TRPG General Chat

Rubiksmoose

16:06

@Yuuki Red "Delicious" is the literal worst apple.

Yuuki

@Rubiksmoose Not delicious but definitely red.

Unappetizingly red.

It's like semi-sweet ash.

Rubiksmoose

@Yuuki So so true

Xirema

16:54

Hrmph. I really want to bake an apple cobbler now...

JohnP

@Xirema strudel.

Xirema

@JohnP Tomato, tomato.

Actually, I take that back. Apple Pancake. That's what I want.

JohnP

@Xirema cobbler and strudel are two different animals.

Xirema

****, I think I need to make a grocery store visit on my way home tonight.

JohnP

@Xirema What about a potato pancake with applesauce?

Xirema

16:57

@JohnP No, it's the wrong aesthetic. Potato pancakes are fine, but they're not my jam.

JohnP

@Xirema mmm...apple jam.

NautArch

Apple butter?

Yuuki

@JohnP Well, one's a fish and the other's not an animal at all.

JohnP

@NautArch Brown sugar and walnut stuffed baked apples: foxeslovelemons.com/walnut-stuffed-baked-apples @Xirema

Xirema

WHELP. So much for my diet....

JohnP

17:03

@Xirema skinnytaste.com/delightfully-baked-apples Not quite in the same league, but...

pretty much everything I've made from skinnytaste has been pretty decent, actually.

Hot RPG Questions

17:54

5

Q: What's the orientation of the Rope Trick hole?

The Rope Trick spell specifies Holding one end of a 60-foot or shorter rope causes the other end to rise up until the rope is fully perpendicular to the ground. At the high end, a portal opens to an extradimensional space into which eight medium or smaller creatures can fit by climbing ...

Yuuki

@HotRPGQuestions It could be a three-dimensional hole, a la Interstellar.

In which case there would be no orientation.

GcL

@Yuuki It could be a D-Mentional thing in where it's up to the DM to mention it if it's relevant.

Yuuki

As cool as the black hole is, the wormhole traversal scene is probably my favorite effects in Interstellar.

GcL

18:11

@Yuuki Related question. Who's the better actor: Matthew McConaughey or Matthew McConaughey's Chest?

Yuuki

@GcL False premise, it's Matthew McConaughey's voice.

NautArch

alright alright alright

GcL

@Yuuki alright alright alright

Hot RPG Questions

2

Q: Can a warforged druid use composite plating?

A druid gains meduim armor proficiency, but is not allowed to use metal armor. A warforged with medium armor proficency can normally set their Integrated Protection to Composite Plating, granting an AC of 13 + prof. + dex (max 2). Does Composite Plating count as metal armor for the purposes of dr...

dnd-5e druid armor armor-class warforged

Joshua Aslan Smith

19:53

Yi

*Yo

Xirema

20:09

So we're all in agreement: if WotC added Shamans as a playable class to 5e D&D, they'd be a Wisdom-based Warlock, right?

(There's not actually anything stopping them from just doing that, since Warlock Subclasses are attained at level 1, so you can easily write a feature that supplants Charisma with Wisdom)

Powerdork

shaman's an archetype that I wouldn't trust them to do well

Xirema

20:26

@Powerdork It probably would end up as another Way of the Four Elements build, TBH.

Powerdork

are you talking about the 4e shaman concept, a Warcraft-based shaman, or something else rooted in the actual origin of the word?

Xirema

@Powerdork I don't know how the 4e shaman concept worked, I'm just thinking in terms of "Spirit Medium that tells the spirits of nature to do their bidding", which I think somewhat overlaps with Warcraft's Shamans, but it's been a decade since I was up on my Warcraft lore.

Powerdork

basic idea

Hot RPG Questions

7

Q: Are Warforged affected by Stench or other poison-based effects?

In the Warforged description it states that they don't need to breathe. So one of my players told me he would shut down his smell sensors or something like that so he won't be affected by something like the stench effect of the troglodytes. Some poison-based spells explicitly state that they st...

dnd-5e combat breathing

NautArch

I still want another INT based option. I guess the Artificer is that?

Yuuki

20:35

@Xirema YCMMV on "do their bidding".

Powerdork

Remember when the D&D team dared to have an Intelligence-or-Charisma-based warrior and leader in the Player's Handbook that didn't cast spells? I do.

Xirema

@Powerdork That seems like the sort of thing that would be a big design snafu, a'la the Ranger.

Powerdork

@Xirema Warlord Fourthedition? Nah.

Not any more than the cleric, at least.

(Every cleric across modern editions.)

Hot RPG Questions

20:54

4

Q: Why is this weapon searching for a new owner?

In Dragon Heist, Meloon Wardragon wields Azuredge, the legendary greataxe. Players discover that... So... My players have handled that problem with a swift Protection from Evil and Good, but I'm not sure if that was the actual reason, or if it was something else.

dnd-5e lore npc artifacts waterdeep-dragon-heist

Hot RPG Questions

21:14

3

Q: Where can I find Fiend storylines or backgrounds?

First some background: I and four friends started playing D&D 5e. None of us has ever played D&D, including myself, but since the idea to give it a shot was mine, I volunteered to read the rules, listen to some podcast and be the DM. As I'm new to this, I'll be running the "Lost Mines of Phandel...

dnd-5e warlock lore

Xirema

21:45

So I don't have time to write up a proper alternative answer to this, but this answer is definitely wrong, yes?

Miniman

@Xirema No, that answer is correct.

Xirema

The only rules given in Chapter 10 for a spell's range are described by the "Range" property itself, so even if we accept that "Range" has a formal ontology in 5e (which is a dubious proposition) there's no reason to presume that multiple uses of "60ft" aren't semiotic references to the spell's range.

Helwar

I feel it's correct

Xirema

And if we don't accept "Range" to have a formal ontology, then it's definitely wrong, because both uses are colloquially defining the spell's "range".

Miniman

This metamagic changes one specific number in a spell's stats. It doesn't ctrl+f the spell and replace all instances of that number that it can find.

Xirema

21:50

@Miniman Why not?

Also, this answer supports my interpretation, so if nothing else, we're not being consistent in how we apply these rules.

Hot RPG Questions

10

Q: What is the CR of a Metallic Dragon that used Change Shape?

The older Metallic Dragons have the Change Shape ability : Change Shape. The dragon magically polymorphs into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating no higher than its own, or back into its true form. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying is ...

dnd-5e dragons cr-calculation shapeshifter

Miniman

@Xirema Because that's not what it says it does. And because if a spell had a 60ft range and a 60ft area, changing the range wouldn't change the area.

@Xirema Who's "we"? I didn't vote for it.

Xirema

@Miniman Yeah, but it's contextually obvious that the spell has an area and a range. With Counterspell, it just has a range.

(Unless you define the Area as "the surface area of the target spellcaster" or whatever)

Miniman

@Xirema Ah, it's obvious. We don't need to apply rules consistently because it's always obvious how they should be applied.

Xirema

You also run into problems like with the Extended Spell metamagic and spells that last 1 minute, and then say they do something after one minute (like Banishment). If the description trigger goes off after one minute, then the spell has no effect for the second minute.

@Miniman I mean, yes.

And it's more consistent than saying "actually this spell doesn't benefit because its action trigger manually specifies its own range, and we cannot deduce that this is meant to point to the same range as the spell's actual range property".

Miniman

21:59

@Xirema In that case, why have rules at all? Why not have the Distant Spell metamagic say "it works from further away" and leave it up to the DM to figure out what that means for each spell?

Xirema

AFAIK, there's not a single spell in the game that specifies one range for the formal Range property and then specifies a completely different number in its description or action, other than area-of-effect spells which are explicit about what is and isn't its area. So the precedent is that all these references point to the same platonic value.

Miniman

@Xirema Yes, 5e's poor writing often causes nonsensical outcomes. And, to be clear, nothing we're talking about here has any bearing on how I would run a game. But when we're talking about the rules, it's disingenuous to talk about what they should say or you want them to say instead of what they actually say.

Hence all the answers on the site saying "the rules say this, but that's obviously stupid, so here's how it should probably work".

Admitting that the rules are stupid is better than pretending they're not.

MikeQ

@Xirema Wouldn't a shaman be represented as a cleric?

Shalvenay

22:15

@MikeQ Cleric or sometimes Druid

V2Blast

22:47

@Xirema I mean, there aren't really any "implied" rules. While it'd be logical to have Distant Spell to apply to numbers like that repeat the number listed in the range field instead of simply referencing the range field, RAW that's not how it works

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