TRPG General Chat

Rubiksmoose

16:00

So here is my take: I think that Basic rules citation is a coding mistake on that page entirely. The only time you get citations for things is generally when you are on a page for a very specific thing (not a race like here). So the citation is likely not even supposed to be there. Then, when the paid content gets added the citation (which seems to be anchored to the bottom) appears to refer to the entire page.

@NautArch In my experience, the actual basic rules pages on DnDB are not dynamic and stay the same no matter what content you have purchased

dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/races#Elf

Yeah, just confirmed that Basic Rules pages say exactly the same thing regardless of login status (at least the ones I checked). This seems to be a simple one line citation error.

NautArch

That snip was taken from the link I posted originally

I'll change the links on my answer using it to mordenkainen, just in case.

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch Weirdly I don't see that when I am not logged in at all.

Ah I see. That was already pointed out.

At least I can keep using Basic Rules pages with confidence as usual.

KorvinStarmast

16:20

@NautArch I sent him to this meta

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast yeah, i linked there twice, too in the comments

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch You may want to remove the reference to the Basic rules as well. Fey Step is not listed in them at all.

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose cleaned it up and changed the link

Rubiksmoose

Basic Rules P. 21 talks about Cleric class features. And not mention of fey step anywhere in them. (so, I'm not sure how the citation ended up here, but it is a complete error)

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose ha, i guess that's better!

Basic Rules only include High Elf and Wood Elf.

Rubiksmoose

16:28

Yup. [shrug].

NautArch

minor coding error

SPavel

17:22

@NautArch I thought this was a no-politics chat

Sir Cinnamon

@SPavel It means space citizenship

this chat doesnt allow earth politics

NautArch

@SPavel I can delete, it was more of a Starship Troopers joke.

argh, too late to delete.

flagged myself

T.J.L.

17:54

@NautArch That whole movie is a joke - I refuse to believe you could fit the entire script in this little text box. :)

NautArch

@T.J.L. Are you sure?

David Coffron

I'm glad I witnessed someone else do that bc I'm surprised I haven't brought up politics here yet (I'm a bit of a politics geek)

Yuuki

@NautArch So you did your part?

David Coffron

Now I'll make sure I avoid in the future

NautArch

@DavidCoffron hehe, oopsies.

@Yuuki I got Games and Theory!

SPavel

17:56

@DavidCoffron I love a good politic, but not here

T.J.L.

@NautArch reasonably sure, and no... that isn't a challenge. :)

NautArch

@T.J.L. I accept!

Yuuki

> Polytick, medium aberration

NautArch

On a fantasy note (but somewhat related) aren't most space forces aligned under Navy?

David Coffron

@SPavel Although we had a great discussion about european politics in the 17th century a bit ago (iirc). Only modern politics a concern then?

Mike Q

17:59

@DavidCoffron Too charged. Hard to discuss without breaking the Be Nice rule.

David Coffron

@MikeQ makes sense. If I have the urge to discuss politics I'll go to Reddit lol

SPavel

IMO anything after the middle ages gets too colonial

Yuuki

@NautArch I've always wondered why that's the case when US space ops is nominally under the umbrella of the Air Force.

SPavel

Middle ages politics are probably fine but you gotta avoid religion

NautArch

@Yuuki Am i right in thinking most scifi space forces are Navy?

SPavel

18:00

@Yuuki Militarizing space is forbidden by UN treaty

Mike Q

I've even tried to discuss historical politics, in the context of possible campaign ideas, and that alone seemed to rustle some jimmies and bring up controversial topics

GreySage

@NautArch I think the idea is Navy = uses ships, space ships are ships, so should be under Navy

Yuuki

@SPavel WMDs in space are forbidden by UN treaty.

T.J.L.

@Yuuki It's a question of hardware mobility... orbital space can be managed from the ground, making it an Air Force like task. Navy organizations, by contrast, deal with large vehicles some with smaller vehicles onboard (even some small vessels have embarked helicopters and small boats).

Yuuki

If militarizing space was forbidden, we wouldn't have spy satellites.

SPavel

18:01

@Yuuki Everything in space is a WMD if you de-orbit it

GreySage

@Yuuki So are laser-satellites, unfortunately.

SPavel

Sci-fi game plot: Terrorists steal Hubble, reverse its lenses, create deadly space laser

T.J.L.

@GreySage Laser satellites are so 1970s... kinetic kill vehicles are the way to go (rods from gods).

David Coffron

@SPavel what if I'm advising on how to design a medieval/renaissance campaign setting. Is using historical evidence allowed to reinforce?

GreySage

@T.J.L. All I know is I want my Ion Cannon.

Yuuki

18:02

@T.J.L. The world has had enough experience with rods from gods. Just ask Ancient Greece.

SPavel

@T.J.L. 70s was not lasers

Mike Q

@SPavel Seems inefficient, you could easily counter it by building a dyson sphere

Sir Cinnamon

@T.J.L. So much more efficient to redirect existing kinetic energy of a meteor than to try and create all the energy yourself

Yuuki

> easily
> building a dyson sphere

pls

Mike Q

@Yuuki Sure, just order the parts from IKEA

T.J.L.

18:03

It was a joke, @SPavel - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco

SPavel

@T.J.L. east of iron kurtain, ve do not have zees... deesko

Only form of dance allowed was cossack squat, which was also forbidden

NautArch

@GreySage Here you go

@SPavel In russia, Disco dances you!

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch Yes, and I think I answered a question like that at SFF.SE a while back. here it is.

@NautArch A friend of mine wrote a monograph in the 90's about the militarization of space. See if I can find it ....

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast cool- i found a quora about it, too

KorvinStarmast

@NautArch This isn't the one I am thinking about but here is one that seems to predict current events somewhat

The Oracle

18:13

2

Q: Can we encourage askers to provide the source or quote of their things?

Recently, this question about Eladrin's Fey Step brought some confusion because Eladrin is "talked about" in DMG as an Example Subrace (for creating new subraces) while the actual, playable/official subrace was published in MToF. In D&D questions (in particular for 5e, which I'm obviously more a...

discussion

KorvinStarmast

I browse the dtic for stuff on mil matters now and again; this is one I like in that someone did a study on the art of war by a successful culture in southern Africa Diamond gave a nod to their success in Guns, Germs, and Steel.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast that was a great book

even though it was all fairly obvious stuff

KorvinStarmast

What I liked about Diamond's synthesis, for some of its imperfections, was how he combined a variety of areas of human endeavor and tried to pack into one blob. Mostly worked.

I read a book recently called "Plagues and Peoples" which I think was a source book for some of Diamond's research. It's a beautiful examination of how diseases spread and impact human culture/history. Really good read.

I liked it so much that I tossed some of what I learned from it into some world building for my home world ... that is a long way from going out of 1e AD&D to 5e. Some day .....

SPavel

oops

@KorvinStarmast There's a great bit in one of the QI episodes where a guest goes into the Zulu warrior culture a bit

"If you British didn't have guns, you wouldn't have stood a chance"

Anaphory

@KorvinStarmast I hope my historian friend is done with his thesis soon, because he's a good one for putting things like that into the world he builds, as well. (Encouraged by me, because I like such things, but he has the knowledge.)

KorvinStarmast

18:34

@SPavel QI means ... what? I guess that's not a TV show that I watch.

SPavel

@KorvinStarmast Quite Interesting, British trivia panel show featuring Stephen Fry (until recently)

It is quite good but I would skip the first two series because the show hadn't quite got its footing yet

Postmen actually vampires, a Tweet thread

I once posted @cultauthor a letter, and scrawled "ANTI-VAMPIRE LEAGUE" & "NO COMPROMISE: NO VAMPIRES" across it. The postman who delivered it gave him a dressing-down, said it was "disgusting", and if there were any more like it, he wouldn't deliver them. I've always wondered.

Tweeted by Ghostwoods on June 19, 2018 at 10:35 AM

0xFFF1

20:22

If your DM lets you choose your summons for Conjure Animals, etc, one option is 8 constrictor snakes. They are Large creatures with a CR of 1/4, which means you get 8 of them for a single 3rd level slot. They get an attack with +4 to hit that auto-grapples on-hit, restraining them with a DC14 escape. If there's a lot of mooks to fight in a boss battle, you can use this to get some breathing room and gimp the boss's action economy advantage.
One at a time, have them attempt to constrict a mook of size Huge or smaller, until two snakes are doubled up on one mook, then move on to the next one …

Rubiksmoose

Clever, but they could just attack the snakes instead of trying to break the grapple no?

GreySage

@0xFFF1 Good idea, but restrained creatures can still attack. Depending on bonuses the mooks could attack and kill the snakes.

0xFFF1

even if the snakes are overpowered, it's still a hefty distraction for the cost of 1 action and a 3rd level slot and Concentration

those attacks on the snakes would've been attacks on the party otherwise

GreySage

@0xFFF1 True, but summoning allies is always a good idea.

KorvinStarmast

@0xFFF1 yeah, summon the constrictor snakes becomes a different form of CC for a few rounds.

0xFFF1

20:34

grappling is still pretty strong, action economy-wise, even before factoring in that they get to do damage AND grapple. It makes the snakes at least a tad stronger than generic attack-option-opportunity-cost-bait summons

NautArch

@0xFFF1 Kinda -as @KorvinStarmast said it's more of a CC effect. You can lock down a mook from moving and force them to direct their melee attacks against what's in range (the snake), but ultimately they can either melee the snakes without penalty (thus removing them from a problem for YOUR PARTY) or they can fire ranged weapons at the caster :).

Sir Cinnamon

@Rubiksmoose I was just about to start an edit on that question

Rubiksmoose

@SirCinnamon Well saved you the effort I guess! Glad we didn't do it at the same time at least. I dislike when that happens.

Sir Cinnamon

@Rubiksmoose Certainly tends to lead to merge conflicts (and potentially real conflicts)

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose which question?

Rubiksmoose

20:41

1

Q: How many short rests can a character take while the party takes a long rest?

How many short rests can you take, while your party is taking a long rest? Yes, we are familiar with XGE and the exhaustion penalty, but if a character makes the roll how many SR can they take in the LR period? Semi-official or official answers please. We are not using alternative rest rules ...

dnd-5e rests

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose ah. I'm still confused as to what the goal of that question is.

Rubiksmoose

@NautArch I'm 100% confused about that as well. But at least it looks nicer now?

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose When I saw that question I just went "oh no, not this again ..." rest cheese again. sigh (Was in a few discussions at GiTP on rest that wearied me, and then the coffee lock sorc/warlock cheese thing ...)

Rubiksmoose

> that wearied me

NautArch

@Rubiksmoose a short one?

Rubiksmoose

20:44

maybe you should take a rest ;)

@NautArch Quite possibly!

But seriously, the sleep cheese/shenanigans is very tiresome (pun intended)

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose I mean. None of them work because it has a minimum (no max) AND the GM has to allow the rest. It's a silly thing to try to abuse

Rubiksmoose

@DavidCoffron Agreed. That is really one of the reasons it is so tiresome. Because it is pointless.

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose not to mention it makes the game fundamentally un-fun

There are way more fun cheese options to pursue

Rubiksmoose

Or depends entirely on duping a clueless DM. Who hopefully would shut it down immediately the next time it is tried. And yeah, like you said, is completely un-fun.

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose cheese is only good if it is a lateral fun or positive fun move. Negative fun moves and it's Swiss (if you hate Swiss cheese as much as I)

Rubiksmoose

20:55

Agreed. Unless you are playing at a table of viscous cheesemongers. Then I guess it is fine.

David Coffron

@Rubiksmoose I mean theory crafting about cheese cam be fun but only so far as it is reasonable (imo). Like I'm a fan of the infinite damage moonblade and figuring out how to farm damage runes. But I'd never do it in game lol

Rubiksmoose

Same same.

KorvinStarmast

@DavidCoffron Do you have any contributions to make to our cheese thread at RPG.SE meta? There are some fun ones to be had.

Anaphory

21:11

@BESW I ended up buying the Cookbook, which just arrived. I thought I bought the Cookbook instead of Tassajara Cooking because it was more easily available, but re-checking now there does not really seem to be a difference in availability. Huh. Anyway,

I'm enjoying the first few pages quite a lot.

BESW

Cool.

NautArch

@KorvinStarmast I'm guessing there's some naturally occurring cheese in late-stage games, because my vengeance paladin with GWM, Sentinel, PAM on a pegasus is fairly cheesy - and now we have a barbarian with 27AC with the Mobile feat and well over 200 HP :)

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast It's a bit hard to swallow but there is this answer I posted

4

A: What is the farthest someone can travel in 8 hours without teleporting?

You can reach 1195 miles in 8 hours (150 mph) with the following technique: The Party Kobolds are selected since they weigh only 25 lbs Barry is a Kobold Barbarian 6 for these features: Path of the Totem Warrior Aspect of the Beast: Elk Warforsh is a guild of 6 Kobold Monks 10/Druids 2 ...

KorvinStarmast

@DavidCoffron I am tempted to nom that for our lovely cheese fondu on meta, but at the moment something has come up.

David Coffron

@KorvinStarmast nice nom pun (even if unintended)

Peter Cooper Jr.

23:43

Anybody have a recommendation on whether the current Humble Bundle "5E Dungeons, Hordes & Horrors" is worth the $15?

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