TRPG General Chat

doppelgreener

00:04

@trogdor only if they put a sphere of annihilation into it

which they'd probably do, primarily in an attempt to see if they could get rid of the sphere of annihilation someone left sitting around in the soon-to-be-disintegrated lobby

trogdor

@doppelgreener no, they would climb into it and pop it "to test all forms of use"

Karelzarath

Or a portable hole. Or just something sharp.

doppelgreener

@trogdor they would probably learn not to touch it the first time a clerk at reception tries to attach a tag to it

well. possibly the third or fourth time, because the second time would be the clerk's manager trying to find him so the clerk would do his job and tag the weird object left in the lobby, then deciding said clerk has gone off slacking so he'll do it himself.

trogdor

you don't get to be manager without some amount of work ethic right? XD

Magician

@Karelzarath "Still better than Portable Hole Surprise, though. While certainly surprising, the utility of putting one's hand in and discovering owlbears is questionable."

Karelzarath

00:11

@trogdor Or some creativity in arranging suitable accidents for your former manager.

trogdor

@Karelzarath that still takes some work ethic

Karelzarath

trogdor

at least to start with

doppelgreener

@Magician Sphere of Annihilation: 1 out of 5 stars safety rating. Would have a 0 out of 5, except that as best we can tell it is guaranteed to not contain owlbears.

Magician

...XKCD is relevant as ever.

Karelzarath

00:12

Never overlook the utility of a lack of owlbears.

Magician

Trace amounts of owlbears?

Karelzarath

We've got troll contamination down to 12 ppm. Chances of your cereal spontaneously regenerating and ravaging your family is at an all-time low.

Miniman

@Magician "Spheres of Annihilation may have been manufactured with the same equipment/mad wizard as owlbears. If you have an owlbear allergy, you may wish to avoid Spheres of Annihilation."

doppelgreener

@Miniman The magical consumer watchdog has a 1,000,000gp bounty out for anyone who can present them with a safety warning label that can be attached to a sphere of annihilation.

Shalvenay

hey there @DavidRobinson

Adeptus

00:25

@Karelzarath If you post the direct xkcd page link, the chat Oneboxes it (ie, displays just the cartoon, but also with the hover-text enabled, & is clickable to view the original page)

Karelzarath

Did not realize! I'll do that in the future.

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay @Karelzarath Re weird weapon weights, in earlier editions (AD&D 2e, at least) it's explicitly dimensional weight. Sadly, unlike 2e did religiously, 5e's PHB doesn't anywhere define its table headings, so nowhere does it have any explanation of the weight column. (That I've found.)

Adeptus

Ooh! I've earned the "protect questions" privilege! Don't worry, questions! I'm here to protect you!

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie ah. what is the SOP for getting a 5e question passed on to Crawford/Mearls for designer-answers?

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay We just poke 'em on twitter. Sometimes an answer is forthcoming, and then we roll it into an answer. Usually it's not worth linking the question itself — I suspect they don't read links that are provided for context — so we just make the question itself fit in the 140c.

Karelzarath

00:31

@Adeptus I feel safer already.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie ah. I don't tweet myself, so should I just put a 50rep bounty on asking someone to tweet on my behalf?

Jack Stout

Spreadsheet of 5e creatures, spells, magic items, and deities: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/…

Magician

Sphere of Protec ~~Annihila~~ tion. Let Us Engulf You (tm).

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay It's all very informal rather than standard, so if you like, but I make no predictions about its efficacy!

Jack Stout

Hoping that accuracy will improve with more eyes.

Magician

00:33

Finally. Counting to three is more than I can manage right now, apparently.

Karelzarath

@Magician Do you find yourself jumping directly to five?

Magician

No, I find myself putting 2 dashes on one side, 3 on another, and wondering why it's not working.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay aww... I wish DR had stuck around. I was hoping to chat about that orc-defense/palisade question. I've both played and run that particular scenario.

Miniman

@nitsua60 I skipped running that one - just seemed like more work than it's worth. I have no regrets.

nitsua60

@Miniman It happened to line up perfectly with a week where two players wouldn't be there, so I gave the group the heads-up on the impending attack, copies of the map, and let 'em have fun offline all week. And I recruited a buddy to help me run the opposition, so it was straight-up 2-on-4, no holds barred =)

Miniman

00:41

@nitsua60 Actually, something I'd be interested to hear your opinion on - I found Princes to be, on the whole, a rather boring campaign. I made a lot of changes to spice things up, but I feel like without that, it's literally just a campaign-length dungeon crawl with occasional breaks.

I'm curious what you thought of it, especially since I suspect you played the original?

Karelzarath

And this is why I love this chat.

Miniman

@nitsua60 I made a room to avoid clogging chat and so people who might not want spoilers don't see them.

nitsua60

@Miniman Good call. Is there a way to move my tiptoeing-around up there ^^ to that room? (cc: @SevenSidedDie)

SevenSidedDie

@nitsua60 Having a braining failure at the moment. Gimme a message number to start from? I can figure out the rest from there and move them. :)

Karelzarath

36196705 to 36196930, I think

nitsua60

00:54

@SevenSidedDie 36196772 would be good--it leaves Miniman's original question there, then there'd be a pointer that people could follow if they wanted.

SevenSidedDie

→ 11 messages moved to Princes of the Apocalypse discussion

@nitsua60 Good call. Done!

Karelzarath

Fancy!

Miniman

@SevenSidedDie Thanks!

SevenSidedDie

Atchyer service.

Shalvenay

hey again @Karelzarath and hey there @SPavel

daze413

01:04

Phew, I avoid spoilers like the plague

SPavel

Hey @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

how're things going? and hey as well @daze413

SPavel

Things are good, gonna quit my job tomorrow

Shalvenay

oh, moving onto bigger and better things eh?

SPavel

Yep

I was hoping to get a bigger between-jobs break, but my visa processing took up forever

Shalvenay

01:09

ah, what are you moving on to?

and hey again @DavidRobinson

daze413

@SPavel congratulations!

@Shalvenay heya! not much going on here, you?

David Robinson

Hey. Sorry. I'm a noob here on the chat.

Karelzarath

@DavidRobinson You weren't born containing all the knowledge you would even need? Pff.

David Robinson

Ha. Sadly no.

daze413

@DavidRobinson Welcome, then. There are still rules to observe here, especially the be nice policy, but this place isn't as constrained as the main site. You can ask overly broad for-discussion stuff here, if you want. Or just hang out, your call

Karelzarath

01:15

It can get a touch silly at times, to warn you.

SPavel

@Shalvenay same thing

But bigger

David Robinson

All good!

Miniman

Also, you get to be part of a sinister conspir-I mean, welcome!

daze413

@Miniman not yet

RPG is planning to be the next best thing to video games, movies, and toilet seats. If everything goes according to plan, no one will judge our hobby anymore. But to do that, we need better GMs

3

(or players, if you're into no-GM games)

Shalvenay

@daze413 so true, man. so true.

@daze413 pondering how to fit issues of law into the whole "courtroom drama" story arc archetype

David Robinson

01:20

The only way I could play D&D with anyone was to GM. Truthfully I kind of like all the work.

Karelzarath

The first rule of ~~Sinister Conspiracy~~ RPG General Chat: new guy brings the doughnuts.

Shalvenay

btw, if you're looking for ~~the sheepy~~ nitsua, he's tucking his ~~little lambs~~ kids into bed

Miniman

@DavidRobinson Me too, but watch out for burnout. It sneaks up on you.

David Robinson

🍩

5

daze413

@Shalvenay tricky if players arent familiar with the laws in the first place. I know I'm not keen on taking a whole course on made-up-law... Even if it is based on medieval laws

Karelzarath

01:22

@DavidRobinson Well done. You have passed the First Trial!

Miniman

@daze413 I'd take inspiration from trial scenes in videogames - ever since Chrono Trigger, they've been A Thing.

daze413

@Karelzarath Or, in some cases, sends the doughnuts overseas for the foreign TPG stackexchangers

David Robinson

Well, first it was my kids. Then my wife and some other grown up friends. Now a group on Fantasy Grounds.

Shalvenay

@daze413 yeah -- I'm a self-admitted policy wonk with a judicial bent, so that makes me more interested in RL law than most folks who haven't taken the bar, and some who have

daze413

@Miniman My games' trials devolve into ordeals: "If you are a werewolf, then you will survive after being decapitated by this guillotine. If you aren't... then we will have known that you are definitely not a werewolf."

it's not as silly-sounding as that, I promise

Miniman

01:25

XD

Shalvenay

@daze413 LOL. ordeals aren't very helpful when the elves knackered up their own tax code trying to fix a loophole in it :P

daze413

@Shalvenay we leave the tax codes to the sun's judgement! Whose tax collector survives the longest buried up to the face under the sweltering jungle sun, shall win this dispute. Obviously, lawyers in my world have to be survivors

Karelzarath

Two lawyer enter, one lawyer leave!

trogdor

boy am I glad I don't live in a society like that

Miniman

@daze413 Yours also have the benefit of historical accuracy!

daze413

01:30

@Karelzarath @trogdor @Miniman exactly!

@Shalvenay oh, that's cool. Yeah, I did see some reflection of that in the game we playtested. It was interesting but wasn't sure how to react to it

Shalvenay

@DavidRobinson -- btw, @nitsua60 is aroundish now in case you want to poke him re: orcs and palisades

@daze413 yeah -- it's something of uncharted waters for me, as it heavily shapes my vision of the urban intrigue elements of a campaign, especially when the entities involved have a more...lawful bent to them

nitsua60

@Miniman Please, we prefer "back-room cabal."

daze413

@nitsua60 you ever played Novus Sector RF online? Your avatar is the same as a guy I knew there

Shalvenay

@daze413 doubtful -- nitsua's avatar came from that one time he repcapped on sheep :P

daze413

@Shalvenay ah, then that was probably not h- say what now? what's the story?

Shalvenay

01:36

41

A: Stats of a Sheep

There are no official stats for Sheep. But we won't leave you hanging... Other Animals. A book of this size can't contain statistics for every animal inhabiting your D&D campaign world. However, you can use the stat block of one animal to represent another easily enough. For example, you can...

nitsua60

Jun 27 '16 at 0:06, by nitsua60

If I repcap on sheep I may have to rage-quit RPGSE. Or at least opt out of the entire reputation system.

@daze413 and no, I'm not familiar with that ~~decade~~ game.

David Robinson

@nitsua60 I'm definitely interested in ideas about handling the big orc raid against palisades.

nitsua60

You're running PotA?

David Robinson

Yes

nitsua60

Actually, the thoughts I had on it aren't really specific to that book. Lemme refresh myself on your question... [rummages]

daze413

01:39

@Shalvenay How have I not seen this question? Also, yeah, no horns for sheeps, if it were me, so no charge attack.

David Robinson

They don't have to be. It's more like I've never had to consider defenses like that.

daze413

@DavidRobinson Have you seen the Siege Equipment section in the DMG?

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson My best advice is to play out the movie in your head: how long do you think it should take people to hack their way though the palisade? Is it long enogh that some are going to start trying to scale or attack a gate, or is it just like my neighbor's fence that'd provide a 6-12 second delay?

Shalvenay

Bighorn sheep

The bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) is a species of sheep native to North America named for its large horns. These horns can weigh up to 14 kilograms (30 pounds), while the sheep themselves weigh up to 140 kg (300 lb). Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspecies of Ovis canadensis, one of which is endangered: O. c. sierrae. Sheep originally crossed to North America over the Bering land bridge from Siberia: the population in North America peaked in the millions, and the bighorn sheep entered into the mythology of Native Americans. By 1900, the population had crashed to several thousand...

David Robinson

@daze413 Yes. But since this is sort of a rogue band led by an original, not a war chief, they don't have access to that stuff.

nitsua60

01:42

@DavidRobinson from the map it seems sturdier that that, so let's assume it's pretty beefy. Any trees that weren't straight enough for good planking, they planted 5' deep.

David Robinson

@nitsua60 that sounds like a good assumption.

daze413

@DavidRobinson and Object Hit Points and AC (also in the DMG) should also be taken into account. Also, read this Warning, theangrygm link, much swearing follows

nitsua60

What're the tables assumptions like? Is this a combat-is-war game, where a TPK could happen any session?

daze413

Sorry if it seems I'm just throwing random advice

nitsua60

@daze413 Personally, I don't think it needs to get nearly that granular. "Ten orc-attacks will greate a gap they can squeeze through one at a time" is the level of detail I ran it at.

David Robinson

01:45

I'm gonna pull punches with this group to avoid TPK.

It includes my wife. She might never play again...

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson This should be easy, then: the palisades are slow to get through, so let's come back to that. That leaves ranged attacks, the gate, and the houses as danger-points.

daze413

@nitsua60 That works, too... Just run with what seems interesting

David Robinson

Given their play style, I thought that's like to control a bunch of different NPCs and treat it like a mini Helm's Deep

nitsua60

Yes. And given that the success of the party/Dellmons is a given, the interesting bit is "how"?

So I suggest two lines of thinking:

David Robinson

Exactly!

nitsua60

01:50

(a) keep "pressure" on three places: east gate (that little embankment makes it hard to get to, but also provides a little earthwork the orcs can use for cover), west gate, and a building. I like the barn: in retrospect, I'd turn the inner palisade between barn and forge into a hurdlable fence.

(b) try to find ways to make PCs switch to "plan B". Simultaneously, let them shine with "plan A."

@DavidRobinson How long do you want this to go? (Table-time, that is?)

David Robinson

So it's kind of a programmed event that happens in a few escalating waves.

Oh. Table time. I anticipate the whole

session

nitsua60

If you're going for Helm's Deep, are you willing to devote an entire session to it? (Or at least two/three hours?)

David Robinson

A few hours maybe.

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson Gotcha--players in on this, too? (The idea of a full-session siege/battle?)

David Robinson

Yeah as long as there or four.

Yep!

Miniman

01:53

@DavidRobinson "The army of the orcs is like a black sea surrounding the mighty city of Palisades (pronounced pal-ee-sa-dees, probably Greek). Their attacks are like waves crashing against a great rock, as they throw themselves relentlessly at the walls. The stalwart defenders trust in the ancient stonework to repel their foes - but their real enemy is hunger. Rationing can only go so far, and already, their belts are getting tighter."

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson what I mean by (b) is if you've got a super-tank in the group, maneuver a breakthrough in a congested area near them. The paladin in the barn with six orcs, and they're calling for more to come this way. If only Pal-a-din can hold them at bay until 2 Dellmen arrive with a timber to bar the inner door! That's "plan A": stand here and hit stuff hard.

David Robinson

So make it seem like the initial plan is doomed?

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson I'm not saying that, I'm saying... well, let me tell you what I do: I've got a card with each character's name written on it. I write on it the thing (or two) that they're really good at, designed for. I have that in front of me and I'm staring at is as we play. And I look for opportunities to (a) make that thing awesomely important and other opportunities to (b) make that completely useless.

David Robinson

Ah!!! Ok. Gotcha. Very cool idea.

daze413

@DavidRobinson related reading his sixth step is really useful, and I think is what nitsua is referring to

nitsua60

02:01

The "plan B" part for the Paladin would be when the courtyard's quiet but the ranged attackers are in furious barrage with the orcs. What does Pal do? Light torches and toss them over the palisade to Help? Lay Hands on someone?

daze413

theangrygm should make his site more navigable :/

nitsua60

@daze413 Oh, now that you're an Angry celeb you get to start calling shots?

=D

(but yes, true)

Miniman

@nitsua60 I don't watch the news much, but aren't all celebs Angry celebs?

daze413

@Miniman Keanu Reeves seems pretty cool, at least with what I've seen of him in the internet

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson @Shalvenay or @BESW can tell you whether I'm any good at putting their characters in "make me awesome" and/or "make me struggle to find my utility" situations.

Miniman

02:03

@daze413 Well, if he was like "Hey dudes, be excellent to each other!" then that might not be his actual personality :P

nitsua60

But I intentionally try to. Rather, I watch for opportunities to.

David Robinson

@nitsua60 that seems like a good mindset to have generally, and because I've been playing published adventures, I don't think I gave that much thought.

daze413

@Miniman Nah, men, I see people hiding cameras to take a video of him on the train? He offers his seat to ladies.

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson another completely different way to approach this: game out what would happen without the PCs. Spend half an hour playing it out in your mind (just an index card's worth of info for each side). Chart out in a timeline how that went. Then use that to play the orcs; when they feint toward the forge and draw away your tanks but really attack en masse from the east gate, Rancher Dellmon can scream "oh, no! this is it! if they get in we're doomed!!!"

daze413

@nitsua60 any tips on how to get good at that?

Miniman

02:07

@daze413 Nice. Btw, just in case it wasn't obvious (tone on the Internet), neither of my last 2 comments were meant to be taken seriously.

daze413

@Miniman dangit, the internet always does this. why

Miniman

@daze413 Because it hates us, and it wants us to suffer. Cf. caching, redirects, and popup ads.

David Robinson

Super helpful everyone. Appreciate it. Calling it a day. Thanks again. I'll check back in tomorrow

nitsua60

Put the card out every time. Make a quick little notation when you threw something in a direction to try to accomplish one of those. When you're soliciting player feedback, ask how that moment felt. When you put them in the moment, be semi-explicit about it.
"Pally, looking over the courtyard you see the remains of your work. Arrows continue to fly over the wall as your companions struggle to keep the orcs out. *Your greatsword doesn't seem like it's going to do much right now.* What do you do?"

Shalvenay

@Miniman never mind malvertising, spam in its myriad forms, the giant pile of oozes dribbling out of the copyright system all over the interwebs, reputation manglement, ...

Miniman

02:09

@DavidRobinson Cya!

nitsua60

@DavidRobinson Have fun! Thanks for stopping in =)

@daze413 And go easy on yourself. If you only remember to do this once per session, well you've still done a better job than if you'd not done it.

Shalvenay

this whole discussion of orcs and palisades brought to mind two things...one is a scene in my head where the party camps for the night and wakes up to find their camp engulfed by an Orc caravan that agreed with the party druid on the wisdom of their campsite selection, haha

Miniman

@Shalvenay Personally, I couldn't get "the city of Palisades" out of my head, which is why I posted it despite its total irrelevance to the subject XD

Shalvenay

hahaha

and two is a somewhat-similar scene from the history notes for the campaign I'm working on ideas for

Miniman

@Shalvenay The Talespinners come under attack?

Shalvenay

02:15

@Miniman no -- this isn't connected to the Talespinners, but was a pivotal event in Elven history overall

Miniman

Ah, right.

Shalvenay

hey there @AvengingAngel666

Miniman

@Shalvenay Wait, is this one of the events where a kobold general got its Tucker appellation?

Shalvenay

@Miniman (if you want to hear it, we can hop off into a side room)

@Miniman no. that was a different pivotal battle :)

daze413

@nitsua60 mm-hmm, not every time, got it..

Miniman

02:17

@Shalvenay WHAT?!? As if history can contain more than one pivotal battle.

Shalvenay

@Miniman haha. the elven royals got divided and conquered :P

daze413

@Shalvenay hahaha love it

Shalvenay

(which was actually a Good Thing because the royals in question were the biggest bunch of arseholes to ever have worn that crown)

nitsua60

@daze413 I mean, in a perfect world every non-trivial encounter would have one of those moments for one or more characters. So you're not going to check everything off in a session. But over the course of three or four sessions, maybe you make good progress.

BESW

This is a thing Bubblegumshoe is helping me learn how to focus on.

Bubblegumshoe character creation asks each player to tell me a LOT about how their character interacts with the world: what personality trait drives them to be exceptional instead of just blending into the crowd, what short-term goal they have that's not directly related to the plot, who their friends and enemies are, what social groups they're comfortable in.

So I can go down that list and see "Hmm, we haven't had anything with this PC's enemy recently, and that PC's personal drive hasn't pushed any interesting decisions yet, and this other PC's non-campaign goal is sorta stalled out."

So for the next adventure I smash those together and see how they can link up to form a new chapter in the story.

nitsua60

02:30

@BESW @Shalvenay this ^^ is why I find your background and skills most-useful to make note of in 5e. From being a rogue I get that you want to go all stabby-stabby sneaky-sneaky. But you chose History? Or Performance? That's something I've got to highlight.

Miniman

@BESW Would you mind pinning eimyr's playtesting request?

BESW

What's helpful to me specifically is having an actual list of these qualities and relationships, and going down it marking off what we've done recently and what needs more screen time.

nitsua60

@BESW I'm not through Tales from the Loop yet, but it's giving me a similar feel to the descriptions you've been giving of BGS.

Miniman

@BESW Thanks!

BESW

Technically Fate can do the same thing, but that's more "if the group wants you can tailor these generic features to do this specific thing."

BGS is more on the manifesto end of the spectrum: to tell a story of this type, these are the things you need to prioritise.

daze413

02:51

Still haven't got a satisfying answer to this:

7

Q: Does a controlled mount share its rider's turn?

From "Controlling a Mount" on p.198 of the Player's Handbook: The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount it. It moves as you direct it, and it has only three action options; Dash, Disengage, and Dodge. A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that y...

I guess Sebkha's is the best, Dale M doesnt address comments

nitsua60

@daze413 Are you asking about the difference between "we're both on 17, so I'll go first and you go second" vs. "we've got the same initiative so you move, then I'll Attack, then you Dash, and I'll dismount..."?

Miniman

@nitsua60 There's an awful lot of wishful thinking going on on that page.

daze413

@nitsua60 if whether the latter is actually on the same turn

I could see how Shem's answer could also be true but it's not very convincing

nitsua60

I haven't read any of them yet; putting my head to it independently first.

Good thing the devs use the word "initiative" to mean three distinct things, possibly without even meaning to.

daze413

@nitsua60 ordinal, numerical... what's the third?

nitsua60

02:56

procedural

well, 4 if you count "whatever they mean when they say 'initiative changes to match yours'."

So it's clear that they've got to have logically-separate turns, because "Your Turn" and it'd screw up all sorts of "on your next turn" and "until" things. But are they simultaneous?

daze413

What creature ability can be broken if a lot of them literally share the same turn?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Well, everyone's turns are simultaneous :P

nitsua60

Yes!

Which is why my turn can end in mid-air =)

[ducks]

Miniman

@nitsua60 Ducks can end their turn in midair, absolutely.

nitsua60

no, it's a channeled divinity.

mxyzplk

03:04

oooh, I just ran across the best unofficial guide to how to ask questions that should be part of our site help. catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

nitsua60

@mxyzplk You have me at Eric S. Raymond.

Miniman

@mxyzplk Nice, much less SO-specific than Jon Skeet's one.

nitsua60

> We're (largely) volunteers. We take time out of busy lives to answer questions, and at times we're overwhelmed with them. So we filter ruthlessly.

@SevenSidedDie Really? To be honest, I'm realizing that Cathedral/Bazaar is really all I know of him.

Miniman

@nitsua60 An informal marketplace in which you buy and sell cathedrals?

daze413

@Miniman that's silly. maybe deeds to cathedrals. One or more ghosts sold separately.

nitsua60

03:11

@Miniman Collection of many vendors selling in a roofed marketplace with architecture cleverly tailored to draw your eye to Mammon. Also, there's a bishop lurking around somewhere.

SevenSidedDie

From that page on asking though, this is a good explanation of what we call the XY Problem.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie yeah -- he JDGI regarding religions being 99.9% ordinary folks and 0.1% nutcases

Joel Harmon

@SevenSidedDie For something that calls itself "rational", it seems to be very emotionally charged

mxyzplk

Perhaps this is where we stop talking about others' faults under the scope of Be Nice.

SevenSidedDie

@mxyzplk Right, yes. Even though he's not a local, the same standards apply. (Removed my messages.)

trogdor

03:18

@nitsua60 you better :P

nitsua60

>Odds are you'll screw up a few times.... And you'll be told exactly how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. In public. When this happens, the worst thing you can do is whine about the experience, claim to have been verbally assaulted, demand apologies, scream, hold your breath, threaten lawsuits, complain to people's employers, leave the toilet seat up, etc. Instead, here's what you do:

Get over it. It's normal. In fact, it's healthy and appropriate.

Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public.

mxyzplk

@SevenSidedDie hugs

Miniman

@nitsua60 It's been starred! Quick, remove the extra caret before it's immortalised!

nitsua60

@Miniman I just got over you trying to correct my copy-pasta. In public. I understand that you're just trying to maintain your community, protect yourself, and educate me. And I am grateful.

The Oracle

0

Q: Should this question really be put on hold?

A question has been asked that includes an element of homebrew, but has only 11 specific answers it can possibly be. The question presents a given spell, and asks which level it should be. The possible answers here, given the 5e system, are: cantrip, 1st level through 9th level, and no level (ie...

discussion

Miniman

03:23

@nitsua60 Wait, what? When did I do that?

SevenSidedDie

@Miniman Hm, apparently it can't be removed or it stops being a quote. Another error of the chat formatter, of the same sort that makes the Timely RPGery pin so weird in-chat but look right in the starboard.

Miniman

@SevenSidedDie Oooh, weird.

nitsua60

2 mins ago, by Miniman

@nitsua60 It's been starred! Quick, remove the extra caret before it's immortalised!

=D

Miniman

@nitsua60 Also, I may or may not be overly influenced by an incident in which an embarrassing spelling mistake of mine got starred by a few people, and I had it glaring at me from the sidebar for days.

nitsua60

Pretty high star-churn today....

Miniman

03:27

@nitsua60 It's been like that recently.

The 3 pins push stars pretty far down to begin with, too.

nitsua60

@Miniman are you running PotA in AL, or just for funsies?

Miniman

@nitsua60 Not AL. But our game has a deep, cosmic significance that goes far beyond the realms of "just for funsies" :P

nitsua60

You're spelljamming?

("deep cosmic," "beyond the realms")

=)

SevenSidedDie

The section on how to answer questions is really good too.

But shockingly, the page is closed source?! So we can sorta point people to it, but we can't reuse any of it, or revise out some of the rough edges that don't apply here, outside of hacker culture, like the “stupid”/“smart” question labels.

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie You should ask him why that is.

=)

My sharpshooter (ftr8/ro4) is taking Magic Initiate at this level, primarily for bless. I'm thinking guidance for one of the cantrips. Any suggestions for the other?

Nvm. I think I'm going with mending. I've got a thing going where I wear super-fancy clothes.

Miniman

03:40

Light, depending who in your party has/doesn't have Darkvision. Spare the Dying will occasionally be amazing, and Mending will even more occasionally be amazing. Thaumaturgy is just cool.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 hahahaha

Miniman

I'm really glad they added Prestidigitation for Clerics and Druids.

nitsua60

@Miniman ???

Miniman

@nitsua60 Clerics now have the Thaumaturgy cantrip, Druids now have the Druidcraft cantrip. Both fulfill the same role as Prestidigitation does for Wizards, but more tuned to the fluff of their respective classes.

nitsua60

@Miniman Oh, sure. I see what you're saying. (I was literally staring at the cleric list looking for prestidigitation, then checking errata.)

Miniman

03:44

@nitsua60 Sorry.

nitsua60

Alright: with that choice made, I say good night to you all. "Good night."

Joel Harmon

@Miniman I'm a sucker for Thaumaturgy, Prestidigitation, and Druidcraft because they're so darned flexible

Miniman

@nitsua60 Cya!

daze413

A new player (we're not english speakers) asks what's "Prestidigitation" mean and what it does when he scanned the spell list I gave for the character I made for him. My reaction was: "Nevermind that, erase that and place Ray of Frost in there."

Miniman

@JoelHarmon Me too - that's one reason why it's good that other spellcasters get them, instead of that vast power being hogged by wizards.

daze413

03:47

I just couldn't put it simply :p better to change his spell list.

Miniman

Also, I feel like it fills a really big gap in the spellcasting system. "I'm an apprentice wizard." "Oh cool, what can you do?" "Well, I can magically mend clothes." "That seems weirdly specific."

Joel Harmon

well, anecdotally I have not often seen a wizard without Prestidigitation

and for me, Thaumaturgy and Druidcraft are just as required for their respective classes

daze413

@Miniman Which makes sense. His master probably had him mend his clothes for him for months before teaching him anything really cool

Joel Harmon

@daze413 he still won't talk about the incident with the broom

Shalvenay

hey there @JoelHarmon

Joel Harmon

03:59

hey @Shalvenay; apologies, but I'm just heading out

Shalvenay

awww. felt the book gibberish room was lacking in technobabble, so fixed that for @eimyr

Joel Harmon

he seemed to be going more for a Fantasy feel, but the three main categories of books within arm's reach for me are RPG rule books, technical text books, and random books

I was wondering if it may be funny to throw in a random Software Architecture line

anyway, I'm out. See you later!

Lyndon White

04:19

0

A: How do I get started learning how to design my own RPG?

I'm going to take a shot at being more concrete than the question asks. This answer thus focuses on the what you have to do, rather than the "where to find resources to tell me what to do". Honestly because I feel that is a more interesting question to spend my time answering. I'll eat the down...

On the one hand I am really happy with this answer

On the other hand, while it answered the title question, it doesn't touch the questions in the body at all

Miniman

@LyndonWhite I wouldn't worry too much about that - there's been some contention with that question because "where do I find stuff" is off-topic here. While, in theory, good answers don't "save" poor questions, the presence of a good answer that answers the on-topic part of the question is likely to help assuage people's concerns about the quality of the question.

Or, to put it more simply, your answer looks good to me :)

The Oracle

09:14

1

Q: Paraphrasing in Quotation Blocks

An experienced member's edit to an answer of mine, placed a part of it into a quotation block. The thing is, it isn't a quotation, I paraphrased an idea from the source text. Marking something as a quotation, as I know it from academic or journalistic writing, is for word for word reproduction o...

discussion

eimyr

09:39

@Shalvenay thanks

@Shalvenay technobabble makes sense for an alternative setting, so that will also be useful

BESW

10:07

> Cosmetic Explosions. When you are forcibly moved into another zone during a physical conflict, or you take three or more stress from a single physical attack, place the boost Flying sparks on your zone.

eimyr

> Cool Guys don't look. When someone puts an "Exploding!" aspect on zone, you can immediately move zones, even if it's not your turn.

BESW

> Superfluous Acrobatics. So long as there's open space for you to flip and tumble, you can Flashily defend against physical attacks you can see coming.

eimyr

10:25

@BESW How's life recently?

@BESW Also, thanks for the pin. you can take it down now.

BESW

eimyr

Is that an Elder Sign?

BESW

Yes. Yes, it is.

eimyr

abominable horrors from beyond?

I hope it will be better soon

BESW

Thanks.

BlueMoon93

11:32

Mornin'

Any ideas on how to determine if a homebrew class is broken?

Should I look into damage meters to compare with other classes?

Or look into versatility?

Or defense? Or all of these?

Patta

Probably both, and more.

Shalvenay

@BlueMoon93 -- what system?

BlueMoon93

D&D 5e

doppelgreener

Is this answer showing up for anyone else like it does for me?

22

A: Ignore Users Script

I believe this XKCD comic below demonstrates perfectly why some of us need this script: And even more relevant is the alttext: "What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"

^ what I see

Patta

It's not really that easy. I don't think it's possible without playtesting. But i'd say the most important thing is: "does it do something that is normally the job of another class, and does it do that better?" if yes, it's probably "broken". Especially if the other class does not do other different things, too.

BlueMoon93

11:36

@doppelgreener I see the image just fine

doppelgreener

@BlueMoon93 weird...

Patta

The class must be an alternative, not a replacement, basically. That would be the first step.

Shalvenay

@Patta esp. considering that none of the 5e classes need replacement

Patta

@doppelgreener yeah, it's fine for me too.

Shalvenay

(unlike 3.5e, where there were classes that were that badly broken cough Truenamer hack)

doppelgreener

11:36

Oh, it's a userscript I have. Going to report that to the creators.

Patta

@Shalvenay exactly. That's why I stick to archetypes instead of whole classes if I homebrew something (which only happened once, until now)

BlueMoon93

Do you think this would be an opinion-based question?

Or could we find a decent methodic analysis for homebrew classes or archetypes?

Patta

@BlueMoon93 definitely, if you don't define what is "op" really really well. What I did for my homebrew archetype was go to reddit and ask there, but any forum would probably do. And then, once I felt happy with the balancing, I playtested it.

eimyr

@BlueMoon93 I'd say in D&D many legit classes are broken, therefore you needn't worry about homebrew ones being broken unless it poses a problem in your story.

Patta

@eimyr I disagree, at least for 5e...

eimyr

11:39

Exhibit one: take a broken warrior archetype with insane survivability and put him in a party of monks vs in a party of optimized wizards

@PAtta Oh, I missed 5e clarification

scratch that then

Patta

Yea, with something like Pathfinder, I totally agree.

@BlueMoon93 reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/51or9k/…

that's where I posted.

And I was relatively happy with the advice posted there, if you ignore the comments about "why would you want this, there is already something relatively similar"

BlueMoon93

I see

Maybe I can phrase up a good question later

with strong definitions on what is considered broken

and what is a balance archetype or class

Patta

@BlueMoon93 Please do. I myself don't feel able to answer such a question here, but I always love to see homebrew stuff and get inspired/inspire others with it. And it can be made into a good question, in my opinion. It just won't be easy :D

Also keep in mind that on here, revisions that you do to the class would render existing answers to your question obsolete, which would be bad.

So asking about changed stuff could be problematic

BlueMoon93

I'm not going to ask about my specific homebrew class

but more of a methodic analysis to determine whether something is broken or not

Patta

Oh, you mean something like "how can I determine if a homebrew class is balanced"?

BlueMoon93

11:46

the idea is that, using such information, i can create several

exactly

Patta

I think i've seen something like that already... But I'm not sure...

could have been for something other than 5e, too

BlueMoon93

I didn't find any, but as I'm writing, I'll also look for similar questions

try to avoid any overlap

Patta

I can't go digging for it right now, sry... Gotta go back to work, break is pretty much over.

Aaron

12:20

Gmornin

Patta

Hey hey.

I was thinking: maybe I should just answer "Moin Moin" to that, in general. It's independent of the current time and all, but I guess not many people will know that :P

How are you, Aaron?

Aaron

12:35

I'm well, yourself?

Anne Aunyme

In pathfinder I remember have seen an official publication about how to design a class

Patta

Fine. If I was a character in Savage Worlds, I would probably count as shaken, though... :D

@AnneAunyme There is an unearthed arcana for 5e about that, too.

eimyr

hi Aaron

Patta

@BlueMoon93 Anne Aunyme just reminded me of that. Take a look at the unearthed arcanas, there is one in there. Maybe that can help.

LegendaryDude

@BlueMoon93 There is a blog post on archetype/class design on the Wizards site.

Pretty sure it's the first unearthed arcana post

@BlueMoon93 dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/modifying-classes

doppelgreener

12:56

@nitsua60 Wow! Is my memory misleading me or will that be the most thorough suite of official D&D translations of any edition?

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