TRPG General Chat

Play Patrice

00:17

@Alan Thanks for the pointer - I'll play with those numbers and spreadsheets when I get the chance.

Alan

01:32

@ThomasMarkov how so?

Meanwhile, after doing a question or two back at math, I'm finding myself missing the 1k "see vote breakdown". Oh well, if I keep learning Pf2, it'll come soon enough.

Thomas Markov

1

A: LegacyQuestions - Bringing back the old questions design

Votes/Answers/Views listed vertically. I don't see that any changes to the home page just recently went live, so it may be something under the hood that has broken.

Alan

Huh, I had been a very infrequent user of se sites in the last few years and I'm a very not-visual person, so I never even realized there was an update until now.

BESW

"The best actual play podcasts that don’t use D&D" by Em Friedman for Polygon. There’s worlds to explore beyond the dungeons

Crowdfunding: Earth to Jupiter: A ZiMo TTRPG by Pidj Sorensen. A solo epistolary roleplaying game about being left on an apocalyptic Earth.

2

Crowdfunding: FEVER DREAM NEXUS by Sophia Tinney. Psychedelic samurai roleplaying in a kaleidoscopic world of surreal dreams and esoteric cultures.

"The Itch Creator Census Report", an analysis of survey responses done by Matthew Gravelyn.

Alan

01:49

@BESW Hmm, no Kobolds Ate My Babies, no Og: The caveman rolepaying game. Pass :)

BESW

Crowdfunding: Dinocar: a game of chaotic art and city planning! [Zine Month 2023] by Dinoberry Press. Dinocar is a chaotic, collaborative art-making/city-planning game set in a world where dinosaurs drive cars! Using any art supplies they want, players build a world map and then take their dinosaurs on blindfolded road trips!

@Alan Yeah, most of those podcasts are using systems less than fifteen years old.

Alan

Hey, Og had a second edition! You could totally have your Smart Caveman know the word "Verisimilitude!" :)

BESW

(And generally more aligned with long-form narrative campaigns)

Feeds

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BESW

American Werewolf Biker Club by Andre Rivera Art. Play as werewolves who find and build community in a vast multi-chapter biker club.

Alan

01:54

Huh, go figure, there was a 3rd edition of Og that I missed. Good to know

<---may be a bit of a gaming dino these days.

BESW

That's one reason I pop in here every now and then with some TRPG news. A lot of people on rpg.se don't go looking for contemporary industry/hobby developments but are interested to hear about it if someone else has done the legwork.

So every now and then I scrape together the TRPG parts of my own feeds and share them here.

Alan

nod Yeah, definitely worthwhile.

BESW

Indie Press Revolution wrote on tumblr about some of the cool games funding during Zine Month.

thedungeonguy and kejaba wrote on tumblr about "degrees of play" and how people play TRPGs when they aren't at a table.

"Modular Character Sheet Fantasy Expansion" by Penflower Ink. The first expansion to the Modular Character Sheet Kit

Cezar Capacle wrote on tumblr "A spotlight on designers of the Global South"

Crowdfunding: GRANDMOTHERSHIP - A sci-fi TTRPG about senior ladies in space by Armanda Haller. A TTRPG for 2-4 players and 1 GM about space, horror, and senior ladies piecing together a mystery. Get in trouble, crochet a new scarf, go ballroom dancing, and find solutions where everyone else has failed. A game designed to be played as one-shot sessions.

"Holding A Mini-Con Online For Your Friends, or How To Learn A Lot of TTRPGs at Once" by barilleon on tumblr.

I'm excited about Earth to Jupiter. Pidj's games are little microcosms of care and feeling, and her art direction is always on point, but each game --especially the Zine Month games-- is also some new experiment or progression in Pidj's journey as a designer and it's cool to follow along.

Shalvenay

02:12

@BESW LOL. now I want to see what happens when the congestion kicks in

(TBF: it sounds like it would be a great chassis one could add RL-based congestion-fighting mechanics to. parking metering? congestion pricing? transit?)

BESW

@Alan My disappointment from that list, and I can't blame the list-maker because I don't know of any myself so it's really more of a general "why isn't this a thing yet it really should be a thing" is that there's no Gubat Banwa actual plays.

Feeds

The Soloist: The Soloist is coming Feb 1

posted on December 27, 2022 by Patrick Buechner (he/him)

A new, free newsletter for players, creators, and curious explorers of solo and co-op RPGs.

The Soloist: 🚀 Launching The Soloist

posted on February 01, 2023

5 GM-less games crowdfunding today, a solo game bundle to support suicide prevention, and more! First issue of #TheSoloist

Alan

In a serious thing I'd actually want to see would be if someone could pull off Eclipse Phase. That game is headbendy for me

BESW

I did some EP chargen a while back and it's too high on the fiddly-bits meter for me. The big draw according to friends who played it, seemed to be the exploration of mind/body identity interfaces in an exploitative setting. Balikbayan fits that bill better for me. And it does have APs.

ZineMonth is so overwhelming, there's so many great games!

But I'm distracting myself by working on my entry for the (TTRP + BOARD)GAME JAM.

Alan

Yeah, I was going to play EP once but it never happened. The whole idea of playing in a game post singularity was weird

Shalvenay

02:26

yeah, one thing that a lot of futuristic cyberpunk-y media gets wrong I think is transport and land use, anyway

skyscraper cities are fine, but they sure as heck won't have superhighways cutting through them!

BESW

Heh. I'm putting a note at the beginning of my game that the setting is running on pure aesthetics and vibes, attempts to have it make logistical sense will result in the entire thing falling apart.

Shalvenay

you'd be seeing frequent electrified regional rail, automated metros that are the next best thing to a teleporter, and autonomous 40' city busses instead XD

BESW

[grin] In my game the only visible transit is a caravan, but it's a public transit caravan.

Shalvenay

@BESW XD. reminds me of the transit map I made for one of the persistent worlds I play in

BESW

(I'm going to imply more complex transit options at the terminal hubs, the caravan is for going through an area that's protected from permanent installations or flyovers.)

Adeptus

02:41

@BESW Kobolds Ate My Baby has a new edition in BackerKit right now

BESW

If the article were going for that kind of low-hanging fruit it'd just be a list of Pathfinder podcasts; I'm frankly disappointed they listed Glass Cannon, because it implies (a) the reason to diversify from D&D is exclusively Wizards' exploitative business practices --which, don't get me wrong, has been sufficient reason for more than twenty years-- and (b) if that's the case then Paizo's PR blitz of "not as terrible as Wizards so far as you know please don't look it up" is working.

Alan

So far I've yet to have any negative experiences with Paizo, did a lot of PF1 stuff and some PF2 playtest.

@Adeptus All hail King Torg!

BESW

02:56

Most D&D players haven't personally had bad experiences with Wizards either.

"Playtesting TTRPGs" by Rae Nedjadi on tumblr.

"Playtesting Your TTRPG" by Sprinting Owl Designs on tumblr

Feeds

BESW has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

BESW

Snail: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game by Scarlet. You live in a big city. Unfortunately, things aren't going very well and you're being chased by an imaginary snail. To escape, you will need to get through the city.

COSMIC Free TTRPG Mechanics by Gabriel Caetano. This is a set of mechanics for playing or creating a d20+d6 role-playing game without corporate attachments.

Shalvenay

@BESW oh gosh. watches the snail try to chase him through the railyard

BESW

"What if there was a game like D&D but not by a Racist Corp" a collection by TheGiftOfGabes. A list of games for people who want to play dragon game-esque games.

"Safety Tools and Wellbeing for TTRPG" a collection by TheGiftOfGabes. Some cool things you can pick to use at your table for safer games.

(heads-up, that last collection includes the Support Flower, and I gotta tack a caution onto that one; be very sure it's the exact right tool for your table because it's got a lot more potential for failure than most tools I've seen.)

Feeds

03:25

Three Black Halflings: Tales of Wagadu: The Curse of the Spider Queen Ep. 20 "The Real Work Begins"

posted on January 09, 2023

Our season comes to a close with this meditative and emotional conclusion. Starring: Shamini Bundell (she/her) as Reth (they/she, Eland's Blessing Swala, Squared Circle Pugilist) Liv Kennedy (she/her) as Juji Osei (she/her, Bloom Emere, Circle of Stars Druid 6/Twilight Cleric 2) Jonathan Charles (he/him) as Aboade (he/him, Copper Ironmaster, Battle Smith Artificer) Jasper William Cartwright (h…

Three Black Halflings: "Apples & Pears, Boppity Bop" - New Year, New Adventures... In A Castle

posted on January 16, 2023

This week the Halflings are welcoming in the new year with a game-breaking tale from the table before they talk about this week's sponsor DnD In The Castle, we tell you all about how the event works, what to expect & why you should come to play with us! Join us at the Castle! https://shop.dndinacastle.com/collections/round-1-march-6-10-2023/products/2023-round-1 We want to hear from cont…

Three Black Halflings: "Shirefolk Spotlight" - with Christian Navarro

posted on January 24, 2023

Who's that at the door? Why, it's Christian Navarro! The Halflings are back for another Shirefolk Spotlight with the actor, TTRPG performer, and all-around wise and wonderful fellow. Follow Christian on Twitter at @navarroc0821 ! Join us at the Castle! https://shop.dndinacastle.com/collections/round-1-march-6-10-2023/products/2023-round-1 We want to hear from content creators about their re…

Three Black Halflings: "Lore Drop" - With Erika Ishii

posted on January 30, 2023

It is finally happening... We finally have the one the only Erika Ishii on the show! We discuss how all this started, the influences in art, acting in video games & a whole new segment where we drop lore about ourselves! If you don't follow Erika already please do: @erikaishii Join us at the Castle! https://shop.dndinacastle.com/collections/round-1-march-6-10-2023/products/2023-round-1 …

Three Black Halflings: "Watch What I Do, Not What I Say" - Interview with D&D Executive Producer Kyle Brink

posted on February 06, 2023

Today's episode features one of our most important interviews ever! Liv and Jeremy sit down with D&D Executive Producer Kyle Brink to talk in-depth about the OGL 1.1 disaster: what led to it, where WotC went wrong, and how they intend to fix it going forward. You won't want to miss this one! Out of the OGL Loop? Check out these articles by Linda Codega! https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-and-dra…

BESW has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

BESW

I wish there was some way to change the feeds without auto-posting the last five entries in every updated feed.

Hot RPG Questions

5

Q: How does Freedom of Movement interact with magical effects which increase movement costs?

The text for the Freedom of Movement spell contains the following clause: the target's movement is unaffected by difficult terrain, and spells and other magical effects [cannot] reduce the target's speed While this is fairly clear with regards to spells which produce difficult terrain (such as ...

BESW

04:02

"Dungeon impacted NPCs" by bankuei on Deeper in the Game. Along with the idea of dungeons as disaster zones, another useful trick is to place NPCs who are impacted by the dungeon existing.

Play Patrice

06:18

@Alan @HeyICanChan - Thank you for putting up with me and my questions. I'm not the most math literate person - so helping me walk this on target is much appreciated. Trying to get things down to variables I can work with.

Alan

@PlayPatrice I hope the walk through on how I got to the formulas help. The basic steps in mathematical problem solving is to first solve simpler problems that you can break down into pieces, then go back up and see how you can generalize them.

@PlayPatrice of course, the classic text in mathematical problems solving for beginners is press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691164076/… . The phrasing may be a bit dated, but all of the methodology is very sound

@PlayPatrice I'll do it up in google sheets real quick for you

Play Patrice

06:34

@Alan That is above and beyond, again thank you Alan.

Alan

@PlayPatrice docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/…

with the 52.5 or 47.5 if it's a 0 edge, I suppose I could add those

I suspected but wasn't sure that the difference is just one line on the table, and it is.

(between who wins ties, it shifts down one line from the other chart)
\

Wich means I can compress it down into one table, hmm, now to figure out how to post a table into Stackexxchange

Play Patrice

@Alan I'm going to "Self Awnser" with column's B and D as a summany of your work if thats okay when your done, or you can post it yourself if you'd like. That chart is exactly the "laymens" format I was looking for.

@Alan You are frackin amazing!

Alan

It is only going to need 1 table since the numbers are the same, shifted by 1. I'll get it, should finally actually ahve a taable anwer :)

Play Patrice

\o/ As soon as that awnser is bountiable - Name your price!

Alan

06:58

@PlayPatrice I'm just glad I quickly realized I could add 3 columns of nothing but |

on the google sheet so I could just copy and paste the table right in. Never actually got a bounty on any stack exchange ). I'm good with whatever!

Play Patrice

he he - takes a couple days for new questions to open up for bounties. I'll get ya taken care of.

Alan

@PlayPatrice Cool beans. You can see the nonlinear nature, as your edge goes up and up the amount of extra % chance you get to win goes down. It basically takes the same amount of additional bonuses to go from 50-90% win as it does to go from 90%-100%. And sheesh, I remember skills & powers. Vaguely :)

Anyhow, I should probably get back to, oh I don't know, grading my student's papers, writing a solution guide, writing a college algebra test, doing my reading for my doctoral program in education....(No not your fault, I was pretty fried tonight)

Play Patrice

Fair enough - glad I could be a fun distraction of sorts! For Posterity!

Alan

Out of curiosity, is there a reason you still do 3.5 and not PF1?

Among other things, PF1 got rid of the 27 thousand different systems for special attacks :)

Play Patrice

07:13

Our crew never transitioned over to 3.5 when PF came out. We have mountains of 3.5 stuff, not much in the way of PF materials about. And the monk scenario in question was a 3.5 monk... so I was curious if and how that monk was legitimately working.

Alan

you mean out of 3.5 ,I assume. Well, all the rules stuff for Pf1 are on archives of nethys. I just liked how much pf cleaned up 3.5, made single classing just about every class a viable path rather than forcing everyone to optimize for prestige classes, etc. Plus they toned down some of the worst overpowered magic stuff.

Of course, for horror days of OP magic, nothing beats 3.0 days. Did you know the 3.0 Shapechange spell would let you turn into a Tarrasque and get every single thing it has except its frightful presence )?

Play Patrice

That I was aware of.. I'm usually the rules monger / power gamer of the group - So I'm usually banned from playing casters unless its a new-player playgroup and then I am asked to play a cleric - and sit in the back... and let them "Try" first....

hides

An interesting point of note in my project - except for Dragons - Creatures tend to advance in base attack bonus the same as a cleric or monk (3/4). Meaning per hit die the monk keeps up with monsters on a per "hit die" "Level" basis.

So as long as the monk grabbed improved grapple - he should be on par with most of MM if he took a modest STR value.

Alan

12:18

@PlayPatrice Been a while since I looked at 3.5, but I'm pretty sure that as you level up, HD tends to be higher than CR for a lot of things

Play Patrice

12:37

The CR value is to determine challenge rating for a party of 4. And it's approximately 3-4 HD per CR... So usually - from a practical standpoint - a Party encounter for a level 10 party ends up with 6-8 monsters raning from an equivelent player level of 6-8 with the ocassional even matched monster showing up as a special guest for tough encounters.

Meaning if the DM is following CR guidelines - except for huge monsters and BBEG's, you should be able to routinely grapple monsters per attack somewhere between 50 and 30% per attack.

At least, thats my back of the napkin figuring.

Alan

12:57

nod yawn Okay, time to try toget 2 more hours of sleep in.

Hot RPG Questions

14:02

1

Q: How does one Calculate Dual Variable Probability?

Or asked another way: How do we determine the probability of given grapple to succeed? In DnD 3.5 the grapple mechanic relies on double variable randomness in order to determine success or failure. This double randomness increases both the possibility of success and failure at the extreme ends...

dnd-3.5e grapple statistics

Thomas Markov

Got a near instantaneous downvote on this answer, anyone got a clue why that may be?

Ah, missed the detail about needing pact of the blade too.

GcL

14:23

@ThomasMarkov You need downvotes? On it.

Unfortunately can't help you.
> This post has been deleted; deleted posts can't be voted on

Axoren

15:26

Any Shadowrunners know which edition is the most-played one? Like, if someone says they play Shadowrun, which edition are they most likely to like playing most?

It seems like 4e, 5e, and 6e in a power struggle with eachother.

Axoren

15:44

@ThomasMarkov My friends still give me crap about using a Crowbar as a Strength-based Rogue this one time. And it made sense, because we needed to be fast and didn't care about being loud. I also regularly just broke windows instead of unlocking the front door, because I was a juggernaut of a Rogue. Who was gonna stop me from leaving with what I took?

In other news, my campaign's second act ended this past weekend. The party defeated an Ancient Red Dragon at level 10. They had only a few NPC boons with them, under the affects of a Heroes' Feast and the Aid Spell, and before the fight, they prepared various sources of resistance to Fire. They carved away at the dragon's Legendary Resistances until they finally got through all of them, and then locked it down for the rest of the fight.

GcL

@Axoren I picked up 5e because, I loved the heck out of Shadowrun in the 90's. The writing is crap. There are missing rules, the ordering is poor, and it just did not read like something that was playable.

Axoren

Emotions were high, and things looked bleak about halfway through. The Barbarian inches from death was turned into a T-Rex to save her life and the continued to soak damage while chomping away at the Dragon. They took 2 Hellfire-tiered Breath Attacks, with many failing their saves. If it weren't for the extra HP buffers and the fire resistance, it would have been a TPK.

When the Dragon resisted the Sorcerer's last cast of Hold Monster, the Wizard used their last 1st level spell to cast Silvery Barbs and it make the Dragon use their last Legendary Resistance. There was so much cheering in the voice chat that night.

NautArch

@GcL My original in-person group when I got back into gaming also played shadowrun, but they quickly shifted to 5e when it came out and never looked back.;

GcL

@NautArch They actually managed to play shadowrun 5e ?

Axoren

The wizard then proceeded to use his last two casts of Psychic Lance to lock the dragon down, and the Barbarian got the final kill with only 3 HP left, after having been returned to their original form from being a T-Rex.

NautArch

15:53

@GcL I meant D&D 5e :P

Axoren

@GcL Are you saying 4e was bad? Or 5e was bad?

NautArch

Not sure which version they played...i'll ask.

GcL

@Axoren 5e was unplayable on it's face. If Catalyst still owns the IP, I'm going to guess 6e sucks as well.

Axoren

Last bit about my campaign's session: The crazy thing is, the hardest fight they fought that night was NOT the Ancient Red Dragon. They were still trying to find a way home to their timeline, and they had discovered that the Ancient Red Dragon's Pearl would serve as a sufficient catalyst for the ritual they needed to perform to get back. However, they were intercepted by their Mentor from their original timeline, the one who died. They were with the alternate timeline's version of her.

GcL

@Axoren I don't know if I ever saw any shadowrun 4e books. Lemme check the basement for what we were playing.

Axoren

15:58

Their mentor used some dark magic to dispose of her alternate version of herself, leveraging the fact that she had 7 Liters of their blood coursing through her, she was able to make use of some very powerful dark arts against herself. The party then realized something was wrong and started fighting her.

GcL

My book is 1st ed. FASA 1989. So we played 1st and 2nd editons.

Axoren

The way the Mentor fight was structured, she had been alluded to in the past to be one of the only mages in the world that could concentrate on multiple spells at once, though they have met at least one more who could. They were dealing with Wall of Fire, a persistent Wind Control spell, and a Homebrew Gravity spell all simultaneously.

They defeated their mentor, all hoping that it was just an apparition pretending to be her, regularly trying to reject her existence as "Not their real mentor", but the "apparition" never dispersed. After she was defeated, she let out one final message to the party: "I'm so gosh darn proud of you all" and left a very real corpse behind.

They had a Scroll of Wish that they used to try and bring her back, using Resurrection, but as the spell completed, they were faced with the harsh truth, she wasn't coming back. She chose to go on to the wheel of reincarnation before they had a chance. Even the Psychopomp told them there was nothing he could do to bring her back at that point.

Bittersweet ending, but now they're home.

The Dragon of the alternate timeline was defeated, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. They had jumpstarted a revolutionary war to save the people from an evil regent, and left things in the hands of people they could trust. And while things weren't fully tied up in the alternate timeline, they have learned a lot about their world that may still be reflected back home.

GcL

@Axoren Looks like 3rd edition was the last shadowrun before Catalyst got their dirty claws into it. I would try that edition if you were going to actually play. The one thing I do recall being very difficult with running the game was integrating decking into a run. We didn't handle that well and would usually go get food while the decker player was doing their thing.

Axoren

@GcL That about the decking sounds VERY unfortunate.

I always felt like a Decker's gameplay should be in parallel with the party. Like, while they're roaming the halls, the decker is roaming the network in the same way. "The door ahead of us is locked." "Hold on, I'm going through the subroutines now. Opened."

GcL

@Axoren I suspect there are solutions to that now. Likely some blog posts or forums nowdays about how to integrate the hacking and other actions together so players aren't twiddling their thumbs. Just didn't have those resources back in the day.

Axoren

16:10

As for trying 3rd edition, the reason I'm trying to figure out which version people play, is because I'm trying to find a group to join for it, but no one I know runs it.

And it's also really hard to find communities that don't just run the Shadowrun equivalent of donjons while the GM is playing FateGrand Order and barely engaging with the party.

GcL

@Axoren My recollection was it was hack. Then action. Then some waiting for a hack at or near the objective. Then action. I remember it felt like they were distinct phases.

NautArch

My friend thinks 5e, but he can't find his book and not can he find it on amazon.

Axoren

I'd rather not look for games on Roll20, because of those issues way back with NolanT, I've sworn off their platform entirely, and most people on their forums want to use Roll20 for it.

I don't really know where to look for games anymore.

I'm on a few TTRPG Discords, but their LFG channels are blackholes due to the saturation of players.

GcL

@Axoren Sounds like it's time to GM a game.

Axoren

@GcL I'm already GMing a 5e D&D game.

GcL

16:16

I'm switching off from D&D. Moving to pathfinder 2e with my current group. Got a whole load of other games from humblebundle to try as well.

Axoren

I also work full-time + emergency hours in the finance industry, so I have limited time to do campaign prep for another game, unless I want to be a shut-in.

GcL

Quest and Lady Blackbird are very low prep.

NautArch

My friends recollection was "It was terrible" and "We didn't allow magic classes because it was too complicated"

Axoren

@GcL I don't want to play those, though. I wanna get in some crunchy shadowrun, lol.

I've played it ONCE ever, and it was a long time ago.

GcL

@Axoren I'm entertained to think about what constitutes emergencies in the financial sector. "aaaahhh old rich white dudes are freaking out! It's an emergency!"

Axoren

16:18

@GcL Platform goes down like an hour before we're supposed to trade in Europe, or something.

GcL

@Axoren Wow... I was spot on.

Axoren

Skipping a day of trading is some serious loss, and clients aren't very happy when it's their money taking the losses.

You can't blame them. And it's not really just rich white dudes, sometimes it's companies trying to hedge against their exposure to volatile markets so that they don't have to fire and hire people every three months.

The Oracle

18:08

0

Q: Workshopping Help

I have a question I want to ask and would like to run it by the community before I actually ask it so I can obtain feedback Should I allow a Player to use a premade character? In my 5th edition campaign based in the Ebberon world we’ve recently obtained a new player. The player in question wou...

discussion dnd-5e workshop-question

Thomas Markov

18:39

@TheOracle @HighDiceRoller I'd be interested in knowing the actual probability of having an array at least this good using 4d6 drop lowest.

Someone_Evil

18:55

@ThomasMarkov I'm getting 0.74% by calcing "at least this good" using an extended pointbuy list

NautArch

Is that for the exact scores or just the value? Not sure I'm making sense, either.

Debating about adding in my general theory that this game is much more about random dice rolls than modifiers.

Someone_Evil

point buy value, the thought of doing it for exact scores makes my head hurt

NautArch

Especially if the modifiers you are comparing are a differential of 1 or 2.

@Someone_Evil And likely not helpful :) Beyond headaches.

Gee, if I had another +1, I"d have made it!

Dude - if you rolled an 11 instead of a 9, you'd have made it.

THe roll killed you, not the modifier.

Someone_Evil

The modifiers does affect how often the dice kill you though

GcL

@NautArch An issue I've run into is the players simply nominating whichever character has the highest bonus (even if it's just a +1 difference) for a skill or task. If you get a player that has the technical highest for a bunch of skills... they end up doing everything. That impacts the distribution of narrative control and attention.

Someone_Evil

19:01

Or something like that

NautArch

@GcL That's a whole other issue.

I also generally have the whole table roll for a lot of things and go with group results.

@Someone_Evil Probably - which is why I won't add it. But my last few builds I have had zero intention to getting to 20 unless I'm out of feat ideas.

GcL

@NautArch It's come up with characters who's base stats just outshine all the others.

NautArch

@GcL Which is also an issue with 5e that any character can do most tasks.

Don't have a rogue, no problem. Just get tools.

The tools resolve a huge amount of 'missing' abilities.

But I've also been shifting from a 'win the fight' mentality to a "the fight is the fun, and things can go wrong"

That's probably from ATLA Legends and Scum & Villainy

GcL

It's easier to write interesting scenarios for a party with a mix of high scores. E.g. there's usually a different character with highest INT, DEX, CON, and STR... so it's easy to write challenges that hit one multiple of those to include multiple characters.

If you've got one character that does 3 of the 4 it makes it more difficult and sometimes contrived to come up with scenarios where they don't just do most of the lifting (rolling)

NautArch

I think that's a table-fix problem. Communicate - but also why I like arrays now.

GcL

19:06

Same reason I don't allow Kung-fu Panda builds.

NautArch

??

GcL

@NautArch How does the table fix that? It's the players selecting the character with the highest bonus.

@NautArch Moon druid monk that is allowed to use martial arts in bear form.

NautArch

@GcL Talking about not needing to be 100% optimal and sharing the fun around while being okay with failure consequences and having fun with them.

@GcL Ah - I think I made that build once.

But also monk...I'm okay with that. The stunning strike is more of my problem (and I had made a character who focused on that, too.)

THat's also when I learned the problems of that strike.

GcL

@NautArch Temp HP, Multi-attack, flurry, plus all the other ki stuff... just outshines the other melee characters. Also, puts the character in the role of utility caster as well. Master of too many roles.

They take over tank, mobility, melee damage, and utility caster.

NautArch

Yeah, that's a lot to manage. Do your groups tend to be people who know each other or no?

GcL

19:12

Yes. Minimum buy in is a decade.

Alan

Need some editing help on rpg.stackexchange.com/a/204599/71804 . The table looks fine when I look at it on my post preview, but when it is on the live answer it didn't show as a table

GcL

@NautArch It is... also makes for long turns as they figured out the best set of actions. You'd be unsurprised to hear that the consummate min-maxer was the one with that build.

NautArch

@GcL Heh :)

GcL

@Alan fixed

Alan

Thanks! I'll go look in a bit to see what it was, gotta run soon. I was just glad I had a good question to share my favorite point buy system for

Just play whatever the bleep you want, I'll make it work on the back end ;)

NautArch

19:14

I'm not so sure I'm keen on the idea of a DM rebalancing my rolls/scores on their own whim.

And I don't really see how that answer applies.

GcL

@NautArch I concur.

Thomas Markov

@Alan See here:

6

A: Is there a way to test posts or formatting?

We don’t have one here on RPG, but you can use the sandbox on meta.se. You mentioned tables sometimes being broken; this issue is documented in this bug report on meta.se, I'll reproduce the entire answer below for reference. You will notice in the answer below that the last markdown table render...

Alan

@NautArch I'm not a fan of the total generalists, but I also didn't like the old 3.5 and before "You had to have an X in the party", rogue especially. I loved the way PF1 did it with archetypes, so a table could coordinate and someone could sneak whatever thing was needed (like trapfinding) into a build without having to play a rogue/etc

GcL

I like point buy. Makes character sheets easier to validate and has led to players making more differentiated characters.

@Alan Quadratic wizards were still an issue in that system as well, no?

NautArch

@Alan I didn't realize how generalist 5e really is. Pretty much any character can do anything needed - they just all have special stuff that either makes it more likely for a success or just lets them do other stuff.

Alan

19:17

The answer applies in the "How to handle the player with unbalanced rolls". Don't make them reroll, just throw a few more carrots at the other players to make it wash

NautArch

@GcL @ThomasMarkov Introduced Standard Array +2 and I freaking love it.

@Alan You may want to make it clearer that your solution is to do that.

Still a -1 for me. I don't like the idea, and I think it's a bad solution for this problem.

GcL

@Alan You may end up with the player of the high score character wondering why they don't get as many nor as nice shiny things as the other characters.

Alan

I'llgo over that test post-problem later as I gotta run soon. And yeah, I will make it clear to the. I generally just tell them at the beginning, and let them adjust their stats if they like.

Going to edit to make it a bit more clear as a solution to this problem

HighDiceRoller

@Someone_Evil @ThomasMarkov I get the same: highdiceroller.github.io/icepool/apps/…

Thomas Markov

@HighDiceRoller so well within the realm of plausible.

HighDiceRoller

19:32

Yeah I definitely would not make an accusation of cheating at this level.

Alan

@NautArch I just edited it to explain the rationale and how you can implement it past player compaints

@GcL In PF1, yes. PF2 less so, but at least PF1 solved the "You have to have an X" in your group problem by distributing the various "have to have" things onto almost any class with the ability to swap out features

HighDiceRoller

It's between the chance that some player's highest score will be lower than another player's lowest score in a 4-person party (0.606%), and the same in a 5-person party (0.973%).

Alan

@NautArch The short version of the response though is it's not DM whim rebalancing, its the DM trying to make sure that that a group game doesn't become about one player outshining the others all the time. Honestly, doesn't even have to be just for stats. If you have one player who hyper-optimizes and another who has no idea what to do and you want to have a fun game for both of them....

Anyhow, grr at clock and RL responsiblities. poofs for real this time

doppelgreener

20:05

just want to check: [on hold] isn't a thing anymore right? i'm not losing my mind?

it was a thing, then it stopped being a thing

Someone_Evil

It's stopped being a thing, yes

doppelgreener

21:01

phew

at least i'm only losing my mind

GcL

21:25

@doppelgreener At least not about that! /s

Now trying to remember why did I walk into this room problem remains.

doppelgreener

you came here to learn about the doorway effect, which is an observed tendency that crossing a threshold into a new space tends to make a person forget about context from the previous space

2

Hot RPG Questions

22:03

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AncientSwordRage

22:41

@doppelgreener and soon you'll be looking up the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon

And again

And again....

doppelgreener

:D

Alan

23:15

Brief pause between classes. I'm still trying to figure out the culture here. My understanding from the conversation on the meta was that questions looking for subjective opinions on how to deal with a common table problem were open to answers with detailed anecdotes of how people have handled it in the past. I can totally get people not liking my answer, I'd be absolutely fine with it sitting at +0 no votes forever. But - seems to indicate that my question doesn't answer the situation.

I think one person misunderstood my use of the term ubermunchkin, so I took out any emotionally lade…

Of course, it doesn't help my mood that I'm coming back from having to deal with someone who is somehow in college algebra and does not know how to put a number into a function. :)

On a side note, how do you do the invite someone to chat thing?

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Q: Does the Feat "Telepathic" allow my druid to communicate with the party and other beasts through telepathy without limitations of the beast form?

I am new to the DnD system and want to create a druid character for DnD 5e. At level 4, I am allowed to choose either an ability enhancement or a feat. The feat "Telepathic" has the following feature that I'm concerned about: You can speak telepathically to any creature you can see within 60 fee...

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