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why would anyone want to eat a sweaty onion
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Jan 26, 2018 18:13
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| # ? May 29, 2024 04:31 |
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Wait, I think I got it now: using pregens is like subscribing to Blue Ribbon
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Jan 26, 2018 18:15
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Nihilarian posted:why would anyone want to eat a sweaty onion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction F/E: The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > D&D NEXT: Dungeons & Dragons: The Fifth One: If You Sweat an Onion Does it Not Change? BetterWeirdthanDead fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 18:24
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Out of curiosity, what characters are the "Lol ability scores are meaningless just play whatever" posters playing at the moment?
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Jan 26, 2018 18:28
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No that's sauteing or caramelising. Sweating specifically does not trigger the maillard reaction so your onions taste more purely onionish.
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Jan 26, 2018 18:31
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Splicer posted:Out of curiosity, what characters are the "Lol ability scores are meaningless just play whatever" posters playing at the moment? Pathfinder or pbta
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Jan 26, 2018 18:38
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Arivia posted:Pathfinder or pbta I'm just wondering why none of these end with "...which is why I'm playing a 12 dex Rogue and having a blast!" Splicer fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 18:40
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The funny thing about the cooking metaphor is its how I thought everyone was using build advice anyway. Like asking this thread taught me a Halfling Paladin who uses a sword and shield isn't the 100% best build. But I was like gently caress it, I like the concept. So I took the thread's advice and took options that boost defenses and provide buffs. Its a fun niche and the Moon Druid and Hunter love that I take hits while boosting attacks. And its a lot more fun than had I taken a low CON or something because I figured the DM would toss me an item or something when the bit got old.
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Jan 26, 2018 18:53
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Sweating them does cut the sharp bite, bringing out the sweeter more complex flavor.
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Jan 26, 2018 18:55
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Splicer posted:Out of curiosity, what characters are the "Lol ability scores are meaningless just play whatever" posters playing at the moment? Half-Orc Sorcerer right now. He often times eschews actually casting magic to grapple random bandits and suplex them. He, of course, wears a wrestling mask. My long-time campaign character prior to this was a Halfling Barbarian who went into a rage when anyone commented on his height. Edit: In case you're curious, maybe my group is just very relaxed about this kinda stuff in general because the party in this current game is me as said Half-Orc Sorcerer, a Gnome Ranger (Revised, of course), a Dragonborn Bard and, the only even sort of 'correct' party member, a Tiefling Paladin. Infinity Gaia fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 18:56
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My new character is a goblin cook. What are some good goblinoid dishes I can serve up that call for sweaty onions?
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Jan 26, 2018 19:04
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My highest level character is a Mountain Dwarf Barbarian, first character I made on a whim at a convention. But I've been playing/played a few others. Overall I just gotta accept the way you guys play is different than how apparently my entire cities Multiverse community plays. We're more relaxed about playing, and don't mind quirky concepts.User0015 posted:My new character is a goblin cook. What are some good goblinoid dishes I can serve up that call for sweaty onions? You joke, but... https://www.dmsguild.com/product/232212/The-Cook-Class
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Jan 26, 2018 19:04
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Splicer posted:Out of curiosity, what characters are the "Lol ability scores are meaningless just play whatever" posters playing at the moment? Half orc oath of ancients paladin with sword and shield and defence fighting style because I'm playing with newbies and I wanna make sure I give them as much chance to stand out and wreck poo poo as possible without me just GWM+PAM+Smiting everything to death from 10 feet away.
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Jan 26, 2018 19:07
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Arthil posted:My highest level character is a Mountain Dwarf Barbarian, first character I made on a whim at a convention. But I've been playing/played a few others. Overall I just gotta accept the way you guys play is different than how apparently my entire cities Multiverse community plays. We're more relaxed about playing, and don't mind quirky concepts. Splicer fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 19:10
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User0015 posted:My new character is a goblin cook. What are some good goblinoid dishes I can serve up that call for sweaty onions? Gree worms, tube grubs, gagh, racht.
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Jan 26, 2018 19:12
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Splicer posted:Nobody (who matters) minds quirky concepts. Nobody's saying "don't play an angry elf that's weird!". One of D&D's big failings is that even perfectly cromulent concepts, like an angry elf, fall down or require weird fiddly builds for dumb system reasons when put in the same party as an angry giant turtle man. You only make me wish I could play a Tortle even more. My one annoyance with this not being Adventure League, they've not voted all the books in and even for ones they have like the Elemental Evil Players Guide, they don't allow the races.
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Jan 26, 2018 19:16
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I think there's a pretty big difference between 'playing an Elf Barbarian who doesn't have the ~highest possible~ starting strength score' and 'I'm playing a Barbarian with a strength score of 10.'
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Jan 26, 2018 19:18
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Mendrian posted:I think there's a pretty big difference between 'playing an Elf Barbarian who doesn't have the ~highest possible~ starting strength score' and 'I'm playing a Barbarian with a strength score of 10.' That's what I was trying to say, but got called a jerk instead.  Just because a race doesn't 100% support the class with its ability scores doesn't mean it's dead on arrival. But the whole Dexterity Barbarian concept being thrown around was an awful idea. Please don't play rogues with 12 Dex or Barbarians with 10 Strength.
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Jan 26, 2018 19:23
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Mendrian posted:I think there's a pretty big difference between 'playing an Elf Barbarian who doesn't have the ~highest possible~ starting strength score' and 'I'm playing a Barbarian with a strength score of 10.' Someone did math earlier in the thread and it was a pretty big disparity between a 15 str and 16 str character. Barbarian is probably worst case scenario for it because GWM/PAM create such a high bar for damage potential that trying to catch up to both stats and feats is a mess. Fighter can be doing suboptimal damage but still have a lot of utility in combat. Barbarians are specifically built around the idea they are huge damage threat demanding to be dealt with. They're not contributing much otherwise. mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 19:29
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mango sentinel posted:Gree worms, tube grubs, gagh, racht. Head snow, rock meal, marrow bone soup, hair. Just, hair. edit - Escargot Forestiere User0015 fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 19:46
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User0015 posted:My new character is a goblin cook. What are some good goblinoid dishes I can serve up that call for sweaty onions? Brian Froud's Goblin Companion lists karbobs as a popular goblin dish (tubers grown in the moist areas of one's armor). That would probably go nicely with some sweaty onions. I'd pair it with a nice Owl Wine.
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Jan 26, 2018 19:53
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Or just play your rp concept and reskin mechanics so that its functional
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Jan 26, 2018 19:54
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mango sentinel posted:Someone did math earlier in the thread and it was a pretty big disparity between a 15 str and 16 str character. Barbarian is probably worst case scenario for it because GWM/PAM create such a high bar for damage potential that trying to catch up to both stats and feats is a mess. Fighter can be doing suboptimal damage but still have a lot of utility in combat. Barbarians are specifically built around the idea they are huge damage threat demanding to be dealt with. They're not contributing much otherwise. Unless you're playing a Storm Herald/Ancestral Guardian. The latter is the one I chose, and it's very fun spreading disadvantage around like I'm having a fire-sale on it. Especially when it can be applied to Big Bad enemies and they can't even try to save against it, it just happens.
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Jan 26, 2018 20:09
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mango sentinel posted:Someone did math earlier in the thread and it was a pretty big disparity between a 15 str and 16 str character. Barbarian is probably worst case scenario for it because GWM/PAM create such a high bar for damage potential that trying to catch up to both stats and feats is a mess. Fighter can be doing suboptimal damage but still have a lot of utility in combat. Barbarians are specifically built around the idea they are huge damage threat demanding to be dealt with. They're not contributing much otherwise. I was legit surprised at the disparity. Part of the problem is that the str bonuses are such big steps instead of being more granular.
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Jan 26, 2018 20:49
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mango sentinel posted:Someone did math earlier in the thread and it was a pretty big disparity between a 15 str and 16 str character. Barbarian is probably worst case scenario for it because GWM/PAM create such a high bar for damage potential that trying to catch up to both stats and feats is a mess. Fighter can be doing suboptimal damage but still have a lot of utility in combat. Barbarians are specifically built around the idea they are huge damage threat demanding to be dealt with. They're not contributing much otherwise. I'm real confused about this statement. Neither of those feats have prerequisites. So you're losing out on 5% to hit out of the gate and +1 to damage. You get a lovely choice at level 4 as to whether or not to pump Strength or take a feat - this is pretty much how 5e rolls so that's not surprising. I'm not really even sure what 'doing the math' even really means here since there's almost no mathematical interaction. Yes, a GWM needs the highest to-hit possible. EDIT: HANG ON, I'll go comb over the last couple pages and see. EDIT EDIT: Okay, so the analysis looks accurate; I mean, let me put it this way. All I'm saying is that 'sub-optimal' play isn't the end of the world. When you look at optimized-disparity and then analyze a mediocre build yeah it's going to look lovely - but it's still not the same thing as deliberately tanking your character. "You missed out on optimization" is not the same as, "You built a Barbarian with 10 strength." The real criticism is that this is obfuscated from the player because players may not realize what they missed until fifteen levels later which is a different problem entirely. Mendrian fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 20:50
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TBF he was comparing apples and oranges build wise. I dunno the level ~9 disparity between GWM/PAM with 16 starting str vs 15.
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Jan 26, 2018 21:01
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Mendrian posted:I'm real confused about this statement. Neither of those feats have prerequisites. So you're losing out on 5% to hit out of the gate and +1 to damage. You get a lovely choice at level 4 as to whether or not to pump Strength or take a feat - this is pretty much how 5e rolls so that's not surprising. I'm not really even sure what 'doing the math' even really means here since there's almost no mathematical interaction. Yes, a GWM needs the highest to-hit possible. it is and if you don't do maximum damage all of the time you are a millstone around the necks of your party and a loving worthless horrible person
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Jan 26, 2018 21:04
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So long as we can all agree on "death to ability scores".
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Jan 26, 2018 21:07
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Scyther posted:So long as we can all agree on "death to ability scores". Well obviously.
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Jan 26, 2018 21:10
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Shouldn't be long now, nuance is clearly already dead
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Jan 26, 2018 21:30
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So what levels should people get their feats anyway? Do they boost up their primary stat to 20 first and then go for the feats? I feel like that's what the system encourages in most situations.
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Jan 26, 2018 22:06
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SunAndSpring posted:So what levels should people get their feats anyway? Do they boost up their primary stat to 20 first and then go for the feats? I feel like that's what the system encourages in most situations. 4 for Barbarian and polearm Paladin who aren't variant human. 4 or 8 for casters less concerned with offensive spells. Dunno any other standouts. mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 22:23
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Any good resources on designing social encounters? Fundamentally combat encounters are where the PCs work as a team - but social encounters can be super boring if they're pure NPC vs PC, especially if the GM has to run multiple NPCs in the conversation. So try and set up disagreements between the PCs with your social stuff - you're not trying to set up intraparty fights, just discussion at the table where the PCs don't all view the NPC the same way, because that works much better in an environment when each player has one PC and the GM only has one mouth. Offer opportunies that only one PC can can take, have NPCs make friends with one PC , talk up one PC and down another, etc etc.
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Jan 26, 2018 22:32
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xiw posted:Fundamentally combat encounters are where the PCs work as a team - but social encounters can be super boring if they're pure NPC vs PC, especially if the GM has to run multiple NPCs in the conversation. This. Further stuff: *Context matters. Players will want to take it to rolls, but consider not allowing players to roll unless they at least blanketly state their position on an issue. Give Advantage to characters with relevant Backgrounds or who make a good argument. *Give everyone a chance to participate and find ways to make nuance matter. If you just want to bribe a guard, don't bother with nuance; but if you're looking for more intrigue, consider all the angles. NPCs can have more than 'Friendly/Neutral/Hostile' attitudes; invent a few more. Come up with bullet points so that players can gradually alter a monarch's position on an issue one point at a time. This way too a single failure doesn't ruin the encounter. *Elaborating on the above; a big reason why the talky characters are the only ones who talk is because other characters talking will mess everything up because they suck so bad. So if you reduce the penalty for failure, you'll get more participation. *Allow characters to participate without rolling; for instance, if your Fighter is a Noble and they're talking to the king, let the Fighter help the Bard by dropping a few names or using the right jargon to impress the king. *Allow previous encounters to influence the social encounter. Players use evidence to get automatic success. Players present their credentials to get advantage. And so on. *Resist the urge to make your NPCs super good at everything. Use standard difficulties. Don't let players convince the NPCs that they are the moon.
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Jan 26, 2018 22:41
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NachtSieger posted:Post recipe That's the thing, I don't have it any more.
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Jan 26, 2018 23:10
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In combat, you've got rounds and turns to help you, but in a social/roleplaying encounter it's almost entirely on the GM to shine the spotlight around so everyone gets to participate. Unless you're fortunate enough to have a group where everyone will jump in and participate roughly equally in all roleplaying situations (lol), this is probably going to mean that you need to tailor the encounter to the PCs and to the players. Think about that scene in Firefly where Kayleigh is socially awkward at the formal party, until she starts chatting about spaceship engines. Most players won't figure out how to do that (and lots of of DMs will ignore it if they do). Do it for them to draw them in. They recognise something about an NPC that they can relate to, or vice versa, and bam, the barbarian at the tea party* isn't sitting awkwardly in the corner wondering what to do, she's chatting to the Right Honourable Sir Stuffshirt Worthington III about falconry. *Just as an obvious example. The player might have picked Barbarian specifically to roleplay social contrasts like this. But in that case, there's no problem here for the GM to solve.
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Jan 26, 2018 23:22
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Okay so, when it comes to martials and their stats out of chargen, there's essentially 4 optimization tiers: 1. Variant Human tier (16 in combat stat + feat) 2. 16-17 tier 3. 14-15 tier 4. Special snowflake tier Now, regardless of build, regardless of how you fine-tune them or what kind of flavor or party synergy you're looking for, martials have two jobs: A) deal HP damage and B) have the survivability to do job A. They always have these two jobs. You can be some weird support tank thing and 9 out of 10 times your action is still going to be better spent attacking than doing anything else. This is what martials are. And to accomplish these tasks, almost without exception martials benefit greatly from having 1 feat, sometimes 2. Again, this is regardless of whether you're a big stick barbarian, or a bowman, or even a loving monk. There's a feat out there that's really good for what you're trying to do. This brings us back to the tiers. The fact that Variant Human gets a feat choice at chargen means that for the bulk of the leveling track they're going to be a step or more ahead of everyone else; they've got their required feat out of the way, so their next ASI is free to boost their combat stat or pick up the next feat in line. This is fairly big. How big? About 15% big - because that's how much more damage you do when your combat stat is at the next even number. Please take a moment to consider this in case you had never before. This damage increase is build-agnostic. You slap a +1 to your strength or dex, and you're doing about 15% more damage than exactly the same set up but without that stat boost. Two point difference? 30%. And this is the baseline - offense feats are good when their damage boost is bigger than 15%, going all the way to 30 or 40 even. "But Conspirationist," you'll say, "damage isn't everything!" And you're right damage isn't everything, but you're playing a goddamned martial! Even the most support-y of builds is going to be swinging a loving weapon and applying DCs that key off their combat stat. As I said earlier, no matter how you wring it, damage is going to be one of your primary jobs. Alternative ways to play martials just aren't supported - even Ancestral Guardian, it gets all these neat abilities to be an rear end in a top hat to enemies without dealing damage to them, right? But you're still a loving Barbarian with Reckless Attack and Rage bonuses. You hit things! "Oh, I see, so everyone should just play Variant Human, gotcha  " Well you're free to do so if you want to play the most offense-focused 5e race, because that's what they are. That's what the bonus feat ultimately translates to - a damage output boost that other races just can't catch up to until level 12, sometimes 16. And certainly, Variant Human builds are disproportionately stronger than their peers until level 4, when everyone gets their feat pick and can narrow the ability gap to just the combat stat bonus differential.But here comes the fun part: you can factor other things when judging the worth of that. Damage isn't everything, remember? And that's all humans get, through that feat. Meanwhile, there are races with good racial abilities, nevermind rp flavor. In the PHB you've got Dwarves, Elves, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs. Halflings are okay. Dragonborn are... well, not terrible, but they're worse. So that's what you analyze - are these factors worth the relative offense loss? Am I good trading some damage to have darkvision and pointy ears? Personally, I prefer playing human, because I'm... I guess racist? I just prefer humans for roleplay reasons, sometimes elves or halves. But unless I'm going all-in on that sweet dee pee ess (which admittedly is also something I enjoy doing), how it often works out - and this is fairly representative of my views on optimization - is that since my offense is naturally higher by virtue of playing human, I have less pressure on keeping it up. I can skip an ASI to instead take a feat that rounds me out, patches up weaknesses like Resilient, or something that's more interactive or helps the party like Sentinel or Inspiring Leader. And again, this is all build agnostic. I'm not getting into the nitty-gritty of which classes are better, or which playstyles are better, it's all just a minimum consideration to optimizing ("all martials should take one of the good feats") leading into a straightforward "okay so you want to do this thing? this is the difference between doing it with a variant human and doing it with another 16-stat race." So that's tiers 1 and 2, which I think are fairly interchangeable. I'm never going to tell someone they should be making their big weapon Fighter a Variant Human instead of a Mountain Dwarf. So let's get down to Tier 3! This is when you start with 14 or 15 in your main combat stat. This is legitimately, objectively bad. For whatever reason, you're intentionally taking a penalty on the primary way in which you'll be mechanically interacting with the game. At this stage you should be thinking really hard about how much playing off-type is worth it to you. Is being an Elf Barbarian that important to you? A high INT Ranger? Are there other ways to represent these character concepts within the system? You should be thinking about yourself. Are you comfortable with failure? Because your primary method of interaction in combat is attacking, and your attacks are going to be missing more often, being less effective when they hit. And you might say "Don't be so dramatic, it's just a small penalty!" and sure, if you consider 15% small (30% compared to a human doing the exact same thing), then it's a small penalty. The question is: why are you taking it? Do you legitimately not care? Is this something that's bringing you to parity with the rest of an unoptimized party? Is your DM going to make up for the difference in ability by way of magic items or just runs low difficulty encounters? Or maybe you're optimizing - you're actually running a strong optimal build so you can bear the stat penalty of playing against race type - in which case thumbs up to you, that's exactly the kind of goofy poo poo I use optimization for: by understanding a system you can make strong, competent characters while making suboptimal choices. The best out of a bad deal kind of thing. Corollary: the stat penalty is going to stack up with every other suboptimal choice you make, be it in character build or gameplay actions. And this, this right here, is the reason why telling newbies to just play what they want is such a bad idea. Coming up with a strong martial is easy, people do it by accident! Someone can just skim the PHB, choose to play human because they heard off-hand they were a good race or they just like playing humans (most popular race), then Barbarian because that's simple, right? Right at the top of the list and Conan was cool. And they hit things hard, so maxed strength, right? Now let's look at the feats... Great Weapon Master, okay, now that sounds cool. Presto, you've got a fairly optimized Barbarian. And next to him you'll have a dual-wielding Tiefling Champion who won't understand why the class that's supposed to be good at fighting is so much worse at it than Barbarian. Barbarian must be OP. And then there's Tier 4. This is just being cute or utterly clueless and dumping your combat stat. I've seen people in the thread argue for it. It works in their group, you see. Their incompetent characters bring so much joy to the table with their shenanigans. Everyone should try it! Especially newbies! Why constraint their creativity? Let them play what they want, that's the essence of roleplaying! Choke on a dick and die. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 26, 2018 23:46
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This is a good and healthy reaction to pretend games played by adults, yeah.
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Jan 27, 2018 00:00
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SunAndSpring posted:So what levels should people get their feats anyway? Do they boost up their primary stat to 20 first and then go for the feats? I feel like that's what the system encourages in most situations. (Setting aside Variant Human since their level 1 is always a feat) Feats that give you additional actions like Polearm Master and Crossbow Expert are such big power multipliers that you get them at 4. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter work better with a higher to-hit bonus so 8 is a good place to take them at (just one level behind your next proficiency tier, and you should be encountering magic weapons around this time too). Casters will want to max their primary stat first, since DCs are so important to them.
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Jan 27, 2018 00:02
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I sorta think framing "a 15 in a stat is a penalty" is kind of a zero-sum language jujitsu move because it's not a penalty, it's just worse than a better option. Optimal builds shouldn't be baseline. Other than that, yeah you're right. Again, I think we all agree that a player could make a character they think is perfectly fine only to discover another guy across the table playing a similar concept and is just better in every way. And I think we all agree that's bullshit. I just like to be careful when telling people, "You didn't do X, Y, and Z, therefore you're laboring under a penalty" because it suggests that X, Y, and Z should be normal.
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Jan 27, 2018 00:03
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