@NautArch Enjoyable battles rock :)

@kviiri before i got there i guess there was supposed to be some roleplaying, but they just firebomed the dude's house.

I personally prefer my DnD as a tactical combat game with RPG elements, saving the more narrative stuff for other systems

@kviiri that's our table. we definitely enjoy it. Gotta have the right monsters and environments to make it work.

OTOH, encounters also need to have some variance - it's not fun if every combat is just a "bash it to death".

Environmental leverage or such.

Positioning...

4e had some rather cool positioning-based powers. Eg. Warlord class had a highish-level power that allowed each ally adjacent to the target to make an attack against it.

And rangers had attacks that did more damage against monsters that were closer to them than the ranger's allies.

ours are basically bash it to death, but the DMs have been doing more with regard to environments to make it interesting. he did have some dudes run away (only one actually got away)

and we never have run aways :)

If I were to implement my own version of 4e, I'd up the importance of position

I wonder how I haven't really thought of this before but maybe my recent forays into abstract strategy have done their thing :P

(I started playing Arimaa actively again, in another attempt to start up a scene at our Univ. I still suck at the game, but others suck harder)

what do you mean by positioning?

@doppelgreener @BESW is it advisable that Fate NPCs who have a specific albeit not very interesting core concept (e.g. friendly tour guide) to have that as one of the aspects?

@eimyr If that NPC is going to be around a lot being a friendly tour guide, it might be worth just taking note of that 'cause you might as well. If they're only going to be around for half an hour, it's fine just mentioning it in narration. We can have facts that aren't aspects, and just magically say they're aspects once we need them to be.

@doppelgreener So the NPC is likely to be around (proposed by the players!) but probably not for being a tour guide

@eimyr Generally the extent to which we mechanise something is the extent to which its mechanics matter at all. So if it's a really important character or they have really important details, we give them more mechanics. If/when they become important mechanically, we can add mechanics. For example once they enter a skill challenge I'll add some +2/-2 stuff.

@doppelgreener makes sense. I'm just prepping some copypaste characters that I'm likely to see this week

I'm really itching to play some Fate but I have so many things to do otherwise :S

hello!

Hi!

@DForck42 hello!

howdy @DForck42!

you were right, Changes was a great book :) helluva cliffhanger, too.

@NautArch lol

@NautArch fair warning, a lot of people didn't like ghost story. i thought it was good though

@DForck42 i started it and can see why. I figure it's going to be a very different book.

@NautArch it is

a lot of people also didnt' like that a different actor read the audio book, lol

haha. i'm generally not an audio book guy.

@NautArch i think they're nice, but i don't have a long commute or anything to listen to them currently

@DForck42 yeah, i know i listened to one of the harry potter books a long time ago and loved it. but i like to read, and i read quickly. SO the extra time for audio doesn't usually pay out.

My SO likes listening to audiobooks when driving. I'm not a huge fan personally, but then again I can fiddle with my phone while she drives so I don't really have the same need for entertainment....

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatara

A three-eyed lizard

> They are even more unusual in having a pronounced photoreceptive eye, the third eye, which is thought to be involved in setting circadian and seasonal cycles.

@NautArch Ooh. Sorry/glad to hear that. Just a cold, hard rain for us. But not quite enough to flood my backyard and create the natural rink I'm always crossing fingers for =\

@nitsua60 hahahaha. Yeah, i'm realizing the car i'm leasing just sucks in the snow. WHich it should't, but it does. And since it's a lease, i'm not buying snow tires for it.

but it's up in july, i'll pay the damages for the scrape and move on to another type of car.

@NautArch Did I tell you about a funny encounter-snipe like that one a few weeks back? The hags frightened almost the entire party, save for the paladin who turned the faithless on all the hags? Everyone's running for the hills....

@nitsua60 I think you briefly did, but that's fantastic. Paladins, especialyl as they get higher level, or awesome. I've shifted the play of mine to a bit more support than just heavy hitting and I"m becoming a terror to the DM.

That, and our clerics don't often heal, so I've been picking up slack there, too.

but between heals, lesser restoration, cleansing touch, and dispel magic I can undo a lot of bad stuff. and then i can step up and smite.

@NautArch Yeah, a paladin is impressive in their ability to flip a switch from striker to support.

@nitsua60 and our 26 AC barbarian does a great job tanking so I can do that :)

How'd they end up with 26 AC?

trying to remember it all, but it's basically high dex/con (con i think is 22), and a +3 shield.

Welp, I'm never giving my players anything that can increase their armor class with a flat bonus ever again.

@Adam it basically sucks for all of us. DM now chooses monsters that have crazy to hit modifiers and I don't worry about castinga nything to boost AC and focus on support and damage only and just hope I can stay up.

but my pegasus/polearm combo is giving me some options around that now so I don't have to stay in range.

I had a suspicion that items that give flat bonuses to AC were bad for the game. At this point, it's pretty much confirmed for me.

5e is supposed to be rather stingy with them.

I think +3 shield is legendary.

@Adam yeah, i'm kinda surprised by all the magic items were getting in this campaign now. I've got a +3 polearm, a +2 maul, and a +3 trident.

@kviiri dndbeyond.com/magic-items/shield-3

very rare

and that's from getting to level 14 with basically just a +1 maul and +1 plate. The trident i've had for a bit, but it's pretty situational.

@Adam Huh. Peculiar...

+X items that don't do anything else are never legendary. But it seems that if you let them do anything else besides that, it bumps them up to at least very rare.

+X items that don't do anything else are also super boring if you ask me, so I'm cool with that.

+X is an item that you forget you have

Passive abilities aren't bad but they at least have to be interesting

my maul can drop an extra d8 of damage once/encounter (weird homebrew) if an ally within 10' of me is bloodied. And drops an extra d10 on a crit.

@Adam Yeah, they're super boring especially/even if OP :)

I gave my player's a +1 sword that always knows how far underground they are and can lead them in the direction of the nearest staircase, ramp, or other passage leading upwards.

I gave our party's barbarian an axe that had no passive bonuses apart from dealing magical damage, but would trigger spells upon "last-hitting" enemies.

last hitting?

@Adam Claustrophobic sword that wants the party to get back outside?

This is why I love intelligent weapons, you can troll the party so much with them

@NautArch I would say "killing", but many of the things they fought hadn't really been alive in the first place.

@SPavel Nope. Not really. It doesn't have any consciousness. It's just there to be helpful

One of my players has taken to talking to the sword as if the senses it gives him were from some intelligent being though, which is pretty fun.

The best part for me is when they go down a staircase, and the sword immediately gives the wielder a feeling that the closest ramp leading up is right behind them.

That somehow reminds me of Angband stairway feelings :)

Even though it's completely different (in Angband, one gets a "feeling" about each level when entering them)

and the feeling indicates whether the level is loot-poor and boring, or filed with danger and wealth, or something in between.

@Adam Can I use this to find the Stairway to Heaven?

guitar riff

@Yuuki Only if the stairway is underground :p

@Adam It's so underground, you probably haven't heard of it

I'm looking at making some homebew magic items for 2e which are battle standards. Think roman legions, or feudal japan, etc. Do other editions have anything like that already?

The twist is that they'd offer mild passive bonuses in an aura, so tactical placement would be key.

@Erics Check the Magic Item Compendium for 3.5, there are a bunch of items that boost Bard and Knight auras

which are literally fluffed as battle standards

@Erics Also look at Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, wherein he describes how influential Caesar's raising the standard was in defeating Vercingetorix at the Battle of Alesia.

(Caesar was never one to downplay Caesar's importance.)

@SPavel cool, thanks.

Banner of the Storm’s Eye, Noble Pennon, Standard of Valor.

i'm pretty sure my DMs don't want to give my bard any further power :)

and zillion pages containing the word "aura"

I'll probably start off by having some goblins rally under a banner, and when Identify Magic is used on it have it be shown to grant some bonus to poison use or some other thing that the PCs won't want (assuming they're good aligned)

@Erics did you reach out to the DM on the non-story driven story-driven game?

@Erics You can also lock the effects behind racial or patron deity checks

game is on tonite. will press for more leads, provide the feedback that everything seems disjointed / monster of the week / unconnected

"This banner bears the symbol of the foul Goblin goddess Kurtulmak. Her followers are empowered by the foul magic woven into the threads."

Hmm .. typical thing would be a boost to morale, and a penalty if it were to fall ... but PCs don't do that. Some other effect needed.

Just carrying that kind of thing around will make your local Pelor clerics suspicious

@SPavel Heh, yep

Maybe a -2 on to hit / save / AC while the banner lies fallen?

@SPavel How open is Kurtulmak to human converts?

@GreySage I think by RAW, racial deities don't ban worshipers of other races, but the examples given are always "human raised by elves" and not "adventurers who murdered a bunch of goblins, took their artifact, and now wish to gain power"

Afternoon folks

howdy howdy @Alphaeus

Hey, hows it goin?

fighting off a cold and and getting ready to cook some latkes tonight :)

OooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo

@NautArch tasty

also, for anyone wondering (who is of a certain age): Rock 'em sock'em robots is still the cheap POS it was back in the day.

Hahahah

I loved that game

Under a certain age you don't care about things being a POS

@Alphaeus if only that were true. but when one robot gets it's arm stuck after you've punched and the other pops its head at a breeze going by - it got old fast.

Yes, quite true

I wonder if you could build/upgrade that game to work better

Ostensibly the mechanics aren't too complex if you're handy like that

@NautArch My wife asked last night what kinds of food you eat during Hanukkah. When I told her "latkes, doughnuts, and pretty much anything else fried in oil" her eyes lit up.

But the important question is - are you #teamsourcream or #teamapplesauce?

Latkes and sour cream...? Is that common?

You've never had latkes with sour cream?

I'm not sure if it's just Finnish things but the traditional Christmas foods here have a reputation for being really disagreeable.

@kviiri That's Finnish cuisine in general though

Like, no one likes them but still everyone tries to eat it.

We have a dish like that

Olivier salad - potato, pea, apple, pickle, ham, dressed with mayonnaise.

Usually there's a lot of leftovers, and because it's mayo based, it starts smelling bad almost immediately.

@SPavel True, but at least on normal days people are more open to the idea of eating something less traditional like avocado pasta.

"After Finland, Britain is the country with the worst food." - Jacques Chirac

Avocado pasta? That's weird..

@SPavel Rosolli. Beetroot, potato, carrot, pickle, usually vinegar. Served cold so it at least numbs one's tastebuds a bit.

@SPavel It was a huge fad five years ago.

Avocado should be served only on toast or tortilla chip

@SPavel i'm #teamapplesauce but my wife is @teamsourcream

i just grew up eating healthier

but when we do a neighborhood party with friends, I engage #SacrliciousChanukkah

I guess Finnish Christmas cuisine becomes better by an order of magnitude if one really enjoys vinegar.

and pair latkes with either pulled pork or ribs

@kviiri ooh, me!

@kviiri Reindeer steak with lingonberry?

@NautArch Your avatar sort of looks like Piglet from Winnie the Pooh when seen from the distance, you're doubly sacrilegious :)

@kviiri with the hat or without? But i never realized the piglet similarity to orko.

i like it

@SPavel Reindeer is more often served in sautéed slices.

Pork and potato is a classic combination, you may be able to reduce the sacrilege with salmon instead of pork

@SPavel nah, it's the sacrilege that makes it delicious

@NautArch It's only a misleading thumbnail on the smallest size :)

Fair

at that point it's hard to tell either way

The only Finnish food I've had is cranberry infused vodka

I am a huge fan of salty dishes and once saw a picture of a Jewish koshering salt cup, with those delicious coarse salt grains on it. I was like "me me me me me" and my arteries were like "please keep that thing away from us".

Later I learned that the salt is wiped off the meat before eating :<

Makes sense, given the intent, ofc.

If you like salt, try Kelpie seaweed beer

Back before hops were invented, some Scots had to get creative, and for some reason they still make it

@SPavel If you ever get a chance, try Finnish salmiakki :-)

@SPavel ...now I really do want to try it.

@kviiri yeah, it's to take the blood out

@SPavel I hated both licorice and salmiakki both to my late teens. Then I just decided I should maybe try associating them with salty goodness instead of candy, and I started liking both overnight.

Other fun beer inventions include smoked lager, which tastes like bacon smells

And Midas Touch, based on remains found on pottery shards in Mesopotamia

Midas might be hard to get in Europe, since it's made by a US microbrewery, but rauchbier is German so it should be easy to find

For some reason most candy bags feature at least a few black salmiakki ones here. I'd almost think it's a government regulation or somehing

...and even people who like salmiakki casually refer to them as "bad-tasting candies".

@kviiri Peak Socialism

I wish :)

When I was in the army there was this insurance company outlet nearby. They sold damaged or possibly-damaged merchandise for filthy-cheap.

A kilogram of licorice candy for two euros. I regularly brought five or six kg home.

@kviiri do i want to know what damaged licorice is?

@NautArch If it's anything like the defect cookies that you could get at the cookie factory for 5 bucks per huge bag, they're just mis-shapen pieces.

@NautArch It's like normal licorice but it actually tastes good so it's declared "defective".

@SPavel misshapen pieces go well in my tummy, too.

@NautArch Yeah, that's why it's a good deal.

@NautArch It was normal in most respects. The defects were cosmetic, like the pieces being out of shape. "Second grade" stuff.

I've had a rather terrible day today, for reasons of poor weather, work stress and CSS. Thank you, dear chatizens, for being one of the good things in an otherwise harsh day. :)

@kviiri a laws of CSS be a harsh mistress

@kviiri I feel your suffering. I'm in a very similar position.

@Adam Same, except substitute endless hours of meetings discussing a year's worth of activities.

Lol

I wrote a long answer to a question asking how a land-based druid can have a shark (or other aquatic) companion

Gave 2 ways in addition to adding a few comments on the other answers.

The person replied that it requires specific gameplay and questionable druid responsibility to get grafts on their animal companion/ use a certain ghost spell.

My reply was that it takes more questionable justifications to try to use a shark for a land druid in the first place.

Lmao

Yeah, I mean.....your question is asking how to get a shark to breath and walk on land

@Alphaeus Magic.

That kinda removes logic from the equation

*jazz hands*

or "justification" and "responsibility"

All of my druids are grossly irresponsible

@Alphaeus *jazz hands*

<<<<<<{{{Jazz hands Intensify}}}>>>>>>>

That is also a viable option

Or you could get a water elemental companion and put a shark inside it.

Although once you've done that, why stop with one shark?

Right!

Or be a Planar Shepherd of the elemental plane of water

Have a bubble of water around you at all times

fill it with sharks

:D

@Alphaeus Or buy a large tub, add wheels, then cast create water regularly

@MikeQ Nah dude, mount a decanter of endless water

Then cast a very small create flame, permanent

then cast animate object, permanent

Living mobile hottub

Wait a second....

Lemme recap

2 spells: create flame, permanent; animate object, permanent | 2 items: clawfoot tub; decanter of endless water. Result: permanent living mobile hot tub. WHY HAS THIS NOT BEEN DONE?

It has

It's called a mimic

Yeah yeah, but you can't make a mimic yourself

not easily

Wait

There's an Apocalypse World playbook, Space Marine Mammal, which is a dolphin in a mecha suit.

I want to turn this into my mount as an Urban Druid

Animated Objects can be my companions as an Urban Druid

I don't know if sharks like hot bubbling tub water though

Forget the shark

I'll have nudist druid

Where do you store the material spell components?

Eschew Materials

Even better, with a big enough tub you can take aquatic wild shapes and still live

Would the hot tub count as a mount, and if so, would this build be focused on mounted combat?

I would count it as a mount/companion since Urban Druids can use animated objects as companions

so yes

I am so totally doing this in the next campaign I do

3.5 loves its hybrid creatures... you could probably start with a steam elemental and with careful tweaking wind up with a spa elemental.

Could you get an animated bathtub as a paladin divine mount? And then justify it with a theme about "cleaning the world of sin" or "Rinse away the filth of evil" or something?

You probably could

Worst case scenario just dip into Urban Druid

Druid dips are fairly common on mount-oriented builds anyway

I've never heard of paladin/druid working very well

I've never done it, but I know a guy who does

apparently there is a feat/build set-up that allows you to use your companion as your pally mount and vice-versa

so you get the extra buffs of the companion progression

Interesting... Getting a shark companion to fly is easier than getting it to walk

^^I'm assuming you were reading my answer on that question?

You can always just strap some legs onto it:

@BESW If I'm reading this correctly, you just suggested I give a shark a strap-on?

Obviously not.

Yes. As amusing as your solution is, I think that Air Breathing + Fly/Overland Flight is a more efficient and straightforward method

Right. The other answers had already touched on the traditional ways, so I just wanted to add something different

That said, the problem with spells is that they can be dispelled

and when that Beholderkin Hive Mother suddenly blasts your companion with antimagic, now it's flopping and suffocating

Not if it lands in the animated bathtub

I try to avoid having spells on my companion, because while I can counterspell things, my companion usually can't

@MikeQ Lmfao

Actually, solve this whole problem and take a dip in Sha'ir, then go into Arcane Hierophant, letting your companion merge with your familiar to get intelligence enough to operate magical items and spells for itself

(O)_(O)

@Alphaeus It takes a LOT of energy to heat, and keep hot, a substantial amount of water. Your piddly fire won't have the juice.

@SPavel True. But then you just cast that multiple times. They normally have...what, 10 jets?

10 castings would be enough if you let it sit.

Just drive carefully :D

You don't have jets in your system at all.

We're talking about a druid

they can solve ANYTHING

I'll animate tiny little pinwheels and mount them on the inside

The pinwheels will be what I place the permanent flames on as well

Hot tub is about 1500 liters. 4.184kJ to raise the temp of 1 liter of water by 1 degree. Default temperature of a hot tub is 37C. Let's say water is at room temp, 20C, when it spawns. That's a 17 degree increase. To get that increase over, say, an hour, you need 107 megajoules of energy. If my math is right, that's 64kWh. One kg of wood burning is about 3 kWh.

So you'd need an equivalent of ~21 one-kg wood fires burning. Produce Flame describes its fire as small - a kilo of burning wood sheds light for a lot more than 10 feet. So you'd probably need 50-100 castings.

At that point, you can see why nobody's done this before.

Of course, we already know that D&D physics aren't anything like IRL physics.

Yes, you can also fire a commoner railgun repeatedly into a mountain, until it's reduced to superheated plasma, and use that to heat your tub.

@SPavel I see no problem with this. Use Chain Spell feat, at mid levels you could get those castings done with only about 6 slots

:D

Or make bigger fires

Ostensibly you could heat the whole thing, because there are spells that do that.

underwater fireball?

Not at first.

You add the water afterwards

It'll work -- it's magic

Jazz hands

heat metal on the pipes

^^Nah mate, on the decanter of endless water

The decanter is only a flask, so that would take almost nothing to heat

This is actually literally the mentality behind Hot Point in-sink water heaters IRL

Make your own Hot Point :D

I like how this chat has spent over an hour discussing how to make this

Any place that can discus making a living magic hot tub companion mount viable in an RPG for an hour is a place I like. :D

I mean, it only takes that long in games like D&D.

@BESW To be fair, you can do it much more easily in D&D

Such as putting one side of a ring gate on top of a hot spring

@SPavel Or in the elemental plane of fire

@GreySage That's less hot tub and more horrible death in hideous agony tub

Nah dudes, you have a contingency spell for that.

You lure people into your warm bubbles with diplomacy

Step out for just a second....

then boil them alive

Give the tub a means to grapple while you're at it

Might as well just use Bag of Devouring

@SPavel But the two-faced Hot Tub of Pleasurable Death is so much more flavorful

Lmfao

Become a Planar Shepherd of Dolurrh so your planar bubble has strange time dynamics

Then use your planar bubble while in the hot tub

Hot Tub Time Machine

hey @BESW, I am going to try doing a FAE Star Wars playtest with a couple of friends. How collaborative do you think I should make it since we're all first timers. In case you were curious, the playtest is a one-shot to recover the plans for the second Death Star.

Have ideas about what will happen, but ask your players questions and incorporate what they say.

Especially if you can't think of something, or can't choose which idea is best to go with for a result, ask the players what happens.

Also, since we are doing this remotely and have Roll20 available to us, do you think I should incorporate maps?

Since it'll be December 14th soon (YTZMV) let me say:

Please don't spoil The Last Jedi.

Amen nitsua, I literally haven't even watched the trailers so I don't know what's going to happen in it.

@Skyler Up to you; I find that it can help to have a sketchy idea of who's where in relation to each other, but more detailed than that can get in the way.

@nitsua60 sigh, I was gifted two tickets to see TFA this weekend but I have no desire to go

oh wait you're talking about TFA?

dont you mean the last jedi

@Skyler Wow, spoilers.

Prolly. I haven't watched so assiduously that I've gotten the names mixed up =)

@Miniman the day movie titles become spoilers

Yeah guys, don't spoil Rogue One, nitsua hasn't seen it yet

To spoil Revenge of the Sith would be really mean to him

@SPavel Spoiler: They don't get the Death Star plans.

Like, at the table the most complex I'd get is writing each zone with its aspects on its own index card, arranging the index cards on the table to show relationships, and putting character minis on the index cards to show who's in which zone.

I forgot this one was The $ADJECTIVE $NOUN, not The $NOUN $VERB.

Aren't we all adjective nouns

@Skyler That's where I am.

@Miniman You mean Princess Leia's stolen Death Star plans?

The last image in my mind is Ray (Rae?) on that tropical island, finding that big four-toed statue.

@BESW so definitely dont use these types of things:

@SPavel Couldn't spoil it any more than Hayden Christensen =|

@nitsua60 From my point of view, the original trilogy is evil!

I wouldn't. But I know of Fate games that prefer a more grid-and-minis approach, so... up to you? It'll take experimentation to figure out how your group's gestalt works.

I wouldn't bother with grids for sure, I very much like the zones aspect of it.

For reference, here's a session tracking sheet for an ambush we laid on a truck convoy.

@BESW this is for everybody's reference right?

Yeah.

Everybody could edit it during the session.

This is a tracking sheet from one of my very earliest games.

Did you keep surprises for the players on another sheet and then paste it in?

Sometimes, but usually it's just like stat blocks for characters they haven't met yet.

exactly what I was thinking of doing that for

... I should use more gelatinous cubes...

other than that maybe stat blocks for a few ships they can pilot/fight

@Skyler For example, this was my NPC prep sheet, and I pasted each part into the tracking sheet as they met it.

OH, I see. Armor:1 and the standard mook hit box totally makes sense now

However I will on occasion have a secret. But I try not to make the secret a secret.

For example:

Master Appa-Tax had a secret that she kept from all but her closest advisors. It was crucial to her identity so it had to be an aspect, but for various reasons I thought it'd be cool to keep the players as well as their characters in the dark about it.

So I told them that she had a secret, but if they wanted to find it out they'd have to work at it in-game.

Her advisors, of course, were the Philosoraptor twins:

and then they can help each other out

and two fire teams usually travel together

you dont want them to form up or you have to run from their +10

@BESW or have I made them too weak like this

Maybe give them the stunt Suppressive Fire: they can invoke a +2 for another fire squad when they either attack forcefully or Overcome using Quick

Btw @BESW, I dont understand what benefit Weapon:1 has over Weapon:0

or the benefit of Weapon:1 at all honestly

since if you don't damage (do less than 1 stress) you don't have a minimum damage

hey there @Asteria