anyone here found/used this dark sun homebrew?

Well, just finished writing the final exam for my class today. Gotta run.

@NautArch ooh dark sun

Although "everything sucks and your sword is made of poops because you can't afford a metal sword" games are not as trendy as they used to be

@SPavel SOmeone had suggested that a world i'm working is on is like dark sun and so have been looking to see what it's like to give me ideas on how to manage it.

I'd keep metals, it's going to be weird enough for the players who have magic to be interacting in this world.

There was a 3rd party setting for d20, Frost and Fur, that was sort of Dark Sun type grimdark meets Bronze Age Siberia

Gotta say, the folklore of a people that spend half of every year in perpetual darkness has some freaky stuff

It' smore that this is a world that has been mostly stripped of magic and magic users.

and has been mostly ravaged into a dangerous wasteland because of it.

but on further review of that link, there really isn't setting information in it :(

@NautArch Get out of here, Stalker

@SPavel ?

@NautArch oh man, you're building a dangerous wasteland setting and you don't even know Stalker?

@SPavel oh, the videogame! Never played it, though.

@NautArch Read this

The source material is much better than the video game

@SPavel and bookmarked :)

@NautArch No, I meant right now

Drop whatever less important thing you are doing

@SPavel <drops everything> um...pants, too?

@SPavel Hang on, so the Stalker videogame series about an accident in Chernobyl is based on an alien invasion story?

@Nzall Roadside Picnic is a book

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is based on the Tarkovsky movie Stalker, which is itself based on Roadside Picnic

ah, okay

Now there are S.T.A.L.K.E.R. books, and I think they are making a movie out of one of them

Interestingly, Roadside Picnic was written before the Chernobyl AES disaster

Is Roadside Picnic public domain?

or otherwise not subject to copyright?

USSR copyright law is difficult to enforce, given the country's spontaneous existence failure and the buccaneering spirit of the Russian people

But I do think the copyright term is, in any case, expired

Good morning all.

@Rubiksmoose mornin' moose.

here is moose but vhere is skvirrel

@SPavel you can say that again, dahling.

@NautArch Don’t be ridiculous, Darling. I wouldn’t lick a German if he were glazed in honey!

@NautArch Afternoon

@SPavel That made me check on our eagles. Given the growth in the first few days, I had expected a giant eagle chick. It has merely grown a bit.

@Anaphory It's funny that mama eagle still sits on top of the eaglet, given the latter's size

Yes!

@Anaphory Hi, what's up?

First time I've seen the camera actually shake from the wind.

I've been seeing a lot of nests IRL recently

I wonder what's up with that. Am I just paying more attention to something...

There's a pigeon's nest on the lower branches of a tree quite near to my home, low enough a malicious person of my height could destroy it without accessories.

@kviiri found the murderhobo

In the house next to us, a sparrow lives in a hole in a pillar

that's some prime real estate right there

And today walking to the dry cleaner's, I saw three sparrows homing in to various holes in walls on the way. Under windows and such

I'm trying to decide if I feel like losing rep for this answer.....

I think I do

@goodguy5 downvote prepared...where do i go?

one sec. lemme post it and I'll send the link

@kviiri I think it's late spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

So it's possible that nesting season has begun.

@goodguy5 [facepalm]

worth it

@goodguy5 -1 for missing verb

I'm trying so hard not to laugh out loud at work

@Yuuki fixed

@Yuuki Nooooo wayyy!

although TBH it feels like midsummer already because 1) it's really hot every day, 2) it's only dark for about an hour around Midnight

I mean, that's a passable explanation for why you've been seeing a lot of nests.

Not all birds are eagles, who have permanent nests.

@goodguy5 Why not just make it a comment instead though (and possibly earn a bunch of upvotes with it)

my comments always get deleted

@goodguy5 With enough votes it might stay around

I think it's a funny gag

I stand by this decision

But not really useful as an answer

@kviiri I agree that's why I suggested a comment

@kviiri I mean... that depends on the gm

If one of my players needed holy water, and asked if they could just boil the hell out of regular water....

@goodguy5 yeah...no.

I think there is a precedent for jokes in comments

that'd work the first time

so you're just going around assuming everything is made up of heaven and hell? :P

I'll change it to a comment. I thought of it and couldn't resist

And then when someone calls them out on their language so they boil the heck out of the water instead, they get hole-y water.

this comes to mind

@NautArch that could be compatible with an aristotlean paradigm

Which then causes the glass to explode as the cavitation bubbles collapse.

I like that SSD bothered to edit the post though

makes it feel more valid

@SPavel Barker started that with EPT in 1975 ... your sword is made of poops because you can't afford a metal sword .. chlen hide was the standard "hard" material. Metal like iron, or a worked object of steel, was rare, but not unfindable. Didn't have a major impact on game play, as metals like gold and sliver were around.

@goodguy5 I tried to up vote it, but you had already deleted it, and given the edit, yeah, it was best to let that one die.

@KorvinStarmast it lives as a comment now

Immortal water, unless it too passes, like most water does ...

VTC unclear?

@NautArch how is it unclear?

@goodguy5 for the comments I listed?

Always nice to get to ask

There is no "summon" spell to bring a PC back (that I'm aware of). What actual spell/mechanic are they using to 'summon'? Who/what are they trying to bring back?

@goodguy5 From the wording I'd infer that the hoped-for escapee is a PC. All summons wouldn't work, and it's trivially clear that the plain-English menaing of "summon" ("Hey--get over here!") wouldn't work against against Barovia, either. So there must be something I'm missing.

Maybe it's not a PC? Maybe there's some other way to summon I'm not thinking of?

@nitsua60 I don't understand your point about plain-english of summoning

"leaving" is not the same as "being taken"

@nitsua60 That's my inference as well, but don't want to make an assumption and it may help with figuring out if there's a loophole (which I doubt there is...otherwise Strahd would have used it.)

@nitsua60 And then it turns out that the sole weakness in Barovia's wards is someone asking very nicely "could I please go home now, Mr. Strahd?"

Just because a child cannot escape their house, does not mean that they cannot be kidnapped

@Yuuki "No, but if you mom says you have to go home at a certain time, I'll honor that."

@Yuuki It just occurred to me that Strahd is imposing an ironic punishment on the residents of Barovia.

@goodguy5 Yeah, kidnappings happen with some regularity after lunch.

He can't enter their homes without permission, so they can't leave their homes without his permission.

@goodguy5 To summon someone is to verbally (or in writing) command them to do something that they can do.

(This is an example, IMO, of where idle-curiosity questions often fall off the rails. "I was wondering" often lacks the details that "I accidentally teleported (Wk4) into Castle Ravenloft, is there any way my party can get me back?" for instance, would have.)

@kviiri I think he can enter their homes without their permission because technically, their houses are actually his houses.

Although that makes me wonder how a vampiric landlord would work.

eh, I looked through the spells for 5e. I thought there was some summoning spell, but I guess not. Edition conflation, maybe

yea, but he owns the building

so it's still "his"

@Yuuki The rule, as far as I recall, states that he can't enter a residence without an invitation from one of the occupants. The wording suggests to me that the important bit is who lives there, not who actually owns the house.

@Yuuki "Ok, you have 7 days to give me that rent or you're evicted."

Being really strict, that would mean that he couldn't even enter his own house if he couldn't for some reason give himself a permission.

You could also burn their house down.

^

Try burning it up. Much more original.

Play lots of Talking Heads? Cast lots of Magic Mouths?

also, how does strahd have so much damned power that he can negate wishes

@goodguy5 He's not doing it - the Dark Lords are.

ah

Can someone please explain Bounty’s to me?

@Hobo_warrior Here's the help page on bounties: rpg.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/set-bounties

@doppelgreener Are my comments in that STrahd question not helpful? DOn't want to go down a bad road here.

Trying to get clarification, but I think, as @nitsua60 said, a question based on idle curiosity is problematic because the details just aren't there.

Strahd is ruler of a pocket dimension that is all of Ravenloft, if I recall. That's why he's so powerful. Heck I think he can actually open and close crossings between regions of the realm at will.

and still he's a measly undead blood-sucker, with a list of prohibitions and things that he can't do longer than Grey's Anatomy whole series

@Helwar I take offense to that, Strahd is surely rich enough to afford good healthcare and would therefore be up-to-date on all his vaccinations.

I just putt

I just put a 500 rep. Bounty out on my question

@Yuuki Still can't see the sun, cross running water, enter your house unnanounced, is mortally allergic to garlic, has a nervous breakdown everytime he smells blood...

@Helwar Yeah but he's definitely not "measly" since he would almost certainly have his measles vaccine.

@Yuuki then I don't know the meaning of "measly"

xD

It actually does mean "contemptibly small or few" but that's a 19th century definition. In the 1500/1600s, it was used to describe a pig infested with measles.

@Hobo_warrior Ask away.

@Yuuki Oh, then I know what it means. It means what I meant. The other thing I wouldn't know, english is my third language :P

@Hobo_warrior holy smokes.

@NautArch I voted to reopen, is it in a condition that you think will work better?

@KorvinStarmast not to me.

What summon spell/ability? What does it do? Who does it work on?

I don't have Out of the Abyss, so I don't know what mechanics that Fiend has.

Wow, put down 2/3rds of your account rep on a bounty?

It's already got an answer with 90-something upvotes.

@Maximillian That doesn't mean that the querent has read that answer and wants to accept it ... it would appear that none of the answers seem to satisfy the querent so far. (That's a guess..) (While I think it's a very good answer, I didn't ask the question, so context/perspective enters into this)

@KorvinStarmast see the discussion but I think we've narrowed it down to a stackable question.

@NautArch I think I have it at home; I expect that someone who has run OoTA can offer a decent answer.

@KorvinStarmast unless that mechanic isn't actually in OoTA :) But OP now has a question that can be asked by using Gate as the example.

But with the OoTA example, there is a mechanic cited that may or may not actually exist.

@NautArch And there may be additional info in Curse of Strahd that needs to be considered, so "spoilers aplenty" may be the case

@KorvinStarmast Very true. But my hunch is that nothing works, otherwise Strahd would be long gone.

I just feel it’s a. Sry serious questions, that needs a very serious and thoughtful answer

@Hobo_warrior It might help if you answer some of the questions that people have asked in the comments if you want more details.

@Hobo_warrior Answers to the comments would provide a lot of valuable new information for providing better and more detailed answers. So, if you have the time, please do take a look and see if there are any you can answer.

Especially details surrounding (in the question about the girl) what problems specifically you are experiencing and more details about the behavior of the girl and what you see happening.

(and then flag as "no longer needed")

=D

@Hobo_warrior Do you feel that @GreySage 's answer isn't serious, and isn't thoughtful?

This looks good to reopen

@Hobo_warrior I suggest if there's things that are missing from the answers you're currently getting -- information you feel you need, or guidance you feel you need, that's currently missing -- you ought to specify it, or people may not be sure what needs to be done still.

good diagram

@Hobo_warrior Or put in a different light (since the up vote button indicates that one finds an answer helpful) in what way do you find GreySage's answer not helpful? (Stack mechanics may or may not be a useful framework to ask this, but I figure I'll try). (Oh, and what doppelgreener said...)

1 Norway per Norway.

For a little while there was 2 Germanies per Germany, but we sorted that out.

@Yuuki I... miss the point... is that a joke of some sort? :P

@Maximillian That's a lot of Germanies

@Helwar yes. :)

per capita is per individual member of the population

oh

ohh

I understand

Population per capita would therefore be "number of people per person".

Or essentially population / population.

Kosovo is N/A because it's a disputed territory.

@Maximillian Or it's moved to the Feywild, so nobody can do a census anymore.

There's a "six degrees of separation" app/website for Wikipedia.

It has some... interesting results:

wtf

@Helwar The internet is full of stupid stuff.

@Yuuki weird. searching the wiki page for Rwandan Genocide gives zero results for gatorade.

sixdegreesofwikipedia.com

ah, but it's on the gatorade page

Okay that's a fun toy.

@NautArch That would be thanks to the cover up by a sports drink company who shall not be named ... :p

@NautArch sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/…

I really enjoy meaningless data visualizations.

@Yuuki hahaha

@Yuuki have you seen Spurious Correlations?

@doppelgreener more related

So, OP added this to the "new girl" question: "basically do I need to be worried about this individual when trying to kick him out?"

Aha. I managed to get a 5 degree of separation chain.

knight vs jet

@Rubiksmoose reading that i am bearing in mind this kid lives in the USA, where school shootings are a weekly event

@doppelgreener that is what keeps running through my head as well. :(

We've had a string of them, but it isn't weekly.

@Maximillian Yeah, "weekly" is a bit sparse.

/s probably

maybe

@doppelgreener I've yet to find anything that was more than 3 degrees separated from Hitler

@SPavel Got one.

The graph looks like two megaspiders fighting.

Here is another one.

I found one too sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/…

and another

whoops, reopen this? Duped Q&A seems to not address this question regarding creating new classes from scratch rather than modifying.

Found one with five degrees! sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/?source=hitler&target=Sima

This could be a good match to the city generator

@kviiri Alaska! I knew it

I'm not sure what I was expecting.

Aha! Hitler <> Agapetus rossi SEVEN DEGREES.

Do I win?

@NautArch Is it not a list question or a shopping question though now?

@Rubiksmoose similar questions have been asked and answered

yes you do

@Rubiksmoose and this one from 3.5e

@NautArch I think that one may have been asked before shopping questions were off-topic though

Sweet.

I would agree that the dupe is incorrect, but I'm new here, and am less sure about the list-type problem.

I'll add this to my internet trophy case.

@NautArch and this one definitely was.

@Rubiksmoose Wasn't sure if this counts as shopping, but i'll let others vote on that because i'm unsure.

@Maximillian Wait just a minute there.

@Yuuki good job, you did so well you broke it

@goodguy5 that's funny.

@Yuuki I found a path, so I'm not sure how/where it's stuffing up

@doppelgreener Where are you getting a path?

Incidentally, just because you can find a path from "2007 World Report" to "Adolf Hitler" does not necessarily mean that there's a path from "Adolf Hitler" to "2007 World Report".

wew graph theory

@Yuuki Graphs are just a theory, personally I don't believe in them

"2007 World Report" -> "2007 World Youth Report"

No wait, this is the best.

@Yuuki oooh. good point.

@NautArch for the homebrew class guide question from @Gryphon: from what I've seen, other questions are limited to published content, either from WotC or third parties. Including "online guides" (e.g. random reddit guide) as possible answers seems problematic to me, mainly due to "How do we rate the answer?". The way the question is currently written doesn't incentivate a "I have used this guide, created this homebrew class and it worked fine, balanced and all" answer

By "Unofficial guides", I meant well developed, concrete guides, similar to, for example this, which I have seen used in several places. It seems useful for creating and evaluating races, so something similar for classes would be ideal.

or rather second-best after official guides.

If anyone has an idea for how to clarify that in the question, please tell me.

Yeah, the thing is - how do rate a guide as being "well developed"? As I said, I can see good answers in the lines of "I have used this guide and it worked wonderfully for me" coming from your question, I just think it needs to be better specified that this is the kind of answer you (and we, as a SE) expect, rather than "Yes, there is this online guide".

@HellSaint Do you have a specific idea for how to clearly state that in the question?

For example, the wiki has a guide for class design - dandwiki.com/wiki/5e_Class_Design_Guide - is this good? I have no clue, because I haven't used/tested it, hence I'm not giving it as an answer. But the way the question is written, it would be a valid answer.

Would a few sentences about Good Subjective/Bad Subjective, and a link to that page work?

@Gryphon Literally stating "If you are answering with an unofficial guide, please back it up with your experience using this guide" should be enough

Thanks. I'll edit and add that.

welp back to work. Btw welcome to RPG.se :)

Thanks a lot @HellSaint

@Gryphon there was also a discussion somewhere (will try to find) about class balance calculator...gimme a bit.

Greetings fellow bird mavens

@NautArch That's essentially what I wanted anyway. If you can find the link, it'd be ideal.

Six Degrees of Wikipedia has brought my Discord to a crawling halt as everyone does lookups. Thanks. :D

@Maximillian hahaha

@Gryphon so far i'm failing :(

@Maximillian :D

@NautArch That's unfortunate. If there was a good calculator online, you could probably put together a great answer (one that would probably end up accepted).

@Gryphon O Fortuna!

see this answer

I'm thinking about running a published campaign (like Mines of Phandelver) for a two-person party. How should I adapt the scenarios so I don't overwhelm the smaller party?

@NautArch I think @Gryphon already referenced that guide?

@NautArch That would be great, except that its for races, not classes. I'd already seen it, so I was wondering if there was something similar for classes.

@Yuuki I think there is a question on that for LMoP

@Rubiksmoose d'oh.

sorry.

@Rubiksmoose Yes, I was wondering if there was something similar for classes.

@NautArch no worries. When I read the question it was the first thing I thought of as well.

@Rubiksmoose @Gryphon i may have found the real dupe?

@Rubiksmoose Its very useful for creating races, but I'm looking for something similar for classes. Good thought though. If I was asking about races, it'd be ideal.

@NautArch hmmm it seems like a useful answer, but I think something more general but also more detailed is what is being looked for here.

@NautArch I think there's a subtle difference, as I'm asking for sources, and that question asks for a full answer in-question. I would have downvoted most of the answers to that question if they were on mine (if I had enough rep to downvote). Feel free to disagree.

Fair enough, i'll leave it as related.

It gives some decent advice, but there isn't an abundance of good answers

I'm also wondering if a homebrew adventure is a better option but I don't have much experience in running homebrew.

Although this post on base construction has me interested.

@Yuuki how long of a campaign are you wanting to run?

I'm not sure.

@Yuuki I've only done homebrew stuff, but mostly in the short 3-4 session span. I"m starting my first real homebrew campaign, but i'm not finding it too difficult (but I do expect a lot of improvisation that I'll have to fold into the world.)

@Yuuki Whose your audience? Online or real-meat-people?

@Maximillian Just to poke my head into the conversation, "real-meat-people" is probably the best term I have ever heard for people you meet face-to-face.

@Yuuki I suggest the hybrid route. Start with a pregenned/published module, then adjust. Add stuff, remove stuff, change some plot details here and there.

@Yuuki In addition to whether it's online or offline, what system?

Given that you have run Mines, I assume 5e?