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00:00
He's not a newcromancer.
hmm... that's right, no imdb onebox =(
That's a New Crow mancer link, btw.
Isn't that more of a recrowmancer?
@nitsua60 the internet is down over here (so I am on my phone right now)
I might be unable to join if I can't fix it before we start
uh oh, someone burninated trogdor's internet cable
I'm gonna go use my necromancy powers to sleep and get a delayed raise dead (in 8 hours). Ttfn!
00:19
@KorvinStarmast @NautArch @Shalvenay @trogdor (cc: @Ryan) it does look like I'm going to be maybe half an hour behind schedule. Sorry.
00:50
@nitsua60 don't apologise to me for this one, I either might need that extra time to get internet running or I won't be able to join again
hey there @SeamusAllen, welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)
01:21
@trogdor data charges are bad?
I reset everything and it's working now
@trogdor huzzah
I do need maybe about 10 minutes though
but I think Nitsua is gonna be at least that late still?
so I should be good
@trogdor I just got home, getting things set up/settled. Take your time, we're assembling.
@trogdor he's heeeerrreeee @nitsua60
01:28
@Shalvenay you coming?
 
3 hours later…
04:13
That should have gotten you-all pretty far along the way to L3, right?
@nitsua60 538 XP IIRC so not that far
because it was a split XP situation
Oh, right. 4-something was the total before the split.
 
5 hours later…
09:00
dnd is powerful because it forces 3+ other people to have emotional investment in your oc
09:54
It’s a pretty common trope in fiction that strength comes from tragedy. Hell, Magicians more or less makes the subtext into text. That would not be hard to mechanize, but doing so is a pretty explicit statement, and that part requires rather more thought to really grasp.
10:09
@BESW should just be "RPG's are powerful because,..." but still works fine
Aye.
and I get it, D&D is still probably number 1
Many more so than D&D even.
yes true
even just Fate
the mechanics are all about that investment
or at least calling on it
11:07
@doppelgreener lol
12:03
@BESW My TDE group manages to have 8 people invested into trying to get themselves into trouble and then hoist each other out of the swamp by their hair...
 
1 hour later…
Ben
Ben
13:08
Evening
13:20
hey there @Tiggerous
13:32
Good afternoon @Shalvenay
how're things going?
 
2 hours later…
15:27
@nitsua60 If we had taken them all out, it would have gotten us a lot farther along to L3. But the dice were cold, and the withdrawal the better choice.
0
Q: Burnination of old 4e tags

Oblivious SageWe have some old 4e tags that should probably be cleaned up: utility-powers (burninated) daily-powers encounter-powers These should be replaced with the more general powers tag. This change is in a similar vein to the recent decision not to have tags for the 3.P schools of magic, and to inste...

16:10
hey there @MikeQ
@Shalvenay Good Sunday to you Shal
how're things going?
Yesterday's session went okay. But my players' characters are too powerful and too complicated, so the combat was very easy and very slow.
from personal experience: no problem with being powerful :D
complicated can be tough though
16:32
Yes, one of them has 8 natural attacks, and is doing a total of 50-150 damage per round. Their AC is anywhere from 28-35. The players are very experienced with the system (Pathfinder) and it's hard to challenge them.
@MikeQ are they handling hard or epic difficulty encounters with ease? You could adjust the APL to account for there min-maxey characters (im assuming that's the concern)
@DavidCoffron I'm unsure whether A. they are meeting the difficulty of the encounters, or B. the encounters are too easy, or C. I'm just bad at GM combat tactics and am under-playing my own resources. Either way, I'm ignoring APL and CR standards because they're kind of meaningless to me.
Out of combat, I'm not worried. I know how to mix up the mechanical noncombat challenges (traps, etc.) and non-mechanical stuff (RP, intrigue, etc.).
16:59
Is there a way to become immune to advantage and disadvantage RAW? Either with everything, or failing that just during combat with attacks, getting attacked, and saving throws.
The idea is the abuse that fact that 1 advantage cancels any amount of disadvantage, and vice-versa, and just have a way to permanently have 1 advantage and 1 disadvantage.
like, being a blind barbarian that always reckless attacks will means you can never have advantage nor disadvantage on attacks
but that isn't quite enough
17:22
@nitsua60 I think the question is a dupe, and marked it so. — KorvinStarmast 2 hours ago
@KorvinStarmast good find ^^
 
2 hours later…
19:05
ugh, I'm never going to get the fanatic badge
 
2 hours later…
21:01
@goodguy5 :'(
21:15
@nitsua60 @SevenSidedDie are these questions: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/96173/… / rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/120544/… too broad? It seems like they are border-line shopping questions searching for ideas.
@DavidCoffron My thoughts on the first one: the good answer I'd hope for is one that analyzes how traps actually work and engage players; it'd actually answer the question asked, "how do we make traps engaging." If the answers coming in are just "here are some traps my players liked" they'd be poor ones. (Disclosure: I didn't read through the answers before writing this.)
Second one might be shopping. I'd suggest you leave a comment, VtC, and see if others flock to the cause or not.
i think the second one isn't shopping, but it's a discussion starter
21:39
1
Q: Do spells from the Ritual Caster feat need to be prepared when taken by a Warlock?

RubiksmooseSay I have a Warlock that takes the Ritual Caster feat. Do the spells learned from the feat have to be prepared by the Warlock before being cast as a ritual or do they always have the spells available to cast as a ritual? My confusion stems from the fact that most of the mechanics from the Ritua...

Can I get a sanity check here? People are getting all antsy, did I make a mistake by splitting these up?
My usual thought is that there is not too much harm in splitting questions up whereas I've definitely seen too broad questions get all muddled.
no harm in asking about two classes separately, that's probably a good idea
I seem to have commentators all aghast about it however lol.
one common rule of thumb is this: ask the questions separately, unless doing so makes no sense.
Wait... Is there a daily rep cap? Not that I care, just wondering (someone mentioned it the other day and I forgot to ask)?
@DavidCoffron Yup. 200.
Certain things ignore the cap, but 200 is generally the limit.
21:54
there's also badges for hitting that rep cap
3
Q: Can I ask about Maptool?

wolfWould a question specifically about maptool functions (i.e. Macros) be off-topic here, given the "tools" and "gm-techniques" tags?

I've never seen this much animosity over a simple splitting of questions...
@Rubiksmoose I just find it utterly pointless
@Szega Listen, they seem, to me (the person wanting an answer to my question) to be potentially distinct cases. If they end up not being, then so be it. But the distinction is there.
@Szega you are not the questioner. As the questioner, he figured there was due reason for splitting them. As a potential answerer, it is your job to answer each or only one or neither.
22:10
I have just stated my opinion. I could have just marked it as a dupe but did not.
@Szega I'm not doing this to annoy people, I did it at the recommendation of several other members of the community.
If my 4 year old asked me what's 2+2 and what's 3+2, one answer about how addition works could answer the question, but perhaps the difference between 3 and 2 isn't clear enough so each question (in his eyes) is different. We all have our own perspectives
(Not to say you are like a 4 year old @Rubiksmoose; just an example)
@DavidCoffron hahaha I did not take it that way. No worries.
Ben
Ben
22:35
Who's free today
And wants to help me build a few D&D 5e encounters
@Ben I would love to, but got birthday dinner for my Dad. If your free in a few hours, I'll be available.
Ben
Ben
@DavidCoffron Sounds like a plan :)
@DavidCoffron Happy birthday to a stranger, from a stranger :)
22:59
hey there @MikeQ and @Ben
Hey again
Ben
Ben
o/
how're things going?
Well, I haven't come up with a solution to my earlier problem - I don't know how to catch my players off guard
Ben
Ben
Could be much better. Not much I can do about it and not much that needs to be discussed. Hence why I'm looking for something else to keep my mind occupied
So pose to me a puzzle and I shall endeavour to help solve it
23:08
Do ethical puzzles count? I'm considering whether to start homebrewing classes, abilities, and items to give my monsters/NPCs, rather than rely on the game's official mechanics to build challenges. And I don't know if that's fair to the players.
Ben
Ben
AS a concept, I don't see the problem.
What system?
Pathfinder. Any and all published material is considered fair game.
Ben
Ben
Ok.
Well, as a comparison, we have recently been playing Savage Worlds - all "unique" enemies are effectively PCs - built the same way, have the same abilities - including "Benny's", which are a powerful tool that allows a player to re-roll attacks, or soak wounds, etc.
This makes fights very tough for the players, and a lot of the time, the enemy will rather escape than being put down.
What this does, is force us to really focus on working together to try and undermine the enemy, in whatever way we can.
These fights can be brutal, often leaving us to require long resting/recovery periods, due to excessive damage dealt by the fight, but on the other hand, when we do win, it is an all-the-sweeter victory.
Tell me, do you or any of your players enjoy Dark Souls?
@Ben Yes, and I do too.
@Ben "Tell me, do you or any of your players enjoy Dark Souls?" Run away!
lol
23:16
The experience you described - That's what I'm aiming for. I don't necessarily want the players to lose, but I want them to be in situations that could have potential consequences if they don't work together and play tactically.
Ben
Ben
In that case; I say go for it! On your part, you will still have to balance the fight properly (I.e. if it's up to the dice, it's unbalance, but I shouldn't need to tell you that).
@MikeQ The one thing though is that Savage Worlds has a mechanic where the PCs don't actually die, they just come back with a deficit (if the player chooses to come back, instead of dying).
Ben
Ben
23:48
This means that the fight itself is a challenge - and since they like Dark Souls, that likely means they want to win, and would be less likely to let them escape, regardless of the cost :)
Okay? I'm not sure where you're going with this. Both my players and I want the combat to be challenging. I don't make my NPCs lose on purpose.
Ben
Ben
@MikeQ The combat is the challenge. It is a challenge to win.
Again, yes, that's kind of obvious
Ben
Ben
But you obviously don't want them to have the certainty of dying
(Unless you do, in which case that's a different approach - not wrong - just different)
No. The expectation is that the players will probably win the combat. But it should be hard for them to do so.
Ben
Ben
23:58
What I'm saying is that in this game of Savage worlds - there is never a certainty of winning. In 5e, for example, encounters are always tipped in favour of the PCs. In Savage Worlds, it is more even. The "benny" system is what makes the difference.
For example, we had one fight - 3 goons, a sniper, and a cyborg. We had a gadgeteer (with a lazer gun) a Robot (with a Katana) and a "Spider-Man".

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