@DavidCoffron You can do that--keep a list of things you want to bounty somewhere and when you sense rep-cap coming, give out a bounty =)

(It's a risky game if you're shooting for epic status, though. Or even legendary.)

@nitsua60 how do you quote text that's been altered by an errata document?

because normally, if there's a typo or thinko in something you're quoting, you do the whole (sic) thing in line, but do you incorporate the change from the published errata instead when an erratum has been issued to correct the typo/thinko?

@Shalvenay me, personally, or what's "the rule"?

(Because I can answer one, but not the other.)

(And now that I think of it, I believe @Anaphory brought this up a year or two ago: they were going to present something at a conference and needed to cite the incorrect version of something.... Am I crazy?)

@nitsua60 I was hoping to know what "the rule" is although this is only for a Stack post :)

Nope, I'm misremembering:

So it's close, but not quite.

@Shalvenay For me it's going to depend on why I'm quoting that passage. If I'm trying to get the current ruling I'll incorporate the erratum into the quotation and cite it (PHB p.1, erratum applied) or something like that. On the other hand, if it's the fact that there was an incorrect version of it that matters, it's the "bad" text quoted and cited as (PHB p.1, before errata).

Whatever takes the least space and honestly directs the reader's eyes to what you're looking at, basically.

@nitsua60 That doesn't work, I did that yesterday (incidentally) and it just took the 200 away and still prevented me from getting new rep for the rest of the day

@DavidCoffron You should have still gotten rep from upvotes, but you won't get notifications until the rep-after-bounty-subtracted "fills the hole," so to say.

Check your /reputation list?

Hi @JodySimon, and welcome to the RPG lair =)

@nitsua60 It says: > "-- 2018-04-26 rep 0 = 11383 " but I got to the cap issued bounty and then would've reached 200 again from upvotes

How is the God Wizard question not too broad?

@DavidCoffron do you mind copying in the whole day's bit of the list?

@HellSaint link?

you are on the comments @nitsua60 :P

@HellSaint I read a lot, write too much, and remember little =)

I mean the question is literally asking for an extensive list of spells, with explanations on why each one is good

@DavidCoffron So I see 200, a bunch of "lost" rep, the 15 for an accept, more "lost" rep... but no bounty award? A rep-event for a bounty would have an 8 in the first column (I believe), the post ID in the second column, and (-100) or whatever in the third.

@nitsua60 Is this different for some reason?

@DavidCoffron Maybe? I think that reputation tab in the profile is known to have some little gaps and creases around how it groups things, responds to undeletion, maybe a few other unusual interactions? But I'm getting beyond my depth--this may be worth poking around meta.SE to see some of the documentation on how the various presentations of rep are handled.

@HellSaint Oh, geez... from over a year ago =P

Yeap

But @KorvinStarmast editted it and ress'd it

Okay, it was closed as too broad over a year ago, and reopened 7 hours ago by 5 users.

Honestly, I don't see how he could get any better than Treatmonk's guide.

Might be worth taking to meta....

Also, if you take away every spell that does damage, you barely have anything to "Optimize", so it becomes more like a question of listing every spell that doesn't do damage and saying which one is better than others and why, which is... a guide

(crafting now)

(done)

I am SO EXCITED about this: stackoverflow.blog/2018/04/26/…

I've been banging that drum for years, and I'm really happy that some people up the chain are devoting resources to figure out how to solve it.

@DuckTapeAl Agreed! Though I hope they know they need to do more than what they've outlined.

Yeah.

Yes, exactly.

I'm a little worried by the line in the article where they're apparently only putting existing SE employees on the problem, which doesn't seem like it's going to be terribly effective.

But I have some hope that they're also bringing on some outside voices, at least in a consulting basis.

I'm concerned that they think a Google Doc survey is sufficient.

...isn't the survey just to set up a longer chat?

Am I reading that wrong?

I hope that's the case.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in title: womenshealthclaimed.com/vita-x-forskolin/ by sanaashaymakhouri on rpg.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in title: healthpurelives.com/vita-x-forskolin/ by malihamaysanshalhoub on rpg.SE

hey there @SimonH.

hello, @shalvenay

chick is exposed in eagle cam

get it some clothes!

(he he he)

it's quite the adorable little raptor

local eagle yells at cloud (circa 2018)

WAIT WHAT WAS THAT

something furry just climbed over the camera!!

oh wait it's just the dad, false alarm

Today in unusual governmental practices: "the president out-girths the vice president by more than seven feet."

That's all I'm giving you. If that's not a successful tease, I've got to retire my linking habits.

Wow

It is a nice seed of an idea for a druidic conclave, though =)

@nitsua60 was 100% not expecting that context at all lol.

I have a D&D session tonight and am trying to brainstorm some stuff. Plot summary of all the relevant details: Party is attempting to locate powerful artifacts. There was an "evil cult" which was also seeking these artifacts in an attempt to overthrow a country's government. Party defeated cult except for one cult member who was in a different country trying to locate an artifact. Party is about to arrive in that other country. Party also knows that this cult member has been reported dead.

Obviously, where I want to go with this plot, is that the bad guy they are after was killed by an even bigger badder guy. But I need to work out the details of who/what that would be.

Party is five level-7 characters.

@PhiNotPi first of all, I agree phi is way better than pi.

As for your story question, there are a number of ways you can take this. How much magic is in your setting? What races are prevalent (who are the big bad races)? What are the specifics of the cult?

@PhiNotPi @PhiNotPi Why does there need to be a bigger bad?

If I was writing this, I'd consider turning the last remaining cult member into the new campaign antagonist

They want revenge against the party for killing their fellow cult-mates. So they've faked their own death, and they're going to make a new cult.

As for the style of this campaign, there is supposed to be a rapid and continuous escalation of the stakes. It's a super-fast-leveling campaign. The party started out small (fighting normal crime) but are eventually going to fighting in an epic war LOTR-style.

It doesn't really matter whether this other cult member is dead or alive, but in the end he simply isn't the biggest baddest guy.

Or the corrupt church wiped out the cult leader but isn't much better than the cult (inquisition style) so your party needs to get the artifacts from the heads of a powerul church

From experience as both DM and player, I suggest the whole "There's actually a bigger villain" twist should be used sparingly

Then a demon has been controlling the heads of the chirch (your next big bad)

And you can go from there

The party already knows the identity of the biggest villain, they just aren't powerful enough to fight him directly right now. They are collecting these artifacts to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, and there's lots of wrong hands out there.

@MikeQ you don't have to play it off that way every time. Having a new threat that happens to be bigger isn't the same as a secret bigger villain

@DavidCoffron Right. If the bigger bad has already been established, then it's not a silly twist. It will seem organic.

@PhiNotPi Is there any reason that the biggest villain can't be responsible (either directly or indirectly) for killing the remaining cultist?

@MikeQ No. I think my options are (1) cult member killed by someone serving the biggest guy, or (2) cult member was serving the biggest guy (probably a little indirectly) and faked his own death.

I vote #2

It is entirely possible (and arguably more efficient) to have massive stakes without a massive number of named characters

I'm tempted to go with option 2 because I think it flows better... the biggest guy would initially support the cult because collecting artifacts / overthrowing cities is also what he wants, but in the end he would abandon the cult in order to get hold of those artifacts himself / take over the city himself.

@PhiNotPi That could work. Big bad effectively hires the cult to gather the artifacts. Once they've done that, he doesn't need the cultists anymore.

Hmm... now I would to figure out how exactly I would guide the party into getting that artifact (referring to the one this particular cult member was seeking, the party has already collected a couple). If said cultist had died, then it would have been that the body was recovered and they can somehow track down where he had been mortally wounded, and then defeat the monsters successfully and get the artifact.

Right. Big bad sent his agents/monsters to kill the cultist and get their artifact. Now the players have to intercept the agents before they reach the big bad. Makes sense.

And if the cultist faked their death, then... maybe the cultist expects the players to come after his "corpse", and the players are walking into a trap?

Hmm... there's one problem, which is that this cultist left to go find the artifact before the players defeated the cult (otherwise, the party would've already killed him in the process of killing all the others). So there's no way this cultist would know about the party ahead of time. Unless there was some kind of other person/mechanism capable of alerting him, but that would seem like a weird twist.

What about magic?

(If I haven't mentioned, this is D&D 5e). There could've been sending stones or something. Maybe the players would be able to figure that this character was supposed to have a sending stone so then would be able to anticipate that he could've known about the demise of his fellow cult members. Basically making an ambush at least reasonable and not a totally out-of-the-blue thing with no justification.

But I wonder if there's another way to do this...

@PhiNotPi scrying?

Slightly different question: would it be feasible/believable for this cultist to be some sort of entity capable of possessing people? Envisioning a twist in that "faking death" = "possessed body died"

@PhiNotPi have you seen the spell magic jar?

@PhiNotPi Sure? From what you've said so far, that seems possible.

@DavidCoffron That was what I was thinking of.

Man, it feels so futile to edit bad (logic-wise) and illegible answers into legible forms. But I can't not do it.

@Rubiksmoose Sorry about my missed parenthesis :P

@DavidCoffron missed parenths?! I can't read this garbage. :P

fwiw I was talking about this answer rpg.stackexchange.com/a/121524/28591

It still needs a lot of work, but at least it is readable now. If anyone is really bored and wants to fix it up the rest of the way, be my guest.

Oh my

@MikeQ Not sure if it's a twist worth adding... I do like ramping up the magic, and it could set the stage for some shenanigans later on (there's some things I think would be funny if they were actually magic jars). Pretty sure I told the party that the body had been found, so the "normal" solution is that he just disguised some other body, but the "cool" solution involves possession. Doesn't actually matter.

@PhiNotPi The cultist himself got leveled up by the artifact or whatever was protecting it (mutated/possessed?), and his newfound power has let him gather a new cult of minions to help whatever dastardly deed he's decided is his new goal.

The rumors that he's dead say he was killed by... himself, because his new form isn't immediately recognizable as him.

Thanks people for your suggestions... it's nice to hear other people's ideas, although it can be kinda hard since I can't really explain the full plot without taking up too much space/time.

My overarching plot is probably gonna be that of a "good" god of death (one representing order, progress, innovation, etc.) vs. an evil god of death (tyranny and suffering, etc.). By "god of death" I mean they deal mainly with necromancy and are capable of creating liches/etc. to further their goals.

Players are serving the good god, who created the artifacts and is guiding them to collect them. Biggest bad guy is serving evil god.

hey there @PhiNotPi

hi

how're things going?

I'm alive

OK here

My school semester is almost over... have finals Thursday and Friday

hey there @Zachiel

Hey

Right now I'm writing some epic poems for my campaign. I find that having some solid quotes/inscriptions really bumps up the quality of the story. Find an ancient relic? Better have something nice written on it.

@Zachiel how're things going? how goes the PC quest for that matter?

@Shalvenay Hey! How's it going?

@DuckTapeAl alright here, as for you? sure has been a while since we've seen you around these parts

Yeah, it's been a while. I've been busy, and I've changed jobs a few times in the recent past, which makes me less likely to hang out in chat.

I'm working for a company now that makes an app that lets you notarize documents online.

ah, interesting. how've things been otherwise? I've been alright myself

Mostly okay. I'm trying to start up a new game at my current work, but it's been going slowly.

I'm looking now to try and find a good system for a Mass Effect game.

What have you been playing lately?

on and off in the two 5e games, otherwise nothing else, scheduling has been a real :/

(said 5e games would be Nits' Tomb of Annihilation game and the RL game I'm in)

Cool.

I hear that about scheduling.

My Elder Scrolls game ended much sooner than I wanted it to because we just couldn't get together often enough, and I was starting a job that would make getting to the game much harder.

It was an every-two-weeks game, and by the end we had played 2 games in the last 3 months.