TRPG General Chat

trogdor

13:01

@eimyr it's too convoluted I think

eimyr

13:11

I just think there's too much of it for me to get into, the treshold of entry is fairly high

doppelgreener

@trogdor which parts, the everything or the pirates vs dinosaurs?

trogdor

@doppelgreener also, dispite the fact I think this is ridiculously silly, I still think it is pretty cool to have a Gorgon pop into another dimension, not be able to get back where she was, and decide "screw it I'll just be a pirate now" (I wish I had made a character like that)

@doppelgreener everything

doppelgreener

to be fair i know extremely little of the lore and care for very little of it outside what's on the cards, but i pick up a bit here and there

eimyr

and there are weird names like Yawgmoth, which aren't very easy to wrap the head around

trogdor

combine everything MTG has made into a story, it is toooooo much

@doppelgreener pretty much the same here

doppelgreener

13:13

@trogdor oh yeah, i wouldn't attempt to wrap my head around the whole of everything, in part because there were at least a couple of retcons, and a few places that just don't line up

trogdor

well and add in whenever there is even a single Planeswalker messing with things

doppelgreener

e.g. during the original Zendikar, the creative team was going through a major internal overhaul, so Zendikar reads like two different teams each wrote Zendikar and then the released set went with both versions (even though they don't line up)

trogdor

and sometimes there are at least half a dozen of them running around messing with each other

doppelgreener

e.g. there's multiple different versions of how vampires work on Zendikar, the Hedrons both are and aren't viable tools of the Eldrazi and both are and aren't mysterious and made by Nahiri the Lithomancer

Alphaeus

morning folks

eimyr

13:16

yo

doppelgreener

@trogdor I agree! I'm not sure quite how Vraska wound up on Ixalan, but once a planeswalker arrives on Ixalan the plane doesn't let them leave. One of her nemeses also wound up on Ixalan some time later, and they buddied up, and I imagine the conversation went something like: "Hey you. We're stuck here and you're going to help me find a way out. Also you're a pirate now."

trogdor

@doppelgreener this just keeps getting better XD

eimyr

@doppelgreener wait, how are any of the planeswalkers not yet trapped on Ixalan?

trogdor

"also you're a pirate now" is currently my new favorite phrase

so much amusement just in that one phrase

doppelgreener

:D

Alphaeus

13:19

lol

trogdor

@eimyr look,..... I was not even gonna go there XD

doppelgreener

@eimyr two of them currently are, I'm not sure how they got there, and I'm hoping the rest just have no idea and are just like "so hey where'd the blue guy go"

trogdor

@doppelgreener which blue guy?

(is there only one? no idea XD)

doppelgreener

@trogdor Jace (though you might be more familiar with any of his previous appearances)

trogdor

ah ok I do know,... some stuff about that guy

img.scryfall.com/cards/large/en/soi/69.jpg?1509844895

doppelgreener

13:22

i know that he gets amnesia at the same rate other people pick up a cold

trogdor

that one

@doppelgreener that is,... disapointing in a blue mage of all people XD

doppelgreener

You might be most familiar with his original appearance on Lorwyn

trogdor

a blue planeswalker at that

eimyr

@doppelgreener I like this one scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Achandra

trogdor

@doppelgreener oh yeah no that one is definitely it

Chandra is great

eimyr

13:23

also, red decks win

trogdor

this too

though I get bored of just burn burn burn sometimes

doppelgreener

@trogdor there are opportunities for this!!

trogdor

what opportunities? we have no piratical games atm

doppelgreener

@trogdor it's canon that Nicol Bolas has personally defeated Chandra and made fun of her for her whole schtick basically just being fire and more fire

trogdor

@doppelgreener nice

eimyr

13:27

@trogdor Yeah... I like winning by a gimmick. Poison counters, weird win conditions, infinite damage combos...

trogdor

I always liked multicolor decks, either only double color or more than that

but all the ones I built sucked

I am sure there are some people who made some really neat ones

doppelgreener

@trogdor the weekend after next I'll be available to join you and @BESW, and if we don't do SG-13 I could do something that lets us have fun with pirates and stuff.

@eimyr In the upcoming Unstable set there's a new card for that

trogdor

@doppelgreener lol ok then, that could work

@eimyr eh, I don't like those so much, but at least they are better than a number of the decks I have faced that other people built to try to give you no chance of actually,.... playing the game before they win

I hate that about many TCG's I have played

though for me Magic was definitely the worst for it that I have played

eimyr

welp, these days I only play Gwent occasionally

trogdor

Gwent looks cool

at least it doesn't seem to have any mechanics to immediately force you to lose

I like the round mechanic, so you can concede a round the other guy put way too many resources into and then trounce them after

adds nice strategic elements into it

eimyr

13:33

Gwent is: very non-random, very offensive and there is lots of comeback mechanics

trogdor

I used to feed my card habit with Hearthstone, but it got crazy at some point and I hardly noticed it till the Golem expansion

@eimyr yes I like all these things, and I have watched a few games of it

eimyr

@trogdor yeah, Gwent is like the polar opposite of Hearthstone

Adam

@trogdor Good ol' fashioned exodia decks where you either win on your first turn, or you concede on your first turn because you didnt.

trogdor

@Adam or decks that are way too good at milling your deck before you draw much of anything

surprising number of those ones

Adam

Exchange of spirits ftk

eimyr

13:35

I like the bit of Gwent where there is just one way to win (have more points than the opponent), which makes every deck a tempo deck. It removes the pressure to choose your favourite win condition upfront.

trogdor

I did play Yu-Gi-Oh for a short time but I disliked several things about it after a while

doppelgreener

@eimyr I have noticed is very much a win-oriented player with a side of being combo-oriented

(in card games)

trogdor

@eimyr I like this as well, some of these card games have way too many ways to win

eimyr

@doppelgreener who? me?

doppelgreener

@eimyr You

trogdor

13:36

@doppelgreener I like combos too

Adam

@trogdor agreed

trogdor

I made a spirit arcane deck

eimyr

I think I like combos more than winning. When my combo works but I still lose it's a win for me.

trogdor

it's trash because it almost always loses really early, but I like the idea of it

@eimyr many of my magic decks are too slow, and the combo doesn't go off before I die

eimyr

in Gwent the pain of a loss is alleviated a lot, it's very rare that you lose so badly you couldn't have a chance in the frist place

trogdor

13:38

I think it is part of what led me to liking free for alls with at least 4 players

eimyr

@trogdor doesn't work for me, because they target me before my infinite damage combo triggers.

trogdor

cause in those I can sometimes not be the first guy someone picks on and at least get a combo off

even if people go ooooh ahhhh afterwards and decide I should die next XD

@eimyr I don't go for infinite damage combo

isn't as fun as "I cast a million spells that do things for me or hurt you but don't just end the game"

eimyr

I think I like Gwent also because it prevents me from doing the things that are exciting to me but spoil the game.

trogdor

mm most of the things in magic that excite me only spoil the game because I am bad at them

but I take that half as me not necessarily being good at deck building in it, and half a condemnation of how the game is even put together

that spirit arcane deck would probably be half decent if it was not so slow

and if it worked at all it would probably make for a pretty nice strategic game

eimyr

still, I hate all things blue in MtG

trogdor

13:46

but most people are not playing the "same" game of MTG as I am

doppelgreener

@eimyr ah yeah that makes more sense

eimyr

it's not enough that you lose, I need to be shut down and unable to do anything

doppelgreener

i have horribly misremembered

trogdor

@eimyr I made an all blue mostly-counterspell deck once

eimyr

@doppelgreener it's fine, it wasn't too far off TBH

trogdor

13:47

it actualy also did not lock people down enough most of the time

doppelgreener

@trogdor oh dear

trogdor

it had a kill mechanic but that was just unblockable creatures

so even if I actually did win with it, which was rare, it took forever

if your deck was not very fast, it actually managed to lock you down and then I just waited to win

eimyr

dunno, when I played MtG I liked to do things no one does - but it turns out it's for a reason

trogdor

but most people I have played against don't really build slow decks except for me

and I have played against myself because that is just how I do

eimyr

@trogdor in Gwent you must have multiple high-power plays prepared to reduce reliance on chance

trogdor

13:50

@eimyr this is also a nice thing

eimyr

also, deck thinning is a thing

trogdor

yes

I like the deck thining, chuck the weakest/least useful cards so you can more easily draw the good stuff

don't include anything that isn't in the deck for a reason

I love that stuff

of course, on the flip side, at least in MTG, I made reasons to include a lot of cards because it seemed like I needed them or they fit the theme

eimyr

so you can (and should) have as little as 25 cards in your deck, of which you get to draw 13 and mulligan 4. with a little draw power and cards that play or discard from the deck it's possible to see all your cards in any given game.

trogdor

but I feel like the game itself sorta passively encouraged that

I also had almost more fun building silly decks in MTG than I did playing it

if partly because I lost a lot

eimyr

@trogdor same

I love cute, ineffective decks in MtG

trogdor

13:56

I would have loved for them to be effective to some extent, but I always fell for building them in a way that didn't lead to that outcome

and I was never into being ruthless enough to go for kill mechanics that never let the other person react, except for that one blue counterspell deck (and that one, again, was still not very effective at it XD)

eimyr

@trogdor I generally build combos that take so much space in the deck that there is not enough room to build a nice, winning frame for them.

trogdor

the spirit arcane deck would have had a decent kill mechanic, it had life drain, but it was so slow it died before anyone ever saw that

Alphaeus

I have to say, my luck with card-based games like MtG is generally either really, REALLY good, or totally pathetic

trogdor

in Hearthstone I did pretty well

but at some point I got sick of just auto losing because counter deck, and only winning because counter deck

also RNG

Alphaeus

In the past (not MtG, only dabbled in that too little to talk extensively on it) I've had games where I could consistently win many matches with one deck, and I've had times when I couldn't build a winning deck to save my life

I like things where I have a bit more control :P

eimyr

14:00

@trogdor isn't Hearthstone's main problem the entry threshold? "buy these legendaries or perish"?

trogdor

not as bad as MTG was for me in that department, but sometimes even if I had the superior deck, or superior strategy, I would lose because the other guy top decked stuff

@eimyr not all the legendaries are,... good enough to win on their own

NautArch

howdy howdy

trogdor

it actually requires more "counter cards" than legendaries

eimyr

@trogdor no, like, "if you have these legendaries you have a chance, if you don't, go buy some"

trogdor

some of the most powerful legendaries, like Deathwing, have a cost associated

@eimyr I mean, I never spent a cent on it and still got some nice ones

but not all my decks had a legendary in them either

eimyr

14:02

@trogdor and do you sport reasonable chances of winning? 50% or so?

Alphaeus

@NautArch mornin'

trogdor

sometimes legendaries are also too clunky to win

@eimyr yeah, during my best runs of it yes

but like,... I still have huge complaints about the game

eimyr

sounds good then

trogdor

not unique ones, but still

eimyr

I've heard a lot of people complaining that they can't compete unless they have a large collection already and the options to buy specific cards they need is limited

trogdor

14:03

I hated the Arena draft mode because I always got #$&#%^#$^ useless draft options

@eimyr this is actually a problem I see

the thing is that I myself started the game relatively early and did serious grinding of gold and dust and stuff

so even though I didn't have every card in the game by a long shot, I had almost all the ones I actually wanted to have

eimyr

@trogdor I see. Gwent suffers from this a bit too, but if there is a specific one or two cards you want it's very achievable to grind them - also, there would be cheaper substitutes. Obviously, when starting out you need some time to build up to what you want, but it's fairly quick

trogdor

so my experience with the having of the cards was not exactly completely typical of the average person who entered the game after a couple cycles were already over and had not bought any cards

@eimyr if you spend no money on Hearthstone it would take a long time to get cards

eimyr

you can easily get 1 card pack (keg) a day, and a keg gives you a choice of one from 3 rare cards (reasonable chance of unique/legendary) and 4 more common (with a chance of rare)

trogdor

I mean, you could get a few every week just by playing the brawl for a while, but then they started making some of the brawls prohibitively expensive in either in game gold or actual money

NautArch

@Alphaeus top o the morn!

eimyr

14:08

@trogdor then you can mill them for 1/4 value

trogdor

that was one of the things that helped me decide I was either taking a break or completely done with it

at them moment I am really thinking I am just done with Hearthstone

NautArch

one of my fellow players picked up some MTG cards on sale yesterday (something like 1.50 a pack) and picked up a blue foil card (forgetting the name), but lets him counter a spell for no mana, just have to drop another blue card. I think he said it's worth 175 or something.

trogdor

@eimyr you can break down cards for dust in Hearthstone which seems very similar to this

eimyr

@trogdor what's the ratio?

trogdor

course, if you have practically no cards atm then this is not very helpful XD

1/4th I think

for everything

eimyr

14:10

in Gwent every keg is worth at least 50 Scraps and crafting prices are 30/80/200/800.

trogdor

Hearthstone crafting is more expensive than that

eimyr

so assuming you have TERRIBLE luck, you get a unique card every 16 games

trogdor

I believe it is 40/100/400/1600 or something

eimyr

and you can only use 6 unique and 4 legendary cards in a deck total, so that's that

having a deck with exactly what you want, top tier cards is maybe a month of semi-casual daily playing

trogdor

@eimyr well, in Hearthstone, you could make an all legendary deck, thing is,... it would suck

what you want is a coherent deck, not a huge pack of legendaries

eimyr

14:12

@trogdor yeah, I suppose, but you can make a deck entirely out of rare+unique cards that is objectively superior to one from common+rare

trogdor

still, that does not mean that just the right number of legendaries isn't extremely powerful

just that a deck with just those in Hearthstone is not actually that great

@eimyr yeah that is a thing

anyway, I need sleep now

eimyr

in Gwent once you reach 6 silvers and 4 golds you can't objectively improve a deck by upgrading card rarity, and common->rare upgrade is very cheap

nighty night

trogdor

@eimyr I like having a cap like that

night

Alphaeus

Night

Alphaeus

14:37

Soooo....

I'm in the process of writing a handbook, and figured I might as well toss out here some hooks. Is anyone knowledgeable about DnD 3.5e planes?

doppelgreener

> Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! When you succeed with style defending against an attack, you can spend a fate point to redirect that attack back against the person who made it. Afterwards in the same scene you can use this stunt against that same individual without paying the fate point.

@Alphaeus I am not but if you want someone to rave excitedly about the 4e planes I can help.

Alphaeus

4e?

doppelgreener

YESSSSS

Alphaeus

On a more serious note, @doppelgreener what do you like about 4e?

doppelgreener

@Alphaeus I deeply appreciate its tactical combat, some innovations which very effectively resolved issues that had long plagued the franchise (like caster/mundane imbalance), and I appreciate its cosmology -- especially what it did with the elemental planes, by smashing them all together into the Elemental Chaos.

Alphaeus

14:44

Interesting

I mean, in the campaign I'm DMing I'm seriously screwing with standard cosmology, but that's a different point. I also do try to balance caster/mundane (contrary to popular belief, this IS actually possible in 3.5e)

(Might write a handbook on making mundane combat viable, too)

doppelgreener

@Alphaeus Please do!

Tome of Battle was a step in a good direction for melee characters, and is apparently considered by many to be a proto-4e.

Alphaeus

I feel like I've just recently gotten to the level of experience (and a sizeable enough library) where I'm comfortable writing handbooks now.

Eh...I can see that. I wouldn't agree per se since I think it is just an expanded 3.5e, but I can see it

The big key to making viable melee chars is that you need 1) versatility, and 2) exploits

doppelgreener

Also on the planes themselves -- I find the 3.5e Great Wheel cosmology boring and nonstimulating and am by contrast thoroughly excited by the Elemental Chaos and D&D 4e's planes, but I've met people who feel the exact same way in reverse, finding the Great Wheel cosmology thrilling and the Elemental Chaos boring. I don't really understand why, but I can dig that, and I find this kind of funny.

Alphaeus

Because while casters are the top-dogs in 3.5e, they also are the ones with the most counter-measures and inhibitions

@doppelgreener Well, I can say that basic 3.5e cosmology is rather bleh, but when you add in Eberron Cosmology it becomes more interesting

doppelgreener

Do you mind if I mention my concern with the original cosmology? I don't think I've ever mentioned it to anyone, but this could be an opportunity to get an insider's response and/or a fact-check to see if I've overlooked stuff.

Alphaeus

14:50

That's part of the elements of this handbook. It's a Planar Shepherd handbook, which means by default I have to write sub-handbooks about most of the relevant/interesting plains.

Also, @doppelgreener totally, go right ahead

doppelgreener

Thanks! More or less it comes down to this... My understanding of the Great Wheel is that there's a bunch of planes, like of fire or negative energy or so on, and their natural state is to be entirely composed of just that one thing. (The Astral Plane is a notable exception, and the Material Plane is too since it's where all of these Things combine.) Let's take the Elemental planes for a primary scenario:
- Their native state is to be All Earth, or All Water, or All Fire, or All Air.
- They (ought to) have creatures which are just fine with this universalness of the one element. (If a creat…

I feel like there must be key parts of the planes I've missed or misunderstood in that list, but those are the bits I "know" and "understand" (finger quotes because that could be incorrect)

i'm also open to the idea I've somehow totally misunderstood. :U Given when I was learning about these planes, that's quite possible.

@Alphaeus it might be more accurate to say it was a testbed for ideas that went on to be more fully developed in 4e :)

@Alphaeus i agree -- i recall someone summarising that in D&D 3.5e, the melee characters like fighter and barbarian regularly levelled up by getting bigger numbers, but as they levelled up, the proportion of situations their big numbers could be applied to solve a problem diminished. meanwhile, casters like wizards and druids got bigger numbers and new ways to apply them, so they could keep better pace with the variety of problems facing higher-level characters.

e.g. a barbarian does well against a monster on the ground who can be defeated by hitting them with a weapon with big numbers. once you put the enemy in the sky, or make them invisible, or make them invulnerable in some way, or give them magical barriers and defenses, or give them regeneration, the barbarian's big number becomes somewhat unable to deal with that.

nitsua60

15:12

@doppelgreener Every planar expedition I've ever embraced stopped at your third dash-point and simply put it onto the adventurers: "if you want to enter this inhospitable environment you need to make serious preparations."

doppelgreener

but the casters get ways to reach that enemy, ground them, remove their invisibility, nix their invulnerability, break down their defenses, or just don't have to worry about any of those things because they just disintegrate the enemy, or banish them to another plane, or mind control them so now the invulnerable flying regenerating defended invisible enemy is on their side.

eimyr

@doppelgreener so.. casters are overpowered, is what's you're saying?

doppelgreener

@eimyr why, i never.

but yes. or they're on a whole different level. but i'm mostly saying this because i agree that giving them versatility does a whole lot to resolve the power level disparity issues they face.

eimyr

@doppelgreener Welcome to Planes. Population: Wizards.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 that seems like a viable way to handle it.

doppelgreener

15:41

(@Alphaeus I hope I didn't scare you off or anything! I don't want to put in a position of feeling on the defensive about the great wheel or whatnot -- the ways in which it doesn't work for me might work just fine for others.)

T.J.L.

@NautArch Type slower!

NautArch

@T.J.L. NEVER

T.J.L.

That said... your quote is two seasons out of date. dmsguild.com/product/208178/DD-Adventurers-League-Players-Pack has the current version inside it, and is continually updated. Direct links to the individual files are frowned upon by AL admin folks, because the WOTC ones don't die.

NautArch

ooh, did not know

fixing

T.J.L.

15:56

I happen to have it on hand, and the exact verbiage changed slightly, so I edited it in for you.

NautArch

16:32

@T.J.L. thank you - didn't feel like setting up an account tod ownload it :)

looking into all this OA stuff as I just got my hands on a +3 halberd. But I think i'm going to generally hold off using it until I level and can pick up Polearm Master.

NautArch

17:59

@SevenSidedDie are minor variations on a theme sufficient for questions not to be closed?

Ryan

hey all, anyone know if there's updated guides for Xanathar's on any forums yet?

I'm talking about stuff like giantitp.com/forums/… ---- or ---- enworld.org/forum/…

NautArch

@Ryan i do not...i've avoided the forums since finding rpg.se :)

Ryan

I just find it interesting to read others thoughts on particular spells and builds from time to time

NautArch

@Ryan yeah, i've liked the builds. It's the arguments that got me to leave.

Ryan

I'm super happy with how my bard is turning out and how our game is turning out as a result. Curious to read what others are doing with theirs since Xanathar's came out

NautArch

18:10

some of the new bard spells look fantastic - and opens some new stuff up for magical secrets, too

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch They have to be pretty much the exact same question in their problem. In this example, I see a difference between “when X, does the creature retain control of Y” and “when X, does bleeding damage happen”. The answers might both be “no” in a given RPG, but those can be for different or the same reasons and we can't judge the matching-ness of a Q based on what we know of the answer. (That turns close votes into super-up-votes on what we think the answer is.)

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie ok, I kind of get it, but i don't agree.

Ryan

@NautArch hmm which bard spells do you think look fantastic? I really like the new colleges but didnt see any spells too intriguing

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch Well, consider that if 5e had bleeding damage rules, the answers would be different. The duplication shouldn't depend on the answers.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie The question is Does X happen if I cut off an Ettin head. You can submit multiple instances of X, but the answer remains the same based on the stat block.

@SevenSidedDie But it doesn't have bleeding rules.

@Ryan synaptic static look super cool at 5th level. Mass polymorph, while 9th level, is very neat, too.

SevenSidedDie

18:14

@NautArch Right, but not necessarily the same answer. If it happens to be the same in a given RPG, that's answer-territority rather than duplicate territory. It could easily be different answers. The key consideration for duplicates is whether the two Xs are exactly the same.

NautArch

@Ryan and catnap, too

@SevenSidedDie how is it not he same answer? The answer in the first question lists all the potential effects of losing a head (because that's what's in the stat block)

@SevenSidedDie So I could flood the boards with minor variations of X on questions? That seems silly.

Ultimately, the question is "Whta happens when I cut off an Ettin's head". Any variation on this remains the same question. It doesn't matter if the X is different, but because the answer always remains the same.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch So there are two things operating here, that work together: duplciates are never marked based on answers, and second (and the reason why) is because that prejudges what the correct answer is. If UA bleeding rules come out tomorrow, and we had marked them as duplicates, then the answers become different but we can't receive that new answer on the closed bleeding Q. So as a principle, separate questions are separate based on their Q content, never their As.

Ryan

Oh Synaptic Static does look cool

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie I'm still suggesting that the umbrella question is "What happens if you cut off his head". The two questions on variations on that theme.

Ryan

Catnap seems interesting as its such a unique spell but not sure I'd really take it

SevenSidedDie

18:18

@NautArch In principle that flood is kosher, yes. In practice it doesn't ever really happen, and when it sorta starts to look at it, the askers are generally punished by voters for obviously not thinking that pile of questions through.

NautArch

@Ryan Easily and quickly regenerating your bardic inspiration or other players with short rest regen mechanics are great.

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch That would be a question of different scope though.

Ryan

@NautArch but you can just stop into a tavern for a pint and regain short rest stuff

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie I don't think it is, though. That question IS the quesiton they're asking in different ways. It even has the exat same answer.

@Ryan not if you don't have an hour to do it.

Ryan

Its only really useful in a very time sensitive enemy area and even then it only knocks 50 minutes off

NautArch

18:19

@Ryan but that is an edge-case :) Bards just excel at covering edge cases - it's just a matter of which edge cases you want to cover.

Ryan

yeah I mean man thing I saw in Catnap was the potential to use it along with various Charm like Glamour school stuff and turn enemies into willing nappers

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch But that isn't the question actually asked. We can't reinterpret questions as more general than they actually are in order to close them. We can have closely related questions where one is general and one is specific, and they can both be open and non-duplicates because they solve different problems.

Ryan

but that's an expensive proposition

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie Just because they didn't actually ask it doesn't mean that it isn't that question. Hedging against possible future real changes seems rather solipsistic

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch I'm not sure what you mean about hedging. We're not looking at what the question might be, but what it actually is.

I mean, if both questions were edited to be “what are all the things that happen when an ettin's head is cut off”, then they'd be duplicates. But then it's likely that not answers would cover all the points of interest that the asker actually wanted to know about. So being specific is useful. And lumping all points together into one question would likely get a question closed as Too Broad and they'd be asked to split it… which is actually what happened here with their first question. :)

NautArch

18:23

@SevenSidedDie I meant to counter your example of "if WoTC releases rules on bleeding, then it would be a valid question with a different answer" Yes, that's true - but that's not the case it is now. Now the Ettin entry specifically states what it can and can't do. Variations on "what if" still fall in that category - and it seems that theyw ould be duplicates if it's all about the same mechanic - which is "what happens when i cut a head off"

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch Ah. That's just the intuition pump I'm trying to use to show why we have a rule that questions must match to be marked duplicate, and we never consider whether the answers match.

NautArch

So it goes back to "I can separate each possible case out of a question and submit them separately even if they have the same answer because they're all predicated on the same information"?

SevenSidedDie

The principle is that we don't have to know which answer is right to be able to vote on duplicates. We just have to be able to understand the problem the question is expressing, see if that's identical, and then vote accordingly.

@NautArch Yes, in principle you can do that and it's okay. In practice it doesn't happen and isn't a problem. Meanwhile, trying to avoid that hypothetical problem causes worse problems, like duplicate-closes that don't lead to answers that are relevant to the real problem they want to ask about. It's a situation that's been encountered in SE and rectified by making exactness part of the duplicate close reason.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie And that's where we differ. I'm reading both of these as "What happens when i cut off an ettin's head" You're not - you're reading it as "does it cause bleeding damage" and "Does it lose control of it's body" as two separate things. To me they're instrinsically tied together, but as I said - I see your case but I don't agree with it.

Others seemed to agree with my closure as well - did you reopen it on your own or kick off reopen votes to let others determine if they agree with you?

Ryan

@NautArch @SevenSidedDie what are the two questions you all are discussing?

SevenSidedDie

18:28

@NautArch Because it's literally not asking “what happens” in general. They're asking for separate specific “does this happen”. Which is just fine here.

Ryan

nevermind, I found them. One second

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie I understand that it's not asking "what happens" in general - but that is what he's actually asking - just in two different ways (and I can probably try and think of others that would all have the same answer because they're all the same question)

Ryan

hmm maybe not the two i found are completely different

SevenSidedDie

@Ryan For posterity I'll still link them. It's hard to find things months later when they're not on the front page. :) rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/110808/… and rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/110780/…

Ryan

im with @SevenSidedDie then cause those two questions are completely different

NautArch

18:29

@Ryan it might be :) SSD thinks they are different (it's me and some others who thought they're the same)

Ryan

lets ignore everything but the core question for a secon

"Does Ettin take continuous damage from naturally bleeding out?" is one

NautArch

@Ryan from having it's head cut off

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch It's nice that 5e happens to put the answer to both questions in the same place, but that's an accident of reality not a law of it, so it doesn't impact how we evaluate the exactness of the match. They're two distinct questions: “does an ettin retain full control?” “does an ettin suffer bleeding damage?” They even have separate tags, which is a hallmark of distinct questions.

Ryan

"Does Ettin retain control of its body if one f its heads is cut off?" is the other

NautArch

I mean, I guess I could have copypastad my answer - and that would have been the right thing to do

maybe it's more of a meta issue I have on whether a mod can override closure because they don't agree with it or if they should simply begin the votes on reopening.

SevenSidedDie

18:32

@NautArch Yeah, that's a legit thing to do. I mean, tweaking a little to conversationally set up the relation to the question's different wording/focus is usually a minor improvement, but sometimes the answers are literally the same. (For an extreme example, every single [problem-gm] question could be answered with a copy-paste answer that boils down to “talk or walk”.)

Ryan

here lets put it another way Naut - lots of questions are answered, "Its up to the DM" - so with your current logic all of them should be closed as duplicate.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie Very true :) And probably should.

Ryan

two questions can have the same answer without being duplicates; even similar ones

NautArch

@Ryan No, because that's the same answer issue that SSD stated (and I agree with). I think these are fundamentally the same question (partly because they share the same answer, but mostly because the question is what happens when I cut off a head" Does it X, Y, Z, 1, 2, 3 Can be an infinite series of questions.

SevenSidedDie

@Ryan That's a good case of judging the question's open/close status by knowing/predicting the answers. We even have a recent meta saying that's not a legit reason to vote “primarily opinion-based”. :)

Ryan

18:35

@NautArch then you should edit the question to broaden it and make it more versatile and universally useful. So just change the question to - "What happens if my Player Characters decide to cut off just one of Effin's heads?" and then write up a broader, more universal question

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch It can be an infinite series, but in practice it rarely is more than a couple. Usually people either want to know in general “what happens?”, or they don't actually have that question but they do have a specific concern or two. So in practice, either they ask the general question and leave it open to the answers to cover all the salient points, or they ask about the exact points they wonder about, because the rest isn't actually a problem for them.

@Ryan But we also don't artificially broaden questions via edits.

Ryan

Yeah would have to discuss with the person who asked or pose a whole new question

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch I really should work up a standard “it's okay to walk. really. if you're not actually willing to walk, the really bad GMs have you hostage” template answer. I've been skipping the problem-x and group-dynamics Qs lately just for lack of time and energy to devote to them, since they're usually longish, persuasion-heavy answers.

Oooh. Or maybe I should ask a question like, “Why is it common to advise people to leave a group that has problems?” and then that template can be a canonical answer instead.

…but that sounds like work.

Alphaeus

@doppelgreener Sorry...had an emergency at work (someone literally lit themselves and a whole office section on fire)

Ryan

I want to find or get made some Bardic Inspiration Die.

Alphaeus

18:41

BUT...I will now go back and read what you wrote

SevenSidedDie

@Alphaeus o.o That… that is a significant achievement-slash-emergency.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie and folks probably don't want to be 'closed as a dupe' in those cases. We're all special and think our case is different :)

Alphaeus

@SevenSidedDie I work at an R&D facility, so God-only-knows what the teams are up to at any given point in time, so i'm not THAT surprised.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie all of a sudden, this 'argument/discussion' seems very silly :)

Alphaeus

:P

SevenSidedDie

18:41

@NautArch I wasn't thinking of a dup target so much as an easy link to support shorter answers. Rarely would the problem-x questions incoming perfectly match that anyway.

Ryan

hmm maybe a 10 minute hourglass would be good for Bardic Inspiration

SevenSidedDie

@Alphaeus That makes it make somewhat more sense. Still! Achievement unlocked… but not one of the braggable ones. I guess being R&D the setups are more likely to be able to non-catastrophically contain that kind of unexpectedness.

Ryan

but 10 minutes IRL isn't very similar to 10 minutes in game

NautArch

@Ryan usually verymuchsonot

Ryan

anyone have any ideas for something I could give people to remind them they have, and should use, bardic inspiration?

SevenSidedDie

18:43

@NautArch No no, elfgames are serius bizniss. ^^

NautArch

@Ryan Do you give the physical die to someone?

SevenSidedDie

@Ryan A HAT

Ryan

not currently but thinking that will be the most obvious solution

the Die, not the Hat.

NautArch

@Ryan that's usually what I do. and I remind folks when I think they might need it.

*before they do it, and that they can use it after their roll (circumvent DM giving a ruling before you can remind them)

Ryan

I hate reminding people. It feels like meta gaming in the worst way

NautArch

18:46

@Ryan yes and no - you're playing something on your instrument that gives a reminder - a surge of energy that can be tapped into

at the end of the day, we're all human playing this and trying to manage our characters and resources. Having a resource that isn't actually yours is hard to remember. It's the bard's resource, let him do it.

Think of it like each PC has a theme. The ones who have a die, your bard is going to want to help - so he plays their theme to remind them.

SevenSidedDie

i mean, how do you beat that

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie you do not. Our DM handed out a Holiday Hat (i'm not sure where it's from) that's very similar

GreySage

@SevenSidedDie I would choose a better looking hat, but I like the idea.

SevenSidedDie

@GreySage there is no such object

this is objectively the best hat

Okay I can't keep a straight face even behind text, that is a horrifying hat.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie but it has a feather!

Ryan

18:50

a girl I know makes sweet festival hats maybe I should buy a few to use :D

Alphaeus

"41455501 Thanks! More or less it comes down to this... My understanding of the Great Wheel is that there's a bunch of planes, like of fire or negative energy or so on, and their natural state is to be entirely composed of just that one thing. (The Astral Plane is a notable exception, and the Material Plane is too since it's where all of these Things combine.) Let's take the Elemental planes for a primary scenario:
- Their native state is to be All Earth, or All Water, or All Fire, or All Air.
- They (ought to) have creatures which are just fine with this universalness of the one element. (…

@doppelgreener

So, this is what you wrote

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch I actually tried to find one with those gigantic feathers trailing behind and couldn't find an image that wasn't a cartoon.

The Oracle

0

Q: When the community closes a question, should a Mod be allowed to reopen without community votes?

An issue recently came up with regards to two similar Ettin questions: Does a (half) beheaded Ettin take bleeding damage of some sort? When partially beheaded, does an Ettin retain full control of its body? The community closed the second question as a duplicate of the first. I was one of the ...

discussion

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie I also don't understand how an answer that completely resides in a different edition is a good answer.

SevenSidedDie

@Alphaeus (You can actually backlink directly to a previous message by clicking on its little down-right arrow in the bottom corner that appears when you hover over the message, like I've done with this one. You can also embed a linked quote of a message by just copying its permalink from the message's pop-up menu, that pops up if you click on its left orange sidebar.)

NautArch

18:55

@SevenSidedDie I had wanted to add a link to our discussion here on that meta question, but I don't know how :)

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch Eeeehh. Yeah, I'm not a fan. I like to see a bit more editorial justification surrounding material pulled in from other games. In this case the answerer and the asker seem to be on the same wavelength in thinking that “wow, it's so weird that the 5e designers forgot to convert this piece of standard equipment”, so it kinda makes sense that there's less justification offered. But eeeeehhhh.

57 mins ago, by NautArch

@SevenSidedDie are minor variations on a theme sufficient for questions not to be closed?

@NautArch which looks like https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/41460233#41460233 in the raw.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie Yeah, i'm surprised it only has 1 downvote. I mean, there is a LOT of stuff that isn't in each edition. And the discussion of using swift actions seems very much at odds over the bonus actions/interacting with objects around you from 5e.

@SevenSidedDie grazie - so just the share on the post I started it with?

i knew how to do it :(

GreySage

@Alphaeus As far as I understand it, while the various planes exist in seperate physical space, the edges of the planes kind of bleed into each other, with more bleeding the closer to the edge you go. Which is how you get the plane of Mud (water and earth)

SevenSidedDie

@NautArch I suspect because it kinda-sorta does the main job of helping with the asker's problem. One of the great things about 5e is that it's super-flexible and can be played in many ways, and “yeah, you can reasonably do that since you're already obviously on board with the basic idea, see this is how it was handled in an ancestor edition” fits into that? I dunno, may be voters' thoughts. I haven't actually downvoted because I don't like the answer, but I also think it helps this person.

@NautArch That's good enough, yeah. If you want to get fancy you can use the room▾ menu at right to create a conversation bookmark, but it's not strictly necessary.

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie Hmm. I guess there's an issue with helping an individual vs helping the community. This has become an individual answer that isn't necessarily applicable to all.

SevenSidedDie

19:06

@NautArch Yeah. On the plus side, a more reasonable/grounded answer might come in and get lots of votes.

This asker tends to ask very precise, technical questions that often miss the forest for the trees (and continues to after getting answers), so I'm not surprised at the general shape of that Q&A.

doppelgreener

@Alphaeus Wow! That is quite the emergency.

Very understandable. O_O

NautArch

@SevenSidedDie yeah, i've come to appreciate the asker :)

Alphaeus

@doppelgreener first answer incoming....

So, you seem to only be familiar with the basic “inner” planes of DnD 3.5e. There are also Outer Planes, which are not characterized by the same monotone mentality of the inner planes (which are admittedly quite boring). Eberron Cosmology expanded the planes with a massive list of some very intriguing additions. Overall, not having my references out, you have about 20 planes in DnD 3.5e. Some of these revolve around central “themes” such as The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus – it is the plane of ultimate neutral law, almost steampunk in nature with immense gears and cogs composing it, and po…

Now, on to your second point -- about melee

doppelgreener

@Alphaeus thanks; you're right, i did mostly have the inner planes in mind there

i've heard a bit about mechanus, and the modrons and inevitables, and rogue modrons!

SevenSidedDie

19:22

@doppelgreener You're not the only one who has struggled with “but… how do you actually adventure there?” regarding the elemental planes; it goes right back to the first editions that mention them. My sense from AD&D 1st through now is that nobody really agrees, there are several different ways to think of them that are somewhere on the spectrum of faithfulness and play convenience, and that even the official answers keep changing depending on who's in charge. :)

Alphaeus

@doppelgreener In 3.5e, melee is generally bemoaned as woefully inadequate compared to spellcasting. The bigger problem behind this is the fact that most people think superficially. Melee comes across as more basic than spellcasting, and less versatile…which is only true if you are thinking about the generic overarching components of the class.

There are two keys to making melee builds successful – items, and creativity. There aren’t many things in dnd 3.5e that stop creative and powerful melee attacks, while there ARE many ways to improve them.

The key factor here is that melee needs to become less "I smash this person with one hit" to "I do what the spellcasters can't"

Now, I will say that Druids steal both the casting AND melee spotlight

A_S00

Related to the planes discussion going on: What breaks in 3.5 if you rule that most of the planes besides Prime Material don't exist in your campaign setting? Like, say, the Astral and Ethereal (and maybe Shadow?) planes exist to facilitate teleportation and other magic, and powerful spellcasters can create demiplanes, but none of the elemental or aligned planes exist, all outsiders are native, and gods are a matter of faith rather than fact.

How many "oh I didn't realize this would break this one spell I forgot about" problems do you run into if you run things this way?

Alphaeus

But even then a dedicated melee build has it's strengths, and can actually be build out of a Druid by sacrificing casting

@doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie

Planar Travel is best done with at least one party member having a dedicated planar build

@A_S00 Depends on the scope of things, but I would say it depends on the planes in question. With your example, there would be a TON of problems.

Mainly because the Hells/Abyss are the main support for all things evil in 3.5e

That said, it would be simple enough to find a "patch" solution for this by consolidating the Hells and Abyss into the shadow plane

Elemental planes are easily disposed of because they can be logically converted into elements of nature per Aristotelian logic

Now, going back to the idea of plane-trotting per @SevenSidedDie

The first is the idea of escort

Have someone that can help you survive the plane

The second is the idea of "noping" -- there are ways, via spells and class abilities, to gain total immunity to the planar traits/negative effects of planes

Classes like Planar Shepherd combine both of these (which is one of many reasons I love the class)

NautArch

19:58

not entirely relephant, but Joshua was probably a bard: mahalia jackson has a rundonconculous voice

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