TRPG General Chat

KorvinStarmast

00:29

@MikeQ I'd call that a good plan. thx for the tip. :)

nitsua60

01:57

@JoelHarmon finished Mistborn.

2

Ben

04:25

Is there a "Social" stack? or is this effectively it? haha

I am having some issues with our D&D group, not in regards to the game, more in regards to the people and their individual behaviours, and it's causing... issues.

However I'm not exactly sure how to deal with it, because I'm not sure who's exactly to blame. Myself, or them.

Miniman

There's an interpersonal stack.

Ben

Awesome :)

Mike Q

But if it's tabletop related then it may be topical for here too

Ben

04:47

Not overly. The only time we really interact is during our meet-ups for game sessions, but I don't feel it's related to gameplay.

It's more the social aspect

I just get ignored and spoken over the top of a lot

BESW

05:04

Interpersonal.se is... very niche.

Last I checked in, they were having trouble comprehending that some kinds of interactions that seem casual and non-threatening for some are existential threats for others.

trogdor

mmm

how sad

like how I absolutely hate all parties with more than like, 5 people

BESW

Relatedly, they tend to suffer from failing to differentiate "nice" from "kind" or "compassionate."

@trogdor More like, conversations about identity (race, gender, etc) can be amusing theoretical discussions for some folks but for other people in the conversation it can be a debate over their right to personhood.

trogdor

ooooh

@BESW well, those are all,.. adjacent things

but certainly not the exact same

BESW

Yeah. I've talked about this in the context of the Stack Exchange "be nice" policy, where "niceness" is often a way of prettying up things that are very unkind and completely lacking in compassion..

Kindness and compassion is often nice, but niceness/politeness/civility is often used as a fig leaf for refusing to be either of those things--for example, so long as you don't say certain words, you can defend being as mean as you like.

In the Interpersonal.se example I saw, someone was asking a very sincere question about how to handle it when other people demanded that he engage them on a very personal topic in a very uncomfortable way, and IP.SE meta dogpiled him with demands for justifying why he got uncomfortable when casual friends wanted him to have these very personal, uncomfortable conversations about the power imbalance between himself and those casual friends.

user15026

I like the idea of IPS.SE better than the actual experience, mostly

V2Blast

05:18

I like the moderation of IPS.SE when I've come across it

I don't spend enough time there to comment on much else

anyway, a question:

BESW

It seems very useful for people in a very specific set of circumstances, but broadly unwilling to expand its perspective beyond that niche, and aggressively defensive when confronted with the narrowness of its applicability.

(A compassionate response to that person's question would have accepted his being uncomfortable as truth, rather than challenging his right to his own feeling. They weren't rude about asking him to justify his feelings, but that didn't make it any less insisting that he wasn't entitled to feelings they didn't understand or agree with.)

V2Blast

is it just me, or does [hexblade] seem overly niche to justify a tag?

(did hexblades even exist in older editions? I dunno the history)

BESW

@V2Blast Broad policy rule of thumb: don't mess with the tags until there's a problem we can give examples of.

V2Blast

Yeah, didn't plan on messing with it. That's why I'm asking here

BESW

We let folks come up with tags and we learn, from the use of those tags, how the site's tagging works.

V2Blast

05:23

it doesn't have any usage guidance either

Miniman

@V2Blast In 3.5, they were a very crappy, underused base class.

V2Blast

(not that it really needs it since it's only on four 5e questions)

ah

Miniman

In 4e, they were a type of warlock.

Mike Q

@BESW I dunno about rudeness, but I know their stack has a pervasive problem about making cultural/social assumptions, which causes friction when anything deviates from it

BESW

A mediocre type of warlock, sadly, despite the awesome flavor.

Miniman

05:25

In 5e, they're...well, you know.

V2Blast

lol, yeah

Miniman

And no one wants to hear me diatribing about this again.

V2Blast

The Forgotten Realms wiki page has this: forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Hexblade

with just one citation to a WOTC page from 2007, and the cleanup template says it's mostly copied from that page

BESW

I think it's useful to remember that terms aren't franchise-specific.

Dungeon World has Hexblades, for example.

V2Blast

Ah, didn't know that

never played it

I know many terms aren't franchise-specific but I didn't expect Hexblade to be a thing outside D&D

BESW

05:30

Even setting that aside, though, all that's needed to justify a tag is that it describes a question's content in ways that makes it easier for experts to find it to answer it, and for other people with that same question to find it.

V2Blast

fair enough

on an unrelated note, I'm confused at the downvotes on my answer here:

-2

A: Can two Large (or larger) creatures flank two Medium creatures who might split attention?

Neither creature is currently flanked regardless. The optional flanking rule is described on DMG p. 251 (with an image demonstrating it on the previous page): A creature can’t flank an enemy that it can’t see. A creature also can’t flank while it is incapacitated. A Large or larger creature ...

BESW

Because it's unintuitive AND excessively literal, inasmuch as it ignores the basic definition entirely in favor of the example for checking.

V2Blast

fair enough

BESW

"When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, they flank that enemy." That's clearly what's going on in this case.

V2Blast

Yeah. It also says: "A Large or larger creature is flanking as long as at least one square or hex of its space qualifies for flanking."
The problem is that the text is a little self-contradictory, in that the rule they propose for when it's "in doubt" whether flanking is going on directly contradicted by the basic description of flanking.

Guess I'll just edit it to point out the contradiction

BESW

05:40

That would make it a much better answer. As originally stated you're just picking one of the contradictory statements and ignoring all the others.

And it's one of the least intuitive and weirdest.

V2Blast

I missed the contradictory parts originally

I disagree that it's really any weirder than the other way to interpret it though

Flanking's just a terribly designed optional rule in 5e

BESW

Wait, okay, I just read 3.5's version of that "draw a line" check and that clarifies that there is no contraction.

5e's text: "If the line passes through opposite sides or corners of the enemy’s space, the enemy is flanked."

> or corners

The line from middle to middle of the giants passes through two corners of each of the smaller creatures.

V2Blast

but it doesn't pass through "opposite corners"

e.g. top right and bottom left

BESW

I think a good case can be made that they intend the same check that 3.5 describes more clearly:

> If the line passes through opposite borders of the opponent's space (including corners of those borders), then the opponent is flanked.

The two corners in question are the corners of opposite borders.

V2Blast

if "opposite" wasn't an operative word there, then you could have enemy A to the creature's west, and enemy B to the creature's northeast or southeast, and still get flanking

BESW

05:46

Mike Q

@BESW I think that section is just for when it's ambiguous

BESW

@MikeQ Agreed. I don't think, in this case, it is ambiguous at all within 5e's non-legalistic environment.

Mike Q

The question is asking if the flanking is cancelled, because there are now two creatures being flanked, each of which would get the attention of a different flanker

trogdor

@Ash seems appropriate simply from the descriptions

at first I was intrigued by it's existence but,.. oh well

V2Blast

edited

Mike Q

05:55

@V2Blast I don't think the "draw lines from the middle and do geometry" works as a general rule because it's inconsistent

It would mean that two large (2x2) or two gargantuan (4x4) creatures can't flank 1 medium (1x1) creature head-on, but two huge (3x3) creatures can

V2Blast

@MikeQ: You should address the apparent contradiction in your answer as well, even if only to suggest that it's not a contradiction because (as you argue) the last section's only for when it's ambiguous

Mike Q

Otherwise the large sized giants and trolls would be like, "Argh! Me cannot hit puny human! If only me was slightly smaller or slightly bigger!"

V2Blast

@MikeQ That's not really "inconsistent", just perhaps "illogical"

BESW

See, I figure this is why in D&D all the larger creatures tend to be angry and mean.

V2Blast

Hahaha

BESW

05:58

They're perpetually confused and possibly in pain just because they occupy multiple squares in a world designed for one-square people.

V2Blast

I'd believe it

BESW

In 4e, dimensionality changes on a fundamental level when moving from within a five-foot square to between five-foot squares.

V2Blast

does the universe explode

BESW

That is, inside a five-foot area things seem to map to our real-world geometry fairly well. But when you get bigger than that, it uses chess measurements: moving three squares is traveling the same distance whether you're going north or northwest.

Mike Q

There are some features in the PF splat books that give +1 foot bonus per level to certain stats, and it mentions that any extra distance above a multiple of 5 feet doesn't actually count

> Alchemist: Add +1 foot to the range increment of the alchemist’s thrown splash weapons (including the alchemist’s bombs). This option has no effect unless the alchemist has selected it 5 times (or another increment of 5); a range increment of 24 feet is effectively the same as a range increment of 20 feet, for example.

(source)

Apparently planck length in Golarion is context-sensitive

BESW

06:04

If you take this measurement anomaly to its logical conclusion, then you can draw a 5x5 square room on the grid map and your in-game character walking around inside the room will identify it as circular because every point on the wall is equally distant from the center of the room.

But if you draw a circular room on the grid map, your character inside will find that it takes more distance to get to some edges than others, and identify the room as a square.

V2Blast

on a related note, I came across this question about flanking (under related questions) and the revision history clearly suggests it's about the original "D&D Next" playtest rules. was/am I right to revert the tag to [dnd-next-playtest] and fix the phrasing in the post back to "D&D Next" as it originally was?

26

Q: Does flanking always grant advantage, or is it up to discussion?

The rules packet does not provide any specific rules about flanking. However the rule does say that the DM has lots of leeway in deciding when to give advantage or disadvantage in combat. Should it be understood that flanking always gives advantage, or is the DM supposed to only give advantage ...

(It was asked in 2012)

BESW

That moment when you realize "Iä!" is just basically pronounced "Yeah!"

Tweeted by maxgladstone on October 15, 2018 at 5:18 PM

"She loves you, Iä, Iä, Iä!"

Tweeted by maxgladstone on October 15, 2018 at 5:20 PM in reply to maxgladstone

Miniman

@V2Blast Ugh, what a mess. The answers are a mix of Next and 5e, the OP accepted one of the 5e ones...I think you're definitely right, but no matter how it's edited it's going to confuse people.

BESW

Flag for moderator?

Miniman

I'm not sure what there is for a moderator to do, honestly.

BESW

06:13

Close, delete, close for posterity?

Miniman

06:26

I guess? I might just ping whoever is in chat next and point them to this conversation, rather than trying to explain in a flag.

@nitsua60 If you're about, ^^

The Oracle

06:55

0

Q: Getting a "This question has been put on-hold since you loaded the page" popup when trying to flag my (closed) question on mobile

My question was closed as off-topic, and it was suggested that Board & Card Games would be a better location. Okay; that works just as well. So I went to flag to request migration. I was on mobile, so I opened up Chrome, opened the question, and tried to flag it. Except... This question ha...

bug

kviiri

08:13

@BESW I always thought it'd be pronounced more like "Yay" or "Ayaa" in the Anglosphere, which keeps the basic point intact quite well :P

The Finnish pronounciation is quite to the English word "year"

Quite close even

Trish

08:56

@V2Blast are corners opposite of one each other alowable?

T. Sar

11:07

I have a question, but I don't know if is adequate to the main site.

It is about Call truce and similar feats. It is more of a game design question than anything else

My group (me included!) is bothered by this feat existence. We think that things like this shouldn't really be feats, and that Call Truce should be instead a regular use of diplomacy.

Joel Harmon

@nitsua60 So that's what, three books in five days? I take it you liked them.

T. Sar

Our idea is that Call Truce isn't _that special_ - it is just like grappling, charge, running or talking - it is something you simply _can do_ if you're at least a bit able with words.

Would there be a big impact of allowing this, and similar feats, be "built-in rules for regular actions" instead? For now I'm not requiring the feat to "call for a truce", but I would like some opinions on the matter.

Carcer

@T.Sar "what's the balance impact of effectively letting people have this feat for free" seems a valid question

we can't answer "why is this a feat and not just a thing you can do" because that requires divining the designer intent

T. Sar

@Carcer nods

Still, it feels a bit too opinion-based for the main site, so I'm a bit hesitant on posting it there.

That said, I wouldn't mind discussing it over chat!

BESW

It'd be quite doable if you tell us what your balance concerns are.

Joel Harmon

11:18

One thing to note is your entire party has to just stand there and take whatever the opponents dish out, for a full round, which may or may not include you dying. Then you have to make a very hard check after that.

Since most combats I've seen in PF or the D&D systems are in the 4-6 round duration, this seems like a very last-ditch effort kind of thing.

BESW

Personally, I suspect it exists because systems like Pathfinder have a business model of perpetual additional material so everything gets re-legislated into smaller and smaller chunks over time.

...I wonder if anyone's done a D&D-like hack for social attacks against HP, like how FAE flattened the stress tracks into a single abstraction of staying-in-the-fight-ability which could be targeted physically, mentally, socially, etc.

(And not just 4e's ability spread shifts.)

doppelspooker

Mild shock! You think areas of basic human competency shouldn't be packaged away piecemeal prohibitively behind dozens of feats? :D

But yes that's kind of a design problem in Pathfinder

Joel Harmon

@BESW Not the same, but I was once trying to explain to a friend how the system's rules impact options available to the player and the DM. Far too late I came up with the idea of "simplifying" all the saves, armor, weapons, initiative, and dozens of offensive spells into skills for mundane/magical offense/defense, and ask how that might impact combat.

He was trying to argue that a "good DM" could use 5e's Advantage rules to simulate social combat to the same degree as physical combat. The DM would just fill in the blanks.

Carcer

what Call Truce gives you is the special ability of being able to do it in one round even against actively hostile opponents - as normally you cannot "make requests" of creatures unless their attitude is indifferent or better, and influencing them to improve their attitude normally takes at least a minute

doppelspooker

Feats like that coming into existence is a source of people pointing out how martial classes get nerfed. The feat's “Normal:” section functions as errata for how the game normally works, reducing the capacity of characters across the board. Alternately, the feat's existence implies you cannot do that thing without the feat anymore, or cannot as easily.

Carcer

11:32

the rules as written are that you cannot use diplomacy in combat, effectively: "Diplomacy is generally ineffective in combat and against creatures that intend to harm you or your allies in the immediate future."

so

you could never do that thing without the feat, according to the rules

doppelspooker

The net effect is a feat like that existing changes (by implication or explicit errata) peoples' perception of the capacity of existing skills.

Carcer

they are adding a new way to use diplomacy which was previously not legal

doppelspooker

I mentioned martial classes though: magical classes don't get impacted by these nerfs the same way because they can pick up spells to do things like this, and they can afford many more spells than a martial class can afford feats, and a Wizard could pick up this ability within a few weeks or—if they already have it in their spellbook—be ready to do it tomorrow.

Joel Harmon

@doppelspooker But curiously, martial classes are less likely to have the Cha to pull this off anyway.

Carcer

I'm reading from the skill description of diplomacy, not the feat's normal section

the basic description of skill says: ineffective in combat

doppelspooker

11:35

@Carcer well, “generally ineffective” doesn't mean “can't use it”. I could say "Wait! We have a common enemy!" or "Wait! We didn't do the thing you're accusing us of!" and roll diplomacy, right in the middle of combat, and that might well be very effective and have them no longer intend to cause us harm.

Joel Harmon

(though I suppose higher level characters could have skill points dominate the base stat...)

doppelspooker

But it's probably going to be useless against a gang of devils.

Carcer

I do agree the feat is dumb mind

it shouldn't be something you need a feat to even attempt - a special ability to let you do it faster/better wouldn't be completely out of order

doppelspooker

Yeah

It should've been a skill extension

“The diplomacy skill can has this mechanic now. You could always do this with diplomacy, but now there's a mechanic for it. This is a permanent extension to diplomacy. Everyone automatically has this.”

Carcer

but people don't want changes to the basic rules

the people want feats

117 new feats in this book of cooking-based character options, etc.

doppelspooker

11:39

You're right

Carcer

(and 92 cooking spells!)

[slowly veers into Dungeon Meshi]

doppelspooker

This is food for thought about how a game could handle expansions as a paradigm

Carcer

can we talk about dungeon meshi instead

I remembered it existed recently and caught up on the last few chapters

doppelspooker

brilliant. a manga about a dude figuring out how to cook monster meat?

Carcer

sort of

doppelspooker

11:45

when i played WoW, cooking was my absolute favorite skill. P

i made an effort to get absolutely every recipe on all my characters

Carcer

they do eat a lot of monsters

the basic premise is that this adventuring party has one of their members eaten by a dragon - the rest escape, but they need to get her body back before the dragon digests it fully in order to be able to resurrect her, so they rush back into the dungeon without supplies and get by eating monsters and dungeon fauna/flora instead

ooh, lunchtime

doppelspooker