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Sodomy Hussein posted:True. Meanwhile, secretly demoting Mearls over a year ago in order to save face is not the response I would have hoped for from WotC. it's honestly the best response you could have realistically hoped for, though?
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Apr 29, 2020 17:31
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please knock Mom! posted:it's honestly the best response you could have realistically hoped for, though? I think realistically they could have hung Mearls out to dry February 2019 and let all the cultists soak it in, instead of announcing it conveniently during COVIDmania to achieve minimum press awareness, and allowing said cultists to eulogize his great legacy of making "the most successful" D&D now and ignore the #metoo element. Now the company looks even worse and I'm still unlikely to support their products barring Winninger taking D&D into the 21st century, but the fact that Mearls was not flat-out fired is making even that a bridge too far. Name Change fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Apr 29, 2020 |
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Apr 29, 2020 17:36
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Mearls is probably just working on 6th edition.
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Apr 29, 2020 17:53
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So my DM and I had a talk about my 7th level Wizard, and we settled on the idea of making him more of a themed character. We're both big fans of his backstory so far, but he's essentially always tried to bend reality and more specifically bend creatures' bodies, so now that he's got one whole cast of Polymorph he's becoming a sort of custom Wizard archetype we've dubbed the 'Polymorphist'. Name pending. So far we've reflavored most of his spells (examples: grease curses someone with slippery skin, shield makes a bone growth burst from his arms) and instead of Portent, he'll have at-will Polymorph 1/LR without creature type restriction, but with the restriction that he needs sufficient parts of the thing he wants to turn into as well as enough time to experiment with it. It'll probably be pretty unbalanced, for good or bad, but it sounds a lot more interesting. I've been unsatisfied with many of the wizard ATs for a while already. Some of them feel very thematic like the Necromancy school, but the spell list for a properly focused wizard just isn't there. Everyone gets fly, everyone gets fireball, everyone gets the 'good' spells because there's not enough other useful options. We've 'solved' my issue right now by just creating two dozen new spells, and we both loved the potential of it. We've turned Fireball into an AoE random polymorph-into-CR0-1 creature with a duration the DM still wants to think about. It's going to rule.
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Apr 29, 2020 21:43
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ya the spell list is shallow even with the other books
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Apr 29, 2020 21:54
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This week's D&D session had a classic: find a trail going East and West with the thing that made it (that we're supposed to ID and report back) clearly going one way, and we sat there arguing for an hour whether we should investigate where it came from (might have clues) or where it was going (definitely has something big and possibly/probably not friendly). And I honestly don't know if the DM was trying to nudge us in one direction or just RPing the NPC with us finding out what we were hunting and getting worried. From his mutterings I also think the adventure just has it as a "random encounter in this area" not expecting players to actually follow the trail, so he has to improv what we find and how long it takes.
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Apr 29, 2020 22:28
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That reminds me, here's tip for any new DMs: If you want players to go do a thing and not waste time, don't give them a town to gently caress around in. We spent half the session last night going to the spa/annoying drunkards at the bar and only went into the enchanted, ever-expanding forest in the last half hour.
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Apr 29, 2020 22:52
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Sounds like they just saved you a bunch of prep time.
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Apr 29, 2020 23:51
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change my name posted:That reminds me, here's tip for any new DMs: If you want players to go do a thing and not waste time, don't give them a town to gently caress around in. We spent half the session last night going to the spa/annoying drunkards at the bar and only went into the enchanted, ever-expanding forest in the last half hour. Yeah I love that poo poo, please stretch my half-session's worth of frantic prep into four sessions because you want to spend your time robbing the local noble, I don't mind.
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Apr 29, 2020 23:57
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Agreed, this is a boon! The game isn't only about slinging fireballs at oversized lizards. I can understand it might be problematic if you struggle with impromptu npc creation though.
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Apr 30, 2020 00:59
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Arthil posted:Agreed, this is a boon! The game isn't only about slinging fireballs at oversized lizards. On the other hand, when you do get to sling fireballs at young green dragons, it's pretty great. My players killed Venomfang tonight, because I forgot it was supposed to flee at half health. Technically I killed it (not even counting the forgetting), because it went to 0 hp, the still-raging fire genasi insisted that Eerk, the goblin who's the NPC member of the party, give it one of the curative berries he keeps in his pocket, it stood up and started to fly away, I said "does anyone stop Eerk from shooting him?" and I rolled a natural 20 on Eerk's roll to shoot poor Venomfang. (It crashed back down on Thundertree, and now Thundertree is really in ruins; but on the other hand, they have fulfilled the request of the local druid ("Drive it off and make sure it stays gone for at least four days, and I'll use teleport via plant to get you and Nezznar within a day of Neverwinter so you can deliver him to the jail there."))
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Apr 30, 2020 02:39
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Does anyone have any ideas for lower level polymorph-like spells by the way? I was thinking alter self but targeted, but that only gets you so far. Maybe a partial morph?
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Apr 30, 2020 04:07
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He could turn his upper body into a shark’s upper body like a reverse mermaid and then bite enemies
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Apr 30, 2020 04:17
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https://twitter.com/chrisperkinsdnd/status/1255634049177026560?s=21 As a change of pace from earlier discussions, Perkins is a good dude.
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Apr 30, 2020 04:26
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please knock Mom! posted:Does anyone have any ideas for lower level polymorph-like spells by the way? I was thinking alter self but targeted, but that only gets you so far. Maybe a partial morph? I guess the general issue is that polymorphing grants you various monster abilities/stats; a lower-level polymorph-like spell would grant you some traits of monsters without replacing your entire body with them. And lots of spells exist that do that. Enlarge/Reduce could be reskinned as morphing into an ogre/troll/halfling (or fairie if already Small). Isn't there a spell that gives you magical claws/fangs? And one that gives you a magical weapon which could be reskinned as morphing your arms/legs into magical weapons. Spider Climb is, well, spider climb. Fly gives you wings. Water Breathing gives you gills. And so on.
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Apr 30, 2020 04:51
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Yeah, we already reskinned fly and some other spells. As for completely new 'lesser polymorph' spells though, I suppose we'll just have to macgyver up our own for now. Thanks for the pointers!
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Apr 30, 2020 04:53
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Kaysette posted:https://twitter.com/chrisperkinsdnd/status/1255634049177026560?s=21 big perkins fan here and this is the kind of content i want more of coming out of wizards
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Apr 30, 2020 05:06
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I don’t want a 2e-style heap of books of spells but a decent-sized one covering arcane and divine would be great. The options do feel thin.
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Apr 30, 2020 07:19
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Kaysette posted:https://twitter.com/chrisperkinsdnd/status/1255634049177026560?s=21
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Apr 30, 2020 08:26
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So uh... What's exactly so bad about a medieval Fighter hiding they've got a fake leg from their enemies, just out of curiosity? A lot of the arguments I'm seeing in those twitter threads only makes sense where prosthesis are extremely well made and sometimes to the point of being better than a real limb, like we have now. There's no mention of it being magical in any way, and visually it doesn't come off as being much more than a prettier peg leg. There's a lot of problems I've agreed need changing in the past but this one just seems really odd to me. Mechanically she isn't slower than anyone else, and the idea of a monster hunter not wanting said monsters to be able to see what would be a very real weakness sounds perfectly reasonable.
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Apr 30, 2020 10:47
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Arthil posted:So uh... Just asking questions.
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Apr 30, 2020 11:00
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You capable of offering anything for me to think over and possibly change my mind, or would you rather just be a dick instead?
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Apr 30, 2020 11:05
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Given the wording of "Ezmerelda's Secret", I can understand how someone could read that section and jump to the conclusion that Ezmerelda hides her leg out of shame/in a disability-negative manner. Think the "and takes care to hide it from view" could be removed and it'd be fine, maybe the section heading to "Ezmerelda's Leg" as well. Just stating the fact then that, yeah she's got a prosthetic leg and then it's up to the DM if Ezmerelda is open about it or otherwise. Blooming Brilliant fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 11:07
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Arthil posted:You capable of offering anything for me to think over and possibly change my mind, or would you rather just be a dick instead? From the tweet that was posted: "I hate that Ezmeralda is the only explicitly disabled NPC in Curse of Strahd and they made her cover up her disability like it's some shameful loving thing". And the same poster in the same tweet thread "This isn't good representation and you can't keep doing this and then applauding yourselves for 'being inclusive'." which is the point of the whole thing. Was that not clear enough for you? Or did you not read that far? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 11:12
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Arthil posted:So uh... It's fantasy. you can't simultaneously have sorcerers flinging fireballs everywhere and also say that a fighter with a prosthetic leg needs to hide it in order to prevent a tactical disadvantage. They could written her to be some kind of awesome martial character with a unique fighting style which exploits people who don't know about her disability even. Yeah, it doesn't move quite like a real leg, but it's also made out of a harder material, doesn't feel pain, doesn't bleed, etc. They could have done something with that. Right now they've just added her seemingly to appeal to disabled people, and then made her hide her disability, which is kind of worse than not appealing to them at all? Basically imagine your response to seeing an explicitly gay character who's closeted and whose reason for staying closeted is that revealing their orientation would cause social damage, and then apply that to the above
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Apr 30, 2020 11:57
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Arthil posted:So uh... It's not "so bad" but it'd be better if having a prosthesis was not portrayed as shameful. Just a room-for-improvement scenario.
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Apr 30, 2020 12:13
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Arthil posted:So uh... The problem isn’t about the mechanics or verisimilitude. It’s about reinforcing negative stereotypes that are harmful to portions of the player base. I’m not an expert on disability sensitivity but I’ve worked with students with disabilities. One of the main things they’ve said that non-disabled writers get wrong is that assistive devices aren’t limiting, but rather empowering. A wheelchair or a prosthesis lets someone do something they otherwise couldn’t and that isn’t a source of shame for most IRL. Kaysette fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 12:39
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"Of course a warrior would obviously want to conceal their vulnerable disability weakness" isn't a great argument for why this depiction isn't a problem.
Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 12:58
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It's also jarring and weird that they commissioned art with a rad and visually obvious prosthesis and then put in a description that doesn't match and is pretty lovely for no reason.
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Apr 30, 2020 13:13
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It's almost like they don't know what they're doing and have had lovely management for years.
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Apr 30, 2020 13:21
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The whole point of the monster hunter/fighter character type is adapting to the situation and making the best of it while keeping up the fight. They'd sooner weaponize their prosthetic than hide it. It doesn't even make sense if you ignore the real world implications of writing such a character.
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Apr 30, 2020 13:22
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Toshimo posted:It's also jarring and weird that they commissioned art with a rad and visually obvious prosthesis and then put in a description that doesn't match and is pretty lovely for no reason. That's really common and its because the art is usually commissioned well before the actual text is finalized. Of course, adjusting the text was possible in this case and wasn't done, for some reason.
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Apr 30, 2020 13:42
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Toshimo posted:It's also jarring and weird that they commissioned art with a rad and visually obvious prosthesis and then put in a description that doesn't match and is pretty lovely for no reason. That art is indeed pretty cool, reminds me a bit of Bloodborne. ...And now I'm reading d&d statblocks for Bloodborne monsters and someone's homebrew Hunter class. EDIT: He made them proficient with shields, that's a no-go.
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Apr 30, 2020 14:30
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Arthil posted:So uh... The problem is that this is one of the only disabled characters in 5e. If there were a large number of disabled characters, one character who considers their disability as something important to carefully hide would be a character trait. But when a character is the only example of a group, their flaws become their group's flaws, their attitudes become the group's attitudes. So it's not surprising someone who is disabled might be disappointed that the only character who shares their particular condition is someone who hides it because it makes them weak, rather than proudly displaying it because it makes them strong. Empowerment is meant to be part of what makes Fantasy fun, and this does the opposite. And yes, the leg isn't mentioned as being magical, so logically it would be an impedance to her combat ability, but there's no reason that leg *couldn't* have been written as magical, or some fantasy steampunk doohickey or whatever.
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Apr 30, 2020 16:08
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For contrast, there's an NPC in a Pathfinder Adventure Path that's missing one of his legs, but nonetheless is friendly, charming, combat capable, and actively refuses Regeneration offers from the PCs ("Give me back my leg? Are you insane? What's my icebreaker going to be at parties for the rest of my life?")
Froghammer fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Apr 30, 2020 |
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Apr 30, 2020 16:43
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Reveilled posted:And yes, the leg isn't mentioned as being magical, so logically it would be an impedance to her combat ability, but there's no reason that leg *couldn't* have been written as magical, or some fantasy steampunk doohickey or whatever. Even if it's not magical, the leg shouldn't impede her combat ability. This is the kind of setting where every other pirate has a hook, eye-patch, or peg leg and fights just fine. The prosthesis is essentially just aesthetics. I am a little surprised that they didn't add any sort of advantageous trick to her leg. That would fit well with the whole Ravenloft monster hunter deal.
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Apr 30, 2020 16:57
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To take this thread in a different direction: I've been downloading every single free piece of material they've released on the DnD website and several of them have come with .mod files. I can't get these to play, even using VLC. I'm assuming they're just audio but I don't really know. Anyone else have a clue how to get these to play?
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Apr 30, 2020 17:24
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They aren't audio, I think they're versions of the module content for virtual tabletop (Fantasy Grounds or Roll20, I can't recall which one it is because I ended up picking Astral for my group when we transitioned online for the pandemic).
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Apr 30, 2020 17:39
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PeterWeller posted:Even if it's not magical, the leg shouldn't impede her combat ability. This is the kind of setting where every other pirate has a hook, eye-patch, or peg leg and fights just fine. The prosthesis is essentially just aesthetics. Yeah, that. D&D is a game. It constantly violates verisimilitude in the interest of being a more fun game or enabling better stories, like a lot of RPGs. Because if you get obsessed with "well, this character has a disability and an empowering device that ameliorates that, but here's the three ways it'd impact her combat stats", you're starting on the path where hateful writers or dickhead players angle-shooting for advantages or whatever can turn anything into that kind of referendum. Does the pirate's eyepatch give him a penalty to ranged attacks? How does that skinny Fighter have an 18 Strength? Etc etc until you're essentially enforcing a uniform bodytype and set of optimal performance aesthetics on every single adventurer and foe in a campaign based on peoples' bizarre stereotypes. It's an absurd, pointless exercise.
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Apr 30, 2020 18:28
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Maybe they'll accidentally fix the thing where casters can get any sort of bonus or ability that sounds cool while if a martial wants to get or do something it also has to be realistic That would be cool
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Apr 30, 2020 18:32
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