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Hot RPG Questions
Hot RPG Questions
12:49 AM
8
Q: What does it take to get out of Grease and Web at the same time?

DomLast night in my session, a wizard and I stopped a small group of pursuers chasing our wagon with a timed Grease and Web spell cast at the same time. With the group failing at least one of the saves, it turned the potential combat into just straight up negotiations. Not every encounter may be end...

dnd-5e spells
 
Ben
Ben
1:09 AM
@HotRPGQuestions A long hot shower and a lot of soap
 
NautArch
NautArch
@HotRPGQuestions fireball
 
Hot RPG Questions
Hot RPG Questions
5
Q: Is it possible to gain the benefits of lying prone without incurring disadvantage on attacks? If so, is this broken?

TackPHB p. 190 says: You can drop prone without using any of your speed. Standing up takes more effort; doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed... You can's stand up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is 0. The description of the Prone condition (PHB p. 29...

dnd-5e advantage-and-disadvantage prone action-economy
 
BESW
BESW
That "going prone between attacks" tactic is almost exactly the situation which helped me realize that the officially licensed Stargate TRPG was in the wrong system; it made that kind of tactic really beneficial, which in turn discouraged the kind of combat scenes typical of the franchise.
Brian Yaksha shared on twitter a preview of "'Yatra: Crossroads & Crossings' a Kriegsmesser/Troika! Hack, made specifically for travelling/pilgrimages across a Southeast Asian landscape."
...I have Strong Feelings about using individuals' names and the terminology of philosophical logic like "Oberoni Fallacy." It makes a simple and important concept harder to access by gating it behind cultural context and educational background.
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
1:34 AM
@BESW yeah, it doesn't lend itself to logical taxonomization very well
(see: organic chem)
 
BESW
BESW
> A: I think D&D 5e is great because the DM is free to customize encounters for their party, so the game doesn't have any balance problems.
B: That's the Oberoni Fallacy.
A: What's the Oberoni Fallacy?
B: [goes on a five-minute tangent about a specific user on an 18-year-old now-deleted forum for a game A has never even read]
A: [if they've stuck around that long] Well now I feel like I can't have a conversation because I haven't been active in a franchise's online discussions for two decades.
> A: I think D&D 5e is great because the DM is free to customize encounters for their party, so the game doesn't have any balance problems.
B: It feels that way if your DM is really skilled, but if balance wasn't a problem the DM be expected to do that work in the first place.
A: Oh, I hadn't thought of it like that. How do I learn those skills?
Jargon can be super useful in a lot of cases. It lets us point at complex ideas quickly. But it only works in spaces where it's reasonable to expect everyone to share that vocabulary. TRPGs.... are not that kind of space, and when TRPG communities become that kind of space they also become elitist and impenetrable (cf The Forge).
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
@BESW yeah, many (I reckon mostly older/trad) systems are bad enough about that as-is
 
BESW
BESW
2:00 AM
See also: Rule Zero, Stormwind Fallacy...
Sep 28 '14 at 7:12, by BESW
Many of them use terms like Law and Theory to assign ontological weight which the notions don't have by borrowing the mantle of genuine philosophical or scientific authority.
Sep 28 '14 at 7:13, by BESW
While assigning the names of individuals to them is at least as bad, because it takes a commonly-owned bit of knowledge and assigns ownership of it to the most popular kid at school who said it.
 
 
1 hour later…
Ben
Ben
3:20 AM
Anyone got any business/managment knowledge
?
 
bobble
bobble
people are impossible
 
Ben
Ben
I can guarantee that
I've just run into a bit of a h*ckle at work
 
BESW
BESW
 
trogdor
trogdor
4:23 AM
Lol
 
Hot RPG Questions
Hot RPG Questions
4:37 AM
5
Q: How does a level 6 ranger communicate with a seagull?

lost guestI'm playing as a level 6 ranger and have wild empathy and +11 in Handle Animal. I also did use the spell speak with animals. So isn't Handle Animal supposed to be used in this?

spells pathfinder-1e animals
 
BESW
BESW
Design challenge: write a campaign during which all these questions are plausible to ask, and satisfying answers are given. Bonus round: write a campaign in they are all unanswered questions the players might plausibly have after its conclusion. Nightmare mode: do it in a single adventure.
 
Bardic Wizard
Bardic Wizard
5:01 AM
@bobble ooh, same! What are you waiting on?
I’m waiting for AP European history and WHAP
 
bobble
bobble
@BardicWizard Physics 1&2
Phys 1 I am 99% I got a 5, Phys 2 is fishier.
 
Bardic Wizard
Bardic Wizard
@bobble Good luck!
 
BESW
BESW
ooh hope it turns out good for you both!
 
bobble
bobble
Later releases might go worse for me... most notably, there was the AP US Government & Politics test which asked me to discuss which of <two technical terms> was more important for democracy, and I realized I did not know the definition of either.
 
BESW
BESW
oh noooo
 
 
3 hours later…
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
8:22 AM
@BESW I would have gone with Dr Manhatten, but that works (after a quick google search)
@Ben Extremely minimal knowledge
 
BESW
BESW
@AncientSwordRage Whitney Houston singing "Impossible/It's Possible" from Cinderella seemed pretty appropriate to me.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@bobble I hope both are excellent
@BardicWizard Hope you whap both!
@BESW not saying it wasn't appropriate, in fact I have no knowledge of that movie/song so it's more likely
just my first thought went to Dr Manhattan disappearing because people are impossible (to deal with) and then later realising people are an (impossible) miracle.
perhaps I'm just in a contrary mood
 
BESW
BESW
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@bobble oh dear, that seems cruel
 
BESW
BESW
(One of the best productions of one of the best stage/screen versions of Cinderella, too)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
8:29 AM
@BESW I'll have to listen on the way home
 
BESW
BESW
(No shade to Julie Andrews, of course.)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
I have to say, the Wife and I are more into Beauty and the Beast than Cinderella
 
BESW
BESW
Oh, no doubt. Cinderella is, like, the most boring version of her OWN story.
(I enjoyed the one where she kept her dresses in walnut shells.)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW I think at the time it would have been good?
@BESW ....
 
BESW
BESW
@AncientSwordRage No I mean like, there's a lot of variant folktales on the "poor woman goes to a ball three times, is unrecognized, gets the prince" structure and Cinderella is the least interesting of them I've ever encountered.
And B&B, even the one version we're mostly familiar with, has a lot more fun elements to play with and lends itself to more interpretation an thematic exploration, from La Belle et la Bête to Bryony and Roses.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
8:43 AM
@BESW oh yeah it's been heavily adapted. The original 'tale' is not much like the Disney film afaik
likewise with Cinderella
 
BESW
BESW
Heh. I mean, even before Disney adapted it, "The Little Glass Slipper" is a lot more humdrum than, say, "Allerleirauh" ("Thousandfurs," "Princess Furball," etc.)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
 
BESW
BESW
Oh that's a good one.
I'm more familiar with the Green Fairy Book stories, but I've definitely seen a couple versions of that one floating around.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW I see why, more so than before, they are called Grim(m) fairy tales
 
BESW
BESW
I highly recommend Ursula Vernon's fairy tale retellings, published under the name T Kingfisher.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
8:52 AM
May 13 '20 at 10:15, by AncientSwordRage
I got my wife her re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, but the ending didn't got over very well
I still need to read it myself
 
BESW
BESW
Ah, yes.
I don't think any of the Hamster Princess books take on TBATB.
(But it's telling that the Hamster Princess take on Cinderella is the one with the most random extra stuff added to keep it interesting.)
...now I'm trying to remember the name of that story about the prince who lived with a year for a wolf to learn humility.
 
Helwar
Helwar
@AncientSwordRage that was an interesting read
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW do you mean " who lived with a wolf for a year to learn humility." ?
 
BESW
BESW
Yes
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Helwar thanks, took a bit of research
 
Helwar
Helwar
9:01 AM
It was a time well spent then :)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW trying to find that story now as it looks interesting
 
Helwar
Helwar
I always find it curious that our stories nowadays are all about happy endings, but you see the stories back then, and mermaids suffer unbearable pain when walking and turned into seafoam, little girls used matches for heat until they froze, or were eaten by the bears after entering and breaking and then complaining about their customs xD
 
BESW
BESW
HAH! Got it: The King's Equal by Katherine Patterson. I don't think it's based on a traditional story but it stuck with me in a similar way.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
another interesting retelling, that shows how stories get adapted to the cultures they're told in
 
BESW
BESW
@AncientSwordRage Oh no, not that again.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
9:08 AM
@BESW Oh no..?
 
BESW
BESW
Sorry, it's an interesting thing, but I have deep fatigue on that being the primary reference for cultural exchange with Indigenous storytelling.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
I first read it many years ago, possibly with naive rose-tinted glasses...is it troublesome?
@BESW oooof sorry about that 😬
I've not (memorably) come across any other reference unfortunately, but I am all ears if one comes to mind
 
BESW
BESW
I'm much more excited about things like The Noongar Shakespeare Project; that is, Indigenous people leading the conversation themselves.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW that is much better
 
BESW
BESW
Shakespeare in the Bush, as much as it tries not to be judgey, is still an outsider wandering in and going "wow my point of view isn't universal, isn't that wild"
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
9:12 AM
heh! Yes, I kind of liked looking at that person and thinking "Well of course it's not???"
 
BESW
BESW
I've worked with CHamoru-led theatre performances of Shakespeare and other major English playwrights (though I haven't been involved in any of the translated versions), and it's been really cool.
Tartuffe and No Exit just hit differently.
I studied Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in university, and I didn't know it could be an uproarious comedy until I saw it performed by the UOG theater.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW See, I love adaptations (and related, but separate from the conversation, parodies, covers etc), but I'm curious how/who/what decided how it's adapted
 
BESW
BESW
Aye, and I've learned a LOT from watching that happen behind the scenes, as Indigenous people negotiate the tensions between different cultural and systemic needs and attitudes both institutionally, individually, and internally.
People I've talked to who went to work in the continental USA after working with the team I'm usually working with, have said that the entire experience is dramatically different, especially the role of the director and their relationship with the cast and crew in terms of creative control.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW Without questioning the authenticity of the Shakespeare in the Bush story, it seems like it unfairly frames that tribe as being unable to consider not altering the original telling of hamlet, that a group who are perhaps even more exposed to shakespear/similar writers would obviously find it hard not to second guess any changes made to them?
When I've tried to adapt things in the past I'm left thinking "Am I changing this for the sake of change it, or does this fit/work better with how I want to adapt it?"
 
BESW
BESW
9:28 AM
That's the kind of thought I often struggle with in my own work, but I'd be talking out of turn if I got too specific about how I've seen it handled in my workspaces, especially in a public forum like this.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW that's fair
I struggled wording the question, so I presume the answer is equally difficult to phrase well
 
BESW
BESW
I'll just say that, especially in the team I've worked with most often, it's a collaborative process in which the act of collaborating can be its own reason for a thing.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW that sounds awesome
 
BESW
BESW
A common attitude I see in projects I work with --not just in theater-- is that the specific goals (in a play, "how I want to adapt it") aren't what you start with. You start with who you want to do the project with and for, and the process of working with those people is the process of discovering what the goals are.
Generally: if the way you do something is as important as the end product, then the end product must be influenced by the process of creating it.
And this is a social attitude. The "way you do something" is about how you treat the people you work with and the community you're working in.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
These are all valid and interesting points I should be taking on board
 
BESW
BESW
9:43 AM
So, sometimes the reason a thing is in an end product? Isn't because it directly enhances or informs the end product. It's because having it made the process better for the people and the community.
It might be totally unnecessary for the product the public sees, it might even make the public product seem a bit worse to some people, but it was good for the project and in this model, that justifies it.
Of course, this requires an environment --cultural and working-- that permits this kind of priority. It's very commonplace for workplaces to prioritize public-visible output (whether it's products or shareholder value or whatever) over even the most basic needs of workers or communities.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW it's a balance though, right?
 
BESW
BESW
I'm still wrapping my head around the things I've seen and felt on this subject, I expect it'll be a lifelong process.
But I'm pretty sure that it's possible to just have a completely different view of this stuff altogether, that doesn't imply a process/product ratio.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
I have no comment, but I am finding this interesting
 
BESW
BESW
But yes, so long as we're forced to work within the current economies and epistemologies of the West, it will probably have to considered a balancing act.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
9:59 AM
@BESW I can see times/places where it doesn't need to be a balance
 
BESW
BESW
Part of it is that there can be a trust that the process, if conducted effectively in good faith, will produce a good result.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW I think that is key
 
BESW
BESW
I've seen that, and it's super powerful. Letting the project be guided by the act of collaboration and the changing needs and insights of the people and the team's community, is magical.
(Also, there has to be room for the understanding that even if the result itself seems poor, it is better to have a poor product and enriched people, than to have ruined people for a good product; only one of those is creating sustainable value.)
[cough cough] Video game industry I'm looking at you.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW the issue comes if the poor product means that the people involved are not retained for future products
 
BESW
BESW
Right, and again that's a matter of perspective and priorities. Within this process model, the best thing a project can achieve is to build capacity in its team and its community--but if their ability to continued to feed their families is predicated solely on end-product success, that means the model isn't actually in action at the industry/society level.
What I see a lot, is people finding ways to sneak a process-and-people attitude into the gaps in systems that are obsessed with tangible public-facing outcomes.
Often it means playing within the system enough to have authority that lets you make a black box space the system's priorities can't see into.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
10:16 AM
@BESW agreed (people's worth is not and should not be tied to their 'productivity'), but I'm more for working with the systems we have until we can fix the current (broken) system.
 
BESW
BESW
So long as the black box spits out satisfying product, the system won't check to see what's going on inside it, so you can make a space that does good things by trusting the process.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW that is a good solution
 
BESW
BESW
It's a stopgap measure, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's just not scalable.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW well put
 
BESW
BESW
The black box still has to be disguised as a product-priority environment, which puts hard limits on the sustainability of the practice.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
10:19 AM
:-(
 
BESW
BESW
Now, if you can step outside of a "produce or starve" space, like volunteer work or certain parts of the world with different economic models, you get a MUCH different set of parameters.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW I have regrettably little experience here
 
BESW
BESW
On the economic side I only have accounts from others, but on the volunteer work side I do have some experience with the Ruhi Institute making capacity-building a primary focus.
Success, in the Ruhi process and its development cycles, tends to be measured by what people do next after a given project is concluded.
 
Hot RPG Questions
Hot RPG Questions
11:20 AM
4
Q: Doubletalk - Is it in the rules?

InterstellarProbeBasic question: Do the rules specify an action like doubletalk (or something like it)? What I mean by doubletalk: I am referring to a character conveying a message to allies while hiding that message from enemies. There are probable other words for it, as well. Deception vs. Insight: This opposed...

dnd-5e skills content-identification
 
 
2 hours later…
NautArch
NautArch
1:02 PM
I've started to find myself not loving PCs using VOlo's monstrous races (sorry @ThomasMarkov!)
 
Thomas Markov
Thomas Markov
@NautArch Says the guy that has me roll a d44 to randomly change my race every session
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
@NautArch Any particular reason why?
 
NautArch
NautArch
@Someone_Evil The volos races have way more than the 'standard' races.
@ThomasMarkov sometimes more than once!
 
Thomas Markov
Thomas Markov
At least i chose a setting relevant volos race.
 
NautArch
NautArch
@ThomasMarkov ^
That would be better. But it seems that while new players gravitate to PHB, minmaxers seem to gravitate to volos.
And that later bit says something, i think :)
@ThomasMarkov Speaking of, I'm kinda bummed you didn't get possessed. Possessing a constantly changing body would have been fun.
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
1:16 PM
@NautArch For minmaxing purposes, or because they've played more/seen more played and want something fresher/rarer?
FWIW I've not seen gravitation towards monsterous races with my players, but that might be due to assumptions about worldbuilding
 
Thomas Markov
Thomas Markov
Every minmaxer Ive ever encountered took Variant Human and selected Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, or Sentinel.
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
Also just thinking aloud, wouldn't minmaxers also be attracted to options with more unique effects which can be combined with stuff and not just things that are more powerful overall? And I'd generally expect those kinds of options to show up more in periferal options like the monsterous races
 
Thomas Markov
Thomas Markov
I once played a Bard with a horse named "Snoop Horse" in honor of his thesis advisor, a rapper named Snoop Hell Hound.
 
BESW
BESW
There were three major routes I took when I wanted to min/max:
either (a) find a build that gave me a *lot* of diverse options so that I'd have a swiss army knife with a tool appropriate to any situation;
(b) find a single feature that I could make so powerful it could *force* itself to be a solution to any problem;
or (c) find a feature from early in the game dev cycle which had so many weird extra things accrue to it over the course of the system's life that I could use feats/PrCs/items/etc to make that one option into a swiss army knife of options.
In D&D 3.5,
(a) was a cleric/wizard hybrid so he'd have access to nearly the entire spell list and used items like scrolls to overcome the limitations of spell slots;
(b) was a halfling shade rogue whose Hide skill was over +40 by level 12 and could hide in plain sight; I just chained effects off being unseen, like sneak attack;
(c) was a doppelganger/druid who could shapeshift into literally any non-templated creature with less than 32 HD and mimic that creature's spell-like and supernatural abilities.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
1:32 PM
That's some good min/maxing
 
BESW
BESW
In almost every case, it was a matter of taking a core concept from early in the game's life, and using late-game addons and variants to trick it out. A monstrous race with a unique feature is often a very POOR choice because a unique feature isn't going to have a lot of support for meshing with other features--it's too unique!
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW in 5E though those late game things are often poorly tested, so you could find one with heavy synergy from elsewhere
5e has gotten looser, whereas 3.5e got tighter in game rules (I could be wildly off there)
 
BESW
BESW
Yeah, there was a 4e late-game loophole introduced to the cleric's healing power which retroactively made it hilariously exploitable.
A late-comer 4e druid variant used the cleric healing power as a cleric power, not a druid power, which let your druid qualify for a lot of cleric feats, which was hilarious.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW oh no, that sounds extremely exploitable
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
There might be some limits here, 5e does way less direct building on other features and mechanics than 3.5 did (as I understand). So at least the (c)-style minmaxing is way more limited (I think)
 
BESW
BESW
1:38 PM
It wasn't the most broken thing in the game, but it was one of the funnier exploits to poke at because the line between what it did and didn't allow basically boiled down to "which of these cleric-targeted features used the prerequisite language just a little sloppily."
There were also some very amusing exploits around the language of "add this bonus to attacks" vs "add this bonus to attack rolls" because a lot of stuff was balanced around only/never applying to flat non-dice damage values.
At one point I (with help) used that distinction to make a 4e character that dealt the same damage whether they hit or missed, and they only rolled attacks to check for on-hit status effects.
(Troggy's brother had really bad luck with attack rolls and wanted something where the d20 couldn't betray him.)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
1:56 PM
@BESW 4e was wild, and we missed out on it not living longer
I'm also resetting out 4e praise clock to 0
 
NautArch
NautArch
@Someone_Evil I'm pretty sure they want the extra abilities, spells, mechanics that the monstrous races give.
 
BESW
BESW
@AncientSwordRage Honestly I think if anything, 4e lasted a little too long in terms of its dev cycle. The last couple books were starting to show edition fatigue.
 
NautArch
NautArch
@BESW Is that what's going on with 5e now? Kinda feels like it.
 
BESW
BESW
And not in the "ooh they're getting wildly experimental" way that late-edition 3.5 did.
(Two of the last 3.5 books were basically testing out several early versions of the 4e power system.)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW Such is the nature of a non-rotating system I guess?
I wonder if an RPG system that had rotating books would work?
 
BESW
BESW
2:04 PM
Rotating how?
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
@AncientSwordRage RPG are way more Kitchen Table in that sense
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW similar to how some formats in MTG work; only ~8 contiguous sets/books are legal
@Someone_Evil oh true, so is MTG, so it'd never be the enforceable/common play pattern
apparently "Cards I own" is the most common MTG format :D
 
BESW
BESW
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
I'd also point out that the MtG rules are very complicated, partly because they need non-ambiguous resolution, but also because there's a bunch of weird old cards they needed to keep working
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Someone_Evil oh some of the old cards are WILD
like Chains of Mephistopheles
AL could already do this, by releasing a sort of PHB 1.1 or something?
then drop the older books now most of the content is in Tasha's
I'm not saying it's a good idea
 
MikeQ
MikeQ
2:14 PM
That would make the game less accessible because players would need to consistently buy newer books. Might be good for profits though.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@MikeQ The wager is that if you're invested enough to stick to AL rules, you'd be picking up a new book or two every few years anyway
 
BESW
BESW
[amused] 4e actually managed something like that with its subscription service to a constantly-updated database of the rules with all the latest errata, and new book content added about a month after the physical book dropped.
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
You might want to end up closer to Hearthstone's rotation style, with a non-rotating base set
 
BESW
BESW
And then they also published a late-edition Rules Compendium that collected all the rules spread across the different expansions, with the errata and clarifications.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Someone_Evil yeah that makes more sense
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
2:17 PM
But then you're halfway back to PHB+1, except it's the last N books instead of +1
 
BESW
BESW
4e also did a mid-edition soft reset called Essentials, which was a new set of core and expansion books that were playable on their own or as an addition to the earlier material.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Someone_Evil yeah, which is what made me think it might work
 
BESW
BESW
Essentials rejiggered a lot of the design principles, making a better play experience without being so different that they were no longer compatible. It was impressive.
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
And I wouldn't want to be the GM to explain to a player that their character isn't legal because their subclass rotated out of the game last friday.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW If I ever pick up 4e, which I may do for 'research' I'll try and grab those instead
 
BESW
BESW
2:18 PM
I recommend it!
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Someone_Evil I think extra systems would need to be in place to let DMs end campaigns, or re-jig characters
 
BESW
BESW
The big visible change is that most Essentials classes all use the shared "everyone can do this" Basic Attack and their powers and features tend to focus on improving and embellishing it, while earlier 4e classes almost always replaced the Basic Attack entirely.
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
@AncientSwordRage Isn't (part of) the appeal of AL that you can just bring your character and play without having to have distinct campaigns to adhere to?
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Someone_Evil I actually don't know much about AL
 
NautArch
NautArch
2:33 PM
@AncientSwordRage Al G Rhythm?
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@NautArch Adventurer's League
 
bobble
bobble
(I got 5s on my exams, by the way \o/)
4
 
NautArch
NautArch
@bobble WHOOOOOP!!!!
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
2:49 PM
@bobble 🎊🎉🎊
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
Is it bad that I had to google what those emoji were?
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Someone_Evil no not at all
how do they look to you?
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
 
NautArch
NautArch
@Someone_Evil new year's crackers?
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@NautArch yeah more or less how I see them, but I don't think I associate them with new years
 
NautArch
NautArch
2:56 PM
@AncientSwordRage Christmas? I think it's a british thing (i'm not british.)...@doppelgreener?
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@NautArch just a general celebration thingy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
3:22 PM
@NautArch Confetti balls, which I can't say I have any particular association with. But I didn't parse it as that without prompting, the confetti being too much of a single mass
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
ohh that makes sense
any plans now @bobble ?
 
bobble
bobble
I might run my first solo errand later today :) bike to the store to get pizza-making materials
such errands were supposed to happen earlier but then oopsie COVID
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@bobble oh no
 
bobble
bobble
(by that I just mean my parents stopped letting us kids go anywhere)
 
Cooper
Cooper
@bobble The score you need on the exams to get credit varies by what college you're going to, and which class it is! I got a whole slew of history credits because my college only required a 3 on some of those... (Not that they helped me with my major much, but it was nice to have!)
 
bobble
bobble
3:29 PM
@Cooper yeah ^.^ I get to skip all my social science gen eds
 
Cooper
Cooper
@bobble Woohoo! It's nice to have that free time in your schedule for sure.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@bobble OH. Fine, right not what I was thinking
phew
American Uni is very different to UK it seems
I don't think we do anything 'skippable', although I only have experience of one university
 
bobble
bobble
Each class skipped is a not-insignificant amount of cost-saving
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@bobble most of our courses are fixed cost I think
 
Cooper
Cooper
Yeah, if you can get enough AP credits from high school, you can even graduate early! I have a friend who graduated in 3 years instead of 4, and when tuition is $12,000 a semester, that really adds up.
 
bobble
bobble
3:44 PM
I'm hoping to get into a BS/MS program and graduate in 4 years with a Master's, if possible
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@bobble that sounds swish
 
bobble
bobble
I'm lucky that my grandparents & parents have enough money socked away to pay for about the first two years, but after that...
 
Cooper
Cooper
@bobble I thought about doing one of those programs! And then it turned out that my ability to muddle through math classes couldn't get me through calculus, so I changed direction completely
 
bobble
bobble
coughs in 97% Calc BC test average
I am good at math but not at life
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
but math is part of life D:
 
bobble
bobble
3:52 PM
you know, the part of life where you have to talk to people and take initiative and do things
 
Cooper
Cooper
I'm okay with the concepts of math, but I've got dyscalculia, so I just...can't get numbers straight in my head. Same thing happens in science-- I understand the principle of, say, balancing a chemical reaction, but as soon as you actually incorporate numbers, I am utterly lost
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@bobble just talk math at people
@Cooper oof, that sounds really really tricky to manage
 
Cooper
Cooper
@AncientSwordRage It's very frustrating! Last I was tested, I was 90th percentile or above on problem solving, language skills, even higher-level math, but 19th percentile on basic math facts
I can normally compensate at least a little bit with common sense and problem solving and a great deal of literally rederiving formulas in the margins of tests, because I can't get them memorized, but calculus was too much for me
I failed it five times before throwing in the towel and getting a degree in liberal arts and a web development certificate and calling it a day XD
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Cooper good combo :D
@Cooper I've got a similar spikey profile in other areas
 
Cooper
Cooper
@AncientSwordRage It's really interesting to see the ways that people compensate for various weaknesses (and to realize that not everyone is compensating the same way I am!)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
4:07 PM
@Cooper yup same!
 
Cooper
Cooper
I was at my dad's house trying to halve a cookie recipe, and came up with a really wild measurement for something-- somewhere in the midst of converting cups into tablespoons and dividing by two, I did something extremely wrong. I knew I was wrong because I've done enough baking to know, intuitively, that the measurement I had come up with was completely inane.
Checked in, and my dad did the math immediately and correctly, because he's just...capable of doing that and getting the right answer! (But he also can't eyeball measurements for recipes or change things around. He cooks like a computer-- if he has all the ingredients he expects and clear instructions, he does great! If anything wibbles, he gets pretty lost.)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
I've got to dash now
 
bobble
bobble
\o
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
\\oo/!
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
@AncientSwordRage -
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
4:13 PM
I'm just leaving
@Someone_Evil going to take my time so more like —
 
Cooper
Cooper
o/ (just to complete the wave!)
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
:D
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
If you're doing a wave shouldn't it be o/ \\oo/ \o ?
 
Cooper
Cooper
If it's like doing the wave in a stadium, I think it's more like /o\ |0| /o\
 
goodguy5
goodguy5
4:56 PM
or you could always rock on _\m/
 
NautArch
NautArch
5:13 PM
Should we reopen this?
 
Thomas Markov
Thomas Markov
I dont think so.
 
Cooper
Cooper
Two of the linked dupes aren't dupes, but I think that rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/110916/… probably is a dupe
 
Thomas Markov
Thomas Markov
@Cooper Yeah, that one is an exact dupe.
From that question:
> Am I correct in saying that I can't learn 4th and 5th level spells but I could cast a spell such as Cure Wounds in that 5th level slot?
This is exactly what the new question is asking.
 
Cooper
Cooper
@ThomasMarkov I think the questions are slightly different, in that the linked one winds up asking about using the slot to upcast a spell, but the new one just wants to know about spell preparation, but...yeah, actually as I was typing this, I'm now in camp "definitely a dupe, just some weird wording that makes it seem like maybe not a dupe"
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
5:29 PM
The whole spellcasting multiclassing thing has a lot of dupe-mess to it. Or has at least had, see the whole existence of the first dupe target there
 
Hot RPG Questions
Hot RPG Questions
5:41 PM
3
Q: What are 'the actions available to all creatures'?

LovellThe monster manual tells us that When a monster takes its action, it can choose from the options in the Actions section of its stat block or use one of the actions available to all creatures, such as the Dash or Hide action. What are these actions? Are they explicitly listed in the rules?

dnd-5e monsters actions
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
6:07 PM
@NautArch Confetti balls, yeah. Also, chances are if you don't quite recognise something in an emoji, it's Japanese—the whole unicode range for emoji was invented there. It's why we have so many Japanese foods in the emoji range, for example.
It's been expanded on a lot since then, but that's its roots.
Fun fact: that "emoji" sounds like "emote" or "emoticon" is a total coincidence. Emoji comes from the words e ("picture") + moji ("word") so roughly means "picture word".
 
Someone_Evil
Someone_Evil
6:20 PM
TIL Each stack has a greatest hits page
 
bobble
bobble
124
A: List of unlinked pages on Stack Exchange sites

PopsGlobal pages Site list /topbar/site-switcher/site-list, e.g. stackoverflow.com/topbar/site-switcher/site-list can be accessed from any site, with identical contents HTML format Hot questions for mobile https://stackexchange.com/hot-questions-for-mobile JSON format (need to parse it manually...

 
Cooper
Cooper
@Someone_Evil Aw, it's kinda cool to look at the early days of NEXT and see how far everything's come since then!
 
Medix2
Medix2
6:38 PM
@Cooper I say they are all dupes
But at the very least, there are numerous questions identical to the Druid Ranger one that are closed, so I closed the Druid/Ranger one
 
Hot RPG Questions
Hot RPG Questions
6:57 PM
8
Q: Is Fog Cloud objectively better than Darkness despite being one spell-level lower?

PhilippThe spells Darkness and Fog Cloud basically have the same purpose: Denying vision within an area. One does it by darkness, the other by obscuring it with fog, but the result is the same: The creation of a "heavily obscured area". Let's compare those two spells: Spell Darkness Fog Cloud Le...

dnd-5e spells balance
 
 
1 hour later…
Hot RPG Questions
Hot RPG Questions
8:12 PM
14
Q: In a low-combat campaign, most PC abilities (features, etc.) seem useless; what few fights there are barely use up resources. How do I deal with this?

GadiantonAs part of session 0, I discovered my group wanted a campaign with a heavier amount of intrigue, exploration, investigation, etc. Well, I did it. And I think the general perception is that it's going well. But I'm observing the following things that are growing into a larger concern: For session...

dnd-5e gm-techniques non-combat resource-consumption
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Someone_Evil oh hey, I answered Sci-Fi's greatest hit: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/greatest-hits
@Cooper depends on how many arms and heads you have
 

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