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1:01 PM
No lie, next combat I missed all but one attack.
 
1:11 PM
@ThomasMarkov youch
 
I like the clever uses that Sam Lacrumb is trying with unseen servant, but they really are up to the DM.
And I get that's a frustrating answer
 
Ive got an answer.
give me a minute
im arguing "no"
 
for which one?
 
unseen servant coningency
 
why not?
it seems legitimate.
it's basically holding an action
 
1:17 PM
Unseen servant is very specific about what actions it can take. You command it with a bonus action and it then can use interact object.
 
Actually, is it a dupe of the question I linked?
 
It doesnt have reactions or actions, so it cannot hold an action.
 
ah, true.
but why can't it just be it's order?
 
It can be, but it still would only act on your turn I think.
 
@ThomasMarkov Wouldn't that just mean it would wait to react until its turn (or whenever it normally acts)
 
1:19 PM
WHich is fine for the turn you go down
or whenever it acts (as @Someone_Evil says)
 
So tired. a combination of things, some of which are my fault, some of which are goodbaby5-related, and also the general state of the world
 
@goodguy5 I hear ya.
 
My one year old was sooooo angry last night when I wanted to go to bed and had to stop playing with her.
 
I'm so excited for him to start really talking, so that he can at least tell me what he wants.... kind of.
 
@ThomasMarkov I have this image of you saying "Thats it for this session"
 
1:28 PM
hahaha
 
3
Q: What is a believable in-game explanation of GUMSHOE's spending point system?

Courage MindI am studying the GUMSHOE system as it is implemented in Trail of Cthulhu and, while I can grasp the logic behind its mechanics, I have a hard time of translating the rules of allocating points to skills and expending them into a believable in-game analogy, in order to minimize their meta-gaming ...

 
Twice I got out of bed and sat down with her and said "Fine, how do you want to do this"
 
We do cloth diapers.

We'd let them run out, though, so I had to wash them last night, and man....

A watched pot never boils and a full load of diapers takes about 3 hours.
 
usually its my two year old that stays up late, but last night she fell asleep in a bowl of cereal at 7:45.
had to wash milk out of her hair in the sink while she was asleep.
 
@ThomasMarkov hahaha
 
1:33 PM
@ThomasMarkov Ha! My 8 year old did that three nights ago. A day of a long up hill hike followed by swimming.
tuckered the little guy out
 
5e Disintegrate benefits from cover. I now hate Cover rules.
 
@Axoren Well, ifyou're the DM, you are free to ignore them!
and there is the optional rules for cover where it could disintigrate the cover
 
@NautArch DM by some days. Player by some nights. Like an inconsistent Batman.
Our group just started talking about how cover is poorly codified in 5e, so we very well might be doing our own variant.
You can have cover from Cone of Cold, but there's no benefit.
 
@Axoren how so?
 
If you have 3/4 cover from Cone of Cold, you gain no benefit because it's a Constitution Save, not a Dex Save.
 
1:37 PM
Im confused
 
ah this is to do with rules outside of the dsintegrate spell
 
Cover affects dex saves?
 
@ThomasMarkov Objection!
 
@AncientSwordRage There it is
 
A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws.
A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws.
A target with total cover can't be targeted.
 
1:37 PM
well I'll be.
 
Sacred Flame? Might actually be worse than Vicious Mockery now.
 
Right, cover with respect to the source of the effect.
If you pinged a fireball to the other side of the cover, no bonus to the save.
 
Clerics BTFO
 
@ThomasMarkov so, like splitting up attacks from a single action, the rules are in a general place
 
Yeah, things like fireball originate from a target point
 
1:39 PM
@AncientSwordRage You got it.
 
Cover can't protect you from CoC.
But you still have cover against it.
 
Cone of Cold.
 
cone of cold, right
 
Our group calls it CoC because none of us play Call of Cthulhu and CoC sounds funny.
 
1:41 PM
@Axoren nothing can protect you form the call of Cthulhu
 
"I hit all three of them with my CoC!"
 
Doesn't sacred flame ignore cover? Or is that Guiding bolt?
 
@NautArch Neither?
 
@Axoren argh. what am i thinking of?!
 
I think sacred flame would ignore cover unless the cover is above the target
 
1:42 PM
The fact that Sacred Flame is affected by cover is new to me in the first place, but neither of them say they do
 
sacred flame says the flame descends and there is no flavor text
 
Sacred flame: The target gains no benefit from cover for this saving throw.
 
@ThomasMarkov My group is kind of on that side, but the spell is still originating from the caster.
 
@NautArch derp, that too
 
@NautArch Oh wow, we all missed that
 
1:43 PM
Im impressed, WoTC actually thought of making something clear for once
 
WOTC has a bad habit of using Playtests to decide if content is balanced and clear, but they don't do a thorough job of validating that playtests have covered most of the included content.
 
@Axoren testing is hard
 
A lot of these rules oddities make it to release because either no one in the playtest knew they were there and used the rules or they never used content that required those rules.
For example, the Grappler feat exists in its current form because no one bothered to use it during testing.
 
@Axoren No one bothered to use it ever
2
 
The alternative to the Grappler feat is to use one attack to Grapple and another attack to Prone.
 
1:47 PM
Literally no one would be upset if they deleted it lol
 
Performing a pin applies Restrained to the Grappler. Grappling and Shoving gives roughly the same penalties as Grapple and Restrained to the target, and no penalties to the attacker.
Only difference is that Ranged Attacks against your target are harder.
 
im exactly one upvote away from the silver dnd-5e tag badge
 
How about now?
 
@ThomasMarkov Aren't you one answer away? You're 412 upvotes above the score mark
 
Also, another oddity that came up in my group, was the absolute impossibility of learning how to Punch twice in one turn without having gotten a White Belt at a McDojo somewhere in Toril.
 
1:53 PM
@Someone_Evil Ive got the 80th answer already but its still at 0 score
 
You literally cannot punch twice in one turn without Extra Attack or a Level in Monk
 
doesnt it only count positive score answers?
 
But if you put two daggers in your hands, then you can TWF
 
@Axoren I get the logical disconnect, but if you can punch more than you can traditionally attack, then it becomes more likely folks skip attacks to get multiple punches.
 
maybe not, i dont know lol
,aybe im still one answer away
 
1:55 PM
@NautArch I can traditionally attack twice in one turn with daggers because of TWF.
I'm not asking to punch more often than I can. I'm asking to punch as much as I could.
 
I think the only tags I 'tried" to get were the one where you have to log in daily and then the flagging one (only because I saw I was close.)
@Axoren ah, yeah! The whole light weapon thing.
 
Even if you use Dual Wielder, it only alleviates the light restriction to weapons wielded.
 
@Axoren I think the argument to be made here is that having weapons makes you tactically more of a threat and that opens you up for more hits in a turn. a Punch requires you to get really close
 
@ThomasMarkov It only updates on 3:00 UTC, so you may just have to wait
 
1:57 PM
@ThomasMarkov I don't understand why that applies in this situation.
 
I was just speculating designer reasons
 
If anything, that's an argument for why if you TWF with your fists, you should have lower AC or something
Not that it shouldn't be possible
 
I don't think there's any fundamental unrealism in being able to only punch one while attacking twice with daggers in a single turn
 
Daggers are pretty long.
 
Punching someone requires a lot more force than waving a sharp object at someone
 
2:00 PM
@ThomasMarkov this makes sense
Also, you can't feint and then side-stab (technical term) as easily with a punch
 
At the very least, if someone wants to spend Two Feats on Tavern Brawler and Dual Wielder, that should give TWF fist.
Because it's not even gonna give them Stat to the second punch.
They would still need Fighting Style for that
 
@Axoren Tavern brawler would give two weapon fighting chairs, why would you ever use anything else
 
Because chairs are expensive.
 
@ThomasMarkov Play bard, fight with musical chairs
2
excellent combo
 
Unrelated, but my Bard a month ago rolled a Crit with a barstool.
Killed a man.
 
2:02 PM
@kviiri animate objects
 
They were brawling with my friend, so I picked up a chair and hit them over the head with it.
I didn't say that I didn't want it to be lethal, so after I rolled it took me a second to realize why he wasn't getting back up.
 
@Axoren so many times i've forgotten to say "non-lethal!"
 
2d4-1 is still enough to kill a commoner. Who'd have thought?
 
@Axoren Don't they have like 4 health or less?
 
Getting hit with a chair over the head is no joke
 
2:06 PM
@Medix2 yup, 4 hit points off a 1d8 hit die and +0 con
 
@Medix2 They have 4 HP and I max-rolled a 7.
 
@Someone_Evil I forget NPCs might insta-die at reaching 0...
Is answering a lot of questions bad? In other words, is capping on reputation meant to signal "let other people answer things"?
 
@Medix2 I wonder if that's already a meta question?
 
No... The system doesn't care about who answers things. It just has a break on earning rep too quickly
 
@Medix2 I always figured it was like Nintendo telling people "You've been playing for 2 hours. You should probably take a break."
 
2:10 PM
You having answered a question doesn't stop anyone else from also answering a thing
 
@Someone_Evil Unless their answer would be mostly the same or they feel you answered it enough
 
10
Q: What is the logic behind the daily reputation cap of 200?

MikeThanks to an answer of mine that I'm a little surprised to find that anyone even noticed, I just discovered (as it says on the FAQ) that there is a daily cap of 200 rep (excepting bounties and accepts). Which meant that ~16 upvotes on that answer did not accrue to my reputation. This doesn't re...

153
Q: Why is there a daily reputation limit of 200 points?

MartyAs a relatively new user, I'm curious about something I read in the help topics about reputation points. The help text states: You can earn a maximum of 200 reputation per day from any combination of the activities below. Bounty awards, accepted answers, and association bonuses are not subje...

 
Because I bet there are some obsessive people on some .SEs who would just answer questions non-stop instead of self-care.
 
@Medix2 That would most don't bother, but there's nothing wrong with two answers arguing the same case
 
The idea is to prevent users from getting mod privileges with little contribution
 
2:12 PM
Or before they've spend enough time to get an idea of how they should use them
 
One of my top-rated answers is an "It's like that because of the way it is" answer.
 
@Someone_Evil Perhaps to you then (I'm not going to effectively repeat somebody else's answer because to me that's just wrong)
 
The fact that someone could just give like a two-sentence answer and get mod privileges would worry me.
Luckily, that hypothetical world is not ours
 
@ThomasMarkov MSE gets misfires like that all the time
 
2:13 PM
They misspelled math.SE as meta.SE
They may be strong in Metamatics, but Spelling not so much
 
To cover some points: that is probably someone traversing the SE sites in a langues that is not their first (and they are not fluent in). They probably didn't spot the changeover from math to meta (their themes are quite similar) and might well not have known there was a difference to pay heed to
As for migration, we try to only migrate when the question would clearly be on topic on the target site, and I'm pretty sure math.se doesn't handle clear homework question without some effort being shown
 
Yeah, generally they're looked down upon.
But the used specified only needing hints, not wanting it done, which isn't looked down on so poorly
 
If you migrate a question and it get's closed on the receiving site (any reason other than dupe?) it ends up in a kind of lock-hell
 
My biggest issue with math.SE is that I ask questions that look like homework from time to time, but it's really just things that come up in TTRPG optimization :S
So I spend more time crafting my questions to not look like homework than anything else.
 
@Axoren Just post 'em here
We've got math folks
 
2:26 PM
If you state RPG design as the reason to they migrate it over here? I know that happened to a question on english.se(?)
 
We have an Elemental Plane of Math and everything
I just realized element is also a math term... SO IS PLANE
 
Some of the stuff is really out-there though. Like I remember having a question that I knew was gonna need Galois Theory to solve simply because I had already formulated it as a Straight-Edge-and-Compass construction.
 
Pretty sure the rpg (fantasy?) term comes from mathmatics
 
And sometimes they're more Comp Sci
 
@Axoren Hmm... I feel like AnyDice can't help you with that
 
2:31 PM
AnyDice is a great tool for simple stuff, but it hurts how limited its language is for describing simple things
For everything else, there's python and itertools
 
@Axoren How did you even...?
 
I might have found the single most nieche that is both Product-identification and History of gaming XD: Asking for a publication history of a specific, rather tiny, splat...
(and yes, the question could be reasked for most other bloodlines)
 
@Medix2 It was a Warhammer thing. I don't remember but we essentially said fuck it at the table and hadn't gone back to it
It was technically a Ruler and Compass thing
 
I feel like I would've sat there trying to find any other way to represent the problem so I could solve it XD
 
It was something ridiculous like planning out terrain to make reaching an area in three turns impossible
 
2:37 PM
Higher level math was the first time I felt like I just had to memorize things and I'm still not over that
 
Higher level math is when I missed seeing numbers I could count to.
When everything's a variable, you give up Arithmetic for Algebra, but you're not sure if it's an upgrade.
 
@Axoren I stopped to use numbers in intermediate math in uni. Everything became letters there.
 
I just had a lot of inner turmoil because it didn't just make sense all the time. Some of it did, but others things never clicked and I just couldn't deal with that. Majored in math but basically took the minimum of upper level classes :(
 
Once you get to really high math, you stop using Variables which are of numeric type and you start doing algebra on functions, spaces, and even algebras themselves
 
And then you get to mathematical logic...
 
2:39 PM
My least favorite part of abstract algebras was when the variables were algebras.
Mathematical logic? you mean when you start doing arithmetic with Logic systems?
Logic 1 + Logic 2 = Logic 3
 
When you prove that A --> B can be proven by assuming A and showing B
 
Oh that's basic reduction.
It gets worse.
 
I mean I'm not gonna just give an example of the worst problems
 
@Axoren Math logic is: "All grass are green plants." + "Some green plants are edible" = "Some grass is edible"
 
oh hey maths chat :-D
 
2:44 PM
I never remember what it's called when you have A & B imply C but B is false and C is still true
 
@Trish There's a wonderful paradox in logic called the Raven paradox in which you can say "All ravens are black" and this statement provides credence to "some grass is edible."
 
@Axoren People sometimes confuse the two because they often use the same abbreviate informally (MSE)
 
@Axoren And it has solutions
 
There are obvious instinctual solutions
"This obviously doesn't support grass being edible, so I won't count it"
But it was just a hard language game to get the language of logic to agree with intuition
 
I just changed intuition tbh
 
2:47 PM
@Axoren "All grass is green" => "Something not green isn't grass" + "All Ravens are black" => "No Raven is grass" + "All grass is Green" + "Some green plants are edible" => "No Raven is grass" + "Some Grass is edible" => "Some Ravens are not Edible"
 
Looking at a green apple does help you conclude that all ravens are black, it just does do exactly that
 
@Medix2 My solution to this is that looking at a Green Apple provides equal support to all Ravens being black and otherwise
 
I'm sooo confused...
 
@Axoren Yeah it just also supports ten million other conclusions about ravens, none of which need be true
 
But it supports those conclusions and their complements in equal measure.
 
2:50 PM
Yeah exactly
 
Think about why this is better than simply supporting one aspect about Ravens (that they're all black)
If you simply had evidence of black ravens in your knowledge corpus, then you'd have no evidence that anything could be any other color
 
Yeah exactly
 
So, if you saw 9 events where ravens were Black, then you'd go from 100% Ravens are black to a smaller percentage as it supports "Not all Ravens are Black" and "All Ravens are black" equally
So if anything, seeing a green apple DOESN'T help you conclude that All Ravens are black, it actually makes it less likely
Which is also somewhat paradoxical, but it makes sense when you consider that the only thing that exists in the world of the problem is Black Ravens.
Adding a green apple to it is world-view shattering
 
Agree to disagree
 
Well, Actualy... All Ravens are reflecting light in the blue spectrum a little more than in the other areas, which means that technically ravens are blue-black
 
2:54 PM
The very notion of a black raven assumes that there are non-ravens and colors besides black. Otherwise the descriptors are meaningless
 
You're thinking like an English speaker, not a Logician.
Because in the space of predicates, everything describable exists in a pedantic way without being meaningless. It's just that they might be exclusive to the space of predicates.
 
@Trish But what if your blue-black is objectively different from the blue black I see?
 
Predicate isn't exactly a well-defined term...
 
@Axoren Tell me about it!
 
@Rubiksmoose Hi Matilda
 
2:57 PM
In English, we normally exclude descriptors that don't carry information.
 
@Rubiksmoose my spectrometer should show the same spectrum yours shows!
 
Wrong rule of three.
 
@Trish Not if I get to it first and change the settings!
 
Or maybe not.
 
We can include a descriptor with no added meaning. A square that is a rectangle walked into a bar. We don't include descriptors that can't add meaning
 
2:58 PM
Gricean Maxims
 
@Axoren Wait, repeating the term 3 times 3 times 3 times doesn't fix it?!
@Rubiksmoose which is hy we both have to callibrate it first!
 
And a lot of people don't agree with those Maxim's so...
 
Tom Scott has a nice video on it: youtube.com/watch?v=IJEaMtNN_dM
But there's some truth to how in English, we aren't overly descriptive.
 
Or most languages
Language likes to be efficient
 
3:00 PM
Ideally. Logical statements like to be precise.
Where spoken language is noisy channel, logic is intent on being loss-less.
It may be important to state things like "A square that is a rectangle walked into a bar" given that you are in the process of reasoning that things like "a square that is not a rectangle" does not exist.
 
I'm just gonna stop talking about this
 
@Medix2 very logical
 
I'm just gonna banish y'all to the elemental plane of logic.
mechanus?
 
@NautArch yup
it's where us Mod(rons) are from
 
6
Q: How is the food and water from Create Food and Water presented?

NathanSThe spell create food and water says: You create 45 pounds of food and 30 gallons of water on the ground or in containers within range, enough to sustain up to fifteen humanoids or five steeds for 24 hours. The food is bland but nourishing, and spoils if uneaten after 24 hours. The water is clea...

 
3:07 PM
@HotRPGQuestions Giant meatloaf
 
@AncientSwordRage For the Food or Water?
 
@Axoren yes
2
 
@Axoren Meatloaf Jelly
 
@AncientSwordRage Head cheese
 
War Cleric gets MREs. Light Cleric gets Diet foods. Nature Cleric gets a pile of Bugs and a murky puddle.
Arcane Cleric gets Soda and Junkfood.
 
3:12 PM
@Axoren I'm going to change class
 
Force Cleric? Iron rations.
Death Cleric... bodies and blood?
Order Cleric? Everyone gets a #1.
 
Unity Cleric? Wedding cake and Champagne
 
Trickery Cleric? Looks like normal food, but when you eat it, it was just a prank, bro.
 
@Axoren it's one of those 'looks like desert, but really a steak' meals
 
Trickery Cleric would be the kind of guy to carry around a 2-gallon jug of hot sauce just for Create Food and Water
And pour it ALL on the Paladin's share.
 
3:18 PM
@Axoren my LARP paladin had the most ridiculous toughness trait in the system
it meant unarmoured he couldn't be stabbed by daggers
 
Hot Sauce immunity?
 
@Axoren thats how I played it
also immune to getting drunk
 
Good thing Paladins have a life's calling.
Condition immunity on Paladins is kind of extreme. We decided in an old Pathfinder/3.5 game that the Paladin could still experience "contact highs."
 
@Axoren yup!
 
We called it "White Knight wasted" when they weren't drunk but acted like it.
 
3:23 PM
lol
The system used a different alignment chart
it was Order vs Chaos, and life vs Death
with the corner spaces being Justice, Freedom, Anarchy, Might
my paladin was purely Order aligned
so I always RPed that aspect as much as I could
to the extent of alsways sorting packs of cards they were handed etc
 
I feel like an Order Paladin would do interrogations while adjusting the angles of every picture frame in the room.
Are you a Spades, Clubs, Hearts, Diamonds kind of Paladin? Or a Spades, Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds kind of Paladin?
 
@Axoren former, natch'
I've not been larping in ages so I forget most of the mannerisms
 
@ThomasMarkov Interestingly, unseen servant rules don't review initiative order at all. Almost like it's not intended for in-combat use.
 
@NautArch odd that
 
GcL
@NautArch I didn't think it was even a creature
I thought it was essentially a magic object.
 
3:37 PM
@GcL that's a good point.
does that mean it automatically happens on your turn?
 
GcL
Not so intricate as a school bus. Operating on your turn seems reasonable.
 
@GcL That implies school buses aren't intended for combat
 
@NautArch I think it assumes your initiative when it requires your command as a bonus action.
 
GcL
There was an Apple II game called road warrior where an old school bus was the ultimate battle chariot for you and two dozen of your comrades.
 
It definitely shouldnt be able on act on every turn of the initiative order.
 
GcL
3:40 PM
Roadwar 2000
That's the game.
 
@ThomasMarkov That makes sense, but it's also not required. You can give an order that continues past. It's only the time of order that's stated.
 
GcL
@ThomasMarkov Is this the dropping the plates thing?
 
I'd either give it your turn, or roll it's own.
 
A round is still only six seconds, no matter how many turns the round has
 
GcL
How many times can you turn a six sided round?
 
3:42 PM
"I command my unseen servant to invisible pushups" Oh, we have 20 combatants? My unseen servant did 120 pushups in six seconds
Id argue that "The servant can perform simple tasks that a human servant could do" means the servant cant act on other creatures' turns since a human servant cant do that.
 
GcL
@ThomasMarkov That would implying it gets to act on everyone's turn.
 
@GcL That's my point, its an absurd counterexample
 
GcL
@ThomasMarkov Humans also get reactions, so they can technically act during another's turn.
@ThomasMarkov It's more extreme than was intended probably. I got the impression that the intent was it could still act once during a round.
 
@GcL Right, but as I outlined in my answer to that question, the servant cannot use the ready action, nor does it have reactions.
 
GcL
When it acted was the question, not how many times it could act.
 
3:48 PM
If you have See Invisibility on you, what does Unseen Servant look like?
 
GcL
@Axoren "a magical force" ostensibly
 
"shapeless force"
 
We know it's Medium, at least
 
Im assuming "shapeless" means ambiguously shaped, not "without form whatsoever".
 
Probably like a fluid in constant motion
 
GcL
3:49 PM
amorphous!
 
@Axoren 'tis not a creature nor object, but a force. See invisibility does not apply (going by rules at least)
 
Basically invisible human sized flubber
 
GcL
You don't have to be a creature to be invisible.
 
@Someone_Evil I thought 5e objects were anything that wasn't creatures.
 
@Someone_Evil truesight then?
 
3:51 PM
@Axoren Pretty sure "magical effect" is separate from that (say for dispel magic)
 
true sight still specificies creatures and objects.
 
Are illusions objects? Are spell slots objects?
 
GcL
@ThomasMarkov As does see invisibility
 
spell slots are definitely an abstraction.
 
Stop trying to objectify unseen servant
:p
 
GcL
3:52 PM
@MikeQ Sounds like a purpose for a formal ontology! I call annotating all fiat boundaries!
 
Oops, I dropped my Spell Slots. Can someone Mage Hand them over to me?
2
 
@GcL Maybe it's all built in python, so even the abstractions are objects
2
 
GcL
@MikeQ I'm not going to talk about the object orientedness of that language in this chat. That's definitely a elemental plane of math chat.
Is an object always something we can put in a bag?
 
If it's limited to physical things, then is the dungeon an object?
 
How big is your bag?
 
GcL
3:55 PM
Specifically, 5e doesn't have intangible objects?
@MikeQ I just had player argue with me about that when casting shatter.
Nobody was amused.
 
> For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.
 
GcL
The composition clause is kind of weird as windows usually have panes, mullions, sashes, sometimes counterweights, etc...
Well, unseen servant loses out there as it's an animate item.
 
I'm still mad that I can't cast Holy Weapon on my Wagon and use it as an improvised weapon.
 
TBF the object rules are mostly for the purpose of hitting them with something
 
If I have the Strength score to lift it overhead, I should be able to enchant it and hit people with it.
 
GcL
3:58 PM
@Axoren I concur. Holy wagon.
 
If you True Polymorph a building, what happens to everything (and everyone) inside?
 
@Axoren catapult
 
Or as the Bandits call it "Holy sh**!"
 
the catapult folding boat question was a neat one
 
GcL
Drop your flagon and get on board with holy wagon.
 
3:59 PM
Anime Object is my favorite spell.
 
Ah, apparently the DMG addresses this:
 
@Axoren Im assuming you do more interesting things with it than ball bearing spam?
 
> For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.
 

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