Yes. I don't want the chaos of last time. It's purely in spite of Palmer... So, like if it sank right out of the bay, and like, the hull buckled or something
@nitsua60 heheh, still have a turkey of our own to eat here. hoping to catch you on Discord for a bit, got another pesky no-votes DIY.SE answer that I am looking for suggestions on
I was just reading through the pinned meta about HNQ. I don't follow this issue very closely, but does anyone know if it was suggested that we could ban particular tags from HNQ? I ask because of dopplegreener's observation that the problems tend to show up on social questions.
@JoelHarmon that hasn't been specifically discussed on meta.rpgse, best I know. It's not a capability that HNQ currently has, so it'd have to be proposed on meta.se and developed stack-wide. I don't recall it being mentioned on meta.se, either, but I haven't followed all those discussions of HNQ over the years as closely as I follow ours.
@nitsua60 The other thing I haven't seen in this discussion is actual data, such as average number of deleted or negative-voted answers. It occurred to me that most of the complaints are anecdote-based. While I don't mean to discount that experience, I'm curious to see what the data can tell us.
So somebody asked me if I had a RAW + real physics time travel method yet. Well, no I don't. The gulf between relativistic travel and time travel is just too great.
@trogdor Not really. the more you recruit, the more people you have in your place rather than somewhere else. That they are unhappy, or not, isn't your concern in that case. You just want some (or as many as you can get) "on your side" or "in your place" It's a pretty simple concept.
@trogdor beyond that, I'll only suggest that one take to the Stack with the name "Christianity" questions along those lines. You might be surprised at the questions and answers. Also, a really good site is called Biblical Hermeneutics. People who try and take the original languages and contexts and make sense of them. Some good stuff there.
@nitsua60 Reading through it now! My first thought was can you express the conclusion at the end in even plainer language for those whose stats skills are rusty/nonexistant? That is just based on a quick reading. I'm rereading and thinking.
@kviiri I mean, they're asking about a system with egregiously, if not criminally, too many rules. I need to cover as many bases as I can. It's not entirely far-fetched to imagine a splat book that mentions, like, genetic engineering and how magic factors into it.
@nitsua60 Actually I think you might be good. I was reading the lasst line as saying power divided by utility and I was trying to figure out how that would even work and what it meant loll
When homebrewing items for example, it would be good to know if this were true when trying to accurately determine a rarity for example. And, as a DM, I would find it very useful information to know how much to actually pay attention to rarity when awarding items as well
@NautArch Well price is certainly one aspect. And I think that rarity is basically the only guideline they give for determining price. Taking that away and just saying "spitball something" doesn't seem like the best idea right?
Aren't the loot awarding items often indicated by rarity?
Like in a horde the book will often tell you to put in a few items of X rarity. Also, aren't there guidlines for how much loot/items a party should have also indicated by rarity?
@Rubiksmoose I'm honestly not sure. The DMG's guide on creating an item only gives guidance for spell levels, bonuses, and kind of attunement. There still isn't much help in determining rarity of an item, so i'm not sure how this question helps resolve that in any way.
@Rubiksmoose They are, but again if you're homebrewing you're bypassing that.
The hordes and rolls mix items of various rarities depending on the roll.
The treasure tables don't list what rarities they're covering but are organized by CRvalue.
@NautArch Why would you bypass that? If I homebrew an item the only way I can determine its value is by comparing it against other items and placing it in the appropriate cost tier. Sure I could just make up a number but then how do I keep it consistent between items? That is the whole purpose of having a rarity.
@NautArch Assigning a value to it, determining how valuable it is compared to other items, figuring out how much more or little I should give the party based on it, etc.
@Rubiksmoose okay, so the only time value comes in is if the party is selling it, right? And you have control over that. Yes, some guidance is nice - but it's not necessarily tied to a specific mechanic.
Sure, but then it's homebrew and you can make up the price you think you want it bought for. If you've homebrewed something, youc learly want your players to have it. Value will be dependent on the buying power of the party.
But not only then either. If I have an NPC give (or sell) the party an item, I would like a measure of how good that item is so as to be able to accurately divy up loot without over/under powering them.
Sure, but we've also established that the known rarities don't make a lot of sense - so how you're wanting to take a flawed system and make it so you can apply new things to it?
@Rubiksmoose Your world, your party. Economies are personal.
@Rubiksmoose Even before that, can the item even be bought or sold. Selling powerful magic items generally attracts the kind of attention that might make the sale a quest in itself.
@Rubiksmoose okay, but now we're getting into the why it's important - which is what a question should really be about. Right now, this feels like they're looking for a solution but don't have a specific problem. ANd we're trying to provide solutions without solving a problem.
@ColinGross I saw that and I"m not a huge fan. SOme seem really really low. Like if they're for a very high magic world, it'd be reasonable, but a lot of the potions are just a couple hundred gold. You could seriously stock up and get very powerful for very little (even if it's just for a short time.)
@NautArch They could be reasonably common, but unavailable for purchase. Especially in the case of weaponry. That sort of thing is usually horded by states and the like. Sure the kingdom has a few dozen necklaces of fireball... but the players aren't in a position to purchase them.
@ColinGross I'm not sure that something be can be reasonably common but unavailable for purchase. it's not common then. SOmething cheap and common here, becomes rare and expensive somewhere that it's not available.
@NautArch well that is just us diverging from the topic at hand. The question of "Is an item's power tied to its rarity?" seems perfectly valid and straightforward. Just like a question of "Does the CR of an enounter correlate with its difficulty?" might be
@NautArch True. Could be rare for the market. An example would be the artificially low availability of diamonds that is kept that way by a monopoly on the sources.
@NautArch The goal here is to acquire information which seems like an appropriate end to try to achieve. They have this game mechanic and aren't sure of its purpose or meaning. So they are asking about it.
@NautArch And I also think that is not at all the goal of the question.
@Rubiksmoose Sure, but if their question is really how do I determine rarity of a homebrew item generally - that's a much more useful question then asking about the relationship between one aspect of an item and it's rarity.
SO let's say it's determined that rarity IS a function. How is that helping an end goal of determining rarity? It isn't really helping understand how you us it, what part it plays, what other parts are important.
And those are all the thigns you need to put together a rarity for a homebrew item.
@NautArch in tonight's game, I had to "Koolaid" my way through a doorway because I had used a potion of growth, and was too big to fit through a 5' door. lol
Power needs to be defined or contextualized. The "computer game DPS" model of assessment is evident in comments. Might be best to VtC as unclear until what power means is defined by the querent; the devs certainly don't
@Rubiksmoose The question needs to be better scoped / defined IMO. it's not a bad question, per se, but I think what "power" means needs to be spelled out.
@NautArch As a DM it helps me to know this information for the reasons I've stated above. I see the information here as worthy of exploration in and of itself. They see an assumption and they are trying to assess if that assumption is valid or not.
@Rubiksmoose Rarity is a broad category, not a narrow one. The question has an XY problem. As I don't have my DMG to hand, I will not even begin to try to answer until much later today qhen i have DMG and Xanathar's in front of me.
@Rubiksmoose If by power they mean "DPR" then say it. If by Power they mean "more spell levels" tghen say it. Etc. Define what they mean. (And yes, the devs didn't. I think that was purposeful)
@Rubiksmoose This is a homebrew question, at its root. That elf tear thing. It is also a "is this OP" kind of question, which we encourage people to better define most of the time.
@Rubiksmoose The burden is on the asker, IMO, to scope the question even if the devs wrote some non scoped stuff for their own reasons..
@KorvinStarmast Ok let's clean the slate a bit and let me postulate a hypothetical new question to ask and see what you think:
> The DMG says "Rarity provides a rough measure of an item's power relative to other magic items." But I have seen plenty examples of questions and answers (example A, B, C, D) on here showing that this does not appear to always be the case. Is this book quote incorrect? How can you explain the perceived discrepancies in rarity and perceived power?
2. we transitioned from a system with 11 points (1..10 and artifact). down to a 5-point system
that's going to cause discrepancies in quality
3. the basically 10-point system had mechanics that could not be directly translated and had to be reconfigured. which causes further discrepancies in power translation
@ColinGross And we also go back to the "in theory, you can play this game 1-20 without having to acquire magical weapons" is juxtaposed with XGtE explanation that from 1-20 a party can expect to trip over 100 items, consumable and fixed, as shown on that table.
Because "power" is a situational attribute: it is powerful as an effect to banish a cloud giant, but that's because of its collateral effect in the battle being fought against the could giant's allies, who are hill giants.
Power: to heal and keep the barbarian in the fight.
Power: to raise the dead
Power, to go to the astral plane
Magical power that keeps all magical things out (AMF)
@KorvinStarmast here's where I would disagree there though. The book wrote the rule. The book organized items according to the rule. I should I really have to define what the book meant when I ask a question about it?
@ColinGross No, but when you look at how broad the magical rarity categories are in the first place, only their perspective on why they did that answers the confusion without a better definition of power.
@Rubiksmoose Yessir, guideline. (Pirates for the win!)
@KorvinStarmast I don't have a problem with the breadth of the categories. Where I have a problem is when the DMG has rare items strictly inferior to uncommon (boots of levitation vs. flying is the classic example) and describes rarity as a measure of power. Rarity could just have been a setting thing--I'm fine with "there just aren't as many of these things--that's no indication of how powerful they are." But (as is often the case) it feels like they're cramming too many gerbils into one skull.
@nitsua60 Two things I have noticed. Items "drop" with a lot of overlap in terms of "when versus rarity" rating; and each category is very broad in terms of top to bottom desirability. (And then we look at RoP (rare) versus Cloak of P ... uncommon... that do the same thing)
@nitsua60 general "power" seems to have been tied to tiers of advenature, though, as in "where this item's power level (whatever the heck that means) fits into the tiers of adventure scheme" ... and I don't disagree with your points on boots/broom/etc
@nitsua60 heh, a broom of flying just dropped and our gnome (4th level, arcane trickster) is already having a ball with it in my brother's campaign.
@kviiri They are usually made by Clerics of the Forge domain. Healing on the spot is available. :)
@nitsua60 (Once again a distinct class of problem that Pathfinder 2e attempts to solve - there's a rarity track parallel to everything else about items/spells/etc: Common/Uncommon/Rare/Unique, where the rarity is just the default and has no actual bearing on power - e.g. Longsword vs Katana have the exact same stats, but Katana is Uncommon)
@Delioth In my world boots of levitation are rare because they're so underpowered. "Who makes boots of levitation!? Haven't you ever heard of boots of flying!?"
@kviiri Maybe? They're super non-intrusive (with Weapons they're a different table, with spells and such they're just the coloring of the spell's name/level). I don't know if that's similar - but there are some features that give you explicit access to uncommon items and such, but it's expressly not tied to power
I have a hunch that rarity values are mostly there for Organized Play
So that they can say only Common items are available by default, Uncommon might be given out as rewards for single PFS sessions, Rare might only be given out at e.g. the end of a season, and Unique never come out. As a help to avoid some super-unique cheesy stuff like Blood Money ending up everywhere (so that the spell explicitly has a note that it only exists 1 place and may break a game, even if it's not overpowered, just paradigm-shifting)
I'm not sure that this is POB. It seems to me that the rules are using a word and it is fair to ask what the rules mean by that word. Even if the answer is: "the rules don't specify" it seems like this question is still very much answerable. I don't see where the opinion comes in as long as we stick to our answering guidelines as usual. — Rubiksmoose7 mins ago
I guess if you read it in such a way that the answer is "the rules do not provide any definition of relative power and nor does it seem possible to reverse engineer a consistent definition in that context from the examples we have" then it's okay
One of the more(less?) obvious magic item comparables is Ring of Protection vs Cloak of Protection. Both do the same thing, but one is Uncommon and one is Rare.
@Yuuki I dunno. Maths again. I used to be good at it, but haven't used it in 20 years. Now my only math is calculating pot odds in poker and progressions in roulette :p
@Yuuki I don't think it converges, since in each step you are adding a little more than 1/4 to the weight, and that amount only grows (albeit very slowly).
@GreySage Nah, it's 1/2 + x/2 + x/4 + x/8 + x/16 + x/32, which is just 1/2 + x. Converges, but is whatever that fancy mathematical word for an inconsistent expression is.
@Yuuki Depends on whether you're using Weight or weight, the former being an expression of the force exerted on an object by the local gravitational field you position as the origin, and the latter being a colloquialism we use to express an object's mass.
@Yuuki I honestly hate how we have 2 base measurements of how heavy something is, and they are actually measuring two completely different things, and they are used interchangeably here on Earth.
English was invented by taking French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Irish, Latin, and a variety of other dead, pointless languages and smashing them all together haphazardly.
@JohnP Spanish is just as bad (in a different way). Masa can mean mass (measurement), mass (a group of things), dough, or ground (as in grounding electrical equipment).
@GreySage erg. I still remember all the different forms depending on formal, informal, single, group...although I don't remember much Spanish any more.
@Rubiksmoose I actually don't think the question is worth much, but since defining "power" has been requested in response to other inquiries, I thought it might be interesting to see what turns up.
Even if it is, "this is unknowable and here's why"
