TRPG General Chat

Ben

01:03

BESW

Ben

How goes the day

BESW

This afternoon I'm going to be making a lot of brownies.

Ben

Oh yum

BESW

Finally found a big can of pumpkin puree, rather than pumpkin pie filling.

What's new with you?

Ben

01:08

Costochondritis

BESW

...Warehouse Store Syndrome?

Ben

No that's Costcochondritis :P

Haha

My chest has been sore lately. Particularly around my sternum. Went to the doc to get it checked out and he's told me that it's a swelling in the cartilage that connect the ribs to the sternum.

BESW

Ouch.

I cracked that once, it wasn't fun.

Ben

Usually caused by viral infection following trauma or severe strain.

Which is odd, because I haven't experienced either of those in a long time.

and to make it even more interesting... It's not just in my chest - got the same situation in my shoulder and in my knees and hips as well

BESW

The Great 2018 Cartilage Rebellion of Ben.

Ben

01:13

Gonna get an xray to see what the issue is

BESW

I hope it's simple to address!

Ben

Indeedle

trogdor

Oh man

I hope that gets cleared up for you

Ben

At the moment, the doc reckons it's just a case of anti-inflammatories and recovery.. The only concerning factor is that I got it without the usual causes.

That said, people have dislocated joints while sleeping...

Lol

BESW

Ben

01:22

The only other thing is that my office building is having a rather severe impact on my Pokémon Go GPS.

Haha

When in the office, my PoGo avatar is ~8km away from my actual location.

But as soon as I walk out the front door, it corrects itself.

BESW

Are you sure that your office isn't just a pocket of spacially displaced coordinates?

Ben

I'm starting to feel like that's the case

V2Blast

02:40

How's everyone doing today?

Ben

Currently going between decoding programming code, thinking of plot points that I can focus on in order to give my short story a bit more of a foundation, and figuring out how to come up with several Diablo monsters for a low-level 5e campaign\

Axoren

02:58

Finally posted the question about that nasty little Bonus Action spell wording: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/132426/…

That's a first attempt at fixing it for use with my group. Usually I just handwave it on the spot, when a player really just wants to do that little bit extra.

But it would be nice to just have it in writing what my stance is on it.

But I want to make sure it's not broken and exploitable before I write it in stone to my players.

Axoren

03:58

Can anyone tell me why my question is getting close votes?

BESW

Somebody seems to think it's unclear.

Axoren

Aside from the one commenter who misread a RAW ruling and downvoted because he thought I was misinterpreting RAW, no one's posted a reason for it to be closed. I was pretty sure to be as clear as possible.

BESW

Instead of trying to clarify to just that one person with comment responses, how about editing the question?

Axoren

@BESW Will adding what I said in that comment make it any clearer?

BESW

I don't know, I'm not familiar enough with the system.

Just responding to common patterns and best practices.

I will say, "balance" is not a useful term. Have you been clear what you mean by it?

Mar 23 at 5:41, by BESW

@ravery The trick to "balance" questions on RPG.SE is, "balance" means something different to everybody. We can only help you with balance questions if you can explain to us what "balance" means for your particular group/campaign goals.

Mar 23 at 5:41, by BESW

For your game, is balance about using mechanics to manage the spotlight so everybody gets time to feel useful (does out-of-combat usefulness redeem in-combat obscurity)?
Or keeping fights interesting by making sure they aren't too long or too short?
(What is "too long" or "too short" for your group? How can you tell?)
Is it about making sure the players will win the fights while keeping them feeling like they could die at any moment, or is it giving them a fighting chance but there's still a reasonable likelihood (20%? 50%?) of character death?

Axoren

04:02

Hmmm, those are good points.

I always assumed that balance was just well understood as an "I'll know imbalance when I see it" type of thing

I guess in terms of balance, I do need to be clearer.

BESW

I guess the thing to focus on is, "What part of the experience of the game at your table are you trying to change, and why, with this rule?"

Axoren

>Is this rule change balanced? In terms of balance, this should not tip the level of power any class has significantly. It shouldn't have massive effects on the average DPR of a class, it shouldn't reduce the value of class options that involve spellcasting (there shouldn't be any feature that this rule change makes worse), and there shouldn't be a heavy opportunity cost for not making use of this rule in this way.

>If not, what changes would need to be made to keep with the spirit of the changes but remain balanced? The spirit of these changes are to increase the flow of gameplay, not to …

Rubiksmoose

04:39

@Axoren Not going to lie, that is one heck of a lot of question to read.

Axoren

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, you're telling me. I had to write that thing.

And after all that work, it's going to get silently closed.

Rubiksmoose

2100+ words lol. Impressive.

Axoren

I don't know how clearer I could have gotten with the question. It's a "will this break things" question with lots of "this is what will happen."

Rubiksmoose

@Axoren Eh, it only has two right now. And if it does get closed you can always meta it to get it reopened. Homebrew stuff always seems to get a bit of resistance here for whatever reason.

Axoren

@Rubiksmoose 3

It only needs two more.

Rubiksmoose

04:43

@Axoren So it does.

Axoren

I can't even tell if I've addressed V2Blast and Szega's concerns of clarity. I have no clue about the third's concern at all.

Rubiksmoose

Well I don't see anything wrong with the question inherently, but I honestly also can't make it through the entire thing right now.

@Axoren Honestly if you have literally any way to make it shorter it is going to help you.

Axoren

@Rubiksmoose I'll be sure to hire an editor, lol

Rubiksmoose

Not that a long question is any reason to close it.

Axoren

That's going to be as big of an undertaking as writing it in the first place.

Rubiksmoose

04:46

@Axoren No kidding lol\

Axoren

I really hope people aren't voting to close it simply because they don't want to read something long.

I know it got at least one -1 without any explanation, but I think that was Szega for thinking I interpreted RAW wrong.

Rubiksmoose

@Axoren I wouldn't think that it is only reason but who knows. The length definitely isn't doing you any favors though.

Axoren

I'm definitely gonna follow your advice and shrink it, but I can't tonight

I don't even know how I'd shrink it without making things more complicated.

Rubiksmoose

@Axoren I'll try to give it a read tomorrow when I presumably have more energy and see if I can offer any advice.

Axoren

@Rubiksmoose Thanks, I also made sure to put your edit back in because I was editing at the same time. Sorry.

I appreciate it.

Rubiksmoose

04:52

@Axoren hah! I didn't even notice. No need to apologize.

Anyways, I'm headed to bed. Night everybody.

Axoren

Night

V2Blast

Yeah, I didn't vote to close, but man is it long

Ben

05:15

Can you summarise the post into a paragraph?

Usually a TL;DR can help, especially when the main problem with the question is that it's TL;DR.

kviiri

Sup all

Ben

Yo

kviiri

06:16

It's windy and autumny outside. I wish I didn't have to work today :(

Helwar

06:27

@Axoren hey, in your question I think there is a grammar error

"They try to case a second spell" Wouldn't it be cast? It's in the section "Problem 1 after Rule Change" and it appears three times in a row (copypasted it?)

I'm not sure if it's a mistake or a use of the word I'm not familiar with

BESW

07:13

trogdor

08:49

HAHAHA

yes

@BESW read all the things!

BESW

09:04

Oh, Troggy, we got dragonfruit in our fruit crate this week, so it's probably in the stores too.

Ours is really ripe so I don't know if it'll last 'til Saturday, but if it does I'll share it with you.

trogdor

09:25

fantastic

Anaphory

@kviiri Goedemorgen! I managed quite a decent run of DCSS yesterday (until about 5am in the morning…) and then, instead of x-ploring my own ghost in a vault in the Shoals, I opened the sealed door. The vault also contained an Obsidian Statue – which prevented me from running away – a merfolk and something else. Which could still have been fine if I could have teleported away using a scroll, lasting 3 turns was no problem.

But I was wearing wearing some patent crystal plate armour with teleport denial.

Which might still have been fine with a lot of support from Trog (not @trog), because what killed me in the end was my own summoned Deep Troll of Trog who had taken a hit from a javelin of penetration I threw at the statue.

Helwar

09:41

waaa?

Anaphory

@Helwar Dungeon crawl stone soup, a roguelike. You can encounter the ghosts of other characters, including of your own previous characters. Was that the confusion?

trogdor

@Anaphory well which is it? XP

Anaphory

@trogdor Thanks for your support!

trogdor

lol

Helwar

@Anaphory I was lost in the abbreviated title, I think we talked about the game a few weeks ago but I didn't remember the name

all's right now :)

kviiri

10:28

@Anaphory Yeouch!

It's a lovely game :>

Anaphory

@kviiri I managed to clean out the Orcish Mines and everything!

kviiri

@Anaphory Wow, you've gotten good

It took me ages to clear them :)

doppelgreener

11:02

TIL: in Nepal's Chitwan National Park, tigers and humans are sharing the same space and paths, but at different times of the day. That's remarkable since tigers are usually active day and night in their territory, but they've opted to only use those paths during nighttime while humans travel them in the daytime.

kviiri

Then again when I started Crawl, the Orcish mines were four levels deep. Three easy ones and one hard.

trogdor

11:39

@doppelgreener huh, I would not have thought tigers would decide to change behavior for any other creature like that

That sort of implies like, some very forward thought

And either consideration or fear

Neither of which I would expect at all from a tiger

Colin Gross

@trogdor human probably scare off all the good food. Or the tigers are trying to eat healthier.

trogdor

@ColinGross XD

BESW

There have always been wild animals that adapt to human-dominated spaces, but recent trends in expanding human spaces and contracting wild-animal habitats have driven more animals to make that adaption.

Tigers are a bit of a surprise though.

doppelgreener

You can say that again.

BESW

Another example: fishing cats in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

trogdor

11:49

@BESW that's what I am saying, I didn't think that they ever would FEEL threatened enough to do that

even if it would technically be easy for humans to,... get rid of them really

Colin Gross

@trogdor Tigers have amygdalas. They can fear things. Plus, cats fear irrational stuff all the time. They're jumpy.

trogdor

yeah, not saying they can't fear stuff, but humans are not especially scary looking

Colin Gross

@BESW Or the trash pandas in Toronto. Some have figured out how to get into the "racoon proof" garbage cans. Others aren't so bright. Selection pressure for the little masked bandits to adapt to human contraptions.

trogdor

note that I didn't say "not especially scary" I added the looking part because humans are plenty scary if you think about all human capability

BESW

@ColinGross Behavioral plasticity is, I think, the new phrase.

See also: Chicago coyotes.

Colin Gross

11:52

@trogdor Who knows what's scary to a Tiger? Probably a tiger expert, but that's beside the point. I dunno.. Justin Beiber might be popular on the mp3 players in Nepal. That's probably what's scaring them off. The thread of western pop music.

Large cats just walking around grousing about apes and the music they listen to.

doppelgreener

Would it be fine or inadvisable to bring up & describe some drama going on elsewhere in the RPG community?

Colin Gross

@doppelgreener I've had coffee. Let's hear about the drama. If it's good enough, I'll make popcorn early.

BESW

Can we do it while avoiding gossip and backbiting?

Colin Gross

@doppelgreener Plus, then the chat will at be about RPG related topics for a while.

@BESW How about conjecture and constructive criticism ?

doppelgreener

@BESW I think so.

Roll20 is having a PR episode. A Roll20 staff member banned a user from the Roll20 subreddit on the basis of concern they might be a ban evader, they weren't sure but chose to “play it safe” and ban them (chronicled here). The user is concerned that they, and the other person Roll20 staff thought they were, were both banned apparently specifically on the basis of having criticised Roll20.

They were also concerned that in their appealing with Roll20 customer support, Roll20 customer support appeared to consider the ban fair on the basis of their appeals messages alone.

BESW

12:10

Criticised Roll20, or criticised specific Roll20 staff?

doppelgreener

Criticised Roll20 as a product for some areas in which it doesn't work well.

BESW

Ah.

(Coincidentally, I'm watching ContraPoints' discussion of capitalism. I will try not to indulge in too much bleedover.)

doppelgreener

The subreddit's burning down with calls for the staff member to step down as a moderator, and complaints about moderators deleting messages about this episode, and said staff member provided an explanation but apparently also put their foot in their mouth at the same time.

Colin Gross

@doppelgreener So mod say "ban evader" and issues new ban. Community cries foul and says "corporate shill". Let's see how this plays out, Cotton.

If the bans were issues for the criticism, it's an example of the Streisand effect

If the bans weren't for criticism, it's just bad PR?

doppelgreener

Right.

BESW

12:18

I mean, no matter the cause, defaulting to banning someone if you're not sure isn't a super great thing either.

Colin Gross

Well, thanks for the heads up. Looks like it's a morning for reddit and popcorn.

@BESW Unless you're banning half the sub all at once.

doppelgreener

Yeah. Like here we have to be certain beyond a doubt before we consider someone a ban evader.

Colin Gross

@doppelgreener I doubt it has to be beyond a doubt.

BESW

And if the appeal process really doesn't involve checking any information beyond the appeal document... also not thrilling.

I'm reminded of the recent GoodReads insanity.

doppelgreener

The banned user closed and deleted their roll20 account as well (formerly a paying user), and a few others others are claiming to do the same, so this might force roll20 inc's hands.

Oh, the staff member's explanation is at -22,321 points and counting. (Yes, that's negative.)

In 12 hours. That's impressive.

Another moderator responded advising them that banning for suspected evasion is not a good policy, and it advised them they should not have enterprise staff moderate the subreddit but outsource to other neutral parties.

BESW

12:24

So, better than the GR drama.

doppelgreener

@BESW What happened with GR?

BESW

O man. It's super complicated to get into all the weird cul-de-sacs. Um.

A publisher noticed that some GoodReads magazines focused on publishing the works of marginalized communities were getting deleted from the site, and expressed concern on the GR forums.

doppelgreener

... [gets the popcorn]

BESW

Several "librarians" (unpaid site moderators) responded that magazines without a certain book code were not allowed on the site, and their user-made entries got deleted whenever they were noticed; they insisted it was purely coincidence that of the many magazine entries eligible for deletion under this policy, only queer/POC content was actually being deleted.

Colin Gross

@doppelgreener And has brought up a bunch of issues the staff was trying to quash on the roll20 forums. Definitely Streisand Effect! I think I'll stick with Fantasy Grounds.

BESW

12:29

The publisher who raised the issue responded with relephant quotes from Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and got chastised for rudeness.

This sort of thing continued for two days, when someone finally dug up the official policy documents which showed clearly that the policy the "librarians" were citing didn't actually exist.

GoodReads' official statement, last I heard, was that "librarians" were volunteers who can't be expected to know the rules they're enforcing, and that people who talk about how GR could work to eliminate systemic racism in its moderation are rude and will be banned if they keep insulting people.

kviiri

Wow, that's sad.

The internet makes me sad at times

@BESW (what's a "book code" in this case?)

doppelgreener

@BESW oh goodness. :(

BESW

Twitter thread documenting the exchange, with screenshots, for people who want to feel angry.

@kviiri ISBN/ASIN.

doppelgreener

I'm mad already, selectively deleting poc and queer content based on a nonexistent policy and inadequate response from the company. :(

Anaphory

@kviiri It was a lot of “go downstairs, run upstairs again, deal with the three things that followed me”. Having a mutation of regeneration helped a bit.

kviiri

12:36

@BESW Ah ok, the Twitter thread also clarified it... so they essentially said "we don't deal in magazines", and somehow everything wiped through that policy was queer or poc. Seriously nuts :(

@Anaphory Good ol' stair dancing :)

BESW

@kviiri Specifically magazines whose publisher hasn't bought book-level serial numbers for each issue, which some magazines do but is far outside the price point of most small productions.

And, again, no such policy exists anyway.

kviiri

@Anaphory One tip that might save your characters' lives: when using a set of stairs for the first time, you'll spend less time "arriving" at the destination level. (Crawl tiles mode annotates such stairs with a yellow asterisk)

BESW

(BTW, Fiyah is a great magazine.)

So, if anybody has suggestions for an alternative book-listing site I'm open to switching!

Preferably also not owned by a company with a de facto monopoly.

Colin Gross

@BESW Thanks. That was a great read with my coffee this morning.

BESW

I'm so, so sorry.

Colin Gross

12:50

Nah it's fine. I used to write software for university libraries. I enjoy the topic.

Actually, I'll pass it along to the actual academic librarians that I know. Most of them do make book recommendations, but there isn't a collected curated aggregation of them.

However, providing an authenticated university librarian book recommendation list & application probably wouldn't be that difficult. It's not in the purview of HathiTrust, but that project did lay the ground work for massive collaboration... this could just be a small add on.

Lemme go see if I can rile up actual librarians.

BESW

The thing about GR is, it's a lot of different services in one site.

Some people use it for book recommendations, some for keeping track of what they've read and want to read and when new books on their lists are published, some use it as a kind of book-focused social media site, some use it to keep in touch with authors....

Colin Gross

@BESW All of that stuff actual librarians already do. They have some pretty good methods for it to, but getting developer time is a problem for cute ad-hoc one off things.

When you get a few dozen universities together to pool resources for a common project or cause, then you can get dev time.

BESW

Cool.

ravery

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/132439/… why was this closed? it is perfectly answerable

doppelgreener

@ravery at least for my part, those words are not a sentence I can parse

Colin Gross

13:05

Needs a system tag. Probably needs a clearer statement. Maybe I'll suggest an edit.

ravery

it has a system tag 5e

BESW

At the very least, important information is in the title but nowhere else. Titles, while useful summaries for questions, do not replace the question itself.

doppelgreener

If you understand what they're asking, I invite you to rephrase the question and make it clear for others.

BESW

Also, yeah, I think it accidentally a verb.

ravery

ok

doppelgreener

13:06

@BESW I think it accidentally several different kinds of words

Colin Gross

@BESW Are you one of those the body of the email should repeat the subject line people?

kviiri

@doppelgreener I think they're asking an opinion based question about which spells they should pick for their sorcerer but I may be misunderstanding.

BESW

@ColinGross Important information should be in the body text. That's not the same principle because it's practical rather than prescriptive, but it often results in the same exhortation.

ravery

no he is asking which spells would Elemental Affinity affect

I've reworded

Colin Gross

I thought draconic ancestry gave you a breath weapon.

kviiri

13:10

@ColinGross That's dragonborn the race. The Sorcerers with draconic blood get a bunch of other loosely dragon themed powers.

BESW

"What would spell associated with Draconic Ancestry?" is not a full sentence.

Carcer

"Elemental Affinity

Starting at 6th level, when you cast a spell that deals damage of the type associated with your draconic ancestry, you can add your Charisma modifier to one damage roll of that spell."

Colin Gross

Gotcha.

Carcer

it's not proper english by any stretch but I think ravery has correctly surmised what the querent means

kviiri

I'm not sure but I'll concede that their interpretation is as good as mine

BESW

13:13

This is also the kind of question where I might leave a comment like "Please [edit] your question to tell us about your own research, and specifically what you're confused by in what you've found."

But I don't know the subject matter well enough to weigh in on mainsite.

Joshua Aslan Smith

15 minutes too late but Goodreads is frustrating for its high rank on google and widespread reach with very mediocre book recommendation lists and linking

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith Yeah, I'm more like "What's Nnedi Okorafor reading? I'll read that."

Colin Gross

@JoshuaAslanSmith I concur. The ubiquity and ease of access of the mediocre is frustrating at times.

BESW

And "When's the next Murderbot Diaries book coming out? I can't wait that long."

Joshua Aslan Smith

man murderbot feels

ravery

13:16

roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Sorcerer#content scroll down to bloodline

BESW

And I rather like using it to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read.

ravery

it is straight forward -- Brass dragon is fire

Joshua Aslan Smith

Ive never liked a novela so much and at the same time been flabbergasted at the price I paid vs read time after the fact

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith The second one was even better and I don't know how that's possible! The third was still very good but not as adorable as Murderbot and ART's relationship.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I bought the 2nd

same issue, really enjoyable read

but like did I just pay 10 dollars for a novella I read in a few hours

BESW

13:18

You might also like "Fandom for Robots." Which is free.

Colin Gross

The roll20 subreddit is a glorious dumpster fire currently. @doppelgreener Thanks for the heads up on this one. It's been coffee and popcorn all morning.

Joshua Aslan Smith

hrmmm yeah, Theres a dearth right now and I have to sift through so much scifi to find something I like

there is the new Richard K Morgan book coming out next month

BESW

There's so many good free short stories available online!

Joshua Aslan Smith

so theres that

BESW

There's a new Lady Astronaut book that just came out, a new Peter Grant is coming out in two months, I haven't read The Redeemer yet, there's still a ton of Xuya stories I haven't read yet....

kviiri

13:23

I'm seeing Colin Gross and ravery as just names instead of avatars on the right side bar

BESW

The second Sixth World novel isn't slated for publication until next year and I can't wait.

kviiri

Is this a bug?

Joshua Aslan Smith

I was reading a bunch of alistar renyolds stuff but he ends books badly

BESW

@kviiri I think it's a hosting issue.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@BESW what is this lady astronaut you speak of

BESW

13:28

@JoshuaAslanSmith Here, have a free short story in the Lady Astronaut series: "The Lady Astronaut of Mars."

Joshua Aslan Smith

heh

BESW

Tor.com will also give you a free ebook every month if you sign up for their free newsletter.

The first Murderbot novella was free the month before the second one came out.

doppelgreener

@kviiri if you have a privacy extension, it may be blocking those images based on their source

especially if you have privacy badger

BESW

I have the badger, but I only get the no-image-just-text box erratically: not all images from the same source are affected that way, and sometimes none at all.

Colin Gross

@kviiri blocking my icon is probably safer anyway.

kviiri

13:43

@ColinGross But I see it normally in the chat feed proper

Colin Gross

@kviiri My condolences. You should probably get that fixed. I suggest replacing it with something entertaining.

Carcer

does refreshing the page make a difference?

Colin Gross

@Carcer How many pages on the internet do you actually find refreshing?

Sir Cinnamon

doppelgreener

@SirCinnamon <3

this comic is markable

Sir Cinnamon

13:47

good ol' bear and funny bird comic

kviiri

It's themusing indeed

Carcer

I ad that comic

I might read it later

kviiri

I was feeling a bit cited a bit before this conversation, but no more since lingual games always get me excited

Carcer

bonus game: how badly does it mangle the rules if you try and apply this linguistic logic to D&D

Anaphory

@BESW And excellent!

Sir Cinnamon

13:53

@kviiri If you were cited before, i believe that means you were ex-cited

Carcer

@SirCinnamon </rainier wolfcastle>

doppelgreener

@Carcer does this mean i can only cast Pelling Blast the first time?

And can I only resurrect people who have died a second time?

(What level is the Surrection spell?)

ravery

rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/132439/… The OP has returned and confirmed the edits. Could we get some reopen votes?

Joshua Aslan Smith

ask and ye shall receive

BESW

@doppelgreener Surrection is a high-level druid earth-moving spell.

(It's a geologic term for tectonic upheaval.)

doppelgreener

14:03

So do you have to cast surrection on a corpse before you can cast resurrection on it, assuming you can still find it afterwards?

Joshua Aslan Smith

heh

Sir Cinnamon

No you have to cast it on a newborn, so that they live for the first time

thats what baptism is!

Joshua Aslan Smith

very change is a vert

@SirCinnamon My reformed-sense is tingling

though actually thats super hyper localized for the US since most sects outside the US would perform infant baptism

ravery

14:18

@JoshuaAslanSmith Yes, traditionally babies were not baptized until the were certain to survive 4-5 days of age I think it was. Though, the high rate of infant death has considerably declined since then

Joshua Aslan Smith

well speaking theologically AFAIK adult baptism only after a profession of faith is pretty much the norm with evangelical denominations

KorvinStarmast

@JoshuaAslanSmith Are we on the right stack? 8^D (I participate a bit a Christianity.SE stack ... and baptism has a lot of treatment there).

@DavidCoffron Thanks for the comment; fixed.

doppelgreener

We're definitely on the right stack for this conversation, all is well

What would we talk about if not literally every topic other than RPGs? :D

Xirema

I can get us back on topic: So last night, our party rogue, who has 8 Dexterity and no proficiency in Stealth, managed to successfully get into the palace armory and steal a set of +1 Studded Leather Armor without having her identity revealed or getting captured.

I'm still in shock.

doppelgreener

Impressive!

Rubiksmoose

14:26

that is really impressive. Must have had a blessed d20.

Xirema

Well, I should point out: I said "successfully get into the palace armory".

I did not say "sneak into the palace armory".

There was an attempt at sneaking in.

It did not work.

doppelgreener

LOL

Thank you for this clarification

Sir Cinnamon

What about getting OUT of the armory?

ravery

In reference to this questioin rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/132437/…, would Sirit Guardians be Undead?

Spirit Guardian

Xirema

She propped herself up above the door, and got two really good rolls for Acrobatics + Stealth simultaneously to vault herself out of the door before they could spot her.

Yuuki

14:28

@ColinGross Was about to post that here.

kviiri

I'm still a bit unsure about how the studded leather armor is supposed to work

Xirema

@kviiri Well, normally, it has 12AC + DEX, but it's +1, so 13AC + DEX. Resulting in a total of 12 for our Rogue, because they have 8 Dexterity, because oh no I've gone crosseyed.

doppelgreener

@kviiri Real life historians might ask the same question.

(Studded leather doesn't exist in real life.)

Xirema

Oh.

Well.

Yuuki

It's a fantasy fiction trope thing.

Xirema

14:30

The latter part of my comment stands.

Yuuki

Not sure where it originated.

Anaphory

Misunderstood brigandines?

Yuuki

Probably, now that I've looked at the Wikipedia article.

ravery

@Yuuki probably with "punk genre". leather attire with metal studs

Sir Cinnamon

You could easily call it boiled leather, if you want to run a more historically accurate D&D game

...for some reason

kviiri

14:32

@doppelgreener Yea, I'm aware that it's a fabrication. I can't help thinking if there's any way it could be made into a remotely working concept, though

Joshua Aslan Smith

@KorvinStarmast well since waxeagle is no longer active here someones gotta bring it up

doppelgreener

@kviiri Put armor on the inside that the studs are there to hold. Boom! Now you have brigandine armor and it works.

@SirCinnamon wouldn't that just be normal leather armor though?

David Coffron

@kviiri I mean. I found this

Sir Cinnamon

@doppelgreener I think "leather armour" would just be thick leather clothes

David Coffron

Also, studded leather sounds suspiciously close to ring mail

Sir Cinnamon

14:36

protect you from road rash and cushion some hits

Rubiksmoose

@ravery Nah, I would not say so.

ravery

@DavidCoffron similar, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_armour#/media/… scale, stud and ring mail

Rubiksmoose

If the spell was summoning undead it would say so. These are just generic spell effects that are being called spirits. They don't even count as creatures.

Xirema

How often do people deal with the Potions & Poison crafting systems in 5e? Our party put the fear of god into our DM at the end of our last session by beginning to lookup all the different effects that can be theoretically crafted.

Rubiksmoose

@Xirema Is there even one? lol /s

That would be a no from me. Haven't touched it.

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:41

@Xirema limit availability

kviiri

I'm generally opposed to crafting systems in DnD, for largely the same reason I'm against them in video games

Joshua Aslan Smith

5e was described as explicitly not having the"magic economy" o fprevious editions

meaning you can just walk into a medium sized settlement and buy some potion reagents and whisk some up at home

kviiri

They're often that cool sounding idea that does nothing to support the gameplay experience and instead winds up detracting from it

ravery

@Xirema I don't uses it, though I allow herbalism/medicine kits to make healing potions if they have proficiency and purchase supplies.

Xirema

@JoshuaAslanSmith Well, our DM for our campaign permits buying anything up to Uncommon rarity in the capital city where we tend to "roost", usually for 3 or 4 digits worth of gold pieces.

ravery

14:42

I just don't detail what supplies

Joshua Aslan Smith

if someone is looking to focus on the poisons they should really be looking at some of the unearthed arcana stuff and tweak a class like ranger or rogue around it

@Xirema then sir that is your DMs problem lol

if I was DMing and someone wanted to focus on it it would be a class feature

OR its basically a series of sidequests to aquire the knowhow and ingredients to make a limited amount

Xirema

For me, I think it would depend on what, exactly, they're trying to make.

Like, if you go down the list of poisons, about 1/2 of them are basically "Deal xd6 on successful application if the target fails a [relatively easy] DC Constitution Saving Throw".

And anything you apply to a weapon only lasts for a minute.

Some of them are more interesting though.

kviiri

I'm a bit angry at 5e for not having the magic items in PHB

Joshua Aslan Smith

I mean its basically half the DMg

Xirema

One poison deals 1d6 damage every 24 hours, which can't be healed until they are cured of the poison, which (without magic) requires 7 successful saving throws to shrug off.

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:47

or you just wanted a 1 book stop

ravery

@kviiri Possibly, that was to reduce the cost of the PHB

Anaphory

@JoshuaAslanSmith @kviiri I guess it's more the implication of what's supposed to be player-facing, and what GM-facing rules?

KorvinStarmast

@JoshuaAslanSmith I wish I could find a way to thank waxy for the time and effort he (and I think mxy had a hand in this too) put into getting C.SE off the ground. I really like that particular stack.

kviiri

@Xirema Sounds like a bookkeeping nightmare :P

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri Yeah, I mostly agree with you, though the Diablo III (CRPG/DUngeon Crawl) crafting mechanic is mostly usable and low overhead.

@kviiri That's not where they have ever been in D&D. (Oh, wait, 4e maybe?)

@kviiri I also have an answer here on the site about not using DMG as a shopping list, but I think that was aimed at artefacts.

Carcer

14:53

videogame crafting can be entertaining, if for no other reason than doing the Full Skyrim and exploiting it horrendously

KorvinStarmast

@Anaphory BIngo. Player facing/GM facing. Dead on.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@Anaphory oh I wholly think the magic items are supposed to be DM facing only

Xirema

My problem is that I play a lot of games like Minecraft, Terraria, Starbound, Factorio.... Basically, if my game doesn't offer some kind of crafting mechanic, I get withdrawl symptoms. XD

KorvinStarmast

@Carcer Heh, rune words in Diablo II. Grinding for crafting. :p

Joshua Aslan Smith

based on their intent as expressed in interviews when talking about the systems design

Rubiksmoose

14:55

I made the mistake of wandering into a (the?) D&D 5e Facebook group the other day and man was I struck immediately by the advantages of a Q&A site for getting answers. 500+ comments on dirt simple questions. [shudder]

Joshua Aslan Smith

4e had a pretty understandable and completely avoidable magic crafting system

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast It was in 4e, and it cuts back on the time needed to "just give" the players something

Although D&D beyond makes it a lot easier in 5e, I wouldn't really want to rely on a subscription service for that

KorvinStarmast

@JoshuaAslanSmith Feel-wise, having magic items be rare makes each one a more exciting find. Magic items taken for granted detracts from the narrative paradigm they were looking for. And then you get Waterdeep, dragon heist: Monty Haul is back.

@kviiri the SRD has enough to work with, and it's free.

Joshua Aslan Smith

yeah I know its basically at odds with itself

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, although I think the magic item design in general isn't very supportive of their supposed role

Joshua Aslan Smith

14:57

the express design intent at launch was 1 thing vs the needs of the business and the player base want

historically magic loot books have been pretty lucrative for D&D publishing

KorvinStarmast

@kviiri We hear time and again that you could play the game through 20 with almost no magic items. So I am not sure of what you mean by that?

David Coffron

@doppelgreener can mods close as dupe to things that aren't answered? SSD and I asked the same question 30 seconds apart

Joshua Aslan Smith

the 4e digital tools were eveyrthing you ever needed

my only 4e questions on the stack were either character optimization or edge case rules interactions

Carcer

if 3.5 taught me anything, it is that it is literally illegal to publish any sort of D&D book that doesn't include new spells and magical items

kviiri

@KorvinStarmast That there's a lot of magical items that don't really fill the narrative slot of magic items. Eg. the traditional "incremental bonus item"

like a +1 blade

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