TRPG General Chat

V2Blast

01:21

there is far too much math happening in here for my liking

:P

nitsua60

01:32

Anyone have time/interest for a little project? (Very little, I believe.)

RPG.NET has an RSS feed and I wonder if it would make a good addition to our room feeds, selected by the community.

But I don't know nearly enough about how to "read" the RSS feed to be able to describe how often things might appear.

Mike Q

Ask on stackoverflow maybe?

nitsua60

(I don't know if the feed aggregates things daily, or pushes every post, or just reproduces the weekly newsletter I get.)

So I wonder if anyone wants to take a look and give me their impression of what the activity is like?

@MikeQ Oh, no--I'm not looking to learn anything. Just trying to farm out the bit of sleuthing I don't feel like doing. =)

BESW

@trivianinja @EvilHatOfficial BOOK TITLE! Now from GAME COMPANY!

Tweeted by fredhicks on October 3, 2018 at 3:46 PM in reply to trivianinja

trogdor

02:41

@BESW why can't I stop loving Fred Hicks?

Must be the hair

XD

BESW

03:41

@Capnhoppy @trivianinja @EvilHatOfficial Agreed, us folks at GAME COMPANY had a very good time working with CREDITS and DESIGN TEAM.

Tweeted by fredhicks on October 3, 2018 at 4:14 PM in reply to Capnhoppy

trogdor

03:59

Lol

BESW

07:15

Are you hype for Improv For Gamers? @ktwelves will be posting some videos in advance of the release over on the @improvforgamers YouTube channel. It's braaaand spankin' new so jump on and subscribe to get immediately notified when the first videos go up! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC58vVxMobfT3T-X9_oiG5dg

Tweeted by EvilHatOfficial on October 3, 2018 at 10:15 PM

Carcer

08:02

another fine "clarification" from crawford

kviiri

...can't he read or what?

Assuming we're talking about that troll answer.

Carcer

yes, we are

kviiri

(troll as in the fantasy creature, not as in the sadly-not-fantasy-creature)

I wonder why he isn't addressing the fact that the feature as written doesn't match what he's saying.

Not even lip service, "ya ya we'll fix it. Eventually".

Carcer

I think he might not have actually understood the question

kviiri

Lunch -->

Carcer

08:09

which I'm not going to give him too much crap for, twitter doesn't exactly provide the room for much context

kviiri

Well he's hardly alone. I think quite many people assumed what the ability reads instead of actually reading it, in that question.

Carcer

but the answer at least implies that he interprets that aspect of troll regeneration as a feature which depends on you having 0 hp

kviiri

but now lunch for reals :)

Carcer

ciao

so it at least clarifies the RAI, if not the RAW which was the actual problem

BESW

08:52

Your First PC: Hi I'm a Human Fighter avenging the death of my father Your Fourth PC: https://t.co/BccgTkqzu3

Tweeted by billy_b0nes on October 3, 2018 at 1:36 AM

kviiri

09:36

@Trish or someone who's good at expressing stuff in English, could someone come up with a better title for this meta question rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8432/…

"What the Heck happened there?" is not very informative and feels a bit clickbaity to have in the sidebar

Trish

@kviiri it was just typed down what I thought that moment. If you have a better title, go ahead.

kviiri

@Trish Yeah I don't really blame you... just that I don't have anything better at the moment :P

Trish

@kviiri Where does this diamond-comment come from?

kviiri

> Should also be noted that the diamonds are generally reluctant to provide a lot of information about previous moderation incidents, eg. "why was X's account suspended last year" or "what offensive stuff did Y actually post". It's a pragmatic policy. You probably won't get much detail.

^ that one?

It's how the site moderators usually work regarding nastiness that has already been resolved, eg. if a user gets suspended they don't tend to poke at scabs by talking too much about it. Might make it harder for users to adjust back once their suspension ends, and spread bad feels and so.

Similarly, if there had been some serious nastiness in that question, you probably wouldn't have gotten a lot of detail about it. Spending too much time musing about "what happened" can easily breed new drama :>

doppelspooker

10:11

It's so that people can reintegrate after they've cooled off and improved their ways (if they've done so) without trouble or stigma.

Kviiri's summary is good.

kviiri

Yea. To be clear, I think it's smart and pragmatic.

doppelspooker

I think so too.

Honestly of all the moderating systems I've seen or been part of, the one the stack uses is about the best so far.

It's not perfect, and the chat side of it is terrible, but the mainsite moderation methodology and philosophy is pretty good.

BESW

10:51

I have issues with the underlying assumptions of the site, which leak into the moderation system like everything else--in particular, in the way the system treats the moderators.

Carcer

beep boop

doppelspooker

11:25

@BESW Would you mind expanding on that sometime? I'm learning from this system's successes and shortcomings for future stuff, and that sounds like something I may not have considered.

BESW

@doppelspooker From my observations, and policies and official statements, and confidential discussions with a number of moderators, I get the strong impression that moderators are included in the Stack's treatment of its users as faulty, incorrigible, fungible cogs in an ambivalent, morally neutral machine.

Carcer

isn't that what I said?

BESW

The Stack epistemology doesn't recognize emotional labor, and so its practices chew up moderators and spit them out.

kviiri

@doppelspooker Thanks for editing the title, by the way ^^

doppelspooker

11:40

@kviiri 👍

MooseBoost

11:58

Hi All,

I was told to ask my question here instead as it regards RAI rather than RAW. Does anyone know why the base number for spell save DC is 8 rather than the standard 10 you get by averaging a d20 or in things like passive perception etc?

thats dnd 5e btw

Sdjz

hey there

kviiri

@MooseBoost My guess is that it starts at 10 when you add in a L1 character's proficiency bonus. So the base value is effectively 10.

Sdjz

I agree kviiri and I would guess that is the notion most people have on it

Carcer

@kviiri yeah

that'd just seem to be the balance they wanted to get for saving throws

Sdjz

@MooseBoost the reason the main site can't deal with this is that even though we all agree, this is still just our opinion on the subject, it may be true but we can't really know what the designers were thinking

Carcer

12:02

at the base level, all else being equal, it means you've got a 50/50 chance of succeeding a saving throw you're not specifically proficient in

ah, yeah

so "RAI" isn't inherently verboten, it's often entirely possible for us to tell you what rules as intended ARE

it's the "why" bit which is the issue

kviiri

@Carcer Well, technically slightly better, because rolling a 10 versus DC 10 is a success

Carcer

yes you're right

kviiri

I don't see the point of saving throws, I liked it better when there were only attacks :(

Carcer

to be honest, 4e's concept of stat-based defences was one of the things that I think was actually a good idea

unifying that mechanic made sense to me

but I guess you've got more options for ability interplay when you make them different things

BESW

12:19

I much prefer the player-facing rolls for player actions, yeah.

Carcer

plus who does the rolling influences how the action feels

kviiri

Well for us the 5e way was a huge source of confusion

Since I started regularly viewing 5e questions here, I've of course known quite well what an "attack" means

Carcer

did you start with 4e?

kviiri

But we did have our share of "what do you mean, a fireball is not an attack?!" moments

@Carcer Technically, yes, but I only about a half of our party was playing in our "4e" era and it was years ago regardless so I don't think anyone remembered the 4e rules particularly well

Carcer

@kviiri still. Coming from a predominantly 3.5 background 5e's way of doing things feels natural to me

I could see it being weird if you're more familiar with 4e's mechanics

kviiri

12:27

@Carcer I think it's a learned thing, not intuitive. I mean, who in their right mind would not consider me throwing a fireball at my enemies an attack? :P

Carcer

@kviiri mm, fair enough. I got into D&D when I was 12/13 so my intuition on the natural meaning of language and rules interpretation is always going to be fundamentally skewed

BESW

12:52

very much learned. "Ranged touch attack" will never be plausibly intuitive.

kviiri

I'm itching to get some more 4e

although tbh I'd be happy to play even 5e now. Why is scheduling a nightmare

NautArch

@kviiri because humans

kviiri

We have "two-ish sessions of Curse of Strahd left"

so probably three

I have a weird problem now that I have friends who want to start AW with me but no time to run it :>

Anaphory

13:11

@kviiri Make the time! Invent a time machine, if you have to!

kviiri

@Anaphory I have an opposite time machine: my thesis. No matter how much time I put in, nothing comes out

violating the conservation of energy

Anaphory

Oh no!

Do you have a deadline for it?

kviiri

Well, my enrollment for University of Helsinki ends next January, but I probably can extend it if I can show my work.

I was kinda cocky about finishing it last Summer, and thought a half-year extension would be enough.

It still might be. I'm making good progress.

About a year ago (when I was making practically no progress) I used to get almost no sleep over it. This year has been much better

Even the times I feel panic about it, I can springboard it to actually being productive!

Anaphory

@kviiri That sounds… helpful, I guess?

kviiri

@Anaphory I think it's a sign the stress is waning :)

Anaphory

13:19

@kviiri I do know that a certain level of stress is where I am most productive.

Rubiksmoose

@Carcer I was just shocked to have gotten an answer. I should have asked a follow-up though since I caught the notification right as he answered. I was satisfied with it though.

kviiri

@Anaphory Aye. I think stress can, in moderation, get some people to perform better. But I think it's universal or practically so that beyond a certain point it's only debilitating.

Anaphory

@kviiri Indeed.

kviiri

@Anaphory So how's life? :>

Anaphory

Distractingly rich in RPGs :)

kviiri

13:27

Owie :)

Anaphory

Convention last weekend, D&D today, setting up the “RPG-commission” for the coming academic year for the student (they tolerate me as member, even though I'm a postdoc) games club, reading stuff when I should generate test data instead, those kinds of things.

Rubiksmoose

Quick sanity check, was I off-base in this comment:

Welcome to the site! I'm guessing that you are more familiar with 3.5 than 5e given your username and some things in your post. Note: in 5e there is no terms "line of effect" or "line of sight" and tower shields and held actions don't exist either. We appreciate you trying to answer and I think most of your advice carries over, but please note that we require answers to be deeply knowledgeable about the systems they are answering and if you try to answer 5e questions with only 3.5 knowledge you are going to get a lot wrong and will invite downvotes (or possible answer deletion). — Rubiksmoose 20 hours ago

kviiri

I might soften the ending a bit but I don't think it's too bad.

Anaphory

Same.

Carcer

@Rubiksmoose yeah, it's enough that it's obvious what JC thinks the rule means and I don't see him getting into pedantic raw arguments.

Anaphory

13:31

You might just end with
> … about the systems they are answering, so please do not try to answer 5e questions with only 3.5 knowledge.
maybe?

kviiri

@Anaphory I like the wording "tolerate" :)

Rubiksmoose

@kviiri I actually had considered this when I was writing but it was already so long. I should have softened it though.

@Anaphory Yeah I think that would have been better.

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose Hoho :)

When I was a student active, we tolerated postdocs too

Anaphory

@kviiri “Tolerate” is hyperbole. It's not like anyone minds (I doubt even most people are really aware), it's just that the formal process was different when I became member.

kviiri

Yea, I figured as much

nitsua60

13:37

@Rubiksmoose I agree with kviiri: I, personally, try to stay away from predicting actions, especially others'. Everything else you say is true and helpful.

@Rubiksmoose Do you want it edited?

Carcer

@Anaphory my uni's tabletop gaming society routinely had members who had graduated in the past and just still happened to live nearby

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 If you wouldn't mind that would be great!

Carcer

you could get lifetime membership to the guild of students and keep joining student societies every year if you liked.

Anaphory

@Carcer My Southampton society had that, and so does this one, I was just never student here.

Carcer

fair enough

nitsua60

13:39

@Rubiksmoose End it as anaphory suggested?

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 yup!

NautArch

@Anaphory I almost went to Southampton for grad school.

nitsua60

Done.

@Rubiksmoose I'm creating a chat for the "who are you?" conversation, if you're inclined to respond.

Rubiksmoose

Thanks!

@nitsua60 Which conversation is this?

It certainly sounds like something I would be happy to respond to, but I think I may have missed the context.

@nitsua60 Nvm I see now! All is clear. (I clearly need tea lol)

Anaphory

@NautArch What did you do instead?

NautArch

13:56

@Anaphory went to texas A&M (Southampton was the only grad school smart enough to reject me that I applied to)

nitsua60

@NautArch gig 'em

kviiri

18

Q: What to do about the NPC massacre?

In my campaign, everything is constantly going badly. The Source has been destroyed, devastating the local region. The main hardhold was shelled with white phosphorous. Almost all of the NPCs (including NPCs that players invented for their playbooks) are dead. I've found that I am constantly havi...

I think that sounds like an interesting turn for an AW game

It's a chance to run post-apo in post-apo!

Anaphory

14:23

@kviiri It's also now, hopefully, still a chance to run AW in a game that was supposed to be AW, but maybe wasn't really.

kviiri

@Anaphory Eeyup

Glad to see the "mandatory system-agnostic answer" is being recognized well these days

It always made me a bit sad when someone answered based on assumptions that didn't hold in the system they were talking about and got upvoted

Trish

@kviiri my solution as GM would be to not provide any more NPCs. The find that there is nothing more to Raid. They have to either move their base to a different area, or they starve to death as they can'T acquire food or barter for it.

kviiri

@Trish Mine would be along the same lines... among with a heavy dose of "talking to your players"

Trish

@kviiri that I would do too, but the main thing is: they murdered the people that supported them. They destroyed their own economy/ecology, they deserve to wipe themselves.

kviiri

They've made a barely sustainable post-apocalyptic society around them completely unsustainable, which can be a good driver for drama.

@Trish Yeah well, AW isn't about "you deserve this". Realism has no real place in it. The characters might be nothing but skin and bone by the time they crawl to a relatively civil place where they don't have the reputation for being murderhobos, but they will reach it if that's what the players want.

Anaphory

14:34

@kviiri I found the random system-agnostic answer on that question sufficiently downvoted, but surprisingly topical and in line with things you just mention.

@kviiri Hm, conflict between Be a Fan of their Characters and Make Apocalypse World Seem Real?

Trish

AW shall seem REAL. it is one of the tenets the GM should have in mind. It should feel deadly. If they can't die, because they don't want to, then it doesn't feel real

kviiri

@Anaphory I think it's about right about things that should happen, but wrong about how those things work in gameplay

Anaphory

Yes.

Because it has absolutely no idea about the game play, so it's really surprising it still gets something right!

kviiri

@Anaphory I don't think it's really a conflict or that one has to violate either. The part where AW seems real is the bit where they have to tread endless desert and get really lucky to even find another civilized society :)

And being a fan is the bit where they manage to do both, find a place where they can recover, and maybe do better this time

Anaphory

True!

kviiri

14:39

It would get trickier if the players really resolved to destroy every society they find. That's where I wouldn't have any in-game solutions anymore

Anaphory

@Trish Yes, but also “Respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards”, or however that was phrased.

kviiri

@Trish But... that's like, literally in the AW rules. Characters don't simply die.

"When your life is untenable..." gives you four choices: survive with -1 Hard (making it there, but you're emaciated and weakened), survive with +1 Weird (the experience made you more connected to the Maelstrom), survive as a different playbook (you left a lot behind and came back as something else), and finally, to die normally. It's the player's choice.

Anaphory

@kviiri Is that new in AW2E, or did I just not notice it before?

kviiri

They're all consistent with the type of story AW is trying to tell --- it's not a simulation of real life. But it feels real in the same way a fantasy story with flying elephants or robots made out of cheese can feel real.

Anaphory

@kviiri It also looks like options, so you can't pick them multiple times?

kviiri

14:46

@Anaphory New to 2e. They did away with the old -1 debilities and put that in. I like the idea of coming back as a different playbook quite a lot.

Anaphory

@kviiri Yes!

kviiri

@Anaphory I think you can't, although I'm not sure if switching playbook is supposed to reset the options

Trish

In a different manner, the following happened last night: I had my player group in TDE face a small group of orcs. They consisted of a healer-Elf, a half-elf hunter, a dwarven artillerist (with a heavy crossbow taking 15 turns to load), a human smuggler, a human priest of the justice god, a human noble witch, a human wastrel.
One for each, 2 of them ranged, none of them mounted, in a rather thick forest, so combat took place pretty much at the length of a pike or shorter. Orcs had the initiative on the surprise turn but against the half-elf and the witch. Half-elf kills the first orc by rid…

Anaphory

@Trish TDE? Are you German?

Trish

@Anaphory yes.

Anaphory

14:51

Ah, and with location on your profile, thus making my next question obsolete.

@Trish So, all 7 PCs were mounted?

Trish

@Anaphory 6 out of 7, the elf was on Axxeleratus and movimento, making him faster than the horses, but the others all are on horse for it was an encounter while traveling.

my players ended up with a very battered half-elf, a 49% health witch that said "I don't need help" and then promptly contracting Wound fever

Ant the smuggler was pretty battered

but they really feared the advent of the dogs. Lucky for them they managed to murder the alpha dog using all their ranged firepower (one heavy crossbow, one elven bow, one short bow) to take it down. The other 3 I decided would abort that assault... but they are not out of the picture. They'll come back... in one of the next nights XD

Trish

15:29

They'll hardly get a full nights sleep now, which plays well into my cards: they burned resources they can't replenish easily, they'll burn more in the following nights and hopefully they will willingly flee into the Fae-court...

Helwar

@Trish is that The Dark Eye?

Trish

@Helwar yep. or DSA / Das Schwarze Auge (4.1)

Helwar

woah. How is it?

I loved the Daedalic point & click adventures to bits, nowadays I wish I could forget them to play them anew, but I figure those are a completely different beast altogether

Trish

15:53

It is... well... it is very much german to the bone. 4.1 is in some ways a horror of bolted to gether modules that make up the full game. But they share a very consistent base rule core.

it has rules for quite a lot. No rules for the consistency of your excrements though

in other news: We totally need a few questions about Phoenix Command!

Helwar

@Trish What a disappointment, I was looking forward to a good feces ruleset!

Trish

@Helwar even Rolemaster lacks that!

Though... Phoenix Command might have a table for what happens if you hit the intestines from the side, front, back or top.

@Helwar And I wouldn't point it beyond it to use the Bristom Stool Chart somewhere...

KorvinStarmast

16:15

Thanks to this answer I have protected this question. If that was an over reaction on my part, by all means someone, unprotect. There were some interesting new user answers within the last day or to, so perhaps I am being overly cautious here.

36

Q: What to do about PC rerolling for great stats?

I have a player who in the span of 3 sessions has gone through 5 characters (& made even more, some of which I told them not to play because the stats were too high), because they want "great" stats (as in at least 3x 16's or 2x 17+ stats, before racial bonuses) - this is causing some headaches f...

dnd-5e problem-players character-death

Mike Q

@KorvinStarmast Good call. It was attracting a lot of spammy suggestion answers.

kviiri

Let the deletions commence! dramatic music

Trish

@KorvinStarmast +1 from me too, and also: VLC flag seems necessary.

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast I think it is a good idea. I voted to delete the answer as well per our policy.

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast Umm... blahblah has 2 (very long) answers. Should they be combined?

Trish

16:24

@DavidCoffron Do they raise different strategy/points or voice the same? if they are the same strategy, yes, combine.

David Coffron

^ cc: @doppelspooker @nitsua60 I'm not sure what happened here, but this user has 2 accounts with different reputation scores

Trish

@DavidCoffron happens if you log in from 2 differenet browsers to create accounts... cna'T verify them using the same IP though

or... nope, both are unregistred

so he can't edit or ammend his stuff.

which generates a new account when he returns later

and since they are 1 hour apart, that would have happened

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron I think they should be kept seperate. They seem to have very different thrusts and it doesn't look like they were intended to be together. Not sure though.

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose I flagged one of them in case the accounts need to be combined (that's been a thing before, but I'm not familiar exactly with the procedure). As for the answers, I think you are right. They do take a different approach.

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron Yeah there is something about that for sure. So I think it is a good thing to flag.

David Coffron

16:29

It might be a case of using the mobile app. I've had issues where it looks like my answer didn't post before. Then the user may have reset the app or used a different device to answer again (and in retyping the answer, made some adjustments)

Mike Q

Discussion: Are there any decent necromancer builds in 5e?

Or are they, at best, a wizard with some weenie skeleton bodyguards

Sir Cinnamon

@MikeQ Depends on your definition of necromancer build

I dont think theres a good minion focused build, or at least I dont know of one

But there are some pretty good necromancy spells. Toll the Dead is a really good cantrip

Mike Q

Let's see... I'd hope for having some necro spells, some spooky magic, and at least 1 formidable undead follower, possibly with some other undead weenies

Sir Cinnamon

The best minion you can have is what, a ghoul?

Mike Q

In 5e? I thought you just get zombies and skeletons

Sir Cinnamon

16:42

"Create Undead" has some stronger options

with actuallya good upcast for high levels: " When you cast this spell using a 9th-level spell slot, you can animate or reassert control over six ghouls, three ghasts or wights, or two mummy(ies)."

So scratch that, maybe you could have a decent minion focus that lasts up to the high tiers. Mummies aint weak

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon Control Undead at level 14 gives you theoretical access to any undead (and low Intelligence ones permanently)

NautArch

@MikeQ We've got a campaign just starting athome and someone is building a high elf necromancer.

If he puts his character onto Dndbeyond, i'll share with you

David Coffron

@MikeQ Are you allowed to use Dungeon Master's Guide evil character options?

NautArch

@SirCinnamon toll the dead is possibly the best cantrip outside of EB for warlocks

David Coffron

Death Domain is really good for your necromany spells

Rubiksmoose

16:46

@NautArch It is sad though. You'd think that if you were dead you would be exempt from tolls at the very least.

Helwar

is a more "spiritual" necromancer viable in 5e? meaning not simply creating undead minions, but more like "communing with the spirits" sort of thing?

Sir Cinnamon

@DavidCoffron That's true although I dont know how reliable it would be - Dont have the stats in front of me but with chances to break the charm and a chance to not be controlled in the first place I dont know what sot of uptime you could squeeze out of that spell

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose The bullet train to hell has to be paid for someway

@Helwar Wizards who conjure

Sir Cinnamon

@Helwar Death domain cleric I guess? Spirit guardians, Guardian of Faith

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon Depends on the undead. It's permanent, period, with low Intelligence. "at creature must make a Charisma saving throw against your wizard spell save DC. If it succeeds, you can’t use this feature on it again. If it fails, it becomes friendly to you and obeys your commands until you use this feature again."

It needs Intelligence 12 to get a recurring save: "Intelligent undead are harder to control in this way. If the target has an Intelligence of 8 or higher, it has advantage on the saving throw. If it fails the saving throw and has an Intelligence of 12 or higher, it can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour until it succeeds and breaks free."

Sir Cinnamon

16:48

@DavidCoffron MM, I assumed you could only attempt once per rest, but it's just once per target

So with a pack of undead you can try it on each

Mike Q

Hm. Necromancy definitely isn't as wacky as it was in 3.x/PF: If it has bones, and you have around 10 minutes, then it's yours.

Kinda like a macabre version of pokemon

Helwar

@SirCinnamon I'll toy with the idea a little to see if I get something good out of it :P

Sir Cinnamon

@DavidCoffron I dont have the stats, but what is the strongest undead with int below 12

David Coffron

@Helwar The Grave Domain cleric in Xanathsr's Guide to Everythin does more of that

GreySage

@Rubiksmoose Not even death can stop taxes.

David Coffron

16:49

12

A: What is the most powerful permanent undead follower you can get?

CR 23 Specifically, you can permanently enslave Acererak, the demilich, in his Tomb of Horrors. No undead has a higher CR so you can't really do better than that1. To enslave Acererak, one ought first to Feeblemind him and apply several high-level copies of Bestow Curse2. This is not easy, as...

GreySage

@MikeQ Gotta raise 'em all.

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon But the real answer to your question (ignoring feeblemind) is the Mummy Lord

CR 15 and 11 Int

Helwar

isn't there some kind of warlock (it might be a sorcerer) that gets a hellhound or something like that?

Sir Cinnamon

@DavidCoffron Well that's pretty good, to be honest.

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon And its legendary. ~~Unfortunately, that means it has Legendary Resistance which you'd have to blow first.~~ oh wait, it only has Magic Resistance, it would already have advantage so that doesnt make a difference. But if it succeeds, they usually don't come in packs

Sir Cinnamon

16:53

@DavidCoffron Would that feeblemind on acercerak really work? Surely once feeblemind wears off he resumes making a save every hour

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon They use a strategy involving the abilities of Acererak to eventually permanently reduce his Intelligence below 12

It's the demilich Acererak from Tomb of Horros, not the one in Tomb of Annihilation

One of it's pseudo lair actions is to teleport creatures around and permanently reduce their abilities

Sir Cinnamon

@DavidCoffron Oh okay. I only skimmed it, thats quite a chunk of text :P

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon Once you've done all that you can just have a Headband of Intellect (so the lich's Intelligence isn't useless) that you have him remove every hour

Sir Cinnamon

@DavidCoffron Apparently Mordenkainens has a low int CR 20 creature - a nightwalker

David Coffron

@SirCinnamon Hadn't seen that one. Good find

Mike Q

16:57

@GreySage I built a necro cleric in PF. I think that at least 75% of the character budget was spent on a giant pile of onyx gemstones

Sir Cinnamon

@DavidCoffron It was in the comments of the post you linked :D

David Coffron

@MikeQ For your optimized necromancer build, I would go with Death cleric 1 for the Reaper trait (improves your "necro spells") and then go all out Necromancy School Wizard (for "some spooky magic" and the best undead followers)

Undead Thrall actually makes Animat Undead and/or Create Undead useful

> - Whenever you create an undead using a necromancy spell, it has additional benefits:

> - The creature’s hit point maximum is increased by an amount equal to your wizard level.
> - The creature adds your proficiency bonus to its weapon damage rolls.

Mike Q

Only one of them though

David Coffron

@MikeQ Only one of whats?

Undead Thralls works on all of them

Mike Q

One zombie or skeleton

¿¿¿¿¿qué??????

David Coffron

17:01

@MikeQ You can actually have even more via that trait

> you add the animate dead spell to your spellbook if it is not there already. When you cast animate dead, you can target one additional corpse or pile of bones, creating another zombie or skeleton, as appropriate.

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch you think that question has idea generation?

Helwar

@DavidCoffron divine soul sorcerer could work for that?

Rubiksmoose

(also it is totally houserules here not homebrew IMO)

David Coffron

You get 5 buffed skeletons or zombies or 4 buffed ghouls or ghasts (before upcasting)

Mike Q

@DavidCoffron Oh! I thought the extra HP and damage were just for the one extra skeleton/zambie

David Coffron

17:02

@MikeQ Nah you can have a whole archer gang with +prof arrows

I've actually had a player with that build and it is pretty good

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose hmm, i guess not. Wasn't sure if the last bit on asking for missing info and potential fixes counted - but that's pretty much just what "is this balanced" is.

David Coffron

(although we never made it past level 9, so never experienced Command Undead)

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch That was kind of what I was thinking too. Maybe my pruning and slight rephrasing may have changed your impression as well.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose Yeah - I updated my comment :)

David Coffron

@MikeQ But you need to grab that Cleric dip first (if Death domain is allowed). Reaper is so good, and it gives you Medium armor which is great

Rubiksmoose

17:05

@NautArch beautiful.

David Coffron

Plus you get Martial weapons in case you need to get down and dirty

Rubiksmoose

I think it is actually a pretty good question honestly and they seem to have done a decent amount of thinking and legwork on it.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose I may just start leaving comments like that on each homebrew question. Trying to push everyone thinking about homebrew balance to read that. The more it's around, the more likely it's read.

Rubiksmoose

The one thing that stood out to me though is how attacks are counted. I'm not sure if it is a potential avenue for unclarity or abuse but attacks can also be granted through spells and other class features. I don't know if they only wanted Extra Attack attacks counted for that.

@NautArch It is kind of weird though that removing the "answering" info question will help here given the fact that we tell people to

"show your efforts"

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose They show their efforts in an answer. That seems fine to me

Rubiksmoose

17:13

@DavidCoffron I think they misunderstood Chan's advice.

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose I saw that lol. I was like.... No not like that

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron I can see how it could be read like that especially if you are reading it hastily.

NautArch

@DavidCoffron Just got a Matrix vibe from that line

Rubiksmoose

hah they made the same argument I did.

@Rubiksmoose Per the meta NautArch referenced: "Try to explain your thought process behind each feature, what flavor it had, why did you think it was a good idea". I agree my speculated fixes were irrelevant and better posted as answers, but don't those additional paragraphs work to explain the thought process, and the effort put into building the presented solution? — Mwr247 54 secs ago

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, but we want to know why you think the revision is necessary, not whether its balance FYPOV

@Rubiksmoose I think I kinda ninja'd you there. Sorry

Didn't realize you were commenting

KorvinStarmast

17:26

@DavidCoffron I think those were two separate answers to the question which is an OK thing to do.

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron hah! no worries at all. How could you have?

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, I was also worried about the accounts. Same username, same profile picture, made shorty after one another, but different accounts

KorvinStarmast

Hmmm, did they get merged?

Rubiksmoose

@KorvinStarmast I still see accounts and answers as unmerged.

KorvinStarmast

17:55

@Rubiksmoose yeah, might be worth asking one of the mods to drop them a line and get a merge going, if it's the same account. I have to run, dentist.

David Coffron

@Anaphory Our inquiry was closed on Math.SE. I don't know why (the close-message is unhelpful), but I added as much context as I could. If it doesn't get reopened from the queue, I'll put it in their Reopen request meta. I spoke to another new user who has asked many questions and apparently closing with little to no explanation (possibly incorrectly) is common on the site at the moment

Mike Q

I'm kind of confused by the question

David Coffron

@MikeQ By mine?

Mike Q

Are you asking the probability that, if you distributed 22 objects into 12 partitions, at least one of the partitions would end up with at least 11 objects?

Yuuki

@MikeQ I think it's about 50%.

David Coffron

18:00

What is the probability that the top 3 partitions have at least 11 objects

GreySage

@MikeQ 3 of the partitions would collectively have at least 11

Delioth

@MikeQ For reference, the "real case" was that there are 12 classes and 22 people, and the 11 of the people chose [Paladin, Wizard, or [something]]

Wondering the probability that the 3 most-chosen classes end up with half the players

David Coffron

It starts here:

23 hours ago, by Anaphory

Are there people here who are better at combinatorics than I am right now? If more than half of the 22 players in my organized play group picked 3 of the 12 available classes, is that surprising? I think it's $\binom{12}{3} \sum_{i=11}^22 \binom{22}{i} (1-3/12)^(22-i) (2/12)^i$, so about 2% chance to happen randomly, so surprising; Am I correct?

We also wanted to generalize it because there are now 28 players that still have chosen the top 3 (fighter, paladin, and wizard)

Delioth

I mean, the premise of the convo is pretty flawed at its core (as was mentioned at the time), since people don't choose classes randomly; but it's a fun little problem that we're still undecided on the resolution of

Mike Q

Okay, so given m objects and n partitions, what is the probability that k of the partitions collectively contain at least m/2 objects? Is that generic enough?

Delioth

18:09

That seems about right, but with the added context that an empty partition is fine (all the searching I'm doing seems to be about ending up with non-empty partitions)

Though off the top of my head, "m objects into n partitions (allowing empties)" might be the same as "m+n objects into n partitions (non-empty)"

It's been a while since I had to do real combinatorics though, so my reasoning might be flawed

David Coffron

@MikeQ They don't want generic. Apparently if it is generic it reads like a homework problem and is less likely to be answered. They want context (kind of like us) much to my surprise. I expected them to prefer a general case so it can be more widely applicable to future readers

@Delioth Yeah I got a comment about that. Our initial sample actually had an empty partition (no warlocks). But our 28 sample does not

In short, if you allow for empty partitions there is also the case where you only have 2 classes chosen. Is that a "yes, the top 3 have 50%" or a "no they can't since they aren't 3"

Delioth

I mean, this is a D&D ruleset - there are 12 partitions no matter what

David Coffron

@Delioth But some of the partitions might have 0 objects

Delioth

It doesn't matter how you choose the "3rd biggest" partition in this case, it won't affect the results

David Coffron

Anyway, I added all the context I could, so I'll see if it gets reopened.

I got an actual answer, but it was wrong. The user deleted his answer and favorited the question (at least I think it was him), so it at least isn't super simple (judging by the fact that that guy has quite a few well recieved combinatorics answers)

Delioth

18:19

Yeah, I don't know if there's a general answer for the problem.

I don't still have my cheat-sheet for the 12 general problems of combinatorics

David Coffron

@Delioth The only combinatorics background I have is from my AP Statistics class and from a few video lectures from MIT-OCW that I watched for fun in college. My intuition is usually pretty good at expanding that knowledge to other questions but this time I got nothing

Mike Q

Ok, I couldn't figure out the equation so I wrote it up in matlab

...This may take a while

NautArch

stack is down?

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch I wondered if I was the only one...

Sir Cinnamon

@NautArch PANIC

Delioth

18:28

There's always the option to do the long-form of the problem, I guess? Check all the possibilities for empty partitions (chances given 12 partitions + chances given 11 partitions + chances given 10 partitions + ... + chances given 1 partition). Each stage shouldn't overlap with previous ones, I don't think... and that would let you assume at each stage that you have no empty partitions

NautArch

@SirCinnamon runs around in a circle screaming

Rubiksmoose

Seems like it was just a fluke though?

Sir Cinnamon

@NautArch Seems like a good time for me to take my lunch break...

@Rubiksmoose I'm seeing offline for maintenance

Oh wait, just came back?

Gone again

GreySage

@SirCinnamon They like to tease

Sir Cinnamon

We're investigating a database overload and working to resolve it ASAP.

Tweeted by StackStatus on October 4, 2018 at 6:32 PM

Mike Q

18:35

There are 193536720 different ways to distribute 22 objects into 12 partitions, so counting manually may be a bit slow

Delioth

@MikeQ That sounds like quitter talk

Wait a second, can we flip the whole thing on it's head?

Nevermind, I got most of the way through the train of thought I was on and then it stopped making sense

But it might be easier to count the sets we don't want?

GreySage

18:51

Count all the sets where any 3 combined have < 50%

Colin Gross

@SirCinnamon database overflow

@MikeQ bucket overflow

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