TRPG General Chat

BESW

00:32

Horse Girl by babblegumsam. a downloadable body horror game

Joshua

01:48

Is it just me or does it seem to be a waste of a spell to cast power word kill on a lich?

BESW

Goblin Archives posted a summary of updated content on twitter. Today's focus was on funding, publishing, and a little bit of SRD goodness.

The Goblin Archives is incomplete, of course, but if anybody's interested in a glimpse into the complexity of the indie/self-pub scene, it's not a bad place to start.

Hot RPG Questions

06:33

3

Q: Can a changeling change into a form with wings?

The shapechanger ability description for changelings in Eberron says that you must adopt a form with the same basic arrangements of limbs. Would this definition extend to wings and tails and the like as well?

Phoenices

In D&D, what's the point of the Astral and Ethereal planes being separate? Why can't they just be the same plane?

@Joshua because the lich will just come back? That would seem to be an argument against spending anything to kill a lich.

PD - whee - whim - wish

07:06

@Phoenices The Astral Plane, as I understand it, is a reflection of notions and dreams, divorced from geographic coordinates, whereas the Ethereal Plane is more a reflection of reality, as the ghosts that inhabit it and those operating with force magic are. The uses of ethereal travel are for short distances, while the uses of astral travel are for vast scales and travel to other planes.

BESW

07:27

@Phoenices At this point, it's basically just legacy obligation. 4e didn't bother with a lot of the planar shenanigans and it did just fine.

4e trashed the entire Great Wheel concept for something a lot more squishy and flexible.

Elemental/chaos stuff at the bottom, astral/lawful stuff at the top, each its own plane which contains spaces, pockets, demi-planes, etc to accommodate whichever subsections your campaign's interested in. Fairy/nature/life stuff is in a parallel plane on one side of the Material Plane; dead/apocalypse/darkness stuff in the parallel plane on the other side. And the whole cosmos is wrapped in an infinite void of Utter Mind-Blowing Nonsense which is where aberrations come from!

So much more open-ended and flexible, and the underlying world lore was represented much more explicitly in the shape of the cosmos itself.

Phoenices

Ooh! I like the concept of the planes as having "areas" - this place isn't the Elemental plane of Fire, it's a few dozen planes of varying sizes that all interconnect in various ways.

BESW

Aye.

Trish

Hm, so the "Area of water" contains the "Hell of people drowning in a lake of acid" and the "Heavenly pond where the goddess baths" and the "Spring of the drowned panda"?

BESW

No, nothing so orderly as that.

Phoenices

Spring goes boing boing boing, bouncing the dead panda in your face.

Trish

07:39

Diyu

Diyu (simplified Chinese: 地狱; traditional Chinese: 地獄; "earth prison") is the realm of the dead or "hell" in Chinese mythology. It is loosely based on a combination of the Buddhist concept of Naraka, traditional Chinese beliefs about the afterlife, and a variety of popular expansions and reinterpretations of these two traditions. Diyu is typically depicted as a subterranean maze with various levels and chambers, to which souls are taken after death to atone for the sins they committed when they were alive. The exact number of levels in Diyu and their associated deities differ between Buddhist and...

The "one type of spiritual area contains multiple realms" sounds a lot like Diyu

BESW

For the 4e "points of light" setting, In The Beginning there were the Primordials, beings of pure creation who made and destroyed universes for fun. But one of the universes they created, contained new beings who fought for their survival and prevented the Primordials from destroying that cosmos.

Trish

@Phoenices nah, you bath in it, you become Panda-person :P (Thanks Ranma 1/2!)

Phoenices

Rereading, it sounds like there's the Plane of Chaos which contains the Sub-dimension (or region) of Water, which contains a portal to the Spring of the drowned panda.

BESW

These new beings were the first gods of the D&D setting, and they live in the Astral Plane at the top of the cosmos. It's a place of relative order and can best be thought of as a starry expanse studded with planets-planes where the gods and their associates live.

Trish

@BESW So they took part of their own power and forged sapient, sentient weapons that would bring down the primordials? That's the Exalted Metaplot.

Phoenices

07:41

But... I want a large spring with a drowned panda attached!

BESW

And the Primordials were imprisoned at the bottom of the cosmos, where their influence prevents the area from settling down into order, but parts of it have more or less order depending on its immediate vicinity. Some of those parts separate out into have more of one element than another, and we can consider those "planes" of those elements, for our purposes.

It's deliberately vague so that GMs can shape it however we like, within that broad concept. For specific ideas you can look to various adventures.

Trish

Sounds awfully similar to Exalted...

Phoenices

Ooh, now I'm imagining the very structure of the planes being less orderly the farther down you go! Astral has little.regimented portals, while Chaos has all sorts of warped space, planar magic flowing through portals, and so on!

Bah, it's possible to convince someone that Star Wars is just a retelling of the Lord of the Rings.

BESW

@Trish Nah, the sentient weapons kinda forged themselves. They used to be part of a crystal gate that separated the Astral Plane from the Mind-Blowing Nonsense outside, but when it broke the pieces became psionic-powered crystal beings called Shardminds.

Trish

@BESW So there are not about 300 people powered by sun's godly rigthousness armed with weapons from orichalkum and about 300 people powered by the moons beautiful changing armed with weapons of moonsilver and so on? Which also do reincarnate? A pitty.

Phoenices

07:48

Sounds slightly unhealthy for the Astral, unless now they guard it from the MBN.

BESW

@Phoenices Yup, pretty much. The Astral Plane tends to be big empty spaces studded with distinct planet-like realms and it's very clear where you are and where everything else is. The Elemental Chaos is more of a mixed-up stew of concepts and if part of it is stable that's because it's made stable by some active force like a demon lord.

@Phoenices The Gate was patched up, but stuff still leaks through. The original breach led to a very unpleasant period when mind flayers ruled the Material Plane.

...Ah, demons are fun in 4e too.

Phoenices

Hmm, so if there's still a vaguely great-wheel cosmology, then Chaos/Life would be the land of elemental and archons protecting nature, and Chaos/death the land of demons. Not sure if there is though.

BESW

But to explain demons you gotta start with angels, who are basically the assistants of the gods. All gods, good and evil, can have angels help them do stuff. Demons are angels who defected to fight for the Primordials, and are mostly trapped in a prison in the Elemental Chaos called the Abyss. Devils are angels who oppose serving the gods and want to rule the cosmos themselves.

@Phoenices Not really. Life and Death have their own side realms parallel to the Material Plane, though they're not just Life and Death realms.

The Life realm is the Feywild. It's where elves and drow come from (they're both Material Realm refugees from the war the Feywild native eladrins had when one of their gods, Lolth, tried to shank the other Eladrin gods), and it looks like if the Material Plane never got developed and built up but just kept growing wild. There's hints it might actually be the Material Plane, just far in the past.

The Feywild is where you talk to nature spirits, make pacts with fey queens or get hunted by fairy rituals, all that fun stuff.

And on the other side of the Material Plane is the Shadowfell, which is a place of eternal night that looks like a post-apocalyptic version of the Material Realm. Every dead soul passes through the Shadowfell on its way to the afterlife, and so it's a favorite hangout of necromancers and various undead who don't want to move on, as well as beings of darkness and decay.

Phoenices

Hmm, so that would imply that the feywild and material planes would slowly diverge as gods and druids reshape mountains and forests.

BESW

But the Shadowfell isn't evil; it kinda used to be, when it was ruled by a god of death who wanted to capture all the souls and use them to fuel his own power. But he was such a jerk that when his second in command shanked him the other gods looked the other way and let her take over his portfolio. And she's more of the "death a natural part of the order, souls should go to their proper afterlives, both murder and unnatural prolonging of life are bad" kind of death god.

@Phoenices [shrug] The worldbuild is deliberately vague and contradictory because it doesn't matter and it's better to let the table decide that stuff. They us give a really cool high concept and let us figure out what version of it we want.

Phoenices

08:01

"Shanked him" "murder bad" hmmm... But also, I'd figure this would incentivise life-prolongers to not be here, unless she's pretty passive.

BESW

Personally I thought of the Feywild, Material, Shadowfell planes as mutual reflections of each other. They're different but influence each other in mysterious ways as the plot demands.

Another thing I really liked about the whole Points of Light cosmology was that the edges between realms was blurry.

Phoenices

Ooooh. Fey conspiracy of scholars to terraform their chunk of the Feywild to bring down a kingdom over hundreds of years.

Meh. Thinking about this was awesome, but I note that it's 2 AM here, so I'll take my leave.

BESW

If you wanted to go to a specific place on a specific plane on your schedule you'd need a ritual of an appropriately high level (Feywild and Shadowfell rituals can be learned by level 8; Chaos and Astral by level 15, and more precision rituals get opened up later), but wandering into the Feywild through a mushroom circle on a full moon is totally possible at any level.

ttfn

A lot of low-level adventures can be based on "oh no, undead shadows are leaking into the Material plane from the Shadowfell" and you get to interact with the planes and their denizens long before you're powerful enough to just wander into those planes on your own.

Hairi

Hello

What does TRPG mean?

BESW

It stands for "Tabletop Roleplaying Game," which is a broad category of games where friends gather to take on the role of characters and improvise stories about those characters using agreed-upon rules to help guide the story.

It's also abbreviated TTRPG, and you may have heard of some of the rulesets that people use like "Dungeons & Dragons," "World of Darkness," "Honey Heist," or "Fate Core."

76

Q: What is role-playing, and where do I start?

I have been told that roleplaying is great fun. I've looked and looked and it all seems so complicated. Could anyone tell me a good place to start, and what sort of things you end up doing in roleplaying?

new-gm new-players roleplaying

BESW

11:53

The Swan by yayforbooks. a skin for monsterhearts 2 inspired by swan lake

AncientSwordRage

12:50

@Phoenices @BESW I'm enjoying the talk about other planes, but I'm struck by the idea of having everything you described but instead of the chaos being confined to a level, the multiverse is a small bubble in the sea of chaos that looks orderly on non-primordial timescales

It's meta-stable, in the sense that it could all collapse tomorrow, but it's highly unlikely without sufficient nudging

Which I guess proves the benefit of it being kept vague

BESW

@AncientSwordRage This is implied by the 4e setting, and I ran with it in a particular direction.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW woop

BESW

Basically, it's established in 4e that the cosmos is surrounded by an Unknowable Something which defies even the understanding of the Primordials, and which is generally hostile to the cosmos and everything in it.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW my kind of setting

BESW

Aberrations like mind flayers and aboleths are either intruders from this Far Realm, or locals who were influenced by it.

Warlocks can enter into pacts with "stars" which are actually Outsiders looking in with their own agendas.

AncientSwordRage

12:54

I have yet to noodle out how aberrations fit into not treating members of a sentient species as a monolith

BESW

(Star-pact warlocks are very different from all other warlocks, and are the only warlock build which can use Constitution instead of Charisma as their primary attack stat if they want)

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I played one once I think? Just for a session though

BESW

Some 4e texts suggest that mortals which glimpse the Far Realm see it as the inside of an infinite body, and I ran with that visual and extrapolated it in two different directions.

Broadly, I considered the cosmos a kind of infection in the body of the Far Realm and aberrations are the Far Realm's version of an immune system. Each has a different goal--encapsulate the infection, kill the infection, convert the infection, etc--and they don't communicate or cooperate directly but each has its own agenda.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW interesting

So not really a sentient species?

BESW

I never fleshed out specifics but I used it as a background assumption when dealing with creatures like mind flayers: that they make sense to themselves but not to us because their frame of reference is literally outside reality.

Well, not exactly not sentient. Differently sentient.

In particular, for my own campaign, I distinguished between actual Visitors From Outside vs locals who were influenced by Outside. Mind flayers, as humanoids, are clearly not purely Outsiders, but they have Outside influence and goals colored by humanoid perspectives and agendas.

Other things like fell taints (malformed and lethal soap bubbles with a thirst for blood) are more clearly "only" Visitors From Outside.

Later on --and I never actually did anything with this, it's just a pet theory-- I decided that the cosmos didn't just spontaneously happen; it's actually a natural part of the Far Realm itself. Specifically, the entire D&D cosmology is the egg of a Far Realm creature which will eventually hatch.

That creature, of course, is the Tarrasque. And aberrations are variously parasites, predators, symbiotes, and guardians.

AncientSwordRage

13:07

@BESW so did that mean you had 'good' mind Flayers etc?

BESW

@AncientSwordRage We never explored that in our campaign. We only ever met one mind flayer and he had his own problems.

If we had explored it I probably would've handled it differently from how I handle it now.

These days I'd be inclined to ignore the "mind flayer larva implanted in unwilling human host" thing and make mind flayers more of like a kind of Extreme Warlock; humanoids sworn in service to the Stars for reasons of their own.

Maybe their bodies are changed as a sign of their pact or a part of their service; maybe they all just wear really convincing masks.

Then you get mind flayer factions in competition with each other for serving different Stars or trying to prove themselves as the best faction in service of one Star, mind flayers who want to defect, all kinds of fun stuff.

And they don't understand the goals of their master(s) either, they're serving because they want power or think they'll be favored after the Stars take over or they made a bargain for something...

Maybe all star pact warlocks are being tested for suitability as mind flayer initiates.

KorvinStarmast

13:48

@Hairi Tabletop Role Playing Game (as opposed to games played on a console or a computer)

@Joshua It at least removes the lich from play for a few days before they reform around their phylactery, and perhaps it gives the party time to find that item.

BESW

@AncientSwordRage You might also be interested in how Seanan McGuire handled a similar concept in the InCryptid novels, but it's far too spoilery for me to describe in chat.

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage I think that the idea behind Tharizdun is related to that kind of structure.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I'm interested in those books in general tbh

@KorvinStarmast cool

BESW

They're fun pulp adventure and usually some of the least horror-y of McGuire's stuff.

AncientSwordRage

14:06

@BESW I'm easy when it comes to Horror

The Thing is easily one of my favourite movies, but I don't need it to enjoy it

Also I think I just pieced together the last part of a campaign idea I've had ticking over in my head for a while

KorvinStarmast

@AncientSwordRage It is also possible that Tharizdun is just a borrowing of a being in a Clark Ashton Smith story and other attributes have accreted over time-but with its goal of destroying all of Creation (which we may map to the multiverse) it becomes a manifestation of pure chaos...the lore on it is a bit of a muddle, all things considered.

AncientSwordRage

> Writer Michal Tresca speculated that Tharizdun might have been inspired by Clark Ashton Smith's Demon Lord and ruler of the Seven Hells, Thasaidon, who appeared first in The Tomb-Spawn, Weird Tales, Vol. 23, No. 5, May 1934.

KorvinStarmast

14:23

@AncientSwordRage My old copy of clark ashton smith pulp stories, a collection I bought in college, was apparently lost in a move. I was digging around in my attic in some boxes (with all of my elric and conan paperbacks) last week because I thought I'd kept it there and I wanted to read a few of his stories to go along with the Dying Earth stuff (vance) I re-read last year. But it's gone. All I have is a single story in a recently released (and overpriced) edition. (The Dark Eidolon)

AncientSwordRage

@KorvinStarmast hmmm, surely it's out of copyright by now?

KorvinStarmast

I don't know if his estate renews it every 28 years, but I did find Dark Eidolon somewhere on line perhaps Project Guttenberg. I like having books (a habit which annoys the heck out of my wife since I collect them faster than I dispose of them).

AncientSwordRage

15:37

> Smith's literary estate is represented by his stepson, Prof William Dorman, director of CASiana Literary Enterprises. Arkham House owns the copyright to many Smith stories, though some are now in the public domain.

Joshua

16:20

@Phoenices: because it's already dead. Like it shouldn't work at all.

Phoenices

16:31

Ah, but the whole point of a lich is that it's hidden its soul somewhere, and is connected to it, so soul-affecting spells (which is.... probably what this is? I'd fluff it as throwing the soul out of the body, and it's easier the closer the body is to death) are going to affect it differently and/or similarly to how they'd affect a normal person.

Though that's a good question - "can a golem/undead be killed? All these golem/undead statblocks use the phrase destroyed..."

illustro

@Joshua This may sound a bit like it's splitting hairs, but the lich isn't dead, it's undead, so Power Word Kill would work just fine (provided you can get past it's Legendary Resistances first). To destroy it completely you need to also find it's Phylactry before it rejuvinates itself and destroy that (otherwise it is pointless)

Phoenices

Why would you need to get past its legendary resistances?

illustro

Oh, my mistake, I thought Power Word Kill had a saving throw for some reason...carry on

You would need to get it to below 100HP though

Phoenices

And I'm going to disagree heavily on "pointless." You don't need to find the phylactery to stop it from interfering in a lot of important events. Killing it lets you avoid the issue of no plan surviving contact with the enemy.
Yeah, whatever. Hire a bunch of fifth level wizards, scry-and-die it with readied fireballs.

Actually, you might only need two wizards, or maybe three.

illustro

@Phoenices It only stays dead for 1d10 days. So it might rejuvinate at some point between 1 day and 10 days, beside it's phylactery

That's an awful long time for your pack of wizards to be holding readied spells without potentially dying from exhaustion

Phoenices

16:43

I'm saying you need those wizards to deal the 35 damage to get it to 100 hp, not to kill it when it comes back.

If you can find it as soon as it comes back, why not just destroy the phylactery?

illustro

@Phoenices Yes, if you are talking about D&D 5e, which has three states of being: dead, undead and alive

Phoenices

And neither! Don't forget neither!

...are we not talking about 5e? Are we talking about Pathfinder PWK, or something that I didn't realize?

illustro

@Phoenices We are, but just in case someone misses that (in what is a long thread)

KorvinStarmast

@illustro where does 'being and object' fit into this? 😁 (I suspect nowhere, but as I am fiddling around with a sentient item, I am interested)

Phoenices

And what about golems! They're not... alive, and they're definitely not object, dead, or undead.

Sentient item... hmm... either it's an actual statblock, like dndbeyond.com/monsters/animated-armor , or maybe it's an item that sometimes does things like shoot fireballs?

illustro

16:48

@Phoenices Because "destroy the phylactery" is canconically a very difficult task, requiring a "special ritual, item or weapon" as every phylactery is unique. Doing so with the lingerihng possibility of the lich just appearing beside you, with it's many available spells...including counterspell....is difficult

Phoenices

dndbeyond.com/monsters/flying-sword vs dndbeyond.com/magic-items/dancing-sword

illustro

Personally I would classify sentient objects and constructs as "alive", or at the very least "not dead or undead"

In which case the "not dead" suffices for the purposes of Power Word Kill

Though sentient objects are also not creatures (whereas constructs are creatues)

@Phoenices Look up the weapon Blackrazor for the type of thing we are talking about

Or just Chapter 7 of the DMG

Phoenices

hmmm, that's fair. I wouldn't think there'd be much time next to the phylactery, because divinations (especially clerical). If you have time to prepare, though, you can do a lot to a phylactery. Forbiddance so the lich burns to death over time if it stays, anti-teleportation wards, a forcecage or three, caltrops...

Seriously, it needs to stay in the Forbidden area for only 7 rounds to die again. Wait, it can't... fly?

If it seriously has a 30ft walking speed, set up a 300foot long spiral around it.

Anyone can fly out easily, and soon be out of the Lich's sight, while it just tromps forwards at 60 ft per round. They have one round of advance warning b/c forcecage.

illustro

The Lich has the spell Plane Shift, Dispel Magic, Power Word Kill, Dominate Monster and Dimension Door (only one of which, Plane Shift, actually requires a component), and presumably has stored their phylactery next to a component pouch or arcane focus.

and knows the area where they stored it well

They are also an INT 20 statted creature, and are therefore the definition of "not stupid", and wouldn't just allow themselves to be killed by something as trivial as Forbiddance

Phoenices

Nah, nah, you just move the phylactery if you know where it is (into a 300ft long spiral, all Forbidden against undead and covered in caltrops.)

Uhh, why wouldn't they? I'm not getting it. Assuming you know where the phylactery is, you just move it into a super-secure area to research it.

agh, I swear there's a spell somewhere in here that guards an area against teleportation, but I can't find it.

illustro

17:01

@Phoenices They materialise beside the phylactery, and can use Power Word Kill in the round they materialise, followed by Dispel MAgic to get rid of the Formiddance in the area they are currently standing

Phoenices

Oh yeah! It's also forbiddance!

...yeah, but they're inside a forcecage and thus have no line of effect.

Er, dispel magic is a problem, yeah.

illustro

They don't teleport in, their new body is generated by the Phylactery

Phoenices

Right, but we need to stop them from teleporting out. And now also from dispelling Forbiddance.

illustro

And from killing anyone in the area they are in who would be trying to stop them from doing that

Phoenices

Wait, how does Globe of Invulnerability work? Will it protect against spells already cast, I wonder? dndbeyond.com/spells/globe-of-invulnerability

Eh, cast Forbiddance at 7th level. Whatever. The lich won't be willing to spend a higher-level spell slot on GOI. It desperately needs those for escaping and Dispel Magic.

vicky_molokh- unsilence Monica

17:08

@Phoenices Who are you, John Kramer? Arbitrarily revealing major architecture full of spiky bits as the plot demands.

illustro

It can just use lower level dispel magic slots to try and get rid of the forbidding (since you roll against the spell level for spells higher than the spell slot used to cast dispel magic)

Phoenices

ehh, any sufficiently long maze-equivalent works, and it can be forbidden as needed. But yes, that's a fair point.

Illustro - yeah, but it does not want to risk another turn in the area. That gives opponents an extra turn to assemble a scry-and-die team to do it again to you.

By the time this thing escapes, it's below the 100hp threshold against people who have been seen to have PWK. All that takes is two turns. It knows it needs to immediately get to a scrying-shielded place, then a teleportation and scrying-shielded place.

illustro

17:22

It is worth pointing out that actually scrying on a Lich is actively hard (in part due to it's legendary resistances, but also because it has a very high Wisdom save modifier)

Phoenices

6

Q: Can my helpers reuse a Crystal Ball repeatedly?

The Crystal Ball has very little text - it requires attunement, and anyone attuned can cast Scrying with a set DC while touching it. Obviously, this has limitations, such as when Scrying fails, you can't scry on that person for 24 hours! But someone else can... What if my helpers each attune to m...

dnd-5e magic-items magic attunement

illustro

So, it has a minimum of 3 rounds of no scrying (assuming you have 3 crystal balls)

But most likely 30 minutes (due to the time taken to cast Scrying)

Phoenices

dndbeyond.com/spells/commune

illustro

30 minutes is a lot of time to prepare

Phoenices

Commune and maybe find the path or locate creature, and you're there in less than 3 minutes.

illustro

17:26

3 minutes is 30 rounds

Lich wakes up, gets damaged round 1 by magical effect, uses 9th level slot to dispel effect

Phoenices

Right! So it has all the time it needs to do spelly things, move around, set up traps and so on, but not enough time for anything social.

illustro

28 rounds remaing to cause maximum damage

and/or escape to it's own pre-prepared safe from everything location

With it's phylactery

and it now knows someone is actively trying to kill it

Phoenices

Yeah. So, the only problem is, it knows that it dies the second that Wizardy the PWKer knows where it is. It has no way to heal above 100 hp.

Phoenices

17:43

oh wait, of course it does. Potions of healing work on it.

Does the effect-stacking rule apply to non-magical items like caltrops? Can I reduce someone's speed to 0 with them?

Thomas Markov

18:06

@Phoenices No. The DMG has a "game features" rule.

7

Q: Do caltrop penalties stack?

As an action, caltrops can be spread to cover a 5-foot-square area: Any creature that enters the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or stop moving and take 1 piercing damage. Until the creature regains at least 1 hit point, its walking speed is reduced by 10 feet. If a creature...

dnd-5e movement equipment stacking

Phoenices

Thanks a lot!

Thomas Markov

If mundane items were allowed to stack effects, a crate of alchemist's fire would be the strongest item in the game

illustro

@Phoenices It can also take short and long rests, just like any other creature

illustro

18:39

If I am such a Lich, with (presumably) a lot of time to set up safe spaces for me to go to should I have to protect myself from a foe determined to kill me, I would have multiple spaces setup with HAllow cast on them, with the extra effect of preventing teleportation (with the condition it excludes undead) from it's effects. Within that Hallowed is an area secured by a permanently fixed Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum, that blocks divination sensors within the area, [...]

[...] blocks all planar travel & teleportation, and prevents creatures inside the area from being targeted by divination spells. There would be a 5ft square that is in the Hallowed area but not in the area of private sanctum that is my teleport destination, after which I simply walk into my private sanctum

Within this private sanctum is a leadl lined box, into which I put my phylactery and begin plotting my revenge

I make my first point of call to find the location of the people who had the audacity to try and kill me, starting with where they put my phylactery. Noone builds a place like that without someone knowing about it...and I'm going to find them

Included within this space would be a spellbook, with copies of a choice selection of protection spells, as well as some choice magic items (like powerful spell scrolls) prepared for just such a contingency

illustro

20:23

@KorvinStarmast I realised I hadn't directed the reply at you, but in answer to your earlier question about sentient items and their "state of being": chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/60240833#60240833

Phoenices

Waaait a second, so Hallow can make this work perfectly. Just make a Hallow of Silence, and past it a Hallow of Undead-Blocking. Lichy can't escape, though this has a downside: researchers in the area have to communicate by sign language.

Phoenices

20:56

Er, why does Hallow always keep out all celestials, elementals, undead and so on? This means an angel literally cannot (no save, no legendary resistance, no teleports) enter a Hallowed temple.

PD - whee - whim - wish

because it merges from 3rd edition the hallow spell and its inverse unhallow, as with protection from good and evil

Someone_Evil

> You can exclude one or more of those types of creatures from this effect.

PD - whee - whim - wish

that too

Phoenices

ahhh, whoops. I'm a silly.

KorvinStarmast

21:11

@illustro yeah, sounds about how I'd handle it

illustro

@Phoenices If our Lich has taken 3 levels of sorcerer (they are a 17th level wizard) or has taken the Metamagic adept feat from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything at some point, they can use Subtle spell to bypass that restriction and use dispel magic on the Hallow spell (or the Forbiddance spell) and repeat for whichever one they didn't dispel before

(If we are allowing the good guys an unbounded level of resources then our Lich should have a similar advantage)

Once they have dispelled the Hallow of Silence, they can use their other dispel slots as normal to rid themselves of other unnecessary restrictions

It's also worth pointing out that each casting of Hallow costs 1,000 gp, as does your casting of Forbiddance. The Hallow of Silence also makes Power Word Kill not work, since it has a verbal component and (presumably) the creature needs to be able to hear the word of power that can compel [them] to die instantly

So, you've spent 3,000gp to delay the Lich for 18 seconds

Thomas Markov

21:32

MY front page just changed to this

Hot RPG Questions

6

Q: Can you break somebody else's attunement on a magic item?

My players stole a magic item from a Dragon's Hoard but the dragon is still alive and attuned to it. Is there any way for the players to break the dragon's attunement?

dnd-5e magic-items attunement

Thomas Markov

37

Q: New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually

tl;dr We’re starting a rollout of the new post summary design to many existing screens, starting with greatest hits. This will be a slow rollout, with only one set of related screens changing at a time. What we’re shipping now We’ve built a new component to replace the existing post summary imple...

discussion featured design announcements greatest-hits

Eww

ugh i hate it

illustro

That is an exceptionally ugly design

deliightful

Thomas Markov

This is reallllly bad

KorvinStarmast

I just noticed this on Worldbuilding SE and it made me gag. 😥 Don't fix what isn't broken

illustro

21:46

The spacing on the homepages is too large and reduces information density too much

0

A: New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually

discussion The new layout allows users on desktops to see less questions per page on the hompage (due to the two sidebars on the page), which is undesirable

3

A: New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually

Wow, no text summaries for the questions anymore? Frankly, this is the most awful change I've ever seen on Stack Overflow. There's no other way to put it. It makes it very difficult to browse now. This has to be a bug, right?

Thomas Markov

66

A: New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually

feature-request I cared about question scores, but now my head hurts. On the previous layout, I could quickly survey the question scores by reading down the votes column: Now, I simply cannot quickly survey the front page for question scores, as those scores are quite small and buried between ot...

KorvinStarmast

@illustro I up dooted

Thomas Markov

22:09

And just like that I hit rep cap on Meta.

illustro

lol

I have to say, this quote "The chosen design performed better than the existing designs in some metrics (including readability) and never worse on the remaining metrics (including familiarity, data absorption)." from their "Question" makes it seem like they just did not give it enough testing on alternatively designed sites.

For a site like ours, with a custom background, the new design is actively difficult to parse

PD - whee - whim - wish

22:27

The new view is not fading out questions with my ignored tags, like [dnd-5e].

illustro

@PD-whee-whim-wish That is likely a bug, and worth reporting to them in that meta

PD - whee - whim - wish

23:12

I have done so.

Phoenices

I can see that it's supposed to be minimalistic and elegant. The check mark is clearer now, at least. But... aaagh.

@illustro Eh, I'm allowing our PCs infinite money, yeah, but nothing I've allowed is a stretch. I'm assuming our lich is a lich with infinite money too, and that we somehow PWK'd it and then got the phylactery, and we are researching it. Yeah, it cost 3000 gp (though honestly, this should be a standard demon-summoning setup, except the forbiddance). But if it costs 3000 gp to ensure we get the lich? That's probably worth it. A lich against you is terrifying because of all the allies it has.

Hey, to my eyes the answer here has # symbols in it. Does it look that way to others?

11

Q: Is this homebrew Bard College of Midnight balanced, compared to officially published subclasses?

I wanted to play a necromancer, but I wasn't all that thrilled by my options. Wizards obviously make great necromancer, but I was drawn in another direction. A charismatic puppet master, that was my goal. I think you can make a decent Necro-Bard with the College of Lore, but I wanted something th...

dnd-5e balance bard homebrew-review archetype

illustro

@Phoenices But it takes you 3 minutes to get to the Lich. They dispatched with your "delays" in 18 seconds. After 3 minutes they are gone

You haven't gotten the Lich, so much as gotten the Lich mad

BESW

@Phoenices That’s a failed attempt at heading markdown.

Phoenices

No, no, there are two stages - you don't need to spend the 3 minutes if you know the Lich is in the facility, you just need to teleport in and PWK it.

Someone_Evil

@BESW It would have worked at the time, but not valid commonmark and I think something with the list or quotes would have broken the conversion. HTML got updated with the edit, thus showing the octothorpes

BESW

23:30

Yeah, I don't know what exactly broke it, I just know what it was trying to do.

Musanghari by makapatag. Southeast Asian Fantasy Island Zine for Gubat Banwa. Musanghari is a 53-page island packed with strange monkey warriors, civet cat river settlements, ancient pottery sorcery techniques, smiths who make divine armor for dogs and an ancient sleeping god-king who once ruled over the isles, harboring sorcery to shake heaven.

World Champ Game Co. wrote a twitter thread about "the bones" of Cybermetal (free preview guide here). The game runs on d100 roll-under skill but with a cool twist that offers control & tough decisions to the players, streamlines actions and their results, and weighs odds in interesting ways…

Viditya Violeti provocatively asked on twitter "players: what do you do when your GM metagames?"

Character and doom sheets for ARC: Doom Tabletop RPG are now available on the Role online tabletop service.

A Dungeon for Ants a tiny zine by Molomoot (twitter link). What is this...? a DUNGEON for ANTS? ...YES!

accursed capybara companion by somethingwicked. a strange creature addition to your MÖRK BORG world

Starlight by Valistarri. A game about finding your way home.

"Classic MMO RuneScape is getting a board game and tabletop RPG" article by Matt Jarvis for Dicebreaker. RuneScape board game headed to Kickstarter, with RPG releasing later in 2022.

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