@PremierBromanov Because it's magic and doesn't need to follow real-world physics?

well it does and it doesn't. Real world physics helps us understand how magic interacts with the game world. for example, fireball can light things on fire and you take fall damage if you fall from a great height. Similarly the rules governing a specific spell use phrases and concepts based in the real world (such as opacity and light) to help us understand what they actually do.

And that behavior is not necessarily unrealistic. At least i havent confirmed that, hence the question

If you cast Darkness on a stick to make it a "darkness torch", and shone it at a window, the darkness would go through the window, much like light would.

right but it would also spill around the corners of the window, engulfing the walls around it, creating a darkness wall around the window so to speak

unless ive misunderstood the intention of the common phrase of "spills around corners". perhaps it is very specific to corners? lol

Ah ok, since it spreads around corners... I guess it's not exactly analogous to light

So I guess it spreads around opaque corners

Right. It behaves more like fog. Except through glass and other things

I think basically it's much like fog cloud in that it spreads as much as possible through the area it's affecting, but unlike fog cloud transparent objects are permeable to the effect.

Yes, that. :-P

so it eminates from a source that can be covered with a bowl. Like a fog machine. But unlike a fog machine, it goes right through glass.

Its such a small thing, but the opacity thing leaves me wondering what the intention behind that condition is

I think what you are asking might be related to this

@Rubiksmoose want to reopen this one? rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/137272/…

@ColinGross Already voted to!

@ColinGross I think the word that is not battle and already implies "with a few allies and enemies" is "combat"

@Zachiel What's the problem with the term "battle"?

@ColinGross In comments, someone asked if the OP was talking about that thing that involeves a lot of people and special rules.

Where that someone is d7 and the quote is as follows:

> Additionally, by “battle” do you mean like in a war with hundreds or thousands of combatants on each side, or do you mean a normal fight with the PCs vs. a few monsters?

It would be blocked by opaque glass

@Zachiel I didn't feel the need to clarify that. The chase rules would still work sufficiently well.

@ColinGross Yeah, I was commenting on the OP editing the long-winded description of combat from d7 straight into the question.

Your answer is fine.

@MikeQ Yeah (although the concept of "encounter" is rather system-specific in a sense)

I usually try to introduce some tactical novelty in any opponent my players face in DnD --- enemies that spawn minions, AoE attacks forcing them apart et cetera

@kviiri My next enemy will be a stealthy sniper. I hope the alchemist doesn't utterly ruin the encounter with a well-timed stinky bomb, but at least he'll need to time it, so maybe I'll se some tactics this time.

@kviiri I think corpse mound from 5th edition foes does that. It's a tough cookie.

@kviiri I like bosses that are presented as a single creature, but are implemented behind the screen as two or three such that the boss gets weaker as it takes more damage.

@ColinGross it's nice

Someone took Banishment instead of Freedom of Movement and you can feel their desperation.

:P

hahaha

Is that a dupe of the other "banish the Kraken" question, or isn't it? Please discuss.

@Axoren Big Bass Challenge!

@Xirema Explain?

@KorvinStarmast Errr I guess it isn't? Talking about a different creature ability for one thing. So the discussion about the Kraken victim being food might change a bit. But still, it's very close.

@Rubiksmoose I decided that I want the one asking the question to explain to me, so I left a comment. This is not pressing, time wise.

As far as I can think, the answers should be the same (though that is not a reason to dupe it)

@KorvinStarmast Good thinking!

Maybe I need to go and knit a hat.

@Axoren I'm referencing one of the The Adventure Zone live shows.

Pretty much that exact scenario occurred about half an hour into the episode.

I hate this.

@Xirema Sorry, I don't watch Adventure Zone, but I should

@Xirema XD

Those guys seem fun from just the couple of 10s of minutes I watched originally

@KorvinStarmast As the one who already marked it as dupe, I am on the side that there is no difference. There are no defined conditions and do we really want a Q&A for every single monster that has a similar feature?

@Axoren TAZ is a lot of fun.

Btw, who can un-mark a dupe?

@Szega Well anybody can by voting, but gold badgees can dupe or undupe something alone

(or diamond mods of course)

>Other Friend: ...What happens when you cast Banishment on a pregnant woman?

I HATE THIS

@Rubiksmoose I meant not by voting, I marked it alone with dupe-hammer.

@Xirema I remember that being a pretty good episode to.

so I could also un-dupe alone?

@Szega Yeah anybody with a dupehammer can also unhammer.

(even if it was duped by others)

Why do we even have this ability/privilege? It feels pretty annoying that someone just went and took my mark off. I would rather that there was no hammer at all.

@Szega We have that ability because it allows multiple people to work together to assess the state of a post.

There are some bigger bois who can protect a question against changes, iirc

@Axoren Well in this case szega is talking about the ability to unilaterally close a question as dupe

@Axoren I does not allow that! It removes that

@Axoren only diamond mods

Well, it's a good thing there are regularly scheduled elections to make more of those

@Szega I'm not sure. Sometimes people forget they have it. I know I have at least once when voting to reopen and I know Korvin has as well.

@Rubiksmoose Nope, 15k+ rep can protect

@Szega Protect just makes the question unable to be answered by people with <100 rep

(IIRC)

@Rubiksmoose I have refrained from voting because of it sometimes and I think I heard someone else did the same too

@Szega Gold badge holders are presumed to have sufficient expertise in the area of their badge to judge whether or not a question is a duplicate. As so often, the historical origin is probably the far larger volumes of duplicate questions on SO where they needed a quicker way to close them than waiting for five people to review the same question in a truly massive review queue.

I am not calling out anyone specifically here, but unmarking without a comment seems rather rude to me.

@Szega Yeah I have definitely hesitated to vote on cases where I am unsure where in the past I would have gone more towards voting and seeing how other people think.

@Szega It is possible the user forgot in this case.

Especially given their comments and actions afterwards

@Rubiksmoose You can see somewhere who it was?

rpg.stackexchange.com/posts/137282/timeline

Where is the link to this on the page itself?

@Szega Just click on the "edited by XXX nnn mins ago" in the question's footer, it takes you to the revision page that also has that info

Hmm, yes, but I would also like to know where the link to the timeline is

@Szega There isn't one actually (unless you use an extension SOUP or SOX I can't remember which one). But yeah as said above the edit history will also tell you.

@Szega To get to the timeline without extension just go to https:// rpg.stackexchange.com/posts/[question ID]/timeline where the [question ID] can be found in the URL of the actual question.

Oh no...

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, I figured. Thanks anyway

@Axoren Yeah, that new question....

I'm going to have to institute a No Child Left Behind policy

@Szega on the other hand those scripts are pretty nifty and that is one feature I use all the time.

House Rule: "The decision to leave the fetus behind is up to the mother."

@Axoren Does life begin when a creature gets a stat block?

Am I allowed to post as part of an answer, verbatim, "please for the love of Archlich Jesus Christ rule this way, who cares what the RAW is!"

@ColinGross Thanks for reminding me of it! I've got it but haven't read it all.

@MikeQ "According to the Volo's Guide to Pregnancy, foetuses are given statblocks after the second trimester and are then considered creatures."

I hate this.

Lol

I'm tempted to give a "D&D has no mechanics for this because it's not that kind of system" sort of non-answer answer

I'm surprised at how many downvotes it's getting.

It's a fair question which is likely to get asked once there's a pregnant woman in any game

@Axoren I'm not. It is a silly and frankly grotesque question that has a very obvious and common sense answer.

Quick, somebody tweet Crawford about the stat block of an unborn creature

We've gone from gelatinous cube banishment to… fetuses?

Yeah :-/

Or am I mixing two unrelated threads?

@okeefe there are two separate questions, one about a cube and one about pregnant creature.

@Rubiksmoose If the question was modified to instead ask about a creature with a parasite or symbiote, do you think it would get a better response?

@BESW I'm impressed but not surprised.

I can't tell if the asker is being serious or not.

@MikeQ That's a good point. In that case, they are strictly distinct creatures.

However, teleporting and leaving the symbiotes behind would suck

Imagine someone with 10 symbiotes, each a distinct creature, but now there are far too many to DD.

@Axoren Considering that level of granularity in any system is excessively cumbersome.

@ColinGross And I'm glad that when I clicked on your link, it wasn't How We Came To Live Here.

@MikeQ I couldn't say. It would certainly remove the unnecessary grotesqueness though

@BESW Was that one generally insensitive or something?

Was it written by Spanish conquistadors ?

I heard those 15th century dudes were jerks.

Okay, hold on.

I think I misunderstood

Is it a system based on Native Americans?

Or is it one that the Native Americans used to play?

I'm gonna have to follow that link and read up. I misunderstood the tagline

Basically, all the things that Ehdrigor review says about "haphazard fumblings" "made by non-Natives—however well-meaning," is How We Came To Live here.

@BESW Gotcha. So... it's a Civ game?

@Axoren Ehdrigor is a game that uses indigenous (primarily First Tribes) perspectives for its worldbuilding and epistemological priorities, made by people who are involved in indigenous life. How We Came To Live Here wanted to be that, but wasn't made by people involved in indigeneous life and they didn't consult anyone who was, so it's just a bundle of stereotypes.

@ColinGross No, it's a fantasy RPG--just not a Western fantasy RPG.

@BESW Like 7.1 surround sound

@BESW You've got me thinking that there's a market for settings designed to be obviously satirically stereotypical.

Sort of like an early Looney Toons-type system, where their more offensive jokes are plot points.

@Axoren Paranoia.

@BESW This one? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)

It's possible, but rare, for gamers to not realize Paranoia is satire.

I mean, Paranoia is serious business. Just because you're crazy, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

@Axoren Yup, that one.

Also Katanas & Trenchcoats.

If I remember correctly, isn't Paranoia the one about Big Daddy Computer or something?

(Which began life as a playable April Fools' joke for charity.)

A friend of mine told me about it

But I think he paraphrased a lot

Oh look. The thing I was worried would happen with that question has started happening. =/ rpg.stackexchange.com/a/137288/42386

The Computer, aka Friend Computer.

@Xirema The troll?

I flagged it as fast as I could

@Axoren Same.

We've got flags. Might as well use them.

shouldn't we be able to protect it after that?

and howdy everyone!

I once considered asking a question like that—and quickly decided that it would be in poor taste and inappropriate for the stack.

Total cover edit… wow. laugh

@Xirema So you just answer inappropriate questions?

@NautArch Thought so too but apparently not :-/.

@okeefe The example they gave was completely out of line.

I removed it.

@Xirema I did downvote you on this, but mostly because I think the only good answer here is "Ask your DM"

@NautArch I always dislike that answer.

This question needs to be closed.

IMO

No good answer is going to come of this and only flame wars will result. God help us if it hits HNQ (it might already have)

I gave it the only answer I felt was appropriate for something like this: Just do the thing that makes your games less grotesque, not more.

@Rubiksmoose off topic? offensive? opinion based?

@ColinGross Sadly, for questions that don't have basis for answering in rules, then the right answer is that it's up to the DM.

@ColinGross I voted POB.

@Rubiksmoose Seems like a stretch.

Can I vote "Why in Earth or Heaven would you use D&D for that campaign?"

Probably should close the engulfed, swallowed, etc... questions as POB in that case.

@ColinGross No this obivously different.

@Rubiksmoose Because of the avenue by which one got inside the other?

@ColinGross Because of the content of the question.

@Rubiksmoose Pregnancy is offensive to you?

This is not a good question for this site.

@Rubiksmoose I concur with that.

I gave an "off-topic" close reason. We really need a close category for "is obviously inappropriate for this site".

@NautArch I mean, eventually I mention "set rules with your DM/table", but TBH, I think that's giving too much leeway to the DM on this.

RPG.SE has handled sensitive, controversial content well in the past.

@Xirema Is it off topic? What about it makes it inappropriate?

@Xirema I also don't get answering and voting to close. But hey, you do you :)

@BESW I like controversial over inappropriate as a descriptor.

If we're gonna Close Vote this, it should be for fair and correct reasons, imo

@NautArch I vote to close my own stuff!

Because otherwise, it'll set a confusing precedent

@Axoren I'd settle for correct.

At the very least, sure

In an attempt to hijack this converesation (and maybe in prep for a meta), have folks noticed an uptick in deleting answers? I swear I never really seemed to see answer deletion outside of the user themselves very frequently, but recently it seems like it's happening a lot.

@Axoren Unlikely. We'll forget about this in short order. Maybe someone's is keeping a list of peculiar questions.

I've flagged for moderator attention to keep deliberately provocative responses to a minimum, but the appropriateness for the site is based entirely on whether this community can handle it maturely.

@ColinGross <eyeroll>

@BESW Then all hope is lost.

@NautArch What?! It needed one more VtC. Seemed rude to just leave it hanging on the verge of being closed.

@BESW Yeah I did as well.

@NautArch Well, originally, my thought was "Well, I think this question deserves a thoughtful response", but now that the OP is trying to edit their examples back into the question, I'm less convinced that this question is being asked in good faith.

We've successfully dealt with things like toxic gender stereotypes and confronting common racist gaming elements in the past.

I don't think that was done maliciously, I think it was done out of newbie boots

Ah I see they have no edited the question to be even more grotesque. Awesome.

Like "I could have sworn I put that in there."

It's worse?

I think they're addressing your #2, then. It's no longer unrelated to the Bear example they started with

@Axoren Worse then when I edited their example out and commented to tell them why? Yes. And they changed the top too.

This is a positive edit, technically

@Axoren It was #2 for a reason.

It doesn't address your #1

Also, this is fairly par for the course for Cthulian horror

And forcible pregnancy is a (terribly, sadly) common theme of existential horror stories; the "hypothetical" isn't actually unreasonable for a game to encounter--as much as I think D&D is a terrible system for such games and such tropes in horror need to be confronted too.

^

@BESW For the first question, it seems like it got a pretty similar response that this one got, and for the second question, it seems like it was asked in far more good faith than I'm willing to believe this question was.

It's the central plot point of Alan Moore's "Neonomicon" series, for example.

@Xirema Why do you suspect bad faith?

Also the fact that they edited that in after the answers came in is bad. I probably should have just reverted the edit entirely.

@BESW The OP is now in an editing war with Rubiks over an especially tasteless paragraph the OP added to their question.

@Xirema Well they aren't technically because I am not engaging in it. The mods can handle it.

(and other users of course)

@Rubiksmoose Fair enough.

I will step out of this one because it is clear I am emotional about it.

Tome of Beasts is effectively homebrew, righT?

@Xirema You accused them of bad faith prior to the edit, and the paragraph is tasteless because that genre is rife with tastelessness.

@BESW Some people like tasteless. Some people have had their nose cauterized a few times and can't taste things very well regardless.

Okay, now I'm really confused. Someone voted reopen, and I KNOW you need rep for that

There are people on both sides of the close/open debate?

I thought it was just "close" but the reasons were hard

some also removed the horror tag - although that may be because of different opinions on the tags purpose

I put it there because people filtering out horror shouldn't see the example

(I'm on a personal mission to find successful existential horror gaming options that aren't rooted in HPL's legacy.)

@Axoren i haven't voted to reopen (yet), but i'm inclined to

And maybe the fact that the question was not horror-based originally.

@Axoren I mean, look at the votes on the question. There's clearly a schism in the people examining how this question should be handled.

@Axoren Closing for "I'm uncomfortable" seems to be insufficient to me. I think it's a good starting point for investigating if and why it should be closed.

but using tome of beasts makes this kinda homebrew and even more "ask your DM"

@ColinGross I agree, which is why I didn't touch it with a close vote until I was happy with my reason

It got closed before I needed to do anything

At this point, I think we need to step back and let the mods handle it.

@NautArch were you the one that discussed upcasted spell scroll creation with me?

@DavidCoffron sounds familiar...was i opinionated and dismissive? :D

@BESW You mean the Diamond bois?

@NautArch I don't have a sense that there's been an uptick, but I wouldn't be surprised if an increase in new users results in an increase in active moderation.

“Well, it was about that time the Diamonds rolled in…”

@NautArch Whoever I conversed with argued that spell scrolls could be crafted using a higher level spell slot (I argued against), and we came to an agree to disagree (because the text is ambiguous mostly) moment, and The Craw has commented indirectly on it

@BESW Just not something I'm used to seeing so much of (other users deleting other user's answers)

@NautArch I might agree that I've seen more of it (and particiapted in more of it)

@NautArch So it's cool for a poster to delete their own answer, but not close their own question?! /S

But I only have 1 year of experience so take that how it is.

Can I get an upvote on this answer, if you think it's worthy? I think it'll give me a hat.

@NautArch it was illustro

@BESW Can I downvote this chat comment for tricking me into clicking on a 4e question?

Thank you.

@ColinGross hahaha

@illustro I know its super late to the punch, but Jeremy Crawfod has commented indirectly on our super old discussion about upcasted spell scroll crafting

@ColinGross heh :) apples and pomegranates, my good man.