TRPG General Chat

Black Spike

12:02 AM

I'm sure there are lots of RPGs 'influenced by' Noir. Cyberpunk, for one

BESW

And again, I'm not against speculative fiction in any way. I'm just kinda fascinated by how we had fifteen years of CSI TV shows, four board games, and nine video games, but no RPG.

Black Spike

pet peeve "Speculative fiction" ... isn't that pretty much ALL fiction .. "what if .. ?"

inthemanual

If you define "solving crimes" as "someone bad did something and protagonists need to fix, prevent, or apprehend the person responsible" it's quite possible to describe a lot of that list as "solving crimes"

Jadasc

Aside from RPGs named "noir," of which there have been a few, the best one is Greg Stolze's "A Dirty World."

Black Spike

Is "Blades in the Dark" Noir?

Jadasc

12:05 AM

Nah, that's dark fantasy.

It's heist fantasy in a weird steampunk city, but grim.

Black Spike

Fair enough

KorvinStarmast

@Jadasc looks like something I'd like to try out.

Jadasc

(If you change that to "but flashy," that's Dusk City Outlaws.)

@KorvinStarmast I've played it a few times, but I'd like more practice. I had a really good time with it.

Medix2

1:33 AM

Does anybody know a way to deal d12's of fire damage in 5th edition DnD

Hot RPG Questions

7

Q: Does Medium Armor's Max dex also put a cap on the negative side?

I know heavy armor ignores Dexterity modifiers for AC calculations, but what about medium armor for a character with a -3 to their dexterity? Does Medium armor bottom out at -2, or will -3 still apply?

Medix2

1:49 AM

If there's a magic weapon that only does fire damage, that would work too

V2Blast

2:21 AM

Scorching Ray deals 2d6, but that's not the same :P

Melf's Minute Meteors does as well

and Elemental Bane

BESW

@V2Blast Yeah, that's more Rory's thing than Palmer's.

V2Blast

doesn't look like any spells do d12s of fire damage

@BESW wat

Medix2

Yeah the only thing I found was using a Battle Master Fighter's feinting attack to gain 1d12 on your next attack and then making an attack that does fire damage like fire bolt

BESW

@V2Blast Mick Rory is Heatwave, a DC character with a thing for fire. Raymond Palmer is The Atom, a DC character with a suit that lets him change his size and fly. They work together on Legends of Tomorrow but I don't think Mick would ever lend Ray his flamethrower.

V2Blast

Ah. I've seen maybe an episode or two of Legends of Tomorrow, a while ago.

I vaguely remember those two

BESW

2:28 AM

I haven't watched the recent seasons but Rory and Snart were definitely my favorites.

Honorable mention goes to first-season Arthur Darvill for visibly pushing back against attempts to get him to play Rip Hunter as a knockoff Matt Smith.

Hot RPG Questions

2:42 AM

1

Q: What ways are there to share spells between characters, besides a Ring of Spell Storing?

It has been determined legal for anybody (from barbarians to wizards) to cast any spell that has been stored in a Ring of Spell Storing. (Source: How does a Ring of Spell Storing function?) Are there any other ways of sharing spells between characters?

dnd-5e spellcasting

Mage in the Barrel

Alignment question if a character does around killing all the undead they run into because their faith says all undead must be exterminated does that make them evil?

From a pathfinder perspective

Medix2

imo what each alignment means is only useful for the player as a way to understand their own character. What qualifies as "evil" to one person will be different from another. It just helps to say "My character is evil" and to know what your own meaning/version of "evil" is.
Of course, different systems rigidly define the terms or use them extensively and it becomes more complicated...

BESW

3:02 AM

I wouldn't worry about modern alignment-as-ethics much. I ripped it out of my games wherever I could, when I still played in systems that used it at all. If you're gonna use it as an allegiance axis in a universal war, then it can be useful, but it's still always more interesting to focus on peoples' motives and goals than on litigating morality into nuanceless categories.

Shalvenay

yeah, alignment-as-ethics is a morass of quicksand

Joel Harmon

@MageintheBarrel In their defence, part of the conceit of a system like Pathfinder is that alignment is something you can objectively prove with something like the spell Detect Evil. So, since most Undead are, in fact, capital-E Evil, it's not necessarily that bad to try to smite all of them.

BESW

If you want your game to actually explore questions like "is it morally repugnant to kill all undead on sight?" then the alignment system just gets in the way by enforcing a world where it's a yes/no answer that can be determined by casting a low-level spell.

Shalvenay

@BESW exactly

it's why I get pissed off at people who call it 'metagaming" to have IG/IC ways of alignment testing PCs

BESW

"DM Musing: when you eliminate alignment from the equation as the go-to answer to why your antagonists are doing what they are doing, your game is bound to be better." A Twitter thread by Dulenheim.

"The whole idea of an alignment chart... is some grade A Lawful b*llsh*t." A Twitter thread by Epidiah.

Joel Harmon

3:09 AM

To be fair, bad guys don't necessarily have to have worthwhile motivations to be bad; it's just usually done poorly. My go-to counterexample is Acheron Hades from the Thursday Next series.

BESW

Sure, that's a thing. But Acheron isn't motiveless, or just motivated by "because Evil"; he's motivated by reputation and influence.

Medix2

Personally for me "Lawful" just means you follow any code of rules, even if they're just your own

BESW

That's very clear, with the newspaper clippings and the showboating and the totally extra ways he refuses to let his own minions exercise autonomy--even by refusing to let them die.

Joel Harmon

@Medix2 Yeah. My favorite conundrum for that is "well, the law says that it's time for our weekly human sacrifice."

@BESW Hmm. It's been a few years since I read that series. My recollection is that he was evil for the sake of evil (and actually considered that his motivation), and stuff like that was him just being evil - because it's more evil if you can rub it in someone else's face. (awww, Felix....)

Clearly, the only solution is to go grab that stack of books and reread them all. BBL.

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon in a society where being that sacrifice is an honor, no less

BESW

3:17 AM

@JoelHarmon He said that, but are you going to believe him?

Joel Harmon

@BESW You do make a good point.

BESW

"Evil is having reason, always, many and many."

Joel Harmon

@Shalvenay Which reminds me of a curious setting I once heard about. Native barbarians on one side of an island, necromancy cult on the other. Barbarians were afraid of the necromancers, because it's unnatural and evil. Necromancers used their powers to keep around their best leaders.

Shalvenay

@JoelHarmon that does raise some interesting issues XD

Joel Harmon

I couldn't even tell you whether it was a homebrew setting a friend made, or one that he read about. Either way, it was conveyed to me verbally.

(oh, and of course the necromancers hated the barbarians for being brutish and such)

Joshua

3:24 AM

Been home sick with nothing better to do; just watched swan princiess trilogy for the first time. It would appear that every single caster is an idiot.

If you can cast true polymorph at will, there's no point in conquering the neighboring kingdom.

Joel Harmon

@Joshua That's generally the trouble with casters in stories; it's hard to make them both clever and interesting. A good read on this is Brandon Sanderson's laws of magic.

Joshua

Read it a long time ago. How about a simpler one. "If you don't want a magic-dominated world, slow down the casting time."

BESW

@Joshua This is something I liked in D&D 4e.

Shalvenay

@Joshua that's actually a really good point. making magic costly to use is something people almost treat as an afterthought

Joshua

Oh, and if you let even remotely controllable time travel into your world, it will dominate your world unless you wrote it so badly I will cringe at it.

Joshua

3:52 AM

I read this book awhile back, that's actually pretty good, but at the crux of the story had this really intelligent guy on learning the planet is ruled by an angel, deciding to mouth off to it.

I can't imagine any way that works out well for the guy.

Hot RPG Questions

4:43 AM

5

Q: Who owns content posted at Paizo.com forums?

I am working on a guide containing many Pathfinder tactics and rules commonly overlooked by new players, such as delaying until you get buffed. I am using this thread as one of the important sources. Because it's a forum, the best I can get from most posts is some good idea to reword and include ...

intellectual-property

2

Q: Would getting a natural 20 with a penalty still count as a critical hit?

Since rolling a number up to 20 with modifiers (an example 17 + 3) is not counted as a critical hit, what happens in the following case? If I roll a natural 20 and because of penalties end up with a total of less than 20 (an example 20 - 3) does it still count as a critical hit? Or in this case ...

dnd-5e attack critical-hit attack-roll

V2Blast

6:40 AM

@Joshua time travel in general results in messes

The Oracle

7:19 AM

0

Q: Question Workshop: GM Types

Not long ago, it has been pointed out to me that while RPG theory about different archetypes of players is relatively well-known, people are generally less aware of what sorts of GMs are out there. So I posted a question, which, in retrospect, was too shoppy. I brought it up in chat and was offer...

discussion specific-question

Medix2

1:16 PM

Is there a way to get my question here ("When does the Shocking Grasp spell actually start preventing the target from taking reactions?") marked instead as a duplicate of the question I have now linked at the top?

C. Ross

2:51 PM

@Medix2 Not that I can see as a power user, and I don't remember there being a mod tool for that.

Hot RPG Questions

2

Q: Can my familiar turn me invisible?

If, as a multiclassed wizard/druid, I have an imp familiar from the find familiar spell and I wild shape into a rat, can the imp hold me and turn invisible?

dnd-5e spells familiars invisibility

2

Q: If I am sleeping clutching on to something, how easy is it to steal that item?

If when we go to sleep and the bard wants to steal the item from me while I am clutching it in my sleep, holding it to myself, how easy would it be for them to steal it from, what kind of rolls would be needed here?

dnd-5e sleep

Zachiel

3:53 PM

I... I want to become better at the My Guy Syndrome :(

Shalvenay

@Zachiel o.O why?

Zachiel

Because I feel like it would help me playing my characters up to their hilt, instead of them taking decisions based on what I don't want them to face.

That's it.

More "that's what my character would do" and less "that's what I'd like my character to do" (not necessarily less "that's what my character should do for us to enjoy the game", though).

Also, I've been wondering how to I play someone who is Good, can speak with animals, can listen to thgem cry, can create food out of nothing and still believes that it is right for animals to hunt each other or for humans to hunt them.

C. Ross

@Zachiel Yeah ... it's unfortunate that some people use deep role play as an excuse for abusing their party.

Zachiel

@C.Ross Yeah, unfortunate in the sense that this sort of casts a dark shadow upon deep RPing.

C. Ross

4:14 PM

@Zachiel well, and abusing your friends (or even just the people who play games with you) is unkind itself

I have seen some games where (usually more mature) players are interested in playing with flaws and drama. It still rough sometimes...

Medix2

I just looked through 5e-dnd and man is it not consistent with what "the roll" means...

Zachiel

I think playing with lots of drama is better with throwaway characters, but I've seen the eternal "they love each other, but then one of them does a completely stupid thing and things break and then the other does an even more stupid thing that is forgiving the first one for the hundredth time and the cycle starts again" thing done properly, once or twice, but both players knew what they wanted to do (and it was creating a rough sea situation for other characters to engage with).

Yuuki

5:17 PM

@Zachiel If you get animals to not hunt each other, you've basically destroyed the environment and everyone's going to die.

Zachiel

6:32 PM

@Yuuki still, poor animals ç_ç

Yuuki

Suggestion: invest in industrial-grade earplugs.

V2Blast

@Medix2 Yes, I can edit the dupe to have multiple targets

Mage in the Barrel

hey does any1 know any good shrine maiden classes for 3.5e or pathfinder don't worry to much about balance the power level in our game is really high and the dm goes through and fixes the values to match it himself we have a lot of house rules so even vanilla pathfinder stuff needs a bit of workshoping. The main things I'm looking for are talisman, shikigami familiars, and seals.

MikeQ

6:47 PM

@MageintheBarrel Shaman, maybe? They're a divine caster and they get a spirit familiar.

Medix2

@V2Blast Much appreciated, thank you

Mage in the Barrel

don't really have the eastern feel

MikeQ

...Eastern feel?

Mage in the Barrel

good shrine maiden or miko

google*

hen you'll get the idea of what I'm looking for

a miko is closer to an oracle than a shaman outside of shamans using spiritual powers.

Zachiel

I think hunting for the right archetype might be the solution.

Mage in the Barrel

6:54 PM

they also don't curse people last time I checked

Zachiel

If you're looking for curses, Witch is the class

Mage in the Barrel

i'm not looking for curses

i meant miko don't curse people unlike shaman who have the hex class feature

MikeQ

Shaman hexes don't have to be curses. Many of them are buff and support effects.

Zachiel

Oh, ok. There also might be an archetype that removes curses from the Shaman, though.

Mage in the Barrel

yes but some of them are it literally says in the dscription on srd that they do

MikeQ

7:06 PM

Then... don't choose those options?

Mage in the Barrel

a hex also by definition is a curse

but anyways been looking at the shaman and they don't have a number of the things i listen in my op

i found 1 but it's based on the cleric and we already have a primary healer in our party

giantitp.com/forums/…

MikeQ

Ah, I didn't realize homebrew and 3rd party classes were allowed for this

Mage in the Barrel

oh sorry guess you missed the op

the dm allows anything from or made for 3.5e or pathfinder

but makes changes to it himself

MikeQ

Right, and 3.5e and pathfinder are published material. Not homebrew stuff from the internet.

Mage in the Barrel

okay homebrew stuff for 3.5e and pathfinder

MikeQ

7:12 PM

Hmm... If homebrew is allowed, maybe choose the one you linked, and swap out the healing for something else?

Mage in the Barrel

our group is very tactical in the first place and the power of enemies is through the roof

for reference a crit for over 300 damage did not 1 shot an enemy a level 6

not very familiar with the game but that's a lot of damage isn't it?

MikeQ

Yeah, for Pathfinder 1e, that's insanely high above the expected damage for 6th level... I'm not sure how a PC can do that. The GM is probably using homebrew enemies.

Mage in the Barrel

i use alchemy full metal alchemist style and get 10 charges with drawn circle and 4 charges for tatoo at my level

he lets me fire off multiple charges at once for a multiplier

most of our content is homebrewed in the first place

enemies and players have an armor pool and you need to break it before you can deal substantial damage to the enemy

or player

that took about half of his armor off and about 5% hp

it's fun for me tho

i like a good challenge but I also like hitting stuff really hard

so i get the best of both worlds this way

i fired off 5 btw

Zachiel

Well that's not the Pathfinder we know anymore, it's hard (very hard) for us to know what is "good enough" under custom rules like that. :(

Mage in the Barrel

he goes through homebrew we present and costumizes it for our rules

which is why I said not to worry to much about balance

mostly number tweaking

MikeQ

7:24 PM

Well that's the tricky part - When you're asking internet folks for advice, they don't know the specific homebrew rulesystem you're using. So their feedback may not be as useful.

Mage in the Barrel

well we have the power puff girl apocalypse as a god's test so rediculousness isn't really a problem i guess

I was mainly asking about a class the fit the theme or style of shrine maiden while matching certain parameters rather than mechical or numbers stuff

MikeQ

Maybe make your own homebrew class?

Mage in the Barrel

that is way to much work

guess i could take the few ones I found that I like and work from there

well then self inflicted headache here I come

wish me luck

MikeQ

May the force be with you

Mage in the Barrel

thanks but my mentor was a sith lord so I have no interest in help from you jedi

jk

but seriously thanks for the advice

Hot RPG Questions

10:15 PM

2

Q: Is this "Faetouched" homebrew race balanced?

I have here attempted to create a race that is to humans and half-humans like Eladrin is to elves. I am slightly worried that it is overpowered and if it is, please let me know how I can fix it. Faetouched Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 2. Age. Faetouche...

dnd-5e races homebrew-review

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 will you be around tonight for our game?

Hot RPG Questions

11:14 PM

4

Q: How do the Durable and Dwarven Fortitude feats interact?

How do the Durable and Dwarven Fortitude feats interact? While the Durable feat (PHB, p. 166) states that you gain a minimum of double your Constitution modifier from using your Hit Dice to heal, the Dwarven Fortitude feat (XGtE, p. 74) has you regain Hit Points equal to what you roll, plus your...

dnd-5e feats healing hit-points hit-dice

Transcript for