I can't find the right meta right now, but if a question should be closed, answers that sneak in while it's still accumulating close votes attract downvotes, partially to discourage people from answering in that situation, and partly because (as has happened here) the answers tend to be low quality in a way related to the close vote reason.
In this case, an opinion-based question has received an answer that's purely someone's opinion.
The other 2 answers aren't getting downvotes because they're actually trying to be more than just opinion.
I had another one like that today. Over on gaming.se. Someone asked a broad question, and the answer even led off with "You have asked multiple questions, so I'll try and answer broadly"
@Ben On a similar subject, actually, I'm tossing up whether to downvote the answer you just gave. Because I don't know whether it's wrong or not, but it really seems to me like you don't actually know and you're just guessing.
Ursula Vernon is playing an RPG that's roughly "D&D with anthropomorphic animals."
GM: So the performer is a slow loris burlesque dancer. It takes an hour.
PARTY: *groans*
BUFFALO: We need somebody to seduce her! Somebody persuasive! Charming! At home in this environment! CHEETAH, you're up.
CHEETAH: Uh...
BUFFALO: You wanted to be a dashing rogue.
Its getting to the point with Dungeon World questions that they need a custom warning not to post a general answer without specific system knowledge :o)
Yeah, we struggled with that in Fate questions for a while.
...and there's a Lady Blackbird question where it was especially egregious because the system is free and all its rules fit on one side of a page of typing paper, but so many people just mouthed off assuming it was a D&D-like.
@doppelgreener Yeah, it's often weird to wrap your head around how one person's bizarre animal is another person's commonplace animal. I saw this today:
There’s a random but handsome rooster in front of the Legal Aid office. This town, man.
And it's like, wow. I live on an island where it's never weird to see a rooster anywhere, and they have a good bit of Philippine gamecock bloodline so they're almost all magnificent.
also last night i got introduced to what a fox call actually does to a person. i was woken up by a fox calling outside. every call, just for an instant, set me on edge -- and it was doing them every few seconds for maybe a minute or two -- because fox calls sound like someone screaming, and in an eerie, not-quite-right sort of way. it is not hard to imagine how folk lore would've sprung up around foxes being tricksters or witches.
Willy Ley made a name for himself during the space race by writing books explaining rocket science in humorous ways that the everyman could understand.
I'm inclined against adding a notice: "post with actual knowledge of the system and don't assume your knowledge necessarily translates" is a global expectation. We're looking for expert answers — "I've never played this" is definitionally non-expert. Fate and other question categories experience the "my D&D expertise definitely applies here" phenomenon too, just that there's enough knowledgeable fate players it doesn't work out well.
Existence of the notice can be taken to imply that non-expert answers are fine at other times where the notice isn't present, but they're fine never.
@doppelgreener @kviiri The down votes might be instructive, as long as comments include why "uh, this isn't D&D, DW is different" to help drive the point home
@doppelgreener Yeah, I'm not always sure where that line lies, I'll admit. For instance, the other day @NautArch flagged a comment for deletion, sensibly so. (I think it was just a chatty one.) But after that comment came some other chatizen saying "this isn't what comments are for, [directed them to the appropriate, instructional links]." And that second comment had gotten a bunch of upvotes. So I sorta felt like the two-comment dialogue was a valuable signpost to leave hanging around.
I think deletion of those kind of posts is better than just down-votes. The problem is that DW is still niche enough that a non-DW answer will attract up-votes from people who don't realise the difference
like at the moment there's a recent fate question that has a decently-scored answer that appears to come from no fate experience. i still don't know what we ought to do in those situations.
In one DW question (which is pretty much about "my GM don't understand that DW isn't DnD") one of the answers has -8 score and seems to make the same mistake the GM in question did.
@Ben I think that the reason it is down voted is due to it not being 5e specific. That's my guess.
@Kviiri I disagree with the "delete the answer" since it appears to me that the down voting tool is doing what it needs to do, which is drive the answer down the page ...
Typically answers that are coming from a wholesale system mismatch get removed (like, someone misread the question, or assumes Dungeon World is another name for D&D 5e, or something), but altogether wrong answers don't get removed. "I've never played Dungeon World but I'm sure these D&D practices apply" are a case that can fall either way, and yeah, at the moment I'm erring toward don't remove them specifically so they can get downvoted (hopefully).
It irks me irrationally when someone receives positive rep for a really bad answer. The practical benefit of downvoting is still there though - the negative score ought to inform any reader that this answer is commonly considered to be poor advice.
@doppelgreener Gut feeling: "this is the answer" coming from having mis-read or not read the tags should be deleted. They didn't try to answer this question. "This should work fine (even though I have no idea what this game's about)" is an attempt to answer the actual, posted question and is bad. Downvote. And if one person leaves a comment that says "system knowledge matters" which gets a bunch of upvotes, all the better.
@GreySage To be fair I lurked for a long time, meekly answered a question in May of last year and then lurked more. I think it just happened to be my increased confidence with 5E and some easy questions just roped me in.
@GreySage AC is what my gut tells me is best. There are few enough ways to increase it and 1hp will at most get you 20 hp over the course of an unlikely long campaign. AC would be my choice.
(assuming the cost is the same between the two options anyways)
I feel like Dex is used in more saves, but not significantly more. I'll probably use Dex to attack, but rarely enough and for minor enough damage not to matter
Honestly, I'm not sure there's a right answer here.
Dex will give you AC and better saves against some of the most common save type. AC will benefit you most if you are targeted with weapon attacks on a regular basis.
Con will give you HP and better saves against some of the nastier save effects. HP will benefit you against both weapon attacks and AOE/environmental hazards.
I want to make a class/race for people with spirit animals. I want this to be a born trait, but I want it to improve over time. Most of my ideas point to Class, (but mine are called "soul changers" and its supposed to be a born trait that causes the character to be a spellcaster) which would make more sense? A class that you need a born trait? or a race that is forced to be a certain class?
@GreySage Converting hits to not-hits at some predictable rate tends to have a larger effect on expected uptime than the difference of a few hp. That said, the average character probably doesn't take enough hits over their career for the statistics to dominate over the swinginess of die rolls.
@MeteorstarTheArcher If you want 100% of these soul changers to be spellcasters, then it makes more sense that it is a class, and everyone who takes the class happens to have the trait
If 5e, then there's a bit of a model to work from in racial cantrips: they are a racial feature, but improve with class level. (If it's a leveled cantrip. Which, come to think of it, I don't think any of them are?)
There's a good thread somewhere evaluating the PHB races on a point-system--maybe it's a reddit? It's actually pretty good, and might make for a good way to evaluate ideas against.
@SPavel depends if they are dragon blood or wild magic. both are different but dragon blood is a born trait.
@NautArch I want all who would have a spirit animal, (if its a class) to choose to be that class, also i sort of what to do a D&D 2e thing with the paladin, and make it so only humans could use it (IF it's a class)
@MeteorstarTheArcher Is it? Can you guarantee that chugging these 50 gallons of dragon blood won't make you magic? And it can all be yours for a mere $99 plus shipping and handling!
@MeteorstarTheArcher What does "having a spirit animal" actually mean? Is it a mechanical feature? Does it give them spells? Does it give them some RP fluff to play with?
@GreySage @MeteorstarTheArcher This is what I was hoping to understand. If it's a race, then any class will have access to it. Is that the effect you're looking for? To have a fighter/rogue/sorcerer/bard, etc. all to have access to it?
@MeteorstarTheArcher okay, so you want to limit it to spellcasters. That could be a class feature, or race that can only be a spellcaster (since you're homebrewing anyway)
But @MeteorstarTheArcher, can you answer GreySages question on what does "having a spirit animal" actually meaning? (see above)
A fairly simple way of encouraging people to use certain race/class combinations without using solid restrictions is to tinker with stat bonuses. +INT/WIS/CHA and no STR/DEX/CON bonuses will probably encourage people to take casters.
@Greysage a spirit animal (what it is most know as,) or as I like to call it soul animal is an animal that is connected to your soul. they have a different soul, but they can't exist without you, and the bound can't be the broken by a spell, potion, etc. mechanically, I would use the effect of a pet excluding feeding it (because its a soul) and you would be able to turn into that animal.
@Nautarch scales? i was thinking it would be the size of what the animal would normally be (no dragons of course, unless it was just a lizard with wings)
How does it change the gameplay experience to have this option?
I always go back to the basics when designing a new game element: What is your game about, how does your game do this, how does your game encourage this, and how do you make this fun?
Adding a new game element means you want to change or reinforce something about what the game does.
@BESW what it does? the spirit animal holder would have an animal companion that can speak common. the animal affects role-playing and gameplay by being able to speak with whatever that animal is, and of course, they would be respected because of it.
I do have other ways it affect it in my head, but its hard to describe without writing a book on it (and hey, maybe I should)
@MeteorstarTheArcher I thnk we've established it may be a mix of abilities from Familiar, Beastmaster companion, and Wild Shape - but my concern is that a character with this basically has an on-demand 2nd character that they can morph into. It's a pretty powerful ability that will require a pretty powerful hindrance.
@MeteorstarTheArcher I think before we get to hindrances, we have to build what it actually does and works. My only gut is that they're going to have some big limitations to balance it.
@Yuuki If I were designing this for a particular character in a game of mine, I'd ask if any of the other players wanted to play the spirit animal as their own character. But none of the systems I play in consider "class" a useful concept, and the caster/martial divide doesn't exist.
That's why it might still be interesting (albeit a massive leap for 5e) to make it a dual-player link: remove the problem entirely by giving another player all the sweet spirit animal stuff.
But yeah, I still don't have a sense of what the whole thing does.
@MeteorstarTheArcher When you say you want the spirit animal to grow with the character, what do you mean? Does it just get bigger? Do you want it to actually gain levels and new abilities?
@GreySage I would say the PC can give it commands and it will carry them out, but the animal will act on its own/ will decide if what it was told to do is what I want/ what it thinks is best
@NautArch yes, but only if the DM decided if it's against the Animal's personality. the animal does have a personality unlike actual animals (which his wh yet can speak common) and no food maybie sleep
@GreySage yes, but only if the DM decided if it's against the Animal's personality. the animal does have a personality unlike actual animals (which his wh yet can speak common and if all players agree that it's against what the original player said was its personality archetype was.
@NautArch which also, in some versions at least, scales with ranger level, no? Which sounds like what was wanted.
That would have the nice side-benefit of there being something the ranger is, unique and distinct from all other classes. (Aside from a really good NPC, that is.)
What's a ranger? It's a person whose soul is inextricably linked to an animal soul. That imbues them with both some divine magic and martial skill, as those are the animal's strengths, too.
Quoth the soul animal Ranger: "druids imitate forces of nature--that's why they turn into animals they've seen. Rangers are forces of nature."
@nitsua60 The soul animal's attacks would be considered magical, and a soul animal is transparent. (unless the person is in soul animal form, In which it would be flesh-and-blood)
This is the name of the article: How do I have my PCs fight one another in an arena setting but then allow them to group up for the last encounter in the arena? [on hold]
I have added extra information but I do not see where this is alleviating the hold.
@Yuuki Though since it's for a single campaign I don't know that it's a veto--it's just important (IMO) to understand that it's inherently unbalanced. (So far.)
@Yuuki There was one posted on our site - I favourited it after it got deleted, just so that I'd always be able to find it. Full sorcerer spellcasting, Extra Attack progression with the fighter (including the third attack at level 11 but not the fourth at level 20), a fighting style, automatic extra damage on every attack that scales with level, an innate bonus to AC, innate damage resistance, spellcasting modifier added to spell damage, and a couple of other features.
This is the name of the article: How do I have my PCs fight one another in an arena setting but then allow them to group up for the last encounter in the arena? [on hold]
I have added extra information but I do not see where this is alleviating the hold.
