TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

01:24

@DForck42 Holy Jeebus, I'm sniping the crap out of SKT right now. If you'd like the details, let me know. (Short version: MC Ftr/Rogue, archery style, Sharpshooter.)

Oblivious Sage

anyone have experience with both versions of mongoose traveler (1e and the new 2e)?

nitsua60

@Miniman's right, that straight fighter is right up there. I grabbed 3 levels of rogue for SA dice and because I likey teh skillz. It pushes back the timing of extra attacks and ASIs, but gets those extra 1d6 and 2d6 early. I was optimizing for lifetime-average DPR, assuming a target AC that scales with my level, one session per level during 1-4, three sessions per level after that, up to character level 14.

I'm happy to share charts, if you want =)

BESW

01:46

"Mongoose Traveler" sounds like the high concept for a PC in a Redwall game.

Oblivious Sage

@BESW That's not what it is, but that does sound interesting...

trogdor

lol

BESW

02:42

@ObliviousSage Alternately, someone with the power to teleport mongeese.

...or a being of pure intellect which can only possess mongeese.

Shalvenay

03:08

so...I'm looking for resources/advice on explicitly learning the social cues of freeform or freeform-like cooperative storybuilding RP (since I'm not exactly well equipped to intuit them). How should I frame that request in a way that'd fit this site?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay you mean for mainsite?

(also, Merry Christmas)

(Haven't been around much--hope you're having a nice week.)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 indeed

and I am having a pretty decent week, all in all

oh, hey there @RollingFeles

RollingFeles

@Shalvenay Hey!

Shalvenay

@RollingFeles how're things going?

trogdor

hey! nice hat! XD

RollingFeles

03:24

@Shalvenay pretty good. But last couple of months were pretty intense at work :) How're yours?

@trogdor yeah. Yours too! :D

trogdor

hehe

RollingFeles

I saw your post at hatalbum at meta. This one is first secret I ever hat too : )

Shalvenay

@RollingFeles alright here. finally got a lead with my local FLGS so that's nice

also making good time on my school project

trogdor

nice, it made me pretty excited

RollingFeles

@Shalvenay congrats! :)

Shalvenay

03:34

also joined the 10k club on a Stack for the first time ever, although it's not quite official yet ;)

Powerdork

I've done it. I have completed the trifecta.

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/28317/what-is-a-crystalline-creature
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/51588/how-does-the-shatter-spells-single-target-option-work
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/92338/which-items-are-affected-by-an-area-shatter-spell

Powerdork

04:09

What is your source on the quotes? The Pathfinder Reference Document online has an entry for Shatter (paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/…), and it is phrased entirely differently. — C Anderson 21 mins ago

What's the appropriate flag for this comment?

Obsolete? Not constructive?

mxyzplk

it'd be obsolete if you edited the references in...

doppelgreener

12:26

@BESW I've just seen a Lamassu in person.

trogdor

huh

oh, just now? cool

BESW

ooh. That's the next best thing to a mušḫuššu.

trogdor

oooh I like those

BESW

They're my absolute favorite cryptid.

trogdor

I can get behind that

ooooh Tatzelwurm I want this thing to exist

it is the best XD

BESW

12:34

Those things are also awesome.

And don't forget the grootslang.

doppelgreener

@trogdor I like both these creatures and the Lamassus were quite breathtaking.

trogdor

@doppelgreener I am glad you had a good time seeing them

was it a museum or something?

or maybe just an old building that had them in front of it perhaps

obviously, I like the more lizard like version of the Tatzelwurm, but I don't mind the reports that it might have catlike features too

doppelgreener

@trogdor yes; I'm in the Louvre

BESW

@doppelgreener oooer.

doppelgreener

Being in London means places like this I never imagined I'd actually visit are just one (expensive) train ride away.

trogdor

13:02

@doppelgreener isn't that in Paris?

there is a train that goes there?

TIL I guess

@BESW nice choice there, I wonder why he qualifies XD :P

BESW

Channel Tunnel

The Channel Tunnel (French: Le tunnel sous la Manche; also nicknamed and shortened to Chunnel) is a 50.45-kilometre (31.35 mi) rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. At its lowest point, it is 75 m (250 ft) deep. At 37.9 kilometres (23.5 mi), the tunnel has the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world, although the Seikan Tunnel in Japan is both longer overall at 53.85 kilometres (33.46 mi) and deeper at 240 metres (790 ft) below sea level. The speed...

trogdor

fair enough that

and it has been there a little while too, go figure that I would either never have heard of it, or just completely forgotten it was a thing

and yeah, I have no doubt that would be expensive

BESW

@trogdor It stuck in my head indelibly when a favored author mentioned writing a lot of her novels while bored in the Chunnel.

Schemata work in strange ways.

DForck42

14:05

mornin

@nitsua60 yeah I'd like to hear what you're doing

nitsua60

14:20

@doppelgreener @SevenSidedDie interesting that the way this panned out was to see rapid re-closure by a different "gang of 5". (Disclosure: I was a reopen-voter.) To me it arguesfor the need for more engagement on greener's excellent meta Q on list questions. But how to get it?

@DForck42 So I started with the idea of taking Sharpshooter and seeing just how far I could run with it.

I'm playing Adventurer's League (Storm King's Thunder) so assumed I'd probably run this character up to L12-L14 range.

I didn't just want to maximize DPR at the highest level, so I went for a "career average" so to say--assuming one session per level during 1-4, then three sessions per level at 5-14. (Might be off one here or there, but not likely to be toooo far off, and gives weight to the fact that those first levels go by fast.)

(afk a sec...)

So it had to be human to grab Sharpshooter from the start. (Could have gone with something else for a better DEX bonus then grabbed Sharpshooter at first ASI, but it seemed so central to the character that I couldn't stomach the idea of delaying that option.)

DForck42

@nitsua60 neat

nitsua60

Then the options seemed to be pure fighter, pure rogue, some fighter-rogue mix, and I threw Ranger in there just to make sure I didn't overlook something.

Fighter gets you the archery style, a starting longbow, extra attack(s), and battle master--those Precision Strike dice will come in handy when you're taking -5 to hit.

Rogue gets you SA dice which I assumed (in the analysis) would be tripped once per round, and cunning action's nice for Dash ('cause you can attack at 600') or Disengage ('cause you don't want to be in melee) or Hide (again, don't want to be taking too much damage). OTOH, usually I just drop prone after I've taken my shots.

(I didn't do any simulating of Action Surge.)

There's some different mixes of the Ftr/Ro multiclass levels.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

14:38

[Just made some calculations for Vampire: The Masquerade character creation.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ezEO7pnsql6GApPFfX7xHRmHmyD9EeviuNDFhEzrK5k/edit?usp=sharing) My idea was to count which things are more worth to spend valuable freebie points on. @Trish @Jadasc @SevenSidedDie @Bob @Tritium21

Conclusions:
0) Just to remind everyone again, Merits and Backgrounds can't normally be aquired after character generation, and therefore are sometimes priceless.
1) It is even better to minmax than I expected, as higher levels of Traits cost the same amount of freebies as lower leve…

nitsua60

That's <expected> DPR: it takes into account hit probability.

It's always choosing the Sharpshooter -5/+10, because I'm always choosing it.

By my calculation you want to elect -5/+10 whenever target's AC is <= 16+ATK-<DAMAGE DICE>.

That's 16 + your normal attack bonus - the expected damage from dice on your attack hitting.

At low levels you might not elect -5/+10 against someone in plate with shield, but other than that it's been pretty-consistently preferring SS.

(The +2 to hit from Archery tips things pretty well in favor of SS.)

DForck42

@nitsua60 nice!

@nitsua60 so, can you explain what the F1/R1/F5/R3/F9 means?

Miniman

15:07

@DForck42 The order you take the levels in - first a fighter level, then a rogue level, then fighter levels, and so on.

DForck42

ah ok

SevenSidedDie

16:18

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Yes, VtM can be trivially minmaxed to make an inhuman vampiric monster. You have to remember that VtM was designed before charopping was a common passtime, before even the Internet was available at home. It was intended to be the anti-D&D, where players could actually focus on their PC's story and angst despite being a powerful creature of darkness, instead of combat and loot and gaining power. It's not going to resist attempts to break it or abuse it at all.

SevenSidedDie

16:38

@nitsua60 I suspect part of what's going on there is that it's more than just listyness weighing on that question. It's also asking others to do their legwork (not a close reason, but still a neck anchor), and it seems to me to have the XY problem. Any of those alone might let it squeak past, but the combination seems to be bad news for it?

DForck42

@nitsua60 I would LOVE to see how you did all of these calculations (not asking for it, just stating it'd be awesome to see)

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@SevenSidedDie What's charopping?

DForck42

@Baskakov_Dmitriy character optimization

charopping is the verb of maximizing a character's potential

aka, minmax

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Ye, I see, thanx

@SevenSidedDie Well, the best way to "actually focus on their PC's story and angst despite being a powerful creature of darkness" that I found was to just remove all the metagame (character sheets, rolling dice, knowing the rules) away from players and rolling everything secretly, without announcing difficulty and/or results.

SevenSidedDie

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Yes, that's one way. (Though it really doesn't work for every kind of player.) Still, remember that VtM is old. It was designed nearly a decade before RPG design theory was invented.

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Another way of focusing on the story, etc. instead of charopping is simply to play with a group that wants to do that. That's who VtM was made for.

DForck42

16:57

one of these days i'll pick up fate core and read through it

nitsua60

@DForck42 glad to share the spreadsheet... I'll throw it an a google drive and share the link with you. It'll have to be tomorrow, though, 'cause I'm on the road today.

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, that's my thinking too. (They're the reasons I both downvoted--do my work for me--and voted to reopen.) I have complex feelings about list questions.

The most interesting thing (for me) was seeing 4 or 5 people close-vote, 5 people reopen-vote, then a new five people close-vote. I don't know that I've noticed that sequence before.

SevenSidedDie

17:15

@nitsua60 I've seen that happen often enough (it usually indicates something controversial is involved), but it's not common, yeah.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

I don't see why charopping is "instead" something or something is "instead" charopping. THey don't really contradict. Moreover, if you minmax combat stats, you have free XP for fun stats. If you can't into stories and RP, you will not get that skill just by being disallowed to minmax. It just seems a bit unfair that some options are weaker than others without any clear reason, and this particular gap is easily adjusted by changing freebie costs. There is no problem if Attrubutes start to cost 4 points instead of 5, Disciplines -- 5 instead of 7, and Humanity/Path costs 1 point instead of 2.

I can't believe that no VtM player tried such a calculation before.

SevenSidedDie

@Baskakov_Dmitriy It's only "instead" because there exist people who want to not have charopping be a thing that happens in their games.

DForck42

@nitsua60 you are awesome

SevenSidedDie

They don't have to contradict (cf. Oberoni fallacy), but actually not wanting any charopping to happen can certainly conflict with charopping.

DForck42

@nitsua60 I've seen it. it happens on so frequent enough

SevenSidedDie

17:22

@Baskakov_Dmitriy V20 doesn't fix these things because VtM wasn't made to be a balanced system and V20 didn't undertake the massive overhaul necessary to add balance as a game design goal.

trogdor

21:16

@BESW they do indeed, especially considering everyone thinks differently

BESW

21:38

Boophis pyrrhus frog from Madagascar. (Photo: Franco Andreone) https://t.co/4CAXW0YJyG

Tweeted by Strange_Animals on December 29, 2016 at 1:45 PM

Zachiel

22:11

@Baskakov_Dmitriy If you minmax combat stats, you have free XP for more combat stats. That's how optimization works, isn't it? ;)

trogdor

lol

except, the DM/GM has to tweak things to be appropriate for how strong you are

Zachiel

22:27

@trogdor But this way my hard work goes wasted!

trogdor

in 4E, most of use optomized our characters as much as possible, and then @BESW had to try to tweak things to actually fit not only to our optomized characters, but to the weird disjointed balance in high level 4E itself

it was not great

DForck42

@trogdor lol

WAS there such a thing in 4e?

when I created encounters, it was hard to figure out of the fight was going to be super easy for the pcs or a tpk

Zachiel

@DForck42 In my personal experience, the dice decides if the match is hard or easy. Even when the characters hit on a 2 and each has at least 2 ways to remove debuffs at the beginning of the turn.

DForck42

@Zachiel true

there was a LOT of wiggle room, depending on how well the players char-opped and which MM you were using

Zachiel

22:42

Especially if they have at least 2 ways to remove debuffs, as long as they depend on dice rolls.

@DForck42 Well, Ok, I'm talking post MM3 here.

trogdor

@DForck42 there was, the comparison of PC's vs opponents was bad, but the comparison of PC's with other PC's was surprisingly good

unlike in 3.5, which honestly had problems both ways in my experience

but 4e certainly still was not perfect by any means XD

@DForck42 I also had that issue, I TPKed a few times during the sessions I ran

and the ones that were not tended to be basically cake walks

DForck42

@trogdor yup

i honestly think 4e's biggest weakness was magic items

they were REQUIRED in order to scale with the monsters (at least from my memory) and their extra abilities just weren't balanced well

BESW

Mechanical balance with great mechanical variety is kind of a pipe dream. You can design toward the goal but never reach it.

DForck42

@BESW yeah, there were just too many moving parts

BESW

For systems like WoD and D&D which are predicated on an ever-expanding set of mechanics through expansion publications with many different authors, 'balance' is a moving target even if the system devs have defined it clearly (which they usually haven't).

DForck42

22:53

3.5 had a better balance of HAVING to have magical items, but getting more than just +'s to hit or ac are harder

BESW

But practically speaking one person's balanced is another person's broken.

DForck42

i guess when I say balance, i mean predictability in outcomes

Zachiel

@DForck42 Uh? What do you mean?

DForck42

@Zachiel I'd have to look, but i think it's more expensive overall in 3.5 to get additional magical effects besides just +1 weapon or +1 armor

compared to the expense of additional magical effects in 4e

Zachiel

In my experience D&D 3.5e mundanes need magic items like they need the air they breathe, and most magic users tend to need the magic items anyway, freeing their spell slots for instantaneous things.

DForck42

22:56

but I'm only running off of memory, so i might be completely wrong

Zachiel

As for armor and weapons, it's pretty easy to stack multimpe enhancements on the same item (a thing you can't do in 4e, which means that in 4e you usually had to make sacrifices to get the thing you wanted, while in 3.5e you had to make less).

At the same time there are 3.5e characters that don't need some parts of the standard 4e equipment (no implements, no weapons, no armor/shields) with multiple ways to boost your defenses (and way more targetable areas)

trogdor

23:16

@BESW good assesment yeah

@BESW yeah, I personally liked 4e better than 3.5 simply because it did a much better job of not making each PC completely jealous of each other

in so far as capabilities, you could all do different things than each other, but your competence didn't immediately shift by high degress just based off of class alone

it was still far from perfect, but it had taken steps away from the absolute most annoying traits of 3.5 (in my own humble oppinion)

(and yeah, it did have it's own new problems, as well as some holdovers)

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