@Miniman on this question, my attraction to it is that thought the math is fairly straightforward, the calls are close enough that other things really should (IMO) be taken into consideration. And laying that out is where we have room to write an interesting answer, not just a "gimme teh calcs" answer. You?

Also, does achieving Legendary status mean that 190-pt days no longer bug the crap out of you? 'Cause that'll be nice to leave behind, if it ever happens.

@nitsua60 it doesn't bug me and i'm not even at legendary yet. i suggest seeing a cleric. you may be cursed.

@BESW I'm heading off to bed, and will likely be available for geek night if it's on. :)

^^ Raycia will be with us, and we've got all kinds of stuff we might try!

aw heck yeah

@doppelgreener thanks! :D

I won't have much brain for GMing tonight, so I'm thinking maybe Psi*Run or something fast and silly like that.

hey there @daze413 and @Narusan

hey there @Shalvenay =)

how're things going?

[wave]

@Shalvenay Have to set up a treasure hunt for the boy's birthday party tomorrow.

@nitsua60 ah

Have I told, here, the story of his cake?

@nitsua60 yes

I can't find a good anti-piracy pamphlet to pirate legally obtain and print to have handouts for the kids =(

Here's a coloring book about trademarks from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Maybe something useful here.

@BESW Yanno... as ridiculous as some of that stuff is, I might just have to use it. Spread the subliminal anti-piracy message throughout the treasure hunt =)

@Shalvenay heya! :D

how're things going?

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: Using the spell animate object, I want to create an iron cobra but cant seem to by victor on rpg.SE

@nitsua60 page 12-13 seems like a real head-scratcher

@Shalvenay eh, its a lonely saturday at work

ah

we get the strangest spam here...

@Shalvenay Im imagining health.se being one of the stranger spammable sites

@Shalvenay how bout you? I think I read some time ago that you had another game finally picking up?

yeah, at last xD

@Shalvenay is this the game where you got separated from the caravan? or another one?

@daze413 same game, yeah. the party's finally assembled now -- got jumped by ruffians in the inn though haha. the good news is that the party survived, at the expense of a few of the ruffians being on the menu :P

@Shalvenay that's disturbing... Are they on the menu or on the menu?

@daze413 on the menu xD blame the lizardfolk in the party

sneak attack with teeth

also the innkeeper's little kid got a kill (crit a bandit with a fork)

That'll be some therapy bills.

@Shalvenay so young... such potential for violence... he must become an adventurer!

ah lizardfold PC's are best PC's

@trogdor :D

I have played lizardfolk a lot, because they are just like, the best

or at least in 3.5 I did

there wasn't much way in 4e to do it or else I might have

had to do a bunch of very awkward PC juggling last night too, as I attempted to insert Miniman's sister into the story "seamlessly", and she was in a totally different plane of existence from the rest of the party, so that was a tough task

wait, why did it require her to be in a different plane of existence?

why couldn't they all,.... meet at an inn or something?

no, she was in the material, while the rest of the PCs (who already were 2-3 sessions in playing) were in a homebrew modified-Hades plane

oooh

everyone else was in the wrong plane, that makes things harder for sure

I'll... stick to my forte, combat, next times for sure

(and yeah part of the confusion was "starting character should be wherever they have to be")

@nitsua60 It still bugs me, but that might be residual.

I need an Intelligence (Language) check

" I could see a DM ruling in either way, if the second effect persists or not, but I'd personally let the second bullet remain in effect, if nothing but for its hilarity"

does that sound right? I don't think it does...

if for nothing but its hilarity would be more idiomatic, but still rather tortured.

if only for its hilarity might be a bit easier on the brain.

Problem is: it's redundant.

"But for its hilarity" tells us that something would have happened, but hilarity alone was sufficient to change the outcome. What's "if nothing" doing in that phrase?

@nitsua60 oh? how so?

("Redundant" probably isn't quite right.)

he's saying you could just say because it's funny.

@BESW oh, I like this. Simple. Elegant.

thanks! :D

uline.com/Product/Detail/S-16509/Burlap-and-Cloth-Bags/…

@nitsua60 I think good and proper BAG would be more appropriate, as in, burlap bag?

I can get 50 of those things for $84! Sign me up!

=)

In 3.5, Bag of Holding is heavy enough that even that bag is too small.

@godskook no, you want one of these:

uline.com/Product/Detail/S-19916/Bulk-Containers/…

Why is that bag FDA compliant????

@godskook so you can stick 35 ft3 of flour in it and ship it to the local bakery

the price isn't too shabby considering the size of bag you're getting, for that matter

@Shalvenay that's a portable hole =)

For extreme edge cases of "portable."

Hooo boy, this new problem-gm question is a doozy.

@doppelgreener Ayup.

Heyhey.

Hoho.

This moderator's got to go...

(to a kids' birthday party)

@nitsua60 aw yesss. cool!

I'm watching some XCOM: War of the Chosen. The general rules are that you have turn-based combat and can choose 2 actions per turn, so pretty comparable to DnD. Sometimes there are a lot of lost (zombies) who have low hp and are slow, but they hurt a lot when they manage to hit someone. The interesting part is that killing a zombie will give you another action, so as long as you 1-hit them you can kill infinite of them, except that you run out of ammunition.

I think that can be adapted to DnD easily and would add a "getting overrun by a million zombies" feeling while still giving the PCs a lot of awesomeness.

There is also some sense of danger, because if you low-roll the damage and the zombie survives you don't get your kill chain and the zombies become a big problem.

@nwp, that fits with my experience that encounters are more "balanced" for PCs if I give larger arrays of weaker foes. Although I'd be careful about leaning too heavily on the kill-chain mechanic. Otoh, Great Cleave already exists.

So, with Great Cleave, a melee player can already do exactly this in D&D, as long as he has Zombies within reach.

At least in 3.5

@nwp Well, the player can. You'd probably have to finagle it a bit to get sufficiently threatening Zombies

DnD doesn't have XCOM's self-balancing in that regard: If you are getting overrun by zombies they are closer so your hit chance is higher so you get longer kill streaks. Might need to set something like that up somehow.

Although maybe it does for melee characters because they are less likely to run out of movement which might otherwise be their limiting factor.

hey there @eimyr

hello Shalv!

I can always count on your to greet me if I'm joining chat in the afternoon.

How's life lately?

OK here

cool

@nwp Cleave on ranged attacks and psuedo-throwing-weapons? Range increments mean you can peg them from farther away while staying safer?

Hey there @Shalvenay!

I do agree that you'd probably have to tailor it a bit, but D&D has most of the tools already.

hey there @Anaphory, how're things going?

Good overall!

How about you?

eyyyy @Anaphory long time no see!

Heya! There were a few weeks recently when I was entirely gone from here.

alright here

There was also some thing recently which I wanted to mention to you, but I cannot remember right now.

@Anaphory I can only assume it was sudden realisation of my brilliance and lasting impact interacting with me had on your life as a whole.

It must have been that!

what's up?

@eimyr it depends on your perspective :P

@ThomasWard haw haw.

:P

how's things, been a while since I appeared in this room >:D

@godskook I don't think a cleave attack is necessary.

@eimyr Been back to work after holidays for a good week now, and it's actually nice to be back to research, choir, board games and rpgs, even though holidays were also nice.

@nwp Maybe? I'm just repeating it cause that's effectively what the X-Com mechanic is.

Got a new person in my Monday RPG group who runs a mean (in the very best sense of the word) DW

@godskook I thought cleave means you pass overkill damage on to a nearby enemy.

@nwp d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#cleave

Also, see Great Cleave.

@godskook Ah, yeah, that makes much more sense.

Were you thinking Pathfinder? I think Pathfinder changed it.

I was thinking 5e DMG optional rule which I only know from hear-saying because I don't have that book.

Ah.

Yeah, I default to 3.5, so if there starts to be a mechanical disconnect in the conversation, check the 3.5 version of it.

@Anaphory Cool. I haven't played any RPGs in a while, not least because of my recent trip to Canada and work obligations which made me unable to commit to anything regular.

@godskook That was the idea.

@nwp Yeah, I just wasn't on your target system.

> Rewarding target: Whenever a character attacks and kills this target they may take another action.

This has some implications, for example it doesn't work with fireball because fireball doesn't do an attack (in 5e). Also it would make charge attacks really good (attacks that include movement), but I don't think there are any.

Also there is some strategy involved, because if the zombies have too much hp to 1-hit reliably it may make sense to soften them up with AOE in order to allow the next character to kill-streak them all.