@BESW In 2000 (around the time of the first X Men movie), we visited friends in Toronto. They drove us round and said "That building is the outside of Professor Xavier's school... That (bigger) building is the inside of Professor Xavier's school... That park had the top of the Statue of Liberty in it for a couple of nights..."
Just 13 hours left in @DriveThruRPG's Xmas in July sale. The Dresden Files Accelerated is a top seller: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/xmas_in_july.php?affiliate_id=24139
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In the old 2e Skills & Powers (which I'm just taking my first look at, since it came along after I left 2e) you're allowed to purchase additional HD for your roll at level-up, of which you take the highest result. I'm digging into the diminishing return that gives you.
@Ben So, in this case it worked out to (3j^2-3j+1)/8^3 for the probability of each result j. (And, of course, sumproduct on results blah blah blah to get to an expectation value.)
<[highest 1 of 3dD]> = {sum_r=1^D {3r^3-3r^2+r}}/D^3 ends up being what I was thinking of when I said "closed-form expression."
@nitsua60 I think I flicked through that one. It was towards the end of my 2e playing, and none of us bought in to it. Pretty sure it's on my AD&D Rules CDROM (and/or Expansion), though.
Speaking of... I feel like I want to write a script/query to run through my DB and decrypt everything, just to make management easier. (I.e. run a ROT13/5 over the whole thing)
@Miniman yes. Simple encryption just as an extra level. While yes, that might seem like a very simple security measure, the idea that it's simply to stop someone entering the do and changing data there - this is for a middleware program we're developing
@nitsua60 rot13/5 changes the letter in an alphabet by 13 places, and an integer from 0 to 9 by 5 places. So all you need to do to "decrypt" it is put it through the exact same cycle
RAI: As an illusion, you only appear to be that size and shape. You would still physically occupy the same space.
RAW: Since it states that you feel like the illusion, I'd say that would mean you do occupy that space. For example, if you turned into an ant, and some one attempted to crush you beneath their foot, if you didn't occupy that physical space, they'd step on your foot, which is definitely physically larger than an ant - which definitely wouldn't feel right.
(RAI clarification: Still occupy the same space as your actual physical form, rather than the illusion's)
However that's only my interpretation, and the OP is asking for actual material stating this, so I don't think my answer would really be appropriate without any source material
@Miniman Indeed, if an answer gets multiple bounties, they are summed. For example, bounties that I made on @nitsua60 's answer are displayed together with 2 others as +2000.
Hello, my question about flanking doesn't contain the word "flanking", because I didn't know the English term (which also is a reason why I couldn't find the answer to the question by myself). So I'm left wondering if I should edit the question (including the title) to make it clearer about flanking or if I should left it to keep expressing the struggle I had. What's better?
I'd be inclined to add the flanking tag and leave the rest of the question alone, but I'm really not confident and would like to hear others' opinions.
You could add it, but I wouldn't remove the original wording because others who also don't know the word flanking are likely to search with similar wording as you and then get to find it.
@JoelHarmon depends... english has some special characters too. the AE ligature for example. however, these special characters are often not inside the "standard" block of letters and are treated as their parts or closest standard latin character (or have a special substitution). the AE ligature or Ä? A and E one after another. ß? SZ.
@JoelHarmon I think we have at least 3 wordings for... "how to deal with problem player of behavior X"
@Trish Sure; we also have accents and a few other things stolen borrowed from other languages. The main thing I was going for here was a mathy pun on "translate".
I keep seeing all over the internet that warlocks get all their warlock spell slots back on a short rest. However, none of the page references seem to point to the correct spot.
Do you know if this is true or not and what page it can be found on?
Granted, it's exceptionally poor research effort when a question concerning warlock's spell slots didn't check warlock's class pages' section on spell slots...
@NautArch Adventurer's Guild sent us to get rid of a bear. The villagers wanted to get rid of some hunters with traps. Some halflings were lost and a druid child. We basically avoided all the fights and the plan for my warlock to move hex around and gain temporary hitpoints didn't even trigger once.
@Szega haha. The vast majority of our fights don't involve us having time to set up. And our Barbarian basically leroy jenkins' it a lot. Which is fine with his 25 AC.
@Szega Yeah, 5e. Barbarian is 12th level I think now (possibly just 11.) Rolled good stats, got a Tome of Bodily Health and a +3 shield (random treasure roll)
@nwp I am so disappointed in the wild magic system. The 1/20 chance of it triggering simply isn't high enough.
@NautArch the threshold should be =spell lvl, not flat 1
@nwp I am still waiting the for the true tale of the shortest lived character (or party) where the wild mage explodes on the very first spell and is reduced to ash :)
@T.J.L. we generally like it to occur. It's fine. Our DM is experienced so that really isn't as much of an issue. In a fight against an Adult Green Dragon, it went off and unicorn appeared.
@NautArch If so, then the Sorcerer should use Tides as soon as he gets it back, and the DM can trigger a roll on the Surge table on the very next casting.
> Wild Magic. When using magic, you get a boost when you don't roll any pluses; the GM gets a boost when you don't roll any minuses; and something about the scene changes dramatically when you don't roll any blanks.
I've heard people complain that it is not interesting after the 5th time you've been a potted plant. It's just annoying to have to roll all the time for something that 95% of the time does nothing and 5% of the time basically also does nothing.
I had a general question on how to form this question to be SE appropriate: I'm curious which classes peak early (that is to say, get their "best" class-specific abilities earlier), and which classes peak later. My problem is that I don't know how to get this out of the realm of opinion
Well, first thing first, do you mean only class features? Or does spell access count? Because, if you ask me, since a wish can literally do anything, any class that gets it peaks at whatever level they get 9th level spells
@NautArch Damage output is definitely part of it, though I was ideally hoping to get a broader range of answers considering that some classes don't emphasize damage output (eg Lore Bard)
@NautArch @Adam Yeah class features is definitely closer to what I have in mind
One could reasonably narrow it down to just "combat", for example, but even that is a vast field. A barbarian will probably do less damage in a single encounter than a sorcerer, but more during ten back-to-back encounters. And absorb more enemy hits while at it.
You could use a commoner as the base line and check how much more damage and survivability each class at each level has and then display that in a graph. But it is really difficult to factor in how much of a bump a spell slot gives.
@nwp That would be superb, but not sure if its realistic to ask the stack to graph each class for me at each level as compared to a commoner of a similar level
To give more perspective of what I had in mind: after playing a totem Barbarian, I found that he peaked fairly early on, upon gaining resistance to all damage types except psychic. While he did get better as the class progressed (more rages, crit dice, etc), most of the class remained built around his tanking abilities
@NautArch Make a graph for damage and another for survivability? And another for burst and another for sustained damage/survivability. It would be a massive project.
So I would have classified this character as having peaked early
@nwp I agree, it would be massive
This question is also coming from a place of ignorance when it comes to comparing the base classes in 5e, since my knowledge is generally from what I've seen playing, and the PHB, but there are not many resources comparing different classes along similar metrics
@B.S.Morganstein It's still general, but maybe the question is when a single class comes "online". e.g. gets most of their standard go-to good stuff. But even that is hard to judge. Is a paladin online when they get smites? Is it when Auras get activated? Is it when the improved divine smite comes online?
@B.S.Morganstein In that case, I would argue it's whenever the class chooses its sub-type. That's when all of the iconic "This is what I'm going to be about" abilities start showing up
@kviiri Appreciate it. To give another example, arguably a Rogue would "peak" when getting access to sneak attack, since as far as I can tell the rogue builds I've encountered often focus on maximizing opportunities for sneak attack and maximizing its damage
@kviiri There are a number of free setting/adventure workups, called Worlds of Adventure for Fate, available from Evil Hat. My group really likes the He-Man/Thundercats homage "Masters of Umdaar."
@BESW Yeah, I've been peeking through them from time to time. I'm particularly interested in Venture City because I've never played superheroes, and the one where everyone's a god whose name escapes me :P
@Szega I'm really open to any answer format. The goal of the question is to get some general comparisons between the classes of when, as @NautArch stated, they "come online" and gain their main abilities
The campaign proper opens with someone's memory copy asking you to find out why their original "committed suicide" off the top of the tower where they had a top-secret tech job.
Granted, access to the next level of spells is very powerful, especially for flexible casters that can prepare new spells every day. I think that's why bards and sorcerers get other features, their known spells are pretty much locked in
Also, the text says the table can be used for encounter difficulty calculations, which further muddies the issue of whether it's supposed to be adjusted or earned XP.
@Szega people interested can each take a class and state when they think it comes "online", then everyone looks at a different class and does it again.
You could try to simplify it. Each point of HP gives 1 point, damage reduction makes it count double, AC is turned into some factor, each point of average damage over 10 rounds gives a point, healing gives a point and so on. Except the results are mostly defined by how many points everything is worth, so it is not actually helpful.
@NautArch That would be great. Again, I'm looking for a way to compare classes temporally (eg how long it takes a rogue to come online vs a bard vs a sorcerer). This would be useful to help people choose their classes, as well as helping people optimize multiclassing
(Context for those who don't GM 5e: the DMG has guidelines on encounter building, basing the difficulty of the encounter on the total experience value of the monsters. For difficulty calculations only, the XP is given a multiplier because fighting five monsters at once is harder than fighting them one at a time. The table is unclear about which of these two it actually refers to - earned XP or the adjusted XP used in difficulty math)
@Szega We could, though I'm not sure if that would be the best way of finding the "peak" of each class. For example, raging as a Barbarian is fairly limited to start, and eventually becomes unlimited at higher levels. But I still think the defining moment of a totem barbarian would be after taking the bear totem and gaining resistance to all damage except psychic
@BESW It still feels more like "Let's make up a story (be creative)" and less like "Let's play a game (with rules)". But I can see how that would be considered the same thing or even the interesting part by some.
Usage-rates are not great values, alone. A trivially weak ability, like (+1 HP and +1 damage) would come up LITERALLY all the time, but is obviously weak compared to having 1 9th level slot.
@nwp Apocalypse World (which is not Fate, but has a similar-ish design philosophy) for example has more comprehensive rules than DnD 5e does for pretty much all situations that don't involve combat. They're different kinds of rules, for sure, and don't probably even feel like rules for someone used to DnD.
@Szega arguably, every time a strength based character uses an ASI on their strength, they are primarily just getting +1 to hit and damage. Most of the other stuff that strength helps with isn't used much. At least in my experience
Though, a +5% chance to hit isn't trivial compared to just +1 hp.
DnD 5e is practically GM-led free-form outside the crunchiest parts. But this is a litany I find myself repeating a bit too often these days so I guess it's better I don't start it again :P
@Szega Oh I know, I'm just pointing out the use of a feature which is a small passive boost that, while not necessarily trivial, is pretty small and is used for every single attack from then on.
@Szega My point was to demonstrate that "feature power" and "frequency" can variate independently, and thus, you can't solely quantify things on that dimension and expect useful results.
I think I'll probably take the feat. +1 AC doesn't really help me that much. I don't plan on getting hit to need it - and if I do get hit, 17 vs 18 isn't much of a difference.
When in total danger, I can activate my insect swarm and blind everyone around me and run away. And giving 19 temp HP/SR to me and my party is pretty sweet when the only healers are me, a mystic and I think our warlock.
@B.S.Morganstein there also isn't really another feat that grabs my interest. And we've opened up unearthed arcana feats as well as homebrew
@Szega not sure...maybe it wasn't him. COuld be another character that has access to some limited healing. But really my bard is the primary healer in the group now.
@NautArch What weapon do you use, and do you already have any feats? Also how is playing bard, I was thinking of starting a bard in my new campaign (starts at level 3)
@B.S.Morganstein No weapons. Just Eldritch Blast (warlock 2 dip). I've got Lucky and a tweak of one of the feats on that homebrew list that lets me force disadvantage on the first check/save for an illusion 1/SR.
I never stop playing my Lyre, so using a weapon isn't really an option.
I keep seeing all over the internet that warlocks get all their warlock spell slots back on a short rest. However, none of the page references seem to point to the correct spot.
Do you know if this is true or not and what page it can be found on?
