TRPG General Chat

BESW

3:47 AM

Panel - RPGSEA, Seas of Design Communities (Freeplay '20)

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Hot RPG Questions

7

Q: What is the utility of the magic item Unbreakable Arrow?

This answer makes a pretty good case that RAW there is no special consideration given to Unbreakable Arrow (XGtE, pg 139) in terms of recovery of the ammunition. It seems that ammunition breakage is baked in to ammunition recovery after a fight, and that an unbreakable arrow would improve the r...

Hot RPG Questions

4:20 AM

5

Q: When blinded, could I use Detect Evil and Good to target an enemy?

I'm planning on running a Monk/Cleric (14 in Monk and 6 in Cleric, if my character survives that long, I haven't yet multi-classed into Cleric), and we've come across a few enemies that are able to blind members of our group, and as a halfling, I don't have the benefit of darkvision (which is fin...

dnd-5e spells blind

HellSaint

6:17 AM

Btw I just wanted to share my homebrew ranged paladin class lol reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/h7xja3/… - I am actually proud of this one and the player who is going to play seems to have enjoyed what she read haha

nitsua60

@HellSaint I played a similar paladin in CoS. Except it was "my kind" of paladin: a cleric of Pelor with a first level of fighter. Would have ticked most of your boxes, I think.

(I think there are some kids in that group who never realized I wasn't mechanically a paladin. The lack of an aura should have tipped them off, but I was throwing around enough buffs to disguise it, I guess.)

LizWeir

8:48 AM

what's up everyone it's me, an enormous Silver Flame fan, who read the bit about that faith using archery as a meditative practice and went "hm, what's the best way to handle bow-clerics in d&d 5e?"

so that question's one I was well prepared for ;-)

(I've also DMed for a Silver Flame bow-paladin using a lightly modified Cha-based Arcane Archer, but that misses the support side of what the question asked for)

LizWeir

9:11 AM

ah, I'd missed the homebrew answer was also yours!

still happy to share another perspective, though, as I think it's worthwhile to look at different ways of handling these things :-)

Hot RPG Questions

1:14 PM

6

Q: Would it be unbalanced to let a Tempest Cleric replace one of their domain spells for the 4th-level spell Storm Sphere?

I wanted to pick your DM brains about allowing a Cleric of the Tempest domain to swap one of their domain spells. One of the players in our campaign would like to swap Control Water (PHB, p.227) for Storm Sphere (XGtE, p.166). It seems to be in line with the whole flavour of a Tempest Cleric an...

dnd-5e spells balance cleric homebrew-review

Hot RPG Questions

2:23 PM

2

Q: How to allow my player to play a ranged paladin-style character?

So, I saw this question here. The way the questioner wrote it (at the time I am writing this one) was quite broad. I have been through a similar issue, which ultimately led me to homebrew a new class, and I decided to share my problem and my solution. Background I am running a new Curse of Str...

dnd-5e character-creation ranged-attack

Rubiksmoose

5:46 PM

@LizWeir My Glitch Strategist is dying of Virtual Reality.

XD

Still trying to figure out my Arcana...

But man, Glitch is ... very different from anything I've ever played before. I feel like it would take me a month or so to really get it. The book's organization is also not the best for trying to quickly build a character, but perhaps that is by design. Everything is so tied to the lore and terminology of the world and setting.

I'm excited to experience it at the very least still.

LizWeir

Yeah, that's a common issue with Jenna Moran's games - I absolutely adore her work but it can be a little difficult to use as a reference for actually playing the game sometimes

dying of Virtual Reality sounds really cool!

I could see Arcana that are the popup adverts and digital assistants of the Not

all those little things that only exist in not-VR, with uses like providing tooltips on the things they attach to, exploring computer networks, or scouting for you without being visible to anything that isn't electronic

Rubiksmoose

One I came up with was a thumbdrive-y thing that can mysteriously be plugged into just Whatever, in defiance of reason, and used to mess about with the world

Oooo digital assistant could be fun.

I feel like I might be struggling with what Arcana actually are supposed to be and how well or in what light they are supposed to be defined.

LizWeir

6:04 PM

You'll need a rough idea of the Sphere, which is basically a theme for them; for individual Arcana a fairly specific gadget like that thumb drive is about right. Worth noting you don't necessarily need to pin them down that much before play, though - one of the main reasons they're about is to let you use Lore miracles with them, but Lore also lets you find and bind new ones.

Plus just asking the GM "I could probably use an arcana like [description] here - do I have one on hand?" might be on the table if you didn't define them in advance!

(I say "gadget" - anything from a gadget to a pokemon to an ally is legit)

Rubiksmoose

My sphere is "backdoors and loopholes" and my Technique is Reality Hacking

LizWeir

ah, yeah, so Arcana are probably gadgets, maybe the Zero-Day Exploits of the Not, you might be able to stretch as far as "a not-hacker contact" if you need to

Rubiksmoose

@LizWeir I suspect that is what is going to happen.

@LizWeir Ooo I like that.

Rubiksmoose

6:31 PM

I actually decided to theme all of my arcana around zero-day exploits-as-programs:

> Rollback.exe - Rollback an object to 0-day setting to allow me to exploit it.
Dex.exe - Virtual assistant that moves about in virtual space
Sniffer.exe - Follow digital trails in physical space
IRL.exe - Pull a small asset from the digital to the physical
1337.exe - Cause electronics to go haywire in a small area.

I'm still not at all fluent in Glitch terms/lore so I'm sure I missed some flavor opportunities there...

LizWeir

that all sounds good! arcana are weird magic so the implication I think you did deliberately that you can use these on physical things with no digital footprint is good - Rollback might reset a combination lock to factory settings with code 11111, or roll back a bricked-up door to when it was open.

Rubiksmoose

@LizWeir Yes! That was semi-deliberate at least lol

Also that is a really genius idea for rollback.

And thanks! I think I'm slowly getting the feel of this?

I put my stats at:

> Ability 1
Eide 4
Flore 2
Lore 1
Wyrd 4

But I'm wondering if it might make more sense to increase Lore...

Peter Cooper Jr.

6:51 PM

@BESW Thanks; it does look like a great intro to D&D-style with much simpler rules. There's definitely stuff I like about it, but it may be too limiting in character types and setting for some of the stuff my boys want to play (since they want to play as Pokemon one day and Mario characters the next and so forth)

LizWeir

7:10 PM

@Rubiksmoose I feel like Eide and Wyrd are more straightforward to use than Lore, so I think I'd probably stick with that for where you're at? You still can do Cool Arcana Things, it'll just mean more Cost

Rubiksmoose

Cool!

Medix2

Is the following ungrammatical for other people as well (slightly altered quote from the dnd-5e planar binding spell): "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of a higher level, the duration increases to 10 days with a 6th-level slot and to 30 days with a 7th-level spell slot"

Someone_Evil

I'd use or, but isn't wrong per say

Medix2

7:27 PM

I just can't read "when you cast this spell using a spell slot of a higher level the duration increase to 10 days with a 6th-level slot" correctly

Rubiksmoose

Yeah it seems fine to me.

At least it sounds natural.

Medix2

Hmm guess I'm getting caught up on nothing. I just see "When X... the duration increases with Y" which doesn't make sense

Rubiksmoose

@Medix2 Doesn't it? I guess I'm not seeing it. "When X... duration increases to Y" seems very right to me. What part is tripping you up do you think?

Ahhh I think I see what you're saying. You don't like the redundancy of saying the specific slot after they already stated "slot of a higher level" maybe?

Medix2

Yeah that, it just seems off to me, that's probably what it is

Rubiksmoose

I can see that now.

Medix2

7:41 PM

Also TIL call lightning is the only PHB spell to state "of Xth or higher level" instead of "of Xth level or higher"

Rubiksmoose

Now there's some highly specific trivia for you lol

LizWeir

8:01 PM

I'd probably put a punctuation mark in

something like "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of a higher level, the duration increases - to 10 days with" &c&c&c

but I'm a bit idiosyncratic about that sort of thing

I trip up reading it the same way Medix2 did, though!

Maiko Chikyu

10:35 PM

Hello. I am not sure if it's okay for me to ask here but someone made a comment saying. 'Interesting question, but one that may not have universal answer. Also, I don't get how normal phone calls may be a problem. Last but not least, are you sure what you need is RPG and not counseling? ' to my question and I read it as being really passive aggressive but with pandemic eroding my mental strength I'm not sure if it's passive aggressive or if I am just reading too much into it.

nitsua60

@MaikoChikyu I just saw the same comment--it didn't sit well with me.

Maiko Chikyu

Then I'll go ahead and flag it.

Thank you for the quick response.

nitsua60

I don't know if "passive aggressive" is exactly the problem, but it's certainly doesn't feel like it's coming to the post with the sort of "let's try really delicately to help someone with a hard--and hard to ask about--problem" that I would love to see marshaled to your side.

Maiko Chikyu

Yeah. It was a hard question for me to ask but I genuinely have no idea on what to do and we are both on edge and I don't want to screw things up accidentally.

Carcer

I have to wonder if the commenter might have misunderstood the question's context somewhat

Someone_Evil

10:42 PM

I can read that as a frame challenge suggesting to seek professional help (of the psychiatrist variety), but I'm not sure that's a good a way to suggest that

Maiko Chikyu

I'm not sure how that would help to be honest. I feel there are many in a similar state to us all looking for a way to connect without bothering people in their household or going outside.

MikeQ

It's not the most helpful comment, although this community usually tries to assume good faith, so maybe it was meant as a frame challenge rather than an insult

BESW

11:25 PM

Erotic roleplay has a bad reputation because historically the most visible examples of it were... Very Bad, exploitative and sexist and not very concerned with the safety of their players. But there are a lot of systems now which approach ERP as a legitimate and responsible play goal and provide tools for making it work safely and respectfully.

And that includes recognizing that some ERP is gonna just be sincerely sexy flirting without escalation.

Shalvenay

@MaikoChikyu it starts off OK, but the last but not least kind of tips it over the edge

BESW

@Shalvenay Questioning the parameters of the social situation, like "I don't get how normal phone calls may be a problem" can be... unimaginative, at best. Off the top of my head, I know people who can't do sexy phone calls because they don't have privacy or their phone plan makes calls unaffordable but texts are cheap.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, it's definitely unimaginative. some folks may not have access to normal phone service, even?

BESW

It's like that question we got a few years ago where multiple users were unable to take the querent at their word that they only had access to the Internet for a few hours a month.

Maiko Chikyu

11:41 PM

I mean I can alk normally with her but I live with my family and she has two roommates.. So we start getting awkward even while saying 'I love you'

BESW

I know a few people who are really into flirty RPGs, I can ask them for recommendations?

Someone_Evil

Unrelated:

I don't know how many have interest in this, but your profile page now has a tab with the posts you are following. Other, non-diamond users can't see this tab on your profile.

5

Maiko Chikyu

Sure

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