TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

12:05 AM

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 what's up?

nitsua60

Eeekend duty. Many miles on these feet today.

(I'm digging ^^ that typo.)

Emrys Ternal

12:59 AM

Hey I have a D&D 3.5 question. What happened to the D&D Archive on Wizards.com ?? It's been gone for weeks at-least, and it doesn't seem like a glitch! Is there a backup download somewhere?

Shalvenay

@EmrysTernal wizards ate it in the process of reorganizing their website

most likely

Emrys Ternal

Archive.org doesn't seem to have a copy. D:

nitsua60

WotC labyrinth

Aug 11 '16 at 15:02, 36 minutes total – 55 messages, 5 users, 1 star

Bookmarked Jun 15 at 17:12 by nitsua60

Shalvenay

@EmrysTernal yeah, some things don't get along with the archive.org bot

Emrys Ternal

1:15 AM

Oh thank gods I found an archived version: web.archive.org/web/20161031214153/http://archive.wizards.com/…

THiebert

1:39 AM

Who's got xanathar's?

Shalvenay

1:59 AM

@THiebert not yet. got several higher priority things on my shopping list

Miniman

2:28 AM

@THiebert Amazon doesn't get the early release, and then there's shipping... :(

Shalvenay

hey there @THiebert

THiebert

2:44 AM

I know Amazon is cheaper

But I like to buy from stores anyway

Miniman

3:03 AM

@THiebert Me too! But both of the local game stores are really unreliable about what books they get in :'(

nitsua60

@THiebert heyo!

Papayaman1000

Say, what all does Xanathar's have? I saw new spells and subclasses (some of which were in UAs), but I'm not sure if there's much else crunch there. Probably still getting it in between the crunch and fluff (especially with Wizards making such an initiative to balance the two in their source books with this edition), but I'd like to know beforehand.

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

@Papayaman1000 I'd say take a look at the table of contents and then ask about anything that intrigues you.

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 what's up?

nitsua60

3:18 AM

Sitting monitoring a dorm hallway, trying not to overhear the group of fifteen kids in a dorm room playing "never have I ever." Loudly.

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 heh. not a good time for D&D then?

nitsua60

Nah--I've only got about 20 min 'til I need to be on the move again.

Shalvenay

ah. in the meantime btw: mind giving me a 2nd opinion on dandwiki.com/wiki/Gnoll_(5e_Race) re: balance?

Papayaman1000

Holy nine hells, this book is looking great just from the ToC alone! Definitely grabbing it as soon as possible.

THiebert

Oh hey guys

Shalvenay

3:22 AM

hey there @THiebert, what'cha up to tonight?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay I'd link in Yeenoghu when he's mentioned, and flindbar(s).

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 ah. dunno why the links are AWOL, but that's neither here nor there :P I was more asking if the race was balanced well enough to be usable? (not my wiki article -- Miniman suggested it when I asked about gnoll PCs in 5e)

nitsua60

Balance looks good. It's a little strange to give ASIs to both STR & DEX, I think. For most races that's an either/or.

I like the bite attack thing, and 1d6 doesn't seem too bad.

I'm afb: how's that compare to the Tabaxi or Lizardfolk natural weapon attacks?

Shalvenay

yeah, the bite attack is sensible I think given that lizardfolk are 1d4, but you'd expect gnolls to have a particularly nasty bite given their evolutionary ancestry

nitsua60

If anything I'd say this is a touch underpowered. The bite thing seems like it might be hard to utilize well, given OAs.

I feel like it's missing a tiny something... a racial proficiency in Intimidation, or a copycat of the ranger's tracking buff...?

THiebert

3:29 AM

Divinity, mostly

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 racial prof in Intimidate would make sense

nitsua60

A once-daily chance to re-roll a WIS or CHA save (their "primal mind" sheltering them from something.)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 that'd actually be kinda cool instead of intimidate prof

nitsua60

@Papayaman1000 Curious: what jumps out at you?

Papayaman1000

Yes.

Subclasses are nice-looking. All the new rulings are tantalizing. And after Volo's, I am loving the lore that these books have been bringing.

Shalvenay

3:33 AM

hey there @Erics

nitsua60

@Papayaman1000 They have nice flavor bits for all the classes, at the class level. About a half-page to a page for each. Things like your mentor as a fighter, or your embarrassing failure as a bard. I like those bits.

THiebert

Those would be nice

Miniman

@nitsua60 It's not exactly weird, just...bad. The tiefling has the same pattern, and some of the Volo's races.

Papayaman1000

Ooooh! Alright.

nitsua60

@Shalvenay There should probably be three sub-races. The typical aggressive gnoll with a bit of an infernal flavor, the fling gnoll, and some nomadic/pastoral one?

@Miniman Yeah. You're almost certainly "wasting" one of those. Though DEX ain't bad to have as a "wasted" ASI.

Erics

3:37 AM

hey @Shalvenay

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 that actually makes some sense. you have your stereotypical infernal gnoll, flinds, and probaly a Thayan gnoll actually to represent their more "civilized" side?

nitsua60

Get craftin'!

Shalvenay

@Erics how're things going?

Erics

cool. building out a campaign world and getting lost in the depths of wikipedia =)

Shalvenay

ah xD what sort of campaign world?

Erics

3:40 AM

dnd2e - low-magic, ruined remains of previous ages of men in much wilderness

Locmariaquer megaliths

The Locmariaquer megaliths are a complex of Neolithic constructions in Locmariaquer, Brittany. They comprise the elaborate Er-Grah tumulus passage grave, a dolmen known as the Table des Marchand and "The Broken Menhir of Er Grah", the largest known single block of stone to have been transported and erected by Neolithic people. == The Broken Menhir of Er Grah == The broken menhir was erected around 4700 BC, at the same time as another 18 blocks nearby, it is thought to have been broken around 4000 BC. Measuring 20.60 metres (67.6 ft), with a weight of 330 tonnes, the stone is from a rocky outcrop...

Shalvenay

@Erics ah

don't think that'd fit very well with either of my AD&D/2e chars (one was a very dark-skinned half-elf wizard who got his dark skin from his human side, the other was a LN gnoll monk/priestess of St. Cuthbert)

Erics

i've written dwarves in so far, yet to figure out where elves fit into things

local region has kobolds and goblinoids

plenty of complicated factions to muddy and blur the line as to who the "good guys" are

Shalvenay

@Erics xD

Erics

there's a loose faction of bandits and such roaming the countryside ... or robin-hood types depending on your view

Shalvenay

walk into the general store, find a kobold behind the counter

Erics

3:45 AM

not quite, but with the faction set up I have that is a future possibility. players just gotta swing the politics away from the fascist Kings Guard and their ilk.

there are two kobold factions - one an expansionist that hires goblin mercs and relies on numbers, the other isolationist and xenophobic and relies on traps and tech, getting into brewing booze.

Shalvenay

ah

Erics

the anti-authoritarian faction has bumped into the latter, and though there isn't enough trust and friendliness for an alliance there is enough for limited trade. And so the Town Merchant's Guild currently has a bounty on who can figure out where this strange booze is coming from, who is smuggling it, and so on.

Shalvenay

@Erics and a kobold walks into the merchants' guild HQ with an application letter and a keg o' booze :P

Erics

Now, you'd think the Merchants Guild are all Lawful types, being pedantic and picky as to the rules and regulations and bureaucracy ... except some of the big-ups have gone off the rails a bit, power-mad, and are dabbling in things they shouldn't. The Blood Court.

Shalvenay

@Erics oh dear. I think the authoritarians would flip all the tables when confronted with a LN Gnoll btw

Erics

3:55 AM

Back to megalithic structures .. I'm building into the campaign a lot of terrain dressing, to act as landmarks and such. Just because the GM says "You come across a great stone circle henge" doesn't automatically mean "ah-ho, must be a dungeon here somewhere".

The theory is that wilderness maps are often drawn up as just big blank spaces, a delay to getting to where the dungeon (& adventure) is. So instead, I'm filling the wilderness with landmarks and points of interest and so on. Just as a dungeon is filled with walls, doors, corridors, rooms, etc.

The players won't look at the (mostly-blank) map and say "we go [some distant point]" and assume a straight line. Instead they'll navigate around stuff. They'll have a choice of roads, and if they go off the roads there'll be many landmarks.

Papayaman1000

Ooh. Stealing that idea. I need to scatter more ruins and such throughout my setting's map.

Shalvenay

@Erics -- my problem with actually making maps for that stuff is that I want way too much precision out of my mapmaking for any artistic mapmaking approach to suffice

it's the curse of being spoiled rotten by spending too much time around GIS-type systems

Erics

@Papayaman1000 Including mundane ruins too.

Papayaman1000

...why did you have to introduce me to the term GIS, Shal? Now I have to spend six months obsessing over it.

@Erics That's the plan.

I want everything to have at least a little touch of lore, but not everything needs to revolve around murderhoboism.

Miniman

@nitsua60 There's a weird niche for it though - medium armour is a thing that exists, even if everyone tries to avoid admitting it.

Erics

4:04 AM

With the megaliths, the style being a mix of celtic henges and aztec/etc structures, there will be easily observable lore about The Old Ones. Yeh, the First Age ended for a reason.

Papayaman1000

Ooh. Sounds exciting!

Erics

They pretty much won't be fronting up against horrors, but it will be an ever present ancient history, dead and buried.

So long as certain bored merchant lords don't go delving too deep into the ancient crypts below the city.

The PCs will probably happily go on an adventure to bring back archeological treasures from some ancient site. Carvings and such. It's just dead stone, from ancient times, and the merchants pay well. They probably just want to fancy out their living quarters with some old pots and such.

nitsua60

4:27 AM

@Miniman Yeah, between medium armor, initiative, saves, stealth, acrobatics, ranged attacks... there are enough reasons to like a bit of extra dex =)

Shalvenay

4:45 AM

hey there @Ben

hey again @THiebert

THiebert

Hi

Phone died earlier

There a better way to chat on mobile besides the mobile site?

Shalvenay

ah. I take it now would not be a good time to try to rope you into a short-form D&D game?

THiebert

Short form?

Shalvenay

@THiebert think "one-shot-ish"

Ben

Yo

THiebert

4:48 AM

How long and when you starting? If I can have like half an hour, I'd probably be down.

Shalvenay

@Ben how're things going?

Ben

Gotta re-do all my monsters I did in the Homebrewery

Blegh

Shalvenay

@THiebert it's designed to fit into 1-2 4h sessions, max

@Ben oh? :/ how come? also, would half an hour from now be an alright time to play?

Ben

I created them all, but left them all at work

Lol

Shalvenay

@Ben whoopsie :P

Ben

4:50 AM

Tbh, I can go back and get them, and just start working on the next bunch...

Shalvenay

@Ben true dat :)

would now be a good time for our short-form dungeon? might actually be able to pull together a threesome of players even if I can get a hold of Papayaman

Ben

Maybe, for a little bit :)

Shalvenay

@Ben how short/long of a time?

Ben

An hour or so

Shalvenay

hrm...

how far is "or so"?

Ben

4:53 AM

prolly a max of 2 hrs

Shalvenay

hrm. 2h would be enough to get a decent start

@THiebert sounds like a plan to me

we'll be doing a short session and seeing how far we get tho (due to Ben's timing being the limiting factor)

@Ben -- you able to hop on Discord? I was figuring we'd play there if @THiebert was cool with that

Ben

Followed the link but I don't think it worked. I can't see anything in the room and I can't post

I now can post, but can't see any messages

Shalvenay

5:16 AM

@THiebert btw, this will be D&D 5e, 5th level char, all sourcebooks allowed :) does playing on Discord chat work for you?

THiebert

yeah, works for me. Is there a server for this already?

i might need a few more minutes.

Also, I don't have my books, so I'm going to have to go SRD + EEPC only :/

Shalvenay

@THiebert np

@THiebert discord.gg/VGwYVc

THiebert

where are dice rolled?

@Shalvenay it's taking a bit to get everything loaded up on my laptop. just another sec

Erics

5:42 AM

@Ben whats the Homebrewery?

Ben

homebrewery.naturalcrit.com

Shalvenay

@Erics tool for making homebrew content match the 5e materials in typesetting style, more or less

Erics

@Shalvenay Nice, thanks

Papayaman1000

6:06 AM

love that place, and nitsua for initially pointing me towards it

BESW

9:34 AM

Day of Fate – November 2017 http://buffalofatecorps.com/2017/11/11/day-of-fate-november-2017/

Tweeted by BuffFateCorps on November 11, 2017 at 7:16 PM

doppelspooker

12:06 PM

@BESW \o/

BESW

[wave]

Zachiel

4:01 PM

Shopping question for you people:
I'm trying to find an alternative to maptools for offline map managing

ideally all I need is being able to move tokens over a raster map, managing FoW based on D&D 4e rules (this is hard) and possibly condition tracking

Shalvenay

4:15 PM

hey there @Zachiel

Zachiel

@Shalvenay Hello

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Zachiel

4:32 PM

@Shalvenay I'm cursing maptools again and again

Why must it be so complicated?

Shalvenay

maptools is annoying because it's a standalone thing (a protocol if you will), not a web-based platform, and much of the world discriminates against protocols (blame half-arsed notions of "security" and whatnot). or is there a different problem you're dealing with?

Zachiel

4:48 PM

@Shalvenay I have no connection in the room where we play, so I need something that isn't web-based

I have found a framework that sort of manages vision, but the "reveal everything along your movement path" option isn't that useful: movement paths are beelines

(While characters usually move laterally in order to avoid opportunity attacks, walls and so on)

Also, importing tokens is tiresome. I wish it had drag and drop.

Shalvenay

It take it now's not a good time to make a bit more progress on our dungeon run btw?

@Zachiel I suppose you could run a local instance of Mipui considering it's open-source? would be a bit of an odd solution but probably workable, talk to @Oak for details

hey there btw @Trish

Zachiel

5:06 PM

@Shalvenay I was considering switching to video for the enhanced graphics. Mipui is a great tool and I really like the distinctive graphic options, but for this campaign I want full-color maps taken from a repository I already have.

Shalvenay

@Zachiel ah

Zachiel

@Shalvenay Anyway no, not really. :(

Shalvenay

5:43 PM

hey there @Erics

nijineko

7:45 PM

@Zachiel Ever consider Gametable?

Trish

8:46 PM

hmmm, is a Dramatis personae of 5 pages (some entries have the whole description, others are like "Ugdalf is the barkeep of the bull, a veteran of the ogre battle. He is well off middle class."

Add to the 5 pages people 1 page of military units (3 of the units name a few characters even), one page military glossary & the unit on the Silkwiesen (if players want to play it), 1 page of the background figures (The prince, the lord inquisitor etc), a page of the total list of all the emperors of the empire, a reminder of the quarters of the Town and then two portaits that don't fit to the dramatis personae...

kviiri

We did such a list for one of our games. It was fun until we realized no one remembered any of the collaboratively created characters :<

I've been thinking of trying to reconcile "interesting characters" vs "characters the players find interesting" because I think it's pointless if my players feel the need to write down every single name I drop

What I've been thinking about is having openly unimportant NPCs but players could promote them if they want to hear more about them.

Trish

9:04 PM

@kviiri that is pretty much the official cast of the adventure.

I did put in every single named character, even the 5 named orks... I do try my best to hide away that one of the NPCs is actually a traitor by just listing his military merit and desc, and all being in alphabetical order...

another character is just named as "young knight that was on the Silkwiesen"... because players are supposed to remember this character if possible... pretty bad idea for a character that appears in the background of a scene by falling over and getting put into non-combat role because the heroes need a horse...

hmmm, 2 pages are only 2/3rd filled in the DP entry... should I add more NPCs to fill them or just keep it like that?

BESW

9:58 PM

A Roman bronze throwing tower found at Vettweiß-Froitz-heim in Germany. The sides have been worked open, so that the players could see the dice rolling. Invented to prevent cheating.Text on the back reads: 'utere felix vivas' ('use it and live as a lucky man'). 4th century

Tweeted by ticiaverveer on November 11, 2017 at 8:23 PM

kviiri

Looks like a grating iron.

Ben

10:19 PM

Wow... my answer was the one that got accepted..?

cc @Nyoze

Also @Nyoze it's apparently 32ft/s/s.

Just watched MiB3 last night :p

kviiri

I find that I'm making the bulk of my rep every day from answers I'm not particularly proud of. :<

Ben

@kviiri How are you not proud of them?

kviiri

@Ben They're mostly about stuff I don't care that much about (even if I'm good at memorizing it) from DnD 5e, which I don't care that much about either.

Ben

Ah fair enough

kviiri

I reaped a ton of rep when I first learned DnD 5e last Winter and was still into the game :)

BESW

10:37 PM

Yeeeah, I've got nearly seven thousand rep from systems I've either never played or stopped playing before I joined the Stack.

Including some of my most badged answers.

kviiri

I have very few answers on systems I haven't played but I do have some.

Miniman

Even for those of us answering in our chosen system, the answers that get rep are generally not the ones we're proud of. I know nitsua will back me up on that one.

BESW

Yup.

Certainly, there's very little match between the attention an answer gets and the effort which went into being able to give it.

Ben

I mean, the one that just got accepted was basically "Physics and D&D don't mix"

kviiri

I have an answer in Math.Stackexchange that's basically "here's how you use the pumping lemma for regular languages". Hasn't gotten almost any reputation but I always link it to my friends who want to see an example for the Models of Computation course :)

Miniman

10:41 PM

@Ben To be fair, that's a PSA of vital importance.

3

BESW

A lot of my rep comes from variations on "Playing a game with a lot of rules doesn't give you permission to be a jerk."

@Miniman Has anyone tried doing a leaflet drop on Wizards' HQ?

kviiri

@BESW That too is an important message.

Insert my usual rants about DnD not really communicating playstyle guidance here

Urgh, I scanned through my answers but couldn't find that one about the game with samurai and jade protecting one's soul from taint.

Miniman

10:59 PM

@kviiri This one?

(A search for "jade" got me to l5r, and then I just checked your tags for it.)

kviiri

Yep, that one.

Boy, have my perspectives drifted. I would argue more vocally against losing one's character to Rule Zero today.

Miniman

Based on what ShadowKras said, I suspect that, even if you convinced the GM to use the rules, he'd just name an arbitrarily high number which would basically guarantee the same outcome. Of course, despite being functionally equivalent, I think that would be better.

Ben

11:14 PM

@Miniman GM: [Rolls d348]

Miniman

@Ben Well, more like 348d6, I think, but yeah.

BESW

2dblaaaargh

Ben

@Miniman More dice is always mre impressive

@BESW Or, depending on the mood, 2dWAAAAARGH!

BESW

Ben

This is true

I played Shadow of Mordor, and every time you come up against a boss they describe with surprising detail what they're going to do with your freshly dismembered corpse (to an M-Rating standard, of course)

This was less exciting than "AAAAARGH!!!!"

BESW

11:20 PM

"Our raspberries need fresh mulch, and you'll do nicely!"

kviiri

Is there a simple English term to describe an "active member" in a (non-profit) organization? Eg. someone who has a particular post like treasurer, movie night master or so.

Ben

@BESW The goblins and orcs are surprisingly sophisticated

Miniman

@kviiri A "volunteer"?

Or, if they're getting paid for their work, an "employee"?

kviiri

@Miniman I guess that'll do. Thanks!

Ben

I think "Active member" is exactly what it is...

kviiri

11:23 PM

In Finnish we just call them "actives", yup :P

But I guess one can be very involved in the organization's activity without really being in charge of making it happen.

Ben

@kviiri "I AM AN ACTIVE"

Ahh English... you ruin so much joy...

BESW

Supervisor, coordinator, facilitator...

trogdor

11:35 PM

Active volunteer is probably the best term

Of course it doesn't convey a leading position so maybe not

kviiri

Not all of the posts are leaders of anything. Many of them are just for teams for a particular thing, like doing the shopping for parties.

Or editors for our paper, although that's a post that's unlikely to appeal to the few non-Finnish speakers as the paper is in Finnish :P

trogdor

Yeah I would say active volunteer (s) then

kviiri

Yep, that's a good one

trogdor

As long as they are not paid for it

If they are then employee is a better word

kviiri

Is there an English term for a person who is mostly expected to perform various odd jobs on demand?

Miniman

11:43 PM

@kviiri Odd-job man?

kviiri

@Miniman My favorite robot master.

Miniman

Depending on the context in which they're expected to do it, "caretaker" might be appropriate.

"Handy-man" might work, too.

kviiri

"Wiener machine" (where wiener is the type of sausage) is our term for such a person :)

Because a single odd job is a "wiener" for some reason I don't know.

trogdor

It sorta depends what kind of odd jobs they do

Caretaker works if they ,... Take care if other people specifically

Handy man sorta implies in English that they fix broken stuff

BESW

@trogdor Caregivers take care of people. Caretakers take care of properties.

trogdor

11:51 PM

Ah yeah my bad on that

But either way,... I don't think there is a term for someone who does all the odd jobs

BESW

@kviiri dogsbody?

trogdor

Other than just saying " that person does all the odd jobs"

BESW

Literally odd-job man.

Miniman

@BESW Yeah, I wasn't trying to be clever with that one. It's a term I've heard used, although I think it's fallen out of favour somewhat.

trogdor

Hmm if it is defined as a "drudge" that might only refer to menial labor

BESW

11:54 PM

...roadie.

kviiri

@BESW I love this word

trogdor

Though admittedly British English might take that definition in a much less specific direction

BESW

"Gofer" is specifically an errand-runner, but I see it applied more generally to this kind of thing too.

kviiri

With the recruitment mail sent, I can rest easy tonight.

...except I have to present my seminar paper tomorrow - eep.

Good night everyone

Miniman

@kviiri Cya!

WotC labyrinth

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