hey @nitsua60

hey @Shalvenay

I've been looking at the roll20 stuff you sent me

made an account and am working through the tutorial

coolio

you want me to gin up another random dungeon for that, or do something different to give roll20 a whirl?

@Shalvenay if you're amenable, I'd love to give it a spin. The next time I'd have time to play would be Thursday, 8pm EDT

@nitsua60 hrm. that...would run into the 5e game I play with @waxeagle on thursdays, most likely

@nitsua60 any thoughts on what you'd want me to get ready for you?

woo, first gold badge - "Electorate"

@Adeptus Congratulations!

@Adeptus congrats. Hit that myself a few weeks back with "fanatic"

@Shalvenay there's plenty of time after that--just saying that's the earliest I could probably play

@Shalvenay would there be any point to running the same dungeon, just to have a clean comparison on interface-experience?

@Adeptus nice :) I'm teetering on the brink of an Electorate badge on DIY myself -- just need to get my question upvote percent there up from 23 to 25

@nitsua60 unfortunately, I didn't really set that dungeon aside for that purpose

@Shalvenay are you doing the percentages by hand, or is there somewhere that's broken out?

so I'd have to...reconstruct it :P and that'd be rather messy/fidgety compared to starting from scratch

@nitsua60 it's broken out on the "upcoming badge" thing on the userprofile

@Shalvenay no worries

maybe I'm not seeing the %age because I'm not at the absolute 600 question-vote mark yet?

@nitsua60 exactly

question about posting conflicting answers:

I've got a pretty-well received answer to this question

one other user and I went back and forth a bit in comments, and I encouraged them to post as an opposing answer

but in the back-and-forth I've found myself thinking there's a good argument to be made for the other side...

...and looking at their answer I don't think that's doing a good job of making the argument

edit it?

my question: acceptable to post what I think would be the better argument against my own answer?

I think an edit would be way too far--I think there are arguments to be made for the "attack" side that they're not bringing in, and I'd want to see as much detail in that new argument as the existing well-received answer (mine)

to give the idea a fair chance to compete

@nitsua60 I suppose, if you really feel the other answer stinks

I definitely don't think it's doing the "attack" side justice

but don't want to be seen as trolling for rep

(in the fishing sense, not the internet sense)

Don't edit your answer if it changes the core of it. If your answer says "don't use an attack roll" then you change it to "do use an attack roll", then it's not the same answer anymore.

Either edit theirs (or give suggestions) or write a new one

sorry, unclear: I'm thinking about posting a second answer to argue the other side

I think answering for both sides is acceptable... might have to search meta to make sure

@Shalvenay no harm in his week, business travel and plans with wife :(

*game

@waxeagle aaah

so I think Thursday will work then @nitsua60

thanks @BESW

@Shalvenay cool. too bad about your game, but perhaps this'll salvage the night

@nitsua60 I hope so :)

@Shalvenay as for what to run, another random as simple/straightforward as the last would be just fine.

"Salvage the Night" would be a good name for a song.

(have to re-stock on oranges)

@nitsua60 sure thing

(haha)

...or a film about vampire wreckers.

@BESW ... or next season's Adventurer's League title?

(I'm assuming everyone else had the "It's beginning to look a lot like..." feed?)

from the review queue, is there a way to agree with the close vote but do so for a different reason?

When you click the "close" option it should prompt you to choose a reason.

The reason for closing that gets shown on the question's page is the reason given by the majority of the voters.

@BESW hmm... I was just doing it and would have sworn I just had the "skip", "leave open", "edit", and "close" options--when I clicked "close", just saw the single (dominant?) reason listed, rather than the overlaid window with the radio buttons

Huh. I get that overlay.

Maybe it's a rep level thing? Not sure why it would be.

is it worth you VtCing some random question of mine so I can take a look again?

Let's not misuse the mechanic. If you find a rec question that's not closed yet, link that and I'll vote on it.

sure

...hey, I hadn't even noticed that someone put a bounty on one of my questions. Cool. (It's not going to get an answer, though.)

@BESW the DRYH one?

Yeah.

how'd that session go?

It went very well!

It did exactly what I wanted, which was to bring underlying character tensions in the main campaign out into the open and force action on them.

so was it a one-shot system switch for your ongoing campaign?

Aye.

The main focus was that one character, who blamed herself for another PC being lost in time in an earlier adventure, gained time-travel powers.

She shifted the entire timeline into an alternate universe, and the grand finale returned everything to normal.

oh, yikes... time travel

you're braver than I

But as part of that return to normal, Doppelgreener's PC was forced to live through every traumatic event in her life, past and future.

does the PC recall the live-through experience?

suppressed? brief glimpses now-and-again?

Yes, though not with great detail. It gave her new insight into her relationship with her creator/father figure, though.

cool

Our upcoming story is going to put a spotlight on her trying to figure out how to deal with that... without knowing that, because of other events in the story, her father figure (played by trogdor) has been replaced by a shape-shifting villain infiltrating the team (also played by trogdor).

ouch

are we venturing into BESW's spoil-lair?

Nah, the way we're playing this all the players know all of this.

By having all the players in on it, that means we're all working together to make the situation as hilariously awkward as possible.

british farce style? all "slamming doors and 'thank-you-please, guvnah?'"

(for some reason your "hilariously awkward" flashed me back to Noises Off)

We've also been asking "Dr Light" to give advice on how to best defeat Queen Vulturra, and in particular we've been talking about how her relationship with her general is pretty messed up and the general would probably be better off on his own.

so, @BESW, a possibly personal question--tell me if I'm overstepping: a comment on this answer enumerates "mods, former mods, future mods, and @BESW"

Is there a reason you don't fit in any of the other categories?

I work to be proficient with the workings and philosophies of the site and to be active in helping support it, but I'm not an elected moderator and I have no interest in ever becoming one. However, I don't think I'm the only person who falls into that category.

It's flattering to be singled out, but there are a number of folks in a similar position: active, knowledgable citizens who are content in that role.

@BESW (surely not)

(Trivia: the answer that I commented on there is the most downvoted answer on RPG.SE.)

(what? I see it at +8/-0)

@nitsua60 The example linked in that meta answer.

The mainsite answer I commented on, which comment is linked in the metasite comment you linked to.

ahh--didn't get far enough down the rabbit hole

ohh

@nitsua60 (Don't call me Shirley.)

(not Shirley? Shirley, not?)

(surly?)

=P

@BESW makes me feel bad for Lucas

@nitsua60 He could always delete it if he wanted to. Deletion by a moderator was contested and overturned, but deletion by the original owner wouldn't be.

I almost think there should be some sort of badge for not-deleting it, though

(a little tongue-in-cheek)

a moderate-rep user, not a fly-by

sticking by his guns

that attitude's why I've proudly left this one hanging around out there

Downvoted answers are often still valuable.

I don't think I'm right, but in the meta I feel like it's useful to have a record of a new user's impressions and reasoning--hopefully I communicated those well

In his case, it's a common enough idea that it's good for people to see that the community knows about it and disapproves.

(And if his answer gets deleted, someone else will add one like it, so the downvotes would just get applied to someone else's account.)

@nitsua60 Indeed.

as for Lucas, I feel like what he's describing is Shirley: a problem of pepole not couples

Also, it's interesting to see how experience changes policies over time. You may be vindicated someday.

@nitsua60 Yeah. It's an immature and reactive overgeneralisation, punishing everyone for a specific kind of individual immaturity.

I think he's being too-general: there might be a useful distinction drawn between a couple gaming with a group and some of the immaturity that you see when there's a member in the group who'd like to be part of a couple

It's the old "Don't date in the workplace"/"People who are attracted to each other shouldn't serve together" argument, and it has all the same holes.

(And yeah, I have seen groups suffer because of romantic issues, but it's never been about existing couples.)

@BESW that's the crux, I think

And even then, it's not a death knell.

I may start dating a girl who's working in the same building as me. Pretty sure we'll be able to deal with it ok.

we've probably all had bad experiences with other motives coming to the table

My brother on the other hand didn't enjoy working in the same building as his girlfriend, when he did. It made it harder to enjoy space apart.

Folks can be mature about this stuff. Punishing everyone because some people can't handle it is itself overdramatic.

(Luckily, this girl and I are both consultants and almost always have urgent matters to attend to.)

my one workplace romance is still going great, ten years and three kids later =)

as for working together, it's all about the two people

@doppelgreener meaning you've not got much free time while in the same building?

One of my college friends met his wife through D&D.

@nitsua60 Consultants spending large amount of times not at their desk and hanging around idling chatting with other people does not look good for them.

After all, if we're just doing that, why do they have us instead of regular employees?

And one of the most gung-ho players in our current group took nearly a year of begging before she'd join us because her boyfriend was already playing and they were afraid they'd ruin everything; they'd played in a D&D game together before and the group dynamic suffered.

@doppelgreener funny, my father's a consultant with Bechtel. I think that's all he does. (But I suppose that's consultancy's version of tenure.)

@BESW I've seen that in sports teams, workplaces, not just gaming groups.

I just realised that there are couples in both of my favourite D&D groups.

I've also had a couple who went out of their way to make sure their PCs had no interpersonal dynamics at all except what was necessary for group cohesion, to avoid any semblance of impropriety along the lines of what Lucas describes.

@Miniman If I count my home Duet with the missus, I suppose that's true for me, too

(I literally mean we're playing LMoP, introducing her to the game. No attempted double-entendres, here.)

@BESW to the detriment of the game, perhaps? as opposed to just playing naturally, that is?

@nitsua60 I can't say for sure, the group had some other challenges at the time and it's unclear what elements caused what dynamics, but I do think their arm's-length approach to each other's PCs added unnecessary artificial barriers to where the storytelling could go.

Then again, one of them also liked making joke PCs that didn't mesh with the setting, and that may have been even more of a challenge for the storytelling.

@BESW "why is there an owlbear-barian on this space freighter?" kind of joke PCs?

Real-world pop culture references.

(just thought of that. Owlbear-barians are definitely a thing now.)

ugh. even worse

I mean, the party liked funny PCs. We had a lot of them.

But they were in-universe funny. The nation of half-orc bigots who thought they were better than everyone else; the guy who insisted on making friends with everyone, regardless of how deadly, brainless, or obviously threatening; the guy who spent combat lying on the ground behind a bush shouting orders.

sure--the standard fare

The necromancer who was so unpersonable that the only way he could make friends was to make them out of corpses.

(I added him specifically to bounce off the "friends with everyone" PC.)

And then in walked the vryloka with mirrored glasses and rumpled hair, named Edward.

vignette: [age seven, alone in attic-room. mom calls up stairs]

"what are you always doing up there? why does it smell like bat-poop? Can't you just go make some friends, already!?"

[mutters] "get off my... what...?"

[end scene]

We couldn't make Edward funny because nobody in the game knew the joke. He was a self-contained meta-textual reference that the game and its inhabitants couldn't key off of or interact with.

@BESW not following

The player made a PC who was a Twilight joke.

Nobody in the game world knew what Twilight was, so they couldn't interact with the joke.

ahh

Now, my current game has PCs with names that reference Doctor Who, Stargate, and Warehouse 13. But they aren't joke characters. They just happen to have pop culture references in them.

Edward's purpose in being made was to be a walking Twilight punchline that nobody could ever set him up for.

we had the Society of Ancients in a recent campaign

turns out it was a bunch of nerds at a sand table trying to recreate long-forgotten military tactics

none of the kids thought anything of it, and the other old-fart and I got chuckles out of every mention

@BESW I love this so much

The key to a good reference, or allegory, or in-joke, is that it's gotta be good for the story even if nobody notices the subtext.

of course: in our case, the SoA all had means and were always interested in seeing and possibly acquiring anything adventurers might bring back from a ruin or dungeon

This is why The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is better than The Last Battle, why Love & Monsters sucks while The Happiness Patrol is okay.

@BESW how would you rank space trilogy vs. narnia?

I haven't read the Space Trilogy.

Even in the better Narnia books I have only moderate patience for Lewis, so I'm not seeking out more of his stuff to inflict on myself.

fair enough; likely wouldn't feel any differently about the space trilogy

Right now I'm reading the Imperial Radch trilogy. Liking it very much, my estimation of it increases with each novel.

(And it's got ideas about identity that I'm going to incorporate into my campaign!)

...of course, almost everything I read colours the game I'm running at the time.

of course. players love it when they see me with a copy of Pliny in my hands. </sarc>

(I got sucked back in when that question abut druids and scythes came up a while back)

I once ran an abortive campaign inspired by The Magic Flute and The Phantom Tollbooth.

did the players start jumping to conclusions about how things'd work?

(groan...)

Heheh.

how old do you think you were when you first read it?

Actually, the Phantom bits were mostly with regard to the City of Reality and the City of Illusion, and the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason.

Phantom Tollbooth? Somewhere between 8 and 12.

Best I can remember for me is that it was after 7yo, based on the house I lived in. Wondering when I should drop it on my oldest's nightstand.

Depends on the kid, really.

I read Flatland at about 8.

Didn't read The Hobbit until I was 12.

Still think Frog & Toad are some of the most insightful books in English literature.

First book my son read to me: Frog and Toad are Friends

For me, though, you can't beat Harold and the Purple Crayon

Then you might get a kick out of this:

it's like: "psst!hey kid... there's this thing called creativity. It's pretty useful. And here's the manual."

@BESW is that a real thing, or just a mock-up?

Just a mock-up. Alas.

I have vague memories of Phantom Tollbooth. The main thing that stuck in my mind is the watchdog. I'd forgotten the name of the book, but remembered that.

Toc, right?

(the dog's name?)

maybe?

Tock, yes.

night, all

@nitsua60 Cya!

ttfn

@doppelgreener Isn't this dangerously close to an answer posing as a comment?

How is "do owlbears lay eggs?" a question worth 2500 views and 27 upvotes? I blame you all.

@Magician I refute your blame

I didnt even looked at it

I just laughed at how utterly unimportant that was.

Hats minus 2̶6̶h̶ and counting. Edit: no wait it's longer. ◁:'(

@Magician I'm just as baffled. Apparently there is great interest in the mating habits of owlbears.

@JoshuaAslanSmith Hey! Maybe I wanna raise my own baby owlbear.

Well I mean this is a thing so people are obviously interested. kickstarter.com/projects/metalweavedesigns/the-baby-bestiary

As baffled as I am about the popularity of that question, I do have a lot of affection for the detailed ecology stuff in 2e. It manages to make the wacky implied setting of D&D nearly sensible and a place you could set stories that take the setting seriously.

@SevenSidedDie anything about owlbears, really.

@SevenSidedDie +inf for your calling out "Ecology" sections in that answer--they really do make the 2e compendium a must-have for any (fantasy) setting designer, I think

@nitsua60 That might be it. I guess it's not just me that has an odd affection for the beasts.

@nitsua60 It may be the best book ever published for any D&D edition, when I think about it.

I, particularly, look at most of the guides not as rulebooks on how to play a game, but as worked examples of how to design a game.

in that sense, the 2e stuff really is a great but of reference

(some of it, at least)

@SevenSidedDie how was I the first person to star this? This is clearly the most important thing said here today! :P

(@BESW's Tock is very nice too, but I mean, hats!)

@Poutrathor Ah, there you are!

hi, I am having troouble with this question : rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/71967/…

indeed

here i am

:)

so, what books are you guys using?

the 3 mains

OK

3.5

you are correct that cleric is probably your best bet, but if you are looking to do something else, bard could be quite excellent

we are thinking to buy some more but they are not available in french anymore :(

Bards are quite powerful if you can use the splat books for them.

@Aaron Sure, but they don't have those, which is why bard is "could be fun" and not "oh man, go bard!"

but with three melee guys in your group, bard could be quite a force multiplier

mmh

i can buy it

if you wanted to buy something, my first recommendation would be Tome of Battle

i have a job after all, i must be working for something xd

a crusader would be amazing in that party

or even a bard/crusader

I leave you to it. My experience is mainly in PF.

tome of batles are the upgrade fighers classes right ?

Tome of Battle has three base classes that are similar to some of the original fighting classes, so sort of

you can still use the original classes, and Tome of Battle will help them out

but crusaders are quite similar to paladins, warblades are quite similar to fighters, and swordsages are quite similar to monks (or they can also be a kind of rogue or ninja kind of class)

so yes, there is a certain sense that Tome of Battle directly replaces those

since they are very similar, but better designed

ok i get it

and yes, especially with new players who are having fun with fighter and ranger, Tome of Battle may be somewhat disruptive

and wgat about multi class?

well, your limit of two classes is arbitrary and annoying, and something I generally recommend against :P

buuuut

single-classed bard is good

cleric 1/bard for the rest could be interesting

and if you do introduce Tome of Battle, bard 4/crusader for the rest is quite solid

(so is just single-classed crusader)

for example, if you take one level of cleric, and take the Magic domain, you can use all cleric and all wizard wands without needing Use Magic Device

ok

so

which is pretty awesome, and will help a lot with healing (since wands are usually the best way to do that)

we have reach teh point we have wands

1st-level wands are already reasonable at your level

but yes, that would be something of an investment in the future

wands can also be fiddly to keep track of, so you may not want to do that; just saying it's an option

cleric is also good for, say, Travel (freedom of movement 1/day can get you out of a stick situation)

Luck (1/day reroll something you just messed up is awesome)

why are you against the rule of 2 classes ?

that's a long rant that would kind of derail this discussion, but to put it briefly, because I don't think 3.5 is a very good system, and one of the few things that I think is good about it is that it's got a lot of options, and you can mix and match them any way you like to make your character

you don't have to play the character in the book

so if you add houserules that limit the ability to mix and match, I feel like you're killing the best thing about the system

that said, it seems that your group is all pretty new, so at this point

whatever helps make the game manageable for you guys is probably the best thing to do

eventually, I think you should embrace multiclassing, should use Tome of Battle, etc., but if you're not there yet, that's fair

I am reading about crusader

at the same time

it seems indeed to be the class the team need

crusader is awesome, it's one of my favorite classes, and #1 recommendation to new players

is it fun enough to play ?

definitely

you always have something to do

you pretty much never run out of maneuvers

if you're going to make a crusader, I strongly recommend printing out the Maneuver Cards, at least for the maneuvers you know

the way the crusader works is, you take the cards for the maneuvers you have Readied, and you shuffle them

then you draw two, and those are the maneuvers you have Granted

so you can use those ones

every round, you draw a card

niiiice

until you run out of cards, then you reshuffle and start over with 2 again

so it's a little random, but all of your options are pretty cool, so whatever you randomly get will still be pretty cool

excellent !

i love the idea of this mechanic !

it's supremely elegant

I'm a huge fan

the Devoted Spirit maneuvers can do some healing while you hit things, which actually makes crusaders better than clerics for in-combat HP healing

the White Raven maneuvers are great for leading your allies

hahahaha

letting them move on your turn, letting them attack on your turn

which is why the class is so good for your party

the monk, ranger, and rogue should love that

omg,

the class also works very well with bard, if you wanted to multiclass

Oh hey when you have a moment @KRyan can you check out this class. I am thinking of using it in PF and wanted your opinion on it. Don't let me interrupt you now though just wanted to go ahead and toss this toward you for when you had a moment.

half your levels in other classes count towards your "initiator level" (think caster level, but for maneuvers)

ah yeah, you said bard 4 levels and one in crusader ?

so if you do, say, Bard 4 first, you start with IL 3

as Bard 4/Crusader 1

3 means you can choose 2nd-level maneuvers

good, sound like level 5 is perfect start ?

5 is a really solid start, yeah

excellent

and at 6, you can take the Song of the White Raven feat in Tome of Battle

it lets you start Inspire Courage as a swift action, and lets your crusader levels count as bard levels for how big a bonus Inspire Courage gives

this is ridiculous

it's pretty solid

I love it

OK, before I let you help @aaron

you'll give all your allies +1 attack and +1 damage (and this will continue to grow as you level), and you won't even have to stop doing your own thing to do it

i ahve on worry

@Aaron Oh man, I do not want to go through Frank & K's stuff right now

I don't remember the details of their monk in particular, but...

their "Tier 1" martials aren't

they're extremely powerful Tier 3s

but they don't have the flexibility and options that a Tier 1 should have, or even that single game-breaking trick that a Tier 2 would have

at the same time, though

they can do ridiculous things

so I feel like they don't solve the problems they set out to solve, they just create new ones

Frank & K have some good stuff, but it's mostly in their musings on 3.5, not their mechanics

Sorry my broswer just crashed O.O

Tome of Necromancy, I vaguely remember being a bit better

Book of Gears was probably their best, but sadly it's incomplete

Sry, I have one worry. This character is plain more powerful than the classes we have built until now and I need to make sure my friends does not feel like lagging behind. Thus, do you have any mutliclass ideas that would help their character ? We have a rogue, a ranger and a sorcerer (and a monk). I dont think the sorcerer needs help, nor the monk since he is already homebrew boosted. WHat can I offer to the rogue and teh ranger if they want to spice up their game ? Thanks

i can wait

I have some cooking to do too

@Poutrathor first, you can use a crusader to boost them, so potentially you'll be making them even cooler just by being there, without them changing anything

that said, Tome of Battle can be very good for them, too

the rogue could do very well by looking into swordsage, and the ranger could do that or warblade very well

swordsage gets lots of stealthy and sneaky moves in Shadow Hand, including short-range teleports, hiding in shadows, and so on, and both swordsage and warblade get lots of dual-wielding bonuses with Tiger Claw

I was just talking about that monk class specifically being better than the PF monk. It looks like it to me (At least more interesting) but I know you are far more knowledgeable than myself

the ranger could also look to do something like the horizon tripper without even getting new books, if you allow him to multiclass a little more freely

@Aaron the PF monk sucks nearly as much as the 3.5 one (actually, in some ways, it's worse; wild shape monk is gone, and many of their bonus feats have been nerfed)

so yeah, sure, the tome monk is definitely more interesting than that

almost anything would be

No argument here.

I have been trying to design my own twist on the monk but I don't have the design knowledge to make it that good.

but I'd still recommend the swordsage from Tome of Battle over the tome monk, or one of the similar classes for Pathfinder done by Dreamscarred Press in their Path of War line (disclosure: I know several DSP folks personally, and am doing some freelance work with them unrelated to Path of War)

I have decided to start my design "career" with a module for Pathfinder.

@KRyan I love the path of war stuff

Didn't you work on that a bit?

I did a very lengthy review/critique of a late Path of War beta, some of which was incorporated into the actual book, and I have had discussions about design with several of the authors and editor of Path of War, but no, I did not write any of the material myself

by the way, actually

?

sorry, work's blocking me from getting a link, trying to get it from someone who has it

why that is taking so long, I couldn't tell you...

What is it you are trying to link to?

@KRyan Many thanks. I will definitively push this idea.

Chris, the lead developer on Path of War, was recently injured and cannot work. He is in serious danger of losing his home, and he's started a gofundme to try to raise some money to see them through the holidays and his recovery

his wife has a chronic illness, and they have a baby child

so they're in a really tough situation, so if you like Path of War, and maybe know some other folks who also do

it'd be good to share the link around

...if I could get the damn link

@Poutrathor good luck with it! if people don't want to do it, my follow up suggestions are bard, or maybe bard with 1 level in cleric (or even better, cloistered cleric)

what is his full name?

@kryan gofundme.com/errantx

here u go

@Poutrathor ...how'd you do that?

google

@Aaron as @Poutrathor said, it's gofundme.com/errantx

I go the same link by searching "gofundme chris path of war"

^^

Yea I found it as well

yeah, now I feel dumb

Wanted to confirm before I sent the link

mm, yeah, it's legit

it's actually terrifying, is what it is

gofundme for Chris lead dev on path of war

I am broke as fudge right now or I would help.

@BESW I don't know if it's appropriate, but Chris Bennett, the lead developer on a popular Pathfinder third-party supplement, Path of War, has a medical emergency that is threatening to see his family evicted. He's got a GoFundMe campaign for it. If it's not too much, do you think we could sticky it?

@Aaron Of course; honestly, spreading the word might help just as much

it's appreciated