Okay, I guess I'm really having trouble identifying borderline Gad or Bood Subjective questions, because gm-techniques is obviously a Good Subjective to me
But I've been thinking about that issue in general
A bit over an hour ago, someone asked for input on how to build a system. That's more of a vague question rather than an opinion-based question if it was narrowed down to solid specifics.
But it was closed for opinion-based, rather than needing details and specifics
@Medix2 To be fair I edited the beginning of that next message in and then edited it back out into its own message so I could expand on it :P
@Axoren Generally you shouldn't put too much stock in the single close reason displayed below the post - I think only the reason chosen by the majority (or a plurality?) of close-voters is displayed, even if the other close-voters chose a different reason. And sometimes people can tell there's some issue with a post, even if they're not sure of the best option from the default close reasons to use.
When voting to close a question, it's possible for users to vote for any close reason, even if others have voted for different reasons. However, in the end, once the question reaches five close votes for any reason, only one of those reasons can be displayed.
How does the system determine which ...
@NeutralTax There's a lot of kinds of editing, it's a fascinating field and you can often get good work no matter where you live because you can do a lot of the job via online sharing of documents.
I know people who make it their full-time profession, and others who do it as a side job.
@Axoren I think people are uncomfortable with the new wording of the "too broad" close reason.
It's no longer a statement about the question; instead, it's a request for a course of action.
Which I guess to me implies a promise of "if you do this your question will be reopened", which isn't necessarily true. Some questions (like "how do I write an RPG system") are just inherently too broad.
@Shalvenay missed two saving throws in a row, and our only help is a retired PC who now and again does a 'sending' to see how things are going ... and we are on a mission to save this PC's son from being enslaved by a dragon! Yikes.
@NeutralTax it can do neat things. :)
nite all, must get up early, making my love breakfast to get her off to work on Valentine's day. Sweet dreams.
A group of friends and I have recently purchased a rulebook and pre-made adventure for a fun looking game. None of us have played a tabletop RPG before. We have all the material objects we need - except space. I'm in charge of finding a location.
What are the key traits that make a location sui...
In Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, can the visual effect produced by a magical illusion be seen in a mirror or other reflective surface?
A specific example would be Minor Illusion. This question is motivated in part by the ruling that such an illusion does not shed light and cannot illuminate ...
Kickstarter: Venture & Dungeon by Riley Rethal is two tabletop roleplaying games with a new perspective on the traditional high fantasy genre, in the belonging outside belonging system.
Kickstarter: Alone On A Journey by Takuma Okada is a collection of solo adventuring games. It's the excellent Along Among the Stars and two others based on the same system!
Morning folks. Can you find any obvious flaw in this character's class progression? Starts at level 5, up to level 20 (D&D 5e) Ranger(Hunter) 5 > Ranger5/Rogue(Mastermind)5 > Ranger8/Rogue5 > Ranger8/Rogue9 > Ranger 11/Rogue9
Is there a different level progression that is more effective?
Yeah, in the long run you'll lose level 4 and 5 spells and one ASI. I think the more immediate problem might be levels 6-10 when you won't unlock new ranger stuff while building up rogue levels
although sneak attack might compensate more than adequately at first
yes, my first iteration was for a Ranger 17/Rogue 3 to keep access to Swift Quiver, but I would probably get an overall better performance with a more reliable package overall
But honestly, I'm speaking more from a heuristic POV: in general, multiclasses lose raw power but gain versatility. Rogue multiclasses are more likely to subvert this idea, though, thanks to the sneak attack synergizing well with many other classes
Generally it's worthwhile to also consider the cost of getting a feature late
Not sure how your games play out but we seldom got to even level 10 before campaign fatigue set in (or the game was intentionally canned)
@kviiri Eh, Sneak Attack's actual damage is still dependent on what level you are in the class. You're still sacrificing power for versatility in that sense.
@V2Blast I think the point is more that when you're optimising for combat damage a rogue dip is often just straight better than some amount of levels in your main class
@V2Blast Yeah, that's true of course. But it's still something that kicks in with the stuff you'll do in your base class, unlike eg. a Barbarian Sorcerer who will use their action either to blast someone with arcane fire or to hack someone into two with their axe, but not both :)
Honestly, I'd be more worried about the Ranger levels being underwhelming than the Rogue.
You want Extra Attack, obviously, and Colossus Slayer is nice, but between 5 and 11 of Ranger you're basically only getting the Ranger's thoroughly disappointing spellcasting.
"Alternatively, you can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within 5 feet of you. You feint, distract the target, or in some other way team up to make your ally's attack more effective. If your ally attacks the target before your next turn, the first attack roll is made with advantage."
yes, but the synergy with cavalier should reduce the need for me to hide in combat for sneak attacks or dash to escape. True that help only boosts the first attack, though
@STTLCU I ran the numbers on this a few years back and convinced myself that Fighter(Battle Master)/Rogue ended up dishing out more damage. Archery fighting style (which I assume your ranger would also take), precision dice, attacking from hiding, Sharpshooter, and sneak attack all synergize pretty nicely.
I remember calculating the effective impact of Sharpshooter being +3ish average damage, worse if you have higher base damage without it.
-5 ends up being -25% average weapon damage in cases where you're not +5 from 95% accuracy or -5 from 5% accuracy.
For example, a Rogue at 20 with Sharpshooter would gain an effective 0 average damage from using Sharpshooter on every attack, simply because their base damage is 10d6+5.
eg. if you need 11 or better to hit, that -5 means you need 16 or better to hit, meaning you lose half the hits and therefore half the damage (before accounting for the bonus on hits)
Some class features, monster traits, and feats allow you to take a −5 to your attack roll in order to gain a +10 to your damage roll. At first glance this looks really good, but when will it deal more damage than not using it on average?
For instance if you have a total attack bonus of +8 and yo...
To talk about the effect of Sharpshooter as an expected deduction rather than percent difference is more meaningful, because it does not change based on your needed to-hit.
@Axoren I disagree, because the proportional effect on one's damage per round does change based on the target number and numbers that don't reflect that are unnecessarily obfuscated.
I think there is a place for additive probability modifiers but in the end-user side they sadly just often muddy the mathematical waters.
@Axoren This is why I'm recommending precision dice. When you've got a half-dozen d10s that you can throw on to attack rolls per short rest... that's pretty impactful.
@Medix2 Often one would calculate it for the range of damage and AC possible (or some representation of those). See the table dumps for which Plane of Math was created
@Axoren I don't know why you're shouting at me? I'm asking, in the message of yours that I replied to, what the -2 refers to. Are you talking about maluses to your hit roll?
Btw, you can reply to specific messages by clicking on the arrow that appears on the right when you hover over a message. It makes it clearer what you are responding too, especially when there are multiple things being said/discussed
We're looking at two ways of considering damage calculations. On the one hand, we can calculate DPR using hit bonuses, roll distributions, and we therefore need to take into account ACs. On the other hand we can look at damage per hit, and factor hit bonuses/maluses onto those read as damage bonuses/maluses, thereby abstracting away the effect of ACs. (Outside of the truly extreme cases of only needing, say, lower than a 3 or higher than an 18 to hit.)
@V2Blast our occasional salt marsh is beginning to lose momentum, particuarly as our BugBear Tempest cleric's player just got his with a RL double whammy at work. If you can visit with me in the back room ... later ... that would be cool. (Our next session is 24 Feb, as I am traveling this weekend)
Then let me walk you through the problem I'm having, and see if you can set me straight. Assume a fighter does 10.5 expected damage on a hit (ignoring crits).
By this analysis the -5/+10 of SS/GWM would argue, what: the -5 to hit "counts" as -2.5625 damage?
Leaving theory, as someone who played a GWM character, I nearly always took the -5, but chose to offset it with Bless (and less so after I got a higher modifier magic weapon).
@Axoren Makes more sense. So "standard" is 10.5, SS/GWM is something like 20.5- one-quarter of these BOOM hits, or 15ish. Still comes out to "always swing for the fences," which I'm pretty sure isn't right.
Yeah, but expanding it to simplify the formula we have above means we can't handle the Attack Bonus penalty at an update level for the average DPR
The idea is that if you already know what your average DPR is and you gain or loss attack bonus, calculating an additive effect on your average DPR is ideal
But the thing that's screwing me up is we had something like that for the weapon damage
I've got like 3 notebooks on the discussion me and my group had over it
In any case, the total effect of the +10 is somewhere between +0 and +10 to average DPR based on hits.
So that's really the only thing that needs to be calculated on the fly based on AC
You if we calculate the tipping point for the formula above, the point at which the +10 counteracts the -2.5, is at 10 hits.
If using SS/GWM would result in a 50% chance to hit or more, your average DPR will go up.
The maximum damage where it's a good trade off varies with the number you need to roll to hit a target
The maximum damage per hit where a damage trade-off is viable can be calculated as
Let \$P_1\$ = Percentage to hit before trade-off
Let \$P_2\$ = Percentage to hit after trade-off
...
derail: Just noticed druids shouldn't wear armor made of metal, but are proficient in medium armor. Of which only hide isn't metal. But is likely going to be less AC then choosing light armor.
@NautArch One could also have special versions of medium armors made of non-metals (say bone). I think this was suggested in a dev tweet at some point?
@NautArch Survival Mantle is unlisted rarity, so it might not be best for low level magic armor, but that's all up to you. It has a HUGE defense against gas-based everything.
Most druids don't go all-in on Dex because they're either summoning loads of animals (Shepard), being loads of animals (Moon), casting loads of spells (Land), or raising lots of undead (Spores)