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12:18 AM
6
Q: What do I lose by going Paladin 17 / Warlock 3

SnolandaBackground I have a 9th Level Oath of Redemption Scourge Aasimar Paladin. Due to the way the story has evolved, I will need to multiclass into warlock. My intention was to take levels 10, 11 and 12 into 3 Levels of Warlock and pick up the Celestial Patron with Pact of the Blade. This character ...

 
12:44 AM
@trogdor Betting the under on anyone getting shot at Area 51. (Tear gas? Yeah, that's probably on the menu if the loonies get some momentum)
 
Oh yeah I mean
At the very least it's bad press that's incredibly visible
But it's also just such a dumb idea to try to swarm a classified facility
:/
Especially, again, because there's no way they don't know anyone is possibly planning to show up
Because even I know, and I haven't spoken to anyone online who has expressed an actual desire to do it
IE It's spread around so much even I've heard of it despite that
 
 
2 hours later…
3:16 AM
10
Q: Can I attune a Circlet of Human Perfection to my animated skeletons to allow them to blend in and speak?

Lucas WoodFor those unfamiliar, a Circlet of Human Perfection is a magic item from the Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage adventure (p. 30). Its description reads: The circlet transforms its attuned wearer into an attractive human of average height and weight. The circlet chooses the physical chara...

 
3:57 AM
@trogdor thankfully I think most people recognize it as just a meme
 
 
2 hours later…
5:36 AM
@V2Blast I certainly hope so
 
Some people didn't realize eating tide pods was
 
 
2 hours later…
7:16 AM
3
Q: How do you deal with characters with multiple races?

NeonKrakenI am new to character creation and interested in creating a half-elf half-dragonborn character (e.g. pointed ears and elf-like face with dragon-like horns). Would I pick an elf or half-elf race and just mention dragonborn in the backstory, or is it actually possible to have a dual race character?

 
7:26 AM
Morning
 
7:45 AM
Hiya
Oh shoot I forgot to update that answer of mine with clarification.
 
@V2Blast long long long long ago. But I admit you don't have the full picture. I didn't actually play Rolemaster. I played MERP
Since MERP is basically a (not too much) streamlined version of Rolemaster, it also "supported" using Rolemaster rules.
Since Rolemaster is somehow modular in its structure, it also meant that you could use the simpler MERP rules for some things and the extended Rolemaster ones for some others.
In our case, we mostly just incorporated the Spell Master module
Which, ironically, is probably the only Rolemaster manual I still own. It must be there. Somewhere.
 
8:16 AM
@trogdor nobody is seriously planning to try and storm area 51
 
8:57 AM
@Carcer again, I certainly hope not
you can believe no one is that dumb, you are perfectly allowed
 
Mmm. I'm concerned about conspiracy theory jokes that urge actual action, because a lot of people have sincere beliefs about those things and many are very willing to act on those beliefs in ways that might seem unlikely to people who don't understand the motives which underlie those kinds of beliefs.
 
exactly
you put it better than I possibly could
but there are people who actually believe there are aliens there
and if they are desperate enough they could believe that people are actually planning to finally expose it
 
9:26 AM
"Dress With Pockets - A Mythical Magic Artifact," free by DropTheDie on Dungeon Masters Guild.
 
9:47 AM
I think you linked that before, still great though
 
10:22 AM
 
10:46 AM
@trogdor no, we are not.
 
11:20 AM
@Derpy I mostly went off a chat search for "Rolemaster" :P
 
@V2Blast oh, yep, I understood that. I just took the opportunity to add some more backstory about how I came to know Rolemaster :P
Nowadays, all what I remember about the system is that one of the critical failure results on the critical failure table had you "trip on an imaginary turtle"
yep. Seem my memory servers me still
> Stumble over unseen imaginary deceased turtle.
2
 
> Stumble over unseen imaginary deceased turtle.
Well I don't think anything is going to top that today, might as well go to sleep now
 
11:35 AM
@PierreCathé oh, actually reading all the various results on the hundreds of tables the game had you would soon realize that they did put a lot of effort on making up "funny" results
 
May 29 '16 at 4:17, by BESW
I'm inevitably reminded of Once Upon A Table's critical hit table.
 
@BESW oh, that is probably a pretty direct Rolemaster reference... I remember the helmet thing....
 
Once Upon A Table's game is played using no particular system, so they can make fun of all the systems.
 
I meant that the rule seem taken straight from a specific Rolemaster result. Or at least it has a very Rolemaster-ish vibe.
> Foe's upper head it. If no helm, he is in a coma for 3 weeks. If foe has a helm, +20 hits and foe is stunned for 12 rounds.
^ this is an actual results that specifically mentions the helmet :P
 
11:53 AM
8
Q: Can an invisible creature see themselves and their own gear?

Peter Cooper Jr.Suppose there's an everyday ordinary human character who becomes invisible, either due to quaffing a potion of invisibility or from somebody casting the invisibility spell on him. These cause both he and the gear that he's carrying to become invisible. While he's invisible, can he see himself? C...

 
 
2 hours later…
1:25 PM
This lightning question is a doozy.
 
Shrug. Player wants to limit their selection of spells based on a theme, that's a valid choice.
We had a sorcerer in one campaign who refused to take damage-dealing spells of any kind.
 
I think slagmoth hit on the head with they want their cake and eat it, too
they've chosen to be very limited but don't want any repercussions for that choice
 
How many creatures are immune/resistant to lightning damage
cant be too many
 
It's hard to tell how much of that is the player, and how much is the DM preemptively worrying about it.
 
@SirCinnamon I want to see a lot of demons are.
I think there's an opportunity to talk about spotlights and that it's okay for someone to be suboptimal in a fight.
not in every fight, but this won't be an issue in every fight
 
1:44 PM
yeah definitely
 
there are quite a few monsters with lightning immunity
 
I guess there might be some rock based ones I can't think of?
 
There's wanting to have your cake and eat it, and then there's trying to push cake on someone who would rather not have it.
 
0
Q: Mounted archer/caster question should be reopened

KRyanWhat's the best build for a mounted archer/caster? was closed as Primarily Opinion-Based. It is not. It is something on which experts can vet the quality of a given suggestion and vote accordingly; it is not purely about preference. There are good ways, and bad ways, to accomplish this concept. A...

 
@MarkWells what do you mean?
 
1:55 PM
Apparently I mean it's too early in the morning for me to remix metaphors.
 
@MarkWells I may also need that elusive 2nd cup of coffee
 
But. If the player says "I'm building a lightning mage", they are not inherently asking for the DM to make lightning mages especially effective.
 
Worse comes to worse, they could always pull a "Pikachu from season one of the Pokemon anime".
Yes, of course a tiny bit of water from the sprinkler completely removes a multi-story tall Onix's complete immunity to electricity.
 
@MarkWells one trick ponies have one trick
 
@Yuuki They were just foreshadowing the Ring Target
 
2:03 PM
@NautArch I don't think this is a one-trick pony. There's plenty a sorcerer can do other than cast damaging spells.
And if the player finds it's too limiting, he can put a few levels into something else.
 
I'd give him the option of changing a small number of spells if they feel too limited.
 
2:37 PM
@MarkWells Yeah, I agree - but I think the player and/or DM thinks they're one trick.
 
@NautArch Then he should play the character for a while and discover what other tricks are hiding in there. :)
 
@MarkWells It's almost impossible to be a true one trick pony in an RPG. You will have other tricks, they may just be weak from neglect.
 
@JohnP But you can be a pony. Buy your copy of Tails of Equestria now!
(Disclaimer: the aforementioned message is part of the new Stack Exchange Advertisement Infrastructure, now coming to a chat room near you)
 
2:52 PM
@Derpy no.
 
@Yuuki By you claim, I assume you stopped at season one? My current impression is that that kind of nonsense is the rule, not the exception.
 
3:11 PM
10
Q: Can you continue the movement of a Bonus Action Dash granted by Expeditious Retreat if your Concentration is broken mid-move?

BlitsThe spell Expeditious Retreat requires concentration, and reads: When you cast this spell, and then as a bonus action on each of your turns until the spell ends, you can take the Dash action. Assume that a character has cast Expeditious Retreat on themselves in a previous turn. This turn, t...

 
@Derpy Well, it was never as bad as season one, IIRC.
 
3:32 PM
@Yuuki well, considering the introduction of mega-moves they at least don't need "Pikachu, use Thunder at full power" any more....
that said... I have to go for now, so I will leave you with this.
for some reason, the Megahouse Misty action figure doesn't seem to work as well as a fishing lure
 
3:54 PM
Is this a bad time to reintroduce my Negative Spell Metamagic that swaps the damage types on a spell that you cast?
> Negative Spell. When you cast a spell, you may spend two sorcery points to flip the damage types of all damage dealt by the spell. Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing Damage are unaffected———Fire↔Cold, Psychic↔Force, Radiant↔Necrotic, Lightning↔Poison, Acid↔Thunder
I copied that from memory so I might have accidentally flipped Poison/Acid (pretty sure that Poison is supposed to flip with Thunder, not Lightning) but that's the basic idea.
 
4:11 PM
9
Q: Is it possible to tell if a child will turn into a Hag?

The Lost KittenThere's been a string of kidnappings and my players are about to discover a Hag coven. In the Hag's lair they will discover several children prisoners as well as some hag children. All will be the missing kids. I'd like the group to be able to figure out which ones are which before returning th...

 
@Xirema for the lightning sorcerer question?
 
@NautArch Yeah.
 
@MarkWells RIght now, this almost feels My Guy-ish. They need to be open to doing things that aren't lightning. Buff/Debuff/control are excellent options. But they seem to just want to be lightning machines.
@Xirema I don't think it'd help. THey don't want to do anything but lightning, no matter what the method.
opposite of lightning is still not lightning
 
hey I remember there was a 5e book that had a section about how to start a character at a higher level as far as what they start with, does anyone remember what book this is?
 
@NautArch Since "My Guy" is a facet of normal roleplaying behavior taken to an unhealthy extreme, I'd argue that there's nothing wrong with being "almost My Guy-ish".
 
4:19 PM
@NautArch The player is new, and is level 2. This question is IMO about teaching a new player how to play a sorcerer. Sorcerers are not all that newbie friendly in the first place. IMO, the answer to the question is "Be a good teacher, teach your player about utility/support spells." That's the only answer that IMO will be helpful.
 
@MarkWells heh, good point. @KorvinStarmast just went exactly where I was thinking :)
 
@KDodge Dungeon Masters Guide, I think near page 35
 
@KorvinStarmast They really could use someone to sit down and go over the spell list together
 
THere's more you can do in combat besides deal damage.
 
@NautArch I think that one of the answers touches on that if not being exactly what I said.
 
4:21 PM
@KorvinStarmast I'll have to doublecheck, but that does sound familiar.
My last PC was a damage dealer, but my wizard doesn't focus on that. ANd i'm having just as much fun.
 
@KDodge There's a chart with a recommendation based on your world being Low magic, medium magic, high magic in terms of setting and how many magic items are running around.
 
BUt purposefully only using one damage type is going to suck eventually. But then that's the point about not always being in the spotlight.
 
DMG pg 35 talks about tiers of play but no mechanical stuff, only how the dm should challenge the players.
 
@KorvinStarmast @KDodge Page 38
 
@NautArch The one thing I try to teach people to do is "don't be a one trick pony" but there are people conditioned by Video GAMES and CRPG's.
 
4:23 PM
^ there it is
 
@NautArch (I have the sense that the memetic salience of "My Guy" as a boogeyman of the community is harmful because it discourages that facet of roleplaying, but that's an area where I somewhat distrust my intuition.)
 
I did say "near" so not being at the place where my books are, that was close. :)
 
that is was
it
 
@KDodge It's a nice guide. We used it in a tier 3 campaign. Very happy with the results.
 
Doing something suboptimal for roleplaying reasons isn't the "my guy" problem
 
4:24 PM
@MarkWells Yeah, I think the key isn't about 'my guy', it's about making sure that whatever you do everyone at the table is having fun.
If you make a choice about how to RP or play your character and it ends up as frustrating for other people at the table, then that's where the problem is
 
Hence my suggestion to teach about utility spells for the times when lightning is not going to help
OK, I am off for some RL, best wishes to all.
 
@KorvinStarmast DOes utility also mean buff/debuff?
 
IMO yes it does.
Battlefield control, buff, debuff
 
@KorvinStarmast i'm not sure it does for everyone. Like mending is utility. BUt it's not applicable.
@MikeQ No, but only doing one thing for roleplaying reasons that ends up making life difficult for the party may make the party unhappy.
 
@MikeQ The original canonical My Guy example, as I remember it, was someone finding a loophole in the scenario design, using it to bypass the whole thing and end it in ten minutes, and declaring it "what my guy would do". The entire problem is disrespect for the other players.
 
4:30 PM
I dunno. When I drafted my "Sorcerer that only fights in Melee Combat" concept, I still gave her Fire Bolt and Enervation just so she'd have something to do if trying to fight in pure melee combat became untenable.
I do generally feel that any Gimmick Character should be given an out in some form or another.
 
@Xirema My paladin pretty much couldn't fight whenever we went against flyers. I found other things to do.
 
@NautArch And this is perilously close to "you must play optimally or you're making me unhappy"
 
I mean, when you're playing a war game, you do need to take at least semi-seriously that your character be competent at it.
 
(I say that, but then I remember about distrusting my intuition.)
 
@MarkWells At some tables, that may be a thing. We play a very combat focused game where combats are very difficult. And we've got one guy who often plays suboptimally because "that's what my guy would do". And it is very frustrating for the table.
and everyone, including the DM, doesn't love it.
 
4:34 PM
I suspect there's a limit or line here. Something about the player intent. Otherwise this sounds like the badwrongfun argument. "You're not allowed to enjoy your character if I'm not enjoying your character" sort of thing.
 
I know the rogue in my group treads kind of close to "My Guy" territory sometimes when she will refuse to fight because "She doesn't care", and this is the same rogue that had an abyssmal Dexterity score for most of the early campaign because the player was trolling our DM, so we went through a lot of early fights with the Rogue sabotaging-through-incompetence a party that was already (only partially due to only having three characters) relatively unoptimized.
 
@MikeQ Well, I'll be the first to condemn badwrongfun. It's bad and wrong. Says so right there in the name.
 
@MikeQ It's the old adage of your fun stops at the tip of the my nose. Once someone's actions directly affect others, it's not about them anymore. If you can't be you without stepping on the toes of others, you've probably gone too far. BUt yes, it is a fine line of when it's actually a reasonble statement of "this isn't fun for me"
 
I mean, telling players "you have to play optimally or else your fun is wrong" sure sounds like toxic talk and a great way to deter new players
 
On a slightly tangential subject, I find it really curious that "My Guy Syndrome" is not only more common for Real-Play TTRPG shows/podcasts/etc., but arguably indispensable to making those shows entertaining.
 
4:39 PM
@Xirema Well its the difference of entertaining an observer vs a participant
 
Like, I don't know what kind of DM would have allowed Chris Larios to "Old Man Henderson" his way through the first arc of Dice Funk's fourth season, but that ended up being one of the most entertaining arcs of the whole series.
 
"My Guy Syndrome" often diminishes another participants contribution (and maybe entertainers have more experience sharing the spotlight so everyone has room to be Their Guy)
2
 
@SirCinnamon ding ding ding, we have a winner. :)
In the lightning only question, the player is a newbie, not a "My Guy" and the DM is looking for help in coaching a newbie.
 
Goal in a typical RPG: "players have fun" goal in shows/podcasts: "Viewers have fun" - those sometimes overlap but def not 100%
 
Most players are not experienced actors ... but that's OK
 
4:46 PM
I dont think having a character/limiting yourself is necessarily "my guy" either
 
@SirCinnamon There's always a degree of overlap because the other players are an audience.
 
@MarkWells touche
 
@MarkWells They arent an audience because they have the choice to interact
 
@SirCinnamon It's a matter of degree. Limiting yourself isn't bad. LImiting yourself so you can't participate unless the situation fits is your limits probably is.
 
they might choose not to, but they could
@NautArch Totally agree. "My character fears spiders, he would not crawl into the spider nest to find the jewels" = good roleplaying. "My character abhors violence against humanoids and is a full pacifist and will not allow us to fight" = Annoying
 
4:49 PM
@SirCinnamon Although even in that latter case, the answer is to play a Redemption Paladin, where your class features are specifically built around you not fighting.
 
@SirCinnamon Right, but at any moment, typically one player is actively doing something and everyone else is watching them. They might be thinking about what they'll do, or just remembering all this for future reference, or bored and staring at their phones
 
@SirCinnamon The problem is solved when the Pacifist is left to sleep in while the rest of the party heads out before sunrise. "That's the rest of us doing what our guys would do ..."
 
Or they might be roaring with laughter or staring wide-eyed at the crazy thing they've just seen
 
@MarkWells But that's different than a totally passive audience member
 
@SirCinnamon A much more experienced GM of my acquaintance has two general rules for character creation: your character must have a reason to work with the party, and a reason to go adventuring
 
4:51 PM
@MarkWells Very wise, ive definitely said the first one to my players
 
@MarkWells Yes, that's a basic premise for all games I am in. And as a player, if someone begins to do that annoying thing, I'll straight up call them out. "Tell me, Froederix, what reason do you have for your character Tigglegrim to be working with this party. If you need this in character, I can put on my dwarf voice and ask Tigglegrim directly .,.."
Granted, I have not had to do that in years. Last time was in the 80's ...
 
@SirCinnamon And that's an early place to get players involved in shaping the campaign world, if you want. "Tell me why you're searching for the treasure of the Sierra Madre." "because I'm on the run from the Pinkertons after a botched train robbery..." Great, now you've got enemies we can bring in.
 
@MarkWells that too
 
@KorvinStarmast Do you know someone named Froederix? That's kind of awesome.
 
@MarkWells I wish I could say that I did, but I used a fictional name to avoid implicating a possible guilty party with a real name.
There was a guy named fred who we used to call Froderick thanks to the Young Frankenstein movie ..
 
4:58 PM
@KorvinStarmast Is the real name...Frederick?
 
@NautArch Well, we called him Fred mostly.
(Or when he was being annoying, other things)
 
5:32 PM
Sometimes the best answers are the simplest.
 
6:06 PM
@JohnP good stuff
 
@Xirema It's why people like drama, although Netflix has some nice low-tension/even-tempered reality shows.
 
 
1 hour later…
7:29 PM
8
Q: How to prevent a single-element caster from being useless against immune foes?

StackLloydTL;DR: How can I prevent a full single-element caster from becoming almost useless against foes immune to his element of choice, without making him overpowered? To make the question more general, I wrote "caster", but in this case it's a Sorcerer. I'm DMing a newly-started D&D 5E campaign with 5...

 
8:27 PM
@KorvinStarmast I'm not sure I agree that I was being pedantic at all. I'm well aware that 5e is often used as shorthand for the system (note that your example question actually used the full name in the body).
 
@Rubiksmoose Pedant.
 
All I said in that thread is that in the past, I have observed various members of the community (myself included) considering that to be not enough and that it was an edge case to the policy and that if they would like to hash it out they should take it to Meta and let the community weigh in on it.
@JohnP lol
 
@Rubiksmoose He does make a good point about the other question - i think we need to close that or get confirmation, too?
but we've generally said in the past that 5e was not enough as there are 5th editions of other RPGs
 
@NautArch Nah they mention the full name in the body.
 
@Rubiksmoose they do post-starmast edit. but not originally.
 
8:35 PM
@NautArch Ah I see. Then yeah, it might be worth doing that. Or not. Seriously though. Someone should write a Meta on this.
I'm not going to do it today, I'm way too exhausted.
All I can do for now is enforce the policy consistently according to the way I've understood it and seen it done. This is exactly the time when community voices can and should weigh in if they want to raise an objection to that. And honestly, I'm all ears. I hate arguing about policy in every single comment section of edge cases like this quite a bit.
I have my reasons why I think it is a fine way to deal with it, but I'm sure there are other good points out there.
 
@Rubiksmoose We've definitely done this previously for '5e' only. Not sure how we missed it with the other question.
 
@NautArch It seems Korvin saw and edited it pretty quickly. But yeah this is definitely something I've seen done many times before. Well before I was a mod even.
@NautArch oh hey, that question was tagged with 5e originally. So it's fine by any standard.
 
@Rubiksmoose Ha! Yeah. problem solved there. I'm going to roll back the tag add, I guess :(
oh nm, you did
 
@NautArch Got to it just before you did I think lol
 
9:00 PM
hey where can I find the errata for the 5e ranger class?
 
Errata or unearthed arcana?
 
The thing D&D came out with that they said "use this instead of what we put in the book"
It was a complete redo on the Ranger class
 
Well, they didn't exactly say that. But they did provide a revised version of the Hunter and the beastmaster.
 
@KDodge It was Unearthed Arcana, but it was introduced in much less authoritative terms.
 
Are you looking at it for the beastmaster or the Hunter?
 
9:04 PM
Hunter
Spellless variant
 
Because the hunter I got to say is a little overpowered
 
I.E. less of "you should use this instead of what we originally printed" and more "here's what we're considering for possible revisions".
 
Also: I like the idea of doing away with the Ranger's Spellcasting (because as is it feels incredibly disappointing) but replacing it with Battlemaster Maneuvers felt really lazy and cheap, even for playtest material.
 
Im helping a bunch of friends with character creation for a LARP campaign they want to make but starting out with actual d&d characters to help with their project
Agreed Xirema
Thanks Naut'
 
9:06 PM
I'm feeling remarkably stupid right now. Is the revised Hunter without spell casting?
 
Yeah you posted one with it
 
Nope, it looks like it still has spellcasting.
Not sure I've seen the spellless ranger
 
I know there was one where you still had the 2 conclaves you could choose from but prior to that they offered a spell less or a spellcaster ranger
file:///F:/D&D/Books/Codex%20-%20Unearthed%20Arcana%20PF.pdf
That I have been told isn't an official material but its the only source I can find
 
as far as I know the only ranger UA was the Ranger, Revised and that didn't have any spell-less options
 
Yeah, it sounds like what you're thinking of is pure homebrew outside of wizards of the coast.
 
9:16 PM
@Derpy lol
 
9:46 PM
Unearthed Arcana: Modifying Classes, includes a "Spellless Ranger" as an example.
 
10:13 PM
good find
 
10:47 PM
9
Q: When does the Homunculus die, exactly?

svenemaThe spell description of the Xanathar spell "Create Homunculus" reads: "(...) It is your faithful companion, and it dies if you die. (...)". When the player character reaches 0 hp, it falls Unconscious, thus the Homunculus won't die because of this, right? Only when that player fails the Death ...

 

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