TRPG General Chat

Q: How to make a functioning tank build?

2

A friend of mine is holding a one-shot in which we start at level 4. Two other players decided to play ranged, leaving me as the only reliable frontline. Due to this, I wanted to make a caster tank, possessing both HP and AC, whilst having reliable melee damage. Some extra info regarding the one-...

Q: Anydice: two-colored polyhedral dice pool

1:40 AM

2

I trying to calculate probabilities for this dice mechanic, but I'm not sure that anydice can calculate that at all. The dice pool mechanic works like this: Player assemble dice pool with green and red dice. Any dice can be d4, d6, d8, d10 or d12. Green dice represent player skill and advantages,...

statistics dice anydice

@KorvinStarmast I'm not following

Q: Would it be balanced to use the Starfinder system for races with more than 2 arms in Pathfinder 1e?

2:05 AM

1

In Starfinder creatures with more than 2 arms have a feature where they can hold more items but not take extra actions with those arms. Would it be balance if a race in Pathfinder 1e had this feature? Considering that Starfinder has grenades and ammo while the only use for this in Pathfinder woul...

pathfinder-1e character-creation balance races starfinder

The Oracle

7:42 AM

0

Q: What good are the tenacious and unsung hero badges?

There are two badges, Tenacious and Unsung Hero that never have been awarded. And other than the Illuminator badge that with enought diligence eventually can be awared to someone willling to put in the hours, I'm not even sure it is possible to honestly achieve the easier one of the two, Tenaciou...

discussion

10:18 AM

@TheOracle Huh, badges! What are they good for? We don't need no stinkin' badges!

doppelgreener

@AncientSwordRage sorry, i didn't like those changes :P

@doppelgreener No worries!

I was going to comment "Rollback if you want to" But I also know you don't need to be told :p

@doppelgreener can I fix your typo at least 🥺

doppelgreener

10:51 AM

@AncientSwordRage oh jeez i didn't see that! yes

no worries... I'll see if I can bold the edit statement next time :p :D

Q: How does D&D Vancian magic make sense in-game?

11:18 AM

@AncientSwordRage I'll explain more later, but that tweet shows another case of someone not 'getting' how it worked (think of each slot as a charged capacitor) which fit the game better than the other options. I posted a tweet to suggest that he read the strategic review, and if I get a response I'll post a link to the excellent answer offered here at RPGSE

I think it was Ace Calhoun who did such a nice job explaining it

Someone_Evil

61

One thing that bugs me about Vancian Magic in D&D as I understand it is the following: How is "fire and forget" remotely believable when I can slot and ready more than one "copy" of a spell? Say I have Fireball readied twice. This means I studied the spell twice, then throw one, then I forget tha...

dungeons-and-dragons magic spellcasting

@KorvinStarmast interesting

A D&D wizard is like a cowboy with a revolver pistol then. The wizard has his gun, and loads bullets into it in the morning. Just because they have fired all their shots doesn't mean they don't have a gun or can't get more bullets - but they can't shoot anything until they've prepared the gun again

I'd still argue that the original tweeter's premise holds:

> It has very particular notions that run counter to how"magic" works from a folklore or mythological perspective.

as for how much D&D magic matches Vancian (novel) magic, it's a good fit

the point of the tweets was "It's weird this singular interpretation of magic stuck for so long, given it's not like folklore etc"

12:06 PM

@AncientSwordRage The article in Strat review goes over that; they picked Vancian system since they needed to fit it into a game. There were three other systems that were presented as options and why they were not taken was briefly (very briefly) discussed.

@AncientSwordRage It's also not like Harry Potter, thank goodness.

@V2Blast Here's why I decided last night that the action to use the tentacles didn't fit. As I read the stat block I see actions: Pincers (that is one choice, multi attack) and another action is tentacles which has the pre requisite of "something/someone in the grip of a claw/pincer" - it seemed to me that if I had used that on the same round as the multi attack I was giving the chuul two actions, not one. I'll read through it again.

@V2Blast With that said, I could have probably gone ahead with the Tentacles due to this: If the chuul is grappling a creature, the chuul can also use its tentacles once As I read that, the chuul wasn't already grappling the monk, it had just (at the conclusion of its turn) successfully hit and grappled her. I figured that "grappling" meant that if it starts the turn with something grappled, tentacles. But I can see it going the other way also.

@KorvinStarmast It's not far off though

most spells they cast seem to be cantrips though

as in, they can cast Knock as a cantrip

not that they only cast D&D cantrips

@AncientSwordRage there is no limit, no price to pay; the spells show up when the narrative demands it. There may be game systems that fit that, but D&D isn't one of them.

@KorvinStarmast there seems to be some minor limits

like it takes time to cast spells, and rushing make them less good

no resource cost it seems, but I'm sure characters do get tired from casting spells at one point

12:46 PM

@KorvinStarmast looks like they've replied

BESW

1:32 PM

"Big Bad Breakdown" from Sword Queen Games

2:23 PM

@AncientSwordRage OK, so he's just saying he doesn't like it and then takes an ax to EGG's writing style. Not hard to do. EGG's first hired employee was ... an editor. Good choice IMO.

@AncientSwordRage It's a game, it isn't folklore. An underappreciated narrative imperative for magic users to go out and brave the dangerous places is the original game's Vancian system - you have to go out and find your spells, there isn't a university to teach you, you. (It was clearer in AD&D 1e that this was the intention). If you didn't go find that scroll or that book, you didn't have something to write into your spell book. Unless you got the gold you could not afford to research a spell.

Someone_Evil

I think what you're describing there is part of what the thread puts as a dying a world. A world that isn't 'alive' enough to have orders/universities to teach

And I'd assume the folklore thing is based on an expectation that rpgs would be drawing on folklore (or drawing of fiction that was drawing on said folklore)

@Someone_Evil which RPGs? There are thousands of them.

Someone_Evil

The thread isn't being specific, though it centres itself around high fantasy (not that that a well defined term)

@Someone_Evil Fair Point.

2:44 PM

@KorvinStarmast It's the fact that D&D picked it and is now the de-facto reference for lots of RPGs

D&D has so much momentum when 4e broke with it, people seemed to not like it.

I don't think it's just "he doesn't like it" it just don't make much sense anywhere but the Dying earth setting

@AncientSwordRage not true that it didn't make sense anywhere but there. It was a particular take on magic that was easy to gamify, and the game was the focus there in terms of getting something published and printed.

@AncientSwordRage I disagree. I think that the defacto reference is now Mana / points / pools, thanks to CRPGs and Video Games and how their being mainstream influences how people think of gamified magic.

Those are not vancian. (See also cool downs in WC III, WoW, etc).

As to my favorite magic system, it is (narratively) Robin Hobb's in her farseer books. But how does one gamify that? Not sure.

Narratively, it is rare, it is dangerous, and it exacts a price. (But it's more like sorcerer than wizard, if we put that into 5e terms).

And it comes in two flavors: Skill magic and "Wit" Magic (animal empathy/nature). Which is similar to the Divine/Arcane split in some RPG frameworks. (Though I sometimes think that Skill is more Psionics than Arcane magic).

BESW

3:04 PM

@AncientSwordRage Somewhere downthread in that link there's a discussion of magic that's spammable-at-cost, which is very much a model that games like Fate support.

In DFRPG spells cost stress unless you put a LOT of time and effort into practicing them, so you could cast minor spells confidently knowing that your stress would replenish at the end of the scene, or you could spam massive spells knowing that you're going to feel the effects for a long time. Or there's the Shadowcraft model, where you can always cast spells but if you lose control of a spell you get an awesome buff... and too many buffs will turn you into an NPC permanently.

3:17 PM

@BESW sound cool!

4:59 PM

Would applying a coating on horns work the same way as nail polish does for human nails?

Asking for a character concept I had... A tiefling with rainbow horns like some people have rainbow nail polish

Looks good + helps stop cracking?

Q: What magics do high level spellcasters strive for after the Spellplague?

5:25 PM

7

Once a spellcaster has reached 17th level, and can cast 9th levels, what more power can they try to obtain? Before Mystra’s ban, there were 10th level spells and higher, back in D&D3.5, there was Epic Magic, now in 5th Edition, in lore, what spells or magic can the greatest wizards, sorcerers, or...

dnd-5e lore magic forgotten-realms

7:09 PM

@AncientSwordRage She's not a manicurist, she's a buccinacurist! (If I said hornicurist the double entendres would fly)

Cooper

7:31 PM

@AncientSwordRage Assuming a tiefling's horns are keratin-based, it seems perfectly reasonable, especially if they've got a smooth surface rather than the spiraling texture you see sometimes. Getting a smooth gradient might be difficult, as would be not getting it in your hair, but I don't see why it wouldn't work, assuming that nail polish is something that's present in whatever setting you're in

@Cooper If it's actually the distilled mucus of a behir mixed with the tears of a beholder and boiled centaur hooves ...

7:51 PM

does anybody know of any ttrpgs that use a continuous turn system? (instead of only using initiative/turns in combat)

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/198605/are-there-any-systems-that-use-a-continuous-initiative-order

Cooper

@KorvinStarmast Mmm, just like grandma used to make! :P

8:04 PM

@plerpsandplerps Can you explain in a little more detail what you mean by that? I am not sure if I understand what you are asking.

Sure thing! In a lot of tabletop roleplaying systems the players act in a specified order in combat (like the initiative system in DnD), but outside of combat they act in a mostly spontaneous freeform pattern with players jumping into and out of the conversation when they feel like it.

I am wondering if there are any systems that provide mechanics to decide when players act outside of combat (like who enters the next room first etc.).

Then as a follow-up, I am specifically curious about how those mechanics impact the gameplay.

Aha, I see what you mean; please include that in your question. If it was vague to me, it will be unclear to someone else.

@KorvinStarmast added an edit for clarity! thanks for suggesting it!

😀

8:27 PM

hmm i really thought of that as more of a mechanics question than a "shopping question"

I agree with your assessment of that, but the way you presented it seems to have fit into the "recommend a game for me" type of question that got disapproved here some years ago. Not sure how to solve that.

Oh, I guess I could see that. I'll try looking at some other websites in the meantime.

@Cooper cool!☺️