@KorvinStarmast that's the idea XD. although I wonder if one could make a flying relativistic mirror work in the visible spectrum (it's more commonly used for X-ray work)

Morning lads and ladies

Good Aussie morning to ya

@MikeQ I am still having issues getting a DH group together. This is harder than I thought haha

If you're trying to find someone to DM a group of players, it's gonna be very hard. DMing takes a lot of work.

Even wrangling together a group of players - who don't necessarily need to do all that prep - is difficult enough.

Indeed

I do have 2 people that would be willing to GM... both are keen for a game to fill there time/needs. However one does not like the Dark Heresy dystopian theme, and the other is unfortunately too busy

I mean... one could reflavor the system and mechanics to fit a different setting

Indeed. I even suggested Rogue Trader for that same reason.

Ah yes. That could help. The fear and insanity mechanics mean the system is suited for dystopian cyberpunk horror, but with the proper paint job, it could become generic scifi, possibly a space opera style

But alas, they did not seem overly interested in it :(

Hrmm, that is a point

I might maybe have a sort of paying job soon, working for the dad of one of my high school friends. it isn't full-time at the moment, just an exploratory research-type job. going into the office to discuss it tomorrow

exciting stuff

@V2Blast nice :)

@V2Blast awesome

I hope you have as good a time as you can and learn all you need from it

And that it lasts exactly as long as you want it and need it to before the next thing

Unless there isn't a next thing because you rise the ranks and crush your former co-workers beneath your authority XD

Your hopefully benevolent authority

@V2Blast Very nice

I've only been here for 5 minutes and trogdor is already plotting a coup.

Hi, been a while, how're you folks doing?

Trog is always plotting a coup. He just needs a situation to apply it :P

Rrrrawr grrrr

XD

One day, one day you will all see

My grand plot to reshape the word towards my vision will be a reality

Tremble in unconvinced fear

@Magician I've been employed as an incentive for a DM to get themselves in gear to start the next session for a friend's D&D game. I don't know why, or how that is meant to work though. Lol

Coffee and supplication, mostly

They added me to a discord chat, and have been making strong hints as to my presence as an incentive to get things going.

One day, I will finally have the power to gather all the world's cheese into a rocket and shoot it into the moon!

Muhahahaha!

@Magician it's pretty good except for the whole Typhoon aftemath thing

@trogdor How bad was it exactly?

That being said at least things are already on a pace towards getting back to normal

@Ben not exceptionally bad

This is the first one we have had in a while but it was pretty weak all things considered

That's good. BESW mentioned it wasn't as bad as expected

And it moved so fast that it wasn't on us long

Some of our neighboring islands had it much worse

And those still in it's possible path of approach...

Might get it while it's stronger

All in all I think most of us here on Guam remember our past typhoons well enough that we were prepared for this

Hopefully it doesn't get too bad

Yeah

I hope so

@trogdor Indeed. We have similar issues with Cyclones. Our last one was a Cat 5, as was the one before it, but since we prepared properly for them both, nothing bad happened.

The last one was actually not all that memorable. It just sort of happened... we cleaned up... back to work on Monday haha

@Ben never experienced a cyclone

And I've never experienced a Typhoon. Lol

@Ben ah it was bad enough that I only went back to work today

That being said, my parents workplaces were ready yesterday

Mine just had an issue with roof leaks

Which was a problem before the storm

@Ben hehe

I don't know how much of it to blame on lack of preparation for the storm but typically all Typhoon action causes power loss here

Luckily not everyone lost water too but some did

There are probably some people without either still

And I don't mean those people not preparing to be clear

I mean the government and the utilities companies

yeah, you'd think your power utility would have an active undergrounding program for one

They get, at the very least teased for minimum prep and speed of work and such

I won't say that is always entirely deserved but they have issued inane statements about why things aren't progressing before XD

Like blaming power being out on tiny tree snakes

@Shalvenay that doesn't sound like minimum effort to me :P

@trogdor go look up the amount of damage CyberSquirrel1 has been responsible for :P

@trogdor haha, it isn't.

And how is @Magician?

Well that's a loaded question

[Insert pun]

@Magician but how does that make you feel ?

I dunno, why don't you ask him

Going slightly nutty, staring at a massive Blades in the Dark review I'm working on.

I didn't ask him I asked you XP

Him can answer when I bother to ask him something

@Magician ah sorry to hear that

I hope you can satisfy yourself with the effort you put into it

@Magician Them feels

I know that's hard to do sometimes

I have been having the same issues with my Diablo game, though likely in a different way. As I write, I keep thinking "oh, that's a good idea", get sidetracked, develop that, then come back to the original plot, which is still just barebones.

@trogdor returning it all to where it rightly belongs

Lol

Nooooo my cheese!

what

oh

Lol yeah that was probably a bit confusing out of context huh?

just a bit

howdy howdy

Heyyyy

this question scares me

it just feels...wrong

evil campaign stuff

"Laugh when the heros see what the dragons really are once killed." sounds like "this is my villain's plan" type scenario

it is an amazing question mind

hahaha, you killed a bunch of babies!

you could also have a a bunch of adult/ancient dragons with the minds of wyrmlings (maybe?) that are NOT under your control.

yeah but their being under control doesn't seem the important part

@NautArch How is FEAR supposed to turn baby dragons int young dragons?

if you're capable of casting true polymorph you can deal with some dragons

@Carcer Why would they stay in the kingdom?

@Trish it's specifically the ghost's effect, they can cause premature aging

"Horrifying Visage. Each non-undead creature within 60 feet of the ghost that can see it must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. If the save fails by 5 or more, the target also ages 1d4 × 10 years."

dndbeyond.com/monsters/ghost

@NautArch cause they're hungry. I mean, just releasing them in the middle of somewhere will be disruption enough

starving adult dragons with the minds of children

With the Wisdom mods dragons get, that should become hard to fail before adulthood.

releasing Baby Dragons will be enough to ruin the country. They starve ALL THE TIME

and would make nasty pack animals.

@Trish As a high level caster there are a variety of ways you could make the dragons more likely to fail their saves. It's probably safe to assume you could get them to fail it often enough to cause significant aging

I dont know enough about dragon lore. Do they work in packs or are they territorial?

Horrifying Visage making dragons older and more powerful is quite a weird side effect.

Dragons are usually described as being solitary and HIGHLY TERRITORIAL

THen wouldn't a pack of them go after each other FIRST?

Baby dragons are not solitary, clutches of baby dragons nest together XD

as children? nah

Also, FYI to editors, question titles do not have to be phrased as questions. But feel free to do that if it makes the title a clearer summary.

till they get juveniles and leave the nest.

even as adults, if they were outside their territory they'd probably prefer to fly away from each other than fight each other

@Trish Does the lore support that? I personally don't know.

my recollection is that it varies but might not be described in much detail

a thought in my head is going "metallic dragons usually raise their hatchlings until they're ready to leave the nest but chromatic dragons just dump them and let the strongest survive" but I have no idea if that's something I read somewhere or just something I came up with

you'd expect the good dragons to be good parents though

you'd also expect the good dragons not to terrorize even if hungry. THey can still speak.

oh yeah

And they know they're kids, right?

this plan requires evil dragons

@Carcer good parenting from the point of reference of dragons, though

maybe from the point of view of dragons, just dumping them and letting the strongest survive might be good parenting :)

@doppelgreener true, rule 1 of being a dragon is to be unreasonably aloof

but letting intelligent creatures starve to death for being a little weaker than average is generally not compatible with D&D's interpretation of the word "good"

but letting nature do its thing might be what dragons need to be raised

well there are almost certainly books enough that will have explored dragons in detail, seeing as how prominent they are in D&D

in previous editions if not specifically for 5e yet

THe biggest hurdle for me is that the kids still retain their personality and knowledge. They're scared and int he form of adult dragons that can still speak common.

I"d imagine them running back home (as dragons), screaming for help.

yeah, but the result of that is... a dragon terrifying a bunch of people

guards will attack it

@Carcer screaming "i'm a kid, help!"

violence will probably ensue in some form or another

yeah, but the scared kid may cower, even if they're a freaking dragon.

that gets into psychology and how you want to play those kids.

hm, true

so

are there any spells that cause rage

yah, but at that point they're an adult dragonwith legendary resistance

and a more difficult thing to handle for the wizard

@NautArch "ed...ward..."

@doppelgreener hahahahah

@doppelgreener [glare intensifies]

speaking of...has anyone seen the live action FMA?

@Carcer [turns to stone]

no, don't intend to

nor i

but at any rate the important mechanical part of the question is whether or not you can artificially age up a dragon by throwing ghosts at it

what exactly the dragons do afterwards is a secondary concern.

@doppelgreener I did think it was helpful in this case since adding a verb makes it clearer. :)

@Carcer also it wouldn't work because children are not CR 1+

@Rubiksmoose I decided to roll back the title change you made just now for unrelated reasons; the earlier version makes more sense. The question's sort of in two parts, one of them being “does this whole plan work?”, but the revised title only validated the “can i do this with ghostly visage?” part of the question and kinda just outright ignored the rest.

that would lead to confusion and my spidey senses were tingling

@Rubiksmoose maybe you could find children of an intelligent species which are CR1

or you could train the children all as level 1 fighters as the first step of the plan

@doppelgreener yeah that makes sense to me. I didn't think the original was that unclear in the first place so.

SO we're not answering "will this plan work" because that does seem kinda PoB (it's the DM's world, they can do what they want), but whether or not Horrifying Visage will age a wyrming?

@Carcer or just TP objects? You can do up to CR 9 that way I think

@NautArch that is my understanding

@Rubiksmoose so it says, but I think an important part of the plan is the bit where you trick the "good guys" into killing children

I think that'd be a worhty edit.

@NautArch you're welcome to answer whether the plan will work

i mean, they asked it

it's not POB

or at least it would, the bit about laughing as the heroes realise they killed children seems to have been removed from the question

But isn't it like two questions right now?

yeah, feel free to answer as you would, my personal opinion is that the interesting bit of the question is aging dragons with ghosts

but that is part of the larger question of whether or not the plan works at all

Because I can fully answer one: the plan won't work. But I would complete ignore the aging part.

that's probably still a useful answer for the OP

@Rubiksmoose THat's my thought. Is he asking does this mechanic work AND does my plan work?

@Rubiksmoose the person is asking this thing because they're trying to do it as part of a plan. it's kinda worthless if we say "yes you can do that" but the plan doesn't work.

roll with it, it's all wrapped up in the one context

I think you're overthinking it

ironically

hahah

@Carcer i agree

@doppelgreener The reason I thought it was PoB because how the children as dragons react will be up to the DM and could be any variety of reasonable answers.

imo a good answer would address all parts of the question; can you make dragons from children in the first place, can you age baby dragons with ghosts assuming you have baby dragons, and then how would the resulting adult-child dragons behave

Fair enough. So does my answer work or should I try to answer the aging part as well?

@NautArch there is a reference with Matafleur for Dragonlance dragons: she is a red dragon that cared for her hatchlings till they left the nest.

hahaha nevermind

the OP is editing the question

presumably to focus on the aging bit

@Trish ok, but that's about raising dragons. Not about how a child in a dragon's body that has been mentally and physically tormented would react.

If in doubt, ask the OP to clarify

@NautArch yep, but it is all I know is there about young dragond being raised in groups. Matafleur is mentioned to have had several children raised at once (resulting in her "adopting" all the human children (hostages) aeons later as guardian and going all out against that other dragon in her last battle to defend them. She was also quite mad.)

We could always suggest that this be split up into two questions if the answer to the aging thing happens to be "yes". I see them as independent enough that you could theoretically ask about the plan after getting the mechanics sorted.

Since OP seems to really just want an answer to the aging thing right now

@Rubiksmoose And while I never really understand what's PoB and what isn't - I think the question of "will this work" is PoB because of what i"ve said before. But will horrifying visage work is a solid question.

Primarily opinion-based is about discussions and surveys. It is for when there is no factual nor expert subjective basis on which a question can be asked. It is made to cover multiple types of questions to avoid asking: “discuss ___ with me” and every type of question in the first bulleted list on that page.

@doppelgreener ah, okay. So sort of an idea generation/discussion thing?

It is not a problem for some degree of opinion to be involved. It is a problem when the answer is substantially entirely about your personal opinion.

but how a child would react to a certain series of events...why wouldn't that be considered opinion?

@NautArch Idea generation, discussion, surveys, polls, quizzes, social games, anytime there is never going to be such thing as a best or even correct answer available.

But I guess you could bypass that by Geasing each of them.

@doppelgreener although we've got some questions like that that aren't closed and that I've answered. It's a blurry line.

Note that there are going to be questions where the person is asking us “How does this work?” and it's up to the DM to decide, but there is still a factually correct answer available: “This is up to the DM to decide.” So although the resolution is based on opinion, our solution is not.

@doppelgreener ah, very true. And I think we've gotten more folks answering as such - but I think the majority of those times people suggest ideas and get upvotes.

@NautArch If they weren't closed they probably weren't primarily opinion-based: they were probably Good Subjective, where subjective expertise can provide a best possible answer.

@NautArch It is entirely reasonable to suggest how the DM should handle it based on subjective expertise of what does/doesn't work, too.

@doppelgreener agreed - but i think it's more common for folks to suggest very good ideas that they themselves think of but haven't necessarily tried.

it is quite common

which is technically not how the stack wants answers, but the upvotes make it so that it becomes a common thing.

And i'm guilty of this, too (both in voting for answers that don't have play experience and writing them)

if RPG.SE was 100% Lawful Neutral and run entirely by the denizens of Mechanus, that would never happen. But it's a bit more chaotic than that because it is instead run by people, so instead it happens and those ideas get validated by the crowd if they're actually good or downvoted or called out as nonsense if they're bad.

needing experience to answer questions is for chumps

It's certainly never stopped me

WotC has cunningly hidden a survey about D&D on their website, where nobody will find it. Or, as they put it, "take our survey and help shape the future of what we're working on at Wizards of the Coast!"

@doppelgreener heh, yup :) Pretty sure we're arguing the same thing - i'm just saying our stance on not wanting to have opinion-based answers without actual experience is different than how the stack actually receives those answers. And we have chosen to encourage that by not discouraging it (which I still think is good, because of that quote from BESW.)

@nitsua60 I've discovered the secret, the survey is hidden because it's interminably long and boring

/me gives up 4 pages in

@Carcer Yeah, I'm on my fifth page of "how important is... when playing D&D?"

@nitsua60 don't worry, you're 15% of the way through!

I'd kinda like a report from WotC of everyone who rated extremely important "being disruptive and contrarian to make things more interesting" so that I can blacklist them from my tables =\

@Carcer The survey is a megadungeon

@nitsua60 Preach the good word <3

I wonder if "I stole the cool-looking books from my older brother who beat me up when he finally found I'd taken them" counts as "a friend or family member introduced me."

"Think about the first product you bought..." Dude, my memory doesn't really work that far back.

"What resources did you use to create your first character?" An IBM Selectric typewriter.

I"m wondering if that horrifying visage question is getting downvotes because of child abuse

I felt tempted to downvote it not because of that, but because of I don't really see what the user is trying to ask.

Also I'm not a fan of that style of GMs - neither the "elaborate plan built on game mechanics" part nor the bit where they introduce a "haha you killed children" as if it was a moral dilemma.

@kviiri I'd feel pretty horrified if that as the case and there was no storyline that tipped it's hat towards so that another non-killing resolution could be found.

@NautArch Yeah

I would be too, but mostly at "you really think this is a good idea" kind than "oh my god did we actually kill children" kind x)

@kviiri In our main campaign, we fought a bunch of children who had been infected by intellect devourers. But we all failed arcana checks on them and didn't know that just knocking them unconscious would save the kids.

@nitsua60 it was also shared on twitter

Twists are fun and all when executed right, but foreshadowing is vital

it sounds vaguely like D&D 6e or 5.5e talk

@NautArch In your defense, knocking things unconscious is an underused mechanic in 5e.

I even shortcircuited that mechanic so that PCs automatically knock out instead of killing when it suits the story well, unless the player is REALLY insistent on getting a kill for whatever reason.

Eg. they're trying to forge an alliance with a militant nation of elves but have to fight their way in to actually get their leader to listen. 20 knocked out and humiliated elves will do that, 20 murdered elves would probably just make them angrier and desperate.

@kviiri We've actually used it quite a bit :)

@kviiri THat's a good point and good idea. Save the players from the themselves - and they may simply have not have thought of doing it as players when their characters 100% would have.

@NautArch I recommend it, but it's of course best to be open about why you're doing it :>

the problem is that most people see "repeatedly hit with a magical sword" and "harmlessly knocked unconscious" as contradictory things

Can't wait for D&D to move to quarterly system patching.

"Coming soon in the D&D Fall Creator's Update"

I don't want to have to reboot my campaign world every few weeks just to install a new kernel

"Okay guys between last session and this one the red dragon has been patched."

@Maximillian Not what Bilbo wanted to hear.

"He now has twice as many hit points. Also none of your spells will work until the second time you try to cast them. We're not sure why."

"Also rogues start the battle dead."

"I'm told we can expect a hotfix for that next week."

hey there @Maximillian

@Carcer I personally like to think of someone with 0HP as "downed" myself -- they're injured badly enough to be out of the fight, but not necessarily dead/dying

@Shalvenay it matters if you have enemy combatants roll saves or not.

Technically, they are just downed and rolling death saves

but also technically, they can be straight up ded

@NautArch yeah, part of it depends on the flow of the fight for me as well

It is 9:30 and I have skipped coffee and went right for the Monster.

^ intriguing idea

someone who's been worn down by a thousand cuts, so to speak, is going to be much more downed than dead -- but if 3 crits in a row put someone down, those wounds are going to be much more lethal

> M&M D&D: step 1: buy a bag of m&ms. step 2: crack that bad boy open. Step three: count your loot, separated by color. Step 4: there are six colors. step 5: those are your stats now. allocate them as you wish

Hmm...

I asked my DM whether they would permit the techniques used in the Arcane Programmer's Guide, and they told me "yes, but only if you diagram out EXACTLY what each Magic Mouth is doing, and each object you transcribe it onto.

I feel like they may have failed to take into consideration the fact that I'm a Software Developer by profession. =P

@Yuuki amazon.co.uk/Ms-Peanut-56-oz-bag/dp/B0014H6SB8

Staff of Greater Debugging

Wand of Stack Trace

Tome of StackOverflow

Hammer of Rows (Modify Memory on hit, 1/day)

Each StackOverflow tome shows the same contents all others. Any change made in one will be in all other copies. The tome focuses on Q&A around arcane and arcane programming topics.

@Carcer And people who cause a lot of trouble get demoted to the Fun! size bags of M&Ms.

I think this is legitimiately the funniest thing I've ever said

definitely including as item in planned games

maybe add another layer of obfuscation as a "Rose Hammer" or something

"Hmm. I can't read this." "Tis some forgotten language, such as Draconic or the secret language of the Druids?" "Worse. Looks like FORTRAN."

My DM is safe from my BS though; I've still got two other characters sitting in my replacement queue in case my Paladin dies in our campaign, and I feel like my Shadow Sorcerer gimmick is just barely munchkin-y enough to carry me to the end of the campaign, whatever the actual outcome.

>shadow

you're not preparing for some 120% real shenanigans are you

So we'd have to suffer like 3 TPKs in a row before they have to deal with me injecting Arcane Software into their campaign.

@Carcer I don't know the reference.

3e's shadow conjuration and related spells

@Carcer We're in 5e, so whatever that stuff is, I don't know about it.

duplicate the effect of other spells but only "X% real" if the target succeeds on saves to disbelieve (e.g. a fireball does only 20% damage)

@Carcer Huh. Sounds kind of cool, but also sounds highly breakable.

by stacking shenanigans you could create spell effects that were more than a hundred per cent real if the targets realised they were illusory

it wasn't super well thought through, no

d20srd.org/srd/spells/shadowEvocationGreater.htm for example

@Carcer "Believe the fireball! BELIEVE THE FIREBALL!"

@Carcer My favorite shenanigan with Shadow Evocation was Shadow Darkness.

Cast it on something you're carrying and convince your party members it's not real.

Also, Shadow Find Steed.

Or Mount.

one of my favorite shenanigans was belt of ant haul and muleback chords.

The 5e Shadow Sorcerer shenanigans just involve being a better Martial than regular Martial classes by using Darkness to gain near-permanent Advantage against enemy creatures, and then Twinning out the Booming Blade cantrip to deal massive damage at the cost of a single Sorcery Point.

Or whatever that spell was called.

@Xirema I have never understood the overstatement of Booming Blade's damage; by the time you get to a level where there are three procs, monsters have large pools of HP. The initial capability only gives the boost against a nearby enemy, right? (Or am I remember Green Flame blade, not booming blade?)

@Xirema fair enough.

hey there @KorvinStarmast

@Shalvenay Hi Shal, hoping troggies connection gets sorted soon.

@KorvinStarmast You're thinking of Green Flame Blade.

@KorvinStarmast me as well -- what were you thinking of for tonight btw?

@Xirema yeah, OK.

@Shalvenay I wasn't sure if Malik Mabir might wander through some of your world, but tonight I have storm preps to make so Momma will not put up with me plaing RPG in chat. Not gonna happen. :)

@KorvinStarmast ah, some other time then :)

Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade have normal cantrip-level damage against a single target, but with a secondary effect that can, conditionally, double the overall damage. With Booming Blade, you get that extra damage if the target moves from their position. With Green Flame Blade, you get that extra damage if the target has an ally within 5 feet.

@Shalvenay The roof repair from Harvey hasn't held up well, so we are having them come back and do it right, but of course we have a load of rain this week and looming this weekend. Blah.

The way you abuse Booming Blade is with stuff like Twinned Spell, which permits you to make two attacks in a round with the same, damage-boosted cantrip, so long as you're targeting two adjacent creatures.

Then you Quicken out Green Flame Blade as a bonus action if you want to rub salt in the wound.

@KorvinStarmast weeeeew

@Xirema I'd like to play a high level lock and mess with Green Flame Blade ... Ah, I see, it's a Sorc exploit, not a lock exploit. Got it.

I am starting a level 1 shadow sorcerer next week, but I am not so sure I want anything to do with melee initially ... but if I MC one level of Hexblade ... maybe. We'll see. DM does not stick to PHB+1 so I have a lot of flexibility on that.

At level 5, at the cost of 3 Sorcery Points (basically a Second Level Spell Slot), you deal 7d8 + 3x(STR/DEX mod) + CHA mod, split across two targets, with an extra 4d8 if either of them move from their spot before your next turn.

Our party size is 3; a monk, a 'lock, and a sorc. @Xirema If you hit.

@KorvinStarmast Which is why you play an Elven Shadow Sorcerer with nearly-permanent Double Advantage. ;)

double advantage

drawfee came true

@Xirema I see those spells as better for Blade singer, since you are heading into melee and need a nice boost of AC that Int + Dex AC gives during blade song. For my AC 12 sorcerer, that's a crappy idea, particularly at level 1.

The feat you're looking for is Elven Accuracy, which lets you reroll one of your Advantage dice whenever you have Advantage.

Yeah, I am familiar with Elven Accuracy

@Xirema Not on a vHuman it isn't. ;)

@KorvinStarmast Dex-based Sorcerer with Mage Armor is 16AC at level 1.

I didn't roll a 15 Dex, so that isn't an option.

Mage Armor lasts 8 hours and has no Concentration requirements, so it's basically free.

Ah.

@Xirema I am not impressed with an AC of 16; mooks get a +4 on most die rolls at low levels. (+2 prof and +2 at leats to dex or str). Mage armor gives me AC 15, with 8 HP.

My only saving grace is the "bounce up to 1 HP at 0 HP once per long rest" though in a few levels I'll be better off due to free darkness at 3rd level.

@KorvinStarmast Darkness is a big part of the build. Most of the interesting stuff happens once you get that spell.

Our little group of 3 is going to be sort of fragile for the first few levels: Celestial Lock, Warforged Monk, and my shadow Sorcerer. I think we'll be sneaking a lot; no tank.

@Xirema Not sure if you have played a lot at low levels, but I have noticed a non trivial lethality with the swingy die rolls at levels 1 and 2.

@Xirema I want to survive to level 3; the level 2 spells and my darkness thing will be a nice boon to our party.

status: mad that nobody appreciated the rowhammer joke

@Carcer It was so effective, we just all forgot about it.

@Xirema I took the Alert feat. Can't be surprised, and I like going first if my char is fragile.

@KorvinStarmast My group only played at levels 1 & 2 for a single session. Granted, we kind of cheesed our way through some very strong combat encounters, but considering we then stuck at level 3 for like 3 months IRL, it's definitely fair to say I'm not "used to" level 1/2 combat.

@Yuuki alas! My weapon has turned upon me

@Xirema our groups have tended to start at 1 ... I've seen a lot of it.

@KorvinStarmast I'm sorry. Hopefully one day you will overcome this trauma

@Xirema level 1 usually only last 1 session, level 2 1-2, and then level 3 takes some more time

Unrelated: Any programmers who have experience with Jquery Autocomplete want to take a look at this question?: stackoverflow.com/q/52304596/4872477

Its driving me crazy

hey there @ACuriousMind

ahoi

@GreySage Such is the cost of tampering with dark magic

aka jquery

@Carcer Fun is where you find it, amigo. :) The thrill that fear gives you is a kind of fun in D&D. Our Tier 3 game is a different kind of fun; I am up to level 14 in that one, with a Champion.

Oh god, someone posted in SO today why their floating point calculations for a Money Market Application were coming out funny.

Floating point calculations.

For a Financial application.

@MikeQ Somtimes we embrace the darkness to get a paycheck

@Xirema ick

I've worked on financial apps before (backoffice card-payments stuff) and we had a fixed-point class in our libraries that we used for everything that was a monetary value or related to one

@Shalvenay Which is how you're supposed to do it. I wish C++ would implement a standardized fixed-point type.

@KorvinStarmast btw your answer on that dragon question is really good IMO.

@Rubiksmoose Thanks, I liked your "here's an easier way to do this" approach as well.

yeah but your answer isn't FUN, party poopers

@Rubiksmoose On the other hand, needless over-complication is a standing feature of some evil schemes.

@Carcer we'll work on that. I think Rubik's is fun, turning rocks into CR 9 dragons. :)

I liked the part where someone submitted a horrifying way to torture children by turning them into dragons that the party then murders unwittingly. Because reasons.

Fun, fun, fun.

O_o

@Xirema o.O? What did I miss?

still the question about dragons

@Carcer Plus; Pyrena's Red Dragon Chow was intended to bring a smile ...

@GreySage Scaring a wyrmling into adulthood

I'm not disparaging the OP; D&D in all its permutations tends to mechanically incentivize this kind of depravity.

But still, WTF.

On the other hand, I do recall a very popular video game called Diablo where you killed a demon lord, who then turned back into a young boy/prince ... and then your character stuck a red gem into his/her head.

My first time through that game, with a warrior, that little ending cinematic got the "horror" feel through pretty well. (Granted, there was the foreshadowing via Archbishop Lazarus ....)

@KorvinStarmast I found it a nice detail that all of the player characters from the first Diablo are encountered as enemies in Diablo II.

@Xirema Yeah, just do everything in billionths of a penny. Integer math is so much nicer than building a computer out of Magic Mouth cast on rice grains.

@Yuuki Yep, that was part of the fun. I have enjoyed each of the Diablo games, on their own terms.

The rogue is Blood Raven, the sorcerer is The Summoner, and the warrior obviously becomes Diablo.

@Xirema My experience is that it mechanically promotes breaking economies and government systems... the truly evil stuff takes a lot more thinking.

@ColinGross Are you referring to floating point calculations or D&D?

@ColinGross besides, how do we learn how to build stronger things? by breaking the ones we have ;)

@KorvinStarmast I kinda wish they did more in that regard for Diablo III, but there were a lot more classes in Diablo II so it's understandable that they didn't.

@Shalvenay I do enjoy breaking stuff.

@KorvinStarmast Good point. Yes.