> The etymology from ken + tauros, "piercing bull," was a euhemerist suggestion in Palaephatus' rationalizing text on Greek mythology, On Incredible Tales (Περὶ ἀπίστων), which included mounted archers from a village called Nephele eliminating a herd of bulls that were the scourge of Ixion's kingdom.
@Delioth And the centaur etymology has nothing to do with the creature itself, just a reference to a way some dudes dealt with a group of rampaging cattle.
Or Anthrotaur might actually be closer to literal? I don't Greek to know proper grammar, so the best I can rely on is using Google to give me roughly the right roots
Someone put forward an interesting Third Rail on my question about Dim Light: can a creature be covered in Bright Light and Dim Light, and thus be subject to effects from both, rather than just one?
(I don't think it specifically applies to the example they're citing, because the effect in question says a creature is affected "within the sphere", not "if they're covered by this light", but I think the question still holds)
@MikeQ That's appreciated. I need to grab the last thread I had on it at GiTP, and the last question I awks here, and see if I can get a synthesis of the best suggestions to improve it. Then I"ll pass it to you. :). Deal?
It's a slight type error to say that something "emits dim light within a 40-foot sphere" for example. What it emits is enough light to dimly illuminate a 40-foot sphere. If the sphere is already in direct sunlight then it's brightly lit.
@MarkWells Mechanically, the game defines specific states of light, it doesn't define a spectrum of light, it defines specific states of light and is hazy about the transition between those states.
Although the bigger issue is that Moonbeam doesn't actually work in Bright Light if that's how it works.
@goodguy5 While that may be true, "unless otherwise stated" is a pretty big "unless". Unless otherwise stated, every creature has a million hit points.
@Xirema I can reason that it's "filling" the cylinder (thus treating the lack of light as "empty" and the presence of light as "full") and so, if the cylinder is already filled with bright light, this changes nothing.
Because I've always imagined Moonbeam adding a blue light to wherever it's applied, even in bright light; but that doesn't make much sense if, mechanically, the Dim Light doesn't override the Bright Light.
But I've also never specifically ruled that the Dim Light caused by Moonbeam creates a lightly obscured area if used in Bright Light.
So I'm thinking at the very least I'm applying something inconsistently.
It's not going to change anything about how I treat light in my games, but if someone asks me for RAW support of it, I don't think I can say anything to them except "stop that"
@Xirema This is where the "it's maaagic guys, it doesn't have to make sense" attitude really grinds my gears, personally, because if it's maaagic then I want to apply magical thinking, instead, and reason that Moonbeam doesn't work in bright light because the Sun prevails.
And yeah, if you ask for RAW support for that, well, it's me, so I'll just laugh at you.
@MarkWells And if I'm applying magical thinking, I'd rather argue that, in defiance of physics, a spell that fills an area with dim light can replace bright light to do so. And neither interpretation is strictly supported by the rules-as-written.
@goodguy5 More a reference to the purity of things. A vampire has no reflection because mirrors used to be made via silver-coated metals not glass and silver represented purity. Same thing with sunlight. And a vampire's inability to cross running water is much the same, running water is/was considered more pure/safer than standing water by folklore (and lay knowledge).
Therefore, distilled water which is 100% pure water with no minerals or other such things would also be anathema to a vampire.
Currently there exists the following question: "What does 'ally' mean, as a game term?" and "Does a familiar count as an ally?" was marked as a duplicate. Meanwhile there also exist the following questions:
Is a Sentient Weapon considered an ally for the purposes of Pack Tactics?
Can charmed fo...
Honestly, the idea that you can use stuff like Moonbeam to create patches of Dim Light within Bright Light seems non-exploitable enough that I'd allow it, unless someone's got a compelling reason why I shouldn't.
@Rubiksmoose Yeah. The source cited is specifically for D&D 5e. That is one system out of thousands. The only tag is "terminology" which leaves one wondering if the too broad maybe wasn't a spot on reason to close.
I think that a tag might be useful, but I am also not in a hurry.
And I honestly think it's a dupe of the question KRyan linked to in his answer.
But I do not want to get into open / close cycle or conflict, so I have said enough.
@KorvinStarmast ah ok. I thought that might be it. The thought had occurred to me, but I think the terms' do go deeper. The ones cited in the question might be from 5e, but I don't think that would exclude the potential for other to bring in other historical examples/guidance?
I mean, I reopened the post with mod-hammer. I would not consider it problematic if people closed it for problems I didn't notice.
If it does get closed again, I could see this as being on trajectory for Meta.
@Rubiksmoose We already have a meta on that term, and I am not convinced that this question also does not belong in meta... and it is being asked after this user engaged un der that question on meta. Is this a dupe of the question on meta? I am really not interested in seeing the RAW wars start again ... so I guess my spidey sense is tingling.
Since this question is talking about what it means to say RAW vs RAI vs RAI2 in the context of talking about the games, I think it belongs on mainsite.
@JohnP Speaking as someone who has watched every Star Wars Movie and generally loves them (even the bad ones, like 2, 6, & 7), and has only seen two Star Trek episodes, I think this is probably correct.
Not even - Rey should've gone Dark Side (or at least a dark shades-of-gray) since they'd been leaning that way, and Kylo should've gone Light Side (or at least light shade-of-gray) since he's been conflicted the whole time
Like, outside of that I found it to be a great movie. But they set up a great story arc and then at the very end said "nah, let's do the good-vs-evil and ignore anything in this movie that could've evolved the characters"
Not necessarily because TLJ doesn't "work" in the context of Rey and Kylo's alignment [non-]shifts, but because I feel like we've had enough of the simplistic Jedi/Sith dynamic in Star Wars, and I really want to see that dynamic explored in non-Han Solo characters.
@Delioth I felt similarly about Finn's arc, about being a hero and such, and then having that opportunity snatched away for some half-baked "something something love" moment
I agree that the simple Jedi/Sith dynamic ought to have been broken, but instead they pretty much just dropped back to that exact dynamic at the end of TFA
Which, IMO, is the critical flaw in TFA. Like, Attack of the Clones is bad, but it's the interesting kind of bad, where the filmmakers (Lucas, if we're indulging Auteur Theory) clearly had something interesting to say, but flopped the execution of presenting those ideas.
Or, when you get to stuff like Sifo-Dyas, were clearly just baffling creative decisions related to absurdly mismanaged production.
@G.Moylan True to the core essence of D&D without all the unnecessary frippery that crept in 3.5/4 and was codified in 5e. Too much fluff to satisfy the millennial players.
But in TFA, everything the film has to offer just feels recycled and stale, even if, objectively speaking, it's a more competent film than the entire prequel trilogy combined.
J.J. Abrams is both good and bad as a series opener. He'll get people interested in all the plot threads and minutiae that he throws out but now you have to resolve those things. And Abrams isn't going to help you there because he had no idea what he was planning when he said "Knights of Ren" because he didn't have a plan for "Knights of Ren".
The millenial generation, of which I am a member. I, as I'm sure many other "fellow mellenials" would, find it derogatory that what you clearly consider to be trash was added just to "satisfy the millenials."
@Xirema That is true. TFA really had no new ideas. Maybe they were afraid, since last time they tried to reintroduce SW to a younger generation (i.e., Phantom Menace) it was received so poorly?
@MikeQ Except proverbs. Nobody's as good at twisting proverbs to their complete opposite meaning like boomers (bootstraps and bad apples, for example).
And the Prequel Trilogy is still the most competent attempt to deconstruct The Hero's Journey I've seen in modern fiction, which just so we're clear, is such a low bar to cross.
@Delioth My biggest gripe with anything over the last 15ish years is the proliferation of the "Everyone's a winner" concept, to the point where sports don't even keep score anymore.
@Yuuki No, and I have no problems with participation awards. Our system used them for years. My problem is when they take all "competitiveness" out of the system because some people couldn't handle actually losing at something.
Pretty much every "millennial problem" is just misplaced blame from decisions the previous generation made. Millennials aren't getting married at the same rates as previous generations? Well, might have something to do with the high divorce rates in their parent's generation.
Millennials don't save as much as previous generations? For one, systemic financial issues. For two, maybe they noticed that despite the retirement savings of their parents, those fancy 401k accounts still got wiped out by the housing crisis.
@JohnP There was a bit more bloat in 2e than I cared for, but it was a very well scrubbed reboot of AD&D 1e.
@G.Moylan Previous generations may disagree with you about that, since you don't know what they actually did at a similar age, but maybe that's a derail this particular room does not need? Each generation has some obstacle to want to overcome ... seems to be a pattern ...
@G.Moylan Oh, BTW, the ridiculous cost of college tuition is something you were/are faced with that was never your fault. (my kids are 27 and 30, so they got to face that while the 2007 - 2010 stock market crash cut the funds I'd been investing for their education by over 50%. Blah. Yuk. A mess all around)
@KorvinStarmast yeah that's definitely out of our hands. Turns out, when the government backs loans, the people on the receiving end that money get greedy. Because nobody learned anything from the insurance system.
Saw a neat Factoid in the Economist last spring. Since about mid 1980's in the US, college tuition in real / adjusted dollars has tripled. WTF? Not sure what it's done elsewhere, but I suppose that it's similar.
Whether it's actually 0-cost or just someone-else's-cost is largely irrelevant
Subsidized kind of implies there's still a cost to the person receiving the benefit rather than just completely paid-for by the other party (like subsidized loans and farm subsidies)
Right, but if its not paid by the students (ie. tuition) it's paid by the budget. All these elsewhere places that don't charge tuition will not have had this tripling. And I would guess a fair number of those that do, won't have seen it either.
@Delioth tuition fees are pretty standard in the UK higher education system (except for in scotland because they're a sensible country)
all the kids who started university after I did have it far worse, because the cap on tuition fees was tripled after I started
I finished university with about £36k of student debt, although my final balance would have been unusually high (disregarding cap tripling) because I changed courses and took a couple extra years to finish my degree
I'd guess roughly that £36k would be normal for a 3-year degree now, though.
We know of multiple celestials (Malkizid, Thah Rahalar) that served evil deities. After their fall, do they necessarily become fiends or devils?
Inspired by this question.
During a recent session, my character was given a Cloak of Protection and a Staff of Fire. Both items require attunement. Is it possible to attune to both items at the same time or do I need to attune to them seperately?
Kickstarter: "Hidden Treasures,"The Goblin Dating Sim. Get to know the characters of a new world, and explore using mechanics you know from TTRPGs.Free demo on itchio.
Currently there exists the following question: "What does 'ally' mean, as a game term?" and "Does a familiar count as an ally?" was marked as a duplicate. Meanwhile there also exist the following questions:
Is a Sentient Weapon considered an ally for the purposes of Pack Tactics?
Can charmed fo...
During a recent session, my character was given a Cloak of Protection and a Staff of Fire. Both items require attunement. Is it possible to attune to both items at the same time or do I need to attune to them seperately?
