TRPG General Chat - 2017-03-07

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12:01 AM

@nitsua60 Right

Sorcerer gets some sorcery points back, too?

Which can be converted into slots

Yep.

I can't remember if SPs come back on a short rest though

They do, okay

@LegendaryDude Er, I'm wrong. They do at level 20.

Oh, that makes more sense

Well, that's what they get for taking metamagic away from wizards :P

I've never really been satisfied with how metamagic works in any game I've played.

12:07 AM

@Karelzarath That's a fairly common complaint, but it's usually rooted in a deeper dissatisfaction with the magic system itself.

Metamagic is one of the few things I like about 3.5/PF, setting aside the other problems with feats in general

I haven't played it myself, but Ars Magica is usually recommended to people looking for a more flexible, creative magic system.

it is fun

but flexibility is relative

you could build tons of weird spells, but you only had so many elements to make them with

Mage: the Ascenscion is cool too

I really liked the bones of what they did with casting in Alpha Omega. It's essentially skill based and you build your spell with various components to set an effect and difficulty.

12:10 AM

Mage is cool because you can do pretty much anything due to the fact there are no set spells, just circles of magic that can be combined to make any effect you can think of

And the work based on the consensus of reality. If you create an effect that is not very believable you essentially take damage from it.

And IIRC M:TA is derived from Ars Magica in some way

I guess I should say inspired, as I don't think it's derivative but I think the same people worked on both?

The RPG industry is tiny, so I wouldn't be surprised.

12:39 AM

@LegendaryDude I'm not sure if the same people were involved in creating both, but White Wolf did own/publish Ars Magica at the time they created the original World of Darkness games. So, they at least owned the rights to the system they were heavily basing their games on.

hey there @Karelzarath and @Adeptus

hey

how're things going?

flag/VTD, link-only answer

@Shalvenay Aloha

12:49 AM

Can't complain. I had a sick day yesterday, and ended up spending most of it trying to ~~photoshop~~ GIMP together a photo-portrait of my dwarf cleric. Not happy with the result so far - his head looks too big & his arms & legs too skinny. I need to do more cutting & stretching.

@Adeptus Is it worth suggesting loading up a videogame, using its character creator, and taking a screenshot?

(My portrait algorithm has a lot in common with my map generation algorithm.)

@Karelzarath how're things going?

Also, running my second (first v2.0?) session of Age of Worms campaign next weekend

@Adeptus Ooh, I love that AP.

@Miniman None that I'm aware of. I want specific weapons, armour/clothes, & beard/hair style.

12:54 AM

@Adeptus Yeah, that's tricky. You might luck out, but it's probably not worth trying.

@Karelzarath Half the players were missing last time, when it was going to be first session. So those who were there sort of played through the prologue. We're now up to the part where it says to start the adventure - heading to the abandoned miners house near the cairn.

I've heard it's a pretty deadly campaign - I hope they'll (mostly) survive it. Should help that there's 6 of them rather than 4, though that will mean less XP each.

In my experience, it tends to have a pretty high PC mortality rate if they're not careful and cautious.

They'll learn, one way or the other. heh

Some people have suggested that if you run it with more than 4 PCs, you still calculate XP as if there were 4. I think I might do that. Might make later adventures less deadly.

That's one of the reasons I prefer to gatekeep levels when I GM. It's so much easier to just say, "You're all 4th level now."

1:11 AM

yeah -- it also helps with a major issue at low levels, which is that you need lots of encounters to get enough XP to be useful for low levels due to their limited resources -- this drags out the low levels, especially for small parties

It's also really great when running APs because they almost always say "The PCs should be X level by this point and Y level here, etc"

@Karelzarath yeah -- it's what I've seen done in the 5e longform campaigns I've been in so far

@Miniman I got a reasonable result from HeroMachine. I put a request on Reddit, but the result was... not the artist's best work...

@Adeptus If you're open to commissioning an artist, might I suggest a friend of mine? lilith-darkmoon.tumblr.com

@Karelzarath I'm probably going to commission my daughter... she's starting to try and make money out of her art, wants to make a career of it when she finishes school.

1:27 AM

Does she have a tumblr or other place to check out her work?

@Karelzarath she only has a "private" deviantart & tumblr... she's still trying to decide on a name for her "professional" pages

Fair enough. When it goes live, let me know and I'll keep her in mind if I hear of people needing art that fits her style.

(we suggested just her initials or something, but she's had "don't share your personal details online" impressed upon her so much that she's reluctant to even do that)

Smart kid.

I think not using your initials is fair and smart yeah

1:33 AM

part of the problem with maintaining that through life though is that some professional circles look rather dimly on being pseudonymous

@Shalvenay well, they need to wake up to some of the realities that have changed faster than they have then XD

My wife is an indie author & uses her own name. I like keeping my secret identity.

@trogdor (it's usually seen in circles where you're expected to stand behind written argument strongly, such as lawyers)

I like keeping my secret identity too, although some people on this site, particularly who are in this chat sometimes, do actually know it, the majority of people do not

@Shalvenay The name she picks becomes her "brand" for lack of a better term. Obviously, for employment purposes, she'd have to use her name. For one-off commissions and the like, payment through PayPal, Google Wallet, etc. is perfectly customary.

3

1:37 AM

and I like it that way

@Karelzarath yeah -- that's a good way to look at it for something like freelance art

@Shalvenay ah, I thought you meant like, literally Artists

I think Lawyers insisting on a certain amount of,... knowing who you are in the middle of a case is reasonable XD

@trogdor haha, more like just as a general rule of discourse

well yeah, even lawyers don't always get the "real name" out of their clients

mainly I mean like, defence attorneys who often do have to put up with "AKA"

@trogdor not just CDLs but it can be important in a 1A context as well

where someone's real name might be a bit...privileged ;)

1:42 AM

it can definitely be complicated

here, there are people who may have at least two names just because of immigration

not necessarily in an illegal sense either

just in an "integrational" sense

@trogdor yeah -- there was a semi-infamous case of someone who had one name with SSA and another with another gov't agency due to some mild paperwork goofiness during their immigration processing

and now they're stuck in immigration limbo forevermore :/

that sucks

we have our own,... complicated things going on in terms of what happens during immigration here

not the least reasons being because the local government and the Federal government can't always agree immediately what the laws pertaining to it should be

at least not always quickly

the ideas that get thrown around actually kinda make my head spin

2:07 AM

@trogdor hahahahaha

2:33 AM

it's a rather unfortunate fact

hey there @Emrakul

user61230

2:50 AM

'ello, @Shalvenay!

how're things going?

user61230

Things are going alright! Working on lab reports for a physics class. You?

@Emrakul Do you have to do margins of error? Because if you have to do margins of error things can't possibly be going alright :P

wondering if I should unless my...taxing oneshot on someone before I let it have its scheduled ~~moment~~ few sessions in the sun

user61230

@Miniman The Python uncertainties package helps a ton ;)

user61230

2:52 AM

Incidentally, we got a hilariously accurate measured value of "1.5000000000000002+/-0.06324" as computed from data.

excess precision :P

user61230

@Shalvenay You mean, talk about it first, or?

@Emrakul In my day, we had to cut open our wrists and calculate the uncertainties in our own blood, smeared across the waist-deep snow that filled our physics labs.

@Emrakul err, unleash :) and more like run it for a couple of folks

user61230

@Miniman That explains why the cover of my Error Analysis textbook is blood-red. And shows a picture of a train wreck.

user61230

2:54 AM

(I always wondered why the author picked a literal train wreck for the cover art. Now I know.)

user61230

@Shalvenay That seems like a good idea to me, if it's feasible!

yeah, it should be :) just a matter of finding players and time

speaking of time and players @Emrakul -- I don't believe we've ever played together

user61230

We haven't, actually! If chat's been playing games, I probably haven't been around enough to throw my name in the hat, unfortunately

@Emrakul ah. sadly, waxeagle hasn't been heard from in ages (RL/interwebs issues I believe), and you missed what nitsua, BESW, VI, Sandwich, and I were doing for the most part (although if your Saturday nights are free for the last couple in March and the start of April...)

user61230

It's plausible that I might be free, but not certain enough to bet my reliability on ;)

3:48 AM

hey there @CTWind

4:47 AM

'lo!

3 hours later…

7:56 AM

0

Q: How can I respond to important information brought up in comments in my answer?

So, I'm struggling with improving my answer to this question. I've written out several major partial edits, but I keep discarding them because they all change my answer to address the way the querent approaches the issue in comments rather than in the question body. Each time I go 'I can't writ...

support answers comments

8:06 AM

Re-reading Kobolds ate my Baby posed an interesting question: The kobolds are going to die. A lot. Maybe even during character creation. Rolling up new characters is mainly just rolling on some random tables and selecting some skills based on randomly determined attributes...

But still it can take a while and not every player has the rule book (which I need to continue the game while someone creates a new kobold, too) - I am not really fond of pre-rolling a ton of characters, but don't want to stop the game for the living kobolds either...

5 hours later…

1:36 PM

Morning

It's afternoon here in germany, but... Morning!

1:53 PM

G'day!

Lol

I love questions like this XD

39

Q: Can a red dragon be boiled to death?

Red dragons have immunity to fire. They take no damage from fire, lava, or anything like that. But in both Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 and Pathfinder Boiling water deals 1d6 points of scalding damage, unless the character is fully immersed, in which case it deals 10d6 points of damage per round...

pathfinder dnd-3.5e rules-as-written

2:32 PM

@Patta Why not have each player roll up three or four at the beginning of the game?

You could even have them all shuffle their characters into a common pool of kobolds that people just pull from when they need to (if you would like to add a bit of whimsy)

@LegendaryDude good idea. Might not be enough for multiple sessions, but should be enough for one session ;)

Forgetting the obvious things seems to be my motto of the day :D

IIRC the kobolds are fully expected to die

It's kind of a beer and pretzels-type game

Yea. As I said, you can die during character creation, or sometimes even just by a 1 in 6 chance on random (sometimes loot-) tables

I haven't played or read the rules but a co-worker told me about it; his description was that of a fun, light-hearted beer and pretzels game where you make kobolds and they die a lot.

2:41 PM

Yea. The beginning letters of the attributes even spell "beer"

And most rules/items/spells involve the players doing stupid things, and such

you can die by forgetting to say "Hail King Torg" after someone else mentions the name "King Torg" (Hail King Torg) outside of the "Hail King Torg"

(that is a thing that is burnt into my brain and I do it automatically even when talking about the game. And I have only been the gm for one very short session :D)

0

Q: How much should you edit a question?

The OP doesn't seem to be responding to the comments on this question, but I think I've narrowed down his real concern as to what actions can be taken in combat that are not dealing damage or using resources. Is it okay to make such a drastic change to someone's question or should I just ask it ...

discussion editing specific-question

1 hour later…

4:02 PM

I hate when comments are wiped from an answer/question

Like I understand why they are to a point but when I make a comment but then it's deleted it's rather annoying

I didn't even see if the person I commented to replied

@Aaron Have you read

23

Q: Why are site comments being deleted?

Some site users have noticed old comments being deleted. This is correct - site comments are meant to be a mostly temporary means of improving questions and answers. Here's an explanation of the process we use. Argumentative comments or extended discussion comment threads hijacking an entire q...

discussion faq comments

Yea I have. I understand WHY I just think it's happening too fast

I made a comment yesterday and it was already deleted TODAY

Did the poster even see it? Not everyone visits the site everyday

I sympathize with you, but at the same time, if it was deleted so quickly, my guess is that it was flagged. Especially if it was on a recent question (just judging from the general sentiment of the meta post)

Should I comment again trying to explain what I was trying to get across again or leave it alone?

Flagged for what I wonder, this specific comment was on a downvoted answer. The Answerer didn't understand the question being made and posted an unhelpful answer and was downvoted.

Depends on the context of the comment. If it was just a joke or a trivial comment, probably leave it. If it was asking for clarification, clarifying the post itself, or other such productive thing, then you could try re-wording it.

Comments don't leave a trail so I can't say for sure. Maybe it came across as callous? Not that it was your intention of course. What question was it on?

4:14 PM

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/96063/… on Andras' answer

The entire thread of comments was wiped out

yup

Because it was clear that it was going nowhere

He wasn't budging from his stance, and it turned into a discussion thread

Andras wasn't going to change his answer, and users weren't going to stop asking him to fix it.

@Adam Exactly

4:17 PM

So, I would probably leave it be. It's been downvoted pretty hard, and we don't need to open that door again, at least not so soon

@Aaron IIRC I flagged one of yours today... it started with "this isn't a full answer, but...." Is that the one in question?

No, that was a different one

o.o what happened to my chat lol

@Aaron OK

The text all just shot up off the screen and I had to scroll up

@Aaron Ghosts. "Ghosts" is usually my answer to "what happened?"

2

4:23 PM

lol.

@nitsua60 Yea I'll admit it probably wasn't the best comment but I think it would help the person.

Need to get used to the format of this site again lol

Hi hi.

Hello

Hi!

@Aaron I don't remember it too clearly, but I never understand leaving a partial-answer comment: why not just post a small answer?

4:42 PM

@nitsua60 If I remember right it didn't answer their direct question but was helpful to them in general

4:57 PM

@nitsua60 I usually do, unless I think it can help improve someone else's answer, then I'll add it as a comment to their A withsomething like, "I don't feel like I have enough for a full answer, here's what I think, feel free to add it to yours if you like."

4 hours later…

9:04 PM

@diego stop beating me to it, damnit

@THiebert I found it funny that we added the exact same thing at pretty much the exact same time.

we answered at pretty much the exact same time too. you beat me by < 5 seconds both times

9:47 PM

I was writing my answer when you both posted yours :|

9:58 PM

Sounds like a popular question.

@Karelzarath More like a simple question with an obvious answer if you've read the rules :|

lol

Now, do I play favorites or upvote them both?

They're both good

I'd delete mine for being slower, but I mention something that diego doesn't. I'll back mine out if he includes that.

10:47 PM

I always get a chuckle out of the questions that are, essentially, "I want to intentionally misread this rule and have someone tell me I'm right."

11:15 PM

hey there @Karelzarath

11:32 PM

@Karelzarath example?

and hey as well @THiebert

hi

how're things going?

and hey as well @nitsua60

i'm alright

a bit under-prepared for my game tonight

the group tends to enjoy it more when i plan less though, so I'm not super worried

11:48 PM

haha

what system and such?

5e

ah

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