TRPG General Chat

12:23 AM

twitter.com/OspreyGames/status/1243514972736499712

> While you stay at home to help fight COVID-19, why not explore the frozen ruins of Frostgrave? We have made the core rules eBook and a selection of solo scenarios available as free downloads. Find out more on the blog - ospreypublishing.com/blog/free_frostgrave_ebook_2020

(Their site FAQ says it's possible to checkout as a guest, but when I added the items to my cart and used the code, then tried to checkout, it would not let me proceed without either registering or logging in. "Register" did require me to enter billing info, even though the total was $0.)

nitsua60

1:17 AM

@RandomDudeWithAKnife I hate you.

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

(For anyone new to chat: Please follow the reply-arrow back for context.)

@Shalvenay Hey-ooh!

How's life?

Shalvenay

OK here. as for you?

nitsua60

Survived week 2 of homeschooling, with only two ticks. (None for me, one each for two of the kids.)

V2Blast

congrats :P

Hot RPG Questions

6:16 AM

2

Q: Can my artificer use an Infusion to create a Bag of Holding everyday for profit?

Can my artificer make a bag of holding everyday and then sell them for gold? And yes I have the infusion for this.

Hot RPG Questions

8:08 AM

1

Q: Do I get a bonus d6 to Magic Missile damage if my expert sidekick helps me?

The expert sidekick has the helpful ability (at level 7+): The expert can take the Help action as a bonus action, and the creature who receives the help gains a 1d6 bonus to the d20 roll. If that roll is an attack roll, the creature can forgo adding the bonus to it, and then if the attack hit...

dnd-5e spells attack sidekick

Hot RPG Questions

10:01 AM

2

Q: Do the gauntlets of flaming fury add 1d6 of fire damage to magical weapons?

The item's description reads While you wear both of these steel gauntlets, any non- magical weapon you grasp with either gauntlet is treated as a magic weapon. As a bonus action, you can use the gauntlets to cause magical flames to envelop one or two melee weapons in your grasp. Each flaming ...

dnd-5e magic-items

Someone_Evil

12:16 PM

TIL when a question is left with no tags due to tag hoovering, it creates the untagged tag which shows up in the new tag section so as long as there is some idiot who pays attention to there (*points finger at self*) it should be fairly catchable

nitsua60

@Someone_Evil Every couple of months I remember to take a look at untagged just to see what's sitting there in the orphanage.

But thank you: you've prompted me to write a tag description, which I probably don't do nearly enough of.

Someone_Evil

2:59 PM

@nitsua60 Does the tag wiki/excerpt stay around when the tag is pruned (as it will be being on no questions)?

nitsua60

4:49 PM

@Someone_Evil That's... an interesting natural experiment that we've just started. Good thought!

Also, nice catch on Bardic Inspiration as the better example.

Ender Look

7:31 PM

Hi, quick question. Does someone know a D&D 5e Non-Dwarf race (can be homebrew) which the following traits: +2 Con +1 Wis (or vice-versa), +1 HP/level, No armour weight penalty?

Someone_Evil

Why do you need it?

If you have so specific requirements it might be easier just to make your own

kviiri

(continuing from my chat in the Back Room) you might have a hard time finding a specific combo with those features because when people homebrew new races they generally try to make them unique (with respect to already existing races, like the Hill Dwarf which has those stats)

Ender Look

Our DM banned spellcasting abilities for Dwarf, but I want to be a Life Cleric with heavy and no strenght

kviiri

The easiest way, since your GM is open to homebrew, is to re-skin it yourself

Bearded Gnome or somesuch x)

Ender Look

Yes, I could, but to which race?? I don't know much about races

Someone_Evil

7:34 PM

To one (from anything) you would like to play

Ender Look

mmm

I will try

Someone_Evil

On the other hand, Going by just the ab score you do have water genasi

And lizardfolk and loxodons, and simic hybrids I guess

Ender Look

Interesting, I will look all of them, thanks!

Helwar

Just gonna chime in here.... Banning dwarves for magic feels iffy. Every class has some kind of magic :/

Ender Look

In its world some kind of corruption hurted all of them

kviiri

7:36 PM

@Helwar Yeah, I agree with this. I'm generally not too fond of these tricks

But it's their game

Ender Look

For example, I think my character must be a woman. Because in its setting, only woman can do religious-clerish-stuff

Helwar

@EnderLook I figure he wants to follow some kind of trope there, but it really doesn't work in D&D. Most classes if not all have some kind of supernatural. Even the simplest fighter can magically heal themselves once a day

Someone_Evil

@Helwar Ehh... not all healing is magical and loss of hitpoints isn't directly wounds thus restoring hit points isn't directly closing/healing wounds

Helwar

well, even that

what classes does not have magic? Rogue?

dwarves can be fighters and rogues? that's it?

Someone_Evil

@Helwar Both of those classes have spellcasting subclasses (Eldrtich Knight and Arcane Tricksters)

But I guess that isn't relevant

Helwar

7:42 PM

yup I know, but I guess that under that ruling, they are banned from those

I dunno, for me that kind of prohibition is a big red alert xD

Someone_Evil

We'd have to ask the DM for this, but I'd guess there's a line to between magic and spellcasting. Monks and barbarians have magical features, but they sure aren't spellcasters

Helwar

But if everyone is ok with it, then I guess everyone can have fun their own way :)

Someone_Evil

Drawing limitations and changing certain aspects for a given campaign/world is a way to make that world stand out. Now because you can't play as a spellcasting dwarf you remember that something is up with the dwarves in that world.

I'd also want to see that played to and not have a player that is fond of dwarven spellcasters if doing it though

Helwar

@Someone_Evil Yup, that's why I said that everyone has fun their own way. I certainly banned players from playing certain things before, so I'm not here to judge. It's just that as I grow older I grow weary of this :/

kviiri

@Someone_Evil Being very generous with homebrew, though, has a rather converse message

To me, being told that "no, you can be anything you like except a magical dwarf" sounds like a practical invitation to play a Tworf wizard. Tworfs are short, sturdy creatures who like living underground, fancy industry and fine weapons and are Totally Not Dwarves.

kviiri

8:12 PM

In general though, I think the GM has all right to restrict what to put in their game. For a very anvily example, picture someone bringing their gnome bard into a game about espionage in 1970's Europe.

KorvinStarmast

8:22 PM

@kviiri Just be a Zverg. ;-)

kviiri

A zorg

KorvinStarmast

I zerg

Rubiksmoose

U zyrg

?

KorvinStarmast

He, she, it zergs ... we zerg you zerg they zerg

(To zerg is to stage an early game rush in an attempt to overwhelm the opponent's defenses ...)

"The DM zerged us with a dozen kobolds in that first level adventure ..."

Rubiksmoose

Ah yes, I distinctly remember being terrible at Starcraft lol

kviiri

8:31 PM

I was always a more Command and Conquer type. Although I concede it was kinda shoddily balanced until Tiberian Sun.

Rubiksmoose

I had friends who played that, but I never did.

kviiri

They were really awesome back in the 1990's when FMV in video games was practically unheard of

esp since they relished futuristic visuals

The basic premise of each game in the main series is that Kane, the charismatic and reputedly immortal leader of the terrorist/visionary cult, Brotherhood of Nod, returns from presumed death and tries to do something nasty (or again, visionary!) with Tiberium, which is basically "prion except it's a glowing green rock".

Then GDI, the good guys (except in a few moments of grayer "establishment vs rebels" undertones) defeat him and he remains dead until the next game.

I think they could've made a more cohesive plot between the games if they didn't have such long time periods between each installment...

Hot RPG Questions

9:22 PM

6

Q: Can a naked Changeling use its Shapechanger feature to duplicate the appearance of clothing?

Can a naked Changeling use its Shapechanger feature to duplicate the appearance of clothing or equipment, similarly to Mystique from the X-Men? As an action, you can change your appearance and your voice. You determine the specifics of the changes, including your coloration, hair length, an...

dnd-5e equipment shapeshifter

5

Q: Healer feat: can you use healer's kit on yourself?

The healer feat gives me the following action: Heal As an action, you can spend one use of a healer’s kit to tend to a creature and restore 1d6 + 4 hit points to it, plus additional hit points equal to the creature’s maximum number of Hit Dice. The creature can’t regain hit points from t...

dnd-5e feats healing

Axoren

So, a couple of months ago, I was part of a 5-man Level 1 Start that hit us with 14 goblins as our first combat. Two spellcasters spent the first 2 turns casting Sleep and took out about 7 each, completely exhausting their spell slots. Now, immediately after that, an additional 14 goblins were added to the battle mat.

The DM figured that to avoid the encounter being trivialized, he would need to add more creatures.

We managed, by the end of it, to kill every single awake goblin and kill every sleeping goblin before they woke up with only one player hitting 0.

We all hit level 3 afterwards, when the DM realized just how much XP the encounter was worth.

Even before adding in the extra 14, it was really dangerous to just fight 14 in the first place, which is why the spellcasters were casting Sleep so liberally

The obvious approach is not to focus at the combat level as a DM. If they're beating this combat so easily because they're spending resources, the next one should provide more of a challenge now that they're spent.

But how does that get taught to someone?

It seems to be a common mistake

Another common mistake I see which feels like it's in the same vein but might be barely tangential is that whenever characters gain a boon or boost of any sort, the encounters go up in kind to match. Everyone find a +1 weapon? Enemy AC is now +1 higher.

In FFXIV they recently removed Protect from the Healer Role skills because they realized they were just factoring in the long-term buff Protect gives into every dungeon's tuning.

So this problem isn't limited to just D&D, even professional game makers fall into that same trap

Pathfinder's entire gear system is seemingly built upon this same mistake

KorvinStarmast

10:21 PM

@Axoren He got the xp wrong. The adjusted XP is not the awarded XP. Making a massively hard encounter actually hurts the players, because the multiples don't get assigned as an award. But take it.

Powerdork

@Axoren In a previous age I would have disputed this on the basis that Wizards of the Coast was a professional game maker

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