@NautArch Depending on whether UV output mimics sunlight, you'd definitely get sunburns waaaaaaay before radiation sickness.

that actually is a good question... in Pathfinder... can you modify a light spell from visible spectrum into the Gamma spectrum?!

No, you can't upcast Light as Gamma Ray Burst.

Do Light spells hurt vampires? If not, they probably won't grow crops

@CM_Dayton Some versions of D&D make a distinction between Light and Sunlight as spells.

@Yuuki why?

I just realized how lame "spells only do what they say they do" is.

Heh.

@Trish Because spells only... If you want to do differently, you're talking about house rules, and those are anything-goes anyway.

"I cast Black Light!"

@CM_Dayton "Various patterns appear all over the place"

"I regret everything."

"Great, now I cast Disco Ball!"

@CM_Dayton in 5e, Vampires are not vulnerable to radiant damage (which light can cause...see Sunbeam)

@Trish Because at some point you're trying to use Light to replicate the effects of [Color Spray, Hypnotic Pattern, Sunlight]

@Yuuki You did NOT want to see what was in that dungeon.

@nwp It's not lame, it's just baseline. If people want to houserule other things into their game, they can. Having a known baseline is important for discussion and especially important for organized play.

GURPS has a variant rule magic system that's basically "you spend skill points on these nouns and verbs. Spells are a combination of one or more of each..." It allows some rather free-form magic effects.

The Vancian inspired magical systems weren't designed with direct manipulation of the effects in mind. Other systems, like Ars Magica and WW's Mage are designed for it.

and then there was the PC who refused to use the PHB names for his spells. He gave each a name that was more "fun." and didn't really describe what it did. It was infuriating.

Could Light be used to propel a solar sail?

@CM_Dayton Is saying "variant" really needed for GURPS? After all, GURPS isn't really a game system... it's a metasystem - you pick pieces of it a la carte to build your own system.

@NautArch They do however have hypersensitivity to sunlight, which some spells can create (see Sunbeam) ;)

@NautArch They're not vulnerable in the term-of-art sense (taking double damage), but there are a number of traits they have that are blocked/vetoed by the taking of radiant damage. Regeneration and polymorphing, at least.

And they take radiant damage from sunlight, including magically-created. So that'll trigger the various disabilities caused to a vampire by radiant damage.

@T.J.L. well, in the magic book, it was specifically listed as a variant system, as opposed to their standard of "basic spells and advanced spells that require prerequisite basic spells"

@Adam @nitsua60 very true.

Cast Light on a magnifying lens. Poor man's laser weapon.

@CM_Dayton aim at popcorn?

@NautArch I was a well-underleveled druid in Curse of Strahd when I stepped into my first Ravenloft encounter, dropped daylight and was immediately dropped to 0HP for my troubles. I lay there dying then, three rounds later, so did all the vampire spawns. Who'd been taking 20 radiant damage/turn from my still-up daylight and not regenerating =)

@nitsua60 Taking the time pool out for a spin on Thursday! Finally everyone's back from their holidays and I already got a good place to try it out.

@nitsua60 well gee. I never noticed daylight is non-con.

@nitsua60 Very generous DM. Daylight doesn't actually create sunlight, despite the name. Unless he had some boon that made it sunlight.

The party'll be doing some snooping to track down a small Tiamat cult, and then take them out through stealth and combat in the cult leader's mansion and a hidden temple beneath it.

@kviiri A temple, under the house? By all that is shiny and bright, do they not understand what that does to the resale value?

@TheOracle oh hey! That took a while to show up.

One of my players solved a riddle in a sun worshipping temple. So I gave him a charm that lets him cast daylight 3 times without expending a spell slot, and gave it the special boost that the light is also sunlight. Of course, once he uses it all 3 times he can no longer cast it that way again.

@CM_Dayton Well, sometimes you just need to have 5 bathrooms in one?

"You'll love the stained glass windows! And the cross steeple!"

@T.J.L. It's a bloody fantastic temple!

Literally bloody only sometimes.

@kviiri The blood is the problem! People will track it all over the carpets. You're not going to sell it to me as additional sub-basements!

Mold? Oh, sure, this house has mold issues. But that's a feature, not a problem. Keeps pesky adventurers out.

There's another problem too. The house has no bathrooms. This means it's a viable strategy for the players to just camp at the outhouse until the high priest has to answer the call of nature.

I want a web comic that's a real estate agent trying to sell typical OSR dungeons...

But I know my players wouldn't do it, so that's a non-issue I guess.

or a fake real estate site with bad dungeon design listings.

Also, that won't get out the artifact stashed there :)

@T.J.L. But there's a ton of gold ornaments to make up for it!

I'm not sure how Tiamat is worshipped, canonically, but my Tiamat cult hoards treasure in front of effigies shaped in her five-headed dragon form. And everything they leave there, they expect to make back five-fold with their more or less evil business plans.

So it's like a cosmically backed pyramid scheme or something.

Wait... Tiamat works via multi-level marketing?!? THAT'S EVIL! I mean, like Seriously evil, man.

@CM_Dayton She ain't the Queen of Dragons for nothing!

So which Evil deity would run a Ponzi scheme?

A god of banking.

@Yuuki Asmodeus?

@kviiri Cool! I've really liked it. I don't feel like it really changes much mechanically, but the feel seems right. For us, at least. Will be interested to hear how it treats you.

@NautArch Yeah, neither did I, until I dropped =)

@CM_Dayton sounds like a real fixer upper!!! ( ͡⎚ ͜ʖ ͡⎚)

Whic god claims the domain of Quiche and Custard?

@Adam Generous, or didn't know the spell well. For my part, I was just trying to light the room that had plunged into darkness. Or it may have been a "oh, nice--a way out of this obvious TPK they've blundered into!"

Quiche and custard... Shiva, god of destruction. ...What? Everyone needs a hobby

God of Ponzi Schemes? Loki, the Trickster God, or maybe the Crow Indian Old Man Coyote

Ages ago, when we played 4e and I knew little of Forgotten Realms lore, I played Tiamat as this sort of "good evil" god because her domain was listed as "Wealth, greed" or something. So almost everyone doing business would pray to her occasionally, and her priests were generally regarded as ruthless amoral businesspeople rather than actually "pure evil".

@nitsua60 I wish poly worked that way last session :/

I liked that version so much I keep aspects of it around still, so she sorta has two cults: the merchant cult who is in for the lucre, and the dragon cult who is in for the dragons.

@NautArch what happened?

@nitsua60 I'll be sure to let you know :)

@nitsua60 big arena fight and we were one player unconscious. I had 3 HP and our Warlock had 3 HP. I cast polymorph and turned him into a T-Rex with my intention to make myself hidden with my staff of swarming insects on my next turn (no creature was wihtin range of me at the time.) Polymorph went off perfectly, T-Rex charges in and proceeds to miss on every attack. Next turn, Bad guy charges at me with a dash so can't attack. I wink (expecting to be hidden by swarming insects shortly)

T-Rex comes to my "rescue" attacks and hits. Sets off a reaction from the bad guy who forces a Con Save for 1/2 damage on success. I succeed with a crit, but no special rules so I end up with 5 damage. I go down, Poly drops, Warlock standing there with 3 HP.

Ouch!

Yeah, I tried to convince the DM to give me 1/4 damage for the crit save. Failed.

and I was out of reactions (had counterspelled earlier in the round), so couldn't use my cutting words to reduce the damage.

@nitsua60 All possibilities. Still, a pretty cool story to tell. "...And so the vampires lunged at the druid, frantically attempting to extinguish the daylight which already began searing their flesh. Yet their attempts were in vain for little did they know that the daylight spell maintains itself independently of the caster."

@nitsua60 oh, and when I went down, so did all our healing power. THe only other PC that had heals was already unconscious. I was going to bring him back with the healing word after I brought up my insects.

@NautArch this is why every player should have an emergency healing potion on them at all times.

@Adam Yeah. Our group doesn't really do much shopping. But apparently in the past session that I missed all healing potions were used.

hey @NautArch

@Adam I frequently tell Adventurer's League Tier 1 players: "If you're not a wizard and you have more than 50 GP left after an adventure, you've made a mistake." (Because 50 GP is the price of a healing potion. If you're not stocking up, you are putting yourself in a bad place.)

@BanjoFox howdy howdy

@T.J.L. you can bet that if we're ever able to buy potions...i'll be buying potions. Hated that my own creation was the cause of my demise.

tried to catch up to conversation by reading previous posts...FAILED

roll for convo comprehension... 1? Oooh, yeah, the conversation is about how to bake the perfect soufle.

@NautArch -- Isn't that what "No Backup Plans" are for? ... oh wait.. thats Destiny armor :D

@CM_Dayton -- Not sure if I would go as low as a 1 [BOTCH!] 2 or 3 maybe ;)

@T.J.L. I can't get most of my players to buy potions even when they're rolling in cash. They even get a discount for helping the local general store. The usual conversation is something like "You wanna get health potions? -no" or occasionally "Wanna buy some health potions? -How much are they? 40gp since you helped the guy out -Oh. No thanks." Even though each of them has at least 200gp left over in coinage and hundreds more in various jewels and trinkets.

@Adam Ten... ten is a safe number to stop at.

@Adam Always impresses me how cheapskates the players can be despite being practically made of gold :)

@Adam -- Sounds like you need to give them more reasons to need health pots ;)

Always sleep in the cheapest inns, and buy the cheapest food, and so... and even an expensive inn is peanuts compared to healing potions!

@BanjoFox Yup. You're right. I bet some of their reservations is because I gave the cleric a mace that has a few charges of cure wounds in it (because I didn't want the cleric to feel trapped into cure wounds duty). I need to make sure to annihilate the cleric more often.

Yes I've told them that they don't need cure wounds all that much as they think. But they continue to act as if they're doomed without the cleric using cure wounds regardless of how much I assure them that it isn't necessary.

I've been thinking of encouraging the PCs to live more lavishly by having more expensive inns offer magical wards as well... they have a problem with a Night Hag that might help with.

@kviiri hmmm, in DSA a bad quality Health Potion costs more than... 100 Ducates iirc. But on the other hand, magic and alchemy in DSA is supposed to be rare. doesn't help that my Player group will consist of 2 elfs, a trained academy mage and a witch... :/

@Adam I need to remember to buy healing potions since our cleric left.

Paladin is an okay spot healer, but don't expect me to emergency heal more than once a day.

one of the elfs is a half elf with the 'lived with elfs and other elfs consider her almost a full elf' package.

Ah, the "I wanna be an elf but half-elf is mechanically better for my build" special.

no, the half elf package is inferior in some respects to the full elf package... it is more "I want to have a reason to leave my elven family..."

That's a bit odd that the player thinks that some kind of weird racial conflict is necessary to leave their family.

But then again, I don't know really know this setting, I guess.

half elves have one benefit over full elves: no sensitive sense of smell. But also less keen senses.

@Trish What about the sense of superiority?

"The Sense of Superiority" would be a good name for a mumblecore documentary.

That arrogance is part of elf-culture, not elf race.

DSA goes a 4 step chargen: choose race, culture, profession (job package) and then spend points to build that out.

some job packages are pretty simmilar on first look (heck, soldier and mercenary almost get the same skill packages!) but they often differ in what they bring with in either equipment, actual skill points (the merc gets survival skills, the soldier not) and sometimes special abilities. Over all the thing is balanced as you pay for the packages or race, culture and profession with the same points you pay for the advantages, disadvantages and attributes...

@Trish Ah, yes, racial/cultural conflation.

@BESW good one. DSA made at least that much right... somewhat.

can i ask a dnd question? 5e but popular homebrew and old editions answers might work

I once heard that in Dwarg Fortress, dwarf babies kidnapped by goblin babysnatchers can appear as a part of goblin raiding parties upon maturing. Not sure if it's true, but wouldn't surprise me.

feel free to :)

@Clarus_Nox Sure

im building a harpy bard character, using a homebrew for stats. but part of her back story and how i plan to play her involves hiding her race

@BESW The elven weapon proficiency racial trait is pretty good evidence for creationism.

i planned to use both illusions to hide her talons to appear as human, and a cloak for her wings(make it appear to be a feathered cloak)

but it is unreasonable to expect she could keep up the illusion day in and day out even as a cantrip

How are you going to deal with Detect Magic?

You'll be goin' Stranger's Wrath?

metamagic would solve this

@Trish And still I have a group with thousands of ducates who haggles over every Kreuzer. Buying a potion has never crossed their mind - they steal them, demand them as reward, loot them, brew them at considerable risk to themselves from dubious weeds picked beside the road, but they've never bought a single potion.

but i wanna avoid multiclassing

@Clarus_Nox Couldn't she wear boots?

Talk with your DM and see what you can work out?

not with those talons

he is open to the answer type si requested, but we need to find them first

im having no luck and he is busy planning the next part of our current campaign(this character is for a later one)

As a DM, I'd be willing to give you an extremely limited illusion-casting equipment (attuned to you, casts only the very specific talon-hiding illusion, etc.) if you have a plan for a story.

@ACuriousMind if you even meet an alchemist to steal from... and for 1000 Ducates, I personally would pay back the loan it took to become a mage :3

@Yuuki Once she gets 2nd level spell slots, and finds a way to learn it, Nystul's Magic Aura should fix that problem

i just want to find pre-existing st5uff that fulfilled my goal before asking for talor made stuff

i mean anyone who tries to shake her hand or is paying an odd amount of attention to her hands while she plays the violin could tell there is an illusion in place

Fair enough. Although depending on the feature request, it can often be more of a headache than it's worth.

@Trish Most of our sessions take place in big cities where access to alchemy is less of an issue...and nope, they'd rather jump through various hoops (i.e. quests) their debtors impose on them than considering actually paying back the money :D

still i guess having a ring that does what we already determined her illusion for her talons would do would be alot easier than trying to find something that 'might' work

@ACuriousMind a typical Aventurine debt collector brings back either your money,... or your head. Yes, they are cutthroats...

@kviiri Oh yeah, goblins steal babies. When they grow up they're still part of the goblin civilization. It can lead to weird circumstances where whole goblin "towns" (or even civilizations) can have 0 goblin members- all having been replaced by humans/elves/dwarves.

Well, I guess having your adventurer friends discover you're a harpy is a story in and of itself.

that remains to be seen

but it is VERY likely

i plan to keep it hidden as much as possible

@Trish Maybe, but it's also actually more interesting to have the debt as leverage than them just paying it off, so I'm fine with it.

none of the other players know about it(they know im hiding something about my character for roleplay reasons)

@Delioth Well, it's not like that hasn't happened IRL too :P

Chekov's Gun is the principle I'm dancing around, I guess. If your character is hiding something, then you need to reveal it at some point. Otherwise, if they go through the entire campaign without dealing with it, what was the point of the feature?

I have trouble with this time sometimes as a player.

@Clarus_Nox my concern is you're asking for the bonuses of being a harpy without the negatives. I'd have a hard time granting that.

ima present the custom ring to my dm, she is born from a noble family(loving human father and harpy mother) so i guess they could get it

Sounds like you need a Hat of Disguise

@kviiri Fair enough, it's just a little more pronounced when you get a "goblin siege"... where none of the attackers are short green-skins, but instead pointy-eared hippies.

I'll put some hidden backstory in my profile/chargen and then never deal with it and then I think back "what was the point?"

@Delioth I wonder how seriously goblins take the membership of their nation.

@NautArch my movement speed is 20, i cant fly while carrying 70% of my equipment, and she refuses to sing because she doesn't know if it is her ability entrancing people or the magic in her voice that is doing it(also i put one of the instrument proficiencies into singing, if i ever am able to roleplay her into being ok with singing she'll have that

and her strength stat is an impressive 3

point buy

she barely carry her starting gear

New UA on experience and leveling.

.5 lbs into heavily encumbered

she has lots of negatives besides visual and again anyone she interacts with too long does have a chance to see through them

Wow, how bad are the racial penalties to STR? I don't let my players go below 7-8 when point-buying.

there aint

Mostly because the only reason anyone goes that low is so they can min-max the hell out of other stats they want.

its actually +2 dex and +1 char

Like 3 STR and 20 DEX.

3 str, 16 dex, 6 con, 8 int, 16 wis, 16 cha

6 CON, bold man, but the 3 16s is exactly what I'm talking about.

she is very fragile sheltered girl

who can barely stand up on her own with that strength score

That much swing in stats looks like a power-gamer build.

Which isn't to say it is, but it's definitely what some people call a "code smell".

is it? i just used the calculator i was given

never used point buy before

alwys rolled

Well, it looks like you've minimized all the stats you "don't need" so you can put the ones you want as high as possible.

in 5e the only way you could get scores lower than 8 RAW would be to roll all 1's while rolling stats

always got at least 3 stats over 15

In point-buy, I never let players get below 8 or higher than 16 before racial modifiers.

The typical example is a fighter with 18 strength, 18 con, 16 dex, 3 int, 3 cha, 8 wis (or something along those lines)

3 is really low. It's the same as a weasel's strength.

@Yuuki In the 5e books, point buy is limited to scores between 8 and 15 before modifiers.

my dm said i could go lower than 8, because he was curious to see how a character with a crippled stat would fair

chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html

i went tot he homebrew part and lowered the minimum alowed, nothing else

Depending on what stat is crippled and how much thought you put into the build, it'll either be a bad experience for you or a bad experience for the DM.

well right now i stumbled into the op sorc/paladin

ac 20 + shield of faith and shield spells

@Clarus_Nox We're not saying you're breaking any rules. Or at least I'm not. I'm just saying that I've seen this sort of stat distribution before and it's typically from powergamers.

@Clarus_Nox My opinion on the matter is that simply because you could doesn't mean you should. Of course you're the one who has to decide here, but such an extreme dump stat is really really unusual and potentially detrimental to your experience.

Which, again, isn't to say that you're a powergamer.

i see

maybe im just too used to having 16s and 18s?

i mean my very first character had 5 18s

my mother made me reroll him 3 times

before she just deducted points

Definitely. High stats can come later since you get bonuses, but you can't (normally) pump them over 20.

@Clarus_Nox What kind of psycho luck did you have rolling them!? Next time we start a campaign, can you come over and roll for me?

@Clarus_Nox Reroll him 3 times until you get 16s and 18s or reroll him because you kept getting 16s and 18s?

i still seem to have them

i kept getting really high

Ah. I like a bit of RNG swing with my stats (feels more natural that way), but I don't like too much RNG swing with my stats.

i mean she did say we were rolling for god killer stats but i was he only one she made re-roll

Super-high stats (>14) shouldn't really be expected in all of the abilities you want, but maybe in one of the stats you want.

Oh man, going for deity-slaying in your first campaign?

Same here. It doesn't take a major power difference in DnD for one to feel a bit hobbled compared to their peers.

That sounds interesting.

idk that one ended ubrutly

Sounds like Icarus syndrome.

so then should i bring the stats for aria down to 14s and rais the others?

ah aria is what i named my harpy bard

Can't go wrong with the standard array.

Yeah, probably. Mid-range is good, and you can always improve them later

@Clarus_Nox Keep your main stat at 16 and lower secondary ability scores I say. Use array from the book as inspiration.

Just keep in mind that the average human varies between 9 and 11, IIRC.

But you're a hero (and therefore above average) so your "specialty" is expected to be high.

Speaking of god-slaying campaigns, @doppelgreener @trogdor we should really try that "skip to the boss fight" idea some time, maybe with Bastion.

mk

well i just noticed during the few campaigns i've been in that wisdom, charisma are always neglected and dex is extremely important for staying alive unless you can have heavy armor

Grab a system of choice, make high-powered characters, sketch in the broad strokes of the campaign that got us there, and then jump into the end-boss conflict for a glorious one-shot.

Though I can't give a source for that, but I've found it's a pretty useful scale to use. It's pretty accurate for some versions too (though I can't say if it still holds for 5e; not enough experience in the system)

str 7, dex 14(+2), con 6, int 10, wis 16, cha 15(+1)

?

Although top 0.15% of 7 billion people is still 10.5 million people.

@Clarus_Nox That looks more balanced, I could roll with that. The low con will hamper your survivability a bit though.

@Clarus_Nox I'm still worried about 6 CON although for different reasons than "looks like heavy minmaxing".

i plan to play her away from combat

vouching for peace over conflict

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

@Clarus_Nox This sentiment almost never works in D&D combat-focused systems.

While admirable, that Shoggoth doesn't care that you want to be peaceful.

Constitution saving throws are common and Con also directly impacts your character's HP.

hopefully the rest of the party can keep the enemy distracted while she loads her bow

A more colorful way to put it, "no amount of preparation can prepare for you for a Deck of Many Things or a group of determined kobolds".

@Yuuki Don't even get me started on the Deck of Glorious Many Things

from behind that tree 100 feet away

@Clarus_Nox Have you talked about this with the other players? It's cool if everyone is really on board but I can say with experience that a devoted pacifist in a party with people who like combat is not going to work.

100 feet away from the battle also means that you're 100 feet away from your friends.

This tactic might work the first time, but don't expect the DM to cater to your plans.

she isn't a pacifist, but if peace is an option she will try to take it

@Clarus_Nox Are you going to be lagging 100' behind the party when you guys are ambushed too? If so, how do you prevent yourself from being ambushed alone and being used as bait/a hostage?

i wont be lagging behind(assumign the party doesnt leave me behind since im slower)

Then how will you be out of the fray when the party is ambushed? At that point, you're in melee (ish) and 6 con is a huge liability

@nitsua60 Who is in the need of some rep?

i've seen that work, our current campaign has our ranger not mention anything after spotting an ambush and when they jumped the tanks he took off and started firing from safety

Captain Bounty is on a haste to help!

A word of caution, Fireball's range is 150 feet ;)

@Trish I was writing an answer already, no need to throw in the bounty... :(

i could raise con to 8 and bring int down to 8 i guess

@Clarus_Nox Which class?

bard

@Baskakov_Dmitriy I made the bounty like.. early morning... after week or more of no satisfactory answer

my character is bard

:(

or did you mean the other guy in my current campaign

he is a ranger

Can bards be useful 100' away? Do their performances have a range on them?

@Trish OK, so I will try to post it soon.

she doesn't sing

and she has a shortbow

So... why bard?

@Clarus_Nox Performance !== Sing

What are you going to do in combat?

shortbow and magic

some bard performances go with range "vision"

Rangers have magic, IIRC.

they do

I think warlocks have good magic and can probably use a bow

@Trish Performance (Rude/Vulgar Hand Gestures)

Rangers start to have magic with lvl 4 iirc, in Pathfinder...

Having a low Con might not be disastrous. The idea that spellcasting characters are frail is well ingrained into the genre.

@Yuuki that for example. Or Performance (lewd acts)

@Clarus_Nox What magic?

@kviiri Rangers are divine

kinda like "lesser Druids"

this is at lv 4 so typing list

@Trish I like rangers too, but I wouldn't go that far. [grin]

@Trish Aye

But they can cast Cure Light Wounds from level 1

From a wand

@Clarus_Nox Never dump CON. As a spellcaster you'll need it for concentration checks. Your AC will be lower than the tanky martial characters, so you'll need enough HP in case you get hit. Plus you aren't proficient in CON saves (by default).

@Trish They're playing a bard, and I don't know what sort of magic they'd use.

And any other spell on their list too.

@Trish Most bard attack spells don't have a good range for that sort of sniping.

Just because you stand far away from the goblin with a sword, doesn't mean you can't get hurt.

@MikeQ Mechanically I agree, but If you, from a roleplaying perspective, want to play a character who is frail/starts out frail (relative to other adventurers), there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.

@Adam Okay, but 6? That's kind of extreme.

@Adam As an avid player of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, the idea that such casters get crushed by a single, powerful ranged attack is also ingrained ;)

That's what, 1d8-2 HP per level?

As an added bonus, "running away" (or kiting backwards, or tactically retreating from the immediate conflict) isn't that good of an option when you've only got that 20' movement speed due to being a harpy. Most people who would want to get to you could just run you down pretty effortlessly.

My first PC was made deliberately frail because I'd been invited to the group on the basis of helping them with roleplaying, and at the time I felt like I needed a mechanical justification for a character who tried to turn physical conflicts into social ones.

@Clarus_Nox Vicious mockery and dissonant whispers are outranged by most ranged attacks.

@BESW You can't diplomacy with a trap or falling rocks :)

@MikeQ Yup. And I agree to an extent. If it were me, I wouldn't go lower than 8. But there is some wiggle room to be had for the sake of fulfilling a fantasy.

@MikeQ That's why I made a deal with the barbarian.

Anyway, time for me to go to bed.