I need my BBEG to kill/separate a god from the material plane/everything. The PCs are helping NPCs save their god, and while I think they could probably do it, I do wanna know what to do if they don’t or if they take too long (seeing as the NPCs lose their divine powers).
The deity isn’t on the...
press F to pay respects to my SKT campaign (D&D 5e). The DM seems to have gotten burnt out. Just wish they'd talked to us in advance instead of canceling the campaign an hour before we're supposed to have a session...
Is there a meta on 'opinion based questions'? It seems to me a good portion of the questions are not about RAW, and some are even about 'homebrew', which makes many unclosed questions opinion based. There isn't really explanation as to why opinions are bad, and they seem to be allowed but also not allowed? It's confusing.
@JoelHarmon https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/159190/how-can-i-deal-with-someone-survive-indefinitely-solely-with-an-alchemy-jug-as-t If they had asked "is alchemy jug OP" the question would have been allowed, but because they chose to ask "how to deal with alchemy jug" it was closed as opinion based. I'm not really sure if the difference is just pedantic since they both seem opinion based to me.
moreover, I don't see a problem with the question asked either way
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There are a good number of questions, especially from users new to the site, that get closed as too broad or opinion-based. This is a post we can link them to for more guidance than what comments can reasonably provide, and more focused than "read the help center". Feel free and add answers/tips ...
(I thought--incorrectly, probably--that I'd seen you use the abbreviation.)
Note that POB hangs a lot on the word "primarily," which is one of those things that every community is always feeling out, is an inherently grey area, and which almost certainly shifts with time and the currently-active population.
These posts kind of ramble and make a lot of assumptions. Would you be able to help me apply these concepts to that particular question?
The takeaway seems to be questions with no way to determine what is a good answer is bad (which seems ok, if a little naive), and that experience is better than ideas (for no particular reason). Is that about it? I reread those links a couple of times each.
That sounds flawed to me. For example someone says "I always put wood in my lap then saw it" and another says "you could cut yourself if you do that" then the former is more "correct" because of experience?
In the d&d context, something like "how do I deal with X in my extremely specific campaign setting" will never get any "experience" answers, but what it can get is plenty of good quality answers based on the existing rules that have not necessarily been tried (apart from that "DM discretion" has been tried before).
Strangely the links linked by the links say that there is nothing wrong with POB Qs, so long as they are asked in manipulative ways. The problem is POB As in certain formats. There are a lot of conflicting statements.
I was thinking of engaging with the conversation, but then you threw in there "so long as they are asked in manipulative ways." Not being interested in trying to work with someone who characterizes others' good-faith attempts to explain their understanding of emergent community behaviors in that way, I'll instead wish you good luck and a good night.
Does poking yourself with a needle hard enough to cause damage require the Attack action, or can it be done as a free object interaction?
This task is certainly no more involved than opening a door, which is the example of an object interaction in the PHB. Also, having your player do an Attack r...
@BlackSpike I've only played one session (two phase cycles), but I wouldn't expect Traits to go over 10 most of the time? There's no solid cap since your Junk value is spent to buy Trait increases, and Junk increases are determined by lots of uncapped randomness.
Hey all, OP for the alchemy jar question is in this chat. I'm going to bed here shortly and if one or two people have time and energy it sounds like they might be able to use some guidance about asking a new related question.
Play it by ear, I'm not sure how much help they want.
The paralyzed condition notes
A paralyzed creature is incapacitated (see the condition) and can't move or speak.
But is a monster 'speaking' when it's using telepathy? Can it use it while paralyzed?
I’m running Out of the Abyss, and I can’t figure out whether a given madness save should require a Wisdom or a Charisma save. In chapter 2, it merely says that one of these may be required. The DMG says the same.
Based on what I’ve been able to find online, the consensus seems to be that Wisdom ...
In a campaign where securing sustenance is part of the challenge, a player with an alchemy jug has decided the party will never have to buy/gather/magically summon food/drink ever again for the rest of the campaign.
They are forgoing other sources sustenance or magic. There are no negative envir...
The wording of the Vampire's charm action has me a bit confused on whether a blind person either gets no saving throw from it or can't be charmed at all like this.
Here is the exact description:
Charm: The Vampire targets one humanoid it can see within 30 ft. of it. If the target can see the...
The earth tremor descriptions says:
You cause a tremor in the ground within range. Each creature other than you in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. If the ground in that area is loose earth or stone, ...
It occurs to me that both damage-resistance and damage-reduction claim to be about (different) D&D-specific concepts... though the idea of damage reduction in some form surely exists in plenty of other systems.
I know talents that add boons or bonus damage stack fairly simply.
However, the Juggernaut Expert Path from A Glorious Death and the Prince of Darkness Expert Path from Tombs of Desolation both have a talent where incoming damage is halved, though under different circumstances.
My question i...
In this case I'm wondering how to handle the fact that various forms of damage reduction exist in other systems, but both tags that would be appropriate for them seem to suggest they're D&D-specific in the tag info
And to some degree, the fact that they're separate tags at all is because previous editions of D&D had them as separate mechanics (I think?)
It tells in the Monster Manual how a PC can become a Lycanthrope and what mechanical differences it makes, but as far as I can see it doesn't say anything about what level the character should be at or how it would effect Combat Encounter Calculations.
Some of the abilities a PC would get becom...
@nitsua60 Damage thresholds don't reduce damage - it's just that only an instance of damage above the threshold has any impact. But yes - Heavy Armor Master is one of the few instances of reducing damage by a fixed amount in 5e.
> Big objects such as castle walls often have extra resilience represented by a damage threshold. An object with a damage threshold has immunity to all damage unless it takes an amount of damage from a single attack or effect equal to or greater than its damage threshold, in which case it takes damage as normal. Any damage that fails to meet or exceed the object's damage threshold is considered superficial and doesn't reduce the object's hit points.
And not to drag that whole alchemy jug question back, but trying to handle survival in 5e really is I think a losing battle without making some significant limiting houserules.
@NautArch I think the solution would be to step back and ask, why are you trying to do survival? If you think that is fun, find a system which does it in a fun way.
I will happily play a videogame which is about surviving in a hostile environment but that's because I don't have to manually track exactly how much food and supplies I have
Now if you want to look at muscle wasting, vitamin deficiencies, etc., then yeah, a lot of bookkeeping and probably more detailed knowledge of the effects of various lack of nutrients.
@Someone_Evil Survival. I'd have to find it, but there was a documented case of a pilot downed in the Korean war, survived 45+ days with dysentery on basically water and occasional stolen rice balls, while hiking through Korea to elude patrols, etc.
@Gwideon Consider changing your physical space. Take a walk, or locate to a room/office/whatever which is not where you do other stuff (on a computer). Certainly can help against distractions and make it easier to push yourself to writing something. I should probably get better at following that advice myself..
I heard about an interesting idea to basically think about how a character would react to a situation then roll to see if they would succeed then write that. It avoids a character winning at everything. sorry
@Gwideon Hmm, it depends heavily on what kind of story you're aiming for. Despite the "common fanfic complaints" you've probably heard about so-called Mary Sues and so on, I think it's far more common than people realize for even popular characters to be very consistently good at their thing.
But really, it's as simple(hard) as just starting to type. It doesn't matter what. But you've got to start putting words together and see where it takes you.
@Gwideon That's an understandable feeling. Don't push yourself too hard, remember it's only practice and no one has to see your first drafts but yourself
Writing feels like you're committing stuff on paper, but nothing is really committed until it's really ready.
And not always even then. Even Tolkien redid bits of The Hobbit post-publication.
The good thing is you've got a character and understand it's motivations. Just start with that. And if you've got sessions you can write about, then you've even got some content to start with.
@goodguy5 In general, I agree, but I think it actually works here as a reminder that even with his extreme style he still had to go back a lot to change stuff.
It doesn't really matter how you tell it, either. First, second, or third person. Just start writing and see where it takes you. My hunch is once you start, you'll keep going for a bit.
For me, I found that actually 'booking' time to write helped. Saying, "I'm going to write from 3-4PM" and then sitting down and doing it. Turn off your internet if you can and take away anything that might take you away from the writing.
Oooo I could retell the story of that campaign that would be interesting. sorry ideas are coming to me. god but that first line is a pain in the butt to write. once I get past it I can usually write pretty well.
sorry but um I just want to hear what people think. um here's my first couple lines. sorry.
"The young girl’s heart pumped in her ears as she ran. Sweat rolled down her powder blue skin and her breath came in short desperate gasps as her bare feet sunk into the snow with each step."
Looks okay to me overall, though I'm not sure if native speakers talk about hearts pumping in one's ears (I'm a silly foreigner, so my comments should be taken with a grain of salt).
I think there's some adjacent expression that can take place of the first bit about the heart. The nice thing is that the rest of the paragraph sets out some implications that underscore the seriousness of the situation more so than heartbeat and breath alone wouldn't.
@Gwideon I like it. I don't think I'd want to read an entire story built out of phrases like that, but for a first paragraph to a story, there's some very good, economical storytelling being used.
Here's what I get from that paragraph: a vague sense of the character (young, identifies as a girl), the time of year (Winter; or a cold climate), a conception of the conflict (she's running from something? Could just be out for a jog, although "desperate gasps" implies a sense of danger), a sense of her socioeconomic status (she's barefoot, is that because she doesn't need shoes or can't afford them? Blue skin marks her as potentially non-human, is that a factor?).
So there's lots of information, but also questions that will pique the audience's attention.
Sweat despite snow and lack of full attire implies rather long-term and intense aerobic exertion. There's basically no time for that to happen in a sprint, but for running distances measured in kilometres, a near-zero temperature of environment is about right for maintaining a stable thermal sustainability in typical light attire (IIRC this was observed in marathons). So yeah, that sentence packs some interesting info.
@vicky_molokh the typical term would be "pounding in her ears".
@vicky_molokh Yes. After body temp rose from the warmup, we regularly ran in not much more than shorts and a long sleeve technical shirt for x-country workouts, in temps down as low as -10 F (-23 C)
I glossed over it as I read it, maybe precursorily noticing that something was unusual, but didn't really appreciate the word "pumping" instead of "pounding" until you said something.
But now that you've pointed it out, I've got this image of tubes running out of her chest and into her ears, pumping blood.
@Gwideon And I think you're overthinking. Asking for feedback on two lines when you've barely spent time with them isn't fair to you. Give yourself time to work on it.
There's a chance my 5e wizard my get to level 5 this weekend. Trying to figure out what spells to pick and kindasorta want to avoid fireball.
Must have had some houserule about how that spell worked, because as written it was an AoE.
I also recall playing a sort of billiards game with lightning bolt where the thing would reflect off walls and such and could come back and hit the caster
I have a planar traveling campaign that sometimes runs into survival issues.
With Eberron coming out, I have promised my players can use Artificers. The problem is that level 2 Artificers can use the Replicate Magic Item infusion to make an alchemy jug that would largely invalidate the spell goo...
@Rubiksmoose Yeah, that was mine, too. But compounded with the artificer problem. You can do random loot rolls, but not reading about what you're giving out is also problematic.
Ultimately, I think they need a session zero to discuss the campaign goals.
I mean, we track' rations' in the game I'm playing now and it's annoying. It just seems silly. Especially if the DM limits how much can be bought when in a town. Feels kind of like a punishment that will eventually become a problem (or not), but that it's basically up to the DM when it is a problem.
Yeah, I feel that way about lots of things. Even money, nowadays
DnD 5e has five increments of coin, yet I have yet to see a game where silver pieces were actually relevant, or copper for that matter. Except when the GM wants to award money in a different increment than usual for flavor.
And then theres salable loot like jewelry and gemstones, gold crafts and so...
The problem is there's no reward for having a ration system other than not being punished. If I did something with rations, I'd add something to give a bonus for high quality rations.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the pursuit of details in these things --- but many GMs I've played under consider it more or less a "given", or confuse the love for detail with the love for narrative. The latter doesn't make sense: a well-told story is as much leaving things out as it is putting things in.
the funny thing about electrum is that if one were to suppose that it's literally half a silver coin and half a gold coin, the value would actually be 5.5sp.
From there, we have to assume either: 1. there is a value lost from the alloying process 2. It's not a 50-50 split 3. the coin is about 10% smaller than the supposed coin
The paralyzed condition notes
A paralyzed creature is incapacitated (see the condition) and can't move or speak.
But is a monster 'speaking' when it's using telepathy? Can it use it while paralyzed?
The wording of the Vampire's charm action has me a bit confused on whether a blind person either gets no saving throw from it or can't be charmed at all like this.
Here is the exact description:
Charm: The Vampire targets one humanoid it can see within 30 ft. of it. If the target can see the...
The earth tremor descriptions says:
You cause a tremor in the ground within range. Each creature other than you in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. If the ground in that area is loose earth or stone, ...
I know talents that add boons or bonus damage stack fairly simply.
However, the Juggernaut Expert Path from A Glorious Death and the Prince of Darkness Expert Path from Tombs of Desolation both have a talent where incoming damage is halved, though under different circumstances.
My question i...
It tells in the Monster Manual how a PC can become a Lycanthrope and what mechanical differences it makes, but as far as I can see it doesn't say anything about what level the character should be at or how it would effect Combat Encounter Calculations.
Some of the abilities a PC would get becom...
