TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

02:10

@Shalvenay hiya

@doppelgreener This is part of how my high-level sniper has a passive stealth in the low 30s. Kinda love it.

Shalvenay

03:11

@nitsua60 how're things going?

Shalvenay

04:28

hey there @V2Blast, welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)

Mike Q

04:57

It's quiet... too quiet. Where are all the nerds?

Shalvenay

@MikeQ sleeping for the most part, save for me :P

Mike Q

@Shalvenay What sort of adventures/labors have you been up to

V2Blast

05:29

@Shalvenay Hello!

Shalvenay

@V2Blast how're things going?

@MikeQ missing a session of the Stackizen game I'm in (I was out fishing instead)

BESW

@MikeQ Weekends are quiet.

ravery

05:54

hello, anyone awake?

Mike Q

@ravery Aye aye, mon capitan. What's on your mind?

ravery

Well, I waslooking at the Chain Pact Worlock's familiars and notices that imp, psudodragon, and quasit are all CR1 with lots of immunities/resistances while sprite is a lowly 1/4 with only poison arrows an 1 damage

so was thining since it is a huminoid fey that it could take a class .... with d4 hit dice because it is tiny

to kind of even things out

Mike Q

How would that work? Would it level up alongside the warlock?

ravery

yes,level with the warlock, so always 3 levels behind

and the class would be rogue/scout

Mike Q

@ravery So at level 13, the warlock could have either a pseudodragon, a quasit, or a 10th level rogue as a familiar. Do you think that is more balanced?

Besides, the sprite familiar has the ability to become invisible at will. The other options don't have that.

ravery

06:04

the others also invisibility and magic resistance

and the devils have many damage reistances

the pseudodragon has spells

or rather a spell that progresses with age

Mike Q

I'm looking through the MM now... I won't disagree that the sprite is the weakest of the 3 options, but giving it a character level advancement seems like overkill

ravery

thou I wouldn't duplicate bonuses, ie no sneak attack, because he has invisibility

perhaps max it a 4?

Mike Q

Again, even a level 1 rogue can be extremely advantageous if it can fly and turn invisible at will

ravery

al the rogue has at levelone is expertise (the sprite alredy has that in stealth) sneak attack ( replaced by invisibility) and theive's cant

at level 1

level two give uncanny action, three gives subclass, 4th would be 6 str instead of 4

Mike Q

In the MM, the sprite is listed as having a poisoned shortbow. Not particularly powerful, but it's in the stat block. Would the familiar have that too?

Additionally, would you add in forms of advancement for other familiar types?

ravery

06:13

yes, but the imp also has poison that does 2d6 damage, and the quasit can give magic resistance to the warlock

and all three do have 1d6 damage attacks while the imp is 1 damage

I looked at the scout NPC but it doesn't seem enough to bring the sprite to CR1

maybe an assasin template?

BESW

I dunno about 5e, but in other editions the choice of familiar isn't supposed to be cosmetic.

Each familiar is good at different things and bad at others, and at least one of them is a non-combat support/subterfuge option.

I'm guessing the sprite is supposed to be a weak combatant with a strong subterfuge feature.

It's your third option for a different kind of play style.

ravery

which why I was thinking of the scout class

Mike Q

Even as a utility creature, the PHB sprite (which I assume is meant as the familiar) only has 2 hp. Kinda made out of paper.... I guess giving it 1 noncaster level, up front, would not be too unbalancing.

ravery

yes, but has not prooficiencies for spotting traps etc

BESW

While the experience-as-played is arguable, I've often seen invisibility used as an alternative form of defense to justify lowered traditional defensive features.

Mike Q

06:23

@BESW That was my original thought, although now that I checked, the imp also gets invisibility in addition to better utility and defense

BESW

And, note, the familiar never has to be in combat in the first place.

If the sprite isn't a good combat choice, that's a good sign it's supposed to be dismissed during combat.

(This is a change from, say, 3.5, in which any familiar not boosted by a prestige class and/or multiple feats tended to be an albatross in combat.)

ravery

yes, and my idea wasn't to make it combat worthy, but rather more scout ability

and i'm used to AD&D where the familiar did level,(always one below the mage)

Mike Q

@ravery Familiars don't progressively advance in 5e, which is why if you want to modify one of the familiar options, then all of the changes would best be up-front

ravery

yes agreed right now i'm just looking at not overpowering ...

but trying to boost utility

Mike Q

In that case I'd consider adding Advantage on perception (wis) checks, and maybe some extra HP (in case the sprite bumps into a trap while scouting). No progression, no worrying about levels.

BESW

06:31

Class levels are gonna bull rush straight into "Hi, I have a second PC as a class feature" levels of power.

Mike Q

Then again @ravery, I assume you're the DM here, whereas I am merely a random internet stranger

BESW

That's a common problem in D&D, actually; because it tends to try to use universally Thermian mechanics (if it looks the same people inside the game, then the mechanics at the table must be the same), classes with extra creatures as class features must struggle with balance because the same basic mechanics are used for all creatures--PCs, NPCs, monsters, familiars, animal companions, etc.

ravery

yes, I'm the DM

Miniman

@ravery The sprite has Heart Sight. It's literally the only method in 5e of discovering a creature's alignment. It does not need a boost in utility.

ravery

@Miniman detect good and evil doesn't? and I thought the paladin could

Miniman

06:35

@ravery No, and no. They only detect creature types.

Shalvenay

@BESW how would you implement such things in a D&D context?

@ravery yeah -- they only detect creature types as part of 5e making alignment basically-optional

BESW

@Shalvenay 4e dropped the conflation of Thermian similarity with mechanical similarity.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah, now if they could only make character creation not...unintelligible? because that was my only experience with 4e :/

BESW

PCs and all other creatures are mechanically different, sharing only basic units of structure but assembled completely differently--and non-PC creatures have multiple structures.

Well, yes. 4e has its own quirks.

Miniman

@ravery Also, the sprite has better Stealth and Perception scores than either of the other two.

BESW

06:37

But other solutions would require deconstructing some pretty fundamental presumptions shared by all forms of D&D, including 4e.

ravery

I never touched 4e ... and just recently started with 5e

Miniman

Not to mention a ranged attack, allowing it to contribute (slightly) in combat without going into melee to be swatted like a bug.

Shalvenay

@Miniman how does Heart Sight work in games where alignment is not in play?

ravery

@Shalvenay it doesn't

Miniman

@Shalvenay The DM who has houseruled alignment not to exist makes another houserule, obviously.

ravery

06:39

thou it could gauge friendliness

Shalvenay

@Miniman uh, my understanding of 5e alignment is that it's an optional rule to begin with?

trogdor

@Shalvenay it started that way for me to, but once I got used to it I actually liked it better than 3.5 character creation

Shalvenay

@trogdor yeah, I may have to give it another go at some point

Miniman

@Shalvenay Uh, nope.

ravery

well not optionall, but like worship, tracking it is often hand wave

paladins don't even need a deity any more, odd to me for "holy warrior" to not have a god

Shalvenay

06:45

@ravery I find it not so odd, given the way 5e treats the Paladin class

ravery

yes, 5e treats them more like Knights or Crusaders

and then added the warcleric

trogdor

@Shalvenay if you think another go will be better for you that is great, I really like 4e, but at the same time I still understand it might just turn out not to be a system you like

I was wary of it at the very beginning myself, but because I dove headfirst into giving it a try I found eventually that I liked it so much better than 3.5

some people don't have that experience though

ravery

to me, I feel somethings like skills/feats suddenly blew out of proportion and really super detailed, but 5e has gone too far in the other direction in becoming super restrictive with them

Shalvenay

@ravery why super restrictive? is it an issue of "you can't do anything the rules don't specifically provide for?"

ravery

well used to be that feats could be taken by anyone, more or less, now they are spelled out by class and level as features. general feats is an optional rule now and the PHB listsless than a page of them

Shalvenay

06:59

@ravery ah. the idea is that a class that doesn't provide the ability to take ASI's has a quite serious bug in it :P

ravery

yes, the ASI is an intriguing addition, but at the cost that the rogue has to take sneak attack instead of maybe choosing martial arts, or dual weilding

Mike Q

@ravery Anyone can dual wield, no feat required. The class feature(s) just add the extra damage on the offhand attack.

I think the idea with 5e is to simplify everything, which means cutting back on the ocean of talents and feats and other options, so that gameplay is more about enjoying the narrative, and less about nonpolynomial optimization and summation problems

ravery

before there were serious penalties unless two weapon fighting and a ambidex feats were taken, but that is just an example

Shalvenay

@ravery ambidex was a bad idea all around -- it was a straight up feat tax

ravery

true

and 3.5e got really bad with little feat taxes like that

or maybe it was 4e

Mike Q

07:14

3.x had a zillion feats and prerequisite trees

And feat taxes/feat chains mean that there are a lot of options, but not a lot of choices (for certain builds, anyway). So why not reduce the number of feats?

ravery

Oh I agree with reducing them, but not with restricting them to class, well most of them anyway

Mike Q

e.g. For most ranged builds, or dual wield builds, or other trick weapon builds, there's maybe 3 or 4 feats that the character absolutely must take - So why pretend that they really have a choice

Does 5e restrict feats to certain classes?

Shalvenay

@MikeQ not that I know of

ravery

martial arts is monk, sneak attack is rogue, etc. theyare all spelled out by class and level

Shalvenay

@ravery those are not feats, they are class features -- different beasts altogether

ravery

07:18

they were feats,

Mike Q

Really? I thought that sneak attack was one of the exclusive abilities for rogues, and the monk flurry ability for monks, etc.

Shalvenay

uh, when? o.O

ravery

rogue which used to be thief excelled in traps.

Shalvenay

@ravery uh, that's governed by class skill proficiencies

Mike Q

Before rogue there was thief, the skillmonkey and trap detector

In 3e, they added sneak attack as a built-in to the class, and rebranded it as the rogue

Shalvenay

07:26

@MikeQ although back in AD&D, the monk made a passable skillmonkey as well

ravery

which kind of bring me back to my current dilemma, the sprite familiar seems to be a skill monkey without any skills

Shalvenay

@ravery ah. perhaps one or two more proficiencies would be in order?

BESW

@Shalvenay Presumably you can use your own observation-based skills when seeing through its eyes.

And it's got a +8 to Stealth before it's invisible.

ravery

yes nature would fit, and with an 18 dex acrobatics perhaps an herb kit

BESW

So the warlock's own knowledge skills are, presumably, applicable by suborning the sprite's senses.

ravery

07:32

yes that is it's one big feature expertise on stealth

BESW

Also the warlock's Perception, obviously.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah -- that would make sense -- I was thinking about things that'd augment the traditional scouting skills of Stealth and Perception -- Nature or Survival would actually make sense for allowing the sprite to act a bit more independently instead of being merely a sneaky camera drone :P

ravery

and both fit a sprites background

it's interesting to note that the sprite appears to be only fey without spells

BESW

So... give the sprite the Skilled feat.

I'd suggest picking one: comparing the sprite to other familiars, or comparing it to other fey. Trying to get it to overlap with both is liable to cause feature creep.

I'd suggest giving the sprite either Skilled or Wood Elf Magic. Both is probably overkill.

Either is going to make it a useful out-of-combat assistant.

ravery

yes, I'm looking at dungeon delver now too

ravery

08:04

@BESW perhaps the observant feat ... adv on percetion and investigate, read lips, and +1 wis ?

Shalvenay

09:03

hey there @ACuriousMind

ACuriousMind

heyho

Shalvenay

how're things going?

@ravery that might be good as an option as well

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay Quite alright, how about you?

V2Blast

Doing well

Had some whiskey, watching a video podcast (Off Topic by Achievement Hunter)

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind fine here, wrapping up a trip -- my weekend availability should be improving soon, hopefully, as well

ACuriousMind

09:11

@Shalvenay Ah, nice. Well, mine's fluctuating as ever

Shalvenay

@ACuriousMind ah. hopefully we can finish up our game with Pixie sometime in the near future?

ACuriousMind

@Shalvenay I hope so, too, but e g. my next two weekends are already full :/

Trish

13:05

Heh... is it Canibalism if my Dilos eat humans or just Anthropophagism?

kviiri

14:03

Cannibalism is a social construct

doppelgreener

14:24

@Trish that's a subject where there's no one correct answer. cannibalism was defined in the context of a world in which humans are the only animal in our category. in a fantasy world where there are dozens of types of creatures similar to humans, it can either be defined as "eating something intelligent and humanoid" or "eating your own species" or "eating humans specifically" and any of those could seem reasonably correct.

actually, i guess in study of animals and insects, cannibalism is defined as eating your own species

e.g. bees sometimes eat other bees in the same colony, which gets described as cannibalism.

Trish

@doppelgreener As I spoke of Dilos, aka Dilophosaurus...

it would most likely be Anthropophagism (eating humans)

kviiri

A non-humanoid animal eating humans wouldn't be considered cannibalism by any standards I've heard of, but doppelgreener is absolutely correct when it comes to humanoid fantasy species.

doppelgreener

i'd just call that predation

predator animals hunt and eat other species, and humans are one of those that doesn't need special designation

kviiri

NetHack defines cannibalism by one's own species only, a human isn't a cannibal for eating dwarf flesh. (Why is NetHack notable in the context of this chat, you may ask -- It's the most directly DnD-influenced work that takes care to define the concept that I know!)

doppelgreener

14:48

@kviiri i agree with nethack being notable there

kviiri

16:56

Going to try making my own ginger ale today

It's been a lovely day for drinking ginger ale for sure, but I don't have any. Next week'll probably be rotten for drinking it, but at least I'll have some to drink.

David Coffron

@doppelgreener Sorry. I may have jumped the gun. I read a bit of Fate Core to see if there was something to the question and didn't see any at a cursory glance other than idea-generation, but I should have left it to those who know the game. My bad :)

doppelgreener

@DavidCoffron understandable

you didn't do anything terribly wrong :P

and other fate players might disagree with me and say no it's definitely arbitrary this time

[edits comment to say "I think" at the start]

one of the best perks of being a diamond: being able to edit my comments anytime without limit

and being able to fix those typos i notice from that thing i wrote an hour ago :P

(or in this case just getting to revise a comment to sound less objective & authoritative)

Mike Q

17:18

@doppelgreener I just realized the pun in your avatar. I am slow.

doppelgreener

@MikeQ [unreasonably pleased grin]

kviiri

17:33

Has anyone ever played the Might and Magic series of CRPGs (not its better known spin-off Heroes of Might and Magic)? The lore interests me and I'd like to give them a shot, but I'm not sure how good games they are

doppelgreener

Street in Macau. Photograph by Paul Tsui, National Geographic travel photographer of the year contest

Tweeted by SustainableTall on June 15, 2018 at 12:15 PM

kviiri

@doppelgreener That thing in the background is just cyberpunk now

doppelgreener

@kviiri yep

Anaphory

I looked at the tweet-chain (what are these things called?) and it has a different perspective on the building in the distance. This is much better, more looming, dystopian or something out of space. The other perspective looks like it's a misplaced giant metal-and-glass turnip.

doppelgreener

18:08

@Anaphory i completely agree with you there

this photo looks like it is or involves some kind of cyberpunk render

but it doesn't, and it's amazing to see this view in our world

kviiri

18:28

Huh, the ginger syrup I made in preparation for the ale tastes nothing short of excellent

I may have to reconsider turning this into something else :D

Zachiel

@doppelgreener wow.

SPavel

Zachiel

@MikeQ I got that reference.

So, is there anyone who has good advice on which material to use for a D&D 3e, 3.5e or possibly Pathfinder campaign, levels 6-14?

SPavel

18:45

@Zachiel As in, which books?

Or which adventure module?

Zachiel

@SPavel Which books / which things to ban. I'm pretty sure I will ban celerity.

On one side, I'm pretty sure that at least one player won't actually try to mix and match feats and PrCs hard - in an "all manuals" campaign he showed up with a cleric/wizard/theurge from core+completes

kviiri

There's no spell I can be since I found celerity

Zachiel

On the other hand, I'd like to introduce my players to the possibility of weirder builds, and I'd like myself to see what they came up with, hoping to be able to take inspiration from them in different contexts.

Mike Q

I have a "ban list" of things, and I usually plan stuff for around those levels... lemme find it

Zachiel

Until now, this has not worked. For example, spending 3 feats to persist divine power looked OP on my campaign and is laughable in the campaign I play in

Mike Q

18:56

Character build options not allowed at Mike's tables:
- Classes: antipaladin, APG summoner
- Feats: Sacred Geometry, Leadership, Vile leadership, Monstrous companion, Torchbearer, etc.
- Spells: Wall of Thorns
- Archetypes: Master summoner, Primalist bloodrager, anything with multiple companions/eidolons/minions (Packmaster, Broodmaster, etc.)
- Books: Monster codex, 3rd party

ACuriousMind

@MikeQ I just looked up Sacred Geometry. Just...what.

"Oh yes I enjoy watching the wizard's player perform arithmetic on a bunch of d6 on every spell"

Zachiel

If we go the pathfinder route, I think I'm keeping some selected third parties

Mike Q

I also stay away from psychic duels, spell duels, words of power, or any other chessboxing that requires an additional layer of complexity

Zachiel

@ACuriousMind I'm pretty sure you can determine which combinations of dice results you need to get the various results for each number of dice rolled, muh like reading logaritmic tables.

kviiri

I started reading up on the Sacred Geometry and well... I don't really like giggles-driven-design and that seems to be exactly that

ACuriousMind

19:07

@Zachiel Sure, and you pretty quickly reach a rank where every roll will allow you to get the necessary results, completely rendering the mechanic pointless

kviiri

The hiding mechanic in DnD 5e is one of those things I still don't get.

(re: this question)

Zachiel

19:32

@ACuriousMind I love this feat, I'll ask my GM about it. Since we keep dying, it's not like we don't need it XD

I wonder if it's me being worse at tactics than my current PF DM and not being able to challenge my players when playing 3.5e or if it's just Pathfinder being harder on us.

nitsua60

20:00

@Shalvenay Good Father's Day weekend so far. Going for a run now, then it's session 0 for my summer punchspace campaign. Not a bad day!

ACuriousMind

20:13

"F-day"?

Mike Q

@ACuriousMind Fathers day, perhaps

ACuriousMind

::franctically checks calendar:: Phew, the Americans celebrate it at a different day than we do here.

nitsua60

@ACuriousMind Yeah... I think that's an abbreviation that's literally never been used before. Fixed it.

BESW

20:35

@ACuriousMind This was exactly my thought. Forget mechanical balance, that feat will send all your players to their phones every round.

V2Blast

@kviiri I think the bulk of this podcast is Jeremy Crawford talking about hiding and stealth: dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/james-haeck-dd-writing

A summary from a DNDBeyond forum post by filcat:
"1) Passive perception vs. Active perception
The passive perception score represents the minimum, the baseline, of your awareness. So anything or anyone trying to Stealth check upon you has always to overcome your passive perception score. Even when you decide to make an active Perception check, and that roll + modifier is lower than your Passive Perception score, the Passive Perception score still counts as the DC to overcome for a Stealth check. Making an active Perception check means that you want to try to "beat" your Passive Perception s…

SmokeDetector

22:28

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer, messaging number in answer, pattern-matching email in answer: Can a readied spell be Counterspelled after it is cast, but before the trigger occurs? by sophy sophy on rpg.SE (@doppelgreener)

doppelgreener

thx smokeydokes

trogdor

22:47

lol

SPavel

23:08

@Zachiel I never ban anything because I trust people to be decent. There are too many ways to break the game. But if you wanted to get rid of the problematic spells, ban all spells aside from Celerity and non-spell compendium

And maybe select phb things like resurrection and restoration

Banning all casters works too, psionics only games are fun

Ben

23:33

Morning all

Spent 4 hours creating a base-class druid in pathfinder on the weekend haha

SPavel

If it is base, then how can it have class?

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