@DavidCoffron That's not to say that Rebecca Roanhorse is immune to criticism for depictions of First Tribes because she's First Tribes herself; but the act of appropriation is a real one, in which a person is a position of relative power benefits from the lives of a relatively disempowered group without giving them agency or access.

@BESW then, how do you develop a culture that is not your own or closely based on your own?

The initial post received some downvotes, the OP has made some effort to clarify and I've tidied it up a little... just want to get a second opinion on the current quality

@BESW also Hades,

I reject Alan Dean Foster's "citizen of the world" defense.

@Shalvenay With hard work and research and collaboration.

Darmok and Jliad at tanagra

The biggest problem, really, is when somebody reaches out and grabs someone else's life to use as a prop in a story instead of including that person in the story. When Ursula Vernon wrote some Sámi-inspired characters in The Raven and the Reindeer she consulted with actual Sámi people, compensated them for their efforts, and gave them final veto over the depiction.

@BESW because my line of thinking is that "cultural elements are a menu, pick elements that fit the environs and lifestyle in question even if those elements aren't reflective of a single RL culture" (not that you shouldn't research what you are using, but limiting yourself to what exists IRL is just that: limiting)

She also acknowledged that it was impossible to write a depiction that would make all Sámi people happy but didn't use that as a defense to say people shouldn't be unhappy.

@Shalvenay If we lived in a world that didn't have a history of people in power taking elements of marginalized cultures for profit at the expense of the people they're taking from, I'd be more on board with the "buffet" style of worldbuilding from existing elements.

Yeah I was going to say

We have to look at our world, and the history in it, and say "is this depiction of my new idea for a fictional fantasy race too similar to a group of people who are still marginalized?"

because I can see where grabbing someone's life wholesale as a story prop can be problematic -- but at the same time, how do you synthesize things that step outside the norms of RL cultures?

The answer, if yes, should tell you something is wrong

Unless you literally worked with people from that culture and did some research at least

But, well, compare Alan Dean Foster's "citizen of the world" defense of his writing Navajo-inspired speculative fiction without involving Navajo voices, to Rebecca Roanhorse's "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" (now available in audio read by LeVar Burton!).

LeVar Burton you say?

No, LeVar Burton says!

Lol

I must hear this thing

I already read it but must hear it now

@BESW except that opens the way for revisionism. Some things about cultures need to be shared even if the group wouldn't want it to be or sees it in a different light. An expert on the culture is just as qualified (if not more qualified) to comment on a group of people than the people themselves

@DavidCoffron um,.... What you just said

I guess my question is "how should I go about evoking imagery of a phenotype without evoking the stereotypes that get lumped into the typical name associated with that phenotype?"

Opens the way for revisionism

I see what you're saying, but I strongly disagree that an outsider is definitionally somehow equally or more qualified than people who have lived the culture. That falls into the fallacy of academic objectivity.

@DavidCoffron I think that if you're getting into that sort of water, you'd want both inside and outside viewpoints

and probably the opposite-side viewpoint as well

@BESW a good academic incorporates aspects of the people's understanding of the culture in their own. But also looks objectively

Nope. There is no such thing as academic objectivity. It is a myth.

@DavidCoffron find me this person please, this good academic who has literally no cultural bias

@BESW exactly

@trogdor Not "literally no", but tries to avoid it

@BESW but we can strive for it

I agree that it's good to see things from multiple perspectives to get a more well-rounded view, but if I'm going to bias any particular perspective it's going to be the lived experience.

@DavidCoffron And people from inside the culture... can't strive for it?

Noooope.

Being an outsider does not privilege one's ability to be objective, and objectivity is often a false flag anyway.

@BESW of course they can but I find that people are far more likely to bias their perspective of their own circumstances than others. For example, a Christian is much more likely to gloss over the negative aspects of their faith while promoting the positive ones

And an outsider is more likely to misunderstand complexity and nuance, or fall prey to the danger of the single story.

@DavidCoffron that goes both ways, not just one

@BESW only if they only focus on a single story. You can look at both sides

@trogdor that's why I said "more likely"

There are literally countless examples of outsider experts being completely and totally wrong because they could only see what they expected, including several contemporary local examples here on Guam.

@BESW then that's their own failings.

@DavidCoffron "kangaroo" is Aboriginal for "I don't know". When the English landed, that was part of their conversation.

They should have gone in with blank expectations (the definition of academic rigor)

@Ben that's a myth

....that's not academic rigor, sorry. Academic rigor includes acknowledging bias. Trying to eliminate researcher bias is not rigorous, it's actively contributing to the problem.

On Sunday I went to a talk by a Chamoru academic in Pacific Studies. His thesis was revolutionary because it focused on an element of local history that every other historian has glossed over it because it didn't seem important to them.

@BESW yeah, the Spanish thought the locals we're lazy for not dying in large numbers from heatstroke for no reason, Japan,... Well mass murder, and America, among other things, outlawed the local language.

@DavidCoffron Ture. But it's a fair sum of how cultural interaction often goes

@BESW again: that's their fault. Local history is just as important but still must be viewed from an academic lens. Anything else is prone to bias

@DavidCoffron ...you're conflating pure objectivity with academic rigor and several other concepts.

@BESW researcher bias is actively contributing to the problem

@DavidCoffron the problem is that the way you are advocating also has bias

@BESW no. I'm trying to separate them academic rigor is not purely objective

@trogdor everything has bias. You do your best to mitigate them. You can't remove them altogether

@BESW blank expectations does not mean purely objective

Subjective accounts are evidence in themself

@DavidCoffron yes but why are you saying an inside perspective has more bias?

At most it has the same amount

There's a whole dialogue across every academic field about praxis for this, please don't reduce it to a single point.

@BESW I wasn't trying to. But allowing subjectivity to be the basis for research causes all sorts of problems

[shrug] I think we're talking past each other.

@trogdor i disagree. A person neednt attack or defend another's culture necessarily. It is far more likely that a person defend their own culture (even if for poor reasons) because it's human nature to defend your own

The points you're trying to rebut don't look like what I'm trying to say.

@BESW perhaps.

But certainly, the claims you're making about relative objectivity over someone else's culture aren't supported historically.

@BESW I think it would probably be useful to separate the classical liberal arts, the social sciences, and the hard sciences at least? ISTM that trying to apply critical tools from one grouping to a different grouping tends to cause more trouble than it solves....

Even the best of intentions lead to reading one culture through another's lens, but far more often the relationship between the cultures has a strong influence on the outsider's conclusions.

@Shalvenay Indeed.

To go back to the Christian example, many will ignore or even justify the historical.persecution of peoples, but few will attack Christian history as a whole because of it

@BESW yes this is the thing

@BESW because historically people were racist and/or cultural supremacists

(And many are today)

@DavidCoffron we all got born xenophobes, man. blame the chimps.

@SimonH. Sorry, you disagree with my description of Anderson's Law-Chaos arrangement that Gygax cites as the model for 0e "alignment"? (I.e. I didn't follow what you were referring to when you said "I disagree." Sorry.)

We have a historical record on this planet of one culture studying another with either the goal or result of using that research to oppress that culture

Let me be clear: I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who works with indigenous cultural scholars in a peri-colonial Pacific community.

I see these things historically and contemporarily, and how the myth of academic objectivity leads to physical suffering and loss of identity.

@BESW The best way to study a community like that is to ask the historians in the community and then look at other perspectives (to make sure you get all the necessary context)

@DavidCoffron yeah -- inside working outward if you will

Every day I see experts from outside coming in with the best of intentions but, when put in positions of authority rather than as consulting with local leaders, failing to address the real local situation.

@BESW At risk of being harsh, loss of identity is a good thing fmpov. Group identity is what causes problems accross the world. Individual identity is fine, but we should be striving for unity (not through oppression but cohesion)

Sameness is not unity. Celebrating diversity is crucial to becoming unified, because it helps us see how we share fundamental similarities while sharing the learning and experience of our different perspectives.

@DavidCoffron Why?

@DavidCoffron ok I see what you are trying to say with that but it is wrong. There are a looot of cultural groups who have had thier culture attacked by more powerful groups

(But in the context of saying "loss of identity" above, I also meant loss of individual identity in many ways.)

@BESW but why identify as a group. Diversity is important, but you can be an "ancestral islander" (for lack of a better term) and that perspective should be learned from and still evolve your own understanding (just as Euro-immigrants like myself should). Too often I see identity discussion result in stagnation on the part of people claiming their identity as a justification

It isn't actually right to do that, and the only way it would be even ok is if everyone engaged in it fully consensually and without coersion

@trogdor and that's wrong. Without doubt.

@nitsua60 Oh no, I just disagree that chaos is a bad alignment.

@DavidCoffron Stagnation is a problem, but the solution is not to make everyone equally stagnant.

And even then we would lose a lot of diverse cultural viewpoints

It sounds like an extreme solution that will just re-create the same problem in a different form.

@trogdor some viewpoints are good to lose (slavery, misogyny, superstition)

Celebrating diversity also opens up groups to self-examination so they can retain beneficial qualities, reject toxic ones, and embrace new ones.

@SimonH. Oh, I don't remember saying Chaos was bad. Sorry if I miscommunicated it. The Chaotic army is literally trying to unwrite the rules of the universe (Law) while the Lawful army is trying to preserve the universe that turns on stable rules.

@DavidCoffron you are advocating throwing the baby out with the bathwater

@trogdor I hope not to.

Whether one views either of those aims as good or bad probably depends on whether one believes the universe should run according to predictable rules or not.

I want cultural ties from every group to survive. I'm fascinated and love learning about them

@nitsua60 Sorry I misunderstood you. I think chaos is just the way our world works, and the way D&D works. You can't predict what'll happen next. I kind of like that.

Part of the problem you're seeing, perhaps, is a tendency to ignore intersectionality.

@BESW that's my goal too. I criticize western cultures for being stagnant as well

This is... definitely a thing, and a thing that needs to die.

(Or, sadly, is probably-actually determined by which "tribe" you identify with more based on things that have nothing to do with the actual aims of each group, if human history is any indicator.)

But it's not a universal thing, by any means. Intersectionality is pivotal to Pacific cultural understanding, for example.

@BESW please elaborate. I have that issue from time to time. Intersectionality is a multifaceted topic. What intersection is pertinent here?

@SimonH. Someone should make a set of polyhedral dice that always roll average. Like a d20 where all sides have a 10.5 on them

Quite simply, the idea that one can identify with multiple groups at once, even ones which seem to conflict.

@SimonH. I suspect I'm not doing a good job of expressing Anderson's conception of Chaos. This isn't chaos like chaos theory, this is chaos like "maybe gravity won't exist tomorrow."

@BESW that's the first time that term's ever made sense to me, thanks

@MikeQ Argh that's too lawful!

@MikeQ I have an icosahedron I put all 10s on. I hand it to players when they need to make a passive check =D

@BESW Because they identify with each other's shared experiences, and not necessarily their core principles, yes?

@BESW in my utopia (my impossible one that is probably a little biased toward my values), everyone group would coexist. There would be no "seem to conflict" ones and It would come down to history and choice without bad blood on either end

@MikeQ Often because the apparent conflicts are artificial constructs. A common example is people from multicultural backgrounds who may be regarded as only the culture which is less dominant in their local area.

@BESW in this case I was asking what multiple groups are relevant? What groups are the "bad researchers" ignoring?

(gotta run again--I'll stop interrupting the excellent conversation going on)

@nitsua60 That's extreme chaos. I think people too often tend to think of the extremes when they think of concepts with negative connotations such as chaos. You could say the same thing of law - like that nothing ever changes and everyone looks and acts the same.

@SimonH. (wrinkle in time? At risk of bringing up that mediocre recent film)

@BESW easy example for USians: someone who's an inner-city Catholic who votes Democrat consistently?

@DavidCoffron (sorry, I don't remember that book, but maybe)

@BESW a person should be able to weigh in on any issue independently. I agree

(Or fall into if it's historical, you can't really weigh in on ancestry)

@Shalvenay One of my friends is a Christian Wiccan atheist. That one's fun to watch people think about.

@BESW yeah, that is a bit of an eyeball bulger

@BESW I still don't get this FYI

XD

@BESW Ah the good ol Mystic Theurge multiclass

@trogdor Part of functional intersectionality, I think, is being okay with that.

Fair enough

@BESW yeah. Christian or not? Wicca or not? Theist or not? These are the real dichotomies. And they are all independent

See also: Christian existentialism. That one made my head really hurt.

Really it's the Christian Athiest part that confuses me but adding Wiccan into the mix doesn't make it less so

@trogdor not all Christians are theistic.

I've experienced that first hand with my girlfriend who is an apatheistic semi-Christian

(Currently questioning her beliefs so im.not quite sure where she stands right now)

But more practically speaking, intersectionality is about, for example, my being local but not indigenous. Or the fact that being white gives my enby friends a leg up in certain sectors, but doesn't negate the challenges they face being enby.

@BESW enby?

NB (nonbinary)

@BESW yeah -- "local" and "native" may well be two different things, especially in an area that's seen many a wave of migration over the years

@Shalvenay NB, Non-binary gender. Boy, girl, enby (neither/both/other).

@BESW ah, I see. makes sense. Western culture still hasn't quite come to grips with how many ways there are to wire up the mating-box in our brains

@DavidCoffron that's fair, I have never heard anything about that kind of thing is all. So I have no idea how that works

@Shalvenay This is more about the body-box and how it matches the mind-box with regards to cultural gender constructs (ie being enby isn't about who you're attracted to, it's about your own self), but yeah.

@trogdor Some people even argue that Jesus was an atheist (but obviously he was a protoChristian)

@BESW yeah, the mating-box has a hand in the self-side as well as the attracted-to side in my view :)

@trogdor Christianity has a lot of weird cul-de-sacs.

@DavidCoffron @BESW won't argue those points XD

@Ash iwish it did mean that now (like from.cat in the Hat)

@Ash (Same,... Actually I didn't consider it wasn't literal imagery until now)

As the saying goes, there are always more fish in the kettle

Gtg now . Planning a trip with my girlfriend. Thanks for the discussion guys

@Ash YouTube to the rescue?

@Ash I,... Thought it was meant to conjure an image of a literal tea kettle with fish in it in order to facilitate understanding when you are saying something is very different

You can lead a horse to bathwater, but you can't make it throw out the baby

@BESW I'm pretty sure you can also get glass teapots

@MikeQ Horses are good people that way.

@BESW Not unless you look it in the mouth

Take it as the weird intersection of how my brain works and how the British make no sense (I'm sorry all you brittish people, I just don't understand your lingo)

Oh, yeah, you'd better hold onto it if you do that.

@trogdor I once saw a news post about fighting or "throwing hands". That's as much as I understood about the article.

Yeah I think that means punching, but I will admit at first I thought it meant having a sack full of severed hands to throw at each other ,......

@Ash Also you can put a regular teapot in your regular fishtank, and then sometimes there will be fish in your kettle but sometimes not.

@BESW Aaaargghh

Actually, I feel at this point out the difference between a "Kettle" and a "teapot". Their functions and designs are ultimately different, though to simulate the "Kettle of fish", they often go toward a teapot because they are aesthetically more attractive.

@Ash you monster XD

I don't like being on my toes all the time

:P

Give a fish a tank, and it will swim for a day. Teach a fish to tank, and it will aggro for a lifetime.

@MikeQ you clearly have never dealt with Sleeper AI then

@MikeQ that's a pretty good one

@MikeQ Fish can learn, so I'm sure if you left the fish in the tank, it would eventually get a hang of the controls.

Tanking is fun, so yeah even fish should get to do it

Why not right?.... Nothing could possibly go wrong

Though I'd say start 'em of simple. An APC should be a good place to start. Don't go throwing them in an Abrams straight up.

@Ash Yeah. Too many buttons for a newbie :P

@Ben :D

@Ash mm I can't explain why I like tanking better, when I DPS I feel like I'm only working to see a number go up on a screen, when I tank I feel more like I am actually accomplishing something, keeping enemies off of other people (even though those numbers the DPS are getting are what actually pushes a fight forward)

Lol

Nothing wrong with that

@trogdor There's always something about "I hit the guy" vs tactical thinking cos you need to not be hit.

@Ben thinking even on a tactical level is pretty important to me in those types of games

Even on the rudimentary "I need to be the only guy talking damage" way

@Ash also fair enough

I like being the healer too,... Even though that seems sorta simpler to me than tanking

It's just simple. And therefore less stressful.

At least in WoW when I left it was,... I understand it used to be harder but that was before I was healing

It's especially simple when the tank is good

Except now we've got things like "Heroic" traits, and remembering to switch between "lethal" and "non-lethal" damage.

Also, in my experience no one paid attention to the tank unless they didn't do thier job, and I was cool with that because I got pretty good at it

I have now accidentally murdered someone because of this lol

@Ben ah I liked how 4e handled that

@trogdor Which is the opposite of the sniper in most Battlefield games. No-one paid attention to the sniper unless they were actually doing their job...

IE, if you took them out you got to decide whether they were dead or just unconscious

@Ben lol

@trogdor Ah right. I unfortunately did not have that choice.

They were using an effect that constantly inflicted the "shaken" condition (couldn't act unless I got a rise on my spirit roll) so my only actions were to Shake > unshaken > shake > unshaken. Repeat.

So when I got the opportunity to stop this cycle, I did so zealously.

And failed to remember that I needed to specify non-lethal damage.

Mmm yeah that's why I liked that take from 4e

No screwing around with leathal vs non leathal

Anyway WoW was fun,... But I don't want to get sucked back into it again

I would find myself gathering herbs all day waiting for instances to que

When I could be playing more Gungeon, Spire, or Skullgirls

Or even Wiz 8

And so on and so forth

@trogdor I read a lot of books while fishing, back in BC when heal-spec meant it was nigh impossible to do any solo fighting.

@BESW "BC"... How old are you?

:P

@BESW I would rather use reading time for reading and game time for games,.... XD I know it's a little weird but that is how my brain thingy works

@Ben That was errata'd, wasn't it? One only needs to succeed on their roll to act, not get a raise.

That said, I think Shaken is still an annoying stunlock and SW is a pretty bad game.

@kviiri Oh, yeah. The raise is needed to unshaken, and act in the same turn.

@Ben No, you don't need a raise for that

...

Just a success

Could you... send a source link for that?

s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peg-freebies/SW_FAQ_May_2015.pdf

(pardon me if I misguessed the system)

Could you provide the system this belongs to? I'm not sure which version of Savage worlds we are playing - but there are a few handbooks I've seen the GM refer to.

@Ben It's just core Savage Worlds

Ok. I just want to get a little more source information - this document doesn't have any evidence of which variation it belongs to. So when I send it to the GM I can clarify it all

You could maybe find the same correction in the errata for your specific Savage Worlds derivative, and if the book doesn't have those rules (just referring it back to the core system) it should apply without further question

Since it's labeled just "Savage Worlds FAQ and Update" I assume it's intended to change the rules of all Savage Worlds editions

Fair enough :)

However, personally I'd jump at that correction regardless. The stunlock thing gets old ;)

@kviiri This however, does open it up to the NPCs as well...

@Ben Yea, but the overall effect of combat being less of an intolerable slog is worth it

Indeed haha

Frankly, I think SW is the worst RPG system I've played, but that change makes it a lot more bearable :)

@kviiri I've played a couple, and honestly I think I focus way more on the RP than the system itself, so I can't really say haha

I've played D&D 3.5, 5e, Pathfinder, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Numenera, Savage Worlds, and a couple of variations of the d20 system.

But I never really had any "problems" (like, things I disliked - bar the stunlock in SW)

For our group, the system formed concrete obstacles for our roleplaying, particularly but not exclusively because of the stunlock thingy. One of our characters spend over half an hour of real world time not getting to do jack because his character was Shaken, with a -3 wound penalty.

@kviiri Yeah... that is when the going gets rough

At that point you can only rely on raises to do anything effective, but there are ways around it - one player is a "Construct", which allows him to ignore wound penalties

It also encourages min-maxy powergamer builds because different orders of stat improvements can get one to the same result at different costs, which annoys me to no end.

And Bennies, also... "spend these fun points to stand a chance in combat, but we'll reward you with XP maybe if you manage without".

So characters that fare badly and need to spend bennies are less likely catch up...

I guess it could've been enjoyable as a straightforward tactical game with everyone playing three or so characters

@Ash Still better than the teapot someone posted about a month ago on the Tavern chatboard.

@Derpy Peepot

ick

@kviiri Usually I am not the kind of person that really loves that type of "toilet" humor, so to be honest the word joke you did (which I admit is indeed appropriate) doesn't really work for me - but that obviously is just me being me ^_^.

@Derpy Usually even people who like potty humor are quite nonchalant when sitting on the toilet. That weirds me out

That said, the strange dissonance between the teapot, the fact that it is toilet shaped.... and the elegance of the Delftware porcelain.... even I can find funny.

It kinda evokes a "why would anyone do that" vibe.

basically, in my case, the picture is funny because a part of me is telling me to put that thing in a doll house... while the other is screaming "that is a teapot, not a piece of furniture"

@Ben Perhaps a main site question is in order here?

@JoelHarmon We already have one

You know what stinks? The Stunned condition in 5e :(

@NautArch Stinks as in it is underpowered?

Or that it is annoying?

@SimonH. Yes, it's an extreme example. But it's literally (and literarily) the example that was being invoked when Law-Chaos was brought into D&D. But in any case, all I'm trying to say is "alignment=declared membership on a team with whose goals you align" just works in a way that "alignment=who's good and who's bad" never seems to have.

@Rubiksmoose One of our clerics and I spent well over half the encounter stunned.

Kept failing the DC18 Intelligence save at the end of the turn.

@NautArch Ouch! That really sucks.

That cleric also had his unicorn disintegrated :(

In the penultimate round

Woo-hoo! We made it! Oh god, no....

So about this loot question: 1) It is being VTCed as POB which I do not think is the case. Am I missing something? 2) I'm pretty sure we have other questions dealing with this issue but I can't find one that is an exact match.

@NautArch oh no!

@Rubiksmoose I don't think it's POB either. If anything, it's another My Guy question.

@NautArch Almost certainly. It is also really silly because loot in general in 5e is really not a big deal. Like money becomes a pretty non-issue after like level 5 (assuming your normal campaign setup) and magic items are so rare generally that there isn't a lot to fight over I've found.

All that is my experience anyways.

And I don't see how it's breaking the game. If anything, it's screwing over his team by spending his action investigating rather than attacking.

@NautArch Yeah that is unclear. I am unsure what the actual problem in the question is, which makes me think that it should actually be VTC as unclear.

@Rubiksmoose Money management is one of those things that seems super cool but actually does so very little in most DnD games :P

@Rubiksmoose That I'd agree with. OP hasn't stated why it's causing a problem yet.

@kviiri "Money management is one of those things that seems super cool" only in an RPG setting could this phrase be uttered truly lol

@NautArch How did the Uni get disintegrated?

@AVeryLargeBear hahaha. You know, I'm actually not going to do that lol.

In my next DnD campaign, if I ever get around to it, I proposed my players they could have a joint account instead of individual ones, but they wanted to keep their funds personal. But I did promise them access to shops selling magic items between quests - it's easier in 4e where the magic gear is in PHB.

So at very least they can blow their savings for excellent gear

@kviiri Honestly, this is the way my groups have always done it strangely (except in one shots). I guess we tend to be more group oriented players. Or at least have all played in games where the whole individual money/treasure thing was played out to the detriment of the game.

@Rubiksmoose I think there's some merit in personal accounts - that's conflict-free money. If everyone in a five-person party has 2k, each can spend their share without objections. If they have a shared pot of 10k, they might get into arguments over which way to spend it is the best.

Personal accounts shouldn't be a reason to not pool assets when needed, though. I think it's more about who has the ultimate say regarding a particular gold piece.

BTW I closed this question as a dupe. I think it was a pretty clear choice. Feel free to disagree though. The fact that the question wasn't getting attention was addition evidence that people felt it was just an exact rehash IMO.

@kviiri This is very true.

afk for a moment, have to go water the neighbor's plants

@Rubiksmoose I'm honestly not sure now. I thought he had cast disintigrate from an Illithid of some sort. But I can't find an illithid that has it...

@Rubiksmoose I'm not sure I agree. They are different items.

@NautArch With nearly the exact same wording though.

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, but I"m not sure that makes it a duplicate. SOrt of like how the Stunned Condition is exactly the same as Incapacitated (minus the auto crit that Incapacitated does on a hit in 5'). But they're not the same thing.

@NautArch Right but is there any way in which the items are different apart from the name that affects the question?

@Rubiksmoose I think that makes it different enough?

Meta?

@NautArch Yeah I'll post a meta.

@Rubiksmoose So yeah, I can't figure out what we were fighting. He was also 'misty stepping' every round.

@NautArch Very strange. And incredibly frustrating I'll bet.

I finally set up it's death by getting within about 50' and casting Command to make it come towards me. I knew it had crazy movement, so it also triggered my Sentinel once it got in range. So in one turn, I was able to have it come to me so I could hit it and then end it's turn :)

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, but it was still generally a fun battle. Even with all the annoying shenanigans. Would have been more fun without the arbitrary penalties and rules and death of a mount (where the DM had already targeted that guy's mount previously).

But it was still fun and we generally made it through.

@NautArch Well the fun is what matters in the end! RIP unicorn buddy though.

Too many instances of "ooh, that's a clever idea that should work! No, it doesn't work"

@NautArch Ugh yeah that is always a downer.

@Rubiksmoose If I can get to level 19, I"m debating between Mounted Combatant or Inspiring Leader.

We'll be in the 9 hells and not sure if we'll be fighting a lot of Medium creatures to make Mounted COmbatant worthwhile.

And 22 Temp HP/Short rest for the party seems like a good idea

@NautArch You've missed a word out in your comment on the loot question - tagging while you're still in the edit window.

@NautArch meta posted

Morning gang. My party is slated to fight a whole mess of zombies today with no cleric and no paladin. Should be a good time

@SirCinnamon might be a long night

@Tiggerous ratses. too late, deleted and rewrote.

@NautArch I'm wondering if there are any druid spells with radiant damage

I can't think of any

@SirCinnamon moonbeam, sunbeam, sunburst

Moonbeam should be the go-to

@NautArch Moonbeam FTW

True! I wonder if he has it prepared

@AVeryLargeBear I'm the DM, I stocked up on zombies >:)

@SirCinnamon 2 for 1 sale on zombie hordes at Costco?

@Rubiksmoose he went to the zombie district.

@Rubiksmoose Buy 2 zombies get a skeleton for free

@SirCinnamon Nice skeletons never go on sale around here.

@NautArch I mean that is the way to do it. That way you know your zombies are nice and fresh.

While I told the story earlier I'd like to reiterate that Command is a vastly underrated spell.

Command is a good example of what I think D&D tended to want to do but often didn't manage: making a space where the rules invite creative play-within-the-box.

Command makes you feel like a total boss

Or like a fool when it fails

@SirCinnamon It failed earlier :)

@BESW And probably a good example of how it didn't fully achieve that given the confusion debates around it.

@SirCinnamon I had failed with it earlier and the Illithid tried to use it's Gaze on me which I saved. It was a stand-off :)

@NautArch Spaghetti western music

Approach in conjunction with Polearm Master and Relentless Avenger was pretty sweet.

@NautArch I got distracted but I meant to compliment you on that. That was a very clever use of that spell and a bunch of abilities. Very nice.

and it ends it's turn, so can't do anything offensive.

And then ended up surrounded by our party where the Cleric who lost his Unicorn to it promptly dropped a 5th level Harm on it.

to kill it.

angry cleric SMASH

When I finally broke the Stun, I approaxched the Brain and ran into a Wall of Force. Brain got all smug until I misty stepped behind him and killed him with a 3rd and 1st level smites.

He was already pretty hurt by that point, though :)