"Read the book for me" questions are a little terribly received. This is true. However, from a new guy perspective, the PHB is a little confusing. There is a lot of information in there, and it can be hard to pin down what is related to what. I have had several issues with this myself - asking questions about pretty standard stuff, just having no knowledge that things were/were not realted.
So, I think the only issue is that clarifying the "new guy" position is a little difficult. "I'm lazy" autocorrects to "New guy" in my dictionary... so...
I suppose you can put in the "Are you sure?" Option, by showing off the power of the monster chasing them... a single hit taking off most of their hp for example.
@Karelzarath Pretty satisfying to not have pulled that all-nighter and watch all the other zombies show up while you have had a good night's sleep, though ;)
Attach a prestidigitation effect that continually cleans you and your clothing and you can reclaim 8-10 hours of your day for more productive pursuits. Like video games. >.>
@Miniman no -- it's not a huge deal, but I wasn't going to arse around with trying to navigate what was certain to be a confusing process, especially considering I bought the book while in Evanston for Thanksgiving...
Actually, this is the third place I've lived in where it has only just been installed. Thankfully though, the NBN appears to be chasing me, not the other way around
@Miniman I should make it a service shouldn't I? Haha. So far the minimum housing period is 1-2 weeks.
That should get the ball rolling
@Shalvenay unfortunately my chat room is a little... Odd. I don't know how I would do with that right now, sorry! If you give me a few hours I might be better off? Depending if you're still up?
@trogdor I'm a nervous smiler/laugher - some people get really upset when you smile while talking about serious issues and I have a hard time not doing that.
My amount of teeth shown when smiling is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol I've imbibed. My friends can tell I'm drunk just from the smile...
If you can count on counting on nothing, then there's nothing you can't count on, including nothing, so you can't count on counting on nothing, leaving you with nothing to count on.
@ACuriousMind Unfortunately, It's the first one. I don't enjoy dancing, so the blurred knowledge that I often get up and make a complete ass of myself is never an enjoyable one.
@Miniman honestly, it's worth it only to say you've experienced it. Then don't do it again. The first time is oddly fine. Your body just doesn't really know what's going on, so it just goes along for the ride. After that, it catches on.
@Ben Depends on the person. A friend recently experienced “lightly tipsy” for the first time and really didn't like the wobbly feeling. Uncanny valley between normalcy and being ill, I think.
My current chat status is “what, why did I open this window, no, no, just walk away, you have to do things, people are coming over for dinner and SeaFall, just one more message, wait, that's a trap…”
@ACuriousMind I have never felt this way about it, and I have managed to make an ass of myself without alcoholic help, so I just prefer never to ask for said help to begin with XD
@Thyzer good meta question about the many-rolls question being a duplicate or not. My $0.02, which I can't seem to find a place to put: the question suffers from a fundamental misconception, which is that checks are a player's decision to make in the first place. (Excepting unusual circumstances like hiding or grappling.) Thus every correct answer to the posed question is "you don't decide to make any rolls, the GM decides, and here's how..." And that's what the existing answers say. Basically.
@Shalvenay Hiya. About to commute, so afk a bit.
@BESW My kids love my rendition of Mr. Noisy. My neighbors--even the one six doors down--do not =)
Can someone with pathfinder knowledge take a look at this right quick? We're in the middle of the session right now. rpg.stackexchange.com/q/98512/14873
I'm on the "Yes, you can delay into the next round" camp, because that's how I've always run it.
But there's another player refusing to do it, even though our DM allows it, and saying that none of us should be able to because that's "not how it works"
So we're trying to figure out "how it works"
It's not impeding play because we've moved on, but we want to know
Tonight I made tuna sandwiches with canned albacore, hummus, turmeric, paprika, cumin, garlic, cayenne pepper, and ginger. To go with them I put thinly sliced potato in a hot pan with a little olive oil and some salt and pepper until they were brown and crispy on the edges.
Now, I want the the situation to resolve, but there's this sweet spot where you get rid of the bandits, but not just drive them away for a while (fall short) or slaughter them and become a figure even more monstrous than them.
And I want a mechanic that punishes the players for being on either side of the sweet spot
13th Age uses a D&D-like d20+mod vs DC mechanic for binary success/failure resolution, but it often keys secondary results off qualities of the raw die roll, like even/odd or 12+.
so that poses an interesting challenge, because on one hand I want the players to fall into "shit, I went too far" trap consistently, but without the problem of taking away their mechanical agency
I'm seeing a few things based on what you're going for. Either a system where you roll for a DC, and if you beat the DC you have success, but if you fail you get to pick between "you failed" or "you succeeded by going to far"
So in a way I want the players to have the part of the roll allow them for some adjustment ("I kill them a bit less enthusiastically") but also be motivated to risk overkill ("They want to kill me too, I can't hold back")
I'm thinking something like Danger Patrol or Dogs in the Vineyard, where you've got pools of dice of varying sizes and more dice is broadly better for staying power but smaller dice are easiest to get and tend to also escalate problems.
@Erik "Too much success" as a compound result of "too much effort", "character stats" and "high roll"
So I'm thinking of a system where your character has a stat that zero's the roll on a particular outcome, as in the "average" outcome of a roll of "Violence" is "nearly success" for Alice, the Barbarian but a "total failure" for Bob the Bard
then you roll, and it's clear which result we're in. Then, I'd imagine, a bidding war of some sort ensues, with the player trying to steer into the sweet spot, and the GM away from it
@eimyr how are you identifying the target number? Do the players have some knowledge of how that mechanic works so that they can decide how much to go in?
@NautArch i don't think target number would be obscured at all. Also, there will be a relationship between character class and how much freedom there is in choosing what you can go in with
There's a target number or target range for success. You have a default pool, and your abilities and features let you add/subtract dice from the pool before/after the primary roll.
@eimyr hmmm. So it is like blackjack :) You know you're trying to get as close as possible to 21 without going over. Going over has consequences (you immediately lose), going under has consequences (someone may be higher), but getting exactly 21 has a positive consequence (auto-win...unless the dealer also does, but that push probably isn't necessary here)
It's not super cheap, but more importantly it's something you have to go buy the day you're planning to cook it. As our caregiving responsibilities increase, we also increasingly value meals that we don't have to plan or buy specially for.
Canned tuna is a "We need dinner now" ingredient, fresh tuna is a "We're going to have tuna tonight" ingredient.
@BESW Gotcha :) Was just thinking of a trip to Yap (which was 7 years ago...) and how cheap fresh tuna was. Although that was in comparison to fresh tuna here, not in comparison to canned tuna.
Yeah, I was thinking about an answer for it. Although I would suggest not going with Intelligence but Wisdom if there's a check involved, since that's what you use for navigation checks
@Erik Yeah, it's a Survival-type check. But I think what they need to consider (as with all of these) is consequence of failure. If no consequence, no need for a check. It feels like it could be a...duplicate...of the same check question from yesterday that Thyzer has a concern with.
@BESW yes, there's a lot of different ideas here. He could have a map, do a survival check to see how much of the route is remembered, and give guidance for them - with wrong turns creating consequences of events or, if time is a limiting factor, then risking failure of main task.
@NautArch There is a consequence of failure, but it's a pretty cruddy one. If they fail, they get lost. Assuming that nothing is chasing them or that they aren't on a crunch, they'll just keep making checks until the get un-lost. Unless the DM is really good and getting lost throws them into an encounter of some sort.
@eimyr When @BESW brought up Cthulhu Dark it reminded me of the result of rolling 6: it's superhuman success; you succeed so well something freakish (like a vision of elsewhere, or new knowledge, or something strange physical) occurs which will probably test your sanity.
Sounds like your system gives the players rough control over what their characters are doing, but there is also a facet that the characters are effectively out of their control: they can try to clear out the bandits, but they don't know how their characters will do it until it's done. They might have results high enough to constitute a Monstrous Success, wherein the characters succeed, but use questionable, abherrent, or immoral means to do it.
Since you were discussing cards, there's a card mechanic I like that might be applicable: players have a hand of cards, where some cards are "better" and some cards are "worse". Some cards may also have special effects. Some of the special effects may involve an opportunity to discard, draw, or otherwise replace cards. This card mechanic means you have a variety of good and bad results to play, but you have to carefully think about when to play them.
For example, you could play all your best cards. You'll replace them with a mix of good and bad cards. But if you keep just playing your best cards, you'll eventually have nothing but bad cards, and when you come across something you really want to succeed at, you won't be able to. So you also have to voluntarily play bad cards sometimes, so as to be able to replace them.
a concept of a "critical" is a different mechanic overlayed upon this stuff that i suggest you investigate once the base mechanics seem to work & playtesting shows criticals might be desirable.
@eimyr If, let's say, your default is 1d20 with a success target of 11, then you could have a barbarian start with a target of 9 or with an extra 1d6 when he's using physical force to solve a problem.
@BESW Right. Or if we're going with strictly cards, we could do something like "when the barbarian is attempting to solve something with physical force, negotiation starts with the barbarian's highest-value card already played from their hand."
actually, i'm overcomplicating it. Let's dial that back to mechanical simplicity: the Barbarian always must play their single best card on their first turn on any negotiation around an action that involves the application of physical force.
i've been imagining poker cards -- most people already have a set somewhere, and if they don't, they're readily available at all kinds of places, including many of the places that sell dice. i would also be concerned about using cards if they weren't poker cards, since it limits peoples' ability to pick up the game, and limits the game to a physical product (i.e. can't distribute digital editions of it).
I'm looking forward to Ki Khanga in part because it's a poker deck RPG.
You could reduce complexity by having all traits be the same die type, and just accumulating them.
Base success target of 11, each relephant trait is +1d6.
So you need at least two relephant traits to have a chance of uncompromised success. The more you're attuned to a situation the more likely it'll escalate; the less attuned you are the more likely it'll get out from under you.
> Alien Sword of Taverns: The bearer always knows the direction to the nearest tavern in a 60 mile radius. They also hear the ongoing, utterly insane mutterings of an alien intelligence trapped inside this weapon. Should this weapon be destroyed, the being will be released.
@godskook Let's say you want to get as close as possible to 21. You're at 16. I'd rather roll 2d4 than 1d10, and 10d2 would be best, because of the probabilty curve
> Blind Mallet of Truth: Garrish eyes are painted on this weapon. The bearer can use an action to see/unsee through the eyes, even if their own senses are compromised. The bearer has advantage on investigation checks to see through illusions. In addition the bearer can gains advantage on an Insight check to check if someone is lying and disadvantage on all Deception checks.
If you can't get a bell, 1d4 die will get you closer to your target, while 1d20 might overshoot.
BUT having a choice is even more important, because if you have only 1d4s at your disposal and the enemy has one each of d4, d6, d8, d10 etc, he's at an advantage, because he can "steer stronger" in the desired directions
> Dryad's Axe of Felling: When the bearer is outdoors, harmless creatures such as squirrels and birds flock to them when they sing songs for a minute or longer. This weapon does maximum damage against plant creatures.
@Yuuki These are so flavorful. They're fabulous. Thank you.
