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12:00 AM
 
 
Nice. Glad I followed that right.
 
So W and X are popular
 
This is a great way to randomly generate all kinds of relationships, not just literal maps.
 
@BESW It does seem biased towards full connectivity, but it's supposed to, right?
 
12:02 AM
W is a very strategic point to hold, because it lets you access any other point in a single move except Y.
 
Because otherwise, there's no way to get from A to Z, etc.
Same with X, except for U
 
Right. The idea isn't if you can get someplace, but what you have to travel through to get there.
 
If you make X an Economic Center, U would be a poorer region
Because it's so much further from X
 
Right. But U and Y are more defensible positions.
 
only two avenues in or out
 
12:04 AM
Wouldn't U and Y be less defensible positions because you can't get supplies to them easily?
 
In Diaspora, these avenues are wormholes.
The physical relationship between the worlds is irr🐘, it's the wormhole access that matters.
 
So wouldn't a fully connected territory be the best defensible?
 
In another game, these nodes might be social spheres and the connections represent allegiances.
 
Because you can pull ships from anywhere to defend the territories?
 
@Axoren Or anywhere/everywhere can send their ships to you at once without negotiating passage through your potential allies and without giving you time to prepare.
It's not an easy this-or-that thing.
 
12:08 AM
Wormhole Phase Shift Tactical Positioning in Space is a very complicated concept.
 
In Leckie's Providence this is a background plot point, in which political subterfuge is being used to manipulate passage treaties so one system can make a surprise attack on another by gaining access to a path with fewer jumps.
 
btw, thanks for the combat system recommendations guys! Starfinder is looking promising.
 
In Bujold's "Vorkosigan Saga" a system with a single wormhole connection is culturally isolated because of which system it connects to.
 
@Axoren quite. just wait until you have to deal with dynamic connections in such an environment ;)
 
@IsaacReefman Glad we could help!
Ancillary Mercy and the Vorkosigan Saga both have systems which were dramatically impacted when a supposedly stable wormhole collapsed.
And many stories (Schlock Mercenary, Babylon 5, spoiler) deal with the practical and tactical implications of being able or unable to create your own wormholes wherever you please.
 
 
1 hour later…
1:21 AM
What's the 4e "introductory" adventure? (Akin to Sunless Citadel for 3e or Lost Mine of Phandelver for 5e?) Is it Keep on the Shadowfell?
 
You might want to use Smiley Bob
It's pretty good
@BESW has it
I do too but not at work
 
@nitsua60 Keep on the Shadowfell is the official introductory adventure, yes, and it's got some very strong reasons to use it; it's designed to slowly introduce players to various elements of the system's tactical landscape, and does that pretty well.
 
If he doesn't get that to you before I get home, then I can
 
@BESW Cool--thanks.
 
But the story's dumb, the quality control is spotty, and it's got a LOT of pointless padding with needlessly duplicated fight scenarios.
 
1:26 AM
@BESW oh that isn't the one with Ironfang in it?
 
Also it's supposed to take like three levels to play through, which translates to between one and three months of play time.
@trogdor Yes. Yes, it is.
 
Ooooh
Steer clear of that then
 
I ask for this comment:
Are you only accepting answers from the list you link? I ask because I strongly suspect that something like Sunless Citadel or Keep on the Shadowfell or Lost Mine of Phandelver would be in the running if it's not just what's listed on that page. — nitsua60 ♦ 2 mins ago
(not looking to run or play it, personally)
 
So I recommend the Dungeon Magazine one-shot adventure "Prey for Smiley Bob."
9
A: Recommend a published encounter for 4e to demo its strengths to newbies!

BESWPrey for Smiley Bob: http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dun/smileybob Specifically, Encounter 3: Poke the Bear. You can easily summarize the lead-in (which includes a halfling giving a bear half a Glasgow smile; the whole module has a sense of the ridiculous) to explain what's g...

Keep on the Shadowfell was the first D&D 4e adventure, released before any of the core books and intended as a self-sufficient introduction to the whole new edition.
 
Ah, and now Twilight Sparkle's @trogdor's seeming-non sequitur comes together.
 
1:28 AM
I used it myself and I have no complaint about the module, just my handling of it
@nitsua60 keep on shadowfell kinda sucked
If only because of that stupid Ironfang encounter
@BESW could complain more from the DM side, but from the player side @$$$#_$ Ironfang
$_#_$ Ironfang and $&$_$ Ironfang
 
See also:
14
A: Understanding stealth and ambushing

BESWFirst off, that map is infamous in my gaming group. It's from "Keep on the Shadowfell," an adventure published before even the 4e PHB. As such, it's got a lot of... quirks, and then the Stealth rules changed in the PHB2 (see Sage's link at the bottom for full details of current rules). The party ...

 
@trogdor mind spoiling me on who/what this Ironfang is?
 
Ironfang is the keep on Shadowfell boss
And his total Bull$$#&$_
 
Well, he's a mini-boss.
He's overleveled for the point in the adventure you're most likely to meet him, because Wizards took a few years to figure out the numbers on their monster difficulties.
And he's presented in a fight that dramatically enhances the difficulty of defeating him.
 
He himself is too strong, and the designed his encounter with him having help, the encounter before him to bleed into his
 
1:34 AM
And he's got powers that make him more dangerous and give him more longevity the closer you are to beating him.
 
Which is a huge middle finger to how 4e even works mechanically
no,... He's the boss
He may not be intended to be but goddang he is the boss
 
@trogdor I thought 5e was the huge middle-finger to 4e?
[ducks thrown bottles]
 
Since he's the end-of-level-one miniboss in the first adventure ever released for the edition, there's a LOT of folks out there whose first experience with D&D 4e is being badly TPKed by an unfair encounter, and Ironfang is the centerpiece of that encounter.
 
@nitsua60 jgfhffbhfjffyhfb
Hefdyfbbkc
 
(that's ^^ what it sounds like when ducks throw bottles, I guess)
 
1:38 AM
I mean, from my perspective 5e is a little rude to 4e
 
5e marketing was absolutely insulting to 4e.
 
But I don't know that that is a huge change from how editions normally are to their predicesors or how they are seen to.be
 
@trogdor when I finally crack open that 4e phb I have sitting on my shelf I'll be able to cobble together a (barely-)informed opinion on that, I suppose.
 
@BESW yes but,... Some of the mechanics are like dead useless 4e mechanics
 
I suppose the cycle started with the B/X-BECMI --> AD&D rift--I heard those were not friendly days to be around TSR.
 
1:44 AM
@nitsua60 to be fair I only have one example, but it's a good example
One possible paladin feature let's you give allies near you AC
This is a pretty 4e thing,... But they added all these qualifications that limit when it works that 4e wouldn't put in there
4e might say you need specific equipment and it only effects. People within some squares of you, but 5e went on to add more qualifiers than that
I'll have a look at the specifics when I get home but it was a useless feature that looked like it was in there to try to appease people who liked 4e
But at least there are other features you can choose instead of it
 
Anyone remember the name of the white dragon in Sunless Citadel? Mine're in the office....
Nvm--reddit to the rescue.
 
2:16 AM
@nitsua60 I don't, but only because a) our DM never mentioned it and b) it was zombie-fungus-fied anyway :P (and c) it went splat before it really could do much anyhow, lulz)
hey there @KorvinStarmast
 
@Shalvenay (It was "Calcryx.")
 
@nitsua60 ah
how're things going?
 
A group I ran it for ended up letting her get away, and she may make a re-appearance this summer.
 
Tired, long day at work. eyes drooping.
reading mord's tomb is a 'small bite at a time' exercise. Not to be speed readed .... or however one should say that.
I am moved to a Monty Pythonism "my brain hurts, Mr Gumby!"
took five of us to break into a new employee's car. Locked his keys in. This used to be easier.
A Tesla on autopilot rammed a parked cop car. so much for the inexorable advance of technology and AI .... let's go back to dial phones ...
nite all
 
2:22 AM
@KorvinStarmast Night. Be well!
 
@KorvinStarmast Thought experiment: if Bicycle Repair Man had appeared, could he have helped with the car?
 
(Hmm... not sure that (!) really works there....)
 
 
1 hour later…
3:23 AM
I wish more folks would upvote duplicates.
 
4:07 AM
I thought we didn't technically want. Duplicates?
 
We don't want to encourage them, but a moderate number of dupes are good for the site: by asking the same question in a different way, they help the Stack show up on a wider variety of Google searches for the same topic, and then guide the searcher toward the collecting of existing answers.
A well-asked duplicate question is still a well-asked question.
 
4:28 AM
Mm
Ok then
I was definitely operating under the assumption they were just not good
I've mostly ignored them
 
5:02 AM
The only "problem" with a duplicate question is that it means good answers won't all be in the same place--there'll be good answers on all the different versions of the same question.
That's why we close them.
 
5:20 AM
Doesn't that also mean we lose unique answers when it gets deleted?
Not all unique answers are good but some might be
 
If there's enough of them, they get migrated to the other question.
Often the answerer is asked to re-write their answer on the open post.
This is also why it's not great to rush to get an answer in before a question's closed.
 
Mk
 
 
2 hours later…
6:58 AM
my Healing/Surgery by teleport question in worldbuilding SE got me the "Notable Question" badge :D
 
7:21 AM
@kviiri Yes, schenery!
@kviiri Yes, my non-Finnish Finnish-learning friends were mentioning it, but I neglected to ask them how their home town behaves at the time of writing that.
 
7:34 AM
@Anaphory I have one of those, a Russian guy who wants a Finnish citizenship but he got fed up with the language exams
Then he realized that one doesn't have to speak Finnish, Swedish works as well :-)
So your train arrives after two in the afternoon, hm. Would you prefer to meet up straight away or find your lodgings and catch your breath first?
 
I think I would like to drop my large backpack there, but I don't think I need much else.
I'm staying in Hotel Arthur
 
7:53 AM
Hmm, okie dokie
That's an excellent location for any follow-up, on foot or otherwise
Would you like to do some planning or make it up as we go?
 
8:19 AM
I'm happy to make stuff up as we go.
 
Works for me! We can meet at the hotel lobby when you're ready
 
Excellent!
 
How did you like Turku?
 
I haven't seen much because we were spontaneously invited to my friends' boss' home which is in Jokioinen-or-something for last night. I saw the cathedral, which I found nice and impresseively void of paintings and statues and other depictions, and walked across the construction site that is the kauppatori at the moment and along the river, but I haven't seen the castle or the old houses yet, I'll try to do that today or tomorrow morning.
From the perspective of living there, it seemed decent, but I was expecting more smaller, older buildings in the centre.
 
8:36 AM
Yeah, Finland doesn't have much in the way of old towns. They keep burning down :(
 
I get that. Maybe I was expecting 1900s stuff instead of 1950s stuff, as it appeared to mostly be?
 
Hmm, I have no idea about the age of the buildings in Turku to be honest
 
Or was Finland too remote a province of Russia at that time for much building happening, maybe.
 
Quite possibly. Turku was also not very much in the Russian administration's good graces
It was too close, both physically and culturally, to their Swedish enemies
In Helsinki, there's more 1800's and early 1900's stuff though
Not much older than that given that Helsinki was a town only nominally before being made the capital
The first church of Helsinki is quite near to where I live. Or what remains of it: a hole in the ground and some foundation stones :)
 
8:57 AM
@kviiri Better than "some holes in the ground which archeologists think contained wood at some point", I guess.
 
9:11 AM
Hmm, I think we have something like that too
But I'm a bit poor with historical sites to be honest :>
I mean, specific buildings and all that. I'm better at remembering the big picture
Hm, the submarine in Suomenlinna can also be visited. 7 euros admission
I didn't know it was open for visitors, I always thought it was just a decoration piece :P
 
9:53 AM
@kviiri [reads] apparently it has reverse emulated super nintendo games
 
@doppelgreener Hah :D
 
that's pretty cool though
 
10:45 AM
uuurgh, serious withdrawal symptoms from a lack of games :(
I want to continue our Curse of Strahd already
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Shortened URL in body: Finding Play Testers by Kent Rhys on rpg.SE (@doppelgreener)
 
Not that I like the campaign really, but I must admit this game has seen us do a lot of stuff better than before
 
11:09 AM
@kviiri that sounds pretty great, and I hope you manage to get back to it as well.
 
Lack of games is a pretty discouraging thing sometimes
Although I mainly find it that way for lack of interaction with the people I like to play those games with
If we were doing something else every once in a while it wouldn't be a big deal
 
12:06 PM
Sup
 
morning nerds
@Hobo_warrior how's your game going now?
all better?
 
@JoelHarmon A fair question, and one that has been much on my mind in recent weeks. :) I don't have an answer.
 
12:26 PM
We are all dorks and nerds ;P
 
Hey @Hobo_warrior, good to have you back. :)
 
@doppelgreener sup
 
nothing much, reading through a ton of documentation. how's things going on your end?
 
@doppelgreener gr8 bout to start Algebra 2 (I’m in school lol)
 
have fun! o/
 
12:32 PM
-_-
 
the American curriculum is a lot different to the Australian one, but some of those topics are ones I found kinda fun in mathematics classes.
 
I think the biggest difference between American curriculum and everywhere else is how America-focused "world" history is.
 
We had probability as an extra in our math book but never had the time to study it ;_;
it's my favorite part of math
 
How old is y’all?
 
<-- 29
so, y'know.... most of my time on here is while I'm at work.... which is a bad role model. don't do what I do.
 
12:38 PM
Lol most of the time I’m on here I’m at school, stay in drugs and don’t do school kids ;0
Jk drugs is bad
school is good
God is good ;P
 
@Hobo_warrior Lawful, neutral, or chaotic good?
 
I'm 28 myself.
 
@SPavel definitely chaotic good
 
I'm 26
 
I won't say how old I am, but my inner child is 65
2
 
12:57 PM
@KorvinStarmast This vampire question got clarified a lot, so I've cleaned up comments including yours. Could you check for me if it clarifies well enough which type of vampires are involved?
(I don't know if there's more than one kind. You namedropped Curse of Strahd in your comment.)
or anyone else versed in D&D 5e can do that I guess also.
 
allo allo everyone
 
I’m almost 17
 
@SPavel that is either badass or sad
 
i was actually afraid ya’ll was like 60, 70 something
 
@Hobo_warrior something wrong with sexagenarians and septuagenarians ?
 
1:02 PM
@NautArch Other than the ones leading the country?
 
@goodguy5 Let's not talk about that bucket of bad apples
 
@goodguy5 *every country
 
Ye
Every.
Single.
One.
O.o
 
probably not all
some might have like, 40 year olds running things XD
who are still not perfect at the job mind
 
and however old kim jung un is
 
1:05 PM
"young" is practically in the name
 
I've got a weird roll20 issue :(
 
@NautArch oh no, not R20
Please god, why does R20 have so many weird problems
 
@trogdor because it does sooooooooooo many things. More fronts to uncover problems
 
@trogdor aye R20. I've turned on Proficiency Die I(and we have the 3D dice rolling turned on), but when proficient rolls are made there are two proficiency die visually rolled, but I think it's only using one for the actual calculation (and not in an advantage type of way).
 
Someone in the other room seems to be wondering about the nature of said room, the site and everything.
 
1:08 PM
it sounds like a visual bug. report it.
though, you can confirm by just rolling a bunch of times and adding the numbers
Check to make sure it's not always giving you the higher or lower die.
 
@goodguy5 which I've done. And it's definitely just taking one of the 'thrown' die. I think there's an extra die being tossed visually, but not part of the calculation.
I turned the 3d dice off/on, still throwing two.
 
Last time I tried to use Roll20 I had to disable 3D dice because the site was slow as molasses and 3d Dice made us wait literally MINUTES until the site decided to roll them
 
@Helwar i'm definitely seeing that delay at least
 
@goodguy5 Kim Jong Un is in his 30’s
 
@NautArch Have you tried FantasyGrounds?
 
1:16 PM
yea. I looked that up. 33-35
 
@Helwar it does, but it doesn't do it as intuitively as one would expect
 
@Helwar that, and I’m pretty sure online dice do noipthing
 
@ColinGross have not, but i'm invested in ROll20 at this point (already have some maps up and my players have entered their characters)
 
*nothing. Ur try to kill me
*but try to krill me
*kill me! DAMNIT
 
@Hobo_warrior mmm, krill
 
1:17 PM
@Hobo_warrior you can edit your posts. hit the up arrow, or hover over the post, click the left-hand arrow, and click edit from that dropdown menu.
 
(you can edit posts... though, it's hard on mobile so...)
 
@Hobo_warrior well, i figured it would have to run less code if I omitted the dice
 
if you're on a phone you can tap the post then pick the pencil in the top bar that shows up.
 
@Helwar don’t like online dice cause I feel the rolls aren’t legit. Unless I get a 20, of course
 
they're often more correctly random & fair than the dice you're rolling
 
1:18 PM
@NautArch I have a lot of things in roll20 too.. but I'm free member. Are you premium? Is it worth it? (for other than cute lighting?)
@doppelgreener ninja'd me
 
@Helwar nah, i'm free. I meant more invested in time :)
@Hobo_warrior I prefer physical dice, but don't want to deal with video and having to have eveyrone show their dice when they roll.
 
@NautArch That also doesn't get you any verification
 
@NautArch u not trust your group members?
 
@Hobo_warrior Everyone lies one time or another. I trust my players up to a certain extent :P
 
@Hobo_warrior Trust them generally? or not to make little white lies?
 
1:20 PM
@Hobo_warrior trust no one
 
@Helwar ;P
 
I wouldn't trust myself with dice rolls in all situations
 
Plus, people are lying liar that are the best at lying to themselves.
@kviiri I concur.
 
@kviiri Exactly, is very tempting when you are throwing your only high lvl spell and you roll a 7 and know it doesn't hit.. to just say... "it's a 17!"
 
The 3D dice give it a feel like you're rolling, so I like that idea.
rather than just the random result posted
I'll get over the extra D4 since it seems like a visual problem and not an actual one
 
1:22 PM
are you using a macro or an api-related thing?
 
@Helwar One of our players lost their beloved character because they critical failed the death saving throw twice in a row. I probably would've bended the truth a bit there
 
@Helwar Just what's built-in. You can choose "proficiency die DMG" as a proficiency setting on the sheet.
 
that's why DMs roll in private, not to kill characters, but to save them from their stupidity or random streaks of bad luck
@NautArch what sheet? DND5 shaped?
 
@Helwar I roll open :) I'm not a fan of rolling in private. The somewhat annoying thing with that on Roll20 is that the'yll see the modifier.
 
Yeah, I tend to roll openly too.
Then again, I don't like or use the "critical fail on death save" rule myself.
 
1:24 PM
@Helwar 5th edition OGL roll20
 
Insert here the usual rant about crits and blind worship of 1 and 20 :-)
 
@NautArch not the one I use then, but when I get home (3 hours from now) I will check it and try to help :)
 
@Helwar thank you, citizen!
 
@kviiri that 5% of the time you are so amazing you can hit a dragon with a hairpin, 5% of the time your veteran soldier misses an attack at close range with a hammer to the slowest zombie in existance?
 
I love the monster hunter franchise
 
1:27 PM
@doppelgreener Looks like a generic vampire question, all's good as I see it. (I think the answer will be sourced from the MM which has material on vampire spawn ...)
 
@KorvinStarmast cool :D
Glad to hear it
 
Anyone else know what monster hunter is?
 
@Hobo_warrior I do. o/
 
@Helwar If it was only that, and not "5% of the time the legendary fighter fumbles their strike so bad they wind up chopping off their right leg at the knee and breaking their +3 magic sword"
@Hobo_warrior someone who hunts monsters? (and, according to some sources, should beware lest they become a monster)
 
@Hobo_warrior I'm assuming you mean the video game franchise?
 
1:29 PM
@kviiri yea, that stuff bugs me
 
@kviiri I don't use critical fumbles that damage the player... it's stupid
 
@Hobo_warrior a game about crazy persons that think it is fun to hunt monsters as big as mountains... and have to resort to recruit exceeds as hunt partners because obviously no one wants to go with them.
 
@Derpy fairy tail reference? I know that word but I can't remember if it's from there or not...
 
@Helwar I whole heartedly concur. I also don't use the critical success/fail for skill checks.
 
@doppelgreener Heh, as I predicted, some of our scholars went right to the MM and provided a nice, clear answer. :)
 
1:34 PM
@ColinGross that's actually homebrew, isn't it? It's just so extended that people think it's official or an alternate rule
 
@Helwar I think it's in the DMG as an optional rule.
 
@kviiri Yep, that's why I (in pathfinder, so confirming crits is normal) have them confirm crit fails too - exactly like critical hits, but if you would have missed the second roll you get the crit fail (if you would have hit the second roll, then it's a normal miss).
 
@Helwar ^ official DLC
 
@ColinGross who cares, is still stupid. A scholarly, wizened wizard doesn't have a 5% chance of landing a triple sommersault on top of an orc head
 
@Helwar You're correct. The actual variant rule is the automatic success system. The crit fail/succeed is a cognitive hold over from the attack system
@Helwar I agree. I have a couple players that are under the mistaken believe that a natural 20 makes the impossible within reach.
 
1:39 PM
@ColinGross That's annoying, more for them than for us though, it's their hopes that are crushed, not ours :P
 
@Helwar It works out for one of the characters since part of the character is "ignoring odds"... and being crazy. That character generates a bit of RP exp for that kind of stuff. The other is supposed to be exceedingly pragmatic... so no exp for playing to mechanics instead of role play.
 
@Helwar or "i roll to jump over the moon"
 
@doppelgreener that's a better example
 
I just had someone downvote one of my questions because it was "kinda short" lol
(but really because they wanted the critic badge apparently)
 
@Rubiksmoose Points are important to people. Same with internet points.
Although, there are so many bad answers out there to downvote.
 
1:50 PM
@Rubiksmoose they actually wrote that?
 
Kinda short question — Eimsmaul 12 hours ago
 
@Rubiksmoose Noone has told them that size doesn't matter?
 
@ColinGross That was my thinking as well, not like the question was perfect or anything but surely there were better targets for it. Oh well it is really not a big deal. Glad they didn't downvote an answer at least lol
 
It was a concise, well focused question. I've seen a lot of much shorter questions.
I upvoted the question; it is clear
 
@KorvinStarmast :) thank you for saying so. In my experience it is actually very hard to write good, complete but concise questions.
 
1:54 PM
speaking of badges, I got the tumbleweed one, sadly
 
but yeah I just thought it was silly. I'm sure there have been sillier reasons people have downvoted they just didn't have the gumption to comment saying what they were lol.
@Helwar oh really?
 
@Rubiksmoose I always end up writing a ton of fluff
@Rubiksmoose yup, one on stack overflow :P
 
@Helwar ohhhh I was about to say that is like impossible to get on this stack...
only 23 awarded
 
tumbleweed badges in this stack?
 
@Helwar correct.
 

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