@NautArch -- Unfortunately "bad rolls" are going to be a consistently bad problem for all RNGs
@NautArch -- Like I said... most Paranoia GM's do it for the "I am the Overlord" gigglefit... what I've heard so far is that your GM is using it as an excuse for existing mindset/behavior
@BanjoFox And yeah, that's the MO for this GM normally. He's not completely bad, but he does have several problems and isn't open to discussing them - which is the real problem.
but on a good note, everything in the d&d session up until the very end was great. He had a really challenging fight that mostly played to our weaknesses and we overcame them admirably.
Idea: Component Pouches are actually low-power magic items that give the person using it the ability to retrieve any item from it at will in exchange for the monetary cost (if any) of said item.
except wait no
drop everything about monetary cost and simply say the item must not have one
@BanjoFox yeah - I wasn't able to use my maul, so to help increase my damage on my Trident (that i can throw), i cast hunters mark. The target went invisible and I used the advantage on perception checks to find him to get a location and then dispelled the invisibility (i had previously used dispel magic on two sets of spike growth - letting the party move without damage)
@Papayaman1000 Why not have the monetary cost? It's a way for casters to get cost-items without having to find them (but they still need to have the actual cost available)
@Papayaman1000 Oh - i thought you meant the components for the spell and not actual things. Like they need 100gp of diamond dust for greater restoration. If they have 100gp, they can "spend" that and get 100gp of diamond dust so they can cast greater restoration.
But it's really impossible to flavor that correctly
Especially when you consider that magic is flavorfully supposed to be changing all the time, so restricting it to material components for a spell just means finding a way to make a Pearl of Power (Lv1) a component for some ball bearing spell or whatever.
@BanjoFox hehe. Basically, my paladin is a damage dealer. He's not a tank, he's the homerun hitter. But when presented with flying creatures that don't generate Opportunity Attacks when they move away, I really had no means to do what I do well. So instead of trying, I tried to do other helpful things. LIke dispelling magical dangerous terrain and buffs that the enemy was using.
@Papayaman1000 wouldn't that mean homebrewing spells?
@NautArch Yes. But if a PC decides to go to the local Mage College and drop a 1,250gp grant or something to research the material uses of Pearls of Power, then what am I supposed to tell them?
You get the pearl of power, but it's actually stolen from the vault of a powerful Dragon/Mummy/Efreeti and now they're wondering who is taking all of their stuff.
@NautArch "Yes, but it turns out that coming up with consequences for donating to a mage college are either nonexistent or more trouble than it's worth for me to come up with."
The item is taken from some point in the world, and... well, should the pouch consume and destroy the cost of the item, or drop it where it took the item from?
@NautArch I heard that one.
Pretty soon, some elementals from Elemental Fire or something came and yelled at the player.
-- Disclaimer, I was not privy to this game however two of my best friends were and this is how they told it:
During a Werewolf:tA game they encountered a giant carnivorous plant monster. It was described as floor-to-ceiling, almost, and all of their attacks were being repelled. Unfortunately the thing they needed to get to was on the -other- side of the monster. So, one of the players said "Can I throw Dave?". The idea was, "can I throw Dave OVER the monster" presumably so that he can flank, do stuff, etc. The ST responded with: "Are you sure you want to do that?" with strong empasis on *…
Fun fact: MOBAs as a whole sprang from Defense of the Ancients, a series of half-mods, half-maps for the classic RTS Warcraft 3. DotA was the bomb at the time.
@Papayaman1000 I remember playing those maps. I never understood why people fell in love with the little side-game I played when I couldn't find any good games.
@BanjoFox I'm definitely growing him as I've played him. I'm bummed that I've got his charisma capped at +3 because of a critical fumble, but there's a lot I can still do outside of smashy smashy.
And I'm starting to explore that more.
especially considering that we have two clerics who aren't super keen on healing folks
hahah. I tend to lean toward "interesting" over archetype (smashy smashy). In fact I used to complain to my WoD ST "Man... do I -have- to use ALL my freebie points? my character is PERFECT without them."
This table is VERY combat focused (except for OOC puzzles), so smashy smashy generally does the job. But I know have the lowest AC of all the melee characters (barbarian with 25 AC, Cleric with 22 and I have 20), so tanking doesn't make sense for me.
Instead, I'm adjusting to buffing/healing, but still trying to get into a position where i can get advantage (we use flanking) and drop my damage. But I"m no longer just running in and fighting the first thing I see.
@BanjoFox To give us high AC? I don't necessarily think so. Myself and the Cleric aren'ttoo far out of the norm. It's mostly the barbarian that's way out of scope. But the barbarian is also several levels behind me.
@NautArch Gotcha. It seems as though one, possible, effect of having a high AC means that the DM has to use monsters with a higher hit, meaning that AC's have to go up again... [spiral continues]
The barbarian had been lost on a prison plane after becoming petrified before our cleric had access to Greater Restoration. He was 'found' again in the City of Brass by the efreeti mob boss that had sent us to that prison plane (after we escaped, duh.)
@BanjoFox it's possible, ut I don't see it - mostly because there aren't ways for us to increase our AC. Magic items are rare and random - we don't get to pick and choose (unless we are generating a new character)
@Adam Well, I guess I wasn't entirely truthful :) While in the city of brass, I purchased the plate and the ring (and a ring of the ram - but was forced to return it). But normally, we don't have access to a market and he randomly rolls for treasure. The plate was gimme, but he rolled and the ring came up as an option to uy.
@BanjoFox the plot is actually pretty good. The DM has a good imagination (I said he wasn't all bad.)
@BanjoFox THe basic story is that the material plane goes through cycles of order and chaos - and this cycle of order is ending. Fiends and Demons are coming across the planes (fey, shadow, material...everywhere), bent on creating chaos. Our purpose is to stop it, and there is a prophecy that we may be the ones who do it.
One of the major kingdoms has been infiltrated generations ago by them and the king and leadership is corrupted. We're in that kingdom now looking for the rightful king.
We were in the eastern kingdom at first who has been trying to fight the evil and get the western kingdom (the corrupt one) to help. They haven't, so that Eastern King is trying to create dischord in the West so that they can help.
We ended up in CIty of Brass on our way to find a planeswalker to take us to where the monks who prophesied us could give us information.
While there, we were trying to help our Warlock break their contract with a fiend and an efreeti mob boss offered his help.
SO the mob boss doesn't like me calling him out and we fight in the streets. I kill the boss (turns out I didn't - and I have since double-tapped any future kills), and we try and run. He hunts us down and sends us to a prison plane that we have to escape from. All the while time continues to run and our chances dwindle of being successful.
We escape the prison plane by trading some of the magic items we bought in Brass for freedom.
Get back home, travel around to where we think the great evil has a major presence, only to learn we have to go to the same location in the shadowfell. Back to brass, find planeswalker, get swindled, get to shadowfell, fight the evil, return home, fight the evil again on our plane.
ALl the while, we are learning that some of the angels of our gods (Anubis for me and Pholtus for our primary cleric) are working with the evil and we've had to fight them.
After we clear out the major evil beachhead, we start to try and look for the true king so that we can overthrow the corrupt one and start the full national fight against the evil to prevent chaos.
We were on our way to the last known location of our old warlock friend (no longer a player) where they also have a lead on the king. That's the location where the drunken barbarian attacked the drake. And here we are :)
@godskook Yeah zombieland taught me that- just wasn't expecting it as it's never been an issue. Monsters to 0 get dead. Except for this guy - because the DM didn't expect us to fight (the prison plane was punishment to us both as players and characters I think) even though he created a scenario that led to a fight.
@godskook no, we do saving throws. But monsters never have leading up to that fight.
Monster is killed, DM removes from battlemap.
so now sometimes they'll just be unconscious, most times they're dead. Never know, so I try and remember to say I double tap.
All-in-all, the DM created a great world and an interesting story. But he's made a lot of mistakes and isn't open to hearing about them. It's a shame, because I think he could be a fantastic DM if he could accept constructive criticism and discuss it so that we an improve the whole experience.
Alright, I need some plot help In the campaign I am making, the PCs get sucked into an erratic portal taking them to the underdark. They escape and have adventures, eventually learning that the portal was made by Aboleths. What I am trying to figure out is "How" and "Why".
@GreySage there could still be an underlying reason as to why they're doing the evil they're doing (like a corrupted water supply). Your characters could let the aboleth's die - but if they're Good that may be a harder decision?
going with pure BBEG and stealing from the campaign I was describing - they know that the only ones to stop them are the party. They were sent to shadowfell to die befor ethey could get strong enough to defeat them.
@NautArch Something like the water supply could work, but it leads to something more. Like, anything that makes Aboleths worry must be REALLY bad. I want the Aboleths to be the climax of the campaign
The way I have it laid out in my mind is that the portal appears randomly, and sucks things through from both sides. So a bunch of underdark creatures are trapped (and running rampant) on the surface, and when the heroes go to investigate, they get trapped in the underdark
OH... okay. In that case, is it possible that the Aboleths want to "reverse" the two sides? Maybe they got tired of having to live in Underdark and are trying to "terraform" the Earth plane
@GreySage Oh - hmm. I kinda like that and it takes away the knowledge of the PCs from the Aboleths. Maybe the Aboleth's hired a shoddy wizard to create a portal and this is what happened. Why the created is uknown at this point - but possibly the PCs have to find the wizard to discover it (give syou some time)
and then you can build this sub-boss wizard and storyline to help fill in some blanks. The PCs may have ideas you can steal as they try and figure out what's going on :)
Maybe toss in some Wild Magic capability with the wizard to make his casting even more interesting and explain the wonky portal.
@NautArch I toyed with the idea of not having a reason at all. After all, Aboleths are ancient and alien lifeforms, who knows why they do what they do?
@BanjoFox I don't know how exactly they are portrayed in each version, but in 5e they are described as existing before Gods came in to being and ruling a vast empire. Then the Gods came and cast them down, and they've been plotting revenge ever since
It also says that when they die, they reform in the plane of water complete with their memories, so every Aboleth remembers everything back to the start of existence
@GreySage If there is, you can definitely make it about their god. I like that in our campaign my god and the cleric's are involved somehow (or at least some of their angels have been.) It's made it personal.
The good thing is that the Wizard and Sorcerer can typically blow up large groups of mobs before they become a problem so I just need to hold the attention of the big dude.
Hey @NautArch, what do the to-hit bonuses of your paladin and your party members look like? Minus situational bonuses like bless or a similar spell/magic ability.
@NautArch How do you like the Proficiency Die option? You don't feel it makes things too swingy, more than they already are with a big die to begin with?
@T.J.L. I love it. We're a big dice rolling table, but it does make it swingy. The fluff is just because you're proficient doesn't mean there are swings where you've got it perfect and others where you kinda whiffed.
Adam makes it happen!
This is the new UI for flagging comments:
(for reference this was the old UI)
The first flag replaces the former "rude or offensive" flag; the last replaces "other". The middle flag - "no longer needed" - is new, and is intended to cover both "too chatty" and the non-ab...
@NautArch Cool, that's kind of about the numbers I was expecting. My DM (who also happens to be my father) got back into the game after many years. We were talking the other day and he's pretty frustrated that he game out some magic items without realizing how strong they were, and how our party hits, like super often. He feels fights are way too easy now
@Adam Yeah, the bounded accuracy of 5e starts to dissipate once you start handing stuff out. But it's all manageable when creating encounters - you just need to increase the difficulty :)
@Adam A +1 weapon between 3.5 and 5 is roughly the same, but a +2 weapon in 5E is more like a +3 or +4 weapon in 3.5, and +3 weapons in 5E are the stuff of legend.
I think he just needs to get into the swing of things and grow accustomed to the differences between 5e and 1e/2e. There's a lot of "back in my day" type talk :p Over time, I think it'll even out.
@T.J.L. Yeah, but it beats throwing the mundane spear :) And I can use it as versatile for GWF, just don't get the GWF benefit with it. But as a ranged option, it's nice to have because it's thator mundane spears.
@Christopher Yes it does, but League's totally shifted how people treat MOBAs and competitive gaming in general. It's like what Call of Duty did with FPSs.
I've encountered just as much toxicity on Dota 2 as I have on League.
Any perception that <certain game> community is better than <other game> community is just lies that the members of <certain game> community tell themselves to feel superior. All gamers are horrible people because people are horrible people.
@Yuuki The argument that <certain game> is better "for no good reason" is obviously false, yes. However, better arguments exist, although their efficacy requires more proof than an assertion provides.
@godskook Debatable. Yes, intra-community interactions might be better, but they more than compensate for that with community-dev interactions and inter-community interactions.
@Yuuki Is there any reason you're supposing that some communities would have more or less dev/inter-community interactions based SOLELY on those games being pvp-vs-pve and/or team-vs-solo????
Without a reason to suppose otherwise, I'd assume that both interaction types remain wholly independent variables compared to pvp-vs-pve and team-vs-solo
@Yuuki As much as I've heard the term git gud, I have never encountered the idea that the Dark Souls community is even marginally unbearable, relative to other communities.
Unnecessary question marks aside, I'm not saying that pve/team games have more dev interactions than pvp games. I'm saying that toxicity in interactions is not less existent in those games as you propose.
I mean, good lord, the WoW community's interactions with balance devs is almost legendary.
I personally don't believe that PVP/team games have a more toxic community than PVE/solo games. The amount of salt and bile that I see on gaming forums is rather consistent across all communities, it's just directed in different places depending on the type of game.
@Yuuki Dota is legendary balance patch released after a hero was attacked by 5 heroes and killed 3 XD. Took 30 min for that patch to be put in after that encounter
@Christopher No, it doesn't. I've seen the toxic come from players who are really bad -at- players who they knew were just straight up better than them, but on a bad game or on an off-role/off-champ.
I agree many are salty but I have met 2 players that I added to my friends list (and they accepted) after one match since they were just fun to play with
@Christopher the problem is psychological, at least partially. People don't like accepting blame for their own actions. By necessity, this means someone else "must" be at fault for the failing. So they pick a player and blame them. The roamer didn't gank their lane enough, the mid didn't farm well enough, top was feeding. WHATEVER "WORKS"
@godskook I guess we see different things then. Toxicity is perhaps more obvious in PVP/team games simply because there's more opportunity to display. It's a bit hard to yell at someone else when there is no one else. Doesn't mean people who play solo games don't find ways to express toxicity elsewhere.
Because this isn't just you sitting in you chair a little frustrated. this is when you start screaming at the screen, smashing keys or throwing controllers.
In PvP games, the rage often comes when your sides starts losing and you want to win. In Single Player games, it often comes from the frustration of trying to achieve some other goal over and over again and it not working.
@Yuuki Let me be clear. I don't consider it toxic when a person, enraged at their game's proceedings, screams bloody murder, privately, in their own gaming den. Toxicity is when they unreasonably expose other people to their hostile emotions
I used to believe that singleplayer and PVE-only was a magic cure-all for toxicity. That if people could only work together, there was no way anyone could possibly be toxic towards other people.
Even when it's co-op only, people always find ways to be incredibly toxic towards each other. Interactions between classes on WoW is also a "nice" example.
@Adam That League was having a detrimental affect such that it needed to be removed from your life is the sad part. Ideally, League wouldn't have that affect.
These days, I find that Riot's doing a much better job of dealing with chat-based toxicity although in-game actions (intentionally feeding and throwing games) are still problematic.
I just noticed my math inconsistency that ten pints don't equal 5 gallons. I'm gonna headcanon that people just get really enthusiastic pouring the beer.
cue rules arguments debates over whether the keg starts out as a +10/+10d6 weapon, or a +50/+50d6 one, which Kord sits and watches with popcorn nodding thoughtfully to good points made either way.
@doppelgreener I have found, as a rule, that it can be really fun to pick at a scab until it comes off and the wound starts to bleed again – I made this comment on the RAW tag warning meta, and I am concerned that it is happening again. I may wish to discuss with you, though not right now, my concerns in a private chat. This might be similar ...
... to my well intended but utter failure of a meta entitled "is something wrong." My instinct is to respond as I often do, don't fix what isn't broken, but I've noticed that such a response gets some hackles up. Will ponder whether or not to engage, at all, but I think someone is being picked on.
@KorvinStarmast My perspective on the matter is pretty simple: I found a feature I think is relevant to site maintenance for a particular area and I'd like to use it there; site maintenance and feature implementation shouldn't need to be like picking at scab wounds and I'm not trying to make it be like that myself.
I don't like the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" slogan because I am allowed to improve things. Do you wait until your car's broken down or crashed into a wall before you do anything to maintain it, or do you keep its engine oil topped up and its brakes in good repair?
@doppelgreener Actually, the question was asked by someone else, a variety of folks are responding and I think the general intention is in trying to be helpful. I'll sleep on this, rather than succumb to "must post" impulses.
I don't think that tag needs a warning. This scab is being needlessly picked at, but I think I'll be more helpful if I can come up with a better proposal since there is some sincere effort being put into listening to feedback on tags. So, yeah, sleeping on this one.
@KorvinStarmast Something to also think on: to what degree is it healthy or unhealthy to have a tag for which it is taboo and seen as "picking at scabs" to attempt to discuss it on meta, or define it, or maintain it meaningfully? My personal thoughts are it's unhealthy and I'm not comfortable with any tag being above reasonable calm examination and maintenance. So I'm performing some reasonable calm examination and maintenance, and hoping others will reciprocate with reason and calmness.
Adam makes it happen!
This is the new UI for flagging comments:
(for reference this was the old UI)
The first flag replaces the former "rude or offensive" flag; the last replaces "other". The middle flag - "no longer needed" - is new, and is intended to cover both "too chatty" and the non-ab...
