I see Anna came back.

@KRyan I am 99% sure you would be utterly derailing the question if you made it about any one person.

@JonathanHobbs agreed, particularly since his answers were way better than I gave him credit for

@AlexP In what way do we try to workshop questions too much? I agree the tools hamper attempts to do that, but for your first statement there's something I'm missing, I think.

AFAIK it's very often we'll close stuff or vote stuff down and leave feedback as to how the post could be improved.

Which is what comments should be for, if there's any way to improve something!

@JonathanHobbs Well, I've seen questions workshopped for hours in chat (that being a big part of Mxy's big complaint about chat at one point). I've also seen premise-negating comments posted almost immediately to a variety of questions that might not be asking the most practical way to approach something, but still reflect a simple and direct issue with an SE-reasonable solution space.

@AlexP For the first part, we've at least stopped doing that, thankfully. Anna mentioned us doing so in her post, but that was with a comment to chat linked in comments, and then in the edit summary, to its own chat room to leave a record. The main problem with chat workshopping was when people couldn't track what the heck had happened in chat if it wasn't linked back to main or meta or whatever.

Good morning.

@KRyan This, a thousand times this. I see signs that he's honestly working toward a better, kinder site, and I don't want to embitter that effort by bringing up past.... challenges.

I was seriously considering such a post, but it seems untimely and counterproductive now. However--if we encounter serious misbehaviour from any citizen which doesn't seem to be redressed by flagging from here on out, I think it should be documented as fodder for a follow-up "how are we doing in meeting this challenge" post some time in the near future.

Seems I missed some drama this past week.

And in that spirit, we should also consider documenting our success stories.

Woohoo! Success stories! :)

@BESW Have you taken a look at any of the stuff I shared with you by chance?

@lisardggY Surprisingly less than expected! A couple new-ish users had the courage to focus our attention on issues we've been struggling with for a while, and so far as I can tell the community is generally responding by talking about positive actions we can take to address the challenges, rather than with defensiveness and recrimination.

@InbarRose No, I just got back from a meeting that ran all evening Friday, all day and evening Saturday, and all day Sunday.

Yes, the meta posts seemed surprisingly constructive

@BESW That's sounds grueling.

@InbarRose And now I'm about to go do shopping in preparation for a week of AUGH THIS MAGAZINE LAYOUT IS DUE THURSDAY AND I DON'T HAVE THE FINAL EDITS FOR HALF THE CONTENT.

@BESW I am sure you will manage to meet the deadline.

However, later tonight I will put some notes in the Spoil-Lair about my campaign; when I needed to keep my mouth shut in the meeting because I didn't have anything productive to say, I thought about my campaign.

@InbarRose It was very intense and draining, but it's always humbling and invigorating to be part of the Bahá'í administrative process. It's so different from the way other groups approach consultation and decision-making.

And the performances at last evening's presentation of the arts was awesome, in the original sense of the word.

A large group of youth sang songs they'd composed themselves by putting the Sacred Word to music, and their rendition of the prayer for youth made me seriously weep.

I could gush about that stuff for days, but I shan't spam the chat. Also, shopping! ttfn

The problem with ritualizing positive social behaviour is that various positive and negative punishments get built in by the people utilizing the system for personal gain and become part of the ritual.

@JackLesnie Isn't that exactly what SE's voting system is about? Codifying and ritualizing and rewarding behaviors?

Yes, although there's a few fundamental differences.

SE's system is simpler, and it's easier to troubleshoot tricky social issues with a simpler system. There's less (although not nothing) for people to personally gain on SE than in something which seeks to encompass every aspect of their life, so there's less motivation to put in the effort to twist it to their will. SE is also stored in silicon - makes it harder to amend than if it's stored in ever changeable brainmeats.

(By the way, what exactly are we talking about right now? I mgiht be out of the loop)

SE also has a specific goal in terms of output (answers), which helps.

BESW was talking about his bahai meeting, I dropped in an entirely unsolicited critique of ritualized behavioural systems to be contrarian.

Ah, ok. :)

I just think that ritualizing positive social behavior is a universal and automatic social process.

Look, just because Godzilla is huge, it doesn't mean you don't try to find a way to fight him.

This was fun to answer: rpg.stackexchange.com/a/36829/5841

Wizard Tricks!

Man, I love Wizard Tricks.

:)

I really can't think of a better way to accomplish the Questions goal than that.

Except for maybe scrying with mind altering spells, illusions, and/or projections. Which would all be much easier to notice, since they would stop functioning when the scrying wore off.

Yeah, aside from a few simple rituals like daily obligatory prayer and stuff relating to, say, marriage and funerals, we are explicitly exhorted to avoid uniform or rigid methods of doing things and instead maintain simplicity and flexibility in the ways we carry out our Faith's activities.

Bahá'u'lláh was very aware of the human tendency to add ritual and codification to what should remain dynamic and organic, and warns against it in clear language.

Way, way too relevant to recent RPG.SE goings-on. :)

A lot of eastern religions tend to have that built-in, which is to their credit, but ultimately the sea of self-interest will wash away any protective strictures.

Mmm. You might find it interesting to look into the Bahá'í Faith's specific precautions against such things, as they're--for many reasons--more comprehensive than previous dispensations. But on the other hand, no religion's social teachings are intended to endure for all time: every religion promises that it will be renewed by a future Messenger when humanity has reached the point that new guidance is needed, and Bahá'u'lláh's Message is no different in that respect.

The history of religion, alongside the history of humanity, is a series of cycles, of growth and setback, but always with an overall advancement, never falling back quite as far as we were before.

If you'd like to have an actual dialogue about such things, I'd be happy to have it in the Not A Bar chat room some time (so as not to derail the main chat too much with topics not everyone might be comfortable with).

I enjoy discussing ideas with people who have different viewpoints, but I'm not especially interested in debating or arguing. I have optimism about the capacity of individuals for selfless service, and I have faith that human civilisation is on a path of advancement rather than in a static state or a condition of degradation.

Now I'm going to go transcribe notes on my campaign setting in the Spoil-Lair, if anyone's interested.

@BESW woooosh

Rolling for absolutely no reason of significance.

3d4

@Metool [squints suspiciously]

I had GMs that would occasionally roll dice for no apparent reason.

To keep players on their toes.

"Oh, what's your Perception score? Oh, 9? Ok. *roll roll roll*. No, everything's fine, carry on".

Classic.

I did that for a while... eventually I narrowed it down to just a tool for getting a distracted player on task, like if they're playing a game on their phone.

Can I borrow you guys for a brainstorm session? I need insulting nicknames for lizardfolk, to put in the mouths of elves.

Condescending, paternalistic, and thoughtlessly insulting is the order of the day.

Newts.

Egg-layers.

Coldbloods.

Good stuff. I'm also looking for specific names, along the lines of calling any Russian "Ivan," or... I'm having a hard time thinking of other examples that I'd feel comfortable typing in chat.

Spoil-Lair notes are up to date.

Maybe "hatchling" as a condescending term, like "boy" was used for black men.

Hmm. I like.

Oh, also I need a name for a specific lizardfolk.

The "stage name" for a lizardfolk woman who sings dusky songs in a bar when she's not also being the bouncer.

If I can come up with something both sexist and racist.... well, this setting is not a nice place.

I'd like to make that especially clear in how they treat the lizardfolk, because the lizardfolk are going to be doing some rather drastic things in their desperation and I don't want it to seem like an overreaction.

@AlexP New notes in the Spoil Lair, I'd appreciate you taking a look when you can.

More pointless rolls!

4d8

1d6

Man. I'm getting some great critique on my Harbinger (which is good as I intend on charging people money for it) but there's one thoughtline that keeps coming up that makes me want to villain laugh and snidely declare, "You underestimate the power of the Dark Side." Which, you know, I cannot do because Customers.

I don't have the newest numbers in front of me, but that looks like the right kind of number.

(Can't be sure the +11 is accurate, but there IS supposed to be a number there.)

alright, thanks :) yea, I got the 11 from AV, so it should be right

Then of course there's potential bonuses from feats/features/etc.

I don't think she has any of those

@BESW the nuking of the RAW tag has me on my heels

from the very first answer I put on this site, I have felt like certain factions, headed by him, have been trying to drive me away because they don't want a RAW-minded perspective to even be present

and that tag was one of the few "protections" my opinion and perspective had against their agenda

@KRyan I have also picked up on this feeling, and it is uncomfortable.

(and I realize that the tag's nuking had little to do with him, it just feels like a victory for him)

@KRyan Personally, as someone who feels comfortable with non-RAW answers, I felt the opposite. I felt that giving a non-RAW to D&D answers was met with "This is a rules question, so only rules answers are relevant".

So it's probably that neither of us is really discriminated against, we just feel that way. :)

@lisardggY the standard, as far as I can tell, ought to be that you clearly state the source of your answer: RAW, your preferences/houserules/experiences, and so on. But if someone asks how something does work, I infer that to mean "by the rules" not "how you like to run it." Most people don't explicitly tag things RAW or state that this is what they mean, but I believe it is. In such cases, I may downvote an answer that doesn't at least address the RAW first, before suggesting alternatives.

I am eminently comfortable with houserules

but I believe they need to be informed, i.e. you need to know what the RAW is so you can intelligently change it

and thus I think that any rules-question answer needs to start with the RAW

though in many cases it should not end there

and this is a serious, for-the-betterment-of-the-site thing for me; I honestly think that, given what people come here for, answers to rules questions that don't address the rules are poor answers to those questions, and depending on how upfront they are, potentially misleading to users who think they are getting the rules straight rather than someone's houserules

there are a lot of examples on this site of questions where someone asks because they do not know, and accepted a first answer of "it works like this" where "this" isn't even remotely how things work in the rules, and now the querent has been misled because the answerer did not clearly explain what is actually in the rules, and what additions or modifications they are suggesting

and I try to come along later and provide a more thorough answer, but much of the time the querent has moved on, and inertia and the failure of members here to read all the way down, particularly on "answered" questions (and I do that too, not accusing anyone, it's just an unfortunate problem), make it difficult to overcome the established answer.

which is some cases is very wrong

aaaand I'm ranting

@Lord_Gareth by the way, I see Andreas is here

also noticed he'd never heard of the site before a couple days ago... so I guess he didn't read my intro, huh? >.>

[waves to @KRyan]

@Metool hiyo

hmm

how come in other rooms, I have my RPG SE avatar, but here I have my SO avatar?

Good question. Can you fix your parent profile? It appears to be SO here.

Why are the two different to begin with?

@Metool I could do that, but then my avatar will be the RPG avatar on all chat

@Metool eh, as a programmer, I want my SO avatar to be more professional

employers look at that

hell, I want them to look at it, to some degree

a lot of people are impressed by a 2k SO rep

I see the same avatar on both your user profiles

It kind of looks like the oddly generated style that @Lord_Gareth, for example, has.

is it the gravatar or the DW?

yeah, that's the SO one

Gravatar

be right back

Are you using totally different accounts?

no

have you changed it recently?

have not

just changed which parent account I use for chat

@Metool Well I'd be very worried if that was the case.

did you guys see a change?

Not at all.

Refreshing changes that.

@Zachiel why? we'd be talking about one account on Stack Overflow and one account here, not sock puppets or whatever

not yet, but it takes time for changes to take effect. I'll log out and log back in to refresh the chat

@Metool I did refresh

@KRyan I meant on my end.

@Metool oh derp

right then

man that avatar scales poorly

@KRyan Because having the avatar of a completely different account show up on the other one is not normal. Like, ghost possession not normal

@Zachiel that's... how it works? on SO I have a gravatar, on RPG I have a DW

on chat, it seems, I have to pick one or the other for all chats

except possibly those chats created from comment debates?

@KRyan No, no, no. I meant if you had two completely separate profiles.

@KRyan you only have a single chat.se account that allows you to write on every chat

@Zachiel still don't think that's all that weird; I strongly considered doing so myself

@Zachiel I know, but that's kind of annoying

@KRyan Mmmmh maybe we're still talking about different things. What I'm saying is "I don't think it's wrong to have two separate profiles (unless you use them for handpuppeting) but then if one of your completely separated accounts inherited the other's avatar I'd call a good exorcist."

@Zachiel oh yeah, that'd be weird

This is so bloody draining.

Went to Dr. Acula again?

@InbarRose [a rimshot plays in the distance]

@Zachiel At least someone is paying attention!

aaand ttfn

Heya.

@waxeagle what class or build would you suggest for a player that would like to help people who is dying, be sturdy, not be melee and deal a nice amount of damage?

(I'm talking 4e)

and it's for a lvl 4-6 adventure

be back later

@Zachiel Warlord has at least one really solid daily that triggers on an ally dying, make him dragon born and you get stout AC (scale), and good peripherials (STR/CHA).

Warlords aren't usually designed for the "not melee" bit, but I've heard of ranged warlords, and you've heard of my player's super-lazy warlord.

yeah, actually they have pretty interesting bow option. missed the not melee aspect. Shaman might be good there actually

depending on the reasoning for the not melee qualification.

and Warlord Shaman hybrid can be uber lazy

@BESW The party currently features a melee warlord (who might be changing to a defender or to a different leader), being built because the previous leader didn't heal enough; a ranged sorcerer and the last character is yet to decide (it's the player that wanted to play a necromancer, who finally can join the game)

@waxeagle what could be the reasons in your opinion?

@waxeagle That's what we hacked him into being when it turned out straight-up warlord wasn't lazy enough.

But pure lazy warlord/shaman is really... messy. It was great for that particular player because he loved tracking lots of complex fiddly bits, but it would've driven me straight up the wall. I'm the guy who put VoP on his monk-variant druid so I wouldn't have to deal with wild shape OR gear.

@Zachiel Shaman sounds like a good option if he's okay with having his spirit companion in melee.

@BESW You're a poor example then.

@BESW When I saw the spirit companion rules it seemed really fragile to me. Is the companion a good and reliable wall / aura holder?

@Zachiel It has your defences, and a weird "hp" situation that makes it wasteful and inefficient to attack, strategically speaking.

It can be trashed relatively easily if a monster focuses on it, but it can be re-summoned with trivial ease, which a feat can make even more trivial.

Basically if one monster spends its turn trashing the spirit companion, usually the other monsters will have until the beginning of the shaman's next turn to act unimpeded by the spirit companion.

You can also take feats to improve the SC's durability, but it never seemed useful to any of the shaman in my game.

@Hennes Hi!

Hello

whud up gangstas

@Zachiel Works better as a roadblock/flank buddy then an aura generator/really good punisher

@waxeagle You can go full lazylord and never once touch an enemy with a melee attack. There's also a ranged weapon build for warlord, not as good as the melee or lazy build but its still viable (also hybrid warlord ranger)

@waxeagle let me know about that bounty, Im asking you to play favorites but more just want to know if its up to the par you have in mind

Hi, hope I'm chatting in the right place

@RRs_Ghost what's up, welcome to the rpg.se general chat room

should I allow my PCs to reroll search checks in 3.5 DnD? My PCs just keep rolling until they get 20s. Should the same rule apply for searching for traps? I would have thought if you failed to find a trap that would be your only chance as it was clearly too well hidden

hmmm so while I dont know the rules for 3.5 (most of my experience is 4e and next) I can tell you want I would suggest

A search for a trap that fails triggers the trap

yes please

oh sure

ok

by which I mean when you stand in the middle of the room or area and search for a trap you cant just look around and see them

you have to get close to things, possibly use touch and smell to sense them

hence failing to spot one when looking for one means you set it off

the rest of the party should probably give the B&E guy some space when looking around

makes sense to me. what about, searching for treasure?

as far as general searches

let them keep rolling

BUT

OK

each search roll takes time

in which they can be ambushed

?

thus searching for treasure in a dungeon that you haven't cleared out means they keep risking being found

yep

OK cool

in general if its a situation where there is no danger and they could spend as much time as possible its not even worth having them roll

thanks very much for the advice

yep

come back anytime

Night all

> When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Source: d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm

Of course, as Joshua said, spending 2 minutes on every square-5' of terrain or wall is not always a good idea.

@zachiel thanks, didnt know if it was in the rules, but yeah take 20 is a solid rule to live by for any system that has a skill check mechanic

@RRs_Ghost also of course, trapfinding carries penalties for failure (if you fail the check by 5 or more - let them just take 20 if they can't roll that low)

@BESW @waxeagle the player said she likes the idea of the Shaman. Her "helping the dying" was more a "I want a class that can heal" so there's no need to go warlord for the specific powers. Anyhow, I see most leaders are ranged...

@Zachiel yeah, the viable melee leaders is a pretty short list, depending on what she wants, most of them are pretty tough, Cleric with Battle Cleric's Lore is quite stout (very high Will and AC), Shaman needs to take at least one feat to patch a relatively low AC (leather, no shield)

@waxeagle I once convinced a GM to let me roll a Sentinel druid multiclassing in cleric to get Battle Cleric's Lore as its multiclass feature (because there's no multiclass feat which gives BCL, but there's one which gives the feature BCL replaces).

I was enamoured of how Sentinels get a cleric class power--not a similar power, not a power with the same name, but a power actually labelled "Cleric" in the Sentinel write-up.

So I made a druid that thought she was a cleric, for a Dark Sun game.

But because gods are so long gone in that setting, she had her dogma a little confused. She confused Ioun, Pelor, and Vecna, because they all had sun/eye imagery.

@waxeagle my "I see most leaders are ranged" was really a "How lucky". She wants to be ranged ;)

"We should alleviate suffering, build libraries, and never reveal all that we know."

(Her sermons were usually baffling and contradictory, and often ended with a shrug and "The gods are mysterious, aren't they?")

@Zachiel Shaman is a pretty awesome class, flavour-wise.

I used "tribal tattoo" animal designs for the spirit companion minis.

@Zachiel totally

@BESW perfectly reasonable. I'd allow it in my game. Considering it's an option for all hybrid clerics, MCing Cleric to get it seems legit to me

I think a strict RAW reading makes it illegal because you have to choose BCL at character creation, before you take feats. But yes, it seems reasonable.

And that character was awesome to RP.

and I was like, nope it only replaces a cleric feature if you already have a cleric feature

@BESW plus, it's that Thunderspire adventure. With minotaur ancient cities and possibly spirits. I need to check for spirits.

Ooh, shiny.

I had spirits in my version, but I can't remember if I put them there.