TRPG General Chat

Black Spike

00:07

Rolemaster: mainly Big Plot Expo. Sat in a tavern with a Dwarf, while he explains why time doesn't work how we think it does.

Only he doesn't actually explain anything

Glazius

00:21

At some point in the explanation, the dot on the i of time will be July, and Tuesdays, and sometimes never.

Black Spike

yeah, pretty much that

The Paladin is trying to make friends. Wizard/loremaster is desperately trying to understand, and our time-travelling hippie is caught between asking too many questions and trying not to reveal himself

And I'm just trying to get warm by the fire. Only it isn't a fire, it's a warm rock-that-isn't-a-rock, and the cabbage soup has too many spices.

Ben

02:18

Question: the Close Reasons "Needs more focus" vs "Needs more details or clarity". What's the difference?

I get that one is along the lines of "You haven't provided enough information", and the other is "I don;t know what you're asking", but which is which?

Himitsu_no_Yami

I'd say "Needs more focus" is for questions asking several questions at once whereas you have it right for the other

MikeQ

@Ben "Needs more focus" is the new "Too broad", whereas "Needs more details" is the new "Unclear"

3

Ben

Yeah I figured they were replacing those, since they weren't in the list anymore haha. I guess the order they are in also helps

Cool!

In other news, I think our group needs another "Session 0". We're shoulder deep in sidequests and alternate paths, the BBG has been waiting patiently for us to be available at this point, and I've started to feel like we need to reevaluate what each of us want from the game.

Medix2

02:57

@MikeQ Yeah it's definitely less obvious now, I find myself reading the descriptions because they sound so similar

The Oracle

03:19

0

Q: Have any employees of Wizards of the Coast ever been active on RPG.SE?

Today I find myself describing to a few friends why I really like the StackExchange network (recent corporate events notwithstanding). One of my reasons was that many sites on the network have experts in their field as regular users. For instance NASA engineers on space.SE or Microsoft employees ...

discussion

BESW

05:03

Help A Diwata With Her Rent. A bundle hosted by Pammu with content from 29 creators: buy 69 items for $10. Regularly $299.80; save 96%!

5

user15026

05:20

Aww, I was just about to bounce in here with that :)

BESW

@Ash Bouncing is not redundant!

user15026

gestures above that bundle @BESW linked has so many good bits! It's awesome and if you have the extra money you will probably find many awesome fun times inside

BESW

Here's a Twitter thread where Pammu is talking about each creator and game in the bundle.

user15026

Oh, I hadn't seen that, that's a helpful.

BESW

[grin] My notifications went KAPOW when they mentioned my "game" in the thread.

user15026

05:29

Travelling Librarians is hella cool.

user15026

I can imagine your notifs went emphatic confetti gestures

trogdor

What is it exactly? I can't open that at work

BESW

What is which?

trogdor

The first link you posted

Help a Diwata with her rent

BESW

> Hey, everyone! Sin, aka Diwata ng Manila, has been struggling with paying off their backlogged rent for a while now. A lot of harrowing personal events that occurred last year accumulated a massive amount of debt between them and their landlord. They've been trying their very best to take commissioned work and do more of their game design to pay things off, but there's still a ways to go.
Paying this off will make sure Sin and the pets in their care isn't in any danger of being evicted. It will also enable them to focus better on saving up for some of their bigger goals for 2020, like pre…

SmokeDetector

05:33

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Non-latin link in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (83): How can I replace a lost Horn? by nununu on rpg.SE

trogdor

Ah ok so it's a lot of RPGS

XD abd one of them is from you, cool

BESW

Yeah, the call for contributions went out in one of the Discord servers I'm in, so I offered it.

Ben

05:50

@BESW It's not LLKoM is it XD

BESW

No, it's my Traveling Librarians game guide.

LLKoM is on hold.

V2Blast

06:25

@nitsua60 Ouch.

@NautArch Nice! Hope you all had fun.

Hot RPG Questions

5

Q: How deadly is Dust of Sneezing and Choking?

Dust of Sneezing and Choking is a magic item that can be fairly debilitating to low-Constitution characters, but I'm curious how dangerous it is to inhale this stuff. In particular: ...you and each creature that needs to breathe within 30 feet of you must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution savin...

dnd-5e magic-items breathing

jgn

What kind of information should be put in a tag description?

V2Blast

@BESW Oooh. (It'd be nice to be able to sort/filter games when viewing collections on itch.io...)

@jgn Generally speaking, the main thing it needs to convey is what sort of questions the tag would be appropriate on

jgn

@V2Blast I saw one tag that seems to have a whole game pitch, a whole page of text, which seemed a bit strange, I'll find it again.

V2Blast

Some of them definitely need some cleaning up

I've seen some that were just copied from the product description on its website or on DriveThruRPG, which is a definite no-no

jgn

06:40

@V2Blast Ah, that may have been the case here

rpg.stackexchange.com/tags/lovecraftesque/info

It looks like it was but drive thru have changed their description since, that makes sense.

V2Blast

the revision history on the tag wiki says "created using the developer's answer to Q "What is Lovecraftesque?", with some edits for consistancy and readability" as the edit reason for the edit that added most of it

so yeah

jgn

Yup, found it mostly pasted out of this answer rpg.stackexchange.com/a/79971/59609

The tag should have something like "Lovecraftesque is a game by X studio", it doesn't need the huge blurb right?

V2Blast

also, you can type [tag:nameoftaghere] in chat (or in a question/answer, which is mostly relevant on meta) to have it format as a link to the tag: lovecraftesque

jgn

Neat!

V2Blast

the full tag wiki does allow for a bit more room to describe the subject of the tag, though I'm not sure if there are any generally accepted guidelines around what should/shouldn't go in there

will have to look

V2Blast

07:54

Relevant MSE posts (keep in mind that both of these are quite old, and also specific practices may vary from site to site):

44

Q: What is a tag wiki? How do I write a good one?

As the title says: What are tag wikis, and how do I write a good one? Return to FAQ index

support faq tag-wiki

25

Q: Tag Wiki best practices

The tag database-design has no tag wiki, and SO invites me to help create one. I've got the reputation. I think Database-design really needs a tag wiki. I'd like to help. But I don't feel quite up to creating a tag wiki on my own for three reasons. First, I'm not too sure what a good tag wik...

discussion tag-wiki

(it seems Jeff Atwood's blog post quoted at the end of the answer to that first MSE question is based on the top answer to the second MSE question I've linked)

Another related blog post: stackoverflow.blog/2010/08/01/tag-folksonomy-and-tag-synonyms

And finally, related site help pages:
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/help/tag-excerpts
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/approve-tag-wiki-edits
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/trusted-user (there's some overlap in info with the above, but they're not identical)

jgn

08:21

Seems that something like "Use it for X game" would be better than a blurb about what the game is?

Someone_Evil

I don't think adding those extra words are valuable. (No need to change tags either way). To users who know, system tags are to be put on questions. Users who don't know (ie. some new ones), the problem isn't the tag blurbs, it's knowledge of the tags themselves.

If X is a thing, it seems obvious to me [X] should be used on questions about that thing

Some other topics are a bit less clearly defined, so describing their agreed upon use is more applicable

V2Blast

Usually I'll change tag wiki excerpts like "X is a game published in Y..." to "For questions about X, a game published in Y..." if I'm already editing it to make other improvements. But yeah, not really a necessary change on its own

It's more useful to make that focus explicit for some non-system tags, so people aren't adding tags to a particular question when the topic of the tag is only mentioned in passing/a minor detail with regard to that question

e.g. "For questions primarily about X..."

Hot RPG Questions

6

Q: Which nations did the Warforged fight for in the Last War on Eberron?

I'm currently creating a Warforged character for a one-shot, so I need to decide who he/she/it fought for in the Last War (Warforged were created as weapons, so each of them must have fought for or at least been owned by someone). However, the lore is not entirely clear on the matter of who emplo...

dnd-5e lore eberron warforged

Pierre Cathé

08:43

Morning

jgn

09:14

@Someone_Evil I mean, as a replacement to the 8 paragraphs or whatever it has now.

vicky_molokh

09:26

/wave

doppelgreener

10:05

[gurps-4e]: "Use this game for GURPS 4e questions" would not actually be very helpful, because that's already implicit in how the tag system works. Instead we describe the game (including things like publisher, year, subject matter) so that people can verify that this tag is, in fact, for the specific game they're expecting.

That's not as important for tags like [dnd-4e], but it becomes more important for many other games. It acts as disambiguation and confirmation this is the right tag for your game.

It also doubles as that people who don't actually know about the game can learn a tiny bit about it, to help them understand the context of questions and answers about it, and maybe they can go off and learn more still.

V2Blast

10:51

BTW, would appreciate a second set of eyes on this question to make sure I'm not off-base:

0

Q: What does leveling up feel like as a character?

I am trying to grasp the narrative feeling of leveling up as a character in D&D 5e. Supposedly at the end of a session a Sorcerer has enough experience points to level up. I am using the Sorcerer class as an example due to the innate nature of their powers. How does that feel to them and how is...

dnd-5e sorcerer

and thoughts on whether the recent edit (focusing on 5e sorcerer, instead of all characters/classes in all editions with sorc as just an example) makes it narrowly scoped enough to be answerable

Carcer

11:05

scoped to the 5e sorcerer is narrow enough to be answerable, I think

frustrating question by virtue of treating the abstraction of experience mechanics as something which is meant to be understood narratively

Carcer

11:25

scoped by edition alone would probably have been enough

and I don't think I'd have a problem with a question asking whether D&D generally has ever narratively justified the game mechanics of levelling up and how

hm

the OP seems to like jgn's answer but the thing is that answer is unsupported by anything, it's just a collection of ideas on how one might narratively justify the sorcerer's mechanical changes on levelling

maybe there's really two questions this needs to be, the first of which being "does the game provide any narrative justification/description of what is happening when a character levels up", and "how can I narratively justify/describe what happens when a character levels up?"

and the latter question definitely needs to be scoped pretty tightly to be useful at all, and even then it's probably idea-generation and out of bounds.

V2Blast

12:04

@Carcer That'd make for an interesting history-of-gaming question

but yeah

basically the question seems to be a mix of those two

Carcer

well, it could be interpreted either way I think, but it might well be that the OP understands that the game text doesn't actually describe this and is looking for ideas like jgn's

"How is that explained in a narrative fashion?" feels like an appeal to the game's text, though

implying as it does that there is an explanation

rather than "How can that be explained"

I wonder if any of the licensed D&D-property novels have featured passages we'd recognise as descriptive of gaining levels?

goodguy5

13:38

Food poisoning is no fun, team

STT LCU

Hi all, I read D&D 5e player's manual a couple times now and I fail to see any mechanic about Good and Evil magic. Has that been removed? So far it seems that Alignment is just a roleplaying guideline (personal opinion: a poor one) and it has no mechanical effect on the game. Is that right?

nitsua60

@STTLCU Almost entirely. As in: I can only think of a handful of items/interactions where alignment actually comes up.

STT LCU

out of curiosity, such as?

nitsua60

@STTLCU The sprite can detect someone's alignment. Some magical items can only be attuned by certain alignments.

STT LCU

thanks!

nitsua60

13:49

There might be some celestial statblocks that mention how they'd interact differently with people of different alignments? I might be imagining that, though.

Pierre Cathé

@STTLCU Correct all the way

One way it's useful though is as a roleplaying guideline for the GM

goodguy5

@STTLCU With the "exception" being Protection from Evil and Good, but that's for Fiends, celestials, etc.

nitsua60

Some plot-points/NPCs in published adventures fork based on alignment. Like Patrony McAdventurehand will give you different hints/resources depending on your alignment.

@goodguy5 Right: it says it's about Evil and Good, but it's not.

Pierre Cathé

To play the monsters

goodguy5

@nitsua60 hence the quotes ;)

nitsua60

13:51

@goodguy5 In other news--good luck, feel better? Hope it passes quickly.

Pierre Cathé

@goodguy5 Tell that to my Oxygen Not Included colony

goodguy5

@nitsua60 Sunday night was the worst of it. Yesterday was just getting better. Today I'm still a bit tired and sore, but okay

@PierreCathé I always forget how unpleasantly forceful and visceral the experience of vomiting actually is in real life. emojis and games make it seem so nonchalant.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Nice pun, and with food poisoning the passing tends to be from/out of both ends.

nitsua60

Is the [on hold] terminology gone? I voted to close something a few minutes ago and it has (in my view) [closed] rather than [on hold] on it. Is that a mod-thing?

rpg.stackexchange.com/q/162912/23970 for reference.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Well that's disappointing, maybe it's a diamond mod thing.

Pierre Cathé

13:54

@nitsua60 This made me laugh out loud in the office

nitsua60

Hmm... looking at the front page there are a bunch of [closed] questions asked five hours ago. Is that what everyone else is seeing, too? Or are they [on hold] for you?

goodguy5

Yea, I greatly appreciated that question's existence.

Because like.... how would you know if you didn't know? lol

nitsua60

@PierreCathé That was one of the hardest comments I think I've ever written. Once the stupid post injected notions of sexuality into the page it seemed like everything I tried to say was a double entendre.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 just role with it....

goodguy5

@nitsua60 "hardest" comment, eh?

nitsua60

13:56

Hell--I'm still not happy with the number of times I'm stressing tabletop, in that context.

@goodguy5 oh, crap. Now it's here, too!

I'm gonna take a day =)

STT LCU

I find the "ttrying" unintentional typo hilarious because it sounds like you're trying hard not to burst into laughter

nitsua60

(I'm reminded of Mr. Green's last line in one of the Clue endings....)

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 But if you have ever seen "the postman always rings twice" (1981 version) you'd relaize that using table top may also trigger the OP via double entendre ..

goodguy5

@nitsua60 I'm going to go home and have sex with my wife?

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 Is an initial condition for baby number two ...

goodguy5

13:58

please lord, not yet

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 what cracks me up is that the answer begins with, like a lot of RPG question answers, "talk to her ..." though perhaps "after a glass of wine"

Pierre Cathé

@KorvinStarmast That's because A lot of rpg issues are actually interpersonal issues

Though it should still probably be migrated to IPS

KorvinStarmast

@PierreCathé true

Pierre Cathé

Also yes alcohol might help

^ Words to live by right here

doppelgreener

@goodguy5 as a sometimes-rogue i think poisoning food can be a lot of fun

Someone_Evil

14:12

@nitsua60 The app (at least on my android) still uses it, but it was changed in the normal view when they changed the look and several of the reasons/wordings

107

Q: New Post Notices rollout on Stack Overflow

New Post Notices have been launched network-wide. Please post all new feedback, bugs and feature requests to the new announcement post. As has been previously announced, we have been working for some time on a full refresh for post notices. I am happy to announce that all initial development w...

discussion closed-questions post-notices announcements

doppelgreener

@Someone_Evil Looks like "on hold" is gone

But it's been replaced by the close notice actually telling the author what they need to do with the question to get it open again, instead of telling them why it was closed (or put on hold)

Which makes a lot of sense

NautArch

@V2Blast Yeah, kids had a great time (and I did, too!) Started it saturday night and sunday they asked to play again so we did another 1hour session.

nitsua60

15:05

@doppelgreener I just never noticed that with the redesign of the notice, [on hold] had gone away. TIL....

@goodguy5 that's the one, yes =)

doppelgreener

I didn't notice either!

vicky_molokh

16:01

[On hold] has always been a highly misleading thing. Good that it's gone.

goodguy5

As a Jira user, I agree

doppelgreener

Yeah it was slightly misleading, but it was a bit of an improvement over what we had before

folks would just give up on closed questions completely instead of trying to improve them because in forum environments closed things don't normally get reopened

[on hold] was an attempt to signal that it's temporary, and the numbers showed it improved the likelihood a question would get reopened

KorvinStarmast

16:25

@vicky_molokh It was a better initial close tag than closed, per @doppel's point. Not misleading at all, from where I sit, in that the Stack has a process for either reopening, or leaving closed, questions that have a variety of issues that need to be cleared up. Sorry to see it gone.

goodguy5

for good subjective questions, while about to write the phrase "What I did in a similar situation", it occurred to me that anyone could write that phrase.

KorvinStarmast

As for the rest of the blurbs in the close notices and alerts ... I may be to used to the old text, but I see little value added. However, some new users may see the new terms as less off putting, so perhaps these are the better idea.

vicky_molokh

When I first saw [on hold], they made me think 'Oh, it needs to sort something out then it will let my question go forward, I just need to wait'.

NautArch

@goodguy5 We've been through this. BUt yes, anyone could write it, but the hope is that the content will either be believable or not - but that the real hope is that folks will only do that when they've actually done it and not just make stuff up.

KorvinStarmast

@vicky_molokh Did you not read the comments and the text in the boxes?

On hold did not happen in a vacuum. It still had the boxed/shaded text.

vicky_molokh

16:28

@KorvinStarmast Those were afterwards. Just like people who see [closed] may react first and read boxes/comments/etc. explaining afterwards.

I'm describing my first impression given by the word choice.

Xirema

@goodguy5 I mean, you can't prove that people aren't just making things up when they provide experience-based answers, but enforcing that people at least cite their own [possibly fictional] experience does reduce instances of people just making things up.

KorvinStarmast

@vicky_molokh Ok, that looks like a short attention span issue, not a substantive one, so I'll stop there.

vicky_molokh

I mean the argument for avoiding [close] is literally about people making assumptions based word choice and what they think the word usually means.

(Not hunting for the original source of that statement in a blog or whatever. It seemed to be making the same point anyway.)

NautArch

So i've realized that one of the puzzles in the Stranger Things set may not work with the kids i'm playing with. It revolves around a nursery rhyme that i'm honestly not sure they know.

Hot RPG Questions

4

Q: What does leveling up feel like as a character?

I am trying to grasp the narrative feeling of leveling up as a character in D&D 5e. Suppose at the end of a session a Sorcerer has enough experience points to level up. I am using the Sorcerer class as an example due to the innate nature of their powers. How does that feel to them and how is le...

dnd-5e sorcerer narration

NautArch

16:38

^that question feels PoB.

goodguy5

It feels like "ding" sounds

Yuuki

16:58

@NautArch Start humming it under your breath and singing it while you tuck them into bed.

doppelgreener

17:10

@NautArch agreed and closed

NautArch

@Yuuki yeah, that was what i was considering rather than re-writing the puzzle.

Medix2

So Ryan C. Thompson mentioned that accessing the materials for a spell that are within a component pouch is part of the casting of the spell and has no further action-economy requirements. I'm just trying to find questions on that in particular. I found this which agrees and then this which disagrees by saying it's not clear

I definitely think accessing the components in a pouch should not cost anything in the action economy, just looking for questions on it. Oh, this is 5e D&D

Yuuki

@NautArch Then you move to splicing it in between frames of their favorite Saturday morning cartoons.

NautArch

@Yuuki I'll have to get the other family to start doing it, too. My son is only 1 of 4 players.

Yuuki

The final step is to drug them, enter their minds, and implant the nursery rhyme into their head Inception-style.

goodguy5

17:54

Just going to snag that out of context

NautArch

@goodguy5 payback for the cloaca

goodguy5

Payback is only warranted for something you're upset about.

Yuuki

@goodguy5 This is why you should never bet on tennis matches that you play in.

Xirema

18:14

Unsolicited debate: should 5e have allowed PC races with prehensile appendages (inciting example: Loxodons and their trunks) to simply treat their extra appendages as actual full-privileged limbs, or were they right to restrict them only to "carrying and blunt manipulation", like they did?

Answers in 25 words or fewer.

Someone_Evil

@Xirema VTC: POB

Xirema

Someone_Evil

Straight up additional hands means shields are a given

Xirema

I guess the question I'd have, having read those questions + answers, is whether a character having a third arm is really as powerful as claimed—although the "two-handed weapon + Shield" example is a very compelling claim to say it is.

The fact that Variant Humans get a free feat makes me think that sometimes it's okay for racial features to be as powerful as a feat. So a third arm eliding the need for, say, a feat like Warcaster is maybe not as absurd as it's sometimes painted.

Someone_Evil

There's also a possible argument with spellcasting + weapons, but that gets muddy because of the different degree folk follow and like those rules

Yuuki

18:26

@Xirema So what you're saying is that PC races with prehensile appendages should at least get a free feet?

2

Xirema

@Yuuki Why must you hurt me like this?

Someone_Evil

@Xirema Exactly how to evaluate that is odd. Taking certain feats means they are sacrificing one of their ability score bonuses, but they also get a couple other things

Change "a couple other things" to proficiency in a skill of their choice

Also, not all feats (nor feet or hands) are created equal

nitsua60

@Someone_Evil This is the one that jumps out to me. It's a free +2 to AC, if you'd have done something else. But there are other races that get AC-mods, so it might not be crazy.

Someone_Evil

@Xirema It breaks the wording of a couple of rules, such as the Dual Wielder feat (and possibly two weapon fighting in general

Xirema

@Someone_Evil Gotta love rules with fragile constraints. ;)

Someone_Evil

18:38

@nitsua60 There aren't a lot of races that give straight bonuses to AC is there? I thought most were alternate calculations which play a lot nicer with bounded accuracy

nitsua60

@Someone_Evil True. I was thinking more in terms of the opportunity-cost economy. The +2 is a straight plus, good point. (As opposed to tortle, dragonborn, &c.)

Someone_Evil

I'm not sure one should look to much to tortle for balance evaluations of other things

And dragonborn don't get an AC calculation without a feat

Medix2

Another benefit of more arms is more magic items, more gloves, rings, bracelets, etc...

They could also use Crossbow Expert with a two-handed weapon

Someone_Evil

@Medix2 Most of those have to be worn in pairs and hands, so don't apply if there's only one additional limb, and/or haven't got hands on them.

Though I'm now picturing a loxodon with a glove on the end of their trunk

Medix2

Wait we're discussing a race with a third arm and no hand? So they can't.. do anything?

Oh oh, no hand but they can still grip, nvm

The biggest advantage I see of having three "hands" is dual wielding crossbows

Yuuki

18:55

The problem with having more hands is that now you're a handsyman instead of a handyman. And the former sounds like something you could arrested for.

Xirema

@Medix2 Well, in context, I'm raising the question of whether the limb in question should have been given full ambulatory functionality like an actual limb.

Xirema

19:17

> Unearthed Arcana is here! The new year starts with 4 subclasses to playtest:

- Barbarian, Path of the Beast
- Monk, Way of Mercy
- Paladin, Oath of the Watchers
- Warlock, the Noble Genie

https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/subclasses1

> —twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1217154202603937792

The Monk and Paladin subclasses look very interesting, IMO.

The Monk can spend Ki points to heal people, using their Martial Arts die, which is... Kind of a big deal. O_o

Medix2

Oh gosh I forgot UA exists, I wonder what I've missed...

Xirema

@Medix2 This is the first thing they've posted in like a month or so.

The Paladin subclass gets access to counterspell as an Oath spell, which is a very interesting option.

The Monk subclass also gets a Ki-Point-Fuelled "Smite" ability, dealing up to 3x their Martial Dice tacked onto a successful hit, costing only a single Ki point, although it is limited to being used once per turn.

But still, 3d10 extra damage for 1 Ki Point? Move over Paladin, I'm here to smite with the power of my fists.

KorvinStarmast

@Xirema I am reminded of a Netflix series about some rich guy and a fist based off of a comic?

Iron Fist?

David Coffron

19:42

@Xirema Woh Extra Attack at level 3 (albeit during a rage)?

Xirema

@DavidCoffron It's using their d6 Natural weapon though. Only marginally better than just TWF-ing with Shortswords.

David Coffron

@Xirema Except you keep your bonus action

Xirema

Does free up your action economy by removing use of your Bonus Action though, so that's a big upside.

As a Barbarian using a Natural Weapon (so no GWM/PAM), I wonder how you'd actually use that Bonus Action though...

Hmm. Yeah, that's actually tough. Barbarians generally only get Bonus Action abilities from their feats, so lacking those, the only real way to get a viable Bonus Action is to multiclass.

Someone_Evil

@Xirema "If the creature is incapacitated or poisoned" is an important part of that. Not saying it isn't good, but it's a fair bit more limited

Xirema

19:57

@Someone_Evil Note also the level 6 feature that creates an aura which poisons melee-range creatures.

Though agreed: it's not going to be possible to guarantee its use on any given round, since it'll be contingent on whether your opponent failed their last saving throw.

Someone_Evil

Missed that one first time round. I have some issues with it, chief is: Why does Way of Mercy have a feature called Noxious Aura. How does poisonous gas fit with the theme of Mercy?

David Coffron

> ...learn to manipulate the life force of others to bring aid to those in need. They are wandering physicians to the poor and hurt.

I don't think it is poisonous gas, but just an aura that causes those symptoms

KorvinStarmast

@DavidCoffron Add Chi li to the diet, noxious gas is a natural outcome

(pun: chili / chi li)

ki ~ chi ... I'll get my coat

David Coffron

@Someone_Evil It is a noxious vapor. Neverming...

> to turn your ki into an aura of toxic miasma.

Someone_Evil

20:13

Which poisons creatures (and makes you harder to hit with arrows because...?). The distinction between aura and gas is not the point

Is it because as a Monk of Mercy you are a toxic person?

ThePuzzlerThree

?

Someone_Evil

@ThePuzzlerThree I am voicing my first impression on the new UA material (See message by Xirema further up), in the hopes that some of the fine folks here will spot something I haven't.

Medix2

20:29

Is poison not often considered a humane way of murder? Well, in fantasy and video games?

KorvinStarmast

@Medix2 If you take out the word humane, yes. :p

Medix2

Most depictions I've seen throughout fantasy and stuff would out "death by silent gas" above "death by a series of axe chops" on the humane/merciful scale

Someone_Evil

@Medix2 Eh maybe, but a debilitating poison on whatever is too close to you is not exactly that

Medix2

Exactly, you don't flat out murder them, you debilitate them

Eh, I could definitely flavor it as being merciful, just not sure how much the UA supports that

Someone_Evil

@Medix2 "death by loud gas" is at best explosions and at worst immature

3

@Medix2 Well, you debilitate them so that it is easier to punch them to death

V2Blast

20:59

@nitsua60 Yes, they got rid of "on hold". Apparently intentionally, from what I recall?

Xirema

21:10

> "Make a Charisma (Persuasion) check against your Spell Save DC"

Uh.

So not only does that feature basically become "Roll a d20, succeed on a 8 or higher", but if you don't have proficiency in Persuasion, the feature actually becomes worse as you level up....?

Medix2

Does that not just mean they make a persuasion check and the DC to beat is your spell save DC?

Oh yeah they did something like that once before, don't remember where though...

Xirema

> "As an action, you can implore your patron for aid by making a Charisma (Persuasion) check against your Spell Save DC"

Yeah, it's super weird.

Mark Wells

21:31

@Xirema Your patron says "Wait, aren't you level 12? Handle it yourself."

Xirema

21:43

@MarkWells 14 is when that feature unlocks, but yeah, that's one that'll need a second pass in the design room, lol.

nitsua60

@Xirema Aaaaand... we continue to blur the lines between classes.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 WotC casts blur

nitsua60

pretty much =\

V2Blast

@NautArch What is the puzzle?

@Someone_Evil Shields are already excluded from stacking by the wording

but as Xirema said, it means you could two-hand one weapon and also have a shield. (also things like spell components/having a free hand, but that's often overlooked/handwaved/forgotten)

@Xirema interesting

Black Spike

22:04

Where might I get tips for making chain mail? For cosplay.

BESW

LARP sites?

Black Spike

Looked around a few. As with most subjects, advice seems to jump from the very-basics ("You'll need some rings, and some time!") straight to Expert ("Why don't you simply <untranslatable jargon> ?")

Or on things like choice of ring-size, material, etc "It's up to you" ... yeah, that helps! Thanks. :(

Mark Wells

22:30

@BlackSpike Not sure if this helps in your situation but I got a decent explanation of how to make plate armor by going to a con and asking someone in plate armor :)

Xirema

@Medix2 Thank you for giving me authoritative support for why there are exactly two banned spells in my campaigns. 😉

Black Spike

@MarkWells Sounds like a good plan! Unfortunately, we don't have a con planned until the one we need the armour for! :(

Hopefully, I'll get to see Terry English at a con soon (or one of his minions), see if they have any useful advice.

Medix2

@Xirema Is the second the horrible trap that is true strike?

Xirema

@Medix2 Something something rope to hang themselves with. No, the other banned spell is wish, for obvious reasons.

BESW

Does 5e wish still drain XP? If so, burn it with fire.

Xirema

22:41

@BESW It does not, but it's still got the same problem that it's either broken as ****, or else the DM is always Genie!Twisting it so as to render it useless.

Medix2

@Xirema Oh but it can get way worse than that through upcasting, supreme healing, all the wonderful class features to maximize the actual amount above the usual 1d6

BESW

Yeah, wish combines all the problems of an overly-generic PbtA playbook that's trying to encompass too many genre references in a single space, with all the problems of expecting GMs to shoulder all the burden of being human exception handlers for broken loop mechanics, AND all the problems of an exception-based system with a splat-fueled business model.

The system and its environment just aren't built to gracefully handle all the things wish is trying to be, but legacy and tradition demand that it remain recognizably itself nonetheless.

Medix2

Though honestly wish is a perfectly fine spell if all it can do is replicate a lower level spell

Xirema

@BESW Yeah. I like having it around, because if I'm running a one-shot or a more absurdist campaign, it can be a good capstone to the campaign, but in general it just doesn't work.

BESW

@Medix2 Sure, but it can't do that and retain the genre references it was created to emulate.

At least 5e kept the 4e no-XP-as-spell-component advancement.

I really liked 4e's wish ritual.

In one minute, anyone with at least level 21 and the Ritual Caster spell who had learned Wish, could create ANY non-creature object by spending the object's cost in spell components. Up to and including entire cities.

Medix2

22:53

Question, so healing spirit says: "whenever you or a creature you can see moves into the spirit's space for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there [it heals]". Does that mean you could start your turn there (heal), walk out of it and walk right back in (heal again)?

Xirema

@Medix2 "enters the spell's area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there" is commonly interpreted to mean that the former clause is invalidated if the latter clause has been satisfied. Relevant Q/A Here, although as you can see in the comment attached, there's not universal agreement on that matter.

AFAIC, it's ambiguous English, and I wouldn't blame anyone who interprets it either way.

But generally I follow that ruling because even with "sane" AOE spells, there's some degenerative combos that get enabled if you don't follow that rule.

Medix2

23:13

Yeah I did out some stuff with the "or" being applicable to both and ugh that's some ugly readied actions...

Mark Wells

@Xirema It really should be split into two sentences: "When a creature enters the spell's area or starts its turn there, ... . A creature can't benefit from healing spirit more than once per round."

Medix2

@MarkWells Do you mean per turn?

Mark Wells

@Medix2 (No, I don't. If you want it to remain stupidly overpowered then leave it at "per turn", I guess.)

Xirema

I mean, I don't think the spell is salvageable unless you tack "Crawford's Hack" onto the spell, where the number of discrete heals is limited to 2x your spellcasting modifier.

Mark Wells

There was a discussion here a while back about requiring the caster to use a reaction to trigger the heal, which I think also salvages it

Medix2

23:20

Yeah there's a question on that one sec

10

Q: Is my nerfed version of the Healing Spirit spell in line with the relative power level of other sources of healing?

I have concerns about the immense healing potential that the Healing Spirit spell can put out. As it appears in Xanathar's Guide to Everything (page 157), the Healing Spirit spell is able to heal any creature that starts its turn within its effect, or passes through it during their turn. In prac...

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The Oracle

0

Q: How to link to Unearthed Arcana?

I'm unsure how to link to an Unearthed Arcana. The article itself simply gives a download for a pdf. There are direct links to the pdf, but all the links download the pdf. Should I link to the article or should I link to the pdf with a warning that it will download? Are there any other options I'...

discussion

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: How many vampire bites are undone by one casting of Greater Restoration?

A vampire's bite deals 10 necrotic damage1 and also reduces the target's maximum hit points by the same amount. Suppose I am at full health with 50 hit points, and a vampire bites me twice. My maximum hit points are now reduced to 30. (My current hit points are even lower since the bite also deal...

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Glazius

@BESW "Ritual effects are always possible, but the GM will give you one to four of the following conditions"? book.dwgazetteer.com/wizard.html

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