TRPG General Chat

3:42 AM

Howdy!

4:05 AM

Just finished HOTDQ as a player!
My character Surya got a Viking funeral... kinda

@JuneShores waves

@V2Blast Nice! Are you gonna play RoT?

@Miniman Nah, I think we're planning to play Waterdeep: Dragon Heist next (with different characters)

@V2Blast That's a little bit of a shame. There's some really cool stuff in RoT. (In general, I think people don't give it and HotDQ enough credit.)

@Miniman Perhaps I'll get to play it at some point in the future

Shalvenay

@JuneShores how're things going? :D

4:27 AM

The ethereal-plane needs tag info. Not sure if it's a D&D/Pathfinder-only thing or what.

Going alright. Thinking about some game design stuff.

6:01 AM

@V2Blast If Dragon Heist is not either (a) stealing a dragon or (b) Ocean's 11 but with dragons, don't tell me.

[scribbles notes for Honey Heist but it's dragons instead of bears]

oh I see how it is, it's called heist if you "steal" a dragon, not dragon kidnapping

No, that would be eggnapping.

6:21 AM

I don't see how that changes anything, you monster :P

Hey, I'm rooting for option b.

We can get Sean Connery, Alan Oppenheimer, Jet Li, James Earl Jones, Richard E. Grant, Benedict Cumberbatch, Miyu Irino, Cathy Weseluck...

Gosh there's not a lot of precedent for women dragons with speaking parts, is there.

6:41 AM

@BESW I won't tell you then

Also it turns out my DM no longer wants to run W:DH next. He said:
"I’m not sure if I’ll run that any more, I’m a little down on WotC material at the moment.
My latest BS > WotC carefully crafted books"

That was the unstated theme of every D&D game I ran for six years over two editions.

@V2Blast I keep meaning to try that, but I'm intimidated by the knowledge of just how S my BS is.

@Miniman I quickly overcame that concern after reading some adventures.

@BESW Oh, I'm well aware of the deficiencies in published adventures. I just don't think I could do better.

That same adventure couldn't figure out how to get players to know where to go next... so the villain gives his henchmen letters, which they carry around on their person for days or weeks despite sometimes being undercover, the contents of which basically boil down to To Whomever Has Killed The Bearer of This Note: My next minion can be found using the attached directions.

Hey, @JuneShores, have you seen Sundown? Looks good!

6:54 AM

@BESW Ah, classic villain shenanigans.

Q: How can you achieve a significantly higher total passive Perception than the sum of your Perception bonus + 10?

7

In the comments for another question, I was asked to pose a question on how to achieve a passive Perception of 28, while having a Perception modifier significantly lower than 18, which is impossible to achieve. So, here's the question: How do you achieve a passive Perception of 28, with a bonus ...

kviiri

I just don't think WotC wants what I want

literally none of the answers to this question actually answer the question posed; all of them instead seem to be challenging OP's premise by showing that you can have that high a Perception mod

is this a problem? should the answers be reworded?

(I guess technically the top answer does, since Sentinel Shield gives you advantage, which is not a fixed modifier to your active Perception but is a +5 to passive Perception)

7:23 AM

@BESW I guess not

you actually thought of one and I never knew there were any

@trogdor Nope, Cathy Weseluck is the voice of Spike.

@BESW I remember that, I actually thought it was hilarious

@BESW ooooh

ok yeah I technically knew that was a lady voice actor doing a male voice

I never thought of it though

:/

in fact the only lady dragons who I know of who are voice acted are in WoW

and they don't really show up much

8:05 AM

@BESW Ooh, that does look good.

8:56 AM

@BESW Until I looked up the name, the only Spike I could think of was from the show Angel and I was very confused :P

12:44 PM

my dad, asking about my camping trip: have you thought about taking a spork? me: no, I— dad: because then you'll have both a spoon me: dad: and an orc

Tweeted by innesmck on April 12, 2019 at 12:44 PM

#polltime When it comes to familiarizing yourself with rules of a #ttrpg, do you prefer "plug'n'play" type of ruleset, or a more meticulous kind? Please RT. This is more of a personal interest, but other game developers might be curious about this as well. Thanks! 🙂 #dnd #rpg

Tweeted by CraftyTabletop on April 11, 2019 at 6:45 PM

1:04 PM

@V2Blast The only questions with that tag are are also tagged dnd-5e so it seems like a safe assumption. It might have use for other rpg's, but doesn't currently for any questions.

Q: Is a pteranodon acceptable as a beast companion for a beast master?

3:14 PM

3

I’ve just started to play dnd with a few of my friends and we're unsure if a beast master having a pteranodon as their beast companion would be unbalanced. I’m playing as a flying character (an Aarakocra) and think it wouldnt be a good idea to have a landbound beast companion (like a panther) as...

dnd-5e balance ranger animal-companions

3:28 PM

this kind of question makes me wonder how much SE is tracked by government agencies.

Q: How many people can fit inside Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion?

3

The spells description says It contains sufficient food to serve a nine-course banquet for up to 100 people but can it only house 100 people or can you bring in as many people as you want?

dnd-5e spells

Rubiksmoose

5:01 PM

@Someone_Evil hahaha

Q: Can undead you have reanimated wait inside a portable hole?

8:27 PM

2

Assuming I cast the appropriate levels of spells to keep them under my control, could my undead that have already been reanimated stay in a portable hole as they don’t need to breathe or sleep? I don’t see any reason that they can’t, but this seems like a extremely easy work around to what is no...

dnd-5e magic-items undead

8:50 PM

how's everyone's weekend going?

Well, I am nocturnal.

@V2Blast trying to prep for tomorrows session while having no clue what my players will be trying and while I should probably go to bed...

I'm also two upvotes off 2k which is kinda exciting (at least for me)

Q: Can a 1st-level character have an ability score above 18?

9:26 PM

4

I was playing with a DM that says the rules state that you cannot have a 1st-level character with an ability score above 18. I didn't want to argue so I made it work. I cannot find that rule anywhere. We are using the "roll 4d6 for each ability score, drop the lowest" method of generating abilit...

dnd-5e character-creation ability-scores

@Someone_Evil did you hit it already or does SE just round the scores for others' view

@V2Blast Just hit it!

you're welcome ;)

I feel slightly dirty now

lol

Incognito

9:32 PM

The mortal plane was created by the gods for humans to live on as a way to gain power from their worship. However, there are outside forces, such as demons, which seek to destroy their creations. In order to better protect the plane, they partitioned it into different sections called realms. Each realm is as large as a continent and is a world unto itself (Africa, Asia, North America, etc). These continents are sectioned off from each other. If there is an invasion, it would only affect that particular realm instead of the entire planet. The only way to travel between continents is a portal…

vicky_molokh

Going . . . mixed.
Cons: de facto three out of four sessions scheduled for this week (two on the weekend) were cancelled.
Pros: I'm optimistic about the upcoming remaining one, and am digging through logs that date back to 2014-11-22 (over 200 sessions ago), because the new PCs (and players) are digging up loose ends from way back.

The HOTDQ game I'm a player in just ended, and my Monday night weekly game has its last session in 2 days

Wednesday game this past week was canceled but it's otherwise pretty regular

@Incognito Try worldbuilding.stackexchange.com

Not to discourage you, but I'm failing to see what part of that affects the RPG aspect

Yeah, definitely more of a worldbuilding question

I just got out of a pretty bad game session.

9:38 PM

@JuneShores Bad how?

@V2Blast Bad like the GM lacked some really basic improv skills that the game runs on.

ah

Everybody basically gave up doing anything but to nod along near the end.

ouch

that's pretty bad

9:58 PM

Some thoughts on boxed text from adventures, in a blog post by James Introcaso: worldbuilderblog.me/2019/04/11/we-can-do-better-than-boxed-text

Pros:
- contains the important details the players should know
- may help convey adventure's tone

Cons:
- breaks immersion/causes players to lose interest as the players are forced to listen to the DM read off a paragraph
- situation may change depending on how players approach, whether monsters have moved or other aspects of the area have changed
- doesn't detail everything in the room, only what players immediately notice (so DM may have to sift through several paragraphs of text outside it to find that a trap is in the room)

10:10 PM

In most of the games I play, this entire boxed text paradigm just does not work.

The root problem here isn't fixed with bullet points, wrt: boredom and inflexibility. The way the information is displayed isn't the issue, it's how the information is structured and the skills the GM has.

10:57 PM

A skilled GM definitely makes all the difference

Manner

Hey guys, I'm reworking the Fireball spell for D&D 5e because I'm kinda sick of it being a no-brainer spell for Sorcerers and Wizards as soon as they hit lvl 5, so I'm trying to make it a little more... Interesting.

What I've come to is to change the damage to 6d6 (as the DMG suggests, no more BS favoritism and "iconic spell" crap.) and add a little variations to it with different effects:

Fireball: Reworked into “Explosion”:
Explosion:
When you first learn this spell, choose one of the elemental variations described below. Whenever you're able to learn a new spell, you can learn a new va…