TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

00:11

It's like this: every site has its own individual meta where they discuss site-specific policies.

However, we also have a meta where we discuss policies or ask questions that cover the entire Stack Exchange network.

It just so happens that for historical reasons, the meta where we do that is Meta Stack Overflow, which doubles as Stack Overflow's meta.

This is bad for both parties. Stack Overflow can't discuss their matters without people who don't even use Stack Overflow getting involved. There are things we do on this site that wouldn't work on other SE sites, but people from those SE sites don't come over here downvoting the suggestions that would work well here but not over on their own site.

Stack Overflow doesn't have that liberty.

Likewise, the discussion about the entirety of Stack Exchange is tilted toward Stack Overflow and what works there, since so many people using our equivalent of Meta Stack Exchange come from there and are most experienced there. A lot of things that work well for basically every site except Stack Overflow get the Stack Overflow crowd up in arms in the same way.

So: Meta Stack Overflow is being split so it no longer has to serve this dual role. Meta Stack Overflow will become just the Meta for Stack Overflow, and Meta Stack Exchange will be created, and serve as just the Meta for the entire Stack Exchange network.

Thus, non-SO users butt out of SO Meta issues, and the Stack Exchange Meta issues will ideally become less SO-dominated.

BESW

Thank you, Captain Exposition.

doppelgreener

00:34

@BESW You're welcome, fair citizen! Captain Exposition awaaaayy!

[vanishes in a cloud of novel pages]

Zachiel

@JonathanHobbs You know how we are used to be called "citizens of .SE"?

Well, looks like we have Citizen Dane, now.

[rimshot]

doppelgreener

00:50

I-I don't get it ;_; Why Dane?

BESW

Dane, Front Royal, VA

1k 1 14

@Dane [wave]

doppelgreener

Ha! I get it now.

@Zachiel Well done sir.

BESW

01:19

Really? Tomorrow's full moon is being called a "Blood Moon"? Do you have to appropriate EVERYTHING, vampires? Check your undead privilege!

Tweeted by werewolfnews on April 15, 2014 at 1:13 AM

Metool

meta.meta.se?

Also, hopefully meta.SE will have its own chat that is not the meta.SO chat

because for whatever reason I can't chat there

Unrelated:

4

Q: Does intiating maneuvers with skill checks tigger attacks of opportunity?

When I initiate Death from Above, does the Jump check trigger an attack of opportunity?

dnd-3.5e

BESW

@Metool Hey, no recursing.

Metool

01:35

... Why does the onebox list a time that hasn't occurred locally?

TIME ZONES!! [shakes fist]

The Oracle

02:15

Recent Questions - Role-playing Games Meta Stac…: Those on editing missions: Be mindful of churn

posted on April 15, 2014 by Jonathan Hobbs

We have several edit missions going on at the moment: people are editing away "edit:" lines or making their comments deletable or eliminating the online-resources tag. This is leading to a lot of front page churn. No content on the front page is over 18 hours old at the moment, which is a huge departure from our status quo and definitely indicates something's up. On…

Metool

[cough]

BESW

03:00

Happy little numbers: a statistical analysis of Bob Ross’ paintings http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-statistical-analysis-of-the-work-of-bob-ross/

Tweeted by steveburnett on April 15, 2014 at 2:16 AM

doppelgreener

03:31

@Metool haha, meta.SO has a meta tag. the tag wiki:

> no Meta Meta Stack Overflow, so questions about this very site just get this tag.

@TheOracle Hey! I deleted that.

I broke the oracle by deleting a thing. Neat.

I was being all >:I WHY IS EVERYTHING ON THE FRONT PAGE OLD STUFF GETTING EDITED

but in retrospect new questions are still getting answered

and closed, when necessary

Metool

This?

Wait, what?

You broke it?

doppelgreener

The oracle posted a question I deleted. And its title is broken.

Metool

Ah.

doppelgreener

@JonathanHobbs <---- and I deleted it 'cuz this

(replyin' to myself like a hax0r)

doppelgreener

04:21

9

Q: How would one create a bag of coin-changing?

I was chatting with a friend about Dungeons and Dragons, and he had mentioned that in 4th edition, there is an item that converts coins to different denominations. In the campaign that I am running, the players are carrying around quite a bit of copper and silver, and it would be useful for such ...

dnd-3.5e magic-items

this question amuses me

because if the bag costs 90,000gp, it would definitely solve all their problems regarding having too much spare change

even if it didn't work

BESW

Heheh.

Magician

Morning

doppelgreener

05:02

@Magician Morning!

It occurs to me: what if there was a superhero named Captain Explosion?

What would he do, such that he earned that name, or gave it to himself?

Magician

@JonathanHobbs There are superheroes who literally blow up. Human Bomb, for instance.

BESW

Blastaar

Blastaar, sometimes called the Living Bomb-Burst and Blasstaar, is a Marvel Comics supervillain. Blastaar is an opponent of the Fantastic Four and lives in the Negative Zone. Blastaar is an enemy of Annihilus, another Fantastic Four villain. Publication history Blastaar first appeared in Fantastic Four #62 (May 1967), and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Fictional character biography Blastaar is a member of an alien race known as the Baluurians, of the planet Baluur in the Negative Zone (in Sector 56-D, as charted by Reed Richards). He ruled the Baluurians as their monarch ruthle...

Human Bomb

The Human Bomb is a fictional superhero published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Police Comics #1 (August 1941), and was created by writer and artist Paul Gustavson. Publication history The Human Bomb was first published by Quality Comics in the 1940s, and decades later by DC Comics after it acquired Quality's characters. Police Comics #1 also featured the first appearances of Plastic Man and the Phantom Lady, among others. Fictional character biography Roy Lincoln Quality comics Roy Lincoln was originally a scientist working with his father on a special explosive chemical called "2...

doppelgreener

@Magician Which is, on its own, amazing. Would Captain Explosion explode? Would he just make things explode? Is he explosive in a more figurative sense? Is he just a living explosion? Is he a demolitions expert with the determination and improbable skill set of Batman?

►

Magician

@JonathanHobbs I haven't read much of Human Bomb, but what I read was pretty cool, power-wise. He wears a protective suit, baring his fingers to make things go boom. When he gets really annoyed at someone, he gets naked.

doppelgreener

07:16

@Magician I am very glad his superpower is not to actually explode

(but then I'm also surprised he can cause explosions but be fine)

See, I'm now imagining a superhero backstory where he develops the superpower to explode, then finds someone robbing a restaurant, and uses his powers to stop the robber.

Having no other superpowers to circumvent the fact that he is exploding, the story basically just ends right there.

Magician

Here's one for you:

Nitro (comics)

Nitro is a fictional character, a supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He first appeared in Captain Marvel #34 (September 1974) and was created by Jim Starlin. Nitro is best known for being part of the tragedy that started off Marvel's Civil War crossover. He is also known by comic fans for playing a part in the death of the Kree superhero Mar-Vell. Fictional character biography Robert Hunter was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was an electrical engineer. Due to genetic alteration carried out on him by the Kree Lunatic Legion, Robert gained the ability to explode and reform ...

Hm. Didn't transform into a magic link.

Metool

There you go.

doppelgreener

(This superhero backstory is only a footnote in the backstory of another superhero who turned to heroics when his parents were killed in the apparent bombing of a quaint little restaurant)

@Magician forgot the http at the start

Magician

Thanks :)

doppelgreener

@Magician there are some superpowers that just make me glad I don't have any

(see: the oglaf comic about the guy given a gift he couldn't squander. if you've read it you know the one.)

> One such appearance where a foe took advantage of his limitations was in Iron Man vol. 3 #15, where he was hired to kill Tony Stark. A fight occurred between Nitro and Iron Man. Iron Man, whose sensors and telecommunications gear had been recently upgraded, noticed that every time he exploded, a high-frequency pulse was emitted by his body. Experimenting, Iron Man duplicated the pulse, causing Nitro to explode. After he exploded several times in a minute, he passed out from exhaustion.

Ha! Poor Nitro.

Magician

07:28

Unfortunately, Stark-patented Nitro-explosive devices did not achieve wide adoption, and the whole product line was scrambled.

doppelgreener

@Magician oh no xD

I hear supply was limited

Magician

More that demand was very localized. To the immediate vicinity of Nitro...

BESW

08:19

Okay, see, Warehouse 13 knows how to handle time travel:

> [Claudia, Artie, Jinx, and Micah all start babbling about paradoxes and alternate time streams]
> [Pete interrupts] "Don't try and explain time travel! It never makes sense and it always makes my head hurt. We're here, the world is different."

Moffat, take notes.

doppelgreener

@BESW Good job, Pete!

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Pete is very... not genre-savvy, necessarily, but genre-aware.

> [Claudia] "Hey, Pete, be careful! I'm guessing that because we have these forks, if one of us gets killed we stay dead in either time continuu--"
> [Pete puts his hands to his ears] "LALALALALA! No time travel talk!"

doppelgreener

At present AFAIK we aren't even sure what properties the dimension of time has, let alone if it has the properties of distance like space has.

doppelgreener

08:42

I once put to my friend who is totally engrossed in everything physics-wise: people travel forward through time. sometimes, to explain what this would be like, it is suggested that a fourth-dimensional being would perceive us as being like a worm with our birth on one end and death on the other. so, I then said: what exactly makes it such that we do not actually have a tube-brain, extending through time, which could then also in theory suggest how prophecies happen?

he pointed out my error was in the first sentence: suggesting that time has properties anything like those of space.

BESW

Pretty much, yes.

I don't pretend to have any great understanding of such things, but it is pretty clear that while time is related to space in some ways, in other ways it is totally unlike space.

Just because time is affected by some things which also affect space doesn't mean it's much like space.

Perhaps they're both like something else, in completely different ways.

doppelgreener

@BESW simonsfoundation.org/quanta/…

This is, basically, a model that could possibly go on to describe particle interactions.

Which are really complex to calculate.

People've been pursuing simpler ways to model their interactions for a while, so the fact these people have discovered a possible super simple way is great - though AFAIK it still needs to go through some rigorous examination before we can say they've hit jackpot.

The most significant thing about this calculation is: it does not involve time or space.

Which is to say, time and space are unnecessary for understanding how particles interact.

BESW

How long before people start calling it the God Shape?

doppelgreener

Which could suggest that time and space are not inherent properties of the universe, just emergent illusions based on the real stuff happening.

@BESW Slightly less time than it'll take for people to start furiously punching people calling it the God Shape

BESW

08:59

@JonathanHobbs Sounds about right.

And that's a very cool thing.

It makes my brain bend in pleasing contortions.

One of my favourite things about math has always been that it collapses into philosophy when poked with a stick.

doppelgreener

On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation.

[adds philosophy to the right]

BESW

09:15

Kinda, yeah.

I mean, math is the field which gets to define its own terms however it likes, and philosophy is about defining terms.

Zachiel

10:22

@JonathanHobbs manually inserting the post number?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs "shrapnel."

doppelgreener

@Zachiel yessss

@BESW whoops.

Zachiel

@BESW ???

BESW

@Zachiel He made a typo in an answer.

doppelgreener

i dun wrote a sharpnel in place o' shrapnel

BESW

10:31

Unless you meant an exploding music disk containing an album by DJ Sharpnel.

doppelgreener

@BESW that would technically also be shrapnel

I just learned that Australia has a Real Life Superhero: Wheel Clamp Man

BESW

But "exploding sharpnel" would also be technically correct (the best kind of correct!).

Zachiel

Mmmmh I've been involved in some sort of "let's find if we can do this" discussion about killing the 3.5e Tarrasque with a single level 13 (or equivalent, with LA buyoff or item crafting) character (no infinite loops, no custom items, no djinn summoning or the like, no flaws). As of now we noticed he's vulnerable to ability drain but he can kill allips because incorporeality can be hit with weapons meant to bypass damage reduction (RC). Any other ideas? (I don't want this to hit the main site.)

doppelgreener

@Zachiel Does the Tarrasque actually have such weapons?

Zachiel

10:50

@JonathanHobbs Its natural attacks are considered to be magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. According to the description of Incorporeal on RUles Compendium, that's enough to hit incorporeal creatures.

> An incorporeal creature can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, [...].

doppelgreener

@Zachiel Sounds like Tarrasque might be the last category?

Zachiel

I don't know what else that wording could mean.

Magician

@Zachiel I found a post on killing it by level 10, haven't read it yet though.

BESW

IIRCAIUD, magic weapons have a percent chance of hitting incorporeal creatures. To do it consistently you need a ghost touch weapon.

And non-magic weapons have no chance at all.

("Magic weapon" means any weapon with a magical enhancement bonus, or the natural weapon of any creature with DR/magic.)

But the most effective way to kill a tarrasque is probably just to plane shift it to a hostile environment. Maybe the Positive Energy Plane?

I mean, sure, it's maybe not technically dead, but it might as well be.

Zachiel

@BESW isn't there a save?

Magician

11:01

@BESW Tossing an unkillable monster into an unsurvivable environment is a sure-fire way of not having any problems whatsoever.

2

BESW

@Magician Nice article save.

Magician

@BESW I can learn!

I can also imagine an universe-spanning tarrasque, that outgrows the infinite plane of positive energy...

BESW

@Zachiel Sure, so stock up on scrolls and hire lower-level casters with readied actions to cast from them.

Or stack +save DC spells/feats/items/PrCs, whatever.

Or, yanno, make a portal and herd him through it with tasty villagers.

Zachiel

@BESW anyway, the challenge is killing him, wish casting included,

BESW

Oh, wishes are on the table? Spsh, now it's just a matter of choosing the most fun way to kill him.

doppelgreener

11:10

@BESW Wait a minute, having DR/magic means you have magic weapons?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs See above: d20 is a mess. In some cases, for some things, creatures with DR/magic have their natural weapons treated as magic weapons.

Ring of Three Wishes.
1: I wish for a portable hole large enough to hold the tarrasque to appear exactly beneath the tarrasque.
2: I wish the portable hole folds up on its own, containing the tarrasque within.
3: I wish for a sandwich.

2

The tarrasque will suffocate, eventually.

If you want to actually kill it instead of having a handkerchief of tarrasque, just use your last wish to kill it when it suffocates instead of getting a sandwich.

Zachiel

1: no custom items

and possibly that also breaks "no cheese"

Metool

@Zachiel it's a wish?

"no cheese"? why is that a rule

BESW

Okay, fine.

Metool

it's level 13

well, I suppose that's 7th level spells

Zachiel

11:16

even if we had to fight really hard against one guy who said that the tarrsque being immune to energy drain and ability damage but not ability drain was "obviously wrong", "a bug" and "come on no DM would let you use this quibble"

The fight has been amusing

Metool

sigh

BESW

1: I wish that the power of this wish is dedicated to enforcing my second wish.
2: I wish that my third wish is entirely unattributable to me.
3: I wish that within the coming day, the tarrasque eats a beloved champion and personal friend of a major deity.

4

Metool

... I want to have a dungeon themed around Happy Wheels for some reason.

Zachiel

Hahahahaha

@Metool Lliira followers invade the clockwork tower of the local temple of Gond. Pink ribbons ensues.

BESW

You get the idea: think fiction-first and in terms of things around the tarrasque, not targeting the tarrasque itself, and 3.5 will happily kill the tarrasque for you in any number of amusing ways.

Metool

11:22

Mines, spans of packed-together bottles you need to run across, spike pits, auto-harpoons, arrow turrets everywhere, and challenges like sword throws and rope swings.

doppelgreener

@Zachiel find a different audience for the fight and/or don't give a damn?

BESW

You should see some of the junk I had to put up with as a player in an epic campaign where the GM felt wishes should be twisted if at all possible, even if they were fairly reasonable.

doppelgreener

@BESW Like what?

BESW

I'm gonna see if I can track down some of the wishes I made.

Zachiel

@BESW Ok, then what about rules first, actually throwing things at him? Flying or being on the ethereal plane with some way to target him could work but how do you do consistent damage? A force bow (ignores damage resiatance) and a belt of battle to get an extra action to cast wish, with enough minimum damage to whittle it down faster than he regenerates has been suggested as viable.

a quiver of plenty was also involved

BESW

11:30

> I, Shachm the Any-Faced, wish that my abilities to become and mimic creatures and objects are extended to include that grouping of races known collectively as "fey" in the same manner that I am able to mimic creatures and objects, provided that this extension does not in any way reduce, diminish, or introduce shortcomings to said abilities or to myself.

> I, Shachm the Any-Faced, wish that my abilities to become and mimic creatures and objects are enhanced such that I am able to assume all the extraordinary special abilities of whatever creature or object I choose mimic, provided that this enhancement does not in any way reduce, diminish, or introduce shortcomings to said abilities or to myself.

@Zachiel yeah, I never paid a lot of attention to mix/maxing PCs at that level in 3.5, especially not for specific tasks.

Zachiel

@BESW You forgot "from now on"

BESW

I know most of the rules but I didn't spend much time studying how to fit them together.

@Zachiel Heh. Once I wrote them, I made Knowledge checks for the GM to point out any possible flaws so I could fix them before I wasted wishes.

My knowledge checks were in the upper 70s on bad days.

And this was after I did something similar with a wizard/cleric who was hired by another PC to write a wish for him.

So I knew where the GM was going to focus on perceived weakness.

The other PC wasted five wishes trying to get his sword fixed after it was sundered in battle, because the GM took advantage of the player using vague determinators. The player wasn't very good at grammar, and it was basically picking on him.

He'd fail to define which sword he was wishing for the effect to target, for example.

Since he was just asking for his (frankly underwhelming) sword to get fixed to be the way it was before, I thought it was kinda silly to make him waste five wishes on bad grammar when the intent was perfectly clear and the wish was reasonable.

So he hired me to write and speak his last wish for him. I spent the entire rest of the session (mostly combat) in someone's Handy Haversack, composing.

If someone needed heals, he'd stick his hand in the backpack.

The GM's big hangup was wishing in-character. References to metagaming, like +1 enhancement bonuses or the names of class features, were likely to make wishes warp.

So I would go to lengths like "the sword of Jack which I now hold in my hand"

And enhancement bonuses got described through extensive circumlocutions.

These days I would just argue that things like "+1 enhancement bonus" are sufficiently quantifiable in-game that it'd be weird for a guy with a decent Arcana check to NOT know about them.

But it was the first GM I ever played under, in my second game ever as a player.

doppelgreener

11:45

@BESW Ouch.

BESW

Yes. My second game ever was epic 3.5, starting at level 29 or 30, can't recall.

...or maybe it was my third? The all-evil campaign may have been in between.

Metool

@Oxinabox!

Oxinabox

?

Metool

What's up?

BESW

Oh, and there was the time the barbarian's player decided to GM for a couple sessions. I can't remember if that was technically part of the first campaign or not. It featured tarrasques. Plural. We were about level 12.

@Oxinabox Hi!

Oxinabox

11:49

I want to ask a question: "Has anyone, anywhere, ever actually played Eoris?" but I don't think it would go over well

Not even joking when I say that I would not be surpised to find it have never been played at all, ever

BESW

Hmm. That sounds like the kind of question which usually has a follow-up in mind.

afk a tick

Oxinabox

It doesn't.
I am going to a convention, wherer there is a panel on "Worst RPGs of All time."
Now Eoris is no FATAL or WoD Gypsies,
but I don't know that is is playable

Metool

[googles Eoris actual play]

Oxinabox

Tried that, not much comes up...

Joshua Aslan Smith

I keep missing out on all these superbly easy to answer 4e questions

Metool

11:52

well it's in the actual play section on this one forum

Oxinabox

Link?

Metool

story-games.com/forums/discussion/12944/…

Sadly, doesn't appear to be actual play.

BESW

Hmm. How about asking for representative Actual Play logs of the game? That's much more specific than most of the questions we already have in the session-summaries tag.

Oxinabox

Not a bad idea.

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith Oh, like the one about marks and secondary attacks?

yeah, I was tempted to answer it but knew someone else would say it better; I'm kinda frazzled right now and that's no condition to be answering questions which boil down to "You keep using logic. I do not think that 4e works how you think it works."

Aaron

12:02

Good morning

BESW

@Aaron [wave]

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith yeah there have been a few the past couple of days. Stuff where it's like "read this and do exactly what it says"

BESW

4e's adamant fiction-as-second-class-citizen stance is so weird, especially because that's the system's great strength.

wax eagle

it's definitely a strange feature for an RPG

Joshua Aslan Smith

EXACTLY!!!!!!

Right?

A strange feature us 4e lovers have embraced though

wax eagle

12:06

also dear WOTC: if you'd offer Barrier Peaks I would buy it. Don't make me steal it (please)

Joshua Aslan Smith

barrier peaks?

this one

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a 1980 adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game written by Gary Gygax. While Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is typically a fantasy game, the adventure includes elements of science fiction, and thus belongs to the science fantasy genre. It takes place on a downed spaceship; the ship's crew has died of an unspecified disease, but functioning robots and strange creatures still inhabit the ship. The player characters fight monsters and robots, and gather the futuristic weapons and colored access cards that are necessary for advancing the story....

ah okay

you know there is a 4e version of the barrier peaks

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith I knew they put out some additional stuff for it, but haven't seen the actual 4e adventure

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah you are right there is not a 4e adventure

there is all the items

wax eagle

wife and I have been talking about co-DMing an adventure for our group, I really want to run Barrier Peaks, but know I can't do the story justice

Aaron

12:26

Random character build anyone?

BESW

@Aaron Half-orc seeker/barbarian hybrid with paladin multiclass.

Aaron

@BESW seeker?

@BESW What is the main goal of the character?

BESW

@Aaron 4e class. It probably has the most original and interesting flavour of all the 4e classes, and is the class with the lowest optimisation ceiling--and it's got a pretty low floor, too.

Seekers are primal ranged characters who call on the elemental spirits to guide their shots and modify their environments.

Aaron

Ah.

BESW

His goal is... to bring glory to his people through acts of strength and bravery.

He worships Kord, the god of storms and battle and being awesome, who created half-orcs as the perfect blend of human wisdom and orc strength.

Think... half-orc version of Marvel Comics Thor, including throwing hammer.

Aaron

12:33

@BESW Sh*t this is gonna be hard. Ok so strength and bravery. throwing hammer of awesomeness.

Is there any kind of hammer that would equalish Thor's hammer?

BESW

In what sense? Looks? Returningness?

Aaron

@BESW Hard hittingness. I can do the return with enchants.

BESW

In 4e, the return is automagic with any magical thrown weapon and the magically-guided bit is from the Seeker class.

The Oracle

1

Q: Do we really need resource type tags like books or online-resources?

We have two tags for books and online-resources, whose primary purpose seems to be to denote a type of thing. I'm not really sure what the intended use of these is, but what they are being used for is all over the map. Online-resources had been used for all of the following (I've cleaned most of...

discussion tags

BESW

@Aaron Are you specifying a system and looking for a hammer with the right stats in that system?

Aaron

12:37

@BESW I will be building him in pathfinder.

BESW

mmm. Can't help much with mechanics there.

Aaron

The hardest hitting hammer is the Minotaur hammer I think but it is a huge weapon I think.

Joshua Aslan Smith

hmmm nothing like answering a question for 3.5

BESW

Usually I think you'd go for a hammer with the non-damage features you want (handedness, throwing quality, etc) and then use class features/feats/etc for the damage.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@BESW that sounds terrible

BESW

12:39

@JoshuaAslanSmith He said random.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@BESW Vampire all day, every day, forever until the end of time takes lowest optimization floor and ceiling

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith I'm not even sure I consider most of the classes in that book classes in the optimisation sense.

They're more like "multiclass fodder" at best.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@aaron what kind of monster races are allowable for PCs?

wax eagle

I kind of want to build that Seeker|Fighter rather than Barb because Cleave + Deft Hurler would make for a nice Thor smack and hurl combo

BESW

It's clear that, like Tome of Battle in 3.5, they'd reached the end of the line for content and were just faffing about having fun and experimenting with stuff they'd've felt their nerve to publish when they still wanted to keep the edition strong.

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:41

@BESW yeah the whole shadow power source was rather sad, had sooo much potential from the fluff but the mechanics were written by Wizards C team

Aaron

@JoshuaAslanSmith Depends on the DM.

Joshua Aslan Smith

(A team is and will always be working MTG)

Aaron

@BESW Turns out Thor has already been built voices.yahoo.com/…

BESW

@Aaron Well, sure, and I built Captain America. Three times.

Once he was a dwarf.

Aaron

Hmm.

BESW

12:42

Once he dual-wielded shields.

Aaron

@BESW That doesn't surprise me. Shield bonuses for having two shields don't stack do they?

BESW

Not.... usually....

I can't even remember all the wacky stuff I was piling on him by that point. I had about three times as many feats for him as I had slots to use.

Aaron

@BESW Lol

BESW

And then at some time I was using Tome of Battle and things went haywire.

Aaron

@BESW Did he implode from too much awesomeness force into him?

BESW

12:47

Yes.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@besw lol, I just remembered the dual shield fighter paragon path

BESW

He became a singularity of shield-flavoured awesome.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith strange, strange PP

Joshua Aslan Smith

hhhmmm thought process that just went through my head, 2 shields = turtles = ninja turtles ..... no ninja turtles have weapons.... Golden Axe had a giant island on the back of a turtle.... need to go play some golden axe

2

Aaron

I would build the hell out of a character who duel wielded shields if the bonuses stacked. two +5 shields? Little damage but he would be hard to hit. There is a feat somewhere about adding shield bonus to your reflex save to take half damage as well.

wax eagle

12:53

@Aaron at least in 4e the bonuses don't stack :(

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle Two-Fold Defense (11th level): While you are wielding two shields, increase the shield bonus one grants by +1.
Behind the Shell (16th level): When you are in the way of a ranged attack against an ally, that ally has superior cover from your position instead of normal cover.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith two solid defendery properties

for the pacifist defender in all of us

Joshua Aslan Smith

@waxeagle couldnt you cheese that with steath as well?

not for the fighter, but someone behind the fighter

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith no. it only applies to ranged attacks

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah good point

wax eagle

12:56

it's not always on superior cover.

Joshua Aslan Smith

let myself get carried away

hair in my bagel, soooo skeezed

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith ugh

Joshua Aslan Smith

literally threw it out right away, thankfully saw it before eating it

I then felt totally skeezed just thinking about it

Dane

14:27

@JoshuaAslanSmith: I like your claymore mine image. :-)

Translation: "How do I detonate a claymore mine at my enemy when he's pinned by my buddy?"

Answer: "Um . . . you don't."

Although, you did miss that the questioner misunderstood the Prismatic Burst enhancement.

Joshua Aslan Smith

totally legit of me to not understand it at all I dont play 3.5 but I do play 4e there generalities that cross over and I was more addressing them in particular.

knowing that its an on crit ability

well thats just silly, you dont optimize or build around a character having an on crit area attack (and youre a melee character) that isnt ally friendly

@dane ^

Dane

Yeah.

What you said.

Is "You unwittingly have two different questions without realizing it" funny? Or just redundant and dumb?

Zachiel

14:45

Mmmmh Can someone guide me through 3.5's savage species (I think) buyoff mechanic for LA? I'm not sure I get it, and I don't have the book.

Plus, the internet is not being nice on me today

Joshua Aslan Smith

its valid as a comment on the question

@aaron wanna help Zachiel?

Zachiel

So, I understand that if you have LA +1 you need to get three class levels and then you can buy off your level. Now you get three class levels and no LA, but you're ECL 3 instead of being ECL 4

Aaron

@Zachiel What do you mean by LA?

Zachiel

Level Adjustment

Aaron

@Zachiel I found a pdf of savage species let me read up on it.

Zachiel

14:52

@Aaron Mmmmh can we do this thing where I write a SE question and you edit quotes and page numbers into it? I'd do that myself but I can't access SS, phisically or piratally, today.

Aaron

@Zachiel I am not familiar with what you are talking about.

Dane

Here's what I believe happens for you:

If you do XP awards by the book, you get less XP if you're a higher level for the same CR.

So, if, rather than leveling up when you hit your level-up point, you instead buy off a LA, you can start getting more XP per encounter.

Zachiel

@Dane I'm building a character at N XP, so I won't get more XP per encounter since there are no encounters at all. I aim at getting the most class levels I can with those XP, which includes using buyoff in the chance that spending 3000 xp at level 4 and 6000 XP at level 7 (not really sure those are the numbers) lets me lose 1 level to LA instead of two

Dane

Yeah, unless your DM gives you some sort of bonus XP, I

I'm pretty sure buying off the LA will only benefit you going forward.

Zachiel

So I need to understand how it works, but both real life and my internet connection are conspiring against me

Dane

14:59

Your character will actually be less potent at the start of the game.

Zachiel

If you feel familiar with the rules I could tell you step by step how I believe this works and you can keep me in check, maybe?

Dane

Sure. I'm going to be a little distracted, but I'll catch up.

Zachiel

Thank you

Let's suppose, for simplicity's sake, that I am building a drow commoner. I thus have LA +2. I gain my first two class levels (ECL4) and all's well.

Now, I get enough XP to gain my third class level, which is 10k XP. Instead, I decide to buyoff one of my LA.

Next thing I know, I have 6k XP, two class levels and LA +1. Right enough XP to gain a third class level, which I take.

Dane

Oh?

Hmm.

Don't have my book, but that's not what I thought...

Zachiel

First doubt: do I need to gain enough XP to take my third class level, and instead of that I can buyoff, or do I need to have three class levels, and then, next level, I can buyoff?

Dane

15:06

Oh

10k XP is enough to be ECL 4.

6k XP is enough to be ECL 3.

You still have LA +1, so you stay at level 2 class.

Zachiel

>_> ok, I botched the numbers

Dane

No.

Oh.

Maybe.

Hmm.

Now I'm confused.

Zachiel

Like Cardinal Ximinez of the Spanish Inquisition used to say: I'll come in again.

Dane

Does this match the rules you're using: d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm

Zachiel

That might be it... yes, yes, that might. I've never noticed it was there as well ._.

Zachiel