The title sums it up but my current DM in their homebrew campaign has centered the campaign almost entirely around the barbarian in the party.
The reason this is annoying (or however you would prefer to interpret it), is that they don't actually take any note of any other character's backstory ...
@Varis But, as a side note, I'm currently at a table as a player where backstories are pretty much not a thing at all (and we're basically players in the DM's story) - and I made the decision to still have fun even though I have problems with how it's run.
The biggest thing that has happened with a character's backstory was that they were the only person capable of certain things in the city so when they wanted to go find some specific supply they couldn't actually get it
@Varis Oh, it was just that they were currently in the town? It's hard to know what was going on in the DM's head, but it sounds like they just didn't want that item found (yet).
@Varis Gotcha - but maybe the DM had a reason for withholding those supplies (or maybe that town wasn't big enough for an alchemist shop?) Not making excuses for the DM, but there may be a larger plan that you are not yet privy to.
But I'll step back and let @Rubiksmoose ask his questions :) We can discuss how to move forward after.
@Varis Given this info, I think that is all that is needed to find out. But, for an answer to be helpful to you, would you want help in how to approach a DM about this and how to ask about the backstory?
@NautArch I think your answer may be improved by coming up with maybe a bit of a script or at least specific topics to focus on?
Oh just to mention in relation to the session zero stuff, I am not sure if they had one but I didn't actually join until a little while in due to other commitments
That is good background to have. Thanks for popping in here and answering :) I'm hoping this will help some answers. I can't think of anything else I see that would help add clarity or context to the issue.
@NautArch Looks good to me. Though you may want to ammend the 1st sentence of S0 section because we know that they did not have an S0 with this player at least.
@Varis Yeah you may receive additional answers throughout the day. Generally waiting 24 hours is good so as to encourage as many people as possible to answer! Completely up to you though.
@Varis Oh and just so you know, I edited in the information that you told us that I thought would be good to put into your question. In the future, you can enter that kind of information yourself of course! Feel free to change or delete anything that I got wrong.
@Rubiksmoose I did do an edit with some of the stuff but you seem to have gotten the essence of everything I said, probably summed it up better than I did
@Rubiksmoose Yeah I appreciate it, I was getting so many questions for info that I hadn't even thought of initially that I definitely couldn't keep up aha
Howdy folks, I made a custom pathfinder item for my players, and I'd like to get a sanity check to make sure it would function as intended.
Eye slot, divination aura. Resembles a pair of thick spectacles. The wearer can focus on a written spell and they count as knowing that spell for the purpose of item creation feats.
The goal is to let someone (non-wizard) copy a scroll from a spellbook or from another scroll.... Am I missing anything?
> Here's the thing. You said a "jackdaw is a crow."
Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that.
As someone who is a scientist who studies crows, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls jackdaws crows. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing.
If you're saying "crow family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Corvidae, which includes things from nutcrackers to blue jays to ravens.
So your reasoning for calling a jackdaw a crow is because random people "call the black ones crows?" Let's get grack…
@Varis Hooded crow. I've been the one to always confuse varis and harakka and I thought I was over it already but apparently language context switching between Finnish and English still gets me, heh.
@MikeQ I am not sure about pathfinder in detail, but my go to questions would be: is there any way already for them to do this? (I'll assume no though) Would this cause any problems in your game/setting?
@Varis By RAW there isn't a way to do this. To write a scroll, the character has to know the spell, either spontaneously or by preparing it that day. In game, it would give the spontaneous casters more versatility and more ways to create scrolls for the others to use.
I once did that "walk towards each other and try to give way to the same direction and shift back and forth awkwardly" with a jackdaw. I wouldn't mind doing it with most birds but corvids are socially smart enough to feel awkward about it too.
@MikeQ Personally I feel that if as DM it is something that you want them to be able to do then go for it, but in terms of maybe balancing it you could chuck a limit on how often they can do it
@MikeQ Well, scrolls only I might argue makes more sense than crafted items so that could be a good move. With one at a time I am assuming you mean like there can only be one "active" copy?
@MikeQ If it's scrolls that other's can use, just ask your self if it's a problem if (just for example cos I know 5e mostly) the barbarian is now able to chuck out a cheeky fireball during combat
@Varis No, pathfinder has an extensive but consistent item crafting system. Item crafting takes time, and a single crafter cannot be working on multiple items simultaneously.
@Varis That's also different in pathfinder. There are prereqs to using a scroll.
@MikeQ You could always just say to your players that you may need to "fine tune" the item if it doesn't work quite as you intend, but I kinda go back to my opinion of "if you want them to have it, then just give them it" it's your choice as DM
@MikeQ That's the reason I said that you might need to clarify that you may need to "fine tune" the item, because like you said you don't want to let a loophole in rules make everyone a wizard. So just make it clear, if they are understanding there shouldn't be an issue as they will also realise that you can't account for every situation
@Rubiksmoose The DM really has to be like targeting it for some reason tbh, because off the top of my head there is no real threat that will come up in 99% of cases
@Rubiksmoose We have a lot of combat encounters during Long Rests - it comes up often for us. And by comes up, I mean I often have to fight with my paladin without armor
@Varis While I hate it when it happens, it makes more sense than handwaiving. WHat's the point of a night encounter if everyone is prepared as if it's day?
@NautArch That would probably be his first assessment, I would likely then make a comment along the lines of "there's something about it taking time to put on armor, so technically we shouldn't have it on right now"
>Sleeping in light armor has no adverse effect on the wearer, but sleeping in medium or heavy armor makes it difficult to recover fully during a long rest.
When you finish a long rest during which you slept in medium or heavy armor, you regain only one quarter of your spent Hit Dice (minimum of one die). If you have any levels of exhaustion, the rest doesn’t reduce your exhaustion level.
One of my army mates did spend almost two weeks without taking off his snow camo suit. Then he emerged as a beautiful butterfly. That stank like a barrel of dead rats.
@Varis Yup, but those are guidance for how to treat and not actual rules. Before that came out, we generally ruled you could do it, bu tyou'd have a level of exhaustion.
@NautArch Huh, am I reading that right? One quarter of your spent Hit Dice? As in, a quarter of the dice spent as opposed to a quarter of one's HD total, but up to the number of spent dice?
@NautArch I said it on the main chat site just a little ago. This "Be Nice" movement that has probably been started by that infamous Twitter incident is causing some very odd effect
like... I saw people arguing more about which gender specific pronoun an user used when talking about an unknown-gender person than worrying about far more worrisome things.
actually... since we are at it...
@NautArch could you please tell me what you think about this answer on interpersonal.SE?
Especially the suggestions it gives. I think it is very bad, but I had found others doesn't seem to think it that way...
That answer is pretty good up until that point where it makes it terrible.
@NautArch I'm not actually sure if the first one is lying. The fact that she is feeding and caring for the animals might be enough to consider them "her" dogs.
so at least you agree that that is a personal threat... I was thinking I was getting mad when some people told me they don't see any problem with the answer
@Rubiksmoose Not sure, but I'd just tell Animal Control that. Let them tell you what to do.
Whether they are hers or not I don't think is something Animal Control really cares about. In fact, it's probably easier for them to round them if they aren't hers.
@Rubiksmoose Oh, hmmm. I have no idea what standard is on that stack. But I personally think it's flag-worthy because these are real world people and problems.
@Derpy Yeah, that's sadly a common thing in internet discourse in certain circles... the assumption that only very explicit threats count. As if "someone should/will beat you up for that" isn't a threat.
So they run around making these vague invocations of harm and when confronted, they step back with their hands up like "whoa whoa, I never said I was actually going to do something like that, I mean, I only said it'd be good if someone did".
But honestly I thought Stack people were above that.
Ugh, I don't play D&D for social interaction. If I wanted to talk, I'd play some multiplayer game at home and hear about how sexually active my mother is.
@Yuuki If that is the level of social interaction you expect/receive then no wonder lol. But if you get the right people with the same goals it can be so much more than that.
> "911, what's your emergency?" "My GM keeps railroading the party." "Ok. Where are you? Are you somewhere safe?" "No we're in a dungeon filled with ghouls."
Although I'm not kidding, there was recent news of a 911 operator hanging up on someone who called in response to a friend being shot because the caller used profanity.
RPG is a weird hybrid (so I can tolerate you guys :P) but also there seems to be pretty good moderation to where bad answers are mitigated rather well.
Lifehacks.SE definitely wasn't moderated well, imo, though it wasn't the fault of any particular diamond.
Interpersonal.SE might be going the same way.
Lifehack.SE's big problem was that it seemed the diamonds didn't really have anything close to a unified vision of what the site was.
In particular, what exactly was a "lifehack" and what were the issues they wanted to handle.
@Yuuki I've got to admit, I'm a big fan of the high-quality group dynamics/social troubles Q&A we have. The good ones are really good, and we don't really field ones that aren't good.
Okay this is a weird line of thought. I tried to picture quantum entangled parents. This would partly explain how my mother knows things I did she wasn't even around for.
@Maximillian I mean for that the neurotransmitter chain in ur brain would have to be entangled with the chain in your mothers (or some other process to ensure accurate copying)
@DavidCoffron What if you're meeting up with an eldritch abomination? You have to look the best at your job interview otherwise you won't become a Warlock.
DM thinks Tasha's Hideous Laughter is an overpowered spell since this player has been using it to easily overcome every combat encounter.
Or at least that's what I gathered.
So I'm guessing they want advice on how to handle someone who keeps casting that spell so they trivialize the experience for everyone else or something?
@SirCinnamon I don't think it matters in the core game, but I've seen some homebrew that make OAs no longer cost a reaction (which is dumb bc everything is either an action, reaction, or part of one or the other)
But it costs spell slots - If they're fighting bandits they must be level 1-3 or so.... The bard could only cast it... 6 times at level 3, only 2 at level 1
@DavidCoffron One game, we had a trip character and a grapple character, and we had to keep track of the separate effects of prone, grappled, and pinned for various NPCs
I do not condone the theft of intellectual property.
also According to the newly errata'd DMG under attunement (p.136):
If the prerequisite is a class, a creature must be a member of that class to attune to the item. If the prerequisite is to be a spellcaster, a creature qualifies if it can cast at least one spell using its traits or features, not using a magic item or the like.
In the DMG it says
The character must also be a spellcaster with spell slots and must be able to cast any spells that the item can produce.
Many magic items let users cast spells. For example Crystal Ball says
The typical crystal ball, a very rare item, is about 6 inches in diameter. Wh...
It doesn't add a new spell slot for use with other spells, or work with Flexible casting, or allowed to be restored with arcane recovery/natural recovery
@NautArch you don't need spell slots in XGtE
They are different fundamentally
> Scribing a spell scroll takes an amount of time and money related to the level of the spell the character wants to scribe, as shown in the Spell Scroll Costs table. In addition, the character must have proficiency in the Arcana skill and must provide any material components required for the casting of the spell. Moreover, the character must have the spell prepared, or it must be among the character’s known spells, in order to scribe a scroll of that spell.
If the scribed spell is a cantrip, the version on the scroll works as if the caster were 1st level
So I think you could make cantrips scrolls using XGTE downtime but not the level 1 scroll
n addition, choose one 1st-level spell from that same list. You learn that spell and can cast it at its lowest level. Once you cast it, you must finish a long rest before you can cast it again.
@Rubiksmoose So he really said "hey, we just released this book of optional rules. But one of the optional rules completely replaces the official rule in the DMG?"
tl;dr: We've put together a code of conduct (CoC) that is a bit more comprehensive than our existing be nice policy because we feel that our current policy isn't meeting our needs.
Some background, our reasons for doing this and a link to the draft can be found below. We'd like your feedb...
@DavidCoffron If I knew what any of those things meant? (I mean, I can puzzle out :thumbsup:, but I'm at a loss as to what the line is meant to communicate.)
@NautArch in not sure what you mean by that comment. We have questions that show that you qualify as a 'spellcaster' if you can cast any spell (possibly on your own)
@DavidCoffron It had come up on another question that I htink I answered and I wasn't sure. But Crawford specifically did state Initiate turns you into a spellcaster.
In the DMG it says
The character must also be a spellcaster with spell slots and must be able to cast any spells that the item can produce.
Many magic items let users cast spells. For example Crystal Ball says
The typical crystal ball, a very rare item, is about 6 inches in diameter. Wh...
tl;dr: We've put together a code of conduct (CoC) that is a bit more comprehensive than our existing be nice policy because we feel that our current policy isn't meeting our needs.
Some background, our reasons for doing this and a link to the draft can be found below. We'd like your feedb...
