TRPG General Chat

Metool

01:23

And then the healer had more vitality than the tank, and the tank had more mana than the healer. The tank doesn't even have any abilities that consume mana yet.

BESW

01:48

@RyanRatenKuhar Hi!

Ryan Raten Kuhar

02:06

Hey

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

03:15

Heads up to everyone

meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/3629/…

D&D 5e Starter Set Nominations have been reopened. We've got 3 advance copies. We have a very narrow window. Community and mods will chose amongst the highest upvoted self nominations.

6

doppelgreener

@DCShannon I'm in chat now.

@JonathanHobbs Aw, I was hoping you would be in chat. That makes sense for temporary conditions, but 'dead' seems different. I guess that could be considered temporary in DnD. — DCShannon 33 secs ago

Death is very temporary in D&D 4e. ;)

DCShannon

@JonathanHobbs Is there anywhere in particular you are considered to be when dead?

@JonathanHobbs Because that's the direction the disk would go.

I mean, when you go to the afterlife it's not like your body disappears, right? So your body would still exist, but you would be elsewhere.

doppelgreener

@DCShannon Right there, technically speaking. Fluff-wise, your spirit will eventually depart, pass by the Raven Queen, and go on to whatever lies beyond.

I'd err on your body still being you, because dead is little more than a more advanced version of unconscious.

BESW

4e doesn't have a lot of really concrete "what happens after death" fluff. The Raven Queen's involved somehow, but beyond that there's a half-dozen different things that we've seen happen to souls with little or no indication how their fate is determined.

It's legit to say that the soul, when separated from the body, is the self--the DMG has a skill challenge which affirms this--but conditions don't get applied to the soul.

The body's dead, the soul isn't.

In terms of 4e mechanics--stripped of fluff--there doesn't seem to be a soul.

So the question becomes not "do you go somewhere else when you die?" but "is your body still you after you die, or is it an inanimate object?"

DCShannon

03:37

I edited my response to the Tenser's Disk question to reflect the concept of death being temporary

Sounds like the rules are probably closer to the body still being you, but it makes more sense to me for your body to just be an object

I included both possible interpretations

doppelgreener

@DCShannon 3e was the thing more concerned with the question of what, exactly, corpses are

and considered them objects

DCShannon

I imagine that had some rules concerning what happens to conjured things when you die though

BESW

4e's more like "You're dead, how boring. Let's fix that."

doppelgreener

> I don't have any idea, and I don't see much guidance from the rules. Johnathan Hobbs made a fairly convincing argument that in DnD-4E, death is essentially an advanced version of unconscious, which is a temporary condition, which doesn't change your speed while in effect.

DCShannon

oh, too many h's

doppelgreener

03:42

The foundation of my argument is this: open your book to the bit where it says what happens when you die. If I remember correctly, it mentions you can't take actions. It changes nothing in your stat block.

If you're dead, your dex, constitution, and other scores don't change. Your alignment and other features don't. Nothing on your character sheet changes, except you might want to write 'dead' somewhere in the vicinity of your HP.

The most charismatic person in the world is probably still going to have a stunningly charismatic corpse.

2

DCShannon

Actually, it doesn't even say that much

It just says "the adventurer dies"

Seems undefined

BESW

doppelgreener

@BESW Who's this chap?

DCShannon

Looks like a charismatic corpse

doppelgreener

@DCShannon I wonder if the RC actually says a couple of things about it... but generally, yeah, the rules don't say much about what actually happens when you're dead. I think it might say you're unconscious, but maybe I'm thinking about 3.x.

BESW

03:46

@JonathanHobbs Boris Karloff as the Mummy.

DCShannon

I have the player's handbook and the Rules Compendium out, and I'm not seeing jack

doppelgreener

@BESW Very charming.

@DCShannon Oh my.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Jack's never around when you want him.

@JonathanHobbs I finally watched it all the way through on my birthday this year, and I strongly recommend the film.

DCShannon

I think I'm going to consider that answer good enough and get back to what I'm doing. Let me know or post a better one if you figure anything out about what death means

cya

doppelgreener

@BESW I will see if I can get it. The DVD shop in the city here is amazingly good at getting old, impossible-to-find films.

BESW

03:52

@JonathanHobbs It's very famous.

Quite literally the first horror film about a mummy, and still one of the best.

I mean, it's Boris Freaking Karloff, directed by the cinematographer for Dracula and Metropolis.

doppelgreener

@BESW Is the 1999 movie a recreation of it?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Ooonly in the sense that it's also about an undead Egyptian priest who wants to use a modern-day woman as the vessel for his long-dead wife's soul.

Beyond that, well. The 1999 version is an action comedy special-effects extravaganza, not a low-key horror film.

wax eagle

Next overland map uses hexes, whoah

2

BESW

@waxeagle [pandemonium]

wax eagle

wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ex/20140617

BESW

04:09

@waxeagle ... How does that geography work?!

You don't get rivers doing that in terrain like that.

wax eagle

Realms, magic.

BESW

I need an adult and a contour map.

4

@waxeagle Gravity.

wax eagle

Yeah no sense at all without elevation (and a lot of it). Our big river in town has a huge bend.... But that's around a mountain

BESW

That is one seriously wrinkly forest.

@waxeagle Even if the rivers make sense because of the forest's topography.... what kind of freaky geology created that topography?

doppelgreener

@BESW apparently this river flows from, not to, the sea

and then wriggles

that bodes badly for flooding

if a river flows from the sea, the land beyond has to be below sea level, right?

BESW

04:15

@JonathanHobbs So, breaking it down. The river comes down out of the Starmetal Hills to the East, and on the Northwest it comes from the Crags and Mount Fake Foreign Name.

These four major tributaries combine in the Neverwinter Wood, and along the way they're either joined by two smaller tributaries or they branch and drain out into the woods (below the second "e" in NEVERWINTER and toward Agatha's Lair).

Then they run out of the forest to the West into the sea.

It... could make sense, if the Wood is extremely hilly.

If so, we're going to figure that it's actually a lower extension of the mountains to either side, connecting The Crags to the Starmetal Hills and Sword Mountains in one continuous range.

So humid air comes in from the Too Unimportant To Name Sea, and as it rises against the mountains it becomes clouds and rain.

doppelgreener

@BESW how are there rivers just appearing in the middle of the forest, come to think of it?

at least they might flow from lakes or something.

BESW

No, the forest is on hard non-porous ground and the rivers are formed from the rain caused by the humid air rising as it comes over the hilly forest.

doppelgreener

@BESW okay, that can make sense

BESW

That also explains the forest on the northwest of the Crags; it's on porous ground so there's no rivers, but it's still watered by the rain being squeezed out of the sky by the Crags.

This does not explain the Kryptgarden Forest to the southeast, which has no plausible source of water from ground or sky as it's cut off from the rain on the dry side of the mountains.

doppelgreener

@BESW that one is magic

BESW

04:24

But this still doesn't explain the structure of the mountain range itself.

Metool

Or else there's a lake off the edge of the map.

(Ignore me and my ideas that there's more to a world than the area you adventure in.)

BESW

@Metool It wouldn't be close enough to sustain the forest we see on the map.

(And what's that lake's source of water? It's still on the dry side of the mountain range!)

doppelgreener

@BESW we are viewing a peninsula; there's more sea to the south east

BESW

Now that we've established there's just one big continuous mountain range which also runs under the Wood (otherwise the rivers make no sense), we should be able to identify the geologic processes that created the range. There are three basic ways you get mountain ranges: volcanoes, crust buckling, and glacial scraping/deposits.

Metool

@BESW Clearly there's a city populated entirely with clerics in the area.

BESW

04:27

@Metool That seems reasonable.

@JonathanHobbs Let's see if the geology supports that.

Not volcanic, for sure. Volcanic ranges are usually short, periodic, and bunched, rather than linear and long.

The Wood itself could be glacial--that'd explain the wrinkles--but a glacier leaves a path and I don't see one. We might be able to justify a glacier coming through more recently and carving out a low spot in the mountains which then became the Wood.

So, crust buckling: two continental crusts collide, and smash upward (see: Himalayas).

Could work, if we didn't have that large body of water right next to it.

So we're back to volcanic: one form of volcano is caused when a lighter continental plate pushes a heavier oceanic plate underneath itself into the mantle. The oceanic plate melts and the excess pressure is vented as magma forced up through the continental plate.

This can cause lines of volcanic mountains just inland along a shoreline.

(See: the mountains of the Pacific Northwest)

That's gosh-durn close to the shore, though. I'm going to assume the sea level's been rising, perhaps as a previous ice age is thawing out (hence the recent glacial activity).

lisardggY

It has come to this, that I'm sitting and waiting for the baby to wake up and reading campaign speeches by moderators candidates over at English.SE.

I'm glad that one of the central issues of the elections is (to paraphrase) "Are we here at ELU a bunch of elitist jerks".

BESW

So, in order to avoid "A Wizard Did It," I have instead invoked "An Ice Age Did It."

doppelgreener

@BESW the peninsula itself is caused by two plates smashing together, and the buckling is some previously-underwater terrain rising up to the surface?

BESW

(By the way, a post-ice-age setting is great for a campaign about adventuring in a world with political upheaval. Geography and economy changes, ecological niches open up and close down, the people and the animals are all displaced...)

lisardggY

@BESW *Deus ex Iceberg"

@BESW That's what we're trying to do with our Ars Magica game, using the Black Plague as a great leveler, allowing anything to be changed.

doppelgreener

04:39

@BESW That... would be great...

lisardggY

Heh. One of the candidates is linking to chat transcripts from various rooms where people were snarking at ELU. I'm the first link, here. :)

lisardggY

05:12

@BESW and @waxeagle get honorable mentions, too.

Magician

@BESW is there a book you could recommend on formation of geographic features?

BESW

05:25

@lisardggY Yey!

@Magician Hmm. I kinda just picked it up here and there; a geo 110 course, a hiking lecture on the formation of Guam...

One moment.

@Magician Fantastic Maps may be a good place to start.

@lisardggY Where are these speeches?

lisardggY

12

Q: 2014 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire

In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers. It was decided that we would take the top 9 ques...

Magician

@BESW Cool, I'll check it out, thank you.

lisardggY

The links in question are in phenry's answer: meta.english.stackexchange.com/a/4860/13178

(Search for "stuffy", somewhere in the middle of his answer)

BESW

Got it.

Ooh, my second-highest-voted answer just got another vote or two.

[amused] It's like a long-term investment with erratic returns.

@Magician The emphasis is on the drawing of maps, but by necessity that contains good geology sprinkled throughout. I'll see if I can find some of the better posts.

lisardggY

@BESW Yeah, I have a couple of those. They already paid for themselves, so now it's just free rep!

BESW

05:41

I know I've seen better geologic stuff that I can't track down right now, but this one contains a very simple suggestion that the D&D map linked above probably didn't follow: "Lay in the rivers first. As rivers drain the water out of hills, they will determine where the hills should go."

lisardggY

These would be good questions to ask in the proposed Worldbuilding.SE. :)

BESW

@lisardggY There's a comment on mine with 23 upvotes which really irks me because it totally misses the point of my answer, and the upvotes are just because it makes a reference to a popular cultural touchstone.

lisardggY

Yeah, it's just a reference, doesn't even try to address your answer.

BESW

But 23 upvotes means flagging it is pretty useless.

(And honestly, it's a really weak quote anyway; it's an example of nit-pick rules-lawyering which seemed very out of character for Book. He's usually much too forthright to justify himself with weasely evasions like that.)

lisardggY

06:01

I saw the "can a character without limbs use a monk's abilities", and I'm pretty sure the answer inside is going to be "Well, RAW doesn't say anywhere that you have to have limbs, so yeah, sure.".

I've managed to phrase my differences with other D&D players recently. For some people, the mechanics, the rules, the states - these are the game. For me (and others, of course), they are the infrastructure on which the game sits.

BESW

Elaborate?

lisardggY

I haven't found a good way to express what the game, exactly. It's the interactions between players and characters and narrative. It's a bit wobbly, but I can live with that. The mechanics are there to influence that nebulous entity, to encourage or discourage certain interactions, add randomness of constraints to it, but they are not it.

BESW

Question: which occurs more often, the mechanics change because of influence from the game, or the game changes due to influence from the mechanics?

lisardggY

I don't play D&D because I like rolling d20's and doing 4d6 damage with my fireballs. I play D&D because rolling d20's and doing 4d6 damage with my fireballs creates a specific game, whereas rolling an exploding d10 stress-die and doing +25 damage with my Ball of Abyssmal Flame in Ars Magica would create a different one.

@BESW Both.

BESW

I expect both to happen, but which is more common for you?

lisardggY

06:11

My guess would be that the mechanics would initially influence the game, and after the game has stabilized a bit in what the group is playing, the mechanics start getting streamlined into it.

BESW

Fair enough.

Magician

Here's a brief description of Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics game design approach which might be useful.

3

lisardggY

Of course, there's also a wider sphere of influence. My first D&D game might exhibit these dynamics, but my fifth campaign would probably already carry over a lot of previous processes.

Magician

It's a way of thinking about games. In it, mechanics (rules) create dynamics (how rules are used) which in turn create aesthetics (what players experience).

BESW

@Magician That's a very interesting idea in a very awful Wikipedia article.

Magician

06:14

Thankfully, there's a link to the originating paper!

lisardggY

An interesting difference between video games and RPGs is how the mechanics are much more mutable, so there's a fast feedback loop back to it.

BESW

@lisardggY That makes me think of Dwarf Fortress and how many of the people who play it are also capable of hacking it.

Magician

@lisardggY There's also an element of interpretation inherent in RPGs that are not D&D 4e. Most other games are deterministic by their very nature. GM judgement calls are a feature of RPGs.

lisardggY

I'd be interested in reading a pen-and-paper adaptation of the MDA framework. Well, after I have read the existing MDA paper. Which would be later. :)

Magician

@lisardggY I doubt there is one, sadly. It's a complex topic!

lisardggY

06:28

Ah, yes. I meant a future adaptation by a bright and forward-looking individual.

But right now, it appears last night's code changes broke the nightly build, so off I delve.

Magician

Lets see if I can take a small swing at this. An RPG does not follow a line of M->D->A. Instead, there're multiple loops back, and that's even before a group decided to change the Mechanics themselves, as so many do. Not to mention games that invite players to change their Mechanics, like Fate.

First, a group has to interpret how and when to apply the Mechanics. The Dynamics of a game would vary greatly depending on whether the GM calls for a check every time something happens, if they stick to a Let It Roll principle, or a Fail Forward principle. That's a whole layer of group decisions, frequently unintentional, which are out of the game designer's hands.

Then there's the interpretation of narrative outcomes dictated by Mechanics and filtered through Dynamics. You hit the orc, but do you triumphantly parry his crude thrusts, slip past him and skewer the poor creature, or do you do 6 damage and move on? The Aesthetics of a game are largely decided by the consensus narrative as described by all participants... And many imagine it instead of describing! They get their own, personal Aesthetics.

In other games, players' imagination is a nice but non-essential part of the process. If Aesthetics can fuel it - great. But in RPGs, it's all about the imagination, and that's a fickle beast.

Much of a game's designed Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics can be unwittingly sabotaged by a group which desires different Aesthetics than the ones the game provides. People trying to find realism in 4e are going to fight every step of the way against M and D of the system to create the A they wish.

BESW

Interesting.

Magician

Hence it's extremely important to understand what the game is meant to be, and to play it that way. Mechanics can't enforce it, they can only encourage through Dynamics. It's possible to steer the interpreted Dynamics and the resulting Aesthetics, but this has to be done with care so as not to negate the whole purpose of using a given system.

BESW

For many years in D&D 3.5, I thought the A I wanted was the A the game was designed to produce, but I constantly had to fiddle with the D to get what A I wanted.

It took an embarrassingly long time to figure out this meant I had different expectations for Aesthetics than the game was designed to provide.

Magician

06:44

@BESW Same.

lisardggY

I am still pining for a specific aesthetic that I experienced and loved in the early 90's with AD&D, but not only do no newer D&D editions recreate that, I'm pretty sure that it was the result of a specific time and place.

Not only will playing AD&D now not recreate it, even if I did recreate it, I probably wouldn't enjoy it.

BESW

One of the reasons 4e worked so well for me was that it was more upfront and explicit about what aesthetic it had in mind, and its mechanics were more streamlined in search of that aesthetic.

lisardggY

There are many video games I loved when I was younger that, if I try to play now, feel extremely tedious and frustrating.

BESW

So despite the aesthetic not being exactly what I most preferred, the cognitive dissonance was much less.

Magician

@lisardggY Our understanding of what games are and can be has advanced since then. This should apply to RPGs as well.

@BESW I think we've even had a similar conversation before - a game has to explain what it's envisioned Aesthetics are like.

BESW

06:48

@lisardggY [thinks back] No, King's Quest V was always a miserable, tedious, joyless thing.

lisardggY

@BESW Oh, god, yes. Wandering around an uncharted desert for hours.

BESW

@lisardggY "Look out, Grahame! A pooooiiiiisonous game!"

lisardggY

Sierra's quests with their single-pixel-to-the-side insta-deaths were quite frustrating.

I remember Monkey Island poking well-deserved fun at them.

Magician

Hrm. I wonder if I should write up this rambling into a blog post. Haven't done that for a while...

Speaking of things that have quietly disappeared, has Tweets to Campaign By run out of content?

BESW

Pretty much.

Magician

07:09

Strangely relevant to tonight's discussions:

If RPG designers played hockey: D: Can I score on my own team? R: It’s not against the rules. D: I shoot it into my own net. R: Okay. Goal.

Tweeted by Burning_Luke on June 14, 2014 at 3:42 AM

And since we've been talking RPG design and papers, it's worth mentioning @BrianBallsun-Stanton's paper on Constrained Optimization in D&D. Using Mechanics to achieve desired Aesthetics.

2

BESW

@agradine Hi!

@Magician Ah, yes. You know, I don't think I ever got all the way through it, but I feel like I've read it because I've watched him try to use the principles on folks in chat so often.

Magician

@BESW I've experienced it live. You can hear the wheels start spinning and lasers powering up.

BESW

07:37

Random thought: the Riddick franchise has a lot of silly and amateur in it, but it's got three things that it always gets right: it loves what it's doing, it's got a great sense of visual style, and Vin Diesel.

And even when it's totally inconsistent and contradictory, it's got a thematic cohesion that many major franchises lack.

If I could capture that in a game...

I just got a new hobby: assuming that the conversations in random crowds are fandom arguments.

"It was confirmed two seasons back, yes."
"We're going to the underground shelters if it happens."
"That's what I heard, too."
"It's the end of everything. Everything!"

"What are we going to do now?"
"I don't know."
"Some kind of new creature..."
"It's all nonsense, everyone is overreacting."

I could easily be convinced this film just handed out lines from a forum thread about Star Wars VII.

BESW

08:59

Look, a wild downvote!

doppelgreener

i have opinion allergies

please don't wave that around

BESW

It looks like someone went through and downvoted most everything.

doppelgreener

@BESW i'd find that hard to pick apart from the downvotes already on almost all of them

BESW

All of the ones whose counts I remember from yesterday have incremented at least one since.

doppelgreener

ah ok.

the question is five days old, but it has recent activity...

on my mind though is that one of the most reliable ways to be totally wrong on a SE site is to assume you know anything about who voted how on what

BESW

09:08

Oh, aye.

I try to cage with "it looks like" and "this could be read as" and so forth.

Stating what I see rather than presenting what I guess it means as fact.

doppelgreener

sure, i just mean.. when it comes to votes, all is not as it seems [spooky background tones]

but yeah, i getcha

BESW

In light of the highly-starred quote from a few days ago: "Is Coding the New Literacy? We can do it! Why computer literacy is key to winning the 21st century." Not only an article with far too many titles, but also a good read.

doppelgreener

A trail of thought has lead me here:

In the fictional D&D-and-every-other-system-ever crossover, one of the D&D Clerics realises he has constitutional right to run for election, and forms the Murderhobo party.

They are removed from the running when, during a debate between several of the parties, they attempt to resolve their losing position by murdering all their political opponents.

The Fate party doesn't make it in, but people notice they always tend to miss a few terms, then come back very strongly for one or two terms.

until they cause a bunch of drama over mishandling a bunch of things and get booted out again.

Zachiel

Ultimately, the winning party is secretly decided by a cabal of vampires.

doppelgreener

09:26

@Zachiel hahaha

yes absolutely

Zachiel

To the dismay of all the Kingmaker D&D players, of course.

BESW

@Zachiel If all the vampires are named Dave, then I approve.

(There is, technically, a Narbonic role-playing game. It has never been publicly released.)

Zachiel

@BESW XD

BESW

@JonathanHobbs I think your "typing" script is stuck at "on."

Zachiel

09:53

I hate Divine Metamagic

hatehatehatehate

let this be my notepad

I have 3 turn attempts from my class

I will gain 2 more from a 9th level spell boosting my charisma (from level 17 on)

I can get up to 3 from a non-epic charisma cloak

And up to 3 from combined age and tome of charisma.

Which, when I will get to epics with an epic +12 cloack, would mean exactly 14 attempts, enough for persisting two spells per day. 4 when extended from a metamagic rod. Which is perfect.

Until I get the money for my charisma book, I sit at 6 attempts. One less than I need. With two wasted feats (Persist Spell and Divine Metamagic) until I can cast level 7 spells (unless I want to mundane-persist read magic)

[loudly curses]

Metool

Why wouldn't you persist read magic? :D

Zachiel

@Metool I would, but I would not spend three feats on persisting read magic. Persisting divine favor, on the other hand, could be worth it.

Metool

Is nightstick cheese grated and put on salad or something?

Zachiel

10:09

Nightsticks do not exist in this campaign, and neither does that +2 turn undead attempts relic/phylactery or what is it, because the books they're published in are not included in the source material.

Metool

That's fun.

Wait. So do you have no base charisma to speak of, or is turn undead CHA/day?

Zachiel

Also, I son't want to raise my initial charisma above 10, which is a houseruled requirement for Leadership. I have other places where I want to spend points, namely constitution.

I will get to charisma 11 by aging, just to make that +5 from the tome into an even number.

(and I'm short on feats)

(also, my deity has all the wrong domains)

Rob

I have been waiting for this for ages. My Rep is finally over 15k.
BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!!! I HAVE THE POWER!!!!!!!!!

Also, hello

Metool

@Rob Bangin'. What will you do with the money?

Rob

That's probably inappropriate ;)

Metool

10:14

Probably.

Rob

@Metool I shall start a robotic banana farm

BESW

@Rob Grats!

BTW, if anyone's interested in Fatecrafting, I've got an idea for an extra to be designed over in the Fate room.

Rob

@BESW We were once neck and neck, many moons ago; then you raced away on your jetski :)

BESW

Vrrrmmm!

Zachiel

@Rob ;)

Rob

10:24

Damn that jetski! DAMN IT!

lisardggY

10:36

Someone linked to the old "How to avoid cliches while improvising" question, which meant a couple of new upvotes. If the accepted answers gets one more upvote - one more! - I should get a Populist badge.

Rob

That's what kicked me over 15k :)

lisardggY

'grats.

There's a badge there for you too.

BESW

Yeah, I've been getting some upvotes from it.

Rob

It was a good question; some nice ideas on it :)

lisardggY

You sowed the seeds for a whole buncha rep. :)

BESW

11:03

@Rob I was kinda shocked it hadn't been asked before.

(And that it wasn't closed as too broad.)

Dorian

12:07

-rolls in with a painful groan-

BESW

[trips over]

Dorian

Ey I'm layin here!

And I need... IDK... Lots of pain pillz and caffeine... Dunno why but these past couple days I've been very stiff and in pain, and my headaches have been worse than usual. Probably a potassium deficiency... Need money, and food that isn't massively high in sodium...

Too much sodium leads to dehydration, which leads to potassium deficiency. No matter how much I try to replace the water, I can't replace the potassium.

BESW

Spinach, fish, avacado...

Dorian

All of those cost money.

BESW

Lentils?

Dorian

12:14

Between my bank account and my unemployment card I have about $1.35 until tomorrow

BESW

Fair enough.

lisardggY

Bananas.

BESW

When you do get a little money, I'm a big fan of cooking lentils and brown rice together in the rice cooker with a sliced-up onion and some garlic.

But I'm also a big fan of getting enough sleep, which I haven't been lately, so goodnight.

lisardggY

G'night.

Dorian

I've also been hitting the food bank every month to try and boost my diet beyond pasta, ramen, pasta, and ramen. Oh, and cheddar and bacon crackers from frito lay, got a bunch of those. Been consuming about a box of those a day on average.

gnight.

Inbar Rose

12:16

You should probably eat more fruit.

Dorian

Hmm... I do have a rice cooker... And like two small bags of rice from the food bank...

Inbar Rose

I

Dorian

I've been getting about 215 biweekly for unemployment. 120 of that (again biweekly) goes into rent. That leaves me with less than a hundred bucks to plan two weeks of food. And I'm horrible with planning food for two weeks.

Hell I was horrible planning food for one week when I was getting paid weekly at my last job lol

Most of my food then came from free stuff that went out of code while I was on shift (I lost count of how many free sandwiches I downed over a year, and sooo many free bananas)

Inbar Rose

I've never been in a situation like yours, but I have a friend who was. He used to go to soup kitchens as well, it was tough for him, this was before I knew him. But he told me that what got him out of it was the kindness of his friends, family, people he met and also strangers, he said that sometimes all he needed was to just ask for help and people gave it. Willingly and lovingly. It just took him too long to get the courage to ask for help, to not be ashamed by it. Don't know how relevant

That is to you, but I thought I would share.

Anyway, good luck to you - I have to go.

Dorian

12:44

Well thanks for the kind words anyways. I'm renting out my dad's basement right now and my position isn't one that my dad will help me often. When he does it usually causes problems with his wife. Sometimes I get some table scraps or something from them though. And the few friends I have in the area can't afford it either.

I have a good job I'm supposed to start next week though, 9/hr desk job, full time, pretty sure they have decent benefits too. The thing I'm worried most about though is the gap between starting the job and getting paid, because sometimes unemployment acts up during that time period...

If I can't pay rent, my situation will go from bad to very worse...

Meh, such is life though. Shit happens, and I always wind up in a bad position, but it seems that the Gods just like fucking with me while at the same time they keep me from hitting rock bottom.

No matter how hard I try I can't completely claw out of my hole, yet whenever I'm about to hit the bottom something out of my hands saves me from doing so.

They don't want me to die I think. It's too amusing to keep torturing me >.<

Anyways enough of this topic, it's making me feel all emo and junk. What's been going on?

Aaron

Good morning.

Dorian

13:03

mornin

So, anyways... due to my displeasure at my rather pigeonholed character that was just planted there with little to no actual exposition thanks to the first session I played in... I've been considering four different avenues to take if I decide to switch him out.

First I've been working on a Factotum (as is common knowledge by now) with a heavy Red Mage vibe.
Second, a Blue Mage styled Spellthief.
Thirdly, a simple, straightforward, badass Fighter. (possibly not actual Fighter class, but your typical "friggen awesome with a sword" type of dude)

Hmm that actually sounds like an interesting party to play on its own... Going to have to build up these characters a bit and keep them in my archives... Could make a story about them....

Aaron

13:28

@Dorian What system are you in?

Dorian

3.5

Aaron

@Dorian I play in pathfinder mainly but my first system was 3.5. I am good at building concepts if you want some help.

Dorian

13:48

I'm great with concepts, it's mostly fitting the mechanics to the concept (and still making a good character) that I have an issue with lol

And a buddy just challenged me to make a dragon martial artist too...

Joshua Aslan Smith

17:30

wow the day I stay home sick to sleep off a cold

EVERYTHING HAPPENS IN META

@waxeagle glad that we werent off the deep end in our approach for 5e materials

wax eagle

18:39

@JoshuaAslanSmith Yeah, I'm in and out until tomorrow. I've been away from my computer for about 5 days (with a bit of catch up here and there)

Dorian

19:12

-spins-

Aaron

@Dorian I might be able to point you in a direction if you tell me what concept you want to build.

Dorian

@Aaron For now it's mostly just brainstorming lol

Aaron

@Dorian Ah.

Tijnkwan

hey guys

Aaron

@Dorian Do you have your nich narrowed down at least?

@Tijnkwan Hello

Tijnkwan

19:26

When you have time; is anyone familiar with the dnd 4e charge rules?

Dorian

You mean in the party? I've decided to stop worrying about my niche in the party and go with what I want.

Aaron

@Dorian Ah. I did that as well but I do have a certain Nich of character I like to play. I like to play the swordsman who augments himself with magic/uses a bit of magic.

Dorian

I'm usually the roguish type, but it does get REALLY old considering I'm just as often shoved into that role as I choose to be in that role. Sometimes I'd like to do something else you know?

Joshua Aslan Smith

yolo

Aaron

@JoshuaAslanSmith Bite your tongue. No need for that language.

@Dorian Right.

Dorian

19:34

@JoshuaAslanSmith BURN HERETIC

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

Tijnkwan

I hate that word. In one game I play a rogue character and the paladin yells yolo all the time and charges in, ruining my stealth and ambush tactics

Aaron

@Dorian So you are thinking of red mage vibe Factotum, a blue mage spelltheif, BA fighter or a pacifist white mage? Or are those ideas for something else?

@Tijnkwan Teach him the way of yoDo you only die once.

Dorian

Those are some random ideas i thought up.

The factotum has the most work put into it thus far, and is the class I'm most likely to switch to if I switch.

Currently running with a shadow sniper rogue, very stealthy, stacking sneak attack and skirmish to amount to some killer one shot damage.

Tijnkwan

@Aaron yeah Pc vs Pc is not really done in my group, But I did tell him O.O.C. that I didn't apreciate his charge in policy.

Aaron

19:39

...I have no idea what a factotum is. Maybe there is a bigger difference between 3.5 and PF than I though. 3.5 has a lot more class options I think.

@Tijnkwan Is it funny to anyone but him?

Dorian

Yeah 3.5 has alot of classes.

Factotum is very close to Red Mage. lemme get you a link

dndtools.eu/classes/factotum

Tijnkwan

@Aaron the cleric just dives in with him, the other 2 (and me) aren't fans of his actions

@A

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Tijnkwan truly a leeroy jenkins moment

Tijnkwan

@Aaron the 1st thing he says when we approach a goblin camp is pretty mucht this: "we are here to kill your children and rape your wifes", and we play a good oriented campaign

Joshua Aslan Smith

sounds like the party isnt on the same page

Tijnkwan

19:44

anyway, not the reason I am in this chat atm xD

I am creating a ranger/fighter hybrid, mounted charger, and I was wondering if I could use a utility at-will move when I charge, or does it have to be a normal move action?

Dorian

@Tijnkwan That type of paladin in my party would fit right in. Last dungeon we were in, I was being all sneaky and scouting for traps and the like, then one trap I missed (magical trap, likely wasn't visible from where I was anyways) and the "barbarian" (claims to not be a barbar, idk his actual class, but he acts like a barbar) decides doors are stupid... and starts breaking through walls.

Aaron

@Dorian Interesting class

Dorian

@Aaron That it is. There's a feat called Font of Inspiration that adds more Inspiration points too.

Very much a "Jack of all Trades" class.

Aaron

@Dorian I am playing a hybrid magus. and a class from a PF addon that is still being developed called Spheres of power. It is a lot like the wizard.

Dorian

Font of Inspiration increases your Inspiration points quadratically. Basically each time you take it it increases the number of Inspiration points by the number of times you've taken it. 1pt the first time, 2pts the second time, and so on.

Aaron

19:48

@Dorian That is nice.

Hmm. 3.5 has a lot of good Gish feats right?

Dorian

So it's definitely a feat you wanna take repeatedly. Now here's the problem with the class: It is very feat starved.

There are some, depends on what you're building.

Aaron

@Dorian docs.google.com/spreadsheet/…

Dorian

IDK if you noticed with the Factotum, but every class feature is very much of that class. It doesn't get any bonus feats either.

sent a request for access... since i needed to.

Aaron

@Dorian oh I thought I had it open access

@Dorian there

Dorian

my dm needs to get with the program with his custom character sheet he wants everyone to use... and actually do multiple spreadsheets like that

He has everything so crammed on there it's ridiculous...

Says he likes it that way, and uses multiple sheets so he can have a new page for every level... and save em all in one doc. That's way too anal for my tastes...

Aaron

19:55

@Dorian ...ew

Dorian

I update my one page, and I don't re-use characters at different levels for different games. The only reason I'd want a page for each level is if I were a DM and it was a major NPC that levels with the party, that way I have every level prepared beforehand.

Aaron

yea.

Or a DM character.

That pops in and out.

Dorian

DMPC right.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Tijnkwan a charge is a move action and a MBA as part of a standard action pretty sure you cant use movement powers

@Tijnkwan you said utility, are you speaking of 4e?

Tijnkwan

@JoshuaAslanSmith, yeah

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:57

let me get the exact charge wording

Dorian

i might bounce soon, idk.

Tijnkwan

@JoshuaAslanSmith I want to use Perfect balance on my charge

Joshua Aslan Smith

A creature uses the charge action when it wants to dash forward and launch an attack with a single action. Such an attack is sometimes referred to as a charge attack.

Charge a Target
Action: Standard action. When a creature takes this action, it chooses a target. Figure out how far away the creature is from the target—even counting through squares of blocking terrain—and then follow these steps.
1. Move: The creature moves up to its speed toward the target. Each square of movement must bring the creature closer to the target, and the creature must end the move at least 2 squares away from …

Aaron

@Dorian Anyway. Acheron is a character that I have RPed for about 2 or 3 years now. He has quite a backstory and I am now trying to create him in pathfinder. Needless to say pathfinder isn't exactly built for something like him but a Gish is as close as I can get. Pathfinder is distinctly lacking in Gish feats. It completely depends on it's Magus class for it's Gish stuff.

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