@NautArch Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but what is your objection to the question? Is it that it is too similar to other questions which have what is presumably the same answer?
@B.S.Morganstein I've pulled most of my objections except my latest comment. But as a whole, it feels like it stems from a frustration on the answers from the Cube question. And the answer that it is arguing against already contains much of the answer to this one.
After further review, it seems more like it's a question about how the TK targeting requirements jive with the general targeting requirements. But with an answer in the question itself, it's very confusing.
@BanjoFox Your lack of knowledge suggests that you are a traitor. A true patriot would know this. I'm contacting Alpha Complex.
@NautArch I'll admit, I'm also a bit confused, but I do think that the provided answer helped to clarify (at least for me). I wasn't really sure what the specific question was, then I saw the answer, and now I feel like with the answer I can read into what the question was asking better
@NautArch - I am very disturbed by your statement. "Contacting Alpha Complex" implies that you are outside of Alpha Complex which is Treason, knowledge of "outside" is also treason :P
@BanjoFox Cheese questions - eg What is the highest AC you can possibly get? What is the most a person can carry? What is the farthest distance a person can travel in a day?
It just seems to me that these are a particular sub-type of question that, for filtering and searching purposes, it may be useful for them to have their own tag
@B.S.Morganstein Because that's not really what "cheese" is. That's optimizing, cheese is generally reading/interpreting a rule a specific way (or reading a few rules specific ways that synergize with each other) to increase power. Difference: Optimization is perfectly legal with any reasonable reading of rules; Cheese is likely to get shot down because it's silly.
@godskook It also relies on several rules stacking in ways that are not that implied; like Manipulate Form - it could very well be interpreted as being able to increase scores up to the user's score without temporary adjustments... Or any other number of reasonable interpretations of rules break Pun Pun; Cheese isn't so much that it isn't legal, it's that it requires a specific reading of rules to let it work. In most cases it's perfectly legal with the right reading
I just feel like there are 2 categories of optimization question - the first is more "typical", in that it is asking about synergies, multiclassing, etc. Then there is the second kind which appears to be, in its very nature, pushing the boundaries of the game system to their limit. though I definitely take @T.J.L.'s point about where to draw the line
@BanjoFox You don't need to signal your edits with terms like "Addendum" or "Edit". Just make your edits to include the new information as if you were writing things for the first time
To amplify the bullet from here:
Stop using the "Edit:" syntax of forums. We have explicit revision histories on everything, so everything should read as if the best version was the first version. if you see Edit: X hanging around, edit it out to make the content flow more smoothly.
Specifi...
@T.J.L. A cheese tag was proposed on meta. (rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/q/7200/23970) That proposal was not well received. Inspired by that question of "how would one define/draw lines?" I went ahead and posted this meta to create a cheese collection. Hopefully, if a proposal for a mainsite cheese tag comes along again, it'll benefit from the existence of that list/collection. (cc: @B.S.Morganstein)
@Delioth, actually, let's go with the easily examined build of the Diplomancer. There is no reasonable reading of RAW that suggests it doesn't work exactly as cheesily as the build claims it to work.
@godskook I guess a very explicit RAW reading of the ability would mean a kobold with the ability wouldn't be able to use it. He could shape into it and use the ability to give his viper Manipulate form... but the viper now has an ability Manipulate form, which begins "A sarrukh may use this ability to...". Viper isn't a Sarrukh, so can't use the ability to do anything; by extension, Pun-Pun isn't a Sarrukh and can't use the ability to do anything.
I mean, it's optimization. There's only some cheese when you try to actually use the thing to convince a raging orc barbarian that he's a good friend of yours in a few seconds. And when you bring in the Epic use to make a helpful guy fanatical, but Epic is pretty cheesy anyways.
(Then I'm going to remove the half-dozen or so that are about whether it's a dupe or not, since that seems a settled issue. Should help make that last comment visible.)
@godskook I'm not sure what you're claiming is cheesy about the diplomancer. The fact that diplomacy can change a hostile NPC to a friendly NPC is a system flaw, nothing cheesy about the diplomancer. A little cheeky for a player to actually try and take advantage of, maybe... but I think I have to reconsider my actual stance for a bit... and also get some actual work done. I'll get back to you on this point
Which diplomancer build are you looking at? The one I've seen actually relies on a houserule to take Negotiator twice and still only a +48 at level 11, and has to take a -10 penalty when using the ability as a full round action (and has to make the check twice, since they have to be Friendly to even attempt the Fanatical check)
Circlet of Persuasion, Cloak of Charisma, Tome of Charisma, Stat bumps, and skill ranks will all be picked up over the next 17 levels, giving at *LEAST* another 3+(3+2.5+2.5)*2+17= +36
Or.....+65-71. And I've consumed none of my class choices or feats over the last 18 levels of that.
@BanjoFox Probably, though I know Pathfinder suggests that perfumes and such can be situational Masterwork Tools, so there's a precedent somewhere for it to be something more atmospheric
@Delioth I would still consider perfume to be physical. particles of vaporized ingredients to tickle ones nose. However, I am not that familiar with Pathfinder but that is good to know.
I just find it a little more realistic that a confident, bright speaker would get more headway than someone that's got a fancy suit (maybe whiskey is a masterwork tool for diplomacy?)
I would say that the universal solution would be Confidence as @Delioth said, however, that is dependant on GM approval. Otherwise use the tools best suited to the diplomatic target
@godskook "Clean shirt, new shoes / And I don't know where I am goin' to / Silk suit, black tie, / I don't need a reason why / They come runnin' just as fast as they can / 'Cause every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man" applies to more than attracting women.
Questions like this are frustrating because I want to discuss ;-; https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/103471/which-call-of-cthulhu-edition-should-i-get
it's about advantage/disadvantage in D&D 5e, I had this idea that it might be more interesting if the 'roll two, pick highest/lowest' worked on the damage roll instead of the attack roll
@DaaaahWhoosh Though it would definitely be a fine question as long as it's phrased along the lines of "does average damage increase if we apply advantage to damage rolls instead of attack rolls?" (Explain oddities like how you deal with 2d6 damage rolls and sneak attacks and crits)
@Delioth sounds about right, the only thing I'm still worried about is that I'd like to know how this affects various combinations of low/high attack bonus and/or armor class. Which is mostly why I can't just answer this myself. But I'm somewhat confident it'll still be answerable
Now that you mention it, there's a variant rule for disarming attacks that I could probably fiddle with a little bit to get it to work. Or base it off of the Battlemaster's disarming attack
@DaaaahWhoosh Hmmm... How would you deal with something like a greatsword with 2d6 damage dice? Roll 4d6 and pick the highest 2? Roll 2d6 twice and pick the highest total?
I'm trying to run it through anydice and I'm not sure which method would make more sense
@godskook Perhaps. I uninstall ones I don't use because there are some applications that parse the whole list every time you go to pick one. It started as a habit on much slower machines.
@Delioth If that were my game, I couldn't wait until the paladin crits and gets to roll something like 4d6(reroll 1's/2's)+6d8 twice. And then every time after that it would be kind of meh.
@Adam We've done so on critical fumbles (typically followed by a percentile roll of 90+ if it's a magic weapon...and even that can generally be mended)
The reason I ask is because of a certain magical item in The Sunless Citadel which I expect my players to face this weekend, and I want there to be consistent rules for it both being used against them, and for when they inevitably pick it up.
@godskook Sundering. I was just thinking that your comment on trip rules reminded me of the 5e shove rules, which reminded me of the optional disarm rule and the battlemaster maneuver, which I can probably re-tool to fill my needs
It has come to my attention that how we have been handling dice statistics, and probability questions in general, has created a perception that they are on topic even when they have nothing to do with RPGs.
A representative quote from a recent discussion, responding to my asserting that mere sta...
Hm. I can have stats for both sets, since I've already written a function to do the more complicated way.
Initial observations say that both are definitely higher on damage (I can't say how it properly compares with hit ratios yet), but that highest 2 out of 4d6 is definitely higher than highest pair of 2x2d6. The second method makes a prettier graph though.
@Delioth in case you were wondering but didn't follow the question, it seems like my idea didn't work, but I have a new one that does basically what I wanted. Essentially, damage roll advantage adds a damage dice; it's better if you have at least a 50% chance to hit, and worse otherwise.
at that point it just becomes a matter of balancing encounters around an average 50% hit chance. In the end, it seems like more work than it's worth, but I might still try it out some day
I'm thinking about using a table like this to keep track of important stats. I would sort it by Initiative and fill in relevant fields for players and other characters. Is it overkill? Am I not tracking something that I should be?
I feel like if the character has used their reaction and is concentrating on a spell must be tracked better than asking the player. Otherwise it will be forgotten.
Or maybe the key is realizing that it doesn't matter if you occasionally let them react twice or only make concentration checks once in a while.
I'm not familiar with Critical Role. How doesn't it work well?
(Of course, ultimately I realized that I and my group tended to be happier playing in systems that didn't require all that fiddly tracking stuff in the first place.)
The first 30 episodes or so (3-4 hour session each) they made no concentration checks and occasionally had 2 concentration spells up. Then the GM got better at tracking and only forgets half of them.
I know it's... traditional... for the GM to take on ALL the responsibility as rules expert, adjudicator, mechanics tracker, plot architect, world builder, NPC representer, and social coordinator, but it's really not necessary and in my experience causes a lot of problems when that situation is just accepted as normal.
If it were my group, I'd also ask what problem is created by these failures to follow the rules.
@nwp That sounds like a much simpler solution to implement.
For a tracking sheet, I'd start by asking myself, "What information do I want at my fingertips?" rather than "What information could I have at my fingertips?" and identify the benefit to the gameplay that I get for having it. If there's no benefit, it's just noise that gets in the way of quick reference to the stuff that actually improves the experience.
It's just that I have no experience and can't tell what effects house-rules have, so I want to stick to RAW until I can observe those effects. I'm afraid that starting out with non-standard rules would lead to a not good game system eventually and changing the rules mid game seems problematic.
"So, you all know I'm new to this system, and I want to see how the game works 'out of the box' before we start making changes. Can you help me by studying how the system works for your characters, and we'll all keep track of the rules together?"
After each session you can talk about how it went, identify strategies to keep doing things you like and improve/change things that didn't work out so well...
To amplify the bullet from here:
Stop using the "Edit:" syntax of forums. We have explicit revision histories on everything, so everything should read as if the best version was the first version. if you see Edit: X hanging around, edit it out to make the content flow more smoothly.
Specifi...
