@BESW No spoilers!

I've been keen to see it since it's been reminding me of the one movie where Matt le Blanc was an actual badass

That sounds perfect for a worldbuilding detail I've been banging away at.

@BESW I threw a couple of coats of varnish on the plaque today--it looks significantly better with that. (Also, spent an hour with q-tips washing sawdust out of tiny engraving-crevices beforehand.) Thanks again for the help conceiving of it.

My pleasure!

Thanks for letting me know how it turned out.

I'm particularly happy with one bit: I mis-proofread the design and ended up engraving a single dagger next to a kid's name, when it should have been a double-dagger. But some creative work with a mallet, a screw, and an X-acto knife and it's indistinguishable from the laser-cut ones.

Nice.

@nitsua60 Consider yourself privileged (or not, as you will haha) as you are the first person that I have been interested in telling about my daughter's achievements

Hung out with her yesterday, and she stood up on her own. She's got the strength, just not quite the confidence in her balance yet. She still shuffles along the walls, but this time she stood up, let go of me, gave me a little smile and then sat back down. She was showing off

@Ben [leans back in chair] what's up these days? Pulling up? Steps!?

@Ben Ooh, nice.

Not quite at steps on her own yet, but quite adept when she's holding hands :)

There's this amazing progression from temperament --> awareness --> reaction --> desire --> motion --> agency --> personality that is a gift that just keeps giving.

Indeed :D

(On the other hand, plenty of days I've had one of my kids do something to infuriate me and I've had to take a breath to say "if you want your children to grow up to be confident, critical-thinking, intelligent, articulate, curious, and honest adults, you're going to have to put up with them being confident, critical-thinking, intelligent, articulate, curious, and honest kids.")

I'll take that advice :) Thankyou

I've heard many other stories where the child has done something "wrong", but it's hard to scold a child when you're laughing

One of the best pieces of advice I got: take an extra ten seconds after buckling her in and closing her door to get to the driver's seat. Some say there's no vacation from parenting. Those people don't take long enough walking around the car =)

@nitsua60 Oh? Why is that?

@nitsua60 take it where you can :)

@trogdor Exactly.

I do that all the time and I don't even have any kids

@trogdor Whose kid are you buckling in?

=D

@nitsua60 ok to be clear, I just meant takinga vacation where you can get it

Heck, I'm I the middle of a short one right now

Sure. We'll go with that.

House/cat sitting is quite a vacation for me

Lol. I intend to take one very soon, not because I can, necessarily, but because I don't see it happening again for a long time and now is likely the best time.

Just being able to have actual alone time where someone can't just yell across the house for me at any time is very relaxing

Oh, don't come to my house.

You wanna play Halo?

Lol

That would still annoy me, unless I actually just really wanted to play Halo

And even then,... Maybe I just wanted to play single player this time XD

Or the next 20 times

Hahaha

Tbh I've moved out recently, living with my mate now, and it is a bachelor pad

I don't know how I would handle a roommate honestly

Only one I've ever had was my brother

All other living experience has been with parents or just by myself

If you don't get along with your brother, avoid getting one like your brother haha.

Oh I do

It helps if you can find a roommate you're madly in love with.

You want a housemate that is similar to you.

It doesn't solve everything, but it goes a long way.

^ Also yes

=)

Lol

I can't just snap my fingers on that one

Yeah, mine doesn't like when I snap at her, either =)

My current housemate and I have recently been through a similar ordeal with our previous partners, we're alike in terms of cleanliness, and we have similar approaches to organization and taking care of the house. We're not exactly alike, but we know that if something needs to be said, or discussed, that we should take it seriously, and listen properly.

There is a whole list of things that needs to happen before that

So I think we're a good match for housemates :)

@nitsua60 nobody likes that that I have met

@nitsua60 Hahaha

@trogdor Unless you put some sass behind it. That's always funny

For choosing housemates, you need a weird one and a not-as-weird one

You also need a laugh track

@trogdor There's one person in my life who currently likes it: my five year-old, who's currently working on snap-technique and is always happy to have someone else play along.

We do dad jokes

@MikeQ that cinches it then, I don't want any

I'm a nerd, he's a fan of Four-Wheel-Driving

♬ It's trooogdor! Trogdor... and friends! ♬

so, the judge chose well?

@MikeQ BURNINATED

XD

Two's company, three's a crowd, four's a sitcom

@trogdor I forget... is Strongman carving "DAGRON" or "DARGON" into the desk during the drawing lesson?

@Ben Strongman? You have a bad memory.

@Ben you want me to remember some pretty primordial stuff right there

@MikeQ There is Strongbad and another character (from memory) that is actually called Strongman

@Ben Ah, you're thinking of Strong Mad

@MikeQ Mad** yes.. that's the one lol

Yeah strongbad, strongsad, and strongmad

DAGRON it is

There you go

CONSUMATE V'S! CONSUMATE

@MikeQ ♬ Burninating the countryside (with friends); Burninating the peasaaaants (and friends) ♬

So, I was thinking that I could throw in some traps, reminiscent of the arcane traps in D1. Runes on the ground and such.

Was thinking, that since each calss has a "dungeon ability" in the original game, (I.e. the Rogue can disable traps), I could create some like this for each class. The rogue can detect and disarm traps (like the Rogue in 5e), the Mage can do so with magical traps, but not vice versa?

Which would then leave the Warrior, Monk, and Necromancer in need of "dungeon abilities" also.

The mage can use arcana knowledge to decipher the meaning of the runes and weave magical energy to disable the trap

The monk can acrobatics up the wall, run across a rope, and activate the mechanism that is hanging from the ceiling

Just looking at the abilities for the classes, the Warrior had the Equipment repair skill - repairs it from damaged, but lowers max durability. Not useful in the game and redundant in D&D. The Mage had the Stave recharge spell. Works the same way - recharge the charges but decreases the total. Could be useful - recharge one spell slot per rest? But perhaps a bit OP for a dungeon ability.

@Rubiksmoose get your grubby hooves off my edits

@trogdor omg, it took me 14 hours to get that "birds" rhymes with "nerds" and that's the joke.

The stealth punner strikes again

Morning time in Estonia is 15 mins before lunchtime, for me.

@goodguy5 never!

Lol

"that's discrimination sir!" XD

I feel ashamed.

I confused the Golden Eagle with the Wedge Tailed Eagle

I think you will find most people think if that as an acceptable mistake

wedgetails are like...boss eagles, I hear

@Shalvenay One of the largest

Wingspan up to 2.8 m

Largest verified wingspan, although others are overall bigger and heavier.

Yes :)

The Wedge Tailed Eagle

And the Golden Eagle

And the reason I feel ashamed is because the Wedge Tailed Eagle is my favourite animal. Because it is one of the largest, and because it also Lives in Australia

How could you confuse those? The Wedge Tailed Eagle has the vastly superior hair.

@gul Yeah man! Best of all of them!

I've always been confused... What is the difference between Hearthstone and Magik: The Gathering?

@kraby15 Hearthstone is Blizzard, MtG is not

what is the difference, though?

@kraby15 MtG started as (and is still played as) physical cards, and they're made by WoTC. Hearthstone is a video game was made by Blizzard, and has similar rules and game mechanics to MtG.

And that is the extent of my knowledge haha

Oh, ok. Thank you.

Aside from the similar rule systems and basic gameplay, they're completely different things

I mean, there are definitely some meaningful differences in terms of mechanics

Though for what it is worth, now a lot of people play MTG in one of a couple of different forms, which confuses things a little.

(last of the eagle spam haha)

@trogdor Right. @kraby15 if you are curious about the actual mechanical differences, the broad strokes would be pretty easy to sketch out.

The biggest difference between MTG and Hearthstone in my book is the mana

@trogdor [adds "mana" to autocorrect dictionary]

Yeah freaking heck

I didn't say manager

And yet

That Hearthstone manager, let me tell you.

Lol

@BESW "Lie in wait under your covers, and snuggle you to sleep"

In Hearthstone your mana will just go up every turn generally speaking

That, coming from a bird of prey, for some reason does not sound comforting

@BESW Also - lol. I get jokes

In MTG you have to draw land or you are usually SOL

@trogdor Counterpoint: the dust system

Dust doesn't really effect Mana

Oh no i meant

Or do you mean it's a bigger difference?

Ok

Yes

Fair enough there

I realise, cheating.

Lol

"Magic cards cost money" is not REALLY a mechanical statement about the game.

@gul Playing with physical vs virtual always invites many many differences

No for sure but

Such as "flipping the table" as well

It has an indirect effect on them

@gul I would argue it's the most significant quality the game is designed for, though.

Right.

It definitely determines what cards you and your opponent will have

@BESW I will not be arguing against that

And from the other side of things, dust is DEFINITELY a mechanic of Hearthstone as a game, no question.

There are definitely a lot of non-mechanical differences

That distinguish them

They both sucked my soul out though

XD

Have any of you all seen, what's it called, the new digital MTG in closed Beta right now?

They have a common thread there

@trogdor Sucked it out right through your wallet.

@gul I have not but I played some of the ones before it

@BESW #Blizzard

Honestly not something I expected that I 'd say

@BESW well MTG did it that way, Hearthstone I didn't actually spend money on

But plenty of people have

@trogdor It actually has a (sort of) crafting system. Packs can contain wild cards of a certain rarity that you can convert to any card of that rarity. Though I do not think there is one for mythics.

Only surprising because i played the other ones before it and they all only had set decks

You could change them a bit but only with a very limited library for each deck

One thing I will say, hearthstone didn't require me to spend any money on it,.... But there was huge pressure to keep up with the Joneses anyway

I had to play it way too much to do so without spending any money on it

It got to me eventually and I quit playing it

And new players are pretty screwed if they want to jump into the game without spending any money

(there is a lot of power creep built up by now)

Remember when gaming used to be all about trading cards, and having fun, and playing together?

I miss the days when gaming wasn't based around competitive sport

They did help that a little bit with the tavern brawl and set rotation stuff

Not anymore

@gul a little, and some people might handle the grind of it better

But I don't think I want to ever go back to it

Fair

I am looking at some other TCG's but a lot of them are still.

FTP

Which leads me to think they probably have the same problems

I tried to do the LCG thing with Netrunner but that game is not only expensive but also inconvenient to keep up with

@trogdor Ok but have you played Slay the Spire?

I do really like Slay the Spire

Cool cool

I swear I was typing that before you asked XD

I am trying to wait for the third character now though

I don't want to burn out on the existing ones before that

Fair

And, that's the difficulty with a PvE card game, I think

Yeah I think so

That being said,... It's happened with the pvp ones I used to play too

Sooo there is that

I mean if there isn't new content, eventually people will optimise what is available.

Yeah true

But if there is constantly new content that you have to pay or grind for,......

A TRUE DILEMMA

Watching a video of a guy playing Breath of the Wild - versing n end-game enemy in new game... and he's laughing at his failures. It's always fun to watch a player enjoy the challenge

Also... must say I am enjoying the Electronic remix of the LoZ theme

Primarily Opinion Based not too broad

@Ben Pfffft lynels are only end-game enemies if you procrastinate and don't get used to them early on

@MikeQ True. I did have a lot of fun with the Zora side quest

Once you learn how parry works (and I use the term "works" loosely), there is no hard mode

@MikeQ I always dodged

There are few things in life more satisfying than the moment you figure out how to parry LASERS

Yes. First time I saw that was a thing, I knew I must try

I am yet to succeed however

Hahaha

The hint is the audio cue. The guardians always have a beep the moment they fire their lasers - that's the signal to parry

Ahhh

Shall have to remember that :)

Caveat, it varies on how far away they are

Aww, someone faved my question about the LoZ horse names

@Ben I've always referred to it as Ganonhorse

"Galloughs" honestly does ring a bell for me. No idea why though

@MikeQ What about "Ganonhoof"? Haha

I keep confusing "too broad" with "primary opinion based"

Lol

Is "don't overthink it" a decent enough answer for some of these "how does x work" questions? haha

Like this one asking about how proficiencies work when obtained through levelling

I suppose it would count as a frame challenge answer.

Whether it would be a popular answer depends on how ridiculous people think the question is.

I'm trying to decide how to contribute to a question that has a good answer but I think is stated somewhat confusingly. Not entirely sure how to convey my suggestion.

Edit their answer for them? Is that a better alternative than writing your own (which is basically the same as theirs but better expressed)?

I mean, I don't think it makes sense to for me to write my own, it's a good answer. You are probably correct, I just need to think it through.

I always feel weird suggesting edits for flow and clarity.

Well, look at it this way: It's still their answer. If you improve it, they'll likely get more upvotes in the long term. So, you're really doing them a favour.

True true.

For context, it's the incubus possession question.

A few of the sentances are a little dense and the headings could be more specific but it's not too bad. I've definitely seen worse.

It's up to you.

Mostly it's that it's good content, but answering the question kind of obliquely so the intent is a little muddled. The intent seems to be, "Not RAW, but if you wanted to see how you could mechanically model possession check out the sentient magic item rules", but until the last couple of sentences it reads a lot like, "The only entity in the game of D&D 5e that can possess a person as described in The Haunted One background is a sentient magic item."

I can see that.

So, just throwing this out there, before I try and turn it into an answer, to see if anyone agrees:

I would argue that this can never be applied to thrown weapon attacks... at the point of rolling damage, how can you be said to be "wielding" a dagger if you have in fact already thrown it. You're not wielding it... it's over the other side of the room.

Or am I overthinking this?

Flavor-wise I'd agree. Balance-wise, I doubt it matters, as I doubt fighter throwing daggers is going to be very strong either way

I'm more curios that the quoted wording seems to allow having a shield in the off-hand

It does, Dex based Paldin in my game uses this for rapier and sheild.

Also, as a weird edge case in your logic -- do you get the bonus if you are holding two daggers, and throw one?

@gul I thought that too.

@gul I think the text precludes that though. "+2 with that weapon"

Oh true

That is weirdly fiddly, but I don't think you're wrong.

Hmm, thanks, might write it up in a minute.

I am just trying to think of the bite-sized way to sum it up

"When throwing a dagger, there is no point in time that you are both wielding the dagger in one hand AND rolling damage with that weapon"?

God that's obtuse.

I'll give it a go, then you can edit me if I do it badly. :P

Aight, i did that edit, we will see if the poster likes it.

Oh neat

@BESW oooh

author of games I like and games I would like to try

Just posted my first ever answer. Let me know if it's awful so I can quickly delete out of shame.

@Tiggerous Looks good to me. I'd point out that the bonus attack with the dagger does gain the +2 bonus.

Also, I'd refer to PHB instead of (or in addition to) the SRD because it's more official, but that's a very academic issue.

@nitsua60 as a kid my mum was frustrated that i drank water from the hot tap sometimes (not, you know, hot, but warm) and was trying to get me to not, and said it wasn't clean, to which i said “but if it isn't clean enough to drink, why's it clean enough to shower in?”. she was speechless, and didn't have a good answer for me for a few days.

(then i began learning about potability, more or less, and why a lot of things that are fine to wash in are not okay to drink)

this was in the 90's, i imagine today we'd handle that situation by getting out a phone & typing that question into google

I... don't remember when I didn't know what "potable" meant.

I do, and it was surprisingly recent! One of the perks of being ESL is stumbling upon these words over time :)

Byproduct of getting our tap water from a river that was usually clean enough to drink after processing, but heavy rain would stir up sediment and gum up the filters.

@BESW I don't remember that either

You probably got water from Talofofo, too?

I mean, ok maybe I do, but I don't remember when I first heard or read the word and didn't know what it was

@BESW yes

@BESW What sort of processing did you use? Has the situation changed?

@kviiri it's more that the water was actually pretty clean in it's own right

@Tiggerous Looks good, though I think you have a typo in your last sentence

@kviiri Thanks for the suggestion, I've added that in, incase of confusion.

@gul @Tiggerous quick, delete it out of shame for the typo

@kviiri I don't remember the full details, but it included sand and charcoal filters. And I doubt it's changed, I've just moved north to where the tap water comes from the aquifer.

@trogdor Okie dokie

@BESW yeah limestone probably isn't great for it XD

"Aquifer" is another of those words I only know thanks to Dwarf Fortress and Wikipedia

aquifer is a good word

It is!

@doppelgreener Argh shame deletes it

HAH

I already did

Guam's a volcanic island, but the north half has a thick layer of limestone on top, from an ancient reef that got lifted out of the water by later tectonic activity.

Though you get to approve changes so, you know

You have the power.

So in the southern part of the island, rain flows along the top of the basalt as streams and rivers until it reaches the ocean.

Also, so, just now realising the strangeness of Two-weapon fighting.

But in the northern part the rain sinks down into the limestone immediately, and pools up at the limestone/basalt barrier.

@gul I think managing your free object interactions to exploit that could get really complicated. Always starting your turn with just one weapon in your hand, but another one handy. Especially complex in long combats.

@Tiggerous On the topic of free object interactions, I would just like to leave this here and invite you to consider the first comment on the top-rated answer: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/48609/…

D&D has provided me with numerous hours of joy but sometimes the world it outlines is v. silly.

@gul If dropping a dagger is a free action, can I just drop it on someone's face?

IIRC the rules are a bit vague on whether one has to wield a thrown weapon before throwing it.

I usually have ruled that yes, you have to, because that plays in well with the dagger's "flexibility" of being a melee weapon and a thrown weapon at the same time.

I had to look up this old answer of mine to remember what I previously mused on this topic

@Tiggerous Yes, but you deal 1 nonlethal damage if you hit. (A critical hit deals 2 lethal damage.)

(I just made that up out of whole cloth.)

@BESW Make a roll with disadvantage and no proficiency or modifier, or you are considered to be in some way "aiming".

That sounds 5e-ish.

(I don't even know if 4e does lethal/nonlethal.)

(...Does it roll to confirm critiicals?)

5e doesn't have crit confirmation and melee attacks can be declared non-lethal at the moment the damage is dealt.

I'm not sure how that interacts with the "death-by-massive-damage" thing. It's not really an area I care much about - in my campaigns, barring players wanting things to go one way or the other, NPCs die if and only if it's convenient for the story.

It interacts poorly

There's a question on stack about it, that I referenced once for my own game. But I disagreed with the answer, so ended up ignoring it.

I like 4e's handling: no lethal, no non-lethal, no massive, just whoever deals the final blow gets to decide how the target is removed from combat.

Eg. if the party is sent to parlay with a tightly-knit family of bandits to get them to unite against a common foe, and they wind up having to beat some sense into them to get to the negotiation part, I'd... probably default to the foes just rolling around groaning after being fireballed out of the combat as a default.

@BESW I can see how that works, but I don't like that either.

I mean, I prefer systems that don't use hit points at all.

@BESW i like that way too. you're not tracking state along the way, you just decide how it works out when it matters.

I used to think hit points were the stupidest thing ever and why would anyone not do more realistic injuries. Then I played Savage Worlds. But of course there's a ton of options beyond those two.

@BESW Does that extend to, say Blades? Stress and Trauma are not hit points PER SAY but together they basically play the same role.

Yeah, "not realistic" is not why I dislike hp.

I haven't played Blades so I can't really say.

Ok fair

I like the Fate consequences (at least I think so) and the Apocalypse World harm (which is essentially the same as HP, except there's very few of them and healing takes looong).

I'm not opposed to resource clocks that act as ablative armor for your agency.

Ok fair

But if they're just ablative armor and their purpose is to delay anything interesting happening as the result of a successful roll, then they'd better be being used as a tension-building mechanic.

@BESW as far as I know it does not

@BESW That's a good point

@BESW Are there successful implementations of that that you've seen?

@BESW I've been thinking about this in respect to 4e - mainly, to make boss fights feel more like wounding a BBEG than, y'know, trying to reduce a big number to zero. Like that multi-part dragon of yours :)

@doppelgreener Sometimes it works in Fate, but I can't really say why or why not.

@BESW Did that work well in any of the games I've been in?

AWE games tend to be okay with it, for the reasons @kviiri mentioned above: very few hp and it requires story to restore them.

@doppelgreener Yes, but less for whole games and more for scenes, so I haven't really figured it out yet.

Yesterday, I briefly mentioned here two other concepts I'll be trying out: The Asteroid Boss which has lower than usual HP but sheds minions when hit, and JRPG boss that is actually n different bosses in progressing phases and varying powers and flavors.

@BESW Which were those?