punx:tg

they/them she/her, transgirl fuckup nerd

[prokopetz]

Today’s assigned discourse topic: whether the use of the word “hobo” in incidental dialogue in Dragon Age: Inquisition should be construed as textual evidence that Thedas has trains.

[wolf-girl-boy-ryaad]

Yes, but purely for the incredibly convoluted world building needed to explain how, and why we’ve never seen one.

[prokopetz]

That’s the spirit.

[punxthegathering]

Easy: they picked it up from Mass Effect alien visits and misconstrued it to be synonymous with both vagrant and refugee* due to said aliens giving up on a proper definition and being like “yeah, close enough.”

*refugees being a more common form of migrant worker in Thedas since that world seems to have more “lands torn apart by war” than it does “enclosures of the commons forcing workers into traveling”

[wearepaladin]

What is the biggest difference in paladins and clerics? In d&d 3.5, the only real difference is Paladins used more weapons and less magic, but flavor-wise, they were both still servants of a deity. In 5e, paladins have become living ideas. Vengeance, mercy, devotion. Clerics are still the servants of deities, but paladins have changed into soldiers of an unending cause. Do you like one version more then the other? Is there another source of media you feel does Paladins better?

Paladins are Good Works versus Good News for Clerics. And I’m ok with all of them. Maybe Pathfinder. Pathfinder paladins actually might be the objectively most powerful.

[finisher7119]

What’s the biggest differenc between 3.5 and pathfinder paladins? I haven’t played much pathfinder so I’m curious about the differences.

[wearepaladin]

3.5 Paladins are very flawed. Without additional supplementary materials, they’re very weak, and even with them impefect in design. Contrast to the Pathfinder Paladins who only grow more and more dangerous, especially to demons and undead. It’s possible for a paladin at high levels to one shot even the most powerful of demon lords. 

[finisher7119]

Alrighty, well, next time I get a chance at a pathfinder game, I’m totally rolling up a paladin then. They’re wisdom casters in PF/3.5 right?

[wearepaladin]

Wisdom 3.5, Charisma Pathfinder, which is one of the main reasons it’s superior.

[punxthegathering]

3.5 Paladins with supplements can make very powerful arcanists either via the Sword of the Arcane Order feat or the Sorcadin build. If your Paladin concept involves the worship of Mystra or a similar deity, they are worth looking into.

[doctorpuppy]

this is peak gay culture

[punxthegathering]

@swordlesbianopinions

[golfgalaxy]

y’all still beat your meat? lol

[yassmines]

what do u beat

[golfgalaxy]

evildoers

[punxthegathering]

@wearepaladin

[wearepaladin]

Spare the Dying is necromancy.

Necromancy as catch all term in DnD: Any magic/power that somehow interacts with the division of life and death. There are many spells with many different power sources that fall under this all encompassing category with many sub categories that are useable by a variety of classes.

The Necromancy that Paladins have issues with and what traditional necromancy is refered to as: the kind that utilizes negative plane energy, which can not only raise and sustain undeath, but is inherently toxic to most forms of life, to the point that if enough spells utilizing that energy are used, the area it takes place in can grow increasingly infertile, stillbirths and shortened lifespans occur in all species as their very essence is leeched out of them by the vampiric nature of negative plane energy, and gather the attention of other undead beings who are nearly always carnivorous and of malicious intent towards living beings.

In other words: DON’T CONFUSE THE ISSUE.

[we-are-bloodrager]

To be fair, it’s a catch all in D&D 5e because for some reason the designers decided to blur the lines. Healing spells *used to be* under the Conjuration school in 3.5, which I think makes more sense.

[punxthegathering]

They were under necromancy before 3.5, and more than a few folks were disappointed with the switch to Conjuration. The 5e switch is more likely a nod to history than an intention of grey morality (FWIW I personally think transmutation would be the best school but I def think necromancy isn't quite right).

[wearepaladin]

What’s your favorite class besides paladin?

In D&D? I’ve had surprisingly a lot of fun being a sorcerer in the past.

[punxthegathering]

Have you ever tried playing a Sorcadin? I particularly liked the flavor of the optimal 3.5 build (being Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8), since it seemed to tell the story of a paladin who moved towards arcane magic, discovered its defensive potential, and then used it to return to a more devout style of fighting.

[grandwarlordradha]

Dunno how else to say this is the worst fucking take from this, but it’s natural from the fencesitting perspective of ‘I see BOTH sides!’ Boogie has always been on.

Literally using the ‘I have (X number) of (Y minority groups) friends and they (apathetic viewpoint I think should be the norm)’ argument. If we get 4 trans people to say they care, does that negate it?

[doctor-roman]

>”the people I know would still play”

If those people were run off because of one (1) trans character and two (2) gay couples in modern Magic history, I think that says more about them than anything Wizards has done.

[bace-jeleren]

If more representation means less assholes, then shit, keep printing that good stuff if it makes them get up and go because they’re no “snakes, vampires and elephants”

And yeah, three whole trans people DEFINITELY represent the entire demographic’s opinion on having representation in the card game. For sure.

[punxthegathering]

Also if you’re the kind of person to get riled up over non-cis white dude representation of course the trans people you know are gonna tell you they just wanna play the game. They’re trying to get you to stop talking by giving a passive opinion, not give you fuel for a semi-incoherent twitter rant.

[prokopetz]

Realistically speaking, the only reason Tomb of Horrors works for its intended purpose is because there’s no save-scumming in tabletop games. If you tried to implement it as a video game in the spirit in which it was written, you’d basically end up with a totally standard late 1980s/early 1990s adventure game, bizarre death cutscenes and all. It wouldn’t even be a particularly unforgiving example of the type!

[just-a-random-nerd]

The video game equivalents don’t tend to require you to spend three hours making your character before you can start

[prokopetz]

Neither did the version of D&D that Tomb of Horrors was originally designed for. Tomb of Horrors came out in 1978; if you had a high-level character at the time, you were almost certainly playing OD&D - chargen is mostly randomised and takes about five minutes.

(Provided you’ve already deciphered the rulebooks, anyway; the notion of actually explaining your basic gameplay assumptions in the text was a much later development!)

[sable-twilight]

Who the heck spends 3 hours making a D&D character? Any edition?

[prokopetz]

Depends on how prone to decision paralysis you are. For some players, the difference between “pick four trained skills” and “distribute twenty skill points” is pretty stark, even if the game-mechanical output is basically identical.

[punxthegathering]

Also worth noting that many players will do a 1-20 sketch of a character in addition to the actual levels built. How detailed that sketch is can greatly vary but I know a full caster build can take me those 3 hours for Pathfinder if I add lots of detail.

 And that’s Pathfinder, nevermind 3.5 and its mess of multiclassing! I remember some people considered the “typical” Cleric builds to have 4 or 5 different prestige classes. And Cleric was an easier class to do that with - most of the prestige classes had similar requirements and almost all of them were things you wanted to take anyways. A martial class in high-power game like Tomb of Horrors might be expected to include Fighter 2 (2 bonus feats), Barbarian 2 (Pounce, Rage, and Improved Trip), and/or Cleric 1 (Domains!) somewhere in their build even if none of those were their desired base class. If your DM allows templates, then you also might have to work level adjustment/buy-off into your build. If you’re doing point buy, then templates also make that subgame take longer. On top of all that, making these builds could require upwards of 10 books.

Most of 3.5 requires you to do a lot of prep work for play, too, beyond things that strictly qualify as character creation. At the more complex end, a Druid should have summon stats, wildshape stats, understand how the grappling and tripping subsystems work, understand the Handle Animal subsystem, and be able to prepare spells in a timely fashion. A non-magical archer might be one the least complicated characters to play but you still have to understand the different kinds of cover and how range increments work. It’s character creation per se, but as a DM, I would expect players to bring this stuff to the table.

[adhdheather]

to remember how many feet there are in a mile, u just gotta use 5 tomatoes

five to-mate-oes sounds like five, two, eight, 0 and there’s 5280 feet in a mile

[northernweird]

#to remember how many centimeters are in a kilometer#remember that there are a hundred centimeters in a meter and a thousand meters in a kilometer#meaning one hundred thousand centimeters#because the metric system isn’t written in fruit-related riddles

[madmaudlingoes]

So the original mile or “Roman mile” used to be exactly 5,000 feet; the word mile itself comes from mille passus, “one thousand paces,” with one passus standardized as five feet. Pretty important stuff when you remember the Roman legions were almost all foot soldiers, so measuring things in the length of an average solider’s stride made sense. They also used a unit called the stade, which was one-eighth of a mile or 625 feet.

Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, measured land distances with units called furlongs, which literally means “furrow-long”, assumed to be the length of a furrow in a farm field. (This was derived from the acre, defined as “about how much one person with one ox can plow in one day,” but turning the plow was such a bitch that an acre tended to be about ten times longer than it was wide.) One furlong was 660 feet.

Anyway, at some point the English started translating the Latin word stade as furlong without worrying overmuch about the thirty-five-foot different between the units. (The length of a foot also changed at some point, for extra nonsense). And when it finally became time to standardize the measures, the length of a furlong couldn’t be changed to fit a Roman mile because so many land titles were defined in furlongs, it would have created legal havoc. Instead, the English mile was invented, consisting of eight furlongs or 5,280 feet.

I am not defending the nonsense that is English measurements I am just saying that “fruit-related riddles” doesn’t get at the full scope of their nonsense.

[chandra-nalaar]

also in defense of imperial measurements for length, miles-per-hour is useful because if you’re going 60 mph (average speed) then the # of miles = # of minutes

[blogging-phelddagrif]

same goes for the metric system of km/h though?

[chandra-nalaar]

if you only go 60 km/hour you are literally going to get run over on a highway

(notice i said “average speed” not “any particular speed you could potentially go”)

[punxthegathering]

dunno how it is in other metric countries but average highway speed in canada is 120 km/h. it’s # of km/2 = # of minutes. Not much harder and having to occasional divide by two is totally worth having our system be based off water

[markrosewater]

Do you think "Raid" could be evergreen? It's easy to understand, can go on a wide variety of cards, and there really aren't too many limits to what you can make it do.

I think Raid might be a mechanic we revisit more than most because it’s well liked, plays well and has a lot of design space, but it’s not the kind of thing we make evergreen.

[punxthegathering]

I really liked raid.

[markrosewater]

Not humanoid. : )

[beysexuality]

[daggers-drawn]

lol omg this ^^^^^^

[breadsticks-jeleren]

i am 100% behind this post

[punxthegathering]

FINALLY some1 said it!

[wearepaladin]

Not strictly a paladin thing, but how do you handle resurrection in settings where it's fairly common (if difficult/expensive)? Assuming it's not just their time, I tend to think it permanently damages their soul in some way, or at least the binding between the soul and the mortal mind, and can cause severe emotional and psychological damage over time, especially if it happens more than once, including memory loss, or remembering things like you might remember a dream. Thoughts?

Honestly, I’m not one to give big penalties in resurrection settings. But if you must, memory alteration, mixed personality of a past life bleeding through, ghosts trying to hijack the resurrection. It’s not a big deal for me in settings where it’s possible, and given that ressurection is a divine power, a true gift of the gods, I don’t like tampering with it unless there is a viable reason why they can’t help.

[punxthegathering]

I always just made it so you had to contact the deceased first and get consent, because not everyone wants resurrection. Added in some emphasis on the god of the dead being very kind to passed souls and the general happiness of reuniting with your loved ones in the afterlife.

Resurrection is still common enough among people who feel they have more to accomplish and/or finish on the Material Plane but many people just want to stay dead. Resurrection without consent is regarded as necromancy and isn’t damaging but is as frowned upon as any other non-consensual act may result in the resurrected seeking appropriate justice against you.

[wearepaladin]

(anarchy anon) to use d&d as an ex.: the only thing that makes d&d Not Anarchist is having a GM as a final arbiter of rules. if you instead decide any rules issues are decided mutually by the playgroup, d&d is fully qualifies as an anarchist activity. you can still have a system of rules or law in anarchy, you just have to avoid a hierarchy of enacting of said rules. d&d is a also a great example cos the rules are encouraged 2 be mutable - house rules are also supposed 2 be mutually agreed upon.

That’s fine in a small setting, but in the example of a greater society, mutability of law is not a good thing. When your society consists of millions, nay, even billions, instability on what’s expected, on what your rights are, seem potentially catastrophic to me.

[punxthegathering]

Instability on what your rights are is what we have currently happening. We’ve got something resembling a collective agreement, like the charter or bill of rights (depending on where you’re at), then we have positions of authority choosing whether or not to protect those rights. We see abuses and misrepresentations of our rights in each group that is supposed to protect them, with judges, politicians, and police officers failing us far more than is acceptable. The law is already “mutable” but there is a power imbalance in who gets to “houserule” whether something qualifies as illegal or not.

Besides, Anon seems to be saying not that rules are unstable but that they are open to change if the group mutually agrees that is appropriate for their game. If a society could not change a law after coming together and agreeing to change it, I would think that that is more of a problem.

To the best of my understanding, anarchy as a political idea doesn’t really advocate for organizing society in groups of millions at a time, either. It instead advocates for smaller overlapping groups of consensus based governance, with a heavy emphasis on decentralization of power. I’m not an expert but the “mutability” of laws between the smaller groups doesn’t seem like it would end up being very different from laws changing city to city, state to state, or nation to nation.

[chandra-nalaar]

what do you hate about chandra nalaar

im gonna be honest………her outfit

[punxthegathering]

it wouldn’t even take that much extra for it to be good armor. she needs like... a 2nd bracer, some better shin/knee guards, those hip plates to cover more, a breastplate that isn’t *breast* plate and a helmet. you could even keep some of the unnecessary This Is A Woman things like croptop breastplate and armor skirt and still have it be useable as armor.

it would barely be a redesign. the helmet would be the biggest thing and like she wouldn’t have to be depicted wearing it... that’s in character chandra never wore the goggles either

[oldtumblhurgoyf]

Favorite Common?

I need some inspiration and this is totes the way to get it. Feel free to include multiples, like one of each color or one from each of your favorite sets, or whatever.

[bace-jeleren]

Grey Merchant of Asphodel is my boy.

Gary if you’re out there, I love you

[punxthegathering]

Kor Skyfisher

[wearepaladin]

My paladin, instead of using a blade or a hammer, uses twin tower shields to bash evil beings and protect the innocent. Thoughts?

Not completely unheard of. I wager you might have gotten the idea from Dark Souls.

[punxthegathering]

Coulda been this magic card, too.

Bucklers have also been known to be shaped like this: c> and worn with the pointed end facing out over the hand so they can be used for bashing. Not tower shields but a lot more practical and someone might give you bonus points for historical accuracy. Always disappointed me that you’re specifically not allowed to use bucklers to shieldbash in D&D because of how many were designed specifically to do that.