TRPG General Chat

Ben

12:19 AM

trogdor

XD

BESW

I approve.

> Sneezeomancer. Once per scene you may declare that someone is about to sneeze. You get two boosts to act on this foreknowledge.

Ben

@BESW My cousin would be greatly appreciative of this knowledge. She has a habit of injuring herself whenever she sneezes.

trogdor

Ow

To be fair, I could almost say the same thing, sneezes sometimes trigger a nosebleed

Ben

One instance was when she was helping our grandmother clean, she was working through the ornament collection, doing some dusting. While on a stepladder, she sneezed, kneed herself in the head/headbutted herself in the knee, though surprisingly, didn't fall off the ladder, or drop any of the ornaments.

@trogdor Oh dear

trogdor

12:30 AM

It's not nearly so common anymore, and it's not as bad as headbutting myself in the knee or kneeing myself in the head

And they stop really fast

At least now they do

As a kid before I got treated for it it happened more often and took longer to stop

Ben

Well that's good :)

trogdor

As random health problems go it's extremely tame

Also you might be surprised just how used to it you can get

XD

Ben

Oh for sure

I have a plastic tube that runs from my head to my stomach, and I often forget it's even there

trogdor

Sometimes I forget that most people get bloody noses from fights or accidents

@Ben fair enough

XD

user15026

@Ben I have a pair of those! I also forget them.

user15026

12:39 AM

I have never gotten a nosebleed in my life, although I have a friend who gets super bad ones

Ben

@Ash Oh cool. Pipe partners! Hahaha

user15026

@Ben Hahaha yessssss lol

user15026

@Ben hahahaha omg

trogdor

@Ash it used to be pretty bad, I won't say it didn't ruin pillowcases or happen in the middle of class and disrupt my day a bit for sure

But it also wasn't ever enough to be concerned about blood loss

Ben

@trogdor See for some reason, that just put the image of something much more explosive. Haha

trogdor

12:45 AM

Well it would happen when I was asleep

And also if you are the teacher and a kid just started bleeding,... You probably send em out to the nurses office

Black Spike

What did I just walk in to?

trogdor

Lol

Something a bit gross apparently, sorry

Black Spike

@trogdor heh. Don't worry, I've ruined my fair share of pillow-cases ... damn,I've said too much ...

Ben

In my head it was a bit more along the lines of [looking out the window... someone sneezes in the background, then the wall is coated in blood, with the silhouette of me in the blood splatter]

Very Alien-esque haha

Black Spike

I can see our GM allowing Sneezomancy! He'd balance it against other powers, but yeah, it could be a thign

trogdor

12:50 AM

@Ben nope, it starts it but you don't see any immediately

It's actually very slow

Black Spike

thing*. Not thigh. Don't want a sneeze on your thigh.

Ben

Yeah, in reality I'd imagine it'd be more just [sneeze] then a minute later you realise the runny nose is actually blood

trogdor

@Ben that's a pretty good description

I've mistaken bloody noses for runny ones and the other way around too

Black Spike

Heh. My next character is a "Healer". Steals wounds/Afflictions from people, and then heals himself ...

trogdor

Many a time in fact, quite often even

Black Spike

12:54 AM

"OOoh, that's a nasty runny-nose you got ... I'll have that .... oh ... "

Ben

@BlackSpike Definitely a kleptomaniac

Black Spike

@Ben Oh yes! It's a rebuild of a "one-shot" PC. original was exuberant ... "oh, that's a nice injury! Not had one of those for ages! Can i have a go?" .... new one is grumpy ... "how did ya get that, you fool? well hand it over already. "

Ben

@BlackSpike Maybe even make it out like "you don't even deserve that. Not even going to appreciate it properly [mumble grumble]"

Black Spike

@Ben yup, that's him! "Call that a Wound? pfft, I had worse making breakfast. "

Ben

Haha brilliant

Black Spike

1:01 AM

(Has a Vow: Can't turn down a request for Healing. Tries his damnedest to avoid letting people ask!)

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike I take it anatomical precis isn't an issue when doing the wound-stealing thing?

Black Spike

@Shalvenay ??

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike i.e. if he transfers a wound from someone to himself, does it always appear on him in the spot it appeared on the person he took it from?

Black Spike

@Shalvenay It's pretty much the same Wound.

(GM whim will come into play if it's unfeasable, but most situations will be Human ... broken arm = broken arm. male/female may occasionally need a Ruling .... )

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike I'm going to borrow my catguy (Rrau) for a moment here if you don't mind...basically, if someone sliced Rrau's tail and your character tried to take said Wound upon the tail for himself, how would that work?

Black Spike

1:06 AM

@Shalvenay Oh, but I don't have a tail! I still take the Wound ... in the nearest available place? (GM call)

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike ah

hey there @JohnP, how're things going?

Black Spike

I'm not a Professor of Majiks, I'm a Healer! :P The Wound lands where lands!

JohnP

Good. No. Just a pop in.

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike the other concern I can see is if your character stole a Wound that then stopped your char from healing themselves

(for instance, trying to heal someone who inhaled a fireball)

Black Spike

@Shalvenay if the Subject is very far removed from my anatomy, maybe I can't steal the Wound.

Shalvenay

1:10 AM

yeah, I think we got enough of a point of how that works for here, as to my other concern though?

Black Spike

@Shalvenay Several of my Spells are subconcious .. they just happen, no effort required ... even if I'm down-n-out, the Healing happens.

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike ah, that helps quite a bit, I see

Black Spike

@Shalvenay Yup. I can definitely see me runnign aroudn a Combat, stealing my allies Wounds ... and ... I'm down! Warrior can keep fighting, despite that "lethal" blow ... but Healer is Mortally Wounded .. oh he seems to be (slowly) recovering ...

(and then gripe about it! "You made me take your 'severed artery'? BORING! Do you never get hit in your gut? I've not had a decent stomach wound in AGES!")

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike eheheh

Ben

@BlackSpike I need diversity! flavour! make it interesting!!

Shalvenay

1:17 AM

runs @BlackSpike's healer over with 10,000 tons at 70mph, wonders if he'll still be alive afterwards

Black Spike

@Ben Damn straight!

@Shalvenay Eek! ... maybe ...

Ben

@BlackSpike I bet he's got one that he hasn't had in ages. Just that one that he's itching to deal with again. Like a torn toenail or something

Black Spike

(Level 3 Rolemaster ... I might need to Overcast "LifeKeeping" to stop my soul departing while i'm techincally Dead ..."

@Ben Oh yes! I need a "no-one ever has that ... where can I get a <people don't go to a Healer for that>"

(tbh, I don't know just how much I can take ... minor to medium ... uber-kills will take me down ... willl be fun to find out how much of the campaign I spend bed-ridden, "Sorry, guys, can't jooin you on this adventure .. still recovering ... ")

Shalvenay

@BlackSpike heheheh, yeah, that could be a downside to that

Black Spike

@Shalvenay I'm thinking they'll drag me along .. "we need you ... the paladin is going to get himself hurt!"

Shalvenay

1:26 AM

@BlackSpike LOL

when is the party healer not in demand? :P

Black Spike

@Shalvenay indeed!

I'm happy to be dragged along on a stretcher ... just prop me up here, and bring me the wounded ...

Should be fun!

Original was Exalted one-shot. Didn't get to do much. This version is for a longer-term campaign

Ben

Excellent

Black Spike

(We do like our long campaigns. 1-2 years real-time)

Shalvenay

2:16 AM

hey there @HazardousGlitch, welcome to the RPG.SE lair :)

BESW

[wave]

Ben

[a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore.]

Hot RPG Questions

3:21 AM

6

Q: Can the Action some concentration spells grant be used in Attacks of Opportunity with the War Caster feat?

Can the Action some concentration spells grant be used in Attacks of Opportunity with the War Caster feat? For a specific example, Dragon Breath and Sunbeam both have actions to do damage after being cast. Could that action be used in that circumstance?

trogdor

@HotRPGQuestions you need to give me better material next time, come on man XD

You action,.. your,.. attack,.. of opportunity,....

Spells

Ben

Can I enchant a barrel-o-monkeys with a binding enchantment to create an inescapable trap?

Better?

:P

trogdor

No because it's already a joke :P

Ben

Well, do I at least get kudos for pulling that out of my Bag of Tricks?

trogdor

3:36 AM

Yes

Ben

Excellent

BESW

4:49 AM

Jason Brown tweets about progressive character revelation.

Ben

5:20 AM

trogdor

@Ben werk werk

XD

Ben

This is literally what I'm dealing with rn. Lol

trogdor

Ouch

This is one of the things I don't generally have to deal with at my job

Though to be fair sometimes my boss does

But that's his problem

XD

BESW

...I remember the idyllic days when all I knew about Scott Adams was that he wrote a misanthropic comic.

Ben

The problem is that they want to use our EDMS system, because it does exactly what they need it to do, but they just want it to do that job, and not have to worry about it. The problem is that while I can set it up to do that job for them, I need their input to build it to do that job.

V2Blast

6:00 AM

@BESW ...Oh my. That's intense.

@Ben headdesk

BESW

@V2Blast I literally had to take a moment after reading the pdf.

BESW

6:27 AM

@Ben "The Ocean that Fades into Sky," by Kathleen Kayembe.

Ben

I like it

kviiri

6:43 AM

@BESW Moomins :3

Hot RPG Questions

8:22 AM

4

Q: Is there any way to get the Draconic Claw feat without losing BAB?

Races of the Dragon has a very interesting feat in Draconic Claw (p. 102), which gives you a pair of claw attacks as well as the ability to make a claw attack as a swift action in any turn in which you cast a spell as a standard action. This combines very nicely with, for example, Snap Kick from ...

dnd-3.5e feats sorcerer e6

Hot RPG Questions

8:41 AM

4

Q: If an Animated Object is given a task that takes longer than a minute to do, does the object stay animated longer than a minute?

So I am looking at the description of the 5th level spell Animate Objects, it says that its duration is up to a minute, however it also says that, "once given an order, the creature continues to follow it until its task is complete". If the task lasts longer than a minute, does it continue to sta...

dnd-5e spells animated-objects duration

Nyakouai

Morning, wherever you are

kviiri

9:02 AM

Mornin'

Someone_Evil

Morn'

BESW

Yawp.

goodguy5

12:11 PM

ohhai

BESW

1:20 PM

Anybody have a favorite pangram?

Nyakouai

What's a pangram?

Someone_Evil

Pangram

A pangram (Greek: παν γράμμα, pan gramma, "every letter") or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding. The best-known English pangram is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". It has been used since at least the late 19th century, was utilized by Western Union to test Telex / TWX data communication equipment for accuracy and reliability, and is now used by a number of computer programs (most notably the font viewer...

kviiri

seems a lot easier in English, you guys use all your alphabet!

BESW

I think my favorite I've seen is Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

Nyakouai

Way better than the lazy dog

kviiri

1:28 PM

I second that opinion

I think you could squeeze a few letters out of "black quartz". Maybe you could isolate "czar" or "tzar" out of that and do something with the remaining letters?

vicky_molokh

Iroha seems like a fun one.

Nyakouai

Doing a pangram in an european language is probably tricky. Doing a perfect pangram, probably hard. Doing a pangram in Japanese would be quite a task to undertake, from what I know. But a perfect pangram in Japanese, and a poem at that...

kviiri

Hm, we could probably apply some maths to figure out how hard it is based on some parameters of the language. I don't know much of Japanese, but I would guess there are relatively few pairs of syllables that appear seldom within the same word.

Or rare syllables in general, whereas English certainly has rare letters. That constrains the semantics quite a lot.

Nyakouai

I took a look at french pangrams... 80% of them are about drinking. I'm concerned...

BESW

@kviiri I'm not sure I've ever seen an English pangram about a czar or tzar. Lots of wizards though.

Quartz is a power word because it's got q and z.

kviiri

1:40 PM

Finnish ones are almost invariably about Beowulf (for b, w, both very rare and f to lesser extent) and physics (for that sweet, rare å in ångström). Z can be covered by Zulus or zeppelins, x often comes from some proper noun like Xerxes or CMX the band, and q comes from something like daiquiri or squash.

"Pangram without those annoying loanword-only letters" is also a thing, luckily.

BESW

@kviiri Now I want to see a pangram about a qwop czar.

Pangram-making interface

kviiri

Finnish is pretty abysmal for compact pangrams because of frequent repeated letters and lots of very rare letters, but the lack of prepositions makes arbitrary long alliteration chains really easy. We had a school assignment to write as long story as we could starting every word with a single letter, and I broke well into the second page before getting bored. (I chose 'P')

I also introduced, in a similar fashion, my friends to three of my board games, along with rules summaries, beginning every word with 'k' :)

Nyakouai

@BESW It's harder than it looks to make one

BESW

@kviiri Just made a no-repeat: Qwop czars vex'd JFK bum nightly.

Nyakouai

1:56 PM

"Vous balbutiez et grogniez hystériquement, faché, vexé, jeune kiwi dupe!"

And some people actually make perfect pangrams?

I need 12 "e" to make one

kviiri

@BESW ooh, nice

Rubiksmoose

@Nyakouai it's actually really really impressive.

@vicky_molokh very nice! TIL!

kviiri

English really needs more vowels.

Or letters for its vowels. They're overloaded like they cost money!

BESW

@kviiri Counterpoint: lipograms.

Rubiksmoose

@Nyakouai and a lot with a secret message with the last syllable of each line...

BESW

2:06 PM

@kviiri Literally that is why.

vicky_molokh

@kviiri Consonants too. At least þ and ð.

kviiri

@vicky_molokh I think overloading those might make sense, but in terms of making pangrams easier I think that might even make the game harder :)

vicky_molokh

It's been quite a shock to me that Englishmen pronounce the th in the 'cloth' morpheme as variably þ or ð based on some obscure semi-random algorithm! ^_^

3

BESW

We used to have þ and it was replaced by y and th (hence "ye old") literally because typesetters were using typesets that had been imported from Germany or Italy and they didn't want to carve or cast a new letter.

Typesetting is a major reason English letters do so much work.

kviiri

@vicky_molokh everything in English is semi-random algorithm!

vicky_molokh

2:12 PM

Well, maybe not everything. The writing makes some sense if you know why it's written so. The pronunciations sound like riddles rather than puzzles though.

kviiri

Yeah. One problem is that "why it's written so" tends to be an unusually sprawling topic in English

BESW

Jul 12 at 1:51, by BESW

People interested in these subjects might like the NativLang YouTube channel.

Rubiksmoose

That was one of the most refreshing things about learning Japanese: if you know the kana sounds and the word is written in hirigana, you can pronounce any Japanese word perfectly every time.

vicky_molokh

@Rubiksmoose You still don't get to know the pitch (or whatever it's called in English, the one that's distinct from the tone).

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh Ah yes, pitch accent is definitely the one missing aspect.

kviiri

2:21 PM

The one-to-one mapping between characters and sounds (or at least being very close) is fairly common in many languages

Rubiksmoose

Though since Japanese only has two (unlike Chinese which has a whole bunch) so it is less vital and usually can be solved with context.

At least from the stuff and contexts I have been working in.

vicky_molokh

@kviiri One-to-one probably not. E.g. Russian looks like if it has one if your native language is English or Gaelic, but once you learn it better you'll see lots of ridiculous discrepancies.

Spanish similarly looks consistent but has exceptions.

kviiri

And then there's languages like French where some letters are pronounced differently in different situations but pronunciation is still quite consistent in longer strings

vicky_molokh

Ukrainian is pretty close but there are still cases where you need to know the morphemes to figure out whether дж and дз are used as single sounds (merged) or as pairs of sounds (as written).

kviiri

Yeah, Finnish too is often said to be consistent but even that is not quite perfect.

vicky_molokh

2:24 PM

I think maybe Esperanto has a true 1:1 mapping (if you allow consistent but tricky rules)? Not sure.

I've been told Íslenska is also rather close.

BESW

I'm given to understand Korean is structured super predictably.

kviiri

@vicky_molokh I think for many languages it also depends on what exactly does one consider part of the language --- foreign loanwords being pronounced differently are pretty common fare

vicky_molokh

Korean looks like a plausible candidate, but (a) I know next to nothing about it and (b) from what I do know, they have the subtle tone/pitch/whatever layer added (which I'm not sure whether is deducible from the writing).

kviiri

Finnish has one peculiar case where Beatles has a pronunciation that's non-standard for both Finnish and English!

Rubiksmoose

2:44 PM

Oh? What would that be? Ringojohnpaulgeorge?

;)

Nyakouai

@Rubiksmoose Kovakuoriaisat

With the last "a" replacing an "e"

Rubiksmoose

Neat!

kviiri

@Rubiksmoose It's pronounced like "beat-less" would in English except with a sharper S in the end.

Rubiksmoose

Huh. Language is fascinating.

kviiri

Well, I'm not sure if the s specification is even needed

I think it started from people pronouncing it in the way they thought was correct (I mean, "beatles" is pronounced a bit weird) and it stuck until it became a norm.

"kovakuoriaiset" would be the word for actual "beetles" :)

Nyakouai

2:57 PM

@kviiri Beetles => Beatles // kovakuoriaiset => kovakuoriaisat ?

kviiri

@Nyakouai I see what you were going for, haha :D

MikeQ

Greetings internet friendfolk

Hello

Hi

@Nyakouai Hello!

3:11 PM

@JohnClifford The Street Fighter RPG is seriously underrated. I ran a one-shot for my friends about a year ago, and it was seriously great.

We embraced the silliness of Street Fighter and Final Fight, and it took place in a version of the real world where Hulk Hogan, Mike Tyson, and Robert Downey Jr. went on a Final Fight style Beat 'em Up spree through NYC like 10 years ago and saved the world, and then Hogan became president.

And now the world is way more into martial arts now

MikeQ

3:25 PM

Sounds fun. I'll add it to my to-do list of "games I'll never convince my friends to play"

JohnP

@SouthpawHare I'm all for more martial arts in the world.

John Clifford

That does actually sound pretty neat.

I might run that for my group sometime.

goodguy5

neat question:

1

Q: What is a good class if we remove subclasses?

Our DM decided to run a game for just 2 of us and that we each get a second character in combat with the caveat that the second character can't have a subclass (no Ranger Archetype/Convocations or Wizard Arcane Traditions etc..) So my question is: what class would still be good (i.e not extremel...

dnd-5e class

It's got to be Wizard or Sorcerer, right?

Someone_Evil

Generally the classes who get their subclass at 3rd level have "smaller" subclasses and so should be better (Source: some episode of Mike Mearl's Happy Hour, can't recall which one)

MikeQ

3:40 PM

Maybe? Specialist classes tend to depend more on their subclass choice. Warlocks and cleric both choose subclass at 1st level, but warlock gets more from it, whereas cleric is still a full caster with prepared spells.

John Clifford

Yeah, Cleric is still pretty useful even without Domain spells, though that is a pretty significant nerfing of their power base depending on the Domain they chose.

goodguy5

Barb gets a huge benefit from their subclass
I guess the Bard ones are usually utility, so that could be good.
Cleric Domains have a pretty big impact on your spell list and how you interact with the game.
Druid decides whether they're going to be a bear or a wizard.
Fighter is essentially a pile of addons from their subclass
Monk, Rogue, and Paladin would all lose some pretty useful things, but still basically be what you expect.

John Clifford

I am grievously affronted that you just assume the druid would be a bear. Where's the Spider love?

goodguy5

"Oh no, the sorcerer doesn't have a chance to spontaneously kill every one under 4th level in a 20 foot radius."

On the ceiling, out of site, where it belongs.

Please never type "Spider love" again.

John Clifford

Spider-Love
Spider-Love
Descending on you from up above

goodguy5

3:44 PM

*shudder*

John Clifford

Sorry, couldn't resist. XD

MikeQ

I suppose the non-casters would also suffer without subclasses, since they'd have levels where they get nothing, whereas casters at least gain a new spell or slot each level

goodguy5

Reminds me of this r/twosentencehorror I thought of.

"I felt something crawling under my shirt, so I smacked it.

Did you know that some mother spiders carry hundreds of live babies on their back?"

John Clifford

The last man on earth sat down to dinner.

There was a knock at the door.

Xirema

@goodguy5 delet this

goodguy5

3:45 PM

@Xirema No, I don't think I will.

John Clifford

It's like Pay it Forward but for horrifying sentences.

Medix2

Regarding fifth edition DnD, Where would I ask the following question: "What should be done about answers that relied on tweets from Jeremy Crawford, which now are no longer considered rulings, and thus the answers are now wrong?" Or would it effectively be a duplicate of this question: rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9336

MikeQ

@JohnClifford 3rd sentence turns the story around: "It was one of many women"

John Clifford

Haha

goodguy5

*thirdsentencehappy

John Clifford

3:46 PM

@Medix2 That's been asked a couple of times I believe.

JohnP

@JohnClifford There was a pretty good short story based out of that one.

Carcer

@Medix2 no, it'd be a duplicate of this question

goodguy5

because there's also thirdsentenceworse and..... thirdsentence something else.... awful? I'd have to check

Medix2

@Carcer Oh, thank you for pointing that out to me!

John Clifford

IIRC the consensus was that we leave the ones that were answered when that was the accepted thing, but from now on we refer to Sage Advice for official rulings.

Carcer

3:49 PM

crawford's tweets no longer have "sort-of-RAW" status, but an answer on how particular rules/situations are intended to be adjudicated which is supported by JC/other designers's tweets is still perfectly valid as an answer to a question, unless and only unless it specifies strict official RAW only

Rubiksmoose

4:03 PM

And to be fair, I'd argue that answers that claimed JC tweets were RAW were already off base

Even before the unofficial status

Hot RPG Questions

4:59 PM

10

Q: Can a PC use the Levitate spell to avoid movement speed reduction from exhaustion?

Context A warlock in the game that I run suffers from two levels of exhaustion: Level 1: Disadvantage on ability checks Level 2: Speed halved This warlock knows the spell levitate. He is so tired—it's a hangover from a very potent homebrew drug, named Flashberries—that he levitates h...

dnd-5e spells movement

Hot RPG Questions

5:19 PM

3

Q: What is a good class if we remove subclasses?

Our DM decided to run a game for just 2 of us and that we each get a second character in combat with the caveat that the second character can't have a subclass (no Ranger Archetype/Convocations or Wizard Arcane Traditions etc..) So my question is: what class would still be good (i.e not extremel...

dnd-5e class

RobertF

Does anyone dream about playing D&D when you're asleep? I had a weird dream the other night where I was describing my campaign world to a bunch of players at a table. Strangely, one of the players was Donald Trump.

illustro

Thoughts, critcisms, nitpicks welcome: rpg.stackexchange.com/a/153397/36850

Hot RPG Questions

5:38 PM

9

Q: How can I decide if my homebrew item should require attunement?

Attunement slots are an important tool for maintaining game balance - especially in high magic settings where magic items are common. If I've homebrewed a new magic item for my players, how can I decide if balance-wise this item should require attunement or not? It's fairly trivial to say that ...

dnd-5e magic-items homebrew

V2Blast

5:58 PM

@BESW That wikipedia article has a section on pangrammatic lipograms... There's even a poem where each stanza is a lipogrammatic pangram using every letter of the alphabet except E, and it rhymes!

@RobertF What character did he play?

nitsua60

6:13 PM

@RobertF I subscribe to Adler's notion that dreams exist to provide us practice for emotional situations we subconsciously anticipate. That said, dare I ask: how did it feel to have The Donald at your table?

GcL

6:28 PM

@illustro both implies two. You list three "both the creature, object or point of origin " Also, you're missing the oxford comma. How's that for nits selected?

@illustro I don't like any of the answers to that question, but I find yours the best of the lot currently.

illustro

@GcL excellent commentary thank you. I shall correct the two egregious errors you have brought my attention to when I arrive home, but for now I must depart sir.

GcL

@illustro ciao. Hope the rest of your day goes well.

illustro

(*sir should be interpreted to have whichever gender/societal class/rank you choose to identify with and/or are entitled to claim)

@GcL I too hope you have a most wonderful remainder of this cycle of the sun

(I am in a funny mood this evening apparently)

V2Blast

> Lets take all of this an construct

Typos: "Let's" and "and"

MikeQ

@illustro Funny? This is the RPG chat room. Funny isn't allowed here.

GcL

6:37 PM

@illustro A verbose and aureate disposition certainly.

RobertF

7:02 PM

Alas, the dream ended before I could find out which character Donald Trump played. But it does give me an idea for a new character class: the BS Artist :-)

Someone_Evil

@RobertF Bard?

KorvinStarmast

7:24 PM

@Someone_Evil Bard or Rogue, for sure, unless we rethink Trickery domain Cleric. :)

MikeQ

@RobertF I've probably dream-brainstormed and dream-rehearsed sessions after preparing homebrew content. Sometimes I found plot holes or design holes that way.

Southpaw Hare

@Mindwin @Vigil The examples you've listed of things atunement is designed to fix just seem like exploits that logic also fixes

You shouldn't be able to have people pass a sword around between each other and all use it all on the same turn, because "turns" are just a shorthand and everything is happening simultaneously

There's no need to restrict the rules of how magic works. Normal physics and common sense do just fine.

Similarly, any magic item that does stuff "once per day" would logically do so gradually over the course of the day, not in video-game-style "ticks" where it happens all at once at a particular second of the day.

So passing around those items would make them less effective or ineffective, as would anything in normal reality.

Atunement sounds like a gamey fix for a gamey problem.

KorvinStarmast

7:44 PM

@SouthpawHare Yes, it's a game mechanic for a game, just as rolling the dice in Monopoly and going again if you roll doubles is a game mechanic for a game. Not sure what you are driving at there.

I am pretty sure that the underlying motivation for the game mechanic as chosen was to support the basic Bounded Accuracy design model. Bounded accuracy gets a little stretched when the plusses keep adding up and up. That is one reason that I dislike the current write up of Artificer. They ramp the attunement allowance up to 6. Bad idea.

Someone_Evil

@SouthpawHare Dragon/Giant Slayers don't require attunement and could be passed around

MikeQ

@KorvinStarmast I see what @SouthpawHare is driving at - There may be situations where the DM vetoes certain "exploits" because they may seem unrealistic or not make narrative sense. Problem is, such "exploits" are otherwise allowed by the game mechanics. Until the DM vetoes them, they are assumed to be available to the players.

KorvinStarmast

@SouthpawHare any magic item that does stuff "once per day" would logically do so gradually over the course of the day Not necessarily. Consier the analogy of the capacitor. (Not sure if you understand electrical sub components or not). A charged capacitor is roughly how Vancian magic was initialy conceivced by Jack Vance.

MikeQ

For example: perhaps the PCs shouldn't be able to pass around 1 sword during a fight... except the game mechanics don't actually prevent this

KorvinStarmast

@MikeQ I may have been thrown off a bit by "normal physics and common sense do just fine" when juxatposed with magic. Magic warps commons sense and physics.

@MikeQ But they can, it's just that if it requires attunemnet, you only get part of the benefit.

MikeQ

7:50 PM

Oct 5 '18 at 19:13, by Mike Q

> Realistic Spell. You may choose to spend 0 Sorcery Points to cause your spell to fail, because magic and sorcery aren't real.

KorvinStarmast

@MikeQ One need not do that, one simply chooses not to cast the spell. ;)

illustro

8:09 PM

@MikeQ I apologise, my intention wasn't meant to imply humour, as you have elucidated, that would be against the rules of this austere establishment. Instead I meant in the word funny in the "not as myself" meaning only, naturally. If there was any unintentional offence caused please accept my most sincere apologies.

@GcL Indeed, a most astute observation

@V2Blast Ta, I shall correct

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: What ability do tools use?

In the player's handbook there is an example in the Dexterity category of Thieves' tools, so I know that Dex is the ability that is used for ability checks with thieves' tools, but I hadn't found the ability for the other tools. Is there any info about this in the books or is up to the DM to choo...

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Southpaw Hare

@MikeQ I kind of assume that it's normal for a GM to think logically about what is or isn't possible and veto stupid exploits

I definitely equate groups that don't do that and run with exploits to be kind of missing the point

MikeQ

That really depends. Plenty of GMs, new or experienced, will rely mostly on the rules as written. Maybe they like it that way, maybe they don't.

Southpaw Hare

I don't think there is any game that holds up RAW. You always need a bit of human intelligence added in at a minimum.

MikeQ

Probably. But it's not really our place to assume the "right" way to play for other groups.

KorvinStarmast

8:24 PM

@SouthpawHare Yes, that's a common situation.

Southpaw Hare

@KorvinStarmast My point, then, is that "atunement" in 5e D&D seems to me as something that is unnecessary. It is redundantly solving exploit problems that a DM can (and probably should) solve better.

illustro

@SouthpawHare attunement at least solves those problems for DMs who are not experienced enough to realise what those issues are, or the consequences of giving out too many of those items

The rules have to play to the lowest common denominator so to speak

@GcL The "both" in the title refers to "the creature, object or point of origin that you direct a spell at" and "creatures & objects affected by the spell's effect(s)" as the two items (each of which has multiple sub items)

Someone_Evil

Note that ad-hoc houserules are really awkward. Not using the rules as written makes it harder for players to know what to expect and what the outcomes of their actions will be. If you know doing X will cause Y because the rules says so, and your DM goes No because I don't like those rules, this takes away from the game.

Mark Wells

@SouthpawHare I don't think exploits along the lines of "everyone pass the one magic sword around and take turns attacking with it" are really what it's aiming to solve. The main function of attunement is to be a resource cap on high-power magic gear.

I mean, I can solve the "passing the sword" exploit right now: An Attack action takes about six seconds. A round is about six seconds. Therefore a weapon can be used for about one Attack action per round.

KorvinStarmast

8:40 PM

@SouthpawHare I don't see how you get "unnecessary" in their efforts to keep the item effects complementary to bounded accuracy. I think illustro's point on Lowest Common Denominator has merit.

Southpaw Hare

@KorvinStarmast I actually don't know much about Bounded Accuracy, other than it exists in D&D 5e.

I generally only like low-level games anyway, so this all comes up an equal 0% of the time for me in both 3e and 5e

Someone_Evil

@MarkWells That makes my Fighter sad :(

KorvinStarmast

@SouthpawHare It took me a while to "get" the attunement thing when we started 5e, but as both of the games I played have been medium to low to no magic items (outside of the tier 3 game, which was sort of high magic) I like the conceptual bit about needing to break in/get used to a magic item.

illustro

Bounded Accuracy as a design philosophy has the consequence that magic items are not required for any tier of play. At the same time, it expects that the game won't give out items that bring the characters beyond a certain power level (ie the max bonus a weapon should give to an attack roll is +3)

Attunement is a way of preventing characters from taking the available items in the game to break past that limit (ie stacking lots of items that give +1 AC to have AC 1 billion)

Southpaw Hare

How does it do that?

JohnP

8:50 PM

@SouthpawHare By limiting the # of items you can be attuned to at any given time

illustro

This is quite a good article on the subject from WoTC back in 2012

Mark Wells

@Someone_Evil About six seconds. If you're an exceptional dude, and you really push yourself, you can outperform that. But reading a forum post that says "here's an exploit where you pass a weapon around, lol" does not make you an exceptional dude.

KorvinStarmast

@illustro We have a link to that in a Q&A

@SouthpawHare here's a ref to that

illustro

For example, the ring of protection requires attunement andf gives +1 AC. If it did not require attunement, in theory a character could get 20 of the items and have +20 to AC (one for each finger and toe)

web.archive.org/web/20130620124410/www.wizards.com/dnd/…

KorvinStarmast

@illustro And look stylish while so doing! :)

illustro

8:52 PM

@KorvinStarmast I was attempting to get a wayback link that worked

KorvinStarmast

@illustro Aah, that's an ever better idea. :)

illustro

(since WotC apparently believes in purging all of their good articles from the face of the interwebs)

Someone_Evil

Multiple Rings of protection would work though, you would need many items with the same effect, but different names

KorvinStarmast

@Someone_Evil My fighter had one RoP and one Cloak of Prot, and I think I liked the save boosts as much as I liked the AC boost. Tier 3.

JohnP

@Someone_Evil How would you get around the 3 item attunement limit?

illustro

8:54 PM

@Someone_Evil Pathfinder (as an example) has Rings of Protection +5 (d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/rings/ring-of-protection)

and I imagine a Cloack of Protection +5 as well

Someone_Evil

@JohnP That's the hypothetical: they don't require attunement

KorvinStarmast

It's kind of funny to have a 24 AC and think it will matter when the fire giants start throwing rocks at you. Their to hit bonus is substantial.

Someone_Evil

But there is still the rule that multiple items of the same type don't work together

KorvinStarmast

Yes. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have tried to get a cloak of displacement rather than a cloak of protection.

illustro

@Someone_Evil yes, so you get one each of the ring of protection +1 -> +5 (each with suitably stepwise names, like improved protection ring and legendary ring of all protections)

KorvinStarmast

8:56 PM

Quoting Quadratic Wizard Hence bounded accuracy, where the range of numbers it's possible for a character to roll is kept within tighter limits, or bounds. This shifts the focus of the game away from character optimization (by stacking small bonuses), and toward interacting with the fictional world by searching for in-situation ways to acquire Advantage

Southpaw Hare

What was wrong with the Body Slots stuff from 3e? Like, you can benefit from 2 rings, and it doesn't matter what fingers or toes you use?

I guess that's similarly arbitrary, but it makes more sense in my brain, IMO

illustro

Because body slots require more tracking from the player and make things more complicated...

(and I suspect was an attempt to cut down on those types of shens from previous editions)

*were themselves an attempt

Simpler just to say 3 items that require attunement, plus you can't stack two items of the same name

*two or more

Southpaw Hare

Simpler in some sense, I guess. But overall, I don't agree.

Mark Wells

@SouthpawHare It gives you too many items. If the game is going to continue to include rings, gloves, helms, amulets, cloaks, boots, belts, melee and ranged weapons, armor, and shields, you get at least one of each.

Also has problems with creatures with weird body plans.

MikeQ

The 3.X body slots weren't great because 1. yes it requires more tracking and 2. it creates this sort of collision problem, where magical items may be arbitrarily mutually exclusive because they're meant for the same slot

Mark Wells

9:06 PM

@MikeQ Now, making them mutually exclusive might actually be useful if it was done intelligently.

Like, if anything that added to AC had to be armor or a shield then there's your cap on AC stacking

but of course it wasn't

MikeQ

@MarkWells That's a big "if" right there

V2Blast

@illustro Technically there's already a rule in 5e preventing that from working, attunement or not: the Combining Game Effects section from the DMG

> Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them—the most potent one—apply while the durations of the effects overlap. For example, if a target is ignited by a fire elemental’s Fire Form trait, the ongoing fire damage doesn’t increase if the burning target is subjected to that trait again. Game features include spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and magic items. See the related rule in the “Combining Magical Effects” section of chapter 10 in the Player’s Handbook.

Someone_Evil

(DMG 252; added in errata)

illustro

@V2Blast, thats why you have the rings named slightly differently based on their powerlevel

ring of protection, ring of improved protection, ring of superior protection, ring of legendary protection, ring of all the protections (+1 -> +5 respectively)

Someone_Evil

@illustro These rules are kinda in place to stop players accumulating bonuses; you as the DM is free to hand out +10 rings like they are candy, but that's you choice to make this worse (IMO)

illustro

9:16 PM

@Someone_Evil Yes I agree, I'm using the counter example to explain why those rules are in plance

*place

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: Does the Fireball spell damage objects?

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illustro

You would have some people argue that the ring of protection +1 is a different item to the ring of protection +2 (to to the bonus modifier being part of the name) and thus they should stack

Someone_Evil

(raw there is only ring of protection, which gives +1)

illustro

In previous editions there were rings of protection +x

Someone_Evil

As far as I can tell there has been a lot of things in previous editions. Some of them may have been bad ideas.

illustro

9:20 PM

Oh yes, many of them were bad ideas

illustro

9:31 PM

@Someone_Evil Using existing items, the maximum AC bonus possible (if the attunement requirement were removed) would be, +3 armor, +3 shield (+5 AC total), Wand of Orcus (+3 AC), Ingot of the Skold Rune (+1 AC so long as it's on your person), Cloak of Protection (+1 AC), Ring of Protection (+1 AC), Orrery of the Wanderer (+1 AC so long as it's within 30ft of you), and the Ioun Stone of Protection (+1 AC), for a total increase of AC of +16

and still not fall foul of the "same name" issue

Someone_Evil

I don't think AC bonuses alone are the most egregious case. Enemy to hit bonus do scale up a fair bit, but introducing a bounds on continuous magic item bonuses is very useful for play pace. Having fewer different effects and features means you can play faster with less fear of forgetting something.

5e has designed a fair amount of things in the interests of speed, because watching someone else read their character sheet, count bonuses, or reroll dice isn't fun

(to a lot of players, not trying to judge)

illustro

Oh totally agree, noone wants to spend 15-20 mins waiting for one person to read their character sheet

V2Blast

The Odyssey of the Dragonlords Kickstarter by Arcanum Worlds posted a backers-only update with a "preview" of the adventure content as they are running late. The "preview" is 342 pages long, and they are still working on another 100 pages (the appendices). I've only glanced at it because I want to play the adventure, but there's a lot of good stuff in there.

Someone_Evil

On a different note: Does the stack have a unhealthy relationship with the word "should"? Can we not work that as meaning "what are the pro's/con's of doing"? Because we seem to force questions to be rephrased in that less distinctive, less clear, less findable way, without much perceivable gain.

2

Mark Wells

9:53 PM

@Someone_Evil We do indeed.

Carcer

agreed. yes.

BESW

@Someone_Evil I think a much better question frame is usually "I have this problem, what solutions are available?" but we also demand that people show "effort" and that usually manifests as focusing on the viability of a particular solution.

Someone_Evil

Doesn't "I have this problem, what should I do?" mean that exact same thing. Or rather, shouldn't we answer it the same way?

KorvinStarmast

10:11 PM

@Someone_Evil Oh dear, you used a form of should. Should I vote to close your chat comment? 8^D

@Someone_Evil yes. It's like a red cape to a bull, apparently ...

Someone_Evil

While trying to find some previous examples (hard as a lot will have been edited) I did find this:

6

Q: How to get this question re-opened?

Recently this question was asked: "Should I share personal dream sequences with the party as a DM?" Clearly as a "should I" question it was inherently opinion based and was closed. However I think the topic and concept could get some excellent answers. I edited the question to "What are the adv...

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(which is unanswered...)

Someone_Evil

10:39 PM

Well.. here goes

The Oracle

10:54 PM

0

Q: We should talk about the word "should"

Occasionally a question gets asked that is approximately of the form: I have this problem, what should I do? or I have this problem, should I do X? These are then closed as opinion based, reworded into something like What are the advantages/disadvantages of doing X? before bein...

discussion closing-questions

inthemanual

11:30 PM

@BESW Those "quick-and-dirty" rules I posted the other day that you helped me re-write were to get my friends going on a game via discord. It's not a ruleset that's explicitly tailored to Discord, nor necessarily "best played" there, so it might not fit the spirit of the jam, but it was certainly something "designed" (loosely used term) with the intention of being played on Discord.

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