@NautArch I find spinning d20s easier than d10s

@PeterCooperJr. really? I don't think I've actively tried spinning d20s, will do so this evening :)

@NautArch Oh, you can spin almost anything. Tetrahedral d4s work the worst, of course, I really haven't gotten one of those to work well. And if you have one of the actual d100s, of course they're basically a ball. But d10s need to be really balanced to spin well since they're not symmetrical.

d20s are easily balanced, and can spin for quite a while.

But most d6s (especially those with slightly more rounded corners) can spin quite well, too, if you practice with them a bit.

@PeterCooperJr. i am the dreidel master - i will practice my die spinning techniques :)

The Crystal Caste crystal-shaped dice don't spin nearly as well, though. They're good for people saying "those are neat" when they see them, and I really love their d4 for ease-of-use over a tetrahedron, but they're not so good for spinning.

@PeterCooperJr. i'd seen those crystal caste dice..kinda neat...but kinda weird

@NautArch Yeah, the crystal d4 and d6 are pretty neat and useful, and show that there are ways of making dice beyond the standard shapes. The d10 and higher mainly just feel like you're rolling cylinders and can be hard to read.

@PeterCooperJr. I think d12 spins the easiest though.

I also like d12, because 12 is such a nice number.

@kviiri I feel like when I spin a 20, it spins for longer than when I spin a 12. But it's not like I've timed it or anything.

It could be that "ease of spinning" and "duration of spins" don't correlate that much, so I guess it's plausible for d12 to spin easier than d20 but d20 to remain in optimal spins longer?

Low floor vs high ceiling for dice spin optimization

Clearly we need to tier the dice

What do I roll to see how well I spin the dice?

@kviiri What is your saving throw bonus against effects that don't allow a saving throw?

@SPavel I don't do saving throws, so I'm a bit on the fence between undefined and zero.

@kviiri What is your fence-balancing modifier?

@SPavel -1, because I only do it when drunk.

Well ok, that's not strictly true. I also do it when I'm feeling cocky about my ability to balance on fences.

I'll put you down for "the greatest modifier of all time, lots of people- everyone says that to me, one of the best modifiers they've seen"

@kviiri It's probably dexterity, plus your Spin of Hand skill proficiency if applicable.

@SPavel Oh, “modifier” has so many syllables.

Modifiers, mo problems.

@Rubiksmoose sorry about that early answer

@NautArch no need at all to apologize! Definitely gave me a double take though lol.

@NautArch Now I'm just hoping for any answer at all lol

@Rubiksmoose same. i'm not sure how to answer it myself :)

i know i don't want to allow it - because it's a cheap way to 'kill' a creature. but at 9th level, that's somewhat reasonable.

although i have a possible answer - in that the destruction of the material returns it to original form. so you could use the material, destroy it and you'd now have been able to cast the spell AND returned the creature to it's normal form.

@NautArch Indeed, but I wonder if consumed would require something more than just reducing the item to 0 hp. The spell requires that material to be used to make the spell. And since that material is, in fact, a creature, it seems weird to have the creature still be there at the end of things

@Rubiksmoose except that you are not using the creature, you are using the object. and when an object is reduced to 0HP (being consumed by the spell) it reverts.

@Rubiksmoose well, our corpses remain (objects) after we are killed. Just because there is a remainder doesn't mean the primary is still there.

@NautArch Right right. I guess the main thing I'm trying to understand at the moment is: when a spell consumes a component, doesn't it mean that it completely uses up all the matter of the object to power the spell? Leaving nothing behind?

@Rubiksmoose i'm not sure that matters. the point is once it's consumed, it' hits 0 hp and then reverts. the order is 0hp->revert. And 0 HP happens after consumption. (or so my answer attempts to say)

I also updated my answer, the comment no longer applies :)

@NautArch I mean I definitely like this interpretation. I think the other is getting much more technical than it needs to be, but still I wonder.

@NautArch I saw! and I deleted it :)

@Rubiksmoose yeah, the other feels like it needs rules that aren't there. this one works the ones that are.

but interesting to see if someone else counters

@NautArch Agreed. Or finds some other argument that neither of us thought of for or against the idea.

@Rubiksmoose no. we have thought of everything. muahahahaahahahahahaha.

@NautArch Yup! Might as well just shut the whole thing down. We've got it covered :)

SE...closed.

@NautArch Feels good. Productive afternoon lol

@Rubiksmoose adding insult to injury with my current DM: he has offered a free hint to anyone that comes to his workout class. Free being relative, because you have to pay for said class (he runs a gym.) And I had pretty badly screwed up my wrist (to the point where i'm avoiding weightlifting and definitely no longer attending his classes) at one said classes a couple years ago.

@NautArch So he is selling DnD game information for real-life money?

@NautArch Is your DM EA Games? Because that's literally pay-to-win.

@NautArch That sounds more like it added injury to insult.

@PeterCooperJr. well played, sir!

@SPavel had to cancel our session this week because another player forgot he had a date :) BUmmed not because we're missing the session, but because we're delaying the end of the campaign and I can finally stop kvetching about this dude.

@Rubiksmoose I may be wrong, but I don't think that invoke duplicity question is a duplicate.

@NautArch As the author of that question, I now believe that my question is a duplicate of the other question that is closed as a duplicate of a third question, and that neither the 1st nor 2nd are REALLY duplicates of that 3rd

I asked it because I thought I had an idea that was different enough, but after some reworking it turned out to be the same and it convinced me that the 2nd question wasn't actually a duplicate

@GreySage I actually don't think it's a true duplicate. It's a different question (even thought he answer is nearly identical). But i'm generally wrong on a lot of those :)

Seems like the only choice is to close everything as duplicate and start the website all over

but it's good to have to clarify that spell concentration is the same thing as channel divinity concentration.

@SPavel Yeah, my question has answers, Greenclif's question has upvotes, I figured trying to sort it all out would be a headache so I just left it.

@NautArch The only thing my question really adds is that it specifies that it is about spell targeting range, which the other implies, but doesn't call out.

@GreySage And is also irrelevant, as the problem is with concentration. (I assume it is about the duplicity questions)

@GreySage i thought he main differences were channel divinity as a concentration as well as non-instantaneous.

@NautArch I meant between my question and Greencliff's question, this one. Greencliff's and RonV's questions are different as you say.

@NautArch This is completely not cool.

@NautArch If you're having so many issues with this DM, why are you sticking around again? I'm sure you've told me before, but the reason has left my head.

@Adam IIRC because the next DM will reuse the same world but later on, and "dropping out" means that his character will not influence that world

@Adam Naut should count how many times we have asked that :)

Interesting tweet from Crawford recently on D&D 5e and treasure

Jeremy Crawford‏ @JeremyECrawford · Jan 6 The treasure rules assume a typical campaign (levels 1–20) generates 100 magic items—a mix of consumables and permanent items. Unless your party has more than 100 people in it, everyone has a chance to get something. See Xanathar’s Guide for more info. #DnD

Normally I wouldn't necessarily ping chat, but I think perception is a pretty important aspect to the game and I hate having a wrong answer so highly voted and accepted.

@Rubiksmoose What do you see wrong in the accepted answer?

@Rubiksmoose In what way "wrong" as you see it. I'll read through it again and return.

@nitsua60 That is rather surprising. Especially since I remember WotC admitting to doing research on campaign length and noting that games normally die around 10th level I think it was.

@nitsua60 The design model has to account for campaigns that do last that long, which is where he seems to me to be coming from.

I guess incomplete would be a better way to phrase it. An important way to understand PP is that it is a floor for active perception.

@Adam Yup. That's linked in the SE question about XP-to-level.

Which that answer omits entirely, which is not surprising given the fact that it is not stated clearly anywhere

And the fact that PP is active at all times

@Rubiksmoose (One might think that the word choice "active" there is unfortunate.)

=)

enkryptor seems to have a good handle on it

@KorvinStarmast Oh, sure. I just wouldn't call "the longest we designed for" == "typical." Unless it's like some presentations I've seen at scientific conferences, where "typical" was jokingly used as a tongue-in-cheek way to say "here are pictures of the nine best results I obtained in three years' research."

@nitsua60 hahaha touche

I personally like this one rpg.stackexchange.com/a/108061/28591

But yeah, that's my beef with that answer.

@Rubiksmoose I do like matt's, so I voted it up.

:)

@nitsua60 I am pretty sure that the full sentence intended in Crawford's tweet goes something like this: in a typical campaign that lasts from 1-20 (idealized to fit the design paradigm) the distribution of magic items that fits our design intent is 100 items total, both consumable and otherwise.

I don't see how he's referring to the fact that IRL keeping a campaign together that long is a real bugger to do. Making that kind of public confession might even be seen as bad mouthing his own product.

The 1-20 campaign is a sacred cow that D&D doesn't have the guts to kill

Despite the fact that it cannot exist

The reason I posted that tweet was to comment on the "what level of magic items is expected to be seen in play" which gets to overall design intent. It's been variable in D&D in practice since I started playing in the 70's.

@SPavel They need a conceptual framework to accommodate high level play as well, I think their tiers of adventure model makes perfect sense ... even if high level play is in a lot of ways a very different game.

@SPavel The part of the fan base that likes high level play needed to be given their piece of the pie as well, eh?

@KorvinStarmast That's a fair point/read.

@KorvinStarmast They need to acknowledge that "starting at 15" or whatever is a valid thing, and support that

@KorvinStarmast Gah, remember 2e modules? I remember just swimming in magic items.

5e expanded 3.5's levels 1 through 5 into 20 levels which doesn't count

@Spavel I think they do, in the DMG, in that table about magic items in high, medium and low magic settings.

I've met people who actually believe that starting above level 1 is cheating.

@nitsua60 heh, yeah, over magicking was a thing ...

@SPavel oh dear...

Like, the entire table, including the DM, would be cheating.

@SPavel We stopped having that attitude in about 1977 ...

@SPavel In Adventurers League that is true right?

Heck, the early modules that were basically repackaged convention scenarios all had variable level characters. Who came up with that trope?

@Rubiksmoose You need an AL-legal character to play AL. An AL-legal character has all of its XP logged. Some-to-all of that XP could come from things other than playing sessions with that character.

(Notably DM XP; I don't know off the top of my head if there are other sources.)

AL is a special case of D&D 5e. (AH, I see nits has already pointed this out)

@KorvinStarmast Right right, but I can see someone with only an AL background maybe saying/believing this because it is roughly how AL works. That's all I'm saying really.

And it's fine that AL works that way.

I.e. when DMing AL one is awarded XP which is legal to apply to any of their characters, simply by making an entry on that character's logsheet. I, for instance, have scores of thousands of XP sitting around unused. Certainly enough to make a tier-3 character from scratch and thus "start" at level 13.

@nitsua60 Speaking of which, is late January still good planning point for ToA?

@KorvinStarmast Yeah. I've got two more weeks of madness, then as that subsides I'd like to pull people together to see if an early February start would work. Spend the week of the Superbowl figuring out logistics, connections, characters, &c.

Ok, that's a good plan

@SPavel I ran a 3.5 campaign from 1 to 26 (maybe 28? Long time ago) and a 4e campaign from 1 to 30.

And an ARRPG campaign that would've been equivalent if it'd been in a D&D paradigm.

Typical.

XD

@Rubiksmoose That's a very contentious point, which a lot of people (including this chat) has argued strenuously in the past.

@nitsua60 I knew without looking that that comment was from you :P

[sigh] But I guess "all playstyles are valid", even ones that like the jump spell.

@Miniman Ran the best chase I've had in 5e the other night. By the DMG's rules; the deciding factor was that there was a large map with lots of terrain over which the chase could range. Apropos of my comment to you, there were 5' and 10' and 15' chasms to be jumped.

@Miniman What can I say? David Lee Roth was my first GM =)

@nitsua60 That's pretty cool. Was that in the campaign we were talking about the other day?

@nitsua60 Can you imagine the geek cred that would be worth?

Last night (for me)? Yes.

@nitsua60 Nice.

So there's your tip of the day, everyone: it's a good map that makes a chase interesting in D&D. As one of my lunchmates put it, we got to play a fun 20-minute board game with our characters as pieces during our D&D session.

@Miniman I was not aware of the contentious nature of it. Seems very straighforward and logical to me.

I think the biggest argument we've had about it was the one that started here:

wow lol. But yeah that is exactly the way we play. The thing is, as long as the DM adjudicates passive beforehand (aka I already saw everything below my passive) there is almost no case in which it actually matters to say that PP is a floor for active.

Yeah, we do it similarly at my table, too. My point is just that it's not necessarily as simple as saying "this is true, that answer doesn't mention it, that answer is wrong".

@Miniman Sure. I appreciate it. I took it for granted that people understood and accepted the designer guidance etc. surrounding the issue.

hey there @nitsua60 and @Rubiksmoose

hey!

Plane Shift: Ixalan has been released for D&D 5e with Vampires, Merfolk, and Dinosaurs, oh my!

how're things going?

@doppelgreener I had a very jarring moment of "but doppel isn't a D&D 5e guy" before I realised that you probably came across it as a M:tG guy XD

@Miniman correk!

@doppelgreener My reactions to the Plane Shift articles are interesting - I always go in thinking "this sounds cool", but find them really bland when I actually read the article.

And I really can't put my finger on why.

@doppelgreener I've got to wonder if giving the diamond-menu light-up notification of new meta items to all meta-privileged users would help drive up participation? There's obviously room in the top-bar, and a thing that lights up sometimes certainly isn't going to generate fewer eyeballs....

@Miniman maybe the writer's having a perpetual off day when it comes to them

@nitsua60 given whenever there's a meta question, us four(!) diamond moderators who actually have that alert descend upon the question like a pack of hungry pirahnas, i completely agree it would drive up participation, but i don't know if it would have a beneficial effect. (e.g. i'm actually happiest when a meta question gets answered by not-us)

@doppelgreener I definitely don't think it's that - he generally sounds pretty enthusiastic.