TRPG General Chat - 2018-09-24 (page 1 of 2)

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5:20 AM

:thinking:

I see no flaw in this plan

5:33 AM

So 3 out of 3 agree, best plan

6:18 AM

Anyone here speak dwarvish?

6:45 AM

@Ben LotR dwarvish, or some other dwarvish? (It's a no either way, but I'm curious.)

lol

7:14 AM

Any form really... I have few phrases I want to translate

And the online translators aren't overly versatile

I'm writing an extended back story for a PC

Dorf does dorf

7:32 AM

See dorf run

Run dorf run

8:31 AM

XD

4 hours later…

12:03 PM

what game statistics would you use for a Yak and/or a turtle in 5e?

@Youjay Yak I'd go with a draft horse, rename whatever kick-type attack they have into a horn/gore. Turtle I'd grab a dog (not mastiff), drop the speed to 10', and rename things. Maybe give it a "turtling": speed becomes 0 when prone.

dnd5e.wikia.com/wiki/Tortle

29

Q: Stats of a Sheep

Effect 77-78 of the wild magic surge table in the Player's Handbook states: You cast polymorph on yourself. If you fail the saving throw, you turn into a sheep for the spell's duration. Polymorph's spell description then says: The target's game statistics, including mental ability score...

dnd-5e monsters books

@nitsua60 Where are "Dog" stats? I can only find Mastiffs.

12:22 PM

grmbl

driveby comment removal but didn't even reopen the question

12:38 PM

@Youjay I may be misremembering seeing them somewhere? I'm not at my books right now.

12:58 PM

and now because the comments are removed people are getting confused about the game again

@Carcer i'm editing the title.

I should probably have done that when I tagged it

good call

@Carcer still needs some work, but I fear we've lost OP.

1:14 PM

@NautArch well, we'll see. He might come back.

@Carcer Hopefully. I"m more worried that their character concept is trending towards MyGuy

1:44 PM

@NautArch Hey doing hate on him just because his concept is the same as your guy. That isn't fair :P

@Rubiksmoose thief!

@NautArch No, its a barbarian

@SirCinnamon <slow claps>

Bravo lol

2:09 PM

If people already haven't please take a look at this new meta about revisiting our never guess the system policy. We want to hear everyone's voice on the issue whether you agree or disagree with the way things currently are run.

Especially if you disagree though this is the time to express that and make your voice heard!

@Rubiksmoose I prefer to complain about whatever resolution is decided on thankyouverymuch.

@NautArch hahaha. I mean they aren't mutually exclusive ;)

@carcer I know you especially have some thoughts about this.

I threw in my two cents

@SirCinnamon :)

@Rubiksmoose Doppels answer on that linked Q looks good. I noticed that one of the suggested tags when I opened the page today is "dnd-4e" but that doesnt really show that we basically require a system tag

2:21 PM

@SirCinnamon I sorta piggybacked off your idea in a comment. Unsure if you want to integrate it into your own answer, or if I should post it as a separate one.

@SirCinnamon I believe they are generated pseudo-randomly but the method by which those are suggested is unclear. Let's be honest though, if it was by overall tag usage on the site though it would always be recommending 5e.

@Rubiksmoose I have thoughts, and I'm making an effort at writing them down

it's difficult to feel motivated to do that when it seems obvious that I'll be in a minority though

@Carcer I mean that makes complete sense. But I think it is really important to have minority voices express their opinions as well. For one, it is not always sure that they are the minority but also because there is no way to change a majority opinion without first expressing your idea and attempting to convince someone else.

It is always harder to ask for change than to uphold the status quo.

I think @SirCinnamon is on the mark: we need to make sure that users can't accidentally submit a question without specifying their system. I think the question "should we attempt to guess the system?" becomes moot if we're preventing the problem in the first place, and there's simple UI changes that would deal with that.

@SirCinnamon This "doesn't show that we basically require a system tag" I think that would solve the issue if that was obvious.

2:30 PM

@Xirema I'm not sure there is a single change that would eliminate the issue completely that has been proposed thus far, but I think all the proposals are steps in the right direction and would probably have decent impact.

@Xirema Yep. If the tour or question prompt doesn't mention the policy, then it's no wonder that new users get confused or frustrated when the experienced users enforce it.

@Xirema I concur, but I wouldn't posit that a UI change is simple nor easy.

"1-2 years" was the timeframe mentioned

Stack Overflow used to have a pop-up that would get in the user's face if they tried to submit a question without specifying their programming language. Not sure why it got removed.

At minimum, the site should say somewhere "If you're asking about a specific system, please include it in your question or in the tags" or something along those lines. This way, we can point to this rule instead of having the comments explode into bickering.

2:33 PM

But if there's a way to bring that back, I suggest it also get brought to RPG.SE, saying "specify your system, goofball!"

(Obviously, system-agnostic would be an acceptable entry)

There's supposedly an idea being tested of a "New Question Wizard" on SO and I'm trying to find details on it and see if it would help at all here.

@Xirema there's a lot of kinds of questions that don't need a system, and system-agnostic is a problematic tag and would just be tag tax

479

Q: “Ask a question” wizard prototype

You're all probably wondering who I am and where Joe is. I'm one of the developers on the Developer Affinity & Growth team with him, and I'm excited to tell you about a prototype that we'd love your feedback on. Questions and answers are what Stack Overflow is all about. The starting point for a...

discussion questions

See the "check out a prototype here" link, note that it posts an actual real live question to stack overflow if you submit at the end.

@Xirema See my first answer ever on Meta here lol

@doppelgreener ha, wizard is probably the wrong term for that on this stack :)

@NautArch I was waiting for someone to comment on that lol

2:41 PM

@NautArch no, it's definitely a wizard

@ColinGross Exactly!

@doppelgreener A wizard's wizard

user image

It seems like if this feature ever makes it and if it ever gets rolled over into SE sites, the changes necessary to make it work here would exactly suit the needs of helping to address this issue.

I'm not sure how likely any of those "if"s are though.

there, I answered it

@Carcer fwiw I think it is a great answer and your points are well made.

2:48 PM

i agree

@doppelgreener but what if the power to help was really given by a deity (stack owners)

@NautArch pretty sure they're wizards, but i can see why you'd get confused, since they're wizards

well thanks

also is anyone not using the beta theme yet

I can't remember if this "edit tags" button exists in the old theme or not

@Carcer I especially like the point about teaching the users. I think we often maybe forget that there is more than one way to teach.

@Carcer it does

2:52 PM

@Carcer It does, but it is a rep-locked privilege

(I think)

was trying to work with playpatrice on their wall of force question.

okay

so not a new site design problem

as I've just realised when you edit tags that way there's no way to record an edit reason

@doppelgreener lol testing in prod

@Yuuki I envy people who have a dev to test in, man

@Carcer Sure but you'd think Stack Exchange of all places would have a dev environment to test in.

2:58 PM

@Yuuki yuch

Or some way to show off a prototype without having it post to the actual site.

@Yuuki It's squirrels running the place. "ship it!"

3:09 PM

Is this true with regard to Adventurer's League: RAI + Developer ruling trumps RAW - in Adventure Leauge

@NautArch Is that different from just Developer Ruling trumps RAW?

@SirCinnamon I don't now. But aren't developer rulings clarifying RAW and not 'trumping' them?

I don't think I can come up with an example where a developer ruling overrode RAW

@NautArch I would say so, but I don't play adventurer's league

@NautArch Depends on the ruling and sometimes it is unclear.

@NautArch The problem is, there is often several different way to interpret RAW. People like to pretend there is only one RAW, but that is not true. As long as the rules are composed of words that can be interpreted in different ways there will always be the potential for multiple equally valid RAW rulings.

@Rubiksmoose Is there an example of them doing that? And does AL really do taht or is AL more about the RAW for DM rulings?

3:14 PM

@NautArch I mean arguably you could say the cases where JC is "wrong" are cases in which he is saying that the rules do say something that they actually don't. Could be interpreted as trumping them that way. But in no case does he ever say "the rules are wrong do this instead"

(without admitting that errata is needed anyways)

my understanding (I forget where from) is that Adventurer's League cares about what is in the books and the published errata, and it is the discretion of the individual DM whether they consider stuff like Sage Advice and Jeremy's tweets or not in when they are adjudicating the rules

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, I can't argue with that :) I just wasn't sure about the blanket statement I bolded above.

@NautArch AL is all about RAW. Sage Advice is something explicitly mentioned that DM's can completely ignore.

3:32 PM

Complete side note: I finished my Masks campaign last night! I think it went really well overall. From our post-session breakdown the group really enjoyed it. Everyone is even willing to give Masks another go in the future! And now they are interested in exploring other PbtA games! Not bad for our group's first foray into non-D&D RPGs I think :)

@Rubiksmoose Nice!

The last fight was my worst fight pacing and smoothness wise and I learned some valuable improvement lessons from that and other hiccups throughout, but overall I think it was a fun experience for me and the players.

Also, soooooo much easier to prep/run than D&D.

Loved it.

My group is currently doing our first run of Dungeon World. Our one-shot has turned into a three-shot.

@Rubiksmoose very cool. I definitely want to look outside D&D soon.

one-shot, two-shot

red shot, blue shot

3:35 PM

It doesn't help that our go-to reactions are to do the complete opposite of murderhobodom.

The DM keeps leaving hints that the cultist society that we're hanging out with is probably evil.

@Yuuki My group is often the same lol

@Yuuki Also my one-shot turned into an 8 shot with many many hours.

@NautArch :) Highly recommend.

@Rubiksmoose Whoa whoa, yes he was holding a bloody sword next to the beheaded king, but thats circumstantial evidence! Innocent until proven guilty! The queen is an unreliable witness!

And suddenly your fantasy adventure is a courtroom drama

hm

My bard has weird culture shock going on, the fighter is doing low INT things, and the ranger (who is the most sensible of us three) doesn't have a forceful personality.

@Rubiksmoose Just the fact that D&D has no mechanics for XP and roleplay is frustrating. I'm fine handing it out myself, but it makes encouraging it problematic.

3:37 PM

nWoD is I think the non-D&D-derivative system I have the most familiarity with

what mechanic do you think is lacking, exactly?

And so even though we opened the one-shot with fighting cultists, we ended up kinda-sorta buddying up with them in the second part.

Also all level based systems have a problem with the individual reward of experience because it's either in amounts too small to mean anything or it means one or two players spend significant amounts of time being just flat out better than the others

spend-XP-to-buy-benefit systems just work far better with individual reward encouragement - a few more points of XP gets you a tangible benefit but doesn't make you so much better than your comrades as the difference of a level does

@NautArch Yeah though technically Masks doesn't have that either in the way D&D does. You gain Experience from failing any type of roll. Fail enough rolls and you gain an advancement. Pick advancement from list and continue.

@Yuuki That is hilarious actually.

@Rubiksmoose We even visited their local headquarters in town!

And we're going on an expedition with them in the next part.

@Yuuki Do they have a friendly name?

3:43 PM

@Yuuki pick up some pamphlets? Lol

@SirCinnamon I don't have my notes so the name has currently escaped me.

@Rubiksmoose That is in fact how we found their headquarters.

@Carcer In general I agree, although it puts more responsibility on the player to choose their advancement wisely, and can be punishing if they invested badly or inefficiently

@Carcer I usually don't reward individuals, but give XP as a party.

A group of the cultists attacked the bar we were are and we killed all but one of them.

We were originally stuck on how to proceed after the fight because it's rude to search someone's body for clues without asking for permission.

@Yuuki amazing

3:45 PM

@MikeQ not really much different from a character that takes Toughness, afaict

@Yuuki Esteemed Veterans In League

My bard ended up using ventriloquism on a corpse to "give permission" for a search as long as we put everything back and buried the person.

2

So we didn't get any loot for the first part of the one-shot.

And one of the cultists had some pamphlets on their body.

Lo and behold, we found their headquarters.

@Yuuki okay, that's officially the best thing I've read all day

@Yuuki Did they evaluate your thetans?

@SirCinnamon No, but they did have some weirdly appropriate accommodations for our visit.

Like a perch for the ranger's eagle and an extra small seat for my kobold bard.

3:48 PM

@Yuuki Spooky

Have you guys ever found the Disarming rules to be a bit OP? My DM confided to me the other day that we accidentally cheesed our way past a major combat encounter because his suuuper evil cultist bad guy was supposed to use a Magic Shovel to turn himself into a Rock Golem, but couldn't, because we spent the entire time in combat repeatedly disarming him of the shovel, then causing him to have to take the shovel back, until our overall damage took him down.

@Xirema What system?

@Xirema Doesn't really seem OP. Just seems like your DM missed a possible tactic in their encounter design.

@SirCinnamon 5e.

@Xirema sounds like smart fighting to me

it's much less effective if the action economy isn't stacked heavily to one side

3:50 PM

@Xirema Oh it's optional, I guess I've never played with it

Yeah, if you have single boss fights that can be neutered with a single mechanic, the action economy can end up with some really one-sided fights.

@Carcer That was what I pointed out to him, that if he doesn't want us to stunlock/disarm-lock his BBEG, he needs to put more than one into combat.

@Xirema And anyone who holds aloft a powerful magical item in an obvious way is begging to get it slapped out of their hands

@Yuuki I mean any "single boss" encounter will be ruined by a stun or CC

On the other hand, the combat session was really stressful overall. Before he got the shovel, he was flying around with a 60ft/round flight speed, against a party that has no viable ranged options. So the moment we got him grounded, it was just a never-ending chain of Grapples + Disarms + occasional damage if we had action economy leftover.

3:51 PM

As a DM, action economy sucks because you're actively disincentivized from making cool thematic single boss fights.

thats why a ton of bosses get the autosucceed 3 saves legendary action

I would just give that to bosses you want to have solo fight

was about to say, this is what legendary resistance/actions and lair actions are for

@Xirema how did the disarm work in combat itself? DId one player use their action disarm and then someone else picked it up or moved it?

I still don't think I would play with the disarm rules typically

@NautArch Yeah, pretty much. 5e Disarm replaces one attack, so my paladin (2 attacks + pretty good STR modifier) would force the disarm, our rogue would grab the shovel + disengage, and then the cultist would have to chase down the rogue.

3:54 PM

Then it's the DM's fault for making the bad guy dependent on the shovel

@MikeQ Is it? Most creatures in the MM would be extremely weak with no weapon/casting focus

humanoids I guess

If I was a player in that scenario, I'd figure that disarming was the obvious (if not expected) strategy

Yeah. With the benefit of hindsight, I think we cheesed our way past the encounter twice, now that I think about it.

yeah, especially if you get to start fighting before he's used it and it's obvious that it's an important magical item

Because we fought him twice, once in a vertical tunnel, where we used the same disarm + grapple chains to subdue him. We locked him up, but the next morning, he broke free due to some Third Magic BS, and then stole the shovel again, and we disarmed + grapple chained to subdue him the second time, and just killed him because we couldn't keep him locked up.

3:56 PM

the next cultist you fight will have his shovel on a bungee

@Carcer The shovel wasn't his, it belonged to the local Dwarven kingdom.

@Xirema Yeah, that seems pretty powerful (and kinda steps on a Fighter's toes with their disarming attack).

at the point where you'd already done the grapple/disarm dance on him once and he didn't change tactic at all that's really, really his fault

@NautArch You call it powerful, I call it teamwork :P

Did he use the shovel with one hand or two @Xirema?

3:58 PM

@NautArch The difference for Fighters is that they get to also deal damage with their Disarming Strike, and the check to resist the disarm is a lot harder for Disarming Strike.

@NautArch the battlemaster manoeuvre lets you disarm as a free bonus on an attack that hits plus still does damage - it's much more versatile and obviously a straight upgrade to disarm

~~Doesn't the Fighter's disarming attack also do damage?~~ inb4'd

@Xirema So did this guy fail literally all of their saves or what?

All very fair points :)

Disarming is powerful if removing the enemy's weapon will neutralize most of the threat

3:59 PM

@Rubiksmoose Actually he passed about 60% of them. We just kept doing it to him. =P

Which means it's powerful in the same way a control character is powerful, i.e., a wizard could do it

@MikeQ and @Xirema built an enemy with a glaring achilles heel that his party intelligently focused on.

I'd actually be happy that the party picked up on the clue for the easy button.

@MikeQ A wizard can do it at the cost of spell slots though

the disarm attack is a pretty low resource cost of 1 attack

Disarming is reversible though. The enemy could try to take the weapon back.

@SirCinnamon And still lets you use your extra attack as a followup.

4:02 PM

I'm a fan of maneuvers like disarm. They give versatility to the otherwise straightforward martial characters.

@NautArch I don't remember. The shovel wasn't that big, so it didn't require being used as a two-handed weapon (especially since it's main use was magically conjuring large boulders to hurl at us, as though it were a wand), but we never tried to use it ourselves, so we don't know what its properties were.

@NautArch Does it?

@Xirema Was the DM annoyed that you guys kept disarming the obviously disarmable bad guy?

17

Q: Does D&D 5e lack a general disarm rule?

I get from the PHB that there is no general rule for disarming an opponent but only a specific rule for Battle Master fighters. Can we assume that other classes (even other fighters subclasses) lack the training for such move or can we deduce that everyone can attempt a disarm without the superi...

dnd-5e combat-maneuver

This question doesn't really say whether you can choose to Disarm as part of an Attack action or whether Disarm is a separate action.

If the latter, you wouldn't be able to use Extra Attack after Disarming.

I would hazard a guess that Disarm is in fact a separate action and therefore wouldn't allow an Extra Attack.

@Yuuki It does, only requires the use of one ofyour attacks. "A creature can use a weapon attack..."

4:05 PM

that's in keeping with attempts to grapple or shove, though

@NautArch I interpreted that as making a weapon attack is part of the Disarm action.

@Yuuki The thing is that it says "A creature can use a weapon attack"

@Yuuki It also says "If the attacker wins the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item.", which sort-of implies that it would-have-been a normal attack if not for the disarm effect.

@Yuuki You're right! I scrolled up :) It's under Action options. I'd consider each one of those an Action to take.

@Yuuki I think this is probably right actually when comparing the text with Grappling

This also further prevents it from stepping on the Battle Master's shoes as the Battle Master would be able to make two disarming attempts per turn as well.

4:11 PM

but only a handful of times a day, though

to save some time, imagine I have just gone on a lengthy rant about arbitrary usage limitations on mundane abilities

boy that was a lengthy and well-put rant

@Carcer oh man I've never thought about that before (like legitimately). Now I can never unsee it though.

thank you, thank you, I'm here all week

@Carcer Oh man, I'm thinking about taking back some of the things I said about Harrison Ford. Good point.

Ended up submitting a question on that very topic, because a cursory google search did not reveal anything useful on that subject.

fair enough

my money would be that it is supposed to work in the same way as the grapple and shove special attacks, but I should be working

4:22 PM

@Carcer I kind of think this as well, but now I'm not so sure.

I feel like it's only written differently because of distance

@Xirema I upvoted your disarm question, sorry I ruined your perfect 6000 rep.

like overrun (detailed on the next page) explicitly says it is an action in its own right

@Carcer Yeah, and stuff like Grapple expressly says it replaces an attack, so the details for Disarm are maddeningly unspecific.

This is one reason why it is not correct to assume just because one thing specifies something that all other things must specify it to be true. The issue is different writers specified different things and it is hard to read what that actually means.

4:34 PM

My gut instinct is that Disarming is meant to be a whole-action replacement, since otherwise it makes Disarming Strike harder to use.

Disarming Strike is better for the Action Economy because it lets you also deal damage, but it also has a lower chance of success (requires you to successfully hit, AND have the enemy fail their saving throw), and is limited to X uses per day.

Although I guess it's not much different than rolling +HIT vs an enemy's athletics check.

Since the alternative is +HIT vs an enemy's STR saving throw.

Though all the other actions do say "When you take the X action" or some form of that.

First two answers on the question both seem well-reasoned and completely contradict each other. XD

I wonder if it's supposed to be a damage replacement? I.e. you have to land a weapon attack hit, THEN do the contest and only then the disarm happens?

Here's my hot take: this ability was very poorly written.

@Rubiksmoose (fire emoji)

4:41 PM

@Rubiksmoose this ~~ability~~ ruleset was very poorly written

Joshua Aslan Smith

this _______ was poorly written is an apt description for the 5e books in general

My suspicion is that a lot of the things in the DMG that are optional rules did not even get the (arguably) insufficient amount of critique/playesting that PHB stuff did.

Joshua Aslan Smith

the specifically forgot all of the readability and UI tricks from 4e because bolded keywords signifying a rulesterm and other helpful readability tools were too associated with the edition that "WAS NOT MY D&D!" etc.

so 5e leaves us arguing about capitalization signifying the same thing

(attack vs Attack in the rules)

@Rubiksmoose Agreed, the DMGs presentation as a whole is here is this box of optional mechanics you can cherry pick from to build your preferred version of the rules

I mean, in general, I greatly prefer how 5e is written, not least of which because it puts more control in the DM's hands. But also, you do want to have a consistent basic framework of combat, universal mechanics, etc., and ambiguities like this weaken that framework.

@SirCinnamon XD (in response to your comment to mine under your answer). Comment removed BTW.

4:46 PM

@Rubiksmoose I cant even say I haven't had my caffeine because I have... guess I need more

Joshua Aslan Smith

I feel like if I want a wholly GM operated ruleset Ill do something like Dungeon World where the players inhabit a narrative driven experience that mechanics are applied to after they narrate their actions, not before

Are there any things OTHER than grapple that can replace one attack of a multiattack?

Shove I guess

Joshua Aslan Smith

D&D seems like a bad fit for that what with all the lootz and myriad of character development and build options

@SirCinnamon you could totally try to toss someone over a ledge with repeated shoves

@JoshuaAslanSmith That's one thing that I've been trying to break from with our first try at Dungeon World. I find myself looking at my character sheet for options sometimes as a habit from D&D.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Yuuki It took my playgroup multiple sessions to shake the habbit

*habit, lol like im writing hobbit up in here

4:49 PM

@SirCinnamon But grapple and Shove are basically the same type of creature. I can't think of anything besides those that explicily or otherwise allow it.

@JoshuaAslanSmith Don't shake the habbit, that can cause brain damage.

Joshua Aslan Smith

basically I think its valid to look at your sheet as a player to remind yourself of the special things your character can do

@Yuuki I think you are thinking of shaking the hobbit.

@Rubiksmoose Exactly. That's basically the argument in my answer. I dont think theres anything else that swaps in like that

Joshua Aslan Smith

like the figher's ability: Bend bars, break doors, is a very unique narrative used ability that you may forget if you don't scan, but it should just be a reference

4:50 PM

Should I move that bit about Extra Attack into its own question? That's a big part of what I was trying to figure out ("can I Disarm twice in a turn if I have Extra Attack, replacing both of my attacks with Disarm") but now I feel like maybe I should split it into a second question, contingent on the consensus answer to this first question.

@SirCinnamon (none of the standard actions anyways) not sure about class specific stufgf which probably isn't relevant here.

@Xirema I don't think so. The answer to that is contained in your question.

Joshua Aslan Smith

the flow I have in my head is player narrates the PC's in world action, GM suggests appropriate Rules logic (from general or the player's sheet), Player can suggest a specific character rules interaction of the GM did not.

no, don't separate

@Xirema I don't think so either. Keep them together.

4:51 PM

there is only really a meaningful difference when you have extra attack, anyway

@Xirema I dont see any way that answer would be different from the answer to this one.

huzzah for agreement lol

Yeah, that makes sense.

I'll wait and see how answers shake out, but at this point, it looks like I'll probably end up just houseruling this for my own tables: "Disarm is treated as its own Action, not as a replacement for a single Attack".

Because TBH, being able to attempt a Disarm twice in a turn (or 3-4 times for Fighters) seems too powerful.

Like, Battlemaster Fighters is fine, since they're using a limited resource to do that.

But everyone else.... Eh.

I persoanlly think NautArch has the right of it with reading the rules

But that is a separate issue with how it would actually run best with at a table.

@Xirema Between it being optional and unclear - I'd go with whatever you feel is working best at your table. But I wouldn't look at it through the lens of your recent battle. The results of that were kinda on your enemy design :)

4:59 PM

@NautArch Yeah. Also, thinking more on it, there was a two-round period where the cultist guy was underground, where realistically, if he had wanted to transform into a giant stone golem, he had the opportunity to do so.

I mean, if you really want him to get that off because the big stone golem is the actual boss fight you're trying to have, it shouldn't be that hard to design the encounter such that the guy has enough time to do it before the party can hit him

@NautArch Parsing the original scenario, I don't think @Xirema is the DM.

Two of us were grappled onto him in mid-air over a long vertical shaft, and the Druid cast Dispel Magic on him, removing the effects of the Fly spell. He dug an emergency tunnel into the ground, and the rest of us rolled a lot of fall damage. XD

@Yuuki Yeah.

@Xirema OH! In that case - Kudos!!! Yeah, your DM either intentionally or unintentionally put an easy button that monster. You guys found and used it. Great strategy and teamwork.

@NautArch lol, that's one way of looking at it.

5:03 PM

@Xirema I have often tried to include hints for easy buttons, but they get ignored. And then a deadly encounter ensues.

"Hey, you guys should really go talk to so and so", says NPC.

Players "Let's just go and fight!"

@NautArch I'm really tempted to make an encounter that is just a literal button with the word Easy on it. And all they have to do is press it. Put that in the room and see how long it takes for them to figure it out.

@NautArch At this point I just rub players noses in their mistake XD. NPC walks up "What, you didnt even want to use this super special sword that kills him in one hit?"

@SirCinnamon okay, now you're just making it sound like a challenge

@Rubiksmoose Don't have it be red. They'll definitely press the red button.

of course I'm playing this game on hard mode, sir

5:05 PM

@Rubiksmoose I once put a huge door covered in gears in front of my players. Some gears were missing and laying in front of the door. Many different materials, sizes and shapes. The secret was... its a pull

do I look like some sort of casual adventurer?

@Carcer NPC begins to weep

now, if you would kindly please step aside, I believe you are standing on my spleen

@SirCinnamon hahaha

@Rubiksmoose They solved it accidentally while trying to pull a gear off the door. After an embarrassing amount of discussion

5:08 PM

oh dear lol that must have been quite the moment.

I once ran a brief game which was heavily inspired by Dwarf Fortress and required the party to go delving through an ancient dwarven ruin

this included a room full of unlabelled levers of mysterious purpose

luckily for them they never got around to messing with the ones that would flood entire floors with magma or water

I've still got a puzzle based on the "this guard only tells the truth, this guard only tells lies" puzzle, except the posted Sign informing the players of this is lying, neither path leads to their destination, and both guards are liars. (both paths lead to some decent loot though if they beat their respective encounters)

@Xirema I like this a lot. Even more so that there are actual rewards in both paths.

@Xirema "I attack both guards"

Actually, twist the knife a bit: both guards tell the truth, but they both think the other guard is a liar.

5:19 PM

I wonder if another sign down one of the paths should say "The first sign was lying" and then let them argue about whether this sign is lying or if the first was actually was wrong.

@Xirema Okay, that one's amusing

@Rubiksmoose Yup.

Double twist; the guards are actually going through an acrimonious divorce with a nasty custody battle. Both of them want the party to testify for them as character witnesses.

@Carcer "He keeps telling people this path leads to Neverwinter!" "I've never said that before in my life, HE's the one who keeps telling people that THAT path leads to Neverwinter!"

@Xirema "Well I guess all paths lead to Neverwinter because it's Alwayswinter IN BED WITH YOU, DAVE"

5:24 PM

@Carcer [DM rolls for damage]

1 hour later…

6:54 PM

I know this question is really old, but does anybody understand what it is actually asking?

6

Q: What are the implications of 'Living Construct'?

Based on this Tweet by Mike Mearls I understand that a Warforged unit is a 'Living Construct': cure wounds works on [warforged], stuff that works on living or construct works on them This goes to say it has both the 'Living' and 'Construct' creature tag (if living was a tag). This means cur...

dnd-5e unearthed-arcana warforged

@Rubiksmoose I think they're asking if a Warforged PC (but maybe NPC also) is classified as a humanoid, a construct, or both.

they're assuming it's both based of the Mearls tweet, but that may be an incorrect assumption.

but given the previous question about creature types of PCs, I think it's clear that it's not actually of the Construct type.

And just noticed BESW made that exact point in a comment to the answer

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