@Ben have you read Angry's stuff on building monsters for 5e?

Who wants an absurdly hardcore hoedown?

@Ben What do you mean by a monster-making challenge?

@Shalvenay I have not. When it comes to monster-making I much rather prefer re-skinning... because I'm terrible when it comes to figuring out balanced mechanics

@Lord_Gareth those are great movies!

@Ben well, Angry's stuff is a good guide to making the basics balanced

@Miniman I put to you a monster concept, and we work out an appropriately levelled monster

@Ben Hmmm, interesting. I don't really have time right now, but it sounds pretty fun.

For example, the one we worked on the other day - the Dog with the Poison Spray Cantrip

Y'know a little while back I was helping a friend of mine work out an encounter with an ifrit as the boss of a low-level campaign

And we hit on this idea where its wish-granting powers had run out of control and it just couldn't stop granting wishes

@Lord_Gareth You had me at "Ifrit"

So once per combat round the party take a lair action as if they were the monster

As they wish aloud

That went the exact opposite direction I was expecting hahaha

Well I mean ifrit are kinda hardcore, y'know?

Gotta even the field somehow!

Ifrit is one of my favourite creatures.

Second only to Bahamut

:P

I do have one interesting "boss" in mind... but it's more of a tactical one...

"Gharbad the Weak" This guy is apparently a demon (as he looks exactly like the other blood-mad goatmen in the dungeon) except he tries to earn the party's trust - he's "not like the others"... he's "weak", and "was shunned by the clan", etc.

He offers to help the party by making their gear better - adding some enchantments to them, however this will take time... so they'll need to leave their gear with him.

Lo and behold, when they return, he is using the party's gear against them, reinforced as promised...

@Lord_Gareth -- :D at the wishes-gone-mad

Opposite of the BBEG of the Legacy of Fire campaign. He can't use his wishes on himself, but is getting his underlings to wish for what he wants. We're about to face him this weekend, and I think the campaign's going to end... one way or the other...

So, aside from Miniman (as he is currently busy), is anyone else interested in my little "challenge"? haha

@SevenSidedDie thanks for the formatting edit, I have severely forgotten how to size up my text

@Anaphory Hmm. [googles]

@Anaphory No, I meant Tassajara Cooking. However, pretty much anything by Edward Espe Brown is likely to give you that same "how to cook, not how to follow recipes" experience. The Complete Cookbook is more modern, contains a bit more "food these days" complaints, but also has more content and a lot of the same old Ed I love.

I have Tassajara Cooking and The Tassajara Bread Book, myself.

@thedarkwanderer Cool--glad to help.

@KorvinStarmast you around?

In re: this message--wh‌​en you say you "gave poor advice" the other day, I feel like you're referencing a comment-colloquy we shared. But I can't find it now--do you remember anything about the question where that happened? I'm not entirely sure my advice to was good, and I'm trying to pull together some references for a meta.

@KorvinStarmast nvm--found it. (It was a question on weapon balance.)

I always think of someone physically balancing a sword when they say "weapon balance" haha

@Ben ...does this mean that bards are one of the most balanced classes?

I regret to say that I don't know enough about bards to get that joke haha

@Ben I think he just means that RP wise a bard is most likely to mess around with their weapons like that

think jugglers for example

though they might also have rogue for the skill points XD

It feels odd to me that Starfinder exists in such a context that turning off the baseline environmental protections of an enemy's armor can be a de facto death sentence

is that hard to do?

Technically it is impossible.

But also technically, I just wrote that ability

So...

I have an uncontrollable urge to write weird crap in anything I design for

And oh boy is it being unleashed

I was reading up about Starfinder the other day...

It looks really interesting, but SpaceRPG have never been my preference.

That being said, my only experience with said systems comes from Star Wars D20. :\

Do you find Starfinder enjoyable to run/play?

See that's less 'experience' and more 'you've been a victim'

Yes... That's what I've heard, but.

Do Starfinder and Pathfinder play together at all?

I heard that Starfinder was designed so you could use monsters from Pathfinder, but what about characters?

Paizo may have been overenthusiastic with those early reports

There are guidelines provided for conversion

But they're just that: guidelines

The majority of the work falls on the GM and/or player in question

And to be honest so much about the base system has changed that attempting to use those guidelines probably ends in blood

Racial conversions were done, though, and are in the final chapter of the book

So, essentially. If running Star-finder, treat any Pathfinder related content as sketchy 3PP and prepare accordingly?

Pretty much. Monsters aren't hard to convert (there's guidelines for that too) but, again, paradigm shift

Numbers are lower and more consistent, spells and feats have been reworked in terms of their power and function, classes work more consistently

Is this more or less than "Savage Species character classes" levels of pretending things fit together?

The vehicle rules are hot garbage but I'm gonna be honest, we've been trying to do decent vehicle rules since GURPS and thus far literally no one has written rules for vehicles in an RPG that isn't specifically about vehicles that rise above the 'sin against Man and God' quality threshold

@BESW Honestly, no? The conversion section actually warns you repeatedly

This actually makes things sound like fun, if I'm being honest.

It was like going through the section of my A+ Cert textbook about fixing laptops

Which was like ten pages of "DON'T EVEN TRY IT FOOL"

"BUT IF YOU'RE STUPID, HERE'S WHAT YOU DO"

In any event SF seems like a better-designed game, which is great in some respects

And frustrating in others since Paizo has chosen to directly address a bunch of the issues PF has which, in the context of PF, they have previously "addressed" by publicly denying their existence and castigating anyone who disagrees

You can imagine my conflicting emotions about that state of affairs

If you don't have that background of frustration and interaction with Paizo you might consider giving Starfinder a shot sometime. Thus far it's proven tight, intuitive, and able to hold together a more consistent world narrative.

There's a Starfinder SRD, which I'd suggest using in main because I don't endorse piracy but I also do not endorse giving Paizo money.

I've always liked Pathfinder because of the existance of the free SRD

So that Starfinder has one is great.

It has to, legally

It's OGL content

@trogdor I understand this reference now haha

They can only sell it if they also give it away for free

I've never understand how companies can do that and still make money.

But I have no complaints.

A few ways. Some of it is loyal fans

@Ben cool

Some of it is having an interesting setting, or, failing an ability to write an interesting setting, relying on the fans to buy your hacked-together generic kitchen sink

Paizo's main money draw is a combination of adventure paths, PFS scenarios, and PFS itself as a model

Adventures and the like aren't OGL, though mechanics from them have to be

But like, the Kingdom Building Rules don't give you Kingmaker

So people buy Kingmaker

That's true, and all the adventures are only available to purchase.

Like the Gods etc as well.

Yep.

Awesome, thanks!

The other thing Paizo does is write their mechanics as inextricably linked with the setting, which...I'm gonna be honest, is not a thing I consider good practice or even remotely okay

They do it so the generic versions put up on SRDs don't make sense

One last question. Would the game be playable if I was to implant a party of Pathfinder created characters into a Starfinder setting?

I.E. "Why do I have to worship an LG goddess of war specifically to be able to do stuff with a longsword"

I vastly would not suggest that whatsoever

Not even a little would I suggest that course of action

Given the option to run that campaign or break my arm from the elbow to the fingertips I'd break my arm

Buuuut

Wow

You could probably evoke very similar characters just by remaking the concepts with SF classes

Y'know, the Spacefuture AU Version

Might be worth looking into at some point.

(The weirdest thing here is that there's two classes in ostensibly the same niche, one a magical warrior and one a regular warrior)

(and somehow the regular warrior is the better-designed and more interesting class)

(In a related story if you wanna plasma axe people into another dimension, Starfinder has you covered)

How does that even work? O_o

The class design or the plasma axing

Because the plasma axing works by putting the plasma against a heavy projector lance which adds heft to the hits

Well for one thing that's not what the normal warrior does, necessarily.

The Soldier, as they're called, is swinging seven different combat styles as of core, of which you get a Primary and a Secondary (the Secondary is at half-advancement).

These form the primary basis of your combat style

And range from stuff like specializing in using big, armor-mounted weapons to Blitz style soldiers that are all about momentum crashing

To go with that you get gear perks, letting you unleash weird crap by pushing your equipment past the limits of where other, possibly saner people, would stop

Like bleeding excess magic out of your gun to dispel on a shot

Or using cryo beams to root people to the floor

Ooh

That sounds interesting.

And no, I know fighters can do so much more, but. I like to oversimply things lol

Pfft, no they can't. Fighters in PF are phenomenally bad

They only recently got options of any thematic and mechanical significance

You know, a freakin' decade into PF

Sooo.... could Starfinder be hacked into a "Pathfinder 2.0"? Does it have enough rules covering medieval-fantasy-type stuff?

(just idle curiosity, since I'm unlikely to adopt a new D&D-like ruleset, let alone mod one to be)

Jokes aside

Yes but also, significantly, no. If we accept as a given that we're throwing out the vehicle rules and the starship rules, other stuff is...interesting, but not necessarily easily converted.

Significantly, the gun rules don't backport well towards bows and crossbows or, rather, they could but you'd have the audience after your blood in sacrifice to the dark gods of what they think those weapons work like after forty years of dealing with D&D's historical errors

Likewise a whole bunch of the spells and feats assume access to casual technology

The entire Mechanic class would be a little weird to try and translate

You could maybe model Eberron or another mage-punk style setting in this way, with wand-guns and trains and the like...

But for your "traditional" medieval-renessiance-what-year-even-is-it-why-is-there-full-plate-but-no-guns-se‌​riously-what-the-hell fantasy?

Nah

Well, to be fair. Full plate and no guns makes sense if you're living somewhere without the nessecary minerals to creature gunpowder, but.

Since full plate was only invented because of guns

I'ma have to say "no" to that

Also. I just read the chat transcript you and BESW had regarding transcribing LoL characters into Fate. That was one of the most amusing things I've read in a while.

Huh, really?

I never would of guessed that.

Yep.

Welcome to the RPG industry, where nerds who yell about historical accuracy if you have a person of color in your fantasy world also believe that flintlocks pierced plate armor.

Plate fell out of use not because it didn't work, but because for the price of one suit of plate you could turn out a regiment of riflemen instead

And even then it remained in use on the killing fields for a long, long time because you don't need a whole lot of cavalry to turn that regiment into fertilizer

I vaguely remember some sort of armour being commonplace until at least the US civil war, but I always assumed it to be ceremonial/decorative, and not practical.

@Nyoze Like the notion that Europe ever lacked non-white people, our modern understanding of historical armor is mostly filtered through mediums that didn't care about accuracy or research at all. eg, most peoples' vision of the medieval knight is based on the American version of the French re-writing of British myths, and has little to nothing to do with anything which actually ever existed.

Which of course makes perfect sense to explain it, but when it comes to "Common knowledge" is completely pointless. Because, lets face it. Everyone knows that armor doesn't stop guns.

And, I don't remember how to format in chat anymore either. That's what I get for leaving for like, 2 years :\

@Nyoze single star double star triple star

Stars, not Slashes. Thanks.

Stars not Slashes also would make a good band name.

@Nyoze link?

@BESW If I told you I had dark country that blurs the line between country and rock

Would you want to listen to it?

@Lord_Gareth ...how does it compare to Steve 'N' Seagulls?

@THiebert It's the chat link in the star bar.

^ That. But. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/8403/conversation/… if it's easier.

I have no idea

So just give it a shot youtube.com/watch?v=xz5Mx3a8kRw

On a slightly related note. While my work has no problem with me listening to Spotify while working, or even playing idle games online, they draw the line at Youtube. :\

way more distracting

even if you could technically only be listening to music

until a few months ago my work let us have youtube open but it eventually got to the point where not everyone could use it responsibly and still do their jobs, so my work doesn't allow it anymore either (some people are still hunting other, even less safe sites for the same thing :/)

Yeah, that's a point. There was quite a few people who would leave twitch up while working as well.

urgh

I can't say for sure that absolutely no one at my job would do that if they could

(I have not tried to open Twitch at work at all, though to be fair I hardly open Twitch at all anyway)

I definitely get listening to music at work

I actually think I am more productive if I do

but if I start watching a video I won't get anything done

Trogdor what happened to all your rep man

huh?

what rep?

Your thing reads 943 over here

I yearn for the days when my rep was that low

YEARN

I don't do much posting

sooooo I don't get much rep

Damnit, that solution is completely unworkable for me.

it's pretty simple

lol

I mean, to be fair there was a stretch when I had 200, and then later like 600, and now it's almost 1000

definitely slow, but every once in a while someone links something that I can't help but answer

or I have a golden question I actually want to ask

Do you have any idea how much it bothers me that I've been given these tools that I did not ask for, never wanted, and continue to not want?

you could just not use them?

"Knows dumb shit about ramshackle RPG systems" =/= "community leadership material"

heck, I tried to do some of the stuff that my rep gave me, but some of it is too much work

Well sure but unless the culture has changed there's this expectation that I'm supposed to use them

@Lord_Gareth oooh that side of it nevermind

Yeah that side of it.

I thought you meant rep powers stuff

The powers are part and parcel of that.

oh

But like, this is not a hobby known for its unity or emotional maturity.

We should not be trusting people with power because they know things.

ok you just meant a broader array of things than I originally thought

I wouldn't trust me with power and I am me

@Lord_Gareth well, I think part of it is that people can be banned and so forth if they know things but are being complete jerks or trolls or wtv else doesn't fly here

But you have the power :O

at least the idea is that

@Lord_Gareth I don't care about the power thing, it's the responsibility that I don't like XD

@trogdor Yeah see I don't want that either.

I don't need Uncle Ben's ghost lurching out from under my bed

it gets all over my brain, very distasteful

Well... It's a simple solution. Stop helping people.

@Nyoze can't

that is the problem XD

Well...

sure, I don't help often, but if someone links something in chat that I can totally answer, imma gonna do that

Okay, there's a solution.

Only help people in Chat.

@Nyoze I am being partly sarcastic here, by the way

Where your reputation gains are limited/non-existent :D

@trogdor I think we all are. If we had no intention to help people, we wouldn't be here.

I really don't mind gaining rep

I just don't exactly have a drive to obtain it either

I'm honestly surprised it's as low as it is.

Since you've been around longer then me, and I was away for like, 2 years.

@Nyoze fair

@Nyoze well, again

veeeeery low activity in posting stuff

Also @Miniman Hi there. I saw you sneak in, and haven't seen you since I've been back.

I mean, that does kinda feed back to the fundamental issue I'm pointing out, in that the system is predisposed to reward knowledge with power.

I am in chat a loooooooot but have less drive than most to look for questions I can answer on the main site

Which, while amusing, is a really bad selection process

which is fine with me

@Lord_Gareth It's not just knowledge, but a drive to help people, and actually having well written and helpful answers as well.

You can know everything, but if your answers are all just bad, you won't get rep anyway.

Conversely, if you know nothing, but continue to write well written questions in your quest for knowledge, you can have all the rep.

yeah there is the whole thing about exactly how to write helpful answers

if you can conform to that it probably means you are less likely to abuse rep powers you get

There are plenty of folks who come here knowing a lot about RPGs who never get much rep. Rep (in theory) indicates participation, experience with the Stack system, a willingness to play ball.

not calling it any kind of guarantee or anything, but it's one aspect of things

@BESW I lose out on participation for sure XD

Exactly. I know not much about any RPG system, but I understand how rules work, and I like making the effort to learn something so I can answer a question.

which again, I don't mind that that means I get rep real slow

I didn't come here for more than 20-25 rep

whichever it is that lets you harass people in chat :P

20 Rep I think.

Or 1000 rep on any other Stack, so you can harass all the chats.

for ,........ 4 years, and 5 months XD

It's 20 rep, cumulative across all Stacks.

@Nyoze wait, I couldn't talk in other sites chats without 1000 rep?

I thought you needed 20 rep per site you wanted to chat in?

And 1000 rep gives you the automatic 100 rep per site?

@Nyoze oh no I don't think so XD

Nooope.

Oh well

Ignore me then, carry on.

I guess I just like the number 25 a lot better than the number 20

also, like around 200 or so of this rep is from one question in Travel

which is hilarious XD

eerrr 300

wat am I mathing XD

That's a point, I forget that chat marges al your rep together.

Cause I don't have quite 2k here yet.

@Nyoze I wouldn't expect you to remember the time it must have happened to you (because you have over 2k rep) but you should have at least 100 "free" rep on every stack that you have visited (just from reaching like, 200 or something like that)

Yeah, I thought that happened around 1000, but I could be wrong.

Yeah

@Nyoze nah, I got it

so it does not happen at 1000

XD

again, I did not expect you to remember when it happened

One way to find out :O

away for two years, plus I don't even remember exactly what rep I hit to trigger it

yep looked it up

200

If you are an experienced Stack Exchange network user with 200 or more reputation on at least one site, you will receive a starting +100 reputation bonus to get you past basic new user restrictions. This will happen automatically on all current Stack Exchange sites where you have an account, and on any other Stack Exchange sites at the time you log in.

Well, you found it first lol

Interestingly, your chat Rep doesn't reflect the free rep you get.

no it does not

like I care XD

I mean, if I wanted to inflate my chat rep and it worked like that, I could just look at a bunch of stacks

so I can see why that would be,... unappetizing

it could be exploited if it worked that way

the point is just to give you a foot in the door in other stacks so that if you want to branch out you can do so without looking like a complete newbie to the stack as a whole

and having some like, basic rep privileges and such

anyway, when I hit 500 I tried doing review que stuff

turns out I don't have much opportunity to do anything with that on work days, because a lot of stuff gets posted during the time I work

aaaaaaand besides that I don't know if I could keep that kind of activity up long term anyway

I've never had a chance to review anything.

It's always empty when I get a chance to check

that was happening to me a lot for the month or so that I was actually checking it yeah

there seem to be a handful of extremely active review que people and then probably a bunch of slightly less active people getting to it most of the time

props to them

Props to them indeed :)

also, besides other reasons I find myself feeling inadequate to do that exact job

like, I think I might be too forgiving or possibly miss some things that the site doesn't want to tolerate

or that most people would edit just a little to make better

I don't think I am much of an editor

I AM sorta interested in seeing all the up and down votes on posts, but not enough to sort through stuff to post something that will get me the rest of the rep

even if I only need a little less than 60 XD

eventually someone will bring my attention to something I can and absolutely must answer

it seems to always happen

(sometimes even when there wasn't an explicit attempt to do that exact thing)

feh, another session with arbitrary DM .. "everyone must play a Thief class for tonites adventure".

Why would someone do that to people they love

Or themselves

@Nyoze Hi! Welcome back!

So of course we have a mix of levels, from 1st to 5th. Yay?

Why would you do that to even your enemies

what stat would you roll against for a bard to "read the audience", to see if anyone present is more than just an audience member?

Perception or Sense Motive on the bard's part, I'd think

either to pick out wrong elements (Perception) or odd emotions and behaviors (Sense Motive)

Alternately, work a Bluff into the performance to bait out those odd reactions?

Hmm, this DM doesn't do "Yes, and .." very well :(

Hmm .. mages with spells not cast, still memorised ... do they forget them overnight? What if their sleep is interrupted?

They do not. However, when they memorize spells again in the morning they can/do exchange everything

Releasing old spells and memorizing new ones

Remember, the nap is not the spell prep part

That happens after the nap

Question in need of serious scrubbing/retexting detected: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/109248/…

@Lord_Gareth yeh, seemed an odd ruling. I get needing a proper rest to be in a state for committing new spells to memory, but having them slip/fade sounded wrong.

As usual, I remind you that the word of angry strangers with shocked pink pony avatars from the dark lands of The Internet are not a substitute for talking to your GM like a mature adult.

Good morning folks

The mage, not wanting to give away his position while invisible, gestures to the rest of the party.

Hmmmmm .. really?

@Erics Ow, what system is this?

@Magician A monster for your bestiary?

I'm personally fine with GM dictated class restrictions for whatever reason, but if this is any edition of DnD I've played, forcing a level disparity in any way is an unadvisable move.

@kviiri 2e, supposedly

We just finished the first season of my DnD 5e campaign, with the characters defeating the villains and assuming nominal control of their adventurers' guild.

The final battle, where the characters were pushing for the control of a ritual circle, was pretty much what Savage Worlds promised to be - Fast, Furious and Fun. High damage was being inflicted on everyone.

@kviiri Wooooo! Congrats

@doppelspooker Thanks ^^

@kviiri And now, you switch systems, yes?

@Adam At least for a while, yeah. We discussed after the finale, and agreed that the current campaign can stay indefinitely in hiatus, until I have the time and desire to run DnD 5e again or find a system we could migrate it to.

Currently, with work, seminar papers and Masters' weighing me down, I'm not going to pick up anything prep-intensive.

@Zachiel Great question and answer regarding the PbtA! I didn't know of that.

hmmm, something with little labor on the GM side? Play a PbtA Title... or maybe change GM seats for a bit...

@Trish Apocalypse World is my system of choice, yup.

MASKS is cool too

@kviiri I agree! 👏

AW plays well with my strengths, because it's so heavily based on improv and I can do that way better than prep.

@Trish Long-form or one-shot? Zany or serious?

Well, we tried to make it a longer stay, but we play club style (who comes, comes and then seperates in the troupe they like today.

and that made it fall apart kinda

Also, does "little labor" mean "little prep" or something else?

@ACuriousMind Kviiri mentioned "not os prep intensive"

@Trish Ah, making that club style work well with a long-form campaign requires careful planning and doesn't work for all kinds of story

@Trish In that case, PtbA games are good choice

Club style works best for oneshots and short arcs... there can be intensive prep, but little prep is better. Our MASKS round did not come up again for months, people come/go... sustaining the connection map for PbtA games is tedious. Games like Conan or Shadowrun actually work /better/

I was about to suggest Shadowrun for that style, but it's not exactly less prep-heavy than other systems :P

I just did pitch in MASKS as a PbtA game to Kviiri's quest for a low-prep-system, then told what my fate with it was :3

It works very well with the "Oh, Peter isn't here this week, he's taken on another run" in-game excuse for characters not being there

Wait

Oh, I see now why this conversation made less sense to me as it went on :D I totally overlooked kviiri's message and thought you were asking for a "little labor system" for yourself

@ACuriousMind I have little actual experience with Shadowrun, but doesn't it revolve quite heavily on the GM having site security designs available?

Either their own or someone else's