TRPG General Chat

12:08 AM

I see people are talking about bee-focused classes, which seems like an excellent opportunity to mention that Wanderhome by Possum Creek Games has a Shepherd class which tends to "herds of chubby bumblebees."

TheDragonOfFlame

12:50 AM

Nice

Yuuki

Why stop at classes? What about a bee-holder?

BESW

One of the Shepherd's unrestricted moves is to pat a bumble on its head.

But a grown bumble is far too big to hold.

AncientSwordRage

@Yuuki are you going to drone on about this...?

BESW

1:09 AM

user15026

@BESW I forgot this existed and now I am excited about it all over again

Medix2

1:34 AM

5e-dnd: Is there a way to get additional attacks in the Attack action besides Extra Attack?

trogdor

@Ash I would be very much interested in playing it too yes

Medix2

Replying to myself: Found one (Thirsting Blade Eldritch Invocation)

Thomas Markov

2:08 AM

@Medix2 added one

Hot RPG Questions

13

Q: Is this recommendation for a fighter to take the Weapon Master feat entirely useless?

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything includes some recommendations for building a Battle Master fighter. The introduction to the section says: Below are recommendations for how you might build a Battle Master to reflect various types of warriors. Each of these builds contains suggested fighting styles...

Peter Cooper Jr.

3:12 AM

@ThomasMarkov Not sure if you already know this, but the "official" D&D-5e Trade Goods Table values chickens at 2 cp each. (Not that the official PHB valuations really work for making a true economy.)

AncientSwordRage

3:31 AM

@BESW I love the last one

I'm off to bed soon, but it's there a way to weaponize persuasion checks in d&d 5e combat?

Or any charisma check?

Bardic Wizard

@AncientSwordRage threaten people with a sword named Persuasion Check?

AncientSwordRage

@BardicWizard I like the cut of your gib

Bardic Wizard

also, you’re heading to bed?????? My night ~~has been going on too long already~~ has barely started yet

MikeQ

There's nothing built-in to the core rules about it, but it's not implausible. You could bribe, deceive, or bully a creature to fight for you. Or use a charisma check to make hostile creatures back down.

Bardic Wizard

(I’m taking a break from writing essays to feel sorry for myself)

AncientSwordRage

3:39 AM

@BardicWizard did you decide on a title?

Its 4am here, more or less

@MikeQ the build I'm theory crafting now might high unusually high charisma checks is the only reason I'm wondering

I'm sure 4e had a user for charisma skill checks in combat

Bardic Wizard

@AncientSwordRage no not yet. I switched to ~~worse pains~~ the history essay due earlier Monday morning than my poor english essay

It’s nearly 8pm here and I’m caffeinated and ready to be up until 11pm

at the earliest

AncientSwordRage

Sounds line you have a plan

Peter Cooper Jr.

@AncientSwordRage You mean like a Sorcerer which has Cha as its spellcasting ability would use it for spell attacks?

AncientSwordRage

4:00 AM

@PeterCooperJr. I mean an ability that says " gain advantage of you can pass an intimidation skill check" or "deal psychic damage is you pass a persuasion check"

Bardic Wizard

4:40 AM

Highlight of my history paper so far: “Spain was one of the most prolific countries sending out explorers to strange new lands, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before“

It’s not likely to make it to the final draft though

BESW

8:42 AM

Started a Delta Green adventure today.

I'm not thrilled by the "insanity" mechanics but the GM indicated we're unlikely to interact with them a lot.

My character is a reformed "clandestine library acquisitions" specialist with 80s in History, Occult, and Search, and a deep need to document everything, so I fully expect him to stick his nose into something that snaps off his sense of proportion.

trogdor

lol

I'm also in that game, and it's been fun to witness

BESW

9:57 AM

Whenever I'm in that kind of game, my usual character idea is "how can I stubbornly blunder into trouble as deeply as possible before I notice?"

(This is why my character in the Cthulhupacabra campaign is an artist looking for unusual inspirations.)

kviiri

11:05 AM

The creative professions indeed seem to attract trouble

See all the enthusiastic reporters in fiction, repeatedly stumbling into deadly adventures

Or authors, whose search for inspiration or facts leads them on a perilous voyage

Thomas Markov

1:10 PM

@linksassin hey bud

Thomas Markov

2:47 PM

can you counterspel a spell cast from a magic item?

Someone_Evil

14

Q: When casting a spell using a magic item, is the casting itself visible?

Some magic items allow you to cast spells using them, even if you are normally unable to cast such spells, such as the Wand of Magic Missiles or the Helm of Telepathy. When you cast a spell with such a magic item, can you be visibly seen to be casting the spell? This is relevant to Whether or...

dnd-5e spells magic-items spell-components

Thomas Markov

Can you think of any examples of magic items you could counterspell?

Someone_Evil

Instrument of the Bards?

> You can use an action to play the instrument and cast one of its spells:

Thomas Markov

3:37 PM

haha we dog piled that blade of disater question

Someone_Evil

First!

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil You werent.

Oh yeah, I guess you were.

Someone_Evil

By 10 glorious seconds :)

Thomas Markov

Kogarashi's loaded first on mine.

Someone_Evil

I suppose we're now running a test to see which is the preferred phasing of that clarification

Thomas Markov

3:46 PM

probably gonna downvote Naut for using an h1 header tbh.

Bardic Wizard

Argle glargle glargle (Translation from the language of 5hours of sleep: good morning)

Medix2

@ThomasMarkov I laughed so hard at that, wow

Medix2

4:08 PM

@ThomasMarkov A difference at least would be that Devil's Sight doesn't just grant Darkvision

So Devil's Sight explicitly allowing you to see in magical darkness makes it different from what Darkvision allows; well... actually I guess not... the darkness spell explicitly calls out that Darkvision doesn't help and no general rule says Darkvision doesn't work in magical darkness... hmmm

Thomas Markov

Sure, but it seems obivously covered as a subset, which is permitted under the Doppel Dupe Test

Criteria 1: It's the same question, or Question A is already covered obviously as a subset of Question B. Obvious here means I can tell at a glance it's there.*

Medix2

I'm not sure "Darkvision" is an obvious subset of "Darkvision that also works on magical stuff" when the feature in question is magical...

Thomas Markov

Looks like a dupe to me. Please Stop Being Evil's answer on the target is substantively identical to the answer on the question I closed.

Medix2

I feel like a better question would just be "Does hunger of Hadar create darkness?"

Medix2

4:37 PM

I might reopen that question... Maybe just a Meta

If "Can I X" has an answering saying "You can X and actually, you can also Y!" I feel like "Wait, can I really Y?" is a valid question...

Hot RPG Questions

5:06 PM

1

Q: Are the giant strength scores in the Monster Manual wrong?

The Storm Giant has a STR score of 29. According to the encumbrance rules that means the maximum weight a giant could lift is 435 lb. which really isn't that much. To put it in perspective. The Storm giant is 5x taller than a human, at the same proportion and thus has about 25x more mass. An aver...

dnd-5e monsters ability-scores encumbrance

Thomas Markov

5:21 PM

Right I closed it cuz the target is Can i X, and the closed question is Can I X when X just has a different name.

Which we close stuff like that all the time.

"Does X work with Y spell" gets closed as a dupe of "Does X work with Z spell"

TheDragonOfFlame

6:49 PM

@HotRPGQuestions that is a very strange question

why would a giants sword be 20 feet long

the tallest type of giant is 26 feet tall

the smallest is 16 feet tall

Thomas Markov

A bit rude tbh.

TheDragonOfFlame

Sorry you are right

true a great sword is around 4 feet long

but having a sword that is bigger than you is ridicoulous

A giant sword would be around 10 feet long typically

Thomas Markov

Jan 10 '13 at 2:49, by BESW

@Lord_Gareth I find it's very easy, once we've gained understanding of a thing, to forget what it was like to not have that understanding --and even more, to not remember what it was like when we didn't know it was a thing at all.

Someone_Evil

I have some mini in 25mm scale of D&D Giants (ie. in = 5ft) and a 4in sword looks about right on them

The Cloud Giant's bident/spear thingy is about 6 and a quarter inches on the mini.

Giants are big, yo. You might even call them Huge

Totally reasonable to miss something in a rules section that doesn't come very often, and then question the results that fall out of them

Thomas Markov

8:03 PM

Someone with a twitter should ask JC why he recommended fighters take weapon master

4

Someone_Evil

8:21 PM

The recommendation makes sense just looking at the archetypes and the name of the feat, which really tells me the name and the text of the feat should be different. It's not a master feat, it's a training feat.

Carcer

weapon master is just a bad feat to be honest

Thomas Markov

Who need 4 extra weapon proficiencies anyway?

Someone_Evil

Most of the training feats are underwhelming, aren't they? They're use is patching certain gaps for character concepts which fall outside of the supported archetypes, but 5e is usually fairly forgiving in dishing out proficiency (or not putting too much need for them)

Thomas Markov

Feat-at-1st-level variants of some more races would have been nice to see.

Someone_Evil

8:37 PM

@ThomasMarkov It would probably still be underwhelming if it gave proficiency with all simple and martial weapons. I wouldn't be surprise if it gave some other boost to the chosen weapons in a draft, but was then downshifted to proficiency but kept the name

@ThomasMarkov Isn't "reskin the v. human option to other/any races" pretty much the option we got in Tasha's?

Thomas Markov

I mean, yeah, I guess.

Someone_Evil

Except you could give yourself +3 to an ability score, can choose darkvision as a skill and make yourself Small

Thomas Markov

Might need to go on a "back up answers with experience" comment brigade on this one: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/177616/62294

We're getting a lot of ideas being posted without experiential commentary.

Glazius

8:56 PM

@ThomasMarkov ..wait, what? Don't Fighters already have all the proficiencies weapon master can get you, so the feat's strictly inferior to a score increase? ...actually, never mind, that makes perfect sense for Fighter. :sulks in 4E:

Thomas Markov

@Glazius Yeah, see my question here: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/177711/…

I like it when people take the "please name the system" bit seriously: rpg.stackexchange.com/q/177756/62294

TheDragonOfFlame

Fighting initiate is another underwhelming feat

Thomas Markov

@TheDragonOfFlame I can think of a build that would take it.

TheDragonOfFlame

For example dual weirder feat gives +1 to AC as well as other abilities. Fighting initiate, defense style is only +1 AC (Edit: dual weilder)

Thomas Markov

Dual weirder

TheDragonOfFlame

9:07 PM

I’m not saying it doesn’t have uses, but it seems worse than other feats, especially if you already have a fighting style

Thomas Markov

A ranged based swords bard could use it.

Ive seen a lot of DPS based ranged swords bards that take a single level of fighter just for the archery fighting style.

TheDragonOfFlame

Archery would be the one that would make it worth it

Archery and sharpshooter rogue assasin with a long bow

Blind fighting is fun but it’s not amazing because it is super situational

Thomas Markov

My DM let me rework the Swords bard to be ranged based.

TheDragonOfFlame

Unarmed fighting is the fighting style I’m exited about

Thomas Markov

I think an Astral Self monk with no arms would be a neat concept.

TheDragonOfFlame

9:10 PM

Not exactly what I meant but ok lol

Someone_Evil

@ThomasMarkov There's a reason we put it multiple places in the ask page guidance. Much easier to deal with it being stated too many times than too few

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil I feel like those changes we made have helped a lot.

Someone_Evil

That's why we make edits, no? :)

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil I meant to the ask page, but also yes

Someone_Evil

Oh, right, yes, thanks!

MikeQ

9:24 PM

@ThomasMarkov What about a house rule allowing all Fighting Styles for anyone that access to the Fighting Style feature? Would that be unbalanced?

Thomas Markov

@MikeQ See this swords bard build. It shifts the power of this build forward a level.

The only balance concern I can think of is making already powerful ranged builds more powerful with the archery style.

MikeQ

That's a very iffy build. I'm not sure the action economy with a mount works that way.

Thomas Markov

Its still really strong, mounted combat notwithstanding.

MikeQ

Ok, to narrow the criteria a bit, assume multiclassing isn't allowed. Is the house rule unbalancing?

Thomas Markov

That houserule eliminates the necessity of multiclassing for builds that take 1 level of fighter just for archery

Cuz the archery fighting style is so good for those builds that a 1 level fighter dip is worth pushing class features back a level.

Someone_Evil

9:33 PM

Sort of related: How would it unbalance gameplay to rule that Weapon Master allows for picking a fighting style?

Thomas Markov

Other than that, I think most of the fighting style restrictions are largely thematic and loosening those restrictions shouldnt break anything.

In my estimation Archery is the strongest fighting style by a good margin.

Anaphory

10:08 PM

Hello everyone! I haven't been around in a long time, how is everyone?

Shalvenay

doin alright here

Anaphory

10:26 PM

Oh, hey! Good to see you!

kviiri

10:49 PM

Hi o/

Joshua

11:38 PM

I'm designing something and I've run into a bit of a pickle. The players really need to know a certain non-combat cantrip. It's not that it's impossible otherwise, but it's just stupid hard.

MikeQ

Why do the player characters need to know a specific cantrip?

Joshua

because nobody's going to believe an intact door is anything other than a trap here

It's not the best design, but an intact door in an ancient lava tube is just wrong.

Hot RPG Questions

3

Q: Can you make four attacks on the turn you cast Blade of Disaster?

Blade of Disaster is a new spell from the Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden module and is found on pg. 318. According to the spell description (emphasis mine): When you cast this spell, you can make up to two melee spell attacks with the blade The description then goes on to say: As a bonu...

dnd-5e spells

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