that segment.

BESW

mm. The original 5e pitch was that it'd be a super-tiny core engine which contained the distilled essence of the D&D experience across all editions, and then numerous mechanic modules would be provided which could be plugged into the engine so each group could customise their experience with their favourite bits of each edition.

Joshua Aslan Smith

oh I dont think its a problem

I just think its accepted that they are trying to regain lost fans

@besw that is the plan, I hope the DMG if not the PHB has a lot more 4e stuff

BESW

It was a beautiful and elegant fantasy.

Joshua Aslan Smith

the only class that was 4e like in the playtest was really the fighter

though I did enjoy the fact that there is almost parity between martial classes and magic classes

Grubermensch

12:28 AM

@BESW That is a very tall order, that level of modularity. Maybe possible, but really, really hard.

doppelgreener

@BESW Quite poetic :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

everyone seems to deal roughly the same amount of damage

I do agree that it was a PR lie sold to keep the 4e people interested until release

Grubermensch

@JoshuaAslanSmith I think giving spellcasters free damage-dealing cantrips helps a lot in that regard.

Joshua Aslan Smith

we wont see just how much of a lie until the books drop

BESW

@Grubermensch Extremely! And with the pressures and constraints on the D&D dev team, and their previous showings, not an order I expect them to be able to meet.

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:29 AM

I was never worried about magic users

I dont care if they have to use a sucky crossbow after their spells are exhausted when they have spells like fireball

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith Eh, 3.5 showed us that "equal damage" is perhaps the least important element of parity.

Grubermensch

@JoshuaAslanSmith Well what I mean is that it frees up the system to weaken the extremely powerful spells without making casters boring.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I cared about martial damage progressing and martial classes having powerful class features

understood

@besw excellent point

my wife's lvl 6 barbarian (simplest class) still had a lot of options going on

she took the tactical fighter/warrior feat

basically became a 4e defender

and because her spirit totem was cougar she also could move a lot (9 sq move) and have all OAs at a disadvantage when she was raging

tactical warrior gave her -2 marks AND an aura triggering OAs

I think, and PHB will really show whether this is true or not, that the feats will be what adds modularity to the classes

Grubermensch

Yeah I'm disappointed that feats aren't in the basic rules.

Joshua Aslan Smith

they may be

when PHB comes out

they said they would update basic as the books release

Grubermensch

12:34 AM

Hopefully. I'm not a huge fan of the whole "feats are optional" thing, really. I think they should be a core feature.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I mean you can only max stats to 20

Grubermensch

In my playtest game I let my players pick either taking a feat or the ability raise.

Joshua Aslan Smith

thats how it is raw

when you hit an increase level you can add +2 to 1 stat, +1 to 2 stats, or take a feat

Grubermensch

I thought RAW was choose one or the other for the whole game

Joshua Aslan Smith

nope

you can go either or every time

so at each time the choice arrives you can choose a more general mathy increase or a more specific bonus via a feat

Grubermensch

12:37 AM

Hmm you're right.

BESW

...how did I ever start role-playing by reading 900 pages of this?

I kind of want to print this out and fill it with snarky marginalia.

Magician

...don't tempt me.

2

BESW

Hey, look, Rule 0.

I can't keep it straight; is there supposed to be a free starting adventure coming out, or is that Starter Set material?

Magician

12:54 AM

I think it's the starter set.

Grubermensch

I actually think I remember something about a free adventure.

Ravenloft something?

BESW

This is a good question for the site, I think. To the question-cave, Robin!

Magician

You know what would be cool, and would help read the endless rules pdfs? Scrawled-on comments shared between friends/people you subscribe to. Through the cloud or by downloading a template and applying it to a pdf (or downloading an annotated pdf but that's not gonna fly). It would be like reading it with them.

BESW

@Magician I would totally subscribe to yours.

Magician

Likewise :)

BESW

1:00 AM

0

Q: Is there (or will there be) a free adventure to complement the 5e Basic Rules?

With the release of the 5e Basic Rules, I'd like to run a quick adventure with my group to see if we want to invest in the Starter Set or other actual money-costing 5e products. Is there (or are the plans to soon release) a free adventure module designed for use with the Basic Rules? It'd be best...

dnd-next published-adventures

Grubermensch

@Magician It seems that you might be able to do a thing with Okular, the PDF reader attached to KDE (which is cross-platform). Apparently it saves annotations as a file independent of the PDF, which means you could distribute them without distributing the source material.

I have never used Okular though

Magician

@Grubermensch Interesting!

BESW

...needs a KDE environment?

Grubermensch

@BESW I'm not sure....

KDE apps are weird

Magician

0

Q: What are the stand-out features of D&D 5e?

5e is described by its marketing materials as: The core of D&D is storytelling. You and your friends may tell a story together, guiding your heroes through quests for treasure, battles with deadly foes, daring rescues, courtly intrigue, and much more. You can also explore the many worlds of D&...

dnd-next

Question of Doom posted! Big thanks to everyone who helped shape it.

BESW

1:10 AM

@Grubermensch Some of the sites are timing out, so I'm having a hard time pinning down the specifics.

Grubermensch

@BESW Yes, it does need KDE. But KDE can be installed on Linux, Mac, and even Windows to run KDE applications. It doesn't drive the whole system, just its own apps. Does eat a big chunk of memory though.

BESW

@Magician M'rr. May I do some quality edits? Punctuation, caps, etc?

Magician

Er, sure.

Grubermensch

okular.kde.org

Magician

@Grubermensch I suspect running an OS for a novel way to read PDFs with friends is a bit much.

BESW

1:13 AM

Yeah, I got that far. But community.kde.org/Mac is timing out.

[starts disabling blockers]

> KDE does not currently provide binary downloads for Mac OSX. Instead you need to build KDE software for yourself from source. The easiest way to do this is to use one of the Mac build systems which will automatically resolve all the dependencies for you. Unfortunately, this can be a very long process, taking up to 2 or more days. As at December 2012 MacPorts is currently recommended as it is the most up-to-date.

Grubermensch

@BESW The OSX method is to use MacPorts/Fink/Homebrew

BESW

"2 or more days" ... "December 2012" ... sod that for a game of toy soldiers.

Grubermensch

2 days seems excessive

... apparently not

BESW

Hm?

Grubermensch

maybe the KDE devs just hate themselves

polentino911.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/…

That's from 2012 claiming it takes ~10 hours and requires around 20GB of space.

BESW

1:21 AM

Grubermensch

Okay so the macports page for okular lists much less than the totality of kde on its dependencies. So maybe it will only be a couple hours. You could probably do it overnight I would think.

BESW

1:36 AM

Well played, cosplayers. http://t.co/pwTIe1huFt

Tweeted by BenMcCool on July 3, 2014 at 3:17 PM

2

Hehe

Hah

1:51 AM

@Magician Made a stab at the mechanics and an elevator pitch

Those are the 3 big things about the edition for me right now, I need to see a lot of monsters before I decide if BA is a good thing, but its a clear departure from the edition I'm familiar with, and IMO advantage/disadvantage is the best thing this system has going for it. It abstracts tons of 4e's maths into an easy to resolve mechanic

Magician

"That means that a L20 character is only going to have a 20% better chance of succeeding than a L1 character" Is that really how it's gonna be? That... doesn't sound terribly fulfilling for a level 20 character.

wax eagle

@Magician that's only based on proficiency, so it assumes a starting score of 20, which I don't think is possible, it should be closer to 30%

(start of 16, finish of 20)

BESW

Hopefully leveling up gives more options, rather than bigger numbers? (Haven't read that far yet).

wax eagle

@BESW in the full game it will, you can trade ability bumps for feats

Magician

But stats will only increment if you're not taking feats, and I suspect mostly people will be taking feats as they're more interesting. Eh, once again, we'll see.

wax eagle

1:55 AM

(and most classes get a bunch of them)

@Magician yeah, it'll depend on the feats, but choosing between +5% accuracy in a tightly bound system vs a potentially much more valuable feat will be an interesting char-op choice at least

Magician

Oh, so some classes get extra stat bumps/feats. I'm counting 5 total for wizard and cleric (at every 4th level), rogue gets 6 and fighter 7.

Grubermensch

It seems to me that 5E is less amenable to this sort of numeric comparison than previous editions.

Take for instance the Cleric power Divine Intervention. A L20 Cleric can pretty much succeed on one thing a week, guaranteed.

Magician

Wait, at 10th level you roll a percentile die and try to get your level or less (10/100 to 19/100 chance of succeeding), and then suddenly at 20 you just get it? Did they mean a d20, by any chance?..

Grubermensch

Hah, I did not even catch that on first reading. I assume they meant d20.

Otherwise that power is pretty useless

Magician

"The effects of any cleric spell or domain spell would be appropriate". Ugh. Yes, it makes sense to frame divine aid through divine spells. But then you don't need an extraneous divine aid. The entire cleric spellcasting is divine intervention.

You get a miracle, out of a list of miracles you can already do. I know D&D has never handled divine with any sort of piety, but this is basically a feature to sometimes maybe cast an extra spell. As such, it's fine. "Ey, god, can I have this extra little bit of power to smite yon unbelievers." Guess the name and framing of this ability just really rubs me the wrong way.

Grubermensch

2:07 AM

Yeah I find that kind of dumb. Divine intervention is divine intervention.

I would be inclined to use it to perform Permanency, since that is still not in the spell lists.

wax eagle

I think it's sort of supposed to the cleric answer to wish, but I'm not sure of that

though wish is not in basic (thats a win IMO)

tweeted Mearls, we'll see if anything comes of it

Joshua Aslan Smith

2:29 AM

Clerics are wizards via another stat mechanic in 5e

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith in a lot of ways yeah. The big differentiator is the spell lists and the fact that the wizards' possibilities are bounded.

Joshua Aslan Smith

2:44 AM

yeah I mean they differ in the execution/fine mechanics

but they're both flavors of the parent class "magic user"

wax eagle

yep

I was expecting a differnetiation in spell slots, but there isn't any

Joshua Aslan Smith

Ranger and Paladin are the only magic users that have mechanics substantially different in the playtest and we have zero idea how they turned out

we shall see with PHB

Magician

2:58 AM

Ok, so. I don't know what they've done to the Basic pdf, but it doesn't handle copy-pasting or even searching through it all that well. So I can't say if I've found them all, but I tried to look for saving throws of each type that get called out. I got Con, Dex and Wis saves. So this whole "we'll use each stat for saving throws thing", which gets further supported with classes having proficiency in two. What's that for, again?

I guess each class gets a proficiency in one useful saving throw and one extra just because?..

wax eagle

@Magician I assume as we see more monster we'll see more Int/Str/Cha saves?

Bob

Can i know how to use this site ???? actually i just unlocked it few hours back and i don't know anything about this.

BESW

@Bob Welcome! You may find the chat FAQ useful.

Magician

@waxeagle We'll probably see some, but their description didn't make any sense in the playtests, either. There was no functional difference between the way they described Int, Wis and Cha saves, and no difference between a Str check and a Str save. Which made me doubt the need for them in the first place. It's one of those innovations that should justify its existence somehow, and it hasn't so far.

Including a couple of examples of spells (or anything else) that utilize these strange saves and that demonstrate that they couldn't have been handled as well with the regular ones would have been useful.

wax eagle

Yeah, I want to know what those saves mean

cuz 4e's 4 defenses made sense

fort based on str/con, Ref based on Dex/int, Will based in wis/cha made sense in both a flavor and a mechanics perspective

Magician

3:13 AM

@waxeagle Here's their description from the playtest: Int is used to “resist spells that attempt to overcome your intellect”; wisdom to “resist being charmed or frightened, to see through an illusion cast upon you”; whereas charisma saving throws are there to “resist certain magical compulsions, especially those that would overcome your sense of self.”

wax eagle

@Magician is there a tangible differnece between cha and wis? seems like dominate should be a cha save, but its a wis save in basic

Bob

@BESW thanks for your help

wax eagle

hidden is underwhelming.... being out of sight is just as good

Magician

I don't see a tangible difference between any of them, honestly.

I can just as easily say I think logically my way around a dominate.

Bob

Can anyone suggest some youtube link for complex analysis .

Magician

3:22 AM

They could institute a simple general rule, like "Cha saves oppose charm effects, Wis saves oppose fear effects and Int saves oppose illusions", but we're not seeing it.

BESW

@Bob The Stack Exchange site covers a very wide variety of topics; this particular chat is associated with the Stack for tabletop role-playing games, like D&D. You will probably have better luck in one of the chats attached to the math Stack.

wax eagle

@Magician I'd prefer that tbh. Hopefully we get that kind of logic in the DMG

(which is supposed to be the hackers guide)

give me keywords, map those keywords to stats

(but I think like a programmer, my guess is that the designers are not programmers for the most part)

Bob

@BESW i think you have misinterpreted me. I just wanted to start learning complex analysis so i was asking for some youtube link which teaches graduate level complex analysis.

BESW

@Bob Aye, I understand that. But this chat isn't likely to have anyone who can help you find that. I'm an artist, and I'm in this chat because we talk about role-playing games.

Try the main chat for the mathematics stack site:

$Mathematics$ Mathematics

Associated with Math.SE; for both general discussion & math qu...

6

10

I expect it'll have people who know more about complex analysis than I do.

Bob

@Bes

@BESW oh... got it ... again thanks

BESW

3:29 AM

My pleasure. Good luck!

Joshua Aslan Smith

Didnt the save bonuses mean you added class proficencies to that save?

also there isnt a dominate condition

being dominated is part of charmed

or it was in the playtest I beleive

@besw I never understand the people who magically make it to our chatroom without any idea what the chatroom is about

BESW

It's because we're very prolific, and the chats are by default sorted by most recent activity.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith yes

Joshua Aslan Smith

ahhh

okay that makes more sense

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah, dominate monster inflicts charmed (and has more text), but Dominate monster is a Wis save

Joshua Aslan Smith

3:35 AM

yeah

I dont know

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith and @GMNoob we should figure out which WP plugin SE uses for their markdown support, way easier to write for WP when you know standard SE markdown is supported

(at least for me, because it's so ingrained into me at this point, that I literally use it all the time)

also @JoshuaAslanSmith and @GMNoob first draft of Adv/Disadv

docs.google.com/document/d/…

(but anyone feel free to leave C&C)

I'll probably jazz it up with some charts and graphs when I go to put it in WP

Joshua Aslan Smith

ill have to check later

sleepy tiem

wax eagle

kk

@wax_eagle percentile - when you hit level 20, you get a direct line to the gods.

Tweeted by mikemearls on July 4, 2014 at 2:36 AM in reply to wax_eagle

@Magician and @Grubermensch They actually meant percentile for divine intervention

Magician

Ugh. Guess you're no one important to the gods until suddenly at level 20 you're a VIP

wax eagle

exactly

it's like you jump from 4e L19 to L30

BESW

3:48 AM

So long, heroes-to-the-world, and hello, peasants-who-must-prove-their-worth.

wax eagle

Ok, night y'all

Ok, just had an epiphany re why divine intervention works the way it does. Heavily Rewards a 20 level cleric. If you MC at all you can't get auto intervention.

I think, although it doesn't say 20 cleric levels...will investigate further in morning

perhaps ask question on site

Magician

4:09 AM

Fall on your knees and pray: "Oh God, save these innocents who are dying in my arms!" Roll 89 for Divine Intervention. Skies part, trumpets sound, giant middle finger hovers there gloriously as they die.

BESW

@Magician If you roll 0001, a shaft of divine light pierces the heavens and parbroils the party.

A deep booming voice echoes across the sky: "Innocent? I saw what you guys did at level 5."

Magician

@BESW Oh, I presumed the prayer was on the behalf of NPCs. I would never claim any party is innocent.

BESW

I assume on general principle that anyone close enough to a D&D group for the healer to pray for them is as pure as the driven yellow snow.

Magician

Fail Divine Intervention roll => gods work in mysterious ways. Unless you're casting Flame Strike, then they're pretty well understood.

GMNoob

5:00 AM

@waxeagle looks good, but double check that 2 advantage + 1 disadvantage = advantage rather than a regular roll.

@magician I think divine spells come from your faith not the gods now

Magician

So the power was within you all along?

BESW

Wait, is this Curse of Fenric faith or God Complex faith?

GMNoob

5:18 AM

Haven't read it but they kept a bit of 4e in that regard

GMNoob

5:43 AM

When I was awake, there were not enough questions, now there are too many! :D

GMNoob

6:03 AM

@Grubermensch Can you explain what looks odd? My understanding was that the wordpress themes are responsive.

Grubermensch

6:15 AM

@GMNoob With a little playing around, it looks like the layout rescales up to a width of 1260px. After that, space to the right is just blank white.

Also, must be sleeping now.

GMNoob

6:56 AM

@Grubermensch Thanks, I see the problem. Apparently I have to find another theme.

kviiri

7:37 AM

Game day!

BESW

9:14 AM

So, I'm in a new Storium game where I'm playing an artist plagued by Lovecraftian visions. He's not very good at interacting with people, because he unsettles them and he knows it.

[runs off cackling madly]

(He's trying so hard to be personable and not weird.)

kviiri

9:32 AM

@BESW How are you liking Storium?

BESW

@kviiri I'm having fun with it!

I still feel like I haven't found the "sweet spot" for how to use it that works really well with me, but I'm getting closer.

kviiri

That's cool.

Storium is an interesting concept but I haven't really bothered to look into it further before hearing about it from an expert!

BESW

It doesn't replace IRL RPGs, not by a long shot, but it's a very different kind of thing so it's really rather unfair to compare them.

kviiri

I've had plenty of fun with online RPG's too.

BESW

I'm using it to play with friends I'd never be able to play with IRL because of schedule mismatching or living halfway around the world.

Even with friends who are willing to do RPGs online, scheduling is a challenge. With Storium you don't have to be online at the same time.

kviiri

9:42 AM

I used to play RtD's.

They're good fun, but it's hard to find players who respond at least once a day, every day, and don't forget the game at some point.

BESW

Aye. Storium has a decent system in place; you can "poke laggards," and narrators set the expected frequency of posts, and the system is robust enough that someone can be "absent" from several scenes and everyone else just carries on.

kviiri

The traditional approach, I believe, is just taking a ton of players in a forum game (ten or so) and assume that most of them disappear and the rest can keep on playing.

BESW

Storium's probably best with three to five players active at any given time.

And if people are too erratic the mechanics fall apart.

kviiri

Yeah, I think the only worse thing than constraining the players too much is not constraining them enough :P

What kind of mechanics are there, by the way?

BESW

9:58 AM

Well, you can ignore all of its mechanics and just use it as a structure play-by-post system.

But if you do choose to use its gameplay engine...

kviiri

I didn't think there was one. Could you describe it to me? What's it like?

BESW

Aye, let me get some visual aids.

When a narrator starts a scene she can create one or more "challenges" to be overcome.

Character mechanics consist of cards which can be played toward challenges.

kviiri

Okay, so storytelling aids but no rolls, mathy stuff etc?

BESW

The little squares at the top right of the challenge indicate how many cards are needed in order to resolve the challenge--thus influencing how important the challenge is to the scene.

kviiri

Sounds good.

Ah, I see.

BESW

10:03 AM

When enough cards have been played toward a challenge to reach its outcome, you look at what kind of cards were played toward it.

There are several kinds of cards: strong, weak, subplot, goal, asset.

Each time you play cards toward a challenge, that's a "move" which consists of some lines/paragraphs of narration and the option to play cards to reflect how the narration moves the scene toward the resolution of challenges.

If more Strong cards were played on a particular challenge than Weak cards were, the challenge gets resolved with a Strong outcome, and vice versa for a Weak outcome. In either case, the last player to play cards toward the challenge get control of narrating that outcome.

If the same number of Strong and Weak cards were played toward a challenge, the outcome is Uncertain and control of the resolution gets kicked back to the narrator.

kviiri

Okay, so it's a very structured but still a fairly open system.

BESW

So the screenshot I posted earlier shows a single move that I made, in which I played a Weak card (Detached from Reality) toward the Venomous Constrictor challenge.

(Earlier in the scene, one of the characters was asking around for a lighter so he could start a fire, as part of his attempt to resolve the Find Shelter challenge. I narrated trying to help him with that challenge, but instead managing to fumble into a different challenge.)

kviiri

Ah, it makes sense.

BESW

I gotta go confer with my mother about designing her thesis publication, back later.

kviiri

Bye mate.

GMNoob

10:55 AM

I am officially too old... I tried printing the rules 4 to a page and 2 to a page... now I have to admit defeat and print all 110 pages.

doppelgreener

@GMNoob more like the printing technology you're using is totally confounding

GMNoob

@JonathanHobbs No the font is just too small. I can read it if I strain real hard, but it's not worth the effort taken away to think about the rules

doppelgreener

oh dear. @_@

what about back to back?

GMNoob

@JonathanHobbs Not sure my printer has that feature in an easy to use manner

I just went to the store and bought 1500 pages for $15

kviiri

I have a cheapo printer that has it

The Forest And The Trees

11:02 AM

The most useful RPG tool I've gotten has been a cheap Nexus. All the 4e books in one place.

kviiri

You just take your output stack, put it back in the machine and voila, it's double-sided

@TheForestAndTheTrees Browsing on a smartphone tends to be a pain though!

GMNoob

@TheForestAndTheTrees I don't use eletronic devices on saturdays :)

The Forest And The Trees

@GMNoob Ah, fair enough.

GMNoob

@kviiri Yes but then I have page 51 on the back of page 1 instead of page 2.

kviiri

Then you're doing it wrong or you have a lousy printer

GMNoob

11:04 AM

So I would have to only print the odd number pages and then line it up.

kviiri

Yes, that's exactly what my printer does when I tell it I want two-sided print.

GMNoob

Ok, I'll try it. My printer doesn't have a back feed, so I just assumed it can't calculate it either.

kviiri

A little automatic rearrangement of printing order, then you take the stack and put it into input tray again. No fancy stuff like single-pass double printing.

BESW

@kviiri Ick, yes. I had Princes' Kingdom bound for under $10 at a copy shop last week, and I'm glad I did.

trogdor

I dunno about smartphones but buying stuff on a kindle is at least a little annoying

GMNoob

11:19 AM

Anyone have a favorite responsive wordpress theme?

BESW

I spent several days looking and couldn't find a free one that pleased me and met my needs.

wax eagle

@GMNoob yep, you're right, no stacking

kviiri

@BESW I do still like having a smartphone backup - just in case.

BESW

@kviiri Aye, I've got a little Kobo Arc that does me good.

GMNoob

@BESW What were your needs, and were they similiar to these needs? dungeonsampdragons.com

BESW

11:23 AM

Probably not. I was looking for something that supported gallery, text, and image+text posts equally gracefully, without an overlarge banner.

GMNoob

Did you happen to notice a template/theme that would allow me to do a large image feature for both posts and feed items?

BESW

Not that I recall. This was last year.

kviiri

When designing websites, bear this in mind: motherfuckingwebsite.com

BESW

@kviiri TIL the perfect website is an abusive hayhole.

kviiri

@BESW No, that's satire - the perfect website is that minus the verbal abuse. With anchor links.

You gotta have anchor links!

BESW

11:29 AM

I know. I'm just allergic to the sadly prevalent idea that profanity is a legitimate substitute for wit.

kviiri

I think the point there is going way over the top with it, but I see your point.

The Tamagotchi bit is witty though!

BESW

Yes.

GMNoob

Yep my printer sucks... total failure there.

BESW

You know, the only person I've ever heard speak praises of a printer is Ursula Vernon.

GMNoob

I used to have an amazing printer back in the 90s

BESW

11:33 AM

And that woman shells out the big bucks for 'em.

GMNoob

It was the size of a shoe box, did automatic double sided printing and the output looked amazing. It broke in 2008. :(

kviiri

Oh boy. When it's Friday afternoon and you find yourself creating new ways to make farting sounds with a ceramic mug, it's time to go home.

GMNoob

12:58 PM

Form Fillable charachter sheets here.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Tool.aspx?x=dnd/4new/tool/charactersheet

wax eagle

1:09 PM

@GMNoob thanks

Zachiel

1:32 PM

So, Next still has truesight. And it's as bad for shapechangers as it was before. :(

Joshua Aslan Smith

yolo

@besw check the answer I just posted to your question

Zachiel

@kviiri as long as two sheets don't get caught up togheter while printing backs.

I'm thinking about designing my own version of D&D. And then my own D&D 4e videogame, and then a mmorpg of my own design, loosely based on it but not as loosely as Neverwinter is.
#thingsIwontgetdone

Joshua Aslan Smith

neverwinter was slightly disappointing in its 4e ness

If you raided dungeons as a party it was total 4e but outside that not so much

Zachiel

We were discussing Neverwinter (Online) class design in Zone chat. Since they used paragon paths the same way 4e uses class build options (like, there's a paragon path for archer ranger and one for melee ranger), classes up to level 20 (which is our level 10) just have both options.

So we have rangers actually be constantly switching between ranged and two-weapon... that makes those two things class-defining (instead of powers), leading to "fighters can't use ranged weapons"

We're more or less caught in final-fantasy-like "yet another better version of the same only weapon I could use from the beginning"

except from graphic variation, my great weapon fighter (where great = two-handed) can only swing his greatsword / scythe / greathammer / greatclub / greataxe

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah

The shield fighter is terrrible for soloing

because your big starting feature, the shield only blocks damage, which is great for survivability, but is only really helpful if youa re marking and then taking the attacks

Zachiel

1:48 PM

(but hey the real problem of the game is that it is a mmorpg, and mmorpg players want PvP, and the balance design is based on PvPers whining about "that class is too strong". Currently, since rogues (the theoretically best single-target striker) have permastealth, their damage has been nerfed to the point where a close AoE great-something swinging fighter is dealing more dps than the rogue to each single target.

@JoshuaAslanSmith Marking works differently, since the mmorpg has no "to hit chance". It just debuffs the enemy's defense (expressed in lower damage percentage resisted) until they hit anyone (mark dealer included)

Tanking is really done by CCing and aggroing - which is not done by marks.

Joshua Aslan Smith

no I know

Zachiel

(CC = crowd control, such as proning and stunning)

Joshua Aslan Smith

markign also auses agro thyough right?

I played it for awhile as both a great weapon fighter and a shield fighter and a cleric

Zachiel

@JoshuaAslanSmith I think not. I don't play Guardian Fighter but I guess their marking power also, separately, gives aggro

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah not 100 percent sure

Zachiel

1:52 PM

Another big problem is that you must grind a lot to get better weapons. When you do dungeon delves the ones contributing much are the ones with better equip. A problem tabletop D&D has not, since gear is given in equal parts to everyone

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah

Zachiel

so yeah I'm totally not farming today's event and go do some dungeons to farm my OP gear before they nerf my class. Which they're gonna do.

Also ranting on Zone chat about how now there's nobody buying Astral Diamonds (the auction house money) with Zen (the pay real money to get it coins), so each zen costs 500 AD (which is the maximum, and you need to wait for days to get some because almost nobody buys it)

Mathematics

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$Mathematics$ Mathematics