Regarding: Steal the Gold: Wait, does it even exist, what is it?
I am sure this is common, but a post I made that started off as a rant/opinion generator, revealed a deeper question I wanted answered, however, it took some time to elicit this, so a lot of comments back and forth. It seems there...
Peeve about ENWorld reviews: Whenever they talk about simplified systems, they implicitly --and often explicitly-- equate mechanical complexity with engagement, maturity, and sustainable long-form play.
@KorvinStarmast no worries. Still can't really wrap my head around that question. I feel like I'm starting to zone in on the concept they're thinking about, but I'm still not really seeing the question or (even better) problem. But I'm going to bed, so it's an SEP for a while.
"This simple system is okay for kids and one-shots, but adults and long campaigns need lots of crunch" is an ongoing theme in their reviews.
And I'm sitting here going "One--kids are capable of more complexity than media gives them credit for, don't feed them Captain Planet pablum. And two--roll up a full deadEarth character and then tell me crunch is inherently valuable, mature, or sustainable."
Last weekend's D&D session had about half the players missing (one with an overdue assignment, two with car trouble). So the rest of us played Munchkin. It was a fairly good substitute for D&D... Also the closest game I've ever seen - all of us were level 9 for at least a couple of turns before someone won.
@Adeptus Munchkin is great fun but I don't see it as a "substitute" for an RPG at all - it's a card game with a lot of jokes about RPG tropes, but it contains zero actual roleplaying unless you play it very differently from what I'm used to
@trogdor I was just trying to use humorous recursion by arguing about the semantics of "especially" after you saying it was especially about semantics...
Munchkin (and many other boardgames) don't give enough roleplaying experience to make them a substitute for RPGs. However, since they are also tabletop, social and in the same realm of geekdom, they often are.
5e dnd question for if/when someone is awake. How is creature type determined? How much would it break the game if one homebrewed a creature from one type to the other based on logic. My question mostly stems from the fact I noticed the Harpy is considered a monstrosity, however the Aarakocra and Yuan-ti(both inarguablly far less human like than a harpy) are counted as humanoid
I don't know if this would be a question for the forums or not so i'm asking here
At a guess, because harpies are designated monstrous by lack of society and culture.
> There was no social structure to harpy life
Yuan-ti and aarakocras act in accepted "people"-like ways.
> Most humanoids were capable of speech and had well-developed societies.
"Monstrosity" on the other hand, is just a catch-all for "scary unsettling thing we're more comfortable objectifying."
> They are often frightening and usually dangerous.... Many creatures that do not fit other categories well are considered monstrosities.
(Some yuan-ti are apparently classified as monstrosities.)
I'm no 5e expert, but I've never met a D&D edition where creature types had a real logic behind them. Which makes sense. D&D, setting/lore-wise, is a kitchen sink fantasy world of all manner of things mashed up against each other over decades.
I wouldn't expect a system-for-setting to be interested in (or capable of) really coherent categorizing of its contents if the setting was a mashup of decades of "hey, that's cool" from a half-dozen design teams.
It's a bunch of stuff. For the normal ranger, you gain one language that your favored enemy uses, and get advantage on checks to track them or recall info about them. In the revised ranger, you get some bonus damage I believe
Yeah, in the revised ranger you get a flat bonus to damage rolls against your favored enemies, as well as the stuff the original ranger gets
Oh, and advantage on saving throws against some of their abilities and spells once you hit 6th level
After having read the Core Rulebook, I am still not entirely certain what the benefits are of owning a computer in Starfinder. Clearly they are capable of storing and processing information, but to what end does this assist the player in the context of the game?
I guess changing harpy from monstrosity to humanoid can't really cause much issue. in the setting we'll be using the harpies do have society and trade. and my pc in our campaign is a harpy... i guess im actually nerfing it since it can now be hit by the smae things the rest of the party can
Double-checked genasi, and it doesn't mention type. So I spot-checked a bunch of others: it looks like none of the playable-races mention type. Nowhere in the PHB does it say, for instance, that a dwarf or a halfling or an elf or even a human is humanoid.
(You can get all those off NPC stat-blocks, though.)
i heard the zanathar's guide to everything is adding 25 classes... is it stuff from UA or completely different? what about races and items? only seem to see people talk about the potential classes
The 25+ new subclasses in Xanathar's Guide to Everything are the finished forms of subclasses that appeared in Unea… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/901870974450020352
@Yuuki It'll be released in some published supplement I'm sure. If it's ready for the public, XGtE is a good place for it. I just thought I remembered reading somewhere that they didn't think it was ready. But it appears my brain was tricking me.
Curse you hurricane. I have to cancel Cats of Catthulhu due to you.
Organized play allows you to experience different GMs, different players, and have a somewhat consistent experience.
Organized Play is also helpful for those who want to roleplay but are timid about starting or finding a local group. For organized play, all you need to do is signup, show up, and have a willingness to cooperate with others in a mutual short story.
Not every session is a winner, but most of them have promising results.
I don't think consistency is a big draw, because honestly... you get consistency from the same GM and the same players. Continuity, on the other hand, is a draw for some people. In DDAL, the storyline modules tie into each other (and usually the related hardcover release).
S1 was all about the machinations of Dragons. S2 was about demons and the underdark. S3 was elemental cults. S4 was, well... Ravenloft. S5 was giants. S6 was a ho-hum season in some eyes, because the hardcover was just old dungeon delve modules updated to 5E. S7 takes place in Chult, which means jungles and dinosaurs, and a death curse.
I can understand the appeal of regularity - I'm no stranger to how schedules can turn a weekly game into a monthly one. But my main hesitation about organized play is the rigidity - no changing characters between games, GMing requires what equates to a license, etc.
Although these are PFS problems... are they problems in AL too, or does it have a better structure?
@MikeQ If you mean altering characters between games, that's not allowed beyond advancement and purchases and whatnot. If you mean changing from one character to another, they all have to start at L1, but you can have as many as you like.
@MikeQ As far as DMs go, there is no authorization from a higher power required. You just do it.
Yes, sorry, I should have been more specific. Altering a character between continuous sessions is kind of cheating. But bringing in a completely new character at level 1 is kind of a pain if they aren't allowed to be the appropriate level.
@MikeQ The content is tiered (1-4, 5-10, 11-16, 17-20). As long as the character is in-tier, you can play it. If you DM, you also get allotments of XP, gold, and items that you can apply to any character you have.
I've got some characters that were played from L1, and others that started in Tier 2 via DM rewards.
I just looked up AL games near me and I am in the centre of a ring of them. Which means there is no game within 15 minutes of my house, but there are 7 within 20 minutes
@T.J.L. Well what happens if the group consists of mid-to-high level players? Am I forced to tag along as a level 1 character (who won't contribute nearly as much), or do I just have to sit out?
@MikeQ Like I said, the character has to be in-tier for the content. If it's a single-table group, you are kind of boned - but if they invited you, they should be willing to go back to L1. Most groups in public places however run multiple tables. Usually, there's somebody willing to run T1 content, and players willing to play it.
The hardcovers are a little more forgiving, level wise. They're generally (except for one) not tiered. And in 5E, the first two levels go by very fast. 5E also has the design element of bounded accuracy, which means yes... an L1 with higher-level characters is weaker, but if he's smart, he can still contribute and will earn the first few levels quickly.
@MikeQ Also, within certain bounds of things, coming in a few levels behind established characters is a roleplaying opportunity, not a disadvantage. Yes, you'll be spending your actions more defensively, but you'll also get to legitimately play to a character archetype, and then grow out of it because of the nature of leveling: The new guy.
5E's leveling is kind of designed with the pedal to the floor boards up to about L5, then cruise control until L10 (to make the most "satisfying" level range longer), then speed back up for L11 (to help games actually get to L20).
@MikeQ I like the DDAL structure better than the PFS structure. I also like the system itself and the DDAL-specific character creation rules (PHB plus one other sourcebook, to avoid broken builds) better.
@MadMAxJr Nope, they just stop getting XP. They can still collect other rewards, like magic items and whatnot. There's also a faction/renown system in play that can allow them to share some of those rewards downwards.
@nitsua60 I said that: "The hardcovers are a little more forgiving, level wise."
@nitsua60 Not quite. If you're over the published level (usually 11-ish), you can continue one you started with that character, but you can't start a different one with that character.
@MadMAxJr There isn't as much T4 content as the lower tiers (there's none in the first couple of seasons), but that's because there wasn't any plausible way for people to have T4 characters that early.
@nitsua60 And, that "able to continue" only carries for one hardcover. Say you play some of Storm King's Thunder, then jump into Princes of the Apocalypse and out-level SKT. You can continue to play PoA (which you've likely also out-leveled), but you can't bring that character back to SKT. The character can only carry one "active hardcover" flag at a time, so to speak.
@trogdor I think you'll like the pre-made Investigator for our One-2-One introductory adventure.
> Opportunistic Bookhound Phyllis Oakley slinks around the fringes of the city’s occult underworld, trading in rare books and manuscripts. Sifting library sales, house clearances, secondhand book-barrows and the occasional daring theft can turn up a mouldy, worm-eaten diamond in the dust – the price of wisdom is above rubies, and Phyllis is hungry for a cut.
More fantasy settings need snake-based migration cycles:
Alright, because people have been asking all day, from The Book of Wonders... three thousand, one hundred and twent… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/905595477827227649
@Yuuki I want to star this, but I feel like it'd ruin the aesthetic
In other news, however, parents are continuing to subject their children to adult (M, MA, R) movies, and are placing the blame on the movie makers/cinemas
After having read the Core Rulebook, I am still not entirely certain what the benefits are of owning a computer in Starfinder. Clearly they are capable of storing and processing information, but to what end does this assist the player in the context of the game?
