I think I like the maneuvers in the order: precision (it just WORKS!), distracting, commander... then that's about it. The rest of them either depend on saves that are so hard to make land (menacing, goading) or are super-situational.

I used Feint a lot. That always seemed to work well for me

I still support my old analysis here :-P I like maneuvering and menacing.

@CTWind I like it. And, it seems, I liked it when you wrote it =)

@doppelspooker I'm unreasonably pleased that this link caught on here.

I'm also a fan of the similar isitchristmas.com

I just tested a theory crafted 10th lvl rogue reach character of mine against some tigers and was whiping the floor with them - added a dire tiger who pounced, raked and grabbed the poor bugger (down to 1 hp and grappled)... - then looked up what happened... 10th level should have had access to fly...

Boots of escape would have been nice but don't fit in the budget. But some fly potions definitively would have - though in this scenario rogue acted after being pounced by dire tiger... vest of escape is also too pricey and wouldn't help too much. -- got efficient quiver with wands... -- grease would be nice, but even if I got free I'd just die right after. Bandolier with a potion of gaseous form would work. I wonder how a tiger would react to that... - probably ignore the gas.

when the dire tiger gets his attack of opportunity while I'm grappled, does he get rake on it?

oh hey, new dude

@HellSaint You're a 5e player/gm - but you've tried pathfinder, right? - What do you like better about the new system?

Actually, nope, no PF in my life

just 3.5 haha

sorry about the disappointment :p

but from what I have seen/read, they took some of "make things simpler" mindset design of 5e and put it on PF, which makes sense since 5e tried to solve some complexity problems around from 3.5e which were probably shared by PF

@HellSaint almost the same thing :P - just saw you had some activity on pathfinder tag (2 questions) and assumed :D -- but should have noticed they were both answers not questions and 3.5 is very similar so...

fair enough :D

Oh for PF 2nd edition? yeah, downloaded that today but haven't tried it yet.

Oh, when you meant "new system" you meant 5e, not PF 2e? hahaha

and about the answers, yeah, and IIRC one of them was just a intersocial question that had very little to do with pathfinder

nevermind, I did not recall correctly, that was a Warhammer question.

Both the PF questions were answered mainly with 3.5e experience... LOL

figured - and one mentions some of the things you like better about it

yeah, balance-wise, while 5e still has its problems, it's way more balanced than 3.5e

but what I like the most is, thanks to the "make it simpler" mindset I mentioned, it's actually way easier to introduce new players to it

yeah, and probably easier not to obsess... I spend too much time thinking about interaction effects and building "builds" rather than characters. I hadn't played in years pretty much for that reason and this weekend I got back into it just a little - boom, like 20 h over a few hours spent researching magic items and what not

I still use a lot of time in concepts and builds, but yeah, worrying about magic items is especially something that left my mind

The design intent in 5e was that characters would be useful through their features, and any magic item they get is just a bonus. Although this is obviously optimistic for martial classes at high levels, you aren't worried about the best magic item for each slot

I was tempted to switch to 5e - but I fell pray to the sunk cost fallacy

Plus magic items being less common than usual, you might actually not be able to get the magic items you thought carefully in your build :p

Well, you can try 5e out mostly for free :P basic rules are there, DM basic rules are there

Starter Set Box costs about $30 in my country, but might be cheaper depending on where you live, and from experience it's totally worth it :P

I meant sunk time cost more than rule books... I only get those in pdf format and that's typically cheaper - free if you can share with a friend.

Oh hahhaa

yeah, that's something hard for my still-crazy-about-3.5e friends too

Does it increase options for players to just use creativity again like 1st and 2nd ed did? because then all the 3.5 e materials could still be used as inspiration for cool ideas...

Another very strong mindset in 5e is "Do whatever you want as long as everyone has fun and your DM is okay with that" :P

As a recent example, check Lead Designer answers on Animal companions - rpg.stackexchange.com/a/134261/43856 - essentially saying "yeah you don't need rules for that, just roleplay it duuude"

I never played past low levels, possibly why building this character took so damn long. Had to learn all about the big 6 etc. and little experience on what kind of things one would encounter... -- how would you go about testing the feasibility of a build? sofar I've been testing solo, but normally there'd be a party which kinda changes everything.

theorycrafting goes as far as theorycrafting goes haha

there is no actual way of testing it without an actual party

you could make an entire party, play as the party and test it, but that's usually unfair as you are too coordinated with yourself

(lesson learned from me playing as a NPC party against my players' party - gezz, that was brutal)

yeah, fair enough - maybe cohort style? like add some relatively useless npcs that just help with the action economy a bit

if you can pass normal encounters with that any real party should fare better than that...

agreed

also take into account different encounter settings (terrain, visibility, etc.), as one of the most common mistakes in theorycrafting is the "we are in a vacuum" thinking

I also suffer from "wanting to do things in non-default ways before having done it the normal way"

but for realz, I would say just go for it and play the character

so I like stat x to y thingies, archetypes, multi-classes --- my Oradin (2 oracle + X paladin) was my favorite character sofar due to the Cha synergy

I played the same divination wizard over 5 times, every time learning something new about interactions, the class, monsters, etc

that one actually did experience play - and quite a bit of modification as the GM changed what rules where available part-way through

I considered wizards, but all players I've played with have been casual, so I want to play things that have to be optimized to even become viable (i.e. catching up rather than overshadowing)

don't be afraid to leave the drawing board, test stuff out and then go back to the drawing board when you notice stuff got messy

haha yup. do you consider tests part of the drawing board?

but I get you, I started DMing because I would create so many characters I knew I couldn't play all of them as a player, so I would turn them into NPCs ;P

well, if it works, you don't go back to the drawing board, so it depends hahhaa

I think I get overly invested in characters in games (way beyond the build, i.e. rp wise) - and normally you can't just change the character details when you don't like them - so I want to make sure the mechanics don't get in the way of seeing the character through the story.

I guess GMing would be a good way to gather more experience about what kind of builds work or don't with what kinds of parties without having to get invested in my particular character making it...

yeap

I also like to put "rival parties" in my campaigns

so I can just put my characters against theirs for the lulz and for a "PvP" test :P

with npc gear though?

otherwise that'll really mess with the WBL right? :D

That's assuming a player party ever won against my NPCs ;)

jokes aside, even if you give magic items to the NPCs, you can just give some lame excuse for not rewarding them as loot

Well if they don't it'll mess up the WBL of the NPCs :P

like oh no that magic item only works with that specific person

damn.

or oh well the magic item desintegrated?

and then just reward an actual correct CR-wise treasure to the party

either way, NPCs don't have to follow the PC rules, so you can also just give them a magic item feature without having the actual magic item. There are lots of solutions that don't screw WBL

Feels to me like that would have to be pre-arranged with the players (i.e. "sometimes more magic items will be necessary to provide a good challenge than is appropriate to reward you afterwards, would you like me to acknowledge that in game with some desintegration spells or should I just add intrinsic bonuses where possible" and hand-wave it?) -- otherwise feels a little like cheating :P

anyway - guess back to testing

tbh I never had players complaining about that

ever played Jagged Alliance 2?

nope

Don't even know what this is tbh

and wow it's 4:40 here

I need to sleep LOL

Turn based rpg strategy/tacitcs game. There's a crazy detailed mod (called 1.13, since the last official patch was 1.12) and ... oh yeah I'll let you sleep :D

it's only 12:40 here

nice to meet you anyway, sleep well

I did play a bit of Jagged Alliance 1

thanks

I probably will be around more

I was out due to my master thesis

Something about a tree sap with healing properties

Now I should be finishing it haha

till next time

I just ran 140k instances on our CS department's cluster

Zero successes, seems unlikely my thesis code is working

Or to be more neutral, zero positives (I'm programming a tester that can provide false negatives but no false positives)

haha - there was a guy who did some CS AI stuff on JS2 for his master's thesis... ke.tu-darmstadt.de/bibtex/attachments/single/136

I never did play JA1... JA2 1.13 added so much goodness that I can't even play vanilla JA2 anymore :D

Yeah, I'm under the impression that JA2 is where the money at.

I still haven't made it from Master of Orion to MoO 2 either

@JoelHarmon I've linked it a few times in professionals contexts too. :D

lol

you forgot the nitpicking that followed.

i wouldn't say i forgot them

@doppelspooker Ditto.

rats - is this comment an answer or a clarification request?

kinda feels borderline

@Derpy Isohedral is correct no? I cant think of any dice with differently shaped faces

@NautArch Very borderline... I don't understand the assumption that "has a STR score" == "makes STR saves" though

so without an example I guess its hard to answer? or really easy: "It fails because it's an object. Having a score doesn't change that"

can you grapple or shove an object? as an attack?

@SirCinnamon no standard dice, but such dice do exist

I guess end of the day I think the answer posted is sufficient. STR and DEX saving throws from spells may not be able to traget the hand but a collapsing ceiling would cause a dex save, a big rock might call for a str save so... those might be the most common environmentally triggered saves

its feasible for the hand to have to make one and it would fail

which is weird - but thems the rules

@NautArch Your answer on that Toll the Dead Q from yesterday is doing quite well

We had a classic D&D encounter during our session last night. Our Party had to face off against perfect clones of ourselves, stats abilities and all. =O

@SirCinnamon I think it's more that it can. Since Bigby can grapple a creature, I'd think a creature could grapple/shove it.

@SirCinnamon the frame challenge answer I may add is "it doesn't matter, because nothing can force a save on it"

but that now involves a review of all monsters

which i am not inclined to do since I can't do an easy sort like I could with spells.

@NautArch They could grapple or shove, but those arent actually saves are they? grapple is a contest?

@SirCinnamon right, those are ability contests

@NautArch But there are tons of environmental things which force saves

@SirCinnamon example?

Traps, cave-ins, collapses and... slick floors

it's a spectral floating hand...

i was thinking traps just as i wrote that :P

@NautArch Stuff can still fall on it

It has a listed AC and hp and nothing in the description indicates it isnt a solid object

@SirCinnamon yeah, that's true.

It floats so the slick floors probably dont apply haha

I was thinking more about offensive capabilities against the hand

and not so much about environmental

@NautArch Battle master Pushing Attack and Disarming Attack cause STR saves

(Disarming seems useless in this case)

Trip attack as welll

@SirCinnamon requires a creature target

@NautArch Oh right

I think it's just the environmental stuff

How do adamantine weapons work against a floating hand

and traps also seem to require a creature to trigger

so it really is just a random environmental area effect

@HellSaint long time, no see. How's things?

Congrats on the near-finish!

@Xirema ooooh! How'd it turn out?

@NautArch The short version is that I Ensnared the Mirror!Rogue in place with an Ensnaring Strike, rotated around to get out of their range, and got to laugh as even with their paladin buff, they were helpless to break out. Then, with 40% of their damage gone, our Druid nuked them with Erupting Earth and Moonbeam a few times, the rogue and I cleaned up the Mirror!Druid and Mirror!Rogue, and then we spent like 10 more rounds trying to bust through the 20AC on Mirror!Me. XD

@Xirema ha, nice! Do you think your DM played them appropriately?

or did they kinda make it easier so that your mirrorselves didn't take over like a scooby doo episode?

@NautArch Not even slightly. I don't know what he could have done about the Rogue getting stuck in place, but the Mirror!Paladin burned all their spell slots on smites on me. Which did a lot of damage.... that I then healed up with Lay on Hands.

Also, the moment her allies went down, Mirror!Paladin didn't bother to heal them up, and when they did use their healing, they spent all of it on themselves. It feels like one of those "This is who YOU are!" moments, except I usually save LoH points specifically to bring back allies. =/

My LoH usually goes to me, but that's because I'm on the front line and have lower AC and HP than my barbarian melee buddy.

I'ill use minimal amounts to keep revive a downed party member, or use a chunk if we're in a combat that doesn't have me up front and fighting.

@NautArch Yeah, most of my LoH points go to our 12AC rogue. That's been happening less now that she has her 'Reaction→Half Damage" feature, but she still takes quite a few hits if any of our enemies ever get too frustrated to bother trying to hit me.

@Xirema We just got a rogue in our party and I'm not overly fond of him IC because of some of his actions - but I'd heal him if necessary. He's more ranged anyway so I'm usually not at a spot that I can.

@NautArch A rogue that can fight at range.... (Glances at our Rogue's character sheet, where their crossbow damage is 1d6-1)...... sounds nice.

@Xirema mine is an arcane trickster rogue :)

Their dex is 8 for a rogue?

@NautArch Not by archetype, but definitely by playstyle. XD

that seems...suboptimal.

@NautArch Yeah. We had a whole thing about that in this chatroom a few months ago.

my group is way too combat focused to do suboptimal builds

@NautArch mechanically suboptimal, but possibly role play optimal!

Their 12 AC is because they have a set of magic armor that gives 13AC+DEX. XD

@Xirema Well, I do like the idea of a mirror encounter involving character traits/flaws.

Mirror!Rogue was trapped in place for the entire combat session, so when they tried to fire a crossbow bolt at Real!Rogue (and managed to hit their 12 AC despite Disadvantage), they managed to deal 2-1==1 damage, which Real!Rogue was able to half to 0 with their Reaction.

@Xirema the bolt was on target for their finger. Real!Rogue twitched

Also: I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for how difficult it is to break a Paladin's Concentration. We unloaded against Mirror!Paladin with so many attacks, and she made her Concentration save every single time. Aura of Protection + Bless + CON basically means only a natural 1 guarantees concentration will be broken.

And I'm planning to pick up Resilient(CON) as a feat later on....

@Xirema I thought halving damage taken still results in a minimum of 1 damage taken?

@Yuuki Only if the feature says so.

I thought that was the general rule for D&D rounding?

@Xirema yeah it's hard deal a lot of damage at once in 5e most characters just have multiple attacks. Paladin smites and sneak attack are the easiest ways to break concentration

Ah, it's from previous editions.

@Yuuki nope. You can definitely deal 0 damage

Not explicitly stated in 5e so technically it's a house rule.

@DavidCoffron We did once manage to get in a single Sneak Attack hit for 30 damage, raising the DC for the concentration check to 15. =O

(She still passed)

@Xirema Yeah, I went Resilient (CON) on my warlock so that I'd never lose hex. Baseline Con save for me right now is d20+10

@CTWind Yeah, proficiency on concentration checks is very powerful for any class that maintains buffs.

@Xirema it's on my top 5 feats

I continue to find it hilarious that our Pacifist Druid is also our dedicated Nuker during combat.

@Xirema what's a druid nuking with? call lightning?

@DavidCoffron Erupting Earth.

Or occasionally Moonbeam, if they've already run out of 3rd level slots.

@Xirema We had the same in 4e, except it was a Ranger. It was a really disruptive character though.

@DavidCoffron (They do keep Call Lightning prepared, but we were in a 30'x30' chamber underground; not much ability to use it)

@kviiri We've gotten pretty good at clearing out space to give them room to cast their AOE spells without hurting anyone.

@Xirema I've never seen that spell in game. looks pretty good tho

It's a good thing we hadn't hit level 7 yet. Would have sucked if the entire mirror party had Spell Damage Resistance.

@Xirema I mean specifically the bit where one is both pacifist and deals really big damage

@kviiri Gotcha.

The Ranger's player rolled crazy good initial stats and proceeded to play a Striker class as a pacifist...

...in 4e which is pretty firmly rooted in combat

@kviiri Oof. Our saving grace is in the fact that most of the enemies we fight are non-humanoid (or non-humanoids that just happen to look and act exactly like ourselves).

I played a pacifist character... in that I pacified any enemy with as much violence as possible

@DavidCoffron The best way to make friends is to knock people unconscious. Wait a minute...

It definitely reminds me of my first D&D character though. I played a Dwarf Cleric and I had written my character's backstory as a shell-shocked "veteran" (in that he fought in one battle) that vowed pacifism. That flew right out the front door when the campaign started. Eventually, the DM homebrewed a prestige class for me as a joke. I got a fancy transformation and magic beams that would only knock enemies unconscious.

I want to have an answer for that two weapon fighting... but I don't want to write it.

@Xirema It was our first group, none of us really knew about stuff like MGS or such

@goodguy5 It has an easy answer: No. Assuming that the question in the last paragraph is really what the OP is asking.

what

@goodguy5 The question is asking if the DM should give out a class feature for free if someone takes a feat. The obvious answer is "No, you shouldn't".

If I take GWM, can i have GWF?

I think we should wait for clarification, it seems that the querent already knows that the feat doesn't grant the style

When you put it like that, sure. but it's generally accepted (imo) that dual wielder is an underperformer

@goodguy5 I think that's why this is somewhat different. It's trying to make it better, and they might be onto something.

@NautArch agreed. that's what I'm saying

really, by the numbers, dual wielder LOOKS like a good feat, but it affects two weapon fighting, which is, inofitself, an underperforming game mechanic.

@goodguy5 It needs to be combined with my homebrew feat.

> Giant's Grip. Prerequisite: Strength 20+ You may ignore the Two-Handed property of any Melee Weapon.

haha

@goodguy5 That is mostly because GWF+GWM is so strong

I want Titan's Grip in D&D, darn it!

how does Giant's grip interact with great weapon fighting and master?

I'm sure someone's homebrewed a barbarian subclass for that :-P

Can you do 5 attacks that reroll 1/2, and let you do +10 damage?

@goodguy5 Probably not, since you'd have to be ignoring the two-handed property to perform the bonus action attack. Which would mean it wouldn't benefit from GWF+GWM

I could reword it as "You may selectively ignore the two-handed property", but I think something like that would probably violate the 5e design ethos (...more than the original version of the feat itself, anyways)

You could do the +10 damage part- great weapon master cares about it being a heavy melee weapon, not a two handed one ;-)

@CTWind You just need a homebrew a "Heavy Light" weapon to use with TWF and GWM!

@GreySage Dual Wielder.

But I'd agree with GWF not working- it doesn't actually care about the two-handed property, but it specifically says "When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands[...]", and you certainly aren't wielding them in two hands.

(It also works for versatile, as a result)

@CTWind Yeah, it's not referencing a weapon with teh 2-handed property.

(Anyone else find the Heavy property weird, btw? I'm get the logical reason why small characters shouldn't wield them, but designwise I don't understand why small races need to be restricted access from the strongest weapons.)

@CTWind if nothing else, it's a holdover from 3.X

and I retract what I just said about twf. that ends up being the same combination as it is now with more confusing math

@CTWind You would think Halflings would have developed smaller size Greataxes and the like at some point.

@GreySage They did. Everyone else just calls them battleaxes.

Third option is just removing it taking a bonus action, and allowing you to do it freely once per turn instead of costing part of your action economy.

(#1 and #3 together I'd also be fine with)

@CTWind I'd vote for this, it lets you attack normally and gives you room to use class features, like maneuvers etc.

@GreySage Granting an extra attack feature? Once per turn? per Attack?

Best-case scenario would be a rogue making that 2d6+Dex for one attack action with 2 shortswords, which is on-par with a greatsword's 2d6+Str. And the first one doesn't scale as well into the late game when extra attacks come out.

(which is why I think +1 AC'd be justified, even though it'd make the former stronger in the 1-4 level range)

But it'd require some thought and experimentation. I wouldn't want to disrupt things if that difference turns out to be significant.

Other option is an offhand gives +2 AC if you opt to give up the offhand attack instead of a constant passive +1

having it 'ready to parry' so to speak

@CTWind Making it similar to a shield, but gaining some versatility in exchange for effectiveness

I guess maybe that's not a great design, because why ever use a shield

everyone can dual wield

Shield Master?

In that you could move some features of the Shield Master feat into baseline.

@CTWind that's similar to the Kensai

Yeah, that's the first (and a very defining) feature of the Kensei monk

Similar, but kensei give up using a weapon for an attack, not an attack altogether.

@CTWind Which isn't that big of a deal because they can still do their unarmed monk attacks.

But allowing that as a feat would make being a kensai much less interesting.

Right. Plus, if that was a dual wielding mechanic, they could theoretically benefit from both- kick a guy, hold two weapons, gain +4 AC

but I think I like the passive +1 AC better than +2 when not swinging, ultimately.

@doppelspooker just saw your comment, wanna make sure I get it. Meta questions are supposed to be reserved for, like, formally contesting things?

My thought process there wasn't like, "I'm being persecuted, I wish to lodge a complaint!" It was "I got a 'this is off-topic' comment, and I wanna ask the person about it but if I do it here I know it'll start a big comment chain, and we hate big comment chains, so I'll do it on the channel that's actually for asking if things are on topic instead."

Don't do that? Wait to see what the consensus is first?

@CTWind ALso as the monk levels, their unarmed strikes can equal weapon damage (just longer for a kensei as they can use a longsword for a d10).

@A_S00 Meta questions are a lot of work and energy to work through. One single person's close vote is not worth a meta. That single close vote has no effect whatsoever unless four other people agree, and is usually resolved trivially with a comment from someone else saying "no this looks fine and on topic".

If it becomes a big issue — a big chain emerges with a lot of disagreement, or the question actually gets closed — then it's worth a meta.

There's a lot of weird single close votes that get cast, most of the time they just age away because nobody agrees and nothing happens, and sometimes it's resolved in one, maybe three or four comments

OK, thanks - wasn't considering creation of a meta to be a major cost, but makes sense in that context.

Comparatively major. :)

At this point, would you prefer for me to delete it or leave it up?

But also pragmatically—if nobody else agrees and votes to close you already won your side of the meta. :D

This one seems safe to delete, I think, until such time you see the question actually get closed.

In part for consideration of not putting TJL under such a spotlight for their one close vote.

There's nothing for the meta effect to do right now than focus attention intensely on that.

<focusing intensifies>

@NautArch thank you for the demonstration

0_0

Done!

👍

I've removed my main site comment.

Thanks for reaching out to talk about that.

Well, on today's episode of "Useless things Xirema has invented", I've written a program that can assemble a flattened table of odds for any combination of dice that you feed it.

@Xirema Cool! In what did you write it?

@Anaphory Unfortunately, I wrote it in Java. XD

@Xirema Java imo is pretty good for "random" things (and crypto because of that)

wordy but... well defined

Rolled up a random encounter to test the not so little guy - and it's 10 satyrs... or as the bestiary calls it "an orgie of satyrs" :D

Is it brute forcing the odds or analyzing?

@SirCinnamon It's bruteforcing it, but there's some logic to at least try to intelligently reduce down the computational complexity.

Like, when calculating 8d6, it calculates 4d6 once, which calculates 2d6 once, and then combines them together once each.

Instead of manually calculating all 8d6 by hand.

how do you get 8d6 out of calculating only 2d6 though?

@doppelspooker The 4d6 curve can be created by combining directly 2d6 and 2d6, and 8d6 from 4d6 and 4d6. So you skip all the intermediate steps.

These are all the tables used to create 8d6.

oh so it's not a roll but a probability curve calculation

i get it

@doppelspooker Yeah. You could use it to roll ("here, roll a 1d1679616, and look up on the table exactly how much damage you did with your 8d6 roll") but that's not terribly practical.

noice

It also works when the numbers start getting ludicrous, like 100d6.

@Xirema Also a beautiful display of the log of a binomial/normal distribution :)

(Yes, it's using an arbitrary precision integer to track the outcome quantities)

One possible use for this? If your elven rogue is abusing cover mechanics to gain double-advantage on all their attack rolls, find out what the enemy AC needs to be to properly challenge them.

(Here, we see that assuming the presence of Bless, you need to set the enemy AC equal to a Tarrasque's in order to ensure that they only hit 50% of the time)

@Xirema So the moral of the story is, don't let your players be elves?

Do not cast feebleminded on the starship pilot during an acceleration phase.