I like how they gave caster poor BAB to try to keep them away from using weapons but then realized that it would make them horrible at hitting with their spells so they added touch AC.
@RevenantBacon Given the spell lists, I'd say that magus could serve as fighter/evoker, fighter/abjurer, or fighter/transmuter, in AD&D2 terms. Bard could serve as fighter/illusionist or fighter/enchanter*, and Summoner could serve as fighter/conjurer.
I gotta say, that's definitely one of the things that 5e has in its favor. Everyone's attack bonus progresses at the same rate, but martial classes just get more attacks as class features.
@NautArch that is how my brother in law saved 13000 off sticker two months ago on a 2019 pick up truck with 3 miles on it. The thing had been on the lot for over a year in Houston.
@NautArch I used this to my advantage as well, not only was the car I bought sitting on the lot for a while but they gave me the line that it was getting a lot of interest. I knew this likely wasn't true for a couple reasons 1) they had the care on a riser which was a huge hassle to get the car down off of 2) the brakes showed that it hadn't been driven in quite a while. So I bargained them down quite a bit.
That's because they are wielding a chain saw. Iron Gods is the tech-themed campaign. With robots. And separate technology rules.
@NautArch There's an area that is famously haunted by a ghost. The ghost has unresolved business, but said business is long dead and buried thousands of miles away. The ghost is also unkillable. So based on our intel, there's no plausible way to resolve this challenge. Enter bard, stage left.
As the ghost charges us, the bard uses a readied action. To bluff. And says that we recently spoke with the ghost's friends, and tidied up their unresolved business for them. Logically it makes no sense, but the rolled total was over a 30.
Ghost thanks us profusely and ascends to some divine plane. The locals then write down this miracle (?) in their holy history books.
Hum, sorry to interrupt but, do you think giving a 1 dice portent (like the diviner subclass of the wizard D&D 5e) to a whole race is op? I was so sure it was ok, but looking at it after a while I think it's too much? :S
@Helwar Yeah so if the one lucky die could reroll yours, or force an enemy to reroll it would be like 1/3 as good as Variant Human (with an additional +1 to Dex and not as much choice on ASIs)
@NautArch That's why I asked about what else the race gets; sounds like the "just portent" was what it was before. But switching to lucky means the race has room for one or two other minor features while staying balanced
@NautArch - Zomg, the last dealer's internet manager just sent me an email asking what they can do to close the deal...good thing I'm past the major outrage.
@JohnP As long as you've done your research and are confident in your numbers, make it a hard line. If they want the car off their lot, they'll make the deal.
Subrace 1 is: +1 Int, +1 language, +1 tool proficiency Subrace 2 is: +1 wis, either mask of the wild or fleet or foot (choice) Subrace 3 is : +1 cha, prestidigitation cantrip, 1/day cure wounds
I think it would be balanced with the lucky die version of Premonition and only one of the two proficiencies at first glance. Getting a second proficiency pushes it above elves imo
@Helwar well you also have to keep in mind that if the drow is also in darkness 121+ feet away, the monster may be unable to see them (since monsters also have ranges on Darkvision)
Light's not useless with darkvision, remember that darkvision only lets you see as if dim light, which is good enough for fighting but imposes disadvantage on perception checks
even if you have darkvision, if you're not being stealthy yourself you benefit from a light source
@Yuuki Hm. Considering the "grey" part of the title is a double entendre about the morality of black and white, I expect that "red" would probably refers to the stages of anger, so it would probably be worse (assuming it keeps the sexual theme)
Hm... Are there any light sources that go more than 60 feet (so as to be better at seeing enemies than Darkvision 60). I know the bullseye lantern but that's specifically in a cone so not perfectly useful
In my setting I have decided that any race can be planetouched (instead of humans being the base for everything). Rules wise, I just use tiefling/genasi/aasimar and that's all. But with smaller races, stapling "small" in there doesn't unbalance it, does it?
@Helwar Not really. It is kind of minor in terms of what it affects. They can't use heavy weapons without disadvantage and can squeeze in smaller spaces
it was the case in <=2e that the presence of other light sources spoiled infravision but as far as I'm aware from 3e on darkvision can happily overlap normal light
@Carcer No, but say you want to see someone 70 feet away, Darkvision 60 wouldn't do it, but light wouldn't either unless there is a light source I'm missing (apart from the cone of a bullseye lantern)
I dunno where I got this, but I thought if you had darkvision 60, and a light source of 60, you see normal within the light, and then extend 60' of darkvision
It might be homebrew from my old DM that I take for granted? Or an old edition thing?
@Helwar yeah, I'm not sure where that's from exactly. 3e does have low-light vision, which allows certain races to see several times further in poor lighting conditions than normal
but I'm pretty sure it didn't have any rule that let darkvision start at the edge of some other light's reach, and darkvision didn't exist pre-3e.
@Carcer Yeah but the coverage isn't close to comparable to the light spell (even if you ignore the dim instead of part-dim/part-bright). It's like a net of 1/4 the area (assuming 2D, even less in 3D) covered if you add up all the lights. Definitely only good if you really need to see something far away
Imagine the scene of an army of swordmages preparing to siege an evil castle, when a wave of arrows soars overhead of them all casting the battlefield into darkness as the light spells illuminating the area around them are all dispelled by a darkness cast on each arrow. Definitely a waste of those spellslots on part of the evil wizards since the swordmages can recast light for free, but for intimidation that does nicely
@DavidCoffron And the army of swordmages made the ground tremble, shouting as one "LET THERE BE LIGHT!", and the battlefield promptly gleamed with the light of a thousand spells...
@DavidCoffron Have you tried Kingdoms and Warfare yet? (Oh, no, you haven't. Just remembered it's not out for a while. Stupid KS-funding makes me think I already bought the thing....)
@JohnP I once had a dream that I was in Saw XIII, and I was trying to look up on Wikipedia the plot of Saw XIII so that I could avoid/get out of the traps... but you can't read in dreams! So frustrating!
@JohnP I mean, it's an algorithm. You can implement it in ~any language you like, or even pen and paper if you're careful and don't fear hours and hours of manual computation :>
MCTS isn't machine learning (in the traditional sense), I'd say it's a weird mongrel between traditional game AI methods like minimax and fancy self-teaching systems.
The basic premise of MCTS is that from a given situation, both players randomly making moves until the game ends will give a decent idea on whether the situation is a good or a bad one.
It can be reinforced to "eventually" converge towards the minimax solution by carefully choosing which branches of the game-tree to explore, treating it as a multiarmed bandit problem.
@NautArch No, but he's older than my uncle by abt 20 years (almost 80 now) and has been having a lot of problems recently, this is the latest episode. He's been in hospital about a week now, I'm guessing his body chemistry is so messed up that he reacted to a pain med in a new way.
@NautArch Yeah, based on my past medical experience, he's in a downward spiral. :( This will tear up my uncle bad, he's been with him for ~35 years, and somewhat estranged from the family (Grandpa, his dad, was an extreme 'phobe).
@NautArch It does tend to invalidate teh answers. "I got the answer I wanted, but let me ask this, in spite of these sources, do they hibernate or not?"
Yep, I think answer incorporation is generally a bad idea. Except maybe if the answer makes bad assumptions and the question needs to be clarified, but in that case the question should've maybe been put on hold in between
@KorvinStarmast @JohnP I also really wanted to continue that comment thread with "Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!" but it seemed like it was totally unnecessary and possibly really frustrating to the answerer.
@Medix2 I think @V2Blast has had various endeavours in that field. As I understand it, there's a lot of trying to find someone with the right edition of a book
@Yuuki Well, as a % chance anyways. In 5e, having proficiency in armor means being able to cast spells while donning it, and not having Disadvantage on Attack Rolls while donning it.
> Mind Sharpener: While weaing this infused item, whenever the creature fails a Constitution Saving Throw to maintain concentration on a spell, it can use its reaction to succeed instead.
@Medix2 Seems to be a rather clear-cut case of exception making the rule. If the scroll specifically says one can spells without material components, it's a very natural reading that the intent is that other components are required per usual.
At the very least I'd say dying includes falling unconscious, but also monsters are allowed to die, but technically should fall unconscious on reaching 0 HP
The actually interesting bit is, the ability description doesn't state the Vampire doesn't have to make death saving throws at zero hit points, which on the other hand does seem like an oversight to me.
"Normally there is no way for a creature to be at 0 hit points and still be conscious and taking actions. However, the Vampire is clearly an exception, based on the text of its Misty Escape feature. It is very unclear whether any of the usual rules that apply to unconscious creatures at 0 hit points also apply to Misty Vampires at 0 hit points." (From this answer)
Alternatively: "That specific rule short circuits the entire section in the PHB on reaching 0 hp and the DM can't (except via rule 0) have a vampire take the optional path. So vampires do none of those things; they roll no death saving throws so they can have no failed death saving throws." (from this answer)
(hence the edge case in that Q: if you open the coffin and start stabbing the vamp, does it die? I'd say no, purely because that makes the staking mechanic irrelevant.)
@kviiri RAW would be that they turn into mist and then have to make death saving throws, since Misty Escape doesn't say they don't. I'm thinking probably nobody actually plays them that way.
So then the other edge case is what happens if you dump them out of the coffin while they're at 0 hp and paralyzed
@MarkWells Yep, that's my reading as well, as it specifically is "instead of falling unconscious" and unconsciousness and the death saves are distinct effects of being at 0 hp
If they remain paralyzed then you've won. They can't recover HP, so they stay paralyzed forever. Then destroy the coffin so some Renfield doesn't stick them back in it, and game over.
If they don't remain paralyzed then they are permanently at 0 HP and unkillable.
@KorvinStarmast Well, the Monster Manual explicitly refers to the PHB for rules on hit points, so by RAW they don't in this sense.
"A monster usually dies or is destroyed when it drops to 0 hit points. For more on hit points, see the Player’s Handbook." is quite literally all they have for general monster death rules
Sadly, they leave that "usually" woefully ill-defined. I think it'd be great if they actually went out and said that that rule is a convenience thing, and that GMs should exercise discretion in applying it
(The PHB's suggestion to have major villains fall unconscious and make death saves at 0 hp is kind of dumb. What's that supposed to accomplish? "We fear that Sauron, the great enemy, has returned to menace the world again, because Elrond forgot to say 'I stab him 3 times' when he was at 0 hp.")
@MikeQ I think this is the correct intent of that option. Most DM's will have a good sense of what their players will do anyways though. If it's a party of murderhobos, then it's generally safe to assume they make sure the job is done. On the other hand, if they all worship the goddess of mercy and second chances...
well, I'm sure you can see where that would lead
Tangential side note: in most previous editions, when undead are reduced to 0 HP, they are just flat-out dead(or destroyed). There's none of that "dead at -Con" business.
And make sure the DM and players agree on whatever convention is used. Personal example: If the party's cleric tries to cast Spare the Dying on an enemy who dropped last turn, and the DM asserts that NPCs instantly die at 0 hp, then the player will be annoyed.
What harm do you see in the rule actually clarifying that then?
Eg. saying something like "The GM can choose whether or not to let monsters make death saving throws depending on whether they feel it is appropriate given the situation"
On further reflection I think I'd handle the vampire getting tossed out of the coffin by having it Misty Escape right back in. Then it has two distinct states: 0 hp, out of coffin -> mist form, fleeing back to coffin. 0 hp, in coffin -> paralyzed and recuperating.
I think the MM wording is particularly bad because the "usually" could refer to something else entirely --- that various monsters are more-or-less immune to death from zero hit points.
The PHB version is not really that ambiguous but that, too, could stress that the GM can choose based on the situation and I don't see what the harm in that would be.
As DM, most of the time it is simpler to use "dead" ... but sometimes it is better for the play at that point to have a not quite dead NPC/Monster. It depends on the situation.
@kviiri I don't think it's necessary, that's all. It appears to me to be, since it in the PHB, a warning or a caveat to players to be alert to that possibility.
@KorvinStarmast Did you intend to change × to an X on that question? I believe the times symbol is read more correctly by accessibility software (it also looks a lot better imo)
It's not like any RPG doesn't have some unusually worded rules here and there
Thanks!
I sure hope so x) realized a nifty algorithm thing I've been working on doesn't do exactly what I wanted but otoh also that a solution I'd like is probably easier than what I was going to work on so... it's a win?
